These are a few excerpts from reports and assignments I have been submitting in school. I'll update my diary series soon, so hold on to this for a while. Maybe it'll be interesting.
It has been a stressful year for healthcare workers and all in that line of work worldwide. The global health crisis has put everyone in a state of urgency to provide a cure and protect the lives of individuals. Notwithstanding, there are still other deadly diseases lurking around and causing deaths worldwide. Fortunately, scientists are still working round the clock to produce solutions to illnesses plaguing the people of the world. And one of these breakthroughs is the development of a blood test that can measure the amount of fat ingested in a meal.
A team of researchers at the McMaster University have developed a test that can accurately measure the amount of fat consumed by an individual in a meal or diet. The test was confirmed to be reliable, and will provide a great deal of assistance in guiding public health decisions and recommendations on healthy eating. This issue of reliable guidelines for eating is one that has plagued the minds of nutritional epidemiologists because before now, guidelines were based on the consumption records of study participants, which were prone to human error and false records.
The results of the study were published in several scientific journals, websites, and magazines, all to an excited community. How the rest works is that it detects a special fatty acid: the Non-Esterified Fatty Acids (NEFAs) which is a type of free fatty acid that circulated in the blood stream. The measurement can be carried out by taking small volumes of blood samples from the individual to be tested. Professor Philip McKibbin from the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at McMasters was the lead for this study.
As stated earlier, to create reliable nutritional guidelines, cats from human reports are often compromised and cannot be used and he understands that. Professor McKibbin also mentioned that as the food people eat is highly complex and difficult to measure when relying on human memory or self-reporting, there was a need for the development of an accurate test. The study was a combination of research projects conducted by McKibbin with Sonia Anand in the Department of Medicine and Stuart Phillips in the Department of Kinesiology. This research was a very extensive one, and the process of identifying the NEFA factor as the basis for a test was based on the study of pregnant women in their second trimester.
McKibbin states that armed with the information of this test, nutritionists can recommend food and diets that can have a positive or negative impact on the lives of pregnant women and their unborn children.
HEAD AND NECK CANCER
Head and Neck Cancer are another one of the frightening diseases that claim over 300 thousand lives yearly. This type of cancer mostly occurs in the mouth and throat, and effective, timely radiotherapy and the services of a qualified oncologist might be the difference between life and death. More than 65 thousand Americans are diagnosed with head and neck cancer every year, with 15 thousand dying yearly. It borders heavily on the study of the head, mouth, and neck.
One of the reasons why the disease still claims such a high death toll is the lack of post-operation radiotherapy. Post-operation radiotherapy or PORT is supposed to be commenced as soon as operations to remove the cancerous tumors are carried out. When it is overlooked, there is the possibility of the regeneration of the tumor, which can prove fatal as not all patients may survive undergoing such an invasive procedure again. And again, it is unfortunate that patients are not made to understand the importance of initiative radiotherapy. When they do, they might have to overcome barriers like lack of insurance, inability to afford therapy, and so on.
Fortunately, a team of researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina has come up with a solution to the problem. They are calling it the nomogram, and it functions to identify treatment delays in high-risk patients based on individual risk factors. The team was led by an assistant professor in the Department of Head and Neck surgery named Dr. Evan Graboyes, who is also a member of the cancer control program at the Hollings Cancer Center. The nomograms are websites and rely on statistical and mathematical information, in which the data may be known to both clinician and patient. They are hopeful that the use of the tool will help reduce the number of deaths recorded due to the illness.
Also, alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking have been identified as the leading causes of this cancer, with 75% of annual cases attributed to the duo. Drugs and treatments designed to cure or at least alleviate the disease are being developed, but the high cost of treatment and the failure of late-stage clinical trials continue to pose major setbacks for the global market. The market formed upon finding treatment and remedies for the situation continues to grow annually, however, and it is hoped that with a breakthrough and with the aid of the nomograms, they can provide help for patients suffering from cancer.
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Hope you enjoyed the read? If it wasn't too boring? I wrote it during the lockdown, so please excuse the pandemic-lockdown themes.
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