Tag Archives: school

Major study examines meat-diabetes link

People who increased their consumption of red meat during a four-year period were more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes in a subsequent four-year period, according to an analysis involving about 150,000 people. The analysis, led by researchers at the National University of Singapore, took data from three long-running Harvard University studies involving mostly nurses and doctors. The results were published online Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, a journal of the American Medical Association. The studies were funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health. While prior studies have also found a link between red-meat consumption and the development of Type 2 diabetes, the new analysis is believed to be the first time researchers have tracked changes in red-meat consumption over time with the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes. Study participants filled out detailed questionnaires about the types of food and drinks they consumed at the beginning of the study and every four years. The analysis looked at some 20 years of data. Broadly, the study showed that, compared with a group of people who had no change in red-meat intake, increasing red-meat consumption by more than a half-serving per day over a four-year period was associated with a 48 percent increase in the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes during the next four years. However, reducing red-meat consumption by the same amount during the same time period didn't cut the risk of diabetes during the next four years. It did reduce the risk by 14 percent over a longer time period, though. The changes were independent of other factors such as body weight and overall diet quality. “Our results confirm the robustness of the association between red meat and [Type 2 diabetes prevention] and add further evidence that limiting red-meat consumption over time confers benefits for…prevention,” the study authors wrote. An Pan, an assistant professor at the National University of Singapore's Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, was the study's lead author. Other doctors say red meat in and of itself isn't necessarily the trouble. “It is not the type of protein (or meat) that is the problem; it is the type of fat,” said William J. Evans, who is affiliated with both Duke University and GlaxoSmithKline PLC., and who wrote a commentary about the study that was also published online in JAMA Internal Medicine. “It's mischaracterizing red meat as high fat,” Evans said in an interview. He said consumers could choose lean cuts of red meat such as sirloin tips or round steak over high-fat cuts like rib-eye. Dr. Pan could not be reached for comment Monday. Click for more from The Wall Street Journal.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/18/major-study-examines-meat-diabetes-link/

Observation is safe, cost-saving in low-risk prostate cancer, study suggests

Writing in the June 18 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, the authors said their statistical models showed that "observation is a reasonable and, in some situations, cost-saving alternative to initial treatment" for the estimated 70 percent of men whose cancer is classified as low-risk at diagnosis. The researchers, led by Julia Hayes, MD, a medical oncologist in the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology at Dana-Farber, said their findings support observation — active surveillance and watchful waiting — as a reasonable and underused option for men with low-risk disease. "About 70 percent of men in this country have low-risk prostate cancer, and it’s estimated that 60 percent of them are treated unnecessarily" with various forms of radiation or having the disease removed with radical prostatectomy surgery, said Hayes, who is also a senior scientist at MGH’s Institute for Technology Assessment. …

‘Undruggable’ cancer may be druggable after all: New target identified

The gene, SALL4, gives stem cells their ability to continue dividing as stem cells rather than becoming mature cells. Typically, cells only express SALL4 during embryonic development, but the gene is re-expressed in nearly all cases of acute myeloid leukemia and 10 to 30 percent of liver, lung, gastric, ovarian, endometrial, and breast cancers, strongly suggesting it plays a role in tumor formation. In work published in the New England Journal of Medicine, two HSCI-affiliated labs — one in Singapore and the other in Boston — show that knocking out the SALL4 gene in mouse liver tumors, or interfering with the activity of its protein product with a small inhibitor, treats the cancer. "Our paper is about liver cancer, but it is likely true about lung cancer, breast cancer, ovarian cancer, many, many cancers," said HSCI Blood Diseases Program leader Daniel Tenen, who also heads a laboratory at the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore)…

Vitamin D supplementation may delay precocious puberty in girls

Among girls, puberty generally begins between the ages of 10 and 14. Boys undergo these changes later, usually between 12 to 16 years of age. Precocious puberty is diagnosed in girls when sexual development begins before the age of 8; in boys, it is diagnosed when these changes occur before age 9. Recently, medical research has linked vitamin D deficiency to a number of diseases, including cancer, obesity and autoimmune disease. …

Medical assessment in the blink of an eye

There are many routes to making snap judgments (not all of them particularly useful). One of these is our ability to get the "gist" of an entire image by analyzing the whole scene at once, based on interpretation of global properties and image statistics, not focusing on specific details.That seems to be what medical experts can do. They are not perfect in a fraction of a second but they do far better than random guessing when classifying medical images as normal or abnormal even though, in that blink of an eye, they cannot tell you where the problem might be located. …

