Living proof that the food Fascists are wrong
Some more proof of extremely limited diets being quite viable
When William Staub died of natural causes at the age of 96 last month, his longevity seemed a tribute to the benefits of healthy living. After all, in the Sixties Staub invented the first mass-produced running treadmill, which found its way into millions of homes and gyms. He was still using his own treadmill right up to the last weeks of his life.
But there was also something odd about his lifestyle — an extremely restricted diet that runs contrary to all sensible ideas of nutrition. For most of his long life, Mr Staub lived solely on tomatoes, plain toast and tea — occasionally brightened by a slice of cheese and lettuce. How can anyone exist on such a regime for a month — let alone many decades?
Mr Staub’s story is just the latest in a long line of strange tales of people who, for years, will eat only a few odd foods, such as cheese and chips, or even just Monster Munch crisps (and only the one flavour, at that).
Why are they still alive? After all, we are constantly reminded how we must enjoy balanced diets that include five-a-day fruit and veg, along with the right proportions of protein, dairy and carbs, and all the vitamins, minerals that a body needs (and not too much of anything, remember!).
Nevertheless, thousands get along by eating far more restricted fare every day of their lives. Infamously, Lord Lucan would only ever have the same food for dinner: pork chops.
According to Muriel Spark, the novelist who researched Lucan’s life, the missing peer’s idea of variety was to have the chops glazed in gelatine during the summer months, while in winter he would have them grilled. Lucan’s friends claimed this as evidence that he was too dull to have done anything so bold as to attempt to murder his wife, kill his nanny by mistake and then disappear.
But it is not only the famous or infamous who are affected. Last month Abi Stroud, an 18-year-old from Newport, South Wales, revealed that she has eaten only cheese and chips for the past eight years. The regime might sound like teenage heaven to some kids, but Stroud says it has been utter hell. She eats three blocks of mature cheddar and three bags of chips a week. She will eat white bread — but only one particular brand.
The A-level student says that this is not through choice. She has a deep phobia of new foods. They terrify her, she says. Even the sight of a banana being peeled makes her gag.
As a result, her social life is as sorely restricted as her diet. ‘I never go out for dinner with friends or eat with other people because so I’m worried about being expected to eat something else,’ she told reporters. ‘When people ask me to try something different, I feel sick and dizzy. A teacher tried to get me to eat a chicken nugget and I burst into tears.’
Now Miss Stroud has been diagnosed by specialists with a condition called Selective Eating Disorder. Her food aversion began when she was ten, and she believes it was linked to the death of her grandmother. Her condition saw her weight spiral to 15st when she was 16. Exercise then saw her slim down to 13st.
She is off to university next month, and she hopes her diagnosis can help her to break her phobic cycle. ‘Now I know it’s not just me being a fussy eater, I’m determined to try something new,’ she says.
Selective eating disorder (SED) is such a newly identified condition that it has not yet been accepted into the ‘bible’ of psychiatry, the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. It is expected to be included in the 2013 edition.
Meanwhile, The British Journal of Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry has described SED as: ‘A little-studied phenomenon of eating a highly limited range of foods, associated with an unwillingness to try new foods. When this happens social avoidance, anxiety and conflict can result.’
Pilot studies in America have found many thousands of people who seem to fit the criteria for the disorder. But SED should not be confused with normal childhood fussiness.
According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, about 12 per cent of three-year-olds suffer from persistent selective eating — extremely faddy about their food — but fewer than one per cent carry it into adulthood.
Debbie Taylor is one of this minority. For more than a decade, the 32-year-old has eaten nothing but crisps. For the past two years, she has eaten only beef-flavoured Monster Munch for breakfast, lunch and dinner — two family-size bags a day.
The mother of a 12-year-old son, she says she has always been a fussy eater. ‘I can remember my mum trying everything to get me to eat healthily, cooking spaghetti bolognese and chopping up veg, which I refused to eat. She finally said: “If you don’t eat that, there’s nothing else.” I replied: “Fine. I don’t want anything.”’
Her food aversions led to anorexia and bulimia as a schoolgirl. In her late teens, she ate only dry-roasted peanuts, and bread sprinkled with salt. At the age of 25, she bought a packet of barbecue-flavoured crisps and fell in love with them. ‘I didn’t eat anything else for the next eight years, until the day I decided to go wild and try Monster Munch. They had been a childhood treat, and they became my crisp of choice,’ she has said.
The amazing thing is that Ms Taylor looks remarkably healthy, as do many selective eaters.
So how on earth do their bodies manage to survive? The secret lies in the human frame’s remarkable diversity and adaptability, according to Rick Miller, a registered dietitian and spokesman for the British Dietetic Association.
He says the dietary guidelines put out by Government experts are our best scientific guess at a one-size-fits-all recommendation. But our individual nutritional needs vary widely — and at the far edges of this spectrum are people whose bodies exist happily on strange diets.
‘The human body is a fascinating organism. It has been built for survival, and people’s nutritional requirements can differ from person to person,’ Mr Miller explains.
‘The official recommended daily intakes of nutrients — called Dietary Reference Values (DRVs) are only a guide. There are individuals who can survive on very little, as well as those who need a lot more every day. So some people can be apparently healthy on very restricted diets. However, they may be missing out on vital vitamins and minerals.’
On top of this, our systems can hoard scarce nutrients, which may also help people to survive on bizarre food regimes.
Mr Miller adds: ‘The body can store minerals, iron and B vitamins in the liver, so people on restricted diets can rely on their own stores for a while. People with SED may also have tastes that reflect their body’s vital nutritional needs. ‘We see cravings for certain nutrients in pregnant women, and there might be something similar happening with some selective eaters.’
And he has a warning for healthy-diet evangelists: the worst thing you could ever do to someone with SED is to make them suddenly eat a ‘proper’ meal.
‘If you force someone with SED to suddenly take on lots of other nutrients, it can send their body into a form of shock,’ he says, ‘This is called “re-feeding syndrome” and can have serious consequences, such as causing heart attacks.’
Of course, no one with conventional tastes should try voluntarily eating a severely restricted diet. But if one had to do it, what would be the best thing to eat?
Scientists have looked into this question and found that Sophie Ray, 19, from Wrexham, North Wales, might be on the right track. She has reportedly eaten nothing but cheese and tomato pizza for the past eight years after a attack of the stomach bug gastroenteritis left her with an extreme fear of food. She says: ‘I love pizza. The thought of trying other foods makes me very anxious, I feel sick and clam up.’
Naturally, she would be healthier on a full-spectrum diet, but an investigation in 1997 by Dr Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition and food studies at New York University, has shown real cheese pizza with real tomato sauce can provide us with sufficient nutrients to survive.
Professor Nestle says pizza mixes a lot of ingredients and can provide protein (from wheat crust and cheese) and essential nutrients, such as vitamin B12 (again from cheese) and vitamin C (from tomato), along with antioxidants and other nutrients. The olive oil used for good Italian pizza provides both calories and vitamin E.
‘Vitamin D can come from the sun, there is a fair amount of vitamin A in tomatoes,’ she says. ‘And to top it off, tomato sauce is a good source of nutrients such as lycopenes, with their rich anti-oxidant potential. ‘If you are stuck on a desert island that happened to have a pizza parlour, you could do a lot worse.’
Only one food might be better — it is the food that many of us consumed solely for six months or more. And that is breast milk.
According to Jo Ann Hattner, a nutrition consultant and the author of Gut Insight, a book about digestive health: ‘Mother’s milk is a complete food. We may add some solid foods to an infant’s diet in the first year of life to provide more iron and other nutrients, but there is a little bit of everything in human milk.’
Technically, adults could survive on breast milk, too. The only problem (outside of the comedy world of Little Britain) would be finding a woman willing to provide it — and in sufficient quantities to keep a grown-up supplied.
SOURCE
Junk science about junk food
In the fight against obesity, should science matter? It depends on whom you ask. The answer may surprise you, and could make you realize that you shouldn't always trust the do-gooders.
A study published in Pediatrics magazine this month shows an association between obesity reduction and states with strict school rules against salty and fatty foods and sugary drinks. The researchers were properly prudent to caution that while they found a link between less obesity and rules against goodies, their study did not prove causation.
They noted that they did not control for key factors that could explain the results some other way. The conclusion of the study is clear and should be undisputed: These laws may, but don't necessarily, make a difference -- the same way umbrellas may be a leading cause of rain.
But consider the reaction from the executive director of the New York State Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Alliance: In response to the accurate NBC News headline, "School junk food bans may really help curb obesity," Nancy Huehnergarth tweeted, "Worth repeating. School food policy works!" But that's not repeating; it's distorting. Neither the study, the headline nor the story said the bans work.
There's nothing wrong with promoting a policy agenda, but it's wrong to mislead the public by knowingly twisting the findings of a study to serve that agenda. Unfortunately, policymakers and the public tend to give a free ride to anyone fighting obesity, smoking or any societal ill. If science is to determine policy, that is a mistake. We shouldn't blindly trust those who mislead us even if they want to save the world.
Similar fuzzy thinking applies in what turns out to be an asymmetrical battle over disclosure of funding and the credibility of scientific research. The study itself appears to be scientifically sound and comes with appropriate caveats. It was partially funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, or RWJF, which most media outlets disclosed. However, that disclosure is woefully incomplete; a distortion by omission. The typical reader would consider the funding source to bolster the credibility of the report. But I've found no coverage that also discloses that critical fact that the RWJF is one of the nation's leading proponents of the very laws being evaluated for their efficacy. Everyone might safely assume pretzel purveyors oppose the laws, but not everyone will know that RWJF has a dog in the fight.
Don't disbelieve the study just because it was funded by the RWJF, but be aware of the potential for bias, just as you would if a study funded by Coca-Cola reached the opposite result.
The same caution is also in order even for today's government-funded studies. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pushing the limits of federal law by using taxpayer dollars, first from the stimulus bill and now from the health care law, to lobby for policy changes at the state and local level. Remember the Bloomberg administration's controversial (and unscientific) subway ads, where soda turned into globs of fat? Those were the type of federally funded campaigns meant to lay the groundwork for soda taxes. Less controversial are federally funded studies meant to justify the policies. The government isn't funding studies to determine whether these laws work; it is funding them to justify a position it has already taken.
If you ignore these principles you aren't following the science -- you are biased in favor of nanny state laws. That's fine, but in that case, don't pretend the science is on your side.
SOURCE
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Green tea extract eradicates cancer tumours
Green tea extract 'eradicates cancer tumours'
A very preliminary study in laboratory glassware only
Powerful new anti-cancer drugs based on green tea could soon be developed after scientists found an extract from the beverage could make almost half of tumours vanish. The University of Strathclyde team made 40 per cent of human skin cancer tumours disappear using the compound, in a laboratory study.
Green tea has long been suspected of having anti-cancer properties and the extract, called epigallocatechin gallate, has been investigated before. However, this is the first time researchers have managed to make it effective at shrinking tumours.
Previous attempts to capitalise on its cancer-fighting properties have failed because scientists used intravenous drips, which failed to deliver enough of the extract to the tumours themselves.
