A new study revealed that people with gallstones have heightened risk of developing kidney stone as well and vice versa. The researchers already know from the start that diabetes, unhealthy diet and obesity put people at higher risk of developing both kidney and gallbladder stones. But even though the identified factors were taken into account, the link between the two disorders remained.
It is not uncommon to see a patient with both the disorders, researchers said. Dr. Brian Matlaga, John Hopkins Univ. of Medicine urologist, said that the new study will help them understand the relationship between the two disorders. Matlaga, who wasn’t part of the team, was asked to further comment on the latest breakthrough but said he is still out of words to comment on the new study.
Many doctors were still unable to fully explain the relationship between the two disorders mainly because gallbladder stones are formed differently as compared to kidney stones. Kidney stones are formed due to excessive calcium while gallbladder stones are formed from excessive cholesterol.
Data used in the study came from 3 different long term medical and scientific studies conducted by doctors and nurses in a specific span of time. For about 14 to 24 years, more than 240,000 individuals were involved in the study. Over the span of time indicated, about 18,500 individuals were reported to have developed gallbladder stones while 5,100 were diagnosed with kidney stones. Currently, doctors advised the public to observe preventive measures in order to reduce the risk of developing both the disorders until the link between the two will be fully unlocked by scientists in the future.
2011年10月18日星期二
2011年10月16日星期日
Study links kidney stones and gallstones
People who have had a kidney stoneseem to have a heightened risk of gallstones -- and vice versa, according to a new study.
Researchers already know that obesity, diabetes and having a generally unhealthy diet put people at risk for both types of stones. But even when those common risks were taken into account, the link remained.
The report "raises our antenna to this shared relationship between these two disorders," said Dr. Brian Matlaga, a urologist at theJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
"From an anecdotal standpoint, certainly it's not an uncommon scenario that a patient would have had both," Matlaga, who wasn't involved in the new research, told Reuters Health. But, he continued, "I'm a little bit at a loss trying to define what that relationship would be."
That's because stones in the kidney and gallbladder form differently, he said, and are made of two different things -- kidney stones of calcium and gallstones of cholesterol, most of the time.
Data for the current analysis came from three different long-term studies of nurses and doctors who completed a health and lifestyle questionnaire, then reported any new medical conditions every two years afterward. In total, more than 240,000 people were followed for between 14 and 24 years.
Over that time, there were about 5,100 new kidney stones diagnosed and close to 18,500 new cases of gallstones.
Depending on the population -- male or female, older or younger -- people with a history of gallstones were between 26 and 32 percent more likely to get a kidneystone than people who hadn't ever had gallstones.
And the link also went in the opposite direction. A past history of kidney stones meant study participants were between 17 and 51 percent more likely to report a new gallstone.
That was after factoring in the impact of age, diabetes, high blood pressure, weight and certain aspects of diet on the risk of both kinds of stones.
Researchers led by Eric Taylor from the Maine Medical Center in Portland said it's possible that a shift in the type of bacteria in the intestines might somehow predispose people to both kidney stones and gallstones. But, Taylor said, "the fairest thing is that we just don't know" why the two would be linked.
In their report in the Journal of Urology the researchers echoed Matlaga's call for more detailed research into any explanations for a common cause -- which might help doctors prevent or treat both kidney stones and gallstones, they added.
"They are really two different kinds of stones, so the relationship is not going to be simple between the two conditions," Taylor told Reuters Health.
Matlaga said that for now, there are steps people can take to reduce their risk of both gallstones and kidney stones, even if they've already had one condition.
"You'd like to try to minimize those common risk factors and work on things like weight loss and cholesterol control," he said.
Taylor agreed that the findings "emphasize the importance of healthy diet and healthy weight."
Researchers already know that obesity, diabetes and having a generally unhealthy diet put people at risk for both types of stones. But even when those common risks were taken into account, the link remained.
The report "raises our antenna to this shared relationship between these two disorders," said Dr. Brian Matlaga, a urologist at theJohns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
"From an anecdotal standpoint, certainly it's not an uncommon scenario that a patient would have had both," Matlaga, who wasn't involved in the new research, told Reuters Health. But, he continued, "I'm a little bit at a loss trying to define what that relationship would be."
That's because stones in the kidney and gallbladder form differently, he said, and are made of two different things -- kidney stones of calcium and gallstones of cholesterol, most of the time.
