Artemisinin -based Combination

Malaria Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy Overview Successful malaria control depends greatly on treatment with efficacious anti-malarial drugs. Countries have a National Malaria Treatment Policy, that specifies drugs for treatment of both uncomplicated and severe malaria, malaria in pregnancy and what to do if first line treatment fails. As drug resistance develops to existing drugs, new ones need to be introduced. For plasmodium falciparum use of two or more drugs with different modes of action in combination is now recommended to provide adequate cure rate and delay development of resistance. Currently artemisinin-based combination therapy (ACT) is recommended for the treatment of P. falciparum malaria. Fast acting artemisinin-based compounds are combined with a drug from a different class. Companion drugs include lumefantrine, mefloquine, amodiaquine, sulfadoxine/pyrimethamine, piperaquine and chlorproguanil/dapsone. Artemisinin derivatives include dihydroartemisinin, artesunate and artemether. Implementation of the recommendation to use ACTs is limited by the small number of available and affordable co-formulated anti-malarial drugs, but most countries are now starting to implement this regimen. A co-formulated drug is one, in which two different drugs are combined in one tablet; this is important to ensure both drugs are used. Artemether/lumefantrine was the first fixed-dose artemisinin-based combination therapy recommended and pre-qualified by WHO for the treatment of uncomplicated malaria caused by P. falciparum. It has been shown to be effective both in sub- Saharan Africa and in areas with multi-drug resistant P. falciparum in Southeast Asia. It is currently recommended as first-line treatment for uncomplicated malaria in several countries. However, its complex treatment regimen of two doses daily for three days could affect adherence. A fixed-dose combination of amodiaquine-artesunate was launched in February 2007. The benefits of ACTs are their high efficacy, fast action and the reduced likelihood of resistance developing. In order to make best use of them, it is critical to address issues of delivery, access and cost. Chloroquine is still the first line treatment for P.vivax and P. ovale, while primaquine can be used to treat liver stage parasites of P.vivax, in areas of low transmission if adherence is guaranteed.

Do you know lightning can trigger migraine

New research demonstrates that lightning might be a possible trigger for migraines and severe headaches. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati found a 31 percent increased risk of headache and a 28 percent increased risk of migraine among individuals who suffer from chronic headaches on days lighting struck within 25 miles of their homes. This study was the first to show a potential link between lightning and headaches. Previous studies have reported conflicting links between headaches and other weather- related changes such as humidity and barometric pressure. The researchers recruited participants for the study from sites in Ohio and Missouri and asked them to record their headache activity in a daily journal for three to six months. Meanwhile, the researchers noted the location of lightning strikes within 25 miles of participants’ homes and recorded the magnitude and polarity of lightning current. Researcher Vincent Martin, M.D. suggested that the headaches could be triggered by electromagnetic waves emitted from lighting or the increases in ozone and other air pollution caused by the electrical discharge, as well as the release of fungal spores associated with lightning.

THE THREE MOST DANGEROUS POISONS WE EATS EVERYDAY.

The three most dangerous poisons to never eat, drink or inject again

You didn't know you were eating, drinking and injecting poisons? Nobody does it on purpose, of course, but these poisons are intentionally added to foods, water and medicines to make sure you ingest them unintentionally.
Here's some of what you'll learn in this episode of "Awakenings."

• Why powerful corporations are spending millions of dollars to make sure you keep eating, drinking and injecting poisons.

• Poison #1: GMOs. Why they aren't labeled, why they're poison, and how scientists are suppressed.

How to avoid GMOs at home and at restaurants.

• Poison #2: Fluoride with heavy metals in the public water supply. Why "fluoride" contains far more toxins than just fluoride itself.

• The truth about how fluoride consumption is linked to lowered IQs in children.

• Poison #3: Mercury in flu shots. Why mercury is a potent neurotoxin that also causes kidney damage.

• Why mercury in flu shots is far more dangerous than mercury in fish because dietary mercury is not easily absorbed, while injected mercury goes directly into tissue and blood.

Woman lost half her body weight without diet.

 Forget fat diets... and don't leap into unhealthy shortcuts like bariatric surgery. The new weight loss paradigm is based on making informed, daily choices about healthy eating. Using this simple system of avoiding liquid sugars and eating whole foods like quinoa and fresh vegetables, a Texas woman named Teena Henson achieved extraordinary results without dieting. Over two years, she accomplished a 160-pound drop in body weight and restored herself to a remarkable state of fitness and health -- all without resorting to fat diets, weight loss pills or risky surgery. 

