Pitt lax. Pitt County Youth Lacrosse: Nurturing Young Athletes in a Fast-Growing Sport

How does Pitt County Youth Lacrosse contribute to the growth of lacrosse in the area. What are the benefits of joining PCYL for young athletes. How can parents and businesses support the development of youth lacrosse in Pitt County.

The Rise of Lacrosse in Pitt County: A Community Effort

Lacrosse has been gaining popularity across the United States, and Pitt County is no exception. The Pitt County Youth Lacrosse (PCYL) organization has been at the forefront of this exciting trend, providing young athletes with opportunities to learn and excel in this dynamic sport. As one of the fastest-growing sports in the country, lacrosse has found a home in local high schools for years, and now PCYL is focused on cultivating interest at the youth level.

Why is youth participation so crucial? By introducing children to lacrosse at an early age, PCYL is laying the foundation for the sport’s continued growth in Pitt County. This grassroots approach ensures a steady pipeline of skilled players who can contribute to high school teams and potentially beyond.

PCYL Spring 2021: Welcoming New Players to the Lacrosse Community

The Spring 2021 season at PCYL is an exciting time for both returning players and newcomers. The organization emphasizes that no prior experience is necessary, making it the perfect opportunity for children to try something new. Coaches and veteran players are eager to share their knowledge and passion for the sport with fresh faces.

How does PCYL accommodate beginners? The program offers a supportive environment where new players can learn the basics of lacrosse without feeling overwhelmed. Experienced coaches break down the fundamentals of the game, focusing on skill development and fostering a love for the sport.

Age Groups and Practice Schedule

PCYL caters to a wide range of age groups, ensuring that children from 6 to 13 years old have a place to play. The organization has thoughtfully structured its practice schedule to accommodate different age groups and skill levels:

• Boys 8U: Mondays & Thursdays 6:30-7:30
• Boys 10U: Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:30-8:00
• Boys 12U: Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:30-8:00
• Boys 14U: Mondays & Thursdays 6:00-8:00
• Elementary School Girls: Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:30-7:30
• Middle School Girls: Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:30-8:00

This well-organized schedule allows young athletes to develop their skills consistently throughout the season. Practices for the 2021 season begin on February 8th, with games starting in March and continuing into mid-May. The season culminates in an exciting league tournament, giving players a chance to showcase their progress.

Making Lacrosse Accessible: PCYL’s Approach to Fees and Equipment

PCYL understands that trying a new sport can be a significant investment for families. To make lacrosse more accessible, the organization has implemented several strategies:

Registration Fees and Discounts

The standard registration fee is $125 per player, with a $20 discount for each additional player from the same family. This structure encourages siblings to participate together, fostering a family-oriented lacrosse community. Additionally, PCYL offers an early bird discount of $25 for those who register before January 1, 2021, rewarding proactive families and helping the organization plan effectively for the upcoming season.

Equipment Rental Program

Recognizing that purchasing lacrosse equipment can be a barrier for new players, PCYL offers a rental program. This initiative allows newcomers to try the sport without the immediate need to invest in personal gear. The rental equipment is available on a first-come, first-served basis, with fees varying depending on the items rented. This program demonstrates PCYL’s commitment to making lacrosse accessible to all interested young athletes in Pitt County.

Community Support: The Backbone of PCYL’s Success

PCYL’s growth and success are largely attributed to the strong support it receives from the local community. Businesses, individuals, and families play crucial roles in sustaining and expanding the organization’s efforts.

Sponsorship Opportunities

As a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, PCYL relies on sponsorships and donations to enhance its programs. Local businesses and individuals have the opportunity to contribute to youth sports development while gaining visibility in the community. All donations to PCYL are tax-deductible, making it an attractive option for those looking to support local initiatives.

How can businesses benefit from sponsoring PCYL? Sponsorship not only helps the organization but also allows businesses to connect with families in the area, potentially expanding their customer base while demonstrating corporate social responsibility.

2020 Season Supporters

PCYL acknowledges the vital role played by its sponsors. The 2020 season was supported by a diverse group of local businesses and individuals, including:

• Patrick Johnson, DDS
• Kinetic Physical Therapy & Wellness
• The Hammock Source
• Air U Greenville
• Goodstuff Juices
• Moe’s Southwest Grill
• Andrew Brown
• Blount Properties
• Summers & Johnson Periodontics
• DICK’s Sporting Goods
• Sawyer’s Fun Park
• Evans Wealth & Asset Management
• Michels & Gauquie Cosmetic and Family Dentistry

This diverse list of supporters demonstrates the wide-ranging community involvement in PCYL’s mission, from healthcare providers to recreational businesses.

Building Team Spirit: PCYL Apparel and Merchandise

Team spirit and identity play significant roles in youth sports. PCYL has partnered with several local businesses to offer a variety of apparel and merchandise options for players, families, and supporters:

• Car decals and magnets are available directly through PCYL
• Ink’d Threads provides an online store with PittLax Spirit Wear
• Irish Girl Vinyl offers personalized apparel and gear
• High Tide Embroidery is the authorized embroider for PCYL logos, offering various items and custom embroidery services

These partnerships not only promote team unity but also support local businesses, creating a mutually beneficial relationship within the community.

The Broader Impact: Lacrosse Beyond Pitt County

While PCYL focuses on youth development in Pitt County, it’s part of a larger lacrosse ecosystem that extends to collegiate levels. The University of Pittsburgh’s Women’s Club Lacrosse team serves as an inspirational example of where dedication to the sport can lead.

University of Pittsburgh Women’s Club Lacrosse: A Success Story

The University of Pittsburgh’s Lady Panthers have achieved remarkable success, going undefeated in the 2019-2020 season and claiming the WCLA National Championship title. Their achievements demonstrate the potential for lacrosse players who start at the youth level to continue their passion and excel in collegiate competition.

How does youth lacrosse contribute to collegiate success? Programs like PCYL lay the groundwork for players to develop skills, teamwork, and a love for the game that can carry them through to higher levels of competition.

Challenges and Adaptations in Unprecedented Times

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges to lacrosse programs at all levels. The University of Pittsburgh team, like many others, has had to adapt to new circumstances, modifying their practice routines and facing uncertainties about competitions. Similarly, youth programs like PCYL have implemented safety measures and adjusted their operations to continue providing opportunities for young athletes.

These adaptations highlight the resilience and commitment of the lacrosse community, from youth leagues to collegiate clubs. The ability to overcome obstacles and maintain enthusiasm for the sport bodes well for its continued growth and development.

The Future of Lacrosse in Pitt County: A Collaborative Effort

The future of lacrosse in Pitt County looks bright, thanks to the collaborative efforts of organizations like PCYL, supportive local businesses, and passionate players and families. By focusing on youth development, the community is ensuring a strong foundation for the sport’s growth.

How can community members contribute to the future of lacrosse in Pitt County? There are several ways to get involved:

• Encourage children to try lacrosse through PCYL’s programs
• Volunteer as coaches or assistants
• Sponsor PCYL as a business or individual
• Attend games and tournaments to show support
• Spread awareness about lacrosse and its benefits for youth development

As lacrosse continues to gain popularity, programs like PCYL play a crucial role in nurturing talent, fostering community spirit, and creating pathways for young athletes to pursue their passion for the sport. The collaborative effort between youth organizations, schools, local businesses, and families ensures that lacrosse will remain a vibrant part of Pitt County’s athletic landscape for years to come.

Pitt County Youth Lacrosse

SPRING 2021 PITT LAX

REGISTRATION OPEN!!

Click HERE to register now!

New Players Welcome!
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY! Our coaches and returning players love seeing new faces, and know you’ll fall in love with the sport the second you pick up a stick! Lacrosse is one of the fastest growing sports in the US, and has been in our local high schools for years! We especially need new youth lacrosse players so we can contiue to grow the sport in Pitt County!

Schedule:
     – Practices for the 2021 season will begin February 8th. 

            -Boys 8U: Mondays & Thursdays 6:30-7:30

            -Boys 10U: Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:30-8:00

            -Boys 12U: Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:30-8:00

            -Boys 14U: Mondays & Thursdays 6:00-8:00

            -Elementary School Girls: Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:30-7:30

            -Middle School Girls: Tuesdays & Thursdays 6:30-8:00

     – Games for the 2021 season will begin in March and continue into mid-         May. The season concludes with the league tournament at the end of the       season. 

Age Guidelines:
     – Girls and Boys from ages 6-13 

Fees:
     – $125 per player with $20 discount for each subsequent player from the         same family. (All participants must have a current US Lacrosse membership –                $30 annual fee)

     – EARLY BIRD DISCOUNT: Register before January 1, 2021 to receive a $25 discount!

Rental equipment:
     – If you’re new to lacrosse and aren’t sure you want to buy all the                  equipment just yet, we have rental equipment available. Rental                    equipment is only available for new players and is limited on a first               come first serve basis.  Rental fees are based upon the items rented.