Data for the current analysis came from three different long-term studies of nurses and doctors who completed a health and lifestyle questionnaire, then reported any new medical conditions every two years afterward. In total, more than 240,000 people were followed for between 14 and 24 years.
Over that time, there were about 5,100 new kidney stones diagnosed and close to 18,500 new cases of gallstones.
Depending on the population -- male or female, older or younger -- people with a history of gallstones were between 26 and 32 percent more likely to get a kidney
And the link also went in the opposite direction. A past history of kidney stones meant study participants were between 17 and 51 percent more likely to report a new gallstone.
That was after factoring in the impact of age, diabetes, high blood pressure, weight and certain aspects of diet on the risk of both kinds of stones.
Researchers led by Eric Taylor from the Maine Medical Center in Portland said it's possible that a shift in the type of bacteria in the intestines might somehow predispose people to both kidney stones and gallstones. But, Taylor said, "the fairest thing is that we just don't know" why the two would be linked.
In their report in the Journal of Urology the researchers echoed Matlaga's call for more detailed research into any explanations for a common cause -- which might help doctors prevent or treat both kidney stones and gallstones, they added.
"They are really two different kinds of stones, so the relationship is not going to be simple between the two conditions," Taylor told Reuters Health.
Matlaga said that for now, there are steps people can take to reduce their risk of both gallstones and kidney stones, even if they've already had one condition.
"You'd like to try to minimize those common risk factors and work on things like weight loss and cholesterol control," he said.
Taylor agreed that the findings "emphasize the importance of healthy diet and healthy weight."
2011年10月8日星期六
Dar Al Shifa Hospital's Urology Department hails success
Dr. Rani El- Akoum, a specialized doctor in Dar Al Shifa Hospital's Urology Department said: "Urology is a surgical specialty, covering the diagnosis and treatment of disorders of the kidneys, ureters, bladder, prostate and reproductive organs. Amongst the diagnoses that our department conducts regularly, kidney stones, urinary incontinence in women as well as prostate cancer are associated amongst urological diseases."
"For example, prostate cancer develops in a gland of the male reproductive system. Although this type of cancer slowly grows, there are a number of reported aggressive cases. The cancer may spread from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly the bones and lymph nodes. Prostate cancer may cause pain, difficulty in urinating, and problems during sexual intercourse. Early prostate cancer usually causes no symptoms, but it is often diagnosed during the work up of an elevated PSA noticed during a routine checkup," added Dr. Akoum.
Millions of women experience involuntary loss of urine called urinary incontinence. Some may lose a few drops of urine while running or coughing and others feel a strong sudden urge to urinate just before losing a large amount of urine. Women experience urinary incontinence twice as often as men. Pregnancy and child birth, menopause and the structure of the female urinary tract account for this difference. There different types of urinary incontinence and these include, stress, urge, overactive bladder, functional incontinence, overflow, mixed and transient.
A kidney stone is a solid mass made up of tiny crystals. One or more stones can be in the kidney or ureter at the same time. Kidney stones can form when urine contains too much of certain substances. These substances can create small crystals that become stones. The biggest risk factor for kidney stones is dehydration. Kidney stones may not produce symptoms until they begin to move down the tubes (ureters) through which urine empties into the bladder. When this happens, the stones can block the flow of urine out of the kidneys. This causes swelling of the kidney or kidneys, causing pain. The pain is usually severe.
Dar Al Shifa Hospital utilizes its state-of-the-art technology, and renowned leading doctors and consultants to deliver optimal levels of healthcare to its patients.
Dar Al Shifa Hospital was established in 1961, and has developed to become one of Kuwait's leading private healthcare providers. The hospital includes a wide range of departments that covers all specialties.
"For example, prostate cancer develops in a gland of the male reproductive system. Although this type of cancer slowly grows, there are a number of reported aggressive cases. The cancer may spread from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly the bones and lymph nodes. Prostate cancer may cause pain, difficulty in urinating, and problems during sexual intercourse. Early prostate cancer usually causes no symptoms, but it is often diagnosed during the work up of an elevated PSA noticed during a routine checkup," added Dr. Akoum.
Millions of women experience involuntary loss of urine called urinary incontinence. Some may lose a few drops of urine while running or coughing and others feel a strong sudden urge to urinate just before losing a large amount of urine. Women experience urinary incontinence twice as often as men. Pregnancy and child birth, menopause and the structure of the female urinary tract account for this difference. There different types of urinary incontinence and these include, stress, urge, overactive bladder, functional incontinence, overflow, mixed and transient.
