The problematic therapy investigated involves suppression of the protein mTOR (mammalian target Of Rapamycin). MTOR plays an important role in regulating how cells process molecular signals from their environment, and it is observed as strongly activated in many solid cancers…
source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/24/newly-insured-to-deepen-primary-care-doctor-gap/
WASHINGTON – & The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says an outbreak of hepatitis A linked to a frozen berry mix sold at Costco has grown to 87 people with illnesses in eight states. The CDC said Tuesday that illnesses have been reported in Arizona, California Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Washington. Townsend Farms of Fairview, Ore., last week recalled its frozen Organic Antioxidant Blend, packaged under the Townsend Farms label at Costco and under the Harris Teeter brand at those stores. So far the illnesses have only been linked to the berries sold at Costco. Craig Wilson, director of food safety at Costco, said the store is providing vaccinations for people who ate the berries within the last two weeks and is reimbursing others who have gotten the vaccine outside the store. The store has contacted about 240,000 people who purchased the berries at one of their stores, Wilson said. The company knows who bought the berries because purchases are linked to a membership card that customers present when they check out. The Food and Drug Administration is investigating the cause of the outbreak. The CDC said the strain of hepatitis is rarely seen in North or South America but is found in the North Africa and Middle East regions. Townsend Farms has said the frozen organic blend bag includes pomegranate seeds from Turkey. Hepatitis A is a contagious liver disease that can last from a few weeks to a several months. People often contract it when an infected food handler prepares food without appropriate hand hygiene. The CDC said that food already contaminated with the virus can also cause outbreaks, as is suspected in this case. Illnesses occur within 15 to 50 days of exposure to the hepatitis A virus, CDC said. Symptoms include fatigue, abdominal pain, jaundice, abnormal liver tests, dark urine and pale stool. Vaccination can prevent illness if given within two weeks of exposure, and those who have already been vaccinated are unlikely to become ill. CDC said the illnesses date back to mid-March. The same genotype of hepatitis A was identified in an outbreak in Europe linked to frozen berries this year, the CDC said, as well as a 2012 outbreak in British Columbia related to a frozen berry blend with pomegranate seeds from Egypt. The agency said there is no evidence the outbreaks are related. Lawsuits have already been filed against Townsend Farms in California, Colorado, Hawaii and Washington state, with more expected in the other affected states, said a spokeswoman for Seattle-based food safety lawyer Bill Marler. The class action lawsuits ask for compensation for the treatment and also reimbursement for the vaccines.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/12/hepatitis-linked-to-frozen-berries-sickens-87/
The use of CT in pediatrics has increased over the last two decades. The ionizing radiation doses delivered by the tests are higher than convention radiography and are in ranges that have been linked to an increased risk of cancer…
We're all grown-ups here—nightmares aren't a big problem anymore. We're calm, we're cool, we're mostly collected...until it comes to the C-word. For adults, cancer is the thing that goes bump in the night; that bump gets louder when family or friends are diagnosed. Whether your risk is monumental or blessedly average, we know you want to protect yourself. So we've combed through research, interrogated experts, and found cutting-edge strategies to help keep you safe. Worship a wee bit of sun People who get the most vitamin D, which lies dormant in skin until ultraviolet rays activate it, may protect themselves from a variety of cancers, including non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, breast, and colon. Ironically, it even improves survival rates of melanoma, the most serious skin cancer. But 10 to 15 minutes a few days a week is all it takes to benefit. If you're out any longer than that, slather on the sunscreen (Are you applying enough? We’ve got the recommended amount for every body part, here.) If you go the supplement route, aim for 400 IU of vitamin D a day. Eat an orange every day It just may zap a strain of the H. pylori bacteria that causes peptic ulcers and can lead to stomach cancer. Researchers in San Francisco found that infected people with high levels of vitamin C in their blood were less likely to test positive for the cancer-causing strain. (Bonus: research shows a scent of citrus can reduce stress.) Listen to Katie Couric Though colonoscopies are about as popular as root canals, if you're 50 or older, get one. Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Don't think you're off the hook because you got a digital fecal occult blood test at your last checkup: Research by the Veterans Affairs Cooperative Study found that the test missed 95 percent of the cases. Schedule your first colonoscopy before your 50th if you have a family history of colon cancer. Steam a little green Piles of studies have shown that piles of broccoli help stave off ovarian, stomach, lung, bladder, and colorectal cancers. And steaming it for three to four minutes enhances the power of the cancer-fighting compound sulforaphane, which has been shown to halt the growth of breast cancer cells. (Sorry, microwaving doesn't do the trick; it strips out most antioxidants.) Get more protection by sprinkling a handful of selenium-rich sunflower seeds, nuts, or mushrooms on your greens. Researchers are discovering that sulforaphane is about 13 times more potent when combined with the mineral selenium. Pick a doc with a past Experience—lots of it—is critical when it comes to accurately reading mammograms. A study from the University of California, San Francisco, found that doctors with at least 25 years' experience were more accurate at interpreting images and less likely to give false positives. Ask about your radiologist's track record. If she is freshly minted or doesn't check a high volume of mammograms, get a second read from someone with more mileage. Drink jolt-less java Drink jolt-less java. Downing two or more cups of decaf a day may lower the incidence of rectal cancer by 52 percent, finds a study from two large and long-term research projects—the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study from Harvard University. One theory is that coffee increases bowel movements, which helps to reduce the risk. Why decaf reigns supreme, however, remains a mystery. Drop 10 pounds Being overweight or obese accounts for 20 percent of all cancer deaths among women and 14 percent among men, notes the American Cancer Society. (You're overweight if your body mass index is between 25 and 29.9; you're obese if it's 30 or more.) Plus, losing excess pounds reduces the body's production of female hormones, which may protect against breast, endometrial, and ovarian cancers. Even if you're not technically overweight, gaining just 10 pounds after the age of 30 increases your risk of developing breast, pancreatic, and cervical, among other cancers. Make like a monkey Or a bunny. Women who ate four to six antioxidant-laden bananas a week cut their risk of kidney cancer by 54 percent, compared with those who didn't eat them at all, found an analysis of 61,000 women at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Gnawing on root vegetables such as carrots had the same benefit. Get naked with a friend You'll need help examining every inch of your body—including your back, scalp, and other hard-to-see places—for possible changes in the size or color of moles, blemishes, and freckles. These marks could spell skin cancer. Women, take special note of your legs: Melanoma mainly occurs there. For the guys, the trunk, head, and neck are the most diagnosed spots. While you're at it, check your fingernails and toenails, too. Gray-black discoloration or a distorted or elevated nail may indicate the disease. And whether you see changes or not, after age 40, everyone should see a dermatologist yearly. (Find out 7 more things your nails can say about your health.) See into the future Go to Your Disease Risk to assess your chance of developing 12 types of cancer, including ovarian, breast, and colon. After the interactive tool estimates your risk, you'll get personalized tips for prevention. Pay attention to pain If you're experiencing a bloated belly, pelvic pain, and an urgent need to urinate, see your doc. These symptoms may signal ovarian cancer, particularly if they're severe and frequent. Women and physicians often ignore these symptoms, and that's the very reason that this disease can be deadly. When caught early, before cancer has spread outside the ovary, the relative five-year survival rate for ovarian cancer is a jaw-dropping 90 to 95 percent. Get calcium daily Milk's main claim to fame may also help protect your colon. Those who took calcium faithfully for four years had a 36 percent reduction in the development of new pre-cancerous colon polyps five years after the study had ended, revealed Dartmouth Medical School researchers. (They tracked 822 people who took either 1,200 mg of calcium every day or a placebo.) Though the study was not on milk itself, you can get the same amount of calcium in three 8-ounce glasses of fat-free milk, along with an 8-ounce serving of yogurt or a 2- to 3-ounce serving of low-fat cheese daily. Sweat 30 minutes a day One of the best anticancer potions is a half hour of motion at least five days a week. Any kind of physical activity modulates levels of androgens and estrogen, two things that can protect women against estrogen-driven cancers such as ovarian and endometrial, as well as some types of breast cancer. The latest proof comes by way of a Canadian study that found that women who get regular, moderate exercise may lower their risk of ovarian cancer by as much as 30 percent. Bonus: All that moving might speed everything through your colon, which may help stave off colon cancer. (Trouble carving out 30 minutes a day? Be ready for a fitness opportunity at a moment’s notice by keeping a perfectly packed gym bag in your car at all times.) Stamp out smoking—all around you Lung cancer is well known as one of the main hazards of smoking. But everything the smoke passes on its way to the lungs can also turn cancerous: mouth, larynx, and esophagus. The fun doesn't stop there. Smokers are encouraging stomach, liver, prostate, colorectal, cervical, and breast cancers as well. The good news: If you give up the cigs today, within 15 years, your lung cancer risk will drop to almost pre-smoking lows. Share that news with the people who puff around you, because exposure to someone else's smoke can cause lung cancer, and it may boost your chances of cervical cancer by 40 percent. Step away from the white bread If you eat a lot of things with a high glycemic load—a measurement of how quickly food raises your blood sugar—you may run a higher risk of colorectal cancer than women who eat low-glycemic-load foods, finds a Harvard Medical School study involving 38,000 women. The problem eats are mostly white: white bread, pasta, potatoes, and sugary pastries. The low-glycemic-load stuff comes with fiber. Blew through our list already
