Infection bacterium Vibrio cholerae drinking contaminated water

Cholera is an intestinal infection caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. People contract it from drinking contaminated water or eating contaminated food. It may be the biggest disease threat to survivors of disasters because it progresses rapidly. It can kill an individual in less than a day.

The infection leads to severe diarrhea — leading to the loss of up to 10 litres of bodily fluids in a day. That causes rapid dehydration, shock and the risk of death.

However, most people who become infected don’t get sick. The vast majority of people who do show symptoms will develop mild or moderate cases of the disease. Those cases are often indistinguishable from other types of acute diarrhea.

Dysentery another disease dehydration

This is yet another disease that can be spread through contaminated drinking water, although it can also be caused by a parasite living in one’s gut. The vast majority of cases are caused by bacteria.

Dysentery results in diarrhea in which there is blood and pus. In rare cases, it can kill individuals within 24 hours.

However, most cases clear up on their own, without treatment.

The main symptom is frequent, near-liquid diarrhea flecked with blood, mucus, or pus. Other symptoms include:
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Breast cancer with too little vitamin D

Breast cancer patients with too little vitamin D are much more likely to die or have their malignancy spread than those with enough of the nutrient, concludes a new Canadian study that adds to a growing body of evidence on the vitamin’s health benefits.

The Toronto-based researchers note, however, that excessively high volumes of vitamin D in the bloodstream also seem to be bad for cancer sufferers, and caution against people over-indulging in supplements.

Though at least one cancer group has urged increasing vitamin D intake to well above government-recommended doses, the study’s lead author warns it is possible to go too far.

“There is a lot of promise in this field,” said Dr. Pamela Goodwin, a senior scientist with Mount Sinai Hospital’s Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute. Read more

Pharmacists unhappy about new morning-after-pill availability

The pharmacists for emergency contraceptive drug known as Plan B will likely be coming out from behind the pharmacy counter, a move the Canadian Association of Pharmacists is not happy about.

The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities accepted a recommendation this week to change the way the drug is sold, allowing it to be freely available on drugstore shelves instead of behind the pharmacy counter.

Currently, women who want to buy the drug have to ask pharmacy staff, a condition critics have contended may discourage some women from using it to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

The proposed change would see the contraceptive, sold under the brand name Plan B, stocked on shelves near the dispensary, so purchasers could easily ask for advice on its use if they need it.
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Inexpensive supplements can help boost the body’s vitamin D levels

Do you know vitamin D, vitamin D big help for body health. Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium thereby making bones stronger. Certain foods such as cow’s milk and margarine are fortified with vitamin D and inexpensive supplements can help boost the body’s vitamin D levels.

A deficiency in children can trigger rickets, a bone disease that leaves children with soft bones and skeletal deformities. As breast milk doesn’t contain sufficient levels of vitamin D, public health officials recommend that infants who are exclusively breastfed should take a supplement to prevent vitamin D deficiency.

In adults, low levels of vitamin D can cause osteoporosis, a disease that decreases bone mass and bone tissue, putting patients at risk of fractures. People with darker skin tones are also often advised to take a supplement as they have more difficulty generating natural vitamin D from the sun’s ultraviolet rays. Read more

Low Vitamin D, Increase Risk of Problems in Women with Breast Cancer

Low vitamin D can make risk problem breas cancer, breast cancer patients with low levels of vitamin D may have an increased risk of recurrence or death from the disease, a new study reports.

The findings which are expected to be presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting, to be held May 31 to June 3 suggest that vitamin D deficiency is very common in women with breast cancer. For these patients, the risk of breast cancer spreading was nearly double compared with those who had healthy vitamin D levels.

And the risk of dying from breast cancer was 75 percent higher in those with low levels of vitamin D, compared with those with healthy levels. Still, the findings are not concrete enough to warrant recommending that breast cancer patients take vitamin D supplements to ward off this risk, the authors report.

Cancer tests, a judicial inquiry in St. John’s has been told

Dr. Robert Williams, who retired as vice-president of medical services in 2006, also told the Cameron inquiry that he still carries the burden of what went wrong with flawed hormone receptor tests, in which more than 300 patients received erroneous results that may have affected their treatment.

“I could never forget it. It’s with you all the time,” Williams, the former top doctor at Eastern Health, told the inquiry Thursday.

“It was a burden on me really. It followed me out, and I continued to think about it.”

Williams learned of the first case of a faulty test result in May 2005. By July, as more samples were reviewed, it was clear that something significant was in their midst, even though Eastern Health had only been launched at the beginning of the year. Read more

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