A Beginner’s Guide/Cheat Sheet to Carbohydrate Counting
Use carbohydrate counting to help keep your blood glucose levels in your target range.
Carbohydrate Counting & Diabetes
For people with diabetes, counting carbohydrates is essential to blood sugar control
In July last year, the American Red Cross declared an emergency blood shortage – it simply wasn’t receiving enough donations to help all the patients that needed blood.
Now, researchers from the University of British Columbia may have found a way to address the problem, even if people aren’t donating more: convert a less-usable blood type into one that anyone can receive.
Last August, they presented their research at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, and now the results have been published in the journal Nature Microbiology.
Blood types are different because of the sugars on the surface of the red blood cells the body creates. Type A has one type of sugar and Type B has another; Type AB has both sugars. Type O doesn’t have any sugars.
If a person receives a blood transfusion of a blood type that’s not their own, their immune system will attack and kill the donated blood cells.
For example, a person with Type A blood could never receive a Type B donation because their system would simply reject the new blood because the sugars aren’t quite right.
Because Type O blood doesn’t carry any sugars, anyone can receive it – it’s the universally accepted blood type and, therefore, highly desirable.
In the past, researchers figured out that certain enzymes (molecules that cause chemical reactions) could remove the sugars from A, B, and AB blood cells, converting them into the more useful Type O.
However, as researcher Stephen Withers noted in a press release, they hadn’t yet discovered an enzyme that was efficient, safe, and economical. Their search for that enzyme took them into the human gut.
Withers and his team already knew that the lining of the digestive tract contained the same sugars found on blood cells, and that bacterial enzymes within human feces stripped those sugars from the lining to power digestion.
Using this knowledge, the researchers were able to isolate an enzyme that strips the sugars from A and B blood types, transforming them into Type O 30 times more efficiently than any previously discovered enzyme.
For now the researchers are double-checking their findings. The next step would then be to test the enzyme in a clinical setting, which will help determine if the conversion process produces any unintended consequences.
All that extra testing could still take some time. But Withers is optimistic that his team’s enzyme could be just the breakthrough we need to ensure anyone who needs a blood donation in the future will be able to receive one.
A version of this article was originally published in August 2018.
A woman suffering from beast cancer was agonisingly crushed to death during a treatment session by a malfunctioning radiation machine.
Grandmother Valentina Minakova, 51, suffered fatal blows to her chest and abdomen as the medical apparatus squashed her in a hospital in the Russian city of Voronezh.
‘She sustained body injuries that caused her death on the spot,’ said the regional prosecutor’s office.
One report citing a doctor said that the patient was ‘screaming in agony’ when the ‘table’ – part of the apparatus – on which she was lying suddenly moved upwards and wedged her against a moving part of the machine.
The patient’s alarmed husband Alexander was waiting in the corridor outside and rushed into the medical room.
‘When he heard his wife screaming, he rushed inside and tried to save her from under the heavy machine but failed,’ said one source.
Medical staff also tried to free the woman but were unable to do so.
A criminal case has been opened by the Russian Investigative Committee based on ‘causing death by negligence’.
‘Investigators carried out an inspection of the scene of the accident, ordered a forensic medical examination to determine the exact cause of the patient’s death, and took explanations from the medical staff the relatives of the deceased,’ said a statement from state investigators.
‘Investigation of the criminal case continues.’
Minister of Health Veronika Skvortsova also sent a team to the hospital.
Researchers of a new study have identified dog breeds that pose the highest risk of biting children. The study aims to provide parents with information that can help them decide what type of dog to own.
Dog Breeds Most Likely To Bite Children
In the study published in the International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, Garth Essig, otolaryngologist at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center, and colleagues looked at 15 years’ worth of dog-related facial trauma cases recorded by the Nationwide Children’s Hospital and the University of Virginia Health System.
They also looked at dog bite papers from 1970 to investigate the risk of dog bite injuries in children, and the severity of the bite by breed, size, and head structure of the dog.
They found that pit bulls and mixed breed dogs pose the highest risk of biting children. They are also the ones that cause the most damage for bite.
“Injuries from Pitbull’s and mixed breed dogs were both more frequent and more severe,” the researchers wrote in their study.
Physical Characteristics Of Dogs That Tend To Bite Children
Essig and colleagues also found that physical characteristics may also be used to determine risk of biting for unknown or mixed dog breeds. Dogs with wide and short heads that weigh between 66 and 100 pounds tend to cause more severe damage.
“Because mixed breed dogs account for a significant portion of dog bites, and we often didn’t know what type of dog was involved in these incidents, we looked at additional factors that may help predict bite tendency when breed is unknown like weight and head shape,” Essig said.
Those who require treatment after dog bites are often children between 5 and 9 years old.
Young children are particularly vulnerable to dog bites because they often fail to notice the subtle signs that a dog may bite. Injuries range from simple lacerations to those that involve significant tissue loss that require grafting or other reconstructive surgery.