2021 Sponsorship Opportunities
If you own a business, work for a business and/or know of a business/individual that would like to sponsor PCYL, please let us know. Pitt County Youth Lacrosse (PCYL) is a not for profit organization and is tax exempt under Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. All donations to PCYL are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

We would like to thank the following businesses and individuals for supporting our 2020 Season! 

• Patrick Johnson, DDS
• Kinetic Physical Therapy & Wellness
• The Hammock Source
• Air U Greenville
• Goodstuff Juices
• Moe’s Southwest Grill
• Andrew Brown
• Blount Properties
• Summers & Johnson Periodontics
• DICK’s Sporting Goods
• Sawyer’s Fun Park
• Evans Wealth & Asset Management
• Blount Properties
• Michels & Gauquie Cosmetic and Family Dentistry

Apparel Information

Pitt County Youth Lacrosse – We are currently have car decals and magnets. Contact Julie Lindsay if interested.

Ink’d Threads – This local business has an online store full of PittLax Spirit Wear!

Irish Girl Vinyl – Jessica Mullen’s business also offers you the ability to personalize your apparel & gear with your name/number. You can reach her on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/irishgirlvinyl/

High Tide Embroidery – High Tide is the only authorized embroider of Pitt County Youth Lacrosse logos. Not only do they have a variety of items for embroidery (caps, visors, headbands, shirts, sweatshirts, etc.), you can also have them embroider on your own items (lacrosse bags, shirts, etc.) See samples on their website (http://www.hightideembroidery.com/pitt-county-lacrosse-pitt-lax/) and contact them at [email protected].

University of Pittsburgh | Stacks for Pitt Women’s Club Lax

The Current Team:

Thanks to the support of our friends and family, the 2019-2020 Lady Panthers went undefeated, dominated our California tournament, and are still reigning WCLA National Champions since 2019! This year’s fall ball season wasn’t what we expected, but we have started up practices and are continuing to work hard and make the most of this year! 

We’re super fired up, hoping (and ready) to compete against top NCAA Division I, II, and III teams again in the 2021 season.

Our Project:

As members of a large regionally-based conference and an even larger national organization, we usually travel to different tournaments throughout the spring season to compete with the best. Given the circumstances of Covid-19 this year, we are still hoping to be able to play in those conferences this spring. Since we are a club team at the University, we receive limited funds from our Student Government Board.

We work to offset the remaining costs through player dues and fundraising efforts, like team nights at our local restaurants (i.e. Chipotle, Roots, and Piada), as well as canning at Steelers, Pirates, and Penguin games. However, because of the pandemic, we haven’t been able to do these fundraisers. This is where we really need your help and support!

Without support from our family, friends, alumni, and fans, we will not be able to attend these necessary tournaments and attain new victories. We hope to use your donations for possible tournaments and games in the spring. If we aren’t allowed to play games in the spring, your donations will be very helpful in lowering player dues and saving that money for future successful seasons. 

How You Can Help:

There are many ways you can help your favorite Lady Panthers be successful this season! These include, but are not limited to, donations, spreading the word, sharing our link, and cheering us on as we start a season that will hopefully be just as successful as last year!

Thank you so much from all of Pitt Women’s Club Lacrosse, and as always, HAIL TO PITT!

Tournament Information:

This year we hope to attend four major tournaments in the spring, provided we qualify for the Regionals and Nationals tournaments, which we have for 13 of the past 16 years:

1. UCLA Shootout- California (February 2021)

This tournament is the opening tournament of WCLA play and one of our most important. The distance requires a flight, so this tournament is our most expensive, costing about $20,000.

This cost includes:

• Round trip airfare from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles for 24 people

• Two nights in a hotel for 24 people

• Tournament fees

• Ground transportation to and from games, our hotel, and the Los Angeles airport

2. WCLL Regionals- Michigan (April 2021)

This is a tournament that we have to qualify for, but historically have attended every year for the past 11 years. This also helps us qualify for the national tournament later in the season!

This cost includes:

3. WCLA Nationals- Virginia Beach, Virginia (May 2021)

Again, our team must qualify for this tournament. While we are absolutely pumped to work towards attending Nationals in Virginia, with high excitement comes a HEFTY price-tag. Since the tournament is being hosted in Virginia, it is expected to cost us over $15,000, making it the most expensive Nationals in years. Winning Nationals is our #1 priority, and we can’t achieve this goal without your generous support.

This cost includes:

*With Covid, these tournament plans are still up in the air for our 2021 spring season. If we aren’t able to attend these games this year, your donations will still be very important for future seasons and tournaments and help relieve stress of player dues and uniform costs!

Thank you so much for your continued support in helping us do what we love!!!

Flights from Pittsburgh to Los Angeles (LAX)

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Pitt’s Therese Pitman Thriving After Embracing Identity as Bisexual

Therese Pitman, 22, is a member of the inaugural Pitt women’s lacrosse team and will be graduating from University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, in 2022 with a master’s degree in Public Administration. This story, written by Pitman, is being published in partnership with OutSports.

By the time I graduated from Siena, I had finally come to terms with being bisexual. My public declaration, as it were, was adding “guys & gals” with a rainbow flag emoji to my Instagram profile.

Such a simple act would have seemed radical growing up in the small town of Sherrill, N.Y., (population 3,000) as I struggled with my attraction to girls as well as to guys.

In high school, I noticed how attractive many girls were, but I brushed it off internally. I only dated guys in high school because that is what seemed normal and also what felt right for me to do.

As a girl who has three older brothers, I naturally hit it off with guys. I remember sitting in the lunchroom in high school with my guy friends and listening to them talk about how pretty some girls were in my class and how being an athlete really added to this attraction.

There was no way I could disagree with them and so I would give my input on how some girls were absolutely beautiful. However, it was almost like what I said went unnoticed. None of the guys I was friends with ever questioned these comments and why would they? I always had romantic relationships with guys, and it is more often than not that girls give other girls compliments.

I was a three-sport athlete in high school and was constantly surrounded by pretty athletic girls. I would change in the locker room stalls instead of in front of everyone before games and practices because I was almost uncomfortable with the way that I thought about other girls. It was another technique to avoid my feelings and not let them cloud my mind too much.

It wasn’t until college at Binghamton that I started to see people different from myself love each other. My feelings towards women grew stronger as I met women who were older and more comfortable with themselves. I began to let my feelings sit with me.

I distanced myself a bit socially from my team my first two years in college. There were people on my team whom I was attracted to, but I couldn’t share those thoughts. It was an awkward battle each day to avoid feeling butterflies around some of these people.

I often would end up going out with people who weren’t on my lacrosse team so that way no one could know if I kissed or danced with another girl. I constantly hid my attraction to women by only talking about dates I went on with guys.

“The summer after my sophomore year, before heading off to my new college, I hoped in my car for a long drive. To nowhere in particular, just to think out loud — “new school, new identity, new school, new identity.”

It was after my sophomore year that I decided to transfer to Siena. I felt like I needed to get away and just start over so I didn’t have to hide parts of me or continue to not be true to myself.

The thing about being bisexual versus being strictly attracted to one sex or another is that there are different levels and complexities to it. I needed to figure out so badly what I was comfortable with, what I truly desired.

As I began to read more about sexuality and listen to those who were different than myself talk, I found that this confusion of thinking men and women both were attractive wasn’t uncommon. It became clear to me that I could be emotionally attracted to one sex and physically attracted to another or any combination in between. I wasn’t crazy or wrong, I just found that men emotionally challenge me and women are physically attractive to me.

The summer after my sophomore year, before heading off to my new college, I hoped in my car for a long drive. To nowhere in particular, just to think out loud — “new school, new identity, new school, new identity.”

If someone asked, I would let them know I liked men and women in different ways. When I got home from the ride, I quickly opened up my laptop and ordered a pair of Under Armor Pride edition sneakers. I was going to rock them my first day at Siena.

I was proud that I had made this decision to just be real with myself, but I hadn’t told anyone yet. I hadn’t let the words “I am bisexual” come out of my mouth to anyone who knew me. It was a slow and steady work in progress.

I worked at an emergency room the summer before heading off to Siena and I met a man who became a great friend. As the summer progressed, I knew I had to tell him I liked him, but I also needed him to know that I liked women too. If he didn’t accept that I was bisexual, then I wouldn’t allow room for him in my life. We got dinner one night after work and I remember just blurting out, “I really like you and I want you to know that I like women too.”

He was not the least bit thrown off. He simply said with a smile, “I like you too and I support you.” Little did he know in that moment I gained so much freedom and happiness. I had been struggling with these thoughts for so long and he had just taken a bit of that fear away from me. I could be my absolute self around this person, I didn’t have to hide. I could be openly bisexual and have a boyfriend.

I went to Siena and rocked my Pride shoes every day and completely felt relieved to own myself and what I stood for. It didn’t need to be an official announcement and if someone asked, I told them, “I am bi and that’s that.”

