Brain pacemaker helps Parkinson's

Parkinson's sufferers who had electrodes implanted in their brains improved substantially more than those who took only medicine, according to the biggest test yet of deep brain stimulation. The study, which followed patients for six months, offers the most hopeful news to date for Parkinson's sufferers. The new technique reduced tremors, rigidity and flailing of the limbs and allowed people to move freely for nearly five extra hours a day. But the research also revealed higher-than-expected risks. About 40 percent of the patients who received these "brain pacemakers" suffered serious side effects, including a surprising number of falls with injuries. "We had one patient who felt so good he went up to repair his roof, fell down and broke both his legs," said lead author Fran Weaver of Hines Veterans Affairs Hospital, outside Chicago. "Patients are feeling so much better, they forget they still have Parkinson's." There is no cure for Parkinson's disease, which affects more than 1 million Americans.

Tests show benefits of Merck diabetes drug

Merck & Co's diabetes drug Januvia substantially improves blood sugar levels over two years of treatment when combined with the older metformin and is generally well tolerated, new data on Tuesday showed.


The mean reduction in HbA1c -- a common measure of blood glucose -- in a study involving Januvia 50 mg and metformin 1,000 mg twice-daily was 1.8 percent after the first year and 1.7 percent at two years, researchers told a medical meeting. Merck's Januvia, also known as sitagliptin, which is annualizing sales of $1.6 billion some two years after launch, is currently the only so-called DPP-4 drug on the market. Other additional studies also demonstrated the safety and efficacy profile of the so-called DPP-4 drug, researchers said in presentations at the European Association for the Study of Diabetes annual conference in Rome.

Poor sleep causes falls among elderly women

Poor sleep makes women 70 or older more likely to fall down, a major cause of injury and death among the elderly, a recent study says.

The risk is there even after taking into account things such as weight, age and the use of sleep medications, said Katie Stone and colleagues at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco. "Sleep deprivation in younger adults leads to slower reaction times, and this may represent an unmeasured factor that could explain these findings," they wrote in a report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The study involved nearly 3,000 women 70 and older who were followed for a number of years. Women in the study who slept no more than five hours per night had a 50 percent higher risk of having two or more falls over the course of a year than those who slept more than seven hours, the researchers found.

Anti-cancer purple tomato developed

The finding, published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, bolsters the idea that plants can be genetically modified to make people healthier.

Cancer-prone mice fed the modified fruit lived significantly longer than animals fed a standard diet with and without regular tomatoes, Cathie Martin and colleagues at the government-funded John Innes Center in Britain reported.

"The effect was much bigger than we had expected," said Martin, a plant biologist.

The study focused on anthocyanins, a type of antioxidant found in berries such as blackberries and blackcurrants that have been shown to lower risk of cancer, heart disease and some neurological diseases.

While an easy health boost, many people do not eat enough of these fruits, the researchers said.

Using genes that help color the snapdragon flower, the researchers discovered they could get the tomatoes to make anthocyanins -- turning the tomato purple in the process.

Mice genetically engineered to develop cancer lived an average of 182 days when they were fed the purple tomatoes, compared to 142 days for animals on the standard diet.

"It is enormously encouraging to believe that by changing diet, or specific components in the diet, you can improve health in animals and possibly humans," Martin said in a telephone interview.

The researchers cautioned that trials in humans are a long way off and the next step is to investigate how the antioxidants actually affect the tumors to promote better health.

But the findings do bolster research suggesting that people can significantly improve their health by making simple changes to the daily diet, other researchers said.

"It's exciting to see new techniques that could potentially make healthy foods even better for us," said Dr. Lara Bennett, science information officer at Cancer Research UK.

"But it's too early to say whether anthocyanins obtained through diet could help to reduce the risk of cancer."

Red meat primes body for germ

A steady diet of red meat makes the body more susceptible to a virulent form of intestinal bug that can cause bloody diarrhoea and even death, according to a study to be published on Thursday.

- 30 / 10 / 2008 07:22

Researchers in the United States and Australia said persistently eating red meat appears to prime the body for exposure to this potent form of Escherichia coli (E. coli).

The meat naturally contains sugar molecules called Neu5Gc that accumulate in cells lining the intestines and blood vessels.

These molecules also act as a sort of magnet for the toxins exuded by the E. coli strain, thus making it easier for the poisons to enter the blood stream, they said.

"Prior meat eating would set one up for the toxin to bind when it shows up," explained Ajit Varki, a researcher at the University of California at San Diego, one of the study's co-authors.

The Neu5Gc molecule is virtually absent in other foods such as fish, poultry and vegetables and fruits, Varki told AFP in an email exchange.

The investigation, published in the London-based journal Nature, is led by Travis Beddoe of Monash University in Melbourne.

