IT IS every needle-phobe’s nightmare: the nurse or doctor merrily saying, “Oh, I can’t seem to find a vein,” while they repeatedly poke a hypodermic into your flesh.
But now researchers have developed a hand-held vein-finder that uses the same technology as seen in police radar traps: Doppler detection. Georgia Tech Research Institute says its machine uses ultrasound waves to find blood vessels quickly and accurately.
It also guides the needle to the correct depth and angle of attack. The project leader, Michael Gray, says normally can be difficult: “Even if you locate a vein at the skin’s surface, it is still easy to miss.” The job is harder with children and the elderly, as well as those who are overweight, he adds.
British scientists have developed another way to save your skin: a monitoring device that samples blood while it is still in your body. The probe will help hospital patients who have catheter needles in the back of their hands or lower arms, ready for nurses or doctors to give fluids or take samples.
The probe sits in the catheter and continually samples the patient’s blood. The simple idea should save costly lab analysis, too. Its creator, Probe Scientific, based in Bedford, won a £500,000 government grant this week to mass-produce it.
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Slimmers’ high
IF YOUR new year’s vow to slim keeps getting scuppered by fierce attacks of the munchies, help may soon be at hand — in the unlikely shape of a cannabis drug.
A pharmaceutical company hopes to win approval next month from the US Government to market a slimming drug derived from cannabis.
The drug works on the poacher-turned-gamekeeper principle: cannabis is notorious for giving smokers hunger attacks, by stimulating the hunger circuits of the brain. The new drug, Acomplia, taps into the same brain circuits, but turns them off instead of switching them on.
Sanofi-Aventis claims that in tests, people have lost about 2st (12.7kg) in two years. But slimming pills have a long history of inducing unwanted side-effects and critics claim that there are concerns that the drug may also alter takers’ moods.
Hot sickies
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SICK, or just had a hot drink? Many of us may have been sent to bed or given drugs because we had drunk a cup of tea or coffee before we had our temperature taken, according to a new study by the University of Virginia.
Beth Quatrara, a research nurse, says that drinking hot beverages can send your thermometer reading soaring for up to 23 minutes afterwards. She told the Annual Academy of Medical Surgical Nurses Convention this week that to get the most accurate temperature reading possible, you should not participate in activities that may change your body or mouth temperature for 30 minutes beforehand. These include exercise, smoking or even chewing gum.
It’s not only hot drinks that can cause problems. Having a cold drink can drop your thermometer reading significantly, which could result in unwarranted accusations of malingering.
No escape
MOTHER NATURE is nothing if not even-handed. Researchers in infectious diseases have discovered that people who are naturally highly resistant to becoming infected by HIV are unusually prone to contracting another deadly infection, West Nile Virus.
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Ten years ago, scientists discovered that about 1 per cent of the population is born lacking a cell-surface receptor called CCR5, which the HIV virus uses as an open window to break in to human immune systems. This has led pharmacists to create a drug that mimics the effect of having no CCR5 receptor.
Now the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has spoilt the party. It reports in the Journal of Infectious Diseases that it has found a drawback to having no CCR5 receptor: it makes people highly prone to
West Nile virus, which is mosquito-borne and causes flu-like symptoms that can be fatal in those badly infected.
Talking dirty
FOR the girl with everything: a Rabbit that rabbits. A sex-aid maker has launched a vibrator that talks while it titillates. Owners can download any voice they fancy — their lover, George Clooney or a stranger — into the toy’s chip brain. The maker of the Talking Head vibro says its speakers provide CD-quality sound, though offers no guidance on script: maybe, “You’re gorgeous”, or “I love you”. But probably not “I’m scared of the dark”.