From 1st January 2023, in Ontario, Pharmacist are given authorization to prescibe medications for thirteen(13) minor ailments including urinary tract infections, tick bites, pinkeye, cold sores and dermatitis.

Can you imagine being paid as a Pharmacist for prescribing some medicines to inpatients and via Telephone?

Trailing behind the money, it gives more value to the Pharmacist who are experts in medicines and more importantly the patient benefits more from the excellent Pharmaceutical care provided.

“The move is intended to reduce the load on primary care physicians and emergency rooms”, said Nardine Nakhla, a Scarborough pharmacist and professor at the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy, who was one of the architects of the new regulations.

“It’s within our knowledge and clinical expertise; this is just adding tools to that toolbox,” she said. “It’s going to help us ensure patients have access to care outside of the typical nine to five medical model.”

Because of The new prescribing regulations Pharmacists are required to complete a mandatory one-hour online course are part of Ontario’s expanded scope of practice that began in 2019. Pharmacists can now administer injections and, since July of this year, offer point-of-care tests to help patients manage chronic conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. – CBC News, Canada.

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Researchers have found that oxytocin, sometimes known as the “love hormone,” may one day help heal damaged hearts after a heart attack.The neurohormone oxytocin is widely recognized for fostering social connections and producing pleasurable feelings, such as those associated with sex, exercise, or art. However, the hormone has a variety of other functions, such as the regulation of lactation and uterine contractions in females, and the regulation of ejaculation, sperm transport, and testosterone production in males.Now, scientists from Michigan State University have demonstrated that oxytocin has yet another, previously unknown, function in zebrafish and human cell cultures: it stimulates stem cells from the heart’s outer layer (epicardium) to migrate into its middle layer (myocardium), where they develop into cardiomyocytes, the muscle cells that cause heart contractions. This finding could one day be used to promote the regeneration of the human heart after a heart attack. The researchers’ findings were recently published in the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.“Here we show that oxytocin, a neuropeptide also known as the love hormone, is capable of activating heart repair mechanisms in injured hearts in zebrafish and human cell cultures, opening the door to potential new therapies for heart regeneration in humans,” said Dr. Aitor Aguirre, an assistant professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering of Michigan State University, and the study’s senior author.Stem-like cells can replenish cardiomyocytesAfter a heart attack, cardiomyocytes often die off in large numbers. They cannot replenish themselves since they are highly specialized cells. Previous research has revealed, however, that a subset of cells in the epicardium may be reprogrammed to become stem-like cells known as Epicardium-derived Progenitor Cells (EpiPCs), which can regenerate not only cardiomyocytes but also other kinds of heart cells.“Think of the EpiPCs as the stonemasons that repaired cathedrals in Europe in the Middle Ages,” explained Aguirre.Unfortunately, under natural conditions, the production of EpiPCs is inefficient for human heart regeneration.Zebrafish could teach us how to regenerate hearts more efficientlyEnter the zebrafish: famous for their extraordinary capacity for regenerating organs, including the brain, retina, internal organs, bone, and skin. They don’t suffer heart attacks, but its many predators are happy to take a bite out of any organ, including the heart – so zebrafish can regrow their heart when as much as a quarter of it has been lost. This is done partly by proliferation of cardiomyocytes, but also by EpiPCs. But how do the EpiPCs of zebrafish repair the heart so efficiently? And can we find a ‘magic bullet’ in zebrafish that could artificially boost the production of EpiPCs in humans?Yes, and this ‘magic bullet’ appears to be oxytocin, argue the authors.To reach this conclusion, the authors found that in zebrafish, within three days after cryoinjury – injury due to freezing – to the heart, the expression of the messenger RNA for oxytocin increases up to 20-fold in the brain. They further showed that this oxytocin then travels to the zebrafish epicardium and binds to the oxytocin receptor, triggering a molecular cascade that stimulates local cells to expand and develop into EpiPCs. These new EpiPCs then migrate to the zebrafish myocardium to develop into cardiomyocytes, blood vessels, and other important heart cells, to replace those which had been lost.A similar effect on human tissue culturesCrucially, the authors showed that oxytocin has a similar effect on human tissue in vitro. Oxytocin – but none of 14 other neurohormones tested here – stimulates cultures of human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hIPSCs) to become EpiPCs, at up to twice the basal rate: a much stronger effect than other molecules previously shown to stimulate EpiPC production in mice. Conversely, genetic knock-down of the oxytocin receptor prevented the regenerative activation of human EpiPCs in culture. The authors also showed that the link between oxytocin and the stimulation of EpiPCs is the important ‘TGF-β signaling pathway’, known to regulate the growth, differentiation, and migration of cells.Aguirre said: “These results show that it is likely that the stimulation by oxytocin of EpiPC production is evolutionary conserved in humans to a significant extent. Oxytocin is widely used in the clinic for other reasons, so repurposing for patients after heart damage is not a long stretch of the imagination. Even if heart regeneration is only partial, the benefits for patients could be enormous.”Aguirre concluded: “Next, we need to look at oxytocin in humans after cardiac injury. Oxytocin itself is short-lived in circulation, so its effects in humans might be hindered by that. Drugs specifically designed with a longer half-life or more