Experts prove link between phosphate intake and heart disease
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This is the first time the connection between a high phosphate diet and atherosclerosis - the cause of heart disease - has been proven. The findings have been published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology (2 June 2011).
The research, which was funded by the Sheffield Kidney Association and the National Institute for Health Research, has shown that cholesterol deposits in the wall of arteries are increased following a higher phosphate diet. This leads to narrowing of the arteries, which is the cause of most heart attacks and strokes.
As a result, the research demonstrates the importance of reducing phosphate levels in the human diet or possibly using drugs called binders or other agents that stop phosphate being absorbed. Food high in phosphate includes biscuits, cakes, sweets, dairy products and meats such as offal and veal.
‘Wrong’-time eating reduces fertility in fruit flies
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Dieticians will tell you it isn’t healthy to eat late at night: it’s a recipe for weight gain. In fruit flies, at least, there’s another consequence: reduced fertility.
That’s the conclusion of a new study this week in Cell Metabolism by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, in which they manipulated circadian rhythms in fruit flies and measured the affect on egg-laying capacity.
Lead author Amita Sehgal, PhD, John Herr Musser Professor of Neuroscience, stresses, though, that what is true in flies grown in a lab does not necessarily hold for humans, and any potential link between diet and reproduction would have to be independently tested.
Study identifies genetic mutations associated with cancer risk for hereditary cancer syndrome
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Among various genetic mutations for individuals with Lynch syndrome, a hereditary cancer syndrome that carries a high risk of colon cancer and an above-normal risk of other cancers, researchers have identified mutations associated with a lower cancer risk and mutations associated with an increased risk for ovarian and endometrial cancer, according to a study in the June 8 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on cancer. The study is being published early online to coincide with the American Society of Clinical Oncology 2011 Annual Meeting.
The Lynch syndrome, also known as hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer syndrome, accounts for 3 percent to 5 percent of all colorectal cancers. “Providing accurate estimates of cancer risks is a major challenge in the clinical management of Lynch syndrome,” according to background information in the article. “Having more accurate knowledge of the age-dependent cancer risks associated with mismatch repair [MMR; a system within the cell for correcting errors in DNA] gene mutations would help in improving preventive strategies.”
Valerie Bonadona, M.D., Ph.D., of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Villeurbanne, France, and colleagues conducted a study to estimate the specific cancer risks associated with mutations in the genes MLH1, MSH2, and MSH6 by analyzing a large sample of families with Lynch syndrome. The study included 537 families with segregating mutated genes (248 with MLH1; 256 with MSH2; and 33 with MSH6). The families were enrolled between January 2006 and December 2009 from 40 French cancer genetics clinics.
Cellphone study raises profile on safety lawsuits
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The Supreme Court is considering the fate of litigation against cellphone makers over safety risks, just as the industry comes under more scrutiny in the wake of a health report from the World Health Organization.
A working group of WHO cancer experts suggested on Tuesday that cellphone use should be classified as “possibly carcinogenic” after reviewing of all the available scientific evidence.
The classification puts mobile phone use in the same broad cancer risk category as lead, chloroform and coffee, and it garnered extensive media coverage. Industry groups immediately sought to play down the announcement, saying it does not mean that cellphones cause cancer.
Scripps Research scientists find way to block stress-related cell death
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Scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have uncovered a potentially important new therapeutic target that could prevent stress-related cell death, a characteristic of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s, as well as heart attack and stroke.
In the study, published recently in the journal ACS Chemical Biology, the scientists showed they could disrupt a specific interaction of a critical enzyme that would prevent cell death without harming other important enzyme functions.
The enzyme in question is c-jun-N-terminal kinase (JNK), pronounced “junk,” which has been implicated in many processes in the body’s response to stresses, such as oxidative stress, protein misfolding, and metabolic disorder. JNK also plays an important role in nerve cell survival and has become a target for drugs to treat neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.
New study looks at disconnect between medical and lay expertise
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The Internet is empowering its users more than ever, but the same technology that allows people access to limitless information has also enabled some to combat scientific or medical authority with their personal experiences.
In a recent study published in the journal Social Science & Medicine, Oregon State University sociologist Kristin Barker and graduate student Tasha Galardi looked at the reactions of breast cancer survivors in the wake of the new guidelines published in 2009 by the United States Preventative Service Task Force. Departing from established recommendations, the new guidelines recommend against routine screening mammography for women in their 40s, and suggest that women ages 50 to 74 be screened every other year instead of annually. The guidelines generated media attention and elicited intense anger from breast cancer survivors.
Sampling some of the most popular online breast cancer discussion forums, the researchers found that women used the Internet not only for solidarity and sharing their personal stories, but also to collect their own experiences as a type of evidence to contradict the task force’s recommendations. The women were upset because their shared experiences with breast cancer confirmed established wisdom that mammography saves lives, especially theirs.
Cholera outbreaks closely follow temperature rise, rainfall
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Moderate increases in temperature and rainfall can herald cholera epidemics, a study in East Africa has found, and researchers urged governments to use those environmental cues to better protect vulnerable populations.
The researchers matched cholera outbreaks which occurred in Zanzibar between 1999 and 2008 against temperature and rainfall records over the same period and found that the environmental changes were closely followed by disease.
“We found that when temperature goes up by 1 degree Celsius, there is a chance of cholera cases doubling in four months’ time and if rainfall goes up by 200 millimetres, then in two months’ time, cholera cases will go up by 1.6 folds,” Mohammad Ali, a senior scientist at the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul, South Korea, said by telephone.
Vaccine alliance seeks $3.7 bln from London meeting
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International health alliance GAVI is seeking $3.7 billion from a June 13 pledging conference in London to help deliver vaccines to nearly a quarter of a billion children across the world by 2015.
Launched in 2000 and including partners such as the World Bank and pharmaceutical firms, the grouping targets common but deadly diseases such as pneumonia or diarrhea and says it has already saved 5 million lives.
The alliance uses so-called “vaccine bonds” underpinned by firm market expectations that donors will ultimately honor their pledges to bridge the time lags in the funding process that are common to the aid sector.
Arthritis patients taking newer treatments do not have an overall increased cancer risk
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Only three percent (n=181) of patients in the study cohort receiving anti-tumour necrosis factor agents (anti-TNFs) for treatment of their arthritis developed a first cancer within nine years and overall risk was not dependent on the type of arthritis.
The nine year follow-up study conducted at Gentofte University Hospital, Denmark demonstrated that relative risk ((RR)=1.03 (95%confidence interval 0.82-1.30)) was not increased in patients treated with anti-TNFs compared to patients who had never taken anti-TNFs during 23,965 person-years follow-up. Overall cancer risk was not dependent on the type of arthritis including rheumatoid arthritis (RA) (n=3,496) (RR=1.05, 95% CI 0.82-1.34), psoriatic arthritis (PsA) (n=670) (RR=1.98, 95% CI 0.24-16.18) or other arthritis (n=499) (RR=0.79 95% CI 0.08-8.33).
“Some studies have suggested that taking anti-TNFs may increase an individual’s risk of cancer however this study provides long term evidence that an overall risk of cancer is not associated with this group of treatments”, said Dr. PhD, Lene Dreyer from the Department of Rheumatology at Gentofte University Hospital. “TNF is a small signalling molecule called a cytokine and is able to inhibit the development of tumours by interfering with signalling pathways. Therefore drugs targeting TNF can influence the development of tumours, although the extent of this impact remains unclear.”
New treatment dissolves blood clots in brain tissue
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A new treatment that treats a subset of stroke patients by combining minimally invasive surgery, an imaging technique likened to “GPS for the brain,” and the clot-busting drug t-PA appears to be safe and effective, according to a multicenter clinical trial led by Johns Hopkins researchers.
The novel treatment, detailed for the first time at this week’s European Stroke Conference in Hamburg, Germany, was developed for patients with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), a bleed in the brain that causes a clot to form within brain tissue. This clot builds up pressure and leaches inflammatory chemicals that can cause irreversible brain damage, often leading to death or extreme disability. The usual treatments for ICH - either general supportive care such as blood pressure control and ventilation, which is considered the current standard of care, or invasive surgeries that involve taking off portions of the skull to remove the clot - have similar mortality rates, ranging from 30 to 80 percent depending on the size of the clot.
Seeking to improve these mortality rates and surviving ICH patients’ quality of life, Daniel Hanley, M.D., professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and his colleagues developed and tested the new treatment on 60 patients at 12 hospitals in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany. They compared their results to those of 11 patients who received only supportive care.