People who limit how much meat they eat and stick to mostly fruits and vegetables are less likely to die over any particular period of time, according to a new study. “I think this adds to the evidence showing the possible beneficial effect of vegetarian diets in the prevention of chronic diseases and the improvement of longevity,” said Dr. Michael Orlich, the study's lead author from Loma Linda University in California. In 2012, a Gallup poll found about 5 percent of Americans reported to be vegetarians. Previous research has found that people who eat mostly fruits and vegetables are less likely to die of heart disease or any other cause over certain periods of time. Another study from Europe, however, found British vegetarians were just as likely to die at any point as meat eaters, so it's still an “open question,” Orlich said. For the new study, he and his colleagues used data from 73,308 people recruited at U.S. and Canadian Seventh-day Adventist churches between 2002 and 2007. At the start of the study, the participants were asked about their eating habits and were separated into categories based on how often they ate dairy, eggs, fish and meat. Overall, 8 percent were vegans who didn't eat any animal products while 29 percent were lacto-ovo-vegetarians who didn't eat fish or meat but did eat dairy and egg products. Another 15 percent occasionally ate meat, including fish. The researchers then used a national database to see how many of the participants died by December 31, 2009. Overall, they found about seven people died of any cause per 1,000 meat eaters over a year. That compared to about five or six deaths per 1,000 vegetarians every year. Men seemed to benefit the most from a plant-based diet. Orlich cautioned, however, that they can't say the participants' plant-based diets prevented their deaths, because there may be other unmeasured differences between the groups. For example, Alice Lichtenstein, director of the Cardiovascular Nutrition Laboratory at Tufts University in Boston, said the participants who were vegetarians were healthier overall. “It's important to note that the vegetarians in this study were more highly educated, less likely to smoke, exercised more and were thinner,” Lichtenstein, who was not involved with the new study, told Reuters Health. Those traits have all been tied to better overall health in the past. Should you go veg? Dr. Robert Baron, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new study in JAMA Internal Medicine, said the new evidence doesn't mean everyone should switch to a plant-based diet. “I don't think everybody should be a vegetarian, but if they want to be, this article suggests it's associated with good health outcomes,” said Baron, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. Instead, he writes limiting added sugars, refined grains and saturated fats trumps whether or not to include a moderate amount of dairy, eggs, fish or meat. Previous research has found that people who were on a mostly plant-based diet still had lower cholesterol while eating a small amount of lean beef. “It's like everything else, you have to think about it in terms of the whole package,” Lichtenstein said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/04/vegetarian-diet-tied-to-fewer-deaths-over-time/
Writing in this week’s online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Willis X. Li, PhD, a professor in the Department of Medicine at UC San Diego, reports that a particular form of a signaling protein called STAT5A stabilizes the formation of heterochromatin (a form of chromosomal DNA), which in turn suppresses the ability of cancer cells to issue instructions to multiply and grow. Specifically, Li and colleagues found that the unphosphorylated form of STAT promotes and stabilizes heterochromatin, which keeps DNA tightly packaged and inaccessible to transcription factors. …
The Oregon Zoo has quarantined an elephant that tested positive for tuberculosis. “Rama,” an Asian elephant that was born at the Portland-based zoo in 1983, tested positive on Friday. He shows no symptoms of the disease, poses no threat to visitors and is expected to make a complete recovery, zoo staff said. “We're confident Rama is going to be fine,” zoo director Kim Smith told The Oregonian newspaper. “It's a very treatable disease. We've caught it early with Rama. We feel very good about this.” Treatment with drugs, however, is expensive, costing more than $50,000, the newspaper reported. None of the other elephants in the zoo's heard of eight Asian elephants are showing signs of tuberculosis, but they will be retested. The zoo tested some staff members Friday and will continue this week. It's unknown how Rama contracted the disease. Tuberculosis spreads among people and between people and animals through airborne bacteria carried in droplets. To become infected, you must be directly exposed to the bacteria while it's airborne. “In order to contact TB, you have to be in really close contact for hours at a stretch,” Smith said. The zoo has tested the herd annually for TB since 1999, based on guidelines developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Those guidelines stemmed from the 1996 deaths of two circus elephants touring in California. An estimated 3 percent of the elephants in the United States have the disease, according to a 2000 study published in the journal Zoo Biology. The zoo gets 1.6 million visitors a year and the elephant herd is a popular attraction. Rama is the smallest of its adult bull elephants, weighing 9,000 pounds.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/03/elephant-at-portland-zoo-has-tuberculosis/
