Scientists Probe Limits Of 'Cancer Stem-cell Model'

One of the most promising new ideas about the causes of cancer, known as the cancer stem-cell model, must be reassessed because it is based largely on evidence from a laboratory test that is surprisingly flawed when applied to some cancers, University of Michigan researchers have concluded.

By upgrading the lab test, the U-M scientists showed that melanoma---the deadliest form of skin cancer---does not follow the conventional cancer stem-cell model, as prior reports had suggested.

The findings, to be published as the cover article in the Dec. 4 edition of Nature, also raise questions about the model's application to other cancers, said Sean Morrison, director of the Center for Stem Cell Biology at the U-M Life Sciences Institute.

"I think the cancer stem-cell model will, in the end, hold up for some cancers," Morrison said. "But other cancers, like melanoma, probably won't follow a cancer stem-cell model at all. The field will have to be reassessed after more time is spent to optimize the methods used to detect cancer stem cells."

The cancer stem-cell model has steadily gained supporters over the last decade. It states that a handful of rogue stem cells drive the formation and growth of malignant tumors in many cancers. Proponents of the controversial idea have been pursuing new treatments that target these rare stem cells, instead of trying to kill every cancer cell in a patient's body.

But in a series of experiments involving human melanoma cells transplanted into mice, Morrison's team found that the tumor-forming cells aren't rare at all. They're quite common, in fact, but standard laboratory tests failed to detect most of them.

Scientists previously estimated that only one in 1 million melanoma cells has the ability to run wild, exhibiting the kind of unchecked proliferation that leads to new tumors. These aggressive interlopers are the cancer stem cells, according to backers of the model.

But after updating and improving the laboratory tests used to detect these aberrant cells, Morrison's team determined that at least one-quarter of melanoma cells are "tumorigenic," meaning they have the ability to form new tumors. The laboratory tests are known as assays.

"The assay on which the field is based misses most of the cancer cells that can proliferate to form tumors," Morrison said. "Our data suggest that it's not going to be possible to cure melanoma by targeting a small sub-population of cells."

Melanoma kills more than 8,000 Americans each year. The human melanoma cells used in the mouse experiments were provided---with the patients' consent---by a team from the U-M's Multidisciplinary Melanoma Program, one of the country's largest melanoma programs and part of the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"People were looking to the cancer stem-cell model as an exciting new source for the development of life-saving cures for advanced melanoma," said Dr. Timothy Johnson, director of the U-M melanoma program and a co-author of the Nature paper. "Unfortunately, our results show that melanoma does not strictly follow this model.

"So we'll need to redirect our scientific efforts and remain focused on the fundamental biological processes underlying the growth of melanomas in humans," said Johnson, a cutaneous oncologist. "And as we pursue new treatments for advanced melanoma, we'll have to consider that a high proportion of cancer cells may need to be killed."

Morrison and Johnson stressed that the team's findings do not broadly invalidate the cancer stem-cell model. Cancer stem cells likely do exist in some forms of cancer but are "probably much more common than people have been estimating," Morrison said.

The standard technique used to detect tumor-causing cancer cells in mouse transplants is called the NOD/SCID assay. NOD/SCID mice have defective immune systems. Scientists use the severely immunocompromised mice because the rodents don't reject transplanted human cancer cells the way normal mice would.

However, while the immune system in NOD/SCID mice is impaired, it's not completely inoperative. The mice lack T and B immune cells but still possess natural killer cells, which attack and destroy many of the transplanted human cancer cells.

Morrison's team replaced NOD/SCID mice with mice that lacked T cells, B cells and natural killer cells---and made a few other improvements to the assay. Using the modified assay, they found that about one in four transplanted melanoma cells formed tumors in the mice.

They concluded that previous studies using NOD/SCID mice vastly underestimated the number of tumor-causing melanoma cells, partly because natural killer cells wiped out many of the cancer cells. But once the natural killer cells were eliminated, the "more permissive conditions" allowed many of the transplanted melanoma cells to survive and thrive, the authors wrote.

Co-lead authors of the Nature paper are Life Sciences Institute research fellows Elsa Quintana and Mark Shackleton. In addition to Morrison and Johnson, other co-authors are U-M surgical oncologist Dr. Michael Sabel and U-M dermatopathologist Dr. Douglas Fullen.

The work was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Allen H. Blondy Research Fellowship and the Lewis and Lillian Becker gift.

Stress-related Disorders Affect Brain’s Processing Of Memory

Researchers using functional MRI (fMRI) have determined that the circuitry in the area of the brain responsible for suppressing memory is dysfunctional in patients suffering from stress-related psychiatric disorders. Results of the study will be presented December 3 at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"For patients with major depression and other stress-related disorders, traumatic memories are a source of anxiety," said Nivedita Agarwal, M.D., radiology resident at the University of Udine in Italy, where the study is being conducted, and research fellow at the Brain Imaging Center of McLean Hospital, Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "Because traumatic memories are not adequately suppressed by the brain, they continue to interfere with the patient's life."

Dr. Agarwal and colleagues used brain fMRI to explore alterations in the neural circuitry that links the prefrontal cortex to the hippocampus, while study participants performed a memory task. Participants included 11 patients with major depression, 13 with generalized anxiety disorder, nine with panic attack disorders, five with borderline personality disorder and 21 healthy individuals. All patients reported suffering varying degrees of stressful traumatic events, such as sexual or physical abuse, difficult relationships or "mobbing" – a type of bullying or harassment – at some point in their lives.

After reviewing a list of neutral word pairs, each participant underwent fMRI. During imaging, they were presented with one of the words and asked to either recall or to suppress the memory of its associated word.

The fMRI images revealed that the prefrontal cortex, which controls the suppression and retrieval of memories processed by the hippocampus, showed abnormal activation in the patients with stress-related disorders compared to the healthy controls. During the memory suppression phase of the test, patients with stress-related disorders showed greater activation in the hippocampus, suggesting that insufficient activation of the prefrontal cortex could be the basis for inadequate suppression of unwanted traumatic memories stored in the hippocampus.

"These data suggest that the mechanism for memory suppression is dysfunctional in patients with stress-related disorders primarily because of an alteration of the prefrontal cortex," Dr. Agarwal said. "These patients often complain of poor memory, which might in part be attributed to this altered circuitry," she added.

According to Dr. Agarwal, fMRI is an important tool in understanding the neurobiological basis of psychiatric disorders and in identifying imaging markers to psychiatric disease, helping clinicians target specific parts of the brain for treatment.

People With Peanut Allergy Can React To Lupin

Lupin is a legume belonging to the same plant family as the peanut. Lupin seeds are used for flour production and in various types of commercial foods. People afflicted with peanut allergy may also react to lupin, and the EU has recently introduced compulsory labelling of all products containing lupin.

During her doctoral work, Lise Holden developed a method of identifying lupin protein in food products. She also investigated the incidence of lupin allergy among children with food allergy and studied the proteins in lupin responsible for allergy production.

Several hundred species of lupin exist. Lupin seed, rich in protein and fibre, has formed part of the diet of some southern European and south American countries for centuries. Many are cultivated as house plants, but these are inedible. Selective breeding has given us the sweet lupin, which tastes good and has a lower content of alkaloids than previous variants.

