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Nanog protein promotes growth of head and neck cancer

The study shows that a protein called Nanog, which is normally active in embryonic stem cells, promotes the growth of cancer stem cells in head and neck cancer. The findings provide information essential for designing novel targeted drugs that might improve the treatment of head and neck cancer. Normally, Nanog helps healthy embryonic stem cells maintain their undifferentiated, uncommitted (i.e., pluripotent) state. …

US adult smoking rate dips to 18 percent

Fewer U.S. adults are smoking, a new government report says. Last year, about 18 percent of adults participating in a national health survey described themselves as current smokers. The nation's smoking rate generally has been falling for decades, but had seemed to stall at around 20 to 21 percent for about seven years. In 2011, the rate fell to 19 percent, but that might have been a statistical blip. Health officials are analyzing the 2012 findings and have not yet concluded why the rate dropped, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. The CDC released its study Tuesday. Smoking is the leading cause of preventable illness and death in the United States. It's responsible for the majority of lung cancer deaths and is a deadly factor in heart attacks and a variety of other illnesses. Concerned about the stalled smoking rate, the CDC launched a graphic advertising campaign last year that was the agency's largest and starkest anti-smoking push. The campaign triggered an increase of 200,000 calls to quit lines, and CDC officials said thousands of smokers probably went on to kick the habit. The CDC did a second wave of the ads earlier this year. The new report is from a survey of about 35,000 U.S. adults. Current smokers were identified as those who said they had smoked more than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime and now smoke every day or some days. The rate was only 9 percent for people ages 65 and older, but about 20 percent for younger adults. More men than women described themselves as current smokers. The report did not include teens. About 16 percent of high school students were smokers in 2011, according to an earlier CDC report. Patrick Reynolds, executive director of the Foundation for a SmokeFree America, told The Associated Press that he was elated that the adult smoking rate, for years at about 20 percent, had dropped below that longstanding plateau. He said factors he thinks have contributed to fewer adults smoking include rising state and federal tobacco taxes, more spending on prevention and cessation programs, and more laws banning smoking in public. “This is a real decline in smoking in America. I'm ecstatic about it. It's proof that we are winning the battle against tobacco,” he said by telephone from Los Angeles.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/18/us-adult-smoking-rate-dips-to-18-percent/

Blood tests could detect sexually-transmitted oral cancers

Antibodies to a high-risk type of a virus that causes mouth and throat cancers when transmitted via oral sex can be detected in blood tests many years before onset of the disease, according to a World Health Organisation-led team of researchers. In a study in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, the researchers said their findings may in future lead to people being screened for human papillomavirus (HPV) antibodies, giving doctors a chance to find those at high risk of oral cancers. “Up to now, it was not known whether these antibodies were present in blood before the cancer became clinically detectable,” said Paul Brennan, of the WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), who led the study and described the findings as “very encouraging”. “If these results are confirmed, future screening tools could be developed for early detection of the disease,” he said. While HPV is better known for causing cervical and other genital cancers, it is also responsible for an increasing number of cancers of the mouth and throat, particularly amongst men. The issue was highlighted earlier this month by Hollywood actor Michael Douglas, who said his throat cancer was caused by HPV transmitted through oral sex. Oral, head and neck cancers are traditionally associated with heavy smoking and alcohol consumption, but over the past few decades rates of the diseases have increased dramatically, especially in Europe and North America. Brennan said this is probably due to HPV infections because of changing sexual practices, such as an increase in oral sex. According to IARC data, about 30 percent of all oral cancers are estimated to be HPV-related, and the main type of HPV associated with these tumours is HPV16. EARLIER DETECTION A study in the British Medical Journal in 2010 also found rates of head and neck cancer linked to HPV were rising rapidly, prompting calls from some doctors for boys as well as girls to be offered vaccinations to protect them against HPV. Two vaccines - Cervarix, made by GlaxoSmithKline, and Gardasil, made by Merck & Co - can prevent HPV. This new study, by scientists from IARC as well as the German Cancer Research Center and the U.S. National Cancer Institute, used data from a large study known as EPIC, which involves 500,000 people from 10 European countries who were recruited in the 1990s and have been followed up since. Researchers found that of the 135 people in the study who developed oral cancers, 47, or about one third of them, had HPV16 E6 antibodies up to 12 years before the onset of disease. In a telephone interview, Brennan said early detection would also allow doctors to track patients with antibodies and intervene early if tumours develop. “The earlier the detection, the better the treatment and the greater the survival,” he said. The antibody test used in the study was relatively simple and cheap and could be developed as a tool for more widespread screening within about five years if these results are confirmed in future studies, he added. He cautioned, however, that more work was needed to improve the tests' accuracy, since in this research there were about 1 in 100 “false positives” - where a person with the HPV16 antibodies did not go on to develop an oral cancer. Brennan said another significant finding of the study was that patients with oral cancers linked to HPV16 were three times more likely to be alive five years after their diagnosis than oral cancer patients whose tumours were not HPV-related and may have been linked to other risks such as smoking or drinking.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/18/blood-tests-could-detect-sexually-transmitted-oral-cancers/

