Goldsmiths College released a study that showed more dogs will approach someone who’s crying or in distress than someone who is not. This shows that dogs are empathetic and are eager to help comfort humans in pain.

Their sense of smell can do even more than we think; dogs can also detect low blood sugar in their master. They will either alert the person that the sugar has dropped or, if a diabetic attack has already occurred, will bark and bark and bark in an attempt to alert somebody to come help, thus working to save the diabetic’s life.

Some dogs are also able to detect seizures in humans.  Recent research has shown certain dogs are able to warn seizure patients that they’re going to experience an attack, sometimes hours before it happens. Nobody yet knows how they do it, or why only certain dogs can do it. They also can’t be trained to do it, so if you feel you need a seizure-sniffing dog, you need to make sure you have yourself a natural.

Due to their incredible sense of smell, dogs have shown anywhere from 70 to 99% accuracy (depending on the study) when tasked with detecting lung cancer in a nearby patient.

Fibromyalgia is a debilitating disease that can leave its victim in constant pain. Studies have shown that the Xolo dog’s body temperature can be used as a kind of therapeutic heating pad, due to it being a hairless species. Of course, unlike heating pads, a Xolo will bond with you, snuggle with you and keep you warm as long as you need, leading to both external comfort and internal happiness.

In a surprising twist, it might actually be beneficial to get a dog for your baby, even if they’re allergic. Studies have shown that children under the age of one who live with a dog are much less likely to develop the chronic, and annoying, skin condition called eczema.

Dogs can highly make humans more social.  The British Medical Journal has concluded that dogs act as “social catalysts,” who help people get out more, approach others more easily, and overall reduce isolation. This is actually just as important as the basic companionship that dogs provide, as human social support is beneficial to human health and the dog.

Simply by being themselves, dogs have been shown to help reduce PTSD among soldiers. In addition to providing the usual doggie companionship, they have been shown to help sufferers come out of their shells, be less numb and angry, and improve their social life as well.

A dog kissing you obviously feels wonderful, but it might actually have physical benefits too. Studies have shown that saliva, both the human and doggie variety, can help stimulate nerves and muscles, and get oxygen moving again, which is the secret ingredient in helping wounds to heal. In short, “licking your wounds” is not just a cliché after all.

Almost certainly due to the positive vibes and good feelings that dogs bring out of their masters, even in the worst of times, studies have found that older people who own dogs average at least one less doctor appointment per year than those who do not.

Not that they are the cure but preliminary studies by the American Heart Association are revealing that dog owners have less risk of heart disease than those without dogs. The reasons given are the exercise that owners get when walking their dogs, plus the presence of the dog helps the owner deal with stress better. The evidence is mostly anecdotal right now, but dog owners know that it’s all true.

Day-to-day depression, or even more serious chronic depression, is easier to handle with the love of a dog, studies show. Simply by having them around, and knowing that even at our worst, somebody loves us unconditionally and is eager to see us happy again, we’re given a reason to get up and keep going.

Autistic children often find the world very stressful, in ways that the non-autistic can’t understand. Luckily, a dog can. Studies are showing that bringing a therapy dog into an autistic household helps to reduce the amount of cortisol (a stress hormone) in the autistic child’s body. This both calms the child down and shows him that he has a friend.

Bullying has been a huge problem for a long time, and people are finally doing something about it. Dogs, too. Experimental programs have been launched that bring dogs into schools to promote empathy, with the lesson that you shouldn’t treat people badly, because you wouldn’t do it to a dog. Thus far, kids have been able to make the connection, which will hopefully continue to be the case.

Dogs have shown that they can help keep dementia sufferers on schedule, reminding them when its time for medicine and when to see the doctor. In addition, when the owner experiences frustration over the state of their mind, the “dementia dog” is right there to support them, comfort them, and remind them that someone’s always there for them.

AREN’T DOGS AMAZING!!

“Presently the Top 3 Hospitals in America by U.S. News for glioblastoma are:

“Hip replacement surgery is one of the most successful operations in all of medicine. Since the early 1960s, improvements in joint replacement surgical techniques and technology have greatly increased the effectiveness of total hip replacement. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, more than 450,000 total hip replacements are performed each year in the United States.”

