Study Reveals Why Tumors Become Drug-resistant

A new study from MIT reveals that much of this resistance develops because a protein called AXL helps cancer cells to circumvent the effects of ErbB inhibitors, allowing them to grow unchecked. The findings suggest that combining drugs that target AXL and ErbB receptors could offer a better way to fight tumors, says Doug Lauffenburger, the Ford Professor of Bioengineering, head of MIT's Department of Biological Engineering and an affiliate member of MIT's Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

"Drug resistance is the major challenge in cancer these days. People are coming up with a lot of targeted therapies for particular genes and identifying drugs that work against them, but resistance is just invariably the issue," says Lauffenburger, the senior author of a paper describing the findings in the Aug. 6 issue of Science Signaling.

ErbBs, a family of epithelial growth factor receptors (EGFRs), are proteins that are often overactive in cancer cells, causing them to grow and divide uncontrollably. The drug Iressa is used to treat lung cancer patients whose tumors overexpress one type of ErbB mutant, and Herceptin targets another ErbB family member that is found in certain types of breast cancer.

"There are a lot of excellent drugs that target EGFR itself or other members of that family, yet they have these limitations," Lauffenburger says.

Systems analysis

In the new study, Lauffenburger and colleagues set out to identify factors that help tumor cells become resistant to EGFR and other ErbB inhibitors. To do this, they developed a new computer model and applied it to a large dataset called the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia, which includes information on about 1,000 human cancer lines and their responses to different drugs.

Led by biological engineering graduate student Aaron Meyer, lead author of the paper, the researchers created a machine learning program that can sift through the data and look for pairs of overexpressed proteins that make tumor cells resistant to EGFR inhibitors. In this case, they searched for the EGFR protein in combination with every other possible protein in the database, one pair at a time.

Through this analysis, the researchers found that EGFR paired with the AXL receptor appears to be the strongest marker for EGFR inhibitor resistance. They found this pattern across many types of cancer, including lung, breast and pancreatic.

A few previous studies have shown that overexpression of AXL is associated with resistance to EGFR inhibitors in a particular tumor, but this is the first systematic study to demonstrate the correlation, Lauffenburger says. This "systems biology" approach, which focuses on complex interactions within biological systems, is critical for finding new drugs that work together to knock out cancer's defense mechanisms, he says.

"It's now well known that when you look for a single pathway, you won't get to an effective therapeutic. You will end up with resistance," Lauffenburger says. "You've got to look at pathways in combination, you've got to look at whole interacting networks. That's the only way."

Clues to a mystery

Then, in experiments on cancer cells grown in the lab, the researchers found that the AXL protein tends to cluster with EGFR on cell surfaces, so when EGFR is activated, AXL also becomes active. AXL then not only stimulates further much of the same cellular machinery targeted by EGFR, but also additional pathways provoking cell growth and division. AXL also helps cells become more motile, allowing cancer to spread through the body.

The researchers also showed that other members of the ErbB family beyond EGFR similarly cluster with AXL. This suggests that AXL inhibition may also be effective for treating breast cancers dependent on ErbB2 or ovarian cancers that overexpress ErbB3, Lauffenburger says.

The study sheds light on the complicated interactions between EGFR and other proteins that help tumors re-emerge after initial treatment with EGFR inhibitors, and could help researchers develop improved treatments, says Trever Bivona, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.

"The implication that emerges from the findings is that the way receptor kinases interact to undermine sensitivity to treatment is quite complex," says Bivona, who was not part of the research team.

High levels of AXL have previously been found in triple-negative breast cancer cells, which lack the three most common breast cancer markers ? estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and HER2 receptors. The new finding may explain why EGFR inhibitors fail to work on these tumors even though they have high EGFR levels, Lauffenburger says.

"Triple-negative breast cancer cells were a special interest of ours mainly because it's always been such a mystery why they have not responded to EGFR inhibitors," he says.

The new study suggests that AXL inhibitors, either alone or in combination with EGFR inhibitors, might be an effective treatment for triple-negative breast cancer, which is now treated with chemotherapy drugs that have severe side effects. A handful of clinical trials are currently testing AXL inhibitors against different types of cancer, and Lauffenburger is now planning studies in mice to investigate the effects of combining AXL and EGFR pathway inhibitors.

Source-Eurekalert

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Telephone Coaching Does Not Reduce Hospital Use and Related Costs: Study

by Sheela Philomena on? August 07, 2013 at 1:00 PM Hospital News A recent study finds that one-to-one telephone health coaching did not seem to cut hospital use and related costs for patients with long term conditions.
The study adds weight to the view that health coaching by itself does not appear to reduce hospital activity. The authors suggest that it may be more effective if it were better integrated into the respective care pathways for these groups of patients or were coupled with other interventions.

Telephone health coaching is used to provide guidance and support to patients with long term conditions. It involves regular phone calls between patient and health professional to promote healthy behaviours, help patients to manage their condition more independently, and identify any problems before they become critical.

As a result, it is thought that hospital admissions will be prevented, saving costs for healthcare systems. However, the current evidence base is unclear. So Ernst and Young and the Nuffield Trust were commissioned by the Department of Health to evaluate the impact of England's largest telephone health coaching service (Birmingham OwnHealth?) on hospital use and associated costs.