A kidney stone is a solid mass made up of tiny crystals. One or more stones can be in the kidney or ureter at the same time. Kidney stones can form when urine contains too much of certain substances. These substances can create small crystals that become stones. The biggest risk factor for kidney stones is dehydration. Kidney stones may not produce symptoms until they begin to move down the tubes (ureters) through which urine empties into the bladder. When this happens, the stones can block the flow of urine out of the kidneys. This causes swelling of the kidney or kidneys, causing pain. The pain is usually severe.
Dar Al Shifa Hospital utilizes its state-of-the-art technology, and renowned leading doctors and consultants to deliver optimal levels of healthcare to its patients.
Dar Al Shifa Hospital was established in 1961, and has developed to become one of Kuwait's leading private healthcare providers. The hospital includes a wide range of departments that covers all specialties.
2011年9月28日星期三
Prognosis good for Liberty Elementary student
She was bubbling and laughing and bouncing off the walls one day and the next day she was at the doctor’s office hearing a horrifying diagnosis.
That’s about how fast the events of the last few weeks have happened for Kolbye Kaye Hamilton, 6, of Sallisaw.
“She woke up that morning and said her side hurt. She had very obvious blood in her urine,” Kolbye Kaye’s mother, Debra Hamilton, said of the morning of Sept. 8, the day all this began.
“I took her to see Dr. (Jennifer) Scofous here in Sallisaw. Dr. Scofous sent us to Sparks in Fort Smith for a CT scan. They thought she might be passing a kidney stone and blood clots.
“They sent us home with antibiotics. Several days later she was still hurting and there was still a lot of blood in her urine. We knew something wasn’t right. We got Dr. Scofous to refer us to Children’s Hospital in Tulsa. Our first appointment was on the 15th. They did a scan with dye in it,” Hamilton said.
Within 24 hours the pediatric urologist called them to tell them they needed to get back as soon as possible.
“They called us on Friday and said they had found a large mass on her right kidney,” she said. “That’s when we learned about the nephrectomy, the removal of a kidney.”
Less than a week later, her happy, bubbly daughter went into surgery for more than three hours to remove a kidney that had been diagnosed as a stage II Wilms tumor.
Hamilton said the doctors explained that Wilms tumors typically occur in children under the age of eight years old.
“They explained the tumor is a result of a kidney cell that failed to mature before she was born. After a child is born the cell tries to catch up and instead forms a cancer,” Hamilton said.
Doctors operated on Sept. 21 to remove the cancerous kidney. Pathology reports indicated that the cancer had spread to four of the 11 lymph nodes removed with the kidney.
“They put in a port for chemo,” Hamilton said. “Kolbye Kaye has named it Sally. She’s got a good attitude about it. She knows it’s going to save her life.”
Hamilton said the doctors expected her to remain in intensive care for three to five days, but she did so well she was out of ICU in 24 hours and home on Sept. 25.
“She feels good right now. She’ll be homebound, but if she feels like going to school she will be able to,” Hamilton said.
Kolbye Kaye is in Gloria Neer’s first grade class at Liberty Elementary School in Sallisaw.
The next step for this energetic first grader will be 18-24 weeks of chemotherapy and possibly radiation. Blood work every week will be a necessity.
“She’s got a good attitude now, but she doesn’t know about all the side effects, like losing her hair,” Hamilton said.
She said the prognosis is very good as 90 percent of children with a stage II Wilms tumor survive.
“The next year is going to be hard,” Hamilton said. “Up to six months of chemo and then six months for her immune system to get back to normal.”
Family and friends have set up a number of benefits to help the family with the costs of traveling to the hospital and related expenses.
That’s about how fast the events of the last few weeks have happened for Kolbye Kaye Hamilton, 6, of Sallisaw.
“She woke up that morning and said her side hurt. She had very obvious blood in her urine,” Kolbye Kaye’s mother, Debra Hamilton, said of the morning of Sept. 8, the day all this began.
“I took her to see Dr. (Jennifer) Scofous here in Sallisaw. Dr. Scofous sent us to Sparks in Fort Smith for a CT scan. They thought she might be passing a kidney stone and blood clots.
