RxPG News : Health

Musculoskeletal problems ail computer workers

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 16:46:00 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Those who work for long hours on computers become victims of weak backs and shoulders, an affliction that doctors believe has multiplied over the years.

'Gurgaon is an IT hub and the problem is definitely severe here. I have seen a nearly 10 fold increase in the number of shoulder and back ache patients. They are falling flat on weak shoulders,' said I.P.S. Oberoi, a senior orthopaedic doctor at the Artemis Health Institute in Gurgaon.

'Nearly two years back, we used to get some 20 to 30 patients a month but now the number has gone up to 300. A resounding majority of them are computer professionals and those exposed to a computer for more than three-four hours a day,' Oberoi told IANS.

He said it starts with shoulder pain and leads to severe backache. Even medical studies have found the same result.

A new study by doctors at the Vardhaman Mahavir Medical College and Safdarjung Hospital here has found that an overwhelming 76 percent of computer professionals in Delhi and its adjoining satellite towns have developed 'musculoskeletal problems'.

'This is a significant proportion and denotes that the occupational health of people working in the computer industry should be emphasised as a field of concern in public health,' the study underlines.

The subjects of this study were software developers, call centre executives and data entry operators.

The study says that long periods of work in front of a computer are causing these shoulder and back problems. 'They are also prone to eye strain and injuries of the hand and wrists.'

'Yes, the problem is increasing. It's an emerging field and much study needs to be done. Our study subjects are people who have worked in the computer industry for at least six months,' Richa Talwar, lead researcher of the study, told IANS.

Her study also found that nearly 76 percent of these computer professionals who are working as software developers, call centre workers and data entry operators too have some sort of visual problem.

P.K. Dave, an orthopaedic doctor and former director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences -, said that the working condition of computer professionals are very sedentary.

'The problem is too bad these days. Many of these professional have a wrong sitting posture and are over exposed to computer screens,' Dave, currently serving at Rockland Hospital here, explained.

'Unfortunately those who are coming for medical help are in the highly productive age group. Generally 30-40 age group are what I have seen as the worst sufferers,' said the Padma Shri awardee.

Explaining the problem, Oberoi said these computer professionals' hands are almost static while working.

'In the entire body, just the portion above the wrist works and the rest is static. They punch keyboards or hold the mouse for long hours. The problem begins here and it goes to the shoulder and finally they develop a weak back. They are falling flat on weak shoulders and sometimes victims can't even move their hands in pain,' he elaborated.

Doctors said that as the NCR region is an IT hub, the problem is quite visible and growing. An improved sitting posture, regular exercise, good nutrition and a firm no to junk food can help victims avoid the problem.

Eating less may help you live longer

Tue, 29 Dec 2009 15:05:33 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Going back for a second dessert after your holiday meal might not be the best strategy for living a long, cancer-free life, a new study has confirmed.

University of Alabama-Birmingham - researchers have shown exactly how restricted calorie diets, specifically in the form of restricted glucose -, help human cells live longer.

This discovery could help lead to drugs and treatments that slow human ageing and prevent cancer.

'Our hope is that the discovery that reduced calories extend the lifespan of normal human cells will lead to further discoveries of the causes for these effects in different cell types...,' said Trygve Tollefsbol, researcher at the Centre for Aging and Comprehensive Cancer Centre UAB.

'We would also hope for these studies to lead to improved prevention of cancer as well as many other age-related diseases through controlling calorie intake of specific cell types,' he added.

Tollefsbol and colleagues used normal human lung cells and pre-cancerous human lung cells that were at the beginning stages of cancer formation.

Eating less may help you live longer

Both sets of cells were lab grown and received either normal or reduced levels of glucose. As the cells grew over a period of a few weeks, researchers monitored their ability to divide, and tracked how many cells survived over this period.

They found that the normal cells lived longer, and many of the precancerous cells died, when given less glucose. Gene activity was also measured under the same conditions, said a UAB release.

'Western science is on the cusp of developing a pharmaceutical fountain of youth,' said Gerald Weissmann, medical expert and editor-in-chief of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology - Journal, which published these findings.

IOM report on national vaccine plan

Fri, 11 Dec 2009 04:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WASHINGTON -- While vaccines help prevent many diseases in the United States, we lack immunization protection against several serious illnesses, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine that identifies priority areas for updating the National Vaccine Plan. The revised plan should include a strategy to accelerate development of high-priority vaccines, said the committee that wrote the report. In addition, it should emphasize the importance of expanding funding for safety research and monitoring, and include the development of a national communications strategy to clarify the importance of vaccines and bolster public confidence in the immunization system.

The National Vaccine Plan aims to provide centralized coordination of the various components involved in protecting Americans from vaccine-preventable illnesses and vaccine-related adverse reactions. The immunization system engages many partners -- including multiple government agencies and departments, vaccine researchers, manufacturers, public health officials, health care providers, and the public -- in identifying vaccine needs, researching and developing new products, assessing safety, and getting people immunized. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a draft update to the plan in 2008 and requested that IOM conduct an independent assessment of issues that merit priority attention.

The updated plan should call for a greater proportion of vaccine research and development to be directed at specific goals, such as producing vaccines against diseases for which there are none or developing a single vaccine that would work against all influenza viruses, the committee said. The majority of vaccine research and development stems from the focus and interests of individual researchers rather than a set of priority targets identified through a centralized planning process.

Given the absence of a framework to set a national vaccine-safety research agenda, the National Vaccine Plan should call for expanded funding for safety research and include establishing a permanent group to advise the government on safety issues, the report says. Little vaccine research supported by the National Institutes of Health appears to be geared toward safety, the committee noted. Moreover, as the number and kinds of vaccines have increased, funding to monitor safety has not. The monitoring system has successfully caught problems such as a rare but severe intestinal injury linked to a discontinued rotavirus vaccine, but the Immunization Safety Office within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs more resources to do its work. A new vaccine safety advisory group could guide efforts to address potential safety concerns and the development of a research agenda with clear priorities.

Noting that a proliferation of misinformation about vaccines' effectiveness and safety has contributed to diminished public understanding of and confidence in the value of immunization, the committee called for the National Vaccine Plan to include the development of a national communications strategy that engages the latest techniques and methods, such as social networking. Outreach efforts by federal agencies and other public health groups have been disjointed and reactive and not as effective as they should be, the committee said. The effort should boost health care providers' abilities to talk about the benefits and risks of vaccines with patients as well as increase the public's understanding of vaccines.

The National Vaccine Plan should also include a strategy to eliminate financial barriers to immunization, such as lack of health plan coverage for all recommended vaccines and insufficient reimbursements that do not cover all of a clinic's costs of providing vaccines, the report added. Certain subgroups, such as the elderly and people with lower incomes, tend to have greater difficulty getting the vaccines they need. The plan also should promote the use of health information technology to monitor disease incidence, rapidly detect potential safety signals, and measure vaccine coverage. Tracking patients' immunization status should be an integral part of electronic health records, the report says.

The National Vaccine Program Office (NVPO), which Congress intended to coordinate vaccine activities across government agencies, requires a heightened profile and more resources to carry out its role and to implement the National Vaccine Plan, the committee said. The HHS secretary should clarify NVPO's role as the central coordinator for critical immunization activities and give it the necessary funding to fulfill this role.

Coordination is at the heart of the National Vaccine Plan, and it needs to be strengthened, said committee chair Claire V. Broome, adjunct professor, department of global health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta. While the immunization system has functioned well through the years, we may have missed opportunities, for example, to expand our use of cutting edge vaccine science or to use new communication methods to get accurate information on vaccines to the public. The National Vaccine Plan and the National Vaccine Program Office can provide the central coordination needed, given sufficient resources and support from HHS.

You may damage knees if you're an exercise freak

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:51:15 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) If you are a middle-aged man or woman and tend to over- exercise, then you may unwittingly damage your knees, increasing chances of osteoarthritis, a new study says.

'Our data suggest that people with higher physical activity levels may be at greater risk for developing knee abnormalities and, thus, at higher risk for developing osteoarthritis,' said Christoph Stehling.

Stehling is a research fellow in radiology and biomedical imaging at the University of California, San Francisco -.

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease that causes pain, swelling and stiffness. It affects 27 million adults in US, says the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

The UCSF study involved 236 participants who had not reported previous knee pain and were enrolled in the National Institutes of Health Osteoarthritis Initiative.

The participants comprised 136 women and 100 men, aged between 45 and 55 years, within a healthy weight range.

They were categorised as low, middle, and high-activity groups based on their responses to the Physical Activity Scale for the Elderly - questionnaire.

PASE is a standard test that scores an older individual's physical activity level, based on the type of activity and the time spent doing it.

Several factors contribute to the final PASE score, but a person whose activity level is classified as high typically might engage in several hours of walking, sports or other types of exercise per week, as well as yard work and other household chores.

Subsequent MRI analysis indicated a relationship between physical activity levels and frequency and severity of knee damage, says a UCSF release.

The study was presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America -.

American adults receiving flu vaccine at about the same rate as in 2008, study finds

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 04:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) American adults are not being vaccinated against the seasonal flu any more often than they were last year, despite increased public discussion of the importance of influenza vaccines resulting from the worldwide outbreak of the H1N1 virus, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

As of the middle of November, about 32 percent of all U.S. adults and 37 percent of adults recommended to receive a flu vaccination had been inoculated against the seasonal influenza, according to the study.

Researchers also found that 17 percent of all adults and 19 percent of those recommended for vaccination intended to receive the seasonal flu vaccine by the end of the vaccination season.

It does not appear that the increased public discussion of the role of influenza vaccines has had a significantly impact on the public's behavior, said Katherine Harris, the study's lead author and a senior economist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. Most of the results from our latest survey look much like those from last year,

Health officials recommend the seasonal flu vaccine for about 70 percent of American adults, including people over age 50, those with high-risk medical conditions, health care workers and those who care for children under age 5. There are different recommendations for the H1N1 flu vaccine, which protects against the pandemic influenza strain.

One difference from last year noted by new survey is that adults began getting the seasonal flu vaccine earlier this year. Uptake of the seasonal vaccine during September was nearly three times as high -- about 9 percent in 2009 versus 3 percent in 2008. Yet, vaccine uptake through mid-November this year was comparable to uptake during the same period last year.

In addition, about half of health care workers had been vaccinated by the middle of November this year, roughly the same proportion that was vaccinated during the entire season last year. However, 40 percent of health care workers reported they had no intention of being vaccinated despite the risk of transmitting influenza to patients.

The findings are from a representative national survey conducted during the middle of November that asked more than 5,000 adults about their vaccination status and related issues. The survey is the latest in a series done by RAND and supported by GlaxoSmithKline, a manufacturer of flu vaccine.

Researchers say the study was designed to help inform public health officials and others about progress toward vaccinating adults prior to the end of the vaccination season while action can still be taken to improve uptake.

The study found that 29 percent of adults stated that they did not have the time to get vaccinated. In addition, seasonal flu vaccine availability may be a significant reason more adults have not been vaccinated. Among those intending to be vaccinated, about 38 percent said there was no vaccine available when they tried to get inoculated.

This finding highlights one of the public health challenges that we face in a year when a pandemic flu has made an appearance, Harris said. The early surge of uptake was attributed to additional awareness about seasonal flu vaccination in a pandemic year. It's important to keep this early interest in mind when planning for future pandemics.

Other finding from the study include:

Widowed people have higher mortality

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:39:56 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Dec 3 - Married people are living longer these days, but the widowed are experiencing a higher mortality rate, according to new research.

'With the improvements in medical technology, it seems all population groups should be healthier and living longer,' Hui Liu said of the growing mortality rate for the widowed. She is study author and assistant professor of sociology at Michigan State University -.

Research from as far back as 1858 has shown that married people generally live longer than non-married, but little is known how this relationship has changed over time in the US. Liu set out to explore recent trends in mortality by marital status.

Liu analysed the data of more than a half-million people in the US government's National Health Interview Survey and found that, as expected, the overall mortality rate for married people decreased from 1986 to 2000.

The rate also decreased or at least remained stable among all cause-specific deaths examined except diabetes, which saw an increase.

The mortality rate for the never-married also decreased, although it remained higher than that of married people. But when it came to widowed people, the overall mortality rate increased. This was especially true for white women.

In general, widowhood is associated with reduced economic resources and loss of social support, which may contribute to a higher mortality risk, the new study says.

But the stress and emotional trauma of losing a spouse as a confidante might be greater now than in the past as the average duration of marriage becomes longer with increasing life expectancy, the study notes.

Anxious women more likely to have smaller babies

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:13:19 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Women with severe and chronic anxiety during pregnancy are more likely to have smaller babies, says a new study.

The study authors demonstrated that the mother's anxiety during pregnancy impacts birth outcomes, including smaller babies, over and beyond factors such as drug use, education, and race.

Low to moderate levels of anxiety in women during either the first or second trimester did not significantly affect the birth outcomes, but women who are severely anxious during much of their pregnancy should be considered for anxiety-reducing interventions.

Shahla M. Hosseini of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre, co-authored the study with Minhnoi W. Biglan, Cynthia Larkby, Maria M. Brooks, Michael B. Gorin, and Nancy L. Day.

'One way to prevent health problems in children and adults is to focus care on the prenatal period,' the authors note.

'It is key to pursue further research which addresses interventions to ameliorate the effects that a woman's trait anxiety has on the development of foetuses,' they said.

The study was published in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology.

UIC receives $1 million grant to study 'fat taxes,' diet, obesity

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have received $1 million from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to study the relationship between fat taxes and food consumption, diet quality and obesity.

The funding for the two-year project was made available through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The study will link state tax rates associated with restaurants and with specific sugar- and fat-laden foods and beverages (soda, candy, baked goods and chips) to individual survey data.

Using multiple data sets from a 10-year period -- 1997 through 2007 -- the researchers will determine if differential tax rates equate to differences in consumption, diet quality and body mass index, or BMI, for children, adolescents and adults.

The study will separately examine these relationships among low-income food stamp recipients and non-food stamp recipients.

Previous economic studies suggest that food prices do change consumption. However, the researchers want to determine if, for example, consumers will seek out another high-sugar drink such as Kool-Aid if, say, soda is too expensive. If they do, then a tax on soda may reduce soda consumption but will not necessarily reduce weight, improve diet quality, or reduce overall sugar intake.

We want to know if this price sensitivity is just for a specific good, such as soda, or if it translates into changes in diet quality and weight outcomes, said Lisa Powell, senior research scientist at UIC's Institute for Health Research and Policy and principal investigator of the study. It will help lay the foundation on the extent to which these taxes may be effective policy instruments to generate behavior change and potentially reduce obesity.

Current fat-tax rates are fairly low, ranging, for example, from 0 to 7 percent for soda.

Taxing soda is an easy target because it is clear there is not a lot of nutritional value, said Powell. But if you look at taxing all foods or beverages with a certain amount of sugar or fat, that might include a fortified cereal that could also be healthy.

Defining healthy and unhealthy when there are many different components to food can be difficult, she said.

According to the researchers, the study is critical because Americans are increasingly consuming poor diets, which have contributed to a public health crisis with more than 17 percent of children and 32 percent of adults being obese.

Powell's co-investigators at UIC are Frank Chaloupka, distinguished professor of economics and director of the Health Policy Center; Carol Braunschweig, associate professor of human nutrition; Jamie Chriqui, senior research scientist at the Institute for Health Research and Policy; and Euna Han, health economist at the Institute for Health Research and Policy.

Progress made on group B streptococcus vaccine

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WHAT: Scientists supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have completed a Phase II clinical study that indicates a vaccine to prevent Group B Streptococcus (GBS) infection is possible. GBS is the most common cause of sepsis and meningitis in newborns in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It can also cause severe illness in pregnant women, the elderly and adults with chronic illnesses. Colonization of the genital or gastrointestinal tract is a critical risk factor for infections due to GBS.

The researchers, led by Sharon L. Hillier, Ph.D., from the Magee-Womens Research Institute at the University of the Pittsburgh, found that the vaccine used in the study can cause a modest but sustained reduction in genital and gastrointestinal GBS bacterial colonization.

The GBS bacterium, which is commonly found in the gut and genital tracts, can infect the fetus during gestation and birth or after delivery. Pregnancy-related infections can lead to serious consequences for women including stillbirth. Currently, one-third of pregnant women in the United States test positive for asymptomatic GBS and receive antibiotics during labor to prevent infection of the newborn. Although this antibiotic strategy is highly effective, the broad use of antibiotics in pregnant women is of concern to public health officials. Many women are allergic to penicillin and penicillin-type antibiotics that are the preferred treatment, and GBS is increasingly resistant to other common antibiotics.

Dr. Hillier and her colleagues conducted a double-blind, randomized trial of the GBS vaccine that included a total of 650 sexually active, non-pregnant women ages 18 to 40 who were GBS-negative in the vagina and rectum at the beginning of the study. Approximately one-half of the women were in the control group and received a licensed tetanus and diphtheria toxoids (Td) vaccine instead of the GBS vaccine. The women were followed for 18 months after they were vaccinated and checked for GBS bacteria at regular intervals. The goal of the study was to see whether vaccination could prevent or decrease colonization by one of the most common subtypes of GBS bacteria: Type III.

Although the vaccine had a modest effect on bacterial colonization (36 percent in the vagina and 43 percent in the rectum), it provided some protection over the entire period of the study. The GBS vaccine also was found to be safe and well-tolerated, and elicited a strong immune response. The next step to prevent GBS disease would be to develop vaccines that provide protection against a broader range of GBS types and test them in clinical trials.

WHEN: Dr. Hillier will present these findings on Friday Oct. 30, 2009, at 10:00 a.m. at the 47th Annual Meeting of the Infectious Diseases Society of America in Philadelphia.

WHO: Fran A. Rubin, Ph.D., Program Officer for Group A streptococci, Group B streptococci, Maternal Immunization Respiratory Diseases Branch, Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

Exercise addiction could prove fatal

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:46:44 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, Oct 23 - The six-pack or the eight-pack abs of Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan may look mighty impressive but it's inspiring many youngsters to pump iron without being aware that this 'exercise addiction' could prove fatal. This week two people in India were victims of 'exercise addiction'.

Forty-two year-old Ranjan Das, the youngest CEO in the country, collapsed with a massive cardiac arrest after working out in his in-house gym in Mumbai, while in Jaipur a young aspiring model died while working out at the treadmill at a gym.

Both were described as fitness freaks.

According to M.S. Bhatia, who heads the department of psychiatry at the G.T.B. Hospital here, cases of people addicted to exercise are growing. Most are young men.

'We get so many cases these days. With the thrust on body, appearance and fitness, plus copying Bollywood stars and ramp models, youngsters are going all out to work out, not knowing how much time they should spend and what is good or bad for them,' Bhatia told IANS.

'We have seen patients who have become so addicted to physical activity that they engage in compulsive, excessive exercise,' Bhatia, who along with others wrote about the growing phenomenon in the Delhi Psychiatry Journal, said.

He said this compulsion is described as 'exercise addiction' as physical activity 'significantly interferes with important activities, occurs at inappropriate times or in inappropriate settings or when the individual continues to exercise despite injury or other medical complications.'

Bhatia said recently a young executive came to them with 'muscle fracture'.

'He complained of physical exhaustion, fever, withdrawal symptoms and lethargy. He didn't want to work, had sleepless nights. He had the typical symptoms of depression. Despite these problems, he didn't want to leave exercising,' he said.

'He was exercising beyond his capacity. His muscles had become weak due to this. He was on steroids because he had skin problem. All this contributed to his feeling depressed. But he never left exercising,' Bhatia said, adding that they had to prescribe an anti-depressant.

But it is just not depression or obsession, it means hormonal changes too.

'It also means hormonal changes like decreased testosterone in men and increased production of cortisol -. Among women, there is an increased risk of stress fractures and osteoporosis. Menstrual cycle of girls may get altered,' he added.

Also, there would be instances of damaged tendons, ligaments, bones, cartilage and joints. 'Behavioural changes like increased anxiety, inability to relax or rest are some other symptoms of this,' he said.

He said people should look out for warning signs.

'One should see whether they are exercising for more than two hours daily repeatedly, always following the same rigid exercise pattern, working out alone, fixated on weight loss or calories, exercising to the point of pain, exercising when sick or injured or skipping work, class or social plans for workouts,' Bhatia told IANS.

'It is said that one percent of the population suffers from exercise addiction and this percentage is higher among elite runners, competitive power lifters, endurance athletes and obsessive gym goers,' he added.

Anubha Verma, 27, is one such case. She is obsessed with exercising since college days. 'Initially, it was a stress buster, but soon it became a lot more,' she told IANS.

Now, every day, she does the treadmill and runs for an hour. She has also bought gadgets like a tummy twister and aerobics mats.

'I just can't do without exercising. I know I am obsessive, but I can't help it,' Verma said.

Bhatia has a word of caution. 'People should from time to time review their exercise regime. They should see that they are not overdoing it and not beyond their capacity.

'It is fine to exercise, but not that much that it overtakes your life or proves dangerous,' he said.

-

NIH launches 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine trials in HIV-infected pregnant women

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The first clinical trials to test whether the 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine can safely elicit a protective immune response in pregnant women launched yesterday, and a trial to conduct the same test in HIV-infected children and youth will begin next week. The International Maternal Pediatric Adolescent AIDS Clinical Trials Group is conducting the studies, which are sponsored and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), both part of the National Institutes of Health.

These studies are important because HIV infection and pregnancy both increase the risk for a poor immune response to the normal 15-microgram dose of seasonal influenza vaccine given to the general population, says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. Moreover, children, young people and pregnant women are at higher risk for more severe illness from the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus than other groups, and HIV-infected individuals in these populations may be particularly vulnerable.

Because of the increased vulnerability of these populations, these trials are testing whether doses of licensed 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine that are higher than doses being tested in other groups can safely elicit protective immune responses in HIV-infected children, youth and pregnant women, adds Lynne Mofenson, M.D., chief of the Pediatric, Adolescent and Maternal AIDS Branch in NICHD.

One trial will enroll 130 HIV-infected pregnant women ages 18 to 39 years who are in their second or third trimester (14 to 34 weeks) of pregnancy. The other trial will enroll 140 children and youth aged 4 to 24 years who were infected with HIV at birth.

Thirty-five sites and eight sub-sites across the United States and Puerto Rico are eligible to conduct the trials. Each volunteer will receive two 30-microgram doses of 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine 21 days apart. (In contrast, the NIAID studies of 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine in HIV-uninfected children, youth and pregnant women are testing doses of 15 and 30 micrograms.)

Safety data will be collected and monitored closely by the study investigators and an independent safety monitoring committee. The strength and longevity of the immune response elicited by the vaccine will be gauged in several ways.

The study team will take blood samples from the pregnant women after each dose and three and six months after delivery to measure the concentration of antibodies the women produce against 2009 H1N1 influenza virus and how strong that antibody response remains over time. After the women give birth, study staff will sample umbilical cord blood to measure the concentration of maternal antibodies against the H1N1 virus that were transferred to the infants through the placenta. The study team also will collect small blood samples from the infants at 3 and 6 months of age to measure their level of maternally derived antibody protection from the virus over time. The infants will not receive vaccine.

Similarly, in children and young people, the strength and longevity of the immune response will be gauged by testing blood samples taken 21 days after the first dose, 10 days after the second dose, and six months after entering the study.

The vaccine, manufactured by Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics, contains inactivated 2009 H1N1 influenza virus, so it is impossible to become infected with the virus by receiving the vaccine. The vaccine does not contain adjuvant, a substance added to some vaccines to improve the body's response to vaccine.

Research on seasonal influenza vaccine and vaccines for other diseases in HIV-infected and other populations suggest that higher doses of vaccine tend to elicit stronger immune responses. These stronger responses, in turn, increase the concentration of protective antibodies in the bloodstream, which likely is beneficial to both the vaccinated individual and, if pregnant, to her fetus. This is the rationale for testing whether higher doses of licensed 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine elicit a protective immune response in HIV-infected individuals and whether that protection is transferred to the fetuses of vaccinated pregnant women.

Owners should count calories for obese pets, consider several factors for good health

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) You might watch your daily calorie intake or glance over nutritional information on food packages, but do you do the same for your pet?

Dr. Susan Nelson, a veterinarian and assistant professor of clinical sciences at Kansas State University, said there are several guidelines to follow when feeding your pet to ensure that it maintains good health.

Just like human food packages, many cat and dog food packages contain nutritional information, Nelson said. Packages often list the kilocalories, protein, fat, carbohydrates and fiber per cup. In recent years, manufacturers started listing some nutritional information, including calorie content, for dog and cat treats.

In the past, we didn't know how many calories were in various treats, Nelson said. Now that's becoming more available, and that's because more pets are becoming obese and their owners are asking for that information. Pets are overeating and underexercising, and they're eating too many high-fat foods and treats.

Nelson said these plumper pets are not only benefitting from improvements in pet food quality, but also from the increased calorie content caused by the higher fat content of many premium diets. But does that call for owners to start counting calories for their pets?

It's important to count calories if the pet is overweight, but it's probably not necessary if you have a pet that is of normal weight, Nelson said. If it starts to get pudgy, you need to take a look at how much exercise it is getting, how much food you are feeding it, and how many treats you're giving it.

Calories from treats should be no more than 10 percent of your pet's diet. If owners want to count their pet's calories, Nelson said, veterinarians can make diet calculations for dogs and cats. The overall recommendation for the amount of food to feed your pet is based on several factors, including the type of food you are feeding your pet, your pet's metabolism and how much exercise it gets.

Generally, I tell people that unless your pet is overweight, go with the guidelines on the food bag, she said. If the pet is a little overweight, you should feed it for its ideal weight and not for its current weight.

Nelson said if you want to compare different pet food brands' nutritional information, you have to look at the nutritional content calculations based on the dry matter content. Often, this is not listed on the bag, so you might have to look online or call the company to find the information.

What most bags list is the nutritional analysis that is formulated on an as-fed basis, she said. To truly compare the nutrient content of foods, you have to look at the dry matter basis, which takes out water content.

Nelson said it's typically best to start by following the feeding guidelines on the bag. She said people shouldn't assume that feeding one cup of one diet is the same as feeding one cup of another, because pet foods can vary greatly in calories. She also suggests using a standard 8-ounce measuring cup for dry food.

To determine if a pet is too heavy or light, Nelson said owners should look at several factors. You should not be able to see the animal's ribs, but you should be able to feel them easily with a thin layer of fat over them. When you look at the animal from the side, its tummy should tuck up at the flank area and not hang in a straight line.

If you look over the top of a dog, you should see an hourglass shape where it's broad at the shoulders, narrow at the waist and broader at the hips. If the dog starts to thicken out, you should cut back on its calories and/or have it exercise more.

In general, make sure you're feeding the appropriate diet for the life stage of your pet, Nelson said. If your pet is pregnant, a puppy or kitten, has special health condition needs or is a senior, there are foods formulated that best meet the nutritional demands for that condition.

There are breeds of dogs and cats that have high metabolisms and have trouble putting weight on, Nelson said. For these pets, there are pet foods that have higher fat contents because it gives the food more calories. If the pet is extremely overweight, it might need diet food along with other recommendations. These foods are lower in calories, nutritionally complete and often contain extra fiber, which helps make the animal feel full. Conversely, if you feed the animal much less of their regular food, your pet is not going to get enough of the nutrients it needs.

Nelson said many people do not realize how many calories they're feeding their pet because they don't account for table scraps or treats. These hidden calories can add up significantly over the day and be the main contributor to obesity. Putting your pet on a diet requires attention and effort from the whole family, she said. If you have a small child, inside pets are going to eat everything the child drops, and those calories will add up.

Sometimes you'll try to put your pet on a diet, and then someone else living in the house will slip it treats, Nelson said. You should talk with the whole family when putting your pet on a diet. Tell them the diet is necessary to keep the pet at a good weight, which in turn will make it healthier and can help it live a longer life.

NIAID announces vaccine adjuvant discovery contracts

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded six new research contracts to discover and characterize novel adjuvants, substances that can be added to vaccines to enhance the protective immune response they induce.

The goal of these awards is to find safe new adjuvants that will boost the effectiveness of vaccines, says NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. Adjuvants can be used not only to enhance the immune response to a vaccine and thereby offer better protection but also to extend the vaccine supply if needed, enabling more people to be vaccinated with fewer doses.

Currently, the only vaccine adjuvant approved for use in the United States is an aluminum mixture known as alum.

NIAID has awarded a total of approximately $60 million over five years for these contracts. The awardees will identify novel compounds with the potential to be vaccine adjuvants. All compounds will be tested in animal models and human cells to determine how well they stimulate the immune response. The investigators also will examine and describe the cellular reactions the compounds induce.