They analysed data from the first two years of the scheme (2006 to 2008), concerning 2,698 patients (average age 65 years) with heart failure, coronary heart disease, diabetes or chronic lung disease (COPD), and a history of inpatient or outpatient hospital use.

Intervention patients received a personalised care plan and a monthly telephone call from a care manager, typically lasting for 15 minutes. Matched control patients received usual care, which did not include telephone health coaching.

The annual number of emergency admissions increased by 0.05 per head more among intervention patients than matched controls (a relative increase of 13.6%).

Outpatient attendances also increased by 0.37 per head more among intervention patients than controls, while secondary care costs rose by ?175 per head more among intervention patients than controls.

Further checks showed that the researchers were unlikely to have missed reductions in emergency admissions because of unseen differences between intervention and matched control groups.

In summary, the authors say there was no evidence of reductions in hospital admissions, and no savings were detected from which to offset the cost of the intervention. Adam Steventon, Senior Research Analyst at the Nuffield Trust, who led the analysis for the study, said: "Policy makers are hoping that, by improving community-based care, unnecessary hospital admissions can be avoided. Birmingham OwnHealth? appears not to have achieved this aim, at least in the period that we studied. However, the effect of new services depends on the details of how they are implemented, and on the surrounding context, so it might be possible to improve the model."

Adam Steventon also summarises the findings in a video abstract. Dr Steventon says although the results were disappointing, the question remains whether other parts of the NHS could implement health coaching. He believes that more needs to be done about the elements that make up a successful hospital avoidance programme and "one of the largest lessons is to try to use some of the techniques that we implemented on an ongoing basis to improve care".

Source-Eurekalert

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According to a study on three young Americans living at home

by Sheela Philomena on August 2, 2013 at 11:11 new lifestyle more than a third of young American adults live with his or her parents, finds study published by the Pew Research Institute.
In 2012, 36% of Americans between the ages of 18 to 31 - or 21.6 million - lived with their parents, compared with 18.5 million in 2007, the year that the great recession began.

At least one in three of the wise were students.

Those aged 18 to 24 are more likely to remain in the proverbial family cocoon, compared to 16 percent of 25 - to 31 years.

Pew Research team also found that men were more likely than women of the same roof with MOM and dad - 40% against 32%.

Pew attributed the slow but steady increase in unemployment, which hit the young especially hard, but also higher university admissions and less marriages.

Source-AFP

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According to a study on three young Americans living at home

by Sheela Philomena on August 2, 2013 at 11:11 new lifestyle more than a third of young American adults live with his or her parents, finds study published by the Pew Research Institute.
In 2012, 36% of Americans between the ages of 18 to 31 - or 21.6 million - lived with their parents, compared with 18.5 million in 2007, the year that the great recession began.

At least one in three of the wise were students.

Those aged 18 to 24 are more likely to remain in the proverbial family cocoon, compared to 16 percent of 25 - to 31 years.

Pew Research team also found that men were more likely than women of the same roof with MOM and dad - 40% against 32%.

Pew attributed the slow but steady increase in unemployment, which hit the young especially hard, but also higher university admissions and less marriages.

Source-AFP

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Study Finds No Link Between Sleep, Fatigue Level

by Sheela Philomena on? August 02, 2013 at 10:38 AM Research News There is little or no relation between how much sleep people get at night and how tired they feel, say researchers. "The length of sleep is not a good measurement to analyse whether we get enough sleep or not," Torbjoern Aakerstedt told AFP of the studies conducted at the Stress Research Institute of Stockholm University.
"It's genetically conditioned and dependent on age and health," he said.

Aakerstedt's team has conducted three different studies, one of which investigated the sleep patterns of nearly 6,000 individuals.

The research suggests that the number of hours slept is of much less importance in determining how a person functions throughout the day.

"If you feel fine and dynamic during the day, you've probably slept enough," said Aakerstedt.

The research, to be published later this year, found the average number of hours slept during a working week is six hours 55 minutes, with an extra hour's sleep during holidays.

The researcher said that 20-year-olds should sleep eight hours on average, whilst 60-year-olds require only six.

"But there is no general average," Aakerstedt added. "Twenty-year-olds can sleep even more, but still be tired during the day" as their brain is still developing.

Yet, although more sleep does not mean more energy, no one should sleep too little, as it affects one's health, he said.

Too little sleep can result in a weak immune system, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, weight gain, workplace incidents and traffic accidents.

Source-AFP

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Study Identifies Genetic Regions Linked With Migraine

The team identified 12 genetic regions associated with migraine susceptibility. Eight of these regions were found in or near genes known to play a role in controlling brain circuitries and two of the regions were associated with genes that are responsible for maintaining healthy brain tissue. The regulation of these pathways may be important to the genetic susceptibility of migraines.

Migraine is a debilitating disorder that affects approximately 14% of adults. Migraine has recently been recognized as the seventh disabler in the Global Burden of Disease Survey 2010 and has been estimated to be the most costly neurological disorder. It is an extremely difficult disorder to study because no biomarkers between or during attacks have been identified so far.

