StemCell Therapy

Designed by Pierpaolo Lazzarini from Italian company Jet Capsule. The I.F.O. is fuelled by eight electric engines, which is able to push the flying object to an estimated top speed of about 120mph.

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A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore

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A humanoid robot gestures during a demo at a stall in the Indian Machine Tools Expo, IMTEX/Tooltech 2017 held in Bangalore

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Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

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The giant human-like robot bears a striking resemblance to the military robots starring in the movie 'Avatar' and is claimed as a world first by its creators from a South Korean robotic company

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

Engineers test a four-metre-tall humanoid manned robot dubbed Method-2 in a lab of the Hankook Mirae Technology in Gunpo, south of Seoul, South Korea

Jung Yeon-Je/AFP/Getty Images

Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi

Rex

Waseda University's saxophonist robot WAS-5, developed by professor Atsuo Takanishi and Kaptain Rock playing one string light saber guitar perform jam session

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A test line of a new energy suspension railway resembling the giant panda is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

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A test line of a new energy suspension railway, resembling a giant panda, is seen in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China

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A concept car by Trumpchi from GAC Group is shown at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

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A Mirai fuel cell vehicle by Toyota is displayed at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

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A visitor tries a Nissan VR experience at the International Automobile Exhibition in Guangzhou, China

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A man looks at an exhibit entitled 'Mimus' a giant industrial robot which has been reprogrammed to interact with humans during a photocall at the new Design Museum in South Kensington, London

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A new Israeli Da-Vinci unmanned aerial vehicle manufactured by Elbit Systems is displayed during the 4th International conference on Home Land Security and Cyber in the Israeli coastal city of Tel Aviv

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Electrification Guru Dr. Wolfgang Ziebart talks about the electric Jaguar I-PACE concept SUV before it was unveiled before the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S

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The Jaguar I-PACE Concept car is the start of a new era for Jaguar. This is a production preview of the Jaguar I-PACE, which will be revealed next year and on the road in 2018

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Japan's On-Art Corp's CEO Kazuya Kanemaru poses with his company's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03' and other robots during a demonstration in Tokyo, Japan

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Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03'

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Japan's On-Art Corp's eight metre tall dinosaur-shaped mechanical suit robot 'TRX03' performs during its unveiling in Tokyo, Japan

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Singulato Motors co-founder and CEO Shen Haiyin poses in his company's concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

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The interior of Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

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Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0

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A picture shows Singulato Motors' concept car Tigercar P0 at a workshop in Beijing, China

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Connected company president Shigeki Tomoyama addresses a press briefing as he elaborates on Toyota's "connected strategy" in Tokyo. The Connected company is a part of seven Toyota in-house companies that was created in April 2016

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A Toyota Motors employee demonstrates a smartphone app with the company's pocket plug-in hybrid (PHV) service on the cockpit of the latest Prius hybrid vehicle during Toyota's "connected strategy" press briefing in Tokyo

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An exhibitor charges the battery cells of AnyWalker, an ultra-mobile chasis robot which is able to move in any kind of environment during Singapore International Robo Expo

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A robot with a touch-screen information apps stroll down the pavillon at the Singapore International Robo Expo

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An exhibitor demonstrates the AnyWalker, an ultra-mobile chasis robot which is able to move in any kind of environment during Singapore International Robo Expo

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Robotic fishes swim in a water glass tank displayed at the Korea pavillon during Singapore International Robo Expo

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An employee shows a Samsung Electronics' Gear S3 Classic during Korea Electronics Show 2016 in Seoul, South Korea

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Visitors experience Samsung Electronics' Gear VR during the Korea Electronics Grand Fair at an exhibition hall in Seoul, South Korea

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Amy Rimmer, Research Engineer at Jaguar Land Rover, demonstrates the car manufacturer's Advanced Highway Assist in a Range Rover, which drives the vehicle, overtakes and can detect vehicles in the blind spot, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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Chris Burbridge, Autonomous Driving Software Engineer for Tata Motors European Technical Centre, demonstrates the car manufacturer's GLOSA V2X functionality, which is connected to the traffic lights and shares information with the driver, during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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Ford EEBL Emergency Electronic Brake Lights is demonstrated during the first demonstrations of the UK Autodrive Project at HORIBA MIRA Proving Ground in Nuneaton, Warwickshire

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Full-scale model of 'Kibo' on display at the Space Dome exhibition hall of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center, in Tsukuba, north-east of Tokyo, Japan

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Miniatures on display at the Space Dome exhibition hall of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tsukuba Space Center, in Tsukuba, north-east of Tokyo, Japan. In its facilities, JAXA develop satellites and analyse their observation data, train astronauts for utilization in the Japanese Experiment Module 'Kibo' of the International Space Station (ISS) and develop launch vehicles

EPA

The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to the music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight. At this biennial event, the participating companies exhibit their latest service robotic technologies and components

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The robot developed by Seed Solutions sings and dances to music during the Japan Robot Week 2016 at Tokyo Big Sight

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Government and industry are working together on a robot-like autopilot system that could eliminate the need for a second human pilot in the cockpit

AP

Aurora Flight Sciences' technicians work on an Aircrew Labor In-Cockpit Automantion System (ALIAS) device in the firm's Centaur aircraft at Manassas Airport in Manassas, Va.

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Stefan Schwart and Udo Klingenberg preparing a self-built flight simulator to land at Hong Kong airport, from Rostock, Germany

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Phone screens are damaging our vision by making eyeballs grow ... - The Independent

Optegra releases Vision for Britain report

29 Jun 2017 by Emily McCormick

An estimated 15% of people risk losing their sight by not having regular sight tests, according to research by Optegra Eye Health Care.

The statistic is highlighted in the private eye hospitals newly-published Vision for Britain report.

Questioning 2000 people, Optegra reported that 50% of patients having their first sight test require vision correction, while one in 10 people require spectacles or treatment, despite thinking their eyesight is fine.

Despite research showing that 24% of people shy away from an eye test in fear of having to wear glasses, 82% of those questioned said they desired 20:20 vision. Furthermore, 60% said that they value their sight above all other senses.

In a bid to drive awareness of the importance of regular sight tests and support people in achieving perfect vision, Optegras 20-page report contains advice on daily eye care, tips on identifying vision problems in children and updates on the latest technological advances.

Having found that one-in-four people mistakenly believe that wearing glasses will make their eyesight worse, the report also contains some myth-busting information, Optegra highlighted.

Commenting on the report, optometrist and head of Optegra Eye Sciences, Dr Clare ODonnell, said: Without regular eye examinations, problems are being left undiagnosed and untreated which can lead to serious vision damage.

It is vital for everyone to have regular eye checks, even if they suspect nothing is wrong with their eye sight. By giving up just 2030 minutes of your time once every two years, you can potentially save your vision.

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Failing to have sight tests leaves Brits at risk of losing their sight - AOP

Surrounded by family and unexpected friends from afar, Bob B.J. Jenkins exited Triangle Waffle of Dunn to get into his brother Ed Jenkins rented sport utility vehicle to begin a quest for vision renewed.

