Kansas firm recalls cantaloupe linked to Listeria outbreak

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n">(Reuters) - A Kansas-based food processor recalled hundreds of pounds of fresh-cut cantaloupe on Friday because of possible Listeria contamination linked to melons from Colorado that were blamed for an outbreak that has killed eight people.

Carol's Cuts was recalling 594 pounds of cantaloupe packaged in 5-pound trays and as an ingredient in fruit medleys distributed in Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, a recall notice posted on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration website said.

In addition to the eight deaths, a total of 55 people in 14 states have been sickened from Listeria-tainted cantaloupes traced to melons grown at Colorado-based Jensen Farms Inc and sold under the brand name Rocky Ford.

"The Carol's Cuts recall is part of a larger recall involving cantaloupe traced to Rocky Ford cantaloupes produced by Jensen Farms," the recall notice said.

"Consumers who may have the recalled Carol's Cuts product in their possession should return it to the place of purchase for a full refund or destroy it," it added.

The Food and Drug Administration said last week the tainted cantaloupes were shipped to 17 states. Not all states that have received shipments of the melons appear to have seen infections.

The recall notice said the fruit in the Carol's Cuts recall, which had use-by dates of September 19 at the latest, was sold to institutional customers including restaurants and may have been used in salad bars or as a fruit menu item.

The Colorado company linked to the outbreak, Jensen Farms, has voluntarily recalled its cantaloupes shipped between July 29 and September 10.

Listeria monocytogenes, the bacterial strain found in the tainted cantaloupes, thrives at low temperatures, the CDC said on its website. Infection can be particularly dangerous for elderly people, pregnant women and patients with weakened immune systems, health officials said.

Previous Listeria outbreaks linked to produce were traced to sprouts and celery.

(Writing by Cynthia Johnston)

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Roche, Genentech researchers avoid business talk

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By Ransdell Pierson

NEW YORK | Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:34pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When scientists at Genentech and parent Roche need to discuss business, they do not talk to each other -- they use lawyers.

Roche acquired the remaining stake of Genentech it did not already own in 2009, against the protests of critics who feared the cancer-drug powerhouse would lose the innovation prowess that made it the envy of the biotech world if it was absorbed by far-bigger Roche Holding AG.

But Roche research chief Jean-Jacques Garaud says the creative fires are burning as bright as ever at Genentech, which developed blockbuster cancer drugs Avastin and Herceptin, because it has been kept apart from Roche proper.

An estimated 2,500 scientists and research staff from Genentech work at its longtime campus in South San Francisco, in their own unit named gRED (Genentech Research and Early Development). They are charged with discovering drugs relating to cancer, immunology, neuroscience and infectious diseases.

In a seemingly parallel universe thousands of miles away in Europe, Shanghai and at a U.S. campus in New Jersey, Roche operates its own separate research unit with 3,000 researchers, called pRED (Pharma Research and Early Development), that specializes in the same disease areas and also is involved from drug discovery through mid-stage human trials.

"At the time we decided to bring Genentech on board it became obvious to us we had to keep separate the two units to keep the innovation alive," said Garaud, who heads pRED and its roster of Roche veterans.

"If you bring the units together, you contaminate each other -- you don't look at things differently. Innovation comes from groups looking at the same issue from different approaches. We want to have a diversity of approaches and maintain it," Garaud said in an interview.

"We talk to each other, but we don't talk about science too much. We talk about life -- books and movies."

Asked how the two units avoid duplicating research efforts if they do not talk business, he said that is where the attorneys come in.

"We are aware of duplication when it occurs because our patent lawyers are watching us and tell us if we are overlapping in activity -- if we are wasting resources on the same activity."

Garaud said it is too early to tell just how productive the respective research units will be, but noted that seven Roche drugs have progressed into late-stage trials since the Genentech deal.

"That is a strong success rate," he added.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson; editing by Andre Grenon)

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Creepy-crawlies may help heal diabetes wounds

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By Fran Lowry

Fri Sep 23, 2011 5:14pm EDT

n">(Reuters Health) - Researchers from Hawaii have a suggestion for how to jump-start the healing of difficult diabetic wounds: let maggots do the work.

To allow such wounds to heal, doctors remove infected or dead tissue with scalpels or enzymes, a process they call debridement.

But these tools often fail, said Dr. Lawrence Eron from Kaiser Hospital and the University of Hawaii in Honolulu.

"These problem patients with diabetes really need better treatments in order to salvage their limbs," he told Reuters Health.

"Maggot debridement treatment is overwhelmingly effective," he added. "After just one treatment these wounds start looking better."

He and his colleagues presented their findings this week in Chicago at a scientific meeting, and they still haven't been vetted by independent researchers.

Eron's team treated 37 diabetics with maggots. The patients all suffered from a type of artery disease that causes poor circulation in the limbs, and they all had stubborn wounds -- some up to five years old.

The doctors put 50 to 100 maggots (of the species Lucilia sericata) on the wounds and left them there for two days, at which time they applied new ones. They repeated this five times on average.

"We cage the maggots in a mesh-like material. Nylon panty hose might be used. And then we seal them so they don't get out," Eron explained.

Twenty-one patients had successful outcomes, defined as eradication of infection, complete removal of dead tissue, formation of robust connective tissue in the wound and more than three-quarters closure of the wound.

The treatment failed in a handful of patients. One had excessive inflammation surrounding the wound, two bled too much, and three had problems with infected bones.

Five wounds were infected with the antibiotic-mocking "superbug" MRSA, but they healed successfully with the maggot therapy. Nine wounds were infected with another bacterium called MSSA, and six of those healed up. All 10 cases with infection due to group B streptococci were successfully treated, Eron said.

Asked how he persuades patients to undergo the creepy-crawly treatment, Eron said he carefully explains the procedure and then has them sign a consent form.

"A lot of patients might be somewhat wary of having live insects placed into their wounds so we explain how it works and what possible problems might occur," he said.

Maggots secrete substances into the wounds that liquefy dead tissue and then they ingest the material to further degrade it in their gut. The wounds are cleaned, and other substances contained in the maggot secretions allow the development of granulation tissue, a type of connective tissue that forms during wound healing.

"After this, we go on to do further treatment with hydrogels, grafts of cell culture tissue, or negative pressure dressings," said Eron. "But to get to this point where these techniques will work, you really need to clean up the wound, get rid of dead tissue, and get robust granulation tissue into the wound. And this is where the maggots help."

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U.S. FDA guidance on biosimilars may be imminent

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By Lewis Krauskopf

NEW YORK | Fri Sep 23, 2011 4:32pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration appears to be on the verge of issuing long-awaiting guidelines for the development of generic versions of complex biotechnology medicines.

The FDA still plans to release the guidance by the end of the year but the agency's top drug official, Janet Woodcock, has indicated it could come "as early as the next few weeks, maybe even days," Janice Soreth, deputy director of the agency's Europe office in London, said on Friday.

Europe is ahead of the United States on this front, having already approved cheaper copies of some biotech medicines.

The U.S. agency has completed work on the guidance and expects to release it "promptly," Woodcock said in an interview, according to the biotechnology trade publisher BioCentury.

The agency has also reached a "tentative agreement" with industry representatives over user fees companies would pay to support the biosimilar approval process, according to minutes of a meeting between FDA and the industry posted on FDA's website.

Drugmakers, investors and others are eager to gain more insight for the approval process for cheaper versions of biotech drugs, known as "biosimilars" -- a potentially multibillion-dollar market.

Soreth made her comments during a biosimilars panel at Windhover's Pharmaceutical Strategic Alliances Conference, held in New York.

She said an article written by FDA officials in last month's New England Journal of Medicine was an indicator of what the guidance might look like. Agency officials said in the article that approval for biosimilars "will require a new paradigm of sponsor-FDA interactions," involving analysis of much more data than traditional generics.