"This study has greatly advanced our biological insight about the cause of migraine," says Dr Aarno Palotie, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. "Migraine and epilepsy are particularly difficult neural conditions to study; between episodes the patient is basically healthy so it's extremely difficult to uncover biochemical clues.

"We have proven that this is the most effective approach to study this type of neurological disorder and understand the biology that lies at the heart of it."

The team uncovered the underlying susceptibilities by comparing the results from 29 different genomic studies, including over 100,000 samples from both migraine patients and control samples.

They found that some of the regions of susceptibility lay close to a network of genes that are sensitive to oxidative stress, a biochemical process that results in the dysfunction of cells.

The team expects many of the genes at genetic regions associated with migraine are interconnected and could potentially be disrupting the internal regulation of tissue and cells in the brain, resulting in some of the symptoms of migraine.

"We would not have made discoveries by studying smaller groups of individuals," says Dr Gisela Terwindt, co-author from Leiden University Medical Centre. "This large scale method of studying over 100,000 samples of healthy and affected people means we can tease out the genes that are important suspects and follow them up in the lab."

The team identified an additional 134 genetic regions that are possibly associated to migraine susceptibility with weaker statistical evidence. Whether these regions underlie migraine susceptibility or not still needs to be elucidated. Other similar studies show that these statistically weaker culprits can play an equal part in the underlying biology of a disease or disorder.

"The molecular mechanisms of migraine are poorly understood. The sequence variants uncovered through this meta-analysis could become a foothold for further studies to better understanding the pathophysiology of migraine" says Dr K?ri Stef?nsson, President of deCODE genetics.

"This approach is the most efficient way of revealing the underlying biology of these neural disorders," says Dr Mark Daly, from the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. "Effective studies that give us biological or biochemical results and insights are essential if we are to fully get to grips with this debilitating condition.

"Pursuing these studies in even larger samples and with denser maps of biological markers will increase our power to determine the roots and triggers of this disabling disorder."

Source-Eurekalert

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Genetic 'Switches' Do Play Big Role in Human Evolution: Study

The study provides evidence for a 40-year-old hypothesis that regulation of genes must play an important role in evolution since there is little difference between humans and chimps in the proteins produced by genes.

Indeed, human and chimpanzee proteins are more than 99 percent identical.

The researchers showed that the number of evolutionary adaptations to the part of the machinery that regulates genes, called transcription factor binding sites, might be roughly equal to adaptations to the genes themselves.

"This is the most comprehensive and most direct analysis to date of the evolution of gene regulatory sequences in humans," said senior author Adam Siepel, Cornell associate professor of biological statistics and computational biology.

"It's taken these 40 years to get a clear picture of what's going on in these sequences because we haven't had the data until very recently," said Leonardo Arbiza, a postdoctoral researcher in Siepel's lab and the paper's lead author.

Less than 2 percent of the human genome - the complete set of genetic material - contains genes that code for proteins. In cells, these proteins are instrumental in biological pathways that affect an organism's health, appearance and behavior.

Much less is known about the remaining 98 percent of the genome; however, in the 1960s, scientists recognized that some of the non-protein coding DNA regulates when and where genes are turned on and off, and how much protein they produce. The regulatory machinery works when proteins called transcription factors bind to specific short sequences of DNA that flank the gene, called transcription factor binding sites, and by doing so, switch genes on and off.

Among the findings, the study reports that when compared with protein coding genes, binding site DNA shows close to three times as many "weakly deleterious mutations," that is, mutations that may weaken or make an individual more susceptible to disease, but are generally not severe. Weakly deleterious mutations exist in low frequencies in a population and are eventually weeded out over time. These mutations are responsible for many inherited human diseases.

While genes generally tend to resist change, a mutation occasionally leads to a favorable trait and increases across a population; this is called positive selection. By contrast, "transcription factor binding sites show considerable amounts of positive selection," said Arbiza, with evidence for adaptation in binding sites that regulate genes controlling blood cells, brain function and immunity, among others.

"The overall picture shows more evolutionary flexibility in the binding sites than in protein coding genes. This has important implications for how we think about human evolution and disease," said Siepel.

The study was published June 9 in Nature Genetics.

Source-ANI

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Age-related Smelling Loss Significantly Worse in African-Americans: Study

The study, published early online in the Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences, found that as they aged, African-Americans and Hispanics had comparable deficits. For Hispanics, many of whom are recent immigrants, social and cultural factors, such as disparities in education and household assets and health-related cognitive problems, accounted for the sensory loss. For African-Americans, however, premature presbyosmia?age-related declines in the ability to smell?could not be explained by social, environmental or medical factors.

"We have long known that men begin to lose their sense of smell some years sooner than women, but this is the first study to point to racial or ethnic differences," said study author Jayant Pinto, MD, associate professor of surgery at the University of Chicago. "What surprised us was the magnitude of the difference. The racial disparity was almost twice as large as the well-documented difference between men and women."

Although many people live long lives with only minor age-related declines in the ability to smell, about 24 percent of Americans 55 years or older have a measurable problem with their sense of smell, according to data from the National Institute on Aging. That rises to about 30 percent for those ages 70 to 80, and to more than 60 percent for those over age 80.