Ortho Info (https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/)

“Viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) are a group of illnesses caused by four families of viruses. These include the Ebola and Marburg, Lassa fever, and yellow fever viruses. VHFs have common features: they affect many organs, they damage the blood vessels, and they affect the body’s ability to regulate itself.”

Department of Health

Hemorrhagic fevers are caused by a variety of infections from viral agents that originate in animals and insects, including rodents and mosquitoes, according to the Mayo Clinic. The type of virus determines how the infection spreads, such as tick bites or contact with contaminated rat feces.

Examples of viral hemorrhagic fevers include dengue, yellow fever and ebola, the CDC Special Pathogens Branch states. VHFs are caused by four families of viruses that all rely on specific animal or insect hosts, known as natural reservoirs and vectors, and they only occur in the geographic regions of their host species. While VHFs never originate in humans, some variants can spread from person to person once contracted.

According to WebMD, symptoms of dengue fever include a sudden, high fever, severe headaches, joint and muscle pain, pain behind the eyes, nausea, vomiting, skin rash, and mild bleeding. As of 2014, there is no treatment for dengue fever. However, WebMD recommends taking acetaminophen to reduce pain and fever, drinking plenty of fluids and getting plenty of bed rest.

Dengue fever is the result of the transmission of one of four dengue viruses through mosquito bites, according to WebMD. Most of the infections take place in tropical climates, especially areas around southeast China, the Caribbean and Mexico. Most Americans become infected with dengue fever by travelling to places where the disease is present, and infection can be confirmed with a simple blood test.

The first symptoms appear anywhere between four and six days after contracting the virus and usually last around 10 days. Young children or people that have never contracted the disease usually suffer from milder symptoms. However, people that have a weakened immune system or who have been previously infected are at a greater risk of developing complications, including dengue hemorrhagic fever and failure of the circulatory system. WebMD recommends that people who believe that they are infected with dengue fever should get medical attention, especially if they begin to feel worse after the fever has diminished.

Contact with infected bodily fluids and secretions typically causes transmission of VHFs, according to the CDC Special Pathogens Branch. Occasionally, VHFs spread to geographic regions where they don’t occur naturally after an imported host or infected traveler carries the virus. A direct bite usually causes insect-related infections, but humans can also contract viruses from handling livestock infected by insect bites.

Symptoms of VHFs depend on the disease, but they commonly include high fever, muscle and joint aches, dizziness, shock and fatigue, the Mayo Clinic states. In more severe cases, these viruses cause bleeding from the eyes, mouth or ears and internal hemorrhaging under the skin and inside organs.

Patients with viral hemorrhagic fevers usually receive only supportive therapy; there is no other established cure for viral hemorrhagic fevers. However, ribavirin (Rebetol, Copegus) has been effective in treating some individuals with Lassa fever, and treatment with convalescent-phase plasma has been used with success in a few patients — other experimental antiviral agents have also been tried in a few patients.

Prevention and control of hemorrhagic fevers is difficult; except for yellow fever and Argentine hemorrhagic fever, no vaccines have been made commercially available so that prevention efforts are concentrated on avoiding contacts with the host species, vectors, or humans infected with the viruses.

Marburg Virus Disease History, Symptoms, and Treatment

The Ugandan Ministry of Health reported on Oct. 5, 2014, that a health-care worker died of Marburg virus disease (formerly known as Marburg hemorrhagic fever [Marburg HF]) on Sept. 30, 2014. The source of his exposure is not clear. This is of interest since Marburg virus is a close relative of the Ebola virus, and both produce clinical signs and symptoms that are often indistinguishable.

Viral hemorrhagic fever (VHF) facts*

*Viral hemorrhagic fever facts by Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD

• Viral hemorrhagic fevers are group of illnesses caused by viruses that cause vascular damage that result in symptomatic bleeding (hemorrhage).
• Hemorrhagic fever viruses are mainly zoonotic diseases caused by viruses that usually reside in an animal or arthropod hosts that may serve as vectors.
• Viral hemorrhagic fevers are usually seen associated with only one particular of species and consequently are usually contained in geographically restricted areas; however, if the virus is introduced accidentally to humans it becomes widespread (for example, the current Ebola outbreak).
• Hemorrhagic fever viruses are usually transmitted among animal or arthropod hosts; however, the viruses carried in these animal or arthropods can be transmitted to humans when humans come in contact with the urine, feces, saliva, or other bodily fluids of infected animals or arthropods, including if the animal is killed and eaten. In some instances, once the viruses infect humans, person-to-person transmission can occur when an uninfected person comes in contact with bodily fluids or (with some viruses) a bite by an arthropod vector.
• Symptoms of viral hemorrhagic fever include fatigue, fever, weakness, dizziness, and muscle aches; patients with more severe infections show bleeding under the skin, internal organs, or even from bodily orifices like the mouth, eyes, or ears. Some patients develop severe diarrhea that may also be bloody, and severely ill patients present with shock, delirium, seizures, kidney failure, and coma that often ends in death.
• Patients with viral hemorrhagic fevers usually receive only supportive therapy; there is no other established cure for viral hemorrhagic fevers. However, ribavirin (Rebetol, Copegus) has been effective in treating some individuals with Lassa fever, and treatment with convalescent-phase plasma has been used with success in a few patients — other experimental antiviral agents have also been tried in a few patients.
• Prevention and control of hemorrhagic fevers is difficult; except for yellow fever and Argentine hemorrhagic fever, no vaccines have been made commercially available so that prevention efforts are concentrated on avoiding contacts with the host species, vectors, or humans infected with the viruses.
• Scientists and researchers are addressing the threat of viral hemorrhagic fevers to humans by attempting to develop immunological, molecular, and containment methods to prevent these hemorrhagic fevers.

What are viral hemorrhagic fevers?

Viral hemorrhagic fevers (VHFs) refer to a group of illnesses that are caused by several distinct families of viruses. In general, the term “viral hemorrhagic fever” is used to describe a severe multisystem syndrome (multisystem in that multiple organ systems in the body are affected). Characteristically, the overall vascular system is damaged, and the body’s ability to regulate itself is impaired. These symptoms are often accompanied by hemorrhage (bleeding); however, the bleeding is itself rarely life-threatening. While some types of hemorrhagic fever viruses can cause relatively mild illnesses, many of these viruses cause severe, life-threatening disease.

The Special Pathogens Branch (SPB) primarily works with hemorrhagic fever viruses that are classified as biosafety level four (BSL-4) pathogens. A list of these viruses appears in the SPB disease information index. The Division of Vector-Borne Infectious Diseases, also in the National Center for Infectious Diseases, works with the non-BSL-4 viruses that cause two other hemorrhagic fevers, dengue hemorrhagic fever and yellow fever.

How are hemorrhagic fever viruses grouped?

VHFs are caused by viruses of four distinct families: arenaviruses, filoviruses, bunyaviruses, and flaviviruses. Each of these families share a number of features:

• They are all RNA viruses, and all are covered, or enveloped, in a fatty (lipid) coating.
• Their survival is dependent on an animal or insect host, called the natural reservoir.
• The viruses are geographically restricted to the areas where their host species live.
• Humans are not the natural reservoir for any of these viruses. Humans are infected when they come into contact with infected hosts. However, with some viruses, after the accidental transmission from the host, humans can transmit the virus to one another.
• Human cases or outbreaks of hemorrhagic fevers caused by these viruses occur sporadically and irregularly. The occurrence of outbreaks cannot be easily predicted.
• With a few noteworthy exceptions, there is no cure or established drug treatment for VHFs.

In rare cases, other viral and bacterial infections can cause a hemorrhagic fever; scrub typhus is a good example.

So what is the key to stop this from occurring in your country PREVENTION through infection control.

“Heart disease is very common and serious. It’s the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States. If you have diabetes, you’re twice as likely to have heart disease or a stroke than someone who doesn’t have diabetes—and at a younger age. The longer you have diabetes, the more likely you are to have heart disease.”.

Centers of Disease Control and Prevention – CDC

At least four complex processes, alone or combined, can lead to diabetic heart disease (DHD). They include coronary atherosclerosis; metabolic syndrome; insulin resistance in people who have type 2 diabetes; and the interaction of coronary heart disease (CHD), high blood pressure, and diabetes .

Researchers continue to study these processes because all of the details aren’t yet known.

Coronary Atherosclerosis

Atherosclerosis is a disease in which plaque builds up inside the arteries. The exact cause of atherosclerosis isn’t known. However, studies show that it is a slow, complex disease that may start in childhood. The disease develops faster as you age.

