New flu vaccines are released every year to keep up with rapidly adapting flu viruses. Because flu viruses evolve so quickly, last year's vaccine may not protect you from this year's viruses. After vaccination, your immune system produces antibodies that will protect you from the vaccine viruses.

A simple test of fingernail clippings could replace a blood draw as a way to diagnose and monitor type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), with huge implications for tracking the disease in the developing world. Research on this method by a team of Belgian researchers was reported July 28, 2015, at the 2015 American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) Annual Meeting and Clinical Lab Expo in Atlanta. The team, led by Joris R. Delanghe, MD, PhD, of the Department of Global Chemistry, Microbiology and Immunology at Ghent University, collected nail clippings from 25 people with T2DM and 25 without the disease. The clippings were ground into a powder and tested with an inexpensive FT-IR photometer to measure how much the protein in the nails had bonded with sugar molecules, a process known as glycation. “We found a striking difference in the measurements between the control group and the patients with diabetes,” Delanghe said. In an interview with Evidence-Based Diabetes Management, he said replacing the standard blood test to measure glycated hemoglobin is a huge advantage. In many cultures, he said, “Taking blood is something that cannot be tolerated.” - See more at: http://www.ajmc.com/journals/evidence-based-diabetes-management/2015/september-2015/fingernail-tests-may-offer-cheap-simple-way-to-diagnose-diabetes#sthash.XQxnBcNO.dpuf

During in vitro fertilization (IVF), eggs and sperm are brought together in a laboratory glass dish to allow the sperm to fertilize an egg. With IVF, you can use any combination of your own eggs and sperm and donor eggs and sperm. After IVF, one or more fertilized eggs are placed in the uterus .

Hearing loss can affect anyone at any age, due to heredity, medical conditions or loud noise exposure. However, as we get older, we naturally become more susceptible to hearing loss because of changes to the delicate mechanics of our ears.

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Tendons are thick cords that join your muscles to your bones. When these tendons become irritated or inflamed, it is called tendinitis. This condition causes acute pain and tenderness, making it difficult to move the affected joint. Read more

Golfer's elbow causes pain that starts on the inside bump of the elbow, the medial epicondyle. Wrist flexors are the muscles of the forearm that pull the hand forward. The wrist flexors are on the palm side of the forearm. Most of the wrist flexors attach to one main tendon on the medial epicondyle.

A broken bone requires emergency medical care. Your child might have a broken (fractured) bone if he or she heard or felt a bone snap, has difficulty moving the injured part, or if the injured part moves in an unnatural way or is very painful to the touch. A sprain occurs when the ligaments, which hold bones together, are overstretched and partially torn. A strain is when a muscle or tendon is overstretched or torn. Sprains and strains generally cause swelling and pain, and there may be bruises around the injured area. Most sprains and strains, after proper medical evaluation, can be treated at home.

This tiny wireless pacemaker can be inserted into the body via a catheter instead of invasive surgery.

The two biggest considerations when choosing a suture are the location and tension of the wound. Other important considerations are tensile strength, knot strength, handling, and tissue reactivity. Sutures are divided into two major groups: Absorbable – lose the majority of their tensile strength in less than 60 days. They are generally used for buried sutures and do not require removal. Non-absorbable – maintain the majority of their tensile strength for more than 60 days. They are generally used for skin surface sutures and do require removal postoperatively. Suture needles also come in a variety of shapes and sizes. Curved needles are almost exclusively used in dermatological surgery. Cutting needles move through the tissue more easily and may have their primary cutting edge on the inside of the curve (conventional cutting) or outside of the curve (reverse cutting). The benefit of reverse cutting is that the tapered puncture left by the suture is directed away from the wound edge and therefore tissue tearing is less common. Non-cutting round needles cause even less tissue tearing and may be especially useful in delicate areas and fascia.

Encourage your child to drink lots of fluids to prevent dehydration. Milk and water are both fine. However, if your child refuses solids, give your child just milk, rather than water. ... Keep giving your child table foods while he has diarrhea. Diarrhea is most often spread through fecally contaminated food, hands or surfaces touched by objects or hands put into the mouth (fecal-oral route).Water contaminated by human or animal feces (e.g., swimming pools) or trips to sites with animals (e.g., farms, pet stores, petting zoos) are also possible routes of ... The best foods for your child are easily digestible foods, such as rice cereal, pasta, breads, cooked beans, mashed potatoes, cooked carrots, applesauce, and bananas. Pretzels or salty crackers can help your child replace the salt lost from diarrhea. Foods containing large amounts of sugar or fat should be avoided.

The protein inside red blood cells (a) that carries oxygen to cells and carbon dioxide to the lungs is hemoglobin (b). Hemoglobin is made up of four symmetrical subunits and four heme groups. Iron associated with the heme binds oxygen.

Wound healing is the process by which skin or other body tissue repairs itself after trauma. ... This process is divided into predictable phases: blood clotting (hemostasis), inflammation, tissue growth (proliferation) and tissue remodeling (maturation).

Spermatogenesis is the process in which spermatozoa are produced from spermatogonial stem cells by way of mitosis and meiosis. The initial cells in this pathway are called spermatogonia, which yield primary spermatocytes by mitosis.

The heart is the body's engine room, responsible for pumping life-sustaining blood via a 60,000-mile-long (97,000-kilometer-long) network of vessels. The organ works ceaselessly, beating 100,000 times a day, 40 million times a year—in total clocking up three billion heartbeats over an average lifetime. It keeps the body freshly supplied with oxygen and nutrients, while clearing away harmful waste matter.

The bladder is a hollow organ in the lower abdomen (pelvis). It collects and stores urine produced by the kidneys. The bladder is connected to the kidneys by a tube from each kidney called a ureter. When the bladder reaches its capacity of urine, the bladder wall contracts, although adults have voluntary control over the timing of this contraction. At the same time, a urinary control muscle (sphincter) in the urethra relaxes. The urine is then expelled from the bladder. The urine flows through a narrow tube called the urethra and leaves the body. This process is called urination, or micturition.

Cosmetic Eye and Eyelid Surgery

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an incision made on the back of the lower leg starting just above the heel bone. After the surgeon finds the two ends of the ruptured tendon, these ends are sewn together with sutures. The incision is then closed. Another repair method makes a small incision on the back of the lower leg at the site of the rupture.

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a group of disorders that affect the connective tissues that support the skin, bones, blood vessels, and many other organs and tissues. Defects in connective tissues cause the signs and symptoms of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which vary from mildly loose joints to life-threatening complications. Previously, there were more than 10 recognized types of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, differentiated by Roman numerals. In 1997, researchers proposed a simpler classification that reduced the number of major types to six and gave them descriptive names: the classical type (formerly types I and II), the hypermobility type (formerly type III), the vascular type (formerly type IV), the kyphoscoliosis type (formerly type VIA), the arthrochalasia type (formerly types VIIA and VIIB), and the dermatosparaxis type (formerly type VIIC). This six-type classification, known as the Villefranche nomenclature, is still commonly used. The types are distinguished by their signs and symptoms, their underlying genetic causes, and their patterns of inheritance. Since 1997, several additional forms of the condition have been described. These additional forms appear to be rare, affecting a small number of families, and most have not been well characterized.