This study was one component of the University of Chicago-based National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), the first in-home study of social relationships and health in a large, nationally representative sample of older adults, ages 57 to 85.

For this project, conducted from 2005 to 2006, survey teams from the National Opinion Research Center used a standard, well-validated test to assess the ability of 3,005 older participants to identify five common odors. The scents were presented one at a time. Subjects were asked to identify each smell from a set of four choices. The odors, in order of increasing difficulty, included peppermint, fish, orange, rose and leather.

Personal information about race and ethnicity was provided by the study subjects. The surveyors also assessed their physical and mental health, social and financial resources, education, and alcohol or substance abuse through questionnaires and careful observation.

The researchers found that: Only half (49 percent) of those tested correctly identified five out of five odors; 78 percent got four or more right, 92 percent got at least three and 97 percent got two or more correct. Performance declined steadily across the age groups; 64 percent of those age 57 identified all five, but that fell to 25 percent of those age 85. Non-white subjects had consistently poorer performance, scoring 47 percent lower, equivalent to a nine-year increase in age. The study confirmed previous reports that women perform better at this task, equivalent to being five years younger. This study extended that finding across the age range, 57-85.

Caucasian women typically begin to experience some loss of smelling acuity in their early 70s, Pinto said. Caucasian men start about five years earlier, in their late-60s. Black and Hispanic women start in their mid-60s. Non-white men start in their late-50s or early 60s. Because the changes occur gradually over several years, many older people do not notice the decline.

The cause of this disparity is not clear. Genetic variation may play a role, as could exposure to nerve-damaging substances in the environment, or both. "Race likely serves as a proxy for differential environmental exposures and life experiences, which may interact with biological differences," the authors note.

Certain medications, chronic or recurrent nasal disease or exposure to various volatile chemicals can harm olfactory function. "Sanitation workers, for example, are often affected," Pinto said. "They are routinely exposed to noxious odors that can trigger inflammation."

Presbyosmia can have a substantial impact on wellbeing, the researchers emphasize. Those who can't detect odors are unable to maintain their personal hygiene. Food smells have a huge impact on how foods taste, so many with smelling deficits lose the joy of eating.

"They make poor food choices, get less nutrition," Pinto said. "They can't tell when foods have spoiled or detect odors that signal danger, like a gas leak or smoke."

Follow-up interviews with the original study subjects five years later confirmed earlier findings that impaired olfaction also is a harbinger of mortality. Those with the poorest sense of smell in 2006 were three times more likely to have died by 2011 than those with normal smell function.

"Olfaction is the canary in the coal mine of human health," Pinto said.

Source-Eurekalert

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Intervention Improves Adherence to Antibiotic Prescribing Guidelines for Children: Study

by Rukmani Krishna on? June 15, 2013 at 12:30 AM Child Health News According to a study in the June 12 issue of JAMA, an intervention consisting of clinician education coupled with personalized audit and feedback about antibiotic prescribing improved adherence to prescribing guidelines for common pediatric bacterial acute respiratory tract infections, although the intervention did not affect antibiotic prescribing for viral infections.
"Antibiotics are the most common prescription drugs given to children. Although hospitalized children frequently receive antibiotics, the vast majority of antibiotic use occurs in the outpatient setting, roughly 75 percent of which is for acute respiratory tract infections (ARTIs). Unnecessary prescribing for viral ARTIs is well documented and has been declining. However, inappropriate prescribing also occurs for bacterial ARTIs, particularly when broad-spectrum antibiotics are used to treat infections for which narrow-spectrum antibiotics are indicated and recommended," according to background information in the article. "Antimicrobial stewardship programs have been effective for inpatients, often through prescribing audit and feedback. However, most antimicrobial use occurs in outpatients with acute respiratory tract infections.

Jeffrey S. Gerber, M.D., Ph.D., of The Children''s Hospital of Philadelphia, and colleagues conducted a study to evaluate the effect of an antimicrobial stewardship intervention on antibiotic prescribing for pediatric outpatients. The randomized trial of outpatient antimicrobial stewardship compared prescribing between intervention and control practices using a common electronic health record. After excluding children with chronic medical conditions, antibiotic allergies, and prior antibiotic use, the researchers estimated prescribing rates for targeted ARTIs standardized for age, sex, race, and insurance from 20 months before the intervention to 12 months afterward (October 2008-June 2011). The study included a network of 18 pediatric primary care practices in Pennsylvania and New Jersey (162 clinicians). Overall, there were 1,291,824 office visits by 185,212 unique patients.

The intervention consisted of one 1-hour on-site clinician education session followed by 1 year of personalized, quarterly audit and feedback of prescribing for bacterial and viral ARTIs or usual practice. The researchers measured rates of broad-spectrum (off-guideline) antibiotic prescribing for bacterial ARTIs and antibiotics for viral ARTIs for 1 year after the intervention.

The authors found that among children who were prescribed antibiotics for any indication, the overall proportion of antibiotic prescriptions that were broad-spectrum decreased from 26.8 percent to 14.3 percent in the intervention group and from 28.4 percent to 22.6 percent in control practices (difference of differences [DOD], 6.7 percent) during the 12-months following initiation of education/audit and feedback.

