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Doses of vitamin B1 (thiamine) can reverse early kidney disease in people with type 2 diabetes, research shows. The team from Warwick University tested the effect of vitamin B1, which is found in meat, yeast and grain, on 40 patients from Pakistan. The treatment stopped the loss of a key protein in the urine, the journal Diabetologia reports. Charity Diabetes UK called the results “very promising” – but said it was too early for any firm conclusions.

latest findings build on earlier work by the Warwick University team, showing that many diabetes patients have a deficiency of thiamine. According to the researchers, this cheap and readily available supplement could benefit most people with diabetes – both type 1 and type 2 – as between 70% and 90% of people with diabetes are thiamine deficient.

This is the first study of its kind and suggests that correcting thiamine deficiency in people with diabetes with thiamine supplements may provide improved therapy for early-stage kidney disease.

In diabetes the small blood vessels in the body can become damaged. When the blood vessels that supply blood to the kidneys are involved, the kidneys stop working correctly and important proteins, such as albumin, are lost from the blood into the urine. A third of the patients in the study saw a return to normal urinary albumin excretion after being treated with high dose (300mg) thiamine taken orally each day for three months.The experts say thiamine works by helping protect cells against the harmful effects of the high blood sugar levels found in diabetes.

Original report in BBC Health

A Christmas Poem By and For IT Professionals

‘Twas the night before Christmas (or “holiday break”)
But I was still working — I kicked off a rake.
Secure shells were placed on my desktop with care,
So no one could sniff what I typed away there.
My clients’ hot issues were all put to bed,
But what those had preempted still caused me to dread.
So I in my bathrobe (’twas cold in that room)
Had just settled down for a long game of Doom.
When out on the WAN there arose such a mess
I thought that it must be a DDoS!
Away to the firewall I flew like Jet Li
Denied all incoming, even SMTP.
But as I more closely inspected each packet,
I realized with awe what was causing the racket:
A download! What format? I couldn’t have known it
But I found it included a textual component:
“Now JavaScript! Perl! Now Python and Ruby!
On Haskell! on Clojure! on Scala and Groovy!
To the Web-facing site, to the edge firewall,
Now bash away, bash away, bash away all!”
The download completed, though I tried to abort,
And a little man popped out a USB port!
His glasses — how thick! His gut — a real softy!
And his beard was all stained with cold pizza and coffee.
He was nerdy and plump, a right jolly old geek,
Though he smelled like he hadn’t had a bath in a week.
He spoke not a word, but went right ahead
He wiped off all Windows, installed *nix instead
The software I’d need, he downloaded it all
(Still using less space than a fresh Win install).
In the USB port he inserted his thumb
And vanished right into it the way he had come
But I heard him exclaim, ere I even had missed ‘im
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good system!

The New York Times has an interesting article up on the car parts incubator: a low-cost baby incubator designed for easy maintenance and repair meant for third-world country use. The basic concept is that while impoverished countries frequently get hand-me-downs of decent used medical equipment, they often don’t know how to maintain or even run it. Machines will break-down, or be shipped without a manual. The car parts incubator is literally made from car parts, and its inventor is hoping that it can be maintained by local auto mechanics. Here’s more from the article:

The heat source is a pair of headlights. A car door alarm signals emergencies. An auto air filter and fan provide climate control. But this contraption has nothing to do with transportation. It is a sturdy, low-cost incubator, designed to keep vulnerable newborns warm during the first fragile days of life.

Unlike the notoriously high-maintenance incubators found in neonatal intensive care units, it is easily repaired, because all of its operational parts come from cars. And while incubators can cost $40,000 or more, this one can be built for less than $1,000.

The creators of the car parts incubator say it could prevent millions of newborn deaths in the developing world. The main causes of newborn death — infections, preterm birth and asphyxiation — are readily treatable with the right expertise and equipment, said Dr. Kristian Olson, principal investigator on the project. “It’s so frustrating to see these preventable deaths. They won’t name babies in Aceh, Indonesia, until they’re two months old. It’s a cultural adaptation to expect a death.”

Original article in NｅｗYork Times

Another Article in Scientific American

Story broke 1 a.m. today about a major security flaw in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 that could allow criminals to take control of people’s computers and steal their passwords. The threat is so serious that IT experts are urging uses of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer to stop using it and switch to another browser (FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Opera) until the flaw has been fixed.

Original story in BBC.

A material that can be squirted into broken bones where it hardens within minutes, has been developed by UK scientists. The toothpaste-like substance forms a biodegradeable scaffold over which the body’s own bone grows. Its makers, from Nottingham University, said it could help remove the need for painful bone grafts in many cases.

While conventional cements give off heat as they harden, killing surrounding cells, and making them unusable in some parts of the body, this polymer does not. The material has the texture of toothpaste at room temperature, and when it rises to body temperature, this is enough to trigger the hardening reaction.

Original Report from BBC