Mr. Jenkins left Saturday morning on an 11-hour East Coast road trip to Retina Associates in Margate, Fla., to undergo an experimental eyesight operation.

He began to lose his vision more than 17 years ago, by way of macular degeneration, and it has deteriorated to the point of almost complete blindness. After losing sight in his right eye completely, he began to spend a lot of time in consolation with optometrists and eye specialists to save sight in his left eye.

He said he has peripheral vision, but everything in the center of his sight line is a blur. His current vision is 20/400.

He has been seen by opthamologists in Raleigh and Wilmington and through this network, Mr. Jenkins found Retina Associates of south Florida. His surgery is today.

See Surgery, Page 3

B.J. Jenkins, right, left Saturday on an 11-hour East Coast road trip to Margate, Fla. It is there he will undergo an experimental stem cell eyesight procedure costing more than $19,600. He raised funds for the surgery from many individuals and businesses in and around Dunn. His brother, Ed Jenkins, left, is his wheel man and moral support for the trip and todays operation.

Daily Record Photo/Shaun Savarese Surgery

Continued From Page One

Mr. Jenkins set a $22,000 goal that had to be reached in May. With 152 donations, he raised $21,249 in three months.

The money is for travel, room, board and the cost of a stem-cell operation that could possibly give him back his vision.

He said that through his Go-FundMe page and through personal and business donations, his fundraiser averaged a couple of thousand a week.

Though there had been concern over the legitimacy of the eyesight surgeons and operation, Mr. Jenkins was reassured by a guarantee of a refund if the doctors are unable to go through with the surgery.

Mr. Jenkins had a heart full of love before departing Dunn, thanking everyone who donated and raised awareness for his fundraising campaign and promising a chauffeured car ride to The Daily Record staff if the operation is a success.

Shaun Savarese

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Vision Quest: BJ Jenkins' Eye Surgery Today - The Daily Record (registration)

Ever wondered what it's like to be blind or severely vision impaired?

Now, you can see for yourself with the Fred Hollows Foundation's sight simulator.

Using the new online tool, you can enter a familiar location -- the Sydney Opera House, Parliament House or even your home address -- and see a familiar location through the eyes of someone who has cataracts, glaucoma or diabetic retinopathy.

With cataracts, a person develops blurred vision, glaucoma creates tunnel vision and someone with diabetic retinopathy sees patches of dark, light and blurred sight.

The tool was launched in the United States earlier this year and has now been unveiled in Australia. It uses images from Google Street View, while a sliding tool allows you to adjust the severity of the eye condition.

Fred Hollows Foundation CEO Brian Doolan said he hopes the simulator will help more people understand what its like to have a visual impairment.

"Sight is something that, unless we have a problem with it, we hardly ever think about it. We just take it for granted," he told HuffPost Australia.

There are more than 32.4 million people in the world who are blind -- that's more than the population of Australia. For 80 percent of these people, their eye disease is preventable or treatable, but isolation, lack of money or education prevents them getting help.

"The leading cause of blindness is poverty, and the second leading cause is gender," Doolan said, noting that the majority of legally blind people in the world are women.

The Foundation works in 25 countries across Asia and Africa to help restore sight to many of these people. In 2016, the charity supported over 1 million eye surgeries and treatments, more than any other year in its 25-year history.

One of those people was Nabiritha, a seven-year-old girl from rural Kenya.

Nabiritha was born with cataracts and legally blind.

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness worldwide, accounting for 51 percent of cases.

When the Foundation stepped in, a simple surgery taking less than an hour was able to give Nabiritha sight for the first time.

"Imagine for all those years my child has never known what I look like. I never thought this day would come," her mother Emily told the Foundation.

You can check out the Foundation's Sight Simulator for yourself here.

ALSO ON HUFFPOST AUSTRALIA

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See The World Through The Eyes Of A Person With Visual Impairment - Huffington Post Australia

It is predicted that by 2020 over 2,250,000 will register with some variety of sight loss. This is a shocking statistic; Vision loss is difficult to imagine until it happens and it can be hard to find solutions or workarounds.

AMD sufferers to hit 288 million

For many people their sight loss is down to a condition known as Age-related Macular Degeneration, or AMD. By 2020, the number of people living with AMD in the UK is estimated to increase to over 750,000. The number of people worldwide is expected to reach 196 million by 2020, increasing to 288 million by 2040. AMD is a condition that comes from deterioration, deriving from a breakdown of the macula which is a small area in the back, or retina, of the eye. This area has an important function in that it sees fine details clearly and allows us to perform activities that require precision. Anything that traumatises or damages the macula will affect your central vision.

Imagine seeing a painting but only the frame is visible

The result is that the central vision will become blurred, there will be dark areas and distortion. The periphery can remain; imagine seeing a painting but only the frame is visible. Because of this, it can be difficult to do activities like reading, driving, cooking and texting to name but a few. In the end stages the condition can make recognising a face difficult or impossible. The condition is also associated with increased cases of stress and depression as the eyes deteriorate.

The symptoms can be hardly noticeable, particularly as it can happen in one eye first, only becoming apparent when the other eye is afflicted. At this point the loss of central vision is apparent very quickly, words on a page become blurred, a dark and empty area appears in the centre of your vision or straight lines look warped or distorted. These are all indicators that you may have developed AMD and should go for an eye test.

Affecting nearly 30% of those over 75

AMD presents in two forms; the most common type is dry AMD which afflicts about 90% of sufferers and results from ageing and thinning of the tissues in the macula, the loss of vision is gradual. The other type, wet AMD, is due to abnormalities in the blood vessels underneath the retina in the back of the eye. The blood vessels leak or have trauma and therefore the vision loss is severe and rapid.

Age is a prominent risk factor for age-related macular degeneration. The risk of getting advanced age-related macular degeneration increases from 2% for those ages 50-59, to nearly 30% for those over the age of 75. A family history of this can be a factor, particularly if diagnosed at a young age. In terms of gender, women are more likely to get the condition but this could be down to life expectancy. Recent data has shown that smokers, and ex-smokers, are up to 4 times more likely to contract AMD.

Magnifying a solution

Living with AMD is hard as both types damage your central vision, but there are solutions to help ease the situation. A technique known as eccentric viewing can encourage your peripheral vision when it comes to reading. Larger print, better lighting and higher contrasting colours can also help.

In order to assist those suffering with AMD, at IntelliSight we stock the Eschenbach SmartLux Digital Magnifier. This subtle yet powerful mobile phone-shaped device offers variable levels of magnification, takes photos to allow users to zoom in and see more detail and offers increased contrast options between black, white and yellow. These three colours arent chosen at random; many AMD sufferers report that yellow background or text is easier to see than just plain black and white.

Were here to help. If you want to book an eye test, hear more about viewing aids, or have questions about AMD, then contact our friendly team on 01642 450 982 or visit us at High Street, Redcar just look for the black and orange store.

Excerpt from:
Digital magnifiers - a sight for sore eyes? - Bdaily

Fifteen percent of Britons risk losing their eyesight by not having regular eye tests, according to new research commissioned by Optegra Eye Health Care.

The Vision of Britain report found people were leaving their eye problems too long before treatment, leaving 9.8m living in fear of losing their sight.