I gave a presentation in one of my classes junior year about my identity and in the middle of it, took off my rainbow colored Pride sneaker, held it up and said, “part of my identity is that I am bisexual and I wear these shoes to let people know that I am not afraid and I support anyone who is a part of this LGBTQ+ community.”

I looked around the room thinking there would be some huge reaction. There wasn’t and the only one who seemed to think it was a big deal was me. That was the reaction I wanted — nothing. It is a big deal, but it isn’t. It’s normal. It is me.

My transformation really allowed me to develop into the leader I wanted to be. A year after transferring to Siena College as a walk-on, my teammates voted me to be their team captain. The truth is, when we are our authentic selves we grow in immense ways and help others develop too.

Lax oversight by Pitt enabled Schatten fiasco

The University of Pittsburgh’s lax policies and disregard for federal guidelines allowed biologist Gerald Schatten to participate in one of the biggest scientific frauds in history, according to a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review examination.

At issue is a Pitt-sanctioned collaboration between Schatten and Korean scientists headed by Hwang Woo-Suk in the controversial field of human embryonic stem cell research.

In a month-long review of university and federal records and through interviews of dozens of experts in medical research and bioethics, the newspaper found:

Newly proposed stem cell rules at Pitt likely would have prompted the university to take a closer look at Schatten’s research. A closer look might have uncovered irregularities before the work was published.

These policies and decisions enabled Schatten to collaborate with Hwang on now-discredited stem cell research that became embroiled in an international scandal.

“A stem cell trial like this without full review should just never, ever happen,” said Glenn McGee, editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Bioethics and founder of the nation’s largest research program on the ethical implications of stem cell science. “The University of Pittsburgh should take the lead in the nation to ensure that this option is never provided, since they are the ones that did it wrong.”

Schatten heads the Pittsburgh Development Center at Magee-Womens Research Institute in Oakland and serves as a professor and vice chair of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Pitt’s School of Medicine. He could not be reached for comment for this story.

In a paper published in June 2005 in the journal Science, Schatten and Hwang claimed to have custom-designed stem cells for individual patients from cloned human embryos for the first time. The discovery was hailed as an important step toward developing cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

Six months later, a Korean investigation revealed that Hwang and possibly others deliberately fabricated data for the paper, which Science later retracted.

Korean criminal prosecutors are investigating Hwang, who was fired from Seoul National University, for potential misuse of millions in taxpayer dollars. Schatten faces no criminal charges and a Pitt investigative panel absolved him of intentional fraud. Any disciplinary or corrective action taken against him by the university will remain secret.

Medical school dean Dr. Arthur Levine referred questions to Pitt spokeswoman Jane Duffield. The referring of questions to Duffield has been a common refrain. All attempts over the last month to question Pitt officials or scientists for this story were met with either no response or questions being referred to Duffield, who is neither a scientist nor a physician.

“I do not believe that I have any information that you do not already have,” Levine wrote in an e-mail.

Duffield did not respond to phone calls. She only responded by e-mail.

Duffield wrote that the university’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) decided it did not have to approve Schatten’s work because Schatten had told the board his research did not involve identifiable people.

In the world of science, research involving unidentifiable people is not considered to be human-subject research.

Protecting subjects

Shielding the identities of human research subjects frees scientists to complete their work without extra layers of oversight from IRBs.

These internal watchdogs are mostly composed of physicians, scientists and community advocates. They are charged with approving and monitoring biomedical research involving people.

Their ultimate responsibility is to protect the rights and privacy of study participants and to make sure people aren’t harmed when they donate organs and tissues for research.

The rationale for these ethical principles has a long history, growing out of violations such as the Nazi human experimentation and the U.S. Public Health Service’s Tuskegee, Ala., experiment from 1932 to 1972 on untreated syphilis in illiterate black sharecroppers.

“Research in the past has wound up abusing, harming or hurting people,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. “You want to stick to these regulations as carefully as possible, because they really make sure the welfare and interests of human subjects are protected.”

Scientists should consult with the IRB to decide whether their work involves human subjects, said Dr. John Falletta, senior IRB chairman at Duke University Health System in Durham, N.C.

“The investigator is in a potentially conflicted situation in making that determination for himself,” Falletta said. “It’s safer for everybody if the determination is made by a person or group of people who are trained in interpreting the regulations.”

Recommendations of the federal Office for Human Research Protections also advise that investigators “not be given the authority to make an independent determination that research … does not involve human subjects.”

That is not the case at Pitt, according to Duffield.

“Most investigators conducting research make that determination themselves,” Duffield wrote.

Scientists may request the help of the IRB when they are not sure whether the board has jurisdiction, but there is no mandate to do so, according to Duffield.

“This may suggest to one unfamiliar with the routines of clinical research that an investigator can simply go forward with their human-subject research without IRB approval,” Duffield wrote. “However, this does not happen in practice because of the culture of the community and the built-in checks and balances.”

The research

Schatten began working with Hwang on the stem cell project in early January 2005, according to Pitt documents.

In many ways, Schatten was the brains behind the research. He reviewed figures and tables, analyzed and interpreted data generated in Korea, drafted versions of the manuscript and communicated with journal editors. As senior author of the Science paper, he was responsible for its integrity.

Scientists are supposed to seek formal written clearance from an IRB before beginning their research when there is any question about whether a project might involve human subjects, Caplan said.

“Basically, you shouldn’t be sending out anything until you have that letter in hand,” Caplan said.

Duffield said Schatten first approached Pitt’s IRB about his collaboration with the Korean scientists in February 2005, at least a month after the project had begun.

He informed the board that his collaboration with Hwang did not involve identifiable people, she said. This declaration prompted the board to determine it had no jurisdiction over the work, she said.

“Based on the information provided to the IRB, this project includes no involvement of human subjects, according to federal regulations,” states a letter sent to Schatten on March 16, 2005, signed by Christopher M. Ryan, a Pitt neuropsychologist who is vice chair for the board’s exempt and expedited reviews.

The day before, Schatten and Hwang submitted a first draft of their paper to Science.

Ethical obligations

Ryan, who did not return phone calls or e-mails, wrote to Schatten that the review board made its decision because “the investigator conducting research … will not obtain identifiable private information.”

The board used as a reference federal guidelines issued in March 2002 that say the study of human cell lines, where the donors cannot be identified by the investigator, is not human-subject research, Ryan’s letter said.

But an online supplement that Schatten and his Korean co-authors published with their Science 2005 paper indicates otherwise.

The supplement says that when patients donated their cells for the research, their identities were “encoded by the responsible clinician and donor identity was unknown to the investigators and others.”

Under Korean law, as explained in that supplement, the families of these donors must receive priority for any future treatments that result from the research to which they contributed.

For this to happen, however, at least one of the researchers must be able to determine the identities of the donors from the records encoded by the clinicians who collected the eggs and skin cells, said Mildred Cho of the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics in Palo Alto, Calif.

This breach of anonymity would have been good reason for Pitt’s IRB to subject Schatten’s work to full review, rather than give him clearance to move forward without its further scrutiny, Cho said.

“I think a lot of IRBs would not have made the same decision as this IRB did,” Cho said.

Duffield said Pitt’s IRB did not review the online supplement.

For the IRB to allow a project to proceed without its full review, there should be no doubt about whether the investigator could identify patients, Duke University’s Falletta said.

“If there are questions, the IRB has the responsibility to ask more questions,” he said. “If the (human) subjects are not anonymous, then it’s human subject research (that is) subject to IRB review.”

Subsequent investigations at Pitt and Seoul National University revealed the identities of the egg donors were not kept secret from the Korean scientists.

Hwang himself knew at least one of the women — a staff member in his lab who later worked in Schatten’s Pitt lab — because Hwang drove her to the hospital for the egg extraction procedure, according to Pitt’s own investigation.

Allegations about this ethical violation prompted Schatten to sever his collaboration with Hwang in November.

To protect the identities of the tissue donors, Schatten was required by federal regulation to have a written agreement showing he had no way to identify these people.

Specifically, as of Jan. 26, 1999, the U.S. Office of Human Research Protections has mandated that research involving coded data be subject to full review “unless a written agreement unequivocally prohibits release of identifying codes to the consultant.”

“If there is a linking code, there has to be some kind of written confirmation or affidavit that the researcher will not be given access to the information,” Cho said.

Pitt did not respond to requests to produce such a document.

“We have no evidence that (Schatten) ever had the codes, or any information that would permit him to identify subjects,” Duffield wrote in an e-mail.

Some experts say Pitt was ethically obliged to fully review Schatten’s participation in human embryonic stem cell research, regardless of whether the patients could have been identified.

Study of these cells is contentious, because obtaining them requires the destruction of 5-day-old human embryos from in vitro fertility treatments or cloned specifically for research. In the latter technique, used in Schatten’s research, egg extraction procedures put women at health risk for research that might never benefit them personally.

