Antibiotics, not surgery, could treat appendicitis in children

February 18, 2017

Washington, Feb 18: Now you can save your kid from surgery, as a study shows that antibiotics may be an effective treatment for acute non-complicated appendicitis in children, instead of surgery.

Antibiotics Appendicitis is a serious medical condition in which the appendix becomes inflamed and causes severe pain.

The appeared in the journal of Pediatrics

The condition, which causes the appendix -- a small organ attached to the large intestine -- to become inflamed due to a blockage or infection, affects mainly children and teenagers.

Appendicitis is currently treated through an operation to remove the appendix, known as an appendicectomy, and it is the most common cause of emergency surgery in children.

The study, led by Nigel Hall from the University of Southampton in England, assessed existing literature published over the past 10 years that included 10 studies reporting on 413 children, who received non-operative treatment rather than an appendectomy.

It showed that no study reported any safety concern or specific adverse events related to non-surgical treatment, although the rate of recurrent appendicitis was 14%.

“Our review shows that antibiotics could be an alternative treatment method for children. When we compared the adult literature to the data in our review it suggested that antibiotic treatment of acute appendicitis is at least as effective in children as in adults,”

To further this research, the scientists are currently carrying out a year-long feasibility trial which will see children with appendicitis randomly allocated to have either surgery or antibiotic treatment.

“In our initial trial, we will see how many patients and families are willing to join the study and will look at how well children in the study recover. This will give us an indication of how many children we may be able to recruit into a future larger trial and how the outcomes of non-operative treatment compare with an operation,” Hall stated.

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Low fruit, vegetable intake makes people vulnerable to anxiety: Study

Agencies

February 27,2020

Washington D.C, Feb 27: New research shows that adults who have low fruit and vegetable intake are more likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder.

"For those who consumed less than 3 sources of fruits and vegetables daily, there was at least at 24% higher odds of anxiety disorder diagnosis," says the lead author of the Canadian Longitudinal Study, Karen Davison, who is a health science faculty member, nutrition informatics lab director at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, (KPU) and North American Primary Care Research Group Fellow.

"This may also partly explain the findings associated with body composition measures. As levels of total body fat increased beyond 36%, the likelihood of anxiety disorder was increased by more than 70%," states co-author Jose Mora-Almanza, a Mitacs Globalink intern who worked with the study at KPU.

"Increased body fat may be linked to greater inflammation. Emerging research suggests that some anxiety disorders can be linked to inflammation," says Davison.

In addition to diet and body composition measures, the prevalence of anxiety disorders also differed by gender, marital status, income, immigrant status and several health issues.

An important limitation of the study was that the assessment of anxiety disorders was mostly based upon self-reporting of a medical diagnosis.

"It is estimated that 10% of the global population will suffer from anxiety disorders which are a leading cause of disability," says Karen Davison

"Our findings suggest that comprehensive approaches that target health behaviours, including diet, as well as social factors, such as economic status, may help to minimize the burden of anxiety disorders among middle-aged and older adults, including immigrants," she concluded.

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Smoking linked to higher risk of coronavirus, says WHO

Agencies

July 2,2020

London, Jul 2: The World Health Organisation says smoking is linked to a higher risk of severe illness and death from the coronavirus in hospitalised patients, although it was unable to specify exactly how much greater those risks might be.

In a scientific brief published this week, the U.N. health agency reviewed 34 published studies on the association between smoking and Covid-19, including the probability of infection, hospitalisation, severity of disease and death.

WHO noted that smokers represent up to 18% of hospitalised coronavirus patients and that there appeared to be a significant link between whether or not patients smoked and the severity of disease they suffered, the type of hospital interventions required and patients' risk of dying.

In April, French researchers released a small study suggesting smokers were at less risk of catching Covid-19 and planned to test nicotine patches on patients and health workers — but their findings were questioned by many scientists at the time who cited the lack of definitive data.

WHO says "the available evidence suggests that smoking is associated with increased severity of disease and death in hospitalized Covid-19 patients. It recommends that smokers quit.

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