The study of 2,000 people also revealed 50% of first time patients needed vision correction and one in 10 required glasses or treatment, despite thinking their eyesight was fine.

Nearly a quarter of respondents shied away from eye tests in fear of having to wear glasses and one in four mistakenly believed wearing glasses would make their eyesight worse. Despite shunning regular eye exams, the report showed 82% of British adults desired 6/6 perfect vision, with 60% admitting they valued their eyesight above any other sense.

Dr Clare ODonnell, OO and head of Optegra Eye Sciences said: Without regular eye examinations, problems are being left undiagnosed and untreated which can lead to serious vision damage.

It is vital for everyone to have regular eye checks, even if they suspect nothing is wrong with their eye sight. By giving up just 20-30 minutes of your time once every two years, you can potentially save your vision.

In response to the study, Optegra has produced a 20-page report containing advice on day to day eye care, from identifying vision problems in children and myth-busting. http://www.optegra.com/visionofbritain

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Delays present sight loss risk - Optician Online

In the summer of 2012, Sami Inkinen was 36, wealthy, and semiretired. Trulia, the online real estate company he cofounded and nurtured from a startup to a business with some 20 million users, had filed to go public, and he had decided to cease his operational role. The eight-year journey had been rewarding but exhausting. Inkinen planned to focus on angel investing.

That would leave plenty of time for his main hobby: triathlons. A champion who obsessively tracks his biometrics, Inkinen was a fitness freak even by Silicon Valley standards. He had less than 8% body fat.

But life is full of ironic twists, and he was hurtling toward a particularly sharp one. Soon after Trulia went public, Inkinen noticed something strange: His blood sugar levels were above normal and rising. He was prediabetic.

Inkinen skipped the doctor and began researching on his own. After discovering a decades-old paper that showed Type 2 diabetes can be prevented and sometimes reversed through lifestyle changes alone, he switched to a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. As his blood sugar levels dropped, his excitement spiked.

This spring he took his mission even further: Inkinen launched Virta Health , a 60-person startup backed by $37 million in funding. The service combines Inkinens passiona data-heavy appwith the same medical approach that he credits with reversing his prediabetes. Virta is one of a handful of companies attempting to attack the epidemicsome 28 million Americans suffer from Type 2 diabeteswithout relying on medications.

Researchers long believed Type 2 diabetes was not curable, but today the prevailing view is that it can be reversed by weight loss, says Dr. George King, the chief scientific officer at Joslin Diabetes Center and a professor at Harvard Medical School.

More: A New Innovation for Type 2 Diabetes

In that sense, Inkinen is an improbable advocate. He seemed like an unlikely candidate to be heading toward Type 2 diabetes in the first place. A native of Finland, Inkinen was always very active, but his seemingly healthy diet was packed with sugar (in the form of fruit smoothies) and carbs (five bowls of oatmeal a day). After diagnosing himself as prediabetic, he abruptly cut back on carbs and sugar. (Today hes an evangelist for a ketogenic diet, the food trend of the moment in Silicon Valley. It embraces high-fat foods and limits carbs to less than 50 grams a day, the equivalent of a cup of brown rice.)

Inkinen credits that diet for fueling an epic journey: He and his wife rowed from Monterey, Calif., to Hawaii to raise awareness of the dangers of sugar. During the 45 days it took to paddle across 2,700 miles of the Pacific, Zillow ( z ) agreed to acquire Trulia for $2.5 billion. Still a board member, Inkinen approved the sale via satellite phone.

Having sold the company and completed his physical quest, Inkinen was ready for a new mission. Im not a spiritual person, he says, but I knew I had to make this happen. After he met Dr. Stephen Phinney, the author of the paper that had convinced him that diet could solve his condition, a solution began to take shape in Inkinens mind.

Today Virtas service begins with an in-depth video session with a company doctor, who goes over each patients medical history and lifestyle to develop an eating strategy. Virta mails customers devices to record blood sugar, ketones (which indicate low insulin), and blood pressure. Patients enter data into the app, and a wireless scale automatically sends their weight to Virta. Each patient is then assigned a health coach, who monitors the data.

Users text their coaches daily via the app (some people prefer to call or use video chats). Advice gets granular. If a patient is planning to attend a birthday party, for example, her health coach could help develop an eating strategy beforehand.

Many patients are on medications when they begin the Virta program, and the goal is to slowly transition them off. Both meal recommendations and medications are constantly adjusted depending on what is, and isnt, having a positive effect on blood sugar, says Dr. Sarah Hallberg, the companys medical director.

Virta subscribes to a low-carb diet with moderate protein and fat, but its not doctrinaire. We accept any lifestyle and diet, says Inkinen. Instead of telling a person to swear off fast food, an often unrealistic option, health coaches recommend low-carb options on the menu. Physical activity is encouraged but not mandatory. You want someone to exercise when they come to you and say theyre ready, says Hallberg.

More: This Health Startup Plans to Challenge the Multibillion-Dollar Diet Industry

The service doesnt come cheap: It costs $400 a month (and isnt covered by insurance, though some employers health plans will reimburse for it). Virta has several thousand patients, according to Hallberg, served by about 20 health professionals.

The goal is to create a plan dramatic enough that it lowers blood sugar, but not so extreme that its unsustainable. In a clinical trial conducted in partnership with Indiana University Health, researchers found that 56% of the roughly 240 participants on the Virta platform lowered their blood sugar below diabetic levels by the end of the 10-week trial, and 87% no longer needed insulin.

Whether these results can be maintained is another question. The first couple of months of a diet are easy compared with an indefinite, fry-less future. Hallberg contends that the personalized support paired with the benefits of reduced medication and weight loss will keep people motivated despite the copious research establishing how hard most people find it to change their patterns.

Inkinen understands that as an endurance athlete he has more discipline (and capacity for suffering) than most people. His goal with Virta, as it was with Trulia, is to turn what was once a personal problem into a service that a large number of people can use. The stakes are higher this time around.

A version of this article appears in the July 1, 2017 issue of Fortune.

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Fighting Diabetes With Food - Fortune

ALTON Alton Memorial Hospitals Diabetes Management office has earned the prestigious American Diabetes Association Education Recognition Certificate. The ADA believes that this program offers high-quality education that is an essential component of effective diabetes treatment.

The Associations Education Recognition Certificate assures that educational programs meet the national standards for diabetes self-management education programs.

The process gives professionals a national standard by which to measure the quality of services we provide, said Lisa James, diabetes educator at AMH. And, of course, it assures the consumer that he or she will receive high-quality service.

Education Recognition status is verified by an official certificate from ADA and awarded for four years.

Self-management education is an essential component of diabetes treatment. One consequence of compliance with the national standards is the greater consistency in the quality and quantity of education offered to people with diabetes. The participant in a recognized program will be taught, as needed, self-care skills that will promote better management of his or her diabetes treatment regimen. All approved education programs cover the following topics as needed: diabetes disease process; nutritional management; physical activity; medications;

monitoring; preventing, detecting, and treating acute complications; preventing, detecting, and treating chronic complications through risk reduction; goal setting and problem solving; psychological adjustment; and preconception care, management during pregnancy, and gestational management.