Unlike conventional, easy to replicate, chemical-based drug compounds, biotech drugs are derived from living organisms, such as proteins, and often produced using recombinant DNA technologies.

Agreement on a pathway for producing cheaper versions of biotech drugs -- which treat diseases such as cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis -- has been far more difficult than for traditional pills and capsules because their complex manufacturing process does not lend itself to production of exact copies.

Making biotech copies is also expected to be more costly, as manufacturers must conduct extra clinical trials to show the new version is as good as the old one.

Soreth said the FDA has received about two dozen meeting requests for proposed biosimilar products, involving potential versions of nine or 10 brand biotech drugs, or "reference" products.

BRAND OR GENERIC MARKET?

The potential players in the burgeoning market include traditional generic drugmakers, such as Novartis' Sandoz division, as well as large pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Merck -- all of whom participated in the panel on Friday.

Some traditional biotechnology companies, such as Biogen Idec and Amgen Inc , have also expressed an interest in manufacturing biosimilars at some point.

As the market develops for biosimilars, it remains unclear to what extent it will mimic the market for pills -- in which generics of widely sold drugs are substituted for brands at pharmacies and are sold at 90 percent discounts.

The biosimilar process, at least initially, may not allow such direct substitutions or involve such hefty discounts. Indeed, panelists on Friday agreed the discounts thus far have been about 20 percent to 40 percent.

Michael Kamarck, president of Merck BioVentures, said the European experience with biosimilars has demonstrated the products will demand marketing and other support similar to that required for brand products.

Doctors and patients may demand more evidence for these products, beyond just FDA approval, before using them, Kamarck said.

"In small molecule generics, you get these products licensed and registered and you're done. It's just the beginning for these products," Kamarck said.

"We are assuming this is a branded business for the next at least four or five years," he said.

But Jim Roach, chief medical officer of Momenta Pharmaceuticals Inc , said the pressure brought by health insurers and other healthcare payers to lower drug costs may ultimately prompt increased use of biosimilars, should they win approval.

"That pressure will only continue to increase over time," Roach said.

"To the extent you can convince regulators that your product is highly similar and perhaps indistinguishable and potentially interchangeable, I think the products will be taken up quite well."

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Woman wins court order against 1972 Idaho abortion law

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By Laura Zuckerman

SALMON, Idaho | Fri Sep 23, 2011 11:35pm EDT

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - An Idaho woman prosecuted for terminating her own pregnancy with abortion pills she ordered online won a temporary court order on Friday barring enforcement of the decades-old law under which she was charged.

But the federal judge in the case also rebuffed her separate bid to block a newly enacted state law that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy unless there is proof the woman's life is in danger.

On that issue U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill ruled that Jennie Linn McCormack, 33, lacked legal standing to seek a temporary restraining order against Idaho's new "fetal pain" abortion law because she was no longer pregnant and could not demonstrate imminent harm from the statute.

Her lawsuit is believed to be the first federal court case challenging any of several late-term abortion bans enacted in Idaho and five other states the past two years, based on controversial medical research suggesting a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation.

McCormack's lawyer, Richard Hearn, said he would press to establish his client's standing at a future hearing on the new law, which was passed by the Republican-led Legislature and signed by Republican Governor Butch Otter in April.

The suit, filed by McCormack in August, stems from a criminal charge brought against the Pocatello mother of three -- and later dismissed for lack of evidence by a judge -- under a 1972 Idaho law making it a felony for a woman to end her own pregnancy.

Because that criminal case could technically be refiled against her, Winmill ruled that McCormack did have standing to seek a court order against further enforcement of the measure.

He also ruled that McCormack was likely to succeed on the merits of her claim that the 40-year-old statute poses an unconstitutional barrier to her rights to seek an abortion.

Although the temporary restraining order he granted technically applies only to Bannock County prosecutors, Hearn said it would in effect keep the law from being enforced anywhere in the state for the time being.

Such an occurrence seems unlikely. County Prosecuting Attorney Mark Hiedeman said the case he brought against McCormack marked the first time in his 27 years as a prosecutor that he had ever invoked the 1972 statute. He also said he was not sure it was ever applied elsewhere in Idaho.

The two-pill abortion medication known as RU486 has been legally available in the United States since 2000, and by 2008 accounted for about one-fourth of U.S. abortions performed before nine weeks gestation, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an abortion rights think tank.

As approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the two drugs -- mifepristone and misoprostol -- can be obtained from a physician and are not available in pharmacies. The medication is generally indicated for pregnancies of less than eight weeks.

Prosecutors said McCormack terminated her own pregnancy using abortion pills she obtained from an online distributor at between 20 and 21 weeks on December 24, 2010. Hearn has said she believed she was getting the pills from a legitimate medical provider.

Similar late-term abortion bills were adopted this year in four other states besides Idaho -- Alabama, Indiana, Kansas and Oklahoma. All were modeled after the "fetal pain" bill enacted last year in Nebraska, according to abortion rights advocates.

(Writing by Steve Gorman; Editing by Peter Bohan)

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Very preterm kindergartners face learning trouble

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By Anne Harding

NEW YORK | Fri Sep 23, 2011 3:56pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Kindergartners who were born extremely prematurely are much more likely to have learning problems than their peers who were born at term, even if they do not have overall intellectual impairment, new research shows.

Yet more than a third of children in the study with learning problems were not enrolled in special education programs, Dr. H. Gerry Taylor of the University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland and his colleagues found.

The results underscore the importance of continuing to track these children as they reach preschool and school age, to monitor them for learning difficulties and provide interventions as needed, Dr. Taylor told Reuters Health.

Children born before 28 weeks of pregnancy or weighing less than 1,000 grams now routinely survive, but with a high risk of developmental problems, the researchers write in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Their study focused on 148 extremely preterm children born at their center from 2001 to 2003 and a comparison group of 111 classmates who were born at term and at normal birth weight.

The preemies had lower average scores on spelling and math tests, the researchers found.

Just over half of them weren't testable or did not reach basic levels in arithmetic, compared to 21 percent of the kindergartners in the comparison group. And teachers were four times as likely to rate the preterm kids as having substandard learning progress in written languages, and seven times as likely to give them substandard learning progress reports in math.

Among the 70 preemies who scored below 85 -- with 85 to 115 considered the "normal" range -- on one or more achievement tests, 26 did not have an individual education plan.

In the extremely preterm kids, delayed development at 20 months was a risk factor for learning problems in kindergarten, Taylor noted. Other risk factors for learning problems in these children included a poorer family and being born before 25 weeks of pregnancy.

"The study was designed to really focus on kindergarten because of the importance of identifying problems early and hopefully intervening to stave off problems that might develop," Taylor said.

He added that performance in kindergarten is the best way to predict future academic success. "I'd prefer that we go back even further and start working with these kids on their developmental skills as preschoolers."

Frequently, Taylor said, health providers stop following preemies by the time they are two or three years old.

"There can occur a kind of disconnect at that point," he added. "Families may not always be aware of the need for continued follow-up as the kids approach school age."

Taylor said one way to ensure continued monitoring for these children is to make sure they have a "medical home." And keeping track of them at school would not be difficult.

"Teachers are actually quite aware of children's learning problems," he explained. "A very effective way to screen would be simply to ask how children are progressing in the curriculum."

SOURCE: bit.ly/pk58K8 Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, September, 2011.

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Food for thought: can fish lower your stroke risk?

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Fresh sardines, caught just after sunrise, are on display at a fish market on Croatia's largest Adriatic city of Split Aug 20, 2004.

Credit: Reuters/ Matko Biljak

By Genevra Pittman

NEW YORK | Fri Sep 23, 2011 3:35pm EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who eat fish a few times each week are slightly less likely to suffer a stroke than those who only eat a little or none at all.

