Long term relationships lead to healthier babies

Sheeesh! The nonsense never stops. Married women almost certainly have less risky lifestyles and THAT is why their babies are healthier -- not the nonsense below

Scientists found that women who had slept with a partner exclusively for at least six months had fewer undersized babies and a lower rate of pre-eclampsia - pregnancy induced high blood pressure. Experts believe that the reason for the healthier birth is long-term exposure to the biological father's sperm which boosts the immune system.

In the study by Auckland University in New Zealand researchers asked 2,507 first time pregnant women how long they had been with the baby's father. It was found that when the pregnancies came to term, pre-eclampsia was found to be less common in women who had long-term sexual relations exclusively with the biological father, than in those who had been with their partner only for a short time. The study also revealed that women who had undersized babies were also more likely to have been in shorter relationships.

Dr Larry Chamley, the lead author from the think tank Faculty of 1000 Medicine and also Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Auckland, said that female immune system was boosted by exposure to "paternal antigens" - beneficial antibodies in the male sperm. "Although the issue of whether prolonged semen exposure does protect against developing pre-eclampsia is not yet resolved this paper seems to tip the weight of evidence back in favour of suggesting that prolonged semen exposure is protective," he said.

The results of the study, published in the Journal of Reproductive Immunology, were adjusted for the lifestyle and background of the women including their weight, whether they smoked and their general health. Those who did not know the identity of the father were excluded from the research.

SOURCE






Obesity in America linked to 'liquid Satan' from Iowa corn fields

I like the first sentence below: "The link has not been proven". Obesity is a product of total food intake, not where you get the calories from

The link has not been proven, but the theory is compelling. It suggests that America is doomed to lead the world’s obesity rankings as long as the process by which it elects its presidents starts in Iowa — a state known for its cornfields and corn subsidies.

With a minimum price of $1.90 per bushel of corn guaranteed by the 2007 Farm Bill, activists say that the crop is a guaranteed winner for the farmers of the Midwest — and one of the results is something called super-abundant high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS).

Known to its detractors as “liquid Satan”, HFCS is the sweetener of choice in the vast bulk of fizzy drinks and packaged cakes and biscuits consumed in the US. Its producers have long enjoyed the solid support of the US Senate and most presidential candidates, who gravitate every four years to Iowa to pledge their allegiance to its voters. “Farm subsidies are a third rail of Iowa politics,” a former staffer on Senator John Edwards’s presidential campaign said yesterday. “You don’t touch them.”

President Obama certainly didn’t. As an Illinois Senator and presidential candidate, he consistently backed corn subsidies, on the grounds that they promoted the production of corn-based ethanol and thereby enhanced US energy security.

The 2007 Farm Bill conferred more than $2 billion on Iowa in corn subsidies for 2007 to 2012 — nearly 80 per cent of the state’s subsidies for all crops for the period. Americans’ consumption of corn on the cob has not risen markedly as a result, but their intake of HFCS has been climbing for decades, from 0.6lb per person per year in 1970 to 73.5lb in 2007.

It is sugars that make people put on weight, the paediatrician James Bailes insists. “I used to tell people to eat less fat and exercise more — and none of them lost weight,” he said. “It’s the carbohydrates, the sugary drinks, that do the damage.”

SOURCE

The old Bisphenol scare rumbles on

Anti-business alarmists have been trying for years to demonize this stuff so every now and again they should get an apparent hit by chance alone. In this case the groups with different levels of exposure probably differed in other ways and even if we accept the findings it probably shows only that many things (even water) can be harmful if you ingest huge amounts of them. It does not follow that something ingested in huge amounts is harmful in small amounts. The opposite can be true. Check hormesis

Exposure to high levels of a controversial chemical found in thousands of everyday plastic products appears to cause erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems in men, according to a new study published Wednesday. The study, funded by the federal government and published in the journal Human Reproduction, is the first to examine the impact of bisphenol A, or BPA, on the reproductive systems of human males. Previous studies have involved mice or rats.

The research comes as government agencies debate the safety of BPA, a compound that is found in thousands of consumer products ranging from dental sealants to canned food linings and that is so ubiquitous it has been detected in the urine of 93 percent of the U.S. population.

Researchers focused on 634 male workers at four factories in China who were exposed to elevated levels of BPA. They followed the men over five years and compared their sexual health with that of male workers in other Chinese factories where BPA was not present. The men handling BPA were four times as likely to suffer from erectile dysfunction and seven times as likely to have difficulty with ejaculation, said De-Kun Li, a scientist at the Kaiser Foundation Research Institute, which conducted the study with funds from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

BPA, which was developed in the 1930s as a synthetic version of estrogen, appears to throw off the hormonal balance in the human body, Li said. The workers studied did not have to spend years in the factory to develop problems -- sexual dysfunction began in new workers after just months on the job, Li said.

The workers had levels of exposure to BPA that were 50 times what an average U.S. man faces. But the findings raise questions about whether exposure at lesser levels can affect sexual function, Li said. "This was a highly exposed group, and we see the effect," he said. "Now, we have to worry about lower-level exposure."

Li said the study is significant because chemical manufacturers and other defenders of BPA have long complained that research raising questions about its health effects was conducted on laboratory animals. "Critics dismissed all the animal studies, saying, 'Show us the human studies,' " Li said. "Now we have a human study, and this can't just be dismissed."

Since BPA is most readily absorbed through food and drink containers, health advocates have been particularly focused on how the Food and Drug Administration is regulating the chemical. The agency has maintained that BPA is safe. But a growing body of research over the past decade has linked BPA to a range of health effects in laboratory animals, including infertility, weight gain, behavioral changes, early-onset puberty, cancer and diabetes.

Steven G. Hentges of the American Chemistry Council, which represents the chemical industry, said the new study has little meaning for consumers. "Although this study presents interesting information, it has little relevance to average consumers who are exposed to trace levels of BPA," he said.

Still, concern about the chemical among consumers has created pressure in the marketplace. Manufacturers have pledged to take BPA out of baby bottles and water bottles. A handful of jurisdictions around the country have banned BPA from baby products, and similar measures are pending in state legislatures.

Last year, the FDA's scientific advisory board criticized the agency for ignoring more than 100 academic and government studies that linked BPA with health effects. The Obama administration has pledged a "fresh look" at the issue, and the FDA is expected to complete that review by the end of this month.

Meanwhile, the federal government announced last month that it is giving $30 million to researchers across the country over the next two years in an aggressive push to advance knowledge about BPA and end the debate about its safety.

SOURCE






Yoghurt drinks could beat bugs that pile the weight on

Rather a long-shot, I think. The finding is that the bactertial load adjusts by itself quite strongly, so trying to alter it seems futile

Bugs that live in our stomachs could be causing us to get fat, research suggests. Scientists have shown that the type of bugs in our gut change depending on the food we eat. And bacteria that thrives on junk food may make it easier for us to pile on the pounds. The discovery, by U.S. scientists, suggests that bugs found in the digestive tract are helping fuel the obesity epidemic.

The research could also open the way to designing probiotic yoghurts similar to Yakult to combat weight gain.

The link between bugs and weight gain was discovered when the researchers gave mice 'transplants' of bugs among the trillions normally found in the human gut. A junk food binge rapidly altered the make-up of the bugs, with some types thriving and others struggling to survive.

To study the effect of the changes, the researchers from Washington University in Missouri, took stomach bugs from mice fed fatty food and injected them into lean mice. These mice rapidly put on weight, despite being fed low-fat foods, the journal Science Translational Medicine reports. It is thought that stomach bugs that thrive when we eat fatty foods affect metabolism, leading to more fat being stored.

In future, probiotic drinks or supplements designed to boost numbers of the bugs that prefer healthier foods could help keep us trim.

Harvard University obesity expert Jeffrey Flier said that many factors contribute to obesity and it is important to find new ways of combating them. He wrote: 'The gut microbiome (population of bacteria) seems poised to serve as such a promising new scientific platform. It is important, however, to keep this new knowledge in perspective.'

SOURCE

Now Brazil nuts are bad for you

Utter rubbish. The findings simply show that people taking supplements tend to be less healthy.



Brazil nuts have been hailed as a tasty way of building up the immune system and even protecting against cancer. But the health-boosting mineral they contain may also push up cholesterol levels and raise the risk of heart disease, researchers claim. The findings came in a study suggesting that a high level in the blood of selenium - a trace mineral found naturally in Brazil nuts, grain, fish and meat - increases cholesterol levels.

Those found in tests to have the highest level of the mineral in their blood were regularly taking dietary supplements containing selenium. However, eating large quantities of Brazil nuts and selenium-rich foods might have the same effect.

Researchers at Warwick University say they have discovered that high selenium levels are 'associated' with a 10 per cent rise in cholesterol. The warning emerges from data on 1,042 people aged 19 to 64 who took part in the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey between 2000 and 2001. In those with blood selenium concentrations higher than 1.20micromoles per litre, the levels of total cholesterol were raised by an average of 8 per cent. Levels of a 'bad' type of cholesterol associated with heart disease were increased by 10 per cent.

