Mental impairment common in children with MS
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Low IQ scores and cognitive problems (problems related to thinking and reasoning) are common in children and adolescents with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to an Italian study reported in the journal Neurology.
Approximately 5 percent of MS cases begin before age 18, note Dr. Maria Pia Amato, at the University of Florence, and her associates.
“The initial diagnosis of MS is more difficult in children than in adults,” Amato told Reuters Health. Particularly before age 10, “symptoms may resemble those of acute encephalitis,” with symptoms such as fever, alterations in mental state and level of consciousness. Breathing assistance with a mechanical respirator may be required and seizures and signs of brain involvement, which are rare in adults, may often occur in children.
Human ageing gene found in flies
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Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have found a fast and effective way to investigate important aspects of human ageing. Working at the University of Oxford and The Open University, Dr Lynne Cox and Dr Robert Saunders have discovered a gene in fruit flies that means flies can now be used to study the effects ageing has on DNA. In new work published today in the journal Aging Cell, the researchers demonstrate the value of this model in helping us to understand the ageing process. This exciting study demonstrates that fruit flies can be used to study critical aspects of human ageing at cellular, genetic and biochemical levels.
Dr Lynne Cox from the University of Oxford said: “We study a premature human ageing disease called Werner syndrome to help us understand normal ageing. The key to this disease is that changes in a single gene (called WRN) mean that patients age very quickly. Scientists have made great progress in working out what this gene does in the test tube, but until now we haven’t been able to investigate the gene to look at its effect on development and the whole body. By working on this gene in fruit flies, we can model human ageing in a powerful experimental system.”
Poor kidney function tied to faster heart changes
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People with decreased kidney function have faster progression of clogged arteries in the neck and increased risk of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular events, research indicates.
Dr. Michel Chonchol, of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denver, and colleagues examined associations between different levels of kidney disease, the thickness of neck arteries—an indicator of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries)—and cardiovascular events in 3364 individuals.
At the outset, 551 subjects (16.4 percent) had chronic kidney disease and the average thickness of the neck arteries, determined with ultrasound, was 0.79 mm. The average change in neck artery thickness was 0.02 mm/year.
Bladder trouble tied to depression, anxiety
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Women who suffer from “dysfunctional voiding”—like having to urinate often and having difficulty voiding—experience a greater degree of depression and anxiety compared to women without these symptoms, research suggests.
“Dysfunctional voiding ... is more commonly seen in recent years,” Dr. Alex T. L. Lin, of Taipei Veterans General Hospital, Taiwan, told Reuters Health. “Although we suspect that depression and anxiety are reactions to the dysfunctional voiding, we could not preclude the possibility that psychological abnormalities might predispose one to the occurrence of lower urinary tract dysfunction,” he commented.
Lin noted that the stressful environment of modern society might be a contributing factor for the increased incidence of dysfunctional voiding.
Prior assault boosts PTSD risk after combat
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Men and women who were assaulted before entering military service are more than twice as likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after combat deployment, Navy researchers report.
It’s estimated that as many as 1 in 10 veterans returning from the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have symptoms of PTSD. Some investigators have suggested that past stressful events can protect people from developing PTSD via “stress inoculation,” while others argue that such stresses actually make people more vulnerable.
To investigate the effect of having been assaulted before combat exposure on the likelihood of developing PTSD, Dr. Tyler C. Smith of the Naval Health Research Center in San Diego and colleagues looked at 5,324 men and women participating in the Millennium Cohort study. All were in military service as of October 1, 2000, were deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, and were free from PTSD when they entered the study.
Prostate cancer deaths fall after screening program
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Prostate cancer deaths fell substantially in the decade after one Austrian state began free PSA screening tests for all men ages 45 to 75, according to a new study.
Researchers found that after the state of Tyrol began a program of free PSA screening and prostate cancer treatment in 1993, the expected death rate from prostate cancer dropped by 54 percent. That compared with a decline of 29 percent in the rest of Austria, where free screening was not available.
The findings, reported in the journal BJU International, suggest that routine PSA testing can save men’s lives—something that has long been an open question.
Bee Prepared for Summer Allergies
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Itchy, watery eyes. Stuffy nose. Sneezing. Sound familiar? As much as we love it, warm weather can spell misery for the 20 million to 30 million Americans who suffer from allergies. According to Dr. Leslie Miller, director of the Emergency Department, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/The Allen Pavilion, the majority of spring respiratory problems come from inhaling such allergens as trees or grass pollen and mold spores. Exposure to dust, pet dander, and other indoor pollutants can worsen the severity of spring and summer allergies, essentially adding fuel to the fire.
In addition, Dr. William Reisacher, an otorhinolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat specialist) at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, says allergies can trigger or worsen asthma and other respiratory illnesses.
Drs. Miller and Reisacher suggest the following tips to help allergy sufferers’ weather through the season:
After-school Activity Reduces Excess Weight Gain in Adolescent Girls
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The middle school years is the time when time kids spend begin to spend less time in physical activity, a growing concern as youth obesity rates rise. A new study of middle school girls shows that after-school programs, in addition to school physical education classes, may be one answer to reducing obesity in teens. The just-released results of the Trial of Activity for Adolescent Girls (TAAG) showed that moderate to vigorous after-school physical activity, in programs that can range from hip hop dancing to surfing, can modestly increase the amount of physical activity for young teenage girls, to the point that it could prevent excess weight gain of about two pounds per year. If sustained, that extra activity could prevent a girl from becoming overweight as a teenager or adult. Results are published in the article, “Promoting Physical Activity in Middle School Girls,” in the March issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Deborah Young, professor and interim chair of the department of epidemiology and biostatistics in the University of Maryland, College Park, School of Public Health, was a researcher on the TAAG study. Below she answers questions about the study and increasing physical activity in adolescent girls.