Unnecessary hospital admissions and some of the acute and chronic complications of diabetes may be prevented through self-management education.

According to the American Diabetes Association, there are 29.1 million people or 9.3 percent of the population in the United States who have diabetes. While an estimated 21 million people have been diagnosed, 8.1 million people are not aware that they have this disease. Each day more than 3,900 people are diagnosed with diabetes. Many will first learn that they have diabetes when they are treated for one of its life-threatening complications heart disease and stroke, kidney disease, blindness, and nerve disease and amputation.

For more information about diabetes education at Alton Memorial, call Lisa James at 618-463-7526.

James

http://thetelegraph.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/web1_Lisa-James.jpgJames

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Alton Memorial Hospital's diabetes program honored by ADA - Alton Telegraph

AMARILLO - Medication or healthy food?

It's a decision many in our area have to choose between when spending their money.

But for 12 weeks, more than a dozen people suffering from type two diabetes had the chance to solely focus on their health.

Norma Mata isn't the same woman she was after starting on a 12-week lifestyle change.

"My food intake has been better," said Mata. "More salads, more grilled meats, and things of that sort."

Despite living with type two diabetes, she decided to take control of her health.

"My sugars have gone down tremendously. Eating healthy is beneficial for our health," added Mata.

High Plains Food Bank officials say they recognized the need to provide foods that heal, so they initiated a partnership with Heal the City.

The group noted that many of their patients are living with type two diabetes and could benefit from nutrition-based interventions.

"Most of these patients had been diabetic for over ten years," said Rachel Scott, a Clinic Coordinator for Heal the City. "A lot of them said no, I don't really know what it means, I don't really know what I'm supposed to eat."

This led both non-profits to create a 12-week pilot program called "Food to Health".

We're told it includes nutrition education, healthy food, and medical care for food insecure patients who struggle with type two diabetes.

"The good thing about this program is not only do they help your health get better and have all these bad numbers go down., they taught you how to do that so you can take that knowledge home," said Lourdes Sanchez, another participant of "Food to Health". "You know that when you go shopping you have to look at the nutritional facts, you know what to look for, so you're able to continue forward with what happened during the program because they taught you how to do it yourself. "

Mata and Sanchez are part of the twenty participants who started on this 12-week "Food to Health" journey.

Next week Scott says 16 of them will graduate from the program.

Before the program started, "Food to Health" participants had tests and blood work done. Next week, they will get their lab results to compare their progress.

Mata and Sanchez tell us after changing their diet and mindset, they noticed a big difference.

Officials say individuals and families who lack consistent access to enough healthy food may have a higher risk of developing chronic diseases like obesity, hypertension and type two diabetes.

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Local Organizations Helping to Fight Type Two Diabetes - MyHighPlains

Podimetrics, a startup created during an MIT hackathon in 2011, focuses on catching foot ulcersa complication of diabetes that can lead to amputationearly. The company unveiled data showing its remote-monitoring technology caught a majority of foot ulcers well before they appeared.

A number of factors contribute to the development of diabetic foot ulcers, including nerve damage, which stops patients from feeling small injuries in their foot. A healthy person might change his or her movement or adjust a shoe, but a person with diabetes-related nerve damage will not notice the pain. Repetitive injury over time can lead to an ulcer, and early detection can help prevent an ulcer from forming or getting worse.

American Diabetes Association guidelines recommend that people with diabetes undergo a comprehensive foot evaluation each year. Patients with a history of ulcers or amputations, insensate feet, foot deformities or peripheral artery diseaseshould get their feet checked out at every doctors visit.

The Podimetrics Remote Temperature Monitoring System is designed for the ongoing assessment of patients' feet. Itrelies on the concept that tissue heats up before it becomes a wound, said CEO Jonathan Bloom, M.D. A patient steps on the system's Smartmatfor 20 seconds at a time and it measures the temperature difference at various locations on the feet. Specifically, the software is looking for a hotspot, or a place where the temperature is persistently higher than in other areas.

A monitoring service alerts patients and physicians when the data show that inflammation may develop. The patient and physician then work together to prevent an ulcer from forming.

In a real-world setting, when a doctor gets a notification that a patient has a hotspot, the patient will be advised to reduce physical activity for a period to let the developing wound heal or may be asked to come in for a visit in serious cases, said lead investigator Robert Frykberg, M.D., of the Carl T. Hayden Veterans Affairs Medical Centerin a statement.

The 129-patient study, published in Diabetes Care, showed that the SmartMat detected as many as 97% of developing nontraumatic plantar foot ulcers an average of five weeks before they presented clinically. Additionally, 86% of patients used the device at least three times a week, and 88% of them said it was easy to use.

This is the big part, Bloom said. People actually use it.

[This] is critical for adherence and ultimately achieving ongoing prevention of [diabetic foot ulcers] and its devastating complications, he said in the statement.

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Study: Temperature-reading 'smartmat' catches diabetic foot ulcers early - FierceBiotech

MOSCOW, June 28. /TASS/ An international research team from Novosibirsk State University (NSU), the Institute of Cytology and Genetics of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ICG SB RAS), and the National University of Singapore have identified and analyzed the mechanism enabling plants to adapt to cold temperatures. This breakthrough was announced by NSUs Computational Transcriptomic and Evolutionary Bioinformatics Laboratory (LCTEB).

It turns out that plants sacrifice their newborn cells of the root tip in order to survive cold temperature conditions and retain their own stem cells. The study was published recently in the journal, Cell.

Plants possess stem cells just as animals do, which are the cells located at the tip of roots or sprouts from where any other plant tissues originate. Researchers from Singapore revealed that at a low temperature (+4 C) the DNA in a plants stem cells is damaged which can result in the death of the cells offspring. With that, the death of cells inside the root tip has been shown to help other tissues survive and toughen up the plant in such a way that it becomes more resistant to any other types of stress.

"Only a few stem cell offspring die (during cold spells), and thats despite the fact that the lifespan of these cells are very short even under normal conditions. By contrast, the other tissues remained unscathed," Victoria Mironova, PhD Biologist and Head of the NSUs Computational Transcriptomic and Evolutionary Bioinformatics Laboratory and Chief of the Sector for System Biology of Plant Morphogenesis at the RAS Institute of Cytology and Genetics of Siberian Branch, commented.

Russian scientists addressed the processes occurring at the roots tip using a mathematical approach. The mechanism which decides on what cells will be sacrificed in order to enable a plant to survive, is controlled by the genes responsible for transmitting auxin, the hormone required for the normal growth of roots.

"The modeling proved that under cold temperature conditions, the concentration of this hormone drops which puts the lifespan of a plant in jeopardy. If the cells at the root tip are destroyed, the concentration of auxin is restored providing for the stem cells maintenance, Maria Savina, the leading engineer at LCTEB at NSU and a junior research assistant at ICG SB RAS explained.

According to the scientists, continued research on this topic might be very beneficial for agriculture. Plants and crops could be treated with auxin prior to the onset of any cold spell. This way, it would be possible to avoid the death of cells and help plants overcome severe temperature stress without resorting to any sacrifices. The studys results could be also applied in analyzing mammals mechanisms for adapting to cold temperatures, since the structure of stem cell niches, their functions and sensitivity to stress have many similarities between animals and plants.