The study did not take account of the health of individuals or whether they were taking cholesterol-lowering drugs.

High cholesterol levels are a risk factor for heart disease and stroke. Brazil nuts are exceptionally rich in selenium, although average intake of the mineral in the UK is only around half the recommended level.

Dr Saverio Stranges, who led the study reported in the Journal of Nutrition, said: 'We believe that the widespread use of selenium supplements, or of any other strategy that artificially increases selenium status above the level required, is unwarranted at the present time.'

Dr Carrie Ruxton, independent nutrition adviser to the industry-backed Health Supplements Information Service, said the study authors admitted they couldn't be sure whether the association they found 'was due to increased dietary selenium or other factors'. She added: 'It is premature to suggest at this stage that taking selenium supplements is harmful for heart health.'

SOURCE






More government meddling in personal matters

Australian governments back plan to boost breastfeeding rates. Is anything private any more? Mothers are already pressured over this -- leading to distress among mothers who have difficulties breast feeding

MOTHERS will be urged to ditch the baby bottle under a controversial and potentially divisive five-year plan to boost breast milk feeding rates. The government-backed pro-breast milk message will argue that babies fed on breast milk for longer may reduce risks of obesity and chronic disease.

State and federal health ministers today will endorse the plan and consider establishing a national breast milk bank, The Courier-Mail reports. The move will be among a raft of measures designed to monitor and persuade Australians to consider how their lifestyles affect public spending. It will be the latest in a series of government attempts to influence mothers' choices on feeding.

In June, a $100,000-a-year Queensland Health breastfeeding campaign was attacked for using "guilt-inducing" language. The campaign was called "12+months on the breast: Normal, natural, healthy".

The new federal strategy would include increasing community acceptance of breastfeeding as a cultural and social norm, establishing breastfeeding support networks for pregnant women and improved breastfeeding training for health professionals. A national breast milk bank would collect, screen and dispense human milk donated by nursing mothers to be fed to premature and sick babies whose mothers were unable to feed them or who needed supplementary feeds.

At the centre of the Australian National Breastfeeding Strategy 2010-15 is the goal of increasing the percentage of babies who are fully breastfed from birth to six months, and beyond 12 months. "Breast milk is an environmentally-friendly product and there are health risks and financial costs associated with not breastfeeding," the draft strategy says. "Breastfed babies are less likely to suffer from a range of serious illnesses and conditions (and) ... protective effects ... in infancy may extend to later life, with reduced risks of obesity and chronic disease."

A study of Australian children in 2004 found 92 per cent of newborns were initially breastfed but within a week that dropped to 80 per cent. At three months, about 56 per cent were still being fed breast milk. A federal report in 2007 championed the benefits of breast milk and recommended the Health Department fund a feasibility study for a network of milk banks.

A Mothers Milk Bank established on the Gold Coast in 2006 closed two years later because of a lack of funding. It is scheduled to reopen in the next few months. Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon also is likely to announce today an initiative to screen for perinatal depression.

SOURCE

Atkins-style low carb, high protein dieters 'more likely to suffer depression'

The Atkins diet has often evoked a huge and and apparently irrational hostility -- so we must be cautious about results such as these. The anti-meat brigade, among others, certainly hate its success. Note that even the authors below note a social rather than a physiological cause for the effects they observed. It is also not totally obvious why being on a restricted diet improves mood. I would have thought that such a diet would make you grumpy

People who try to lose weight using an Atkins-style low carb, high protein diet are more likely to suffer depression, a study suggests. Slimmers on a low-calorie and low-fat diet saw their mood improve more than counterparts on a low-carbohydrate regime with the same amount of calories, found researchers.

Two groups of overweight or obese patients were studied over the course of a year in Australia and the findings are published in the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. It was found that, although both groups lost an average of more than two stone, those patients on a low-fat diet experienced a lasting improvement in mood compared with the low-carb group.

The authors of the study said that the results serve as a warning against the growing trend for low-carb, high-protein plans like the Atkins Diet. "While recent clinical studies have shown that low-carbohydrate diets can be an effective alternative dietary approach for weight loss, their long-term effects on psychological function, including mood and cognition, have been poorly studied," wrote the authors.

Possible explanations for the results of the study include the social difficulties associated with sticking to a low-carb plan, which prescribes a different regime from the typical pasta and bread-filled Western diet. The structure of such diets could also affect mood, said the authors.

The effects of protein and fat on the levels of serotonin the 'happiness chemical' could also offer an explanation.

The authors added that further studies would be required to see how other cognitive functions are affected by different dietary regimes.

SOURCE





Many breast cancers do not need treatment

HUNDREDS of women every year are having treatments for breast cancer, including surgery and chemotherapy, that are unnecessary because nearly one-third of cancers detected by screening tests are not dangerous. Australian researchers have proven for the first time that breast cancer screening is responsible for substantial "overdiagnosis" of the disease -- the detection of cancers that are too slow-growing to cause a problem in the woman's lifetime but are still treated as if they pose an immediate threat.

The University of Sydney experts found the overdiagnosis rate was between 30 and 42 per cent -- meaning between 23 and 29 per cent of women aged 50-69 are having cancer treatments they do not need.

While previous studies have estimated overdiagnosis rates as high as 52 per cent from breast cancer screening, the new study is the first to rule out other known causes of breast cancer as being an alternative explanation for the higher detection rate, which has doubled since screening began. Obesity, use of hormone replacement therapy and childlessness all increase the risk of breast cancer, and have been rising over the same period.

But the researchers, who included world-renowned cancer expert Bruce Armstrong, have shown these other factors cannot explain the higher cancer rate among screened women, which they said could "only be explained by overdiagnosis".

Figures published by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare last month show that 6398 women aged 50-69 were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006. If the higher 29 per cent overdiagnosis figure were correct, it would suggest about 1855 women each year are receiving unnecessary treatments, including mastectomies and radiation.

Co-author Alex Barratt, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Sydney, said the study "conclusively shows that . . . it's a phenomenon caused by screening". "We need better screening tests that either don't pick up these very slow-growing cancers in the first place, or triage tests that are able to tell the difference once they are detected."

Australia's breast screening program has been under increased pressure from the numbers of younger women seeking scans following the cases of celebrities such as Kylie Minogue. In September, an evaluation report of the BreastScreen Australia program proposed restricting access to free screening for younger women.

Some cancer experts have reacted cautiously to the findings, warning that the relevance for individual women was limited because doctors could not tell which cancers detected by mammography could be safely ignored.

Cancer Council Australia chief executive Ian Olver said the study's results were "a guesstimate" and screening had slashed the death rate from breast cancer by about 35 per cent among women aged 50-69 since mammograms for healthy women were introduced in 1990.

Associate Professor Barratt said any woman who detected a symptom such as a lump, breast changes or discharge should seek medical advice straightaway, as the non-dangerous cancers did not produce these signs.

SOURCE

OJ with Breakfast? Repent!

America’s self-anointed food police have a new punching bag in their obesity crusade: fruit juice. We’re not making this up. The Los Angeles Times reported yesterday that a growing number of dietary do-gooders are now pointing their fingers at juice as a culprit for fattening waistlines:

The inconvenient truth, many experts say, is that 100% fruit juice poses the same obesity-related health risks as Coke, Pepsi and other widely vilified beverages. … [I]t's time juice lost its wholesome image, these experts say.

"It's pretty much the same as sugar water," said Dr. Charles Billington, an appetite researcher at the University of Minnesota. In the modern diet, "there's no need for any juice at all."

Is this new target in the obesity blame game any more legitimate than activists’ perennial demonization of soda? Nope. As the Times notes, a 2008 review of 21 studies found that 15—over two-thirds—did not support the theoretical link between juice and weight gain. But dietary activists still single out soda despite a wealth of academic research finding that soda isn’t a unique cause of obesity, so don’t expect the grape juice naysayers to be quieted in the face of actual evidence.

It’s worth noting that “Twinkie tax” creator Kelly Brownell isn’t jumping on the opportunity to call for a government War on Fruit Juice. According to the Times, Brownell is “loath to provoke the tens of millions of Americans who consider their morning juice sacrosanct.” Read: Brownell won’t target fruit juice yet, but after fruit juice’s public image is dragged through the mud and turned into “the new tobacco,” all bets are off. For now, Brownell is sticking to his soda tax song-and-dance out of purely political considerations, not ideological ones.

We have to ask: What’s next? Raisin rations? Warning labels on avocados? Red-light / green-light stickers in the produce aisle? Paging Alex Padilla…

SOURCE




Violent video games won’t corrupt anyone

Just like comic books and video nasties before it, Modern Warfare 2 is besieged by ignorant screams for censorship

Whether you’ve picked up a joypad in your life or not, you must have noticed that this week is a big one for videogame aficionados. Modern Warfare 2 (MW2), the sequel to an ultra-realistic military game that sold 15 million copies worldwide, has been greeted with midnight launch events, massive queues and rapturous critical response.

But not everyone is happy. Voices have been raised in protest — the familiar voices that have, over the years, condemned as scandalous and repulsive everything from novels to comic books, from horror films to rock music. It is a baptism of fire that, it seems, every new medium must suffer as it rises from niche pastime to mass entertainment.

