In atrial fibrillation, the upper heart chamber quivers instead of beating energetically and it can cause blood clots formation to block some brain artery can cause strokes.

In an international trial in which 2,301 patients with the condition were included, the researchers found that dronedarone decreased the number of hospitalization because of heart attack, strokes and other problems nearly 24%. The report of the trial has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine Feb.12 issue.

Dronedrone review status has been assigned by the US Food and Drug Administration and to discuss the possible approval of the drug, FDA advisory committee to meet on March 19.

Dr. Richard L. Page, who was one of the authors of the study, says about the new drug, “we can expect its approval quite favorably, as the general literature provided on the drug has offered safety as well as efficacy.”

Nearly one out of every 20 Americans have to experience the condition by the age of 65, and by the age of 85, these numbers reach to one out of every ten. Currently, the condition is treated with the help of beta blockers and other channel blockers of calcium.

These drugs have proved their metal to treat depression in a quite effective manner. These depression medications increase the level of serotonin in the brain and create a balance in various chemicals that are found in our brain.  Serotonin is quite well-known as a substance to influence our moods the increased level of this substance ward off people to become depressed and gloomy.

According to some studies, these drugs commence their procedure to treat the symptoms of the disease in one or two weeks, but usually doctors suggest that patients must keep using these drugs for quite some time even if their symptoms of depression get vanished.

Patients who are considering taking some anti-depressant medication must keep this fact in mind that only your doctor can guide you better in this connection. So, you must consult your doctor before going for any of these drugs.

To conduct the study, a group of 10 men and 13 women was taken. The purpose of the study was aimed to find out the reasons of over eating and weight gain. Researchers also worked to try and understand human brain mechanism while controlling appetite. They specifically checked the difference between varying brain functions of men and women.

The group used for study was made to fast a night prior, so that brain response can be determined at the sight of food of their choices. The participants’ brains were scanned to see the changes. They were also trained for cognitive inhibition; suppression of thoughts of appetite.

The test resulted as Wang says, “Even though the women said they were less hungry when trying to inhibit their response to the food, their brains were still firing away in the regions that control the drive to eat”. He said in a telephone interview, “There is something going on in the female”, “the signal is so much different.”

According to an expert on eating disorders at the Oregon Research Institute, Eric Stice: “I think it is very possible that the differences in hunger suppression may contribute to gender differences in eating disorders and that they are likely linked to gender differences in estrogen and related hormones.”

There are still many factors to be found for which researchers will keep searching and informing us.

When there is below 20F with 20m/h wind, an exposed skin takes only few minutes to be frostbitten, but sometimes you have to go in this extreme cold willingly or unwillingly. The following recommendations can help you a lot to keep yourself and dear ones safe and protected in these extreme cold.

When the inner body temperature falls below 95 degree, Hypothermia begins to set in and can affect your brain. Often, the victim of this condition can’t think clearly and begins to lose coordination. Hands, tip of the nose, fingers, feet and toes can badly are quite susceptible to extreme cold.  The different tissues of the body begin to freeze because of the frostbite that causes ice crystals which harm the cells.

Elderly and kids can become an easy victim of frostbite and hypothermia, and similarly those people who have blood circulation problems like diabetes or use various drugs like nicotine, alcohol and beta blockers are also at higher risk for hypothermia or frostbite. The use of thee types of drugs become the cause of insufficient blood supply to the skin.

Kids often begin to shiver or become clumsy and lethargic when they get affected with hypothermia and frostbite. If you find that a child is suffering from frostbite or hypothermia, you shouldn’t rub their skin. You need to cover them with warm clothing and blankets and give them some warm beverage or soup. If numbness remains there for over few minutes, you must immediately call your doctor.

It has been found that it is difficult to treat frostbite and hypothermia than to avoid them. You can prevent it by wearing appropriate warm clothing on your hands, feet and head.

Often people with the condition feel numbness and hardness at the skin of the affected area and the skin looks waxy, grayish or white.

If you have to go outside, the best way to keep yourself safe and protected against low temperatures is to dress yourself in various layers including silk, fleece and wool. Cotton can’t hold heat of the body well and can’t get dry soon if once it gets wet, so avoid using cotton clothing in intense cold.

Similarly, you need to be careful about sweating when you are doing some vigorous exercises or jogging, as intense cold put some extra strain on the heart.

Researchers from the Yale University School of Medicine find that sleep apnea becomes the cause of dropped blood flow in the brain while in episodes. When it takes place, the blood pressure of the organ begins to rise and when this happens again and again the ability of the brain to guard itself in these conditions begin to reduce.

A previous study from the Yale researchers suggests that sleep apnea patients have three times higher risk of having a stroke or death during sleep than the people who don’t suffer from this disorder.

Currently, nearly 18m people in the US are suffering from sleep apnea that is a sleeping disorder in which breathing gets hampered or ceased because of the upper airway blockage. It becomes the cause of low blood oxygen levels and rise in blood pressure. However, when the patient briefly awakens, the order restores again.

In their study, the researchers noticed that patient with sleep apnea had considerably lower levels of blood oxygen and blood flow in the lower cerebral.  The researchers also found that patients with sleep apnea took more time to recover from blood pressure drop or restore normal blood flow in the brain.

The study has been published in the Journal Applied Physiology, Jan 09 issue.

Obesity has already been associated with leptin resistance, a long ago and multiple studies have expressed that, excessive use of fructose may be a significant factor in the U.S. obesity epidemic. This fresh study is the first one, relating fructose with leptin resistance.

