Osteoporosis meds may cut breast cancer risk
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Women who took a commonly used class of osteoporosis drugs called bisphosphonates had significantly fewer invasive breast cancers than women not using the bone-strengthening pills, according to a new analysis of data from the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI).
The analysis from a segment of the more than 150,000 generally healthy post-menopausal women in the WHI study found that those taking Merck & Co’s Fosamax, or other bisphosphonates, had 32 percent fewer cases of invasive breast cancer than women who did not use the osteoporosis medicines, researchers found.
Fosamax is now available in generic form as alendronate. Other commonly used medicines from the class include Roche’s Boniva and Actonel, which is sold by Procter & Gamble Co.
US teens ignore laws against texting while driving
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Karen Cordova, a 17-year-old high school student and part-time supermarket cashier, admits she sometimes texts friends while driving home from work late at night, lonely and bored.
The Arizona teenager knows it’s illegal in Phoenix and dangerous. She once almost drifted into oncoming traffic while looking at her phone.
But would a nationwide ban stop Cordova and her friends from texting in their cars? No way, she said.
Stress makes for more sleepless in Taiwan
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More than one in five people in Taiwan suffers from insomnia likely caused by stress due to the economic woes, a figure higher than the global average, researchers said on Wednesday.
The survey of 4,005 people found that 21.8 percent of the population has chronic trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, said Lee Hsin-chien, psychiatry chairman at government-run Shuang-Ho Hospital in Taipei.
Overseas, averages of 10 to 15 percent of the population reports insomnia, he said, while Taiwan’s rate was about 10 percent in 2000.
Stress due to recession on the export-reliant island earlier this year might have contributed to the increase, Lee said.
Child cancer survivors have higher heart risk
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Children and young people who survive cancer have a significantly higher risk of developing heart disease as young adults because of the cancer treatment they received, researchers said Wednesday.
A study by doctors from the United States found that young adult survivors of childhood cancer are at risk of a range of cardiac problems such as heart failure, heart attacks, or heart disease and the risks continued up to 30 years after treatment.
“Young adults who survive childhood or adolescent cancer are clearly at risk for early cardiac morbidity and mortality not typically recognized within this age group,” said Daniel Mulrooney from the University of Minnesota, who led the study.
Drug mistakes common in US kidney dialysis patients
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About 20 percent of kidney dialysis patients who undergo a procedure to open a blocked artery are given the wrong blood clot medicine, increasing the chances of significant bleeding, researchers said on Tuesday.
They said the findings suggest many doctors in the United States ignore warnings on drug labels, often putting patients at risk of serious harm or death.
“The results of this study illustrate the problem of medication errors in the United States, as well as the need to make patient safety a priority on the health care agenda,” Dr. Thomas Tsai of the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center and colleagues wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The utility of EUS and CEH-EUS in the diagnosis of small pancreatic tumors
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Endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) is a highly sensitive diagnostic method for the detection of small pancreatic carcinomas. Recently, there have been some reports describing the utility of contrast-enhanced harmonic EUS (CEH-EUS) which uses sonographic contrast agent for differentiation of a pancreatic mass.
A research team from Japan reported a case of small adenocarcinoma of the pancreas distinct from branch duct intraductal papillary mucinous neoplasm (IPMN) in which investigation by EUS took place every 6 mo and diagnosis was made accurately by additional CEH-EUS during the follow-up of the branch duct IPMN.
Their study will be published on November 21, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology.
Their results suggest that the performance of periodical EUS with CEH-EUS imaging during the follow-up of branch duct IPMN allowed the establishment of an accurate diagnosis of the disease.
A new mouse could help understand how some lung cancer cells evade drug treatment
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Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide and lung adenocarcinoma is the most common type. Many cases of lung adenocarcinoma are attributed to a mutation in a gene for the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). Lung cancer with changes in EGFR is initially treatable with a family of chemotherapeutic agents called tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), such as gefitinib and erlotinib. However, patients often develop resistance to these drugs through the acquisition of additional changes or secondary mutations that allow cancer cells to evade treatment.
Some secondary mutations to the EGFR gene that allow lung cancer cells to survive in the presence of current chemotherapy are known. These secondary changes are now the focus of targeted efforts to create drugs to specifically interfere with the mutated form of the protein. Unfortunately, in 40% of the cases in which patients become resistant to therapy, the molecular events that confer this resistance are not known. Without knowing the changes that sustain the survival of these cells it remains impossible to specifically and effectively target them with anti-cancer drugs.
Scientists now describe a mouse model of lung cancer that develops resistance to TKI drugs in at least some of the same ways that humans do. Lung cancer occurs in these mice due to a mutation in EGFR that is the same as the mutation that underlies many human lung adenocarcinomas. Some of the defined secondary changes to EGFR, which are known to confer drug resistance in humans, also occur in these mice. But most of these drug resistant mice bear tumors that do not contain known mutations. This important similarity to the human situation suggests that this mouse model might help identify the currently unknown mutations that make lung cancer cells resistant to therapy.
Spices Halt Growth of Breast Stem Cells
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A new study finds that compounds derived from the spices turmeric and pepper could help prevent breast cancer by limiting the growth of stem cells, the small number of cells that fuel a tumor’s growth.
Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that when the dietary compounds curcumin, which is derived from the Indian spice turmeric, and piperine, derived from black peppers, were applied to breast cells in culture, they decreased the number of stem cells while having no effect on normal differentiated cells.
