Piece from childhood virus may save soldiers’ lives
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A harmless shard from the shell of a common childhood virus may halt a biological process that kills a significant percentage of battlefield casualties, heart attack victims and oxygen-deprived newborns, according to research presented Sunday, September 6, 2009, at the 12th European meeting on complement in human disease in Budapest, Hungary.
Introducing the virus’s shell in vitro shuts down what’s known as the complement response, a primordial part of the immune system that attacks and destroys the organs and vascular lining of people who have been deprived of oxygen for prolonged periods, according to researchers at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters (CHKD) and Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS), in Norfolk, Va.
The complement response kicks in after the victim has been revived, in what is known as a reperfusion injury. It does its work slowly but unrelentingly, killing soldiers, infants or heart attack victims over the course of days.
Inflammatory Breast Cancer: Why You Need to Know the Signs of This Deadly Disease
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It’s one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer, but most women have never heard about it. Inflammatory breast cancer or IBC, is a silent killer because unlike many other cancers, patients often don’t recognize the symptoms.
According to the National Cancer Institute, approximately 200,000 new cases of inflammatory breast cancer will be diagnosed this year and more than 40,000 people will die from the disease. Though it occurs in both men and women, it is largely a disease that affects women.
“Inflammatory breast cancer accounts for one-to-five-percent of all breast cancers diagnosed and because it is uncommon, you don’t necessarily jump to that as a first diagnosis,” says Beth Overmoyer, MD, an IBC expert at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. “In traditional breast cancers, a patient can feel a lump or we can see a mass on a mammogram. Inflammatory breast cancer is often not a lump or mass, but a rash or bruise and can be misdiagnosed as an infection.”
New Surgical Procedure Improves Quality of Life for Breast Cancer Patients
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Toronto Western Hospital has pioneered a new procedure - minimally invasive, outpatient spine surgery for cancer that has spread to the spine. Approximately, 40-50 percent of metastic cancers end up in the spine. The most common primary cancers to spread to the bones of the spine are breast and lung cancer. Spinal tumours can drastically affect a patient’s quality of life and result in pain and reduced mobility. A spinal tumour or a growth of any kind can impinge on nerves, leading to pain, neurological problems and sometimes paralysis.
Unhealthy habits alter thinking, memory skills
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If you’re having trouble remembering where you left your keys or recalling a word, mull over the number of times and how many years you’ve continued unhealthy behaviors.
Previous research has linked declining thinking and memory skills with unhealthy behaviors such as smoking, abstaining completely from alcohol, not getting enough physical activity, and not eating enough fruits and vegetables daily.
In the current study, Dr. Severine Sabia and colleagues found the more each of the 5,123 adult participants reported these behaviors the greater their “risk of cognitive deficit,” Sabia told Reuters Health in an email.
SNPs linked with prostate cancer confirmed in Japanese men too
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A third of the previously identified single-nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, associated with prostate cancer in men of European or African ancestry were also associated with prostate cancer in a Japanese population, according to a new study published online September 2 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Genome-wide association studies have primarily been performed in populations of European ancestry, but little is known if the associations discovered in one population are relevant for other populations.
In this study, Matthew L. Freedman, M.D., of the Department of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and colleagues evaluated 23 SNPs previously reported to be associated with prostate cancer risk and clinical covariates (tumor aggressiveness and age at diagnosis, for example) in almost 1350 Japanese men (311 case subjects and 1035 control subjects).
Nonagenarian researcher petitions FDA to ban trans fats
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“I request to ban trans fats from the American diet.”
Thus begins a 3,000-word petition to the Food and Drug Administration, the work of a man on a dogged, decades-old crusade to eradicate trans fats from food.
Fred Kummerow, a 94-year-old University of Illinois veterinary biosciences professor emeritus who still conducts research on the health effects of trans fats in the diet, filed the petition with the FDA last month. The petition is now posted on the FDA Web site, and public comments are invited. (See below for information on viewing the petition and making a comment.)
“Everybody should read my petition because it will scare the hell out of them,” Kummerow said.
Enzyme injections unlock bent fingers
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Injections of an enzyme that breaks up collagen can unlock permanently curled fingers for people with a common disabling condition known as Dupuytren’s contracture, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
The Auxilium Pharmaceuticals treatment, which is awaiting approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, avoids the need for hand surgery and the long rehabilitation that follows.
“It’s going to mean they have an option to have this cared for without an operation, and that’s never been available before,” said Dr. Lawrence Hurst of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, whose study appears in the New England Journal of Medicine.
One in 10 binge-drinkers drive afterward: study
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More than 10 percent of U.S. adults who binge-drink admits to getting behind the wheel after doing so, a government study finds.
Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that among more than 14,000 Americans who reported binge-drinking, 12 percent said they drove within two hours of their most recent binge.
In more than half of those cases, the driver had been drinking at a bar, club or restaurant.