Egg extraction involves using powerful hormones to manipulate a woman’s body into producing many eggs. Some of these women experience abdominal discomfort, ovarian enlargement, nausea and vomiting. The women are at risk of fertility loss, kidney or multiple organ failure and death.

Members of Pitt’s IRB “knew they were reviewing a study that would be controversial, and knew they were reviewing research where the (egg) procurement process would put people at risk,” Cho said. “That, in and of itself, could’ve been an argument to put the study through full IRB review.”

An open territory

Duffield said federal rules requiring IRB approval also would not have applied to Schatten’s research because it was paid for by Magee-Womens Health Foundation, not federal money.

Indeed, federal documents filed by Pitt show the university opted not to apply federal rules governing protection of human subjects to privately funded research.

“It’s an open territory,” said Office of Human Research Protections spokeswoman Patricia El-Hinnawy. “Most researchers continue to do the right thing anyway, going through the IRB process, but there is no mandate for them to do so.”

Duffield said Pitt’s decision gives the university the flexibility to use a single, central IRB for industry-sponsored research in which more than one medical center is involved.

But El-Hinnawy said federal rules would not prevent a university from using a centralized IRB.

Allegheny General Hospital in the North Side requires any

research conducted there to be approved by its IRB, regardless of who pays for the work, spokesman Dan Laurent said.

Some experts say the decision to shield privately funded research from federal oversight is not necessarily uncommon. But such decisions could indicate the university doesn’t want to be targeted by government audits.

Serious violations can lead the federal government to cut off a university’s human research grants, El-Hinnawy said.

For example, federal regulators temporarily shut down Johns Hopkins University’s human medical program when systemic problems were revealed after the 2001 death of a healthy woman in an asthma study.

“I think there are always issues of liability that make people hesitate,” El-Hinnawy said.

Duke’s Falletta said some institutions opt not to give the federal government oversight of privately funded research so scientists can do work that is federally restricted. This would include some types of human embryonic stem cell research.

Those scientists most likely go through the IRB process, said Dr. Richard Nelson, former chair of the Institutional Review Board at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, who hosts an online IRB discussion and news forum.

“I personally don’t know of any institution that does not apply these sort of regulations to all research that they conduct,” Nelson said. “The standard is applied uniformly.”

Pitt applies the same general ethical standards to all research, Duffield wrote.

But it is possible that privately funded research would not be accountable to anyone, Falletta said.

“Society has given investigators a mandate to advance knowledge, and that’s not a free ride,” Falletta said. “If investigators start behaving in a manner that doesn’t meet societal standards, then those investigators are going to lose the opportunity to do that research.”

More safeguards

Bioethicist McGee said Pitt must create mechanisms for oversight to prevent situations like the Schatten incident.

“The only thing that really could’ve prevented this would’ve been a policy that says, if you are working on stem cell research, you get full, full review no matter what,” McGee said.

Full review might have slowed the research, possibly prompting the IRB to notice irregularities that pointed to the fraud perpetrated in Korea, McGee said.

For example, Hwang told Schatten in mid-January 2005 that some stem cell lines had become contaminated. But Schatten failed to conclude that their replacements could not have been grown and analyzed in time for the March 15 paper submission date as Hwang claimed, a Pitt investigation showed.

Earlier this month, Pitt issued draft regulations to help ensure that stem cell research is conducted legally and ethically.

Universities nationwide are taking similar steps, based on the recommendations of a report issued by the National Academy of Sciences in April 2005.

“There was a lot of concern that work was going to go forward without standardized guidelines,” said University of Virginia bioethicist Jonathan Moreno, who served as co-chair of the panel that wrote the National Academy report.

“But the regulatory system has been designed for people who want to do the right thing but aren’t sure how to proceed,” Moreno said.

Faulty research

A chronology of events surrounding University of Pittsburgh scientist Gerald Schatten’s role in fraudulent Korean human embryonic stem cell research.

March 15, 2005: Schatten and Korean researcher Dr. Hwang Woo-Suk submit a paper to the journal Science, claiming creation of patient-matched stem cells by cloning of human embryos.

March 16, 2005: Pitt’s Institutional Review Board overseeing human subjects research sends Schatten a letter saying his project does not involve human subjects, which means it will not review his work further.

June 17, 2005: Paper is published in Science.

Nov. 11, 2005: The authors of the paper submit corrections to Science, saying they created fewer cloned cell lines than they originally reported.

Nov. 14, 2005: Schatten publicly severs ties with Hwang over ethical concerns about human egg procurement.

Dec. 4, 2005: Hwang contacts Science to report some cell images submitted as part of the paper unintentionally showed the same thing.

Dec. 6, 2005: Pitt’s research integrity officer, Jerome L. Rosenberg, learns of a Korean news report questioning the validity of the research.

Dec. 14, 2005: Pitt notifies Schatten that it has opened an investigation two days after he asks Science to remove his name from the paper.

Dec. 15, 2005: Seoul National University (SNU) opens an investigation.

Dec. 23 and 30, 2005; Jan. 10, 2006: SNU announces in three stages that the supposed cloned cell lines did not exist.

Jan. 12, 2006: Science editors retract paper.

Feb. 8, 2006: Pitt panel appointed by Dr. Arthur Levine finds Schatten did not commit research misconduct, but said he shirked his responsibilities as co-author of the paper. It recommends the university take corrective or disciplinary action.

Source: University of Pittsburgh investigative report on allegations of possible scientific misconduct; Science magazine.

Pitt, Utah State Claim Top Spots in WCLA Polls

A perfect weekend in sunny California vaulted Pittsburgh to the top of the first WCLA (Women’s Collegiate Lacrosse Associates) Division I coaches poll of the year, released today. 

In Division II, Utah State jumped eight spots from the preseason poll to claim the No. 1 spot. The Aggies finished with a 3-0 record at last weekend’s Santa Barbara Shootout with wins over Denver, San Jose State and Air Force.

No. 1 Pittsburgh finished 4-0 at last weekend’s UCLA’s Golden State Invitational, which celebrated its second year. Pitt jumped seven spots from its preseason ranking following impressive wins over Santa Clara, UCLA, Georgia and Cal Poly.

“The girls really wanted to get out there and start playing,” said first-year Pitt head coach Kevin Tidgewell. “We really like this tournament and hope that it continues.

BYU, ranked second in the preseason poll, dropped two spots despite posting a 3-0 record in Santa Barbara. The Cougars, who were last year’s national championship runner-up, spread the scoring around to help record victories over three ranked opponents: Texas, Virginia Tech, and Colorado.

“Last year, our offense really relied on Briana Arnold for scoring and now we have a more balanced attack,” said coach Nikki Dabrowski. “We had nine different girls score last weekend which really takes the pressure off. A lot of girls stepped up.” 

UCLA jumped nine spots to second in the poll. Defending Division I champion Michigan finished 2-2 at the Golden State Invitational and dropped two spots from its preseason No. 1 position. 

Utah, now starting its second season as a Division I program, also had a strong debut in Santa Barbara. The Utes posted a 4-0 record with wins over Western Washington, Duke, Grand Canyon and UC Davis. Utah is ranked 12th this week after not being included in the preseason poll.

Combined, the three teams from Utah posted a perfect cumulative record of 10-0 in the two California events last week.

The rankings committee did not consider teams that have not played games yet, including defending Division II champion Loyola Club, which was ranked No. 1 in the preseason. 

The WCLA features 230 Division I and Division II non-varsity teams that compete under the US Lacrosse umbrella. The 2019 season will conclude with the US Lacrosse WCLA D-I and D-II national championships in Virginia Beach, May 8-11.

WCLA Division 1 National Top 20

WCLA Division 2 National Top 20

Decreased immunity and how to raise it – City Hospital

Symptoms of weakened immunity:
– weakness;
– frequent colds;
– malaise;
– fatigue;
– decreased performance.;
– sleep disturbance.

To improve your health and condition of the body, it is necessary to increase immunity, and in all forms.

What affects the lowering of immunity:

All factors influencing immunity consist of several groups.Circumstances associated with the wrong lifestyle of a person: Unbalanced diet, which leads to a lack of vitamins in the body.

-Incorrect combination of rest and physical labor. Regular depression, irritation.

-Lack of sleep.

– Bad habits such as: alcohol, drugs, addiction to cigarettes, even electronic ones. Work in areas with high radiation levels. Bad habits such as alcohol significantly affect the immune system.

– Causes associated with a specific disease: Pathology of blood cells – leukemia, lymphoma. Diseases of the liver. Syndrome of altered intestinal absorption. A symptom of kidney damage is proteinuria, which removes immunoglobulin from the body. Long-term infectious disease. After suffering a serious injury. Malignant tumor as an oncological disease. Primary immunodeficiency. HIV. Diseases are also factors of reduced immunity. – Also, the reasons for lowering the immune system include long-term use of antibiotics, heavy operations and intestinal invasions, otherwise parasites.