"When stratifying by the individual bacterial ARTIs targeted by the intervention, broad-spectrum (off-guideline) antibiotic prescribing for pneumonia decreased from 15.7 percent to 4.2 percent in the intervention group and from 17.1 percent to 16.3 percent in the control group (DOD, 10.7 percent). Broad-spectrum prescribing for acute sinusitis decreased from 38.9 percent to 18.8 percent in the intervention group and from 40.0 percent to 33.9 percent in the control practices (DOD, 14.0 percent). Broad-spectrum prescribing for streptococcal pharyngitis started and remained low for both the intervention group (from 4.4 percent to 3.4 percent) and the control group (from 5.6 percent to 3.5 percent) (DOD, -1.1 percent)," they write.

In addition, the baseline rate of any antibiotic prescribing for viral infections was low and did not change significantly after the intervention in either the intervention group (from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent) or the control group (from 6.4 percent to 4.5 percent) (DOD, -1.7 percent).

"This intervention nearly halved prescribing of broad-spectrum antibiotics to children during acute primary care encounters and decreased use of off-guideline antibiotics for children with pneumonia by 75 percent by 1 year after the intervention," the researchers note.

"Our findings suggest that extending antimicrobial stewardship to the ambulatory setting, where such programs have generally not been implemented, may have important health benefits."

"This targeted application of antimicrobial stewardship principles to the ambulatory setting has the potential to affect the most common indications for antibiotic use. Future studies should examine the key drivers of these effects on antibiotic prescribing and the generalizability of findings to other health systems and measure the sustainability and clinical outcomes associated with differential prescribing patterns," the authors conclude.

Source-Newswise

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HRT Does Not Increase Risk of Dementia in Postmenopausal Women: New Study

Earlier studies had linked hormone replacement therapy to a doubled risk of dementia and a reduced memory, but a new study published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine is all set to prove it wrong.

A team of researchers from the Wake Forest School of Medicine, North Carolina, recruited around 1,300 women for the study, all of them between the age of 50 and 55 years. All the study subjects were already under hormone replacement therapy medication.

The researchers gave one group of women their normal HRT medication, and another group a placebo. For seven years, the women were closely monitored, after which, their brain function scores were taken.

The results so obtained revealed no overall difference in the scores between women on placebo and the women taking their HRT medications.

"Our findings provide reassurance that CEO-based (conjugated equine oestrogens) therapies when administered to women earlier in the postmenopausal period do not seem to convey long-term adverse consequences for cognitive function," explained Dr Mark Espeland, a professor of biostatistics who led the research.

However, they did report - 'We are not able to address whether initiating hormone therapy during menopause and maintaining therapy until any symptoms are passed affects cognitive function, either in the short or longer term'.

Some minor speech disturbances occurring due to long-term use of HRT medications had also been shunned, attributing them to being statistically insignificant.

This study may come as a relief to around 1.5 million British women who use hormone replacement therapy to manage their symptoms of menopause. HRT medications have proved to be quite effective in treating symptoms associated with menopause including mood swings, hot flushes and more.

Source-Medindia

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Men Get Bored With Shopping in Just 26 Minutes: Study

by Sheela Philomena on? July 06, 2013 at 11:03 AM Lifestyle News A recent study indicates that men can tolerate shopping just for 26 minutes with a female partner before they become bored.
According to London Telegraph, research conducted by Quidco.com, also found that women get tired of shopping after a couple of hours if they fail to find anything to buy, News.com.au reported.

The study of 2000 Britons suggested that eight in 10 men found clothes shopping with their partner boring.

Around 45 per cent people admitted that they avoid shopping with their female partners all together.

One in four admitted that they have abandoned a shopping trip and gone home alone after becoming fed up, while one in three will sit outside a shop and wait.

Almost 50 per cent respondents said that shopping together has ended in an argument.

Source-ANI

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Omega-3 Fatty Acids Cut Down Risk of Pelvic Fracture in Postmenopausal Women: Study

Prof. Rebecca Jackson and her colleagues conducted a study to assess the relationship between omega-3 fatty acids and fractures of hips. Her research was published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research.

They examined the red blood corpuscles of females with and without past history of fractured hip and found that high levels of omega-3 fatty acids of both plant and animal origin were associated with decreased risk of having fractured pelvis.

While comparing the effect of omega-3 fatty acids with those of omega-6 fatty acids, the experts noticed that the risk of hip fracture increased with the rising ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids.

The researchers however were unclear about the exact mechanism responsible for this strange association, they figured that inflammation may account for bone resorption, the process of breaking down of bone due to release of osteoclasts.

Prof. Rebecca Jackson, the study's senior author and a professor of endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism at The Ohio State University mentioned, "Inflammation is associated with an increased risk of bone loss and fractures, and omega-3 fatty acids are believed to reduce inflammation. So we asked if we would see fractures decrease in response to omega-3 intake."

She added, "One thing that was critically important was that we didn't use self-report of food intake, because there can be errors with that. We looked directly at the exposure of the bone cell to the fatty acids, which is at the red blood cell level."