In experiments, the team first tested the affinity of the E. coli bacteria for Neu5Gc using cultured human cells in a lab dish.

"The human samples showed the presence of the Neu5Gc toxin binding sites in the gut and the kidney, the two target organs for the disease," said Varki.

The researchers then confirmed the positive results using genetically modified mice in which the gene which naturally produced Neu5Gc was suppressed.

E. coli is found in the lower intestine of animals and humans. Many of its strains are harmless, but others can cause serious, sometimes fatal health problems.

There are about 75,000 cases of E. coli-related to food poisoning every year in the United States, including an average of 60 fatalities, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia.

Most outbreaks have been traced to undercooked ground beef tainted with faecal matter post-slaughter.

E. coli can also be transmitted through unwashed vegetables grown in farmland irrigated by sewage-contaminated water.

AFP

Got a fat gene? Get active for 3-4 hours

Maybe you can blame being fat on your genes. But there's a way to overcome that family history -- just get three to four hours of moderate activity a day.
Sound pretty daunting? Not for the Amish of Lancaster County, Pa., who were the focus of a new study on a common genetic variation that makes people more likely to gain weight. It turns out the variant's effects can be blocked with physical activity -- lots of it. Scientists believe about 30 percent of white people of European ancestry have this variant, including the Amish, and that may partly explain why so many people are overweight. But fighting that fat factor may be easier in the Amish community's 19th century rural lifestyle. They don't use cars or modern appliances. Many of the men are farmers and carpenters, and the women, who are homemakers, often care for several children.

Lung cancer deadlier for men nonsmokers

Men who have never smoked are more likely to die from lung cancer than women nonsmokers, researchers reported.
They found that male nonsmokers were about 25 percent more likely to die from lung cancer than women nonsmokers even though they developed the disease at similar rates. Men who had never smoked had a 1.1 percent risk of dying from lung cancer, compared to 0.8 percent for the women, the study found. This compares to about 22 percent among men who smoke and 12 percent of women who smoke. The study in North America, Europe and Asia was the largest ever done on nonsmokers and lung cancer. "Lung cancer is a significant public health and medical problem even beyond the overwhelming disease burden caused by tobacco smoking," Dr. Michael Thun of the American Cancer Society, who led the study, said in a telephone interview. Thun said it is unclear why male nonsmokers are more likely to die from lung cancer than women. "That's an interesting and unresolved question," he said.

China tainted milk scandal widens

Inspectors found that 10% of liquid milk taken from three dairies was tainted with melamine.

The scandal first came to light in milk powder that killed four infants and sickened more than 6,000 others.

Melamine, an industrial chemical normally used in plastics, is believed to have been added to diluted milk to make it appear higher in protein.

China's quality watchdog, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, tested liquid milk from three dairies.

Its website said 10% of the milk from the country's two largest - Mengniu Dairy Group and Yili Industrial Group - contained up to 8.4 milligrams of melamine per kg.

Products from Shanghai-based Bright Dairy were also contaminated, it said.

The watchdog said it would "strictly find out the reason for adding the melamine and severely punish those who are responsible".

All the batches that tested positive were being recalled, it said.

Soon after the announcement, Hong Kong's Wellcome and Park'n Shop supermarkets said they were pulling Mengniu products off their shelves.

Yili group products were recalled by the Hong Kong government on Thursday, after tests found milk, ice-cream and yoghurt to be contaminated with melamine.

Chinese officials have insisted that most milk is safe to drink - in an attempt to rebuild public trust in dairy products.

However, Chinese people are extremely angry to learn that more and more products have been found to be unsafe.

Reuters

Antibodies still protect 1918 flu survivors-study

Antibodies from survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic, the worst in human memory, still protect against the highly deadly virus, researchers reported on Sunday.

The findings by a team of influenza and immune system experts suggest new and better ways to fight viruses -- especially new pandemic strains that emerge and spread before a vaccine can be formulated.

These survivors, now aged 91 to 101, all lived through the pandemic as children.

Their immune systems still carry a memory of that virus and can produce proteins called antibodies that kill the 1918 flu strain with surprising efficiency, the researchers report in the journal Nature.

It was very surprising that these subjects would still have cells floating in their blood so long afterward, said Dr. James Crowe of Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, who helped lead the study.

The antibodies also protected mice from the 1918 virus, which swept around the world at the end of World War One killing between 50 million and 100 million people, Crowe's team reports in the journal Nature.

The antibodies that we isolated are remarkable antibodies. They grab onto the virus very tightly and they virtually never fall off, Crowe said in a telephone interview.

That allows them to kill the 1918 virus with extreme potency, meaning it takes a very small amount of antibody.

