Scientists have developed a new technique to detect tuberculosis bacteria which survive the treatment, paving the way for effectively treating TB bacilli resistant to antibodies.

Researchers from the Antwerp Institute of Tropical Medicine have created a simple technique of Fluorescein diacetate staining, which only stains living tuberculosis bacilli (and not dead ones) which can immediately tell if resistant bacilli survived after treatment.

Tuberculosis bacilli have become resistant against major antibiotics. According to World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, only 11 per cent of multiresistant cases were discovered in 2009.

Checking smears under the microscope still is the recommended technique for TB screening, but it cannot differentiate between living and dead bacilli.

It is therefore not clear whether you are looking at the cadavers of a successful treatment, or at resistant survivors. Only if the numbers after a long wait still don't fall, you know you are dealing with a resistant strain. But all that time the patient has remained contagious, the researchers said in a statement.

Armand Van Deun and colleagues in Bangladesh gave a new application to a forgotten technique: vital staining with fluorescein diacetate (FDA). It only stains living TB bacilli, so one immediately sees those bacilli escaping treatment.

The scientists improved the detection of the luminous bacilli by replacing the classical fluorescence microscope with its LED counterpart.

This simple test allows, also in resource-limited labs, to detect a high number of resistant TB bacilli that otherwise would have been discovered too late or not at all.

The study was published in the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

Scientists claim high levels of iron may be one reason why eating red meat raises the risk of bowel cancer.

Iron may switch on the disease process via a faulty gene in the gut which would normally resist the disease.

Red meat contains large amounts of iron and is also known to increase the likelihood of bowel cancer.

The discovery could lead to new treatments that can 'mop up' iron in the bowel in people who develop cells affected by the defective gene.

In studies of mice, researchers found that susceptibility to bowel cancer was strongly influenced both by iron and a gene called APC.

When the APC gene was faulty, mice with a high iron intake were two to three times more likely to develop the disease.

Mice fed a low iron diet remained cancer free even if the gene was defective, but when it functioned normally, high iron levels did no harm.

Lead scientist Professor Owen Sansom, deputy director of the Cancer Research UK Institute in Glasgow, said 'We've made a huge step in understanding how bowel cancer develops.

'The APC gene is faulty in around eight out of 10 bowel cancers but until now we haven't known how this causes the disease.

'It's clear that iron is playing a critical role in controlling the development of bowel cancer in people with a faulty APC gene.

'And, intriguingly, our study shows that even very high levels of iron in the diet don't cause cancer by itself, but rely on the APC gene.'

Each year, more than 41,000 people in the UK are diagnosed with bowel cancer and around 16,000 die from the disease.

Previously, researchers have estimated that red meat contributes to around 17,000 cases of bowel cancer a year.

But this estimate was based on two different dietary factors thought to play a part in promoting bowel cancer because a substance called haem, which gives red meat its colour, can damage the lining of the colon, while burning meat produces cancer-causing compounds.

The latest laboratory study proposes another mechanism that, if confirmed in people, might help explain why people's risk of bowel cancer increases with age.

Over time, cells in the bowel would be increasingly likely to develop APC gene faults and thus react to iron in the diet.

Researchers say that when the APC gene doesn't work, iron is allowed to build up in the cells lining the gut.

This activates a genetic cancer 'switch' called wnt that causes cells to multiply out of control.

But consumption of iron also aids the growth of cells with defective APC over time, says the study published in the journal Cell reports.

In mice fed a diet with no iron, cells with a faulty APC gene were killed off and bowel cancer did not develop.

Mice with a fully functioning APC gene did not grow tumours even when fed high amounts of iron in their diet. In these animals, the wnt signalling pathway remained switched 'off'.

Co-author Dr Chris Tselepis, a Cancer Research UK scientist at the University of Birmingham, said 'Our results also suggest that iron could be raising the risk of bowel cancer by increasing the number of cells in the bowel with APC faults.

'The more of these cells in the bowel, the greater the chance that one of these will become a starting point for cancer.

'We're now planning to develop treatments that reduce the amount of iron in the bowel and so could lower the risk of developing bowel cancer.

'We hope to start using these in trials in the next few years in people who are at a greater risk.'

Dr Julie Sharp, senior science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said 'Bowel cancer is the third most common cancer in the UK.

'These findings suggest a potentially effective way of reducing the chances of bowel cancer developing in people who are at high risk.

'Finding ways of 'mopping up' the iron that is in the bowel could have a real impact on the number of people who develop the disease.'

A city dentist will have to pay Rs. one Lakh as compensation to a patient, following a district consumer forum orders. The dentist prompted medical complications for the patient by operating him, without taking into account his blood sugar levels.