The goal of these awards is not only to identify new adjuvant candidates but also to describe how these candidates work, says Helen Quill, Ph.D., chief of NIAID's basic immunology research branch. We would hope that these adjuvant candidates will become part of a robust pipeline leading to the development of many different vaccines.

The awardees of the adjuvant contracts will work to identify and characterize novel adjuvants that trigger receptors of the inborn, or innate, immune system. These receptors recognize and bind small molecules that are unique to harmful microorganisms. Binding stimulates an immediate innate immune response, a broadly protective reaction. The innate immune response also is required for the development of the highly specific antibody and T-cell responses that characterize long-term immunity.

The investigators also will seek to identify the cellular receptor for each of the novel adjuvant candidates, determine how it triggers the innate immune response, and then make changes to the adjuvant to improve its ability to induce the innate immune response. Although a number of innate immune receptors already have been described, many more likely exist and are expected to be uncovered in the course of these projects.

The award of these contracts is an integral part of NIAID's long-range plan to expand the adjuvant pipeline, says Daniel Rotrosen, M.D., director of NIAID's Division of Allergy, Immunology, and Transplantation, which oversees these awards. A first round of NIAID contracts, awarded in 2003, limited the discovery of novel adjuvants to those that stimulated the only group of innate immune receptors known at the time. With this second round of awards, we intend to increase the number of adjuvant candidates by expanding the research scope to include all known innate immune receptors.

The institutions receiving contracts for 2009 are

Lessons learned from H1N1 virus pandemic

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A comprehensive study has revealed, for the first time, the impact of swine flu on the health of the general public in Australia and New Zealand.

The lessons learned in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) across the two countries on the impact of the H1N1 (swine flu) virus are being shared with countries in the Northern Hemisphere to help them prepare for their upcoming flu season.

The three-month study, conducted at the height of the pandemic between June and August, reveals that 722 patients were admitted to ICUs and that at the peak of the epidemic up to 20 per cent of ICU beds were occupied by patients with swine flu infection.

The study was co-coordinated by the Monash University-based Australian and New Zealand IntensiveCare Research Centre (ANZIC-RC). The study involved all ICUs in Australia and New Zealand with the affected patients being treated in 109 of these units. The study was conducted utilising the resources of the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Clinical Trials Group (ANZICS CTG).

Dr Ian Seppelt, a specialist in Intensive Care Medicine and based at Sydney's Nepean Hospital, saidthe impact of the virus on ICUs across Australia and New Zealand was dramatic.

Intensive Care Units specialise in the management of patients with life-threatening illness and thesurge of patients with H1N1 placed substantial strain on staff and resources. The most severely affected patients had pneumonia affecting both lungs that was caused by the virus. The number of patients admitted to ICUs with this complication represented a 600 per cent increase compared toprevious years, Dr Seppelt said.

Clinical Associate Professor Steve Webb, from the Intensive Care Unit at Royal Perth Hospital, wasanother key researcher on the project and said the information, which surfaced from the study willbenefit other countries about to head into their winter flu season.

Unlike previous 'seasonal' influenza strains, which impact heavily on elderly people and people withsevere coexisting medical conditions, the H1N1 virus affected a different profile. Critical illness due toswine flu was most common in infants and middle aged people; with pregnant patients, the overweight,and indigenous patients particularly affected. Overall, about one-third of patients admitted to anICU because of swine flu had no underlying health problems. Associate Professor Webb said.

Professor Rinaldo Bellomo, Foundation Chair of the ANZICS CTG and Director of Intensive CareResearch at Austin Health, Melbourne said the results of the study would be shared with health authorities in other countries to assist them better prepare for their flu season.

We have come through our flu season and our assessment of the impact of the H1N1 strain will assist them prepare for any outbreak. The H1N1 virus has taken hold in many countries already, but many countries in the Northern Hemisphere will benefit from the lessons we have learned, Professor Rinaldo Bellomo said.

Fortunately a vaccine is now available to prevent the complications of swine flu and it is important thatall members of the community and especially those with risk factors, consider being vaccinated, hesaid.

Research ensures 50 million vaccinated against deadly brain infection

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Research at the University of Liverpool has supported the vaccination of more than 50 million people against a zoonotic brain infection that affects thousands of children across Asia every year.

The infection, called Japanese encephalitis (JE), is found in pigs and wading birds and transmitted by mosquitoes in areas of Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that JE affects approximately 50,000 people a year and kills around 15,000. Those that survive the infection can be left brain damaged.

Scientists at Liverpool, in collaboration with Asian governments, the WHO and the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH), are improving understanding of the disease and developing immunisation programmes to control it, with the support of funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Children in poor rural communities are particularly vulnerable to the infection, but as a result of improved diagnostics and clinical management, vaccinations against the disease have now reached more than 50 million children and the programme continues across Asia.

Professor Tom Solomon, Head of the University's Brain Infection Group, said: Japanese encephalitis invades the central nervous system and can cause seizures, paralysis and in severe cases, death. Approximately 50 per cent of people who survive the infection are left with physical and mental illness, which could include personality changes. It affects children between the ages of one to 15, but adults, including tourists to the region, can contract the disease also.

Although we knew this disease was important, five years ago it was virtually unrecognised due to the difficulty in diagnosing cases. It causes disability more often than it causes death, but with no standard method of quantifying the disability, it was difficult for governments to make decisions on introducing vaccines. We have been developing ways of diagnosing JE and measuring the outcome of the infection, and these methods are now being used in many countries across Asia.

Previously scientists used highly specialised laboratories to grow cultures of the virus, but these facilities were not widely available across Asia. The Liverpool team, and partner institutions, have developed simple blood tests that allow medics to detect antibodies of the disease, a procedure that can be performed in hospitals and regional labs to provide accurate diagnosis.

Scientists have been working to enhance disease detection by developing surveillance guidelines, which helps medics build a database of all patients that enter hospitals with symptoms of the infection. The system allows authorities to monitor the number of people infected so that appropriate measures can be taken to protect against the disease. The team have also developed a standard method of quantifying the disabilities caused by JE. This gives a profile of the disease and shows how to characterise the disabilities children may have after the infection has left the body.

As a result of these new measures many governments across Asia are beginning to effectively control JE through vaccination.

Tai Chi can help diabetics

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:30:56 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Oct 3 - Doing tai chi exercises regularly can help diabetics lower their blood glucose levels, says a new study.

Tai chi is an ancient martial art that combines deep breathing and relaxation with slow, gentle circular movements.

Adults diagnosed with type-2 diabetes, who took part in a tai chi programme two days a week, with three days of home practice for six months, cut down their fasting blood glucose levels, enhanced quality of life, including mental health, vitality and energy.

'Tai chi really has similar effects as other aerobic exercises on diabetic control. Tai chi is a low-impact exercise, less stressful on the bones, joints and muscles than more strenuous exercise,' said Beverly Roberts, professor at the University of Florida - College of Nursing.

Roberts studied tai chi's effect on older Korean residents with Rhayun Song of Chungham National University.

Sixty-two participants, mostly Korean women, took part in the study. Half the group participated in at least 80 percent of two supervised sessions one hour per week, with three days of home practice for six months, and the other half served as a control group.

About 23.6 million children and adults in the US or 7.8 percent of the population have diabetes. It occurs when the body does not produce or properly use insulin, a hormone that is needed to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy needed for daily life.

Risk factors include obesity, sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy eating habits, high blood pressure and cholesterol, a history of gestational diabetes and increased age, many of which can be reduced through exercise.

'People assume that for exercise to be beneficial you have to be huffing and puffing, sweating and red-faced afterward,' Roberts said.

'This may turn people off, particularly older adults. However, we have found that activities like tai chi can be just as beneficial in improving health.'

Those who completed the sessions had significantly improved glucose control and reported higher levels of vitality and energy.

The research was featured in the June issue of The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine.

Obesity spurs a tide of cancer in Europe

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:43:34 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) London, Sep 26 - Obesity caused at least 124,000 new cancers last year in Europe, according to a new study.

The proportion of cases of new cancers were highest among women and in central European countries such as the Czech Republic, Latvia, Slovenia and Bulgaria.

'As more people stop smoking and fewer women take hormone replacement therapy, it is possible that obesity may become the biggest attributable cause of cancer in women within the next decade,' said Andrew Renehan, who led the study.

Renehan, senior lecturer in cancer studies and surgery, University of Manchester, and colleagues in Britain, The Netherlands and Switzerland, created a model to estimate the proportion of cancers that could be attributed to excess body weight in 30 European countries.

Using data from the WHO and International Agency for Research on Cancer, they estimated that in 2002 there had been over 70,000 new cases of cancer attributable to excess body mass index -, out of a total of nearly 2.2 million new diagnoses across the 30 European countries.

Researchers found these numbers increased to 124,050 in 2008. 'These are very conservative estimates, and it's quite likely that the numbers are, in fact, higher,' said Renehan.

The number of new cases of obesity-related oesophageal cancer was particularly high in Britain relative to the rest of Europe. 'This country accounts for 54 percent of new cases across all 30 countries,' said Renehan.

'This may be due to synergistic interactions between smoking, alcohol, excess body weight and acid reflux - and is currently an area where research is required,' Renehen said, according to a Manchester university release.

Renehen presented these findings at the 15th congress of the European Cancer Organisation and the 34th congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology.

These findings are slated for publication in the International Journal of Cancer.

HIV vaccine regimen demonstrates modest preventive effect in Thailand clinical study

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) In an encouraging development, an investigational vaccine regimen has been shown to be well-tolerated and to have a modest effect in preventing HIV infection in a clinical trial involving more than 16,000 adult participants in Thailand. Following a final analysis of the trial data, the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, the trial sponsor, announced today that the prime-boost investigational vaccine regimen was safe and 31 percent effective in preventing HIV infection.

These new findings represent an important step forward in HIV vaccine research, says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH, which provided major funding and other support for the study. For the first time, an investigational HIV vaccine has demonstrated some ability to prevent HIV infection among vaccinated individuals. Additional research is needed to better understand how this vaccine regimen reduced the risk of HIV infection, but certainly this is an encouraging advance for the HIV vaccine field.

We thank the trial staff in Thailand and the United States for their years of effort in successfully conducting this study and the study participants and the people of Thailand for their long-standing support of HIV vaccine research, Dr. Fauci adds.

The Thai Phase III HIV vaccine study, also known as RV144, opened in October 2003. The placebo-controlled trial tested the safety and effectiveness of a prime-boost regimen of two vaccines: ALVAC-HIV vaccine (the primer dose), a modified canarypox vaccine developed by Sanofi Pasteur, based in Lyon, France, and AIDSVAX B/E vaccine (the booster dose), a glycoprotein 120 vaccine developed by Vaxgen Inc., and now licensed to Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases (GSID), based in South San Francisco, Calif. The vaccines are based on the subtype B and E HIV strains that commonly circulate in Thailand. The subtype B HIV strain is the one most commonly found in the United States.

Led by principal investigator Supachai Rerks-Ngarm, M.D., of the Thai Ministry of Public Health's Department of Disease Control, the study was sponsored by the U.S. Army in collaboration with NIAID, Sanofi Pasteur and GSID. The trial, conducted in the Rayong and Chon Buri provinces of Thailand, enrolled 16,402 men and women ages 18 to 30 years old at various levels of risk for HIV infection. Study participants received the ALVAC HIV vaccine or placebo at enrollment and again after 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months. The AIDSVAX B/E vaccine or placebo was given to participants at 3 and 6 months. Participants were tested for HIV infection every 6 months for 3 years. During each clinic visit, they were counseled on how to avoid becoming infected with HIV.

In the final analysis, 74 of 8,198 placebo recipients became infected with HIV compared with 51 of 8,197 participants who received the vaccine regimen. This level of effectiveness in preventing HIV infection was found to be statistically significant. The vaccine regimen had no effect, however, on the amount of virus in the blood of volunteers who acquired HIV infection during the study.

The Thai study demonstrates why the HIV vaccine field must take a balanced approach to conducting both the basic research needed to discover and design new HIV vaccines and, when appropriate, testing candidate vaccines in people, says Margaret I. Johnston, Ph.D., director of NIAID's Vaccine Research Program within the Division of AIDS. Both avenues provide critical information that will continue to help us better understand what is needed to develop a fully protective HIV vaccine.

NIAID and the collaborating partners are working with other scientific experts to determine next steps, including additional research of the RV144 vaccine regimen and the need to consider the impact of these new findings on other HIV vaccine candidates.

Individuals who acquired HIV infection while participating in the Thai trial have been provided access to HIV care and treatment, including highly active antiretroviral therapy based on the guidelines of the Thai Ministry of Public Health.

As you age, muscles get hard to build, easy to lose

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 15:46:51 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Why do people's arms and legs get thinner as they age?

According to a team from Nottingham University - Schools of Graduate Entry Medicine, it could be due to the body's failure to deliver nutrients and hormones to muscle because of poorer blood supply.

The researchers have already shown that older people cannot make muscle as fast as the young.

Now they've found that the suppression of muscle breakdown is blunted with age.

They believe that a 'double whammy' affects people over 65. However, the team thinks that weight training may 'rejuvenate' muscle blood flow and help retain muscle for older people.

The results may explain the loss of muscle in older people: when they eat they don't build enough muscle with the protein in food.

Besides, insulin - fails to shut down the muscle breakdown that rises between meals.

Normally, in young people, insulin acts to slow muscle breakdown.

Michael Rennie, professor of clinical physiology and Emilie Wilkes conducted the research with their colleagues at N-U.

These findings were published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

-Indo-Asian News Service

St/rn/jg

Coconut oil keeps fat at bay

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:57:35 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Sydney, Sep 9 - A diet rich in coconut oil keeps fat away and also protects against insulin resistance, a new study shows.

The study also helps explain how people who incorporate medium chain fatty acids found in coconut oil into their diets can lose body fat.

Obesity and insulin resistance are major factors leading to the development of Type 2 diabetes. Insulin resistance is an impaired ability of cells to respond to insulin.

Nigel Turner and Jiming Ye from Sydney's Garvan Institute of Medical Research compared fat metabolism and insulin resistance in mice fed coconut oil and lard based diets.

'The medium chain fatty acids like those found in coconut oil are interesting to us because they behave very differently to the fats normally found in our diets,' said study leader Turner.

'Unlike the long chain fatty acids contained in animal fats, medium chain fatty acids are small enough to enter mitochondria - the cells' energy burning powerhouses - directly where they can then be converted to energy.'

'Unfortunately the downside to eating medium chain fatty acids is that they can lead to fat build up in the liver, an important fact to be taken into consideration by anyone considering using them as a weight loss therapy.'

Fat storage is determined by the balance between how much fat is taken in by cells and how much of this fat is burned for energy.

When people eat a high fat diet, their bodies attempt to compensate by increasing their capacity to oxidise fat, said a Garvan release.

'Obese humans usually eat 40-50 percent of their calories as fat. Our mice were fed 45 percent of their calories as fat,' Turner said.

Their findings are now published online in Diabetes.

US yoga activists bring benefits to needy

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 11:38:29 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Time was when yoga was considered a lifestyle choice in the US, something upper class people did in the luxury of spare time. That image is changing fast, thanks to activists who want to spread the therapeutic benefits of yoga among those who badly need them.

Take, for example, the scene at George Washington University on a recent afternoon. The desks in a classroom were pushed aside and 15 school students were sitting cross-legged on the floor with their eyes closed, breathing deeply.

'For an hour, under the guidance of volunteer yoga teacher Jessi Long, they stretched and lunged, extending their hands toward the ceiling and folding into toe-touching forward bends,' a Washington Post report noted.

At the end, they lay unmoving on their backs in shavasana, or corpse pose, drawing audibly deeper breaths.

'Remember this feeling in your daily life,' said the teacher, rousing them with her voice. 'You can always come back to this feeling of relaxation and release.'

The class, for students in Upward Bound, a programme to prepare low-income youths for college, is part of 'a growing movement to take yoga beyond its reputation as boutique exercise for the well-to-do and use it as therapy for groups such as at-risk and homeless youths, HIV/AIDS patients and torture survivors'.

In Media, Pennsylvania, Sprout Yoga holdsfree classes to people recovering from post-traumatic stress syndrome and eating disorders, whereas Yoga Hope in Boston serves battered women and recovering addicts, the Post reported.

'We're just trying to give people access to the true yoga,' said Adrienne Boxer, executive director of Street Yoga, an Oregon-based organisation that teaches homeless teens and victims of sexual abuse, among others.

'It's a lot more than an asana, or a pose, that you're striking. It's the way that you breathe and the way you relate to others and communicate.'

Mark Lilly, who founded Street Yoga in 2002, said the interest in making yoga freely accessible grew steadily until two years ago - and then it exploded.

'Enough service providers - social workers and nurses and senior staff at nonprofits and clinics and hospitals - had done yoga in their own lives,' he was quoted as saying. 'It just hit in a big way for a lot of people at the same time.'

Jasmine Chehrazi, 29, who founded the non-profit studio Yoga District here three years ago, is one of the key people behind the 'yoga activist' outreach effort in the area.

She invited Lilly to Yoga District's bare-bones studio in Bloomingdale. Lilly spent three days last week at the studio teaching 30 yoga instructors, social workers and medical students how to teach yoga to a pregnant teen, an abused child or a recovering addict.

'Empowering people to meet their own needs is one of the biggest things we can do,' Lilly said. 'Yoga is just the context.'

That attitude can sound naive, and people trying to come to terms with pain or trauma may need more than yoga poses. But the Post noted: 'Even some sceptics of alternative therapies agree that yoga is a tool people can use to feel better.'

'Yoga is exercise, and it's pretty well established that exercise improves the mood and can reduce stress,' said Steven Novella, a Yale University neurologist who founded the New England Skeptics Society and edits Science-Based Medicine, a blog that has been critical of what it calls 'pseudoscience' done in support of alternative therapies such as acupuncture and herbal remedies.

'These are pretty basic science-based claims,' he said for benefits of yoga.

And the newcomers are not looking for scientific evidence either. Sasha Lord, a 27-year-old Girl Scouts field director, said: 'I suffer from depression, and I think yoga really helps me. It's an urban survival skill.'

Monea Hendricks, 27, an African American doctoral candidate at Howard University who started practising yoga to relieve stress during college, said: 'People think yoga is for upper class white people. It doesn't have to be an expensive, upscale, Northwest D.C. thing - it can actually meet people exactly where they are.'

Researcher in search of happiness gene

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:35:23 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The pursuit of human happiness can be tripped by stress, financial trouble or chronic illness. Now, a researcher is trying to find the happiness gene, which may be partially responsible for a positive outlook.

Yoram Barak, a Tel Aviv University - researcher, is engaged in the 'attempt to find the happiness gene, the genetic component of happiness', which may be 50 percent responsible for an optimistic outlook.

Initial research findings have made Barak optimistic about his ability to succeed. 'If something is genetic, it should have a large concordance among twins,' he said.

'And the twin studies we are looking at show that 50 percent of happiness is genetically determined.' Barak is now working with Anat Achiron of the Sheba Medical Centre to identify the specific genes that are associated with happiness.

'We may be a long way off from being able to genetically engineer happiness,' Barak said, 'but we can start by thinking positively. Much of his work is based on positive psychology, which is the 'fastest and largest growing area of psychology in the US - and in the world,' he said.

For the 50 percent of happiness that is not genetic, Barak is working on a program of positive psychology workshops, with exercises he recently tested in a one-day workshop for 120 participants at the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Israel.

Early results indicate that the workshops improved the happiness level of participants by as much as 30 percent, said a TAU release.

Early experience linked to chronic diseases in later life

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:01:22 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Experiences in early life stick to people into adulthood and may render them more susceptible to many of the chronic diseases of ageing, according to a new study.

A team led by University of British Columbia - researchers Gregory Miller and Michael Kobor performed genome-wide profiling in 103 healthy adults aged 25-40 years.

Participants were either low or high in early-life socioeconomic circumstances related to income, education and occupation during the first five years of life.

'It seems to be the case that if people are raised in a low socioeconomic family, their immune cells are constantly vigilant for threats from the environment,' said Miller.

'This is likely to have consequences for their risk for late-life chronic diseases.'

But the two groups were similar in socioeconomic status - at the time the genome assessment was performed and also had similar lifestyle practices like smoking and drinking habits.

Their study shows that among subjects with low early-life socioeconomic circumstances, there was evidence that genes involved with inflammation were selectively 'switched-on' at some point.

Researchers believe this is because the cells of low-SES individuals were not effectively responding to a hormone called cortisol that usually controls inflammation.

'We've identified some 'biologic residue' of people's early-life experience that sticks with them into adulthood,' says Miller, associate professor of psychology at the UBC.

'The study suggests that experiences get under the skin,' says Kobor, assistant professor in the UBC department of medical genetics, according to an UBC release.

These findings are slated for publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

K-State researchers say after-school programs should promote activity, healthy nutrition

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Children's after-school activities often consist of sedentary behavior such as watching television, but after-school programs that offer physical activity and healthy snacks could be the best place for children's health.

David Dzewaltowski, head of the department of kinesiology at Kansas State University, and other K-State researchers have found that quality after-school programs are an important contributor to children's physical activity.

Participation in after-school programs tends to drop with increasing age as parents believe their children can be at home without adult supervision, Dzewaltowski said. Parents should strive to place their children in healthy environments that are supervised by adults and that provide physical activity and healthful food options.

The researchers conducted the Healthy Opportunities for Physical Activity and Nutrition, or HOP'N, After-School Project, which was designed to prevent obesity by enhancing the quality of after-school programming. The study found that some existing after-school programs lack in quality and do not provide adequate nutrition or physical activity, especially for different genders and fitness levels.

The HOP'N After-School Project includes four elements: a daily healthy snack, daily physical activity, weekly nutrition and physical activity education sessions. It also provides continuous staff training.

Eight elementary schools and after-school programs in Lawrence participated in the K-State study during a three-year period. The after-school settings were observed throughout the school year. Participating children has their height and weight measured in the fall and spring. Children also wore pedometer devices to measure their physical activity. After a baseline year, the HOP'N program was implemented at four of the sites for two years, and the other sites continued their regular programming as a project control.

Baseline findings of the study showed that, on average, the after-school programs provided 20 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, which fulfills one-third of the recommended 60-minute daily physical activity for youth. However, the researchers found that the students spent the majority of their time participating in sedentary and light-intensity activities.

For two subsequent program years, the HOP'N program staff trained after-school program leaders to increase physical activity in their programs. Results showed that program leaders could modify the existing activities to include more moderate-to-vigorous physical activity throughout the session.

The findings showed that boys were significantly more active than girls during indoor free play and organized outdoor activities; however, moderate activity levels for both genders were similar. This shows that the girls had lower participation in vigorous-intensity physical activity.

Dzewaltowski said after-school programs can better cater to the interests of genders and provide various activity choices, which could increase physical activity levels, self-efficacy and enjoyment of physical activity.

The results also showed that overweight students were substantially less active than the students who were not overweight during organized outdoor activities, which might be related to differences in aerobic fitness. Dzewaltowski said future research should include understanding the activity preferences of overweight children.

During the baseline year, the researchers also found that there was a significant difference in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity levels recorded during the free play and organized physical activity sessions. Children were more active in free play than when led by adults who were not well trained to promote physical activity.

After-school program leaders who attempt to provide physical activity through structured games may do more harm than good, Dzewaltowski said. Leaders should encourage children's natural inclination to move and play to promote physical activity in the after-school time period if there is not opportunity for training to be an effective physical activity leader.

Dzewaltowski said it is important for children in middle school to learn healthy lifestyle behaviors, and the after-school setting is an effective place for obesity prevention. Since many schools do not provide opportunities for physical activity during the school day, the after-school hours provide an opportunity for children to be active without having to change the structure of the school day.

The baseline findings of the study have been published in numerous publications, including in the

Professional cycling reduces sperm quality

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:30:19 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Amsterdam, July 6 - Intensive professional cycling training damages sperm, according to a study presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Amsterdam recently.

Professor Diana Vaamonde, affiliated with the Spanish University of Cordoba Medical School, found that high-intensity training by triathletes significantly diminishes the quality of their sperm.

Previous studies by Vaamonde's team had already shown that both high exercise intensity and high exercise volume might be detrimental to sperm quality.

In the new study, in which the research team thoroughly analysed the sperm quality of 15 triathletes with an average age of 33, the scientists found a direct correlation between the volume of training in each activity and sperm quality.

Of the three modalities, only cycling, the activity for which triathletes undertake the most training, showed a clear correlation with sperm quality. The more time and distance covered in cycling, the worse sperm quality became.

'We found a statistically adverse correlation between sperm morphology and the volume of cycling training undertaken per week,' Vaamonde said.

The scientists say that the reduced sperm quality is most likely caused by a number of factors. Irritation and compression caused by friction of the testes against the saddle or the localised heat produced by wearing tight clothing might explain part of the problem.

But, the study says, reactive oxygen species - small molecules that are a natural by-product of oxygen metabolism and which react to stress by increasing to such an extent that they can damage cell structures - and energetic imbalances may play an important role in the sperm alterations.

Vaamonde said it was necessary to develop 'protective measures' for professional sportsmen to prevent damage to their sperm quality, including freezing their sperm prior to intensive training programmes.

Researcher finds Girl Scout meetings provide an opportunity to increase girls' physical activity

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Girls typically are less physically active than boys, but a Kansas State University researcher has found that organizations like Girl Scouts provide an ideal setting to get girls moving early in life and to develop lifelong healthy habits.

Richard Rosenkranz, assistant professor in human nutrition at K-State, did a study using interventions with Girl Scout troops. He trained group leaders to instruct exercise sessions and promote healthful eating, and in effect taught the girls about a healthy lifestyle and increased their participation in exercise activities.

We were striving to get the girls and parents to spend some of their leisure time together being active and taking steps together for fun and health, he said.

Rosenkranz worked with 10- and 11-year-old girls who were members of Girl Scout troops in Manhattan and the surrounding area. The two-year study involved nine troops, with five of the troops receiving an intervention.

What we saw in the control troops was an environment where girls were sedentary for the vast majority of time at the meeting, combined with snacks that were less than health-promoting, he said. This is just one part of a girl's weekly or bi-weekly experience, but it offers the chance to provide an opportunity and a message for health promotion.

Rosenkranz trained the group leaders as part of the intervention. They learned about the background of intervention activities, which included nutrition, family meals, physical activity and family connection. They also were taught the expectations of being role models and providing a healthful environment at Girl Scout meetings, as well as new physically active games for the girls.

Federal physical activity guidelines recommend that all children perform at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity per day, Rosenkranz said. The intervention focused on having the girls participate in walking, dancing, active games and yoga.

The intervention was focused on physical activities that could be done in or around the home, without special equipment, ideally involving the parents, Rosenkranz said.

He said the girls in the intervention troops were less sedentary than those not in the interventions. Additionally, the girls involved in the intervention performed higher levels of both moderate-intensity and moderate-to-vigorous intensity exercise during troop meetings.

Statistically, Rosenkranz said, minorities acquire lower amounts of physical activity. However, the interventions created the same amount of activity for all demographics and there was no difference by minority or weight status.

An important step of the intervention was involving the adults. Rosenkranz said adults should be involved in promoting physical activity to children, which can be done through providing formal and informal opportunities for children to be active, being active along with them and encouraging physical activity -- or at least not discouraging it.

The key for this project to achieve lasting effectiveness is to make an impact on the adults who structure the environments where children spend time; for this study these are the parents and troop leaders, he said. Both these sets of adults need to recognize that getting sufficient physical activity is essential for the children's health and for their own health.

Snoring due to sleep apnea can damage brain severely

Mon, 22 Jun 2009 11:23:33 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Snoring due sleep apnea may impair brain function in a much worse way than previously thought, according to a new study.

Sufferers of Obstructive Sleep Apnea - experience similar changes in brain biochemistry as people who have had a severe stroke or who are dying, the research shows.

OSA is caused by obstruction of the airway, a disorder characterised by pauses in breathing during sleep.

A study by University of New South Wales - Brain Sciences is the first to analyse, in a second-by-second timeframe, what is happening in the brains of sufferers as they sleep.

Previous studies have focussed on recreating oxygen impairment in patients who are awake.

'It used to be thought that apnoeic snoring had absolutely no acute effects on brain function but this is plainly not true,' said study co-author Caroline Rae, professor at Prince of Wales Medical Research Institute.

Sleep apnea affects as many as one in four middle-aged men, with around three percent going on to experience a severe form of the condition characterised by extended pauses in breathing, repetitive asphyxia and sleep fragmentation.

Children with enlarged tonsils and adenoids are also affected, raising concerns of long-term cognitive damage.