During recent years, the use of sweet lupin has become more widespread throughout Europe. Lupin-based ingredients improve both the nutritional value and baking qualities of food, and they are commonly added to wheaten flour. Another use is as a replacement for soya, since many consumers associate soya with gene manipulation. In addition, lupin seed is gluten-free and can therefore be safely eaten by people afflicted with coeliac disease. New studies indicate that lupin protein can have cholesterol-reducing properties.

The increased use of lupin in food has led to several reported cases of allergic reactions against lupin, including in Norway. Lupin may produce allergy either by primary sensitisation or through cross-reaction with other legumes, especially peanut. People with peanut allergy should therefore be aware that they can react to food labelled as containing lupin.

Authorities, producers and sufferers all need a reliable way of identifying even small amounts of allergens in food. For her doctorate, Lise Holden developed a quantitative and sensitive immunological method for demonstrating lupin protein. The method, the first of its kind, now forms the basis of a commercial kit developed in co-operation with an English firm, HAVen. This method was utilised in a comprehensive investigation of lupin in food for the Norwegian market in 2006 - 2007, which showed that lupin is used in many different types of food such as bread, biscuits, cakes, pasta and chocolate spreads. Even though consumers are exposed to lupin in their food, lupin allergy remains a relatively rare form of allergy in Norway today.

Holden and her colleagues have in clinical studies of children conducted provocation testing with lupin. Many of the children had lupin-specific antibody in their blood without showing clinical allergy, demonstrating just how important provocation testing is for accurate diagnosis of lupin allergy.

In addition, Lise Holden worked with the identification of specific proteins in lupin that may produce allergy. Mapping such proteins may lead to a better understanding of allergy in its entirety.

Cand. scient. Lise Holden defended her thesis for Ph. D. degree, entitled "Lupin - a new food allergen: studies on the detection, antigenicity and allergenicity of lupin proteins", on October 17, 2008.

Mineral points to Martian water suitable for life

Mineral evidence for a water environment capable of supporting life has been discovered on Mars, scientists said Thursday.

An artist's conception shows what NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed, vast Martian glaciers of water ice under protective blankets of rocky debris at much lower latitudes than any ice previously identified on the Red Planet. REUTERS/NASA/Handout

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Deposits of carbonate, formed in neutral or alkaline water, were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, the scientists told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco.

"Obviously this is very exciting," said John Mustard of Brown University in Rhode Island. "It's white -- it's a bulbous, crusty material."

Carbonate is formed when water and carbon dioxide mix with calcium, iron or magnesium. It dissolves quickly in acid, so its discovery counters the theory that all water on Mars was at one time acidic.

"It would have been a pretty clement, benign environment for early Martian life," said Bethany Ehlmann, a graduate student at Brown University who led the study published in the journal Science.

"It preserves a record of a particular type of habitat, a neutral to alkaline water environment."

Carbonates on Earth like chalk or limestone sometimes preserve organic material, but scientists have found no such evidence on Mars.

The 3.6 billion-year-old carbonate was discovered in bedrock at the edge of a 930-mile-wide (1,490-km-wide) crater.

Carbonate previously had been found in minuscule amounts in soil samples provided by the Phoenix Mars Lander, Martian dust and Martian meteorites on Earth. But this is the first time scientists have found a site where carbonate formed.

The deposits are about the size of football fields and are visible in images taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The deposits appear to be limited, but the neutral or alkaline water environment may once have been more widespread, said Scott Murchie, a scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Phyllosilicates, which form under similar conditions to carbonate but do not dissolve in acidic environments, are abundant on Mars.

"There were these different water environments in early Mars history, (which) increases the possibilities that life started," said Richard Zurek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

New Anti-cancer Components Of Extra-virgin Olive Oil Revealed

Good quality extra-virgin olive oil contains health-relevant chemicals, ‘phytochemicals’, that can trigger cancer cell death. New research sheds more light on the suspected association between olive oil-rich Mediterranean diets and reductions in breast cancer risk.
Javier Menendez from the Catalan Institute of Oncology and Antonio Segura-Carretero from the University of Granada in Spain led a team of researchers who set out to investigate which parts of olive oil were most active against cancer. Menendez said, “Our findings reveal for the first time that all the major complex phenols present in extra-virgin olive oil drastically suppress overexpression of the cancer gene HER2 in human breast cancer cells”.
Extra-virgin olive oil is the oil that results from pressing olives without the use of heat or chemical treatments. It contains phytochemicals that are otherwise lost in the refining process. Menendez and colleagues separated the oil into fractions and tested these against breast cancer cells in lab experiments. All the fractions containing the major extra-virgin phytochemical polyphenols (lignans and secoiridoids) were found to effectively inhibit HER2.
Although these findings provide new insights on the mechanisms by which good quality oil, i.e. polyphenol-rich extra-virgin olive oil, might contribute to a lowering of breast cancer risk in a HER2-dependent manner, extreme caution must be applied when applying the lab results to the human situation. As the authors point out, “The active phytochemicals (i.e. lignans and secoiridoids) exhibited tumoricidal effects against cultured breast cancer cells at concentrations that are unlikely to be achieved in real life by consuming olive oil”.
Nevertheless, and according to the authors, “These findings, together with the fact that that humans have safely been ingesting significant amounts of lignans and secoiridoids as long as they have been consuming olives and extra-virgin oil, strongly suggest that these polyphenols might provide an excellent and safe platform for the design of new anti breast-cancer drugs”.

Blood Sugar Control Helps Diabetics Preserve Sight

Maintaining good control over one's blood sugar levels can help people with type 1 diabetes better avoid retinopathy, a serious disorder that damages the eye's retina, researchers say.

The findings come from a 25-year study that confirms prior large studies. The findings were published in the November issue of Ophthalmology.

The Wisconsin Epidemiologic Study of Diabetic Retinopathy also found that being male, having higher blood pressure, having protein in urine (a manifestation of diabetic kidney disease) and a greater body mass index also increased one's risk of developing diabetic retinopathy.

Maintaining glycemic control, based on blood levels of glycosylated hemoglobin A1 -- a measure of average blood sugar -- helped improve the condition in those that had it as well, regardless of how long the patient had type 1 diabetes or how far along the diabetic retinopathy was at the start of the study.

The almost 1,000 study participants had all been diagnosed with type 1 diabetes before age 30, and were on insulin to combat it. All were initially evaluated between 1980 and 1982, and were followed up on periodically over 25 years. About half completed the entire study.

Spot on treatment for acne

A previously unknown side effect of an unnamed drug currently on the marketplace could be useful for treating acne, reports Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI. A UK company is about to start a Phase 1 trial with the drug involving 18 healthy human volunteers and the results are expected to be announced later this year. In an earlier Phase 1 study in nine healthy human volunteers, the treatment was seen to reduce the excretion of sebum by the skin, which is associated with acne development, by up to 70%.

The Phase I results are startlingly good, said Nigel Blackburn, director of clinical development at the company, Summit, which is organising the trial. Reducing sebum production has been the holy grail of acne treatment for 30 years, and there has been little success aside from Roaccutane which has significant side effects.

The current gold standard for acne treatment, Roaccutane can cause a wide range of side effects, including teratogenicity which leads to abonormalities in the unborn foetus of pregnant women, and has also recently been linked to depression and (inconclusively) to teenage suicides. The market for acne treatments is worth several billion dollars, and any new treatment developed without side effects could potentially reap blockbuster sales.

