Quote:My best friend and I were in the diner, talking. As usual, it was very late and we were eating French fries with gravy. Like normal girls our age, we spent a lot of time in the diner while in college, and most of the time we spent talking about boys, music or trivial things, that seemed very important at the time. We never got serious about anything in particular and spent most of our time laughing.

Quote:You might think it could be time to move on to something new,
but if this latest use is any indicator your dusty old DeskJet still has some
legs yet. Home Dialysis Plus has licensed HP's fluid management technology
to enable mixing of dialysis solution and (internally pasteurized) tap water
on the fly, automatically creating the appropriate concentration and removing
human error from the equation. In another nod to printer tech, that solution
will be distributed using cartridges that can be easily stored and dropped into
the machine. It remains to be seen whether the company will also license HP's system
of pricing cartridges higher than the device that uses them, but since
refill kits are bound to be a little harder to find we're certainly hoping not.

Quote:The agency proposed a rule that would create a new Quality Incentive Program (QIP) for
dialysis services—the first pay for performance program in fee-for-service—that will link a facility’s
payment to how well it meets new performance standards.
The QIP will take effect on Jan. 1, 2012.

About 600 hospital-based and 4,330 free-standing end-stage renal disease
facilities are affected. In 2007, the value of these services was $9.2 billion
for dialysis treatments and other related services such as medication.

“The new payment system and quality incentive program for dialysis services
have significant potential to improve patient outcomes and promote efficient delivery of healthcare services,”
says CMS’ new Administrator Donald Berwick,
MD.

“In addition, for the first time in any of our payment systems, the quality of
care facilities furnish to patients will be reflected in their payment rates.” He added, the QIP “is a critical tool
for encouraging and supporting dialysis facilities
to focus their energies thoroughly on the quality of dialysis care they provide to Medicare beneficiaries.”

The new payment system provides an adjustment to help patients learn skills to receive dialysis at home if
appropriate.

Quote:Dialysis requires frequent access to a person’s veins in order
to circulate the blood to cleanse the liquids and waste that normally
would be removed by working kidneys.

Due to the recent implementation of the HeRO (Hemodialysis Reliable
Outflow) Vascular Access Device by a surgeon, the quality of care and
life expectancy of dialysis patients who have exhausted peripheral venous
access sites suitable for fistulas or grafts have found a long-term solution.

Jeffrey Whitehurst, M.D., Surgeon, of General and Vascular Surgeons,
Dothan, has been implanting the HeRO device into access-challenged
dialysis patients for more than 8 months now.

Implanting the HERO graft is an alternative procedure for catheter-dependent dialysis
patients whose veins are damaged. “The procedure is like combining
the “permcath”- a tube or catheter usually placed in a vein in the neck, chest,
or groin, to a “graft”- a synthetic tube operating as an artificial vein,” Dr. Whitehurst said.

Often, patients’ veins in their arms become scarred, narrowed and occluded
due to the use of catheters, fistulas or grafts as a point of access to perform dialysis; they
also become subject to severe pain and massive swelling. These types of complications make
it difficult for medical providers and painful for patients to get the treatment they need. However,
these obstacles can be
bypassed during the HeRO procedure, said Dr. Whitehurst

“A special stent graft is placed under the large vein under the collar bone
instead of in the arm, goes directly to the right atrium of the heart. The stent
graft is then connected to the HeRO, which provides direct access to the arteries and an opportunity
for cleansed blood to return back into the body,” explains Dr. Whitehurst.

Once the graph is in place, the patient’s skin forms around the HeRO, made of a soft material called
Gortex, and doctors are then able to maintain dialysis- access for the long term.

There are all most 7,000 dialysis patients in Alabama, but Dr. Whitehurst one of the only surgeons in
this area implanting the HeRO vascular access device.

With 11 years of experience as a general surgeon, Whitehurst’s goal “is to continue performing this
procedure and giving dialysis patients a long-term solution that will ultimately help to keep them alive.”

Quote:When she was 18, doctors told Marie-Eve Chainey that her kidneys had failed.

“That was the last day I lived without dialysis,” remembered the Ottawa student. The diagnosis was a shock for the competitive high jumper.

“Dialysis is very exhausting for the body,” she said. “I lost a lot of my strength and I was very weak. Dialysis is hard.”

She got a fitness grant through the Shad Ireland Foundation, which helps people with kidney disease get active again.

Eight years later, Chainey is now the Canadian co-director of the Shad Ireland Foundation, which launched its first-ever event in Canada yesterday.
The Simply Fit Family Friendly 1K and Competitive 5 and 10K, to be held at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum on Aug. 15, is a fundraiser and a way to raise awareness for kidney disease, said Chainey.

