It looks like it will be necessary to get that flu shot after all with the latest information in the health news reports.  Even though the press is not talking as much about the subject, there are still warnings and precautions about the Swine flu – H1N1 virus given out by the World Health Organization.  There has been a rise in the number of people who have been struck by the flu virus and an increasing number of deaths world wide.  For more information, please read further this article at the CBC News health site.

“The global swine flu epidemic is still in its early stages, even though reports of over 100,000 infections in England alone last week are plausible, the World Health Organization’s flu chief said Friday.

Keiji Fukuda, WHO’s assistant director-general for health security and environment, told The Associated Press that given the size of the world’s population, the new H1N1 virus is likely to spread for some time.

WHO earlier estimated that as many as two billion people could become infected over the next two years.

“Even if we have hundreds of thousands of cases or a few millions of cases …we’re relatively early in the pandemic,” Fukuda said in an interview at WHO’s headquarters in Geneva.

The global health agency stopped asking governments to report new cases last week, saying the effort was too great now that the disease has become so widespread in some countries.
Authorities in Britain say there were over 100,000 infections in England alone last week, while U.S. health officials estimate the United States has passed the one million case mark. Those figures dwarf WHO’s tally of 130,000 confirmed cases worldwide since the start of the outbreak last spring.

“We know that the total number of laboratory confirmed cases is really only a subset of the total number of cases,” Fukuda said.
Fukuda, the former chief of epidemiology at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also said there must be no doubt over the safety of swine flu vaccines before they are given to the public.

Dramatic rise in H1N1 cases expected

Health officials and drug makers are looking into ways of speeding up the production of the vaccine before the Northern Hemisphere enters its flu season in the fall.
The first vaccines are expected in September and October, said Fukuda. Other vaccines will take until December or January before they are released onto the market — well into…”

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Want to live longer, look better as you age? Research has found that eating less and therefore consuming less calories seems to help as far as anti-aging goes. Read the following health news article from the BBC news on how a reduction of calories will benefit you as you age and this is true for both men and women.

“Cutting calories may delay the aging process and reduce the risk of disease, a long-term study of monkeys suggests.

The benefits of calorie restriction are well documented in animals, but now the results have been replicated in a close relative of man over a lengthy period. Over 20 years, monkeys whose diets were not restricted were nearly three times more likely to have died than those whose calories were counted. Writing in Science, the US researchers hailed the “major effect” of the diet.

It involved reducing calorie intake by 30% while maintaining nutrition and appeared to impact upon many forms of age-related disease seen in monkeys, including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and brain atrophy. Whether the same effects would be seen in humans is unclear, although anecdotal evidence so far suggests people on a long-term calorie-restricted diet have better cardiovascular health.

The precise mechanism is yet to be established: theories involve changes in the body’s metabolism or a reduction in the production of “free radical” chemicals which can cause damage. Seventy-six rhesus monkeys were involved in the trial, which began in 1989 and was expanded in 1994. Half had their diets restricted, half were given free rein at feeding time.

The rate of cancers and cardiovascular disease in dieting animals was less than half of those permitted to eat freely.

While diabetes and problems with glucose regulation were common in monkeys who ate what they wanted, there were no cases in the calorie controlled group. In addition, while most brains shrink with age, the restricted diet appeared to maintain the volume of the brain at least in some regions. In particular, the areas associated with movement and memory seemed to be better preserved. “Both motor speed and mental speed slow down with ageing,” said Sterling Johnson, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine.

“Those are the areas which we found to be better preserved. We can’t yet make the claim that a difference in diet is associated with functional change because those studies are still ongoing.”

It seems to hold true that reducing caloric consumption is a major factor for age management for men and women.
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With the latest health news reports on the H1N1 which says that H1N1 is Tamiflu-resistant, people are somewhat worried especially with the flu season just months away.  However, Reuters reports that this is a single case and we do not have to worry too much.  The pandemic alert is still high though which means that you should still be planning to get your flu shot this year when flu season begins.

By Stephanie Nebehay and Laura MacInnis from Reuters

“The first H1N1 infection found to be resistant to the antiviral drug Tamiflu represents an isolated case with no current implications for public health, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.

“The United Nations agency has declared a global pandemic is underway from the virus known as swine flu which has so far been treatable with Tamiflu, made by Roche.

WHO spokesman Dick Thompson said that the discovery of a patient in Denmark whose infection did not respond to the drug, revealed by the Swiss company and Danish officials on Monday, did not amplify the severity of the virus.

“This is an isolated case. At this time, there is no public health implication. But we must remain alert as the virus can change at any time and we must not be complacent,” he told Reuters.

Officials say the patient is now well and no further contagion with the resistant virus was detected.

Resistance to Tamiflu has been previously documented in the deadly bird flu virus H5N1 and seasonal H1N1 flu, Thompson said.
“We need to monitor the virus (H1N1) continuously,” he said, adding that the WHO’s global influenza surveillance network linking laboratories in 97 countries would keep monitoring it.
“WHO is not changing its recommendations for the use of antivirals,” Thompson added, referring to the global body’s advice to its 193 member states.

The WHO has previously said that the H1N1 virus is sensitive to a class of antiviral drugs which includes Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, and Relenza by GlaxoSmithKline, known generically as zanamivir.

Denmark’s State Serum Institute said, when making the announcement on Monday, that it was expected that the strain would at some point show resistance to Tamiflu.
It said that while the patient was found to be infected with a virus strain that had mutated to a form resistant to Tamiflu, the alternative drug Relenza, which is inhaled, remained an effective treatment.

GLOBAL PANDEMIC

The WHO on June 11 raised its pandemic flu alert to its highest level of 6, signifying that the first influenza pandemic since 1968 was under way [ID:nLC321991]
Flu viruses mutate regularly and can develop resistance to drugs at any time.”

Remember, young and old alike are affected by the H1N1 virus, which means that you must not forget to get your flu shot.
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