JOHOR BARU: Two people have died after eating the poisonous puffer fish or ikan buntal, believed to be the first such reported cases in the country.State Health department director Dr Mohd Khairi Yakub said a 54-year-old woman from Kota Tinggi and another 83-year-old woman from Kulai died from eating the fish on May 7 and June 4 respectively.
He added that 34 others from various places in the state, including here, Batu Pahat and Pontian, suffered food poisoning from eating the fish, between May 6 and June 10.
“The 34 have recovered fully,” he said here yesterday, adding that no more such cases were reported after June 10.
Although this was the first time such cases were reported, he did not rule out the possibility this may have happened before as the fish had been sold in the state over the past few years.
The puffer fish contains tetrodotoxin, a natural and lethal poison, and if the fish is not correctly cut or prepared, is very dangerous to eat. The toxin causes numbness in the mouth and attacks the nervous system, causing respiratory problems, and sometimes results in death.
Dr Mohd Khairi said the Health Ministry was warning the public not to buy or eat puffer fish, which has been mostly sold in night markets across the state.
It is believed that supply of the fish came from Kuantan.
“We seriously caution people from eating the fish, and have circulated posters and fliers warning people about eating it.
“Our officers are monitoring premises and markets in the affected areas, and we are stopping the sale of the fish anywhere it is found,” Dr Mohd Khairi added.
He advised those who fell ill after eating the fish to seek immediate medical treatment.
Those with information on the sale of the fish were urged to contact the department or nearest health offices.
Click to read more from Wikipedia: Puffer Fish
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A new study by German researchers has found conclusive evidence that vitamin D really does reduce the risk of breast cancer in women, confirming anecdotal evidence. The just-released findings of a long-term study involving 1,394 breast cancer patients and an equal number of healthy women after menopause were surprisingly clear.
Women with a very low blood level of vitamin D have a considerably increased breast cancer risk. The effect was found to be strongest in women who were not taking hormones for relief of menopausal symptoms.
A connection between vitamin D level and the risk of developing breast cancer has been implicated for a long time, but its clinical relevance had not yet been proven. (more…)
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An oral anti-diabetic drug, pioglitazone, has been shown to reduce clogging of arteries, lowered blood pressure, raised good cholesterol and improved on other cardio-vascular risk factors. In the study presented at the recent 57th annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Chicago, it was discovered that pioglitazone caused a regression of coronary atherosclerosis.
It also improved blood pressure, raised high-density lipoprotein (HDL) by 16%, and lowered triglycerides by 15% and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein by some 45%. This double-blind study was conducted by world renowned heart specialist Dr Steven Nissen, of Cleveland Clinic, Ohio, in the US.
It was carried out from August 2003 till March 2006, across 97 hospitals in North and South America. The study covered 543 diabetic patients who also have heart disease.
Datuk Dr Khoo Kah Lin, the director of the National Heart Foundation (Yayasan Jantung Malaysia), said that Type 2 diabetics constantly faced life-threatening conditions such as stroke, coronary heart disease and kidney failure due to complications arising from diabetes.
He said the outcome of the study has given diabetics new hope in managing their cardio-vascular risk factors. The study, titled Pioglitazone Effect on Regression of Intravascular Sonographic Coronary Obstruction Prospective Evaluation (Periscope), compared insulin-sensitiser pioglitazone with insulin secretagogue, glimepiride, over an 18-month period.
The result of the Periscope study indicated that, while glimepiride therapy showed a 0.73% rise in plaque (a deposit of fatty material on the inner lining of an arterial wall, which can lead to clogged arteries), pioglitazone, instead, had a 0.16% drop in plaque volume.
Khoo said: “This is the first time an oral medication has shown such an ability to reduce the clogging of
coronary arteries. “It clearly shows that with daily intake of pioglitazone, Type 2 diabetics have a lower chance of developing heart disease.
This obviously a very significant result that offers diabetics a new lease in life. “We must always be aware that Type 2 diabetes does not have a known cure but with the inclusion of pioglitazone in a diabetic heart patient, it can help prolong life.”
He added that the Periscope results showed pioglitazone did not have any ill cardio-vascular side effect that other drugs of its class had. More importantly, it had benefited Type 2 diabetics beyond controlling their blood sugar levels by reducing mortality and diseases arising from diabetic complications and preserving quality of life.
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PETALING JAYA: Two local medical experts give their opinions on the case of a Malaysian been diagnosed as suffering from “food poisoning” after eating starfruits in Shenzhen, China.
Prof Mustaffa Ali Mohd, of the Pharmacology Department of the Medical Faculty, Universiti Malaya (UM), told theSun the common starfruit (averhoacarambola) is not known to contain neurotoxins that may cause adverse neurological complications when consumed.
However, he said the fruit has certain biological compounds called oxalates that can cause the formation of stones in certain organs in the body. “When oxalates bind with calcium and other mineral salts in the human body they could calcify (solidify) to form stones in certain internal organs such
as the kidneys, as well as the gall and urinary bladders,” According to news reports on Monday, the 66-year-old Malaysian, Tan Gong Sean, a retired Chinese school headmaster from Butterworth, and more than a dozen Chinese locals were in comatose in a hospital in Shenzhen, after eating the popular tropical fruit, also known as coromandel gooseberry or fivefingers.