Himself a dialysis patient for 28 years, Shad Ireland attended the conference by video.
“I found that exercise and nutrition is a great model for stabilizing and rehabilitating people with this disease,” said Ireland, who is the world’s first dialysis patient to complete an Ironman competition.

Quote:24-hour urine collection
Albumin
Bicarbonate
Blood Urea Nitrogen (BUN)
Calcium
CAT scan
Cholesterol
Creatinine
Creatinine clearance
Ferritin
Glucose
Hematocrit
Hemoglobin (Hb)
Kidney biopsy
Liver function
MRI scan
Phosphate, phosphorus
Parathyroid hormone (PTH)
Potassium
Renal angiogram
Residual renal function
Sodium (Salt)
Ultrasound scan
Urinalysis
X-ray
You can also look at a complete list of all tests, including those only used with dialysis or transplant patients.

Everyone's blood test results are different and can be affected by several things including:

what you eat
how well your kidneys are working
your body shape and size
your general health
The results of these tests may lead your doctors to ask for additional tests in order to determine how well your kidneys are working and what caused the damage, and to make decisions
about your treatment.

With the help of these results, your doctors will be able to determine when your kidney function has declined to the stage
at which you will need dialysis or a transplant.

New tests may be required during dialysis.

Quote:The research has revealed that an estimated three-
quarters of consumers who buy whole chickens wash them,
potentially spreading bacteria on to work surfaces for up to
a 3ft radius.

According to figures from the Food Standards Agency (FSA),
65 percent of raw shop-bought chicken is contaminated with campylobacter,
the most common identified cause of food
poisoning in the UK, with symptoms including diarrhoea and
stomach cramps.

Although cooking chicken properly will kill the bug, it is
responsible for more than 300,000 cases of food poisoning and
15,000 hospitalisations a year in England and Wales alone.

However, the study found that 56 percent of people thought
salmonella was the biggest cause of food poisoning, with just 2
percent naming campylobacter.

"Tap water won't get rid of the germs that cause food poisoning.
By washing your raw bird, you're actually more likely to spread the
germs around the kitchen," the Scotsman quoted an FSA
spokeswoman as saying.

Quote:500 million people all around the world are actively using Facebook to stay connected with their friends and the people around them," Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said in a blog post.

"This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world."

To celebrate, the California firm introduced an application that lets members of the online community "tell the incredible stories of the moving and interesting ways they've used Facebook."

Examples given by Zuckerberg included NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen jogging with Facebook fans during his term as Danish prime minister and a U.S. woman using the service to battle breast cancer.

"Our mission at Facebook is to help make the world more open and connected," Zuckerberg said.

"I could have never imagined all of the ways people would use Facebook when we were getting started 6 years ago."

Zuckerberg has pointed to Facebook's unrelenting growth to rebuff criticism of feature changes or privacy safeguards at the website.

Americans are increasingly obsessed with Facebook and many young women check their page even before using the bathroom in the morning, according to a poll released last week.

However, a U.S. study released on Tuesday indicates that while people may be addicted to Facebook they rank it near the bottom when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Facebook landed with notoriously despised airlines and cable television companies in the bottom 5 per cent of private companies ranked in a 2010 American Customer Satisfaction Index E-Business Report produced in partnership with ForeSee Results.

"Our research shows that privacy concerns, frequent changes to the website, and commercialization and advertising adversely affect the consumer experience," ForeSee chief executive Larry Freed said in a release.

Zuckerberg openly advocates Internet firms releasing innovations quickly and "iterating" with improvements.

"It's clear that while innovation is critical, sometimes consumers prefer evolution to revolution," Freed said.

Facebook recently overhauled privacy controls in the face of a barrage of criticism that it is betraying the trust which has made it the world's biggest social network.

Facebook is growing despite criticisms because "there really isn't a strong alternative and Facebook is relatively sticky, migrating off is a ton of work," said analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.

Leaving Facebook ostensibly involves finding a new online home for photos and other digital content from profile pages and then convincing friends to join one there.

"People keep joining Facebook because that is where their friends are," Enderle said.

"Until there is a strong alternative, we won't even have the beginnings for change. And the more people that join Facebook, the stronger that competitor is going to have to be."


Technology titans Google and Microsoft have the resources and the motivation to field or back a Facebook rival, according to the analyst.

Microsoft bought a small stake in Facebook three years ago for 240 million dollars (U.S.).

Microsoft added Facebook to Outlook last week, giving users of its popular email program the ability to view status updates, pictures and wall posts from their friends on the social network.

