Pre-launch party for My Bugs and I

My Dear Sexy Readers,

My Bugs and I will be live in less than a month and I wanted to share with you a little bit more information about this new venture in the form of a Giveaway!!!

A fantastic Kindle Fire tablet is to be won, and I know for a fact it is a fantastic little gem as I have purchased one for myself... Hmmm for my son, I mean... so I could download Hollyoaks during my daily commute... Hmmm I mean so I could download cartoons and games for my 3 year old for him to play while daddy and I are having lunch in a quiet restaurant... Yes, you've guessed it, possibilities are endless with this little device, I luuuurve it!!!

Go over HERE for a chance to win this beautiful Fire

Anyoooh, for a chance to win it, please go over to my new blog www.MyBugsAndI.com where you'll be able to enter the giveaway with your FB or email log in details. Alternatively, you can click on the Giveaway tab right here on Science is So Sexy ;)

Good luck and see you soon for more Sexy Science,

All will be revealed...

My Dear Sexy Readers,

My sincere apologies for not posting much this year. As you can expect, life has been absolutely hectic: I changed jobs, twice!, I went on holiday, twice!, my son got chicken pox, once! - but at the same time as his best friend so I guess I can say twice as we kept them together for company.

As it seems I do everything in double this year, I have to confess to something else.. I've been secretly preparing for the launch of a second Science blog...

Fear not, it will still be a nice easy to read Science blog, but the content will focus on only one subject: our microbiota!

If you remember, I already talked about our gut microbes a while back, and it's really that research I had done at the time that sparked my interest for our microbiota.

During the months that followed, I read more and more articles on the role of our gut microbes on our health and sanity. If you follow me on twitter, you may have noticed the fact that I mentioned quite a few time how excited I was about this new field of research.

Recently, I read a truly inspiring book called 10% human:



From the first page, I knew that I was holding something special in my hand - or rather my kindle was containing an amazing file! I devoured page after page - not sure what the kindle equivalent is - and decided that everyone should know about the amazing therapeutic potential that represents the modulation of our gut microbes, and I should do something about it! As a writer, a blog seemed the obvious solution.

I hope you are as excited as I am, I can't wait to share it with you.

Launch will be on Monday 4th January 2016

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

What's a gluten-free diet?

My Dear Sexy Readers,

First of all, I would like to wish you a fantastic New Year!!!!

A lot of people may feel that January is a good month to work on their New Year resolutions.

One of these may be to go gluten-free to help their body cope with the excess food they have accumulated during the holiday season.

Many of you will hopefully detect that the above sentence contains 3 non evidence-based facts*, but as I typed it, I felt strangely liberated like I could do something that would cancel out my overindulgence and Christmas sins!

I'm a greater believer though in knowing the truth and understanding our body (HERE), how it works (HERE and HERE) and how things we ingest (HERE, HERE or HERE) or slather on it do to us (HERE and HERE).

So if you'd like to know the scientific truth about gluten and gluten-free diets that supermarkets, unscrupulous nutritionists and restaurant owners purposefully don't share with you, please keep on reading... (Well, yes of course it's a new and very lucrative business...)

World Diabetes Day - 14th November

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Did you Know that the World Diabetes Day is observed on the 14th of November?
Now this month is rich of disease awareness campaigns, so why should you bother reading about Diabetes?
Well first of all, as I wrote previously, it's very important to understand what is diabetes and what is the difference between the different types of diabetes:

What is Osteoporosis?

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Today we are addressing a request from a fellow blogger who posted about her newly diagnosed osteoporosis. Coincidentally, I have been working on this at work so I have all the scientific literature at hand AND on the 20th October is WORLD OSTEOPOROSIS DAY

Osteoporosis, the basics:
Osteoporosis is a common, skeletal disorder characterized by a lower bone mass and a deterioration of bone tissue. As a consequence, you are more susceptible to have an increase in bone fragility and are more prone to fracture.
The diagnosis of the disease relies on assessing the bone density which is considered as a marker for bone strength and can be predictive of risk fracture.*

Fracture sites

Common sites for osteoporotic fracture are the spine, hip, distal forearm (wrist) and proximal humerus (shoulder). The likelihood of a fracture at any of these sites is 40% or more in Western Europe, which is close to the probability of coronary heart disease.
Fractures can also happen at many other sites of course such a the pelvis, ribs and distal femur and tibia.

Common fractures sites

Approximately 50% of fracture-related deaths in women were due to hip fractures, 28% to clinical vertebral and 22% to other fractures.

