The ear is like a gateway through which we can alter the body's functions without the need for medication or invasive procedures, say scientists. A team of researchers from the Universities of Leeds and Glasgow decided to find out whether they could improve body functions like digestion, sleep pattern and breathing by 'tickling' the vagus nerve of the ear with small waves of electric current. After studying two small groups of participants, researchers concluded that rebalancing&nbsp;the body's control system could&nbsp;improve sleep and mood. They also believed that it might prevent certain age related conditions, including high blood pressure and heart disease. The results are just the tip of the iceberg, but researchers hope to investigate further into the potential long-term benefits of daily ear stimulation.

The ear is like a gateway through which we can alter the body's functions without the need for medication or invasive procedures, say scientists. A team of researchers from the Universities of Leeds and Glasgow decided to find out whether they could improve body functions like digestion, sleep pattern and breathing by 'tickling' the vagus nerve of the ear with small waves of electric current. After studying two small groups of participants, researchers concluded that rebalancing the body's control system could improve sleep and mood. They also believed that it might prevent certain age related conditions, including high blood pressure and heart disease. The results are just the tip of the iceberg, but researchers hope to investigate further into the potential long-term benefits of daily ear stimulation.

Mumbai-based startup Qure&nbsp;uses an AI tool called 'qER' to speed up&nbsp;reading CT scans in emergency rooms, and also prioritise scans that indicate something critical like bleeding in the brain.&nbsp;After deployment in India and other countries, qER is now entering the United States where 75 million CT scans are performed every year.&nbsp;Qure&nbsp;has just received US FDA&nbsp;clearance for this product. What makes it special is a four-in-one clearance. The tool has been cleared four critical conditions -&nbsp;intracranial bleeds, mass effect, midline shift, and cranial fractures. However, qER is only allowed to suggest what a radiologist should read first. For an AI-based diagnosis on par with that of a radiologist, it would require further studies.

The novel coronavirus has wreaked havoc across the world, taking away numerous lives and halting progress against other illnesses like HIV. According to a report by UNAIDS, there are some big successes in numbers on the global AIDS epidemic like fewer deaths and new infections. There are also failures. Only 50% of the children with HIV are receiving treatment. The report added that 4 years ago, the United Nations had set goals of limiting HIV infections and improving treatment by end of 2020 but it seems like the deadline will be missed in the wake of the pandemic. In many countries, the resources used to fight HIV are involved in tackling Covid-19. In 2019, infections were 23% lesser compared to 2010. Additionally, 25.4 million people are on treatment, triple the number since 2010.&nbsp; Supplies of medicines and other essentials have been disrupted due to lockdowns and clinics being closed. Due to the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS, some are also afraid of getting their medicines home-delivered.

A Chennai-based company has developed the 'Etticos&nbsp;Covid-19 Patient Care System', a device that could bridge the gap between Covid-19 patients and health-care workers. A patient can easily communicate with health workers using the smart button. The CEO&nbsp;of the company,&nbsp;Vigneshwar shared with news agency ANI&nbsp;that the device can be used by&nbsp;Covid-19 patients in hospitals to communicate with the staff.&nbsp;A single press means the patient needs water and a double press means he or she requires medicines.&nbsp;More than 100 patients can be monitored on the display.&nbsp;Vigneshwar claims that the whole system is 'Made in India' and he also got a patent for the device.

Hundreds of scientists say there is evidence that coronavirus in smaller particles in the air can infect people. They have called on the World Health Organization to revise recommendations, the New York Times has reported. The WHO has said the coronavirus disease spreads primarily from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth, that come out when a person with Covid-19 coughs, sneezes or speaks. In an open letter to the agency, 239 scientists in 32 countries have stated that whether carried by large droplets that zoom through the air after a sneeze, or by much smaller exhaled droplets that may glide the length of a room, the coronavirus is borne through air and can infect people when inhaled.