“They sent us home with antibiotics. Several days later she was still hurting and there was still a lot of blood in her urine. We knew something wasn’t right. We got Dr. Scofous to refer us to Children’s Hospital in Tulsa. Our first appointment was on the 15th. They did a scan with dye in it,” Hamilton said.
Within 24 hours the pediatric urologist called them to tell them they needed to get back as soon as possible.
“They called us on Friday and said they had found a large mass on her right kidney,” she said. “That’s when we learned about the nephrectomy, the removal of a kidney.”
Less than a week later, her happy, bubbly daughter went into surgery for more than three hours to remove a kidney that had been diagnosed as a stage II Wilms tumor.
Hamilton said the doctors explained that Wilms tumors typically occur in children under the age of eight years old.
“They explained the tumor is a result of a kidney cell that failed to mature before she was born. After a child is born the cell tries to catch up and instead forms a cancer,” Hamilton said.
Doctors operated on Sept. 21 to remove the cancerous kidney. Pathology reports indicated that the cancer had spread to four of the 11 lymph nodes removed with the kidney.
“They put in a port for chemo,” Hamilton said. “Kolbye Kaye has named it Sally. She’s got a good attitude about it. She knows it’s going to save her life.”
Hamilton said the doctors expected her to remain in intensive care for three to five days, but she did so well she was out of ICU in 24 hours and home on Sept. 25.
“She feels good right now. She’ll be homebound, but if she feels like going to school she will be able to,” Hamilton said.
Kolbye Kaye is in Gloria Neer’s first grade class at Liberty Elementary School in Sallisaw.
The next step for this energetic first grader will be 18-24 weeks of chemotherapy and possibly radiation. Blood work every week will be a necessity.
“She’s got a good attitude now, but she doesn’t know about all the side effects, like losing her hair,” Hamilton said.
She said the prognosis is very good as 90 percent of children with a stage II Wilms tumor survive.
“The next year is going to be hard,” Hamilton said. “Up to six months of chemo and then six months for her immune system to get back to normal.”
Family and friends have set up a number of benefits to help the family with the costs of traveling to the hospital and related expenses.
2011年6月12日星期日
Sunday Thoughts: Press Conferences
Imagine you’re a new hardware manufacturer and you’re planning on going to E3 next year. Your venture capitalists, private investors and Mafia contacts have given you almost infinite funding for the big show, so you can really start things off with a bang. In fact you want things to go so well you’re going to hold a big press conference and show off just what you can do. How should you go about it?
Well you’re a hardware manufacturer so you probably want to get things off to a good start by showing off your console. First thing’s first, make sure you actually announce what you have is a console. Sure, you might have some really amazing tech that isn’t in the box itself but you really should show some kind of box, sphere, or floating holo-disk.
People like boxes, they can understand a box. It’s reassuring to know there’s something under your TV that’ll hum lightly and let you show off to all your friends. I mean that’s obviously what the box is all about really, showing off. Without that how will they know just how cool or cutting edge you are? By actually playing games on it? Please.
The other upside to showing the box is it lets people work out whether or not it’ll fit into their entertainment centre. They also need to know whether or not it’ll match their front room’s décor, and if it looks cool enough that they can put it on a beautifully lit pedestal in the centre of the room. Remember, it’s all about showing off.
You may have a cool controller, but it's the almost featureless box people want to see.
Next make sure you have an absolutely huge screen at your press conference. People can’t possibly be expected to see anything that’s not displayed on a screen at least fifty feet high. Remember the dimensions of your screen have absolutely no relation to the size of your venue, even if you’re somewhere fairly small the screen still needs to tower and vaguely intimidate those in attendance; if it’s not huge then the press will never learn to fear and respect your gigantic face.
The other reason a giant screen is a necessity is it lets you say things like “…and only our console has the power to make images so mindbogglingly massive.” This is, of course, hugely impressive. Never mind the fact that the consumers who will buy your console don’t actually have screens the size of a small building in their front rooms. It’s not your fault if your the people buying your console don’t have a giant screen to play games on, they just need to know that if they wanted to rent out a theatre and convert the back wall so it was entirely made of screen they could. If they’re not up to that then they’re clearly lazy. At least you tried to show them how games should really be played.
Now, let’s look at the people demonstrating your console. There’s two routes to go here. If you’ve got some kind of motion controller you need to get people who have no sense of shame and are annoying as possible. Make sure you’ve got a script so utterly cringe-worthy that your audience will want to actually hide under their chairs in embarrassment. At least some of your demonstrators should be children, and rather than actually talking about the game they should have some kind of banter that no-one who plays games outside of a press conference has ever partaken in.