The factors listed above have a negative, destructive effect on human immunity and lead to frequent illnesses. That is why it is advisable for every adult to know how to raise immunity at home.

For the immune system to be good, it is recommended to eat less spicy and fatty foods. Reduce or eliminate high amounts of sugar and caffeine. But there are a number of foods that can improve the body’s defenses.

Products that increase immunity: pumpkin, carrots, beets, tomatoes, garlic, onions, zucchini, herbs; milk products; citrus, kiwi, strawberry, peach, apple; olive oil; pine nuts; fish, seaweed; beekeeping derivatives.

These products, without exception, are filled with minerals and vitamins, the regular use of which will help strengthen the immune system.

Proper nutrition improves bowel function and strengthens the immune system.Therefore, you need to add more vegetables and fruits, dairy products, lean meat and fish to your diet.

A comprehensive healthy diet is one of the most important conditions for maintaining the immune system in good condition. Vitamins, like minerals supplied with food, trigger and activate the body’s reserve forces. But even the most healthy foods will not help strengthen the immune system of a person who smokes or often drinks alcohol.

Foods that boost the immune system: onions – helps the body fight microbes, helps to stop the growth of cancer cells, strengthens the immune system, garlic – helps the body recover from stress, cleanses the liver, an excellent remedy for fighting inflammation and tumors.

Vitamin C – strengthens the immune system and is found in lemons, rose hips, oranges, sweet peppers, black currants.

Ginger – contains a huge amount of minerals and vitamins that quickly boost the immune system.

Honey – one spoonful a day is good for your health. Honey, lemon and garlic. The most important foods that boost the immune system are onions, garlic, lemon, honey and ginger.

Reduce or eliminate the use of fatty, spicy, sweet and flour foods.

Various decoctions and infusions have a beneficial effect on the immune system. Before using folk remedies, it is recommended to consult a doctor.

So, recipe first : Walnut leaves are filled with hot water (500 ml). The broth should be infused for 10 hours in a thermos. Drink 80 ml of a decoction daily.

The second recipe is as follows : Add hot water (250 ml) to the needles (2 tablespoons). Then they boil for about half an hour, and insist the same amount.Take 200 ml daily. Broth of pine needles. A fragrant coniferous broth is popular.

Also popular recipe with onions : Onions (250 g) are chopped and mixed with sugar (200 g). Then pour water (500 g) and cook for an hour and a half over low heat. When the infusion cools down, honey (2 tablespoons) is added to it and filtered. Take daily, 1 tbsp. l. 2-3 times a day.

Another, fourth recipe : Add hot water (1 l.), then add sugar (4 tablespoons) and boil for 10 minutes. Let it brew for 4 hours. They are filtering. Drink infusion every day. Rosehip decoction. Rosehip decoction has also been seen as an immune-boosting agent.

The fifth recipe includes the following items : St. John’s wort (10 g) is mixed with hot water (250 ml). Take the infusion every day after meals 2-3 times a day for 1 tbsp. l. A similar recipe to the fifth recipe: Chopped dry herb of celandine (1 tsp) is poured with hot water (250 ml) and cooled.Drink several times a day, warm, 80 ml. A decoction of celandine. Celandine also has many immune health benefits.

And the last effective recipe includes the following items : Horsetail (1 tablespoon) is poured with boiling water (250 ml). Let it brew for 30 minutes, then filter. Take a couple of times a day for 1 st. l. Medicines Folk remedies do not work immediately. In addition, some recipes can cause allergic reactions.

A good means of removing toxins is a sauna.To walk outside. Drink about 2 liters of water a day, but first consult your doctor, as a large amount of liquid is not shown to everyone

Everyone knows that smoking and alcohol are harmful to health, but no one is in a hurry to get rid of these “bad” habits. Many people need an incentive to do this. Raising immunity is quite a weighty incentive.

Also a common problem that lowers the tone of the body today is a sedentary lifestyle.

Many people think that high physical activity strengthens health and immunity – and they are wrong. Ideal for a person and his immune system will be – and this is scientifically proven – physical activity of an average level. Overloading the body with physical labor, on the contrary, lowers the body’s defenses. But a moderate load increases.

Recommendations: Aerobic exercises are very useful, as they effectively affect the body. You need to exercise throughout the day.Climb the stairs, use the elevator less. Walking shopping. Walk down the street. Find an enjoyable activity for yourself. You can go swimming, dancing, playing football, exercising on simulators and other sports. The most important thing for the body is an active lifestyle. The problem that lowers the tone of the body today is a sedentary lifestyle. It’s important to know! To improve your health and not gain excess weight, you need to move more: ride a bike, walk in the fresh air, visit a pool or fitness club.

For physical activity it is necessary to consult a doctor. And the load for people suffering from, for example, cardiovascular diseases, should be moderate, feasible.

Frequent experiences , stress usually lead to restless sleep. And a person who does not get enough sleep becomes irritable and lethargic. It is known that the normal sleep of an adult should be at least seven hours a day, this is necessary for the normal functioning of the body and immunity.From lack of sleep and rest, a person’s likelihood of getting sick increases.

Sleep affects the functioning of the whole organism. Immunity will not be strong without good sleep. It is easy for a person who is sleep deprived and tired to get sick. A good sleep is the perfect cure for fatigue. It raises immunity and normalizes the body’s work. Scientists have proven that people who sleep less than 6 hours a day get colds almost 6 times more than those who sleep 8 hours. And all because lack of sleep makes the immune system weak and makes the whole body age, in addition, slows down the brain.The generally accepted sleep rate for an adult is 7-8 hours a day. It is worth listening to your body – and it will make it clear whether it is frequent colds or fatigue and weakness, when it is time to rest and get a good night’s sleep. Some people sometimes do not have the opportunity to sleep well, but this is not scary, the body, lack of sleep, has the ability to quickly recover. To do this, you just need to sleep a little longer after a sleepless night. You cannot save on sleep, then you may have to spend more time, effort and money to restore the body and immunity.

To reduce the risk of catching colds , it is necessary to carry out preventive procedures as often as possible and to strengthen the immune system. Basic preventive recommendations: Eat more natural vitamins. Temper and wipe off with cold water. Follow an active lifestyle. To drink a lot of water. Walk more. Drink herbal teas. Sleep as recommended by doctors – 7-8 hours a day. Healthy herbal teas can help keep you toned. Getting rid of bad habits, an active lifestyle, less stress and anxiety, healthy sleep and proper nutrition are the key to strong immunity and a healthy body.

You just need to follow the above recommendations, it’s not so difficult.

Drawing conclusions, it can be noted that raising the immunity of an adult at home is a quite feasible task. It is important for strong immunity to lead a correct lifestyle and meet the new day in a good mood.

Material selection was carried out by N.P. Ronzhina. – Sanitary and hygienic education instructor “City Hospital”

How do different types of alcohol affect our mood?

November 23, 2017

Photo author, Getty Images

Different types of alcohol have completely different effects on our mood, scientists have found.So, strong drinks can cause aggression, tears or sexual desire, while red wine and beer, on the contrary, make you relax.

As part of the study, published in the scientific publication BMJ Open, about 30 thousand people aged 18 to 34 years from 21 countries were interviewed.

All respondents consumed beer, wine and spirits, and many of them admitted that each type of drink had a different effect on them.

While drinking in moderation can often help you enjoy your time, scientists hope the new data will help draw attention to the dangers of alcohol dependence.

Over time, people get used to alcohol and can start drinking more in order to experience familiar positive emotions over and over again.

However, as Mark Bellis of the Wales Health Service notes, they run the risk of not only positive but also negative.

Conclusions of the study on alcohol consumption

• Red wine made people more drowsy than white
• Respondents more often said that they felt comfort when drinking red wine or beer
• More than 40% of respondents admitted that drinking is strong x drink s helps them feel more sexually attractive
• More than half said that strong alcohol gives them energy and confidence
• At the same time, a third of the respondents said that they felt aggression after drinking strong drinks
• Strong alcohol was more associated with such feelings as aggression, soreness, demonic calmness and the desire to cry
• Men were more likely to experience aggression from any type of drinking than women (especially manifested itself in drinkers )

However, these findings show only a correlation between mood changes and alcohol, but do not explain the reasons these changes.

Mark Bellis notes that the environment in which people drink alcohol was also an important factor in the study: respondents were asked whether they drank at home or outside the home.

“Young people tend to drink spirits at a party outside the home, while wine is more often drunk in a homely atmosphere, at lunch or dinner,” he explains.

Photo author, Getty Images

Photo caption,

Scientists believe that strong alcohol can cause violent behavior

“It still depends on what the person wants [the drink].Those who want to relax can choose a beer or a glass of wine, “the scientist continues.

According to him, different types of alcohol are advertised in different ways, so people can choose a certain type of drink for a certain mood, but this can also have the opposite effect – and evoke negative emotions.