Rae and collaborators from Sydney University's Woolcock Institute used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to study the brains of 13 men with severe, untreated, obstructive sleep apnea, said a UNSW release.

They found that even a moderate degree of oxygen desaturation during the patients' sleep had significant effects on the brain's bioenergetic status.

'The findings show that lack of oxygen while asleep may be far more detrimental than when awake, possibly because the normal compensatory mechanisms don't work as well when you are asleep,' said Rae.

These findings were published in the May edition of Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism.

New supplement may help slow sight loss in elderly

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Queen's University Belfast academics have helped develop an antioxidant supplement which may slow down sight loss in elderly people.

The supplement may help those affected by the leading cause of blindness in the Western World, a five-year research programme has found.

Professor Usha Chakravarthy, from Queen's Centre of Vision and Vascular Science (CVVS), co-ordinated the study, which looked at nutritional supplements for patients with early age-related macular (AMD) degeneration and found they helped sharpen vision.

Details of the findings are being presented in Belfast today (Friday) by Professor Chakravarthy and Dr Stephen Beatty, Head of Vision Research at the Waterford Institute of Technology.

They co-designed the study and the antioxidant supplement was developed with the advice of Professor Ian Young from the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences at Queen's and scientists in eyecare companies Dr Mann Pharma and Bausch and Lomb.

AMD is an incurable eye disease which causes blurring of central vision because of its effects on the macula, the central part of the retina.

Over 400 people across Ireland took part in clinical trials investigating whether carotenoids, rich antioxidants which are found in fruit and vegetables, could prevent progression to the more serious late AMD.

When the eye disease progresses to late AMD patients are unable to read, watch television or recognise people's faces as they only have peripheral vision, not central vision.

Professor Chakravarthy, who is also a Consultant Ophthalmic Surgeon at the Royal Hospital in Belfast, said: Late AMD causes severe sight loss and has a huge economic impact both in terms of the effects of sight loss itself and in terms of the expensive treatments that are needed to deal with the condition.

Up to 500 people a year in Northern Ireland will lose sight in one or both eyes as a result of late AMD.

We wanted to carry out the study as prevention of progression to late AMD can result in a reduced financial and societal burden.

As the macula of the eye is very rich in antioxidants the researchers wanted to see if a supplement called CARMA (Caroteneoids and Co-antioxidants in Age-related Maculopathy) containing the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin could help slow down AMD.

The supplement also contained vitamins C,E and Zinc, which had been used in a previous study.

The latest study showed that intake of high levels of both carotenoids preserved the macular pigments, slowing down the progression from early AMD to late AMD.

In contrast, the macular pigments of participants in a placebo group declined steadily.

Dr Chakravarthy added: These findings are important because this is the first randomised controlled clinical trial to document a beneficial effect through improved function and maintained macular pigments.

Further research is needed to confirm these findings and to identify the numbers needed to treat to prevent 1 case from progressing from early to late AMD.

Meditation may be effective for treating insomnia

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:00:57 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Meditation may be an effective remedy in treating insomnia, latest research suggests.

According to Ramadevi Gourineni, principal study investigator and director of the insomnia programme at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Illinois, insomnia is thought to be a 24-hour problem of hyper-arousal. Moreover, elevated measures of arousal are seen throughout the day.

The study collected data from 11 healthy subjects between the ages of 25 and 45 years who suffered from chronic primary insomnia. Participants were divided into two intervention groups for two months.

The first group was taught Kriya Yoga, a form of meditation that is used to focus internalized attention and has been shown to reduce measures of arousal. The second group received health education.

Participants of the health education group also received information about health-related topics and how to improve health through nutrition, exercise, weight loss and stress management.

Results suggested that patients saw improvements in subjective sleep quality and sleep diary parameters while practicing meditation. Patients who practiced meditation saw improvements in sleep latency, total sleep time, total wake time, wake after sleep onset, sleep efficiency and sleep quality.

Findings of this study were presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Dr. Ramadevi Gourineni completed her medical school at Kurnool Medical College in Andhra Pradesh, India. She was raised in the United States prior to this. Dr. Gourineni's has a special interest in behavioural treatment of insomnia and currently is involved in research studying the effects of meditation on stress and sleep in individuals with chronic insomnia.

Poor sleep quality linked to increased risk of death

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:49:17 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) According to the latest research it is both quality and quantity that is important for maintaining health.

Results suggest that over the average follow-up of eight years, 854 of the 5,614 participants died. Two sleep-stage transition types were associated with higher mortality risk: wake-to-non-REM and non-REM-to-wake.

According to Alison Laffan, lead author, from the California Pacific Medical Centre, 'mounting evidence from a number of studies shows that poor sleep increases risk for adverse health outcomes.'

'In light of this growing body of evidence, people should strive to maintain good sleep habits, such as going to bed and getting up at the same time each day and sleeping for seven to eight hours each night,' said Laffan.

The study involved 5,614 Sleep Heart Health Study participants. Health outcomes were watched carefully for the following eight years.

Findings of this study were presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Sleep helps store useful information, says study

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 04:14:14 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A good night's sleep after a period of learning help brain preserve the most important memories, a new study has found.

Using data from a group of 44 college students aged 18 to 22, the study findings showed that sleeping helps brain use selective process to store most relevant information as long as four months.

The findings were presented Thursday at the Associated Professional Sleep Societies annual meeting, in Seattle.

The study was conducted by researchers at Harvard Medical School in Boston.

Think of sleep as a period of memory consolidation, where the sleeping brain calculates what is most important about a memory and selects the best candidates for long-term memory, said study author Jessica Payne, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology.

'It may be that the chemical and physiological aspects of sleep underlying memory consolidation are more effective if a particular memory is 'tagged' shortly prior to sleeping,' she said.

She added that sleep seems to selectively preserve memories that are emotionally important and relevant to future goals.

People awakened after sleeping more than a few minutes are usually unable to recall the last few minutes before they fell asleep, earlier studies showed.

This sleep-related form of amnesia is the reason people often forget telephone calls or conversations they've had in the middle of the night. It also explains why people often do not remember their alarms ringing in the morning if they go right back to sleep after turning them off.

Study suggests obese women should not gain weight

Fri, 29 May 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) For years, doctors and other health-care providers have managed pregnant patients according to guidelines issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). In 1986, ACOG stated, Regardless of how much women weigh before they become pregnant, gaining between 26-35 pounds during pregnancy can improve the outcome of pregnancy and reduce their chances of having the pregnancy end in fetal death. Until its revised guidelines were released yesterday, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) had recommended that overweight women should gain about 15 pounds during pregnancy.

The current study was undertaken to test whether these guidelines make a difference in maternal-fetal outcomes among obese women. In the study, conducted at several hospitals, the researchers followed 232 obese pregnant women, all of whom had a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater. Half of the women followed conventional prenatal nutritional guidelines, which is essentially eat to appetite (control group). The other half were placed on a well-balanced, nutritionally monitored program, which included a daily food diary (study group). The average weight gain in the control group was 31 pounds, compared to 11 pounds in the study group. Twenty-three extremely obese patients lost weight during their pregnancy.

The findings showed that there were no fetal deaths and no growth-restricted infants in the study group. Also, there were fewer babies weighing more than 10 pounds in the study group than in the control group. (A birth weight over 10 pounds poses significant hazards to both infants and mothers.) Moreover, women in the study group gained less weight, had fewer cesarean deliveries, were less likely to develop gestational diabetes, and retained less weight after they delivered than women in the control group.

The researchers concluded that obese pregnant women may be placed on a healthy, well balanced, monitored nutritional program without adverse maternal-fetal outcomes.

Women who are obese when beginning a pregnancy are, by definition, unhealthy, says study leader Yvonne S. Thornton, MD, MPH, a clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology and board-certified specialist in maternal-fetal medicine at New York Medical College. To say that they should gain even more weight is counter-intuitive, and our study bears that out. Rather than focusing on numerical endpoints with respect to weight gain, we need to focus on making these women healthier by getting them to eat a well-balanced diet.

The study grew out of Dr. Thornton's personal experience with obesity and pregnancy. Despite being overweight, she gained a substantial amount of weight during her first pregnancy, exacerbating her life-long battle with obesity. During her second pregnancy, she followed a well-balanced diet and gained little weight, with no adverse consequences for mother or baby.

Dr. Thornton observed the same pattern in her own clinical practice, leading her to question prevailing guidelines for weight gain during pregnancy. Adding to her skepticism was the fact that women who develop gestational diabetes are routinely put on diets that effectively limit weight gain, with no ill effects.

It is the mindset of our specialty, and our society, that we need to have round, chubby pregnant women in order make sure they are healthy, adds Dr. Thornton. Pregnancy has become a license to eat. We talk about 'eating for two,' but it's really more like eating for 1 and 1/20th.

These attitudes have contributed to the obesity epidemic in the U.S., where 35 percent of women are considered obese, says the researcher. The situation is even worse among African-American women, four out of five of whom are overweight or obese.

Gaining weight during pregnancy contributes to obesity, and it makes it that much harder for overweight women to return to their normal weight after pregnancy, says Dr. Thornton.

7 out of 10 women too embarrassed to discuss vaginal dryness

Wed, 20 May 2009 10:51:25 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Most post-menopausal women are uncomfortable talking about vaginal dryness and pain or reluctant to seek medical help, according to an international survey.

Results from the survey show that over a third - of such women experience these symptoms of vaginal atrophy and 40 percent of women who have recently experienced vaginal dryness and pain said it interferes with their sex life.

Yet seven out of 10 would not discuss the problem with their physician -.

This reluctance to discuss the problem means a quarter would wait for over a year before finally contacting their physician. Additionally, more than a third of those surveyed did not know there are local treatments available.

'The results of this survey really highlight my experiences of treating menopausal women and in my practice in Italy it is even worse. The most alarming aspect is that they wait for so long, with only 17 percent taking a treatment to counteract these symptoms,' said Rossella Nappi, director of the Gynaecological Endocrinology and Menopause Unit, University of Pavia, Italy.

'There is definitely a taboo factor involved as the survey shows that, of those who have experienced vaginal dryness and pain, 47 percent would rather speak to a female physician than a male physician about the problem.'

Local symptoms such as painful intercourse, vaginal dryness, itching, burning, and soreness are caused, like other menopausal symptoms, by the gradual decline of oestrogen production in ovaries, said a Pavia release.

The survey also shows that 67 percent of those who have had or are currently taking treatment experience improvements, including an improved quality of life, a return to normal sexual activity, and an improvement in the relationship with their partner.

These findings were presented at the European Congress on Menopause in London.

New vaccine strategy might offer protection against pandemic influenza strains

Mon, 18 May 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A novel vaccine strategy using virus-like particles (VLPs) could provide stronger and longer-lasting influenza vaccines with a significantly shorter development and production time than current ones, allowing public health authorities to react more quickly in the event of a potential pandemic.

Ted Ross, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Vaccine Research, will present his laboratory's latest data on the efficacy of VLP vaccines for potential pandemic strains, such as H5N1 and 1918 influenza, today at the 109th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Philadelphia.

Virus-like particles look just like a live virus, but they are hollow shells without a genome inside and they cannot reproduce, Ross explained. Because they look like the virus, they evoke a more robust immune response against the real thing.

Ross and his colleagues have already made VLP vaccines that have been tested in early clinical trials and appear to provide complete protection against both the H5N1 avian influenza virus and the 1918 Spanish influenza virus.

There is a debate in the influenza community about priming the human population for potential pandemic strains such as H5N1 or 1918, Ross said. Some researchers advocate adding these strains to the annual flu vaccine. They might not match the next pandemic flu strain exactly, but could provide some of protection.

Others contend that it might be premature, as well as costly, to vaccinate people against a virus that may never emerge, he said.

The current injectable vaccine for seasonal influenza is a trivalent, inactivated vaccine. It consists of three different influenza strains that are grown in eggs and then inactivated, or killed, by chemicals that break them into tiny pieces. Because they no longer look like the circulating virus, conventionally made vaccines strains do not elicit as strong an immune response as VLP vaccines. Because it is made with live, attenuated virus, the inhaled, mist-based vaccine can elicit a strong immune response but can also increase the risk of side effects.

VLPs can be quickly and easily produced in several ways, including growing them in cell cultures or in plants. Also, if the genes in the disease virus are identified, then researchers can generate particles for a vaccine without an actual sample of the agent.

The sequence for the recent H1N1 'swine flu' virus was online and available to scientists long before physical samples could be delivered, Dr. Ross noted. It would have been possible to produce VLPs in quantity in as little as 12 weeks while conventional vaccines require physical samples of the virus and production can take approximately nine months.

One VLP-based vaccine already is on the market, namely the human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccine.

Mind-body programme helps women cope better with cancer

Sat, 16 May 2009 12:15:22 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Pathfinders, a mind-body-spirit programme, helps women cope with terminal cancer and improves their quality of life, according to a new study.

'The program helped improve distress and despair during the initial three months and up to six months after diagnosis among women with metastatic breast cancer and a six-month life expectancy,' said Amy Abernethy.

Abernethy, oncologist at Duke University Medical Centre - and lead investigator of the study, obseved that 'though the women were getting sicker and experiencing more symptoms..., they reported... less distress and despair.'

Pathfinders focuses on the seven pillars of personal recovery: hope, balance, inner strengths, self care, support, spirit and life review.

The program provides patient navigation, counselling, coping skills training, mind and body techniques and lifestyle advice.

'The goal... is to teach patients coping skills for dealing with their cancer,' said Tina Staley, director of Pathfinders. 'To reach this goal, we have created a common language between patients, nurses, physicians and Pathfinders for communicating coping skills.'

Researchers enrolled 50 adult breast cancer patients with a prognosis of less than six months survival.

The women met with a Pathfinder, one social worker at least monthly, plus phone conversations and e-mail exchanges, said a DUMC release.

They helped the women identify inner strength, taught them coping skills and encouraged them to engage in complementary and alternative medical services.

The researchers will be presenting their findings at the American Society of

Clinical Oncology in Orlando, on May 31.

Exposure to Cigarette Smoke Robs Kids of Antioxidants

Tue, 12 May 2009 13:28:09 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Exposure to tobacco smoke robs children of antioxidants, which shield the body against many biological stresses.

A study by the University of Rochester Medical Centre - looked at the levels of antioxidants in comparison to the amount of smoke exposure in more than 2,000 children aged between 6 and 18 in the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey -.

'It's always wise to feed children - an abundance of fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants and other healthy nutrients,' said study author Karen Wilson, senior instructor of paediatrics at URMC.

Antioxidants are believed to play an important role in protecting the body's cells against free radicals, which are produced during many body processes including when we use oxygen and respond to infections.

It is not completely understood how antioxidants work together to neutralise free radicals, but scientists continue to discover more antioxidant compounds, including those examined in the study - vitamins E and C, folate and beta-carotene.

Children's exposure to tobacco smoke was determined by the level of cotinine in their blood. Cotinine is a byproduct of metabolising tobacco smoke.

The higher the level of cotinine in a child's blood, the lower the antioxidant level, after controlling for diet and supplements, said a URMC release.

The study was presented at the Paediatric Academic Society Meeting in Baltimore.

Increased food intake alone explains the increase in body weight in the United States

Fri, 08 May 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Amsterdam, the Netherlands: New research that uses an innovative approach to study, for the first time, the relative contributions of food and exercise habits to the development of the obesity epidemic has concluded that the rise in obesity in the United States since the 1970s was virtually all due to increased energy intake.

How much of the obesity epidemic has been caused by excess calorie intake and how much by reductions in physical activity has been long debated and while experts agree that making it easier for people to eat less and exercise more are both important for combating it, they debate where the public health focus should be.

A study presented on Friday at the European Congress on Obesity is the first to examine the question of the proportional contributions to the obesity epidemic by combining metabolic relationships, the laws of thermodynamics, epidemiological data and agricultural data.

There have been a lot of assumptions that both reduced physical activity and increased energy intake have been major drivers of the obesity epidemic. Until now, nobody has proposed how to quantify their relative contributions to the rise in obesity since the 1970s. This study demonstrates that the weight gain in the American population seems to be virtually all explained by eating more calories. It appears that changes in physical activity played a minimal role, said the study's leader, Professor Boyd Swinburn, chair of population health and director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Obesity Prevention at Deakin University in Australia.

The scientists started by testing 1,399 adults and 963 children to determine how many calories their bodies burn in total under free-living conditions. The test is the most accurate measure of total calorie burning in real-life situations.

Once they had determined each person's calorie burning rate, Swinburn and his colleagues were able to calculate how much adults needed to eat in order to maintain a stable weight and how much children needed to eat in order to maintain a normal growth curve.

They then worked out how much Americans were actually eating, using national food supply data (the amount of food produced and imported, minus the amount exported, thrown away and used for animals or other non-human uses) from the 1970s and the early 2000s.

The researchers used their findings to predict how much weight they would expect Americans to have gained over the 30-year period studied if food intake were the only influence. They used data from a nationally representative survey (NHANES) that recorded the weight of Americans in the 1970s and early 2000s to determine the actual weight gain over that period.

If the actual weight increase was the same as what we predicted, that meant that food intake was virtually entirely responsible. If it wasn't, that meant changes in physical activity also played a role, Swinburn said. If the actual weight gain was higher than predicted, that would suggest that a decrease in physical activity played a role.

The researchers found that in children, the predicted and actual weight increase matched exactly, indicating that the increases in energy intake alone over the 30 years studied could explain the weight increase.

For adults, we predicted that they would be 10.8 kg heavier, but in fact they were 8.6 kg heavier. That suggests that excess food intake still explains the weight gain, but that there may have been increases in physical activity over the 30 years that have blunted what would otherwise have been a higher weight gain, Swinburn said.

To return to the average weights of the 1970s, we would need to reverse the increased food intake of about 350 calories a day for children (about one can of fizzy drink and a small portion of French fries) and 500 calories a day for adults (about one large hamburger), Swinburn said. Alternatively, we could achieve similar results by increasing physical activity by about 150 minutes a day of extra walking for children and 110 minutes for adults, but realistically, although a combination of both is needed, the focus would have to be on reducing calorie intake.

He emphasized that physical activity should not be ignored as a contributor to reducing obesity and should continue to be promoted because of its many other benefits, but that expectations regarding what can be achieved with exercise need to be lowered and public health policy shifted more toward encouraging people to eat less.

Study: Vibration plate machines may aid weight loss and trim abdominal fat

Fri, 08 May 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Amsterdam, the Netherlands: New research suggests that, if used properly, vibration plate exercise machines may help you lose weight and trim the particularly harmful belly fat between the organs.

In a study presented on Friday at the European Congress on Obesity, scientists found that overweight or obese people who regularly used the equipment in combination with a calorie restricted diet were more successful at long-term weight loss and shedding the fat around their abdominal organs than those who combined dieting with a more conventional fitness routine.

These machines are increasingly found in gyms across the industrialized world and have gathered a devoted following in some places, but there has not been any evidence that they help people lose weight. Our study, the first to investigate the effects of vibration in obese people, indicates it's a promising approach. It looks like these machines could be a useful addition to a weight control package, said the study's leader, Dirk Vissers, a physiotherapist at the Artesis University College and the University of Antwerp in Belgium.

Vissers and his colleagues studied the effects of the Power Plate in 61 overweight or obese people - mostly women - for a year. The intervention lasted six months, after which the scientists advised all the volunteers to do the best they could with a healthy diet and exercise regime on their own for another six months. Body measurements, including CT scans of abdominal fat, were taken at the beginning of the study and after three, six and 12 months.

The researchers divided the volunteers into four groups. One group was prescribed an individually calculated calorie restricted diet. Dietician visits were scheduled every fortnight for the first three months and every month for the second three months. The dieters were asked not to engage in any exercise for the duration of the six-month intervention.

A second group received the same diet intervention, with the addition of a conventional fitness regime. They attended supervised exercise classes twice a week for an hour and were urged to exercise on their own a third time each week. The sessions included group cycling, swimming, running, step aerobics and some general muscle strengthening exercises.

A third group got the diet intervention plus supervised vibration plate training instead of conventional exercise. They were asked not to do any aerobic exercise during the six-month intervention phase. The physiotherapists gradually increased the speed and intensity of the machine each week, as well as the variety and duration of the exercises from 30 seconds for each of 10 exercises to 60 seconds for each of 22 exercises, such as squats, lunges, calf raises, push-ups and abdominal crunches. The average time spent on the machine was 11.9 minutes per session in the first three months and 14.2 minutes in the second three months.

A fourth group got no intervention. There were no significant differences between the groups in obesity and abdominal, or visceral, fat at the start of the study.

Over the year, only the conventional fitness and vibration groups managed to maintain a 5% weight loss, which is what is considered enough to improve health, Vissers said.

During the first six months, the diet only group lost about 6% of their initial body weight, but could not maintain a 5% weight loss in the subsequent six months. The group that got diet plus conventional fitness lost about 7% of their initial body weight in the first six months, but they didn't put much of it back on and by the end of the study, they had managed to keep off a 6.9% loss. The vibration group lost 11% of their body weight during the intervention phase and by the end of the follow-up period they had maintained a 10.5% loss. The control group gained about 1.5% of their original body weight.

The vibration group lost 47.8 square centimetres of visceral fat during the first six months and still had a loss of 47.7 square centimetres at 12 months. Visceral fat shrank by 17.6 square centimetres in the conventional fitness group in the first six months, but by the end of the year, it was only 1.6 square centimetres less than at the beginning. The diet group had a visceral fat loss of 24.3 square centimetres after six months and 7.5 square centimetres after a year.

These are very encouraging results, but it doesn't mean people trying to lose weight can ditch aerobic exercise and jump on the vibration plate instead. They still need a healthy diet and aerobic exercise, but this could be a viable alternative to weight lifting, Vissers said, explaining that the plate works by making muscles rapidly contract, which builds lean muscle mass.

People say vibration machines are fitness for lazy people. It may feel like a short cut, but if it's easy, you are not doing it properly, he added. Supervision in the beginning is imperative and the longer the better. What we see in gyms very often - people just standing on the machine holding the handles - is not going to do anything.

Vissers said further research on a larger group of obese patients is needed to confirm how beneficial the machines are. His team is also planning to study why vibration seems to be more effective than aerobic exercise in trimming visceral fat, including whether increased blood flow to the abdomen and hormonal response to vibration might play a role in more efficient fat breakdown. His study was funded by the Artesis University College of Antwerp.

Hong Kong frees 28 people who travelled with flu patient

Thu, 07 May 2009 15:48:40 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Hong Kong, May 7 - A group of 28 people, most of whom travelled on the same flight as a Mexican tourist who became Hong Kong's only confirmed swine flu case, were released from quarantine Thursday, after health officials declared them infection-free.

The group, which also included two taxi drivers who drove the Mexican around the city, were given health checks before being allowed to leave a remote holiday village where they have been kept since last Friday.

Thomas Tsang of the Centre for Health Protection, said all of those released had been given thorough medical examinations.

'We are 100 percent confident their health status is good. They do not pose any risk of human swine flu, so I hope the community will treat them the same as any one of us,' he said.

The group were ordered into quarantine after the Mexican, who had travelled to Hong Kong via Shanghai, was confirmed to have contracted the influenza A - virus Friday.

A second group of around 240 guests and more than 100 staff from the Metropark Hotel, where he stayed briefly, are due to be released Friday evening.

Hong Kong Deputy Director of Home Affairs Adeline Wong said the hotel guests would be given two nights of free accommodation in another hotel, plus tickets to attractions such as Disneyland, or transport to the airport if they wish to leave immediately.

The Hong Kong government took the radical step of rounding up people who may have been in contact with the Mexican tourist and sealed off the hotel on May 1 in a bid to stop the virus from spreading into the community.

Authorities are still trying to trace six hotel guests who have not come forward and who may face prosecution under laws concerning infectious diseases.

So far, no other cases have been detected, and all tests for the virus among guests, staff and fellow passengers have come back negative. The Mexican tourist has now recovered but remains in quarantine in a Hong Kong hospital.

The action to confine guests has been criticised by public-health experts and the quarantined guests as an overreaction by Hong Kong, especially as the threat of a global pandemic appears to be ebbing.

Hong Kong Health Secretary York Chow defended the move and warned against complacency toward the influenza A - virus, which has so far killed 42 people in Mexico and two in the US.

York said his calculations based on figures from Tuesday had shown the virus had a mortality rate of around 4.3 percent.

'So, if you have an epidemic that causes 4.3 percent of deaths, it is something pretty serious,' he said.

Hong Kong was criticised for failing to act quickly in the early days of the severe acute respiratory syndrome - outbreak in 2003.

Nearly 300 people died and around 1,800 were infected when SARS spread to Hong Kong from southern China through an infected patient who stayed in a city hotel.

Consumers more likely to identify healthy food using traffic light nutrition labels

Thu, 07 May 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Consumers are five times more likely to identify healthy food when they see colour-coded traffic light nutrition labels than when labels present the information numerically by showing what percentage of the recommended daily nutrient intake each portion provides, new research finds.

Some governments are trying to improve the quality of nutrition information that consumers have access to in supermarkets by adding labels to the front of food packages, but there is no standard approach, not all products have labels and in many countries several different systems are used.

Food manufacturers are currently allowed to use any labelling system they prefer on the front of food packages. In some countries this has led to a plethora of different systems appearing on supermarket shelves, which only serves to confuse consumers more and does not allow them to quickly and accurately identify healthy products, said Bridget Kelly, whose study was presented on Friday at the European Congress on Obesity.

The food industry tends to favour the percentage daily intake method (known as Guideline Daily Amount in some countries), but our research indicates that the traffic light system is the most effective and that a consistent labelling approach across all food products is needed. This is unlikely to be achieved without government regulation, said Kelly, a nutritionist at the Cancer Council, New South Wales in Australia.

Kelly and her colleagues aimed to determine the most acceptable and effective food labelling system for consumers. Four different approaches were tested on 790 Australians to determine their preferences and ability to compare the healthiness of mock food products, using two variations of the traffic light system and two variations of the percentage daily intake system. Each person was exposed to only one type of nutrition label, allowing each system to evaluated on it own merits without the influence of the others.

Traffic light labelling uses colours to rate the nutritional content of food according to how healthy it is. A common version uses a panel with red, amber or green dots to rate the food's salt, sugar, saturated fat and total fat content separately. A variation adds a single coloured dot to give an overall rating, rather than just rating separate nutrients.

The percentage daily intake system and its variations present, for each of the key nutrients, the proportion of the government recommended adult daily intake that a serving of the product contains.

The study found that consumers favoured a consistent labelling format across all products. In addition, those who were shown the traffic light labels were five times more likely to identify healthier foods than those shown a single colour version of the percentage daily intake label and three times more likely to do so than those shown a colour-coded version of the daily intake label.

As a result of these findings, we are recommending that mandatory traffic light labelling regulation be introduced in Australia. The labels should be applied to all processed retail grocery food and drinks at first, and consideration should be given to extending that to restaurant chains with standard menu items, Kelly said.

The findings are relevant to other countries, Kelly said, adding that regulations being considered by the European Union favour a system similar to the percentage daily intake approach.

Kelly said that further research is needed to determine whether the traffic light system proves to be as effective in other countries, but that the study showed it could be used equally well by all consumers, regardless of ethnicity, gender and socioeconomic status.

The study was funded by the New South Wales Health Department, the University of Sydney and several Australian public health and consumer organisations.

Study in pregnant women suggests probiotics may help ward off obesity

Thu, 07 May 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Amsterdam, the Netherlands: One year after giving birth, women were less likely to have the most dangerous kind of obesity if they had been given probiotics from the first trimester of pregnancy, found new research that suggests manipulating the balance of bacteria in the gut may help fight obesity.

Probiotics are bacteria that help maintain a healthy bacterial balance in the digestive tract by reducing the growth of harmful bacteria. They are part of the normal digestive system and play a role in controlling inflammation. Researchers have for many years been studying the potential of using probiotic supplementation to address a number of intestinal diseases. More recently, obesity researchers have started to investigate whether the balance of bacteria in the gut might play a role in making people fat and whether adjusting that balance could help.

The results of our study, the first to demonstrate the impact of probiotics-supplemented dietary counselling on adiposity, were encouraging, said Kirsi Laitinen, a nutritionist and senior lecturer at the University of Turku in Finland who presented her findings on Thursday at the European Congress on Obesity. The women who got the probiotics fared best. One year after childbirth, they had the lowest levels of central obesity as well as the lowest body fat percentage.

Central obesity, where overall obesity is combined with a particularly fat belly, is considered especially unhealthy, Laitinen said. We found it in 25% of the women who had received the probiotics along with dietary counselling, compared with 43% in the women who received diet advice alone.

