29-03-2018
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HEALTH<br />
tHUrSDAY, MArcH <strong>29</strong>, <strong>2018</strong><br />
5<br />
Getting familiar with human<br />
body’s new organ<br />
SArAH GibbenS<br />
Lurking just under your skin<br />
might be a new organ only now<br />
identified for the first time, say<br />
a team of scientists. In a new<br />
study published in the journal<br />
Scientific Reports, researchers<br />
from New York University's<br />
School of Medicine say they<br />
have found a new organ they're<br />
calling the "interstitium."<br />
It's nearly everywhere-just<br />
below the skin's surface, surrounding<br />
arteries and veins,<br />
casing the fibrous tissue<br />
between muscles, and lining our<br />
digestive tracts, lungs, and urinary<br />
systems. It looks like a<br />
mesh. The interstitium is a layer<br />
of fluid-filled compartments<br />
strung together in a web of collagen<br />
and a flexible protein<br />
called elastin. Previously, scientists<br />
thought the layer was simply<br />
dense connective tissue.<br />
The organ has seemingly been<br />
hidden in plain sight, and scientists<br />
say they missed it because<br />
of the way tissue is studied.<br />
Before being placed under a<br />
microscope, samples are thinly<br />
sliced and treated with chemicals<br />
that allow researchers to<br />
identify key components more<br />
easily. While the process is<br />
helpful for more easily spotting<br />
details, it drains fluid from the<br />
sample.<br />
Devoid of their fluid, the compartments<br />
collapse, like a building<br />
with the floors suddenly<br />
knocked out, leaving the whole<br />
structure to flatten like a pancake.<br />
To find these pockets of<br />
interstitial fluid, medical<br />
researchers looked at living tissue<br />
instead of sampling dead<br />
tissue samples. They did this by<br />
using a probing technique called<br />
confocal laser endomicroscopy.<br />
The method entails using a tiny<br />
camera probe that takes a<br />
microscopic look around a<br />
human body. Tissue is lit by the<br />
endoscope's lasers and the fluorescent<br />
patterns it then reflects<br />
are analyzed by sensors.<br />
Scientists first noticed the<br />
compartments when looking at<br />
a bile duct. They saw what they<br />
thought might be tears in dense<br />
tissue. The images were taken to<br />
Neil Theise, a professor at<br />
NYU's School of Medicine and<br />
author on the paper.<br />
"You're talking about the<br />
remaining extracellular fluid<br />
that's unaccounted for," Theise<br />
says. About 70 percent of the<br />
human body is made of water,<br />
and about two thirds of that is<br />
found in cells. The remaining<br />
third, says Theise, is only partially<br />
known.<br />
In addition to accounting for<br />
bodily fluid, the compartments<br />
may help explain essential functions.<br />
"It's like a shock<br />
absorber," says Theise. "Not a<br />
the interstitium, scientists found, is under our skin and<br />
between our organs.<br />
Photo: neil theise<br />
hard, stiff material." Among<br />
Theise's theories for the purpose<br />
of the interstitium is that<br />
it's a source of lymph, a fluid<br />
that moves through the body's<br />
lymphatic system and supports<br />
immunity. He says that knowing<br />
how diseases spread<br />
through this part of the body<br />
could help researchers better<br />
understand how cancer spreads.<br />
"Can we detect disease earlier<br />
by sampling fluid from the<br />
space? Can we figure out mechanisms<br />
to stop spread?" He<br />
asks. Jennifer Munson is a biomedical<br />
engineer at Virginia<br />
Tech who has looked at fluid in<br />
the body. She was not involved<br />
with the study but says its findings<br />
are promising. "I think<br />
what the paper shows is the<br />
benefit of having new ways to<br />
image and look at tissues. Previous<br />
methods dehydrate the tissues,<br />
and you lose so much<br />
structural information," Munson<br />
notes.<br />
She says she's fairly convinced<br />
these structures exist<br />
but wants to see more<br />
research before speculating on<br />
what they do, and whether its<br />
accurate to call them a new<br />
organ. "I'm really excited<br />
about the find but, as with all<br />
scientists, I approach everything<br />
with a little skepticism,"<br />
she adds.<br />
Theise says he's aware of<br />
some of the skepticism surrounding<br />
his findings, but it's<br />
territory he's not shy about<br />
wading into. In 2005, he wrote<br />
an essay in Nature challenging<br />
the importance of "cell theory"-a<br />
concept that holds cells<br />
as the basic structure of all<br />
organisms, and in 2001, he<br />
published a paper finding that<br />
adult stem cells could be made<br />
to act similarly to embryonic<br />
cells. "There's always going to<br />
be stuff we haven't seen before<br />
that we don't know," he adds.<br />
"I'm awestruck that nature is<br />
more complicated than we<br />
allow ourselves to think."<br />
Male pattern baldness is common for any man at the age of fifty.<br />
Photo: Andreas Koerner<br />
natural cures for male baldness<br />
HeAltH DeSK<br />
Male pattern baldness is a common dilemma<br />