Who's at risk?

Apart from medical conditions, there are some risk factors we cannot do anything about such as getting old (!). Other factors include gender (after menopause, female hormone deficiency leads to a rapid reduction in bone density), family history, a previous fracture, ethnicity (European or Asian ancestry has strong predisposition).
However, there are things that we do to ourselves that can influence our risk of fracture. These include smoking, heavy drinking, Vitamin D deficiency, low calcium intake, poor nutrition and eating disorders, imbalance between Omega-3 and -6.

What to do to avoid a fracture?

Essentially, some risk factors are unchangeable but a healthy lifestyle could potentially help you reduce your risk of fracture, such as eating well, not drinking too much, keeping a healthy weight and BMI, doing some daily exercise, bending smart (bending at the knee and not the waist), taking supplements.

Interventions

The most commonly used agents in Europe are raloxifene; the bisphosphonates (alendronate, ibandronate, risedronate and zoledronic acid); agents derived from parathyroid hormone; denosumab; and strontium ranelate. They have all been shown to reduce the risk of vertebral fractures and in some cases, some of these agents have been shown to specifically decrease the risk of fracture at the hip.

Do you know someone who suffers from osteoporosis? What do you think of the fact that the healthy lifestyle is again given as advice to reduce risks?

Let me know, my Sexy Readers, in the comment box below. Soon, we'll have Seran's second post up, it will focus on baby's immunisation programme! A contentious topic, so don't forget to come back soon to check it out ;)

See you soon for more Sexy Science,

* It's very important not to fall for "low bone density=fracture".
To use an analogy we might be more familiar with:
Blood pressure - Hypertension - Stroke:
Although we cannot directly link high blood pressure to the inevitability of a stroke, we measure our blood pressure to diagnose a hypertension which put us at a higher risk of a stroke.
The same way here:
Bone density - bone strength - fracture
We measure the bone density to diagnose bone fragility which puts us at a higher risk of a fracture.

Further reading
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Osteoporosis/Pages/Prevention.aspx
http://www.iofbonehealth.org/world-osteoporosis-day

What is Ebola?

My Dear Sexy Readers,

Here is Seran's first official post:


As of 2014, an epidemic of the Ebola Virus Disease has engulfed West Africa, killing 1 in 2 people who have caught the virus. Ebola seems like the disease from nightmares. Asides from the high mortality rate from the disease, it also causes horrific symptoms including bleeding from virtually every orifice of the body- including the mouth, genitals and eyes.

…And it’s got the potential to become even worse.

We currently don’t have a cure for Ebola and we’ve been finding it difficult to contain Ebola for a variety of social, political and economic reasons.

I’ve created a quick infographic explaining these points in a bit more detail…

…In short, however, the ‘big deal’ about Ebola is that it’s very deadly!

Thanks for taking the time to read!

Seran

"I am not the Cancer" Art Installation

My Dear Sexy Readers,

I feel privileged to have been invited to the "I am not the Cancer" Art installation in Central London part of the Metastatic Breast Cancer Awareness Campaign commissioned by Novartis.
I used to go to scientific conferences all over, sporting a badge with my name and my research lab on it. But this time, I was invited as a Science Writer! How exciting to be recognized for your work!

I was contacted through LinkedIn by a member of the Breast Cancer Care. This charity raises awareness and funds for the care of women affected by Breast Cancer whose disease has become metastatic.
Before being taken through to the art installation, we were welcomed in a reception area where we were presented with the results of the Here and Now campaign.

The Here and Now campaigns are surveys commissioned by Novartis Oncology. In the UK, with 60 respondents living with advanced breast cancer and distributed in April and May 2014, the objectives are to understand the challenges experienced by the patients at each stage of their journey and understand the barriers to improved patient outcomes.

Breast Cancer
Breast Cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide, and accounts for a third of all new cancers diagnosed in women in UK!
A third of women with early breast cancer (EBC) go on to develop Advanced Breast Cancer (ABC).
ABC is uncurable and affects an estimated 30,000 women in the UK each year.
Average life expectancy after ABC diagnosis remains at 2 to 4 years, compared to 10 years for early breast cancer.

Here and Now Survey Results
The results of the HERE and Now UK survey were presented to us by Honey Langcaster-James, a lecturer in Psychology from the university of Hull. The results show that women with ABC often feel like many areas of their lives are negatively affected, such as their emotional health, the relationships with friends, family and partner.  Up to one in 3 women with ABC feel they do not receive enough support from their friends or parents.

