Scientific study of the efficacy of a new treatment against breathing pauses during sleep provides encouraging results

The Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic, University Medical Center Mannheim (UMM) is involved in the introduction of a new system that could in future help snorers with apnea (obstructive sleep apnea, OSA) to a more restful sleep. This is a fully implantable pacemaker system which ensures by mild stimulation of the muscles of the upper airway that the patient is breathing evenly.

If the nightly snoring is accompanied by regular apnea, which is no longer just an issue between two people who share the nightly camp together, but then it comes to the health of the person concerned. Patients with obstructive sleep apnea wrestle overnight constantly for breath. The cause is the relaxation of the muscles, which causes the tongue falls into the throat during sleep and thereby narrows the airways or even closes.

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Many people complain of poor sleep during a full moon. A research group of the University of Basel and the University Psychiatric Clinics Basel has looked into this myth and has found that there is a relationship between lunar phases and sleep patterns can prove scientifically. The research results were published in the journal "Current Biology".

The group led by Prof. Christian Cajochen analyzed in the sleep lab sleep of over 30 subjects of different ages. While they slept, the researchers measured the brain waves, eye movements and hormone levels in the various stages of sleep. It turned out that our internal clock still responds to the rhythm of the moon.

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New Guideline "Chronic constipation"

About 10 15 to percent of German adults suffer from chronic constipation. Women in particular struggle with bloating, bloating and disturbed defecation. The German Society of Digestive and Metabolic Diseases (DGVS) has now been published in cooperation with the German Society of Neurosurgery and Motility (DGNM) a guideline for chronic constipation. For an effective treatment, the experts recommend the use of a phasing-in mechanism: from high-fiber diet is sufficient the treatment plan on the various medicines to Operation.

"The recommendation for surgery is of course the absolute exception," said Guidelines Co-ordinator Dr. med. Viola Andresen, senior physician at the Medical Clinic at the Jewish Hospital, Hamburg. A removal of the colon or the use of an intestinal pacemaker would - if at all - only a few patients in question under the most severe form of constipation, a so-called intestinal paralysis, suffer and which helps no other therapy.

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Seasoning against hepatitis C

The spice turmeric from turmeric is an integral part of Indian cuisine - probably because people have known about its digestive effects for centuries. The color curcumin, which gives curry and co its bright yellow color, also has a cancer-inhibiting effect. Scientists at TWINCORE in Hanover have now proven that curcumin is also effective against hepatitis C viruses (HCV): the yellow dye prevents the viruses from penetrating the liver cells.

Around 130 million people around the world are considered to be HCV infected - around half a million people in Germany live with the virus. "The hepatitis C virus specializes in liver cells and a chronic liver infection with HCV is now the most common cause of liver transplants," explains PD Dr. Eike Steinmann, scientist at the Institute for Experimental Virology. The time after the transplant is particularly problematic, because the transplanted livers are quickly infected again with HCV through virus reservoirs in the body and destroyed by the virus. "Preventing this reinfection and thus protecting the new organ from infection is a major clinical challenge," says Eike Steinmann.

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Scientists from the German Cancer Research Center and the Epidemiological Cancer Registry Saarland investigated in a large study of the relationship between a lack of vitamin D and mortality. Study participants with low vitamin D levels often died from respiratory diseases, cardiovascular diseases and cancer, their total mortality was increased. The result underlines that the effectiveness of a preventive use of vitamin D supplements should be carefully considered.

Vitamin D deficiency has long been known as a risk factor for osteoporosis. More recent studies have suggested that vitamin D might influence other chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and infections due to its hormonal effects. If this were true, insufficient vitamin D supply would also have an effect point to the mortality of the population.

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The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria can be accelerated by conventional antibiotic therapies. This is the result of Kiel and British researchers come in late April published study.

Antibiotic resistance occur with increasing frequency in various pathogens. They represent an enormous threat to the population, because the resistant bacteria can hardly be controlled. How can this problem get a grip? This question are scientists from the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (CAU) in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Exeter, England, investigated. As 23. March published in the journal PLoS Biology, are the results obtained one of the most common treatment strategies in question: the combination therapy.