potency might be useful in this setting. Overall, pre-clinical trials in animals and clinical trials in humans are necessary to move forward.”Reference: “Oxytocin promotes epicardial cell activation and heart regeneration after cardiac injury” by Aaron H. Wasserman, Amanda R. Huang, Yonatan R. Lewis-Israeli, McKenna D. Dooley, Allison L. Mitchell, Manigandan Venkatesan and Aitor Aguirre, 30 September 2022, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2022.985298The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the Spectrum-MSU Foundation. HOMEHEALTH NEWSScientists Discover That the “Love Hormone” Could Actually Heal Your HeartTOPICS:HeartHeart AttackMichigan State UniversityStem CellsZebrafishBy FRONTIERS NOVEMBER 6, 2022Cardiology Heart Treatment ConceptThe study found that oxytocin had heart-healing properties.Researchers have found that oxytocin, sometimes known as the “love hormone,” may one day help heal damaged hearts after a heart attack.The neurohormone oxytocin is widely recognized for fostering social connections and producing pleasurable feelings, such as those associated with sex, exercise, or art. However, the hormone has a variety of other functions, such as the regulation of lactation and uterine contractions in females, and the regulation of ejaculation, sperm transport, and testosterone production in males.Now, scientists from Michigan State University have demonstrated that oxytocin has yet another, previously unknown, function in zebrafish and human cell cultures: it stimulates stem cells from the heart’s outer layer (epicardium) to migrate into its middle layer (myocardium), where they develop into cardiomyocytes, the muscle cells that cause heart contractions. This finding could one day be used to promote the regeneration of the human heart after a heart attack. The researchers’ findings were recently published in the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.“Here we show that oxytocin, a neuropeptide also known as the love hormone, is capable of activating heart repair mechanisms in injured hearts in zebrafish and human cell cultures, opening the door to potential new therapies for heart regeneration in humans,” said Dr. Aitor Aguirre, an assistant professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering of Michigan State University, and the study’s senior author.Stem-like cells can replenish cardiomyocytesAfter a heart attack, cardiomyocytes often die off in large numbers. They cannot replenish themselves since they are highly specialized cells. Previous research has revealed, however, that a subset of cells in the epicardium may be reprogrammed to become stem-like cells known as Epicardium-derived Progenitor Cells (EpiPCs), which can regenerate not only cardiomyocytes but also other kinds of heart cells.“Think of the EpiPCs as the stonemasons that repaired cathedrals in Europe in the Middle Ages,” explained Aguirre.Unfortunately, under natural conditions, the production of EpiPCs is inefficient for human heart regeneration.Zebrafish could teach us how to regenerate hearts more efficientlyEnter the zebrafish: famous for their extraordinary capacity for regenerating organs, including the brain, retina, internal organs, bone, and skin. They don’t suffer heart attacks, but its many predators are happy to take a bite out of any organ, including the heart – so zebrafish can regrow their heart when as much as a quarter of it has been lost. This is done partly by proliferation of cardiomyocytes, but also by EpiPCs. But how do the EpiPCs of zebrafish repair the heart so efficiently? And can we find a ‘magic bullet’ in zebrafish that could artificially boost the production of EpiPCs in humans?Yes, and this ‘magic bullet’ appears to be oxytocin, argue the authors.To reach this conclusion, the authors found that in zebrafish, within three days after cryoinjury – injury due to freezing – to the heart, the expression of the messenger RNA for oxytocin increases up to 20-fold in the brain. They further showed that this oxytocin then travels to the zebrafish epicardium and binds to the oxytocin receptor, triggering a molecular cascade that stimulates local cells to expand and develop into EpiPCs. These new EpiPCs then migrate to the zebrafish myocardium to develop into cardiomyocytes, blood vessels, and other important heart cells, to replace those which had been lost.A similar effect on human tissue culturesCrucially, the authors showed that oxytocin has a similar effect on human tissue in vitro. Oxytocin – but none of 14 other neurohormones tested here – stimulates cultures of human Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (hIPSCs) to become EpiPCs, at up to twice the basal rate: a much stronger effect than other molecules previously shown to stimulate EpiPC production in mice. Conversely, genetic knock-down of the oxytocin receptor prevented the regenerative activation of human EpiPCs in culture. The authors also showed that the link between oxytocin and the stimulation of EpiPCs is the important ‘TGF-β signaling pathway’, known to regulate the growth, differentiation, and migration of cells.Aguirre said: “These results show that it is likely that the stimulation by oxytocin of EpiPC production is evolutionary conserved in humans to a significant extent. Oxytocin is widely used in the clinic for other reasons, so repurposing for patients after heart damage is not a long stretch of the imagination. Even if heart regeneration is only partial, the benefits for patients could be enormous.”Aguirre concluded: “Next, we need to look at oxytocin in humans after cardiac injury. Oxytocin itself is short-lived in circulation, so its effects in humans might be hindered by that. Drugs specifically designed with a longer half-life or more potency might be useful in this setting. Overall, pre-clinical trials in animals and clinical trials in humans are necessary to move forward.”Reference: “Oxytocin promotes epicardial cell activation and heart regeneration after cardiac injury” by Aaron H. Wasserman, Amanda R. Huang, Yonatan R. Lewis-Israeli, McKenna D. Dooley, Allison L. Mitchell, Manigandan Venkatesan and Aitor Aguirre, 30 September 2022, Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.DOI: 10.3389/fcell.2022.985298The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the Spectrum-MSU Foundation. Source-SciTechDaily