Although Summit has not disclosed the name of the drug now under evaluation, the company says it represents an entirely new class of compounds for treating acne. At the doses we are looking at any side effects should be mild compared with those resulting from Roaccutane treatment, Blackburn commented.

The company hopes to begin critical Phase 2 trials to assess the efficacy of the drug in acne sufferers next year. Depending on the results, the drug could either be formulated as a stand-alone topical treatment or more likely in combination with other existing treatments. The company has already been in talks with several interested companies, who are waiting

Revolutionary Operation Performed Live For Heart Rhythm Congress

A revolutionary heart operation technique using cutting edge technology is being performed on Monday 20 October and broadcast live to delegates at the Heart Rhythm Congress 2008 taking place in Birmingham.

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The procedure to tackle heart rhythm disorder will be performed by Dr Andre Ng, Senior Lecturer in Cardiology at the University of Leicester and a Consultant Cardiologist at the University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.

He will use technology that allows rapid and accurate location of the origin of the heart rhythm disturbance in a 3-dimensional geometry of the heart chambers and guides successful treatment with the use of catheter ablation.

Dr Ng said the procedure would highlight not only the advanced technology itself but also of the leading position his team at Glenfield Hospital in the management of heart rhythm disorders as well as the world-class research in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at the University of Leicester.

Dr Ng said: “I have been invited to operate on a patient in a catheter ablation procedure as a live case demonstration at the coming Heart Rhythm Congress 2008. The meeting is the 2nd Annual Congress of the Heart Rhythm UK which is the national society for heart rhythm disorders.

“I will perform the ablation procedure using cutting-edge technology with advanced 3-dimensional mapping with the Ensite Array Catheter in Southampton and the procedure will be broadcast to the audience at the auditorium in the Congress at Birmingham during the morning of 20 October 2008.

Dr Ng has extensive experience in the management of heart rhythm disorders, especially in catheter ablation procedures and advanced mapping techniques. He is an expert in the use of the non-contact array balloon catheter (Ensite Array, St Jude Medical) in mapping the source of heart rhythm disturbance and identifying the location for ablation to cure the rhythm disorder.

Dr Ng has hosted 3 previous international Ensite Array courses at Glenfield Hosptial, University Hospitals of Leicester where live case demonstration of the use of this cutting-edge technology in different types of heart rhythm disturbance was shown to over 300 visiting physicians and cardiac technicians from many countries in Europe, Middle East and Canada.

Angular Cheilitis and Vitamin Deficiency

In dealing with Angular Cheilitis, we need to understand that there are some connections between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency. For the most part, this isn't so much a relationship of cause and effect, but more of one feeding into the other's present state. That is to say, in the relationship between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency, it isn't necessarily that this deficiency causes this condition, but that it can hinder the healing of it. When our immune systems chug away at the task of healing ourselves, such action consumes bodily resources, and we merely need to keep replenishing these vitamins in order for our immune systems to maintain a certain level of ability and strength.

There are mainly five major vitamins involved in this connection between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency; vitamin B2 (Riboflavin), vitamin B3 (Niacin), vitamin B6 (Pyridoxine), Vitamin B12 (Cyanocobalamine), and Iron. While again, a deficiency in these vitamins are not the cause of this condition, it is reported that those who already suffer a deficiency in these vitamins before contracting Angular Cheilitis are more prone to suffering from it more seriously, with quicker advancements of the condition.

Realizing this connection between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency, and arming ourselves with this data, we can see how it would be quite beneficial to keep aware of our vitamin intake, maintaining it either through supplements, through proper nutrition practices, or both. This is pretty much the relationship between Angular Cheilitis and vitamin deficiency in a nutshell. Those who suffer from this condition may benefit from eating foods or drinking juices that are rich with these vitamins, as this can help bolster their immune systems to help battle this condition, while allowing any treatments to do their work in an unhindered environment.

Minor Surgery for Migraine Headaches

All sorts of pharmaceuticals and other treatments are available today to treat or stop migraine headaches. Some of the drugs can eliminate a headaches in a few minutes while others are taken regularly for prevention purposes. There are also many other non invasive treatments available including using heat, ice, magnets, aromas and even massage.

The latest weapon against migraine is surgery. This is not a new procedure and has been used in facial plastic surgery for some time now. This surgery has only recently been initiated in the US and involves removing the corrugator muscle found above the eyebrows. The overall ideas is that the procedure will eliminate migraines because it will get rid of the muscle that is causing the problems. This is an extremely drastic and radical approach to traditional treatment against debilitating migraines.

The surgery targets the trigger point where migraine headaches usually begin. The pressure will be removed once the muscle is eliminated which should alleviate pain. This procedure does not help all migraines. It will only work for corrugator muscle triggered migraines and the specific nerve group in the head. The doctor will screen the patient to see if his or her migraines are caused by this trigger and if so he or she will be eligible for the procedure.

It is important to understand that though the surgery eliminates the trigger and therefore the pain, it does not remove or cure the root cause of migraines. Although the pain and symptoms are gone the root problem may still exist and might need to be addressed by the patient.

Tumors, high blood pressure, aneurysm, stroke and heart problems are some of the health issues linked to migraines. Whether the patient decides to pursue surgery or not, there should be close consultation with one's doctor for determining the cause of the migraine.

This exciting procedure is welcome news to many migraine sufferers. All patients must research and study the consequence of the surgical procedure. Surgery is an extremely invasive procedure and is best avoided if not necessary. If indeed surgery will make the sufferer's life quality better then it would be worth the risk, so that they can live as normally as possible.

It is a good idea to discuss all treatment choices with your doctor before making any decisions regarding surgery.

Fatty acids clue to Alzheimer's

Controlling the level of a fatty acid in the brain could help treat Alzheimer's disease, an American study has suggested.

Tests on mice showed that reducing excess levels of the acid lessened animals' memory problems and behavioural changes.

Writing in Nature Neuroscience, the team said fatty acid levels could be controlled through diet or drugs.

A UK Alzheimer's expert called the work "robust and exciting".

There are currently 700,000 people living with dementia in the UK, but that number is forecast to double within a generation.

Over-stimulation

Scientists from Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and the University of California looked at fatty acids in the brains of normal mice and compared them with those in mice genetically engineered to have an Alzheimer's-like condition.

They identified raised levels of a fatty acid called arachidonic acid in the brains of the Alzheimer's mice.

This is cause for cautious optimism, as fatty acid levels can be controlled to some extent by diet and drugs Rebecca Wood, Alzheimer's Research Trust

Its release is controlled by the PLA2 enzyme.

The scientists again used genetic engineering to lower PLA2 levels in the animals, and found that even a partial reduction halted memory deterioration and other impairments.

Dr Rene Sanchez-Mejia, who worked on the study, said: "The most striking change we discovered in the Alzheimer's mice was an increase in arachidonic acid and related metabolites [products] in the hippocampus, a memory centre that is affected early and severely by Alzheimer's disease."

He suggested too much arachidonic acid might over-stimulate brain cells, and that lowering levels allowed them to function normally.

Dr Lennart Mucke, who led the research, added: "In general, fatty acid levels can be regulated by diet or drugs.

"Our results have important therapeutic implications because they suggest that inhibition of PLA2 activity might help prevent neurological impairments in Alzheimer's disease.