In the study, 256 women were randomly divided into three groups during the first trimester of pregnancy. Two of the groups received dietary counselling consistent with what's recommended during pregnancy for healthy weight gain and optimal foetal development. They were also given food such as spreads and salad dressings with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, as well as fibre-enriched pasta and breakfast cereal to take home. One of those groups also received daily capsules of probiotics containing Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, which are the most commonly used probiotics. The other group received dummy capsules. A third group received dummy capsules and no dietary counselling. The capsules were continued until the women stopped exclusive breastfeeding, up to 6 months.

The researchers weighed the women at the start of the study. At the end of the study they weighed them again and measured their waist circumference and skin fold thickness. The results were adjusted for weight at the start of the study.

Central obesity - defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or more or a waist circumference over 80 centimetres - was found in 25% of the women who had been given the probiotics as well as diet advice. That compared with 43% of the women who got dietary counselling alone and 40% of the women who got neither diet advice nor probiotics. The average body fat percentage in the probiotics group was 28%, compared with 29% in the diet advice only group and 30% in the third group.

Laitinen said further research is needed to confirm the potential role of probiotics in fighting obesity. One of the limitations of the study was that it did not control for the mothers' weight before pregnancy, which may influence how fat they later become.

She said she and her colleagues will continue to follow the women and their babies to see whether giving probiotics during pregnancy has any influence on health outcomes in the children.

The advantage of studying pregnant women to investigate the potential link between probiotics and obesity is that it allows us to see the effects not only in the women, but also in their children, she said. Particularly during pregnancy, the impacts of obesity can be immense, with the effects seen both in the mother and the child. Bacteria are passed from mother to child through the birth canal, as well as through breast milk and research indicates that early nutrition may influence the risk of obesity later in life. There is growing evidence that this approach might open a new angle on the fight against obesity, either through prevention or treatment.

Latinen's study was funded by the Social Insurance Institution of Finland, the Academy of Finland and the Sigrid Juselius Foundation, a Finnish medical research charity.

Xenophobic face of new flu in US

Wed, 06 May 2009 11:11:43 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, May 6 - The influenza A - flu virus came from Mexicans, most likely Mexicans who are in the US illegally: the comment, spiced up with references to Mexicans as 'primitive' and as 'leeches', cost Boston radio talk show host Jay Severin his job.

The problem is that in the face of a new influenza virus whose consequences are still uncertain, he is not the only one in the US who has started to accuse illegal immigrants, particularly those who hail from Mexico, of being the source of the problem.

Above all, he is not the only one who is using the latest health scare to support anti-immigration rhetoric and a call for closing the border between the US and Mexico.

'Make no mistake about it: Illegal aliens are the carriers of the new strain of human-swine avian flu from Mexico,' said another radio talk show host, Michael Savage.

Savage, who apparently has not yet lost his job, went even further in whipping up public emotions.

'Could this be a terrorist attack through Mexico? Could our dear friends in the radical Islamic countries have concocted this virus and planted it in Mexico knowing that you, - Janet Napolitano, would do nothing to stop the flow of human traffic from Mexico?' he said, in comments quoted in the website Media Matters for America.

The Washington-based NGO National Immigration Forum has monitored the large number of comments of this type that emerged over the past ten days as the fear of an influenza pandemic increased in US media.

'Unfortunately there are people who abuse media power to make money with ignorant messages of fear and racism,' Forum spokeswoman Katherine Vargas told DPA.

'They take advantage of a public health issue to spread lies which only add to the confusion. This is a public health issue, not an immigration issue,' she stressed.

The topic is particularly thorny at a time when illegal immigrants within the US are fighting to resolve their situation, which President Barack Obama has promised to tackle this year.

And yet the fact that the first confirmed death of the new flu virus within the US was a 23-month-old toddler of Mexican origin did not help ease the tension.

The case was confirmed last week and happened in Houston, Texas.

'The child was not a United States citizen,' said local councillor Toni Lawrence. 'We need to do things for Houston and not for anybody else.'

For Maria Jimenez, an activist for the rights of immigrants in Houston who works for the organisation Dignidad, the issue is 'absurd' but also dramatic, given the awful mistakes that it leads to.

'It is absurd because - is not a case of undocumented migrants, and the fact that they refer to that proves that it is a xenophobic reaction more than a reality,' Jimenez said.

She had been in contact with the dead toddler's family.

'What is worrying is that, as always, the anti-immigrant sector uses pressure methods before political sectors, it is an irresponsible attitude on the part of local officials,' said Jimenez, herself of Mexican origin.

'The point is that there are people who are using this to incite anti-immigration anger,' Teresa Puente, a professor of journalism at Columbia College, Chicago, said in the blog Latina Voices on Latin American women.

The fact that almost all the confirmed cases in the US correspond to US citizens does not seem to inhibit the arguments of conservative observers on immigration.

For Maria Jimenez, the issue bears an added risk.

'I am scared that, in the face of this xenophobia, many undocumented immigrants do not dare to go to medical centres -, which could be worse,' she noted.

James Rodriguez, Houston councillor in the district where the Mexican boy died, spoke along similar lines.

'At this time, the treatment of all cases is more imperative than any discussion on immigration status,' he said in a statement Friday.

He was reacting to his colleague Lawrence's comments, saying they had 'negatively alarmed many residents throughout the city'.

For Cesar Espinosa, director of the immigrant organisation America para Todos - in Houston, said only one thing remained to be done for the coming months.

'We will have to work with the community and show that we do not bring microbes,' he said shrugging his shoulders.

'Brain music' can lull your anxieties, sharpen reflexes

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 12:41:56 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, April 25 - Every brain has a sound track, which when recorded and played back to an emergency responder, such as a fire fighter, may sharpen their reflexes during a crisis, and calm their nerves afterward.

The concept of 'brain music' is to use the frequency, amplitude and duration of musical sounds to move the brain from an anxious state to a more relaxed one.

Over the past decade, the influence of music on cognitive development, learning, and emotional well-being has emerged as a hot field of scientific study.

Department of Homeland Security's Science & Technology Directorate - has begun a study into a form of neuro-training called 'brain music' that uses music created in advance from listeners' own brain waves to help them deal with common ailments like insomnia, fatigue, and headaches stemming from stressful environments.

'Strain comes with an emergency response job, so we are interested in finding ways to help these workers remain at the top of their game when working and get quality rest when they go off a shift,' said S&T programme manager Robert Burns.

'Our goal is to find new ways to help first responders perform at the highest level possible, without increasing tasks, training, or stress levels.'

If the brain 'composes' the music, the first job of scientists is to take down the notes.

Each recording is converted into two unique musical compositions designed to trigger the body's natural responses.

The compositions are clinically shown to promote one of two mental states in each individual: relaxation - for reduced stress and improved sleep; and alertness - for improved concentration and decision-making.

Each two to six minute track is a composition performed on a single instrument, usually a piano. The relaxation track may sound like a 'melodic, subdued Chopin sonata', while the alertness track may have 'more of a Mozart sound', says Burns.

After their brain waves are set to music, each person is given a specific listening schedule, personalised to their work environment and needs. If used properly, the music can boost productivity and energy levels, or trigger a body's natural responses to stress.

The music created by Human Bionics LLC is being tested as part of the S&T Readiness Optimization Programme -, a wellness programme that combines nutrition education and Neuro-training to evaluate a cross population of first responders, including federal agents, police, and fire fighters.

Good parenting may steer teens away from drinking problems

Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:04:31 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) London, April 24 - Teenagers who share a good relationship with their parents may start drinking at a later age, helping them avoid alcohol related problems, according to a new study.

Past studies have suggested that the age at which kids start drinking is a key factor in whether they eventually develop alcohol-related problems, like getting into fights or having academic or work problems.

So it often has been assumed that drinking at an early age, in and of itself, is the problem, explained the study's lead author, Emmanuel Kuntsche of the Swiss Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Drug Problems in Lausanne, Switzerland.

'Our work shows that the 'preventive effect' of a later drinking age is likely to be a side effect of a good parent-child relationship,' Kuntsche said.

'In other words, the circumstances in which that first drinks occurs, and how parents deal with it, is important.'

Kuntsche and colleagues surveyed 364 teenagers three times over a span of two years. They found that in general, teens who reported an earlier drinking age during the first survey tended to be drinking more heavily by the second survey. They were also at a greater risk of drinking-related problems by the third survey.

But a closer look at the data revealed the importance of parents' influence. In fact, only teenagers who reported both a later drinking age and a high-quality relationship with their parents had a lower risk of drinking problems compared to their peers.

A high-quality relationship was one where teenagers felt they could discuss their problems with their parents and that their parents respected their feelings, said a Swiss Institute release.

The findings, Kuntsche and his colleagues say, suggest that such parent-child relationships can 'trigger a spiral of healthy development during adolescence' that may lead to a lower risk of alcohol problems.

The findings are scheduled for publication in the May issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Giving up smoking and bad habits can improve senior's health

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:27:38 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, April 24 - Previous smokers easily outpaced current smokers in physical activity, suggesting that giving up such bad habits can positively impact a senior's health later in life.

These findings were based on a study of more than 2,000 seniors who were current smokers, past smokers and had never smoked.

All three groups were compared to show a link between smoking and the speed at which participants walked.

Eliminating bad habits such as poor food choices and lack of exercise - which can lead to weight gain or poor muscle condition - has been an ongoing struggle for seniors.

According to Alison Moore, member, American Geriatrics Society -, the most important part of successfully changing bad habits is to go into the transformation with a positive attitude.

Moore offers the following suggestions to help older adults conquer some of the more common bad habits. For example bad food choices: Excess weight can cause multiple health problems and complications, including diabetes, heart disease and stroke.

Substituting good carbohydrates - for bad carbohydrates - and adding lean proteins, while limiting foods with high fat and sugar contents, will help seniors maintain a healthy weight.

Smoking and drinking: Smoking and excessive alcohol intake is proven to have negative health effects on a person at any age, but seniors who smoke and drink regularly increase their chances of more advanced medical problems.

The effects of many medications are altered when mixed with alcohol, which can pose serious health risks, especially for seniors taking multiple medications.

There are a variety of activities seniors can do to keep their minds focused and sharp, including word puzzles, interactive games, joining a book club or participating in other social and volunteer activities, said an AGS release.

Lack of exercise: Keeping physically active is integral to keeping the heart, mind and bones healthy. For some seniors, physical restrictions make exercise a challenge, but there are still small ways to incorporate physical activity into a daily routine, such as parking further away from the store to get in a short walk.

These findings will be presented during the American Geriatrics Society's Annual Meeting between April 29 and May 3 in Chicago.

Now chicken soup for blood pressure, too

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 10:12:08 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, April 11 - Chicken soup with matzoh balls, a staple of the traditional Jewish dinner, may be good in reversing high blood pressure - too, according to the latest findings.

Japanese scientist Ai Saiga and colleagues cited previous studies indicating that chicken breast contains collagen proteins with effects similar to ACE inhibitors, mainstay medications for treating high BP.

But chicken breast contains such small amounts of the proteins that it could not be used to develop food and medical products for the condition.

Chicken legs and feet, often discarded as waste products in the US but key soup ingredients elsewhere, appear to be a better source.

Saiga and colleagues extracted collagen from chicken legs and tested its ability to act as an ACE inhibitor in lab studies. They identified four different proteins in the collagen mixture with high ACE-inhibitory activity, said a release of the American Chemical Society.

Given to rats used to model human high BP, the proteins produced a significant and prolonged decrease in blood pressure, the researchers say.

These findings were published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Novel lung cancer vaccine shows promise in fighting early-stage lung cancer

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) CHICAGO - An experimental vaccine that triggers the patient's immune system to identify and attack specific tumor cells is showing new promise for the treatment of early lung cancer. Thoracic surgeons at Rush University Medical Center are researching the vaccine called MAGE-A3 Antigen-Specific Cancer Immunotherapeutic, which is designed to kill cancer cells without harming normal cells. Rush is one of only five hospitals in Illinois offering the vaccine.

The MAGRIT (MAGE-A3 as Adjuvant Non-Small Cell LunG Cancer Immunotherapy) study is a randomized, double-blind and placebo controlled trial that will enroll patients with MAGE A-3-positive, non-small-cell lung cancers. The experimental vaccine targets MAGE-A3, a protein expressed in certain cancer cells but not in normal cells. Thirty-five percent of non-small-cell lung cancers have this protein which also is present in some melanomas and head and neck cancers.

The principle is that you can possibly teach a patient's immune system to eliminate cancer cells that express certain proteins such as the MAGE-A3 protein, said Dr. Anthony Kim, thoracic surgeon and principal investigator of the study at Rush. In a trial of early-stage lung cancer patients whose tumors expressed MAGE-A3, preliminary results showed that the vaccination reduced the risk of recurrence and the need for repeat surgery.

The vaccination may be a promising alternative treatment solution for lung cancer patients that may not be ideal candidates for chemotherapy. Many surgically treated lung cancer patients are not able to tolerate the side effects of chemotherapy.

Surgery is the standard treatment for patients with early-stage lung cancer, but approximately 50 percent of patients who have surgery ultimately die of lung cancer.

Adding the tumor vaccine to surgery has the potential to boost the survival rate by 10 percent, which was the figure that was observed in the initial phase of the MAGE-A3 trial, said Kim. This is a potential alternative for patients that otherwise would not undergo chemotherapy treatment either because of their tumor stage or other co-morbidities such as their age or other medical problems.

A total of 182 patients with non-small-cell lung cancers were included in the early phase of the study sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline, which is developing the vaccine therapy. All the patients had cancers expressing MAGE-A3, the tumor-specific antigen. After having surgery to remove the tumors, 122 patients were randomly assigned to treatment with the MAGE-A3-targeting vaccine and 60 patients received placebo vaccines. The preliminary research shows that the treatment was well tolerated by patients and the MAGE-A3-treated patients seemed less likely to have recurrences and die from their disease than the placebo-treated patients. Further studies need to be completed to test the safety and efficacy of the vaccine.

Patients were given five injections every three weeks at the beginning of treatment and then eight injections every three months later for a total of 27 months. Earlier phases of the study indicate the immunotherapy treatment was well tolerated by patients.

Children who are dissatisfied with their appearance often have problems with their peer group

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Being satisfied with one's appearance is one of the most important prerequisites for a positive self image. However, in today's appearance culture it is the rule rather than the exception that children and young people are dissatisfied with their appearance.

Those children who are teased or subject to bullying are particularly critical of their appearance - and they tend to be this way over a long period. This is revealed in a new thesis in psychology from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

In her thesis Carolina Lunde has followed almost 1,000 children between the ages of 10 and 14. The aim has been to investigate the link between body image and peer group relationships.

An important conclusion is that both boys and girls become more dissatisfied with their body and their appearance during this age bracket - even though the girls were consistently more dissatisfied with their appearance than the boys.

The early teens can therefore be regarded as a high risk period for acquiring a negative body image. The children who weighed the most at 10 years old were particularly dissatisfied with their appearance. Furthermore, overweight children, primarily girls, were bullied and teased about their appearance considerably more often than the other children in the study.

Overweight children who are bullied can therefore be said to bear a double burden, which means that they are in the risk zone in terms of developing a negative body image.

As negative attitudes towards overweight people are formed when children are young, Carolina Lunde feels that it is important to try to counteract these prejudices at an early stage.

The fact that children and young people have a negative body image can have a number of serious psychological consequences. It increases the risk of developing eating disorders and depression. Exercising too much is also related to a negative body image. Being dissatisfied with one's appearance can also limit children and young people in their everyday lives.

They might focus to such an extent on their dissatisfaction with their appearance that they find it difficult to think of anything else. Avoiding situations that make them feel self-conscious and uncomfortable, getting changed for sports activities at school for example, is also common.

Carolina Lunde says that the title of the thesis What people tell you gets to you is a direct quotation from one of the young people who took part in one of the studies. The most dissatisfied young people indicated that their parents and their peer group frequently commented negatively about their appearance.

It might be the case that being bullied and teased about one's appearance during the early teens when the body is changing so much has a particularly negative impact on body image, observes Carolina Lunde.

New Test to Establish In-Vivo Safety of Dengue Vaccine

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:35:46 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Feb 16 - Researchers have developed a test to determine whether vaccines against a virus that infects 100 million people annually, now ready for clinical trials, should really protect patients from infection, or would make it more dangerous for them.

'Our study shows that the new test is likely superior to the standard test in its ability to tell whether a patient's response to a vaccine is safe,' said Xia Jin, associate professor of medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Centre - and co-author of the study.

Cases of tropical, mosquito-borne dengue fever have been expanding globally for more than 50 years, with nearly a third of the human population in 100 countries now at risk of infection with the four types of dengue virus.

Infection with the dengue flavivirus, which is related to West Nile Virus and Yellow Fever, annually results in an estimated half a million hospitalisations and 22,000 deaths, mostly among infants, according to WHO.

After decades of absence in the US, the disease is causing illness again along the Texas-Mexico border, experts say and add that widespread dengue infection in the continental US is a real possibility.

A typical dengue infection confines a patient to bed for more than a week with fever and severe limb pains, but most recover. In less than five percent of cases, however, dengue hemorrhagic fever - and dengue shock syndrome -, often deadly complications, develop just as the fever breaks.

Mostly affecting babies between five and eight months, DHF causes victims to vomit and pass blood in their feces and urine. If diagnosed quickly, patients respond to intensive hospital treatment and fluids, but mortality can reach 15 percent when undiagnosed.

DSS comes when the infection has caused so much fluid to leak out of capillaries that there is not enough blood to supply organs. As of 2008, there were no antiviral drugs designed to treat dengue and no drug candidates in late-stage development, said an URMC release.

These findings were published in Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.

Evolutionary link to modern-day obesity, other problems

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 04:59:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) EVANSTON, Ill. --- That irresistible craving for a cheeseburger has its roots in the dramatic growth of the human brain and body that resulted from environmental changes some 2 million years ago.

Higher quality, nutritionally dense diets became necessary to fuel the high-energy demands of humans' exceptionally large brains and for developing the first rudimentary hunting and gathering economy.

But the transition from a subsistence to a modern, sedentary lifestyle has created energy imbalances that have increased rapidly -- evolutionarily speaking -- in recent years and now play a major role in obesity.

Activity patterns must get every bit as much attention as consumption of unhealthy foods in any attempt to reverse the modern-day permeations of an evolutionary trend that now contributes to obesity worldwide, according to William Leonard.

Leonard, chair and professor of anthropology at Northwestern University, will discuss his work during the 2009 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Chicago at a press briefing that will take place at 2 p.m. Feb. 12 and during a symposium from 8:30 to 11:30 a.m. Feb. 13.

Two million years ago shifts in foraging behavior and dietary quality helped to provide the energy and nutrition to support the rapid evolutionary increases in both the brain and body sizes of our ancestors.

Today modern humans use nearly a quarter of their resting energy needs to feed our brains, considerably more than other primates (about 8 to 10 percent) or other mammals (3 to 5 percent). To support the high-energy costs of our large brains, humans consume diets that are much richer in calories and nutrients than those of other primates.

While our large-bodied ape relatives -- chimps, gorillas and orangutans -- can subsist on leaves and fruit, we needed to consume meat and other energy-rich foods to support our metabolic demands, Leonard said.

Staple foods for all human societies are much more nutritionally dense than those of other large-bodied primates. To obtain these higher-quality diets, our foraging ancestors would have had to have moved over larger areas than our ape relatives, requiring large activity budgets, he said.

But substantial reductions of intense physical activities for adults living a modern lifestyle in the industrialized world have dramatically lowered the metabolic costs of survival.

The differences between energy in and energy out widen as we increase the nutritional density of our diets while reducing the time and energy associated with obtaining food. Think about our ancestors, Leonard said. Human hunter-gatherers typically move 8 miles per day in the search for food. In contrast, we can simply pick up the phone to get a meal delivered to our door.

That decline in daily energy expenditures contributes not only to obesity, but also to other chronic diseases of the modern world, such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In a sense, those modern diseases represent where we started early in our evolutionary history, Leonard said.

The data clearly suggest the obesity epidemic cannot be understood solely by looking at consumption, he stressed. Throughout most of our evolutionary history, the acquisition of our high-quality diets required substantial expenditure of energy and movement over much larger areas than for other primates.

The imbalance between energy intake and energy expenditure today, Leonard concludes, is the root cause of obesity in the industrialized world.

Both theories about human cellular aging supported by new research

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 04:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Aging yeast cells accumulate damage over time, but they do so by following a pattern laid down earlier in their life by diet as well as the genes that control metabolism and the dynamics of cell structures such as mitochondria, the power plants of cells.

These research findings, presented at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) 48th Annual Meeting, Dec. 13-17, 2008 in San Francisco, support the theories that old age is the final stage of a developmental program AND the result of a lifelong accumulation of unrepaired cellular and molecular damage.

The diet plus metabolic genes pattern is a modular longevity network, says Vladimir Titorenko of Concordia University in Montreal, who studies baker's yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, as a simpler model for the complex mechanisms of human cellular aging.

Through the yeast model, Titorenko and colleagues identified five groups of novel anti-aging small molecules that significantly delayed aging.

The scientists first identified a mechanism closely linking life span to the dynamics of such lipids as cholesterol, triglycerides and fatty acids: When fatty acids build up, yeast cells explode from within, scattering their contents and spreading inflammation to neighboring cells.

In addition to cell death, the accumulation of fatty acids sets off chemical reactions that ultimately produce a lipid called diacylglycerol, which impairs many of the yeast's stress response-related defenses.

Knowing the link between life span and lipid dynamics, the scientists next evaluated aging effects of both calorie-rich and low-calorie diets.

The calorie-rich diet suppressed the oxidation of fatty acids in peroxisomes, structures in cells that use enzymes to neutralize toxic peroxides.

These fatty acids are constantly synthesized in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), the cell's protein manufacturing factory. Without peroxisome processing, fatty acids end up deposited within lipid bodies.

Low-calorie diets, which have been shown to increase lifespan and delay age-related disorders in nonhuman primates and other organisms, altered the way fats were processed in the yeast cells.

The researchers assessed calorie restriction along with a number of known mutations that extend yeast lifespan against a variety of age-related changes in fat metabolism and lipid transport.

To determine whether the diet-aging mechanism could be manipulated by a therapeutic drug, Titorenko and his colleagues developed a life-span assay for a high-throughput screening of multi-compound chemical libraries.

The assay identified five groups of novel anti-aging small molecules that significantly delayed yeast aging by remodeling lipid dynamics in the ER, peroxisomes and lipid bodies or by activating stress response-related processes in mitochondria.

These small molecules can be used as research tools to investigate the mechanisms of longevity, says Titorenko, and as possible pharmaceutical agents for age-related disorders that affect lipid metabolism such as heart disease, chronic inflammation, and Type 2 diabetes.

Avoid refined carbohydrates, chocolates to prevent pimples

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 11:37:47 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Shun refined carbohydrates and chocolates if you really want to avoid pimples, according to a new study conducted in Australia.

The first randomised controlled trial on diet and acne in more than 40 years has established that a protein-based, low GI - diet could have a dramatic effect on acne symptoms.

GI is a measure for calculating the glucose level of the blood. A low GI diet contains foods that have a low glucose level.

'Diet has long been thought to be the cause of acne, with chocolate most often named as a culprit, but I was surprised how little scientific research had been done in this area,' said Robyn Smith, who studied the affect of diet on acne for her doctoral thesis.

'My research found that a low GI diet significantly reduced acne lesion counts when compared with the conventional high carb, high GI Western diet.

'A diet designed to fight acne should contain minimally refined carbohydrate-based foods and include a wide variety of fresh fruits, vegetables, wholegrains, lean meats, fish and seafood,' she said.

Smith worked with Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology - Hospital's staff from the department of dermatology on the trial, which involved 43 teenage boys following two different diets over 12 weeks, said an RMIT release.

One group followed the typical western teen diet of refined and highly processed carbohydrate foods while the other group ate a more natural diet higher in protein and low GI foods such as whole grain bread, pasta and legumes.

'Those on the low GI diet reduced facial acne by 50 per cent, and showed improvements in their self-esteem and overall wellbeing,' Smith said.

These findings have been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Ireland Cancer Center researcher finds most triple-negative breast cancers express muc-1 target

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 04:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) CLEVELAND: Research out of the Ireland Cancer Center of University Hospitals Case Medical Center has found that the vast majority of triple negative breast cancers express the MUC-1 target. This first-of-its-kind finding, presented today at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, has paved the way for an upcoming vaccine trial for patients with early stage triple negative breast cancer that could potentially prevent recurrence of this aggressive type of breast cancer.

Joseph Baar, MD, PhD, Director of Breast Cancer Research at the Ireland Cancer Center, and colleagues analyzed 53 tumors and determined that 92 percent of them expressed MUC-1. These findings support their theory that this MUC-1 protein on breast cancer cells could be a target for a novel vaccine using the patient's immune system to target and kill cancer cells.

Dr. Baar has received a prestigious grant from the National Cancer Institute and the Avon Foundation to begin the vaccine trial in January 2009 for women with early stage triple negative breast cancer to see if this vaccine can raise their immune response against MUC-1. If it does, then a later study would be undertaken to determine whether the generation of such an immune response leads to an increase in patients' relapse-free survival rates, thereby preventing recurrence. The vaccine will be administered following standard therapy of surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

This vaccine trial has the potential to rev up patients' immune response to the MUC-1 protein and shut down the tumor's ability to grow, says Dr. Baar. Women with this aggressive triple negative breast cancer have an increased risk of recurrence and we are hoping to provide them with protection against the return of this deadly disease. Our findings that have been presented at the San Antonio Breast Symposium provide us a strong basis for this trial.

Triple negative breast cancer is a highly aggressive form which comprises 10-15 percent of newly diagnosed early stage breast cancer. Most triple negative tumors are high grade and have a high incidence of recurrence and metastases (spreading to other organs). Unlike other types of breast cancer, there is no standard follow-up treatment for triple negative breast cancer to prevent recurrence.

This is an important study because there has traditionally been nothing to offer women with triple negative breast cancer beyond standard therapy, says Stanton Gerson, MD, Director of the Ireland Cancer Center. This vaccine trial has the potential to lay the groundwork for a new standard of care for women with this aggressive form of breast cancer.

Immunology Center will continue to drive standard methods, better science

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The Rochester Human Immunology Center (RHIC) has been awarded a $4 million renewal of its grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infection Disease (NIAID). The renewal enables RHIC to continue leading the field of immunology in a worldwide effort to standardize how researchers use complex technologies like flow cytometry that are central to the discovery of new treatments.

When standardization is achieved, researchers will be better able to compare data collected worldwide, with the results of many studies combined into massive datasets to guide the construction of hyper-accurate computer models of the mechanisms of disease. Such simulations will yield scientific conclusions that are dramatically more valid and reproducible in areas like infectious disease, transplantation and cancer, researchers said. The resulting sophistication in understanding of the human immune system, and of how it responds to influenza, HIV or smallpox for instance, will guide the more precise design of near-future vaccines.

Since its founding four years ago, the RHIC has proven that it can drive the development of standard operating procedures, having helped more than 39 investigators and teams standardize their testing, and lending expertise that helped lead to the winning of 22 major grants. As an internationally known resource, the RHIC is part of working groups seeking to standardize methods for analyzing flu viruses and HIV in partnership with the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at NIAID, the HIV Vaccine Trials Network and the New York Influenza Center of Excellence.

Standardizing test methods to achieve comparable results goes far beyond being able to compare apples to apples, said Sally Quataert, Ph.D., director of Core Facilities for the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, and co-principle investigator for the grant renewal. Validated methods assure researchers that their experimental results are good science, and truly meaningful. Standard methods also directly contribute to translational science, where the results of studies are more readily affirmed by regulatory bodies, and with fewer conflicting studies.

Prior to 2004, Quataert was director of Immunobiological Laboratory Services at Wyeth Vaccines Research in Rochester for seven years. Her industry background prepared her to apply Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) standards to academic studies, making them more likely to withstand scrutiny by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as sound evidence that new treatments are safe and effective. If applied internationally, such standards would make drug candidates discovered at universities much easier to license to industry, with potential to increase the number of new drugs becoming available.

Also recently joining the RHIC executive committee was Tim Bushnell, Ph.D., director of the Flow Cytometry Core at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Bushnell's active role in the International Society of Analytical Cytology (ISAC) has positioned RHIC, not just to develop expertise, but also to take a leading role in the groups that are shaping related standards worldwide.