The human body has two systems for fighting off bacterial and viral invaders. One system uses so-called T-cells while the other employs B-cells, made in the bone marrow, which in turn make antibodies to both flag and directly attack the targets.

Resurrected virus

Dr. Christopher Basler and colleagues at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York tested the 1918 survivors and found that in most of them, the B-cells made antibodies highly attuned to the 1918 flu strain.

Dr. Terrence Tumpey at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had worked on a team that resurrected the 1918 virus taken from buried victims of the epidemic and tested this virus in mice. Mice given the antibodies from the elderly survivors lived, while those given placebos died.

Crowe said it will now be important to test other people who have had influenza to see if their immune responses are as strong. The thought is the first influenza that you see during life is the one that you have the best immunity to, he said.

If we can learn the rules about how these antibodies work we may be able to design antibodies to lots of other viruses.

The 1918 flu was an H1N1 strain that apparently came straight from birds. This study tells us that human beings can make long lasting immune responses to bird influenza, Crowe said.

Crowe said his team is working to get antibodies from people vaccinated with experimental shots for the H5N1 avian influenza now circulating in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. H5N1 mostly affects birds but it has infected 385 people since 2003, killing 243.

Experts fear that, like the H1N1 virus did in 1918, H5N1 will mutate into a form that passes easily among people and spark another pandemic. No one knows if the vaccines being made now would protect against whatever form of H5N1 might emerge.

Crowe said antibodies from survivors might make a good interim treatment while a vaccine is formulated, manufactured and distributed -- a process that would take months.

Eating fish may thwart 'silent' brain damage, researchers say

Older adults who regularly eat fish may have a lower risk of subtle brain damage that contributes to stroke and dementia -- as long as the fish isn't fried -- researchers have reported.

In a study that followed 3,660 adults age 65 and older, Finnish researchers found that those who ate more fish were less likely to show certain "silent" brain infarcts -- tiny areas of tissue that have died because of an insufficient blood supply -- on an MRI scan.

The tissue damage is considered silent, or "subclinical," because it causes no obvious symptoms and can only be detected through brain scans. It can, however, raise a person's longer-term risk of having a stroke or developing dementia. Among older adults in the current study, those who said they ate tuna and "other" baked or broiled fish at least three times per week were one-quarter less likely than those who rarely ate fish to have subclinical brain infarcts at the study's start.

Fish eaters also tended to be less likely to develop new infarcts over the next five years. No such benefits were linked to consumption of fried fish, however, the researchers report in the journal Neurology.

While the study cannot conclusively point to the reason for the brain benefits, it's likely that omega-3 fatty acids -- healthy fats found mainly in oily fish -- play a key role, according to Dr. Jyrki K. Virtanen and colleagues at the University of Kuopio. When the researchers estimated study participants' intake of two major omega-3 fatty acids -- EPA and DHA -- they found a link between higher intake and lower risk of silent brain infarcts.

In addition, the researchers note, the lack of a protective effect from fried fish may stem from the fact that foods like fish burgers and fish sticks are typically made from fish low in omega-3. Overall, the findings add to evidence that fish rich in omega-3 fats -- like salmon, mackerel and albacore tuna -- may have "important health benefits," the researchers write.

"Previous findings have shown that fish and fish oil can help prevent stroke, but this is one of the only studies that looks at fish's effect on silent brain infarcts in healthy, older people," Virtanen said in a written statement. "More research is needed as to why these types of fish may have protective effects, but the omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA would seem to have a major role." Virtanen added.

Silent brain infarcts can raise a person's risk of both stroke and cognitive decline. It's estimated that about 20 percent of adults age 65 and up who are free of silent infarcts will develop at least one within five years. The American Heart Association recommends that all adults strive to eat at least two fish meals per week, preferably fatty fish, for the sake of their cardiovascular health.

Chickens 'unlock allergy secrets'

Scientists have turned to chickens to help them understand why some people are struck down by severe allergies.

The birds have a "fossilised" version of the key molecule responsible for severe allergic reactions in humans.

King's College London researchers say their findings, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, could guide the hunt for future treatments.

Experts said the work offered "exciting new avenues" for research into preventing allergies developing.

The molecule in birds, called IgY, appears to be an ancient forerunner of a similar human molecule called IgE - one of the culprits when the immune system goes into overdrive during asthma attacks or anaphylactic shock.

The King's team are trying to find out why IgE causes a problem, while IgY does not.

Dr Alex Taylor, one of the researchers, said: "This molecule is like a living fossil - finding out that it has an ancient past is like turning up a coelacanth in your garden pond.

"By studying it, we can track the evolution of allergic reactions back to at least 160m years ago."

His colleague Dr Rosy Calvert said: "We know that part of the problem with IgE in humans is that it binds extremely tightly to white blood cells causing an over-reaction of the immune system and so we wanted to find out whether IgY does the same thing."