The inclusion in MW2 of a scene that re-creates a horrific terrorist attack on a crowded airport has led to outraged headlines. The Labour MP Keith Vaz attacked the game for its “brutality”: his was a textbook piece of grandstanding, complete with the claim that he merely wished that we would think of the children.

But plenty of thought has been given to the children. MW2 carries a BBFC 18 rating. Its box sports the 18 symbol in three places, the one on the front being twice the normal size. “Contains strong, bloody violence”, the text warns, and the rating is more than a guideline: retailers cannot sell it to children.

And they certainly should not. The airport scene is unquestionably unpleasant. It puts the player in the shoes of an unwilling participant in the slaughter of innocents. It’s stomach-churning and nasty, a bleak and incongruous sidestep in a game that otherwise progresses with the pace and bombast of a Hollywood action movie.

But it is no more graphic than countless other scenes in movies and TV shows such as 24. Adults are expected to understand that not everything labelled “entertainment” must necessarily be “fun”. Creative works can, with equal validity, be harrowing, upsetting and depressing.

Decades of research, often funded by groups with a vested interest in proving the “evil” of video games, have failed to prove a link between game violence and real-life violence. Is the issue, then, that we still consider video games to be for children, regardless of that huge, red 18 rating sticker?

The average age of a game player in the UK is about 28. MW2 will probably be played by more than two million adults here — and both government and game publishers have taken measures to protect children from its content. But responsibility must lie with parents, and little can be done if a parent decides to buy an 18-rated game for their ten-year-old.

Bad parenting should not be an excuse to throw the shroud of censorship over compelling, intelligent experiences created for adults.

SOURCE

Pervasive love of the Nanny State

Below is a circular from Greg Lindsay of the Centre for Independent Studies, dated November 9. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590. The idea that ANY Australian supermarket does not sell fresh produce is truly remarkable. A classical example of how simplistic theories trump facts among Leftists. The major supermarkets have a huge range of produce wherever they are and even mini-markets have some

Conversations at dinner parties often reflect the fashion and fads of the moment. House prices, schools, the GFC, climate change, and refugees—all have cropped up over the past few years. Lately, it’s the so-called 'obesity epidemic.'

No contemporary issue divides the people who believe in personal choice and responsibility from those who think government should be constantly at our elbows, as it were, nudging our hands away from the salt, butter, eggs, meat, etc.

A recent conversation I had with a dinner companion went something like this.

Dinner Companion: 'I accept that markets are the best way of supplying goods and services for people, but what about the less well-off people who are not eating properly?'

GL: 'What do you mean?'

DC: ‘Oh I don't mean people who live around here who have access to fruit and vegetables but those who live out in (suburb) X where the supermarkets don't stock fresh fruit and vegetables.'

GL: 'They don't?' DC: 'No, they don't.' GL: 'I don't believe you.' DC: 'It's true!'

And so on.

The serious but bizarre suggestion that followed was that the government should force retail outlets in less affluent areas to sell fresh fruit and vegetable and also compel the less well off to buy them ‘for their own good.’

So I checked with the supermarkets located in suburb X. And yes, they do stock plenty of fresh produce. So presumably enough people are buying fruit and vegetables, and no wonder. For as long as I can remember, taxpayer-funded health campaigns have been preaching the benefits of healthy diets.

If there is a legitimate role of government here, it may be to disseminate important public information so people can make informed decisions. But now this seems to be morphing into something altogether different. My dinner companion’s attitude to the Nanny State demonstrated the soft authoritarian streak that is pervading society.

It would appear that we can’t leave it up to individuals to make rational decisions about what is in their best interests. Indeed, it’s now the government’s job to treat us like infants in the high chair and make sure we eat our vegetables! Moreover, if there is a growing issue, such as obesity, overstating the case as my dinner companion did can trivialise it and the public loses interest. (Climate change alarmists for instance are increasingly guilty of this.)

The problem, of course, is that ultimately this attitude is self-defeating. Social theorists call the phenomena ‘learned helplessness.’ The more government does, the less responsible people need to be, and the less responsible they end up becoming. And ever-bigger becomes the role of governments in our lives.





Cervical cancer wiped out by pioneering use of 'amazing' osteoporosis drugs

Cervical cancer can be destroyed by drugs used to treat breast cancer and osteoporosis, a study suggests. In results described as 'amazing' by researchers, one of the treatments eliminated the cancer in 11 out of 13 cases.

The results are hugely important because, despite advances in medicine, cervical cancer still affects almost 3,000 British women a year and kills more than 1,000. Half a million women are diagnosed with it each year worldwide, but only 50 per cent will survive. Britain and other countries have recently started to vaccinate teenage girls against the cancer. But the programme is in its infancy and the jab will not prevent all cases.

The latest research centres on fulvestrant, which is normally used to treat breast cancer, and raloxifene, used for osteoporosis. Importantly, the drugs have already been deemed safe for use, meaning they could be marketed as cervical cancer treatments much more quickly than newly-discovered medicines.

The initial results come from experiments in mice. But if the success is repeated in women, the drugs could be in widespread use as cervical cancer treatments within just five years.

The researchers, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S., started by showing that the growth of cervical tumours, like many breast cancers, is fuelled by the sex hormone oestrogen. Fulvestrant and raloxifene are known to cut off the supply, so the researchers gave them to mice that had been genetically-engineered to develop the cancer. After a month, 11 of the 13 mice given fulvestrant lost all signs of cancer. But the disease remained in untreated animals, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports. Raloxifene gave similar results, proving the importance of oestrogen to cervical cancer. Finally, the researchers showed that the drugs can also eradicate pre-cancerous growths - abnormal cells that if left untreated could turn cancerous.

Researcher Professor Paul Lambert said: 'It was amazing to see that not only was the cancer gone but all the pre-cancerous lesions that give rise to cancer were also gone. 'Simply put, oestrogen is effectively acting as a growth factor or "fuel". If you remove its function, the cancer regresses. 'Why the cancer literally appears to disappear or "die" is still a remarkable aspect of our findings that we cannot explain at a molecular level as of yet. 'Studies are under way to understand the mechanism.'

The professor is also testing the drugs on human cells in the lab and is optimistic they will one day be used to treat women with cervical cancer. He said: 'We have begun to test whether the drugs are as effective in treating cervical cancer in human cells as they are in our mice. 'We can't be sure how the science will translate from animals to humans but we have faith in our mouse model. 'There are many similarities in how cervical cancer develops and manifests itself in women and in mice.'

If shown to be effective in women with cervical cancer, the drugs are likely to be used to tackle tumours that have recurred despite conventional treatments such as surgery or radiotherapy. They might also be given to stop the disease returning in the first place. Long-term treatment might be necessary to keep the cancer at bay.

SOURCE

Lots more nasty side-effects of statins now acknowledged

New health warnings are to be issued over popular cholesterol-lowering drugs after evidence that thousands of users suffer side effects such as depression and sexual problems. More than six million adults who are prescribed statins by their GPs will be told about five new 'undesirable effects' in leaflets issued with packets of the drugs. These are sleep disturbances, memory loss, sexual dysfunction, depression and a rare lung disease that can kill if left untreated.

But some doctors have criticised delays by the Government's drug safety watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. The MHRA signalled the need for updated warnings in February last year but disagreements about the wording have held up the changes.

Dr Ike Iheanacho, editor of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin which conducts independent reviews of evidence on drugs, said most patients and doctors were unaware of the newly identified problems. But he stressed that patients should not stop taking statins, which are credited with saving 10,000 lives a year by the British Heart Foundation. Dr Iheanacho said: 'Statins are of unquestioned value in the prevention of cardiovascular events and are used by increasing numbers of people. 'However, when new data emerges on their unwanted effects, it is crucial that they are incorporated into the product information.'

A review of studies by the MHRA in February 2008 concluded there was enough evidence from clinical trials and patient reports to identify the new problems as a 'class effect'. This means all statins may trigger the problems. It found up to 12 per cent of patients taking part in one clinical trial suffered sleep disturbances such as insomnia, while 11 per cent of users in the same trial had depression and three per cent some level of memory loss.

Another study suggested 12 per cent of statin patients had erectile dysfunction. Overall, there was a much lower rate of side effects but, given the huge number of users, this would add up to thousands of patients being affected. Very rarely statins may lead to interstital lung disease, which can cause respiratory failure if untreated.

Dr Iheanacho, in the latest issue of the Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin, said his inquiries showed the delay in updating leaflets was caused by one of the drug companies disagreeing with the proposed wording. 'This situation is unacceptable,' he added.

A spokesman for the MHRA said the time frame for the new leaflets would depend on 'movement in the supply chain' for the drugs. She said: 'Once the MHRA approves a new leaflet the company has three months to print and use it.'

SOURCE






Are date rape spiked drinks an urban myth?

Last week, academics concluded that women who claim they've been drugged and raped were usually just drunk...

When she recalls the night she went off with a stranger, Daniella swears blind someone slipped something into her drink. How else could a man she never met before have managed to get the 29-year-old legal secretary from the nightclub in Bradford where they met, into his car? How to explain the memories that still haunt her - shameful images of herself, partially clothed, writhing around on the back seat? 'I'm pretty certain we didn't have sex. I think I'd have known,' she says, 'But it's all a bit blurred. I'm also not sure what did happen.'

But she is certain that she would not have consented to whatever happened. And she blames her inability to say no, or to struggle, on whatever it was the man put in her drink. 'I've been drunk before and it didn't feel anything like this,' she says. 'I felt really nauseous and confused. He bought me a couple of drinks from the bar while I was dancing, so he had plenty of opportunity to put something in them.' Heaven forbid that it could have been the drink itself.

The truth of what really happened will never be known. Daniella never reported the incident and was never tested for signs of the Rohypnol she believes she was given. And despite the sickening events she recounts, the cold scientific reality is that while fear of drink spiking is still rife among women, experts claim it hardly ever happens in practice.

A toxicology expert from the Forensic Science Service, which analyses evidence for the police, told the Mail he had come across only one sample of blood or urine containing Rohypnol - the most commonly talked about 'date-rape' drug - in the past decade. 'The reality is drink spiking is very, very rare', said senior forensic scientist Michael Scott-Ham. 'Alcohol itself is the problem.'

A controversial study, published last week, claimed drink spiking is an 'urban myth', a modern scapegoat for a generation of women who cannot face the fact that the vast amounts of alcohol many are imbibing could be in any way responsible for a loss of control, which can have devastating consequences.

'Something very curious is going on,' says Dr Adam Burgess, who spent a year researching the issue at the University of Kent's school of social policy for a project funded by the British Academy. 'How can you account for this great big gap between lack of any evidence for drink spiking and what so many women believe is going on? 'There's a displacement exercise going on here. Why, despite all the evidence, do women so readily blame the spiker rather than the amount of alcohol they are drinking? That is the real issue here.' ...

Could it be that women instinctively feel that if they admit to themselves how much they had drunk they would also be admitting they were somehow to blame for putting themselves at risk? Believing your drink was spiked transfers the blame to a malevolent, external force, something which women have no control over. It shifts responsibility.

Alcohol expert Robin Touquet, Professor of Emergency Medicine at Imperial College, London, points out: 'Women are demonising so- called drink spiking rather than facing up to the fact that drinking too much alcohol can put them in a highly dangerous situation. 'Most of the time, drink spiking does not happen. It always comes down to booze. 'Alcohol is a drug and in excess it adversely affects every system in the body. The message to women is: "Don't make yourself vulnerable."'

Forensic scientist Michael Scott-Ham agrees: 'The biggest problem is that a lot of people get very drunk very quickly and sometimes they are taken advantage of in this situation...

Another pivotal study offers further evidence that alcohol is the drug to be guarded against. The study, conducted by the Forensic Science Service in 2005, examined 1,014 cases of 'drug facilitated sexual assault' by analysing blood and urine samples from victims gathered by police forces in England and Wales. In only 21 - about 2 per cent - were traces of drugs found that the women had not taken voluntarily.

These included Ecstasy, gammahydroxybutyrate (GHB) and tranquillisers. Alcohol was picked up in 46 per cent of cases. Illegal drugs such as cannabis and cocaine were in 34 per cent of cases....

More here

Risks of daily aspirin may outweigh the benefits

Taking a low-dose aspirin every day can help prevent heart attacks in people who've already had one. But if you've never had a heart attack (or stroke), the risks of taking a daily low-dose aspirin outweigh the benefits, according to a U.K. report published in Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin.

About 50 million Americans take low-dose (325 milligrams per day or less) aspirin to prevent cardiovascular problems. Some do so even though they don't have heart disease or a history of heart attack or stroke, an approach known as primary prevention. Currently, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends low-dose aspirin for primary prevention in people with diabetes who are at risk for cardiovascular disease--but this will be changing. (Diabetes can dramatically increase the risk of developing heart disease.)

"Because of some recent studies suggesting that the benefit is not very large, and because aspirin can also have risks (intestinal bleeding or hemorrhagic stroke), the January 2010 recommendations will recommend it mostly for higher-risk people than was the case in the past, when it was recommended for people with more moderate levels of risk and above," says Dr. M. Sue Kirkman, the vice president of clinical affairs for the ADA.

The authors of the new analysis say there's not enough evidence to justify the routine use of low-dose aspirin to prevent cardiovascular disease in apparently healthy people, including those with elevated blood pressure or diabetes.

Kirkman stresses that people with diabetes who are taking aspirin--and have no history of heart attack--should talk to their doctor and see if he or she recommends continuing the therapy. "There isn't a strong rationale to take people off it if they're doing fine," she explains.

Although aspirin thins the blood and helps prevent clots, it is not risk free, according to the U.K. review led by a panel of experts. For example, the researchers looked at two large studies of people with diabetes (one with 1,276 participants and the other with 2,539) and found that those who took 81 to 100 milligrams of aspirin daily were just as likely to have a heart attack or stroke in the next four to seven years as those who did not.

Aspirin can cause gastrointestinal bleeding and other problems--some of them serious. People who take aspirin daily are two to four times as likely to have upper gastrointestinal problems, such as an ulcer with complications, than those not taking aspirin (even if the aspirin is buffered or has a protective coating to limit stomach problems). Although aspirin can prevent clots, which cause about 80 percent of strokes, it may increase the risk of hemorrhagic strokes, which are caused by bleeding in the brain.

"This article synthesizes what many people in the field are beginning to feel: The risks of daily aspirin therapy exceeds the benefits in people who have not had a heart attack," says Dr. Steven E. Nissen, the chairman of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, in Ohio.

The American Heart Association recommends daily low-dose aspirin for people who have had a heart attack, for those with heart disease--related chest pain known as unstable angina, or those who have had a clot-related stroke (or those who have had ministrokes, episodes that suggest a stroke is imminent). In general, the risk of heart attack has to be 10 percent within the next decade to warrant daily aspirin use, the group says.

In 2004, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel rejected the idea of using aspirin for primary prevention. "If you have had a heart attack, bypass surgery, or a history of coronary artery disease, the benefits of daily aspirin therapy do outweigh the risks," Nissen says. "If you never had a heart attack or heart disease, you need to be at very high risk to benefit from daily low-dose aspirin therapy."

So who falls into this very high-risk category? According to Nissen, "the right person would likely have a cluster of risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes, smoking, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure," he says. "Once you have a cluster of risk factors, you start to look like someone who has already had a heart attack."

The bottom line? "Do not take daily aspirin therapy on your own," Nissen advises. "This review article emphasizes the need for a dialogue between a patient and provider about the benefits and risks," he says. Risks include gastrointestinal bleeding and a small, but potentially devastating, risk of bleeding in the brain. "You can't ignore the risk side to the equation," Nissen says.

SOURCE





"Fat blacks" are a statistical reality

New Obesity Data Shows Blacks Have the Highest Rates of Obesity, says CDC

Blacks had 51 percent higher prevalence of obesity, and Hispanics had 21 percent higher obesity prevalence compared with whites.

Greater prevalences of obesity for blacks and whites were found in the South and Midwest than in the West and Northeast. Hispanics in the Northeast had lower obesity prevalence than Hispanics in the Midwest, South or West.

For this study analysis, CDC analyzed the 2006−2008 BRFSS data.

SOURCE (See the original for graphics)

The CDC does NOT of course say why blacks might be fatter but limited black impulse control (as seen, for instance, in their high rate of violent crime) is the most obvious candidate for an explanation

Pesky! Children who drink full fat milk weigh less than those who do not

Children as young as eight who drink milk every day have a lower body mass index than those who drink the low fat variety, according to the study from Gothenburg University in Sweden. The new study found that children who drink full fat milk weigh on average almost nine pounds less than other children.

Diet experts believe that children who do not drink full fat milk may be fatter themselves because they drink fizzy drinks instead. Dietician and author of the study Susanne Eriksson, said: "It may be the case that children who drink full-fat milk tend also to eat other things that affect their weight. "Another possible explanation is that children who do not drink full fat milk drink more soft drinks instead."

The researchers also discovered a difference between overweight children who drink full fat milk everyday and those who do not. Children who often drink milk with a fat content of three per cent are "less overweight" but eat more saturated fat than recommended. However, those children with a high intake of fat have a lower BMI than the children with a lower intake of fat.

Miss Eriksson examined the nutrition, body composition and bone mineralisation of 120 healthy eight-year-olds after the children told her team what they had eaten the day before, how often they ate certain foods and after taking blood samples. Many of these children had been examined when they were four-years-old, and we discovered that their eating habits were pretty much unchanged four years later. "It appears to be the case that eating habits are established early."

The study found that nearly two-thirds of the children had low levels of Vitamin D in their blood.

SOURCE







Technology doesn't cause social isolation: Pew study

I wonder is the slimy "Baroness" Greenfield listening?

CONTRARY to popular belief, technology is not leading to social isolation and people who use the internet and mobile phones have larger and more diverse social networks, a new study claims. "All the evidence points in one direction," said Keith Hampton, lead author of the report by the Pew Internet and American Life Project released this week.