Flow cytometry is a method of counting and sorting cells that have been labeled by fluorescent markers which correspond with physical and chemical qualities of the cell. Modern flow cytometers can analyze thousands of cells in real time to unravel the complex interactions driving disease processes. The devices beam laser light into a stream of liquid which carries the cells to be analyzed. Detectors catch the patterns of fluorescent light that bounce off single cells as they pass through the laser. The cells have been prepared with fluorescent dyes that absorb the laser light and emit light at lower frequencies in scatter patterns that reveal information about the cell.

Modern instruments have multiple lasers and fluorescence detectors, with 18 fluorescence detectors now commonplace in larger research institutions. Increasing the number of lasers and detectors enables more precise identification of target cell populations by their characteristics. Four years ago, the RHIC had eight-color flow cytometry, but has since upgraded to 11- and 18-color cytometers with support from the Medical Center and its Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI). Researchers receive training on flow cytometry and other key discovery techniques and gain access to a growing suite of RHIC equipment. With the renewal of the NIAID grant, the center will continue to develop and standardize immunological methods.

Beyond general leadership and standard setting, the center will take the lead in the next five years in helping the field to make better use of three cutting-edge technologies of immense importance. The goal is to advance technologies to maturity so that they can be applied widely, with the new standards communicated through publications, the RHIC Web site and symposia.

The first technology is arrayed image reflectometry, which promises to be very useful in large-scale analysis of immune responses against multiple disease-causing proteins like those encountered during influenza outbreaks. Immune system proteins can be coated with a thin film that prevents light from reflecting off of them, but that become more reflective as the proteins bind to disease-related proteins. When several proteins to be tested are attached to a biochip, a great many proteins can be analyzed for little cost.

The grant renewal will also bring together RHIC experts in cytometry and in a second new technology: quantum dot nanostructures. These microscopic machines have optical qualities that can be harnessed to measure cellular qualities via flow cytometry with more precision than fluorescent dyes. Like dyes, the dots can be designed to inhabit certain regions of the cell, or cling to certain proteins, so that their number and characteristics can be measured. Dyes are an older technology, limited in number and with overlapping emission spectra, which means they interfere with each other. RHIC teams will seek to establish new Q-dot production methods to replace and extend dye capability. As RHIC machinery gets more complex, it will become increasingly able to pick apart and to build accurate immune cell models.

Thirdly, the team will seek to design better gating procedures. Flow cytometry separates cell types by brightness into groups, and gating is the process by which researchers select which cells go into each group. The current process in many labs is arbitrary, tedious and has poor reproducibility between operators because research teams select patterns of cell characteristics by eye. The field of flow cytometry is in desperate need of high-speed automation to process the mountains of data generated by the tests, and when gating the results, researchers said. The current process is greatly slowing the pace of discovery as research teams do double duty with lab work and time-consuming computational work.

One unique capability that drove the RHIC renewal was that the Medical Center has a world-leading core of biostatisticians along with leading immunologists. Led by Hulin Wu, Ph.D., chief of the Department of Biostatistics and Computational Biology, the biostatistics team within RHIC will seek to establish statistically-rigorous, automated gating protocols for flow cytometry analysis that will greatly increase the reproducibility of data and the speed of flow cytometry lab by lab.

Moderate wine intake may be way to a healthier heart

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:43:53 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Moderate wine intake may be the way to a healthier heart, as it is associated with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids which protects the vital organ, a new study suggests.

Omega-3 fatty acids, mainly derived from fish, are considered as protective against coronary heart disease and sudden cardiac death, thus their high blood concentration is definitely good for our health, the study said.

The study suggests that wine does better than other alcoholic drinks. This effect could be ascribed to compounds other than alcohol itself, representing a key to understanding the mechanism lying behind heart protection in moderate wine drinkers.

The IMMIDIET study examined 1,604 individuals from three geographical areas: south-west London in England, Limburg in Belgium and Abruzzo in Italy.

Thanks to close cooperation with general practitioners of these areas, all participants underwent a comprehensive medical examination, including a one year recall food frequency questionnaire to assess their dietary intake, alcohol consumption included.

Now European researchers found that moderate alcohol drinking acts like a 'trigger', boosting the amount of omega-3 fatty acids in our body, said an IMMIDIET release.

'Several studies have shown that moderate alcohol consumption, including wine, is associated with protection against coronary heart disease and ischemic stroke - said Romina di Giuseppe, co-author of the study, from the Research Laboratories at Catholic University of Campobasso.

These findings will be published in the January issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Calorie restriction and exercise show breast cancer prevention differences in postmenopausal women

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WASHINGTON, D.C. - Scientists at the University of Texas at Austin have identified pathways by which a reduced-calorie diet and exercise can modify a postmenopausal woman's risk of breast cancer.

The results, presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Seventh Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research, suggest that both caloric restriction and exercise affect pathways leading to mTOR, a molecule involved in integrating energy balance with cell growth. Dysregulation of the mTOR pathway is a contributing factor to various human diseases, including cancers. Diet and exercise reach mTOR through different means, with calorie restriction affecting more upstream pathways, which could explain why caloric restriction is more efficient in delaying tumor growth than exercise in animal models.

One of the few breast cancer modifiable risk factors is obesity, said lead author Leticia M. Nogueira, Ph.D., a research graduate assistant at the University of Texas. Our study may provide a good scientific basis for medical recommendations. If you're obese, and at high risk for breast cancer, diet and exercise could help prevent tumor growth.

Epidemiological data has suggested that inducing a so-called negative energy balance (where less energy is taken in than expended) through eating a low-calorie diet or increasing exercise levels, decreases the postmenopausal breast cancer risk associated with obesity. Although the mechanism responsible for these anti-obesity strategies was unknown, scientists have suspected hormone alteration plays a critical role. Increased fat tissue is known to be associated with alterations in adipokines, proteins secreted by fat tissue that help modify appetite and insulin resistance. For example, increased levels of leptin and decreased levels of adiponectin have been associated with breast cancer risk.

For the study, Nogueira and colleagues sought to compare the changes in adipokines, and their downstream signaling pathways proven to be altered in human breast cancers, following either caloric restriction or exercise in a mouse model of post-menopausal obesity.

For eight weeks, they administered a high-fat diet to 45 mice that had their ovaries surgically removed to model the post-menopausal state. During week nine of the study, the diet-induced obese mice were randomly assigned to one of three groups: a control group, permitted to eat at will; a group fed a diet reduced in calories by 30 percent; and a group that was permitted to eat at will but exercised on a treadmill for 45 minutes a day, five days a week. At week 16, researchers collected tissue from the mice for analysis.

Do you know if your blood pressure is high?

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:32:48 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) London, Nov 13 - Over 50 percent of people with high blood pressure might not be aware of their condition, a new study has found.

Franco Cappuccio of Warwick University Medical School led the team from Britain to participate in a European study examining awareness, treatment and control of high blood pressure, or hypertension, precursor of heart attacks and strokes.

The IMMIDIET study examined 1,604 people from south-west London, Limburg in Belgium and Abruzzo in Italy. All of them underwent a medical examination, including blood pressure - check-up and answered a lifestyle and health questionnaire.

The researchers found 24 percent of participants had high BP and 56 percent of those were not aware of their condition. Of those that were aware, less than half had their high BP under control.

Looking at the differences between regions, researchers found the British participants had lower BP overall and better control than the Italians and Belgians, said a Warwick release.

'Our results show that high blood pressure is a looming problem for Europe. Although in the UK the management of high blood pressure is better as compared to some other countries, in part due to the incentives that GPs receive to achieve blood pressure targets,' said Cappuccio.

The research was published in the Journal of Hypertension.

Incubator care at birth reduces depression risk in adult life

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 11:11:53 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Toronto, Nov 12 - A Canadian study says babies who receive incubator care after birth are two to three times less likely to suffer depression in their adult life.

The study was conducted by scientists from Montreal University, in collaboration with researchers from Montreal-based Sainte Justine Hospital Research Center, McGill University and Douglas Hospital Research Centre and the Britain-based Institute of Psychiatry at King's College over a period of many years.

The research was undertaken following observations about mammal behaviour where separation between mother and child after birth can lead to behavioural problems in adulthood.

'Our hypothesis was that mother-baby separation resulting from incubator care could heighten depression in adolescence or adulthood,' said study co-author and psychiatrist Richard E. Tremblay of Montreal University Monday.

'Instead, we found that incubator care could decrease the risk of depression two-to-three fold by the age of 21,' he added. It was close to three times for girls.

As part of the study, 1,212 children were recruited from kindergartens. These children had been picked up for another study in 1986.

The researchers obtained reports on their birth condition, obstetrical complications and incubator care from medical records.

After subjecting these participants to psychiatric assessments at the ages of 15 and 21, the researchers found that out of the 16.5 percent babies placed in incubators, only five percent suffered major depression by age 21.

Among those who were not placed in incubators, nine percent developed depression, which is the average rate in society.

The researchers found correlation between decreased depression and incubator care after factoring participant age, weight at birth, family adversity or maternal depression.

They also found that girls were three times less likely to experience depression by the age of 15 if they had received incubator care at birth.

'This difference was due to the fact that more girls experience depression than boys during adolescence and how boys suffer depression in later adolescent years,' said study co-author Frank Vitaro of Montreal University.

According to the researchers, children who received incubator care as babies, received more emotional support from their mothers throughout childhood because they were perceived as more vulnerable.

'Incubator care was not the sole factor that shielded participants from future depression,' said psychiatrist David Gourion of Montreal University.

'We believe that incubator care is a trigger for a complex chain of biological and emotional factors that helped decrease depression,' he said.

The study has been published in the journal Pyschiatry Research.

Kids safe and secure with grandparents around

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 14:19:14 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Nov 3 - Kids are safe, secure and protected from injuries when grandparents are around, a boon for working parents, according to a new study.

Compared to organised daycare or care by the mother or other relatives, having a grandmother watch a child was associated with a decreased risk of injury for the child.

According to researchers, the odds of injury were significantly greater among children whose parents never married, compared with children whose mothers stayed married.

Similarly, odds of injury were greater for children living in homes in which the father did not co-reside. These associations were independent of family income, according to a Bloomberg press release. The results were published in the November issue of Paediatrics.

'Recent growth in the number of grandparents providing childcare has some observers concerned they don't adhere to modern safety practices,' said co-author David Bishai, professor at Bloomberg School's Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health.

'This research tells us not only is there no evidence to support this assumption, but families that choose grandparents to care for their children experience fewer child injuries.'

Bishai and colleagues analysed data from the National Evaluation of the Healthy Steps for Young Children Programme, which includes information on over 5,500 newborns enrolled in 15 US cities in 1996-97 with follow-up for 30-33 months.

Data on child care arrangements reported by the mother were linked to claims reporting children's office visits, allowing researchers to identify medically attended injuries.

'As injuries are the number one cause of death for children in US, it's critical we continue to determine risk and protective factors,' said study co-author Andrea C. Gielen, director of the Centre for Injury Research and Policy at the Department of Health Policy and Management at Bloomberg.

Shed tears to stay healthy

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 12:20:39 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) London, Nov 11 - Are you alexithymic or anhedonic? You may profit from therapeutic interventions to stimulate your lacrimal apparatus. In other words, if you can't feel emotions or are unable to derive pleasure from good experiences, make yourself weep with medical help, scientists across the world advise.

And if you don't suffer from either symptom, carry on weeping still, for good health, they suggest.

Why we cry and what happens when we do is still a mystery, but that hasn't stopped researchers from studying its effects. Their latest research suggests that crying is not only a stress-buster, but is good at healing too.

A clue to the purpose of crying perhaps lies in the experimental finding that emotional tears contain different compounds from regular eye watering, such as that triggered by chopping onions.

Tears associated with emotion have higher levels of some proteins, and of manganese and potassium, and hormones, including prolactin, than mere eye watering. Manganese is an essential nutrient. Too little of it can lead to slowed blood clotting, skin problems, and lowered cholesterol levels.

Potassium is involved in nerve working, muscle control and blood pressure. Prolactin is a hormone involved in stress and plays a role in the immune system and other body functions.

William Frey, professor of pharmaceutics at the University of Minnesota, is quoted by The Independent as saying: 'Because unalleviated stress can increase our risk for heart attack and damage certain areas of our brain, the human ability to cry has survival value.'

New research shows that crying increases arousal of certain body functions to ward off some physiological threats. In support of this theory, some research shows that skin sensitivity increases during and after crying, and that breathing deepens - both considered healthy signs.

'It is possible that crying is both an arousing distress signal and a means to restore psychological and physiological balance,' say researchers at the University of South Florida. Others suggest that emotional tears signal distress and encourage group behaviour, as well as improve social support and inhibit aggression.

Researchers at the University of South Florida found that almost everyone feels better after a cry and that personality has a big effect on how often we cry.

'The overwhelming majority of our participants reported mood improvement after crying. Our results may have also implications for clinical interventions,' the researchers said.

Currently research is underway in several countries on the therapeutic effects of crying. Psychologists at the University of Florida are using scans to locate the areas of the brain involved in crying.

The Tilberg University in The Netherlands is studying the social impact of crying. Researchers at Bunka Women's University and Nagano College in Japan are simulating crying experiences to understand their health values.

The increasing research into crying and its beneficial health effects may also make shedding tears less of a taboo behaviour.

William Frey, author of 'Crying: The Mystery of Tears', says: 'It is no accident that crying has survived evolutionary pressures. Humans are the only animals to evolve this ability to shed tears in response to emotional stress, and it is likely that crying survived the pressures of natural selection because it has some survival value.'

Weeping by numbers:

20 percent of bouts of crying last longer than 30 minutes

8 percent go on for longer than one hour

70 percent of criers make no attempt to hide their crying

77 percent of crying takes place at home

15 percent at work or in the car

40 percent of people weep alone

39 percent of crying occurs in the evening, the most popular time compared with morning, afternoon, and night -

6-8 p.m. is the most common time for crying

88.8 percent feel better after a cry

47: average number of times a woman cries each year

7: average annual number of crying episodes for a man

1918 Spanish flu records could hold the key to solving future pandemics

Sun, 09 Nov 2008 04:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Ninety years after Australian scientists began their race to stop the spread of Spanish flu in Australia, University of Melbourne researchers are hoping records from the 1918 epidemic may hold the key to preventing future deadly pandemic outbreaks.

This month marks the 90th anniversary of the return of Australian WWI troops from Europe, sparking Australian scientists' race to try and contain a local outbreak of the pandemic, which killed 50 million people worldwide.

Researchers from the University of Melbourne's Melbourne School of Population Health, supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council grant, are analysing UK data from the three waves of the pandemic in 1918 and 1919.

They hope that modern high-speed computing and mathematical modeling techniques will help them solve some of the questions about the pandemic which have puzzled scientists for close to a century.

Professorial Fellow John Mathews and colleagues are analysing the records of 24,000 people collected from 12 locations in the UK during the Spanish flu outbreak including Cambridge University, public boarding schools and elementary schools.

He says gaining a better understanding of how and why the virus spread will help health authorities make decisions about how to tackle future pandemics.

In the 1918/19 pandemic, mortality was greatest among previously healthy young adults, when normally you would expect that elderly people would be the most likely to die,'' Professor Mathews says We don't really understand why children and older adults were at lesser risk.

One explanation may be that children were protected by innate immunity while older people may have been exposed to a similar virus in the decades before 1890 which gave them partial but long-lasting protection.

Those born after 1890 were young adults in 1918. They did not have the innate immunity of children and as they weren't exposed to the pre-1890 virus they had little or no immunity against the 1918 virus. We can't prove it but it is a plausible explanation.

Another striking feature is that the pandemic appeared in three waves, in the summer and autumn of 1918 and then the following winter.

One theory being examined to explain why some people were only affected in the second or third wave is that because of recent exposure to seasonal influenza virus they had short-lived protection against the new pandemic virus.

The attack rates in the big cities weren't as high and this is probably because many people had been exposed to ordinary flu viruses, giving short-lived immunity,'' he says.

In the English boarding schools, where there was social demarcation, children were probably less exposed to seasonal influenza viruses in earlier years; without that protection, pandemic attack rates were much higher than in ordinary government elementary schools.

If we can provide a detailed time course of epidemics and the attack rates at different times, that information can be extremely useful in determining how a future pandemic might progress,'' says Professor Mathews.

He says initial findings point strongly to the value of short-lived immunity to provide protection or partial protection against the early waves of a virus.

This is particularly important when considering the stockpiling of drugs and vaccines to protect the community against a virus.

The early implications of our study are that there may be benefit in providing short-lived immunity that is broadly based rather than specific,'' he says.

If another flu pandemic were to come along and you have a vaccine, it may be better to use it even if it is against a different sub-type of the virus.

Listening to classical music may reduce pregnancy stress

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:55:45 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) London- Listening to Brahms' Lullaby, Beethoven and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star could reduce pregnancy stress, a recent study suggests.

Experts from Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan split pregnant women into two groups, 116 given music CDs and 120 receiving normal pregnancy care and acting as controls.

The study has appeared in the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

The women given the music received four CDs, each containing about 30 minutes of music.

One CD featured lullabies, a second contained classical music like Beethoven and Debussy, a third featured nature sounds and a fourth was based on soothing crystal music of Chinese nursery rhymes and songs.

The tempo of the music was set at 60 to 80 beats per minute, the same as the human heart rate. The women were told to listen to at least one disc all the way through every day for two weeks.

Women who listened to CDs of lullabies, classical music and sounds of nature felt more relaxed than those who did not, it found, reported the online edition of of Daily Mail.

'The music group showed significant reductions in stress, anxiety and depression after just two weeks, using three established measurement scales,' said Chung-Hey Chen, who led the study.

'In comparison, the control group showed a much smaller reduction in stress, while their anxiety and depression scores showed little or no improvement.'

Most women don't find sexual problems upsetting: Survey

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 14:10:33 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Oct 31 - The majority of women who experience low libido, poor arousal or face difficulties in orgasming, don't seem upset by these problems.

These findings are based on one of the largest ever studies of its kind, which probed 32,000 women aged between 18 and 100 plus years across the US, regarding distress bearing on sex life, including anger, guilt, frustration and worry.

'Sexual problems are common in women, but problems associated with personal distress, those which are truly bothersome and affect a woman's quality of life, are much less frequent.' said Jan Shifren of Massachusetts General Hospital -, who led the study.

Though women over 65 years faced most of sexual problems, they reported the lowest levels of distress. The most distressed were women aged 45 to 64, according to an MGH press release.

The youngest group, aged between 18 and 44 years, had lower levels of both problems and distress. Depressed women were more than twice as likely to report distress over any kind of sexual problem rather than non depressed women.

About 43 percent of respondents experienced some degree of sexual problem, with 39 percent reporting low desire, 26 percent problems with arousal and 21 percent difficulties with orgasm. But distress bearing on any of these problems was restricted only to 12 percent of the volunteers.

'Although sexual problems were very common in women over age 65, these problems often weren't associated with distress,' Shifren, associate professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Harvard Medical School, added.

'Several factors could be behind the lower levels of distress in the oldest group. If their partners also have low desire, it may not be looked on as a problem, or additional health issues could be of greater concern.

'While distressing sexual problems are much less common in women than sexual problems overall, they still affect approximately one in eight adult women,' she added.

'As part of a thorough health assessment, it's important that health care providers ask their female patients if they have sexual concerns and if those problems are associated with distress,' she said.

The report will appear in the November issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Pneumococcal vaccine could prevent numerous deaths, save costs during a flu pandemic, model predicts

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A new predictive model shows that vaccinating infants with 7 valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV7)--the current recommendation--not only saves lives and money during a normal flu season by preventing related bacterial infections; it also would prevent more than 357,000 deaths during an influenza pandemic, while saving $7 billion in costs.

Keith P. Klugman, PhD, professor of global health at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health, will present results of the research using the predictive model at the joint ICAAC/IDSA meeting in Washington, DC, Oct. 25-28. (Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy/Infectious Disease Society of America.

Bacterial infections, particularly pneumococcal disease, can follow a viral illness such as flu and cause secondary infections that worsen flu symptoms and increase influenza-related risk. Bacterial infections may have been the cause of nearly half of the deaths of young soldiers during the 1918 flu pandemic.

We've known for years that bacterial infections can develop after influenza, says Klugman. Unlike the 1918 flu pandemic, which preceded the antibiotic era, we now have vaccines that can prevent these types of pneumococcal infections. This model shows what a dramatically different outcome we could expect with standard PCV vaccination.

Klugman and colleagues at Harvard University, i3 Innovus in Medford, Ma. and Wyeth Research constructed a model to estimate the public health and economic impact of current pneumococcal vaccination practices in the context of an influenza pandemic.

Since 2000 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Immunization Practices Advisory Committee (ACIP) has been recommending PCV vaccinations for infants and children.

The new predictive model was used to compare the results of no PCV vaccination to the current routine vaccination of infants less than two years old. The researchers assessed the effect of vaccination policies under both normal and pandemic influenza conditions. They included both direct vaccination effects in vaccinated individuals and indirect vaccination effects (called herd immunity) in the unvaccinated. For manifestations of pneumococcal disease, they included invasive pneumococcal disease (meningitis or bacteremia), all-cause pneumonia and all-cause acute otitis media (ear infections). The model's estimates were based on the 1918 pandemic.

The new model predicted that current pneumococcal vaccination practices reduce costs in a typical flu season by $1.4 billion and would reduce costs by $7 billion in a pandemic. In a pandemic, they would prevent 1.24 million cases of pneumonia and 357,000 pneumococcal-related deaths.

Our research shows that routine pneumococcal vaccination is a proactive approach that can greatly reduce the effects of a future flu pandemic, says Klugman. Countries that have not yet implemented a pneumococcal vaccination program may want to consider this as part of their pandemic flu preparedness.

Breast milk provides baby molecule to build immunity

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:58:13 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Oct 27 - A molecule holds the key to mothers' ability to strengthen the immunity of the baby through breast milk, according to a latest research.

The study highlights the amazing change that takes place in a mother's body when she begins producing breast milk.

Years before her pregnancy, cells that produce antibodies against intestinal infections travel around her circulatory system and regularly take an 'off-ramp' to her intestine.

There they stand guard against infections like cholera or rotavirus. But once she begins lactating, some of these antibody-producing cells suddenly begin taking a different off-ramp that leads to the mammary glands.

That way, when her baby nurses, the antibodies go straight to their intestine and offer protection while the baby builds up its own immunity. This is why previous studies have shown that formula-fed infants have twice the incidence of diarroheal illness as breast-fed infants.

Until now, scientists did not know how the mother's body signalled the antibody-producing cells to take the different off-ramp. The new study identifies the molecule that gives them the green light.

'Everybody hears that breast feeding is good for the baby,' said Eric Wilson, Brigham Young University microbiologist who is a co-author of the study.

'But why is it good? One of the reasons is that mothers' milk carries protective antibodies which shield the newborn from infection, and this study demonstrates the molecular mechanisms used by the mother's body to get these antibody-producing cells where they need to be.'

Understanding the role of the molecule, called CCR10, also has implications for potential future efforts to help mothers better protect their infants, according to a release from the Brigham University.

Wilson's other co-authors are Yuetching Law, Kathryn Distelhorst and Erica D. Hill.

Harvard Medical School co-authors are Olivier Morteau, Craig Gerard, Bao Lu, Sorina Ghiran and Miriam Rits. Stanford University School of Medicine co-authors are Raymond Kwan, Nicole H. Lazarus and Eugene C. Butcher.

These findings are scheduled for publication in Nov 1 issue of the Journal of Immunology.

Vaccinating family members protects newborns from flu

Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:01:50 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Oct 27 - Vaccinating mothers and family members against flu before the newborns leave hospitals, creates a 'cocooning effect' to protect babies from the life-threatening virus, a research has found.

The hospital-based outreach tested in this study proved effective at boosting immunisation rates in parents - especially new fathers - and siblings who otherwise may not be vaccinated.

'The Centres for Disease Control - and Prevention does not recommend vaccinating newborns for flu because they're too young, however they're a part of the population that is at highest risk,' explained Emmanuel - Walter, a paediatric infectious disease specialist at Duke Children's Hospital.

'Newborns have the highest rate of hospitalisations due to influenza when compared to any other age group of children,' comparable 'to people of age group 80 and older. And, in some seasons the influenza-associated mortality rate is highest among infants. We want to protect the newborn by vaccinating the entire family, and send parents home with one less thing to worry about,' added Walter.

The study was carried out from October 2007 to February 2008 at Durham Regional Hospital. Educational material was distributed to new mothers, and a flu vaccine clinic was set up to facilitate the vaccinations for other family members around the time of a newborn's birth. Duke University Medical Centre served as the comparison site.

Depression during pregnancy doubles risk of premature delivery

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 13:33:16 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Oct 23 - Depressed pregnant women face twice the risk of premature delivery than their counterparts with no such symptoms, according to a new study.

Besides the increased risk of premature delivery, the study found that the risk grows with the severity of the depressive symptoms, among pregnant women.

These findings also provide preliminary evidence that social and reproductive risk factors, obesity, and stressful events may aggravate depression-premature delivery link, according to researchers.

'Premature delivery is the leading cause of infant mortality, and yet we don't know what causes it,' said co-author De-Kun Li, a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research in Oakland.

'This study adds to emerging evidence that depression during early pregnancy may interfere with the neuroendocrine pathways and subsequently placental function,' Li said.

'The placenta and neuroendocrine functions play an important role in maintaining the health of a pregnancy and determining the onset of labour,' Li explained.

Because the majority of the women in the study did not use anti-depressants, the study provides a clear look at the link between depression and preterm delivery.

The study, among the first to examine depression and premature delivery in a representative and diverse population in the US, looked at 791 pregnant Kaiser Permanente members in San Francisco city and county from October 1996 through October 1998.

Researchers interviewed the women around their 10th week of pregnancy and found that 41 percent of the women reported significant or severe depressive symptoms, according to a Kaiser Permanente press release.

The women with less severe depressive symptoms had a 60 percent higher risk of premature delivery -- defined as delivery at less than 37 completed weeks of gestation -- compared with women without significant depressive symptoms, and the women with severe depressive symptoms had more than twice the risk.

In addition to being the leading cause of infant mortality and morbidity, preterm delivery is also the leading medical expenditure for infants, with estimated annual cost of about $26 billion in the US alone.

The study is published online in the Oxford University Press' journal Human Reproduction.

Nutrition advice best served with family in mind

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers at the University of Sheffield and Royal Holloway, University of London will argue today (21 October 2008) that the nation's diet is unlikely to improve significantly if healthy eating policies fail to take into account the diverse nature of contemporary family life.

Recent government initiatives have attempted to change people's dietary behaviour and the amount of exercise they take. But, despite compelling evidence of the need for healthier eating, families remain ambivalent about altering their eating habits.

The researchers argue that if government initiatives, such as improving the quality of school meals or increasing the nation's consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables, are to succeed they need to acknowledge that families have differing domestic routines, relationships and resources and this affects how and what they eat.

Much of the current policy literature provides factual information on healthy eating and is aimed at individuals rather than families. However, the researchers discovered that decisions about what to eat aren't simply a matter of individual choice but are instead rooted in people's diverse family circumstances, embedded in the routines and rhythms of their everyday lives, subject to their available resources and shaped by their social, ethnic and religious ties.

Most people are aware that they need to eat 'five-a-day' but many don't achieve these targets because they are forced to act within their circumstances. Poorer families may be acting rationally when serving 'junk' food to their children knowing that 'healthier' meals will simply go to waste. To truly improve the nation's diet a better understanding of social and cultural conventions is required in order to inform more effective health advice and social policy around families and food.

Professor Jackson of the University of Sheffield said: If government advice on healthy eating is to have a serious impact, it needs to be framed within a better understanding of the diversity of our everyday family lives.

Policies and interventions have often looked to redress a perceived deficit in family relationships and practices (e.g. parenting skills). Although government policy makes some acknowledgement of the impact of poverty and other social factors, this often takes second place to the 'blame' culture.

People may have been shocked to see mothers sneaking 'junk' food into schools after Jamie Oliver's high-profile intervention but instead of turning the spotlight on them, the government needs to look at the root causes of why parents behave in this way.

The research provides convincing evidence that food is a powerful lens through which to view recent changes in family life (and vice versa). As families are changing - with fewer and later marriages, more single-person households, increased numbers of divorced and separated couples - so too are food cultures. This has included the rise of 'convenience' foods, new cooking technologies and an increased emphasis on snacking rather than formal meals.

Funded by The Leverhulme Trust, the research provides new insights into contemporary family life and challenges many received ideas about families and food.

Other research findings include:

Genetic clues to male baldness found

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:53:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Toronto, Oct 16 - Researchers have found two DNA variants in Caucasian men that could be linked to higher risk of male pattern baldness.