That's the conclusion of an analysis of 15 studies, each of which asked people how frequently they ate fish, then followed them for between four and 30 years to see who suffered a stroke.

"I think overall, fish does provide a beneficial package of nutrients, in particular the omega-3s, that could explain this lower risk," said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a Harvard School of Public Health epidemiologist whose research was included in the analysis.

"A lot of the evidence comes together suggesting that about two to three servings per week is enough to get the benefit."

Close to 800,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke each year, and 136,000 die from it. Smoking, drinking, being overweight and having high blood pressure and cholesterol are all linked to a higher risk of stroke.

Dr. Susanna Larsson and Dr. Nicola Orsini of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden wrote in the journal Stroke that omega-3 fatty acids in fish might lower stroke risk through their positive effects on blood pressure and cholesterol.

Vitamin D, selenium and certain types of proteins in fish may also have stroke-related benefits, Mozaffarian added.

Data for the analysis came from close to 400,000 people age 30 to 103. The studies were done in the U.S., Europe, Japan and China.

Over anywhere from a few years to a few decades, about 9,400 people had a stroke. Eating three extra servings of fish each week was linked to a six-percent drop in stroke risk, which translates to one fewer stroke among a hundred people eating extra fish over a lifetime.

And the people in each study who ate the most fish were 12 percent less likely to have a stroke that those that ate the least.

Mozaffarian's own report separated the effects of different kinds of fish and found that people who ate more fried fish and fish sandwiches didn't get any stroke benefit, not surprisingly.

But the research can't prove that adding more non-fried fish to your diet will keep you from having a stroke. People who eat a lot of fish, Mozaffarian told Reuters Health, "could have healthier diets in other ways, people could exercise more, people could have better education that could lead them to see their doctors more." All of those things might decrease their risk of stroke.

Still, he added, most studies have tried to take those other health and nutrition factors into account to isolate the effects of fish as much as possible -- and they suggest a cause-and-effect relationship.

It's likely, Mozaffarian said, that people who start out eating no fish or very little probably have the most to gain by putting it on their plate more often. "You get a lot of bang for your buck when you go from low intake to moderate, a few servings per week," he said. After that, the benefit from each extra serving probably goes down.

Fatty fish such as salmon and herring are especially high in omega-3s. The American Heart Association recommends at least two servings of fatty fish in particular each week.

SOURCE: bit.ly/oe88xL Stroke, online September 8, 2011.

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Dutch doctors urge end to male circumcision

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By Roberta Cowan

AMSTERDAM | Fri Sep 23, 2011 10:49am EDT

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch doctors want politicians and human rights groups to speak out and discourage the practice of male circumcision in the Netherlands because they say it is a "painful and harmful ritual," and a violation of children's rights.

Between 10,000 and 15,000 boys are circumcised in the Netherlands each year, mostly for religious reasons and not always with an anesthetic, according to the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG) which represents surgeons, pediatricians, general practitioners and urologists.

"We want to discourage male circumcision, because it is an unnecessary procedure with complications, which violates the integrity of the child," Lode Wigersma, a spokesman for the association, told Reuters on Friday.

"This is not an innocent procedure, we see complications in about 5 percent of the cases, as well as some long-term and psychological implications," he said.

Male circumcision involves the removal of all or part of the foreskin of the penis. It is a ritual obligation for infant Jewish boys, and is also a common rite among Muslims, who account for the largest share of circumcised men worldwide.

The Dutch medical association has urged religious leaders to find alternative rites of passage that are not irreversible and which are not painful for the child.

The practice of female genital mutation has been prohibited by law in the Netherlands since 1993 for all ages.

Last year the Dutch medical association released a report against the practice of circumcision of male children for non-medical reasons, hoping to initiate a public discussion.

Now it is appealing to Dutch politicians to speak out against the practice to help "gradually change the mentality" in society and among religious groups that circumcise their boys.

The doctors group said that contrary to popular belief, circumcision can cause some minor as well as serious complications including bleeding, infection, urethral stricture as well as panic attacks, which it says are particularly common.

It said there was no medical reason to surgically remove a part of the genitals of healthy babies and young children, who are too young to give their consent to the procedure.

The Dutch doctors are not calling for a circumcision ban, for fear the practice will be driven underground.

"We also understand that it (circumcision) is a deeply embedded religious habit so we don't expect it to be over in a few years, so our appeal is if you want to do it then have it done by a doctor with anesthesia," said Wigersma.

The majority of male circumcisions in the Netherlands are done in special circumcision clinics by doctors using anesthetic on Muslim boys between 5 and 7 years, according to Wigersma.

Rabbi Binyomin Jacobs, President of the Dutch Association of Rabbis, said only about 50 male Jewish babies are circumcised in the Netherlands each year.

He disputed the 5 percent complication rate, and said there have not been any problems in the Jewish community due to strict rules about how and when circumcision takes place.

"According to Jewish law, you have to do it (circumcision) the Jewish way," Jacobs said.

The doctors' recommendation to end the practice of circumcision is likely to be controversial given that it involves both Jewish and Muslim traditions.

In a rare show of unity in June, the Dutch Muslim and Jewish communities -- numbering about 1 million and 40,000 respectively in a total population of 16 million -- condemned the government's proposed ban on the religious slaughter of animals as a violation of their religious freedom.

(Reporting By Roberta B. Cowan)

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Bayer drug a "major new player" in prostate cancer

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By Kate Kelland

STOCKHOLM | Fri Sep 23, 2011 6:12pm EDT

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - An experimental drug from Germany's Bayer and Norwegian biotech Algeta that prolongs the lives of patients with advanced prostate cancer is a major step forward in treatment of the disease, cancer experts said on Saturday.

A late stage trial of Alpharadin, a new type of drug that delivers minute, highly-charged doses of radiation to secondary tumors in the bone, was halted early after researchers saw patients on the new treatment living almost three months longer on average than those on standard treatment plus placebo.

"It would have been unethical not to offer the active treatment to those taking placebo," Chris Parker, who led the trial at Britain's Royal Marsden Hospital, told delegates at the European Multidisciplinary Cancer Congress (EMCC) in Stockholm.

Alpharadin is based on the active ingredient radium 223 and is designed to treat patients with advanced disease whose cancer has spread to their bones.

Parker said he expected the drug to become a new standard treatment for these patients. Both Jean Charles Soria, a co-chair of the EMCC congress, and Michael Baumann, president of the European Cancer Organization, said Alpharadin was "a major new player" and likely to be "practice changing."

Kemal Malik, Bayer's head of global development, has described the success of Alpharadin -- which first showed promise in headline data released in June -- as a "transforming moment" for the company.

Sales of Alpharadin are expected to reach $662 million by 2015, according to consensus forecasts from Thomson Reuters Pharma. The drug's performance is also particularly important for Algeta, whose fortunes are tied closely its success.

Parker said the two firms now intend to use the data to submit the drug for regulatory approval.

TARGETED

Alpharadin is from a class of drugs called alpha-pharmaceuticals which work by sending tiny, charged, targeted doses of damaging radiation to a secondary tumour -- known as a metastasis -- in the bone.

Because it is so targeted, side effects are minimal in comparison with more conventional treatments, a factor that is likely to boost its popularity with patients and doctors.

"Compared to chemotherapy, which affects all the tissues of the body, radium-223 is highly targeted to the bone metastases, and it has a completely different safety profile," Parker explained. In the trial, he said, the drug was "extremely well tolerated."

Radium is similar to calcium in that it sticks to bone, particularly to where new bone is being formed, so it is a highly effective way of delivering radiation to a target.

"It takes only a single alpha particle to kill a cell," Parker said. "And collateral damage is minimised because the particles have such a tiny range -- a few millionths of a meter -- so we can be sure that the damage is being done where it should be, to the metastasis."

Parker's team studied the drug in patients with prostate cancer because it has a high tendency to spread to the bones. Around 90 percent of all men with prostate cancer will develop bone metastases in the advanced stages of the disease.

Prostate cancer is also the second most common cancer in men after lung cancer, killing an estimated 255,000 men each year.

Complete data from the trial showed that the median overall survival period for patients on the new drug was 14 months compared with 11.2 months for the placebo. The hazard ratio was 0.695, meaning that patients taking Alpharadin had a 30 percent lower rate of death compared to patients taking placebo.

(Reporting by Kate Kelland)

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How safe is your indoor pool?

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It's important for swimmers to minimize the amount of contaminants in the water by showering beforehand.Researchers trying to determine the long-term effects of the chemicals in pool waterContaminants mix with chlorine to form chloramines, which give off a strong odorSwimming in indoor chlorinated pools has been linked to asthma and bronchitis in children

(CNN) -- Catherine Garceau doesn't go to the pool anymore. The former Olympic swimmer has trained at many fitness centers over the years that smelled strongly of chlorine. While most would assume that means the water is clean, Garceau now knows it's just the opposite.

After winning bronze in 2000 with the Canadian synchronized swimming team in Sydney, Australia, Garceau was a "mess." Her digestive system was in turmoil, she had chronic bronchitis and she suffered from frequent migraines.

Garceau retired in 2002 and began looking into holistic medicine. Experts suggested detoxifying her body to rid it of chemicals, including what fellow teammates used to jokingly refer to as "eau de chlorine -- the swimmer's perfume."

"As part of my journey to determine the factors that affected my health, I delved into the possible effects of chlorine and discovered some shocking facts," Garceau writes in the appendix of her upcoming book, "Heart of Bronze."

Catherine Garceau retired from competitive swimming in 2002 and began looking into holistic medicine.

Outdoor pool season is ending in many parts of the country, and competitive swimmers are heading indoors for their workouts and team meets. But how safe are the waters they're diving into? Researchers are examining the longterm effects of the chemicals in pool water.

Chlorine inactivates most disease-causing germs within a fraction of a second. That's why it's found in our drinking water as well as 95% of pools in the United States, said Dr. Tom Lachocki, the CEO of the National Swimming Pool Foundation.

As Lachocki points out, access to clean water is what often separates first and third world countries. Without chlorine, swimmers are at risk of contracting many dangerous waterborne illnesses. But the chemical compounds formed in pools have some scientists worried.

"When you open up a tap and pour yourself a glass of water, you don't normally put someone's backside in it," Lachocki said. "But in a pool there are people getting into that water. Every time a person gets in they're adding contaminants."

Those contaminants -- sweat, hair, urine, makeup, sunscreen, etc. -- combine with chlorine to form chloramines, said pool consultant and researcher Alan Lewis. Chloramines are what bathers smell when they enter a pool area; a strong smell indicates too many "disinfectant byproducts," or DBPs, in the water.

Indoor pools create an additional a danger because of the enclosed atmosphere. Volatile chemicals from the water are transferred, often via vigorous activity like a swim team's kicks, to the air. Without a proper ventilation system, the chemicals can hang around to be inhaled by coaches, lifeguards or spectators.

Some DBPs, like chloroform, are known as trihalomethanes, and are considered carcinogenic, Lewis said. They've been linked specifically to bladder and colorectal cancer.

Dr. Alfred Bernard is a professor of toxicology at the Catholic University of Louvain in Brussels and one of the world's leading researchers on aquatic environments. He has published a series of studies documenting the effects of chlorine and its byproducts in swimming pools.

There's an opportunity to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Tom Lachocki, CEO of NSPF

In June, Bernard published a study in the International Journal of Andrology linking chlorine with testicular damage. Swimming in indoor, chlorinated pools during childhood was shown to reduce levels of serum inhibin B and total testosterone, both indicators of sperm count and mobility. Bernard notes in the study summary that the "highly permeable scrotum" allows chlorine to be absorbed into the body.

Bernard has also substantiated previous studies' claims of a link between swimming in indoor chlorinated pools and the development of asthma and recurrent bronchitis in children. His 2007 study showed airway and lung permeability changes in children who had participated in an infant swimming group.

Reading these studies, it's easy to forget that swimming itself is a great aerobic exercise that puts less stress on your joints than activities like running. In fact, it's a sport often recommended for children with asthma because the humid, moist environment makes it easier for athletes to inhale and the breathing techniques can improve lung function.

"There's an opportunity to throw the baby out with the bathwater," Lachocki said. "Is chlorine perfect? The answer is no. [But] it's fabulous, and if anyone comes up with something better they'll be a millionaire."

Dr. Ernest "Chip" Blatchley studies water disinfection systems with his team at Purdue University in Indiana. In their research, the team analyzes DBPs and other chemicals formed when chlorine and contaminants mix in pools. A swimmer himself, Blatchley believes the answer lies in finding a better system for water disinfection.

"The fact that these chemicals are being formed is, to me, a cause for concern," Blatchley said. "A lot of this chemistry is just not known, and we need to do a better job at defining that chemistry."

Blatchley is currently studying the effects of UV radiation on pool water. Other alternatives include ozone or salt water pools. But even salt water pools contain chlorine -- the salt is used to generate chlorine in the water instead of a pool operator adding chlorine directly. While it reduces the danger of storing chemicals in the facility, the water chemistry is very similar, he said.

Perhaps the simplest solutions, Blatchley and Lachocki agree, can come from pool operators and patrons. Chlorine is effective when used in proper amounts and tested regularly. The National Swimming Pool Foundation offers training for professional and personal pool owners.

It's also important for swimmers to minimize the amount of contaminants in the water. Almost 85% of the urea found on human skin can be dispelled by showering with soap before getting in the pool.

"It's a public education thing," Blatchley said. "Swimmers and the general public need to recognize that there's a link between their hygiene habits and the health of everyone who uses the pool."

And of course, the other preventive measure is common sense (although you'd be surprised how many people admit to doing it).

"If you don't pee or poop in the pool, that's cool too," Lachocki said.

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The death of a friend

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Marci Smith "just wanted to enjoy every minute she had left," said her husband, Tim. Their son is Joshua. Marci Smith was one of the first people featured in this columnThe ultimate empowered patient, she diagnosed her own cancerCohen: She beat cancer in how she lived the last 4½ years

(CNN) -- It's never easy when you get that phone call, even when you've known for years that it might be coming. But on Friday, I got the call that someone I loved had died.

Just five days earlier, my friend Marci and I had been making plans for our kids to go trick-or-treating together, and now she's gone. I can't write that Marci Smith lost her battle with brain cancer, because Marci hated that phrase. Her husband, Tim, thinks she just didn't like the concept of losing at anything.

Actually, in my book, she beat cancer. Her disease was diagnosed when she was 43, when her son Joshua was 3 years old. Her doctor told her that statistically speaking, she had three to six months to live. That was in February 2007.

She beat cancer not just in the length of the time she survived, but in how she lived these last 4½ years. As the cancer invaded Marci's brain and the chemotherapy poisoned her body, her spirit remained clean. She never expressed anger to me that she got cancer at such a young age and with such a young child, even though she certainly would have been entitled to.

It's not that Marci sugar-coated her illness: Tim remembers she was scared when she got the diagnosis, and she talked to me and her other friends about the brain surgeries and the awful side effects of the chemo. But Marci lived full speed ahead until she couldn't live anymore. She knew cancer would ultimately end her life, but she didn't let it ruin the life she had left.

"She was such a happy, positive person," Tim told me after her death. "She just wanted to enjoy every minute she had left. She never wanted to talk about 'what happens if I die.' "

Instead, Marci planned for life. She'd always wanted to visit all 50 states, and so over the past four years, she and Tim and Joshua visited the states she hadn't been to yet. She wanted to see Israel and Scotland, too, and the three of them took trips there. When a teenage family member needed her help, she took him into her home, since helping family and friends meant everything to her.

