Foreign-India Diwali:Delhi Acts Against Pollution Menace

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-41662498

Sri Lanka Plans To Control One Third Of The Non Comunicable Diseases In The Country By 2020-Health Minister

Sri Lanka plans to control one third of the non communicable diseases that threatens the country

by the year 2020 Health Minister Dr.Rajitha Senaratne has stated while addressing the World Health Summit held in Berlin,Germany.

As Sri Lanka has managed to eliminate Communicable diseases like Filaria and Malaria in the country had taken so many steps including increasing of taxes imposed on Cigarettes by 90 percent and implemented a law to print health warning in Cigarette packs sold here by covering the 80 percent of the Pack and introduced traffic lights system to indicate the sugar levels contains in Soft Drinks at the market in view of controlling the spreading of non Communicable diseases in the Country the Minister has stressed.

A Female Was Killed Due To A Road Accident In Buttala

A female was killed and another has been injured and hospitalized after colliding with a Cab while walking on the road at Gonagangara area in Buttala this morning(18).
 
The two injured females have been admitted to the Buttala Hospital and one had died on admission to the Hospital it has been reported.The deceased was a 45 year old female according to the Police.

Gonagangara Police are conducting an investigation on the incident.

President Has nstructed Authorites To Import Highly Priced Essential Food Items

President Maithripala Sirisena has yesterday(17) instructed the Cost Of Living Committee to import five varieties of  essential food items which the prices have arisen and distributed to the consumers through cooperatives and Sathosa outlets with immediate effect.

Accordingly President has instructed the Committee members to import Rice,Dried Fish ,Fish ,Big Anions and Sprats and distributed through Cooperatives and Sathosa during a Cabinet meeting .

During the meeting Some Ministers have shown the President that the cost of living here has arisen heavily due to the increase of Essential food items.

A Heroin Addict Has Been Arested With Heroin

Manikpay Police have arrested a Heroin addict while carrying 02 Grammes and 150 Mili Grammes of Heroin to be sold in Anakotte,Jaffna today(18).

The estimated value of the haul of Heroin the suspect has carried is more than Rs.50,000 it has been revealed.

Police are conducting further investigations on the incident.

Health-Old Age Is Not For Taking It Easy. Elderly Must Exercise To Keep Health Costs Down, Say Experts

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/10/17/old-age-not-taking-easy-elderly-must-exercise-keep-health-costs/

Drug Therapy 'Restores Breathing' After Spinal Injury

A drug-based therapy appears to restore breathing in rats paralyzed from the neck down by a spinal injury, according to scientists. 

They hope their "exciting but early" findings could ultimately help free patients from ventilators.

The pioneering work, in Cell Reports, suggests the brain may not be needed for respiration if a nerve pathway in the spine can be awakened.

More studies are now needed to better understand and exploit this system.

'No brain' breathing

Normally, messages to and from the brain control breathing.
If the spinal cord is damaged high up in the neck, these messages can't get through and a person will need mechanical assistance or a ventilator to breathe.

 Experts have been looking at ways to repair spinal cord damage to reconnect with the brain, but the latest therapeutic approach, being explored at Case Western Reserve University, is entirely different.
Dr Jerry Silver and colleagues believe they have found an alternative nerve pathway for breathing in the spinal cord itself.

The researchers used a drug and a light therapy known as optogenetics to dial up this spinal system.
It appeared to control the body's main muscle of respiration - the diaphragm, a dome-shaped sheet of muscle that sits underneath the lungs, separating the chest from the abdomen.

The live adult rats that they studied had severed spinal cords, meaning the brain could not be the source of the diaphragm movement or breathing that the researchers saw after they administered the therapy.
They believe the treatment works by stopping other nerve signals that would normally silence the spinal system that they found.

Dr Silver said: "This is a primitive response that has been kept in the spinal cord for emergencies, like gasping and screaming in response to danger."
Although the researchers say the movements they saw resembled breathing, it's not clear yet if it would be enough to sustain life. They plan more animal studies to check.

Dr Silver said: "Ultimately, the goal of this research would be to free people with these neck injuries from having to use mechanical ventilators.

"Infections and other complications from mechanical ventilators are a leading cause of death after spinal cord injuries."Dr Thomas Becker, an expert in neuroregeneration at Edinburgh Medical School, said: "This is an important discovery on the fundamental working of the spinal cord. "Understanding the spinal network is the first step toward future therapies."This knowledge could be used for future therapies to restore breathing in patients who lost nerve connections from the brain as a consequence of spinal cord injury."- (BBC)