Treating depression: One size does not fit all

Nearly 15 million U.S. adults suffer from clinical depression. Treating them is currently a process of trial and error. “It's always been a combination of physician preference, patient preference and… who you actually choose to see for your depression,” Dr. Helen Mayberg, a neurologist at Emory University School of Medicine, said. “If you choose to go see a psychologist, psychologists do therapy. If you go to your family doctor… the likelihood is that you'll be prescribed a medication.” With fewer than 40 percent of patients achieving success with their initial treatment for depression, the majority have to wait to see if additional therapies are effective. “It's a serious illness,” Mayberg said. “There are consequences to going another six weeks, another eight weeks, another 12 weeks on a treatment that is unlikely to work.” Now, Mayberg and a team of researchers may have discovered a way to reduce the guesswork involved with treating clinical depression. Their study, published online in JAMA Psychiatry, suggests the solution is locked in a portion of the brain called the anterior insula. PET scans revealed that patients who benefitted from escitalopram (an antidepressant also known by the brand name Lexapro) had different activity levels in the anterior insula than patients who responded well to “talk therapy.” “The patients who did the best on escitalopram have high insula activity (compared to other parts of the brain),” Callie McGrath, an Emory graduate student and lead author of the study, said. “And the patients who do the best on cognitive behavioral therapy have low insula activity.” The researchers believe they've found the first reliable indicator to guide doctors in their selection of initial treatments for clinical depression. This has the potential to spare many patients from the prolonged suffering and uncertainty associated with current trial and error methods. “It's a very discouraging process,” said Edi Guyton, who leads local support programs with the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). “It's long. You begin to feel hopeless.” Guyton said she struggled with treatment-resistant depression for most of her life until she was able to bring it under control through deep brain stimulation (DBS), an experimental therapy developed by Dr. Mayberg. Guyton said she hopes Mayberg's separate study on the relationship between brain activity and treatment outcomes will lead to more research that takes the hit and miss factor out of helping people with depression. “That would be wonderful, just knowing what medicine,” Guyton said. “If you were pretty sure, even 80 percent sure, that this is gonna work for me, I think it would make all the difference in the world.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/13/depression-treatments-brain-scans-may-suggest-best-course/

Major hurdle cleared to diabetes transplants

Efforts to make this treatment possible have been limited by a dearth of insulin-producing beta cells that can be removed from donors after death, and by the stubborn refusal of human beta cells to proliferate in the laboratory after harvesting. The new technique uses a cell conditioning solution originally developed to trigger reproduction of cells from the lining of the intestine. "Until now, there didn’t seem to be a way to reliably make the limited supply of human beta cells proliferate in the laboratory and remain functional," said Michael McDaniel, PhD, professor of pathology and immunology…

Protein protects against breast cancer recurrence in animal model

Precisely what causes breast cancer recurrence has been poorly understood. But now a piece of the puzzle has fallen into place: Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania have identified a key molecular player in recurrent breast cancer — a finding that suggests potential new therapeutic strategies. The study, performed in the laboratory of Lewis A. …

New eyeball licking fetish spreading pink eye among Japanese adolescents

Pink eye cases have been spreading among Japanese school children as a result of a new bizarre fetish: “eyeball licking.” In a post by the Japanese website Naver Matome, the curious act – known as oculolinctus – is described as an expression of intimacy between young lovers, Medical Daily reported. The article listed numerous accounts of the fetish from Japanese web users, and various videos of eyeball licking are available on Youtube – with some posted to the site as early as 2006. One of the accounts in the Naver Matome post was from a Japanese middle school teacher, who detailed how he had noticed an increasing number of styes among his students.  At one point, he said up to 10 children in the same classroom were wearing eye patches to school. The teacher said he finally understood the reason for the rise in eye problems, when he witnessed a male student licking a female student’s eye in the school’s gymnasium.  After yelling at them to stop, the couple explained to the teacher that they had recently started dating and wanted to move beyond just kissing.  They also explained the act had become popular among their classmates. According to Shanghaiist, the trend may have stemmed from a music video by a Japanese band, Born, in which a woman licks the lead singer’s eye.  Oculolinctus also seems to be popular in Japanese manga comics, Medical Daily reported. Doctors warn that bacteria can be easily transmitted through eyeball licking, leading to conjunctivitis, or what is more commonly known as pink eye.  Some experts say that oculolinctus can have much more serious consequences, as an improperly washed mouth can transmit acid or spices into the eye. Click for more from Medical Daily.source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/13/new-eyeball-licking-fetish-spreading-pink-eye-among-japanese-adolescents/

Bug bites causing allergies? How to avoid dangerous tick bites

As we transition into summer, it is expected that the now infamous lone star tick will continue to spread throughout the United States.  When the lone star tick bites, saliva is injected into the victim that contains a specific sugar known as “alpha gal,” according to research from the University of Virginia. In as little as a few weeks, this appears to cause an antibody surge that can precipitate a full blown allergic reaction after eating red meat, such as beef, pork and/or lamb, but not poultry.   It’s important to be aware of health issues related to tick bites, and of course to plan ahead to reduce the likelihood of giving your favorite host a warm-blooded meal.  That means following some of the suggestions by the CDC: 1. Know your neighborhood.  Find out whether deer or lone star ticks are prevalent in your area. 2. Assess the risk of your activity and the chance of exposure to ticks, i.e. hiking in woods vs. back yard picnics.   3. Know the proper way to apply both DEET and natural based insect/tick repellents, how long they protect and what concentration is appropriate for adequate protection for adults and children.   4. Consider dressing in light clothing making it easier to spot very small ticks. 5. Always due a close inspection and tick check when returning from tick endemic areas. 6. Learn the recommended techniques in removing a tick. 7. Save the recovered tick for analysis by your local department of health, and they can determine the type of tick and whether it may contain the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, for example. So be prepared - and avoid getting “ticked off” this summer!Dr. Clifford Bassett is an adult and pediatric allergy specialist, and diplomat of the American Board of Allergy and Immunology. He is the medical director of& Allergy and Asthma Care of NY.& & Bassett is a clinical assistant professor of medicine and on the teaching faculty of NYU School of Medicine and NYU Langone Medical Center and assistant clinical professor of Medicine and Otolaryngology at SUNY LICH. Follow him on& Twitter. & source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/06/12/how-to-avoid-tick-bites-that-could-cause-red-meat-allergies/