So, the Strathclyde team devised a “targeted delivery system”, piggy-backing the extract on proteins that carry iron molecules, which cancer tumours Hoover up. The lab test on one type of human skin cancer showed 40 per cent of tumours disappeared after a month of treatment, while an additional 30 per cent shrank.
Dr Christine Dufès, a senior lecturer at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, who led the research, said: “These are very encouraging results which we hope could pave the way for new and effective cancer treatments.
“When we used our method, the green tea extract reduced the size of many of the tumours every day, in some cases removing them altogether. "By contrast, the extract had no effect at all when it was delivered by other means, as every one of these tumours continued to grow.
“This research could open doors to new treatments for what is still one of the biggest killer diseases in many countries.” She added: “I was expecting good results, but not as strong as these.”
Dr Dufès said population studies had previously indicated that green tea had anti-cancer properties, and scientists had since identified the active compound as epigallocatechin gallate.
But the Strathclyde researchers were the first to delivery it in high enough doses to tumours to have an effect.
She explained: “The problems with this extract is that when it’s administered intravenously, it goes everywhere in the body, so when it gets to the tumours it’s too diluted. “With the targeted delivery system, it’s taken straight to the tumours without any effect on normal tissue.”
Cancer scientists are increasingly using targeted delivery to improve results, relying on the many different ‘receptors’ that tumours have for different biological substances.
In this instance, the scientists used the fact that tumours have receptors for transferrin, a plasma protein which transports iron through the blood.
The results have been published in the journal Nanomedicine.
The “ultimate objective” was a clinical trial in humans - but Dr Dufès said that was some way off. “We have got to optimise the delivery system and therapeutic effect first,” she said.
Dr Julie Sharp, from Cancer Research UK, said: “A few studies have shown that extracts from green tea may have some effect on cancer cells in the lab but this has not yet been backed up by research in humans.” She added: “It’s far too soon to say if enjoying a cup of green tea has any wider benefits in combating cancer but we know that a healthy balanced diet can help to reduce the risk.”
SOURCE
Midwives told to drop ‘30-second rule’ on cutting umbilical cord after delaying longer shown to benefit babies
This has been known for some time. It seems a pity that it is not already generally implemented
A radical change in the way babies are delivered will see midwives delay cutting the umbilical cord following evidence that it improves the health of newborns.
The Royal College of Midwives is preparing to update its guidance to recommend delayed clamping for most women who give birth in hospitals, which will affect about 90 per cent of all births.
Current guidance from the RCM and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is to cut and clamp the umbilical cord within 30 seconds to protect babies from too much exposure to a synthetic hormone given to mothers to speed up labour and deliver the placenta.
It was also thought to help prevent a baby getting jaundice, a condition that causes yellowing of the skin, and was encouraged because of the risk of bleeding in new mothers.
However, doctors have long been divided over the issue – and studies have now found that delaying the procedure by just a few minutes has significant health benefits.
It is thought being connected to the maternal blood supply for longer helps protect babies against iron deficiency and anaemia, and allows vital stem cells to be transferred.
Increasing numbers of women have also been asking midwives to delay cutting and clamping to allow more blood to drain from the placenta into the baby, and also simply so they are connected for longer.
The new guidance is being developed and will be announced at the College’s conference in November.
Mervi Jokinen, practice and standards development adviser at the RCM, said: ‘We are supporting the midwives not to clamp the cord immediately. We’ve not finalised the guidelines and in terms of how long it will recommend delaying clamping for, we don’t know.
‘Guidelines drawn up by different organisations vary from one to five minutes, and even up to ten.
‘Most midwives will have to use their judgment in terms of the clinical situation. It’s more likely to happen within three to five minutes.’
Mrs Jokinen added that the change was driven by the evidence from clinical studies, but also because women were increasingly asking for midwives to delay clamping.
‘The issue here was studies started to show that with early clamping you’re denying a baby a boost of blood and it was recognised that haemoglobin levels were much lower later on,’ she said.
‘It is said that babies who are healthy and well would benefit from greater haemoglobin levels. Women have also asked us to give their babies to them while they are attached.’
A study from Sweden found a delay of three minutes could reduce the risk of iron deficiency later in childhood as well as anaemia in newborns, which can lead to poor brain development.
At four months, fewer than one per cent of infants who had delayed clamping were deficient in iron compared with six per cent of those clamped immediately. There was no increase in jaundice or other complications thought to be linked to delayed clamping.
In an editorial published in the same journal as the study, Dr Patrick van Rheenen, a consultant paediatrician at Groningen University in the Netherlands, said: ‘Delayed clamping clearly favours the child.
‘How much evidence is needed to convince obstetricians and midwives that it is worthwhile to wait for three minutes to allow for placental transfusion?’
A major US study published in 2007, which involved more than 1,900 newborns, found a two-minute delay was enough to reduce the risk of anaemia by half and low iron levels in the blood by a third.
The World Health Organisation dropped early clamping from its guidelines in 2007 and best practice on the issue varies across Europe. Guidelines in the UK, drawn up by NICE, recommend early clamping although an update is due in 2014.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists updated its guidance last year to recommend the cord ‘should not be clamped earlier than necessary, based on a clinical assessment of the situation’.
Although hospitals will still be able to decide their own birth protocols, it is likely that they will follow RCM policy.
David Hutchon, a retired consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist who has campaigned for years for a change in policy, said: ‘This is very welcome. ‘But whether doctors will take any notice is another issue. ‘There’s a lot of ignorance out there and people have just blindly followed guidance for years without questioning it.’
SOURCE
A very preliminary study in laboratory glassware only
Powerful new anti-cancer drugs based on green tea could soon be developed after scientists found an extract from the beverage could make almost half of tumours vanish. The University of Strathclyde team made 40 per cent of human skin cancer tumours disappear using the compound, in a laboratory study.
Green tea has long been suspected of having anti-cancer properties and the extract, called epigallocatechin gallate, has been investigated before. However, this is the first time researchers have managed to make it effective at shrinking tumours.
Previous attempts to capitalise on its cancer-fighting properties have failed because scientists used intravenous drips, which failed to deliver enough of the extract to the tumours themselves.
So, the Strathclyde team devised a “targeted delivery system”, piggy-backing the extract on proteins that carry iron molecules, which cancer tumours Hoover up. The lab test on one type of human skin cancer showed 40 per cent of tumours disappeared after a month of treatment, while an additional 30 per cent shrank.
Dr Christine Dufès, a senior lecturer at the Strathclyde Institute of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, who led the research, said: “These are very encouraging results which we hope could pave the way for new and effective cancer treatments.
“When we used our method, the green tea extract reduced the size of many of the tumours every day, in some cases removing them altogether. "By contrast, the extract had no effect at all when it was delivered by other means, as every one of these tumours continued to grow.
“This research could open doors to new treatments for what is still one of the biggest killer diseases in many countries.” She added: “I was expecting good results, but not as strong as these.”
Dr Dufès said population studies had previously indicated that green tea had anti-cancer properties, and scientists had since identified the active compound as epigallocatechin gallate.
But the Strathclyde researchers were the first to delivery it in high enough doses to tumours to have an effect.
She explained: “The problems with this extract is that when it’s administered intravenously, it goes everywhere in the body, so when it gets to the tumours it’s too diluted. “With the targeted delivery system, it’s taken straight to the tumours without any effect on normal tissue.”
Cancer scientists are increasingly using targeted delivery to improve results, relying on the many different ‘receptors’ that tumours have for different biological substances.
In this instance, the scientists used the fact that tumours have receptors for transferrin, a plasma protein which transports iron through the blood.
The results have been published in the journal Nanomedicine.
The “ultimate objective” was a clinical trial in humans - but Dr Dufès said that was some way off. “We have got to optimise the delivery system and therapeutic effect first,” she said.
Dr Julie Sharp, from Cancer Research UK, said: “A few studies have shown that extracts from green tea may have some effect on cancer cells in the lab but this has not yet been backed up by research in humans.” She added: “It’s far too soon to say if enjoying a cup of green tea has any wider benefits in combating cancer but we know that a healthy balanced diet can help to reduce the risk.”
SOURCE
Midwives told to drop ‘30-second rule’ on cutting umbilical cord after delaying longer shown to benefit babies
This has been known for some time. It seems a pity that it is not already generally implemented
A radical change in the way babies are delivered will see midwives delay cutting the umbilical cord following evidence that it improves the health of newborns.
The Royal College of Midwives is preparing to update its guidance to recommend delayed clamping for most women who give birth in hospitals, which will affect about 90 per cent of all births.
Current guidance from the RCM and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is to cut and clamp the umbilical cord within 30 seconds to protect babies from too much exposure to a synthetic hormone given to mothers to speed up labour and deliver the placenta.
It was also thought to help prevent a baby getting jaundice, a condition that causes yellowing of the skin, and was encouraged because of the risk of bleeding in new mothers.
However, doctors have long been divided over the issue – and studies have now found that delaying the procedure by just a few minutes has significant health benefits.
It is thought being connected to the maternal blood supply for longer helps protect babies against iron deficiency and anaemia, and allows vital stem cells to be transferred.
Increasing numbers of women have also been asking midwives to delay cutting and clamping to allow more blood to drain from the placenta into the baby, and also simply so they are connected for longer.
The new guidance is being developed and will be announced at the College’s conference in November.
Mervi Jokinen, practice and standards development adviser at the RCM, said: ‘We are supporting the midwives not to clamp the cord immediately. We’ve not finalised the guidelines and in terms of how long it will recommend delaying clamping for, we don’t know.
‘Guidelines drawn up by different organisations vary from one to five minutes, and even up to ten.
‘Most midwives will have to use their judgment in terms of the clinical situation. It’s more likely to happen within three to five minutes.’
Mrs Jokinen added that the change was driven by the evidence from clinical studies, but also because women were increasingly asking for midwives to delay clamping.
‘The issue here was studies started to show that with early clamping you’re denying a baby a boost of blood and it was recognised that haemoglobin levels were much lower later on,’ she said.
‘It is said that babies who are healthy and well would benefit from greater haemoglobin levels. Women have also asked us to give their babies to them while they are attached.’
A study from Sweden found a delay of three minutes could reduce the risk of iron deficiency later in childhood as well as anaemia in newborns, which can lead to poor brain development.
At four months, fewer than one per cent of infants who had delayed clamping were deficient in iron compared with six per cent of those clamped immediately. There was no increase in jaundice or other complications thought to be linked to delayed clamping.
In an editorial published in the same journal as the study, Dr Patrick van Rheenen, a consultant paediatrician at Groningen University in the Netherlands, said: ‘Delayed clamping clearly favours the child.
‘How much evidence is needed to convince obstetricians and midwives that it is worthwhile to wait for three minutes to allow for placental transfusion?’
A major US study published in 2007, which involved more than 1,900 newborns, found a two-minute delay was enough to reduce the risk of anaemia by half and low iron levels in the blood by a third.
The World Health Organisation dropped early clamping from its guidelines in 2007 and best practice on the issue varies across Europe. Guidelines in the UK, drawn up by NICE, recommend early clamping although an update is due in 2014.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists updated its guidance last year to recommend the cord ‘should not be clamped earlier than necessary, based on a clinical assessment of the situation’.
Although hospitals will still be able to decide their own birth protocols, it is likely that they will follow RCM policy.