When it comes to warm-up, less is more
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University of Calgary Faculty of Kinesiology researcher Elias Tomaras says the idea came to him while watching track and field sprinters warm-up for a race. “If you watch sprinters, short distance speed skaters or cyclists before their race, they will often warm-up for one to two hours, including several brief bouts of high intensity exercise. From an exercise physiology point of view, it seemed like it might be pretty tiring.”
Many coaches and physiologists believe that a longer warm up provides an increase in muscle temperature, acceleration of oxygen uptake kinetics, increased anaerobic metabolism and a process called postactivation potentiation of the muscles. However, very few studies have studied if warm ups has a detrimental effect on performance.
As it turns out, the warm-up is one of the more contentious issues in high-performance sport. Different coaches have different theories and not a lot of quality research has been done to identify the optimal warm-up. Tomaras’ study, published recently in the prestigious Journal of Applied Physiology suggests that at the very least, athletes may want to lower the intensity and reduce the amount of time that they warm up.
PGD can permit the birth of healthy children to women carrying mitochondrial DNA disease
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Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) can give women at risk of passing on a mitochondrial DNA disorder to their offspring a good chance of being able to give birth to an unaffected child, a researcher told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Monday). Dr. Debby Hellebrekers, from Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands, said that the scientists’ findings could have a considerable effect on preventing the transmission of mitochondrial diseases.
Mitochondria are cellular organelles involved in the conversion of the energy of food molecules into ATP, the molecule that powers most cellular functions. Disruptions of this energy-producing process, due to a defect in the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) or nuclear genes, can cause mitochondrial disorders which represent the most common group of inborn errors of metabolism. The manifestation of mtDNA disorders can be quite varied, but the diseases are almost always serious and, if they do not lead to death, they can result in life-long serious disability for children born with them. Symptoms of mtDNA disorders include loss of muscle co-ordination, visual and hearing problems, poor growth, mental retardation, heart, liver and kidney disease, neurological problems, respiratory disorders and dementia.
Prenatal diagnosis is in general not possible for mtDNA diseases, because the clinical signs cannot be reliably predicted from the mutation load (the relative amount of mutated mtDNA molecules) in chorionic villus sampling, so the team of scientists from The Netherlands, Australia, and the UK decided to look at whether PGD would be a better alternative. “If we could find a minimal level of mtDNA mutation load below which the chance for an embryo of being affected was acceptably low”, said Dr. Hellebrekers, “we could offer PGD to women who otherwise had little chance of giving birth to a healthy child.”
PBDEs can cause developmental malformations, changes in behavior and death
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A new study by Baylor University environmental health researchers found that zebra fish exposed to several different technical mixtures of polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) - a common fire retardant - during early development can cause developmental malformations, changes in behavior and death.
The study will appear in the June issue of the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry and is the first to test multiple PBDE mixtures for changes in behavior, physical malformations and mortality on zebra fish.
PBDEs are found in many common household products from blankets to couches to food wrappers. Lab tests have shown that PBDEs have been found in human breast milk and cord blood. Previous studies have showed children with high levels of PBDEs in their umbilical cord at birth scored lower on tests between one and six years of age. In 2006, the state of California started prohibiting the use of PBDEs.
U.N. body to probe Fukushima radiation impact
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A U.N. scientific body said on Monday it would study the radiation impact of Japan’s nuclear disaster on people and the environment, but it did not expect to detect any major health effects.
The United Nations Scientific Committee on the effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR), which has published reports about the 1986 Chernobyl accident, said it would take at least two years to produce a full report on the issue.
“Everybody wants answers tomorrow or next week ... but this is not possible. We need time,” UNSCEAR Chairman Wolfgang Weiss told a news conference, adding that preliminary findings were expected in May 2012.
Cell phone use may reduce male fertility
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Men who have been diagnosed with poor sperm quality and who are trying to have children should limit their cell phone use. Researchers have found that while cell phone use appears to increase the level of testosterone circulating in the body, it may also lead to low sperm quality and a decrease in fertility.
“Our findings were a little bit puzzling,” says Rany Shamloul, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and lead researcher on the project. “We were expecting to find different results, but the results we did find suggest that there could be some intriguing mechanisms at work.”
The research team discovered that men who reported cell phone use had higher levels of circulating testosterone but they also had lower levels of luteinizing hormone (LH), an important reproductive hormone that is secreted by the pituitary gland in the brain.