"Red blood cell levels also give an indication of long-term exposure to these fatty acids, which we took into account in looking for a preventive effect."

Fractured hips are the most frequent osteoporosis-related fractures with reported mortality rates up to 20 to 24 percent in the first year after a hip fracture according to the International Osteoporosis Foundation data.

Since the study did not assess the cause and effects, the researchers could not suggest whether intake of omega-3 as supplements could prevent fractures in postmenopausal females.

Prof. Tonya Orchard, the assistant professor of human nutrition at Ohio State and the first author of the study said, "We don't yet know whether omega-3 supplementation would affect results for bone health or other outcomes."

Tonya added, "Though it's premature to make a nutrition recommendation based on this work, I do think this study adds a little more strength to current recommendations to include more omega-3s in the diet in the form of fish, and suggests that plant sources of omega-3 may be just as important for preventing hip fractures in women."

Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids are essential fatty acids as well as polyunsaturated fatty acids which implies that they are needed for biological processes but must be consumed because the human body does not produce them on its own.

Omega-6 fatty acids have both anti- and pro-inflammatory effects while; omega-3 fatty acids have anti-inflammatory qualities.

The scientists enrolled volunteers from 1993 to 1998 and tracked them for fifteen years. Their blood samples and hip fracture records were obtained from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), a large national prospective study of postmenopausal women.

The analysis revealed that high amount of omega-3 fatty acids and two other specific kinds of omega-3s were concerned with lower tendency of hip fractures.

Females having high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids have twice the threat of hip fracture in comparison to females with the lowest ratios.

According to experts eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) are the main omega-3 fatty acids associated with reducing the risk of fractured hip.

Alpha-linolenic acid is derived from flaxseed oil and some nuts while eicosapentaenoic acid is found in abundance in fatty fish. Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) does not have a major role in hip of fractures.

Prof. Tonya Orchard, mentioned, "But all three omega-3s were in the protective direction."

This work was financially aided by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. The WHI was supported by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

Reference: Journal of Bone and Mineral Research 2013.

Source-Medindia

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Keeping Blood Pressure and Cholesterol in Check Could Cut Heart Disease Risk by Half: Study

by Rukmani Krishna on? July 04, 2013 at 1:11 PM Heart Disease News A new research has claimed that controlling your high blood pressure and high cholesterol simultaneously could decrease your risk of attaining heart disease by half or more.
Brent M. Egan, M.D., lead study author and a professor of medicine and pharmacology at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C, said that undertreated high blood pressure and cholesterol affect millions of Americans - posing a major public health threat.

He said that the reality is that they know more than enough to prevent 75 percent of heart disease and strokes, but people not doing everything that they can do or even do it at a reasonable level.

Egan asserted that some gradual improvements have been made over the years, but there is still a lot of progress to be made.

The findings are based on data of more than 17,000 American adults who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys during in 1988-94, 1999-2004 and 2005-10.

In addition to reviewing patients' blood pressure and cholesterol levels, researchers considered race, age, insurance status, whether patients smoked, had diabetes, had diagnosed heart disease and/or chronic kidney disease, and if they visited a doctor every year.

Egan also said that if patients' cholesterol tests show a good high-density lipoprotein (HDL) level, which is the healthy, protective cholesterol, then the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) number might get overlooked.

He explained that not all HDL is equally protective and some people with a normal HDL are at high risk and in those patients, there might be a false sense of assurance that cholesterol really isn't a problem.

He added that LDL and non-HDL readings are the ones to really watch and patients seeing their doctors for BP treatment should ask about their LDL and non-HDL levels and make sure both are under control at the same time.

The research has been published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation.

Source-ANI

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Study Says 'Cousin Marriage' Doubles Gene Risk for Babies

The city, which has a high proportion of South Asian immigrants and their descendants among its population, served as a microcosm for examining the risk of blood relative couplings.

About 37 percent of marriages among people of Pakistani origin in the study involved first cousins, compared to less than one percent of "British unions", said the researchers.

University of Leeds investigator Eamonn Sheridan led a team that pored over data from the "Born in Bradford" study, which tracks the health of 13,500 babies born at the city's main hospital between 2007 and 2011.

Out of 11,396 babies for whom family details were known, 18 percent were the offspring of first-cousin unions, mainly among people of Pakistani heritage.

A total of 386 babies -- three percent -- were born with anomalies ranging from problems in the nervous, respiratory and digestive systems, to urinary and genital defects and cleft palates.

This Bradford rate was nearly twice the national average, said the study.

Other factors blamed for genetic flaws, such as alcohol consumption, smoking and social deprivation, can be ruled out, it said.

"Thirty-one percent of all anomalies in children of Pakistani origin could be attributed to consanguinity" or marriage between first cousins, said the study.

The authors say theirs was the first study to delve into the causes of congenital abnormalities in a broad population.

Co-researcher Neil Small said that in absolute terms, the risk from consanguineous marriage was still small.

The study noted, in fact, that the risk was about the same as for older white British mothers -- an age deemed to be 34 years and above.

Even so, "sensitive advice (about) avoidable risks" should be disseminated to communities and couples in consanguineous unions, he said. The findings should also inform health professionals in antenatal care and genetic testing.