David Hutchon, a retired consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist who has campaigned for years for a change in policy, said: ‘This is very welcome. ‘But whether doctors will take any notice is another issue. ‘There’s a lot of ignorance out there and people have just blindly followed guidance for years without questioning it.’
SOURCE
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Mouse study: Bowel cancer could be fuelled by E coli stomach bug
Mouse study: Bowel cancer 'could be fuelled by E coli stomach bug'
Or is it that mice with cancer are more likely to get e-coli through weakened resistance?
One of Britain’s most common cancers could be fuelled by the E coli stomach bug, scientists believe.
The breakthrough raises the prospect of a vaccine against bowel cancer, which claims 16,000 lives a year and is the second most common form of the disease in women after breast cancer and the third most diagnosed in men.
The elderly, who are most at risk of the bowel cancer, could also be screened for the ‘sticky’ strain of E coli that makes a DNA-damaging poison.
Although the idea that a bug is involved in cancer might seem strange, it is not unheard of, with a virus being to blame for most cases of cervical cancer and a bacterium strongly linked to stomach cancer.
Now, tests on mice and people, carried out in the UK and US, have pointed to E coli being a strong suspect in bowel cancer.
The concern surrounds a version that sticks well to the inside of the lower bowel, or colon. It also contains genes that make a poison which causes the type of damage to DNA usually seen in cancer.
Although we usually think of E coli as causing food poisoning, these strains had been thought to live in the bowel without causing any problems.
However, tests show them to be much more common in bowel cancer patients than in healthy people.
Two-thirds of the 21 samples taken from bowel cancer patients contained the bug, compared to just one in five of those taken from healthy people, the journal Science reports.
Experiments also showed that mice inoculated with the bug are at very high odds of developing bowel cancer – as long as the E coli carries the poison-making ‘pks’ genes.
Liverpool University’s Dr Barry Campbell, a co-author of the study, said: ‘The research suggests that Ecoli has a much wider involvement in the development of colon cancer than previously thought.
‘It is important to build on these findings to understand why this type of bacteria, containing the pks genes, is present in some people and not in others.’
Professor Jonathan Rhodes said: ‘The bottom line message is that there seems to be a strong association between a type of E coli and the development of colon cancer.
‘And given that this type of E coli is specifically able to damage DNA and inflict the sort of damage you get in a cancer, it is very likely it has a causative role, at least in some patients.’
The scientists, who collaborated with scientists from the University of North Carolina, aren’t sure why some people who have the bug go onto develop cancer and others don’t.
But factors such as genes and diet are probably important.
Professor Rhodes said: ‘The literature on colon cancer taken as a whole suggests that having the right genes, taking exercise, possibly taking an aspirin a day, limiting red meat and eating plenty of leafy green vegetables all have a protective effect.’
If the link is confirmed, it could lead to tests for the rogue form of E coli being included in bowel cancer screening for the elderly.
In the long-term, a vaccine that stops the bug from taking root is also possible, added the professor.
There is a precedent for this – the HPV vaccine which is given to teenage girls wards off infection by the human papilloma virus - the bug behind the majority of cases of cervical cancer.
Henry Scowcroft, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘This is an intriguing study in mice suggesting that the bacteria in our gut may play a role in the development of bowel cancer.
‘This would make sense, as we know that being infected with bacteria called H pylori can increase the chances of developing stomach cancer.
‘But since this study only involved mice and is still at an early stage, it’s not yet clear whether E coli is actually linked to bowel cancer in humans at all, let alone whether this knowledge could be used to help improve things for patients or people at risk.’
SOURCE
How your blood group can affect your heart disease risk: Britons with 'O' type 'benefit from natural protection'
The Japanese are fanatical about blood type. Maybe they are onto something! The effects below are however too small to be given much credence
A person’s blood group helps determine their risk of heart disease, a study has found. Researchers claim almost half of Britons with blood group O, the most common blood type, benefit from some natural protection against the illness.
However, they said people from groups A and B are more at risk, while people from AB, the rarest blood group, are the most vulnerable.
The findings, published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, are based on an analysis of two large US health and lifestyle studies.
The Harvard University researchers concluded people with blood group AB were 23 per cent more likely to suffer from heart disease. Group B blood increased the risk by 11 per cent, and type A by 5 per cent.
Lead researcher Professor Lu Qi, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said ‘While people cannot change their blood type, our findings may help physicians better understand who is at risk for developing heart disease.
‘It’s good to know your blood type the same way you should know your cholesterol or blood pressure numbers. 'If you know you’re at higher risk, you can reduce the risk by adopting a healthier lifestyle, such as eating right, exercising and not smoking.’
The study compared blood groups and heart disease incidence but did not analyse the complex biological mechanisms involved.
There is evidence that type A blood is associated with higher levels of ‘bad’ type of cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL), which is more likely to fur up the arteries.
AB blood is linked to inflammation, which also plays an important role in artery damage.
People with type O blood may benefit from a substance that is thought to assist blood flow and reduce clotting.
The researchers pointed out the study group was mostly white Caucasian and it is not clear whether the same findings applied to other ethnic groups.
Prof Qi said ‘It would be interesting to study whether people with different blood types respond differently to lifestyle intervention, such as diet.’
Scientists from Pennsylvania University last year found the same gene that causes people to be blood group ‘O’ gives them some protection against heart attack.
But experts warn that while blood type O may offer some protection from heart trouble, blood type alone will not compensate for other factors that are linked to cardiovascular disease.
Other research found blood group O patients may be at greater risk for bleeding and blood transfusions after heart surgery. Patients with AB blood type are 20 per cent less likely to die after heart bypass surgery than those with A, B or O blood types, said Duke University Medical Center researchers.
Doireann Maddock, Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said ‘While these findings are certainly interesting we’ll need more research to draw any firm conclusions about blood type and its role in heart disease risk.
‘Nobody can influence what type of blood they are born with but a healthy lifestyle is something everybody can have an influence over. Eating healthily, getting active and stopping smoking are the types of things you should be worrying about, not your blood type.’
SOURCE
Or is it that mice with cancer are more likely to get e-coli through weakened resistance?
One of Britain’s most common cancers could be fuelled by the E coli stomach bug, scientists believe.
The breakthrough raises the prospect of a vaccine against bowel cancer, which claims 16,000 lives a year and is the second most common form of the disease in women after breast cancer and the third most diagnosed in men.
The elderly, who are most at risk of the bowel cancer, could also be screened for the ‘sticky’ strain of E coli that makes a DNA-damaging poison.
Although the idea that a bug is involved in cancer might seem strange, it is not unheard of, with a virus being to blame for most cases of cervical cancer and a bacterium strongly linked to stomach cancer.
Now, tests on mice and people, carried out in the UK and US, have pointed to E coli being a strong suspect in bowel cancer.
The concern surrounds a version that sticks well to the inside of the lower bowel, or colon. It also contains genes that make a poison which causes the type of damage to DNA usually seen in cancer.
Although we usually think of E coli as causing food poisoning, these strains had been thought to live in the bowel without causing any problems.
However, tests show them to be much more common in bowel cancer patients than in healthy people.
Two-thirds of the 21 samples taken from bowel cancer patients contained the bug, compared to just one in five of those taken from healthy people, the journal Science reports.
Experiments also showed that mice inoculated with the bug are at very high odds of developing bowel cancer – as long as the E coli carries the poison-making ‘pks’ genes.
Liverpool University’s Dr Barry Campbell, a co-author of the study, said: ‘The research suggests that Ecoli has a much wider involvement in the development of colon cancer than previously thought.
‘It is important to build on these findings to understand why this type of bacteria, containing the pks genes, is present in some people and not in others.’
Professor Jonathan Rhodes said: ‘The bottom line message is that there seems to be a strong association between a type of E coli and the development of colon cancer.
‘And given that this type of E coli is specifically able to damage DNA and inflict the sort of damage you get in a cancer, it is very likely it has a causative role, at least in some patients.’
The scientists, who collaborated with scientists from the University of North Carolina, aren’t sure why some people who have the bug go onto develop cancer and others don’t.
But factors such as genes and diet are probably important.
Professor Rhodes said: ‘The literature on colon cancer taken as a whole suggests that having the right genes, taking exercise, possibly taking an aspirin a day, limiting red meat and eating plenty of leafy green vegetables all have a protective effect.’
If the link is confirmed, it could lead to tests for the rogue form of E coli being included in bowel cancer screening for the elderly.
In the long-term, a vaccine that stops the bug from taking root is also possible, added the professor.
There is a precedent for this – the HPV vaccine which is given to teenage girls wards off infection by the human papilloma virus - the bug behind the majority of cases of cervical cancer.
Henry Scowcroft, of Cancer Research UK, said: ‘This is an intriguing study in mice suggesting that the bacteria in our gut may play a role in the development of bowel cancer.
‘This would make sense, as we know that being infected with bacteria called H pylori can increase the chances of developing stomach cancer.
‘But since this study only involved mice and is still at an early stage, it’s not yet clear whether E coli is actually linked to bowel cancer in humans at all, let alone whether this knowledge could be used to help improve things for patients or people at risk.’
SOURCE
How your blood group can affect your heart disease risk: Britons with 'O' type 'benefit from natural protection'
The Japanese are fanatical about blood type. Maybe they are onto something! The effects below are however too small to be given much credence
A person’s blood group helps determine their risk of heart disease, a study has found. Researchers claim almost half of Britons with blood group O, the most common blood type, benefit from some natural protection against the illness.
However, they said people from groups A and B are more at risk, while people from AB, the rarest blood group, are the most vulnerable.
The findings, published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, are based on an analysis of two large US health and lifestyle studies.
The Harvard University researchers concluded people with blood group AB were 23 per cent more likely to suffer from heart disease. Group B blood increased the risk by 11 per cent, and type A by 5 per cent.
Lead researcher Professor Lu Qi, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, said ‘While people cannot change their blood type, our findings may help physicians better understand who is at risk for developing heart disease.
‘It’s good to know your blood type the same way you should know your cholesterol or blood pressure numbers. 'If you know you’re at higher risk, you can reduce the risk by adopting a healthier lifestyle, such as eating right, exercising and not smoking.’
The study compared blood groups and heart disease incidence but did not analyse the complex biological mechanisms involved.
There is evidence that type A blood is associated with higher levels of ‘bad’ type of cholesterol, low density lipoprotein (LDL), which is more likely to fur up the arteries.
AB blood is linked to inflammation, which also plays an important role in artery damage.
People with type O blood may benefit from a substance that is thought to assist blood flow and reduce clotting.
The researchers pointed out the study group was mostly white Caucasian and it is not clear whether the same findings applied to other ethnic groups.
Prof Qi said ‘It would be interesting to study whether people with different blood types respond differently to lifestyle intervention, such as diet.’
Scientists from Pennsylvania University last year found the same gene that causes people to be blood group ‘O’ gives them some protection against heart attack.
But experts warn that while blood type O may offer some protection from heart trouble, blood type alone will not compensate for other factors that are linked to cardiovascular disease.
Other research found blood group O patients may be at greater risk for bleeding and blood transfusions after heart surgery. Patients with AB blood type are 20 per cent less likely to die after heart bypass surgery than those with A, B or O blood types, said Duke University Medical Center researchers.