Coronary atherosclerosis may start when certain factors damage the inner layers of the coronary (heart) arteries. These factors include:

• Smoking
• High amounts of certain fats and cholesterol in the blood
• High blood pressure
• High amounts of sugar in the blood due to insulin resistance or diabetes

Plaque may begin to build up where the arteries are damaged. Over time, plaque hardens and narrows the arteries. This reduces the flow of oxygen-rich blood to your heart muscle.

Eventually, an area of plaque can rupture (break open). When this happens, blood cell fragments called platelets (PLATE-lets) stick to the site of the injury. They may clump together to form blood clots.

Blood clots narrow the coronary arteries even more. This limits the flow of oxygen-rich blood to your heart and may worsen angina (chest pain) or cause a heart attack.

Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic syndrome is the name for a group of risk factors that raises your risk of both CHD and type 2 diabetes.

If you have three or more of the five metabolic risk factors, you have metabolic syndrome. The risk factors are:

• A large waistline (a waist measurement of 35 inches or more for women and 40 inches or more for men).
• A high triglyceride (tri-GLIH-seh-ride) level (or you’re on medicine to treat high triglycerides). Triglycerides are a type of fat found in the blood.
• A low HDL cholesterol level (or you’re on medicine to treat low HDL cholesterol). HDL sometimes is called “good” cholesterol. This is because it helps remove cholesterol from your arteries.
• High blood pressure (or you’re on medicine to treat high blood pressure).
• A high fasting blood sugar level (or you’re on medicine to treat high blood sugar).

It’s unclear whether these risk factors have a common cause or are mainly related by their combined effects on the heart.

Obesity seems to set the stage for metabolic syndrome. Obesity can cause harmful changes in body fats and how the body uses insulin.

Chronic (ongoing) inflammation also may occur in people who have metabolic syndrome. Inflammation is the body’s response to illness or injury. It may raise your risk of CHD and heart attack. Inflammation also may contribute to or worsen metabolic syndrome.

Research is ongoing to learn more about metabolic syndrome and how metabolic risk factors interact.

Insulin Resistance in People Who Have Type 2 Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes usually begins with insulin resistance. Insulin resistance means that the body can’t properly use the insulin it makes.

People who have type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance have higher levels of substances in the blood that cause blood clots. Blood clots can block the coronary arteries and cause a heart attack or even death.

The Interaction of Coronary Heart Disease, High Blood Pressure, and Diabetes

Each of these risk factors alone can damage the heart. CHD reduces the flow of oxygen-rich blood to your heart muscle. High blood pressure and diabetes may cause harmful changes in the structure and function of the heart.

Having CHD, high blood pressure, and diabetes is even more harmful to the heart. Together, these conditions can severely damage the heart muscle. As a result, the heart has to work harder than normal. Over time, the heart weakens and isn’t able to pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs. This condition is called heart failure.

As the heart weakens, the body may release proteins and other substances into the blood. These proteins and substances also can harm the heart and worsen heart failure.

“For people with advanced chronic kidney failure, the treatment options are dialysis or a transplant. But there are not enough donor organs to meet the need. In the United States, nearly one million people have end-stage kidney disease, and there are roughly 102,000 people on the waiting list for a transplant.”.

National Kidney Foundation.

When people languish on a wait-list for a kidney transplant, they may start to consider a desperate measure: Traveling to a country where they can buy a donor kidney on the black market.

But beyond the legal and ethical pitfalls, experts say, the health risks are not worth it.

Most countries ban the practice, sometimes called “transplant tourism,” and it has been widely condemned on ethical grounds. Now a new study highlights another issue: People who buy a donor kidney simply do not fare as well.

Researchers in Bahrain found that people who traveled abroad to buy a kidney — to countries like the Philippines, India, Pakistan, China and Iran — sometimes developed serious infections.

Those infections included the liver diseases hepatitis B and C, as well as cytomegalovirus, which can be life-threatening to transplant recipients, the investigators said.

Also, people who bought donor kidneys also faced higher rates of surgical complications and organ rejection, versus those who received a legal transplant in their home country.

Dr. Amgad El Agroudy, of Arabian Gulf University, was to present the findings Friday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN), in San Diego.

It’s not clear how common it is for U.S. patients to take a chance on traveling abroad to buy a black-market kidney, according to Dr. Gabriel Danovitch, director of kidney transplantation at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“We really have no way of knowing what the numbers are,” said Danovitch, who was not involved in the study.