A Merck & Co drug designed to unmask tumor cells and mobilize the immune system into fighting cancer helped shrink tumors in 38 percent of patients with advanced melanoma in an early-stage study, U.S. researchers said on Sunday. Based on the findings about the drug lambrolizumab, published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, Merck says it will move directly into a late-stage clinical trial, which will start in the third quarter. “This is a top priority at Merck,” Dr. Gary Gilliand, senior vice present and head of oncology at Merck Research Laboratories said in a meeting with investors. “We're going flat out to deliver benefit to patients with this novel mechanism.” The moves may heap pressure on market leader Bristol-Myers Squibb, maker of Yervoy - the only approved immune system drug for the treatment of advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer. Bristol-Myers is conducting three phase-three studies of its own drug called nivolumab in advanced melanoma, and is studying the drug's effect on a range of other cancers, including lung cancer. Both nivolumab and lambrolizumab are part of a promising new class of drugs that disable programmed death 1 or PD-1, a protein that keeps the immune system from spotting and attacking cancer cells. “Even though it's (lambrolizumab) the second player in the field and even though it's all early, it impressed me,” said Dr. Antoni Ribas of the University of California Los Angeles' Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, the lead author of the study. Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed the treatment a “breakthrough therapy,” a designation FDA cancer drugs chief Dr. Richard Pazdur described as “knock-your-socks-off therapies.” Results of an early-stage study of nivolumab in advanced melanoma released at the cancer meeting showed 31 percent of patients overall responded to different doses of the drug. Among those who took the 3 milligram per kilogram dose, 41 percent of patients responded. The drug response lasted an average of two years, and in many patients the drug kept working even after they stopped taking it. Analysts expect the drugs to generate billions of dollars in sales. Nivolumab alone is forecast to have sales of $1.2 billion in 2017, according to Wall Street analysts tracked by Thomson Reuters Pharma. Merck's study Merck's results are from the first clinical trial of lambrolizumab in advanced melanoma. They are based on analysis of 135 patients with metastatic melanoma who were divided into three groups with different treatment regimens. Overall, lambrolizumab resulted in 38 percent of patients having confirmed improvement of their cancer across all dose levels given after 12 weeks of treatment. But there was a wide range among doses, with only a 25 percent rate among patients who got the lowest dose and 52 percent among those who got the highest dose. In the highest dose group, 10 percent had a complete response, meaning their tumors could not be detected on scans. Side effects were generally mild and included fatigue, fevers, skin rash, loss of skin color and muscle weakness. More severe side effects were seen in 13 percent of patients, including inflammation of the lung or kidney and thyroid problems. “This study is showing the highest rate of durable melanoma responses of any drug we have tested thus far in this cancer, and it is doing it without serious side effects in the great majority of patients,” Ribas said. Merck said it plans to start a late-stage randomized trial of the drug in melanoma and in non-small cell lung cancer in the third quarter of this year. The company recently started a global, randomized mid-stage study of the drug versus standard chemotherapy in patients whose disease had progressed. And it is studying the drug as a treatment for triple negative breast, metastatic bladder and head and neck cancers. Researchers at the meeting marveled at responses to new immune system treatments after decades of failed studies among patients with melanoma. Only about one in five patients respond to Yervoy, approved in 2011 as the first immunotherapy to extend survival in patients with advanced melanoma. Yervoy works by blocking CTLA-4, a different molecule that also keeps the immune system from attacking cancer. Ribas said he has followed one patient on Yervoy for 12 years now. “She's not supposed to be around, and she's alive and well and melanoma free. That is why we've been doing these immunotherapies,” he said. With Yervoy, Ribas said these types of responses were few and far between. With the new PD-1 drugs, they are much more common, with fewer side effects. However, an early-stage Bristol-Myers' study released this month showed that 53 percent of patients who got a combination of Yervoy and nivolumab had at least a 50 percent reduction in tumor size, with fewer side effects. Tim Turnham, executive director of the Melanoma Research Foundation, said combination treatments would make a major difference for patients because they help overcome cancer's “sneaky” ability to evade treatment. But, at this point, he said, “Nobody knows which one is better.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/03/merck-melanoma-drug-shrinks-tumors-in-38-percent-patients/