for any man at the age of fifty. But even males<br />
on the younger side can suffer from it due to<br />
a lot of different reasons: it can be stress, it<br />
can be hereditary, and it can be poor hair<br />
care habits. No matter what the cause is,<br />
there is a cure for it. So let's look at cures that<br />
are effective, affordable, and not so popular.<br />
Coconuts can give several benefits not only<br />
for your hair, but also for your overall health.<br />
If you suffer from male pattern baldness, you<br />
can use this to promote hair growth, while<br />
also conditioning it to become stronger.<br />
Thanks to its essential nutrients such as<br />
protein, potassium and iron, it provides<br />
quick results once applied to hair. It won't<br />
instantly let your scalp grow more hair, mind<br />
you. But it will instantly put it in the right<br />
condition to grow more eventually. Plus it<br />
leaves the hair you do have looking smooth<br />
and shiny.<br />
If you want to know how to reap the full<br />
benefits of coconut milk, we have you covered:<br />
Grab a coconut, grate it, and then add<br />
it to a pan of water. Let it simmer for around<br />
five minutes before straining it. Squeeze the<br />
milk out, and you now have your very own<br />
coconut milk! You can then apply it thoroughly<br />
to your scalp, and onto the rest of<br />
your hair. Wear a shower cap and leave it on<br />
for about 20 minutes. Afterwards, make sure<br />
to rinse it off completely, so that your hair<br />
won't feel sticky. Once it is removed, you can<br />
shampoo your hair for maximum effect.<br />
Some people add fenugreek seeds to the<br />
coconut milk before using it. Another alternative<br />
would be black pepper - just mix it in<br />
thoroughly.<br />
You can also target a specific area with the<br />
coconut milk, applying it directly to the spot<br />
where you notice thinning or balding.<br />
Up next on our list of the best natural hair<br />
cures for male pattern baldness, we have<br />
onion juice. As you may already know,<br />
onions are rich sources of sulfur. This helps<br />
in promoting hair growth while simultaneously<br />
controlling hair fall. Did you know that<br />
using its juice on your scalp can go a long way<br />
in combating male pattern baldness - unless<br />
you are allergic to it, of course.<br />
As with any other advice you can take from<br />
the internet, be sure to consult with a physician<br />
before fully committing to this one. It<br />
sure has a lot of benefits, but every person is<br />
different. Now the reason onion juice is so<br />
effective is not just because of its sulfur content<br />
- it also helps improve your blood circulation.<br />
This stimulates the growth of hair follicles<br />
while also reducing inflammation.<br />
Add in the fact that it has antibacterial<br />
properties, and you've got a truly spectacular<br />
solution to male pattern baldness.<br />
christin lipinski was infected with Streptococcus bacteria.<br />
Photo: Dr Kari lounatmaa<br />
Skin spray heals US<br />
woman’s flesh-eating<br />
bacteria wounds<br />
why dreams are vital to<br />
emotional health<br />
Dr. AnDrew weil<br />
Does insomnia cause depression?<br />
Does depression cause insomnia?<br />
Chronic insomnia is strongly associated<br />
with mood disorders, but which<br />
way does the causality run?<br />
I think it's likely that cause-andeffect<br />
can go in either direction, but<br />
surprisingly, there is little experimental<br />
research on the connection<br />
between sleep and emotions. What<br />
there is mostly tracks the effects of<br />
enforced sleep deprivation. A typical<br />
experiment restricts the amount of<br />
sleep subjects are allowed to get over<br />
days or weeks, then measures the<br />
resulting cognitive and emotional<br />
effects. Such research shows that sleep<br />
restriction tends to make people less<br />
optimistic and less sociable. One study<br />
at the University of Pennsylvania<br />
found that subjects limited to four to<br />
five hours of sleep per night for one<br />
week reported feeling more stressed,<br />
angry and sad. Their moods improved<br />
dramatically when they resumed normal<br />
sleep.<br />
sleep. While sleep is clearly vital to<br />
emotional well-being, what is it, exactly,<br />
about sleep that is so necessary? As<br />
it turns out, mood disorders are<br />
strongly linked to abnormal patterns<br />
of dreaming. Rosalind Cartwright,<br />
Ph.D., a leading sleep and dream<br />
researcher at Chicago's Rush Medical<br />
Center and author of The Twenty-four<br />
Hour Mind: The Role of Sleep and<br />
Dreaming in Our Emotional Lives, has<br />
shown that individuals who dream<br />
and remember their dreams heal<br />
more quickly from depressive moods<br />
associated with divorce. Rubin<br />
Naiman, Ph.D., a sleep and dream<br />
expert on the clinical faculty of the<br />
Arizona Center for Integrative Medicine,<br />
believes that "dream loss" rather<br />
than sleep loss per se, is "the most critical<br />
overlooked socio-cultural force" in<br />
the development of depression.<br />
This is important information<br />
because many medications used to<br />
help people sleep also suppress<br />
dreaming. These drugs have<br />
