Zara Hartshorn: Teenager Who Looked 60 Has Facelift to Combat 'Benjamin Button' Syndrome

 

A facelift at the age of 16 sounds like vanity gone mad – but for Zara Hartshorn it gave her a life as a normal teenager, the Sunday People reveals today.She was a youngster hoping for love like the others but her tender skin looked ­twisted and ­wrinkled because of a rare ­condition.

With prematurely ravaged ­features and gaps in her teeth she spent years enduring kids’ taunts of “monkey” and “granny”.But today, thanks to pioneering surgery, the bullies are no more than an unpleasant memory.

Zara has found the fella of her dreams. She no longer feels out of place with her friends and is ­looking forward to life with her sweetheart Ricky Andrews.With her looks ­transformed, she hopes to open a beauty salon.

Recalling the moment all the ­bandages came off, she said: “When I saw myself it was mixture of surprise and happiness.“Growing up I never thought this day would come. I thought I would be the same for ever.

Puzzle of How Heart Regulates Its Beat Solved

A long-withstanding puzzle as to how the heart regulates its beat appears to have been solved, paving way for better understanding of heart failure. When the heart beats (contracts), the contractile machinery is switched on by an increase in calcium within the cell, according to researchers.

This increase is produced by a release from intracellular stores activated by a small influx of calcium into the cell during the cardiac electrical signal - known as the action potential, they said.

This apparently simple process raised an important question, since the trigger signal was smaller than the release and both involve calcium how could the system be graded - since once the release is started it should overcome the trigger signal and be fully regenerative.

Researchers led by Professor Mark Cannell from the University of Bristol's School of Physiology and Pharmacology with Dr Laver from Hunter Medical Research Institute in Australia constructed a 3-dimensional computer model of the release machinery incorporating measurements of the calcium sensitivity of the release mechanism.

They found that the key to this puzzle is in the calcium dependence of the closed time of the channels that release calcium and the microscopic domain in which they reside. This model showed automatic release termination without having to invoke any other mechanism a process they called "induction decay".

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Therefore, a key piece of the puzzle as how the heart regulates contraction appears to have been solved, and this paves the way to improved understanding of what goes wrong when the heart fails - because there is good evidence that the calcium release mechanism becomes faulty in heart failure.

"These intracellular processes only occur on the molecular scale which is difficult, if not impossible, to image and study within living cells. Thanks to sophisticated computer modelling, we have been able provide the necessary insight into the complex behaviour of this fundamental system," Cannell said.

Sleep Deprivation in Teens Linked to Poor Dietary Choices

Well-rested teenagers tend to make more healthy food choices than their sleep-deprived peers, according to a new study. The findings led by Lauren Hale, Associate Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University School of Medicine in US may be key to understanding the link between sleep and obesity. "Not only do sleepy teens on average eat more food that's bad for them, they also eat less food that is good for them," said Hale.

"While we already know that sleep duration is associated with a range of health consequences, this study speaks to some of the mechanisms, ie, nutrition and decision making, through which health outcomes are affected," said Hale.

The study examined the association between sleep duration and food choices in a national representative sample of 13,284 teenagers in the second wave of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The data were collected in 1996 when the interview subjects had a mean age of 16 years.

Researchers found that those teens who reported sleeping fewer than seven hours per night - 18 per cent of respondents - were more likely to consume fast food two or more times per week and less likely to eat healthful food such as fruits and vegetables.

The results took into account factors such as age, gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, physical activity and family structure, and found that short sleep duration had an independent effect on both healthy and unhealthy food choices.

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The respondents fell into one of three categories: short sleepers, who received fewer than seven hours per night; mid-range sleepers, who had seven to eight hours per night; and recommended sleepers, who received more than eight hours per night. The American Academy of Pediatrics currently recommends that adolescents get between nine and 10 hours of sleep per night.

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Amount of Exercise Matters, Not Frequency

Scientists have found that it is the total amount of exercise you get in a week that matters and not whether you spread your workout over several days or few.

Adults, who accumulated 150 minutes of exercise on a few days of the week, were not any less healthy than adults who exercised more frequently throughout the week, a new Canadian study has found.

Ian Janssen and graduate student Janine Clarke from Queen’s University, studied 2,324 adults from across Canada to determine whether the frequency of physical activity throughout the week is associated with risk factors for diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

“The findings indicate that it does not matter how adults choose to accumulate their 150 weekly minutes of physical activity,” said Janssen.

“For instance, someone who did not perform any physical activity on Monday to Friday but was active for 150 minutes over the week-end would obtain the same health benefits from their activity as someone who accumulated 150 minutes of activity over the week by doing 20-25 minutes of activity on a daily basis,” Janssen said.

Physical activity was measured continuously throughout the week by having research participants wear accelerometers on their waists. Accelerometers are tiny electrical devices (about the size of a small package of matches) that record how much a person moves every minute.

Janssen divided the adults who met the physical activity guidelines (more than 150 minutes per week of aerobic activity) into those who were frequently active (active five to seven days of the week) and infrequently active (active one to four days of the week).

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“The important message is that adults should aim to accumulate at least 150 minutes of weekly physical activity in whatever pattern that works for their schedule,” Janssen said.

The study was published in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism.