Air pollution may prompt abnormal heart rhythm
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Patients with heart rhythm disturbances who have an implantable heart defibrillator are particularly vulnerable to air pollution, a Swedish study indicates.
In patients with these devices, known as implantable cardioverter defibrillators, or ICDs, exposure to air pollution may rapidly (within 2 hours) prompt ventricular arrhythmia—a potentially life-threatening condition in which the heart rhythm becomes irregular, the study shows.
Previous studies have documented an association of ventricular arrhythmias with air pollution exposure lasting from 24 to 48 hours.
Obese elderly at high risk for chronic pain
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Half of people aged 70 and older suffer from some type of chronic pain, and women and the obese are particularly vulnerable, new research shows.
Chronic pain, defined as pain that persists for three months or longer, is known to be common among older people, Dr. Richard B. Lipton and colleagues from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, note. Obesity is becoming increasingly prevalent among US seniors, they add, so studying the relationship between excess weight and chronic pain among older people—as well as the role of conditions that might influence both pain and obesity, such as mental health problems, should be studied.
To that end, Lipton and his team looked at 840 men and women participating in the Einstein Aging Study, an ongoing investigation of people 70 and older living in the Bronx.
Global warming linked to European viral epidemic
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An epidemic of the viral disease nephropathia epidemica (NE) has been linked to increases in the vole population caused by hotter summers, milder winters and increased seedcrop production by broadleaf trees. Research published in BioMed Central’s open access International Journal of Health Geographics links outbreaks of this rodent-borne disease to known effects of global warming.
Dr Jan Clement from the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Belgium’s Rega Institute (University of Leuven) worked with a team of medical researchers and bioscience-engineers to investigate outbreaks of NE in Belgium. Dr. Clement founded the Belgian Hantavirus Reference Centre in 1985, and noted that of the 2,200 cases since then, 828 (37.6%) occurred in just the last three years, 2005-2007. The epidemic has been shown to extend to neighboring countries such as France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. He said, “This animal-borne disease, scarcely known before 1990, has been increasing in incidence in Belgium with a cyclic pattern, reaching epidemic proportions since 2005. The fact that the growing combined effect of hotter summer and autumn seasons is matched by the growth of NE in recent years means this epidemic can be considered an effect of global warming”.
NE is caused by infection with Puumala virus (PUUV), which is spread by the bank vole, a rodent common throughout most of Europe. The authors believe that warmer weather causes increases in the amount of ‘mast’, plant seeds from oak and beech trees, that forms the voles’ staple diet.
Countries undergoing economic change urged to limit social and health costs for populations
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Countries seeking to make massive changes in the way their economies are run, for example by privatising formerly state-run sectors, must take into account the potential impact of such changes on people’s health, experts warn today.
The warning comes after a study of former countries of the Soviet Union, including Russia, that underwent privatisation programmes in the 1990s, following the collapse of communism, revealed how the process coincided with large increases in male mortality in some countries. The findings are published in the Lancet Online First today.
The authors, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, analysed mortality rates in working aged men (15-69 years) in post-communist countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1989 and 2002. They found that mass privatisation programmes were associated with a rise in short-term adult male mortality rates of 12.8%. They suggest that unemployment, which rose by 56% during this period, was probably a key factor.
Reduced breast cancer risk: Physical activity after menopause pays off
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Several studies had previously suggested that regular physical exercise reduces the breast cancer risk of women. However, it had been unknowned just how much exercise women should take in which period in life in order to benefit from this protective effect. Moreover, little was known about which particular type of breast cancer is influenced by physical activity.
Answers to these questions are now provided by the results of the MARIE study, in which 3,464 breast cancer patients and 6,657 healthy women between the ages of 50 and 74 years were questioned in order to explore the connections between life style and breast cancer risk. Participants of the study, which was headed by Professor Dr. Jenny Chang-Claude and conducted at the German Cancer Research Center and the University Hospitals of Hamburg-Eppendorf, were questioned about their physical activity during two periods in life: from 30 to 49 years of age and after 50.
A comparison between control subjects and breast cancer patients showed that women in the control group had been physically more active than patients. The scientists calculated the relative breast cancer risks taking account of the effect of other risk factors. Results show that the risk of developing breast cancer after menopause was lower by about one third in the physically most active MARIE participants compared to women who had generally taken little physical exercise.
Moderate Alcohol Consumption May Help Seniors Keep Disabilities at Bay
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It is well known that moderate drinking can have positive health benefits — for instance, a couple of glasses of red wine a day can be good for the heart. But if you’re a senior in good health, light to moderate consumption of alcohol may also help prevent the development of physical disability.
That’s the conclusion of a new UCLA study, available in the online edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology, which found that light to moderate drinking among these seniors reduced their odds of developing physical problems that would prevent them from performing common tasks such as walking, dressing and grooming.
“If you start out in good health, alcohol consumption at light to moderate levels can be beneficial,” said lead study author Dr. Arun Karlamangla, an associate professor of medicine in the division of geriatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. “But if you don’t start out healthy, alcohol will not give you a benefit.”
Study sees no eye cancer risk from cell phones
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Regular mobile phone use does not appear to increase a person’s risk of getting a type of cancer called melanoma of the eye, German researchers said on Tuesday.
The study involving about 1,600 people detected no link between the time a person spent using a cell phone over about a decade and their chances of developing melanoma of the eye, they wrote in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The findings contradicted an earlier, smaller study by the same researchers that had raised concern about such a link.
Early-life distress may increase neuroblastoma risk
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Distress in the prenatal and neonatal period of development are associated with an increased risk of developing neuroblastoma in the first year of life, but not in subsequent years, according to a report in the International Journal of Cancer.
Neuroblastoma is a cancer that involves embryonic nerve cells of the sympathetic nervous system. It usually metastases quickly and is seen primarily in young children and infants.
The natural history of this cancer suggests that there may be biological differences between tumors that spontaneously regress and undergo benign transformation, which are usually diagnosed before 1 year, and the aggressive type that do not respond to treatment and are usually diagnosed after 1 year of age, Dr. Elizabeth Bluhm from Washington Hospital Center, Washington, DC, told Reuters Health.
Experts draw link between tainted milk, kidney stones
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Scientists in China and Hong Kong have established for the first time in a study that consuming the plastic-making chemical melamine can cause kidney stones in people.
At least six children died and 290,000 fell ill in China last year after consuming milk formula tainted with melamine, which was added to cheat protein tests. But the causal link between melamine and kidney problems the children suffered was never scientifically established until now.
The experts studied urine samples of 15 mainland Chinese toddlers with kidney stones and compared those taken from 20 children in Hong Kong who also consumed tainted milk but who did not develop stones.
Surgery can lower cancer risk in high-risk brca1/2 carriers
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Removal of the ovaries and fallopian tubes, a surgical procedure referred to as salpingo-oophorectomy, in women who carry the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation, can lower their risk of breast cancer by about 50 percent and their risk of ovarian or fallopian tube cancer by roughly 80 percent, suggest the results of a review of 10 published studies.
Prior research has shown that this procedure can help prevent breast, ovarian, and fallopian tube malignancies in these high-risk patients, but the magnitude of the risk reduction was unclear, lead author Dr. Timothy R. Rebbeck, from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and colleagues explain.
To investigate, the research team searched PubMed, a large medical database, for studies that examined breast or gynecologic cancer outcomes in BRCA mutation carriers who underwent salpingo-oophorectomy. Data from 10 studies were included in the review, also referred to as a meta-analysis.
Americans spending more on healthcare: report
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Americans spent about 40 percent more out of their own pockets for healthcare over the past decade, according to a report in the latest issue of the health policy journal Health Affairs. An increase in chronic conditions, especially diabetes and high blood pressure—not just among the “oldest old” but among baby boomers and older adults—is to blame, researchers say.
“Chronic conditions are more than just a health issue for the elderly. They are a household economics issue for every American,” lead co-author Kathryn Paez said in a statement. “Taking the time and making the effort to prevent diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes will save Americans money and increase their quality of life,” Paez, a research scientist at the Silver Spring, Maryland-based Center for Health Policy and Research, Social and Scientific Systems, added.
Paez and colleagues compared 1996 and 2005 out-of-pocket healthcare costs using data from the national Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which represents 292 million Americans.
Plan Now to Address Health Effects of Climate Change, Experts Urge
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Health care providers and public health authorities should start planning to manage the current and future health risks associated with climate change, reports a special topic section in the January Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).
The four articles in the special section, authored by experts in the field, address critical issues in evaluating the likely health impact of climate change in the United States—including steps to anticipate and remediate those risks.
Kristie L. Ebi, Ph.D., M.P.H., of ESS, LLC, Alexandria, Va., discusses public health responses to climate change, including the individuals and agencies responsible for addressing specific types of risks. She highlights the need for coordinated efforts at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure maximum effectiveness, including the ability to identify and rapidly respond to new risks.
Job Strain Associated With Stroke in Japanese Men
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Japanese men in high-stress jobs appear to have an increased risk of stroke compared with those in less demanding positions, according to a report in the January 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Stress is considered a risk factor for stroke, according to background information in the article. Several models of job stress have been developed and provide clues as to how occupational factors may be modified to reduce risk. “The job demand–control model is the most often used occupational stress model,” the authors write. “It posits that workers who face high psychological demands in their occupation and have little control over their work (i.e., those who have job strain) are at a greater risk of becoming ill than are workers with low psychological demands and a high degree of control in their occupation (i.e., those with low-strain occupations).”
Akizumi Tsutsumi, M.D., of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Fukuoka, Japan, and colleagues studied 6,553 Japanese workers (3,190 men and 3,363 women, age 65 and younger) who completed an initial questionnaire and physical examination between 1992 and 1995. The workers were followed up annually through phone calls, letters and interviews for an average of 11 years.
Getting Less Sleep Associated With Lower Resistance to Colds
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Individuals who get less than seven hours of sleep per night appear about three times as likely to develop respiratory illness following exposure to a cold virus as those who sleep eight hours or more, according to a report in the January 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Studies have demonstrated that sleep deprivation impairs some immune function, according to background information in the article. Research indicates that those who sleep approximately seven to eight hours per night have the lowest rates of heart disease illness and death. However, there has previously been little direct evidence that poor sleep increases susceptibility to the common cold.
Sheldon Cohen, Ph.D., of Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, and colleagues studied 153 healthy men and women (average age 37) between 2000 and 2004. Participants were interviewed daily over a two-week period, reporting how many hours they slept per night, what percentage of their time in bed was spent asleep (sleep efficiency) and whether they felt rested. They were then quarantined and administered nasal drops containing the common-cold–causing rhinovirus. For five days afterward, the study participants reported any signs and symptoms of illness and had mucus samples collected from their nasal passages for virus cultures; about 28 days later, they submitted a blood sample that was tested for antibody responses to the virus.
Cell ‘anchors’ required to prevent muscular dystrophy
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A protein that was first identified for playing a key role in regulating normal heart rhythms also appears to be significant in helping muscle cells survive the forces of muscle contraction. The clue was a laboratory mouse that seemed to have a form of muscular dystrophy.
A group of proteins called ankyrins, or anchor proteins, were first discovered in human red blood cells by Vann Bennett, M.D. a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and James B. Duke Professor of Cell Biology, Biochemistry, and Neurobiology. Ankyrins are a family of proteins that assist in attaching other proteins to the fragile cell membrane, and in the case of red blood cells, this helps cells resist shearing forces when blood is pumped vigorously throughout the body.
Bennett’s team was exploring the function of anchor protein ankyrin-B (ankB) by knocking out gene expression of the gene that makes the protein. They found newborn mice missing ankB had splayed shoulder bones, which stuck out of the animals’ backs like wings, rather than lying flat, a symptom of a muscular problem.