“But,” he added, “my sense is that the numbers are fairly small, as the dangers of transplant tourism are becoming more and more clear.”

Why is it a risky proposition? According to Danovitch, there are a few broad reasons: The paid organ donors may not be properly screened, and the recipients may not be good candidates for a transplant, to name two.

“In a paid system, the prime focus is on making money,” Danovitch said. “Centers that are willing to do these don’t really care what happens to the donors or recipients after the transplant.”

For people with advanced chronic kidney failure, the treatment options are dialysis or a transplant. But there are not enough donor organs to meet the need. In the United States, nearly one million people have end-stage kidney disease, and there are roughly 102,000 people on the waiting list for a transplant, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

Kidney transplants can come from a living or deceased donor, but living-donor transplants are more likely to be successful, according to U.S. health officials.

It doesn’t take long to get tired of spending 12 hours a week on hemodialysis, or even more time on peritoneal dialysis (PD) —not to mention complications like line infections and access problems. But a new, healthy kidney would put an end to all that. A transplant sounds like it would be well worth the risk of surgery and the trouble of taking anti-rejection medicines, and Medicare statistics show that it actually costs less in the long run than continued dialysis. When can you check into the hospital, you ask?

Unfortunately over 80,000 people in the United States are already waiting for a new kidney and in 2008 only 16,517 got one. Maybe you don’t have a compatible donor in your family, or you’ve been told that you are “not a transplant candidate” for one of several reasons. You’re a resourceful person who knows that persistence pays off, and you start looking for ways to shorten the wait or get around the rules that say you don’t qualify for a transplant. Kidneys from living donors are almost always preferable to those from recently deceased donors. If you don’t have a friend or family member willing to donate, what about getting one where the laws against buying an organ are less strictly enforced? Medical tourism is booming these days. Maybe you know somebody who had surgery overseas, either to avoid a waiting list or just because the price is lower there. The same international pharmaceutical countries produce medicines for everybody these days, so how big a difference can there be? Nephrologists in the US say it’s a common story: a dialysis patient misses treatments or appointments for a few days or several weeks, then comes to their office asking for refills on anti-rejection medicines…with pill bottles labeled in Urdu, Chinese or Farsi as well as in English. Did they get a good deal or what?  Unfortunately this may not be the bargain people hoped for.

At UCLA Jagbir Gill, MD, and associates studied 33 patients who had received transplants overseas, and found they had much worse results than patients who received transplants in this country. Screening of paid kidney donors was less thorough, with problems like hepatitis overlooked. Early organ rejection was twice as common and infections frequent; Dr. Gill recalls patients who went “directly from the airport to the emergency room” due to severe infections or transplant failure.

In a similar study in Canada, where waiting periods for transplants are even longer, experiences were similar. Jeffrey Zaltzman, MD, reports infections common in the countries where the transplant was done were a big problem in medical tourists. One 78-year-old gentleman returned from Pakistan with a surgical wound that reopened spontaneously; he died a few weeks later of cardiovascular problems that might have disqualified him for a transplant at home. The cost to paid organ donors can be even greater. Poor people who sell a kidney, sometimes for as little as $800 according to the World Health Organization, face health problems like hypertension and worsening of their own kidney functions—provided, of course, that their surgery goes well. Since most live in countries where even blood pressure checks are rare, complications that develop after they leave the hospital may go undetected until it is too late for the patient. Donors in the United States frequently can have kidneys removed with very small incisions. Third World donors, however, generally end up with wounds up to 14 inches long that may take months to heal, making them unable to do the manual labor most depend on. Chronic pain and disability are common, points out Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who has extensively studied and reported on transplant practices from Brazil to China. And reports of organs coming from executed prisoners in China are even more worrisome. Details of where donors come from and which hospitals and doctors will do the surgery are rarely available to “clients” and their families ahead of time. While paying a donor for an organ is illegal everywhere except Iran, “international transplant coordinators” have no laws banning what they do—bringing clients together with hospitals in other countries. And as the WHO’s Dr. Luc Noel points out, “None of the brokers ever mention the costs—long-term health issues, chronic pain, inability to perform manual labor—that are borne by these poor organ vendors.”

SO THINK TWICE BEFORE FALLING FOR TRANSPLANT TOURISM. HIGH PROBABILITY YOU WON’T LIKE THE RESULTS!