Doireann Maddock, Senior Cardiac Nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said ‘While these findings are certainly interesting we’ll need more research to draw any firm conclusions about blood type and its role in heart disease risk.
‘Nobody can influence what type of blood they are born with but a healthy lifestyle is something everybody can have an influence over. Eating healthily, getting active and stopping smoking are the types of things you should be worrying about, not your blood type.’
SOURCE
Monday, August 20, 2012
California Initiative Puts Profit Ahead of Science
California Initiative Puts Profit Ahead of Science
Proposition 37 props up profits for organic growers and denies the scientific consensus in favor of biotech crops.
The Proposition 37 petition asserts that “genetic engineering of plants and animals often causes unintended consequences. Manipulating genes and inserting them into organisms is an imprecise process. The results are not always predictable or controllable, and they can lead to adverse health or environmental consequences.” All of these claims, quoted from the findings and declarations section of the initiative, are solidly contradicted by the scientific consensus regarding biotech crops.
In a 2004 report, Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods: Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Effects, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reviewed and compared the unintended consequences of conventional, mutagenic, and biotech plant breeding. The NAS report noted that all types of plant breeding—conventional, mutagenic, and biotech—could on rare occasions produce crops with unintended consequences. However, the report concluded, “The process of rDNA [biotech breeding] is itself not inherently hazardous.”
What about the claim that biotech breeding is “an imprecise process”? Not so says the NAS report. Conventional breeding transfers thousands of unknown genes with unknown functions along with desired genes, and mutation breeding induces thousands of random mutations via chemicals or radiation. In contrast, the NAS report notes, “Genetic engineering methods are considered by some to be more precise than conventional breeding methods because only known and precisely characterized genes are transferred.”
Any adverse health consequences? After reviewing all the scientific evidence, the NAS report concluded, “To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.” In 2003, the International Council for Science (ICSU) representing 111 national academies of science and 29 scientific unions issued a report declaring, “Currently available genetically modified foods are safe to eat.” The ICSU pointedly added, “There is no evidence of any ill effects from the consumption of foods containing genetically modified ingredients.” With regard to eating foods made from biotech crops, the World Health Organization flatly states, “No effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.”
At its annual meeting in June, the American Medical Association endorsed a report on the labeling of bioengineered foods from its Council on Science and Public Health. The report found that, “Bioengineered foods have been consumed for close to 20 years, and during that time, no overt consequences on human health have been reported and/or substantiated in the peer-reviewed literature.” The AMA report further noted, “Despite strong consumer interest in mandatory labeling of bioengineered foods, the FDA’s science-based labeling policies do not support special labeling without evidence of material differences between bioengineered foods and their traditional counterparts. The Council supports this science-based approach….” Every independent scientific body that has ever evaluated the safety of current biotech crop varieties has found them to be as safe or even safer than conventional crop varieties.
So who is funding this pack of lies? The petition for Proposition 37 was filed and launched by notorious trial lawyer James Wheaton. The corporations that back the initiative include Nature’s Path, which sells $300 million worth of organic cereals annually and has pledged $500,000 to the anti-science campaign and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, a private company with revenues of $50 million annually derived from peddling organic soaps and has given $300,000. The biggest donor is Mercola Health Resources run by Chicago osteopath and self-styled alternative medicine guru Joseph Mercola, who promotes his sketchy supplements through his online health newsletter. Mercola has donated $800,000 to the campaign.
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has spent $635,000 promoting the initiative. OCA lists no donors on its 2010 IRS Form 990 and apparently gets most of its $1.3 million in revenues from phone solicitations contracted out to the Hudson Bay Company of Illinois based in Lincoln, Nebraska. Lundberg Family Farms, with revenues of nearly $50 million from selling organic rice, has committed $200,000 to the campaign. Among the activist groups favoring Proposition 37, is the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT), which is part of an anti-science coalition jumpstarted with a $1 million grant from Mercola. Among other claims, the IRT suggests that eating foods made from biotech crops is a cause of autism.
The traditional anti-biotech environmentalist groups have piled on and endorsed Proposition 37 as well, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Pesticide Action Network, and the Sierra Club. Shoving science aside, the California Democratic Party has formally endorsed Proposition 37. In particular, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who insists on the accepting the scientific consensus concerning climate change, rejects it with regard to the safety of biotech crops and supports anti-science when it comes to Proposition 37. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is also on board the pro-Proposition 37 bandwagon.
One other claim made in the Proposition 37 petition is that “90 percent of the public want to know if their food was produced using genetic engineering.” That is unfortunately about right. And why not? After all, profitmongering organic foods purveyors and scaremongering environmentalists have been spreading disinformation about the safety of biotech crops for more than two decades now.
However, there may less than meets the eye to those poll results. The citizens of the European Union are supposed to be especially averse to biotech crops. However, a new European Commission report, A Decade of EU-Funded GMO Research, finds that polls may not be a good way to evaluate actual consumer attitudes toward foods made with biotech crops. The researchers found that despite strongly negative polls, when it came to looking at the actual buying behavior, “most people do not actively avoid GM [genetically modified] food, suggesting that they are not greatly concerned with the GM issue.”
Based on scientific assessments the Food and Drug Administration only requires labels when a product raises safety or nutritional issues which clearly current foods using ingredients from biotech crops do not. Thus the agency is correct when it says that such labels would be "inherently misleading," and would "imply that GM/GE foods are in any way different from other foods." Of course, the whole point of Proposition 37 is to mislead with regard to the safety of biotech crops. The coalition anti-science campaigners want to mandate labels in this case because they hope that consumers would treat them as warning labels, turning away from perfectly safe and cheaper biotech and conventional foods toward pricier and more profitable organic fare. Of course, if people who have been suckered by organic fearmongering want to avoid biotech foods, they can simply purchase foods labeled organic now.
Although cloaking the Proposition 37 anti-science disinformation campaign in bogus health fears and alleged consumer choice concerns, the Organic Consumers Association Director Ronnie Cummins gives the game away in an open letter earlier this month. “The burning question for us all then becomes how—and how quickly—can we move healthy, organic products from a 4.2% market niche, to the dominant force in American food and farming?,” writes Cummins. Sadly many well-meaning Californians appear to have been duped by the promoters of Proposition 37, so that its corporate and special interest backers cynically calculate that an electoral victory in November will produce higher profits and more donations. Here is a real case of putting profits ahead of science.
SOURCE
Scientists hopeful of drug addiction cure
Early days yet
AUSTRALIAN and international scientists may have found a cure for heroin and morphine addictions. The discovery could have wide-reaching implications leading to better pain relief without the risk of addiction to prescription drugs, while also helping heroin users kick the habit.
Dr Mark Hutchinson from the University of Adelaide said a team of researchers had shown for the first time that blocking an immune receptor, called TLR4, stopped opioid cravings.
"Both the central nervous system and the immune system play important roles in creating addiction, but our studies have shown we only need to block the immune response in the brain to prevent cravings for opioid drugs," Dr Hutchinson said.
The scientists, including a team from the University of Colorado Boulder, used an existing drug to target and block the TLR4 receptor.
The National Institutes on Drug Abuse in the United States is further developing the drug, which has been proven to work in the laboratory, to test in clinical trials. As a result, clinical trials on patients could be underway in just two to three years time, Dr Hutchinson said.
If the clinical trials were successful, opioid drugs used to treat acute pain could potentially be co-formulated with the additional drugs to limit the chance of addiction. This approach could also treat patients with heroin or other opioid addictions who are admitted to hospital and require pain relief.
These patients generally needed larger doses of drugs like morphine to treat pain because their bodies have developed a higher tolerance.
However, Dr Hutchinson said co-formulated drugs would mean these patients could be given lower doses. "It might make it much easier to treat those already addicted or tolerant populations," Dr Hutchinson told AAP.
President of the Australian and New Zealand College of the Anaesthetists Dr Lindy Roberts said although opioids were important for the treatment of pain they could have adverse effects.
She said treatments that could potentially separate the pain relief aspects of drugs from adverse effects were welcomed.
The findings were published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience.
SOURCE
Proposition 37 props up profits for organic growers and denies the scientific consensus in favor of biotech crops.
The Proposition 37 petition asserts that “genetic engineering of plants and animals often causes unintended consequences. Manipulating genes and inserting them into organisms is an imprecise process. The results are not always predictable or controllable, and they can lead to adverse health or environmental consequences.” All of these claims, quoted from the findings and declarations section of the initiative, are solidly contradicted by the scientific consensus regarding biotech crops.
In a 2004 report, Safety of Genetically Engineered Foods: Approaches to Assessing Unintended Health Effects, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) reviewed and compared the unintended consequences of conventional, mutagenic, and biotech plant breeding. The NAS report noted that all types of plant breeding—conventional, mutagenic, and biotech—could on rare occasions produce crops with unintended consequences. However, the report concluded, “The process of rDNA [biotech breeding] is itself not inherently hazardous.”
What about the claim that biotech breeding is “an imprecise process”? Not so says the NAS report. Conventional breeding transfers thousands of unknown genes with unknown functions along with desired genes, and mutation breeding induces thousands of random mutations via chemicals or radiation. In contrast, the NAS report notes, “Genetic engineering methods are considered by some to be more precise than conventional breeding methods because only known and precisely characterized genes are transferred.”
Any adverse health consequences? After reviewing all the scientific evidence, the NAS report concluded, “To date, no adverse health effects attributed to genetic engineering have been documented in the human population.” In 2003, the International Council for Science (ICSU) representing 111 national academies of science and 29 scientific unions issued a report declaring, “Currently available genetically modified foods are safe to eat.” The ICSU pointedly added, “There is no evidence of any ill effects from the consumption of foods containing genetically modified ingredients.” With regard to eating foods made from biotech crops, the World Health Organization flatly states, “No effects on human health have been shown as a result of the consumption of such foods by the general population in the countries where they have been approved.”
At its annual meeting in June, the American Medical Association endorsed a report on the labeling of bioengineered foods from its Council on Science and Public Health. The report found that, “Bioengineered foods have been consumed for close to 20 years, and during that time, no overt consequences on human health have been reported and/or substantiated in the peer-reviewed literature.” The AMA report further noted, “Despite strong consumer interest in mandatory labeling of bioengineered foods, the FDA’s science-based labeling policies do not support special labeling without evidence of material differences between bioengineered foods and their traditional counterparts. The Council supports this science-based approach….” Every independent scientific body that has ever evaluated the safety of current biotech crop varieties has found them to be as safe or even safer than conventional crop varieties.
So who is funding this pack of lies? The petition for Proposition 37 was filed and launched by notorious trial lawyer James Wheaton. The corporations that back the initiative include Nature’s Path, which sells $300 million worth of organic cereals annually and has pledged $500,000 to the anti-science campaign and Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, a private company with revenues of $50 million annually derived from peddling organic soaps and has given $300,000. The biggest donor is Mercola Health Resources run by Chicago osteopath and self-styled alternative medicine guru Joseph Mercola, who promotes his sketchy supplements through his online health newsletter. Mercola has donated $800,000 to the campaign.
