CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

Legs-up-the-wall pose - Yoga’s cure for almost all complaints

I am a keen yoga follower, who practices yoga regularly, including Tuesday’s lunchtime class here at CABI. I also receive daily yoga insights from the Yoga Journal giving tips on poses to try at home. I thought I’d share today’s tip on Viparita Karani or ‘legs-up-the-wall pose’ with the 'handpicked' readers, as it is a very relaxing pose and, it turns out to be also a useful pose to practice for health. Read on to learn why!

The face of climate change

Is it a polar bear or…a child in Africa?

(image by Just being myself)

Rapid Diagnostic Tools – the End of Traditional Microscopic Diagnosis of Malaria?

Fig. 258.  Plasmodium ovale. Three typical trophozoites that make species diagnosis very easy
Image courtesy of the authors of Atlas of Human Malaria.

From  Zeno Bisoffi  and Giovanni Swierczynski, of the Centre for Tropical Diseases, S. Cuore Hospital, in Negrar (Verona), Italy.

At the recent ECTMIH 2009 in Verona, Italy, a very well attended parallel session discussed the problem of malaria diagnosis. The keynote lecture by Walter Wernsdorfer had the provocative title: The Use of Rapid Diagnostic Tools – the End of Traditional Microscopic Diagnosis of Malaria?

Not surprisingly, the speaker expressed serious concern about totally abandoning microscopy in favor of the "new" rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs), and fears that microscopy would become obsolete, although no real demonstration exists of the superiority of the new tools.

A hot debate followed.

Slow progress in tackling world hunger

The Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report  released for World Food Day today shows that progress in fighting hunger remains slow. This year the report released by the International Food Policy Research Institute highlights gender inequality as a factor in food insecurity.

Pass the Chalice?

"Bishops defying swine flu advice" said the headlines recently.

Some bishops in England  have recently reinstated using a shared chalice to distribute communion wine. UK Dept of Health advice is to suspend this practice during the swine flu outbreak to prevent the spread of this disease. I can see why chalices were identified as potentially spreading infections but church goers should take heart because drinking wine from a shared  silver communal vessel may be safer than sharing a cup of water.

Why?

Food Price Hikes – Crisis and Opportunity?

The drastic rises in prices of food during 2007-2008 had severe consequences, but could such rises present an opportunity? Antonio Martuscelli believes “High food prices in the short-run are very damaging for low-income groups of the population in developing countries. At the same time, high prices are an incentive for producers and extremely important for generating an aggregate supply response and to re-establish a long-run equilibrium.” His work is published in CAB Reviews in the run-up to CABI’s Global Summit on “Food Security in a Climate of Change” in London, 19-21 October.

Martuscelli, of the University of Sussex says that it is vital that short- and long-term issues are balanced. “The problem of high prices of basic food commodities exposes governments and societies to a great challenge that can only be addressed by means of a comprehensive food policy for the coming years. The challenge is to address the adverse impact of high food prices in the short run without compromising the long-run equilibrium of agricultural markets.”

Martuscelli’s views are published in one of a series of papers in CAB Reviews (listed below) on the food crises published over the last few months. These reviews look at issues such as the extent to which diversion of resources to biofuel production could be a factor.

Parasite anyone?

European Congress of Tropical Diseases/1^st Mediterranean Travel Medicine meeting

Monday Sept 7 2009

We are in Verona, home of Juliet & Romeo & apparently Pinocchio, if the street sellers are any indication. My companion is tucking warily into her first swordfish meal, a confirmed meat eater up until now. She remarks that her uncle had warned her to eat it well cooked and asked my opinion. My answer was “well cooked” and laughed, as I realised she thought it was a question of taste whereas the truth was I had immediately thought of parasites! This is what attending a tropical disease meeting does for you, so often dominated by parasitic diseases. 

We are here as exhibitors to publicise the Global Health database…and it has been most gratifying that on the first day, we have already met people who know , use and have been delighted with the unique content they have retrieved using Global Health. 