"People's social worlds are enhanced by new communication technologies. "It is a mistake to believe that internet use and mobile phones plunge people into a spiral of isolation," said Mr Hampton, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

The authors said key findings of the study "challenge previous research and commonplace fears about the harmful social impact of new technology." "There is a tendency by critics to blame technology first when social change occurs," Mr Hampton said. "This is the first research that actually explores the connection between technology use and social isolation and we find the opposite. "It turns out that those who use the internet and mobile phones have notable social advantages," Mr Hampton said. "People use the technology to stay in touch and share information in ways that keep them socially active and connected to their communities."

The study found that six per cent of Americans can be described as socially isolated - lacking anyone to discuss important matters with or who they consider to be "especially significant" in their life. That figure has hardly changed since 1985, it said.

The study examined people's discussion networks - those with whom they discuss important matters - and their closest and most significant confidants, or core networks. On average, the size of people's discussion networks is 12 per cent larger among mobile phone users, nine percent larger for those who share photos online, and nine percent bigger for those who use instant messaging.

The diversity of people's core networks tends to be 25 per cent larger for mobile phone users, 15 per cent larger for basic internet users, and even larger for frequent internet users, those who use instant messaging, and those who share digital photos online. At the same time, the study found that Americans' discussion networks have shrunk by about one-third since 1985 and have become less diverse because they contain fewer non-family members.

The study found that on average in a typical year, people have in-person contact with their core network ties on about 210 days. They have mobile-phone contact on 195 days of the year, landline phone contact on 125 days and text-messaging contact on the mobile phone 125 days. They have email contact on 72 days, instant messaging contact on 55 days, contact via social networking websites on 39 days and contact via letters or cards on eight days.

The US study involved telephone interviews with 2512 adults between July 9, 2008 and August 10, 2008 and has a sampling error of 2.1 per cent.

SOURCE

Can a daily dose of chocolate keep the wrinkles away?

“Nibbling dark chocolate can seriously improve your health - and even help you look younger,” according to the Daily Mirror. The newspaper says a new study suggests that chemicals in dark chocolate (called flavonols) could help prevent wrinkles and skin cancer caused by the sunlight.

There are several major limitations to the way this study was conducted, as well as to the way it was reported by newspapers. As attractive as these claims are, they are unlikely to be true. The assumption that the results of this study can be applied to the ageing of skin or skin cancer is wrong. Some newspapers have correctly pointed out that the dark chocolate studied in this research is not the type found in shops.

While dark chocolate may be tasty, there must be more rigorous research into the substances it contains if today’s headlines are to be supported by science.

The research was carried out by Dr Stefanie Williams and colleagues from London University of the Arts and European Dermatology London, a private dermatology clinic which provides both medical and cosmetic services. The study was funded by the London University of the Arts and was published in the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology, the official journal of the International Academy of Cosmetic Dermatology.

The Daily Telegraph interpreted this study as showing that dark chocolate protects against ageing, whereas the Daily Mail has questioned whether it might protect against wrinkles.

This study was designed to be a double-blind, randomised controlled trial which tested whether chocolate consumption had a protective affect against skin damage from light exposure. The researchers recruited 30 healthy subjects and split them into two groups of 15. Each group was given chocolate that was either high in flavanols (HF) or low in flavanols (LF). Flavanols are a class of flavonoids, which are plant-derived substances that are believed by some to have antioxidant properties. Flavanols are also found in foods such as green tea, pomegranates, goji berries and blueberries. The volunteers were asked to eat 20g of the chocolate every day for three months.

Randomised double-blind studies are the ideal study type for this sort of research, but they need to be conducted and reported correctly. The way that participants are randomly allocated to the two groups (randomisation) and the way that the allocation was kept secret from the study investigators (blinding) need to be described in detail. This was not done in this publication.

In this study, the researchers recruited 22 healthy women and eight men with an average age of 43. They selected people who were considered pale and fair skinned according to the Fitzpatrick skin classification scale, an accepted scale used to class people’s complexion and tolerance of sunlight. This means that all patients in this study either burn easily (phototype II) or tan after an initial burn (phototype III). It is important to know how many of each phototype were allocated to the HF and LF groups and also how many in each group were men. This information is not stated in the publication, so it is not possible to tell how successful the researchers’ randomisation process was.

The HF chocolate was manufactured in Belgium using a method that the researchers say preserves the naturally high level of flavonols found in cocoa beans. The LF chocolate was made by a more common method using higher temperatures. It is not clear if the chocolates tasted different. As this was not tested, the participants and researchers may have been aware of which type of chocolate was being eaten.

Researchers tested the skin of all participants at the start of the study and after the 12-week course of chocolate. They used a testing method called minimal UVB erythema dose (MED), in which an automated device delivers increasingly strong doses of ultra-violet light to the front of the forearms. MED is measured according to the power of the light, the area of the light beam and how long it is applied to the skin, and is expressed as units of J/cm2 (joules per square centimetre). The researchers adjusted the strength of the MED doses for the individual skin types and recorded the level of UV light at which the skin became burned.

Of the 30 subjects recruited, 28 completed the study. After the 12 weeks, the average MED in the LF chocolate group did not change, while in the HF group it increased by more than double. For the people eating LF chocolate, the MED at the start was 0.124 J/cm2 and increased to 0.132 at week 12 (not statistically significant). For the people eating HF chocolate, the MED at the start was 0.109 J/cm2 and increased to 0.223 at week 12 (statistically significant).

The researchers say that “our controlled, double-blind, randomized in vivo study demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge, that regular consumption of a chocolate rich in flavonols confers substantial photoprotection and can thus be effective at protecting human skin from harmful UV effects.” They say that conventional chocolate had no such effect, and that the main underlying mechanism of action is likely to be the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity of cocoa flavonols.

This small study has several problems that mean care should be taken when interpreting its results. In particular, this study did not look at long-term damage to the skin, ageing of skin or people’s risk of skin cancer, which were all discussed in the press coverage. The actual measure assessed was skin burning in volunteers with an average age of 43.

In the researchers’ reporting of their results, there was a lack of detailed description of the blinding and randomisation procedures used to allocate people to groups. This means it is unclear whether the large difference in the way that skin burned or tanned between the groups was due to differences in the participants’ skin types rather than chocolate consumption. It is not possible to verify this from the report.

Although the administration of UV light to cause the “erythema dose” may have been done objectively, it is not clear how the researchers assessing skin reaction were blinded and whether a sound method was used to prevent them knowing which chocolate group a participant was in.

While the idea that eating chocolate every day can protect the skin is appealing, this research has a number of limitations. It is sensible to reduce the risks of skin ageing and skin cancer by following current sun safety guidelines.

SOURCE







No joke: new hope for painful "four-hour erection"

Erections lasting four hours or more may seem like a rich source of jests, but to men suffering this painful condition -- called priapism -- they're no laughing matter. However, new research offers hope that victims at least won't end up unable to have sex. Scientists from the United States and China have found in mouse studies that a compound called adenosine deaminase prevents priapism from leading to penile fibrosis, a condition associated with buildup of scar tissue and eventual impotence.

Priapism itself is, in turn, a complication of sickle cell disease. The new findings are published online in the FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) Journal. "Coping with priapism is hard enough, but knowing that it can ultimately lead to fibrosis within the penis adds insult to injury," said Gerald Weissmann, editorinchief of the Journal. "Hopefully this discovery can yield new drugs that relieve the excitatory signals sent by adenosine so that these men to get some relief."

Adenosine deaminasean enzyme which breaks down adenosine, a natural cellular-signaling molecule, is already used in humans as a treatment for a rare immune disorder. For the new study, researchers used two priapism animal models to determine the role of increased adenosine in penile fibrosis. One model was that of adenosine deaminase-deficient mice and the other was mice engineered to have sickle cell disease. Both sets of mutant mice were treated with adenosine deaminase.

After eight weeks, the investigators found the enzyme lowered adenosine levels in the penises of both groups of rodents, preventing or correcting penile fibrosis. "We have revealed that increased adenosine signaling contributes to. the progression of priapism to penile fibrosis," said Yang Xia, a scientist involved in the study from the University of TexasHouston Medical School. "This finding led to a novel therapeutic possibility to treat and prevent this dangerous complication."

SOURCE

Being overweight blamed on food, as usual

The fact that obsessive "safety" rules now ban many traditional childhood activities and thus reduce exercise is rarely mentioned. And politically correct bans on anybody "winning" are very bad for sport. So it is in fact government meddling that has created much of the problem and abolishing the meddling would be the surest path to solving it

It's the weighty issue that can no longer be ignored and one that is being blamed for an alarming rise in obesity among young girls. New research released yesterday shows that tweens are wearing their food choices on their waistlines, setting themselves up to be overweight as adults and suffer major health problems such as infertility.

The muffin top, made famous by the TV show Kath and Kim, is now the norm for teen girls who are between 5-20kg overweight, with one in three girls aged between nine and 13 overweight or obese.