Quote:The disinfectant used to keep pool water free from disease can also react with swimmers' urine and hair to cause conditions including asthma and bladder cancer.

Products like sunscreen and oil are packed with nitrogen, which reacts with the disinfectant to create toxic chemicals capable of mutating genes.

A team of researchers from the University of Illinois compared samples of tap water and pool water and found using advanced DNA technology that pool water samples led to more cell damage in humans.

Lead researcher Professor of Genetics Michael Plewa said: "All sources of water possess organic matter that comes from decaying leaves, microbes and other dead life forms.

"In addition to organic matter and disinfectants, pool waters contain sweat, hair, skin, urine, and consumer products such as cosmetics and sunscreens from swimmers.

"The study compared different disinfection methods and environmental conditions and our results proved that all disinfected pool samples exhibited more DNA damage than the source tap water.

"Care should be taken in selecting disinfectants to treat recreational pool water.

"The data suggest that agents containing the chemical bromine should be avoided as disinfectants of recreational pool water.

"The best method to treat pool waters is a combination of UV treatment with chlorine as compared to chlorination alone."

Prof Plewa also said that carbon should be removed before disinfection when pool water is being recycled.

He added: "Swimmers can also help reduce the toxicity of pool water by showering before entering the water.

"Pool owners should also remind users about the potential harm caused by urinating in a pool.

"These simple steps can greatly reduce the production of toxic disinfection by-products."

Quote: Kirsty Ferris, 22, will marry Richard Bare this week after doctors confirmed her condition was terminal and she was living on 'borrowed time'.

Kirsty had suffered 'stabbing' pains in her back for 12 months and an MRI scan revealed she was in the advanced stages of renal cancer.

On the same day specialists told Kirsty she had probably had the cancer for two years, that it was terminal, and that she had only months to live.

But Kirsty refused to let it get her down and within minutes was engaged to Richard after he proposed outside the hospital.
The couple are to marry this week in a 'fairytale' wedding that Kirsty had dreamed of since she was a little girl.
Kirsty, of Plymouth, Devon, said: 'I haven't any children and I haven't achieved that much in my life. But the one thing I've wanted to achieve since I was a little girl was to get married.

'I'm not scared of dying. It's the people I'm leaving behind I'm more upset about. It hurts and kills me to think that something that's happening to me will make other people feel so bad.

'It's not my fault and I can't do anything about it, but I feel guilty. I just want to wave a magic wand and get rid of this cancer, but I can't.'
Kirsty, who now requires full-time care and spends much of her time in a wheelchair, was diagnosed just seven months after losing her father John to prostate cancer at 56.

She originally thought she was suffering from a trapped nerve and underwent acupuncture and various other treatments, but nothing seemed to ease the pain.

Finally doctors in Plymouth carried out an MRI scan and found a shadow around her kidney.

The same day Kirsty and Richard visited Derriford Hospital so she could undergo a biopsy, and it confirmed the couple's fears, that Kirsty had cancer.
The prognosis was not good. Doctors told the couple: 'It's treatable but not curable.'

The cancer has spread to her lower back and lymph glands - but Kirsty is refusing to let anything spoil her special day.
Richard, who used to work in the entertainment industry before giving it up to care for Kirsty, said whatever time the couple had together was precious to them.
Richard, fighting back tears, said: 'It's been hard - probably the hardest thing I've ever experienced in my life. I just feel lucky to have met Kirsty.

'I still feel lucky now knowing I can spend the time I can with her. I wish things were different but there's nothing we can do.'
The couple will marry at the Astor Hotel in Plymouth after owner Joseph Louei agreed to stage the ceremony free of charge.
Mr Louei said: 'When I heard what Kirsty and Richard had been through I just wanted to help. I'm honoured she came to me.
'It's such a sad story but she's incredibly brave. Together they're a very loving and caring couple. It was the very least I could do.'
Renal cell cancer is the most common kidney cancer in adults and the average age of sufferers is 55.
The condition is more common in men than women and in its early stages there are usually no signs or symptoms.

Quote:Spanish researchers have found new reasons to add olive oil to
your diet.
They found that virgin olive oil specifically helped slow the growth of
breast cancer tumors in animals.
Olive oil seems to work by putting the brakes on a gene that drives out
of control cell production and stimulates tumor growth.
They also found olive oil prevented DNA damage within cells.
On the other hand, the researchers discovered corn oil stimulated the
growth tumor cells and made them more aggressive.
Human cell studies confirm that olive oil has the same effect on people as
it does on animals. In the meantime, most experts recommend around 3
tablespoons of olive oil a day to get the protective benefits.