WASHINGTON – & Alcohol beverages could soon carry nutritional labels like those on food — but only if the producers want to put them there. The Treasury Department, which regulates alcohol, said this week that beer, wine and spirits companies can place labels on packages that include serving size, servings per container, calories, carbohydrates, protein and fat per serving. Such labels have never before been approved. The labels are voluntary, so it will be up to beverage companies to decide whether to use them on their products. The decision is a temporary, first step while the Alcohol and Tobacco Trade and Tax Bureau, or TTB, continues to consider final rules on alcohol labels. Rules proposed in 2007 would have made labels mandatory, but the agency never made the rules final. The labeling regulation issued May 28 comes after a decade of lobbying by hard liquor companies and consumer groups, with clearly different goals: the liquor companies want to advertise low calories and low carbohydrates in their products, while the consumer groups want alcoholic drinks to have the same transparency as packaged foods, which are required to be labeled. “This is actually bringing alcoholic beverages into the modern era,” says Guy Smith, an executive vice president at Diageo, the world's largest distiller and maker of such well-known brands as Johnnie Walker, Smirnoff, Jose Cuervo and Tanqueray. Diageo asked the bureau in 2003 to allow them to add that information to their products as low-carbohydrate diets were gaining in popularity. Almost 10 years later, Smith said he expects Diageo to gradually put the new labels on all of its products, which include a small number of beer and wine companies. “It's something consumers have come to expect,” Smith said. “In time, it's going to be, Why isn't it there?” Not all alcohol companies are expected to use labels, however. Among those who may take a pass: beer companies that don't want consumers counting calories and winemakers that don't want to ruin the sleek look of their bottles. The Wine Institute, which represents more than a thousand California wineries, said in a statement that it supports the ruling but “experience suggests that such information is not a key factor in consumer purchase decisions about wine.” Spokeswoman Gladys Horiuchi said the group knows of no wine companies that plan to use the new labels. The beer industry praised the agency for acknowledging that labels should take into account variations in the concentration of alcohol content in different products. The industry has opposed the idea of defining serving size by fluid ounces of pure alcohol — or as 12 ounces of beer, 5 ounces of wine or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof liquor — on the grounds that you may get more than 1.5 ounces of liquor in a cocktail depending on what else is in the drink and the accuracy of the bartender. The ruling would allow the labels to declare alcohol content as a percentage of alcohol by volume, the approach favored by the beer industry. “We applaud the TTB's conclusion that rules be based on how drinks are actually served and consumed,” said Joe McClain, president of the Beer Institute. McClain said the beer industry is also pleased that the ruling provides “substantial flexibility” in terms of the format and placement of the disclosure on packaging. It is unclear whether beer companies will actually use the labels, however. Consumer advocates criticized the regulation. “It doesn't reflect any concern about public health,” said Michael Jacobson, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “Including fat and carbohydrates on a label could imply that an alcoholic beverage is positively healthful, especially when the drink's alcohol content isn't prominently labeled.” Consumer advocates have also said that listing alcohol content should be mandatory. Jacobson and others support having calorie counts on labels, but they said the labels should not include nutrients that make the alcohol seem more like a food. Current labeling law is complicated. Wines containing 14 percent or more alcohol by volume must list alcohol content. Wines that are 7 to 14 percent alcohol by volume may list alcohol content or put “light” or “table” wine on the label. “Light” beers must list calorie and carbohydrate content only. Liquor must list alcohol content by volume and may also list proof, a measure of alcoholic strength. And wine, beer and liquor manufacturers don't have to list ingredients but must list substances people might be sensitive to, such as sulfites, certain food colorings and aspartame. Tom Hogue of the TTB said the aim of the ruling is to make sure alcohol labeling is more consistent. “The idea here is we are trying to make it easy for the industry to communicate this with consumers if they want to do so, and if their consumers want them to do it,” he said.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/01/government-approves-nutritional-labels-on-alcoholic-drinks/