The paper said 90 infant deaths a year among Pakistani mothers in England and Wales could be attributed to congenital anomalies.

Consanguinity is a deeply rooted social phenomenon, The Lancet noted.

"More than one billion people worldwide currently (live) in communities where consanguineous marriages are commonplace."

Source-AFP

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Study Sheds Light on Smoking Cessation, Weight Gain, and Subsequent Heart Disease Risk

"Cigarette smoking is an important cause of cardiovascular disease, and smoking cessation reduces the risk. However, weight gain after smoking cessation may increase the risk of diabetes and weaken the benefit of quitting," write Juhua Luo, Ph.D., of the Indiana University School of Public Health, Bloomington, Ind., and colleagues.

As reported in a Research Letter, the authors used data from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) to assess the association between smoking cessation, weight gain, and subsequent coronary heart disease (CHD) risk among postmenopausal women with and without diabetes. In the WHI, 161,808 postmenopausal women 50 through 79 years of age were recruited from 40 sites between 1993 and 1998 and followed up every 6 to 12 months. Women without known cancer or cardiovascular disease at baseline or CHD at year 3 were followed up until CHD diagnosis, date of death, loss to follow-up, or September 30, 2010, whichever occurred first.

Of 104,391 women followed up, 3,381 developed CHD, during an average of 8.8 years. The researchers found that smoking cessation was associated with a lower risk of CHD among postmenopausal women with and without diabetes. Weight gain following smoking cessation weakened this association, especially for women with diabetes who gained 11 lbs. or more, although power was limited in this subgroup due to the small number of cases.

Source-Eurekalert

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Cancer Drug Responsiveness in Human Tumors Predicted By UNC Murine Study

UNC scientists used GEMMs to develop biomarkers for challenging molecular subtypes of human breast cancer, those for which there are fewer targets and therapies. Their work helps to further establish genetically engineered mouse models as predictors of human response to therapy.

The molecular subtypes of breast cancer that the UNC group focused on - basal-like, luminal B, and claudin-low - are the most challenging types of breast cancer because these are tumors that don't typically respond to drugs such as Herceptin or aromatase inhibitors. UNC was among the first to characterize these tumor subtypes, and this new report extends the understanding of them.

The UNC team found that GEMMs were able to accurately predict human response to a standard chemotherapy drug combination commonly used in the clinic.

Charles Perou, PhD, study senior author, says, "This is a wonderful example of how well chosen mouse models can inform a human disease state. In this case we used years of research to match the models to specific human subtypes, and then treated the animals with therapies identical to what human cancer patients are receiving. We were ultimately able to develop a biomarker of treatment response from the mouse that works in humans."

Dr. Perou is the May Goldman Shaw Professor of Molecular Oncology Research and a member of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Their findings were published in the June 19, 2013 online issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research.

The team developed murine-derived gene signatures that corresponded to a distinct treatment response and then tested their predictive potential using human patient data. Their research tested single agents carboplatin, paclitaxel, erlotinib and lapatinib. Although one single agent exhibited exceptional efficacy, other single agents offered more modest results.

The team identified a pair of gene expression signatures that predicted pathological complete response to neoadjuvant anthracycline (doxorubicin)/taxane (paclitaxel) therapy in human patients with breast cancer, even among the difficult to treat triple negative patient subset.

Traditional mouse model research was conducted using mice without immune systems into which human tumors or cell lines were grafted. In contrast, by manipulating genes in GEMMs scientists are able to observe how cancer develops as it does in humans, in the presence of an immune system, thus making the results more similar to human cancers.

Source-Eurekalert

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Exercise Benefits Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: Study

Type 2 diabetes occurs when the body does not produce enough insulin, a hormone that regulates the movement of sugar into the cells, or when the cells resist the effects of insulin. The disease can lead to a wide range of complications, including damage to the eyes and kidneys and hardening of the arteries.

Exercise is recommended for people with diabetes, but its effects on different fat deposits in the body are unclear, according to the study's senior author, Hildo J. Lamb, M.D., Ph.D., from the Department of Radiology at Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

"Based on previous studies, we noticed that different fat deposits in the body show a differential response to dietary or medical intervention," he said. "Metabolic and other effects of exercise are hard to investigate, because usually an exercise program is accompanied by changes in lifestyle and diet."

For the new study, Dr. Lamb and colleagues assessed the effects of exercise on organ-specific fat accumulation and cardiac function in type 2 diabetes patients, independent of any other lifestyle or dietary changes. The 12 patients, average age 46 years, underwent MRI examinations before and after six months of moderate-intensity exercise totaling between 3.5 and six hours per week and featuring two endurance and two resistance training sessions. The exercise cycle culminated with a 12-day trekking expedition.

MRI results showed that, although cardiac function was not affected, the exercise program led to a significant decrease in fat volume in the abdomen, liver and around the heart, all of which have been previously shown to be associated with increased cardiovascular risk.

"In the present study we observed that the second layer of fat around the heart, the peracardial fat, behaved similarly in response to exercise training as intra-abdominal, or visceral fat," Dr. Lamb said. "The fat content in the liver also decreased substantially after exercise."