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Vaccination is the administration of a microorganism in the body to help the immune system develop protection from a disease.

It is one of the most important ways to prevent children and adults from getting some dangerous disease, by exposing them to a germ in a controlled way. Vaccines teaches the body how to recognize and fight it.

Vaccination is a simple, safe, and effective way of protecting you against harmful diseases, before you come into contact with them. It uses your body’s natural defenses to build resistance to specific infections and makes your immune system stronger.

Vaccines train your immune system to create antibodies, just as it does when it’s exposed to a disease. However, because vaccines contain only killed or weakened forms of germs like viruses or bacteria, they do not cause the disease or put you at risk of its complications.

Most vaccines are administered by an injection, but some are given orally (through the mouth) or sprayed into the nose.

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This Act repeals the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria Act Cap. P17 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004 and enacts the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (Establishment) Act, 2022 charged with the responsibility, amongst others, of regulating and controlling the education, training and practice of pharmacy and related matters in Nigeria.. See details of the bill here , https://placbillstrack.org/upload/HB334.pdf

“PHARMACY COUNCIL OF NIGERIA (ESTABLISHMENT) ACT, 2022 Source Independent News https://placbillstrack.org/upload/HB334.pdf

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Health fun facts??

Breastfeeding
Do you know ?

That breast feeding acts as first vaccine for babies , protecting them against common childhood diseases. It also provides optimal nutrition for babies , has the right amount of nutrients , easily digested and readily available
??yummy right??

Here are 5 amazing benefits of breastfeeding

1. Breast milks contains important antibodies: these help to fight off viruses and bacteria which is critical in those tender early months.
2. Breast milk provides ideal nutrition for babies: it contains everything a baby needs for the first 6 months of life in all the right proportions.
3. During breastfeeding, the body produces oxytocin for both mother and baby , these hormone helps to lower anxiety and stress and makes the mother and baby feel connected.
4. Breast milk promotes baby’s healthy weight : it helps prevent childhood obesity , this maybe due to the development of different gut bacteria present more in babies than adults
5. Breast feeding makes children smarter: studies show that breastfeeding has significant positive effects on babie’s long term brain development

Pregnacare breastfeeding has imbedded in it lots of vitamins, minerals, calcium and Omega 3 to boost the quality of breast milk and available at WELNEX PHARMACY.

You can also consult and order online on our website @ www.rxonlinepharmacy.com.ng

healthymomhappybaby

Pharm. Okafor Chiwendu Joy – Welnex Pharmacy and stores

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An ischemic stroke occurs when the blood supply to part of the brain is interrupted or reduced, preventing brain tissue from getting oxygen and nutrients. Brain cells begin to die in minutes.

A stroke is a medical emergency, and prompt treatment is crucial. Early action can reduce brain damage and other complications.

Symptoms
If you or someone you’re with may be having a stroke, pay particular attention to the time the symptoms began. Some treatment options are most effective when given soon after a stroke begins.