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Russian, Singaporean scientists reveal how plants weather cold temperatures - TASS

In rural Uganda, people who are blind or visually impaired often go to the city to look for work. But jobs are hard to find, and many end up as street beggars.

Instead, Ojok Simon wants them to know about a way they can earn money without leaving home: beekeeping. Simon, 36, became visually impaired after he was severely beaten by rebels who came to his village when he was a child. He has been a beekeeper for 15 years, and in 2013 he co-founded Hive Uganda, an organization that educates advocates for visually impaired people and teaches the sightless to make a living raising honeybees.

Ojok Simon, a beekeeper, co-founded Hive Uganda, an organization that teaches visually impaired people how to make a living raising honeybees. (The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired)

This year, his organization will receive a boost: Simon is one of three winners of the first Holman Prize, given by the San Francisco nonprofit Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired. There were 202 applicants from 27 countries and 35 U.S. states who submitted 90-second video pitches for their projects.

Its like a blind Fulbright, Will Butler,the organizations communication director, said of theaward. The honor grantsup to $25,000each toblind and visually impaired people seeking funding for ambitious personal projects.

The prize is named for James Holman, a 19th-century Britishnavy lieutenant who lost his sight at age 25. In those days, if a military man became blind, the usual thing was theyd go sit in a convent or church and pray for the souls of dead English soldiers and sailors, said Bryan Bashin, the Lighthouses chief executive.Holman didnt think that sounded like fun. So, at a time when people didnt even think that blind people could get out of the house, he began to travel, and he became the most traveled blind person of the 19th century, evenventuring across Siberia, Bashin said.

Another winner of this years prize,Penny Melville-Brown of Farnham, Britain, lost her sight while she was a commanderin the BritishRoyal Navy. Her project, Baking Blind, will take her around the world to cook with blind and sighted chefs including stops in China, Australia, Malawi and Virginia Beach, where she hopes to link up with some navy veterans, especially blind ones, to share stories.

Penny Melville-Brown of Farnham, U.K., will travel the world cooking with other visually impaired and sighted chefs for her "Baking Blind" project. (The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired)

Along the way she will videotape her encounters and blog abouther journey. Her goal, she said, is to show that blind people and other disabled people have got lots of get-up-and-go and ability, and they are a great resource for the rest of the community, the rest of society, and particularly employers, to use better.

Melville-Brown was thrilled to learn she had won (My thinking is its a cross between the Paralympics and The Apprentice, with a whiff of the Nobel! she wrote to the organizers in an email). But she also said the honor comes with a great responsibilitybecause I am sort of representing lots of blind people, and especially those who were candidates for the prize. Im sort of doing it on their behalf.

A third winner, Ahmet Ustunel, a San Francisco teacher and avid kayaker, plans todevelop a guidance system to kayak solo 500 miles in locations around the world, including crossing the Bosporus from Europe to Asia in his native Turkey.

Ahmet Ustunel, a San Francisco teacher and avid kayaker, will develop a guidance system to solo kayak 500 miles in different locations around the world. (The Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired)

We were staggered by the amount of interest and the quality and diversity of the proposals, Bashin said. One of the biggest obstacles is our own perceptions of our capabilities, and part of the Lighthouses mission is to change perceptions of the abilities of the blind in all fields.

Winners will be flown to San Francisco and work with aproject manager to refine their ideas. A year later, they will return to report on their efforts.

In the Gulu district of northern Uganda, Simons organization has already taught 38 people how to become beekeepersby using local materials to make beehives and learning aboutbees behavior.

Ugandans prize the insects for their honey, wax (used in soap and cosmetics), propolis (a resin used to close holes in their hives) and even their venom, which can be used to boost immunity. But much of the harvesting is done in the wild, which presents a challenge for the visually impaired. Hive Uganda teaches people to use frames and assess the honey harvest by feeling how heavy they are.

Winning the Holman will allow Simon to expand the number of people he can help.

I feel that now Im going to be addressing the larger society to empower East Africa in general, he told The Washington Post. My dream is becoming reality, and that change that I wanted, I started feeling at my fingertips.

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Blindness does not stop this beekeeper, this baker and this kayaker ... - Washington Post

Somewhere in an album at Mum's place there's a photo of me kneeling in front of George Pell as I'm confirmed an adult in the Catholic Church.

It was taken in 1994, when I was 11 years old.Pell was the local regional bishop, based in Mentone.I remember him speaking to the class beforehand about footy and the Richmond Tigers, about which I knew and cared little.

My real interests were in history and politics.The intersection of those topics with religion is what continued to fascinate me well into adulthood, even as my Mass-going waned.

I was fascinated by stories of the ALP Split, of Bob Santamaria and the Movement (some of whose principal figures lined up in the same parish each week to take communion).

I ended up writing a PhD thesis on a voluntary association of clergy known as the National Council of Priests, which sprang up in Australia in the aftermath of Vatican II and associated events such as the moratorium movement.The NCP is a moderately conservative group of men and it comprises about half of all the Catholic priests in Australia, including bishops.

It's had two principal aims during its nearly 50 years of existence: first, to unite the clergy during a period of rapid change and, second, to Australianise Catholicism to make it a religion of this land and its people, more so than a Roman branch office or, in Patrick White's words, an Ireland of the South Pacific.

Borrowing from CJ Dennis, I called that thesis The Sacramental Bloke.

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In researching the story of the NCP, it became evident that there were strong subterranean movements taking place within the church during the 1970s, eighties and nineties.

At one level, this coincided with broader changes in Australia that included women's liberation, gay lib, state aid for Catholic schools, no-fault divorce, decriminalised abortion, legislation for women's equal pay, the AIDS crisis and so on.

Pell is part of a movement within the church that views some of these developments as expressions of "modernism", which it regards with extreme suspicion.

That faction within the church has its roots in the 1940s and fifties, when Australia was in the midst of the Cold War and the great fight that was taking place in domestic politics was between Communists and anti-Communists for control of the ALP.

Such was the acrimony created by this movement that the Vatican intervened to sort out the situation in 1957, declaring that the church had no place in officially involving itself in electoral politics.

But significantly for this story, that movement never went away.

It just went underground, transmuting itself through various guises such as the National Civic Council, the Australian Family Association and the opinion pages of The Daily Telegraph.

For Catholics within those groups, and those who supported them, such as George Pell, the great test to be applied to any co-religionist during the 1980s and 1990s was fidelity to Rome.

At a time during which non-traditional practices of sex and gender had become visible and their supporters loud, the test for theological conservatives within the church was about how strongly one supported and promoted the Roman line: no to contraceptives in marriage, no to homosexuals in the priesthood and no to married clergy or women priests.

The great irony here is that facilitating a wider discussion of human sexuality in all its forms would have allowed for homosexuals and celibates (including priests) to raise their voices and to be seen as leading legitimate lives of their own choosing.