I have managed to attend a couple of specific meetings, pressure group discussions really: one on neglected diseases and one on the future of medical publishing and how it can help “South” researchers progress their careers and build their country’s research capacity.  

Neglected Tropical Diseases(NTDs)? How long is a piece of string? With a disease list ranging from the WHO’s major 10 to  Professor Peter Hotez’s 31, depending on your definition,  the one thing all NTDs do have in common is the fact that they afflict the world’s poorest peoples and keep them poor through their impact. Most of the WHO’s 10 are parasitic and many of these NTDs are appearing, or indeed reappearing, in the “developed” world amongst migrant populations. We heard Dr. Francois Chappuis (MSF) that Chagas disease was no longer confined to South America, thanks to migration. A recent study in Geneva, which has a large no-status Latin American population, found  12% of this group had Chagas and without insurance had  no access to appropriate health care, the local practitioners were unlikely to diagnose it and the drugs to treat it were not yet licensed in Switzerland! 

But I think I will leave you with some relevant food parasite papers to give you nightmares and thank your lucky stars (if you live in urban Europe) that you can eat your fish or meat and know that strict veterinary public health regulations have seen to it that your food is safe. Just remember, in general, it is not just for matters of taste that we need to cook meat & fish thoroughly.

Read on for the reference list....

We caught malignant malaria from chimpanzees -- but when exactly?

Image: CDC/ James Gathany, Dr. Frank Collins, University of Notre Dame

A couple of weeks ago I came across a news item entitled 'Scientists report original source of malaria', with a sub-headline to the effect that it jumped to humans from chimpanzees, possibly through a single mosquito. Reading the story indicated that it actually referred just to Plasmodium falciparum malaria, although this is the most important form as it causes the most serious disease and the great majority of human malaria deaths (remember that malaria in the wider sense affects a wide variety of animals and dates back millions of years).

Artemisinin yields boosted

Artemisinin is currently the most effective drug we have against malaria, a disease which kills a child every 30 secs, and which we in Europe need to remember was only finally eliminated from Europe in the 1950’s….. and with climate change may well be back, and not just in travellers.

Artemisinin works on the parasite and its only current source is the plant Artemisia annua (annual wormwood). Its origins lie in Chinese traditional medicine, and it was first developed as an effective anti-malarial drug by Chinese scientists but this was not widely known until the 1970s.

It has poor bioavailability so is chemically altered to make it more effective; artesunate and artemether being the best known derivatives. These derivatives are then used in combination with other drugs (the combinations are known as ACTs) in order to reduce the chances of the parasite building up resistance.

With the increased demand for artemisinin, obtaining this drug from the plant leaves was becoming a problem.

Food security: food is not just an energy source, it keeps you healthy

The UK news services may now be focused on swine flu and the death toll of our soldiers, but food security (access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life) has not gone away. We all have to face up to it. AS I fight the daily battle with wasps…who, in a year when I finally managed to gain a decent crop of both plums and apples, have appeared out of nowhere to get to the fruit first…well, I despair of the wasted fruit, and I gain a little insight into the feelings of small farmers worldwide.

It is estimated that wastage due to pests, diseases and post-harvest spoilage accounts for 40% of the crops we grow. To that you can add all the food thrown away in the developed world because of busy lifestyles or paranoia about sell-by-dates. That buy-one-get-one free offer is not so worthwhile if you really didn’t need the extra one and it gets lost at the back of the fridge.....The UK Government's waste watchdog estimates that 4.1million tonnes of food is thrown away each year, at an average cost of £420 per household. The UK government is having a "Radical rethink on food"!

Food security is not just about providing adequate cheap food, so you can get through the day: it’s about reducing wastage, about growing it locally, about having an income so that you can buy the food if you can’t grow it and its about keeping you healthy. You need the right food …there are people in Afghanistan as I write existing on nothing but tea each day.