Signs and symptoms of stroke include:

Trouble speaking and understanding what others are saying. You may experience confusion, slur words or have difficulty understanding speech.
Paralysis or numbness of the face, arm or leg. You may develop sudden numbness, weakness or paralysis in the face, arm or leg. This often affects just one side of the body. Try to raise both your arms over your head at the same time. If one arm begins to fall, you may be having a stroke. Also, one side of your mouth may droop when you try to smile.
Problems seeing in one or both eyes. You may suddenly have blurred or blackened vision in one or both eyes, or you may see double.
Headache. A sudden, severe headache, which may be accompanied by vomiting, dizziness or altered consciousness, may indicate that you’re having a stroke.
Trouble walking. You may stumble or lose your balance. You may also have sudden dizziness or a loss of coordination.

Risk factors
Many factors can increase the risk of stroke. Potentially treatable stroke risk factors include:

Lifestyle risk factors

Being overweight or obese
Physical inactivity
Heavy or binge drinking
Use of illegal drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine
Medical risk factors

High blood pressure
Cigarette smoking or secondhand smoke exposure
High cholesterol
Diabetes
Obstructive sleep apnea
Cardiovascular disease, including heart failure, heart defects, heart infection or irregular heart rhythm, such as atrial fibrillation
Personal or family history of stroke, heart attack or transient ischemic attack
COVID-19 infection

Other factors associated with a higher risk of stroke include:

Age — People age 55 or older have a higher risk of stroke than do younger people.
Race or ethnicity — African Americans and Hispanics have a higher risk of stroke than do people of other races or ethnicities.
Sex — Men have a higher risk of stroke than do women. Women are usually older when they have strokes, and they’re more likely to die of strokes than are men.
Hormones — Use of birth control pills or hormone therapies that include estrogen increases risk.

Complications
A stroke can sometimes cause temporary or permanent disabilities, depending on how long the brain lacks blood flow and which part is affected. Complications may include:

Paralysis or loss of muscle movement. You may become paralyzed on one side of the body, or lose control of certain muscles, such as those on one side of the face or one arm.
Difficulty talking or swallowing. A stroke might affect control of the muscles in the mouth and throat, making it difficult for you to talk clearly, swallow or eat. You also may have difficulty with language, including speaking or understanding speech, reading, or writing.
Memory loss or thinking difficulties. Many people who have had strokes experience some memory loss. Others may have difficulty thinking, reasoning, making judgments and understanding concepts.
Emotional problems. People who have had strokes may have more difficulty controlling their emotions, or they may develop depression.
Pain. Pain, numbness or other unusual sensations may occur in the parts of the body affected by stroke. For example, if a stroke causes you to lose feeling in the left arm, you may develop an uncomfortable tingling sensation in that arm.
Changes in behavior and self-care ability. People who have had strokes may become more withdrawn. They may need help with grooming and daily chores.

Preventive medications

If you’ve had an ischemic stroke or a TIA, your doctor may recommend medications to help reduce your risk of having another stroke. These include:

Anti-platelet drugs. Platelets are cells in the blood that form clots. Anti-platelet drugs make these cells less sticky and less likely to clot. The most commonly used anti-platelet medication is aspirin. Your doctor can help you determine the right dose of aspirin for you.

After a TIA or minor stroke, your doctor may give you aspirin and an anti-platelet drug such as clopidogrel (Plavix) for a period of time to reduce the risk of another stroke. If you can’t take aspirin, your doctor may prescribe clopidogrel alone.

Anticoagulants. These drugs reduce blood clotting. Heparin is fast acting and may be used short-term in the hospital.

Slower-acting warfarin (Jantoven) may be used over a longer term. Warfarin is a powerful blood-thinning drug, so you’ll need to take it exactly as directed and watch for side effects. You’ll also need to have regular blood tests to monitor warfarin’s effects.

Several newer blood-thinning medications (anticoagulants) are available for preventing strokes in people who have a high risk. These medications include dabigatran (Pradaxa), rivaroxaban (Xarelto), apixaban (Eliquis) and edoxaban (Savaysa). They’re shorter acting than warfarin and usually don’t require regular blood tests or monitoring by your doctor. These drugs are also associated with a lower risk of bleeding complications compared to warfarin.

Compiled by Pharm(Mrs) Peace .O. Okorafor

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Is thumb-sucking so bad?
It was cute when she was a little baby, but now she’s almost 3 and her thumb is rarely out of her mouth. Find out the best ways to gently break the thumb-sucking habit.

Is thumb-sucking so bad?
Thumb-sucking is a habit an estimated 75% of babies and toddlers have at some point engaged in – and it is a natural reflex some babies adopt in the womb. Most grow out of it and have stopped by the age of 4. But if you have a more determined thumb sucker you’re probably wondering how the habit is ever going to break.