Male pattern baldness is the most common form of baldness which leads to loss of hair in a well-defined pattern, beginning with the temples and resulting in a distinctive M-shaped hairline.

But the new findings may lead to an early prediction about hair loss and a future treatment to check male pattern baldness which affects one in three males over the age of 45.

As part of their research, medical scientists from McGill University in Montreal, GlaxoSmithKline -, and King's College in London conducted a genome-wide association study of 1,125 Caucasian men who had been assessed for male pattern baldness, a McGill university release said.

They found two previously unknown genetic variants on chromosome 20 - that substantially increased the risk of male pattern baldness.

To confirm these findings, they carried out further research on additional 1,650 Caucasian men.

'I would presume male pattern baldness is caused by the same genetic variation in non-Caucasians,' said Brent Richards, an assistant professor in genetic epidemiology at McGill University.

'But we haven't studied those populations, so we can't say for certain,' he said, cautioning that the breakthrough does not mean a treatment or cure for male pattern baldness is imminent.

'We've only identified a cause,' Richards said.

'Treating male pattern baldness will require more research. But, of course, the first step in finding a way to treat most conditions it is to first identify the cause,' he said.

'Early prediction before hair loss starts may lead to some interesting therapies that are more effective than treating late stage hair loss,' added Tim Spector of King's College, London.

Researchers have long been aware of a genetic variant on the X chromosome that was linked to male pattern baldness, said Richards.

'That's where the idea that baldness is inherited from the mother's side of the family comes from,' he explained.

'However it's been long recognised that there must be several genes causing male pattern baldness. Until now, no one could identify those other genes. If you have both the risk variants we discovered on chromosome 20 and the unrelated known variant on the X chromosome, your risk of becoming bald increases sevenfold,' said Richards.

'What's startling is that one in seven men has both of those risk variants. That's 14 percent of the total population.'

It is estimated that about a third of all men are affected by male pattern baldness by age 45, taking a huge economic and social toll.

Hair transplantation in the US alone cost $115 million in 2007, and therapy for male-pattern baldness globally generates many times more revenue.

The findings have been published in the journal Nature Genetics.

Anti-smoking hospital programmes successful: Indian American expert

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:02:20 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Oct 14 - Hospital-based anti-smoking programmes, along with referrals for cardiac rehabilitation, seem to help patients quit smoking after a heart attack, according to a study co-authored by Indian American cardiologist Susmita Parashar.

'The findings are important because cardiac rehabilitation and hospital-based smoking cessation programmes appear to be under-utilised in current clinical practice and should be potentially considered as a structural measure of health care quality for patients with heart attack,' Parashar, from the Emory University School of Medicine, said.

Emory University researchers studied 639 patients who smoked at the time of their hospitalisation after heart attack. Six months later, 297 of the patients - about 47 percent of them - had quit smoking.

The odds of quitting were greater among patients who received discharge recommendations for cardiac rehabilitation and those who were treated at a facility offering an inpatient smoking cessation program. However, individual counselling was not associated with quit rates.

Parashar said the study shows that patients recovering from a heart attack are more likely to quit smoking if they are referred to a cardiac rehabilitation programme or if a hospital-based smoking cessation programme is available to them.

The report appeared in the October issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA and Archives journals.

Parashar graduated from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences -, New Delhi, in 1996. She attended State University of New York, Syracuse for her internal medicine internship from 1997 to 1998. After completing her residency at Medical College of Georgia, Augusta in 2000, she joined the general internal medicine department at Emory University as an academic faculty member.

In 2003, she became an assistant professor of medicine at Emory. She completed her Master of Public Health and Master of Science from Emory in 2005.

Her research interests include women and heart disease, racial and sex disparities in heart disease, depression and coronary heart disease and role of inflammation and oxidation in outcome of coronary heart disease.

Groundbreaking, lifesaving TB vaccine a step closer

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers at Aberystwyth University, following a number of years of investment by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), have licensed ground-breaking research to a non-profit product development partnership working to develop new, more effective vaccines against Tuberculosis (TB). This development will give hope that significantly better prevention and treatment of TB will be available within the next few years.

The Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation, which was founded to develop new, cost-effective TB vaccines for use in the developing world, has licensed a discovery of a protein that is able to 'wake up' dormant Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria that cause TB. The research and the fundamental knowledge that came out of it could be used to develop a vaccine that either stops infecting TB bacteria from taking hold or, for the one in every three people world-wide who are already carrying a latent TB infection, prevents dormant bacteria from 'waking up'. Another possible strategy could be to deliberately 'wake up' dormant bacteria in a controlled way so they can be destroyed with antibiotics.

In the late 1990s, researchers funded by BBSRC discovered a new family of proteins that were able to resuscitate bacteria found harmlessly in and around the human body. When 'awoken' from dormancy the bacteria were then much more susceptible to attack from antibiotics. The team led by Professors Mike Young and Doug Kell at Aberystwyth University together with Prof Arseny Kaprelyants of the Bakh Institute of Biochemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, identified the gene in the bacterium that produced the protein and went on to discover the corresponding genes in M. tuberculosis. This research has now been licensed by Aeras after years of development. Aeras plans to take its recombinant BCG (AERAS-407) vaccine, based in part on the Aberystwyth work, to clinical trial in 2009.

Prof Young, now based in Aberystwyth University's newly formed Institute of Biological, Rural and Environmental Studies, said: Current TB treatments can go on for over six months and can still leave bacteria in the body that can cause the disease when they resume active growth and multiplication. Our discovery, which is now being developed into a vaccine, might help prevent the establishment of persistent infections in the first place or, alternatively, it might prevent persisting organisms in individuals with latent TB from reawakening at all.

TB kills around 1.7 million people around the world every year. I hope that our research will now be rapidly translated into a vaccine that can help as many of these people as possible.

Dr Alf Game, BBSRC Deputy Director of Research, said: This discovery came out of research in the basic biology of a different bacterium. It shows that we need to strive to understand the fundamental workings of the world around us and from that we can identify how to tackle challenges, such as dangerous diseases, that we all face.

Sweat it out: UH study examines ability of sweat patches to monitor bone loss

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Some health assessments that are routinely carried out on Earth are not practical when the patients are free-floating astronauts on long space flights, such as missions to Mars or the Moon. A new, NASA-funded study from the University of Houston department of health and human performance will examine how well sweat patches the size of adhesive strips can detect levels of chemicals that may indicate bone loss.

Current assessments involve blood tests, urine analysis or bone density scans, all of which are time-consuming, inconvenient to the working astronauts or, in the case of bone density scans, require large equipment that's not practical on a space station, said Mark Clarke, associate professor and principal investigator. These patches are small, non-intrusive, and placed on the skin to collect a sweat sample. The sample is then analyzed for biomarkers of bone loss markers, such as calcium.

The three-year, $780,000 study will examine three types of sweat patches, each differing in the way the sweat is collected and extracted from the devices. One device collects the sweat between the skin and a plastic layer; another is a commercially used patch that absorbs the sweat and is then reconstituted with water. The third is called a Microfabricated Sweat Patch (MSP) built using micro-chip inspired-technology. Sweat is removed from the MSP using a mini-centrifuge. The technology was developed by Clarke and Daniel Feeback, a lead scientist with NASA's Life Science Directorate.

Our goal is to develop a micro-fabricated sweat patch that collects a sweat sample from the skin, performs a biomarker analysis and immediately provides a read-out to the user, said Clarke. The first phase of the study will determine if sweat can be used to monitor bone loss. Next, it will determine which patch technology most accurately measures the chemicals associated with bone loss.

The last phase of the study will look specifically at the MSP and will involve 60 people, from young college students to elderly men and women, to new Air Force recruits. Each will wear a series of patches during normal daily activities and then perform exercises at the UH Laboratory of Integrated Physiology. The patches then will be collected and the sweat analyzed. Changes in bone also will be monitored using bone mineral density scans performed in the department. Clarke expects this phase of the project to span at least eight months.

Being in a microgravity environment causes astronauts' bodies to lose more bone mineral than they can replace, which makes them vulnerable to fractures and breaks. Even when they return to Earth, the bone loss continues as their bodies slowly begin the process of replacing the bone mineral content. This is a critical concern, especially as the space program considers longer space missions to Mars or the Moon.

Clarke says the research has applications for those susceptible to bone loss, such as the elderly, post-menopausal women and adolescent girls

Typically, it takes up to six months to see if changes in your exercise and eating habits are helping to maintain or increase bone mineral density, Clarke said. Astronauts on long flights need this information quicker so that they can make adjustments to their exercise protocols, diet or drug treatments. Similarly, bone loss in women can be seen as early as the teen years, so this kind of fast and easy screening device can provide advance notice to fend off serious bone density issues later in their lives.

A stronger future for the elderly

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Experts at The University of Nottingham are to investigate the effect of nutrients on muscle maintenance in the hope of determining better ways of keeping up our strength as we get old.

The researchers, based at the School of Graduate Entry Medicine and Health in Derby, want to know what sort of exercise we can take and what food we should eat to slow down the natural loss of skeletal muscle with ageing.

The team from the Department of Clinical Physiology, which has over 20 years experience in carrying out this type of metabolic study, need to recruit 16 healthy male volunteers in two specific age groups to help in it's research.

Skeletal muscles make up about half of our body weight and are responsible for controlling movement and maintaining posture. However, at around 50 years of age our muscles begin to waste at approximately 0.5 per cent to one per cent a year. It means that an 80 year old may only have 70 per cent of the muscle of a 50 year old.

Since the strength of skeletal muscle is proportional to muscle size, such wasting makes it harder to carry out daily activities requiring strength, such as climbing stairs and leads to a loss of independence and an increased risk of falls and fractures.

In order for skeletal muscles to maintain their size, the large reservoirs of muscle protein require constant replenishment in the way of amino acids from protein contained within the food we eat. In fact, amino acids from our food act not only as the building blocks of muscle proteins but also actually 'tell' our muscle cells to build proteins.

Recent research from the clinical physiology team has shown that the cause of muscle wasting with ageing appears to be an attenuation of muscle building in response to protein feeding. In other words, as we age we lose the ability to covert the protein in the food we eat in to muscle tissue. The proposed research will investigate the mechanisms responsible for this deficit.

Dr Philip Atherton, who is currently recruiting volunteers, said: I am really excited to be involved in this project because if we can determine ways to better maintain muscle mass as we age it will greatly benefit us all.

The researchers are looking for 16 healthy, non-smoking, male volunteers aged 18 to 25 and 65 to 75.

Initially, the volunteers will undergo a health screening and then on a different day, under the supervision of a doctor, will be infused with an amino acid mixture to simulate feeding along with a 'tagged' amino acid that allows them to assess muscle building. To make these measures, blood samples will be taken from the arm and muscle biopsies from the thigh muscle under local anaesthesia. Volunteers will receive an honorarium to cover their expenses.

Good bedtime habits ensure sound sleep

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:00:49 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) London, Aug 22 - Good bedtime habits, not sleeping pills, is the long-term solution to insomnia, a new study in Germany has confirmed.

Many people sleep better during holidays and long to sleep well all the time. But good habits, besides being free of worries help in sound sleep, according to the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care.

The institute suggested what bedtime habits could help, how well relaxation techniques work, how sleep changes throughout life and that adults need less sleep.

'Prescription sleeping pills can be important in certain situations, but they can cause a lot of adverse effects. For older people, sleep medication can increase the risk of falling, as well as interfering with other medicines,' warned the institute director Peter Sawicki.

'Sleeping pills are - not the best way to solve underlying problems like depression or painful conditions that are interfering with a good night's sleep,' he said.

Reading and watching TV in bed could actually make it harder to sleep. If people cannot sleep, it is better for them to get out of bed and do something else rather than focusing on trying to sleep.

Getting up at the same time every morning can help too. Napping during the day might make it harder for you to sleep at night if you are struggling with chronic insomnia.

It is also important to avoid drinking caffeinated drinks and alcohol in the evening. 'Most people know that coffee, cola or black tea can interfere with their sleep,' said Sawicki.

'But many do not realise that alcohol is one of the major causes of a bad night's sleep. About 20 percent of adults in industrial countries have problems sleeping at one time or another. The institute analysed scientific studies that cover a wide range of research on sleep and insomnia.

'Trials have shown that many people could get to sleep a little sooner if they learned relaxation techniques to help them 'switch off' when it is time to go to sleep.'

Studies have shown that as we get older, we actually need less sleep on average. While children and teenagers generally need eight or more hours sleep every night, by the time people are 40, they usually only need seven hours a night.

The Institute's website, www.informedhealthonline.org, provides the public with information about current medical developments and research on important health issues.

Researchers revive organ function in old age

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:20:05 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Washington, Aug 11 - Age retards the ability of cells to get rid of damaged protein, which only accumulates in the body as toxin and becomes more pronounced in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

However, Yeshiva University scientists have been able to prevent this age-related decline in an entire organ, the liver, for instance, showing organs of older animals functioned as efficiently as of younger ones.

These findings suggest that therapies for boosting protein clearance might help stave off some of the decline that accompany old age, said Ana Maria Cuervo, co-author of the study, associate professor in the departments of developmental & molecular biology, medicine and anatomy & structural biology of Yeshiva's Albert Einstein College.

The cells of all organisms have several surveillance systems designed to find, digest and recycle damaged proteins. Many studies have documented that these processes become less efficient with age, allowing protein to gradually accumulate inside cells.

But researchers continue debating whether this protein build-up actually contributes to the functional losses of ageing or instead is merely associated with those losses. The Einstein College study was aimed at resolving the controversy.

One of these surveillance systems - responsible for handling 30 percent or more of damaged cellular protein - uses molecules known as chaperones to seek out damaged proteins.

After finding such a protein, the chaperone ferries it towards one of the cell's many lysosomes - membrane-bound sacs filled with enzymes. When the chaperone and its cargo 'dock' on a receptor molecule on the lysosome's surface, the damaged protein is drawn into the lysosome and rapidly digested by its enzymes.

In previous work, Cuervo found that the chaperone surveillance system, in particular, becomes less efficient as cells become older, resulting in a build-up of undigested proteins within the cells.

She also detected the primary cause for this age-related decline: a fall-off in the number of lysosomal receptors capable of binding chaperones and their damaged proteins. Could replenishing lost receptors in older animals maintain the efficiency of this protein-removal system throughout an animal's lifespan and, perhaps, maintain the function of the animal's cells and organs as well?

To find out, Cuervo created a transgenic mouse model equipped with an extra gene - one that codes for the receptor that normally declines in number with increasing age. Another genetic manipulation allowed Cuervo to turn on this extra gene only in the liver and at a time of her choosing, merely by changing the animals' diet.

To keep the level of the receptor constant throughout life, Cuervo waited until mice were six months old - before turning on the added receptor gene.

When the mice were examined at 22 to 26 months of age -, the liver cells of transgenic mice digested and recycled protein far more efficiently than in their normal counterparts of the same age - and, in fact, just as efficiently as in normal six-month old mice.

Cuervo next plans to study animal models of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative brain diseases to see whether maintaining efficient protein clearance in the brain might help in treating them.

The study has been published in the online edition of Nature Medicine.

Peers' jeers rob obese kids of cheer

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:22:36 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Taunts or jeers of peers can rob obese adolescents of peace of mind and result in health and psychological problems that overshadow their young adulthood.

Ryan Adams, assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati and William Bukowski, professor at Concordia University, Montreal, examined peer victimisation as a predictor of depression and body mass index in obese and non-obese adolescents.

Adams explained that while peer victimisation is comparable to bullying, bullying behaviour typically involves one-on-one targeting while peer victimisation can also entail victimisation that can come from the peer group in general.

Over a four-year period, the study found lower self-esteem and increased depression and body mass index for obese females who felt they were victimised by their peers.

Obese males reported increased depression and lower feelings about physical appearance. However, negative feelings about their physical appearance earlier in the study were linked to a decrease in body mass index as they got older.

For non-obese males and females, there was no link between peer victimisation and increased body mass index, but there were links to negative feelings about physical appearance as they got older.

'Victimisation may not only reinforce the negative self-concepts that a risk factor for victimisation, such as obesity, may cause, but a risk factor for victimisation, such as obesity, will also make it more likely that the adolescent will be victimised indefinitely,' Adams said.

Using data from Statistics Canada, the researchers randomly selected Canadian children identified through the National Longitudinal Survey for Children and Youth and gathered data from 1,287 participants over three different time periods, including when the children were 12-13 years old, 14-15 years old and 16-17 years old.

To determine if children were being victimised by peers, they were asked whether children said nasty things to them at school, whether they felt bullied at school, or if they were bullied on the way to home or school.

To examine feelings about their physical appearance, the children were asked whether they liked the way they looked. To check body mass index over the three time periods, the children were asked to report their weight and height. Body Mass Index - was then calculated for males and females, and obesity was determined based on the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention's growth charts.

'It is important to go beyond using obesity as a predictor of long-term adjustment and examine the processes and experiences of obese individuals that might cause depression or changes in health,' said Adams.

These findings were published in the current issue of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

No evidence of gene doping at Games but worry remains

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 16:34:47 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Beijing, Aug 10 - Gene doping may not be present at the ongoing Beijing Olympic Games but anti-doping experts remain worried that illegal use of gene therapy.

David Howman, director general of the World Anti-Doping Agency -, voiced his concerns over illegal practices in this area Sunday.

'We worry about unfair practices. My concern is somebody is trying to do it without having it properly, medically verified and ethically confirmed. It is like manufacturing drugs without under proper scrutiny,' he said. He was here to oversee the anti-doping program at the Games which opened on Friday.

WADA plays the role of independent observer for the program and carry out about 1,000 of the 4,500 tests during the Games. It also set up an anti-doping outreach program for athletes in the Olympic Village.

'We are doing a lot of work in gene therapy because we want it to be in place for the good public health reasons. What we worry about is being abused by those want to cheat. It should not be abused by athletes,' said Howman.

At this point, WADA doesn't believe gene doping is present.

'No evidence, nothing is coming forward to suggest that gene doping is going on,' said WADA president John Fahey. 'No gene doping is occurring a this point of time.' WADA has held three gene doping symposiums with experts, scientists, ethicists, athletes, and representatives from the Olympic Movement and governments studying the issue. The third symposium was held in Saint Petersburg in June this year. Fahey said all participants of the symposiums agreed that more research should be done.

'There is a recognition that there must be sufficient research to find the detection process in advance because it is a concern it may become something in the lexicon of doping in the days ahead,' said the Australian.

WADA has been conducting 22 projects on developing a system for detecting gene doping. Howman said combined efforts were needed to combat the problem.

'We do a lot of research and we would like to do more but we haven't got a lot of money, so we rely on other countries and research bodies to help us with it,' he said.

Second Life a first for UH department of health and human performance

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The University of Houston department of health and human performance is expanding into the virtual world of Second Life (SL) thanks to grants from the UH Faculty Development Initiative Program (FDIP) and the Network Culture Project of the University of Southern California-Annenberg School for Communication.

These funds will allow our faculty to stake ground in Second Life for the benefit of our students and our community, said Charles Layne, professor and department chair. Layne received a $30,000 Technology and Retention Research award from the FDIP to investigate whether students who use SL for academic reasons get better grades than those who do not, or if they earn their degrees sooner (or at all) than those who do not.

We know young people easily accept new technology, but we want to know if using technology like Second Life, which immerses participants in a new world, can create an environment that is supportive of students' academic endeavors, Layne said. There isn't a lot of literature on the use of virtual environments in this way. This program evaluation began during summer 2007 and will continue for at least the next three years and may become a permanent fixture if it proves to be successful.

Brian McFarlin, assistant professor of health and human performance, is no stranger to instructional technology. His study on 'hybrid classes' found that students who took a hybrid exercise physiology class earned a letter grade higher than their counterparts who took the class in traditional settings. He's now received $25,000 from the FDIP to move an entire class, Public Health Issues in Physical Activity and Obesity, into Second Life. He says SL technology will allow him to present material in ways that are not possible with traditional online teaching tools.

For example, in discussions on how obesity impacts the heart, I can make a 3-D model of a healthy heart and a diseased heart and allow the students to view the inside of the left ventricle to demonstrate how blood flow is altered by disease, McFarlin said. I want to be mindful of what students want. It's about them and trying to give them a better learning experience. He anticipates the SL section of his course will be offered in spring 2009.

The Texas Obesity Research Center (TORC), housed in the department, will move some of its research to SL in hopes of using its international reach to promote healthful dietary habits and physical activity. TORC was the winner of the Network Culture Project contest, sponsored by the University of Southern California-Annenberg School for Communication. The contest solicited proposals from around the world for ways to use SL to promote the public good. TORC received 300,000 Linden, the currency of SL, for its proposal to use the medium to prevent and treat obesity through education, skills training and outreach.

We hope to develop multi-national collaborations in SL to increase awareness, knowledge, skills and support for healthy living, Rebecca Lee, TORC director and associate professor, said. Reducing obesity is an international priority, and SL provides a portal to an international community. The program will emphasize learning and virtual sampling of healthful lifestyle habits. Lee's study will enroll 500 resident avatars and invite them to participate in educational games and activities to help them learn to adopt a healthier lifestyle in real life.

Technology presents many opportunities to creatively use new venues to improve the way we live and learn, Layne said. UH and our department want to be at the forefront of those opportunities so that we can make a positive contribution to our community and world.

Venous embolization can help improve sperm function

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 23:12:31 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A minimally invasive treatment for a common cause of male infertility can significantly improve a couple's chances for pregnancy, according to a new study published in the August issue of Radiology. The study, conducted at the University of Bonn in Germany, also found that the level of sperm motility prior to treatment is a key predictor of success.

"Venous embolization, a simple treatment using a catheter through the groin, can help to improve sperm function in infertile men," said lead author Sebastian Flacke, M.D., Ph.D., now an associate professor of radiology at the Tufts University School of Medicine, director of noninvasive cardiovascular imaging and vice chair for research and development in the department of radiology at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass. "With the patients' improved sperm function, more than one-quarter of their healthy partners were able to become pregnant."

Normally, blood flows to the testicles and returns to the heart via a network of tiny veins that have a series of one-way valves to prevent the blood from flowing backward to the testicles. If the valves that regulate the blood flow from these veins become defective, blood does not properly circulate out of the testicles, causing swelling and a network of tangled blood vessels in the scrotum called a varicocele, or varicose vein.

Varicoceles are relatively common, affecting approximately 10 percent to 15 percent of the adult male population in the U.S. According to the National Institutes of Health, most cases occur in young men between the ages of 15 and 25. Many varicoceles cause no symptoms and are harmless. But sometimes a varicocele can cause pain, shrinkage or fertility problems.

The traditional treatment for problematic varicoceles has been open surgery, but recently varicocele embolization has emerged as a minimally invasive outpatient alternative. In the procedure, an interventional radiologist inserts a small catheter through a nick in the skin at the groin and uses x-ray guidance to steer it into the varicocele. A tiny platinum coil and a few milliliters of an agent to ensure the occlusion of the gonadic vein are then inserted through the catheter. Recovery time is minimal, and patients typically can return to work the next day.

Dr. Flacke and colleagues set out to identify predictors of pregnancy after embolization of varicoceles in infertile men. The study included 223 infertile men, ages 18-50, with at least one varicocele. All of the men had healthy partners with whom they were trying to achieve a pregnancy.

In the study, 226 of the patients' 228 varicoceles were successfully treated with embolization. A semen analysis performed on 173 patients three months after the procedure showed that, on average, sperm motility and sperm count had significantly improved. Six months later, 45 couples, or 26 percent, reported a pregnancy. A high level of sperm motility before the procedure was identified as the only significant pre-treatment factor associated with increasing the odds of successful post-treatment pregnancy.

"Embolization of varicoceles in infertile men may be considered a useful adjunct to in-vitro fertilization," Dr. Flacke said.

Little exercise goes a long way for older adults

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:26:41 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Sydney, July 19 - A little exercise or 'resistance training' to strengthen muscles goes a long way in keeping older men fit as a fiddle, according to a study by University of Queensland.

Tim Henwood of the University said his doctoral thesis is based on how people aged over 65 responded to such training.

'What we were looking at was how simple resistance training can improve muscle strength, power and functional performance,' said Henwood.

'This type of training not only has significant physical benefits but has also been associated with a decreased risk of later life disease.'

Henwood said participants do a basic twice-weekly, machine-based resistance training programme that targets the major muscles of the upper and lower body. All training sessions were thoroughly supervised to promote motivation and correct technique.

'We saw some very significant increases, up to a 50 percent in muscle strength and power,' he said.

'However, the really important increases were those we saw in the participant's functional ability.

'For this age group these increases are what allows them to keep successfully climbing stairs and getting out of chairs, thereby allowing them to retain their independence.'

Fresh from the grapevine to the table

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) BET DAGAN, ISRAEL - Table grapes are subject to serious water loss and decay while making the long trip from the vine to dinner tables around the world. Mold and browning of the stems are the two main factors that reduce grape quality during shipping and storage in retail produce sections.

Pads placed over the fruit packed in boxes are one way of ensuring that consumers get fresh, appealing fruits. The pads release sulfur dioxide, or SO2 , a chemical used to prevent mold and decaying of table grapes. Sulfur dioxide as a method of controlling decay has been in use for over 75 years. Since the late 1960s, grape producers and packers have favored use of a dual-release pad, which can keep grapes from decaying for extended periods.

Two methods are presently used for transporting the packed grapes. One method is to place a perforated plastic liner inside each box, put the grapes in the liner, and then cool. The the other method is to cool the boxed grapes and then externally wrap the entire pallet of boxes. In both cases, a SO2 pad is placed in each box.

Researchers in the Department of Postharvest Science at the Agricultural Research Organization of Israel's Volcani Center recently compared both packing methods for their efficiency in maintaining grape quality and preventing decay for periods ranging from 33 to 117 days. The experiments included 'Redglobe' and 'Zainy' grapes packaged in plastic boxes and 'Thompson Seedless' grapes packaged in cardboard boxes.

The study concluded that the quality of the grapes in the trials with plastic boxes was either similar in both packaging methods or better in the wrapped pallet than the liner method. Prevention of decay was also better with the wrapped pallets than for storage in liners. In the experiment with cardboard boxes, however, the externally wrapped boxes contained lower levels of SO2, probably because the cardboard absorbed more SO2, and the grapes developed more decay than when perforated liners were used.

Although the most commonly used method of grape packaging for long-distance shipment is the use of perforated liners, the study proved using external wrapping of pallets with low-density polyethylene film can be as effective as the liner method in preventing grape decay. The external wrapping method has significant advantages over the use of box liners: it allows faster precooling of grapes and is more economical than using individual liners. The pallet wrapping method works best when used with recyclable plastic boxes, as the plastic boxes do not absorb the SO2. A bonus for the environmentally conscious industry: plastic boxes also can be more environmentally viable than traditional cardboard boxes.

NOAA and Louisiana scientists predict largest Gulf of Mexico 'dead zone' on record

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) NOAA-supported scientists from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium and Louisiana State University are forecasting that the dead zone off the coast of Louisiana and Texas in the Gulf of Mexico this summer could be the largest on record.

The researchers are predicting the area could measure a record 8,800 square miles, or roughly the size of New Jersey. In 2007, the dead zone was 7,903 square miles. The largest dead zone on record was in 2002, when it measured 8,481 square miles. The official measurement of this year's dead zone is slated to be released in late July. Researchers began taking regular measurements of the dead zone in 1985.

The prediction of a large dead zone this summer is due to a combination of large influx of nitrogen and exceptionally high flows from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers, said LSU scientist R. Eugene Turner.

The dead zone is an area in the Gulf of Mexico where seasonal oxygen levels drop too low to support most life in bottom and near-bottom waters. This low oxygen, or hypoxic, area is primarily caused by high nutrient levels, which stimulates an overgrowth of algae that sinks and decomposes. The decomposition process in turn depletes dissolved oxygen in the water. The dead zone is of particular concern because it threatens valuable commercial and recreational Gulf fisheries.

Research indicates that the nearly tripling of nitrogen levels into the Gulf over the past 50 years from human activities has led to a dramatic increase in the size of the dead zone. Various models are useful in evaluating the influence of nitrogen loads and other factors on the size of the dead zone. The LSU model has a strong track record of accurately predicting the dead zone's size.

The strong link between nutrients and the dead zone indicates that excess nutrients from the Mississippi River watershed during the spring are the primary human-influenced factor behind the expansion of the dead zone, said Rob Magnien, director of the NOAA Center for Sponsored Coastal Ocean Research. This analysis will greatly inform the development of federal, state and local efforts to reduce the dead zone's size.

