A round-up of today's other stories in brief
New tool improving knee- replacement outcomes
A PRIVATE hospital in Cork is the first in the country to offer a new knee- replacement surgery technique, involving greater pre-operative planning, which is leading to more accurate outcomes, shorter hospital stays and faster recovery. Shanakiel Hospital has begun using a 3D web planning technique based on CT or MRI images which allows the surgeon to carry out pre-operative planning based on the individual patient’s anatomy and mechanical axis.
Described as “a patient-specific cutting block”, the solution is known as MyKnee, and was first performed by Dr Peter Koch at the Balgarist University Hospital of Zurich in September 2009.
Since then it’s been used by more than 100 surgeons in 10 countries, but orthopaedic surgeon Dr Maha Lingham at Shanakiel Hospital is the first surgeon in Ireland to use the new procedure.
According to Dr Lingham, it results in more accurate implant positioning, up to a 60 per cent reduction of surgical steps for bone resection and the risk of blood clotting is reduced.
He said patients would receive a highly precise pre-operative analysis, minimally invasive operative procedure and were expected to spend less time in hospital with faster rehabilitation.
Shanakiel Hospital chief executive Brian Martin said: “Having a smaller number of surgical steps reduces the overall surgical time. Less surgical time means less exposure to the risk of infection, less time under anaesthesia and less tourniquet time. Recovery time is proving to be much reduced, enabling patients generally to resume normal activities and return to function sooner.”
Breastfed babies 'more likely' to become athletes
A NEW study has revealed that breastfed babies stand the best chance of becoming professional athletes in later life. Researchers found that teenagers who had been breastfed from birth had grown up to be stronger and more athletic than their formula-fed counterparts.
The findings were welcomed yesterday by an Irish breastfeeding advocate, who said she wasn’t at all surprised by the results. Geraldine Cahill, the representative for Cuidiú on the HSE National Strategy and Implementation Monitoring Committee, also said she believed the majority of Ireland’s most successful athletes had probably achieved sporting success because they had been breastfed.
The findings, published in the Journal of Nutrition, showed that both boys and girls in their teens who were breastfed – regardless of their height or weight – had stronger leg muscles and were better able to perform horizontal jumping exercises than those who were not.
Researchers quizzed 2,567 parents on the nursing of their children, then carried out physical tests on their teenage offspring, discovering that the longer the teenagers had been breastfed, the stronger their leg muscles were.
Dr Enrique Garcia Artero, from the department of physiology of the University of Granada in Spain, said: “The results provide support to breastfeeding as superior to any other type of feeding.”
The findings should help convince Irish mothers of the benefits of breastfeeding, according to Mrs Cahill, who stressed that the nutrients found in natural milk were far superior to any alternative.
Breakfast doesn't cut calorie intake
DIETERS WHO enjoy a hearty breakfast are just as likely to have a big lunch and dinner as those who keep it small, new research suggests. The idea that a large breakfast helps people consume fewer calories for the rest of the day is a myth, according to experts.
Writing in the Nutrition Journal, researchers from the University of Munich examined the eating habits of almost 400 obese and normal weight people. Both big breakfast eaters and those who ate nothing or a low calorie meal at breakfast time consumed the same quantity of calories for lunch and dinner.