Health experts yesterday warned that the sensitive issue could no longer be ignored, and had been avoided in the past out of fear it could lead to eating disorders. "It is a particular age group that has been overlooked and there needs to be more focus because they are much more in control of their food choices," Associate Dean of Clinical and Molecular Medicine at Flinders University Professor Lynne Cobiac said. "If they are overweight now, most, but not all, will often go on to be overweight when they are adults and they could [COULD being the operative word. Most fat people do NOT get diabetes] develop diabetes, heart disease and even cancer. It's really important that we understand what is influencing their choices so we can help them to be healthy, and set them on the right path."

Professor Cobiac's research found that by age 12, girls are doing almost no exercise, compounding weight problems. As they grow older, girls become more body conscious, restricting meals or overeating and developing disorders. Girls fall into two dietary patterns, eating meat, fruit and vegetables - or snacks, no meat and vegetables. Those on the snack, no meat and vegetable diet eat smaller lighter meals, characterised by more cereals, chocolate, fried chips and soft drinks.

Professor Cobiac's findings, based on the 2007 National Children's Nutrition and Physical Activity Survey, reveal that at least 30 per cent of girls are overweight before they enter high school. "Part of the explanation is that they are pre-pubescent and that can sometimes increase weight," she said. "What we found is that they are having a high fat diet on weekends and in school holidays." In some cases, girls were starving themselves during the school day but then "demolishing a pack of Tim Tams" when they got home.

What is concerning experts is the drastic change in girls' attitudes towards sport in high school. Paediatric nutritionist at The Children's Hospital at Westmead Susie Burrell said this was an age group that had been neglected in the past.

SOURCE







A truly heartening story

Doctor cures 'Baby Z' of molybdenum cofactor deficiency in medical world first. Pity about the bureaucratic hurdles, though. The baby would have done better if the drug could have been given immediately

A MELBOURNE baby given no chance of survival has amazed doctors after being saved with one of the biggest long shots in medical history. "Baby Z's" brain started virtually dissolving soon after she was born 18 months ago because she had too much toxic sulphite in her system.

But her parents and doctors refused to give in to the one-in-a-million genetic condition and stumbled on a highly experimental drug. The Herald Sun can reveal treatment began a month after she was born and within days Baby Z "woke up". "It was really like awakening - it was just bang, and she was switched on," pioneering neonatologist Dr Alex Veldman said.

Baby Z's overjoyed mother said she had grown into a happy and determined little girl. "She is absolutely delightful and as stubborn as anything - I don't know where she gets that from," she said. "She has just started saying a few words and is constantly moving around. "Every day just gets better and better. We look at her every day and just think, 'Wow'."

The first person to be cured of molybdenum cofactor deficiency - a condition that poisons the brain and kills within months of birth - Baby Z has made world medical and legal history for Monash Children's at Southern Health. The child and her parents cannot be named for legal reasons and to protect their privacy. But her relieved mother told the Herald Sun she refused to accept her daughter would die, even when told she had no chance. "(The procedure) was a tiny bit of hope but, when you have nothing, that is a lot of hope. She might have one bad gene but she has a lot of other good and strong genes."

Soon after she was born in 2008, Baby Z's toxic sulphite levels were almost 30 times higher than normal and were dissolving her brain. After three weeks looking for answers, biochemist Dr Rob Gianello found a research paper by German plant biologist Prof Gunther Schwarz describing how he had developed an experimental drug that was able to save mice with the disease in 2004. The drug had hardly been used in animals and nobody had more than an educated guess at what it would do in a human.

But Monash's Dr Alex Veldman contacted Prof Schwarz in Cologne and appealed to the hospital's ethics committee to use the drug on Baby Z. The long shot was backed because the only other option was a painful death.

The Office of the Public Advocate then called on special medical procedure powers - used just twice before - to convince the Family Court to allow the unique treatment to go ahead. Within an hour of the court's approval, Baby Z was given the drug.

Within hours of receiving her first daily dose of cPMP (cyclic pyranopterin monophosphate), tests showed Baby Z's sulphite levels immediately dropped from near 300 to below 100. Within three days they fell to the normal level of about 10.

Baby Z's neurological development is delayed due to some brain damage in the weeks it took to find the cure, but she is now improving. The full details of the treatment are now being analysed for a planned human trial of the medication at Southern Health. Victorian Public Advocate Colleen Pearce said she was thrilled everything had fallen into place for Baby Z and her family.

SOURCE

BINGO! Folic acid intake increases asthma chance by 30pc

I was very critical of dosing the whole popluation with folic acid and warned of dangerous side-effects and now we see some evidence of just that. The findings are epidemiological so are not conclusive but compulsorily dosing everyone with something requires very strong evidence of safety and that is now clearly in question

Mums who took folic acid supplements throughout their pregnancy, in a well-intentioned attempt to boost baby's health, were increasing their risk of having a child with asthma, a study has found. A groundbreaking Australian study, which could explain rising rates of the chronic lung condition, found pregnant women who overuse the supplement were 30 per cent more likely to have a child with asthma. Taking a folic acid supplement is recommended for women who intend to fall pregnant, as it is known to prevent neural tube defects during a foetus' critical first weeks in the womb.

Associate Professor Michael Davies, from the University of Adelaide's Robinson Institute, has uncovered an "additional and unexpected" consequence for women who also take the supplement throughout their pregnancy. "We see a substantial proportion of women taking these folate supplements throughout pregnancy and it may be because people think it is entirely benign," Dr Davies said. "Folate is incredibly important because of its role in preventing neural tube defects (like spina bifida) but because it is so important, and so bioactive, it needs to be treated with some respect as well."

Dr Davies reviewed the cases of more than 550 women who had given birth, assessing their diet and supplement intake before pregnancy and then rates of asthma among their children. For women who took the supplements according to advice - before conception and not more than several weeks into their pregnancy - there was no increased risk of asthma.

However, Dr Davies found women who took the supplement throughout their pregnancy, or from 16 to 30 weeks, increased their risk of having a child with asthma by about 30 per cent. "Our finding should be reassuring to women who take folate for the purpose of preventing neural tube defects, because we found no evidence of early supplementation (leading to asthma)," Dr Davies said. "It was really only use in later pregnancy, it was confined to that area alone ... and only for supplemental use."

Dr Davies said having a diet rich in green leafy vegetables, certain nuts and fruits known to be sources of folate (the natural form of folic acid) did not carry an asthma risk.

Childhood asthma rates have been increasing across developed countries and Dr Davies said his research showed how changing diet, and particularly the overuse of a supplement, could play a role. It also comes after mandatory fortification laws required Australia's bakers to add a small amount of folic acid to their bread products (organic flour excluded).

This move, from October, was designed to address a known folate deficiency across the community. "There is no evidence to suggest dietary sources of folate, or even folate fortification, increases the risk of asthma," Dr Davies said. "(But) that is a sensible question for further study".

The research is published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

SOURCE





The tiny tube that could help men beat impotence

A tiny metal tube implanted in the pelvis could transform the love lives of men who suffer erection problems. The device, not much bigger than a grain of rice, works by propping open the artery that supplies blood to the genitals. Restricted blood flow to the male sex organs is thought to be a major factor in impotence, or erectile dysfunction.

British doctors hope to carry out the first such implant within the next few months as part of a trial involving up to 30 men. A separate trial is also planned in the U.S. Surgeons will insert a tube-like device called a stent to try to solve the problem. Stents resemble miniature metal 'cages' and are already widely used in the treatment of heart disease, where blood vessels feeding the heart have narrowed because of a build-up of fatty deposits.

Their success in restoring-blood flow to and from the heart has prompted researchers to investigate whether they might also benefit men who struggle to get an erection even with drugs such as Viagra. Although Viagra and similar medications, such as Cialis and Levitra, have transformed the treatment of impotence in the past ten years, around 30 per cent of men who take them see no improvement.

For these men, the only other options are to inject drugs straight into the penis, or use a pump that manually increases blood supply to the organ. Neither is very popular. It's estimated that half of men over the age of 40 suffer impotence problems from time to time.

Potential causes range from diabetes and hormonal problems to stress and depression. But, in recent years, medical attention has focused on the link with heart disease. Just as the heart needs a constant and healthy supply of blood, a man's genitals also need to be able to call on a substantial rush of blood during arousal.

Recent evidence suggests blood vessels in the pelvic region can become diseased through poor diet, smoking and lack of exercise, in much the same way as coronary arteries. Indeed, some cardiologists believe erectile problems are a powerful early sign of hidden heart disease, giving up to three years' warning before any other symptoms emerge.

Now Medtronic Inc., one of the world's biggest medical device firms, has started a stent trial in the U.S. involving 50 men with erectile dysfunction who failed to respond to drugs. At the same time, a team at the University Hospital of Wales, in Cardiff, is setting up a similar project. Each man will initially be scanned to check for signs of blockages in blood vessels in the pelvic region. One of the main targets is the iliac artery, which branches off in different directions to transport blood to the lower half of the body.

Once the problem area has been identified, doctors will insert a thin catheter into the artery until the tip has reached the blocked area. On the end of the catheter is the stent, which has been collapsed down to make it easier to manoeuvre. When it's in position, a tiny balloon is inflated which makes the stent expand until it is wedged into place. The balloon is then withdrawn.