Marci taught me so much about living, and so much about being a smart patient. She was one of the first people I wrote about when I started the Empowered Patient column shortly after her diagnosis, and our frequent discussions about doctors and hospitals and treatments and choices have informed my writing since. Marci was the ultimate empowered patient, as she diagnosed her own cancer.

When her cancer was first diagnosed, doctors told Marci she had leiomyosarcoma, a particularly rare and aggressive form of cancer. A licensed practical nurse, Marci looked up the diagnosis online and called to tell me that something sounded strange -- she had the leiomyosarcoma only in her brain and nowhere else, and such leiomyosarcoma cases are so rare, they get written up in medical journals. Plus, people with leiomyosarcoma often have had diseases like HIV, or have had lots of radiation earlier in life. Marci had neither.

Her oncologist wanted Marci to start chemo right away, but she refused. Instead, she and Tim flew to a hospital in Florida that specialized in sarcomas, where they confirmed she didn't have leiomyosarcoma, but rather a much more common type of tumor, a glioblastoma multiforme.

If Marci had simply accepted her first diagnosis, she would have received the wrong treatment and most likely would have died quite quickly. She lived for 4½ years -- she lived to see her son's seventh birthday -- because she was smart and she trusted her gut, the most important part of being an empowered patient.

Marci was in her kitchen the last time I visited her, surrounded by Tim, Joshua, her mother, and aunts, uncles, cousins and friends. The weekends at her house were like that, as she sustained a community for herself, her husband and son. I'd never seen a house so full of life in the face of death, but that's because Marci embraced all that was good no matter what horrible things lay ahead.

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Better heart, better sex

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Nearly 1 in 5 men in the U.S. has difficulty achieving or maintaining an erectionErectile dysfunction is also a known harbinger of heart diseaseDoctors should inform the public of this connection, researchers sayExercise is key for heart health and blood vessel function

(Health.com) -- Middle-aged men who take steps to improve their heart health by eating better, getting more exercise, or taking cholesterol-lowering drugs may end up improving their sex lives as well, according to a new analysis of existing research.

Nearly 1 in 5 men in the U.S. has difficulty achieving or maintaining an erection, a condition known as erectile dysfunction (ED). The new study, which appears this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, suggests that ED drugs such as Viagra aren't the only solution and aren't always enough to address the problem, says coauthor Dr. Stephen Kopecky, M.D., a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

"If you do take care of your lifestyle—eating right, exercising, losing weight—you respond much better to the Viagra, the Levitra, the Cialis," Kopecky says. By the same token, he adds, if these drugs become less effective "that should be a sign that...you need to take care of your lifestyle.'"

Health.com: 7 ways to treat erectile dysfunction

ED is troubling enough by itself, but to make matters worse it's also a known harbinger of heart disease. The arteries in the penis that expand during an erection can become weakened and clogged with cholesterol in the same way as the arteries that surround the heart. This is why ED often shows up three to five years ahead of life-threatening cardiovascular problems such as heart attack or stroke, especially in younger men, Kopecky says.

"The common denominator is blood flow," he explains. "If you look at a guy in his 40s who has erectile dysfunction and then you compare [him] to another guy in his 40s who doesn't have erectile dysfunction, the guy with ED is about 50 times more likely to have heart disease."

Despite this well-established link, there has been little research into whether addressing risk factors for heart disease (such as unhealthy cholesterol numbers) can also reverse ED. The studies that have been conducted have been relatively small and have looked at a single location, which means they may not apply to the population as a whole, Kopecky and his colleagues say.

Health.com: 10 heart-healthy rules to live by

To clarify the effect of heart-healthy lifestyle changes on ED, the researchers combed through the medical literature for placebo-controlled clinical trials in which men with ED modified their lifestyles or began taking cholesterol-lowering statin medications. The analysis was funded entirely by the Mayo Clinic.

In the end they focused on six studies that included a total of 740 men and were conducted in the U.S., Italy, Nigeria, and Iran. In all of the studies, which ranged in length from two months to two years, heart healthy regimens and better cholesterol numbers were associated with modest but measurable improvements on a survey that rates erectile function on a scale from 5 to 25.

The average improvement in sexual function seen in the pooled studies was three points, one point shy of the threshold experts consider "clinically important." For some men, especially those with more persistent cases of ED, a change of that magnitude would be negligible. For those with mild or occasional ED, however, it would translate into noticeable improvements in sexual function, the researchers say.

Health.com: Erectile dysfunction? Try losing weight

Dr. Kevin Billups, M.D., an associate professor of urology at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, says that the close relationship between heart health and sexual function "hasn't become the public health message that it should be."

Doctors and other experts need to do a better of job of informing the public that a healthier heart often means better erections, adds Billups, who studies the link between heart health and erectile function but did not participate in the new research.

"That's the first thing I talk about with all the guys that come in now," he says, referring to the ED patients he sees in his urology practice. "'Are you watching your diet? What kind of exercise program are you on?' Just putting these men on the ED medications...probably isn't enough to get optimal results."

Health.com: The best foods for your heart

Even if they're told that it may improve their ED, getting men to change their lifestyle and lose weight is no easy task, Kopecky says. He stresses, however, that even small and simple lifestyle changes—such as eating at least five servings of fruits and veggies daily—can make a big difference.

But the "real key" is exercise, Kopecky says. Just 10 minutes of vigorous exercise three times a week "does a whole lot to improve your heart function [and] blood vessel function," he says.

Copyright Health Magazine 2010

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Depression increases risk of stroke, study says

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Four percent of the estimated 795,000 strokes that occur in the United States each year can be attributed to depression.Depression increased the risk of ischemic strokeDepression increases the risk of heart attacks (and especially fatal ones)People who are depressed are more likely to smoke or drink heavily

(Health.com) -- People with depression are more likely to have a stroke than their mentally healthy peers, and their strokes are more likely to be fatal, according to a new analysis published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Depression is a relatively minor risk factor for stroke compared to high blood pressure (hypertension) and other health conditions and behaviors that damage blood vessels, the researchers say. Still, their analysis suggests that as many as 4% of the estimated 795,000 strokes that occur in the United States each year can be attributed to depression.

"If you have depression but no other health issues, you probably don't have to pay too much attention to stroke risk," says An Pan, Ph.D., the lead author of the analysis and a research fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, in Boston. "But if you are depressed and are also obese, or have hypertension or...unhealthy lifestyle factors, your risk is going to increase dramatically."

Health.com: The 10 most depressing states in the U.S.

Pan and his colleagues combined data from 28 studies dating back to the mid-1990s that included about 318,000 people overall. Roughly 2.7% of the participants had a stroke during the studies, which ranged in length from two to 29 years.

Compared to those who showed no signs of depression, people who received a depression diagnosis from a doctor or who reported feeling depressed were 45% more likely to have a stroke and 55% more likely to die from a stroke, the researchers found.

Depression increased the risk of ischemic stroke, in which a blood vessel becomes blocked and cannot send blood to the brain. But it did not measurably raise the risk of the other major type, hemorrhagic stroke, in which a blood vessel leaks or bursts open.

Health.com: 12 signs of depression in men

The new study is the latest in a long line of research linking depression to chronic disease and serious physical health problems.

"We knew that depression raises a person's risk of developing diabetes, obesity, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease," Pan says. "We also knew that depression can occur after patients suffer a stroke. We just didn't have strong enough evidence to know if the reverse was true, or what really comes first."

Researchers have already established that depression increases the risk of heart attacks (and especially fatal ones), so it makes sense that depression would have a similar association with stroke, says Norman Rosenthal, M.D., a clinical professor of psychiatry at the Georgetown University School of Medicine, in Washington, D.C.