The researchers experienced that, rats became leptin-resistant after six months with constant high fructose diet given to them. There were no sign which could express that leptin resistance was occurring, but the fructose-fed rats gained much more weight than rats that fed on fructose free diet, when both groups of rats were switched to a high-fat diet.

“Leptin resistance is a condition that leads to obesity in rats when coupled with a high-fat diet. The surprising finding here was that increasing the amount of fructose in the diet without increasing the amount of calories led to leptin resistance and later exacerbated obesity when paired with a high-fat diet,” Philip J. Scarpace, a professor of pharmacology.

“Fructose blocks leptin action most likely by blocking leptin entry into the brain,” study author Alexandra Shapiro said in the news release.

“If these findings are applicable to humans, then there could be consequences of eating a diet high in fructose, but only if you also consume an excessive amount of calories.”

Most users agree Salvia divinorum is quite unique, and some find its effects unsettling. Its active principle, Salvinorin A, is structurally unique among psychoactive drugs, and receptor binding studies have revealed nothing, which could indicate a previously unknown pathway in the brain.

Salvia divinorum is an extraordinary visionary herb. It is not a recreational drug. It produces a profoundly introspective state of awareness that is useful for meditation, contemplation, and self-reflection.

Its effects are unique and cannot be compared with the effects of other drugs. The effects of Salvia do not appeal to many people. The people who are most drawn to it are both mature and philosophically minded. Beware of inaccurate information. There are many unethical vendors who try to lure naive customers by portraying the effects of Salvia as more appealing than they are.

The news media often sensationalizes stories about Salvia, exaggerating its effects, risks, and popularity. Much of what has appeared in the popular press is inaccurate and misleading. Salvia is not “legal pot.” It is not “legal acid.” It is not a substitute for any other drug. Before trying Salvia, it is important that you know about its effects, appropriate uses, and the potential risks associated with irresponsible use of this drug.

Mode of action

Its primary psychoactive constituent is a diterpenoid, which is a potent ?-opioid receptor agonist. Salvinorin A is unique in that it is the only naturally occurring substance known to induce a visionary state this way. Salvia divinorum can be chewed, smoked, or taken as a tincture to produce experiences ranging from uncontrollable laughter to much more intense and profoundly altered states.

The duration of effects is much shorter than that of other, more well-known psychedelics; the effects of smoked salvia typically last for only a few minutes. The most commonly reported after-effects include an increased feeling of insight, an improved mood, a sense of calmness, and an increased sense of connection with nature though, much less often, it may also cause dysphoria (unpleasant or uncomfortable mood).This drug is not generally understood to be toxic or addictive. As a ?-opioid agonist, it may have potential as an analgesic and as a therapeutic tool for treating drug addictions.

But now a new study says that HIV can lie dormant inside some cells (it can be even a single cell) until emerging again to cause destruction.

Huldrych Gunthard, a researcher at University Hospital Zurich, in Switzerland, who is co-author of the study says that their findings are indeed good news, as they suggest that virus doesn’t replicate itself when dormant.

Such drugs are available in the market since the mid-1990s that allow many AIDS patients to decrease the level of the virus in their blood to zero, but the disease remains incurable. Gunthard says that the virus can hide itself in the lymphatic system, bone marrow, brain and in other places in the body.

Usually, Doctors urge HIV patients to have their medication as prescribed, as the virus can dramatically reappear in the body if there aren’t drugs in the body to keep it away.

In their study, Gunthard and colleagues observed the AIDS virus from 20 patients who gone off their medicines for two weeks. The researchers focused on how the virus evolved over time and they noticed that disease could remerge from a small number of cells or even with a single cell.

The researchers made some tests on mice and found that higher levels of the acid caused memory problems and behavioral changes in the brain.

A report in Nature Neuroscience says that fatty acid levels can be controlled via diet or drugs.

According to a UK Alzheimer’s expert, “the work is quite exciting and robust.”

In UK, there are more than 700,000 patients with dementia and some forecasts suggest that the number would be double within a generation.

In their study, the researchers from Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the University of California examined fatty acids level in the brains of normal mice and compared them with genetically engineered mice with Alzheimer’s-like condition.

The researchers identified higher levels of a fatty acid known as arachidonic acid in the brains of mice with Alzheimer’s. Then, they used PLA2 enzyme to control its release.

The scientists again utilized genetic engineering to reduce PLA2 levels in the animals and noticed that even a small reduction hampered many other impairments including memory deterioration.

Dr Rene Sanchez-Mejia, who led the study, suggested: “higher levels of archidonic acid may over-stimulate brain cells and lower levels allow them to work normally.

According to the study author Sylvain Dore, the activity of free radicals that attack and kill cells can be neutralized with the help of this ginkgo extract.

“It’s quite interesting as we are examining a mechanism of action that has not been anticipated before,” Dore said.

The findings will be published in the Oct.10 issue of the journal Stroke.

There was a quick skeptical response on this report from Dr. Larry B. Goldstein, who is director of the Duke University Stroke Center.Goldstein said: “basically, this study is an animal model study trying to know about the central mechanism of ginkgo as a neuroprotective medicine. Though we have been treading this pathway a hundred times before, none of these animal models could prove to be effective in producing FDA-worthy evidence. ”

In their study, Dore and team worked with normal as well as mice bred with lack the enzyme heme oxygenase. They gave standardized doses of the extract to some mice for seven days while others were kept without it. Afterward, they blocked the brain arteries of the mice to cause a stroke.

The researchers noted that normal mice that were given ginkgo extract were found with 50.9 percent less neurological damage.