Potato lovers may have higher diabetes risk
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Holding that side of fries might help thwart type 2 diabetes, new research suggests.
In a long-term study of nearly 85,000 U.S. women, researchers at Harvard University found that those with the highest potato intake had a modestly elevated risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The link was strongest among obese women, who are already at increased risk of the disease, suggesting that heavy potato consumption may pose a particular problem for them, the researchers point out.
Why some infectious diseases are limited to small outbreaks and others become full-blown epidemics
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In an important study forthcoming in the March 2006 issue of the American Naturalist, biologists from Yale University, University of Florida, and Dartmouth University explore the dynamics of pathogen survival and shed new light on a longstanding mystery: why some infectious diseases are limited to small outbreaks and others become full-blown epidemics.
“The capacity of a virus to propagate upon a novel host apparently is conditional on the recent experience of preceding generations,” the authors say. “This is intrinsically interesting, suggesting a kind of complexity in pathogen population dynamics that has not been widely regarded.”
The researchers observed viral populations on host bacteria, specifically situations where virus populations were sustained on the original hosts, but went extinct on the new hosts. Observing transmission rates, they found that viruses previously reared on an original host showed greater productivity on the new host than viruses previously reared on the new host.
Australia boost preparedness for Avian Influenza
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Australia’s preparedness for a potential Avian Influenza pandemic will be boosted by four new projects at The Australian National University (ANU), funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC).
Researchers at the ANU College of Medicine and Health Sciences have received $110,000 for a project to strengthen the contribution of general practitioners to the control of pandemic influenza, $183,040 for a project that will examine the most effective ways to control an influenza pandemic, including strategies for effective use of limited antivirals, and $239,570 for research into inactivated flu vaccines.
Researchers at the ANU College of Science have received $237,807 to search for agents that prevent or disrupt the release of proteins, known as a cytokine storm, which causes death in flu victims.
Parkinson’s patients not likely to be risk-takers
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Patients with Parkinson’s disease score lower on an impulsive sensation-seeking tests than their counterparts without the disease, investigators report. This may be why Parkinson’s disease patients are less likely to smoke and consume fewer caffeinated beverages and alcohol, which may explain “the hypothetical protective effect of cigarette smoking and caffeine consumption on Parkinson’s disease.”
Parkinson’s patients tend to exhibit low sensation-seeking behavior, which may reflect variations in the activity of brain dopamine systems, Dr. A. J. Lees and colleagues note in their report, published in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. Parkinson’s disease patients also tend to share other traits such as conscientiousness, anhedonia, and low levels of aggression.
To see how sensation seeking affected behaviors and risks in patients with Parkinson’s disease, Dr. Lees, from the Reta Lila Weston Institute of Neurological Studies in London, and colleagues compared standardized test results and habits among 106 patients with Parkinson’s disease and 106 healthy individuals of the same age.
Low sugar, reduced calorie apples
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The technology to produce low sugar fruits with up to half the calories of the natural variety has been developed by US scientists, writes Jennifer Rohn in Chemistry & Industry magazine.
Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have developed apples with high levels of the natural sweetener sorbitol. Sorbitol has only 2.6 calories per gram, 45% less than sucrose and fructose. Sorbitol, fructose and sucrose are all naturally found in fruit.
Although researcher Abhaya Dandekar has worked primarily on apples, he says that related fruits, such as pears, peaches, plums and cherries could also be produced as a low-sugar variety. Dandekar used genetic modification, but he says that plant breeders could use natural methods to achieve the same end.
Slovakia says finds first cases of H5N1 flu virus
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Initial tests in Slovakia showed the H5N1 strain of bird flu in a wild falcon and a grebe, the first two cases of the virus found in the country, Agriculture Minister Zsolt Simon said on Thursday.
The samples will now be tested in EU’s reference laboratory in Weybridge, Britain, for confirmation of the initial results from the Slovak National Reference Laboratory.
“I expect that the samples will be delivered sometime today,” Simon told reporters.
Delayed care fuels asthma-related ER visits
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Adults with asthma, even those with mild asthma, who delay seeking care because of cost or lack of insurance, are apt to end up in the emergency room, results of a study suggest.
Increasing ER visits for asthma care, the authors charge, represent “an alarming consequence of the current trends in health care coverage of increasing premiums, individual contributions, deductibles, and co-payments and decreasing numbers of people being insured.”
“If improvements can be made to access to quality asthma care and health care coverage, (ER) visits for asthma should significantly decline,” Dr. Ying-Ying Meng from the University of California in Los Angeles told Reuters Health.
Selective T cell stimulation could help improve treatment of autoimmune disease and cancer
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The findings could also be significant for developing new ways to help patients with autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, or juvenile diabetes.
The study, which was published in the February 16 issue of the online journal Science Express, showed that these injections caused a massive selective increase in the immune system’s two main types of T cells.
“Our study shows that different cytokine-antibody complexes such as IL-2/IL-2 mAb could be clinically useful to selectively boost or inhibit the immune response in vivo,” said Onur Boyman, a member of the Scripps Research Department of Immunology and lead author of the study.
Dietary supplements of little use for arthritis
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In general, the use of glucosamine and chondroitin has little effect on symptoms of knee arthritis, according to results of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. Still, these dietary supplements seem safe and patients with moderate to severe pain may experience some relief with them.
“Among alternative caregivers or nutritional supplement providers, (glucosamine and chondroitin) are widely believed to be beneficial,” lead researcher Dr. Daniel O. Clegg told Reuters Health, “and many patients consider that it’s a possibility.”
To determine if the agents are of benefit, Clegg, from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, and other members of the Glucosamine/chondroitin Arthritis Intervention Trial (GAIT) group enrolled 1,583 patients with knee pain during the previous 6 months.
Drug prices rise under US Medicare plan
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Prices for some of the most popular medicines used by seniors have jumped an average of 4 percent under the new Medicare drug benefit since it began last month, according to a report released on Tuesday.
The report, released by the Democratic staff of the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee, found prices for Pfizer Inc.‘s pain reliever Celebrex, Merck Inc.‘s cholesterol drug Zocor and eight other top drugs offered by 10 major plans rose during the controversial program’s first seven weeks.
In some cases, drug prices rose 10 percent, it also found.
Britain sees dangers in bird flu vaccines
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Bird flu vaccines mask the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus and fail to offer a general solution to the spread of the disease, Britain’s farm ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
“Crucially, though these vaccines protect against disease, they will not prevent birds from becoming infected and shedding virus,” Deputy Chief Vet Fred Landeg said in a statement issued by the ministry. “Because symptoms of disease would be masked, the hidden presence of disease would pose a serious problem,” he added.
Medicare to pay for some obesity surgeries
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Obese elderly or disabled patients are now eligible for a variety of surgical weight-loss procedures under the U.S. Medicare health insurance plan, U.S. government officials said on Tuesday.
Patients must have tried and failed other weight loss options, have at least one weight-related medical problem and have a high body mass index, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.
US will spend one in five dollars on healthcare
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Health-care spending is outpacing the growth of the American economy and will consume 20 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) by 2015, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said on Wednesday.
By comparison, health-care spending accounted for about 16 percent of U.S. GDP in 2004, the latest year for which data are available, according to a study by CMS economists published in the journal Health Affairs.
National health care spending will grow by an average 7.2 percent annually over the coming decade, the study estimated. This will be slower than in recent years but still 2.1 percent faster than GDP growth, it said.
Use of Statins Shows Improvement in Erectile Performance of Some Men
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Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine say preliminary results of a small study show promise in improving erectile dysfunction (ED) in men who had shown minimal reaction to Viagra. The study results are published in the March issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine.
Erectile dysfunction is often a sign of a more severe vascular problem that involves abnormalities in the lining of the blood vessels. And often, endothelial dysfunction is an underlying problem for ED - it can be one of the first signs of atherosclerosis, a build-up of plaque and blockages in the arteries.
“It’s already known that there is a connection between erectile dysfunction and coronary disease. The risk factors are the same for both, and thus, ED can be a marker for coronary disease,” explains lead author Howard Herrmann, MD, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Interventional Cardiology and Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. “Normal erections are caused when nitric oxide is made, but with endothelial dysfunction, the body doesn’t make enough of it, causing the erectile dysfunction. Normally, Viagra prevents the breakdown of the little nitric oxide that is there, so that there is enough of it for an erection to occur.”
Pfizer receives FDA approval for Eraxis to treat candidemia
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Pfizer said today that Eraxis (anidulafungin) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to treat candidemia, a potentially life-threatening bloodstream infection. Candidemia is the most deadly of the common hospital-acquired bloodstream infections, with a mortality rate of approximately 40 percent.
In the United States, candidemia affects approximately one in 5,000 people, resulting in an estimated 60,000 cases each year. “Bloodstream infections such as candidemia can spread quickly and are very dangerous, especially for patients with weakened immune systems,” said Dr. Joseph Feczko, Pfizer’s chief medical officer. “Physicians treating these seriously ill patients now have an important new treatment in Eraxis.”