"Strokes and heart attacks both represent blood vessels becoming blocked and blood being withheld from a vital organ, whether it's the heart or the brain," says Rosenthal, who was not involved in the new study. "They're essentially the same disease."

Health.com: Careers with high rates of depression

Depression could contribute to strokes in many ways, Pan says. For starters, people who are depressed are more likely to smoke or drink heavily, to follow an unhealthy diet, and to neglect their personal health. Most of the studies included in the analysis controlled for these and other risk factors, but the data suggests that at least some of the stroke risk in depressed people can be explained by an unhealthy lifestyle.

There are other possibilities, as well, that aren't as easily measured. Depression can increase the production of stress hormones in the body, for instance, and can trigger dangerous inflammation in the blood vessels. "Little things, like keeping up good dental hygiene or socializing with friends, all affect inflammation levels -- and these are things that a depressed person is less likely to do," says Rosenthal.

Depression may also cause people to slack on taking medications needed to control other stroke-related conditions, such as diabetes or high blood pressure. On the other hand, some medications prescribed for depression -- most notably the class of drugs known as atypical antipsychotics -- have been shown to cause weight gain and obesity, a known risk factor for stroke.

More research is needed to determine whether depression drugs contribute to stroke risk. Doctors should monitor weight gain and blood pressure levels in patients taking these drugs, but there's no reason for patients to stop taking them, Pan says. "For now, physicians should prescribe medication if they think it is necessary, or if non-drug treatments haven't worked."

Although depression isn't the most important risk factor for stroke, the researchers say it likely has a noticeable impact on the stroke rate. They estimate that depression is responsible for an additional 106 strokes per 100,000 people in the United States each year.

Copyright Health Magazine 2010

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Is Sperm from Redheads Really Less Desirable?

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Redheaded men are probably feeling a little hurt this week in light of news that one of the world's largest sperm banks is up-to-here and has stopped accepting their gametes.

In a cringe-worthy choice of words, the head of the Cryos International sperm bank in Denmark told MSNBC.com that — inasmuch as it relates to sperm donated by redheads — "our stock is about to explode."

Cryos' surplus includes 140,000 doses of redhead sperm, and that's more than enough for now. And by the way, they've got plenty of quintessential blond-haired, blue-eyed Scandinavian sperm too. Unless you're a brown-eyed gent, in fact, don't bother Cryos.

For the record, it's nothing personal against redheads. It's just that Cryos, like any sperm bank, strives to have on hand a diversity of donor characteristics. Scandinavian men tend to have blond or red hair, handed down from their Viking forebears. While that's desirable in places like Scandinavia and Ireland, Cryos supplies sperm to people in more than 65 countries, not all of whom are eager for their offspring to resemble Conan O'Brien.

No offense to O'Brien, but people generally want their children to look like them. Red hair is the exception in this world — striking, for sure, but no more inherently appealing to couples than any other trait.

LIST: Top 10 Redheads

Naturally conceiving couples are at the mercy of their partners' genes, but people who rely on assisted reproduction to have a baby have more choice. In theory, they've got the ability to build a really great version of themselves: choose the right sperm or egg, and it's possible to wind up with a cello-playing, science-fair-winning, future World Cup forward.

It's actually not possible to ensure red hair, however: despite a vial of meticulously selected sperm, that musician-cum-scientist-cum-soccer star may or may not have auburn tresses, depending on a complex interplay between a mutant gene called MC1R, which expresses itself in a build-up of pheomelanin — the pigment that results in redheads.

So why all the hubbub over redheads' sperm?

Perhaps because people get squeamish around the idea of designer babies. "It makes people uncomfortable because it makes them think about eugenics and designing a super race," says Julie Shapiro, a law professor at Seattle University who blogs regularly about how the law defines the concept of family. "What bugs people is that they have to make these choices. It makes them feel like they're shopping for the perfect child as opposed to just having a child with the person you love."

MORE: Where Do (Some) Babies Come From? In Washington, a New Law Bans Anonymous Sperm and Egg Donors

But that's the nature of having options. If there are none, you take what you get. But if the situation dictates selection, you become choosy — Grape Nuts over Cheerios, or brown eyes over green.

When it comes to selecting gametes, reproductive specialists agree that most people do their best to ensure a mini-me: it's already less than ideal to have to use a stranger's sperm; angling to make a future baby resemble you helps make the situation more tenable.

As for the maligned redheads, they can take heart in knowing that at least in the U.S., they're a valued commodity. According to Ty Kaliski, director of operations for Cryos International New York, red-haired donors are an endangered species in his clinic: there are just two.

"That's not a result of us weeding out redheads," Kaliski told CTVNews.ca. "That's a result of redheads not necessarily applying. The redheads we have, they move. Product is not flying off the shelf, but people are buying them."

MORE: Why Surgeons Dread Redheads

Bonnie Rochman is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @brochman. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Suicide of a Bullied Teenager, Who Promised 'It Gets Better'

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"They'd taunt me in the hallways and I felt like I could never escape it."

—JAMEY RODEMEYER, 14, a Buffalo junior high school student, describing the bullying he endured from peers, in a video for It Gets Better, a project created to give hope to bullied gay teens. "I just want to tell you that it does get better," he said in May, urging other gay teens, "Just love yourself and you're set." Earlier this week, Jamey was found dead outside his home of an apparent suicide. "Sometimes the damage done by hate and by haters is simply too great," wrote Dan Savage, the advice columnist and co-founder of It Gets Better, on his blog Tuesday. [via The New York Times]

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Could Taking Birth Control Pills Make Women's Memory More Like Men's?

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A new study shows that taking birth control pills can affect women's memory.

Shawn Nielsen, a graduate student in neurobiology and behavior at the University of California, Irvine, conducted a study with 66 female students, half of whom were taking oral contraception and half who were not.

The participants were given a unique memory test. Some women were randomly assigned to view an emotionally charged video about a young boy who was hit by a car while walking with his mother and then rushed to the hospital, where doctors reattach his severed feet. Other women watched a more neutral narrative in which the mother and son observe a minor accident and then go to the hospital to practice a disaster drill.

Nielsen, who is working toward her doctorate in the lab of Larry Cahill, a well-known hormone researcher, was interested in teasing apart how differences in estrogen and progesterone levels may affect memory. Previous research has hinted that estrogen may enhance verbal memory; in one study, for example, women taking oral contraception showed better recall of words on the active hormone days of their pill cycle than on days when they either weren't supposed to take active pills or took non-hormonal substitutes.

In the current study, when women who viewed the emotional video were tested a week later about what they saw, those who were taking the pill were able to recall the general thread of the story better than its specific details. This is similar to how men remember emotional events, says Nielsen.

"If we reduce women's sex hormone levels, the change in the type of information they recall is more like what a male participant might remember," she says. The pill works by flattening out natural spikes in estrogen and progesterone — which is what triggers ovulation — and signals the body not to make additional hormones, keeping levels low throughout the cycle.

The results were the exact opposite for the women who weren't on the pill: they were better at remembering details, such as what color shirt the boy had on, whether the mother wore glasses, or whether there was a fire hydrant at the intersection. The naturally cycling women couldn't recall the general narrative of the story as well as they could these details.

This doesn't mean that the pill squelches memory or that it robs women of their ability to recall salient things. It's just a matter of what type of information they remember. Since the pill keeps hormone levels steady throughout the cycle, women who take it tend to react differently to emotionally charged experiences, compared with women undergoing the natural monthly ebb and flow of hormones. And that's important since many of the mental illnesses that affect women — such as depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder — are extremely emotional in nature.

"What is important about these findings is that sex hormones affect the type of information recalled from an emotional event," says Nielsen. "What that says to us is that these changes are a powerful tool for future studies investigating the underlying neurobiology of these disorders.