The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) has spent $635,000 promoting the initiative. OCA lists no donors on its 2010 IRS Form 990 and apparently gets most of its $1.3 million in revenues from phone solicitations contracted out to the Hudson Bay Company of Illinois based in Lincoln, Nebraska. Lundberg Family Farms, with revenues of nearly $50 million from selling organic rice, has committed $200,000 to the campaign. Among the activist groups favoring Proposition 37, is the Institute for Responsible Technology (IRT), which is part of an anti-science coalition jumpstarted with a $1 million grant from Mercola. Among other claims, the IRT suggests that eating foods made from biotech crops is a cause of autism.
The traditional anti-biotech environmentalist groups have piled on and endorsed Proposition 37 as well, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, the Pesticide Action Network, and the Sierra Club. Shoving science aside, the California Democratic Party has formally endorsed Proposition 37. In particular, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who insists on the accepting the scientific consensus concerning climate change, rejects it with regard to the safety of biotech crops and supports anti-science when it comes to Proposition 37. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is also on board the pro-Proposition 37 bandwagon.
One other claim made in the Proposition 37 petition is that “90 percent of the public want to know if their food was produced using genetic engineering.” That is unfortunately about right. And why not? After all, profitmongering organic foods purveyors and scaremongering environmentalists have been spreading disinformation about the safety of biotech crops for more than two decades now.
However, there may less than meets the eye to those poll results. The citizens of the European Union are supposed to be especially averse to biotech crops. However, a new European Commission report, A Decade of EU-Funded GMO Research, finds that polls may not be a good way to evaluate actual consumer attitudes toward foods made with biotech crops. The researchers found that despite strongly negative polls, when it came to looking at the actual buying behavior, “most people do not actively avoid GM [genetically modified] food, suggesting that they are not greatly concerned with the GM issue.”
Based on scientific assessments the Food and Drug Administration only requires labels when a product raises safety or nutritional issues which clearly current foods using ingredients from biotech crops do not. Thus the agency is correct when it says that such labels would be "inherently misleading," and would "imply that GM/GE foods are in any way different from other foods." Of course, the whole point of Proposition 37 is to mislead with regard to the safety of biotech crops. The coalition anti-science campaigners want to mandate labels in this case because they hope that consumers would treat them as warning labels, turning away from perfectly safe and cheaper biotech and conventional foods toward pricier and more profitable organic fare. Of course, if people who have been suckered by organic fearmongering want to avoid biotech foods, they can simply purchase foods labeled organic now.
Although cloaking the Proposition 37 anti-science disinformation campaign in bogus health fears and alleged consumer choice concerns, the Organic Consumers Association Director Ronnie Cummins gives the game away in an open letter earlier this month. “The burning question for us all then becomes how—and how quickly—can we move healthy, organic products from a 4.2% market niche, to the dominant force in American food and farming?,” writes Cummins. Sadly many well-meaning Californians appear to have been duped by the promoters of Proposition 37, so that its corporate and special interest backers cynically calculate that an electoral victory in November will produce higher profits and more donations. Here is a real case of putting profits ahead of science.
SOURCE
Scientists hopeful of drug addiction cure
Early days yet
AUSTRALIAN and international scientists may have found a cure for heroin and morphine addictions. The discovery could have wide-reaching implications leading to better pain relief without the risk of addiction to prescription drugs, while also helping heroin users kick the habit.
Dr Mark Hutchinson from the University of Adelaide said a team of researchers had shown for the first time that blocking an immune receptor, called TLR4, stopped opioid cravings.
"Both the central nervous system and the immune system play important roles in creating addiction, but our studies have shown we only need to block the immune response in the brain to prevent cravings for opioid drugs," Dr Hutchinson said.
The scientists, including a team from the University of Colorado Boulder, used an existing drug to target and block the TLR4 receptor.
The National Institutes on Drug Abuse in the United States is further developing the drug, which has been proven to work in the laboratory, to test in clinical trials. As a result, clinical trials on patients could be underway in just two to three years time, Dr Hutchinson said.
If the clinical trials were successful, opioid drugs used to treat acute pain could potentially be co-formulated with the additional drugs to limit the chance of addiction. This approach could also treat patients with heroin or other opioid addictions who are admitted to hospital and require pain relief.
These patients generally needed larger doses of drugs like morphine to treat pain because their bodies have developed a higher tolerance.
However, Dr Hutchinson said co-formulated drugs would mean these patients could be given lower doses. "It might make it much easier to treat those already addicted or tolerant populations," Dr Hutchinson told AAP.
President of the Australian and New Zealand College of the Anaesthetists Dr Lindy Roberts said although opioids were important for the treatment of pain they could have adverse effects.
She said treatments that could potentially separate the pain relief aspects of drugs from adverse effects were welcomed.
The findings were published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience.
SOURCE
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Popcorn ingredient linked to Alzheimer’s
Popcorn ingredient linked to Alzheimer’s
This had to come. Anything to knock something that is popular! The journal article is The Butter Flavorant, Diacetyl, Exacerbates β-Amyloid Cytotoxicity. It was a study in laboratory glassware only
Movie popcorn has often been criticized for its high calorie count, but now the tasty treat may harm more than just your waistline.
A recent study has found that diacetyl, an ingredient in popcorn responsible for its buttery flavor and smell, may be linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
The scientists said they focused on the substance, because it has already been associated with respiratory and other health issues in workers at microwave popcorn and food-flavoring factories. According to UPI.com, diacetyl is used in other products such as margarines, snacks and candies, baked goods and in some beers and chardonnay wine.
Robert Vince, director of the Center for Drug Design at the University of Minnesota and the study’s lead author, said diacetyl is similar in structure to another substance that aids the clumping of beta-amyloid proteins in the brain – a significant indicator of Alzheimer’s.
Just like this substance, diacetyl was found to increase the amount of beta-amyloid clumping, UPI.com said. The popcorn ingredient was also able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, a defense which prevents harmful substances from entering the brain.
The study was published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
SOURCE
Boosting bacteria in drinking water may improve health
Every gallon of purified drinking water is home to hundreds of millions of bacteria. Water treatment facilities try to remove them – but perhaps encouraging some of the microbes to grow could benefit human health.
Lutgarde Raskin of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor says that workers at water treatment facilities across the US try to destroy all of the bacteria in drinking water with infusions of chlorine and other disinfectants. But this is nearly impossible to achieve with the current technology.
The present approach also ignores the fact that the drinking water microbiome contains some bacteria that can be beneficial. For instance, nitrates that can contaminate drinking water could be converted by some bacteria into harmless nitrogen gas. Raskin and her team suggest that encouraging the growth of these bacteria in drinking water could actually improve the quality and safety of the product.
Between April and October 2010, the researchers analysed bacterial DNA in drinking water treated at municipal facilities in Ann Arbor. They wanted to work out exactly which bacteria were present, and what factors influenced the abundance of the various components of the bacterial community.
They found that slightly altering the water's pH during the filtration process, or even changing how filters were cleaned, helped good bacteria outcompete more harmful microorganisms for the limited resources in the water.
"It does no good to try to remove bacteria entirely," says Raskin. "We are suggesting that a few simple changes can be made that will give bacteria that are good for human health an edge over harmful competitors."
SOURCE
This had to come. Anything to knock something that is popular! The journal article is The Butter Flavorant, Diacetyl, Exacerbates β-Amyloid Cytotoxicity. It was a study in laboratory glassware only
Movie popcorn has often been criticized for its high calorie count, but now the tasty treat may harm more than just your waistline.
A recent study has found that diacetyl, an ingredient in popcorn responsible for its buttery flavor and smell, may be linked to Alzheimer’s disease.
The scientists said they focused on the substance, because it has already been associated with respiratory and other health issues in workers at microwave popcorn and food-flavoring factories. According to UPI.com, diacetyl is used in other products such as margarines, snacks and candies, baked goods and in some beers and chardonnay wine.
Robert Vince, director of the Center for Drug Design at the University of Minnesota and the study’s lead author, said diacetyl is similar in structure to another substance that aids the clumping of beta-amyloid proteins in the brain – a significant indicator of Alzheimer’s.
Just like this substance, diacetyl was found to increase the amount of beta-amyloid clumping, UPI.com said. The popcorn ingredient was also able to penetrate the blood-brain barrier, a defense which prevents harmful substances from entering the brain.
The study was published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
SOURCE
Boosting bacteria in drinking water may improve health
Every gallon of purified drinking water is home to hundreds of millions of bacteria. Water treatment facilities try to remove them – but perhaps encouraging some of the microbes to grow could benefit human health.
Lutgarde Raskin of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor says that workers at water treatment facilities across the US try to destroy all of the bacteria in drinking water with infusions of chlorine and other disinfectants. But this is nearly impossible to achieve with the current technology.
The present approach also ignores the fact that the drinking water microbiome contains some bacteria that can be beneficial. For instance, nitrates that can contaminate drinking water could be converted by some bacteria into harmless nitrogen gas. Raskin and her team suggest that encouraging the growth of these bacteria in drinking water could actually improve the quality and safety of the product.
Between April and October 2010, the researchers analysed bacterial DNA in drinking water treated at municipal facilities in Ann Arbor. They wanted to work out exactly which bacteria were present, and what factors influenced the abundance of the various components of the bacterial community.
They found that slightly altering the water's pH during the filtration process, or even changing how filters were cleaned, helped good bacteria outcompete more harmful microorganisms for the limited resources in the water.
"It does no good to try to remove bacteria entirely," says Raskin. "We are suggesting that a few simple changes can be made that will give bacteria that are good for human health an edge over harmful competitors."
SOURCE
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Could dark chocolate stave off dementia?
Could dark chocolate stave off dementia?
A number of things to note: This is a study of some fairly dippy oldies so should not be generalized beyond that. Secondly, we have no means of knowing if the study generalizes even to all dippy oldies. Is the effect peculiar to Italians, for instance? Thirdly, as the abstract below shows, the alleged beneficial effect was not observed on the widely used Mini Mental State Examination -- a pretty comprehensive test for dementia. So which set of results should we trust? Fourthly, averages based on the results of only 30 people are likely to be quite unstable. Fifthly, it is again only dark chocolate that gets a tick of approval. Most people don't like dark chocolate much so it suits the usual elite tendency to condemn what is popular and praise what is not
A daily dose of chocolate could help keep dementia and Alzheimer's at bay, a study suggests.
Researchers found that consuming cocoa every day helped improve mild cognitive impairment – a condition involving memory loss which can progress to dementia or Alzheimer's – in elderly patients.
For the study, 90 people aged 70 or older diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment were split into three groups of 30 and given either a high, medium or low dose of a cocoa drink daily.
The drink contained flavanols – chemicals associated with a decreased dementia risk which are found in a variety of foods, including cocoa products such as dark chocolate.
The participants' diet was restricted to eliminate other sources of flavanols, such as tea or red wine.
Their cognitive function was examined using tests of factors including working memory and processing speed.
Researchers found those who drank the high and medium doses daily had significantly better cognitive scores by the end of the eight-week study in a number of categories, including working memory.
Those given the higher doses of the flavanol drink improved far more than those given the lowest dose, the study, published in the journal Hypertension, found.
Insulin resistance and blood pressure also decreased in those drinking high and medium doses of the flavanol drink.