But there can be problems with so-called 'bare metal' stents. These can cause the body's healing mechanism to over-react, triggering a build-up of scar tissue that simply blocks the blood supply again. To get round this, the trials will use newer generation drug-eluting stents. These release a medicine that dampens down the rapid healing process and keeps blood vessels open.

Julian Halcox, professor of cardiology at Cardiff University, and a member of the British research team, says the principles behind using stents for erection problems are exactly the same as in heart disease. 'The only difference is that the blood vessels might be a little smaller than coronary arteries,' he says.

SOURCE

Gentle exercise can cut heart disease deaths by 60 per cent (?)

Journal article here. It is a very mixed-up study with no clear control group that tries to look at stress, exercise, fitness and mortality all at once. What they ACTUALLY seem to have found was that fit people had fewer heart attacks, which is not exactly surprising. It is a hard study to disentangle but it appears that most people who exercised did NOT benefit from it

GENTLE exercise can dramatically cut the danger of an early death from heart disease, according to new research. Just 30 minutes of jogging or cycling three times a week has amazing results for people with heart problems – the UK’s biggest killer – a study has found. In just three months it slashed the risk of an early death by 60 per cent in those who followed the fitness regime.

The results will come as welcome news for thousands of Britons who suffer from heart-related illness. One-in-five men and one-in-seven women die of heart disease in the UK, equivalent to 250 deaths a day. Overall, 200,000 people die each year from conditions related to circulation, including strokes, heart attacks and heart disease. These figures are expected to go up as the population ages and thanks also to a rise in obesity, which leads to furring of arteries.

The study, released today, found the biggest gains were in patients who were also stressed. The authors believe it is because stress can quadruple the risk of death in people with heart problems. Exercise can offer the double benefit of reducing stress levels while also improving heart health.

The study concludes: “Exercise reduces mortality in patients with coronary artery disease…in part because of the effects on psycho social stress.” Patients with heart problems are usually put on drugs – statins to lower cholesterol and blood pressure pills – to reduce the risks....

This latest study by the Department of Cardiology in New Orleans and published in the American Journal of Medicine reveals in detail just how much these simple changes can boost lifespan. The team followed 522 cardiac patients, including 53 who had high stress levels and 27 control patients who had high stress levels but who refused cardiac rehabilitation.

Patients were offered 12 weeks of exercise classes, where they did 10 minutes of warm-up, 30 to 40 minutes of aerobic exercise such as walking, rowing or jogging, and then a 10-minute stretch to wind down. The classes were three times a week and patients were also asked to try to do a further one-to-three exercise sessions a week. They were also given advice on how to improve diet and lifestyle, and their progress was followed for up to six years.

Those who got fitter were 60 per cent less likely to die in the following six years. Exercise also helped reduce stress levels from one-in-10 patients to fewer than one-in-20 which in turn lowered the death rate for stressed patients by 20 per cent. However, the weight of patients did not change much, suggesting the benefits are from exercise alone.

Health charities welcomed the report. The British Heart Foundation, said: “This study proves once again that exercise has both psychological and physical benefits for patients with heart disease. “Health authorities must ensure that all suitable heart patients are offered cardiac rehabilitation. “Structured, well-resourced programmes have been shown to improve physical and psychological wellbeing and reduce mortality.”

SOURCE






People will die after swine flu vaccine - but it's just coincidence

Six people in Britain can be expected to die suddenly after having the swine flu vaccine but it will just be coincidence, researchers have said. With millions of people being vaccinated against the virus there is a real risk that coincidental events will be seen as reactions to the jab, a paper in The Lancet said.

Experts at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in America calculated the background rate of conditions that may be mistaken for vaccine reactions and warned that there is a risk people will shun the jab needlessly. Only if these background rates are exceeded will it point to a potential problem with the vaccine.

Medical experts have been told to watch for any cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome during the flu pandemic as some research suggested there was a link between a flu vaccine used in America in 1976 and the condition, in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks part of the nervous system and can be fatal in rare cases. However flu itself it also linked to the condition and about one in every 100,000 people a year.

Dr Steven Black and colleagues calculated that if 10 million people in Britain were vaccinated there would be around 22 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome and six cases of sudden death would be expected to occur within six weeks of vaccination as coincident background cases.

Just over nine million people in priority groups, such as pregnant women and those with long-term illnesses, and another two million front line health and social care workers will be offered the vaccine in Britain over the next two months. Decisions will be taken soon over whether to offer the vaccine more widely.

The research also suggested that 397 per one million vaccinated pregnant women would be predicted to have a spontaneous abortion within one day of vaccination. But this is the rate of spontaneous abortion that would occur on any given day out of a group of one million pregnant women during a vaccination campaign or not.

Dr Black wrote: “Misinterpretation of adverse health outcomes that are only temporally related to vaccination will not only threaten the success of the pandemic H1N1 influenza vaccine programme, but also potentially hinder the development of newer vaccines. "Therefore, careful interpretation of vaccine safety signals is crucial to detect real reactions to vaccine and to ensure that temporally related events not caused by vaccination do not unjustly affect public opinion of the vaccine. "Development and availability of data banks that can provide locally relevant background rates of disease incidence are important to aid assessment of vaccine safety concerns.”

The researchers said although scientists know that events connected only by time does not prove cause and effect, the cases 'nonetheless raise public concern'.

Prof David Spiegelhalter, Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, University of Cambridge and Co-Director of Straight Statistics, said: "What a fine paper. If millions of people are vaccinated then just by chance we can expect bad things to happen to some of them, whether it's a diagnosis of autism or a miscarriage. "By being ready with the expected numbers of chance cases, perhaps we can avoid overreaction to sad, but coincidental, events. And why don't we ever see a headline 'Man wins lottery after flu jab'?"

Professor Robert Dingwall, University of Nottingham, said: "The difference between cause and coincidence is difficult enough for specialists to grasp, let alone the wider public. "However, this paper is very important in spelling out the fact that just because two events happen at the same time, they are not necessarily related. There is a background rate of death, disease and accidents that happen all the time regardless of what medical interventions are going on. "Confusing cause and coincidence may lead to serious policy mistakes that put people unnecessarily at risk. "I am sure that some coincidences will emerge from a high-profile vaccination campaign and we must be careful not to be misled by them."

Meanwhile the World Health Organisation said that pregnant women could be immunised with any of the vaccines licensed for use against swine flu. Dr Marie-Paule Keiny, from the WHO, said: “ Sage (the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts) has concluded that the safety profiles are good and recommend that pregnant women can be immunised with any of the licensed vaccines.” The WHO also recommended that one dose was sufficient to immunise children.

SOURCE

Junk "science" about "junk" food

Predictable nonsense: The weakest possible evidence (self-reports) added to the "correlation is causation" fallacy

Eating junk food can make you depressed, doctors have warned. Those who regularly eat high-fat foods, processed meals, desserts and sweets are almost 60 per cent more likely to suffer depression than those who choose fruit, vegetables and fish. Researchers claim their study is the first to investigate the link between overall diet and mental health, rather than the effects of individual foods.

Dr Eric Brunner, one of the researchers from University College London, said: 'There seem to be various aspects of lifestyle such as taking exercise which also matter, but it appears that diet is playing an independent role.'

The study, in the British Journal of Psychiatry, used data on 3,486 male and female civil servants aged around 55. Each participant completed a questionnaire about their eating habits and a self-report assessment for depression five years later.

The researchers found that those with the highest consumption of processed food were 58 per cent more likely to be depressed five years later than those eating the least amount.

SOURCE





Malaria vaccine for Africa likely to be distributed from 2015

Not a magic bullet but a big step forward

The first vaccine against malaria is likely to be distributed in Africa from 2015 after the “milestone moment” of the continent’s largest final-stage drug trial, scientists have told The Times.

A meeting of 1,500 specialists in infectious disease will be told tomorrow that more than 5,500 children have been given the RTS,S vaccine, made by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the British pharmaceutical company, as part of the trial. Vaccine developers will tell the conference that the phase three trial is under way in seven countries around Africa, marking a major step in bringing the drug to licence.

Malaria is a parasitic disease that infects about 250 million people every year, resulting in almost a million deaths. It is caused by the Plasmodium parasite, which is passed to humans by infected mosquitoes when they bite. The disease can damage the nervous system, kidneys and liver, and severe cases can quickly lead to death. About 40 per cent of the world’s population is at risk of malaria, mainly in the poorest countries. The problem is especially serious in Africa, where one in every five childhood deaths is due to the effects of the disease. An African child has on average between 1.6 and 5.4 episodes of malarial fever each year, with one child dying every 30 seconds from the disease.

Delegates at this week’s conference in Nairobi will be told that although the vaccine will not be a “magic bullet” against the disease, the latest trials of RTS,S brings it within reach of regulatory approval.

