Knowledge Update

​Toronto, Nov 16 (IANS) Exercise may help improve gait, balance and reduce risks of falls in individuals living with Parkinson's disease, researchers say.

Parkinson's Disease -- a neurodegenerative disease that impacts movement, often including tremors -- affects nearly seven to 10 million persons around the world, according to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation. 

Despite the progressive nature of the disease, people living with Parkinson's disease can expect to improve their physical condition by being more physically active, the researchers said.

"Exercise should be a life-long commitment to avoid physical and cognitive decline, and our research shows that this is also true for individuals with Parkinson's disease," said Christian Duval, Professor at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal in Canada. 

The study found that exercise in Parkinson's disease patients majorly benefitted physical capacities -- strength, flexibility --, physical and cognitive functional capacities -- gait, mobility, cognitive functions.

The physical activity was also effective for limb strength, endurance, flexibility or range of motion, motor control, and metabolic function in patients with Parkinson's disease. 

Exercise showed nearly 67 per cent improvement in upper limb strength, the researchers explained. 

However, physical activity seems less efficient at improving clinical symptoms of Parkinson's disease -- rigidity, tremor, posture alterations -- and psychosocial aspects of life -- quality of life and health management --, with only 50 per cent or less of results reporting positive effects. 

The impact of physical activity on cognitive functions and depression also appeared weaker, the researchers reported the in the paper published in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease. 

​New York, Nov 16 (IANS) Adverse childhood experiences such as abuse or neglect, dysfunctional homes or low socio-economic status may be associated with a risk of poor blood pressure regulation, a study has found.

The study showed that children who experienced such adverse environments in early life were far more likely to have higher blood pressure at night as well as blood pressure variability over 24 hours.

In addition they are also prone to rapid onset of hypertension -- risk factor for cardiovascular disease -- at an earlier age.

"Adverse environments in early life have been consistently associated with the increased risk of hypertension in later life," said lead author Shaoyong Su, Associate Professor at the Augusta University in Georgia, US. 

Blood pressure variability has been linked to a number of problems in adults, including decreased brain function in older adults, as well as increased risk of stroke and poorer post-stroke recovery. Likewise, early-onset hypertension and prehypertension have been linked to adverse preclinical cardiovascular disease, including left ventricular hypertrophy and evidence of increased arterial stiffness.

For the study, the team conducted periodic around-the-clock blood pressure monitoring to capture day and nighttime pressure readings in 373 participants between the ages of seven and 38 during a 23-year period. 

Those who reported childhood adversity were 17 per cent more likely to have blood pressure higher than the clinical definition of hypertension during the daytime.

Most physicians focus on average blood pressure readings, but the new findings suggest that they should also ask younger patients about childhood adversity and watch for high blood pressure variability, Su noted.

The research was presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2016 in Louisana, US.

​Washington, Nov 16 (IANS) To help learn more about the primitive building blocks of the solar system and answer questions about Earths neighbours like the moon and Mars, three federal entities in the US, including NASA, are reaffirming their commitment to search for Antarctic meteorites.

NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Smithsonian Institution (SI) recently renewed their agreement to search for, collect and curate Antarctic meteorites in a partnership known as ANSMET -- the Antarctic Search for Meteorites Program, the US space agency said in a statement on Tuesday.

The signing of this new joint agreement advances the programme for an additional decade, replacing an earlier agreement signed in 1980.

"Antarctic meteorites are posing new questions about the formation and early history of our solar system. Some of these questions are spurring new exploration of the solar system by NASA missions," Smithsonian meteorite scientist Tim McCoy said.

Since the US began searching for meteorites in Antarctica in 1976, the ANSMET programme has collected more than 23,000 specimens, dramatically increasing the number of samples available for study from Earth's moon, Mars and asteroids. 

Among them are the first meteorites discovered to come from the moon and Mars, and the well-known ALH 84001 Martian meteorite, which helped renew interest in Mars exploration in the 1990s.

Meteorites are natural objects that fall to Earth from space and survive intact so they can be collected on the ground, or -- in this case -- on ice. 

Antarctica provides a unique environment for the collection of meteorites, because the cold desert climate preserves meteorites for long periods of time, NASA said. 

Beijing, Nov 15 (IANS) China's leading locomotive maker, CRRC Zhuzhou Institute Co Ltd, has made the country's first bulk export of eight-inch chips to India, the company said on Tuesday.

New York, Nov 15 (IANS) Oil prices extended last week's declines on Monday, dragged down by worries about oversupply as Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) saw record crude production last month.

New Delhi, Nov 15 (IANS) In a boost to Prime Minister Narendra Modis 'Make in India' initiative, automaker Ford has decided to export to the US its Ecosport SUVs manufactured at its plantsin Chennai.