“People can expect alcohol to help them feel in one way or another. People can drink to feel more confident or relaxed, but there is a risk of negative emotional reactions, ”Bellis said.

Photo Credit, Getty Images

Photo Caption,

Wine and beer are mainly responsible for sleepiness and relaxation

Scientists from King’s College London say that according to this study, alcohol addicts are five times more likely to expect positive wake-ups from drinking. emotions than those who rarely drink.

“The study highlights the importance of understanding why people choose certain alcoholic beverages and how they expect them to benefit,” says John Larsen of Drinkaware.

According to the prescriptions of British doctors, for the safest drinking of alcohol, it is recommended to drink no more than 14 conventional units per week – this approximately corresponds to 12 servings of strong alcohol (25 ml each), six pints of beer or six 175 ml glasses of wine.

Medical myths. Do tea and coffee dehydrate our body?

April 9, 2014

Updated April 10, 2014

We often hear that tea and coffee cause dehydration in our bodies.Sounds a little threatening, but is there any real evidence for this?

Photo author, thinkstock

Photo caption,

Does drinking coffee make you go to the toilet more often?

Every day around the world, people drink 1.6 billion cups of coffee and roughly double that of tea. Some people just like the taste of these drinks, but for many, the main thing, perhaps, is that caffeine adds vigor.

However, when health gurus urge us to drink six or eight glasses of water a day (a rather controversial recommendation), they usually emphasize that tea and coffee are not included in the daily fluid intake, because they supposedly dehydrate the body.Is it so?

Three men, two winters and caffeine

Although tea and coffee contain many different substances, including vitamins, caffeine is the subject of most research. Having said “the majority”, we must immediately make a reservation: there are very few scientific works on this topic of interest to us.

One of the most widely cited studies was conducted almost 100 years ago, in 1928, with a sample of only three people. Three men were studied for two winters.Sometimes they had to drink four cups of coffee a day, sometimes they drank mostly tea, and sometimes they abstained from both drinks or received water with the addition of pure caffeine. All this time, the amount of urine they excreted was regularly monitored.

The study authors concluded that if men abstained from tea and coffee for two months and then started drinking caffeinated water, the amount of urine increased by 50%. But when they returned to regular coffee consumption, the diuretic (diuretic) effect faded away.

Very high doses of caffeine are known to increase blood flow to the kidneys and inhibit sodium absorption. Hence the diuretic effect – excess sodium must be removed from the body. But the exact mechanism of how this works is still a matter of debate.

However, when it comes to more moderate doses of caffeine, the diuretic effect is not so pronounced. According to a review of ten studies by Lawrence Armstrong of the University of Connecticut (USA), caffeine is at best a mild diuretic.In 12 out of 15 cases, the amount of urine examined did not depend on whether the water they drank contained caffeine or not.

Can you drink boiled water as well?

So why do many people think that if you drink tea or coffee, you will have to go to the toilet more often?

Photo author, thinkstock

Photo caption,

Scientists need to decide: give subjects coffee or dissolved caffeine?

As demonstrated in Armstrong’s review, most researchers give people an aqueous solution of pure caffeine, not the tea or coffee we usually drink at home.Maybe the combination of substances that these drinks contain somehow makes a difference?

In a rare study where subjects drank nothing but tea for 12 hours, there was no difference in water saturation levels between them and people who drank the same amount of regular boiled water.

As for coffee, one study did find a 41% increase in urine output and an increase in sodium and potassium excretion. But its participants abstained from caffeine prior to the study, so the situation may be different with people who are used to coffee.

Another study did not find any difference in hydration between tea or coffee consumers, so we cannot draw a definite conclusion here either.

And the most recent study …

In a new work by Sophie Keeler of the University of Birmingham (UK), published earlier this year, not only measured the volume of urine excreted, but also checked how the functioning of their kidneys affects the blood tests of subjects. and also calculated the total amount of water in the body.

In the experiment, the men drank four cups of coffee a day, which is much more than the average coffee consumer drinks. There was no evidence that subjects were dehydrated compared to those who drank only water.

Although this study was funded by the Institute for Scientific Information on Coffee, of which coffee companies are members, it was published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and the authors confirm that the Institute did not influence the collection and analysis of the data or the writing of the study.

Thus, if we even notice the need to go to the toilet after a cup of coffee, we should not compare it with the situation when we do not drink at all. Because if you drink a glass of water instead of a cup of tea or coffee, the effect is likely to be the same.

About the Author: Claudia Hammond writes articles, broadcasts and lectures on psychology.

Antidepressants and alcohol: reception compatibility

The combination of antidepressants with alcohol is most often strictly prohibited.This is due to the pronounced incompatibility of such drugs with alcoholic beverages. The simultaneous presence of the active substance of the drug and ethanol in the blood can provoke various side effects and serious complications, among which most often there are disturbances in the work of the central nervous system.

Despite such a prohibition, there is a small group of antidepressants, the intake of which simultaneously with a small amount of alcohol or after drinking does not have a negative effect on the body.

What antidepressants can alcohol be combined with

As the safest option, experts consider the joint use of intoxicating drinks and antidepressant drugs created with ademetionine or St. John’s wort. To avoid negative reactions, the dose of alcohol should be small. During the week, it is allowed to take alcohol once in doses that are not capable of provoking the development of a hangover syndrome. The maximum allowable portion of a strong drink (cognac, vodka) is 1 glass.

Antidepressants that can be treated with alcohol include:

1. Heptor.
2. Heptral.
3. Deprim.
4. Negrustin
5. Life 600.

The listed funds contain ademetionine or St. John’s wort. Despite their relative neutrality with respect to alcohol, it is important not to exceed the recommended doses of spirits. In addition, you should take breaks between taking alcohol (at least 1 week).

Important information. If other types of antidepressants are taken in addition to the listed drugs, it will be necessary to completely eliminate even small doses of alcohol .

Tricyclic antidepressants and alcohol – compatibility

Tricyclic antidepressants – drugs based on:

• amitriptyline;
• imipramine;
• pipofezin;
• clomipramine;
• tianeptine.

The named components are part of Elivel, Clominal, Coaxil, Azafen, Melipramine, Anafranil and other antidepressant products.

Patients are often interested in whether alcohol can be used while taking antidepressants from the tricyclic group. These drugs are not considered highly toxic, and yet their joint use with alcohol is a strict taboo. Violation of such a prohibition can result in the development of severe side effects.

Tricyclic antidepressant medications have also shown negative interactions with certain medications and foods, requiring increased caution during their use.

SSRI antidepressants and alcohol

In normal health, brain cells transmit information through the exchange of serotonin molecules. Depressive states are accompanied by an imbalance of this signaling substance, which acts as a neurotransmitter.

Antidepressants belonging to the group of SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) work as follows – by preventing the seizure of serotonin by brain tissues, they maintain the continuous activity of central serotonergic processes.As a result, the neurotransmitter, accumulating in the region of the receptors, has a more lasting effect on them. As a result, it is possible to mitigate or completely neutralize depressive, anxiety, phobic disorders, and normalize mental self-regulation.

Types of SSRIs, as well as their constituent substances, are presented in the table below:

The listed products are easily tolerated antidepressants.However, it is impossible to combine alcohol, including low-degree alcohol, with any of them, since ethanol up to a certain point also stimulates the action of serotonin.

As a result of combining SSRIs with alcohol, there is naturally a strong side effect of antidepressants, and the degree of arousal of serotonin drugs becomes unpredictable.

Antidepressants and alcohol – effects of the combination

Some of the most likely consequences of a prohibited combination include increased heart rate (up to 120 beats per minute), liver damage, hallucinations, depressive psychosis and sexual dysfunctions.Alcohol after antidepressants, or shortly before taking medication, increases the risk of severe autonomic disorders in the form of:

• sudden pressure drops;
• cardiac arrhythmias;
• insufficient or increased blood clotting.

If you use antidepressants and alcohol, the consequences are very varied. The outcome of the situation is largely determined by concomitant factors, including the type and amount of alcohol consumed, t environment, availability and quality of snacks.The nature of the reaction also largely depends on the state of the human body.

SSRI manufacturers always warn buyers of the dangerous effects of antidepressant drug interactions with alcohol. Such information is necessarily contained in each instruction attached to medications.

Can alcohol with antidepressants be used – the opinion of scientists

British scientist E. Herxheimer and his colleague from New Zealand David B. Menkes became interested in the problem of patient frivolity about the dangers of combining SSRIs with ethanol.At the same time, the buyers of such drugs explained their position by the fact that the tests were carried out on sober volunteers, in whose bodies traces of ethanol were completely absent. The issue of the compatibility of alcohol with antidepressants was the subject of an article by Herksheimer and Menkes, published in the Pharmaceutical Journal.

There were good reasons for this situation – all the existing warnings were theoretical in nature, since they had not previously been confirmed by scientific research.Herxheimer and Menkes managed to establish why and what specific manifestations of intoxication may arise, as well as the consequences of taking SSRIs with any type of alcoholic beverages.