Both binge-drinking and drunk driving are well-known public health problems in the U.S., with Americans going on 1.5 billion drinking binges a year. A binge is defined as downing five or more drinks on a single occasion.
Picky Eater? What Parents Need to Know
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Catering to a child who is a picky-eater is like being a short-order cook: chaotic. Dinnertime becomes a war zone, with hopeless battles fought over vegetables and macaroni and cheese.
Picky-eating is as normal as potty-training, a right of passage in childhood development. Taste-buds evolve and food preferences expand in these early years. Even the best of parents can have a difficult time getting their child to eat. In fact, picky-eating is one of the most common occurrences in children, often outgrown as the child reaches adolescence. But if eating behavior inhibits normal developmental and physical growth processes, it could be something much more severe – a pediatric feeding disorder.
“The difference between a fussy eater and a child with a feeding disorder is the impact the eating behavior has on a child’s physical and mental health,” says Peter Girolami, Ph.D., Assistant Director of the Pediatric Feeding Disorders Program at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Maryland – one the first programs of its kind in the United States and the largest in the world to treat pediatric feeding disorders.
Obesity adds to risk of death after stroke
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Obesity increases the risk of death after stroke in younger stroke patients, according to a new study.
Dr. Amytis Towfighi, of the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and Dr. Bruce Ovbiagele of the University of California, Los Angeles used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (NHANES) on 20,050 adults.
Of those adults, 547 had a stroke through 2000 and had weight records available. Of these, 211 were classified as overweight, and 127 were obese.
Hopelessness raises stroke risks for women: study
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For women, feelings of hopelessness are not just unfortunate, they are a stroke risk, U.S. researchers said on Thursday.
They said otherwise healthy women who are chronically hopeless are more likely to have a buildup of plaque in their neck arteries that can trigger a stroke.
“These findings suggest that women who experience feelings of hopelessness may have greater risk for future heart disease and stroke,” said Susan Everson-Rose of the University of Minnesota Medical School, whose study appears in the journal Stroke.
Sildenafil, aka Viagra, may not help vets with PTSD
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Sildenafil - marketed as Viagra—may not be much help to men who have erectile dysfunction (ED) related to post-traumatic stress disorder, a new study suggests.
Viagra is often effective for ED related to various causes—including heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. But studies indicate that as many of half of men who try the drug do not respond adequately.
In the new study, Iranian researchers looked at whether Viagra was helpful for combat veterans who were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as well as ED. It’s unclear how many men with PTSD suffer from sexual problems such as ED, although some studies have shown that a majority do so.
Americans more confident on healthcare costs: poll
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Fewer Americans are afraid that they will be unable to pay for healthcare services and fewer expect to postpone medical treatments due to costs, according to a Thomson Reuters survey published on Monday.
Researchers found a steady increase in people’s confidence about their ability to pay for healthcare services—it rose 12 percent between March and July this year.
The survey of 3,000 households showed, unsurprisingly, that people who made more money were more confident they could pay for medical care, and people who had insurance were far more confident about paying than those who lacked insurance.
The effect of economic recessions on population health
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Paradoxically, mortality rates during economic recessions in developed countries decline rather than increase, according to an analysis http://www.cmaj.ca/press/cmaj090553.pdf in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmja.ca. In poor countries with less than $5000 GDP per capita, economic growth appears to improve health by increasing access to food, clean water and shelter as well as basic health services.
“In terms of business cycles, mortality is procyclical, meaning it goes up with economic expansions and down with contractions, and not countercyclical (the opposite), as expected,” writes Dr. Stephen Bezruchka, from the School of Public Health, University of Washington in Seattle, USA.
Studies of wealthy countries show that greater national wealth does not equate with better health for its citizens. “The United States, with the highest GNP per capita in the world, has a lower life expectancy than nearly all the other rich countries and a few poor ones, despite spending half of the world’s health care bill,” states the author. It also has the highest poverty levels of any wealthy country, with large health disparities and poor health outcomes.
New hope for deadly childhood bone cancer
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Researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have shed new light on Ewing’s sarcoma, an often deadly bone cancer that typically afflicts children and young adults. Their research shows that patients with poor outcomes have tumors with high levels of a protein known as GSTM4, which may suppress the effects of chemotherapy. The research is published online today in the journal Oncogene.
“Doctors and researchers have long known that certain Ewing’s sarcoma patients respond to chemotherapy, but others don’t even though they have the same form of cancer,” says HCI Investigator Stephen Lessnick, M.D., Ph.D. “Our research shows that GSTM4 is found in high levels among those patients where chemotherapy doesn’t seem to work. It’s found in low levels in patients where chemotherapy is having a more positive effect.”
The research could lead to drugs that can suppress GSTM4 in certain patients. It also could lead to a screening test that could reveal which therapies will be most effective for patients. “GSTM4 doesn’t seem to suppress the benefits of all chemotherapy drugs, just certain ones. A GSTM4-based test could help to identify the best therapy for each individual patient,” Lessnick says.