"Simply taking the pill and suppressing natural sex hormone levels can affect what type of information you remember from an emotional event. That speaks to the role that estrogen and progesterone play in memory — they affect how a woman remembers an emotional event in her life," says Nielsen.

A better understanding of this connection could lead to more effective therapies that may target such hormonal drivers. Nielsen is already trying to figure out exactly what levels of hormones are associated with changes in recall. She is about to launch additional studies to correlate fluctuating levels of estrogen and progesterone in naturally cycling women with changes in the type of information they recall from emotional events.

The current study was published in the journal Neurobiology of Learning and Memory.

Alice Park is a writer at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @aliceparkny. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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First European Embryonic Stem Cell Trial Gets Green Light

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Health authorities in the U.K. approved on Thursday Europe's first clinical trial involving embryonic stem cells.

Surgeons at Moorfields Eye Hospital in London will treat 12 patients with Stargardt's macular dystrophy, a major cause of blindness in young people. Patients with Stargardt's gradually lose retinal pigment epithelial cells, or RPE cells, which are essential for maintaining the proper environment that encourages retinal cells to grow.

Patients in the U.K. trial will receive RPE cells grown from human embryonic stem cells. This is the second human trial to use such cells; the first was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last November, which we described here. In both studies, the cells will be made by Massachusetts-based Advanced Cell Technology (ACT).

The purpose of the trial is to establish the safety of the treatment, so the dozen enrolled patients are at the most advanced stages of the incurable disease. They will receive anywhere from 50,000 to 200,000 cells, injected directly into the eye, behind the retina. Doctors expect that the transplanted cells will then start to grow in their new environment, replacing the diseased and dying ones that have robbed the patients of their vision.

The eye is a good site for testing such a treatment, since it is relatively protected from the immune system; the new cells may therefore be protected from destruction by overzealous defensive cells. The isolated nature of the eye's vitreous cavity, where the cells are injected, also makes it relatively easy for doctors to destroy the transplanted RPE cells should something go wrong, such as if the cells should start forming tumors or migrate to other areas.

The eye trials follow the first ever approved human trial of an embryonic stem cell based-therapy, approved in January 2009 in the U.S. to treat spinal cord injury. The FDA put that trial on hold after some animals receiving the stem cells developed cysts, but the company conducting the trial, Geron, provided additional safety data and new tests for detecting the unusual growths. Last summer the trial was once again allowed to move forward.

Embryonic stem cells could become an important source of replacement cells for a number of different diseases, including diabetes and Parkinson's. As Dr. James Barinbridge, a retinal surgeon at Moorfields and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, told the U.K.'s Guardian, "The ability to regenerate retinal cells from stem cells in the laboratory has been a significant advance and the opportunity to help translate such technology into new treatments for patients is hugely exciting. Testing the safety of retinal cell transplantation in this clinical trial will be an important step towards achieving this aim."

Alice Park is a writer at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @aliceparkny. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Study: Traffic Pollution May Boost Your Risk of Heart Attack

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Exposure to high levels of traffic pollution may boost your risk of heart attack, according to a new study published on BMJ.com.

But the study found that the risk was transient, lasting one to six hours, and that rather than increasing overall risk of heart attack, exposure to pollution appeared to precipitate cardiac events in people who were already at higher-than-average risk.

Researchers in epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine analyzed data on 79,288 patients who had a heart attack between 2003 and 2006 in 15 urban areas of England and Wales. To determine patients' exposure to ambient air pollution, the team compared the recorded hour of each heart attack with regional air pollution information from the U.K. National Air Quality Archive. That data offered information about pollutant particles, ozone, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide levels.

After controlling for environmental factors like air temperature, humidity and viral infection rates, along with social factors like holidays and day of the week, the researchers found that exposure to high levels of certain components of air pollution — pollutant particles and nitrogen dioxide, which are a byproduct of car traffic — was associated with a greater risk of heart attack. The heavier the traffic pollution, the higher the risk of heart attack.

The researchers looked at heart attack risk for 72 hours after exposure to pollution, but found that the risk remained elevated for only six hours. The findings are in line with previous research that has also found air pollution to have an immediate, negative impact on heart health.

Although the overall heart risk of air pollution is short-lived and likely most dangerous to those who are already at risk of heart attack, there's still good reason to reduce traffic pollution as much as possible. "Given other evidence that exposure to air pollution increases overall mortality and morbidity, the case for stringent controls on pollutant levels remains strong," wrote epidemiologists Prof. Richard Edwards and Dr. Simon Hales from the University of Otago in New Zealand in an editorial accompanying the study.

Meredith Melnick is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @MeredithCM. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Too Good To Be True? Anti-Aging Proteins Not So Potent After All

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New research suggests that the promising longevity gene may not lead to longer lives after all.

In recent years, studies have led some scientists to believe that the genes that make sirtuins, proteins that affect cell metabolism, could yield new targets for drugs that would extend life.

Early work in worms and fruit flies suggested that boosting sirtuins could extend life by up to 50%. Other experiments in lab animals also suggested that the proteins were responsible for the life-extending effects of calorie restriction. And even more encouraging for people, it turned out that resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, could activate the proteins.

The results were robust enough to convince some of the proteins' earliest advocates, researchers from Harvard and Massachusetts of Institute of Technology, to found a company, Sirtis, to begin testing sirtuin-boosting agents.

MORE: A Drug to Live Longer? Yes! (But Only If You're a Fat Mouse)

But in a new report in Nature, scientists at the Institute of Health Ageing at the University College London say the foundational work connecting sirtuins to longer life in animals was flawed. The main problem, the authors write, is that the experiments didn't take into account the effects of other genes that might have in influencing longevity. And some of these effects, they say, might differ between lab-bred animals and their naturally occurring, or 'wild' counterparts.

When the authors of the Nature paper, led by David Gems, reproduced the early studies in worms and flies and accounted for other genetic factors that could impact longevity, the effect of sirtuins disappeared.

The researchers also tested whether fruit fly sirtuin could be activated by resveratrol — with no luck. And they concluded that the life-extending effect of calorie restriction was not in fact due to sirtuins.

"Studies on yeast lifespan were the first to cast doubt on the role of sirtuins in longevity," noted the authors of an accompanying commentary in Nature, reported the AFP. The new study "puts a final nail in the coffin."

MORE: Even More Evidence for the Health Benefits of Drinking

In a second paper published Nature, however, one of the discoverers of sirtuins attests that the proteins do extend life in worms, just not as much as previously thought. Reuters reported:

Leonard Guarente, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, owned by GlaxoSmithKline, wrote that the first research on sirtuins "overestimated the extension of lifespan" in a worm with high levels of the proteins. Now, his team calculates, making a lot of sirtuins seems to increase a worm's lifespan by about 10 to 14 percent, all else being equal.

Guarente's group argues that sirtuins may still play an important protective role in mammals, shielding cells from the metabolic damage of daily living and safeguarding against age-related disease. He told Reuters: "I feel that the sirtuins are really the most important and actionable thing to come out of aging research, and I'm very hopeful that we will have drugs in the future based on this work to treat the major diseases of aging."

Gems also acknowledges that the proteins may prove useful in human health in some way — potentially aiding in the development of treatments for metabolic diseases like diabetes — but that their importance in extending life may not be as strong as scientists had claimed. Researchers "got carried away" with their excitement on that front, he told Reuters.

Alice Park is a writer at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @aliceparkny. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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Routine Rotavirus Vaccination Keeps Kids Out of the Hospital

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Savings in health care costs since the 2006 introduction of routine vaccination against rotavirus, a leading cause of diarrhea in infants and young children. A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that nearly 65,000 fewer American children have been hospitalized since routine vaccination was instituted. Compared with unvaccinated children, those who received the rotavirus vaccine had 89% fewer rotavirus-specific hospitalizations, 48% fewer ER visits and 12% fewer visits to the doctor's office. Before the vaccine was introduced, the virus was responsible for about 200,000 ER visits and 400,000 physician office visits a year. [via USA Today]

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Bisexual Squid? Not Exactly — Just Lonely

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A female Octopoteuthis deletron observed by researchersCourtesy of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

Male deep-sea squid will get it on with just about anything with tentacles.