"But a lot more work needs to be done before this novel therapeutic strategy can be tested on humans."

'Cautious optimism'

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the UK's Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: "This research on mice suggests a connection between fatty acids and the abnormal brain activity that exists in Alzheimer's disease.

"This is cause for cautious optimism, as fatty acid levels can be controlled to some extent by diet and drugs.

"However, it is not yet clear if these findings are applicable to humans, and a lot more research is needed before any human trials can be conducted."

Professor Clive Ballard, director of Research at the Alzheimer's Society, said the work was "robust and exciting".

He added: "This is a novel and potentially exciting area of research, but it is still at a very early stage.

"Much more research is needed to see if fatty acids could lead to a treatment for those living with the devastating effects of Alzheimer's disease."

Western diet 'raises heart risk'

Swapping fried and salty foods for fruit and veg could cut the global incidence of heart attacks by a third, a study of eating habits suggests.

Researchers analysed the diet of 16,000 people in 52 countries and identified three global eating patterns, Circulation journal reports.

The typical Western diet, high in fat, salt and meat, accounted for about 30% of heart attack risk in any population.

A "prudent" diet high in fruit and veg lowered heart risk by a third.

30% of the risk of heart disease in a population could be related to poor diet Lead author Romania Iqbal

An Oriental diet, high in tofu, soy and other sauces, made no difference to heart attack risk. The researchers created a dietary risk score questionnaire based on 19 food groups and then asked 5,561 heart attack patients and 10,646 people with known heart disease to fill out their survey.

People who ate a Western diet had a 35% greater risk of having a heart attack than those who ate little or no fried foods and meat.

The typical Western diet has been widely linked to heart disease. High salt in the diet can raise blood pressure and the wrong type of fat can clog blood vessels.

Investigating overall eating patterns is more true to life than looking at intake of individual foods or nutrients.

Global trend

The researchers said their work suggested that the same relationships between food and heart disease that are observed in Western countries exist in other regions of the world.

Lead author Romania Iqbal, of McMaster University in Canada, said: "30% of the risk of heart disease in a population could be related to poor diet."

The researchers said that while components of the Oriental diet might be bad for the heart - such as the salt in soy sauce - these elements were likely cancelled out by protective components.

Ellen Mason, a cardiac nurse for the British Heart Foundation, said: "This study shows that it doesn’t matter whether you live in Bolton or Bombay, or whether you like to eat British, African Caribbean or Asian foods.

"The vital thing is to reduce your intake of salty, fried, fatty food to a minimum but increase the amount of fruit and vegetables you eat."

Bacterium 'to blame for Crohn's'

Researchers believe the lack of a specific bacterium in the gut may be a cause of Crohn's disease.

A shortage of naturally-occurring bacteria is thought to trigger the inflammatory gastrointestinal disorder by over-stimulating the immune system.

Now a French team has highlighted the bug, Faecalibacterium prausnitzii, which they show secretes biochemicals that reduce inflammation.

The study appears in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers, from the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, had already shown that patients with Crohn's disease have a marked deficiency in bacteria from the Clostridium leptum group.

Their latest work shows that F. prausnitzii - a major component of this group - accounts for a large part of the deficit.

Bowel surgery

The researchers found that Crohn's patients who underwent bowel surgery were more likely to experience a recurrence of the condition if they had low levels of F. prausnitzii.

And in experiments on cultured cells, they showed that liquid in which F. prausnitzii had been grown provided an anti-inflammatory effect.

The researchers said that if ongoing animal trials prove successful, human patients could benefit from a probiotic treatment with F. prausnitzii.

Dr Anton Emmanuel, medical director of the digestive disorders charity Core, called the study "exciting" and agreed it raised the possibility of a therapeutic "replacement" therapy.

"It would be interesting to see how this finding relates to the emerging body of evidence looking at genetic changes in some patients with Crohn's disease, with the known abnormal gene being one that codes for the body's ability to recognise foreign bacteria."

Dr John Bennett, chairman of Core, said there was growing evidence that micro-organisms combined with immunological weaknesses to either cause, or exacerbate Crohn's symptoms.

However, he said: "The gut contains a huge number and variety of organisms, and many of them have been investigated without any single one seeming to be entirely responsible."

Dr Bennett said scientists were testing the theory that harmful bacteria could be neutralised, or at least counter-acted, by preparations of beneficial "probiotic" micro-organisms, but as yet no definitive proof of their effect had been produced.

Professor Jonathan Rhodes, a consultant gastroenterologist from the Royal Liverpool Hospital, described the study as "interesting".

However, he said: "It is too early to tell whether this will lead directly to a new treatment as other probiotics have tended to produce good results in animal studies only to prove disappointing in clinical trial in Crohn's disease."

Heart Attack Risk Increased Globally By 'Western' Diet

The typical Western diet - fried foods, salty snacks and meat - accounts for about 30 percent of heart attack risk across the world, according to a study of dietary patterns in 52 countries reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Researchers identified three dietary patterns in the world:

• Oriental: higher intake of tofu, soy and other sauces;
  
  
• Prudent: higher intake of fruits and vegetables; and
  
  
• Western: higher intake of fried foods, salty snacks, eggs and meat.

The Prudent diet was associated with a lower heart attack risk than the Oriental, researchers said.

"The objective of this study was to understand the modifiable risk factors of heart attacks at a global level," said Salim Yusuf, D.Phil., the study's senior author.

Previous studies have reached similar conclusions about the Prudent and Western diet in the United States and Europe. This study broadens those findings and identifies a unique dietary pattern that researchers labeled "Oriental" (because of a higher content of food items typical of an Oriental diet.) The dietary pattern recommended by the American Heart Association is similar to the Prudent diet described in this study.

"This study indicates that the same relationships that are observed in Western countries exist in different regions of the world," said Yusuf, professor of medicine at McMaster University and director of the Population Health Research Institute at Hamilton Health Sciences in Ontario, Canada.

Researchers analyzed the INTERHEART study, which documents the association of various risk factors and the risk of heart attack in about 16,000 participants in 52 countries. Here, they analyzed 5,761 heart attack cases and compared them to 10,646 people without known heart disease (controls).

The researchers created a dietary risk score questionnaire for heart attacks patients, based on 19 food groups and adjusted it for dietary preferences for each country. Trained medical personnel interviewed the heart attack patients and the control group. The questionnaires included healthy food items (such as fruits and vegetables) and unhealthy food items (such as fried foods and salty snacks).

"A simple dietary score, which included both good and bad foods with the higher score indicating a worse diet, showed that 30 percent of the risk of heart disease in a population could be related to poor diet," said Romania Iqbal, Ph.D., lead author of the study.

After adjusting for known risk factors, researchers found:

• People who consumed the Prudent diet of more fruits and vegetables had a 30 percent lower risk of heart attack compared to people who ate little or no fruits and vegetables.
  
  
• People who consumed the Western diet had a 35 percent greater risk of having a heart attack compared to people who consumed little or no fried foods and meat.
  
  
• The Oriental pattern showed no relationship with heart attack risk.

Researchers said that while some components of the Oriental pattern may be protective, others such as the higher sodium content of soy sauces, may increase cardiovascular risk, neutralizing any relationship.