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Long-term survey shows headaches take in Germany not to tend

Head and facial pain at rest in Germany is a serious health problem. 54 million German give headaches to the health problem in their lifetime. Extrapolations go in Germany daily from 17.000 sick leave days by headaches from. This resulted in 2005 to indirect costs of 2,3 billion euros. In Germany, pain medications are taken in more than three billion individual doses per year, of which approximately 85 percent due to headache.

"Stress is one of the most common triggers for headaches. Increasingly, it is discussed whether we make our way of life, the constant availability of each individual for personal and professional concerns and the many local tremendous intensification of work sick and lead to more headaches, "says associate professor Dr. Stefanie Förderreuther, neurologist and General Secretary of the German Migraine - and headache society (DMKG). A long-term survey of the company Boehringer, whose results were evaluated in cooperation with the DMKG and now published in the Journal of Headache and Pain, shows that headache in Germany tend not increase. Likewise, the survey found that people who live in cities with more than 50.000 inhabitants, statistically slightly more often from headaches suffer as people who live in the countryside.

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Antibiotic resistance and social taboo as opponents of effective therapies

about 340 million new cases are acquired by sexually transmitted diseases annually worldwide, being most affected men and women between 15 and 49 years. While Übersexualisierung society progresses in everyday life, at the same time also increases the taboo of STDs. Prevention campaigns - similar to the AIDS awareness since 1987 - are complicated because there are many different pathogens. A new problem is posed now represents rising antimicrobial resistance, which are observed in bacterially induced diseases. The most common sexually transmitted diseases

Sexually transmitted diseases or infections - STD (sexually transmitted diseases) and STI (sexually transmitted infections) - are those diseases that can be transmitted through sexual contact primarily - this includes finger and tongue contacts and the transmission through sex toys. Culprits are bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa and arthropods. Among the most common bacterial STI include chlamydia, syphilis and gonorrhea. Among the viral STI include not only HIV also

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Scientists at the University of Leipzig have discovered that calcium drives inflammation. Your technical publication in "nature communications" describes the triggering stimulus through freely soluble calcium ions and the molecular pathway through special receptors. The work has implications for several medical specialties and opens new pharmacological approaches.

That the body is important for numerous processes calcium becomes an inflammatory stimulus when it accumulates amplified in the space around the cells. This extracellular calcium activates the so-called inflammasome, a large protein complex, which is a crucial part of the immune system because it controls inflammation. The Leipzig group led by Prof. Ulf Wagner and Dr. Manuela Rossol, rheumatologist at the University of Leipzig, could now describe the upper end of the molecular pathway that calcium turns the mechanism: The Entzündungsweg is via two receptors triggered detect calcium.

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Less pain, more mobility and sustainable improvement - these are the goals of the new therapy, which is being developed at the Natural Science and Medical Institute of the University of Tübingen (NMI) together with various research partners. The new treatment for intervertebral disc damage relies on the combination of cells and intelligent biomaterials.

The therapy begins with the chondrocytes are isolated from the disc tissue of the patient. At the tissue reach the doctors when a herniated disc so huge problems that must be surgically removed. The intervertebral disc cells from the incident be propagated in the laboratory and after a few weeks, embedded in a new biomaterial, again injected into the disc in order to regenerate the tissue here. "We start with a few hundred thousand cells are needed finally some million. The exact cell dose determined by the treating physician, the maximum injection volume are currently 2,5 milliliters of up to five million cells, "explains Prof. Dr. Jürgen Mollenhauer, research and development manager TETEC AG. The company has long been a development partner of the NMI in terms of cell therapy and already leading provider of cell-based cartilage grafts for the knee.

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Around 17 million people in this country are hard of hearing. For many, the disease is so severe that a normal hearing aid is no longer sufficient. In the future, improve the hearing of patients ambulatory implantable device.

"I beg your pardon? I can not understand you. Can you please speak louder, "Who understands his opponent only with difficulty, gets not only quickly into social isolation, but also in dangerous situations - such as on the road. A hearing aid is therefore for those affected - in Europe which is almost half over 65 years - indispensable. For heavily hearing impaired but conventional, worn behind the ear devices are reaching their limits. Those affected only helps an implant that reinforces the classic systems and noted the sound more through a better sound quality. The problem: These middle ear implants can be used only in several hours of operations. The complex procedures are risky and expensive - they are therefore rarely performed. However, the patient may hope: Currently, scientists at a new hearing device that can be implanted much easier and therefore is affordable for many.

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