become some of the most widely<br />
used in our society. Many antide-<br />
quently impossible to thoroughly<br />
deconstruct by a community of<br />
researchers. But dreaming matters.<br />
If you dislike or even fear dreaming<br />
because the emotional content<br />
of your dreams tends to be negative,<br />
keep in mind that "bad<br />
dreams" may serve a vital function.<br />
Consider Dr. Naiman's view that<br />
dreaming is "a kind of psychological<br />
yoga," that contributes to emotional<br />
wellness. He says that<br />
dreams "in the first part of the<br />
night appear to process and diffuse<br />
residual negative emotion from the<br />
waking day; dreams later in the<br />
night then integrate this material<br />
into one's sense of self."<br />
The bottom line: There is good<br />
reason to believe you must get sufficient<br />
sleep, and embrace rather<br />
than suppress your dreams, if you<br />
want to experience better moods. If<br />
you have difficulty sleeping or are<br />
not getting enough sleep or sleep of<br />
good quality, you need to learn the<br />
basics of sleep hygiene, make<br />
appropriate changes, and possibly<br />
Alice Klein<br />
An experimental skin spray has<br />
given a US woman back her skin<br />
after drug-resistant bacteria<br />
devoured most of the flesh on her<br />
left side. In January, Christin Lipinski,<br />
37, developed flu-like symptoms<br />
and pain under her armpit.<br />
Doctors at Maricopa Integrated<br />
Health System - a hospital in<br />
Phoenix, Arizona - found she was<br />
infected with a vicious, flesh-eating<br />
strain of Streptococcus bacteria.<br />
"When we took her to the operating<br />
room we realised it was worse<br />
than we thought," says her treating<br />
doctor Kevin Foster. The bacteria<br />
had spread from her armpit down<br />
most of her left torso and arm. To<br />
prevent further spread, Foster's<br />
team cut away the infected tissue.<br />
"It was so deep we basically went<br />
down to muscle," he says. Normally,<br />
large skin wounds are patched<br />
up using skin grafts from another<br />
part of the body. But because Lipinski<br />
had already lost a third of her<br />
skin, she couldn't afford to lose<br />
any more. Running out of options,<br />
Foster decided to appeal to the<br />
FDA for compassionate use of an<br />
experimental skin spray called<br />
ReCell. The spray is currently<br />
being trialled as a treatment for<br />
severe burn wounds. To make the<br />
spray, doctors take a small patch of<br />
skin from another part of the<br />
patient's body. A special enzyme is<br />
used to break the tissue into individual<br />
skin cells, which are then<br />
sprayed in a fine mist over the<br />
wound.<br />
Once they settle, the individual<br />
skin cells divide and spread until<br />
they join up to cover the wound.<br />
"Normally, a wound heals from the<br />
edges, which takes time, but this<br />
allows it to heal everywhere at<br />
once," says Michael Perry at Avita<br />
Medical, the biotech company<br />
developing the treatment.<br />
Foster's team began treating Lipinski<br />
with ReCell on 23 February<br />
after getting FDA approval. They<br />
used it in combination with a<br />
meshed autograft - a piece of skin<br />
they took from her thigh and<br />
pierced with small holes to make it<br />
stretch over a larger area. When<br />
they took the dressings off a week<br />
later, they were shocked to find the<br />
wound had already 95 per cent<br />
healed. The skin is still a bit red<br />
and bumpy, but Foster believes it<br />
will settle down over the next few<br />
weeks. The results are far better<br />
than would be expected for a<br />
meshed autograft alone, says Foster.<br />
"We think the skin spray made<br />
a real difference," he says.<br />
It's still unclear how the otherwise<br />
healthy mum of three contracted<br />
the infection. "It was probably just<br />
bad luck," says Foster. There's evidence<br />
that some people's genes<br />
make them more vulnerable to<br />
attack by Streptococcus bacteria,<br />
but we don't know for sure.<br />
About 600 to 1200 people in the<br />
US are affected by flesh-eating disease<br />
- also known as necrotising<br />
fasciitis - each year, and a quarter<br />
do not survive. Lipinski is expected<br />
to be discharged from hospital in<br />
the next couple of weeks.<br />
Dreams play a key role in boosting creative thought and mental health.<br />
It's difficult to run experiments in<br />
the other direction - that is, to make<br />
people stressed, angry and sad for<br />
days or weeks and note the effect on<br />
their sleeping ability - but virtually<br />
every human being can vouch that<br />
emotional upset can severely impact<br />
pressant drugs suppress dreaming<br />
as well. I think mainstream<br />
research tends to discount the value<br />
of dreaming because the experience<br />
is utterly subjective. Dreaming<br />
is a phenomenon of purely individual<br />
consciousness, and conse-<br />
Photo: Patryk Hardziej<br />
consult a sleep expert. You might<br />
also keep a dream journal at your<br />
bedside, which will help you develop<br />
the habit of recalling your<br />
dreams upon waking, which in turn<br />
can help you to embrace and value<br />
dreaming.