Instead, just as the first clerics were being charged with sexual abuse offences, Melbourne Catholics were dished up documents by Pell such as "Why Can't Catholic Women be Priests?" (1993).

At the time, a sympathetic bishop advised members of the NCP to refrain from responding to Pell's publication "as Bishop Pell does have a certain following".

In seemingly keeping a lid on any real discussion of sexuality in the church, it became easy for those of a traditionalist bent to associatehomosexuality with paedophilia, just as the rest of society started to associated celibacy with sexual abuse.

The net effect was to make all clergy seem aberrant and potentially dangerous.

There is a real danger here that if we remain ignorant of the way that Pell and his supporters responded to broader changes in church and society, we can become too smug about the position he now finds himself in.

We can continue to buy into the cheap notion that the church is some sort of evil institution staffed by a quackish bunch of freaks and weirdos.

Or we can start to have an open discussion about sexuality, gender and the abuses that humans continue to perpetrate on one another well beyond institutional settings.

We owe that to the many victims out there who do not have a royal commission on their side, whose attackers are going about their business as respectable citizens today, safe in the knowledge that they will probably never be brought to justice.

Dr Damien Williams is an adjunct research fellow at the Centre for Religious Studies at Monash University.

Originally posted here:
Denialism and blindness en masse - The Sydney Morning Herald

If this year follows the past, there will be many preventable eye injuries and cases of blindness.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) and all ophthalmologists, are urging people to attend public fireworks displays put on by professionals rather than attempt to ignite their own fireworks. According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, more than 9,000 fireworks-related injuries are reported in emergency rooms each year. Of these, nearly 50 percent are head-related injuries and almost 30 percent of these are eye injuries. Twenty-five percent of fireworks-related eye injuries result in permanent vision loss or blindness. In addition, there will be injuries to hands, faces and other parts of the body.

The typical injured person is young: Children 15 years or younger account for 50 percent of all fireworks eye injuries in the United States, and one-third of all fireworks injuries in children younger than 5 are the result of sparklers, which can burn at nearly 2,000 degrees.

The AAO offers the following safety tips:

As parents and adults, we have an obligation to prevent much needless blindness or lessor eye damage by simply alerting young people and ALL adults as to the dangers of fireworks.

FRANK J. WEINSTOCK, MD, CANTON

Professor of Ophthalmology,

Northeast Ohio Medical University

Fellow of the American College of Surgeons

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Letter to the Editor: You can prevent blindness - The Repository - Canton Repository

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, says it has arrested Lucy Ogbadu, the Director-General of National Biotechnology Development Agency (NABDA), over alleged N23 million fraud.

The spokesperson of the commission, Wilson Uwujaren, disclosed this in a statement he issued on Thursday.

Mr. Uwujaren said Ms. Ogbadu was picked up by EFCC operatives in Port Harcourt on Wednesday, following her alleged link with the Bayelsa State Director of Bio-resources Development Centre, Josiah Habu.

Mr. Habu, according to him, is being investigated by the anti-graft agency in a case of fraudulent diversion of N75 million.

He said investigations by the EFCC revealed that Ms. Ogbadu allegedly received N23 million through a bank account belonging to the wife of Mr. Habu, Esther Habu.

The EFCC spokesperson stated that Ms. Ogbadu admitted the transaction in a voluntary statement made to the commissions investigators.

Further investigations also revealed that Mrs Habu is one of the contractors with Bio-resources Development Centre, Odi, Bayelsa State.

A total of N603 million has been traced to her in different deals involving over 20 directors of the centre across the country.

Ogbadus involvement is being investigated. She has been duly served with bail conditions while investigations continue, Mr. Uwujaren added.

Ms. Ogbadu, a professor of microbiology, was appointed NABDA director-general in November 2013.

(NAN)

Continued here:
Director General of Nigeria's biotechnology agency arrested over ... - Premium Times

For older adults who suffer from knee pain caused by osteoarthritis, the future can look a bit bleak. But what if there was an opportunity to find relief, make some new friends and improve your lifestyle all by becoming part of a research study?

Wake Forest University will be conducting a study on knee osteoarthritis, otherwise known as OA, within a community setting, thanks to a federal grant, and they need willing participants. Curious? Here are 5 facts about the study to help you decide if its right for you.

1. The study has passionate and dedicated scientists rooting for it to work

Does 28 years sound like a long while? Thats the amount of time that Wake Forest professor Steve Messier and his colleagues have studied the topic of osteoarthritis and how diet and exercise can affect its severity.

According to Messier, OA is the leading cause of disability in older adults, with more than 250 million people suffering from it. Its safe to say the scientists behind these studies have your best interest at heart.

2. Wake Forest is bringing together a highly skilled and experienced team of scientists for the study

The National Institutes of Health have awarded this research team with the largest grant in the history of Wake Forest University, and the folks at Wake Forest are excited to share the process with a few other reputable institutions. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Harvard University, East Carolina University and the University of Sydney in Australia are all planned as co-investigators in the study.

3. Unlike earlier studies, this one will be less controlled and more realistic

The latest study, which is known as WE-CAN, Weight Loss and Exercise for Communities with Arthritis in North Carolina will put the many years that Messier and his colleagues have worked on clinical study results into what they called a real-world setting. The study will have more variables than controls, since it will care for people with knee osteoarthritis in a community setting.

4. The results of WE-CAN could be a game-changer for those with OA

Doctors often treat OA with surgery or medicines and havent had a vehicle, as Messier puts it, to assist their patients with lifestyle changes, WE-CAN will be an ideal component to achieving success with exercise and diet.

The ultimate goal is to inspire communities to establish easily assessable common fitness spots, such as churches and community recreation centers, in both rural and urban areas in which physicians can direct their patients for long term treatment with exercise and diet that is cost-effective, an important component that could make it attractive to insurance companies.

5. If you suspect youre a candidate, you probably are

If participating in this new community study sounds appealing to you, theres a probability youre a candidate. Participants should be at least 50 years of age and overweight, with ongoing knee pain on most days. They will be grouped into two segments, with one as the diet and exercise group and one as the nutrition and health group. All in all, there is room for 820 adults (450 in Forsyth County) to take part in the study.

This study is significant in that it will test the effectiveness of a long-awaited and much needed community-based program, Messier says. It will serve as a blueprint for clinicians and public health officials in both urban and rural communities.

To learn more about this study, call 713-8539.

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Suffer from Arthritis? Study Seeks to Learn if Weight Loss and Exercise Help - Winston-Salem Journal

Diabetes can be deadly. Each year, more than 70,000 Americans die from complications of the disease. About half of all people with type 2 diabetes dont have their condition under control. Now, new research shows a well-known procedure for weight loss may be the best bet for patients with uncontrolled diabetes.

This was the old Lisa Shaffer. At her heaviest: almost 300 pounds!

When I was obese, my life was so limited, Lisa said.

Her health suffered, too. Lisa had type 2 diabetes, and she tried everything to control it.

She explained, Nothing worked, nope.

But today, Lisa is 120 pounds lighter and her diabetes is gone. The reason; gastric bypass surgery.

Its been incredible. Yeah. It really did give me my life back. she exclaimed.