​Tokyo, Nov 15 (IANS) Japanese multinational conglomerate company Hitachi Ltd. on Tuesday said it has developed a camera technology that can capture video images without using a lens, the first of this kind in Japan. "This camera technology makes it possible to make a camera lighter and thinner since a lens is unnecessary," Xinhua news agency cited the Tokyo-based company as saying. The new technology also "allow the camera to be more freely mounted in devices such as mobile devices and robots at arbitrary positions without imposing design restraints", said the company. The technology can adjust focus after image capture by using a film imprinted with a concentric-circle pattern instead of a lens, said Hitachi, aiming to commercialise it around 2018. "Moreover, since it acquires depth information in addition to planar information, it is possible to reproduce an image at an arbitrary point of focus even after the image has been captured," it said. Focus can be adjusted anytime to objects requiring attention, so Hitachi is aiming to utilise this technology in a broad range of applications such as work support, automated driving, and human-behaviour analysis with mobile devices, vehicles and robots. The company's consolidated revenues for fiscal 2015 (April 1, 2015-March 31, 2016) totalled 10,034.3 billion yen ($88.8 billion).

​New York, Nov 13 (IANS) Infants and new born kids, if seated in cars for more than 30 minutes, may be at a risk of suffocation, suggests a study published in the Daily Mail. According to the study, very young babies whose neck muscles are not strong enough to stop their heads flopping forward could stop breathing. This increases the risk they will be unable to breathe -- with potentially fatal results. "There should be separate advice for very young babies. If you can avoid a journey, it's probably better to do so, restricted to no more than half an hour or so. But try to avoid unnecessary car journeys with young babies," said Peter Fleming, Paediatrician at the Bristol University. Research carried out by the researchers used a laboratory in a laboratory to replicate the effects of sleeping in a car seat during a car journey at 30mph. After half an hour in the seat, the amounts of oxygen in the blood of babies under two months old were found to have dropped 'significantly' while their heart rates increased. The authors said their findings still mean babies should travel in a properly secured child seat during car journeys -- as is required by law. But they advise that an adult should sit next to the baby to make sure the infant is breathing properly. "There have been reports of deaths of infants who have been left in a sitting position, including in car seats -- both on journeys, and when parents have used it as an alternative to a pushchair or cot for the infant to sleep in," Fleming added. Car seat makers should provide consistent information to parents to warn them of the dangers of long car journeys with very young babies, the study suggests.

New York, Nov 14 (IANS) Following a healthy lifestyle can cut in half the probability of a heart attack or similar events even among those at high genetic risk, say researchers, including one of Indian-origin. "The basic message of our study is that DNA is not destiny," said study senior author Sekar Kathiresan, Director, Center for Human Genetic Research at Massachusetts General Hospital in the US. The study published in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests that lifestyle factors -- not smoking, avoiding excess weight and getting regular exercise -- significantly alter the risk of coronary events. "Some people may feel they cannot escape a genetically determined risk for heart attack, but our findings indicate that following a healthy lifestyle can powerfully reduce genetic risk," Kathiresan, who is also Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, said. "Many individuals - both physicians and members of the general public -- have looked on genetic risk as unavoidable, but for heart attack that does not appear to be the case," Kathiresan added. The researchers analysed genetic and clinical data from more than 55,000 participants in four large-scale studies. Each participant in the analysis was assigned a genetic risk score, based on whether they carried any of 50 gene variants that previous studies associated with elevated heart attack risk. Based on data gathered when participants entered each study, the investigators used four lifestyle factors -- no current smoking; lack of obesity, defined as a body mass index less than 30; physical exercise at least once a week, and a healthy dietary pattern -- to determine a lifestyle score, whether participants had a favourable (three or four healthy factors), intermediate (two factors) or unfavourable (one or no healthy factors) lifestyle. The researchers found that a higher genetic risk score significantly increased the incidence of coronary events -- as much as 90 per cent in those at highest risk. Each healthy lifestyle factor reduced risk, and the unfavourable lifestyle group also had higher levels of hypertension, diabetes and other known risk factors upon entering the studies, the study found.

​New York, Nov 15 (IANS) Insomnia may raise your risks of an irregular and often rapid heartbeat, known as atrial fibrillation or arrhythmia, that can further increase your risk of stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications, researchers have found.

Insomnia is having trouble falling asleep, not getting enough sleep, or having poor sleep.

Poor sleep is also known to increase the risk for high blood pressure, obesity and stroke -- key heart disease risk factors, said researchers from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, US.

The results showed that people diagnosed with insomnia had a 29 per cent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to those without insomnia.

People who reported frequent night-time awakening -- which puts extra stress on the heart's chambers -- had about a 26 per cent higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation compared to those who did not wake up a lot.

Having less rapid-eye movement (REM) sleep than other sleep phases during the night is also linked to higher chances of developing atrial fibrillation.

"By examining the actual characteristics of sleep, such as how much REM sleep you get, it points us toward a more plausible mechanism. There could be something particular about how sleep impacts the autonomic nervous system," said lead study author Matt Christensen, a medical student at the University of Michigan.

The autonomic nervous system plays a major role in controlling heart rate and blood pressure, Christensen added.

Getting enough physical activity, avoiding too much caffeine can enhance sleep quality and may also help prevent arrhythmia, the researchers suggested.

The preliminary research was presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2016 in Louisiana, recently.