It's expensive and time-consuming to establish a large and long-term study examining the relationship of diet and heart attack in every region of the world. So the approach of this study is the only feasible way to examine the relationship to diet and heart disease from multiple populations in a relatively short time at an affordable cost, Yusuf said.

Data from this study helped confirm that changes in dietary intake, including the consumption of more fruits and vegetables, can help reduce the risk of having a heart attack in populations worldwide, he said.

"At the same time, an unhealthy dietary intake, assessed by a simple dietary risk score, accounts for nearly one-third of the world population's attributable risk," Yusuf said.

Insomnia In Breast Cancer May Be Predicted By Respiratory Rhythms

The breathing and heart rates and cortisol levels of women with metastatic breast cancer can be used to predict if they'll suffer from chronic insomnia and sleep disruptions, a common complaint from patients who want to maintain their quality of life, according to a study by scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

This report, published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, is the first to identify the body's parasympathetic nervous system, a branch of the autonomic nervous system that controls breathing and heart rates and the body's response to stress, as a contributor to poor sleep, which is a persistent problem for women with breast cancer, according to lead author Oxana Palesh, Ph.D., research assistant professor at Rochester's James P. Wilmot Cancer Center.

"We were able to identify the role that the parasympathetic nervous system plays in insomnia. It's reasonable to suggest that simple breathing exercises may help more than we realize with insomnia," Palesh said. She is a member of the University of Rochester Cancer Center Community Clinical Oncology Research Base, which specializes in cancer control studies.

She suggests regulating deep diaphragmatic breathing through yoga, meditation and other techniques may help thwart insomnia and sleep disruptions, which are two to three times as common in cancer patients compared to the general population. Scientists don't know why people with cancer experience greater sleep problems and how to prevent it. Many doctors prescribe people with cancer various sleep aides or hypnotics.

Palesh led a study of 99 women with metastatic breast cancer or recurrent disease over 45 living in San Francisco. Among the women, 39 took antidepressants and 19 used medications to treat their insomnia

Participants collected saliva for cortisol measurement for two days, completed questionnaires and wore actigraphs to monitor sleep and awake cycles for three days. They also participated in Trier Social Stress Tasks, a standardized social and cognitive stress test, after their cortisol baseline collections.

Scientists measured participants' heart rate during a stress task and found that lowered heart rate variability was associated with efficiency of their sleep, how long after sleeping that they awoke, how long they were awake and the average number of times they woke in the night.

Results showed that most women spent about eight hours in bed at night, but had on average 15 wake episodes in the night with each episode lasting about 5 minutes, for a total of 71 minutes

Insomnia and sleep problems are tied to fatigue, mood disorders and sometimes psychiatric illness, and can reduce quality of life for people facing the disease.

In healthy people, cortisol levels peak during the morning and typically level out during the end of the day. However in more than a third of the women with metastatic breast cancer, circadian rhythms are disrupted and cortisol peak multiple times or rise during the end of the day. In this study, Palesh found that Cortisol disruption was also associated with waking up at night.

In studies of healthy people, evidence shows people with insomnia typically have an elevated response to stress, which contributes to the problem.

	Gallstones in the Liver: A Major Health Risk

(NaturalNews) Think of the liver as a large city with thousands of houses and streets. There are underground pipes for delivering water, oil, and gas. Sewage systems and garbage trucks remove the city's waste products. Power lines deliver energy to the homes and businesses. Factories, transport systems, communication networks, and stores meet the daily requirements of the residents. The organization of city life is such that it can provide all that it needs for the continued existence of the population. But if a major strike, a power outage, a devastating earthquake, or a major act of terrorism, such as the one we witnessed in New York City on September 11, 2001, suddenly paralyzes city life, the population will begin to suffer serious shortcomings in all these vital sectors.

Like a city's infrastructure, the liver has hundreds of different functions and is connected with every part of the body. Every moment of the day, it is involved in manufacturing, processing, and supplying vast amounts of nutrients. These nutrients feed the 60 to 100 trillion inhabitants (cells) of the body. Each cell is, in itself, a microscopic city of immense complexity, with billions of chemical reactions per second. To sustain the incredibly diverse activities of all the cells of the body without disruption, the liver must supply them with a constant stream of nutrients, enzymes, and hormones. With its intricate labyrinth of veins, ducts, and specialized cells, the liver needs to be completely unobstructed in order to maintain a problem-free production line and frictionless distribution system throughout the body.

Diabetes And Mortality In Men With Locally Advanced Prostate Cancer: RTOG 92-02

In the September 10, 2008 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dr. Matthew Smith and his colleagues reported on the association of diabetes mellitus (DM) and death in men treated for prostate cancer (CaP) with radiotherapy and androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). The authors cited a meta-analysis whereby an inverse relationship between diabetes and CaP diagnosis was noted. This report used the database from RTOG 92-02 in which men with CaP were randomized to radiotherapy with either 4 months of ADT or 24 months of extended ADT. The primary endpoint was cause of death.

In total, 1,551 patients were enrolled in the study: 763 to the short-term ADT and 758 to long-term ADT. Median age was 70 years and patients with DM had significantly greater body weight as well as lower PSA levels. In univariate analysis, DM was significantly associated with greater all-cause and non-CaP mortality, but not CaP mortality. In multivariate analysis, age, race, Gleason score, tumor stage, PSA, treatment arm and weight were controlled for. In this model, DM was significantly associated with both greater all-cause mortality and non-CaP mortality. DM was not associated with greater CaP mortality. Tumor stage and Gleason score, age, greater weight and treatment arm were significantly associated with CaP mortality. In both treatment arms, DM was associated with greater all-cause and non-CaP mortality, but not CaP mortality.

The authors suggested that the association of greater weight, but not DM with increased CaP mortality, indicates that mechanisms other than diabetic metabolic alterations account for death.

Potatoes May Hold Key To Alzheimer's Treatment

A virus that commonly infects potatoes bears a striking resemblance to one of the key proteins implicated in Alzheimer's disease (AD), and researchers have used that to develop antibodies that may slow or prevent the onset of AD.

Studies in mice have demonstrated that vaccinations with the amyloid beta protein (believed to be a major AD contributor) to produce A antibodies can slow disease progression and improve cognitive function, possibly by promoting the destruction of amyloid plaques. Some early human trials have likewise been promising, but had to be halted due to the risk of autoimmune encephalitis.

One way to make Alzheimer's vaccinations safer would be to use a closely-related, but not human, protein as the vaccine, much like cowpox virus is used for smallpox immunizations.

In the August 15 Journal of Biological Chemistry, Robert Friedland and colleagues used this concept on an amyloid-like protein found in potato virus (PVY). They injected PVY into mice followed by monthly boosters for four months. The researchers found that the mice produced strong levels of antibodies that could attach to amyloid beta protein both in both solution and in tissue samples of Alzheimer's patients. And although the levels were lower, mice also developed A antibodies if given injections of PVY-infected potato leaf as opposed to purified PVY.

Friedland and colleagues note that potato virus is a fairly common infection that poses no risk to humans (many people have probably eaten PVY infected potatoes). While tests of PVY antibodies will ultimately determine how useful they can be, they may be a promising lead to treating this debilitating disease.

How corals adapt to day and night

Researchers have uncovered a gene in corals that responds to day/night cycles, which provides some tantalizing clues into how symbiotic corals work together with their plankton partners.