Phillip Schauer, MD, Director of the Cleveland Clinic Bariatric and Metabolic Institute in Cleveland, Ohio, led a study that compared bariatric surgery, either gastric bypass or gastric sleeve, to intense medical therapy in people with diabetes. After five years, the gastric bypass patients did the best. Many were in complete remission without drugs or insulin.

Which is pretty remarkable. Thats about as close to a cure that you can get, Dr. Schauer explained.

Twenty-nine percent of gastric bypass and 23 percent of gastric sleeve patients achieved and maintained normal blood sugar levels -compared to just 5 percent of medication-only patients. The surgery groups also lost more weight and reported a better quality of life.

The patients who had surgery did better and were happier at the five- year mark, Dr. Schauer stated.

Three days after her surgery, Lisa was off all of her meds. Her A1c, a measure of blood sugar control, was 10.5 before the surgery and today, its 5.3. Now shes able to live the life shes always wanted.

Ever since I lost the weight, Ive run three 5ks. Ive done zip lining with the family, which is fantastic. Just no limits anymore, theres no limitations on my life anymore. she said.

Doctor Schauer says weight loss is one reason diabetes patients benefit from bariatric surgery. The other is something that happens in the body as a result of the surgery. When the intestines are bypassed, special hormones increase, which helps the pancreas produce insulin more effectively.

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Best bet for uncontrolled diabetes - WTAJ

Cynthia McCormick @Cmccormickcct

WEST BARNSTABLE The YMCA Cape Cod is holding a grand opening of its newly renovated Weny Diabetes Resource Center at 5 p.m. today with an emphasis on nutrition counseling and classes for Cape Codders with diabetes and prediabetes.

Were trying to make this free and open to the public, said YMCA of Cape Cod CEO and President Stacie Peugh.

Individuals diagnosed with type 1 or 2 diabetes are entitled to five free visits with nutritionist Lauren Kunkler, Peugh said.

As part of its diabetes programming, the YMCA of Cape Cod also hosts prediabetes education and lifestyle coaching classes at the Mashpee-based Community Health Center of Cape Cod, Harbor Health Services in Hyannis, Duffy Health Center in Hyannis and the Falmouth Service Center, Peugh said.

The YMCA is planning to launch a support group for people with diabetes in collaboration with NAMI Cape Cod & the Islands, an advocacy group for people with mental illness, Peugh said.

There is actually a correlation between depression and diabetes, Peugh said during an interview in the newly renovated resource center, located by the front door of the YMCA.

With its blond wood shelving, soft blue-green walls and clear plastic furniture, the resource center is fairly small in size but was designed to appear bright and inviting, said Paula Drury of Brown, Lindquist Fenuccio & Raber Architects, the architect/designer for the project.

Located since 2008 at the back of the YMCA building where the front door used to be situated the new position is designed to attract the attention of the hundreds of people who enter the Y each day, Peugh said.

In addition to individual consulting, the diabetes center was designed to serve as a library and resource center for people with diabetes and their families, Drury said.

Websites relating to diabetes and health care have been built into two Apple desktop stations, and books and informational packets fill the resource centers book shelves.

The space and services offered are designed to help guide people past nutrition information overload and into useful, health-enhancing practices, Peugh said.

Diabetes is considered a metabolism disorder that affects the way the body uses food, according to information online from Cape Cod Healthcare.

The pancreas of diabetics either produces too little insulin, or the cells of the body do not respond to the insulin that is produced, according to the fact sheet.

The resulting glucose accumulation in the body can lead to multiple health issues including heart disease, kidney disease, stroke, nerve damage and blindness.

According to a public information platform called DataUSA, 8.6 percent of Barnstable County residents are living with diabetes. The percentage was based on data collected in 2013.

Todays open house will feature an appearance by Roger Ludwig, a trustee with the Weny Charitable Trust, and a discussion of the centers new partnership with NAMI, Peugh said.

Refreshments will be served. Peugh said the Weny Charitable Trust,which contributed $1 million to the expansion of the YMCA of Cape Cod 10 years ago, funded the relocation and renovation of the diabetes resource center with a gift of $100,000.

Follow Cynthia McCormick on Twitter: @CmccormickCCT.

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Expanded diabetes center opens today - Cape Cod Times (subscription)

Lifestyle is a decisive factor in preventing or stabilising diabetes. From diet and exercise to stress management, here are a few lifestyle changes to consider.

Diabetics dont need to have to skip dessert, but they should definitely make wise food choices.

Pick products that have a naturally low glycemic index to prevent spikes in blood sugar.

Top fruits on that front are red berries (raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, blueberries), apples, pears, oranges, grapefruit, peaches and nectarines.

Note that cinnamon can help lower blood sugar levels.

It can be used to sweeten coffee or tea or sprinkled on yogurt or fromage frais.

Certain bakeries make cakes and cookies specifically for diabetics.

These sweet treats typically contain half the amount of sugar, notably by using natural sugar substitutes.

Still, they should only be eaten occasionally and always as part of a meal in order to limit the hyperglycemic effect.

Add berries and fruit to your deserts.

Most diabetics know that they should avoid pre-prepared supermarket dishes and ready meals.

These meals are often too high in fat and salt, and can be lacking in vitamins and minerals.

Cooking from scratch with quality produce remains the best option.

When it comes to grains, oats and barley are allowed.

These cereals fibres slow down the absorption of carbohydrates in the intestine and help control blood sugar levels and insulin requirements.

Walking for 10 minutes right after eating could be more effective for controlling blood sugar than walking at another time of day.

Do this after an evening meal, when blood sugar can drop by 22%, according to research from New Zealand.

Current recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) recommend at least the equivalent of 30 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity per day, five times a week.

You can develop diabetes from too much stress and not enough sleep.

Unfortunately, it is possible to develop type-2 diabetes due to chronic stress from work or personal lives.

Permanent stress can contribute to increasing insulin resistance.

Thats why it is recommended to take regular exercise, learn relaxation techniques and organize break times on downtime in your day.

Keep an eye on shut-eye too (minimum seven hours sleep per night), as, according to several studies, this can help curb cravings for fatty or sugary foods, among other things. AFP Relaxnews

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If you really want to take control of your diabetes, follow these 4 tips - Star2.com

Please take note this is only one aspect in weighing the attractiveness or non-attractiveness of the companies mentioned as an investment and should not be used independent of other factors. This article examines one segment of the companies' businesses, and other factors such as valuation are not addressed.

Chinas dialysis population has seen a steady increase over the years.

Source: Wolfgang Meichelboeck, Dipl.-Ing. Pentenried Germany

The number of dialysis cases is growing in China. China had approximately 440,000 dialysis patients last year, an increase of 80% over five years.

Source: European Renal Association

The national prevalence of chronic kidney disease (CKD) was 10.8% (estimated at over 100 million Chinese) and end stage renal disease (ESRD) stood at 0.03% of the Chinese population.

Diabetes is the leading cause of end-stage kidney disease worldwide, although glomerular disease tended to be the leading cause in China caused for instance by taking medications and herbal medicines which damage the kidneys.