The World Health Organization says it is ending a trial into whether anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine helps patients hospitalised with Covid-19. WHO said it has &ldquo;accepted the recommendation&rdquo; from the committee overseeing the trial to discontinue testing of hydroxychloroquine and anti-HIV drugs, which were being used for standard care for hospitalized coronavirus patients. WHO says a review of the interim results showed hydroxychloroquine along with the anti-HIV drug cocktail 'produce little or no reduction in the mortality of hospitalized Covid-19 patients'

Genome sequence data from almost 30 per cent of all Covid-19 samples&nbsp;collected by the World Health Organization (WHO) have shown signs of mutation, reports Reuters. However, the top health body said that there is no evidence of this mutation leading to severe disease. WHO has collected over 60,000 samples of the disease so far.&nbsp;
Scientists at Scripps Research have found that 65% of global cases by April were from the mutated virus. They found that the mutation, called&nbsp;D614G, increases Covid-19's ability to infect cells and may explain why outbreaks in northern Italy and New York were larger than the ones reported earlier in the pandemic.&nbsp;

Not just physical, the coronavirus&nbsp;pandemic and the stresses brought upon by it are having a massive impact on our mental health as well. A report by Lybrate, a health and wellness platform, has found that online consultations for mental health issues have increased by over 180 per cent compared to pre-pandemic levels. The platform saw a 255 per cent surge in consultations from women and 150 per cent from men. The highest jump was witnessed in the city of Mumbai at 205 per cent, followed by Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and Kolkata, all falling&nbsp;in the 100 to 200 per cent increase range.&nbsp;

The Karnataka&nbsp;government has ordered all facilities treating Covid-19 patients to provide a nutritious diet to all infected persons. The new diet plan is issued in an effort to boost the immunity of virus patients under treatment. As per the diet, breakfast will be served at 7 am and can be dishes like rava&nbsp;idli, pongal, set dosa, or&nbsp;bisi&nbsp;beli bath. After breakfast, patients should get a serving of seasonal fresh fruit followed by lunch at 1 pm. The lunch menu will comprise of&nbsp;roti, chapati, palya, rice, dal, egg and curd. At 5 pm, patients will get&nbsp;one banana and three cookies, two protein cookies, two dates and a mango bar for vitamin C. The dinner, served at 7 pm is almost the same as lunch followed by a glass of flavoured milk at 9 pm.&nbsp;

The&nbsp;Indian Council of Medical Research has asked medical institutions involved in trials for India's first Covid-19 vaccine, to fast-track the clinical trial approvals. The hospitals involved have been ordered to begin subject enrolment no later than July 7. Developed by Bharat&nbsp;Biotech in partnership with ICMR and the National Institute of Virology, the DGCI&nbsp;recently approved human clinical trials for Covaxin. ICMR&nbsp;has set Aug 15 as the launch date for the vaccine's public health use but the&nbsp;final outcome will depend on the cooperation of all clinical trial sites involved in this project, the top health body said. Reports say ICMR's letter to Bharat Biotech also comes attached with a warning, deliver on time or face consequences.&nbsp;

Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan and HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal&nbsp;have launched a 'Drug Discovery Hackathon' project and invited students and researchers to participate in it with an aim to develop an anti-Covid-19&nbsp;drug. The initiative is being jointly carried out by the Ministry of Human Resources Development and the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).&nbsp;The CSIR has been re-purposing drugs to help patients recover from the novel coronavirus.

According to researchers from the University of Virginia School of Medicine, a blood&nbsp;test may be able to predict the severity of Covid-19 and which&nbsp;patients are likely to need&nbsp;a ventilator.&nbsp;The finding could lead to a scoring system that would flag at-risk patients for closer monitoring and personalized treatments. The study focused on 57 Covid-19 patients who needed a ventilator to&nbsp;breath. They found that blood levels of a certain cytokine&nbsp;can predict the course of Covid-19.&nbsp;Cytokines are proteins that are central to the&nbsp;immune system, and their overreaction&nbsp;is a sign of severe Covid-19.&nbsp;Researchers also found higher levels of two cytokines in patients with high&nbsp;blood sugar. They said this may explain why&nbsp;diabetes&nbsp;is linked with worse Covid-19 outcomes. However, the study has not been peer-reviewed and should be considered preliminary.

People testing negative for Covid-19 antibodies may still have some immunity, a new study has suggested.&nbsp;Researchers at the Karolinksa Institute in Sweden tested 200 people for both antibodies and T-cells.&nbsp;For every person testing positive for antibodies, two were found to have specific T-cells which identify and destroy infected cells. However, it is likely that some did mount an antibody response, because either it had faded or was not detectable by the current tests. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that "antibody testing alone underestimates immunity". It is also not yet clear whether these T-cells just protect that individual, or if they might also stop them from passing on the infection to others.

