An injection that relieves low back pain by helping damaged spinal discs regenerate appears to have sustained benefits, new clinical trial data show. Most patients who received an injection of VIA Disc received back pain relief that lasted at least three years, said lead researcher Dr. Douglas Beall, chief of radiology at Clinical Radiology of Oklahoma in Edmond. About 60% of patients had a 50% or better improvement in their pain three years after treatment, results showed, while more than 70% had a greater than 20-point improvement in movement and function. “This is durable relief out through 36 months,” said Beall, who is scheduled to present these findings Monday at a meeting of the Society for Interventional Radiology, in Phoenix. Findings presented at medical meetings are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal. VIA Disc — the trade name for viable disc allograft supplementation — is a blend of bone marrow cells and ground-up spinal disc tissue from donors, Beall said. The cells are “one of the precursors to forming disc,” Beall said. They are selected from exactly the area where they’re precursors to form the disc material, tested for their capability to renew and differentiate from other cells and then mixed with the allograft (disc material) and injected. Once injected, the VIA Disc blend of cells and donor tissue encourages the cells within…  read on >  read on >

(HealthDay News) – A brain-eating amoeba has killed a Florida man, state health officials reported. The man may have acquired this very rare infection after rinsing his sinuses with tap water, the Florida Department of Health in Charlotte County said in a news release. While health officials continue to investigate the cause of the Naegleria fowleri infection, they emphasized that it can’t be contracted from drinking tap water. These infections only happen when contaminated water enters through the sinuses, officials said. That more typically happens from swimming in warm lakes or rivers in summer. N. fowleri grows in warm temperatures, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can be found in soil and fresh water. Health officials have not publicly identified the man who died. Cases have been reported in United States for each of the past four years, including three cases last year that happened in Arizona, Iowa and Nebraska. The Iowa case happened last June and involved a Missouri resident who swam in the Lake of Three Fires in Taylor County. The Nebraska case was a child who died within 10 days of being hospitalized after swimming in the Elkhorn River in August, NBC News reported. The disease typically progresses quickly after patients have symptoms that include headaches, fever, nausea, disorientation, loss of balance, a stiff neck and seizures.…  read on >  read on >

Many women experience blinding migraine headaches around their monthly period, and now researchers have a clue about why. Levels of the female hormone estrogen fluctuate during menstruation, which may lead to increases in calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP). This protein widens blood vessels in the brain, which is part of the cascade of events that cause migraines. “Women with migraine had higher CGRP levels in the blood and tear fluid during menstruation than women without migraine,” said study leader Dr. Bianca Raffaelli, a neurology resident at Charité–University Medicine Berlin in Germany. She is also a fellow with the Clinician Scientist Program jointly operated by Charité and the Berlin Institute of Health at Charité. More research is needed before drawing any firm conclusion about the role that CGRP plays in menstrual migraines, Raffaelli said. “Once the exact processes are understood, appropriate treatment strategies can be developed,” she said. “In recent years, new migraine drugs have been developed that target CGRP, [and] it would be exciting to investigate whether these drugs act differently depending on the hormonal state.” The good news for women with menstrual migraines is that symptoms improve during pregnancy, and their frequency tends to decline after menopause, Raffaelli said. For the study, the researchers measured CGRP levels in blood and tears of 180 women with a history of migraine, including those with a regular menstrual…  read on >  read on >

Exposure to elevated levels of air pollutants is associated with bone damage in postmenopausal women, according to a new study that said the effects were most evident on the lumbar spine. High levels of niitrogen oxides in air nearly doubled the effects of normal aging on bone density in the spine, said researchers from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. This study was the first to explore the effects of air pollution mixtures on bone outcomes, researchers said. It also was the first to explore the connection between air pollution and bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. The researchers analyzed data from an ethnically diverse population of 161,000 postmenopausal women in a long-running U.S. women’s health study. To estimate levels of exposure to pollutants, including PM10 (small air pollution particles), nitrogen monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide, researchers used participants’ home addresses. Traffic exhaust and emissions from power plants are major producers of nitrogen oxides. Bone density was measured at enrollment in the study and after one, three and six years using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry commonly known as a DEXA scan. The scans included whole-body, total hip, femoral neck and lumbar spine. Researchers said the magnitude of the effects of nitrogen oxides on lumbar spine density would amount to 1.22% annual losses. That’s nearly double the annual effect of age…  read on >  read on >