Dental health professionals advise that it’s important to try to break the habit before children’s permanent teeth start coming in around the age of 6 or 7, as vigorous thumb sucking does affect how teeth grow and may cause crookedness, bucked teeth and other issues.

But parents can gently start discouraging thumb-sucking in earlier years – but the emphasis is on “gently” as there is no need to cause your toddler distress.

How to break the habit
Start the process at a time when you know your child is feeling settled and calm.
Give them a distraction at the times when they usually suck their thumb, sitting with them and giving them a cuddle or a toy.
Be encouraging and reward them for trying to cut back. The rewards might need to be frequent at first but can be stretched out once you’ve had some success.
Try a star chart to record how many days they’ve gone without sucking their thumb.
Work on daytime sucking, then move onto the more difficult night sucking. Some mums find success putting a plaster strip on the thumb at bedtime.
Remember, for some kids, the lure of the thumb is far more powerful than any reward you can offer.
What the dentists say
Kids who suck after the permanent teeth come risk having crooked teeth, especially if the sucking is forceful or frequent.
The Australian Dental Association recommends that if your child hasn’t stopped thumb-sucking by the end of their first year of school, you should see a dentist for advice. – kidspot.com

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THIS TYPHOID SEF!!

If you called in sick and couldn’t make it to work, it was probably because you had Malaria and Typhoid.

Did I hear you say Typhoid?

You have participated in Fraud!
Let me shock you, the rate of Typhoid fever occurrence in Sub-Saharan Africa is less than 1%, unlike malaria prevalence which currently stands above 60% in Nigeria.

“But I did test and it showed Typhoid! “ you say. That is exactly the problem, as you must have done a Widal test.
Do you know, that the once useful Widal agglutination test, with due apologies to Mr Widal is now one of the most useless tests in medical science and should never form the basis of diagnosis or treatment. So if you took antibiotics on the strength of a positive widal test you just abused antibiotics, and it’s not good for you.

Why am I worried?, because aside from abusing antibiotics, you also get resistant to a particular one and have to spend more money to get a sense of relief.

Remember the days of chloramphenicol? Then later amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, augmenting….etc in that increasingly expensive order; you keep wasting your money. Not only that , when serious diseases come knocking, the voice you hear is that of Typhoid…….

Which is why you often hear “I was being treated for malaria and Typhoid only for me to be told when I travelled abroad that I had cancer” or God forbid Ebola!

Medical Lab. Scientist know this, but are tired of explaining to you that you don’t have Typhoid, since you will still go to a quack who is willing to give you drip to ‘flush out’ the Typhoid from your system, for a tidy sum of course!. So you are treated, no harm to you, patient smiles , doctor smiles and every one waits for another episode of Typhoid.

I feel so strongly about this and have seen myriads of false Typhoid diagnosis, that I wrote to the federal ministry of health to do something about this. I am still waiting to hear from them . In the meantime you can inform your friends and a few enemies too that the reliable tests to diagnose Typhoid is stool or blood culture and no longer that test that says 1/80, 1/20.
At any rate, though you have been treating Typhoid now and again, your best kept secret may be that you have never had the disease in your life!
Let us learn not to dictate a type of laboratory test to our doctors they are professional in their field less we play into their hands @the business end
Copied and edited !!!!!

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Experts are keeping a wary eye on yet another COVID variant, this one with 46 mutations.

It was detected in France and showed up in a traveler recently arrived from a three-day stay in Cameroon, French researchers said in a pre-print study published on medRxiv, which means it has not yet been peer-reviewed.

While researchers were monitoring the strain to ascertain how infectious it is or whether it poses a danger, experts emphasized that its discovery alone was not cause for alarm. Moreover, it was noted even before omicron took over the world stage and “has been on our radar,” WHO incident manager on COVID Abdi Mahamud said at a press briefing in Geneva on Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. “That virus had a lot of chances to pick up.”

So far, indications are that it hasn’t. But it did manage to infect 12 people in Marseille, in southeastern France.

The 46 mutations had not been detected in other countries, The Independent noted.

The person infected with the B.1.640.2 variant, dubbed IHU discovered by scientists at the IHU Mediterranee Infection, was fully vaccinated and had just returned from a three-day trip to Cameroon when they tested positive, the researchers said.

Any speculation or alarm would be premature, the researchers said. Source – Yahoo news

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Family planning is the ability for couples to anticipate and attain their desired number of children, the spacing and timing of Thier births.

It is very important for couples to have a valid family planning measure. Some of these measures may include

• Fertility awareness
• Barrier methods
• Hormonal contraceptives

Women please employ all possible means to understand your menstrual cycle.

You should also visit an approved family planning centre with your spouse so as to get the best fit for you.

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