Can water boost your immunity?

Yes it can!
As the number of coronavirus cases continues to rise around the globe, it has become important to take good care of yourself. Practising social distancing, maintaining good hygiene and staying at home as much as possible are the most reliable ways to protect yourself from coming in contact with the deadly virus.

The next best thing you can do is to eat healthy and nutritious food, so if you somehow come into contact with the virus, your body will be able to fight it off. Several foods and drinks may help you boost your immunity and fight with the disease-causing bacteria and virus. To your surprise, even water can help to boost your immunity. Here is how it is beneficial for your health!

Importance of water

Water is the basic necessity of life. It carries nutrient and minerals to different parts of the body and flushes out toxins and waste. Apart from this, it also helps to regulate the body's temperature.

​Water and immunity

Even in general when someone is sick or has a fever they are advised to keep themselves hydrated as water helps your body naturally eliminate the toxins and bacteria that cause illness.

Water also helps to carry oxygen to different cells of the body, which in turn helps in the proper functioning of the body. It is recommended to drink at least 2 litres of water daily to stay healthy and fit. When you are sick, try to increase your water intake. Plain water is the best, but if you find it difficult to drink 8 glasses to water in a day then you can also try lemon or mint water. They are equally beneficial for health. 

Mint water

Mint is a prized herb that has a significant role in Ayurvedic medicine. Packed with anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties, mint helps to prevent free radical activity. It can help to detox your body and is even good for the skin.

​Lemon water

The high amount of vitamin C, folate and potassium present in lemon can also help to boost your immunity. Starting your day with a warm glass of water and lemon juice can do wonders for your health.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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What Is a Coronavirus Antibody Test—and Why Testing Matter

Everybody wants to know when stay-at-home orders will be lifted, but experts agree that’s unlikely to happen until widespread antibody testing has been carried out. While a nasal swab test can detect existing infection, a blood test can determine if a person has been exposed to the new coronavirus. Known as an antibody test or serology test, this may identify those who have recovered from infection and, potentially, have developed some degree of protection from reinfection (by demonstrating an "immune response" to the virus).

Whether you have the virus or not, this development in the fight against COVID-19 affects everybody—wide-scale antibody testing may be key to getting those stay-at-home orders lifted. 

What Is Antibody Testing?

Antibodies are human proteins produced by the body to fight infection. “During an infection, the immune system custom-designs antibodies to recognize a specific part of the virus,” Craig Wilen, MD, an assistant professor in laboratory medicine and immunobiology at Yale University, tells Health.

In the case of the new coronavirus, the most important antibodies target the viral spike protein, which is the protein that binds to the human cell receptor and allows the genetic material of the virus to enter human cells and begin infection. “There are two types of virus-specific antibodies that are relevant for testing,” Dr. Wilen says. “The first is called immunoglobulin M (IgM). This antibody is made earlier in the period of infection and then goes away. The second is called immunoglobulin G (IgG), which is made after IgM, but lasts much longer.”

While there is some variability in timing between people, IgM lasts for weeks to months and is detectable after a week or two, whereas IgG lasts for decades and is detectable days to about one week after IgM. By detecting the different antibodies in a person’s blood, doctors are able to “date” when they had—or still have—the infection.

If My Test Comes Back Positive, Am I Immune?
Unfortunately, scientists don’t yet know whether a positive test means you’re immune or how long such protection may last. “There have been reports of patients getting re-infected with the new coronavirus,” Dr. Wilen says. “It is also known that for many seasonal coronaviruses which cause the common cold, the antibodies go away over time which enables people to get re-infected.”

The World Health Organization addressed this issue at a news briefing in Geneva on April 13. 

"One would expect that a person who generates a full-blown immune response with detectable antibodies should have protection for a period of time," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's emergencies programs, said, per NPR. "We just don't know what that period of time is. We would expect that to be a reasonable period of protection, but it is very difficult to say that with a new virus."

Dr. Wilen suspects that even if the new coronavirus antibodies went away, that past infection would confer a survival advantage to future re-infection. “This is a general principle of the adaptive immune system,” he explains.

Is Testing Available—and What Does It Involve?

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the first test in the US for detecting coronavirus antibodies, and many companies are developing other tests.

Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has already started carrying out its own antibody testing to help determine how many people have been infected with the virus, including those who never displayed any symptoms, reported Politico. On April 10, the National Institutes of Health announced that it would test 10,000 healthy volunteers from around the country for the presence of antibodies. People can participate in at-home blood sampling using a kit and mail the sample to the NIH lab for analysis.

Typically, the test involves taking blood from the arm or using the finger stick method, in which the finger is pricked with a lancet to obtain a small quantity of capillary blood. “The amount of blood needed depends on the specific test method,” Dr. Wilen says. Either way, it should be quick and simple.

How Reliable Are Antibody Test Results?

In other parts of the world, some governments have expressed concern that antibody tests are not proving to be as reliable as the swab tests that look for current infection. On April 8, the UK government announced that antibody tests won’t be available until at least May because none of the tests tried so far had been accurate enough.

It’s crucial that the coronavirus antibody testing process isn’t rushed, Gary W. Procop, MD, the chair of American Society for Clinical Pathology’s Commission on Science, Technology and Policy, and vice chair and director of virology at Cleveland Clinic, tells Health. If the tests aren’t sensitive or specific enough, it could result in false positives, which suggest a person has immunity who doesn’t, and false negatives, which fail to detect immunity.