Dr Joe Cohen, vice-president of vaccine research and development at GSK, and one of the inventors of RTS,S, said that initial data would be filed within the next 12 months, with trial results expected by 2012 and implementation by 2015. “There is enormous excitement at reaching this milestone of this pivotal phase three trial. We are really forging ahead now,” he said. “We can see implementation starting broadly in 2015. Just a few years ago the idea of a malaria vaccine entering final phase three trials would have been unthinkable. It’s a tremendous breakthrough.”RTS,S, also known as Mosquirix, is the first potential malaria vaccine to make it to large-scale efficacy and safety trials, but also the first to target a more complex human parasite rather than a bacterium or virus.

The trials, which began in May, have now reached countries including Tanzania, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique and Gabon. The vaccine has been given to between 5,000 and 6,000 children, and will eventually involve more than double the number. Data from earlier trials of RTS,S, published last year, showed that it reduced the risk of malaria by 53 per cent in children aged between 5 months and 17 months. It was shown to be safe and tolerable and could be given alongside other vaccines.

Even a partially effective vaccine would have the potential to save hundreds of thousands of lives a year. However, since it is likely to be five years before it is in use, experts said that eradicating the disease would mean fighting on many fronts. Essential elements include insecticides to spray bednets, building houses to deter mosquitoes and finding new drugs and funding existing ones. Global estimates suggested that $4.2 billion (£2.5 billion) would be needed each year to fight malaria.

Dr Ashley Birkett, director of preclinical development at the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, the non-profit organisation, said that a rethink of funding strategies was needed, including the target of an 80 per cent effective vaccine by 2025. “With vaccine development you have to take a long-term approach,” Dr Birkett said. “RTS,S is the first step not only to preventing illness and death but ultimately to eradicating the disease.”

SOURCE

Obesity study to measure hospital visits

This sounds perilously like obesity skepticism. Fancy looking for evidence of what "everyone knows"!

Researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) have started a long-range study on people who are overweight or obese and the number of times they need to visit hospitals. The study is following 265,000 people aged over 45 years, their weight and the number of hospital admissions.

ANU Associate Professor Emily Banks says very little is known about whether being overweight can increase your risk of going to hospital. "To look at if there are any points where we can intervene, actually to make people who are overweight or obese less at risk of hospital [visits]," she said. "So we are not only going to describe the relationship between being overweight or obese and going to hospital, we're also going to be able to look and see if there are points where we can make a difference and we can actually prevent it."

Professor Banks says the team will collect data which could be used to help develop future health policy. "The group's going to be investigating the effect of obesity and overweight on the risk of going to hospital and I think a lot of people would be quite surprised to find we don't know very much about that," she said. "We don't know what the risks are. We also don't know what the ideal weight is in terms of whether or not people are at risk of going to hospital."

SOURCE






Women going through IVF told to lie back and put their feet up to boost conception by 50%

Some IVF clinics have been advising this for years

Women who lie on their backs for 15 minutes after fertility treatment are 50 per cent more likely to get pregnant, according to a study. Researchers suspect moving around after being artificially inseminated may prevent conception. They are now calling for all would-be mothers undergoing the procedure to be offered a quarter of an hour of rest.

The study of almost 400 couples found 27 per cent of the women who rested (54) became pregnant compared with only 18 per cent (34) of those who moved around after being given intrauterine insemination, in which sperm is injected into the uterus when the woman is ovulating.

The team described their findings, published online in the British Medical Journal, as 'significant' Dr Inge Custers, of the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, said: 'We found a clinically relevant and statistically significant improvement in ongoing pregnancy rates after 15 minutes of immobilisation, confirming the results of a previous study. 'We suggest incorporating immobilisation as a standard procedure in intrauterine insemination treatment.'

While some small scale studies have investigated links between immobilisation and the success of artificial insemination, this is the first large scale trial to do so. In the study around half were asked to lie down for 15 minutes afterwards and the others were allowed to move around immediately following the procedure.

The mechanism of the effect of immobilisation after insemination is unclear but in intrauterine insemination, the most common fertility treatment in the world, sperm are inserted in a small volume of fluid directly into the womb. Dr Custers said: 'As a consequence, immediate mobilisation might cause leakage of this volume together with spermatozoa out of the uterus; alternatively, movement of processed sperm to and up the fallopian tubes may take longer than after intercourse.

In an accompanying editorial Professor William Ledger, of the University of Sheffield, said while the research showed promise, further studies were required. Prof Ledger said: 'In the United Kingdom, intrauterine insemination is the mainstay of fertility treatment carried out before couples embark on in vitro fertilisation. 'A busy assisted reproduction centre will carry out several intrauterine inseminations over the course of an hour. A 15 minute delay would affect clinic turnover, although with planning this would not be insurmountable. 'The results suggest that units should carry out their own evaluation of immobilisation versus immediate mobilisation after intrauterine insemination, to test the hypothesis in the "real world". 'If successful, more couples could be spared the rigorous and costly process of in vitro fertilisation. Future trials should assess the effect of different durations of immobilisation.'

SOURCE

Snack and soft drink sweetener putting millions at risk of high blood pressure (?)

More moronic epidemiology -- and based on self-reports at that! A LONG way from a double-blind study and of unknown implications. Probably it was poor people who drink more of the beverages concerned and poor people have poorer health anyway

A sugary ingredient in processed snacks and soft drinks is putting millions at risk of high blood pressure, new research has revealed. High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is abundant in many types of foods and beverages and was originally viewed as a "healthy" method of sweetening. Its introduction 20 years ago has caused consumption of the fruit sugar fructose to rise sharply, alongside increasing levels of obesity.

Although healthy amounts of fructose exist naturally in fruit, excessive amounts of the sugar may be harmful. Large quantities of fructose cause the liver to pump fats into the bloodstream that may damage arteries.

Researchers who carried out the new study in the US looked at more than 4,500 adults with no prior history of high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. Fructose intake was calculated using a dietary questionnaire which asked participants to rate their consumption of foods such as fruit juices, soft drinks, bakery products and confectionery.

The study found that people who ate or drank more than 74 grams of fructose per day - equivalent to 2.5 sugary soft drinks - increased their risk of developing high blood pressure.

Consuming more than 74 grams of fructose a day increased the chances of a reading of 135/85mmHg by 28%, the study found. It also raised the risk of higher readings of 140/90mmHg and 160/100mmHg by 36% and 87% respectively.

The findings were presented today at the annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology in San Diego, California. Dr Diana Jalal, from the University of Colorado, and colleagues wrote in their paper: "These results indicate that high fructose intake in the form of added sugars is significantly and independently associated with higher blood pressure levels in the US adult population with no previous history of hypertension."

Further work was needed to see if lowering fructose consumption could normalise blood pressure, they said. Americans today consumed 30% more fructose than they did 20 years ago and up to four times more than they did 100 years ago, said the researchers.

SOURCE





Fat or mad? Take your choice

Children on widely used psychiatric drugs can quickly gain an alarming amount of weight – many pack on nearly 20 pounds and become obese within just 11 weeks, a study has found. "Sometimes this stuff just happens like an explosion," said Dr. Christopher Varley, a psychiatrist with Seattle Children's Hospital. "You can actually see them grow between appointments." He called the study "sobering."

Weight gain is a known possible side effect of antipsychotic drugs that are prescribed not only for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, but also increasingly for autism, attention deficit disorders and other behaviour problems. The new study in mostly older children and teens suggests they may be more vulnerable to weight gain than adults.

The study also linked some of these drugs with worrisome increases in blood fats including cholesterol, also seen in adults. Researchers tie these changes to weight gain and worry that both may make children more prone to heart problems in adulthood.

The research is the largest in children who had just started taking these medicines. It provides strong evidence suggesting the drugs, not something else, caused the side effects, said lead author Dr. Christoph Correll, of North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System in Glen Oaks, N.Y. But because these drugs can reduce severe psychiatric symptoms in troubled children, "we're a little bit between a rock and a hard place," he said.

The study authors said their results show children on the drugs should be closely monitored for weight gain and other side effects, and that when possible, other medicines should be tried first.

The study appears in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. It involved 205 New York City-area children ages 4 to 19 who had recently been prescribed one of the drugs; the average age was 14. Depending on which of four study drugs children used, they gained between 10 and 20 pounds on average in almost 11 weeks; from 10 per cent to 36 per cent became obese. The drugs – none are approved by Health Canada for youths under age 18 – are Abilify, Risperdal, Seroquel and Zyprexa.

Of the four, Seroquel and Zyprexa – with the worst effects on weight and cholesterol – are not yet approved for children in the U.S. However, a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel has voted in favour of their use with adolescents.

The four drugs have been considered safer than older antipsychotic drugs, which can cause sometimes permanent involuntary muscle twitches and tics. That has contributed to widespread use of the newer drugs, including for less severe behaviour problems, a JAMA editorial said. Doctors "should not stretch the boundaries" by prescribing the drugs for conditions they haven't been proven to treat, said Varley, co-author of the editorial. The number of U.S. children using these drugs has soared to more than 2 million annually, according to one estimate.

Why these drugs cause weight gain is uncertain but there's some evidence that they increase appetite and they may affect how the body metabolizes sugar, said Jeff Bishop, a psychiatric pharmacist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The drugs also can have a sedation effect, making users less active.

SOURCE