Medibits from around the world

People with challenging jobs may have to work hard, but the payoff could be some protection against Alzheimer's disease later in life, new research suggests. Now if only that were true more than half the world would be 'down' with dementia!

Drug resistance combined with a deadly double infection of tuberculosis and HIV is posing a serious threat in Asian nations. The WHO said tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in HIV-AIDS patients in the Asia-Pacific region and growing resistance to a variety of drugs is fuelling a rise in cases.

Children who stutter should be treated before they start school to improve the speech disorder that affects about 5 percent of youngsters, say Australian scientists. Stuttering, or stammering, usually begins when a child is three or four years old. Boys are three times more likely to suffer from the problem.

There is no cure for the condition but researchers at the Australian Stuttering Research Center at the University of Sydney who developed and evaluated an early treatment called the Lidcombe programme to treat stuttering said it improved the problem.

Surgeons in California have succeeded in routinely transplanting livers without using blood transfusions in the recipients. "If we can do liver transplantation, which is one of the most difficult surgeries in the abdomen to do without blood transfusion, then we can pretty much do almost any surgery in the abdomen without blood transfusions," Dr. Singh Gagandeep told reporters.

The 19 patients who received transplants from living donors were treated with drugs and supplements to build up their red blood cells. A shut was used in seven patients to check upper gastrointestinal bleeding or to decrease pressure.

One measure is to salvage blood lost during surgery and to re-infuse it. Another is to maintain normal fluid levels in the circulation, he explained, "so the patient doesn't go into shock."

Other strategies include monitoring coagulation components in the blood and treating patients with drugs as needed. Finally, the surgeon noted, blood monitoring to assess the patients' progress after surgery should be used "judiciously."

U.S. regulators granted conditional approval to a second maker of silicone gel-filled breast implants on Wednesday, allowing Inamed Corp. to sell its version if it meets certain requirements.

The move puts Inamed on par with rival Mentor Corp., which received similar approval in July, and signals the impending return of the controversial implants to the U.S. market after a 13-year restriction.

In 1992, the Food and Drug Administration limited sales to breast cancer survivors and others needing reconstruction or implant replacements amid concerns that leaking implants could cause long-term, disabling diseases such as lupus or rheumatoid arthritis.

Studies have shown the implants can cause scarring and other painful complications but most have not definitively linked them to any diseases.

Women's groups and other critics have called for more data on how often silicone implants break or leak and urged the FDA to postpone any final decision.

This is deffy scary stuff and looks like it is high time that Asia must change age-old farming practices to reduce contact between people and poultry to limit bird flu and prevent new animal diseases infecting humans