Two other locals were said to have died after eating the fruit which an American health website, www.pubmed.gov, claims contains neurotoxins that can cause severe neurological complications, especially in patients, with chronic renal disease. However, Mustaffa, who also heads the Shimadzu-UMMC Centre for Xenobiotic Studies and is a deputy dean of the UM medical faculty, said he is not aware of such toxins being present in the fruit or of any such study published in any pharmacological or medical journals. (more…)
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A new study casts a shadow on calcium, the essential mineral known to help keep bones strong, hearts healthy and blood pressure controlled. New Zealand researchers report in the journal BMJ that otherwise-healthy, post-menopausal women who took calcium supplements were about twice as likely to suffer a heart attack as those who skipped the supplements.
That finding is surprising, because previous research has shown that calciums helps improve the ratio of healthy to unhealthy cholesterol by 20%. Such changes are linked with a 20% to 30% reduction in so-called vascular events, including heart attacks.
Other research with both calcium and vitamin D shows improvements in overall mortality among those who take the supplements. So what accounts for the increased heart attacks found in this study? “I don’t know what to make of it,” says Robert P. Heaney, a professor of medicine at Creighton University in Nebraska, who has conducted numerous calcium studies. “I think we just have to say that the jury is out.”
Heaney notes that there is a large body of information showing calcium’s benefits: “I don’t expect that to go away.”
Heaney has agreed to collaborate with New Zealand researcher Ian Reid to try to figure out why women who took calcium supplements in the study had an increased risk of heart attacks. ” We will see,” he says, “if the findings pan out.”
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Foods are important to our body. Whether our goal is to tone, get strong, gain muscle, heal from an injury, or participate in a sport activity, we need to fuel up and feed our muscles. Many of us think that if we follow a high protein diet, we’ll get lean, strong and we’ll build muscle.
Let me say now that, “carbohydrates” are the major source that gives us the energy to push the weights to use the protein we eat, that then builds muscles! This is true even for those of us on a weight loss program who are restricting those dreaded carbs. Those of us who do not participate in endurance sports such as running, cycling etc, know how important it is to eat a diet high in carbohydrates, with some extra protein.
But do we know that carbs are the foundation to fuel our performance - wheter to power our tennis game, aerobic workout, or bodybuilding routine? To feed our muscles, click more for info:
(more…)
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We’ve been steadily losing ground in the battle against infections as bacteria develop resistance to more and more antibiotics.
Finally, we have a new weapon. It’s the first in a new class called ketolides, and it’s a major breakthrough in the treatment of drug-resistant respiratory illnesses, including pneumonia, bronchitis and sinusitis. Most of these infections are caused by a strep bacterium that easily overpowers most antibiotics.
Ketek isn’t a perfect solution, because eventually bacteria will likely become resistant to it. Like other classes of antibiotics, ketolides block bacteria’s ability to make life sustaining proteins.
But older drugs disable protein manufacture in just one location; ketolides strike two spots, substantially reducing the chance of resistance.
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Scientist in the US are developing a screening test for breast cancer that checks a woman’s saliva for evidence of the disease to help find tumors early, when they are most treatable.
In research published recently, the scientists said they identified 49 proteins in saliva that the screening test would track to distinguish healthy women from those with benign breast tumors and those with malignant breast tumors. (more…)
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New research shows that job strain not only increases the risk of a first coronary heart disease (CHD) event, it increases the odds of further events as well. This study “is the first time that the effect of stressful work has been evaluated in a large number of men and women of various ages who have returned to work after a first heart attack,” said study co-author Dr Chantal Brisson, from University Laval in Quebec, Canada.
She added that “previous studies of people who had a heart attack mainly focused on the effect of medical factors or personal characteristics including lifestyle. The effect of the work environment has rarely been studied”. (more…)
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Long term adherence to a low-fat diet may reduce the risk of ovarian cancer, according to the results of the Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification trial, which involved nearly 50,000 post-menopausal women. “While other studies have examined the association between dietary fat and the incidence of cancer, including cancer of the ovary, among post-menopausal women, this is the first study to randomly assign women to a low-fat eating pattern or their usual diet and to compare cancer incidence between the two groups,” lead author Dr Ross L. Prentice said.
Prentice, from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, and colleagues examined the occurrence of ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer, breast cancer, and total invasive cancer in 48,835 women randomly assigned to receive the Dietary Modification intervention or a usual diet.
The subjects were followed, on average, for eight years. The goal of the Dietary Modification intervention is to increase the amount of fruits, vegetables, and grains in the diet and to decrease the total fat intake to 20% of calories, the researchers note in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute for Oct 17 .
The Dietary Modification intervention appeared to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer, but only with long-term adherence. The intervention did not affect the risk of endometrial cancer, but may have slightly reduced the risk of breast cancer and total invasive cancer.
“Encouraging post-menopausal female patients to undertake a change to a low-fat diet likely will reduce ovarian cancer risk, and may also reduce the risk of breast cancer and total invasive cancer,” Prentice said. - Reuters
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