Doctor Giovambattista Desideri of the University of L'Aquila in Italy, lead author of the study, said: 'This study provides encouraging evidence that consuming cocoa flavanols, as a part of a calorie-controlled and nutritionally-balanced diet, could improve cognitive function.
'Larger studies are needed to validate the findings, figure out how long the positive effects will last and determine the levels of cocoa flavanols required for benefit.'
Dr Laura Phipps, of Alzheimer's Research UK, said: 'Cocoa-based treatments for brain function would likely have patients queuing out the door, but this small study of flavanols is not yet conclusive.'
SOURCE
When Did Milk Become Bad for You?
Last week, as I entered Union Station Metro station in Washington, I saw ads for what appeared to be First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. It was a series of three ads, the first said: “Let’s move hot dogs out of school lunch.” Okay, fine, because, let’s face it, while hot dogs may be scrumptious and all-beef, they look like small batons of questionable meat.
The second ad said: “Let’s move cheese out of school lunch.” I mean, I guess. Cheese, while a good source of calcium (and delicious), is not necessarily the healthiest thing in the world. I don’t think it should be removed from children’s lunches, but I just chalked it up to liberal nanny-state policies.
It was the third ad that really got my goat. Hidden in the corner, the least noticeable sign read: “Let’s move milk out of school lunch.” Really? Milk? Arguably one of the best sources of calcium, which, as I’ve been told since I was old enough to remember, makes bones strong?
When did milk become unhealthy? Rather, when did milk become so bad for you that it should be banned from school lunches and put on the same level as the hot dog?
Curious about the reasoning behind the sudden “war on milk,” I visited the website mentioned on the ad. To my surprise, it was not, in fact, Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” website, but was a separate organization called “Let’s Really Move!” – an apparent response to the failure of the First Lady’s core initiative:
“The stalled ‘Let’s Move’ campaign needs to get back in gear. The ‘Let’s Move’ campaign has abandoned any major effort to improve the nation’s nutrition, focusing instead on noncontroversial recommendations about exercise. That strategy will not combat skyrocketing rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol.”
As for the organization’s crusade against milk (even skim milk), they claim it does not actually promote bone health or protect against osteoporosis and is high in fat, cholesterol and sugar. Instead of milk, they suggest beans, broccoli, kale, tofu and whole grains. Mmmm! That’s sure to get the kids excited about healthy eating!
Conversely, Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” suggests fat-free milk is okay.
Perhaps you’ve noticed, as I have, that it’s nearly impossible these days to keep track of what foods are good for you and which ones aren’t. I grew up thinking milk was great, now it’s apparently as bad for you as what’s sold at sporting events.
Advocacy groups and nanny-state politicians have for decades tried to control us through our diets. But they don’t just try to control us by telling us what we should or should not eat, they also control the very supply of food.
For milk, the government subsidizes the dairy industry and sets production limits, which means taxpayers and consumers are paying more for a gallon of milk than they should be.
And the current version of the farm bill will make such market distortions even worse. The new Dairy Management Supply Program will set milk prices and effectively tax dairy farmers if prices fall below those price controls. The government will then use that tax money to purchase products, controlling the supply.
Dairy farmers are not happy about this, and are meeting with members of Congress this month in order to discuss their issues with the farm bill. Wonderful. We know what that will mean: dairy farmers will receive special consideration and carve-outs within the farm bill, further muddling the bill and promoting corporate welfare.
With this kind of control over something so basic to our diets, it’s no wonder the farm bill has stalled in Congress. Now, lawmakers need to work to remove these kinds of market-distorting special handouts, not just because they promote cronyism, but because, seriously, “milk does a body good.”
SOURCE
A number of things to note: This is a study of some fairly dippy oldies so should not be generalized beyond that. Secondly, we have no means of knowing if the study generalizes even to all dippy oldies. Is the effect peculiar to Italians, for instance? Thirdly, as the abstract below shows, the alleged beneficial effect was not observed on the widely used Mini Mental State Examination -- a pretty comprehensive test for dementia. So which set of results should we trust? Fourthly, averages based on the results of only 30 people are likely to be quite unstable. Fifthly, it is again only dark chocolate that gets a tick of approval. Most people don't like dark chocolate much so it suits the usual elite tendency to condemn what is popular and praise what is not
A daily dose of chocolate could help keep dementia and Alzheimer's at bay, a study suggests.
Researchers found that consuming cocoa every day helped improve mild cognitive impairment – a condition involving memory loss which can progress to dementia or Alzheimer's – in elderly patients.
For the study, 90 people aged 70 or older diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment were split into three groups of 30 and given either a high, medium or low dose of a cocoa drink daily.
The drink contained flavanols – chemicals associated with a decreased dementia risk which are found in a variety of foods, including cocoa products such as dark chocolate.
The participants' diet was restricted to eliminate other sources of flavanols, such as tea or red wine.
Their cognitive function was examined using tests of factors including working memory and processing speed.
Researchers found those who drank the high and medium doses daily had significantly better cognitive scores by the end of the eight-week study in a number of categories, including working memory.
Those given the higher doses of the flavanol drink improved far more than those given the lowest dose, the study, published in the journal Hypertension, found.
Insulin resistance and blood pressure also decreased in those drinking high and medium doses of the flavanol drink.
Doctor Giovambattista Desideri of the University of L'Aquila in Italy, lead author of the study, said: 'This study provides encouraging evidence that consuming cocoa flavanols, as a part of a calorie-controlled and nutritionally-balanced diet, could improve cognitive function.
'Larger studies are needed to validate the findings, figure out how long the positive effects will last and determine the levels of cocoa flavanols required for benefit.'
Dr Laura Phipps, of Alzheimer's Research UK, said: 'Cocoa-based treatments for brain function would likely have patients queuing out the door, but this small study of flavanols is not yet conclusive.'
SOURCE
Benefits in Cognitive Function, Blood Pressure, and Insulin Resistance Through Cocoa Flavanol Consumption in Elderly Subjects With Mild Cognitive Impairment
By Giovambattista Desideri et al.
Abstract
Flavanol consumption is favorably associated with cognitive function. We tested the hypothesis that dietary flavanols might improve cognitive function in subjects with mild cognitive impairment. We conducted a double-blind, parallel arm study in 90 elderly individuals with mild cognitive impairment randomized to consume once daily for 8 weeks a drink containing ≈990 mg (high flavanols), ≈520 mg (intermediate flavanols), or ≈45 mg (low flavanols) of cocoa flavanols per day. Cognitive function was assessed by Mini Mental State Examination, Trail Making Test A and B, and verbal fluency test. At the end of the follow-up period, Mini Mental State Examination was similar in the 3 treatment groups (P=0.13). The time required to complete Trail Making Test A and Trail Making Test B was significantly (P less than 0.05) lower in subjects assigned to high flavanols (38.10±10.94 and 104.10±28.73 seconds, respectively) and intermediate flavanols (40.20±11.35 and 115.97±28.35 seconds, respectively) in comparison with those assigned to low flavanols (52.60±17.97 and 139.23±43.02 seconds, respectively). Similarly, verbal fluency test score was significantly (P less than 0.05) better in subjects assigned to high flavanols in comparison with those assigned to low flavanols (27.50±6.75 versus 22.30±8.09 words per 60 seconds). Insulin resistance, blood pressure, and lipid peroxidation also decreased among subjects in the high-flavanol and intermediate-flavanol groups. Changes of insulin resistance explained ≈40% of composite z score variability through the study period (partial r2=0.4013; Pless than 0.0001). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first dietary intervention study demonstrating that the regular consumption of cocoa flavanols might be effective in improving cognitive function in elderly subjects with mild cognitive impairment. This effect appears mediated in part by an improvement in insulin sensitivity.
SOURCE
When Did Milk Become Bad for You?
Last week, as I entered Union Station Metro station in Washington, I saw ads for what appeared to be First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign. It was a series of three ads, the first said: “Let’s move hot dogs out of school lunch.” Okay, fine, because, let’s face it, while hot dogs may be scrumptious and all-beef, they look like small batons of questionable meat.
The second ad said: “Let’s move cheese out of school lunch.” I mean, I guess. Cheese, while a good source of calcium (and delicious), is not necessarily the healthiest thing in the world. I don’t think it should be removed from children’s lunches, but I just chalked it up to liberal nanny-state policies.
It was the third ad that really got my goat. Hidden in the corner, the least noticeable sign read: “Let’s move milk out of school lunch.” Really? Milk? Arguably one of the best sources of calcium, which, as I’ve been told since I was old enough to remember, makes bones strong?
When did milk become unhealthy? Rather, when did milk become so bad for you that it should be banned from school lunches and put on the same level as the hot dog?
Curious about the reasoning behind the sudden “war on milk,” I visited the website mentioned on the ad. To my surprise, it was not, in fact, Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” website, but was a separate organization called “Let’s Really Move!” – an apparent response to the failure of the First Lady’s core initiative:
“The stalled ‘Let’s Move’ campaign needs to get back in gear. The ‘Let’s Move’ campaign has abandoned any major effort to improve the nation’s nutrition, focusing instead on noncontroversial recommendations about exercise. That strategy will not combat skyrocketing rates of childhood obesity, diabetes, and high cholesterol.”
As for the organization’s crusade against milk (even skim milk), they claim it does not actually promote bone health or protect against osteoporosis and is high in fat, cholesterol and sugar. Instead of milk, they suggest beans, broccoli, kale, tofu and whole grains. Mmmm! That’s sure to get the kids excited about healthy eating!
Conversely, Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” suggests fat-free milk is okay.
Perhaps you’ve noticed, as I have, that it’s nearly impossible these days to keep track of what foods are good for you and which ones aren’t. I grew up thinking milk was great, now it’s apparently as bad for you as what’s sold at sporting events.
Advocacy groups and nanny-state politicians have for decades tried to control us through our diets. But they don’t just try to control us by telling us what we should or should not eat, they also control the very supply of food.
For milk, the government subsidizes the dairy industry and sets production limits, which means taxpayers and consumers are paying more for a gallon of milk than they should be.
And the current version of the farm bill will make such market distortions even worse. The new Dairy Management Supply Program will set milk prices and effectively tax dairy farmers if prices fall below those price controls. The government will then use that tax money to purchase products, controlling the supply.
Dairy farmers are not happy about this, and are meeting with members of Congress this month in order to discuss their issues with the farm bill. Wonderful. We know what that will mean: dairy farmers will receive special consideration and carve-outs within the farm bill, further muddling the bill and promoting corporate welfare.
With this kind of control over something so basic to our diets, it’s no wonder the farm bill has stalled in Congress. Now, lawmakers need to work to remove these kinds of market-distorting special handouts, not just because they promote cronyism, but because, seriously, “milk does a body good.”
SOURCE
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Are walnuts good for sperm?
Are walnuts good for sperm?
No journal source mentioned so difficult to evaluate. The effect was tiny and may have been a Rosenthal effect if the study was not double blind
Men who want to increase their fertility levels might benefit from eating walnuts, according to a study.
Researchers in America asked a group of young men in their 20s and 30s to eat a 75g packet every day for three months. Compared with a group of men who avoided walnuts, they managed to increase their sperm count and its quality, potentially giving them a better chance of fathering a child.