On the other hand, if you’re showing off games that use a more traditional controller you’ll want to do things a bit differently. You still need two people on stage, one talking and one playing. The one playing the demo should be utterly stone-faced and clearly concentrating fiercely on not screwing up. At no point should it look like they’re actually having fun, you don’t want to push people’s expectations too high. If they look like they’re focusing so hard that some kind of psychic ability might actually reveal itself, then you’ve got it spot on; looking like they’re trying to pass a kidney stone is probably a little bit too far.
As for the person describing the demo they’ll want to talk over as much of the demo as possible, explaining exactly what’s going on. At no point must your audience be left to figure out what’s happening by actually looking at the screen, or be allowed to let the demo sink in. If that happens they might be able to work out what the game’s really about, rather than what you say it’s about.
If you suspect that even someone talking constantly isn’t going to be enough of a distraction, you’ll need to replace the person playing the demo with a celebrity who looks as awkward as is physically possible. This should distract the press and public from the content of your demo, as they wonder “What on earth is that dude doing on stage?”
Well you’re a hardware manufacturer so you probably want to get things off to a good start by showing off your console. First thing’s first, make sure you actually announce what you have is a console. Sure, you might have some really amazing tech that isn’t in the box itself but you really should show some kind of box, sphere, or floating holo-disk.
People like boxes, they can understand a box. It’s reassuring to know there’s something under your TV that’ll hum lightly and let you show off to all your friends. I mean that’s obviously what the box is all about really, showing off. Without that how will they know just how cool or cutting edge you are? By actually playing games on it? Please.
The other upside to showing the box is it lets people work out whether or not it’ll fit into their entertainment centre. They also need to know whether or not it’ll match their front room’s décor, and if it looks cool enough that they can put it on a beautifully lit pedestal in the centre of the room. Remember, it’s all about showing off.
You may have a cool controller, but it's the almost featureless box people want to see.
Next make sure you have an absolutely huge screen at your press conference. People can’t possibly be expected to see anything that’s not displayed on a screen at least fifty feet high. Remember the dimensions of your screen have absolutely no relation to the size of your venue, even if you’re somewhere fairly small the screen still needs to tower and vaguely intimidate those in attendance; if it’s not huge then the press will never learn to fear and respect your gigantic face.
The other reason a giant screen is a necessity is it lets you say things like “…and only our console has the power to make images so mindbogglingly massive.” This is, of course, hugely impressive. Never mind the fact that the consumers who will buy your console don’t actually have screens the size of a small building in their front rooms. It’s not your fault if your the people buying your console don’t have a giant screen to play games on, they just need to know that if they wanted to rent out a theatre and convert the back wall so it was entirely made of screen they could. If they’re not up to that then they’re clearly lazy. At least you tried to show them how games should really be played.
Now, let’s look at the people demonstrating your console. There’s two routes to go here. If you’ve got some kind of motion controller you need to get people who have no sense of shame and are annoying as possible. Make sure you’ve got a script so utterly cringe-worthy that your audience will want to actually hide under their chairs in embarrassment. At least some of your demonstrators should be children, and rather than actually talking about the game they should have some kind of banter that no-one who plays games outside of a press conference has ever partaken in.
On the other hand, if you’re showing off games that use a more traditional controller you’ll want to do things a bit differently. You still need two people on stage, one talking and one playing. The one playing the demo should be utterly stone-faced and clearly concentrating fiercely on not screwing up. At no point should it look like they’re actually having fun, you don’t want to push people’s expectations too high. If they look like they’re focusing so hard that some kind of psychic ability might actually reveal itself, then you’ve got it spot on; looking like they’re trying to pass a kidney stone is probably a little bit too far.
As for the person describing the demo they’ll want to talk over as much of the demo as possible, explaining exactly what’s going on. At no point must your audience be left to figure out what’s happening by actually looking at the screen, or be allowed to let the demo sink in. If that happens they might be able to work out what the game’s really about, rather than what you say it’s about.
If you suspect that even someone talking constantly isn’t going to be enough of a distraction, you’ll need to replace the person playing the demo with a celebrity who looks as awkward as is physically possible. This should distract the press and public from the content of your demo, as they wonder “What on earth is that dude doing on stage?”
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