Corals are fascinating animals that form the largest biological constructions in the world, sprawling coral reefs that cover less than 0.2 % of the seafloor yet provide habitats for more than 30% of marine life. In shallow waters that don't have abundant food, corals have developed a close relationship with small photosynthetic critters called dinoflagellates. The dinoflagellates use sunlight to produce energy for the coral, which in turn use that energy to construct mineralized skeletons for protection. The mineral production, known as coral calcification, is closely tied with the day/night cycle, though the molecular mechanism behind this synchronization is mysterious.

Aurelie Moya and colleagues have now characterized the first coral gene that responds to the light cycle; this gene, called STPCA, makes an enzyme that converts carbon dioxide to bicarbonate (baking soda) and is twice as active at night compared to daytime. The researchers found that the enzyme concentrates in the watery layer right under the calcified skeleton, which combined with studies showing that STPCA inhibitors lower calcification rates, confirms a direct role for STPCA in this process.

Moya and colleagues propose that STPCA becomes more active at night to cope with acid buildup. The calcification process requires many hydrogen atoms, which during the day can be removed by photosynthesis; at night, however, hydrogen accumulates which increases the acidity of the coral, and therefore STPCA creates extra bicarbonate as a buffer to prevent acid damage.

Purifying parasites with light

Researchers have developed a clever method to purify parasitic organisms from their host cells, which will allow for more detailed proteomic studies and a deeper insight into the biology of organisms that cause millions of cases of disease each year.

Many infectious pathogens, like those that cause Toxoplasmosis or Leishmaniases, have a complex life cycle alternating between free-living creature and cell-enclosed parasite. A thorough analysis of the proteins that help these organisms undergo this lifestyle change would be tremendously useful for drug or vaccine development; however, it's extremely difficult to separate the parasites from their host cell for detailed study.

As reported in the September Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, Toni Aebischer and colleagues worked around this problem by designing special fluorescent Leishmania mexicana (one of the many Leishmaniases parasites). They then passed infected cells through a machine that can separate cell components based on how much they glow. Using this approach, the researchers separated the Leishmania parasites with only about 2% contamination, far better than current methods.

They then successfully identified 509 proteins in the parasites, 34 of which were more prominent in parasites than free living Leishmania. The results yielded many characteristics of these organisms, such as a high presence of fatty acid degrading enzymes, which highlights adaptation to intracellularly available energy sources. The identified proteins should provide a good data set for continued selection of drug targets, and the success of this method should make it a good resource for other cellular parasites like malaria.

Tuberculosis drug shows promise against latent bacteria

A new study has shown that an investigational drug (R207910, currently in clinical trials against multi-drug resistant tuberculosis strains) is quite effective at killing latent bacteria. This revelation suggests that R207910 may lead to improved and shortened treatments for this globally prevalent disease.

Despite numerous treatment advances, tuberculosis (TB) remains a serious disease fueled by co-infection of HIV patients, the rise of drug-resistant strains, and the ability of Mycobacterium tuberculosis to become dormant and linger in the lungs. In fact, one third of the world population is infected, asymptomatically, with latent TB and is at risk of developing active TB disease during their life time.

Anil Koul and colleagues at Johnson & Johnson tested R207910 on dormant M. tuberculosis in three different laboratory models of latency. R207910 targets a protein (ATP synthase) essential for making cellular energy (ATP) in actively replicating TB. The researchers reasoned that even dormant bacteria, which are essentially physiologically "turned off", still need to produce small quantities of ATP to survive. As such, a block in ATP synthesis might be an Achilles heel for killing dormant bacteria.

This reasoning proved to be correct and R207190 was able to kill dormant bacteria by greater than 95% whereas current drugs like isoniazid had no effect. Surprisingly, they found that R207910 is slightly more effective in killing dormant bacteria as compared to actively replicating ones, a unique spin as all known TB drugs are more effective on replicating bugs. Koul and colleagues hope to validate these results clinically, and note that ATP synthase should be looked at as a drug target for other persistent bacterial infections.

Japanese Diet Rich In Fish May Hold Secret To Healthy Heart: Omega-3 Fatty Acids From Fish Appear To Prevent Clogged Arteries

If you're fishing for ways to reduce the risk of heart disease, you might start with the seafood-rich diet typically served up in Japan. According to new research, a lifetime of eating tuna, sardines, salmon and other fish appears to protect Japanese men against clogged arteries, despite other cardiovascular risk factors.

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The research, published in the August 5, 2008, issue of Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), suggests that the protection comes from omega-3 fatty acids found in abundance in oily fish. In the first international study of its kind, researchers found that compared to middle-aged white men or Japanese-American men living in the United States, Japanese men living in Japan had twice the blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids—a finding that was independently linked to low levels of atherosclerosis.

"The death rate from coronary heart disease in Japan has always been puzzlingly low," said Akira Sekikawa, M.D., Ph.D, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, PA, and an adjunct associate professor at Shiga University of Medical Science, Otsu, Japan. "Our study suggests that the very low rates of coronary heart disease among Japanese living in Japan may be due to their lifelong high consumption of fish."

Japanese people eat about 3 ounces of fish daily, on average, while typical Americans eat fish perhaps twice a week. Nutritional studies show that the intake of omega-3 fatty acids from fish averages 1.3 grams per day in Japan, as compared to 0.2 grams per day in the United States.

Earlier studies by Dr. Sekikawa's team showed that Japanese men had significantly less cholesterol build-up in their arteries when compared to white men living in the United States—despite similar blood cholesterol and blood pressure readings, similar rates of diabetes and much higher rates of cigarette smoking. It was unclear, however, whether Japanese men were protected by strong genes, a high-fish diet or some other factor.

To answer that question, the ERA JUMP (Electron-Beam Tomography, Risk Factor Assessment Among Japanese and U.S. Men in the Post-World War II Birth Cohort) Study enrolled 868 randomly selected men aged 40 to 49. Of these, 281 were Japanese men from Kusatsu, Shiga, Japan; 306 were white men from Allegheny County, Pennsylvania; and 281 were third- or fourth-generation Japanese-American men from Honolulu, Hawaii.

All study participants had a physical examination, completed a lifestyle questionnaire, and had standard blood tests to evaluate cardiovascular health. Laboratory tests also measured total blood levels of fatty acids and the omega-3 fatty acids that come from fish (specifically, eicosapentaenoic, docosahexaenoic and docosapentaenoic acids).

In addition, researchers used two techniques to measure the level of cholesterol build-up in the arteries. In the first test, ultrasound waves gauged the thickness of the walls of the carotid arteries in the neck, a test known as intimal-medial thickness (IMT). In the second test, an electron-beam CT scanner measured calcium deposits, or "hardened" cholesterol, in the arteries of the heart, a test known as coronary artery calcification (CAC). Both have been shown to identify people at high risk for heart disease.

Dr. Sekikawa and his colleagues found that the total level of fatty acids was similar in the three groups, but the percentage represented by fish-based omega-3 fatty acids was two-fold higher in Japanese men living in Japan (9.2 percent) when compared to white men (3.9 percent) and Japanese-American men (4.8 percent) living in the United States.