Their lab tests revealed that it did not bind in the same way, and a more detailed comparison could reveal subtle differences which explain why, and perhaps provide targets for new drugs or treatments.

Reuters

Exercise triggers genetic changes

Healthy lifestyle triggers genetic changes, a US study says.

Comprehensive lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can lead not only to a better physique, but also to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, U.S. researchers said on Monday.

In a small study, the researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment such as surgery and radiation or hormone therapy.

The men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes, including eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods such as meditation.

As expected, they lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements. But the researchers found more profound changes when they compared prostate biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle changes.

After the three months, the men had changes in activity in about 500 genes -- including 48 that were turned on and 453 genes that were turned off.

The activity of disease-preventing genes increased while a number of disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate cancer and breast cancer, shut down, according to the study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research was led by Dr. Dean Ornish, head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, and a well-known author advocating lifestyle changes to improve health.

"It's an exciting finding because so often people say, 'Oh, it's all in my genes, what can I do?' Well, it turns out you may be able to do a lot," Ornish, who is also affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco, said in a telephone interview.

Reuters

No higher risk in coffee drinking

There is no higher death risk in long-term coffee drinking, a study claims.

Long-term coffee drinking does not appear to increase a person's risk of early death and may cut a person's chances of dying from heart disease, according to a study published on Monday.

Previous studies have given a mixed picture of health effects from coffee, finding a variety of benefits and some drawbacks from the popular drink. The new study looked at people who drank caffeinated or decaffeinated coffee.

Researchers led by Esther Lopez-Garcia of Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain followed 84,214 U.S. women from 1980 to 2004 and 41,736 U.S. men from 1986 to 2004.

They found that regular coffee drinking -- up to six cups a day -- was not associated with increased deaths among the study's middle-aged participants. In fact, the coffee drinkers, particularly the women, experienced a small decline in death rates from heart disease.

The study found no association between coffee consumption and cancer deaths.

"Our study indicates that coffee consumption does not have a detrimental effect," Lopez-Garcia, whose research appears in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, said in a telephone interview. "It seems like long-term coffee consumption may have some beneficial effects."

There has been a debate among scientists about the health effects of drinking coffee, which typically contains the stimulant caffeine and a number of other important compounds.

The people who took part in the research completed questionnaires on how frequently they drank coffee, other diet habits, smoking and medical conditions. The researchers then studied the mortality risk over the period of the study among people with different coffee-drinking habits.

The study found that women who reported drinking two to three cups of caffeinated coffee per day had a 25 percent lower risk of death from heart disease than women who did not drink coffee. The researchers saw a smaller decreased risk for men but it was not statistically significant.

Drinking decaffeinated coffee was associated with a small reduction in overall mortality risk, the researchers said.

The people in the study had no history of cardiovascular disease or cancer when they entered it. The women were nurses and the men doctors, dentists and other health professionals.

Some studies have indicated coffee is a great source of antioxidants, substances that may protect against the effects of molecules called free radicals that can damage cells and may play a role in heart disease, cancer and other ailments.

Recent studies have offered a mixed picture on the health effects of coffee.

A study that came out in January found that pregnant women who drink two or more cups of coffee a day had twice the risk of miscarriage as those who avoid caffeine. Another study appearing in January found that drinking caffeinated coffee lowered a woman's risk of ovarian cancer.

Reuters

Don't pump up the volume: Research

A research has revealed that young people risk developing permanent hearing problems if they listen to loud music through headphones.

Next time you crank up the volume, beware: an Australian government report said young people risk developing permanent hearing problems if they go to noisy bars and listen to loud music through headphones.

The report, released on Tuesday, found two out of three Australians suffered some degree of hearing damage, but 70 percent of people aged 18 to 34 years had reported ringing in their ears, or tinnitus, which can be a sign of permanent damage.

"This may reflect a lifestyle aspect, with younger Australians more likely to attend bars, pubs and listen to music through headphones," said the report, titled "Is Australia Listening".

The report said 41 percent of adults listen to music through headphones at least once a month, with 76 percent of young adults listen to music through headphones on MP3 players such as iPods.

It also found 60 percent of younger people who listen to music through headphones turn the volume up high enough to damage their ears.

The report urged people to listen to MP3 players at a moderate level to protect their ears from long-term harm.

Professor Harvey Dillon, from the government-funded Hearing Australia, said many young people did not realize that hearing damage was permanent.

"If it is loud, it can cause damage. and if it does cause you damage, it is permanent," Dillon told Australian television.

"Our rule of thumb is if people have to raise their voice or actually shout at you to make themselves understood while you are listening to music in your ears, then that is loud enough to be potentially damaging."

Reuters