The perks of bringing your pet to work

Imagine having man’s best friend—your pooch—sleeping at your feet while you’re crunching numbers at work, lifting his furry chin for a scratch when your stress starts to rise, or nudging you for a fast game of fetch in the conference room. Well, companies like Zynga, Amazon, Ben & Jerry's, Clif bar and Google and even the U.S. Congress allow dogs at work. Why? Executives are well aware of the stress-reducing and team-building benefits to employees when they have their faithful companions by their desk chair side. These benefits are not just wishful thinking among dog lovers. A study in the International Journal of Workplace Health Management found that stress declined over the course of a day in employees who brought their dog to work, while it rose for dog owners who left their pups at home and for non dog-owners. Though it was a small study, there’s plenty of research showing that having a pet or just petting a dog for 15 minutes reduces stress. There are other benefits as well: • Having dogs in the office can bring co-workers together and enhance social interaction. • Studies show that dogs in the workplace have a positive effect on employee, business and organizational health. • You’ll take more mini-breaks to interact with your dog. These are great for reducing stress and more stress-busting than browsing the web for your mini-break. • Your doggie needs to be walked, which gets you off your butt and out in the fresh air once or twice a day. The downside is that you may have co-workers who are allergic or just not big fans of dogs. They may even feel ostracized by not being part of the dog crowd. Some companies that allow dogs at work require employees to register their dogs, filling out a form about their health and temperament, to insure that their dog won’t hurt anyone or spread fleas through the office. At Softchoice, a New York City-based technology service provider, each dog owner has to prove to a “Dog Committee” that their puppy is office-friendly. The committee has a three-strike system for dogs that misbehave. If you want to give it a go, tell your boss about Take Your Dog to Work Day on June 21st. Here are some ground rules from the TYDTWD website: 1) Check with management and co-workers to see if anyone is allergic, afraid of or opposed to you bringing your dog to work for TYDTWD. 2) Dog-proof your work space. Remove poisonous plants, hide electrical cords and wires, and secure toxic items such as correction fluid, permanent markers, etc. 3) Give your dog a bath before he goes to work with you. 4) Don’t bring an aggressive or overly shy dog to work. 5) Prepare a doggie bag with bowls, food, a leash and clean up bags. 6) Avoid forcing co-workers to interact with your dog and don’t get angry with your colleagues who just aren’t into Fluffy.Laurie Tarkan is an award-winning health journalist whose work appears in the New York Times, among other national magazines and websites. She has authored several health books, including “Perfect Hormone Balance for Fertility.” Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/18/perks-bringing-your-pet-to-work/

New medication treats drug-resistant prostate cancer in the laboratory

The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society’s 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. "Our novel prostate cancer drug works by a unique mechanism of action," said study lead author Jeremy Jones, PhD, assistant professor of molecular pharmacology at City of Hope, Beckman Research Institute, in Duarte, CA. "Thus, it has the potential to treat cancers resistant to currently approved therapies." Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death, after lung cancer, among men in the United States, according to the American Cancer Society. The disease affects about one out of every six men, and more than 29,000 will die of prostate cancer this year alone. …

Napping: Helpful or harmful to your sleep?

As kids, we did everything we could to avoid taking a nap. But as adults, some days we would do anything just to get one. We recently received this question from a viewer:                 Dear Dr. Manny, Do afternoon naps help or disturb sleep later on in the night? Thanks, Jamie Your body’s clock creates a feeling of sleepiness between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. – and also a little in the afternoon. The longer you stay awake, the more likely you are to go into deeper stages of sleep when you finally do lay down at night. Scientists think this is caused by a buildup of a neurotransmitter in the brain called adenosine, which increases with each waking hour. Taking a nap causes the brain to get rid of adenosine rapidly, so you may have a harder time falling asleep later on in the night. However, there are some benefits to taking short naps during the day. Studies show that people who took midday naps performed up to 20 percent better in memory exercises than those who didn’t. Researchers believe sleep may help clear out the hippocampus – the part of the brain responsible for short-term memory – to make room for new information. But napping for too long can leave you feeling groggy, so try to keep your cat naps to about 20 minutes or less. Do you have a health question for Dr. Manny? Send it to DrManny@foxnews.com.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/02/do-afternoon-naps-disturb-sleep-later-on-at-night/

Cells play ‘tag’ to determine direction of movement

Scientists from Barcelona and London, looked at cells in the neural crest, a very mobile embryonic structure in vertebrates that gives rise to most of the peripheral nervous system and to other cell types in the cardiovascular system, pigment cells in the skin, and some bones, cartilage, and connective tissue in the head. Researchers saw that, during development, these neural crest cells ‘chase’ other types of cells — so-called placodal cells that give rise to the sensory organs — which dash away when approached, thus propelling the cell sheet in a certain direction. "The effect can also be likened to a donkey and carrot effect, with the neural crest cells — the donkey — chasing but never quite reaching the carrot, the placodal cells," explains Xavier Trepat, ICREA Research Professor of the UB and leader of the Research Group on Integrative Cell and Tissue Dynamics of IBEC…