“If we can limit the number of stem cells, we can limit the number of cells with potential to form tumors,” says lead author Madhuri Kakarala, M.D., Ph.D., R.D., clinical lecturer in internal medicine at the U-M Medical School and a research investigator at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.
Tiny RNA has big impact on lung cancer tumors
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Researchers from Yale University and Mirna Therapeutics, Inc., reversed the growth of lung tumors in mice using a naturally occurring tumor suppressor microRNA. The study reveals that a tiny bit of RNA may one day play a big role in cancer treatment, and provides hope for future patients battling one of the most prevalent and difficult to treat cancers.
“This is the first time anybody has shown a positive effect of microRNAs in shrinking lung cancer,” said Frank Slack, Ph.D., co-senior author of the paper, researcher at the Yale Cancer Center and professor of molecular, cellular & developmental biology.
The tumors in mice with non-small cell lung cancer shrank after the Yale team delivered an intranasal dose containing a type of micro-RNA called let-7, the authors reported in the Dec. 7 issue of the journal Oncogene. MicroRNAs are small bits of genetic material most often associated with transmission of information encoded in DNA. However in the past decade microRNAs have been shown to play crucial roles in gene regulation and/or gene silencing
Physically active boys are smarter, study hints
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Jocks get new respect in a large Swedish study that suggests physically active teen boys may be smarter than their couch-potato counterparts.
The findings, the investigators say, have important implications for the education of young people. Increasing, not decreasing, physical education in schools can not only slow the shift toward sedentary lifestyles but, by doing so, reduce risk of disease and “perhaps intellectual and academic underachievement,” they concluded.
Dr. H. Georg Kuhn and colleagues from the Institute of Medicine at the University of Gothenburg wanted to know if aerobic (cardiovascular) fitness and muscle strength were associated with brain power and future socioeconomic status.
Increased nicotine levels detected in those who light-up earlier
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People who smoke their first cigarette within minutes after waking up have much higher levels of cotinine, a by-product of nicotine when processed by the body, than those who wait to smoke, regardless of the number of cigarettes smoked.
“Since cotinine levels appear to reflect the risk of lung cancer, our results suggest that smokers who smoke immediately after waking may be especially at risk for lung cancer,” said researcher Joshua E. Muscat, Ph.D., M.P.H., professor of public health sciences at Penn State College of Medicine. “These people may require a more intensive intervention than other smokers to help them quit smoking on a sustained or permanent basis.”
Results of this study are published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, as part of a special tobacco focus in the December issue.
Chinese ‘herbal’ cigarettes no healthier than regular cigarettes
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Despite popular belief and some marketing claims, researchers have found that Chinese “herbal” cigarettes that combine medicinal herbs with tobacco are just as addictive and no safer than regular cigarettes.
“The public needs to be aware that herbal cigarettes do not deliver fewer carcinogens,” said lead researcher Stanton A. Glantz, Ph.D., professor of medicine in the Department of Medicine and Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco. “We hope our findings will help to dispel the myth that they are a safer alternative to conventional cigarettes; they are not.”
Results of this study are published in the December issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, which has a special focus on tobacco.
HIV-infected Chinese children struggle with stigma
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The second storey of this nondescript building in Fuyang city in China’s central province of Anhui houses HIV-positive orphans, but unlike many other similar establishments, there are no signboards outside.
Heavy stigma still surrounds the disease in China, and children - probably the most vulnerable group among AIDS patients - are almost invariably barred from schools and even abandoned by their parents and relatives.
Change is occurring, albeit slowly.
President Hu Jintao last year shook hands with AIDS patients to try and reduce some of the stigma. On World AIDS Day - December 1 - this year, he met with AIDS awareness volunteers, and spoke with patients by telephone.
What happens when doctors give patients more power?
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When patients are given the responsibility for medical decisions, they may be less willing to try a potentially risky treatment, a study published Monday suggests.
The study, of 216 patients with arthritis and other similar diseases, tested patients’ willingness to take a hypothetical “new” drug that carried important benefits but also a small risk of serious side effects.
It turned out that patients were less willing to try the drug when they were given complete power over the decision than when a doctor advised them to take the medication.
Osteoarthritis increases aggregate health care expenditures by $186 billion annually
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Osteoarthritis (OA), a highly prevalent disease, raised aggregate annual medical care expenditures in the U.S. by $185.5 billion according to researchers from Stony Brook University. Insurers footed $149.4 billion of the total medical spend and out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditures were $36.1 billion (2007 dollars). Results of the cost analysis study are published in the December issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate 27 million Americans suffer from OA with more women than men affected by the disease. Forecasts indicate that by the year 2030, 25% of the adult U.S. population, or nearly 67 million people, will have physician-diagnosed arthritis. OA is a major debilitating disease causing gradual loss of cartilage, primarily affecting the knees, hips, hands, feet, and spine.
John Rizzo, Ph.D., and colleagues used data from the 1996-2005 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) to determine the overall annual expected medical care expenditures for OA in the U.S. The sample included 84,647 women and 70,590 men aged 18 years and older who had health insurance. Expenditures for physician, hospital, and outpatient services, as well expenditures for drugs, diagnostic testing, and related medical services were included. Healthcare expenses were expressed in 2007 dollars using the Medical Care Component of the Consumer Price Index.