Patients with ABC require a high degree of social and psychological support. 2 out of 3 women feel like no one understands what they are going through and that it's hard to find support groups for ABC. They feel isolated from other support groups that focus on Early Breast Cancer (EBC). With time, the support they received from friends and family when first diagnosed has faded.

Although, the majority of patients said they received enough support from nurses and their oncologists, they want more time to discuss their wider needs and get help to arrange for these such as emotional and financial support.

Regarding treatments, more work is needed to ensure greater access to new treatments for ABC patients. Almost half of the patients surveyed would like to know more about new treatments but are unsure of who to talk to, some of them don't even feel empowered to make their own decisions.

"These results call for Action... Health Care professionals (HCP) need to understand they can do more... Payers, regulators, commissioners need to work to improve the landscape... We need patient support groups... The Public needs to be aware." said Honey Langcaster-James

Leading UK experts
Gill Donovan, Breast Oncology Nurse specialist and Research Fellow at Cardiff University, also shared her experience with us. She explained that treatment options are not the same depending on your geographical location, the access to new treatments is limited because of costs. Although, she explained, nurses need to balance optimism and realities, one important role to play is the need to give hope, to concentrate on the living and not on the dying.

" We need a service to be redesigned on how to deal with the variety of tasks such as explain treatments, refer to appropriate services, talk to patients, manage their anxiety, manage emotional and physical effects" she says.

Diana Jupp, Director of Services at Breast Cancer Care, says the charity continues to campaign to improve the standards of care for people living with this complex disease. In the UK, we had 5 specialist nurses; this number increased to 32 recently. But it's 32 in the whole of UK! There's a lot of work to be done, collecting data in England, network with Wales and Scotland, sharing good practice, installing policies. A sentiment shared by Baroness Morgan of Drefelin who also came to talk to us about her continuous work to influence politics into opening up to ABC awareness.

The art installation
Then, we were led to the art installation itself: It consisted of 6 TV screens showing face and back of the head of 3 silent patients suffering from advanced breast cancer. Opposite each TV screen was a comfortable armchair; and above each armchair was a speaker from which you could hear their devastating story. So to hear their story, you had no choice but to sit in this armchair and look in the eyes of this silent patient on the TV screen (not a comfortable thing to do). The point of this art installation was to make you realize that, however uncomfortable it is, that’s how we should support friends and family as opposed to using escapism as a coping method. This art installation was created to make you feel differently, to question yourself in order to make you behave differently.


Are you affected by advanced breast cancer? Through a friend, family member, yourself? Were you aware of the lack of support for these patients? As usual, let me know in the comments box,

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

Further reading
http://www.novartis.co.uk/news/featured-news/20140430-here-and-now.shtml

What is Sarcoma?

My Dear Sexy Readers,

I stumbled upon this while working on a writing test for a job application (! I know, totally random!): this week 23-29 June 2014 - yeahhhh I'm not too late - is Sarcoma Awareness week!! I'm glad I found this because, although I knew the name, I didn't really know much about Sarcomas. And you know me, I love learning about new things and sharing it all with you.
This year's campaign is about Getting People "On the ball" for sarcoma. What is it? It's simple, you just download a Poster from their web page and order your "On the Ball" pack to bring to your GP to make him/her more aware of symptoms, signs, etc... I couldn't find any # to go with the campaign but if you type Sarcoma on the ball on Twitter, you get some results!

You can download this poster yourself from HERE and bring to your GP, along with an info pack

Sarcoma Fact Sheet (borrowed from the Sarcoma website)
Sarcoma is a group of rare-ish cancers that develop in the muscle, bone, nerves, cartilage, tendons, blood vessels and the fatty and fibrous tissues.

There are around 100 different sub-types of sarcoma

There are around 3,800 new cases of sarcoma diagnosed each year in the UK

There are 13,000 people living with sarcoma in the UK

Sarcomas make up 15% of all childhood cancers (0-14 years) and 11% of all cancer diagnoses in teenagers and young people (15-24 years)

Sarcomas make up 1% of all cancer diagnoses in the UK

If you are interested or just want to know more about Sarcomas, check the charity's designated web page over HERE


Did you know about Sarcoma? Do you feel we should get more involved in the awareness campaign to get GPs to recognise signs and symptoms? Feel free to share your experience in the comments box, thank you for dropping and...

See you Soon for more Sexy Science,

Further Reading
http://www.sarcoma.org.uk/