“Both of these are dangerous and hamper the efforts to get Americans safely back to work,” Dr. Procop says. “We need to follow the lead of our colleagues in the UK and not implement tests that have not been thoroughly vetted and may do more harm than good.”

The information in this story is accurate as of press time. However, as the situation surrounding COVID-19 continues to evolve, it's possible that some data have changed since publication. While Health is trying to keep our stories as up-to-date as possible, we also encourage readers to stay informed on news and recommendations for their own communities by using the CDC, WHO, and their local public health department as resources. 

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     

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Never trust a person's face: Research

Facial expressions might not be reliable indicators of emotion, say researchers, adding that, people should never trust a person's face.

According to the study, some businesses are even working on technology to determine customer satisfaction through facial expressions.

"The question we really asked is: 'Can we truly detect emotion from facial articulations?' And the basic conclusion is, no, you can't," said study researcher Aleix Martinez from Ohio State University in the US.

For the findings, the researchers focused on building computer algorithms that analyse facial expressions.

The researchers analysed the kinetics of muscle movement in the human face and compared those muscle movements with a person's emotions.

They found that attempts to detect or define emotions based on a person's facial expressions were almost always wrong.

"Everyone makes different facial expressions based on context and cultural background," Martinez said.

"And it's important to realize that not everyone who smiles is happy. Not everyone who is happy smiles. I would even go to the extreme of saying most people who do not smile are not necessarily unhappy," Martinez added.

It is also true, that sometimes, people smile out of an obligation to the social norms, the researchers said.

This would not inherently be a problem, he said -- people are certainly entitled to put on a smile for the rest of the world -- but some companies have begun developing technology to recognize facial muscle movements and assign emotion or intent to those movements.

The research group analyzed some of those technologies and, Martinez said, largely found them lacking.

"Some claim they can detect whether someone is guilty of a crime or not, or whether a student is paying attention in class, or whether a customer is satisfied after a purchase," he said. "

What our research showed is that those claims are complete baloney. There's no way you can determine those things. And worse, it can be dangerous," he added.

After analysing data about facial expressions and emotion, the research team concluded that it takes more than expressions to correctly detect emotion.

"What we showed is that when you experience emotion, your brain releases peptides -- mostly hormones -- that change the blood flow and blood composition, and because the face is inundated with these peptides, it changes colour," Martinez said.

According to the researchers, facial colour, for example, can help provide clues.

In one experiment, the researchers showed study participants a picture cropped to display just a man's face. The man's mouth is open in an apparent scream; his face is bright red.

This is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     
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New device to help people with swallowing problems

Here's the good news for the patients suffering from swallowing disorders. Scientists reveal a wearable monitoring device that will make the treatments easier and more affordable.

An associate professor of speech, language, and hearing sciences and an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering  have founded Curasis LLC to commercialise their wearable technology and move it as quickly as possible to clinics and people with swallowing difficulties.

"We want to provide a reliable, patient-friendly and affordable way to treat the millions of people with swallowing disorders," said the Prof. "Many devices to help these people are expensive, not able to be taken home and not accessible in many rural areas."

The researchers have created a skin-mountable sensor sticker that attaches firmly to the neck area and is connected with small cables to a wireless transmitter unit. The skin-mountable sensor sticker measures and records muscle activity and movement associated with swallowing.

The information is then sent wirelessly by a separate unit clipped on the wearer's shirt to software that stores it for later analysis by a doctor.

Successful completion of a swallow requires the precise coordination of more than 30 pairs of muscles of the head and neck, six pairs of cranial nerves, and complex circuitry in the brainstem and several brain areas.

Any disruption in these pathways can result in severe swallowing disorders.

"Our device is unique in that we specifically created it to work well with the small and intricate muscles associated with swallowing events," Lee said.

"The sensor sticker is stretchable and flexible to work well with the skin and curvilinear head and neck shape, while the connected unit has electronic chips and more rigid components," added the Prof.
The sensor stickers are disposable, designed with inexpensive components and meant to be used about 10 times before they are thrown away.

this is only for your information, kindly take the advice of your doctor for medicines, exercises and so on.     
https://gscrochetdesigns.blogspot.com. one can see my crochet creations  
https://gseasyrecipes.blogspot.com. feel free to view for easy, simple and healthy recipes    
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Artificial Intelligence can help treat brain tumours

Researchers have developed an artificial intelligence-based (AI) method for analysis of brain tumours, paving the way for individualised treatment of tumours.

According to the study, AI machine learning methods, carefully trained on standard magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), are more reliable and precise than established radiological methods in the treatment of gliomas.

Glioma, a type of tumour that occurs in the brain and spinal cord, is common and most malignant of brain tumours in adults.

“With this study, we were able to demonstrate the potential of artificial neural networks in radiological diagnostics,” said a researcher.
 
For the study, the team included 500 brain tumour patients. Using a reference database with MRI scans of patients, the algorithms automatically recognised and localised brain tumours using artificial neural networks.

The algorithms were also enabled to volumetrically measure the individual areas (contrast medium-absorbing tumour portion, peritumoral edema).

“We want to advance the technology for automated high-throughput analysis of medical image data and transfer it not only to brain tumours but also to other diseases like brain metastases or multiple sclerosis,” said a researcher.

Glioma tumours often cannot be completely removed by surgery. Chemotherapy or radiotherapy are only effective to a limited extent because tumours are highly resistant. Therefore, new and precisely validated treatment approaches are urgently needed, the team noted.

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