The researchers also found that levels of atherosclerosis were similar in Japanese-American and white men, but markedly lower in Japanese men living in Japan. The average IMT was 37 µm less in Japanese than white men after age and cardiovascular risk factors were taken into account, while the average risk-adjusted difference in the proportion of Japanese and white men with positive CAC tests was 11 percent. Both gaps were highly significant, but became statistically insignificant when differences in omega-3 fatty acid levels were taken into account.

In Japanese men living in Japan the investigators also observed that IMT values went down as omega-3 fatty acid levels went up, an inverse relationship that was found to be statistically significant. This relationship between omega-3 fatty acid levels and IMT remained significant even after adjusting for traditional cardiovascular risk factors. (In Japanese men, CAC also went down as omega-3 fatty acid levels went up, but the relationship was not statistically significant.)

No significant inverse association between omega-3 fatty acid levels and atherosclerosis was observed in whites or Japanese-Americans once cardiovascular risk factors were accounted for.

"Our study clearly demonstrated that whites and Japanese-Americans have similar levels of atherosclerosis, which are much higher than in the Japanese in Japan," Dr. Sekikawa said. "This indicates that much lower death rates from coronary heart disease in the Japanese in Japan is very unlikely due to genetic factors."

The importance of the fish-derived omega-3 fatty acids in reducing risk for heart disease is powerfully underscored by this cross-cultural study, said William S. Harris, Ph.D., senior scientist and director of the Metabolism and Nutrition Research Center, Sanford Research/University of South Dakota, Sioux Falls. "Japanese men in Japan have equally bad or worse cardiovascular risk profiles as Americans, but less heart disease? How can this be?" said Dr. Harris, who was not involved in the ERA JUMP study. "What really distinguishes the Japanese men from the Americans is the fact that blood levels of the omega-3 fatty acids are twice as high in Japan as they are in the West.

"The take home message from this important study is this: Traditional risk factors lead to traditional amounts of artery-clogging plaque but only when the background diet, perhaps the lifetime diet, is chronically deficient in omega-3 fatty acids. Increase the omega-3 intake and heart disease rates in the West should begin to move closer to those in Japan. While it may take a high omega-3 diet from birth (as opposed to popping a few fish oil pills) to reach this goal, Dr. Sekikawa and his colleagues tell a compelling story that we would do well to heed."

A follow-up study has recently been funded and will test the association of omega-3 fatty acids with the progression of atherosclerosis in white men, Japanese-American men, and Japanese men living in Japan.

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Detecting Flu Viruses In Remote Areas Of The World

Researchers in Ohio and New Mexico are reporting an advance in the quest for a fast, sensitive test to detect flu viruses -- one that requires no refrigeration and can be used in remote areas of the world where new flu viruses often emerge. Their new method is the first to use sugar molecules rather than antibodies.

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In the new study, Jurgen Schmidt, Suri Iyer, and colleagues point out that conventional tests for flu viruses -- including bird flu -- rely on antibodies, proteins produced by the immune system, to recognize viruses. But antibody-based tests can be expensive and require refrigeration to remain stable.

Their solution involved development of artificial forms of sialic acid, a sugar molecule found on the surface of cells that flu viruses attach to when they attack humans. In laboratory tests, the researchers showed that their highly-selective artificial sugars could be used to quickly capture and recognize two common strains of influenza viruses, H1N1, which infects birds, and H3N2, which infects pigs and humans.

They used the molecules to differentiate between 2 strains (Sydney and Beijing) commonly found in human infections without isolating the viral RNA or surface glycoproteins. The sugars remain stable for several months, can be produced in large quantities, and exhibit extended shelf life.

Good Fats - What Are Healthy Fats?

Those who say all fats are bad for you are, of course, dangerously incorrect. As it turns out, plant-based fats are powerful cancer fighters, and even saturated fats from plant sources are now being shown to offer extraordinary health benefits.

If you want to prevent cancer, or you're currently battling colon cancer, prostate cancer or breast cancer, it is essential to get plant-based fats into your diet on a daily basis. What kind of plant-based fats are we talking about? What are the healthy fats?

Canola oil is what I consider a neutral fat, meaning it's not necessarily a bad fat, but neither is it considered one of the healthier fats. The healthy fats include extra-virgin olive oil, flax seed oil, and fats from plant sources such as nuts, seeds, avocados, and coconuts. These healthy fats should be consumed with every meal. Failure to include these fats in a meal will result in many of the nutrients consumed during the meal not being absorbed by the body. That's because many nutrients are fat-soluble nutrients. Beta carotene, Vitamin D, and Vitamin E are three such nutrients that require fat in order to be absorbed and used by the human body, but there are many other nutrients that also need fats for human metabolism.

Incidentally, these oils do much more than just fight cancer, they also improve your cardiovascular health and fight weight gain and obesity. The benefits list is a long one.

A fascinating new study published shows that dietary fat is necessary for the absorption of nutrients from fruits and vegetables. In the study, people who consumed salads with fat-free salad dressing absorbed far less of the helpful phytonutrients and vitamins from spinach, lettuce, tomatoes and carrots than those who consumed their salads with a salad dressing containing fat.

This is interesting research, but not necessarily all that surprising. We've known for a long time that healthy fats are a critical part of a healthy diet, and that avoiding fats actually causes chronic disease. The key is in choosing the right kind of fats for your diet and making sure you don't overdo the fats, because fats have a very high caloric density and can add far more calories to your meal than you might expect.

The fact is we all need fats. Fats helps nutrient absorption, nerve transmission, maintaining cell membrane integrity etc. However, when consumed in excess amount, fats contribute to weight gain, heart disease and certain types of cancer. Fats are not created equal. Some fats promote our health positively while other increases our risks of heart disease. The key is to replace bad fats with good fats in our diet.

In other words, if you take super food supplements without fat, you're not getting the same benefit as taking the same supplements with a little bit of fat

The total amount of fat you eat, whether high or low isn't really linked with disease. What really matters is the type of fat you eat.

Cancer Institute Urges Caution With Cell Phones

A prominent US cancer institute has posted a notice on its website urging cell phone users to take precautions when using cell phones because advice from an international panel of experts says cell phones have not been around long enough for scientists to be sure about their safety.

The announcement comes from the Center for Environmental Oncology (CEO), part of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and says that following the advice of an international panel of experts, comprising cancer experts from Europe and the US:

"Electromagnetic fields generated by cell phones should be considered a potential human health risk."

Not enough time has elapsed for us to be sure of the biological consequences of cell phone and cordless phone technology, said the CEO, and until then, people should be careful.

The CEO said that recent studies "which include subjects with a history of cell phone usage for a duration of at least 10 years, show a possible association between certain benign tumors (acoustic neuromas) and some brain cancers on the side the device is used".

Research that estimates the penetration of electromagnetic radiation from cell phones based on age, shows that children are considerably more vulnerable than adults, said the CEO, explaining that the frequency bands used by cell phones (from 800 to 2200 MHz), even below the power threshold required by most safety standards, causes "an increase in the permeability of the blood-brain barrier and an increased synthesis of stress proteins".

Neither the expert panel nor the CEO suggests people should stop using cell phones, which they refer to as "a remarkable invention and a breakthrough of great social importance". One of the experts, a brain cancer survivor, Dr David Servan-Schreiber, continues to use his cell phone.

The message therefore, is that users should take precautionary measures, and especially those who have cancer already.

The CEO suggested this 10-point list of precautions:

1. Children should only use cell phones for emergencies. Organs that are still growing are likely to be the most sensitive to electromagnetic fields.


