Heena Sharma Blog

A recent study has discovered a link between second-hand smoking and development of chronic kidney disease (CKD). The study, published in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, found out that exposure to second-hand smoking increases the risk of various diseases and the researchers investigated the link between exposure to second-hand smoking and CKD. The study included 131,196 never-smokers who participated in the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study from 2001 to 2014. Participants were classified into 3 groups based on the frequency of second-hand smoke exposure as assessed with survey questionnaires: no-exposure, less than 3 days per week of exposure, and 3 or more days per week of exposure. Participants with less than three days per week and those with three or more days per week of exposure had 1.48-times and 1.44-times higher odds of having CKD when compared with participants with no second-hand cigarette exposure "Second-hand smoke expo

Smoking may damage the immune response against melanoma and limit patients' survival chances, according to a new study. Melanoma patients with a history of smoking cigarettes are 40 per cent less likely to survive their skin cancer than people who have never smoked within a decade after their diagnosis, according to the study, published in the journal Cancer Research. Other researchers have reported that smoking have adverse effects on the immune system, but it is not yet known which chemicals are responsible for this. "The immune system is like an orchestra, with multiple pieces. This research suggests that smoking might disrupt how it works together in tune, allowing the musicians to continue playing but possibly in a more disorganised way," said lead researcher Julia Newton-Bishop, Professor at the University of Leeds. Smoking could directly affect how smokers' bodies deal with the melanoma cancer cells, said the researchers. "Overall, these

Consuming a Western diet, low in fibre and high in fat and sugar , can put you at increased risk of developing severe sepsis, researchers say. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found mice that were fed the Western diet showed an increase in chronic inflammation, sepsis severity and higher mortality rates than mice that were fed a normal diet. Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition caused by the body's response to an infection. It can lead to shock and organ failure. It is one of the most common cause of death worldwide. According to the researchers, including Brooke Napier from the Portland State University, the mice had more severe sepsis and were dying faster because of something in their diet, not because of the weight gain or microbiome, the body's community of bacteria. "The mice's immune system on the Western diet looked and functioned differently. It looks like the diet is manipulating

The composition of breastmilk changes in pregnant women on probiotics, a recent study suggests. The finding, published in the Journal of JAMA Pediatrics, upends what scientists thought of human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) -- the sugar molecules found exclusively in human breast milk -- and could lead to future studies on how the compounds can be potentially influenced by diet and other factors. Though HMOs are indigestible for a newborn child, they are consumed by certain species in the microbiome and can significantly affect its composition. As a result, scientists have begun focusing on HMOs as a possible reason that infants who consume breastmilk are less likely to get certain viral and bacterial infections, and other severe conditions such as necrotizing enterocolitis, along with allergic diseases like a food allergy. The study analysed data from 81 pregnant women who were enrolled in a probiotic supplementation study in Finland. The researchers then compared 20 diff