MAO inhibitors and other types of antidepressant drugs

MAO inhibitors are substances that can slow down enzymatic reactions. This type of antidepressant is represented by the following drugs:

1. Auroriksom (moclobemide acts as an active substance).

2. Pyrazidol (the main component is pyrindol).

When using such products, it is necessary to completely abandon alcoholic beverages. Taking antidepressants and alcohol in almost 100% of cases provokes the development of dangerous conditions – tyramine or serotonin syndrome, difficulty breathing. In addition, MAO treatment should be accompanied by a strict diet, the use of foods and medicines indicated in the instructions for use.

Among medicines that are representatives of less popular medicines, patients with depression may be prescribed:

1. Monoamine receptor agonists – Trazadone, Remeron, Calixta.Such products belong to the modern class of medicines that have minor side effects.
2. Agomelatine, stimulating melatonin prescriptions while blocking serotonin prescriptions.

New generation antidepressants are popular in developed countries. The list of those includes Sertraline, Opipramol, Zoloft, Toloxaton, Simbalta. Most of these products have a weak stimulating effect, do not exhibit anticholinergic and cardiotoxic properties.

Antidepressants and alcohol – the right approach to drinking

Modern pharmacology has a wide variety of antidepressants, most of which should not be consumed with alcohol. To avoid the development of negative reactions that can sometimes threaten the patient’s life, it is important to carefully study the instructions for use before taking any of them. Do not rely on the opinion of people who are incompetent in this matter. If in doubt, you should clarify all important points with a narcologist.

Initial treatment for dehydration in acute malnutrition

Biological, behavioral and contextual rationales

Dehydration is a condition that occurs when excess fluid is excreted from the body ¹ . In acute malnutrition, dehydration is caused by untreated diarrhea, which results in the loss of water and electrolytes ² . Acute malnutrition and diarrhea form a vicious circle, exacerbating each other and increasing each other’s chances of developing.

Diarrhea is caused by poor hygiene and contact with contaminated food or water. Diarrhea is widespread in developing countries, where about one billion people lack access to clean water and 2.5 billion people lack access to basic sanitation 90,538 2 90,539. There are two billion cases of diarrhea worldwide each year, killing about 1.5 million children 90,538 2 90,539.

Dehydration in acute malnutrition is difficult to detect because many of the typical signs, such as skin elasticity, are unconfirmed ³ .Applicable metrics include thirst, emaciation, cool and damp extremities, little or no radial pulsation, and decreased or no urine output ³ . Distinguishing dehydration from septic shock, with which it has several symptoms in common, is essential for proper treatment. The presence of diarrhea indicates dehydration and requires appropriate treatment ³ .

Establishing dehydration is similar for all forms of diarrhea.However, for treatment purposes, a distinction must be made between cholera and other forms of diarrhea as the cause of dehydration. Cholera is characterized by acute watery diarrhea and can kill a healthy person in a matter of hours ⁴ .

In regions where severe malnutrition is a problem, multi-stage programs are applied. Mild, moderate, and severe dehydration, which is the third phase of the initial treatment for acute malnutrition, is treated in a hospital.

Mild to moderate dehydration is characterized by thirst, anxiety or irritation, normal or slightly sunken eyes, and a sunken fontanelle in infants. Signs of acute dehydration include lethargy or unconsciousness, difficulty drinking or inability to drink, lack of urine output, cool, damp extremities, low or undetectable blood pressure, and fast and weak pulse ⁵ .

For acutely malnourished patients with mild to moderate dehydration caused by cholera, oral rehydration solutions (ORS) ⁴ should be given immediately.RPR is a liquid containing salt, sugar, potassium chloride and citric acid to replace lost fluids and electrolytes that have caused dehydration ⁶ .

If dehydration due to acute malnutrition is caused by other forms of diarrhea, treatment is given with an alternative version of RRP called ReSoMal, which stands for Recommended Oral Rehydration Salt Solution for Acute Malnourished Children ³ .This difference in treatment approach is attributed to a study that found sodium in relation to potassium in RND is too high for patients with acute malnutrition dehydration caused by forms of diarrhea other than cholera. This solution leads to cardiac overload and heart failure ⁷ . Therefore, to solve this problem, the solution for the treatment of dehydration caused by all causes, except cholera, was replaced by the ReSoMal solution, which has more potassium and less sodium than in RPR ⁷ .

For either treatment, oral rehydration is the preferred method of rehydration for adults and children, however, if the child cannot drink, a nasogastric tube can be used. Acute dehydration due to cholera is treated with intravenous fluids ³ . It is also important not to interrupt breastfeeding during rehydration, so mothers should continue breastfeeding ³ .

Signs of successful rehydration include urine output, lack of thirst and other signs of dehydration ³ .Fluids continue to be given to maintain hydration until diarrhea stops ³ .

Bibliography

¹ Dorland. Dorland’s illustrated medical dictionary. Philadelphia, W.B. Saunders, 2007.

² Diarrhoeal disease fact sheet. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2009.

³ Management of severe malnutrition: a manual for physicians and other senior health workers. Geneva, World Health Organization, 1999.

⁴ WHO position paper on oral rehydration salts to reduce mortality from cholera. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2009.

⁵ The treatment of diarrhoea: a manual for physicians and other senior health workers (4th rev). Geneva, World Health Organization, 2005.

⁶ New formulation of oral rehydration salts (ORS) with reduced osmolarity. The United Nations Childrens’ Fund Supply Division, 2004 (Technical Bulletin, No. 9).

⁷ Golden MHN. Severe malnutrition. In: Weatherall DJ, Ledingham JGG, Warell DA eds. The Oxford textbook of medicine. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996: 1278-1296.

⁸ Severe malnutrition: report of a consultation to review current literature. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2004.

Disclaimer

Only the above authors are responsible for the views expressed in this document.

Conflict of interest statements

Conflict of interest statements have been received from all of the authors listed above and no conflicts of interest have been identified.

90,000 WHY DO PEOPLE DRINK?

Every person during his life, to one degree or another, “communicates” with alcohol. For some, these are just episodic cases, for others – drinking alcohol on holidays, and for some (unfortunately, there are a lot of them), life without alcohol is simply impossible.

In any case, alcohol directly or indirectly affects the life of each of us. Directly – when a person himself is addicted to alcohol or there are alcoholics in his family. Indirectly – when people suffering from alcoholism live nearby, when drunks sleeping on the ground meet on the street, or when someone becomes a victim of a crime committed by an alcoholic.

Unpleasant incidents associated with the use of alcohol occur quite often in our life. And people leading a sober lifestyle often ask themselves the question: what is pleasant in a state of intoxication, and why do people drink, even realizing what alcoholism leads to?

Drinking to “warm” – benefit or harm?

It is believed that alcohol is a great way to warm up quickly.Indeed, alcohol dilates blood vessels and a person becomes warm. Therefore, many people who work in unheated rooms or outdoors take alcohol daily in cold weather so as not to freeze. But this is fraught with addiction to alcohol, and the habit of drinking will remain even when the sultry summer comes.

Drinking people also justify their love for a glass or two by the fact that alcohol has healing properties for colds and other diseases, including diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.But with a peptic ulcer, alcohol is strictly prohibited!

It is believed that alcohol increases appetite, invigorates and excites, improves mood, and makes communication more lively. Therefore, alcohol is taken to relieve fatigue, malaise, and improve your mood in the company and on holidays.

Another “virtue” attributed by people to alcohol is its high calorie content. It is believed that alcohol provides the body’s energy needs, which is important when hiking.

What is true and what is a fallacy about the health benefits of alcohol? In medicine, alcohol is used as a disinfectant, but not in any way for treatment. At one more of the Pirogov congresses of doctors, a resolution was passed that there is not a single organ in the human body that would not be destroyed by alcohol, and that alcohol does not have a single effect that could not be achieved by using other medicinal means, more useful, safe and reliable.

So all the extraordinary properties of alcohol are delusions that drinkers use every time to justify their craving for alcohol.

For example, the increase in appetite attributed to alcohol is only an illusion. Only at first, while alcohol causes a rush of gastric juice, it can induce appetite. In the future, alcohol (and beer as well) only harms the digestion, because it paralyzes the liver and pancreas.

Drinking habits from the past

Academician V.M. Bekhterev (1857-1927), when asked why people drink alcohol, at one time answered as follows. He noted the psychological reasons for drinking, stressing that “drunkenness is an age-old evil”, which has taken such deep roots into everyday life that drinking habits from the past require the use of alcohol whenever possible – be it a celebration or grief.

These customs have survived to this day, and it is very difficult to eradicate them. It is believed that if you are at a wedding, you must definitely drink, otherwise you will show disrespect to the owners.Why do men drink? – to show that they are real “men”. Since one of the signs of masculine strength for some is the ability to drink a lot. But drunkards think so. In fact, if a person refuses alcohol and can resist drunkenness, this is precisely what characterizes him as a strong personality. There are people who quite deliberately try to make themselves intoxicated in order to drown out the voice of their conscience.