Dr. Lamb noted that the exercise-induced fat reductions in the liver are of particular importance to people with type 2 diabetes, many of whom are overweight or obese.

"The liver plays a central role in regulating total body fat distribution," he said. "Therefore, reduction of liver fat content and visceral fat volume by physical exercise are very important to reverse the adverse effects of lipid accumulation elsewhere, such as the heart and arterial vessel wall."

The findings point to an important role for imaging in identifying appropriate treatment for patients with type 2 diabetes, which the World Health Organization projects to be the seventh leading cause of death worldwide by 2030.

"In the future, we hope to be able to use advanced imaging techniques to predict in individual patients which therapeutic strategy is most effective: diet, medication, exercise, surgery or certain combinations," Dr. Lamb said.

Source-Eurekalert

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Study Underlines Benefits of Linking Multiple Health Record Sources

Electronic health records are increasingly used to measure health outcomes, and for research, but records from one part of the health service (e.g. primary care) may not capture health events occurring in other parts of the health system (e.g. hospital care).

So a team of researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and UCL compared electronic health records for one major disease event - heart attack (myocardial infarction) - across four national health record sources in England: primary care, hospital care, disease registry and death records.

Previous studies have typically compared only one or two electronic sources.

They identified 21,482 patients with a record of acute myocardial infarction in one or more of the four data sources.

Risk factor profiles and one year all cause mortality rates were comparable across records from different sources.

However, they found that each data source missed a substantial proportion of cases. For example, only one third of non-fatal myocardial infarctions were recorded in all three data sources (primary care, hospital care and disease registry), while two thirds were recorded in two sources.

Primary care records were the single most complete source of non-fatal myocardial infarction records (not recording one quarter), hospital records missed one third and the disease registry nearly half.

In other words, acute myocardial infarction was underestimated by 25-50% using one source compared to using all three.

"With the current emphasis on measuring clinical outcomes in health systems and recent plans to use linked data to drive improvements in the care of patients with cardiovascular disease, our study has important implications for practice and policy," say the authors.

And they say future research should focus on areas such as improving how data are coded, understanding how linkages with primary care, admission to hospital and mortality data compare, and evaluating the quality of the data available in these linked data.

Source-Eurekalert

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Potatoes may be One of the Best Superfoods, Says Study

Dr. Adam Drewnowski and colleagues from the University of Washington used a combination of nutrient profiling methods and national food prices data to create an "affordability index," which was then used to examine the nutrients per unit cost of 98 individual vegetables as well as five vegetable subgroups including dark green, orange/red, starchy, legumes (beans and peas) and "other" vegetables.

The results indicated while dark green vegetables had the highest nutrient density scores, after accounting for cost, starchy vegetables (including potatoes) and beans provided better nutritional value for the money.

Potatoes, in particular, provide one of the lowest cost options for four key nutrients including potassium, fiber, vitamin C and magnesium.

Among the most frequently consumed vegetables, potatoes and beans were the lowest-cost sources of potassium and fiber-nutrients of concern, as identified by the 2010 USDA Dietary Guidelines.

"The ability to identify affordable, nutrient dense vegetables is important to families focused on stretching their food dollar as well as government policy makers looking to balance nutrition and economics for food programs such as the school lunch program and WIC," lead researcher Adam Drewnowski, PhD said.

"And, when it comes to affordable nutrition, it's hard to beat potatoes," he said.

The study was funded by the United States Potato Board and adds to the growing database of nutrition science that supports potatoes in a healthful diet.

In addition, one medium-size (5.3 ounce) skin-on potato contains just 110 calories per serving, boasts more potassium (620g) than a banana (450g), provides almost half the daily value of vitamin C (45 percent), and contains no fat, sodium or cholesterol.

The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Source-ANI

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OSA is Associated With Less Visceral Fat Accumulation in Women Than Men: Study

"Visceral fat accumulation, which is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, is also associated with OSA, and gender differences in mortality related to sleep apnea have been reported in some studies. Accordingly, we examined if the relationship between OSA and visceral fat accumulation differed by gender," said Drs. Yuka Harada, MD and Kazuo Chin MD.PhD, of the Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine. "We found that visceral fat accumulation was associated with OSA in men, but not in women."

The study results will be presented at the ATS 2013 International Conference in Philadelphia.

The study enrolled 271 male and 100 female patients who were evaluated for OSA between October 2008 and December 2010.

Body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference were similar in men and women. Compared with women, men had greater visceral fat accumulation, more severe OSA, and more severe dyslipidemia.

Statistical analyses of the relationships between OSA and fat accumulation revealed that in men, age, BMI, and two indicators of OSA (minimum oxygen saturation during sleep and alveolar-arterial oxygen difference) were independently associated with visceral fat accumulation, while in women, only BMI was associated with visceral fat accumulation.

Measurements of subcutaneous fat were related to BMI in both men and women, but were not related to OSA parameters.

"The complex relationship between OSA and obesity is well documented," said Drs Harada and Chin. "If our findings that visceral fat accumulation is associated with OSA only in men are confirmed in further studies, it may help in the development of new prognostic tools and treatment approaches in this population."

Source-Newswise

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