Food Drink Health

Combined therapy of prostate

2008-12-15T18:46:00.000-08:00

A combination of hormone treatment and radiotherapy can cut by half the death rate from advanced prostate cancer that hasn't yet spread through the body, according to media reports Tuesday.
Researchers gave half the 800 prostate cancer patients hormone-blocking drugs while the others were treated with radiotherapy combined with the drugs.
Ten years later, nearly 24 percent of men who got only standard drugs had died, compared with just under 12 percent of men who also got radiation treatment.
However, among men having radiotherapy, there was a slightly higher rate of long-term side effects of urinary, rectal and sexual problems.
"The quality of life and adverse effect profile is acceptable. We therefore suggest that endocrine treatment plus radiotherapy should be the new standard of care for these patients," said leading researcher Anders Widmark of Umea University in Sweden.
Prostate cancer is the second-leading cancer killer of men in the world. It is easily cured in early stages with surgery or radiation. For prostate cancer that has spread, drugs that interfere with cancer-fueling hormones are prescribed.
Although radiotherapy may be used to kill cancer cells, it is not universal practice. In the United States, this combination of radiation and hormone therapy is often a first treatment choice for locally advanced prostate cancer while European health agencies does not always provide radiation as the standard of care.

esophagus stem cells grow into transplantable tissue

2008-12-15T18:40:00.000-08:00

Researchers at University of Pennsylvania have discovered stem cells in the esophagus of mice that were able to grow into tissue-like structures and when placed into immune-deficient mice were able to form parts of an esophagus lining.
The investigators report their findings online on Monday in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
"The immediate implication is that we'll have a better understanding of the role of these stem cells in normal biology, as well as in regenerative and cancer biology," says senior author Anil Rustgi. "Down the road, we might use these stem cells in replacement therapy for diseases like gastroesophogeal reflux disease (GERD) and also to understand Barrett's esophagus, a precursor to esophageal adenocarcinoma and how to reverse that before it becomes cancer."
The researchers set out to identify and characterize potential stem cells -- those with the ability to self renew -- in the esophagus to understand normal biology and how injured cells may one day be repaired.
First, they grew mouse esophageal cells they suspected were adult stem cells. Those cells formed colonies that self renewed. These cells then grew into esophageal lining tissue in a three-dimensional culture apparatus. "These tissue culture cells formed a mature epithelium sitting on top of the matrix," says Rustgi.
They then tested their pieces of esophageal lining in whole animals. When the tissue-engineered patches were transplanted under the skin of immune-deficient mice, the cells formed epithelial structures. Additionally, in a mouse model of injury of the esophagus in a normal mouse, which mimics what happens during acid reflux, green-stained stem cells migrated to the injured lining cells and co-labeled with the repaired cells, indicating involvement of the stem cells in tissue repair and regeneration.
Eventually the researchers will develop genetically engineered mouse models to be able to track molecular markers of esophageal stem cells. The group has already developed a library of human esophageal cell lines and is looking for human versions of markers already identified in mice.
"The ultimate goal is to identify esophageal stem cells in a patient, grow the patient's own stem cells, and inject them locally to replace diseased tissue with normal lining," says Rustgi.

elderly's cognitive functioning

2008-12-15T18:32:00.000-08:00

Affected by high blood pressure, elderly people might have difficulty to think clearly, a new study showed.
More evidence has been found that increased blood pressure in older adults is directly related to decreased cognitive functioning, particularly among seniors with already high blood pressure, said the study published in the December issue of the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.
The study added another reason for people to watch their blood pressure, researchers at the North Carolina State University said in the study.
The researchers examined blood pressure and cognitive functioning test data collected from a cohort of adults aged 60-87twice daily for 60 days.
The findings showed that study subjects whose average systolic blood pressure was 130 or higher saw a significant decrease in cognitive function when their blood pressure spiked.
However, study subjects whose average blood pressure was low or normal saw no change in their cognitive functioning, even when their blood pressure shot up, said Dr. Jason Allaire, an assistant professor of psychology at the university who co-authored the study.
Specifically, the study showed a link between blood pressure spikes in seniors with high blood pressure and a decrease in their inductive reasoning, said Allaire.
"Inductive reasoning is important, because it is essentially the ability to work flexibly with unfamiliar information and find solutions," he said.
The findings may indicate that mental stress is partially responsible for the increase in blood pressure, and the corresponding breakdown in cognitive functioning, he said.
However, normal fluctuations in blood pressure likely play a role as well, Allaire said in the study.

23rd bird flu human death

2008-12-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

An Egyptian girl died of bird flu on Monday, bringing the death toll of the human cases of bird flu in the populous country to 23, the Egyptian MENA news agency reported.
Samiyah Salem, who was from a village in the southern Egyptian governorate of Asyut, died Monday evening, Health Ministry spokesman Abdel-Rahman Shahin was quoted as saying.
The 16-year-old girl, who contracted the fatal disease after exposure to infected household poultry in her house, was the 51st case of human bird flu in the country.
She was sent to hospital for treatment on Saturday after suffering from fever and breathing problems, said the spokesman, adding the death is the first in the past eight months after the 22nd human death on April 11.
Egypt reported its first H5N1 virus in dead poultry in February 2006 and the first human case in March of the same year.