The forecast is based on a mathematical model developed by LSU through NOAA's long-term research investment by CSCOR's Gulf of Mexico Ecosystems and Hypoxia Assessment. The model incorporates U.S. Geological Survey data on the amount of nitrogen reaching the Gulf of Mexico in May. NOAA has been funding investigations into the dead zone since 1990.

Water: The forgotten crisis

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) This year, the world and, in particular, developing countries and the poor have been hit by both food and energy crises. As a consequence, prices for many staple foods have risen by up to 100%. When we examine the causes of the food crisis, a growing population, changes in trade patterns, urbanization, dietary changes, biofuel production, and climate change and regional droughts are all responsible. Thus we have a classic increase in prices due to high demand and low supply. However, few commentators specifically mention the declining availability of water that is needed to grow irrigated and rainfed crops. According to some, the often mooted solution to the food crisis lies in plant breeding that produces the ultimate high yielding, low water- consuming crops. While this solution is important, it will fail unless attention is paid to where the water for all food, fibre and energy crops is going to come from.

A few years ago, IWMI (the International Water Management Institute) demonstrated that many countries are facing severe water scarcity, either as a result of a lack of available fresh water, or due to a lack of investment in water infrastructure such as dams and reservoirs. What makes matters worse is that this scarcity predominantly affects developing countries where the majority of the world's under-nourished people-- approximately 840 million -- live.

The causes of water scarcity are essentially identical to those of the food crisis. There are serious and extremely worrying factors that indicate water supplies are steadily being used up. Essentially every calorie of food requires a liter of water to produce it. Thus those of us on western diets, use about 2500-3000 liters per day. A further 2.5 billion people by 2030 will mean that we have to find over 2000 more cubic kilometers of fresh water to feed them. This is not any easy task given that current water usage for food production is 7500 cubic kilometers and supplies are scarce. According to the recent report Water for Food, Water for Life of the Comprehensive Assessment of Water Management in Agriculture, which drew on the work of 700 scientists, unless we change the way we use water and increase water productivity (i.e. more crop per drop) we will not have enough water to feed the world's growing population (This population is estimated to increase from 6 billion now to about 8.5 billion in 25 years.) Compared with the lengthy agenda to combat climate change, this is a very short time indeed and yet the impacts of water scarcity will be profound. However, very little is being done about it in most countries.

Since the formulation of the UN Millennium Goals in 2002, much of the water agenda has been focused around the provision of drinking water and sanitation. This water comes from the same sources as agricultural water and as we urbanize and improve living standards there will be increasing competition for drinking water from domestic and other urban users, putting agriculture under further pressure. While improving drinking water and sanitation is vital with respect to health and living standards, we cannot afford to neglect the provision and improved productivity of water for agriculture.

There are potential solutions. Better water storage has to be considered. Ethiopia, which is typical of many sub-Saharan African countries, has a water storage capacity of 38 cubic meters per person. Australia has almost 5000 cubic meters per person, an amount that in the face of current climate change impacts may be inadequate. While there will be a need for new large and medium-sized dams to deal with this critical lack of storage in Africa, other simpler solutions are also part of the equation. These include the construction of small reservoirs, sustainable use of groundwater systems including artificial groundwater recharge and rainwater harvesting for smallholder vegetable gardens. Improved year- round access to water will help farmers maintain their own food security using simple supplementary irrigation techniques. The redesign of both the physical and institutional arrangements of some large and often dysfunctional irrigation schemes will also bring the required productivity increases. Safe, risk free reuse of wastewater from growing cities will also be needed. Of course these actions need to be paralleled by development of drought- tolerant crops, and the provision of infrastructure and facilities to get fresh food to markets.

USU researchers awarded $5.6 million NIH grant to fight deadly viruses

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) have been awarded a $5.6 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to develop and test vaccines and treatments for the deadly Nipah and Hendra viruses.

Christopher C. Broder, Ph.D., USU professor of microbiology and immunology and director of the university's interdisciplinary program in Emerging Infectious Diseases, is the principal investigator of the grant from NIAID. The grant was awarded to continue work on vaccines and therapeutics for Nipah and Hendra that his group has been working on for the past several years. The award will support a continued collaboration with investigators at Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Livestock Industries, Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) and Australian Biosecurity Cooperative Research Center (AB-CRC) in Geelong, Victoria.

Hendra and Nipah are recently emerged paramyxoviruses that are highly pathogenic and can cause lethal infections in several animals and in humans. Since their initial discovery in Australia and Malaysia, sporadic Hendra outbreaks have been reported from 1995 to 2007, while Nipah has caused at least nine outbreaks between 1998 and 2008. Human case fatality rates have approached 75 percent, and there has been evidence of human-human transmission. The most recent appearance of Nipah in 2008 claimed the lives of several children.

In earlier work, Katharine Bossart, Ph.D., a former graduate student in Broder's laboratory who now works with the Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong, developed a subunit vaccine for Nipah and Hendra composed of a piece of the virus known as the G glycoprotein. In other recent studies, Broder's group, in collaboration with researchers from the National Cancer Institute, developed a potent Nipah and Hendra virus neutralizing human monoclonal antibody (m102.4).

We now have the critical resources needed to evaluate the therapeutic potential of both vaccines and perhaps more importantly a potent human antibody against both Nipah virus and Hendra virus, that could help control outbreaks in geographical regions susceptible to these emerging viruses, and result in a real benefit to those people at risk of infection and disease caused by these deadly agents, said Broder.

Previously, Broder and colleagues demonstrated that a cell surface protein called Ephrin-B2 is a functional receptor for both the Hendra and Nipah viruses. Ephrin-B2 is highly conserved in animals, and this finding shed light on how the viruses can infect such a wide range of hosts. The receptor is found on cells in the central nervous system, as well as in cells lining blood vessels. It is essential for central nervous system development and blood vessel growth in the embryos of humans and other mammals.

The research has led to four inventions on which USU and HJF have filed patent applications. The first patent application, Soluble forms of Hendra Virus and Nipah Virus G glycoprotein, covers the production and use of a recombinant soluble G glycoprotein. This protein has utility as a vaccine, in the development of pharmaceutical compositions and in diagnostic assays.

The second patent application, Compositions and Methods for the Inhibition of Membrane Fusion by Paramyxoviruses, covers the use of a novel peptide sequence of the soluble F glycoprotein, to block fusion of the virus with the host cell. This peptide can be used as a prophylactic, and/or to treat infections, and antibodies developed using this peptide can be utilized in diagnostic assays.

A third patent application, Soluble forms of Hendra and Nipah Virus F glycoprotein covers the production and use of a new recombinant soluble F protein. The remaining patent application, Human Monoclonal Antibodies Against Hendra and Nipah, filed in conjunction with the National Institutes of Health, covers the production and use of monoclonal antibodies which could be used as a therapeutic for people already infected with the disease.

A little milk could go a long way for your heart

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Grabbing as little as one glass of lowfat or fat free milk could help protect your heart, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers found that adults who had at least one serving of lowfat milk or milk products each day had 37 percent lower odds of poor kidney function linked to heart disease compared to those who drank little or no lowfat milk.

To determine heart disease risk, researchers from several universities in the United States and Norway measured the kidney function of more than 5,000 older adults ages 45 to 84. They tracked eating patterns and tested albumin-to-creatinine ratio (ACR) – a measure that when too low, can indicate poor kidney function and an extremely high risk for cardiovascular disease, according to the American Heart Association.

Researchers found that people who reported consuming more lowfat milk and milk products had lower ACR, or healthier kidney function. In fact, lowfat milk and milk products was the only food group evaluated that on its own, was significantly linked to a reduced risk for kidney dysfunction. The study authors cited other research suggesting milk protein, vitamin D, magnesium and calcium may contribute to milk's potential heart health benefits.

An overall healthy diet, including lowfat milk and milk products, whole grains, fruits and vegetables was also associated with a benefit – 20 percent lower ACR or healthier kidney function.

The National Kidney Foundation estimates that kidney disease affects about 26 million Americans – and kidney disease is both a cause and a consequence of cardiovascular disease, the number one killer of Americans. An estimated one out of three adults is currently living with some form of cardiovascular disease.

Milk provides nine essential nutrients, including calcium, vitamin A, vitamin D, protein and potassium. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend drinking three glasses of lowfat or fat free milk each day.

Photo: Mel B. on Flickr, Creative Commons License

New UGA invention effectively kills foodborne pathogens in minutes

Tue, 24 Jun 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) University of Georgia researchers have developed an effective technology for reducing contamination of dangerous bacteria on food. The new antimicrobial wash rapidly kills Salmonella and E. coli O157:H7 on foods ranging from fragile lettuce to tomatoes, fruits, poultry products and meats. It is made from inexpensive and readily available ingredients that are recognized as safe by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The new technology, which has commercial application for the produce, poultry, meat and egg processing industries, is available for licensing from the University of Georgia Research Foundation, Inc., which has filed a patent application on the new technology.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that, in the U.S. alone, foodborne pathogens are responsible for 76 million illnesses every year. Of the people affected by those illnesses, 300,000 are hospitalized and more than 5,000 die. These widespread outbreaks of food-borne illnesses are attributed, in part, to the fast-paced distribution of foods across the nation. Recently, raw tomatoes caused an outbreak of salmonellosis that sickened more than 300 people in at least 28 states and Canada.

Currently, a chlorine wash is frequently used in a variety of ways to reduce harmful bacteria levels on vegetables, fruits and poultry, but because of chlorine's sensitivity to food components and extraneous materials released in chlorinated water treatments, many bacteria survive. Chlorine is toxic at high concentrations, may produce off-flavors and undesirable appearance of certain food products, and it can only be used in conjunction with specialized equipment and trained personnel. In addition, chlorine may be harmful to the environment.

We can't rely on chlorine to eliminate pathogens on foods, said Michael Doyle, one of the new technology's inventors and director of UGA's Center for Food Safety. This new technology is effective, safe for consumers and food processing plant workers, and does not affect the appearance or quality of the product. It may actually extend the shelf-life of some types of produce.

Doyle is an internationally recognized authority on food safety whose research focuses on developing methods to detect and control food-borne bacterial pathogens at all levels of the food continuum, from the farm to the table. He has served as a scientific advisor to many groups, including the World Health Organization, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The new antimicrobial technology, developed by Doyle and Center for Food Safety researcher Tong Zhao, uses a combination of ingredients that kills bacteria within one to five minutes from application. It can be used as a spray and immersion solution, and its concentration can be adjusted for treatment of fragile foods such as leafy produce, more robust foods such as poultry, or food preparation equipment and food transportation vehicles.

The effectiveness, easy storage and application, and low cost of this novel antibacterial make it applicable not only at food processing facilities, but also at points-of-sale and at home, restaurants and military bases. The development of this technology is timely, given the recent, sequential outbreaks of foodborne pathogens, said Gennaro Gama, UGARF technology manager in charge of licensing this technology.

Study links vitamin D to colon cancer survival

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) BOSTON--Patients diagnosed with colon cancer who had abundant vitamin D in their blood were less likely to die during a follow-up period than those who were deficient in the vitamin, according to a new study by scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

The findings of the study -- the first to examine the effect of vitamin D among colorectal cancer patients -- merit further research, but it is too early to recommend supplements as a part of treatment, say the investigators from Dana-Farber and the Harvard School of Public Health.

In a report in the June 20 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the authors note that previous research has shown that higher levels of vitamin D reduce the risk of developing colon and rectal cancer by about 50 percent, but the effect on outcomes wasn't known. To examine this question, the investigators, led by Kimmie Ng, MD, MPH, and Charles Fuchs, MD, MPH, of Dana-Farber, analyzed data from two long-running epidemiologic studies whose participants gave blood samples and whose health has been monitored for many years.

They identified 304 participants in the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Followup Study who were diagnosed with colorectal cancer between 1991 and 2002. All had had vitamin D levels measured in blood samples given at least two year prior to their diagnosis. Each patient's vitamin D measurement was ranked by quartiles -- the top 25 percent, the next lowest 25 percent, and so on. Those whose levels were in the lowest quartile were considered deficient in vitamin D.

The researchers followed the 304 patients until they died or until 2005, whichever occurred first. During that period, 123 patients died, with 96 of them dying from colon or rectal cancer. The researchers then looked for associations between the patients' previously measured vitamin D blood levels and whether they had died or survived.

The results showed that individuals with the vitamin D levels in the highest quartile were 48 percent less likely to die (from any cause, including colon cancer) than those with the lowest vitamin D measurements. The odds of dying from colon cancer specifically were 39 percent lower, the scientists found.

Our data suggest that higher prediagnosis plasma levels of [vitamin D] after a diagnosis of colorectal cancer may significantly improve overall survival, the authors wrote. Future trials should examine the role of vitamin D supplementation in patients with colorectal cancer.

The measurements of vitamin D in the patients' blood reflected both the amounts made by the body when exposed to sunlight and to all sources of the vitamin in their diets, said Ng. However, she added, there may be additional unknown factors that might account for individual differences. Patients with the highest vitamin D levels tended to have lower body-mass index (BMI) indicating that they were leaner, and also were more physically active. However, after controlling for BMI and physical activity, as well as other prognostic factors, higher vitamin D levels were still independently associated with better survival rates.

Ng said that a trial is being planned in which colon cancer patients will take vitamin D along with post-surgery chemotherapy to look for any benefits of the supplements.

Meanwhile, she said that individuals with colon cancer should consult their physicians as to whether they should add vitamin supplements to their daily regimen. Standard recommended daily amounts of vitamin D supplements range from 200 International Units (IU) per day for people under age 50 to 400 IU for people between 50 and 70, and 600 IU for those over 70.

'Addicted' cells provide early cancer diagnosis

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Scientists at the Institute of Food Research have detected subtle changes that may make the bowel more vulnerable to the development of tumours.

With support from the Food Standards Agency and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council they are investigating whether diet could control these changes and delay or reverse the onset of cancer.

We looked at changes in 18 genes that play a role in the very earliest stages of colorectal cancer, says Professor Ian Johnson at the Institute of Food Research.

We detected clear chemical differences in these genes in otherwise normal tissue in cancer patients.

This represents a new way to identify defects that could eventually lead to cancer.

All cells carry a complete set of instructions for the whole organism in their nuclear DNA, but to define the specialised structure and functions of each particular cell type, genes must be switched on or firmly off, over the course of the cell's life-cycle.

One of the mechanisms controlling the activities of the genes in a cell is the epigenetic code, a set of chemical tags attached to the DNA molecule, marking individual genes for expression, or for silence. It is well known that the abnormal behaviour of cancer cells is partly due to mistakes in this epigenetic code, some of which switch on genes for growth, whilst others switch off genes that would otherwise cause abnormal cells to destroy themselves.

Scientists at IFR are exploring the possibility that such mistakes in the epigenetic code may begin to occur in apparently normal tissues, long before the appearance of a tumour.

In the current study published in the British Journal of Cancer they measured the numbers of methyl groups attached to DNA taken from the cells lining the large intestine of bowel cancer patients. They found subtle changes that may make the whole surface of the bowel more vulnerable to the eventual development of tumours by causing the 'addiction' of cells to abnormal gene expression.

Some of these changes seem to occur naturally with age, but, supported by the Food Standards Agency, IFR is investigating the possibility that factors in our lifestyle such as diet, obesity and exercise can accelerate or delay DNA methylation as we grow older, thus giving us some degree of control over this vital aspect of our long-term health.

Professor Nigel Brown, Director of Science and Technology at BBSRC said: Basic research in the relatively young field of epigenetics is already contributing to our understanding of human health. Understanding how epigenetic processes work to maintain healthy cells and tissues is the key to long-term health because, as we see here, the breakdown of these normal processes may subsequently cause disease. BBSRC funds a range of research in the field of epigenetics and has been encouraging networking amongst members of the European epigenetics research community.

Substance in red wine found to keep hearts young

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- How do the French get away with a clean bill of heart health despite a diet loaded with saturated fats? Scientists have long suspected that the answer to the so-called French paradox lies in red wine. Now, the results of a new study bring them closer to understanding why.

Writing this week in the online, open-access journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE, researchers from industry and academia, including the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Florida, report that low doses of resveratrol -- a natural constituent of grapes, pomegranates, red wine and other foods -- can potentially boost the quality of life by improving heart health in old age.

The scientists included small amounts of resveratrol in the diets of middle-aged mice and found that the compound has a widespread influence on the genetic causes of aging. Specifically, the researchers found that low doses of resveratrol mimic the heart-healthy effects of what is known as caloric restriction, diets with 20 to 30 percent fewer calories than a typical diet. The new study is important because it suggests that resveratrol and caloric restriction, which has been widely studied in animals from spiders to humans, may govern the same master genetic pathways related to aging.

Caloric restriction is highly effective in extending life in many species. If you provide species with less food, the regulated cellular stress response of this healthy habit actually makes them live longer, says study author Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, chief of the division of biology of aging at UF's Institute on Aging. In this study, the effects of low doses of resveratrol (on genes) were comparable to caloric restriction, the hallmark for life extension.

Previous research has shown that high doses of resveratrol extend life in invertebrates and prevent early death in mice given a high-fat diet. The new study extends those findings, showing that resveratrol in low doses, beginning in middle age, can elicit many of the same benefits as a reduced-calorie diet.

Resveratrol is active in much lower doses than previously thought, said Tomas Prolla, a UW professor of genetics and a senior author of the new report.

The group explored the agent's influence on the heart, muscle and brain by looking to see which genes were switched on and off during the aging process.

In the new study -- which compared the genetic responses of animals to either restricted diets or normal diets including small doses of resveratrol -- the similarities were remarkable, explains lead author Jamie Barger of Madison, Wis.-based LifeGen Technologies, who spearheaded the research.

In the heart, for example, there are at least 1,029 genes whose functions change with age. In animals on restricted diets, 90 percent of those heart genes experienced alterations in gene expression, while low doses of resveratrol thwarted age-related change in 92 percent. The new findings, say the study's authors, reveal how red wine's special ingredient helps keep the heart young.

In short, the authors note that a glass of wine or food or supplements containing even small doses of resveratrol are likely to help stave off cardiac aging.

That finding, may also explain the remarkable heart health of people who live in some regions of France where diets are soaked in saturated fats but the incidence of heart disease, a major cause of mortality in the United States, is low. In France, meals are traditionally complemented with a glass of red wine.

There must be a few master biochemical pathways activated in response to caloric restriction, which in turn activate many other pathways, explained Prolla. And resveratrol seems to activate some of these master pathways as well.

Resveratrol is currently sold over-the-counter as a nutritional supplement with supposed anti-cancer, anti-viral, anti-inflammatory and anti-aging benefits, although few scientific studies have verified these claims in humans. That may soon change: Researchers at the University of Florida hope to explore the effects of resveratrol on older people in a phase 1 clinical trial, set to begin this summer.

The study will assess the supplement's effects on memory, physical performance, inflammation and oxidative damage, according to Steve Anton, a principal investigator of the upcoming trial and an assistant professor of aging and geriatrics in the UF College of Medicine.

Mitochondria, the tiny power plants that keep a cell functioning, are especially vulnerable to the oxidative damage that accumulates during the aging process.

In animal studies, (resveratrol) seems to promote mitochondrial health, said Todd Manini, also a principal investigator of the upcoming trial and an assistant professor of aging and geriatrics in the UF College of Medicine. Mitochondria are everywhere: They're in the brain, in the muscle, the liver. So it could have kind of a global impact on many different organ systems.

Members of European Parliament discuss food labeling and heart health

Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Members of the European Parliament Heart Group meet today, 3 June, in Brussels, to discuss the link between nutrition and cardiovascular diseases and how labelling of food can help people choose products that are better for their hearts and vessels. The European Commission has already made the declaration of the amount of energy, fat, sugars, salt and saturates on food packaging mandatory. Nevertheless, there is no European legislation harmonising diverse national schemes. Consumers often find nutrition labelling confusing and sometimes even misleading.

Given the alarming rate at which obesity is progressing, especially among children, bringing with it other health related problems such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, it seems necessary to insist on giving consumers clear and understandable information in order to help them make better informed dietary choices, explaines Professor Pedro Marques, Spokesperson for the European Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (EACPR), a registered body of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), and speaker at today's MEP Heart Group meeting.

Front of pack labelling should allow consumers to know at a glance whether a product contributes to their health or not, says Susanne Logstrup, Director of the European Heart Network (EHN). To achieve this, simplified front of pack labelling of four key nutrients, energy, saturated/trans fats, sugars and salt, must be presented in an easy to understand way. Based on work carried out particularly in the UK, EHN believes that a scheme whereby the quantity of these nutrients are highlighted with a multiple colour coding ('traffic lights'), indicating clearly whether a product contains high, low or medium levels of them, is the best. EHN calls upon MEPs to improve the Commission proposal and put colour coding on mandatory front of pack in the Commission proposal and introduce mandatory back of pack labelling of the 'big eight' (energy, protein, carbohydrate, sugars, fibre, fat, saturated fat, trans fat and salt).

Prevention experts of the ESC believe that the UK 'traffic light' system is an effective idea and should be supported at a European level states Dr Simona Giampaoli, Chair of the Prevention and Health policy section of the EACPR. The traffic light system helps consumers see at a glance whether the contents of a certain product are within a healthy limit. Food with a green light is the healthiest option and a red light warns that this product should not be eaten regularly.

There are many issues for the MEP Heart Group to consider, explains Mr Adamou, MEP. Consumers demand and people need better information on labels; information that is clear, simple, comprehensive, and standardised. As Co-chair of the MEP Heart Group, I want labels that really make a difference. It would be useful to have mandatory front of pack signposting of four key nutrients that are colour coded.

As health professionals, we, at the ESC, clearly see the need to adopt clear information in the front of food packages. We also need to educate consumers on the adequate amounts of sugar, salt and fat intake as well as healthy portion sizes, explains Professor William Wijns, Spokesperson for the European society of Cardiology. Obesity is being recognised as a growing and dangerous disease with a high cost on public health systems. It is urgent to achieve a harmonised common policy on labelling as soon as possible as part of a larger effort to raise awareness on the effects of unhealthy eating habits on our bodies and especially their link to increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in Europe, accounting for 4.3 million deaths and costing the EU over 192 billion Euros each year.

The good news in our DNA: Defects you can fix with vitamins and minerals

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Berkeley -- As the cost of sequencing a single human genome drops rapidly, with one company predicting a price of $100 per person in five years, soon the only reason not to look at your personal genome will be fear of what bad news lies in your genes.

University of California, Berkeley, scientists, however, have found a welcome reason to delve into your genetic heritage: to find the slight genetic flaws that can be fixed with remedies as simple as vitamin or mineral supplements.

I'm looking for the good news in the human genome, said Jasper Rine, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology.

Headlines for the last 20 years have really been about the triumph of biomedical research in finding disease genes, which is biologically interesting, genetically important and frightening to people who get this information, Rine said. I became obsessed with trying to decide if there is some other class of information that will make people want to look at their genome sequence.

What Rine and colleagues found and report this week in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is that there are many genetic differences that make people's enzymes less efficient than normal, and that simple supplementation with vitamins can often restore some of these deficient enzymes to full working order.

First author Nicholas Marini, a UC Berkeley research scientist, noted that physicians prescribe vitamins to cure many rare and potentially fatal metabolic defects caused by mutations in critical enzymes. But those affected by these metabolic diseases are people with two bad copies, or alleles, of an essential enzyme. Many others may be walking around with only one bad gene, or two copies of slightly defective genes, throwing their enzyme levels off slightly and causing subtle effects that also could be eliminated with vitamin supplements.

Our studies have convinced us that there is a lot of variation in the population in these enzymes, and a lot of it affects function, and a lot of it is responsive to vitamins, Marini said. I wouldn't be surprised if everybody is going to require a different optimal dose of vitamins based on their genetic makeup, based upon the kind of variance they are harboring in vitamin-dependent enzymes.

Though this initial study tested the function of human gene variants by transplanting them into yeast cells, where the function of the variants can be accurately assessed, Rine and Marini are confident the results will hold up in humans. Their research, partially supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the U.S. Army, may enable them to employ U.S. soldiers to test the theory that vitamin supplementation can tune up defective enzymes.

Our soldiers, like top athletes, operate under extreme conditions that may well be limited by their physiology, Rine said. We're now working with the defense department to identify variants of enzymes that are remediable, and ultimately hope to identify troops that have these variants and test whether performance can be enhanced by appropriate supplementation.

In the PNAS paper, Rine, Marini and their colleagues report on their initial analysis of variants of a human enzyme called methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase, or MTHFR. The enzyme, which requires the B vitamin folate to work properly, plays a key role in synthesizing molecules that go into the nucleotide building blocks of DNA. Some cancer drugs, such as methotrexate, target MTHFR to shut down DNA synthesis and prevent tumor growth.

Using DNA samples from 564 individuals of many races and ethnicities, colleagues at Applied Biosystems of Foster City, Calif., sequenced for each person the two alleles that code for the MTHFR enzyme. Consistent with earlier studies, they found three common variants of the enzyme, but also 11 uncommon variants, each of the latter accounting for less than one percent of the sample.

They then synthesized the gene for each variant of the enzyme, and Marini, Rine and their UC Berkeley colleagues inserted these genes into separate yeast cells in order to judge the activity of each variant. Yeast use many of the same enzymes and cofactor vitamins and minerals as humans and are an excellent model for human metabolism, Rine said.

The researchers found that four different mutations affected the functioning of the human enzyme in yeast. One of these mutations is well known: Nearly 30 percent of the population has one copy, and nine percent has two copies.

The researchers were able to supplement the diet of the cultured yeast with folate, however, and restore full functionality to the most common variant, and to all but one of the less common variants.

Since this experiment, the researchers have found 30 other variants of the MTHFR enzyme and tested about 15 of them, and more than half interfere with the function of the enzyme, producing a hundred-fold range of enzyme activity. The majority of these can be either partially or completely restored to normal activity by adding more folate. And that is a surprise, Rine said.

Most scientists think that harmful mutations are disfavored by evolution, but Rine pointed out that this applies only to mutations that affect reproductive fitness. Mutations that affect our health in later years are not efficiently removed by evolution and may remain in our genome forever.

The health effects of tuning up this enzyme in humans are unclear, he said, but folate is already known to protect against birth defects and seems to protect against heart disease and cancer. At least one defect in the MTHFR enzyme produces elevated levels in the blood of the metabolite homocysteine, which is linked to an increased risk of heart disease and stroke, conditions that typically affect people in their post-reproductive years.

In those people, supplementation of folate in the diet can reduce levels of that metabolite and reduce disease risk, Marini said.

Marini and Rine estimate that the average person has five rare mutant enzymes, and perhaps other not-so-rare variants, that could be improved with vitamin or mineral supplements.

There are over 600 human enzymes that use vitamins or minerals as cofactors, and this study reports just what we found by studying one of them, Rine said. What this means is that, even if the odds of an individual having a defect in one gene is low, with 600 genes, we are all likely to have some mutations that limit one or more of our enzymes.

The subtle effects of variation in enzyme activity may well account for conflicting results of some clinical trials, including the confusing data on the effect of vitamin supplements, he noted. In the future, the enzyme profile of research subjects will have to be taken into account in analyzing the outcome of clinical trials.

If one considers not just vitamin-dependent enzymes but all the 30,000 human proteins in the genome, every individual would harbor approximately 250 deleterious substitutions considering only the low-frequency variants. These numbers suggest that the aggregate incidence of low-frequency variants could have a significant physiological impact, the researchers wrote in their paper.

All the more reason to poke around in one's genome, Rine said.

If you don't give people a reason to become interested in their genome and to become comfortable with their personal genomic information, then the benefits of much of the biomedical research, which is indexed to particular genetic states, won't be embraced in a time frame that most people can benefit from, Rine said. So, my motivation is partly scientific, partly an education project and, in some ways, a partly political project.

Marini and Rine credit Bruce Ames, a UC Berkeley professor emeritus of molecular and cell biology now on the research staff at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute, with the research that motivated them to look at enzyme variation. Ames found in the 1970s that many bacteria that could not produce a specific amino acid could do so if given more vitamin B6, and in recent years he has continued exploring the link between micronutrients and health.

Looked at in one way, Bruce found that you can cure a genetic disease in bacteria by treating it with vitamins, Rine said. Because the human genome contains about 6 billion DNA base pairs, each one subject to mutation, there could be between 3 and 6 million DNA sequence differences between any two people. Given those numbers, he reasoned that, as in bacteria, there should be people who are genetically different in terms of the amount of vitamin needed for optimal performance of their enzymes.

This touches on what Rine considers one of the key biomedical questions today. Now that we have the complete genome sequences of all the common model organisms, including humans, it's obvious that the defining challenge of biology in the 21st century is not what the genes are, but what the variation in the genes does, he said.