PTSD common in chronic migraine sufferers
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Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is more common in people who suffer from chronic migraine headache than in those with episodic migraine headache, research suggests.
“Recent data suggest that PTSD may be more common in headache sufferers than in the general population,” Dr. B. Lee Peterlin, of Drexel University College of Medicine, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and colleagues note in the journal Headache.
They assessed the relative frequency of PTSD in 32 patients with episodic migraine and 28 with chronic migraine. People with chronic migraine typically have headaches on 15 or more days a month, while people with episodic migraine have fewer than 15 days of headache per month.
Weight-loss drugs may harm developing brain: study
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A drug from a new class of weight-loss treatments disrupted wiring needed for brain development in young mice, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday, raising concerns about using such medications in children.
Mark Bear and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology studied the effects of a chemical that suppresses appetite by blocking cannabinoid receptors in the brain, the same brain mechanisms that make people hungry when they smoke marijuana.
“I think that the cautionary note is that these mechanisms play an important role in ... brain development,” said Bear, whose study appears in the journal Neuron.
Five percent of breast tumors may double in month
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Five percent of breast cancer tumors appear to double in size in just over a month, Norwegian researchers said on Thursday in a study underscoring the potential benefits of more frequent screening.
The study published in the journal Breast Cancer Research also suggested detection rates of just 26 percent for a 5 mm tumor, and 91 percent for a 10 mm tumor.
The researchers used a computer model fed with national screening and cancer data to calculate how quickly tumors grow and estimate the proportion of breast cancers detected at screening.
Major shift in HIV prevention priorities needed
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According to a new policy analysis led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and the University of California, Berkeley, the most common HIV prevention strategies—condom promotion, HIV testing, treatment of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs), vaccine and microbicide research, and abstinence—are having a limited impact on the predominantly heterosexual epidemics found in Africa. Furthermore, some of the assumptions underlying such strategies—such as poverty or war being major causes of AIDS in Africa—are unsupported by rigorous scientific evidence. The researchers argue that two interventions currently getting less attention and resources—male circumcision and reducing multiple sexual partnerships—would have a greater impact on the AIDS pandemic and should become the cornerstone of HIV prevention efforts in the high-HIV-prevalence parts of Africa.
The paper appears in the May 9, 2008 issue of the journal Science.
“Despite relatively large investments in AIDS prevention efforts for some years now, including sizeable spending in some of the most heavily affected countries (such as South Africa and Botswana), it’s clear that we need to do a better job of reducing the rate of new HIV infections. We need a fairly dramatic shift in priorities, not just a minor tweaking,” said Daniel Halperin, lecturer on international health in the HSPH Department of Population and International Health and one of the paper’s lead authors.
Cane Use May Reduce Risk of Knee Osteoarthritis Progression
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A common, incurable joint disease, osteoarthritis (OA) is the leading cause of disability in elderly people. While nearly any joint can be affected, OA most often strikes the knee, particularly the inner aspect of the tibiofemoral joint. One source of stress on this vulnerable joint compartment is the knee adduction moment, an indication of weight placement while walking. A 20 percent increase in the peak knee adduction moment is associated with a 6-fold or greater increase in the risk of knee OA progression over 6 years. To reduce knee load, pain and damage in knee OA patients, physicians often prescribe two inexpensive interventions: footwear and cane use. While these simple strategies have the potential to alter the knee adduction moment, there is little research attesting to their specific benefits for knee OA sufferers.
To assess the immediate effects of walking shoes and a walking cane on the peak knee adduction moment in people with knee OA, researchers at the University of Melbourne turned to 3-dimensional (3-D) gait analysis. Their findings, featured in the May 2008 issue of Arthritis Care & Research (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/arthritis), strongly support using a cane on a regular basis to reduce the load borne across the knee, while underscoring the urgent need for studies into which aspects of shoe design best support the treatment of knee OA patients.
Study Suggests Diet High in Saturated Fat Contributes to Prostate Cancer Treatment Failure
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In the online version of the International Journal of Cancer, Dr. Sara Strom and associates evaluate the association between saturated fat intake and biochemical failure among men who underwent radical prostatectomy (RP).
A cohort of 390 patients who underwent radical prostatectomy at MD Anderson Cancer Center had a semi-quantitative validated Block food frequency questionnaire modified to their regional diets and completed for the year prior to the diagnosis of prostate cancer. Body mass index (BMI) was also calculated. Clinical and pathological data were abstracted from medical records. Categorical and continual variables were analyzed.
Childhood Pain Trauma Unlikely Link to Adult Chronic Pain
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Though some adults with chronic pain often say they experienced an adverse event in childhood (such as abuse), these events are no more common than amongst adults who are pain free, according to research presented today at the American Pain Society annual meeting.
In his plenary session address, Gary Macfarlane, MD, professor of epidemiology at University of Aberdeen (Scotland) School of Medicine, said that some pain patients hold perceptions that their pain stems from an adverse event in childhood and they more commonly remember such events.