transplanted a full ovary from a volunteer

2008-12-13T18:44:00.000-08:00

Doctors in St. Louis said they have successfully transplanted a full ovary from a volunteer, allowing her infertile twin sister to give birth to a healthy baby girl on November 11.
It is the first time an entire ovary has been transplanted and resulted in a live birth, the researchers said. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, they said the method may offer a way to preserve fertility for cancer patients or for women who want to wait until they are older to start families.
One twin went into early menopause at age 15, but the transplanted ovary from her sister restored full fertility and she gave birth at the age of 38, Dr. Sherman Silber of the Infertility Center of St. Louis and his colleagues reported.
Previously they had transplanted the outer shell of the ovary and found that, even if the tissue is frozen, it can restore fertility.
Although six babies were born to eight women using those techniques, about two-thirds of the eggs die from lack of blood flowing through the tissue, and the women quickly slip into menopause after about three years.
Hoping to avoid those problems, the Silber team used a full ovary and reconnected two veins and one artery to feed the graft, which is a challenge because the blood vessels are so tiny.
Silber said although the work has involved identical twins where one had become prematurely infertile, the technique could eventually benefit two groups of women if frozen ovaries turn out to be as viable.
"One is the young cancer patient who is about to lose all her ovarian function as she's about to undergo chemotherapy. We just take that ovary out, freeze it and transplant it back. That's one big payoff," he said in a telephone interview.
The other, he acknowledged, is more controversial: extending the time a woman is fertile.
Women in their 20s could have one of their two ovaries removed so it can be frozen. "If she's 40 or 45 when she has it transplanted back, it's still a 25- or 30-year-old ovary, so she's preserving her fertility," he said. "We've actually done it for quite a few patients. I think there will be many more women who will want to do that."
The infertility rate at age 25 is only about 6 percent. It jumps to 70 percent by age 40 and is about 95 percent at age 43, said Silber.

Gene mutation helps protect heart from high-fat diet

2008-12-13T18:40:00.000-08:00

The genetic mutation found in a small group of people helps protect their heart against the effects of high-fat diet, U.S. researchers reported Thursday.
It may open the door to new therapies for cardiovascular disease.
High blood levels of triglycerides, one of the most common types of fat in our food, have been linked to heart disease.
A team of researchers from three U.S. universities conducted a study on volunteers from the genetically homogeneous Lancaster Amish population, to search for genes that contribute to individual differences in the body's handling of triglycerides.
The researchers used blood samples to look for DNA markers throughout the volunteers' genomes that might be associated with blood triglyceride levels.
This "genome-wide association study" led them to a mutation in the APOC3 gene, which encodes a protein, called apoC-III, that inhibits the breakdown of triglycerides.
Individuals with this mutation produced half the normal amount of apoC-III and had the lowest blood triglyceride levels, presumably because they were able to break down more of the fat in their blood.
The same individuals also had high levels of "good" cholesterol and low levels of "bad" one, and their levels of artery-hardening were relatively low, suggesting that they are less likely to develop cardiovascular disease.
If researchers could develop drugs that target apoC-III or the gene that encodes it, these drugs might be useful against heart disease, the authors suggest in their papers published in the journal Science.

Captivity erodes elephant health

2008-12-13T18:34:00.000-08:00

Female elephants living in protected populations in Africa and Asia live longer than those in captivity in European zoos, an international team of researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science.
The findings could mark the end of a long-standing debate about the physical and mental well-being of zoo elephants and may also bring about improvements in how these animals are kept, the researchers said.
Using data on more than 4,500 elephants, researchers from Britain, Kenya and Canada found that zoos can cause shortened adult life spans in both African and Asian elephants.
In the most endangered species of elephant, the Asian, calf death rates also were elevated. For this species, the researchers found that being born in a zoo (rather than being imported from the wild), being moved between zoos, and the possible loss of their mothers put the animals at particular risk.
The authors looked at data on female Asian and African elephants from Amboseli National Park in Kenya and compared that to data on elephants in European zoos to reach their conclusions.
The authors recommend screening all zoo elephants for signs of stress and obesity in order to identify those that might be in trouble. The researchers also called for an end to the importation of elephants from their native countries and the minimizing of inter-zoo transfers.

Hong Kong bird flu outbreak confirmed to be H5N1

2008-12-13T18:12:00.000-08:00

HONG KONG, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) -- The latest bird flu outbreak on a Hong Kong chicken farm was caused by the highly virulent H5N1 strain of the avian influenza virus, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government confirmed Thursday.
The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said test results confirmed the virus to be H5N1 on Thursday afternoon, two days after samples collected by the department tested positive for the H5 strain.
It was the first outbreak of H5 bird flu on a Hong Kong farm in about six years.
Health authorities declared the area within three kilometers of the affected farm an infected place on Tuesday and ordered the slaughtering of 90,000 domestic birds.
York Chow, secretary for food and health, said health authorities have been testing samples collected from other farms, including a second farm within the infected area.
"We have tested the chickens in the second farm, which turned out to be negative for H5. So far we have not found any positive samples from the other farms," he said.
"But we will do more samples in the coming weeks," he added.
The Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department has also been reviewing and upgrading biosecurity measures put in place by local chicken farms.
The number of hens, cocks, chickens and fertilized eggs were consistent with records kept and updated on a regular basis by the department, it said.