Scientists at the University of California chose walnuts because they are a major source of ‘good’ polyunsaturated fats. They are rich in omega 3 and omega 6 – also found in oily fish – which are thought to be good for sperm development and function but are lacking in many Western diets.
One in six couples struggle to conceive, and it is thought around 40 per cent of these problems are due to problems with the man’s sperm.
Professor Wendie Robbins, of UCLA’s School of Public Health, said as the 117 volunteers were healthy non-smokers, it was not clear that walnuts would help with fertility problems, but it had a positive effect.
The researchers analysed the men’s sperm concentration, how strongly they swam and their genetic makeup. Those eating walnuts saw a modest 3 per cent average increase in sperm swimming, compared with no increase in the group who did not eat walnuts.
And fewer of the walnut eaters were seen with aneuploidy – a disorder where sperm have too many or too few chromosomes.
Allan Pacey, a fertility expert at the University of Sheffield, said the study found only a ‘quite modest’ increase in sperm count. ‘I would be cautious about recommending this as a therapy for infertility until it has been studied further,’ he added
SOURCE
Powerful new drug eases pain and inflammation of arthritis sufferers
A powerful new drug that could bring relief to hundreds of thousands of -Britons crippled by rheumatoid arthritis is being developed.
Patients taking the pill, -tofacitinib, suffered less pain and inflammation than those on today's best treatments.
Scientists say it was also more effective at slowing -damage to joints after results of an ongoing clinical trial of nearly 1,000 sufferers showed the pill is 'superior' to the common treatment methotrexate, or MTX.
Tofacitinib targets pathways in the cells that regulate inflammation. And, unlike many treatments for rheumatoid arthritis - which affects around 400,000 Britons - it can be taken orally instead of by injection.
Half of those on the trial had fewer symptoms than those on MTX and -displayed less joint damage.
Judith Brodie, chief executive of UK charity Arthritis Care, told the Daily Express: 'This looks very promising. Anything that can make a difference to people with rheumatoid arthritis is hugely important.'
The disease, in which the body's immune system attacks the joints, can strike at a young age, unlike the more common osteoarthritis, which mainly strikes older people.
It usually affects hands and feet, although any of the body's joints can become inflamed and painful.
Tofacitinib, still in the developmental stage, belongs to a new group of drugs called Janus kinases, which can be used to treat adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.
The current more common treatment involves painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs which tackle the pain and swelling.
Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs or DMARDS - of which methotrexate is the most common - are used to slow down the progression of the disease and joint damage.
Tofacitinib is being reviewed by regulators in the U.S., Europe and Japan. If approved, it would become the first new-generation inhibitor treatment drug on the market.
A spokesman for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which has developed the drug, said: 'Tofacitinib is a novel, oral small molecule Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor that is being investigated as an immunomodulator and disease-modifying therapy for rheumatoid arthritis.
'Tofacitinib is currently under review by several regulatory agencies around the world, including in the European Medicines Agency.'
Rheumatoid arthritis is less common than osteoarthritis, which affects around 8.5 million Britons.
Osteoarthritis is a degenerative condition associated with age, treated by exercise and painkillers.
SOURCE
No journal source mentioned so difficult to evaluate. The effect was tiny and may have been a Rosenthal effect if the study was not double blind
Men who want to increase their fertility levels might benefit from eating walnuts, according to a study.
Researchers in America asked a group of young men in their 20s and 30s to eat a 75g packet every day for three months. Compared with a group of men who avoided walnuts, they managed to increase their sperm count and its quality, potentially giving them a better chance of fathering a child.
Scientists at the University of California chose walnuts because they are a major source of ‘good’ polyunsaturated fats. They are rich in omega 3 and omega 6 – also found in oily fish – which are thought to be good for sperm development and function but are lacking in many Western diets.
One in six couples struggle to conceive, and it is thought around 40 per cent of these problems are due to problems with the man’s sperm.
Professor Wendie Robbins, of UCLA’s School of Public Health, said as the 117 volunteers were healthy non-smokers, it was not clear that walnuts would help with fertility problems, but it had a positive effect.
The researchers analysed the men’s sperm concentration, how strongly they swam and their genetic makeup. Those eating walnuts saw a modest 3 per cent average increase in sperm swimming, compared with no increase in the group who did not eat walnuts.
And fewer of the walnut eaters were seen with aneuploidy – a disorder where sperm have too many or too few chromosomes.
Allan Pacey, a fertility expert at the University of Sheffield, said the study found only a ‘quite modest’ increase in sperm count. ‘I would be cautious about recommending this as a therapy for infertility until it has been studied further,’ he added
SOURCE
Powerful new drug eases pain and inflammation of arthritis sufferers
A powerful new drug that could bring relief to hundreds of thousands of -Britons crippled by rheumatoid arthritis is being developed.
Patients taking the pill, -tofacitinib, suffered less pain and inflammation than those on today's best treatments.
Scientists say it was also more effective at slowing -damage to joints after results of an ongoing clinical trial of nearly 1,000 sufferers showed the pill is 'superior' to the common treatment methotrexate, or MTX.
Tofacitinib targets pathways in the cells that regulate inflammation. And, unlike many treatments for rheumatoid arthritis - which affects around 400,000 Britons - it can be taken orally instead of by injection.
Half of those on the trial had fewer symptoms than those on MTX and -displayed less joint damage.
Judith Brodie, chief executive of UK charity Arthritis Care, told the Daily Express: 'This looks very promising. Anything that can make a difference to people with rheumatoid arthritis is hugely important.'
The disease, in which the body's immune system attacks the joints, can strike at a young age, unlike the more common osteoarthritis, which mainly strikes older people.
It usually affects hands and feet, although any of the body's joints can become inflamed and painful.
Tofacitinib, still in the developmental stage, belongs to a new group of drugs called Janus kinases, which can be used to treat adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.
The current more common treatment involves painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs which tackle the pain and swelling.
Disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs or DMARDS - of which methotrexate is the most common - are used to slow down the progression of the disease and joint damage.
Tofacitinib is being reviewed by regulators in the U.S., Europe and Japan. If approved, it would become the first new-generation inhibitor treatment drug on the market.
A spokesman for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which has developed the drug, said: 'Tofacitinib is a novel, oral small molecule Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitor that is being investigated as an immunomodulator and disease-modifying therapy for rheumatoid arthritis.
'Tofacitinib is currently under review by several regulatory agencies around the world, including in the European Medicines Agency.'
Rheumatoid arthritis is less common than osteoarthritis, which affects around 8.5 million Britons.
Osteoarthritis is a degenerative condition associated with age, treated by exercise and painkillers.
SOURCE
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Eating egg yolks is as 'bad as smoking' in speeding up coronary heart disease
Eating egg yolks is as 'bad as smoking' in speeding up coronary heart disease
Cripes! I am a dead man! I am in my 70th year and I have been eating two eggs for breakfast most days for many years! Though maybe my resting BP of 130/80 gives some hope. Not bad for an old guy, I think.
Seriously, though, the effects found below are very small in absolute magnitude (c. 9% more plaque) and the subject population was not representative. See the abstract appended
Scientists have unscrambled the truth about eggs - eating the yolk is almost as bad as smoking for people at risk of heart disease.
The problem lies in an increased risk of the hardening of the arteries, known as atherosclerosis. It is a disorder of the arteries where plaques, aggravated by cholesterol, form on the inner arterial wall.
As a key component of a traditional English breakfast, the new findings may not put off egg lovers.
But Dr David Spence revealed eating the yolk of an egg is about two-thirds as bad as smoking when it comes to the build up of plaques.
Having surveyed 1,231 men and women, Dr Spence, of the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, linked the findings to stroke and heart attack risk factors. Plaque rupture is the usual cause of most heart attacks and many strokes.
The study involved patients, with an average age of 61.5, attending vascular prevention clinics in Ontario. Ultrasound was used to establish a measurement of total plaque area and questionnaires were filled out regarding the patients’ lifestyles.
The research found carotid plaque area increased in line with age after 40, but increased above the average rise after years of regular smoking and egg yolk consumption. The study also found those eating at least three yolks a week had significantly more plaque area than those who ate up to two yolks per week.
Dr Spence, 67, who is also a neurology professor, said: 'The mantra ‘eggs can be part of a healthy diet for healthy people’ has confused the issue. 'High cholesterol intake increases the risk of cardiovascular events, and egg yolks have a very high cholesterol content.
'The study shows that, with age, plaque builds up gradually in the arteries and egg yolks make it build up faster.'
Dr Spence added that the effects were independent of sex, cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking, body mass index and diabetes.
He said that while he feels more research should be done, he stressed the regular consumption of egg yolk should be avoided by persons at risk of cardiovascular disease.
The research has been published online in the journal Atherosclerosis.
SOURCE
Skin patch could free thousands of sufferers from peanut allergy
Scientists have developed a skin patch that could conquer deadly peanut allergies.
The stick-on patch is packed with tiny traces of peanut protein and could help thousands of people affected by life-threatening reactions to the popular snack.
Worn on the arm or back, the patch allows minute amounts of the protein to gradually seep through the top layers of the skin.
It then comes into contact with immune system cells which would normally trigger a life-threatening overreaction.
But the proteins are in such tiny quantities that the immune cells slowly get used to their presence, learning to recognise peanuts so that they are no longer a threat.
As a result, the body’s defences stop overreacting when they come into contact with peanuts.
The patch, about the size of ten pence piece, has just entered a year-long international trial involving more than 200 patients with severe peanut allergies.
The volunteers will either wear a peanut patch or an identical dummy one, changing it for a new one every day.
Scientists behind the patch hope it will help those with known peanut allergies whose lives are put at risk through accidentally coming into contact with tiny amounts of the harmful protein.
SOURCE
Cripes! I am a dead man! I am in my 70th year and I have been eating two eggs for breakfast most days for many years! Though maybe my resting BP of 130/80 gives some hope. Not bad for an old guy, I think.
Seriously, though, the effects found below are very small in absolute magnitude (c. 9% more plaque) and the subject population was not representative. See the abstract appended
Scientists have unscrambled the truth about eggs - eating the yolk is almost as bad as smoking for people at risk of heart disease.
The problem lies in an increased risk of the hardening of the arteries, known as atherosclerosis. It is a disorder of the arteries where plaques, aggravated by cholesterol, form on the inner arterial wall.
As a key component of a traditional English breakfast, the new findings may not put off egg lovers.
But Dr David Spence revealed eating the yolk of an egg is about two-thirds as bad as smoking when it comes to the build up of plaques.
Having surveyed 1,231 men and women, Dr Spence, of the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, linked the findings to stroke and heart attack risk factors. Plaque rupture is the usual cause of most heart attacks and many strokes.
The study involved patients, with an average age of 61.5, attending vascular prevention clinics in Ontario. Ultrasound was used to establish a measurement of total plaque area and questionnaires were filled out regarding the patients’ lifestyles.
The research found carotid plaque area increased in line with age after 40, but increased above the average rise after years of regular smoking and egg yolk consumption. The study also found those eating at least three yolks a week had significantly more plaque area than those who ate up to two yolks per week.