How did she do it? Her success story baffles those steeped in the American culture of quick fixes and fashionable shortcuts. Henson simply did something that's increasingly rare in modern society: she took responsibility for her own health and stopped blaming everyone else for her obesity. By understanding that she was responsible for her own health -- not her doctor and not a drug company.   

  Teena Henson was able to start making deliberate, daily choices that moved her in the direction of weight loss success.

Simple solutions elude a shortcut culture

What's so remarkable about this story is not merely the fact that Henson dropped half her body weight through simple changes in diet and exercise. What's remarkable is that such a success story is so rare: in a culture of dietary shortcuts, a woman who decides to make healthier lifestyle choices stands out as truly extraordinary.

Most approaches to dieting, of course, rely on dubious diet drugs or diet supplement pills that accomplish nothing. Diet fads restrict people to extreme, single-food regimens like eating only grapefruit or cabbage -- a sure way to develop nutritional deficiencies. And extreme dieting surgeries rely on the removal of significant portions of healthy organs as we see in bariatric surgery.

While pills, fad diets and surgeries are increasingly popular, they are rarely effective. Henson's true achievement was in recognizing that up front. As reported by KDVR.com(1):

In the past, Henson would put herself on diets to make everyone happy, but they wouldn't last long. There was an endless array of rules, from eating nothing but grapefruits to nothing but carbs, until she realized that "diets" just weren't for her.

"For me, 'diet' is a four-letter word for failure," she said.

What she was looking for was a lifestyle change. And not because her friends and family wanted it for her, but because she wanted it for herself.

"Diet" is temporary, but lifestyle changes are forever

The problem with all weight loss diets is that they prescribe temporary behavior, not lasting solutions. Any diet that says, "Here, eat in this radical way for a few weeks" is doomed to failure from the start.

Lasting lifestyle changes require abandoning processed foods and eating fresh, whole foods combined with regular exercise (like walking). This simple yet powerful principle, however, continues to elude desperate dieters who misunderstand the whole point: it's not about extreme short-term solutions to your weight problem; it's about consistent, long-term changes to your daily habits that produce long-term results.

This is why I've always had a problem with Weight Watchers, which licenses its name to a whole series of Weight Watchers processed foods such as chocolate cake or brownies. The very idea of a Weight Watchers chocolate cake is contradictory: if you're hoping to eat in a healthy way, you shouldn't be eating chocolate cake at all, regardless of how many calories are in a serving.

Although I'm sure there are exceptions to this observation, Weight Watchers looks more to me like a cover story for people who want to pretend they're making healthier food choices. If Weight Watchers branding was really based on sound nutritional principles, the entire fresh produce section of any grocery store should be labeled "Weight Watchers," and the name should never appear on processed, manufactured foods like chocolate cakes or brownies.

Also: just because something is named "diet" doesn't mean you will lose weight by consuming it. Diet sodas, for example, have been proven over and over again to accomplish no lasting weight loss whatsoever.

The rare trait of personal fortitude

When I was growing up, I remember being awarded Presidential Physical Fitness awards in grade school for meeting basic performance standards in pull-ups, sit-ups and running. The awards referred to children being of "sound body and sound mind."

Today, the medical establishment teaches us that children of sound mind are achieved through mind-altering psychiatric drugs like Ritalin or Adderall. A sound body, we are told by surgeons, is achieved through cosmetic surgery or partial stomach removal. This is true even in children, as bariatric surgery is now being perform on children as young as two. Somehow, the idea that we should control what our children eat is an alien idea across our culture, where children are taught victimization rather than personal fortitude.

The idea that a parent could raise an extremely obese child and have no idea why they are obese has always bewildered me. I'm pretty sure that children can't go out and buy junk food on their credit cards. Virtually their entire diet is controlled by what their parents buy for them to eat. As such, an obese child is a clear sign of an ill-informed parent who somehow hasn't come to grasp any connection between the food they buy and the body weight of their child. (Many parents have also forgotten how to say "No!" to their own children, failing to set healthy boundaries on food and soda consumption.)

What we need to be teaching our children is the simple but powerful idea that you are what you eat. If you eat junk, your body will express junk. If you eat healthful foods, your body will express good health. If you eat a cancer-causing diet, your body will express cancer, and if you eat an anti-cancer diet, your body will prevent cancer.

These ideas should not be revolutionary; they should be common sense. Yet in a modern society that has grown bizarrely detached from food and health, these concepts seem to be strangely rare.

Thank goodness there are still women like Teena Henson who haven't forgotten the simple rules forweight loss success: Don't fall for fad diets, skip the diet pills, avoid dangerous surgery and earn your weight loss through consistent behavioral changes designed to achieve your long-term goals.

Sources for this story include:
http://kdvr.com/2014/04/21/texas-woman-ditch...