The patient had lodged a complaint of the dentist stating that the doctor didn't check his blood sugar level prior to the surgery; as a result the operated area developed pus, which has led to a severe infection in his throat that can be mended only by operation that would cost Rs. 70,000.

However, Dr. Vaneet Kakar emphasized that he performed the operation only after his patient Fateh Singh confirmed him that his sugar level was normal.

Still North District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum asserted that they found Dr. Kakar to be negligent as if after being informed that the patient is diabetic, he believed in his words and did not check his sugar levels.

The forum pointed out that once the patient informed the doctor of his condition, he should have asked him to go for a blood sugar test before carrying out the root canal treatment.

"Contributory negligence on the part of patient is no defense though it is a circumstance which can be taken into account in determining the quantum of compensation", the forum said.

Honesty is the best policy after all! Researchers have found that telling fewer lies can improve your physical and mental health.

A study found that people experienced about four fewer mental health complaints such as feeling tense or sad by telling three fewer lies in a 10-week period.

They also had three fewer physical problems - including sore throats and headaches, the Daily Mail reported on Wednesday.

A total of 110 people, their age ranging from 18 to 71, took part in the study conducted by the University of Notre Dame researchers.

About half the participants were instructed to stop telling lies during the study. The other half served as a control group that received no special instructions about lying.

Results showed the link between less lying and better health was significantly stronger for participants in the no-lie group.

They experienced four fewer mental health complaints and three fewer physical problems - after telling three fewer lies.

Even girls who have not had sexual intercourse are at risk for infection with human papillomavirus (HPV), a new study shows.

In the study, which involved teen girls and young women, 11.6 percent of those who had never had sexual intercourse were infected with at least one strain of HPV.

HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that is most commonly passed between people during vaginal or anal intercourse. But it can also be transmitted through genital-to-genital, or hand-to-genital contact, which is how the participants in the study likely got the virus, the researchers said. Out of the more than 40 sexually transmitted HPV strains, more than a dozen have been identified as cancer-causing, according to the National Cancer Institute.

HPV infections are usually transient, but can cause cervical cancer in some people if the infection lingers for long periods.

The findings support the recommendation to administer the HPV vaccine to girls ages 11 and 12, before many become sexually active, the researchers said. Doctors and parents should not delay HPV vaccination because a teen is not sexually active, they said.

"Even before kids have intercourse,they're being exposed to HPV," said study researcher Lea Widdice, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. "Vaccination at 11 to 12 years old is not too early," Widdice said.

Because the study was conducted in just one community of mainly African American young women, further research is needed to see if the findings apply to the general population. A high percentage of the participants in the study had become sexually active or had sexual contact, and the prevalence of HPV may be lower in a group with different sexual behaviors, experts say.

One of Widdice's teammates receives funding from Merck, the company that manufactures the HPV vaccine Gardasil.

Widdice and colleagues analyzed information from 259 girls ages 13 to 21 who visited a clinic in Cincinnati and got their first HPV vaccination between 2008 and 2010. The majority of participants (78 percent) were African American, and 75 percent reported having public health insurance.

Participants were asked whether they had ever had sexual intercourse, or whether they had ever had sexual contact without intercourse. A swab was used to collected cell samples from the vagina and cervix (either by doctors or the participants themselves), and the samples were tested for HPV.

One hundred ninety participants (73 percent) were sexually experienced, and many had had multiple sexual partners; the average number of sexual partners was about six. Among sexually active participants, 133 (70 percent) tested positive for HPV.

Of the 69 participants who had not had sex, eight tested positive for HPV, two of whom had HPV-16, a high-risk type of HPV. (Most cervical cancers are caused by HPV-16 or HPV-18.)

Eduardo Franco, a cancer epidemiologist at McGill University, in Montreal, said the percentage of girls in the study who tested positive for HPV and had not had sex was higher than he would have expected. But this may be because many of the girls in the group had had some type of sexual exposure, said Franco, who was not involved in the study.

It's not clear whether the HPV infections seen in this study were found in the vagina or in the cervix, Franco said. HPV infections in the cervix are more risky in terms of their cancer-causing ability, but would be less likely in those who have not had sexual intercourse, Franco said.

The vaccines currently available prevent both vaginal and cervical strains, though they must be given before the infection emerges. That said, women who have an HPV infection in the vagina would still be protected against the cervical kind if they then get the HPV vaccine, Franco said.

(Gardasil protects four strains of HPV, while the vaccine Cervarix, manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, protects against two strains.)

Widdice and her colleagues detail their results in the August issue of the journal Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.