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

Eli Lilly to help train doctors in treating TB

US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly will donate $1 million to train doctors treating tuberculosis (TB), a disease that infects 9 million people every year and kills nearly 2 million.
The interactive online course is meant as a refresher for physicians on the best ways to diagnose, prevent and treat the respiratory infection that spreads through coughs and sneezes and can be especially deadly for people with HIV or AIDS. "This will allow more physicians around the world to acquire the basic knowledge on standard TB management at a time when there is a resurgence of the epidemic," Eli Lilly said in a joint statement with the World Medical Association. The emergence and spread of drug-resistant tuberculosis germs have hindered international efforts to stop its spread. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 5 percent of tuberculosis cases worldwide cannot be cured with the first-line antibiotics normally prescribed.

Mental impairment common in kids with MS

Low IQ scores and cognitive problems (problems related to thinking and reasoning) are common in children and adolescents with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to an Italian study reported in the journal Neurology. Approximately 5 percent of MS cases begin before age 18, note Dr. Maria Pia Amato, at the University of Florence, and her associates. "The initial diagnosis of MS is more difficult in children than in adults," Amato told Reuters Health. Particularly before age 10, symptoms may resemble those of acute encephalitis, with symptoms such as fever, alterations in mental state and level of consciousness. Breathing assistance with a mechanical respirator may be required and seizures and signs of brain involvement, which are rare in adults, may often occur in children. In adolescents, she added, the onset of MS is more like that observed in young adults, with symptoms such as inflammation of the optic nerve, brain stem and cerebellar symptoms and sensory disturbances, usually without any change in mental state. In either case, there is concern that an early onset of MS could have greater impact on cognitive function if normal neurodevelopment is stunted.

Many ignorant of heart attack signs, study says

Many people with heart disease do not know the symptoms of a heart attack, even though their risk of suffering one is five to seven times higher than those with no such history, researchers reported. Symptoms can include nausea and pain in the jaw, chest or left arm. But the research team said shorter hospital stays and a move to outpatient treatment have decreased the amount of patient education on the subject. Kathleen Dracup and colleagues at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing said they looked at 3,522 patients in the United States, Australia and New Zealand who had previously suffered a heart attack or had undergone a procedure, such as angioplasty, for heart disease. They found that 44 percent of them scored poorly on a true-false test measuring how savvy they were about symptoms. Women in general along with patients who had taken part in cardiac rehabilitation, those with higher education, younger people and those who were treated by a heart specialist rather than a family doctor tended to have the best scores on the test, the report said.

"In decades past such patients were frequently hospitalized and would receive education and counseling from physicians and nurses during their hospital stay," they said in the report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. "Unfortunately structural changes in health care delivery have led to decreased lengths of hospital stay and increased use of outpatient facilities ... which in turn have had a dramatic effect on the time available for the education of patients," they added.