Rine, Marini and their colleagues are continuing to study variation in the human MTHFR gene as well as other folate utilizing enzymes, particularly with respect to how defects in these enzymes may lead to birth defects. Rine also is taking advantage of the 1,500 students in his Biology 1A lab course to investigate variants of a second vitamin B6-dependent enzyme, cystathionine beta-synthase.

He also is investigating how enzyme cofactors like vitamins and minerals fix defective enzymes. He suspects that supplements work by acting as chaperones to stabilize the proper folding of the enzyme, which is critical to its catalytic activity. That is a new principle that may be applicable to drug design, Rine said.

New HIV browser gives researchers access to valuable data from vaccine trials

Thu, 29 May 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) SANTA CRUZ, CA--A new HIV data browser developed by the University of California, Santa Cruz, and the nonprofit organization Global Solutions for Infectious Diseases (GSID) will give researchers access to a wealth of data collected during clinical trials of an AIDS vaccine. Although the vaccine did not succeed in preventing infections, the clinical trial generated a huge amount of valuable data for researchers studying how the virus evolves and causes new infections.

Modeled on the UCSC Genome Browser, the GSID HIV Data Browser is the brainchild of Phillip Berman, professor and chair of biomolecular engineering in UCSC's Baskin School of Engineering. Berman helped oversee the clinical trials, which ended in 2003, when he was senior vice president for research and development at VaxGen, the company that developed the vaccine and conducted Phase III clinical trials in North America, Europe, and Thailand.

After the trials concluded, I spent a couple of years trying to think what was the most important thing I could do for HIV research, Berman said. I concluded it was using new technology to preserve the data from these clinical trials and present it in a form useful to the scientific community.

In 2004, Berman cofounded GSID, based in South San Francisco and dedicated to combining knowledge and expertise from the biotechnology industry and the public health sector to address infectious disease problems in the developing world. He joined the UCSC faculty in 2006.

Despite the fact that the vaccine trial didn't work, a huge amount of useful information was obtained, Berman said. The North American trial included about 60 different clinical sites in North America and one site in the Netherlands. Of particular value to researchers are the genetic sequences of the viruses that infected participants during the trial.

The trial represented the only up-to-date broad survey of virus sequences from new infections that had ever been carried out, Berman said. Every time there was a new infection in the vaccine or placebo group, the virus was sequenced. The sequence information provides the best picture we have about what the immune system sees when there is a new infection.

This is important, Berman said, because other major repositories of HIV sequence data are not annotated for the time after infection, the clinical status of the patient, or the histories of the specimens sequenced. That limits their usefulness for studying such a rapidly evolving virus.

HIV is highly mutable and evolves in response to attacks by the immune system. As a result, HIV isolated from a patient years after the initial infection is genetically different from the virus that caused the infection in the first place. A vaccine should target the most infectious form of the virus, Berman said. Yet all the vaccines tested so far have been based on viruses isolated from patients with longstanding infections.

A current hypothesis in HIV vaccine research is that the antigenic structures of HIV viruses that mediate new infections differ from those recovered from people long after infection, Berman explained. The specimens in this set represent the largest group from new infections that has ever been collected.

Besides viral genome-sequence data, the database links to a repository of preserved specimens (blood samples and cells) that researchers can access from GSID and the National Insitutes of Health (NIH) for further study.

This is the first time that an HIV sequence database has been linked to a specimen repository and a database of clinical information, Berman said. These clinical specimens are longitudinal, collected from the same person during a two-year follow-up period. This will allow investigators to study the evolution of the virus and the evolution of the immune response and clinical outcomes.

At UCSC, Berman teamed up with the Genome Browser group to develop a browser for the sensitive clinical data collected during the vaccine trial. Jim Kent, associate research scientist for the UCSC Genome Browser and principal investigator on the project, said it was the first time his group had worked with data from participants in a clinical trial.

This data must be handled differently and great care taken with confidentiality, Kent said. We learned from this project how to build the infrastructure to cope with that. This will be useful for other medical projects, such as cancer genomics, in the future.

Fan Hsu, director of proteomics for the UCSC Genome Browser, said the emphasis on security was very different from past projects. Before, everything we have worked on is totally open, totally public. With the GSID project, only authorized users can access the data, so we needed to set up special controls, Hsu said.

How to display the very large number of HIV sequences on the browser was another challenge. Our original genome browser has only one reference genome. For this HIV database, we have about 350 infected people and more than 1,000 sequences, he said.

Hsu and software developer Galt Barber adapted the genome browser software to accommodate the large number of HIV sequences and the data security along with interactive selection criteria for viewing the data. As the project evolved, Hsu also coordinated the transfer of the software to GSID. The UCSC team, which also included Erich Weiler, Robert Kuhn, and Ann Zweig, worked nights and weekends to bring the new browser online.

The resulting GSID HIV Data Browser is a customized version of the UCSC Genome Browser. It provides researchers with searchable demographic and clinical data from volunteers who became HIV infected during the VaxGen clinical trial. The browser allows users to align viral sequences with one another and with reference or consensus sequences.

This is something where the university can make a difference, because the private sector is not so interested in vaccines; they're not so profitable, Kent said. There is very little economic incentive to develop an AIDS vaccine, but there is a tremendous humanitarian incentive.

Kent hopes that just as the UCSC Genome Browser has continued to build the collaborative nature of the genomics research community, this HIV data browser will help motivate the AIDS research community to work together and pool their data.

Vaccine development efforts have been repeatedly frustrated. An HIV vaccine candidate developed by the pharmaceutical company Merck recently failed in clinical trials cosponsored by NIH. The recent failure of the Merck HIV vaccine has thrown the field into turmoil, Berman said. All the best ideas for an HIV vaccine in the past 20 years have failed. The information in this database is now more critical than anyone could have imagined. It tells us what's being transmitted.

The next phase of the HIV browser project involves releasing the sequence data from infected participants in the Phase III clinical trial that VaxGen conducted in Thailand.

In the future, the database will be expanded to allow associations between virus sequences, clinical data, immune response data, and host genetics, Berman said. We hope to eventually include data from other HIV vaccine trials sponsored by the NIH, private companies, and other HIV vaccine research organizations.

Blood Cholesterol levels predict risk of heart disease in post menopausal women

Sat, 24 May 2008 11:14:27 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A new analysis of a subgroup of participants in the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) hormone therapy clinical trials suggests that healthy, postmenopausal women whose blood cholesterol levels are normal or lower are not at increased, short-term risk for heart attack when taking hormone therapy. In particular, postmenopausal women who had no history of heart disease but whose ratio of low-density lipoprotein (LDL or “bad”) cholesterol to high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good”) cholesterol was less than 2.5 were at no increased risk of heart attack or death due to heart attack from taking estrogen plus progestin or estrogen alone, compared to their peers who did not take hormone therapy, after four years of follow up.

“Usefulness of Baseline Lipids and C-Reactive Protein in Women Receiving Menopausal Hormone Therapy as Predictors of Treatment-Related Coronary Events,” will be published in the June 1 issue of the American Journal of Cardiology. The study was funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health.

Michael S. Lauer, M.D., director of the NHLBI Division of Prevention and Population Sciences, is available to comment on this latest analysis of the WHI hormone therapy clinical trials. He emphasizes that the primary results of the WHI hormone therapy clinical trials indicate that, overall, neither form of hormone therapy reduces the risk of heart disease in healthy, postmenopausal women, and estrogen plus progestin increases a women’s risk of heart disease. In addition, both estrogen plus progestin and estrogen alone increase the risk of stroke and blood clots – serious cardiovascular conditions that the new analysis does not address. Combination hormone therapy also increases the risk of breast cancer.

Identifying which women are more likely to be at increased risk for heart attack when taking hormone therapy can help women and their clinicians make better informed decisions about whether the benefits of hormone therapy outweigh the risks.

In general, however, women should not take hormone therapy to prevent heart disease, and women who choose to use hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms should use the lowest possible dose for the shortest duration. In addition, all women whose blood cholesterol levels are elevated are at increased risk of heart disease, regardless of whether they use hormone therapy, and they should take steps to lower their risk. Heart disease is the leading cause of death among both women and men in the United States.

Study identifies trends of vitamin B6 status in US population sample

Tue, 20 May 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) BOSTON- (May 20, 2008) In an epidemiological study, Tufts University researchers identified trends of vitamin B6 status in a sample of the United States population based on measures of plasma pyridoxal 5'- phosphate (PLP) levels in the bloodstream. Plasma PLP is the indicator used by the federal government to set the current Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of vitamin B6, a nutrient essential for red blood cell function and important for maintaining a healthy immune system and blood glucose levels.

Across the study population, we noticed participants with inadequate vitamin B6 status even though they reported consuming more than the Recommended Daily Allowance of vitamin B6, which is less than 2 milligrams per day, says Martha Savaria Morris, PhD, an epidemiologist at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University. We also identified four subgroups where this trend seemed most prominent: women of reproductive age, especially current and former users of oral contraceptives, male smokers, non-Hispanic African-American men, and men and women over age 65. Someone with inadequate vitamin B6 status is at risk of becoming Vitamin B6 deficient should their vitamin B6 levels drop too low.

Corresponding author Morris and colleagues studied 7,822 blood samples of men and women ages one-year and older collected from the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). Vitamin B6 inadequacy was defined as a plasma PLP concentration less than 20 nmol/L. To the authors' knowledge, the current study is the first large scale study to use plasma PLP concentrations to evaluate vitamin B6 status in free-living people of all ages. The investigators were also able to consider whether the current RDA guaranteed adequate vitamin B6 status because study participants were questioned about supplement use and two days' worth of food intake.

Eleven percent of supplement users and nearly a quarter of non-users demonstrated plasma PLP blood levels of less than 20 nmol/L. Within the four sub-groups where vitamin B6 inadequacy was most prominent, the prevalence of low plasma PLP levels significantly exceeded 10 percentɤeven among those who consumed 2 to 2.9 milligrams per day of vitamin B6. The RDAs for vitamin B6 in men and women who are not pregnant or lactating are as follows: 1.3 mg per day for men and women ages 19-50, 1.7 mg per day for men over age 50 and 1.5 mg for women over age 50.

Writing in the May 2008 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Morris and colleagues noted a stark contrast in plasma PLP levels between women of childbearing age (ages 13 to 54) and their male peers. When we looked specifically at the plasma PLP levels in women of childbearing age, we noticed they were significantly lower than in males in approximately the same age group. Morris continues, Most importantly, the data suggest that oral contraceptive users have extremely low plasma PLP levels. Three quarters of the women who reported using oral contraceptives, but not vitamin B6 supplements, were vitamin B6 deficient.

A pattern of low vitamin B6 status also surfaced in menstruating women who reported using oral contraceptives but who were no longer using them at the time of the NHANES survey. Among women in this sub-group who were not taking vitamin B6 supplements, 40 percent demonstrated plasma PLP blood levels below the cut-off for vitamin B6 inadequacy. Morris says, that although these results are somewhat surprising, the link between oral contraceptive use and vitamin B6 deficiency remains unclear. The vitamin could be stored elsewhere in the bodies of the oral contraceptive users, or in a different form, since our study only examined plasma PLP.

To further support their findings, Morris and colleagues measured homocysteine levels in the blood and compared them against the plasma PLP measures. Homocysteine is an amino acid that can accumulate in the blood if vitamin B6 levels are too low. Though study participants using oral contraceptives at the time of the survey did not demonstrate elevated homocysteine levels, the homocysteine concentrations of former users were significantly higher than those of women who had never used oral contraceptives. Morris says this could mean that oral contraceptive use has an effect on vitamin B6 status that is masked during use by acute effects of the exposure.

Because the study shows association and not causation, Morris stresses that further research is necessary to determine whether the RDA for vitamin B6 is high enough. We have identified populations with a high prevalence of apparently inadequate vitamin B status, Morris says. However, it is important to recognize that signs of deficiency are not seen at plasma PLP concentrations of 20 nmol/L and that dietary assessment is imperfect.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), vitamin B6 deficiency is rare in the United States, but it can cause a form of anemia similar to iron deficiency anemia. Vitamin B6 is widely distributed in the American diet, and baked potatoes, bananas, 100 percent fortified cereals and chicken are particularly good sources. Morris says, The question our study raises is whether, due to aging, genetics, or exposures, some population subgroups need supplements to achieve the current biochemical definition of adequate status.

Iron supplements might harm infants who have enough

Mon, 05 May 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) ANN ARBOR, Mich.---A new study suggests that extra iron for infants who don't need it might delay development -- results that fuel the debate over optimal iron supplement levels and could have huge implications for the baby formula and food industry.

Our results for 25 years of research show problems with lack of iron. For us to find this result is a big deal, it's really unexpected, said Dr. Betsy Lozoff, University of Michigan research professor at the Center for Human Growth and Development, and the study's principal investigator.

U.S. infant formulas typically come fortified with 12 mg/L of iron to prevent iron-deficiency anemia. Europe generally uses a lower amount. In infants, iron-deficiency anemia is associated with poorer development, and during pregnancy it contributes to anemia in mothers, contributing to premature birth, low birth weight and other complications.

I thought that behavior and development would be better with the 12 mg formula, said Lozoff, also professor of pediatrics in the U-M Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases at the Medical School and C.S. Mott Children's Hospital

The U-M study of 494 Chilean children showed that those who received iron fortified formula in infancy at the 12 mg used in the U.S. lagged behind those who received low-iron formula in cognitive and visual-motor development by age 10 years. Lozoff stressed that most children who received the 12 mg formula did not show lower scores. But the 5 percent of the sample with the highest hemoglobin levels at 6 months showed the poorest outcome. Your body needs iron to make hemoglobin, a substance in red blood cells that enables them to carry oxygen. High hemoglobin generally indicates sufficient iron.

Adversely affected children scored 11 points lower in IQ and 12 points lower in visual-motor integration, on average; the average overall score on both tests was 100. A similar pattern was observed for spatial memory and other visual-motor measures.

Lozoff noted that not many infants in Chile had high hemoglobin levels at the time since there was no iron-fortification program for infants and that more than 5 percent of U.S. infants might have high hemoglobin levels in early infancy.

In this randomized study, healthy infants without iron-deficiency anemia were given formula with either 12 mg or 2.3 mg iron from 6 to 12 months and followed to 10 years. The next step is to test the participants again at age 16, Lozoff said, who says that no such study has been conducted in the United States or elsewhere.

Iron deficiency occurs because babies grow so quickly they often grow out of the amount of iron they are born with. Breast milk is thought to contain the iron a baby needs for 4-6 months, Lozoff said. Other important sources of iron for infants include iron-fortified infant formulas and cereals, iron drops and meat.

Infants are typically not tested for hemoglobin or iron levels before 9-12 months. It would be premature to recommend earlier testing or to avoid supplemental iron based on the study's results, Lozoff said. She expects parents to be concerned, but stressed that results must be reproduced in other studies.

At this point there's no basis for changing practice, but it's really important that we have continued research on this issue, she said.

Method for fast human antibodies against flu could find broad use

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Scientists have developed a new, faster way to create human monoclonal antibodies against infectious disease by tapping the immune system at the peak of its powers.

Researchers from Emory University School of Medicine and Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation report that they can generate high-affinity monoclonal antibodies against influenza virus a month after vaccinating human volunteers.

Their results are described in an advance online publication in the journal Nature.

This method could find broad application towards almost any infectious disease, says Rafi Ahmed, PhD, director of the Emory Vaccine Center and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar.

As a first example, doctors could quickly generate human antibodies against a pandemic flu strain as a stop-gap therapy or to protect people from infection. In this study, the antibodies were not tested on influenza virus strains with pandemic potential, such as the H5N1 strain although such studies are underway.

Ahmed and postdoctoral fellow Jens Wrammert, PhD, from the Emory Vaccine Center and Emory University School of Medicine, collaborated with Don Capra, PhD, and Patrick Wilson, PhD, immunology researchers at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.

With just a few tablespoons of blood, we can now rapidly generate human antibodies that can be used for immunization, diagnosis and treatment of newly emerging strains of influenza, Wilson says. In the face of a disease outbreak, the ability to quickly produce infection-fighting human monoclonal antibodies would be invaluable.

With a detailed look at the antibodies stimulated by booster vaccination, the scientists also were able to address an issue that confounds health authorities trying to predict which viral strains will prevail in the upcoming flu season.

Doctors have worried about a phenomenon called original antigenic sin, where immunizing someone against a certain strain can handicap them in responding to a related strain.

We found that these early B cell responses are able to focus on the new virus, even though the immune system has seen related viruses before, says Wrammert, who is the paper's first author. B cells are the white blood cells that make antibodies.

The authors conclude that original antigenic sin is uncommon for healthy adults receiving influenza vaccination.

The methods previously used to make human monoclonal antibodies can be relatively laborious, Ahmed says. They involve sifting through human B cells and looking for those that make the right antibodies, or vaccinating mice and humanizing the mouse antibody genes by altering them so that they resemble human antibodies.

To make human antibodies against influenza, the Emory and University of Oklahoma researchers isolated antibody-secreting cells (plasma cells) from volunteers' blood a week after vaccination and cloned the antibody genes from these antibody-secreting cells.

Domestic violence associated with chronic malnutrition in women and children in India

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Boston, MA-- In a new, large-scale study exploring the link between domestic violence and chronic malnutrition, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that Indian mothers and children experiencing multiple incidents of domestic violence in the previous year are more likely to be anemic and underweight. The findings were published online March 26, 2008 in The American Journal of Epidemiology and will appear in an upcoming print issue of the journal.

This is strong evidence that domestic violence is linked with malnutrition among both mothers and children. In India, the withholding of food is a documented form of abuse and is likely correlated with the perpetration of physical violence, said S V Subramanian, associate professor of Society, Human Development, and Health at HSPH, and co-author of the study.

The study population included 69,072 (aged 15-49 years) women and 14,552 children (12-35 months) from the Indian National Family Health Survey of 1998-99. The participants underwent face-to-face interviews by trained personnel, and the data collected included body measurements, blood samples, and information on women's and child's exposure to domestic violence in the previous 12 months.

The researchers found that women who reported more than one instance of domestic violence in the previous year had a 11% increased likelihood of having anemia and a 21% increased likelihood of being underweight, as compared to women with no such history. This difference was not explained by the mother's demographic information. The associations between domestic violence and nearly all nutritional outcomes were similar for children.

The data suggest a relation between domestic violence and malnutrition among women and children in India. The authors note that preventing domestic violence could be just as effective as a pharmaceutical approach in combating anemia among women. The authors believe that one possible explanation is empowerment, such that perpetrators of domestic violence often use several types of abuse, including physical and psychological, to control the behavior of their family members. In India, the withholding of food as a type of abuse could be a factor in the link between physical domestic violence and nutrient deficiencies that cause anemia and underweight. Additionally, domestic violence has been strongly associated with a woman's inability to make decisions for herself and her family, including the choice of types and quantities of food she prepares

The authors' second explanation is that the link between domestic violence and nutritional deficiencies may also reflect the effects of psychological stress. Women and children who experience domestic violence tend to have higher levels of psychological stress, which has been associated with anemia and being underweight.

The authors believe that reducing domestic violence is clearly important from a moral and intrinsic perspective, and that this study provides a compelling case to also address the problem from the perspective of health effects. More efforts need to be focused on the 'non-health' aspects or 'social' conditions that influence health conditions, and domestic violence represents one such adverse social/contextual aspect that we've identified in Indian society, said Subramanian.

How exercise changes structure and function of heart

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) For the first time researchers are beginning to understand exactly how various forms of exercise impact the heart. Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators, in collaboration with the Harvard University Health Services, have found that 90 days of vigorous athletic training produces significant changes in cardiac structure and function and that the type of change varies with the type of exercise performed. Their study appears in the April Journal of Applied Physiology.

“Most of what we know about cardiac changes in athletes and other physically active people comes from ‘snapshots,’ taken at one specific point in time. What we did in this first-of-a-kind study was to follow athletes over several months to determine how the training process actually causes change to occur,” says Aaron Baggish, MD, a fellow in the MGH Cardiology Division and lead author of the study.

To investigate how exercise affects the heart over time, the MGH researchers enrolled two groups of Harvard University student athletes at the beginning of the fall 2006 semester. One group was comprised of endurance athletes – 20 male and 20 female rowers – and the other, strength athletes – 35 male football players. Student athletes were studied while participating their normal team training, with emphasis on how the heart adapts to a typical season of competitive athletics.

Echocardiography studies – ultrasound examination of the heart’s structure and function – were taken at the beginning and end of the 90-day study period. Participants followed the normal training regimens developed by their coaches and trainers, and weekly training activity was recorded. Endurance training included one- to three-hour sessions of on-water practice or use of indoor rowing equipment. The strength athletes took part in skill-focused drills, exercises designed to improve muscle strength and reaction time, and supervised weight training. Participants also were questioned confidentially about the use of steroids, and any who reported such use were excluded from the study.

At the end of the 90-day study period, both groups had significant overall increases in the size of their hearts. For endurance athletes, the left and right ventricles – the chambers that send blood into the aorta and to the lungs, respectively – expanded. In contrast, the heart muscle of the strength athletes tended to thicken, a phenomenon that appeared to be confined to the left ventricle. The most significant functional differences related to the relaxation of the heart muscle between beats – which increased in the endurance athletes but decreased in strength athletes, while still remaining within normal ranges.

“We were quite surprised by both the magnitude of changes over a relatively short period and by how great the differences were between the two groups of athletes,” Baggish says. “The functional differences raise questions about the potential impact of long-term training, which should be followed up in future studies.”

While this study looks at young athletes with healthy hearts, the information it provides may someday benefit heart disease patients. “The take-home message is that, just as not all heart disease is equal, not all exercise prescriptions are equal,” Baggish explains. “This should start us thinking about whether we should tailor the type of exercise patients should do to their specific type of heart disease. The concept will need to be studied in heart disease patients before we can make any definitive recommendations.”

A simplified method of giving rabies vaccine

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A simplified economical method of giving rabies vaccine is just as effective as the expensive standard vaccine regimen at stimulating anti-rabies antibodies.

A clinical trial in healthy volunteers has found that a simpler and cheaper way of using rabies vaccines proved to be just as effective as the current most widely used method at stimulating antibodies against rabies. The trial is published in this week's PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Dr Mary Warrell (Centre for Clinical Vaccinology and Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford, United Kingdom) and colleagues, who conducted the trial with a vaccine in routine use, say that the simplified method has the advantages of requiring fewer clinic visits, being more practicable, and acceptable, and having a wider margin of safety, especially in inexperienced hands. It would therefore, they say, be suitable for use anywhere in the world where there are financial constraints, and especially where two or more patients are likely to be treated on the same day.

All human deaths from rabies result from failure to give adequate prophylaxis. After a rabid animal bite, immediate wound cleaning, rabies vaccine and injections of anti-rabies antibody (immunoglobulin) effectively prevent fatal infection. But anti-rabies immunoglobulin is very rarely available in developing countries, and so prevention relies on giving people bitten by rabid animals effective vaccine treatment.

The vaccines that are currently approved by the World Health Organization, which are usually injected into the muscle, are prohibitively expensive, and so are unaffordable in developing countries. In Africa, for example, the average cost of an intramuscular course of vaccine is $US 39.6, equivalent to 50 days' wages.

Two economical regimens, involving injecting small amounts of vaccine into the skin (intradermally) at 2 or 8 sites on the first day of the course, with subsequent booster doses are available in a few places. With the 8-site method, a large dose of vaccine is given on the first day only, whereas with the 2-site method the same dose is divided between the first and third days, entailing an extra visit to the clinic. However, practical or perceived difficulties have restricted widespread uptake of these economical methods. Dr Warrell and colleagues therefore set out to test a new, similar simplified regimen, involving injections at 4 sites on the first day.

They vaccinated healthy volunteers to compare the antibody levels induced by the 4-site intradermal regimen with those induced by the current 2-site and 8-site intradermal regimens and the gold standard intramuscular regimen favored internationally. All of the economical intradermal regimens worked just as well as the intramuscular method at stimulating anti-rabies antibodies.

The authors conclude that the results provide sufficient evidence that the simplified 4-site regimen now meets all the criteria necessary for its recommendation for use wherever the cost of vaccine is prohibitive.

New vaccine may give long-term defense against deadly bird flu and its variant forms

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:59:37 PST

( from http://www.rxpgnews.com ) WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A new vaccine under development may provide protection against highly pathogenic bird flu and its evolving forms, according to researchers at Purdue University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who discovered the new preventative drug and have tested it in mice.

Unlike traditional influenza vaccines, the new vaccine could be produced quickly and stored for long periods in preparation for a pandemic of dangerous disease-causing avian influenza - H5N1 - and its variants, said Suresh Mittal, a Purdue virologist. In an earlier study with mice, he and his colleagues found that the vaccine protected against H5N1 for a year or longer. Because the studies have only been done in mice, it's not yet known whether the same results will be obtained in humans.

We want to have a vaccine that can be stored in advance and have the potential to provide protection for a period of time until we can change the vaccine to match the latest form of avian influenza, Mittal said. The combination of flu genes that we've used to produce the vaccine, I think, will provide that capability.

The importance of having a long-lasting, broadly protective vaccine is that it would give some cross-protection against new viruses with pandemic potential caused by mutations in currently circulating H5N1 viruses. This would give scientists time to develop a better vaccine that would match the latest form of the bird flu.

Mittal and his colleagues, including Suryaprakash Sambhara, the CDC principal investigator on the project, report their findings on the vaccine in the April 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases. In the December issue of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Mittal, Sambhara and their collaborators published their findings of the long-lasting capabilities of the vaccine.

In humans we want a vaccine to be fully effective for at least a year, said Mittal, a professor of comparative pathobiology. How long it will last in humans, we don't know yet.

To produce the new vaccine, the scientists used a mutated common cold virus, known as an adenovirus, as a delivery system for important genes from two types of the H5N1 avian influenza. The adenovirus is incapable of multiplying and so cannot cause illness to people. By using the adenovirus vector technology, a couple of problems with existing vaccines used to fight annual flu outbreaks are solved.

Problems with current influenza vaccines include that they are made from eggs, a process that can take as long as six months. The vaccine Mittal and his research team has developed isn't grown in eggs, making vaccine production much faster.

Additionally it would be difficult under normal conditions to produce the hundreds of millions of doses needed to protect everyone at risk for highly pathogenic forms of bird flu. With the beginning of a pandemic, since H5N1 decimates poultry populations, the egg supply needed to produce vaccines would be drastically cut.

The new vaccine uses an adjuvant, molecules added to the vaccine that stimulate the body's immune system, so that lower doses of the vaccine can be used. The adjuvant also allows the vaccine to be stockpiled so more people can be vaccinated, and it helps the vaccine protect against variant forms of the H5N1. The only FDA-approved H5N1 vaccine protects against only that specific strain of flu and only works in about 60 percent of those immunized with a high dose.

Adenoviral vector-based pandemic vaccines are an attractive option for developing countries where egg-independent cell-based vaccine technologies for other vaccines already are available, Sambhara said. Since this process is already in place, our vaccine could be produced locally at an affordable price.

Since H5N1 has been known, it has changed so that there are now two main subgroups, called clades. Within one of the clades, five subclades have emerged. This has complicated the task of developing a perfect match vaccine for the highly pathogenic bird flu. Other avian influenza viruses exist, but they have not proved to be as lethal to humans or other animals as has H5N1.

Influenza viruses are classified according to the combination of two types of proteins found on the virus cell surface. Different combinations of the 16 types of hemagglutinin (H) protein and nine types of neuraminidase (N) protein form a large number of influenza viruses for which birds are the natural hosts.

New, often more dangerous flu strains develop when the H and N combinations change and combine with other genes from circulating influenza viruses. When the genes of a human or swine influenza mix with an avian variety, a highly pathogenic human flu likely will result, Mittal said.

The first bird-to-human H5N1 case was recorded in 1997 in Hong Kong. The deadly virus has been documented in more than 60 countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Though it mainly has struck wild birds and poultry, there have been more than 300 human cases in 14 countries in the past decade with a 60 percent fatality rate. Most of the human cases have occurred in people who live and work closely with their poultry, but a few cases have been documented of the disease spreading from person to person.

In a typical case, WHO this week reported the most recent fatality - the death of a 30-year-old Egyptian woman who became ill on April 2 after handling sick birds. She did not respond to the antiviral treatment Tamiflu, which can be given after contact with a flu carrier.

The next step in the bird flu vaccine project will be to test the vaccine on new viruses that are appearing, Mittal said.

The scientific team's vaccine work is being developed by PaxVax Inc., which has licensed the technology. Mittal is a scientific adviser for the company but has no financial stake in the commercial development of the vaccine, nor do his colleagues.