A global trial to test anti-malaria drugs&nbsp;hydroxychloroquine&nbsp;and chloroquine&nbsp;as a treatment for Covid-19&nbsp;is going to restart. The&nbsp;COPCOV trial&nbsp;had been paused amid concerns about the side-effects of the drug raised by research published in the medical journal The Lancet.&nbsp;UK regulators have now said that&nbsp;the drugs can be given to healthcare workers in a clinical study to test the theory. The two drugs or a placebo will be given to more than 40,000 healthcare workers from Europe, Africa, Asia and South America to ascertain&nbsp;its effectiveness.&nbsp;The research is being led by the Oxford University&rsquo;s Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit in Bangkok.&nbsp;

India accounts for 45.8 million of the world's 142.6 million 'missing females' over the past 50 years, a report by the United Nations said on Tuesday. The State of World Population 2020 report released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), said that the number of &ldquo;missing women&rdquo; has more than doubled over the past 50 years - from 61 million in 1970 to a cumulative 142.6 million in 2020. Of this global figure, India accounted for 45.8 million missing females as of 2020 and China accounted for 72.3 million. The report said, between 2013 and 2017, about 460,000 girls in India were &lsquo;missing' at birth each year.

New findings have ruled out any meaningful mortality benefit for Covid-19 patients of lopinavir-ritonavir, a combination of antiviral drugs used in HIV&nbsp;treatment.&nbsp;Scientists from the University of Oxford studied the potential of the drug combination for coronavirus in the large-scale ongoing RECOVERY trial, in which several drugs are being tested in a randomised manner.&nbsp;Over 11,800 patients have been enrolled&nbsp;in the UK for the trial. Of which,&nbsp;1,596 patients were randomised to lopinavir-ritonavir and compared with 3,376 patients randomised to usual care alone. No significant difference in mortality for lopinavir-ritonavir&nbsp;was observed in comparison to usual care.&nbsp;

The Covid-19&nbsp;Trauma Response Working Group, led by the University College London, has urged that all survivors must be screened for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). According to health&nbsp;experts, patients who were hospitalised and required intensive care to recover, could be specially at risk of developing mental health issues due to the trauma associated with battling the disease. The research group found that people who were seriously ill with Covid-19 felt panicky while going out alone,&nbsp;after being discharged from the hospital.&nbsp;

Six months after the Covid-19 pandemic began, the World Health Organisation has warned that the worst is yet to come.&nbsp;WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus&nbsp;told a virtual briefing on Monday that if governments fail to implement the right policies, many more people could be infected. He shared that while countries are making progress, the pandemic is actually speeding up. He urged governments and health authorities&nbsp;to stick to&nbsp;the 'Test, Trace, Isolate and Quarantine' plan.&nbsp;

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is planning to put the country on a diet as part of a wider strategy to counter obesity, seen as a major risk factor in those impacted by coronavirus. 'The focus will be on getting the nation fitter because, as the coronavirus has shown, it will save lives,' a health department insider told The Sunday Times. The proposals include&nbsp;better access to programmes ranging from family exercise schemes and healthy eating to bariatric surgery, which includes the fitting of gastric bands.&nbsp;&nbsp;In the UK and US, more than 60 per cent of adults are overweight or obese, a UK doctor told PTI.&nbsp;

A&nbsp;Coimbatore-based robotics engineer,&nbsp; Karthi Velayutham&nbsp;has created a&nbsp;'Covid-19 Smart Swab Robot&rsquo; for sample collection. The robot uses an app connected to the smartphone&nbsp;to function. The robot helps avoid any human contact, and thus, eliminates therisk of transmission of the virus. It took Velayutham&nbsp;Rs 2,000 to make the robot, which collects the swab sample in just two&nbsp;minutes. He shared with news agency ANI&nbsp;that if approved by authorities, his robot could work well in private and public testing labs.&nbsp;

There has been an overall increase of 20 per cent in blood sugar levels in India, says a report by Beato, a digital ecosystem for diabetes care and management. Surveying over&nbsp;8,200 diabetes patients across India, the findings suggest that pandemic anxiety and lockdown-related stress, as well as lack of access to quick medical attention,&nbsp;is the reason behind this uptick.&nbsp;States that recorded the maximum spike are Daman and Diu&nbsp;at 49 per cent,&nbsp;Tripura at 38 per cent, followed by Nagaland, Manipur and Uttarakhand. The average pre-pandemic fasting sugar levels at the beginning of the year were recorded at&nbsp;138 mg/dl which reached 165 mg/dl&nbsp;till mid-April, according to Beato.&nbsp;
&nbsp;

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'Tickling' the ear could be the secret to good health

Jul 31, 2019 11:35 IST

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