Source: nature.com

However, after decades of economic growth and the resulting unhealthy change in dietary habits, diabetes cases have seen a corresponding increase in China and this has contributed to a shift in the causes of kidney failure in China. A study found that chronic kidney disease related to diabetes was progressively becoming more common than chronic kidney disease related to glomerulonephritis in both the general population and hospitalized urban population in China. In 2010, among hospitalized patients, the percentage with chronic kidney disease related to diabetes was lower than the percentage with chronic kidney disease related to glomerulonephritis (0.82% vs. 1.01%). Beginning in 2011, the percentage with chronic kidney disease related to diabetes exceeded the percentage with chronic kidney disease related to glomerulonephritis, and the gap between them increased progressively.

Source: The New England Journal of Medicine

In 2015, the percentage of the hospitalized Chinese population with chronic kidney disease related to diabetes and to glomerulonephritis was 1.10% and 0.75%, respectively. In both 2010 and 2015, the percentage of hospitalized urban patients with chronic kidney disease related to diabetes was higher than that of hospitalized urban patients with chronic kidney disease related to glomerulonephritis, and the gap had increased by 2015 (1.02% vs. 0.84% in 2010 and 1.55% vs. 0.72% in 2015). However, among hospitalized rural patients during that same time frame, glomerulonephritis-related chronic kidney disease predominated, and the percentage with chronic kidney disease related to diabetes was lower than the percentage with chronic kidney disease related to glomerulonephritis, though the gap had narrowed by 2015 (0.68% vs. 1.51% in 2010, and 0.76% vs. 0.95% in 2015).

Chinas economic growth led to changes in Chinese citizens lifestyle and dietary habits. In the 1980s diabetes affected just about 1% of Chinas population. By 2015, this figure rose to roughly 10% of Chinas population, numbering around 110 million (compared to the U.S. where it is about 30 million) making it the country with the highest number of diabetics in the world and home to about a third of the worlds diabetic population.

The number is expected to continue rising as diets change in the country alongside economic growth. Almost 500 million people in China are estimated to be pre-diabetic about 1 times the size of the entire U.S. population.

By 2040, China is expected to have 150 million diabetics, presenting a growth opportunity for companies such as Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO), Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) and Sanofi (NYSE:SNY) which are the leading multinational insulin providers in China accounting for over 80% of Chinas insulin market.

Source: Marketwatch

The rate of chronic kidney disease increases with age, reaching over 30% of adults aged 70 years and older according to a study conducted by Peking University first Hospital.

The increasing incidence of obesity (over one third of adults in China are overweight and 7% of adults are obese) and Type II diabetes (a major risk factor for kidney disease), along with an aging population (in 2015, 9.5% of Chinas population was aged 65 or older and the U.N. projects this percentage to increase to 27.5% by 2050) suggests China could see rising chronic kidney disease (CKD) cases going forward.

Access to dialysis is lower in developing countries than developed countries, for reasons such as financial constraints and inadequate clinical infrastructure.

Source: The George Institute

China, the worlds largest developing country bears an enormous burden of kidney disease. For reasons such as a lack of financial and clinical resources, the rate of patients currently receiving dialysis treatment in China is lower than in developed countries such as the United States.

Majority of Chinese renal failure patients, mostly located in rural China do not have access to dialysis. While dialysis treatment is available for patients in urban China, access to dialysis treatments is inadequate for patients in the rest of the country due to a shortage of equipment, doctors and limited awareness levels.

Of the approximately 100 million Chinese with chronic kidney disease, about 2% of these patients are expected to develop into end stage kidney disease which means approximately 2 million people will require renal treatment therapy. However, according to the national renal registries, the number of patients who actually received treatment was less than 0.5 million.

According to a report by the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, in China, less than 30% of patients with end-stage kidney disease are treated with dialysis. For the rest, renal treatment therapy is not available due to a number of factors such as financial constraints, inadequate infrastructure and limited awareness.

Chinas ongoing healthcare reform is expected to alleviate this shortage of dialysis supply. Basic medical insurance covers over 90% of Chinas population and a high reimbursement policy for catastrophic diseases including end stage kidney disease has been established.

A report by Allied Market Research expects the global dialysis market to expand at a CAGR of 4.5% between 2017 and 2023 and Asia-Pacific led by China is expected to witness the highest growth rate during the forecast period presenting an opportunity for dialysis companies.

Chinas dialysis market is still at early stages and offers long term growth potential. Chinas dialysis market is dominated by foreign brands with over 90% of dialysis equipment and over 80% of hemodialysis consumables in China being imported from overseas.

Fresenius Medical Care (NYSE:FMS) and DaVita (NYSE:DVA) two of the worlds largest dialysis product companies are well established in the Chinese dialysis market. A few years ago, Fresenius opened an R&D center in Shanghai and this year, Fresenius acquired a 70% stake in Kunming Wuhua Health Hospital, a private Grade II hospital in Kunming (the capital of Yunnan province) which is specialized in chronic disease management and hemodialysis. This marks the companys first joint venture (JV) hospital in China and may be aimed at capitalizing on a new policy issued by the China State Council and The National Health And Family Planning Council which states that chronic disease management will be gradually migrated from larger hospital outpatient departments to smaller Grade II hospitals and community hospitals.

DaVita entered into a joint venture with Shunjing Renal Hospital in China with the aim of building and operating dialysis chains.

Early this year Baxter (NYSE:BAX) announced that it was exiting India, Turkey and Venezuela this year and refocusing its business on Latin America and China. China is expected to become a US$ 1 billion market in the next few years. Baxter operates a Flying Angel program in partnership with China's Ministry of Health, which is aimed at improving access to peritoneal dialysis for patients in rural areas.

Most renal treatment therapy (RRT) in China occurs at HD (hemodialysis) centers and the country has about 4,000 dialysis centers.

Source: Wolfgang Meichelboeck, Dipl.-Ing. Pentenried Germany

Hemodialysis is costlier than peritoneal dialysis not only for the patients but also for Chinas healthcare system as well. With the prevalence of end stage renal disease in China increasing rapidly, the government has begun examining the feasibility of expanding peritoneal dialysis as a treatment option in China.

A report assessing dialysis options and costs in China from the National Health Development Research Center showed that the annual cost of peritoneal dialysis (PD) is about 93,520 Chinese yuan (US $14,380), whereas the cost of in-center hemodialysis (HD) is 103,416 Chinese yuan (US $15,910). The report also notes the advantages of PD for patients in rural areas. Peritoneal dialysis is a home-based treatment, offering greater freedom for rural patients and reducing the inconvenience and financial burden of having to commute several times a week to and from the hospital for treatment. To facilitate peritoneal dialysis expansion, the Chinese government is planning on adjusting reimbursement policies and the Chinese Ministry of Health has certified over 30 training centers across the country to promote the implementation of peritoneal dialysis by establishing regional satellite centers which would provide staff training, patient education and the implementation of quality assurance protocols. Baxter appears well positioned to capitalize on this opportunity. Morningstar estimates that Baxter absolutely dominates the global peritoneal dialysis market with a 72% market share.

Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.

Excerpt from:
China's Dialysis Market: Potential For Growth Driven By Diabetes And Aging Population - Seeking Alpha