2. When using your cell phone, keep it away from the body as much as you can. Compared to holding it next to your head, the amplitude of the electromagnetic field drops to 25 per cent at two inches (5 cm) distance and to 2 per cent at three feet (about 1 metre).


3. Use speakerphone, or a wireless Bluetooth headset, as much as possible. These have less than 1 per cent of the emission of a normal cell phone. A hands-free ear piece may also reduce exposure.


4. Using your cell phone in public, crowded places, like a bus, means others are passively exposed to your phone's electromagnetic fields, so avoid using it in these places.


5. Keep your phone away from your body as much as possible - don't carry it on your body. Don't keep it near your body at night (eg under a pillow or on a bedside table), especially if you are pregnant. Put it in "flight" mode, which stops electromagnetic emissions (you can still other functions such as the alarm in this mode).


6. If you have to carry it on your body, keep the keypad toward you and the back of the phone pointing away from you so more of the transmitted electromagnetic field moves away from you rather than toward you.


7. For long conversations use a landline with a corded phone, not a cell phone or a cordless phone, since both use similar electromagnetic emitting technology.


8. Alternate right and left ear when using your cell phone, to spread the exposure. Wait until the person you are calling answers before placing the phone next to your ear. In other words, do everything you can to cut your exposure time with the phone close to your body.


9. Avoid using your phone when travelling at speed, such as on a train, or when the signal is weak. The phone will be trying to connect to a new relay antenna, and uses higher power to do this.


10. Text rather than call, as much as you can. This limits exposure in two ways: less time on the phone and the phone is further away from your body.


11. Choose a phone with the lowest possible Specific Absorption Rate (SAR, a measure of the strength of the magnetic field absorbed by the body). Use the keyword phrase "sar ratings cell phones" to search on the Internet.

There has been a somewhat sceptical reaction to the CEO announcement in the press today, with many reports saying there is a considerable body of research that has found no risk to health from cell phone usage.

The National Cancer Institute website says that studies have so far failed to show a link between brain tumours and cell phone use.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says on its website that:

"The available scientific evidence does not show that any health problems are associated with using wireless phones. There is no proof, however, that wireless phones are absolutely safe. "

In research, there is a saying "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", which perhaps urges us all to consider this news carefully and make up our own minds.

Gates And Bloomberg Unite In Global Fight Against Tobacco

Two of the world's richest philanthropists, Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg pledged on Wednesday to spend 500 million dollars to make people all over the world stop smoking. They announced the news together at a press conference at the TheTimesCenter in Midtown Manhattan.

Michael Bloomberg is mayor of New York City and founder of Bloomberg LP, a giant financial software services, news and data company. Through Bloomberg Philanthropies he has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars for research and interventions in health; recipients include the Johns Hopkins University, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Lung Foundation and the World Health Organization. Under the Bloomberg Initiative, grants are awarded for projects aiming to cut tobacco use.

Bill Gates is leaving his post as chairman of Microsoft, the giant software company that he co-founded with Paul Allen in 1975, to become a full time philanthropist and do more collaborative work. He and his wife Melinda founded the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has to date spent more than 3 billion dollars in fighting AIDS and malaria, much of it in Africa. Yesterday's announcement is Gates' first initiative in the anti-smoking field.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco is going to kill 10 times more people in this century than it did in the last century, with figures suggesting up to a billion deaths, most of them in developing countries like Bangladesh and middle-income countries like Russia, reported the New York Times.

Bloomberg's plans include a pledge of 250 million dollars over the next four years. This is in addition to 125 million dollars he gave two years ago. The Gates' will be pledging 125 million dollars over the next five years. These donations will give an enormous boost to the current 20 million dollars a year spent on antismoking efforts in these countries, according to figures from the WHO.

The joint donations will form part of a campaign announced by WHO director Dr Margaret Chan and Bloomberg in February this year. Called MPOWER, the campaign brings together efforts from the WHO, the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, the World Lung Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the CDC, and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

The campaign will lobby governments to raise tobacco taxes, stop smoking in public places, ban advertising to children, promote anti-smoking initiatives, and give tools and resourcers to help people quit. There will also be US-based workshops and training for specialists, newswriters, government and health officials, on topics ranging from how to catch smugglers to how to help people quit.

Blomberg welcomed the Gates' involvement in the campaign:

"I'm delighted Bill and Melinda Gates are supporting one of the most important public health efforts of our time. Our commitments will help governments confront the tobacco epidemic by implementing the proven MPOWER package."

"This means assuring well-staffed tobacco control programs, raising tobacco taxes, running hard-hitting public information campaigns, creating comprehensive smoke-free public places and banning tobacco advertising," added Bloomberg.

Gates said that:

"Tobacco-caused diseases have emerged as one of the greatest health challenges facing developing countries."

"The good news is, we know what it takes to save millions of lives, and where efforts exist, they are working. We are pleased to join with Mayor Bloomberg, who has made the fight against tobacco a priority in New York City and around the world," he added.

As mayor, Bloomberg has been instrumental in introducing anti-smoking measures to New York City and raising taxes on tobacco.

Information from an accompanying press statement gave some facts about the tobacco crisis in those parts of the world the campaign will focus on:

• The poorest households in Bangladesh spend almost 10 times as much on tobacco as on education.


• China has 350 million smokers, about a third of the world's total, and suffers a million deaths a year from tobacco.


• Indonesians spend on average 2.5 times more on tobacco than on education, and 3.2 times more on tobacco than on health.


• In India, where many people smoke "bidis", deaths due to tobacco-related causes are expected to rise from 700,000 a year to 930,000 a year by 2010.

Cancer survivors who practice healthy habits have higher quality of life

A new study from the American Cancer Society finds cancer survivors who follow health behavior recommendations avoiding tobacco, eating more fruits and vegetables, and getting adequate exercisehave higher health-related quality of life (HRQoL) scores than those who do not follow such recommendations. The study, which appears in the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, also finds cancer survivors have low rates of smoking, but few are meeting physical activity recommendations or meeting the 5-A-Day fruit and vegetable consumption recommendation, suggesting a cancer diagnosis may change smoking behavior but have little impact on exercise and healthy eating.

Researchers led by Kevin Stein, PhD, used data from more than 9,000 survivors participating in the American Cancer Societys Study of Cancer Survivors-II (SCS II), a national cross-sectional study of HRQoL among cancer survivors identified through population-based cancer registries. The analysis revealed that eight out of ten survivors were not meeting the 5-A-Day recommendation (range 80.0 to 85.2 percent). Up to seven out of ten were not meeting recommendations for physical activity (range 52.7 percent to 70.4 percent). Meanwhile, survivors were more likely to be non-smokers than those without a history of cancer (range 82.6 to 91.6 percent). Only about one in 20 survivors was meeting all three lifestyle behavior recommendations (range 3.6 to 5.8 percent).

The study also found higher HRQoL in survivors who were meeting each lifestyle behavior recommendation, with the strongest associations emerging for physical activity. And the more lifestyle behaviors cancer survivors met, the higher their HRQoL score, regardless of the type of cancer.

It is concerning that up to 12.5 percent of cancer survivors are not meeting any lifestyle behavior recommendation and less than 10 percent on average across the cancer groups are meeting two or more recommendations, said Dr. Stein. What

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