Dr Spence, 67, who is also a neurology professor, said: 'The mantra ‘eggs can be part of a healthy diet for healthy people’ has confused the issue. 'High cholesterol intake increases the risk of cardiovascular events, and egg yolks have a very high cholesterol content.
'The study shows that, with age, plaque builds up gradually in the arteries and egg yolks make it build up faster.'
Dr Spence added that the effects were independent of sex, cholesterol, blood pressure, smoking, body mass index and diabetes.
He said that while he feels more research should be done, he stressed the regular consumption of egg yolk should be avoided by persons at risk of cardiovascular disease.
The research has been published online in the journal Atherosclerosis.
SOURCE
Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque
By J. David Spence et al.
Abstract
Background
Increasingly the potential harm from high cholesterol intake, and specifically from egg yolks, is considered insignificant. We therefore assessed total plaque area (TPA) in patients attending Canadian vascular prevention clinics to determine if the atherosclerosis burden, as a marker of arterial damage, was related to egg intake. To provide perspective on the magnitude of the effect, we also analysed the effect of smoking (pack-years).
Methods
Consecutive patients attending vascular prevention clinics at University Hospital had baseline measurement of TPA by duplex ultrasound, and filled out questionnaires regarding their lifestyle and medications, including pack-years of smoking, and the number of egg yolks consumed per week times the number of years consumed (egg-yolk years).
Results
Data were available in 1262 patients; mean (SD) age was 61.5 (14.8) years; 47% were women. Carotid plaque area increased linearly with age after age 40, but increased exponentially with pack-years of smoking and with egg-yolk years. Plaque area in patients consuming less than 2 eggs per week (n = 388) was 125 ± 129 mm2, versus 132 ± 142 mm2 in those consuming 3 or more eggs per week (n = 603); (p < 0.0001 after adjustment for age). In multiple regression, egg-yolk years remained significant after adjusting for coronary risk factors.
Interpretation
Our findings suggest that regular consumption of egg yolk should be avoided by persons at risk of cardiovascular disease. This hypothesis should be tested in a prospective study with more detailed information about diet, and other possible confounders such as exercise and waist circumference.
SOURCE
Skin patch could free thousands of sufferers from peanut allergy
Scientists have developed a skin patch that could conquer deadly peanut allergies.
The stick-on patch is packed with tiny traces of peanut protein and could help thousands of people affected by life-threatening reactions to the popular snack.
Worn on the arm or back, the patch allows minute amounts of the protein to gradually seep through the top layers of the skin.
It then comes into contact with immune system cells which would normally trigger a life-threatening overreaction.
But the proteins are in such tiny quantities that the immune cells slowly get used to their presence, learning to recognise peanuts so that they are no longer a threat.
As a result, the body’s defences stop overreacting when they come into contact with peanuts.
The patch, about the size of ten pence piece, has just entered a year-long international trial involving more than 200 patients with severe peanut allergies.
The volunteers will either wear a peanut patch or an identical dummy one, changing it for a new one every day.
Scientists behind the patch hope it will help those with known peanut allergies whose lives are put at risk through accidentally coming into contact with tiny amounts of the harmful protein.
SOURCE
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Babies born naturally have higher IQs than those delivered by caesarean section
Babies born naturally 'have higher IQs than those delivered by caesarean section'
In mice. Relating mouse IQ to human IQ is a bit of a joke
Babies born naturally may have higher IQs than those delivered by caesarean section, new research claims.
According to scientists, when women give birth naturally there are higher levels of a special protein in babies’ brains that helps boost intelligence levels as they develop.
Scientists at Yale University in the US say the increased levels of the protein, called UCP2, in babies born naturally could help foster their short and long term memories – key components of the human IQ – as they grow up.
They made the discovery after studying the hippocampal region in the brains of mice born naturally and by caesarean.
Mice born by C-section were found to have lower levels of UCP2 and, as a result, suffered 'impaired adult behaviours'.
UCP2 has already been credited with helping to improve the chances of newborns breastfeeding.
The findings come at a time when a deal of controversy surrounds C-sections. Critics have said that C-sections can increase the risk of internal bleeding and can lead to problems to do with fertility in the future.
They think that celebrity mothers, such as Victoria Beckham and Zoe Ball, are to blame for more women opting for them.
Around one quarter of babies in NHS hospitals are delivered by caesarean, although the figure is thought to be as high as 60 per cent in private clinics.
Study author Dr Tamas Horvath, whose findings are published in journal PLoS ONE said: 'These results reveal a potentially critical role of UCP2 in the proper development of brain circuits and related behaviours.
'The increasing prevalence of C-sections driven by convenience rather than medical necessity may have a previously unsuspected lasting effect on brain development and function in humans as well.'
She added: 'We found that natural birth triggered UCP2 expression in the neurons located in the hippocampal region of the brain.
'This was diminished in the brains of mice born via C-section. Knocking out the UCP2 gene or chemically inhibiting UCP2 function interfered with the differentiation of hippocampal neurons and circuits, and impaired adult behaviours related to hippocampal functions.'
SOURCE
How a potato juice supplement could help cure stomach ulcers
Early days yet
Stomach ulcers could have handed in their chips - thanks to the humble potato. Scientists at Manchester University have discovered spuds contain unique antibacterial molecules that can treat the condition.
Members of the university’s microbiology team now hope the substance, dubbed ‘potato juice’ could go into production as a daily diet supplement.
Inspiration came as one of the department’s scientists tucked into a spud for Sunday lunch. It led to the discovery of a key molecule which could both cure and prevent the bacteria that lives in the stomach and causes stomach ulcers and heartburn.
The discovery is one of many being made by scientists at the university as they try to develop the products and medicines of tomorrow.
Uniquely, unlike with antibiotics, the stomach bacteria cannot develop resistance to the ‘potato juice’ which also does not cause any side-effects.
Scientists at the university even carried out the test on different types of potatoes - discovering Maris Piper and King Edward varieties worked the best.
The process to extract the as yet unnamed molecule has now been patented, with hopes it could one day be sold as a supplement similar to probiotic yoghurt drinks.
Ian Roberts, professor of microbiology at the Faculty of Life Sciences, who worked on the discovery, said: 'One of our scientists was having Sunday lunch when her boyfriend’s grandma said they used to use potatoes to cure stomach ulcers.
'Afterwards she went and bought a bag of King Edwards from a shop on Curry Mile and started testing them in the lab.
'When I first heard about the idea of using potatoes to treat stomach ulcers I have to admit I was a bit sceptical. But on another level I wasn’t surprised - a lot of botanical products have very interesting compounds and we just have to find them.
'We see this ‘potato juice’ as a preventative measure to stop stomach ulcers developing that people would take as part of a healthy lifestyle. It could be a huge market if we can get it developed.'
The discovery of ‘potato juice’ is just one of a number of new medicines and treatments being developed by staff at the University of Manchester’s intellectual property department.
Staff there seek out companies from across the world to develop the university’s inventions.
Business manager Dr Sunita Jones said: 'It is really exciting to see these new discoveries - they cover all areas of science so it really keeps us on our toes.
'As a scientist, the end goal of any work is to put something into the public arena which will benefit people.
'We work to develop all the new technology that comes out of the university, by getting licensing agreements or forming spin-out companies. It’s great to see years of research pay off with a new drug or product at the end.'
SOURCE
In mice. Relating mouse IQ to human IQ is a bit of a joke
Babies born naturally may have higher IQs than those delivered by caesarean section, new research claims.
According to scientists, when women give birth naturally there are higher levels of a special protein in babies’ brains that helps boost intelligence levels as they develop.
Scientists at Yale University in the US say the increased levels of the protein, called UCP2, in babies born naturally could help foster their short and long term memories – key components of the human IQ – as they grow up.
They made the discovery after studying the hippocampal region in the brains of mice born naturally and by caesarean.
Mice born by C-section were found to have lower levels of UCP2 and, as a result, suffered 'impaired adult behaviours'.
UCP2 has already been credited with helping to improve the chances of newborns breastfeeding.
The findings come at a time when a deal of controversy surrounds C-sections. Critics have said that C-sections can increase the risk of internal bleeding and can lead to problems to do with fertility in the future.
They think that celebrity mothers, such as Victoria Beckham and Zoe Ball, are to blame for more women opting for them.
Around one quarter of babies in NHS hospitals are delivered by caesarean, although the figure is thought to be as high as 60 per cent in private clinics.
Study author Dr Tamas Horvath, whose findings are published in journal PLoS ONE said: 'These results reveal a potentially critical role of UCP2 in the proper development of brain circuits and related behaviours.
'The increasing prevalence of C-sections driven by convenience rather than medical necessity may have a previously unsuspected lasting effect on brain development and function in humans as well.'
She added: 'We found that natural birth triggered UCP2 expression in the neurons located in the hippocampal region of the brain.
'This was diminished in the brains of mice born via C-section. Knocking out the UCP2 gene or chemically inhibiting UCP2 function interfered with the differentiation of hippocampal neurons and circuits, and impaired adult behaviours related to hippocampal functions.'
SOURCE
How a potato juice supplement could help cure stomach ulcers
Early days yet
Stomach ulcers could have handed in their chips - thanks to the humble potato. Scientists at Manchester University have discovered spuds contain unique antibacterial molecules that can treat the condition.
Members of the university’s microbiology team now hope the substance, dubbed ‘potato juice’ could go into production as a daily diet supplement.
Inspiration came as one of the department’s scientists tucked into a spud for Sunday lunch. It led to the discovery of a key molecule which could both cure and prevent the bacteria that lives in the stomach and causes stomach ulcers and heartburn.
The discovery is one of many being made by scientists at the university as they try to develop the products and medicines of tomorrow.
Uniquely, unlike with antibiotics, the stomach bacteria cannot develop resistance to the ‘potato juice’ which also does not cause any side-effects.
Scientists at the university even carried out the test on different types of potatoes - discovering Maris Piper and King Edward varieties worked the best.
The process to extract the as yet unnamed molecule has now been patented, with hopes it could one day be sold as a supplement similar to probiotic yoghurt drinks.
Ian Roberts, professor of microbiology at the Faculty of Life Sciences, who worked on the discovery, said: 'One of our scientists was having Sunday lunch when her boyfriend’s grandma said they used to use potatoes to cure stomach ulcers.
'Afterwards she went and bought a bag of King Edwards from a shop on Curry Mile and started testing them in the lab.
'When I first heard about the idea of using potatoes to treat stomach ulcers I have to admit I was a bit sceptical. But on another level I wasn’t surprised - a lot of botanical products have very interesting compounds and we just have to find them.
'We see this ‘potato juice’ as a preventative measure to stop stomach ulcers developing that people would take as part of a healthy lifestyle. It could be a huge market if we can get it developed.'
The discovery of ‘potato juice’ is just one of a number of new medicines and treatments being developed by staff at the University of Manchester’s intellectual property department.
Staff there seek out companies from across the world to develop the university’s inventions.
Business manager Dr Sunita Jones said: 'It is really exciting to see these new discoveries - they cover all areas of science so it really keeps us on our toes.
'As a scientist, the end goal of any work is to put something into the public arena which will benefit people.
'We work to develop all the new technology that comes out of the university, by getting licensing agreements or forming spin-out companies. It’s great to see years of research pay off with a new drug or product at the end.'
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