The need for alcohol is not natural for the human body, as opposed to the need for food, water and air.Therefore, the need for alcohol appears, like other bad habits, from the fact that alcoholic beverages exist, and they are easy to purchase at the nearest store. And also because there are customs and prejudices.

Why do Russians drink

How does drunkenness begin among our people? The assimilation of alcoholic customs begins long before a person has a need for alcohol, and even acquaintance with its taste and action. A child sitting with adults at a festive table is waiting for water or juice to be poured into his glass, and he will take it and clink glasses with the others.This is how a little man learns the ritual of drinking wine. In the mind of the child, the perception of alcohol is formed as an obligatory attribute of celebration and communication, which is not yet available for his age, but such an attractive symbol of adulthood.

Drinking can have different reasons, but different ages have their own patterns. In children under 11 years old, acquaintance with alcohol usually happens by chance. It happens that parents give alcohol to drink “for appetite”, or for the treatment of colds.Sometimes children themselves taste alcohol to find out its taste (especially boys). The first use of alcohol at an older age is timed to coincide with a family celebration.

Why do teenagers drink alcoholic beverages? At the age of 14-15, to festive occasions to drink are added such as “for the company”, “for courage”, unwillingness to lag behind friends, fear of ridicule from comrades. These motives for the first drinking are peculiar to boys. For girls, “traditional” reasons for the first use of alcohol are more characteristic.This is often the first birthday drink. It is drunk with parental consent and with the family, but it is still a dangerous introduction of a teenager to wine. After all, as soon as the ban is lifted, the teenager considers himself entitled to drink with friends or even alone, when the opportunity arises for this. It is not for nothing that the popular wisdom says that “drunkenness begins with a glass, like a river from a brook.”

The motives of adolescent drinking can be divided into two groups. The first group is based on the need to follow traditions and experience new sensations.These desires are formed by the peculiarities of the psyche of minors, who strive to look more mature and be like everyone else. It is the psychology of adolescents, namely the lack of experience and knowledge for free communication with people, and especially – shyness in relationships with the opposite sex – that makes them drink “for courage.”

Shyness is characteristic of many people, and shyness manifests itself more strongly in youth than in adulthood. Therefore, young people drink alcohol to show their courage or physical strength.And such courage in a state of intoxication often turns into swagger.

After the first acquaintance with alcohol, a teenager usually disappears from the desire to drink, because the taste and sensations after alcohol are not as pleasant as they thought. And if the dose of alcohol was large enough for a teenager, then nausea and vomiting can push him away from drinking for a long time. But this is not for long.

At the age of 15-16 in connection with any event – graduation from school, admission to a university, etc.- there is a new temptation to drink. And here comes into force the second group of motivations for drinking – the desire to get rid of boredom. Psychologists characterize boredom as a state of personality with emotional hunger. Adolescents in this category have a low cognitive interest, and if they also drink alcohol, they stop participating in public affairs and are not interested in anything at all.

Spiritual limitations and inability to express themselves in a team push such young people to drink alcohol for the purpose of self-affirmation in a group of fellow street mates.But this self-affirmation is illusory, and alcoholism leads to disastrous consequences.

Many adolescents drink to relieve stress and relieve feelings of social or family alienation. In general, adolescents who are prone to drinking alcohol are characterized by aimless pastime – wandering the streets, playing cards, visiting bars and discos. And alcohol is gradually becoming practically the meaning of such a life. Young people develop a false stereotype that the problems of life are solved thanks to alcohol.

With alcohol abuse, disorders of the volitional and emotional spheres of life occur. The social activity of a person falls, his labor skills are erased, moral qualities decrease. And such qualities as rudeness, irascibility, lack of initiative, carelessness, suggestibility – come to the fore. Drinking adolescents repulse old friends with their cruelty and coldness, and find new ones among those who drink like him.

Why do women drink

Social condemnation of female alcoholism is much stronger than male alcoholism.Why shouldn’t women drink? The weaker sex gets used to alcohol very quickly, and a woman usually drinks alone, hiding her addiction. When relatives find out about her alcohol addiction, alcoholism often reaches the stage at which the help of a narcologist is needed. Getting a woman to recover from alcoholism is not easy – rarely, which woman admits her illness.

The cause of female alcoholism can be unsettled personal life, problems with children, and more. Any tragedy or severe stress can push a woman to want to drown her grief in a bottle.This makes it easier to “forget” and get away from problems at least for a while. But in the life of every woman there are difficult moments, but not everyone falls into drunkenness. Usually weak-willed and ignorant women become alcoholics. Added to this is the greed of alcohol producers, who have made it an easily accessible drink, and cash in on other people’s tragedies.

It is not only the woman herself who suffers from female alcoholism, but the whole family, above all the children. Born from a drinking mother, they are already potential alcoholics, and living in an atmosphere of alcoholic intoxication makes them alcoholics already in adolescence.In addition, women who drink often give birth to children with physical deformities and mental disabilities. Such a child cannot become a full-fledged personality.

Usually in families there is an acute question – why does the husband drink? A woman is trying to find an answer to this question and help her other half cope with the disease. If a woman becomes an alcoholic, the man does not endure such cohabitation for long …

Why is it harmful to drink beer

Beer is an alcoholic beverage that people get used to in the same way as any other alcoholic beverage.Many people mistakenly believe that you can drink beer as much as you like, and it will not harm the body. This is just an illusion.

Why can’t you drink beer? This drink is harmful to health, even more than vodka or wine. First, beer contains alcohol, just like other liquor. Despite the fact that the percentage of alcohol in beer is lower, beer drinkers compensate for this with the huge amount of consumed liters of frothy drink.

Secondly, beer contains cobalt, which has a destructive effect on the heart, esophagus and stomach.People who constantly drink beer develop the so-called “Bavarian heart”. The “motor” of the human body becomes loose and pumps blood poorly.

Third, beer contains a substance from hops that causes aggression and death of brain cells. It turns out that beer becomes dull and hardened.

Why do people so rapidly fall into the abyss of alcohol? Don’t they realize the dire consequences of drinking? Maybe they do, but their own body prevents them from defeating the addiction.Alcohol is a drug that saturates parts of the brain, causing pleasant sensations and extinguishing unpleasant ones. After temporary relief, these areas of the brain again require “feeding” with alcohol. When trying to get rid of drunkenness, the area of ​​the brain that causes unpleasant sensations is activated, and the person experiences severe discomfort. As you can see, using alcohol, a person degrades and decomposes physically and mentally, gradually turning into a being.

Can I drink coffee for gastritis, stomach and duodenal ulcers?

First you need to find out the difference between gastritis and ulcers.Gastritis is an inflammation of the stomach lining. This term is used much less often in modern medical practice. It was replaced by a new definition of “erythematous gastropathy”. This is a collective concept that includes changes in the gastric mucosa and its functions, in particular, a violation of digestion processes, etc. Most often, functional changes in this organ lead to a violation of its function and the duodenum (Duodenum). The so-called gastroduodenitis.

Most people believe that the process of digestion takes place directly in the stomach.However, this is not entirely true. The digestive process begins already at the stage of food entering the oral cavity, where it is processed by the enzymes of the salivary glands. In the stomach, it is chemically treated with hydrochloric acid (HCl), and its mechanical stirring until a homogeneous mass takes place due to gastric motility. Since it is a muscular-hollow organ.

The inflammatory process of the duodenum can develop as an independent disease, but most often as a result of changes in the pH of gastric juice and incorrect chemical processing of food.

What is an ulcer? An ulcer is a defect in the mucous membrane of an organ. Ulcers are formed as a result of a chronic inflammatory process or the action of aggressive substances, they can also be caused by the activity of the microorganism Helicobacter pylori.

Fast pace of life, lack of time to implement their plans and projects, all this characterizes a modern person. That is why our society can no longer be imagined without such a drink as coffee.Which allows us to win a little in the fight against time. However, what exactly is coffee, and what is its effect on our organs and the body as a whole.

Coffee is a beverage made from the beans of the coffee tree. This drink has a number of positive effects on the human body. Such as: improving mood, relieving drowsiness, increasing concentration and performance, prevention of certain diseases. But despite all the positive effects of coffee, it also has a number of negative effects.

So, how does this drink affect the affected stomach and duodenum?

• A drink drunk on an empty stomach irritates the gastric mucosa, thereby stimulating the secretion of digestive juice (increased acidity). Which, in turn, negatively affects the already damaged shell.
• The cup of coffee you have drunk should not be hot. The treatment of diseases of the stomach and duodenum is based on the principle of the gentle action of food on them, that is, there should be adequate thermal, chemical and mechanical processing of food and the observance of the optimal temperature of consumed foods.
• If you are not able to restrict or refuse this drink at all.