A team of researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute observed nearly 20 years of mating behavior of Octopoteuthis deletron, recorded on video by remote-controlled vehicles up to half a mile below the surface of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. Male squid were just as likely to try to mate with other males as with other females, the researchers found.

It's not the first time same-sex sex has been noted among squid and octopus species, but it's the first time it's been found to be equally as common as male-female sex, the researchers said.

(PHOTOS: Across Species, Lots of Same-Sex Sex)

Of the 108 squid the researchers caught on video, they could determine the sex of 39 individual squid: 19 females and 20 males, a roughly equal and representative split, the researchers said. Of these, there were nine males and 10 females that showed evidence of mating. So the scientists, led by Hendrik-Jan Hoving, figured that male squid were trying to mate equally with both males and females.

Reported the New York Times:

The way the squid mate is something else. Little is known about the details, but it seems that the male ejaculates a packet of sperm at the mating partner, and the packet turns inside out, essentially shooting the sperm contained in a membrane into the flesh of the partner, where they stay embedded until the female (if the shooter has been lucky) is ready to fertilize its eggs. If males are the recipient of these rocket sperm, they are just stuck with them. It is the kind of mating that would make a good video game.

The embedded sperm are visible as white dots on the squids' bodies, which is how the researchers were able to determine which squid had been involved in attempts at breeding.

Wanton? Sure. But the male squid's same-sex mating behavior isn't evidence that it's gay, researchers said. More that it's lonely. Squid live alone in the deep, dark sea and have few encounters with other squid. It's advantageous for the species to mate indiscriminately: better to have quick sex with all comers, even if some are guys, than to miss out on any opportunity to reproduce.

(MORE: Science Confirms It: Bisexuality Exists)

"This behavior further exemplifies the 'live fast and die young' life strategy of many cephalopods," Hoving told ABC Science Online.

The study was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biology Letters.

Meredith Melnick is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @MeredithCM. You can also continue the discussion on TIME's Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

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A Software-Testing Company Relies on Employees' Asperger's Skills

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The software testers at Aspiritech are a collection of characters. Katie Levin talks nonstop. Brian Tozzo hates driving. Jamie Specht is bothered by bright lights, vacuum cleaners and the feel of carpeting against her skin. Rider Hallenstein draws cartoons of himself as a DeLorean sports car. Rick Alexander finds it unnerving to sit near other people.

This is the unusual workforce of a U.S. startup that specializes in finding software bugs by harnessing the talents of young adults with autism.

Traits that make great software testers — intense focus, comfort with repetition, memory for detail — also happen to be characteristics of autism. People with Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism, have normal to high intelligence and often are highly skilled with computers.

Aspiritech, a nonprofit in Highland Park, Ill., nurtures these skills while forgiving the quirks that can make adults with autism unemployable: social awkwardness, poor eye contact, being easily overwhelmed. The company's name plays on the words "Asperger's," ''spirit" and "technology."

Clients, nine companies in Aspiritech's first two years, have been pleased.

"They exceeded my expectations," said Dan Tedesco of Shelton, Conn.-based HandHold Adaptive, which took a chance on Aspiritech to test an iPhone application. "There is a pride in their product you don't usually see in this type of work."

Aspiritech was founded by Moshe and Brenda Weitzberg after their son, Oran, now 32, was fired from a job bagging groceries. Oran was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome when he was 14. He now works at Aspiritech.

"He went from failing at bagging groceries to being one of the best software testers on our team," said Brenda Weitzberg.

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Playing Favorites: Why Mom Likes You (or One of Your Siblings) Best

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There aren't a lot of ironclad rules of family life, but here's one: No matter how much your parents deny it — and here's betting they deny it a lot — they have a favorite child. And if you're a parent, so do you.

The golden child may be the oldest one, unless it's the youngest. It may be the toughest one, unless it's the most sensitive. It's not even necessary that Mom and Dad have the same favorite — and typically they don't.

One oft-cited study showed that about 70% of fathers and 65% of mothers exhibit a preference for one child or another. For fathers, it's most often the youngest girl; for mothers, it's typically the oldest boy. And remember, the key here is the exhibited preference. Since parents do such a good job of concealing any bias — especially when a scientist is watching — the numbers are almost certainly a good deal higher.

If it's any consolation for Mom and Dad — to say nothing of the unfavored kids — favoritism is hardwired into our species. Since families, at their evolutionary essence, exist principally as a way to get as many genes as possible into the next generation, we're programmed to place our bets on the kids who stand the greatest chance of being reproductively successful.

Every parent defines the lucky child differently: for some the choice is based on beauty, for others brains, for others birth order. Once the selection is made, extra attention and other goodies are subtly steered that child's way, even if parents don't realize they're doing it.  Of course humans, unlike other animals, bring a whole suite of other, gentler, considerations into play: love, loyalty, compassion, joy, and that can balance the scales some, though never entirely.

This week's TIME cover story explores the complexities of favoritism — how it came to be, how it's expressed, the harm it can do to both favored and unfavored kids, and what we can do about it. It's available to subscribers here.

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Space Junk Will Fall To Earth This Week

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Enlarge NASA

This artist's conceptual image provided by NASA shows the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS.

NASA This artist's conceptual image provided by NASA shows the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite, or UARS.

It looks like a giant piece of biscotti covered with gold foil and pipe cleaners. But it's really a decommissioned weather satellite the size of a bus that NASA says will probably fall to Earth by Friday, oh, give or take a day.

Most of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (or UARS) will burn up as the spacecraft plunges into the lower atmosphere, but some pieces may survive and strike the ground nearly anywhere between 57 north latitude and 57 south latitude. That's pretty much anywhere on the continents and oceans. Antarctica appears to be safe.

 

In its risk assessment, NASA says the possibility of somebody getting hit by something is small, but it estimates 26 "potentially hazardous objects" from the UARS may survive the flaming return, and not all of them will be lightweight.

Washington Post blogger Joel Achebloch says this is the biggest piece of space debris to come back to earth in 30 years and it should create a big light show. If only they knew where to look. This week, NASA will start offering daily briefings on the satellite's position.

The bloggers at Space.com remind everyone that most of the Earth is covered with water, so chances are greater that space debris will plunge into an ocean. It's hard to predict where and when, because the UARS's orbit is falling a lot faster than people expected. Solar activity is blamed. This warms up the atmosphere and increases drag on the satellite, cutting its flight shorter.

NASA says the UARS blasted into space in 1991 aboard the space shuttle Discovery. It aided scientists studying the Earth's ozone layer, and other aspects of the planet's upper atmosphere. (HT: Bill Chappell)

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The Toughest Little Bird You've Never Heard Of

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They're nothing to look at. They're not colorful. They seem so ordinary, in mottled brown, black and gray, if you noticed them at all, you'd think, "ah, just another shore bird, pecking at something in the water." But you'd be so wrong. Bar-tailed Godwits are special. So special, they deserve special attention.

They are the only birds known to fly more than 7,000 miles nonstop, that means no food breaks, no water breaks, no sleep breaks, no pausing, just pushing through cyclones, storms, headwinds, flappity flap, flap for days and nights — and this is their championship season. In September and October, they leave Alaska, head straight for the ocean. Though they are land birds, and cannot fish or rest on the sea, they will cross most of the Pacific Ocean, and fly all the way to New Zealand. Many of them are young, and have never done this before. No other bird can do what they do, and they're doing it right now.

 

As you read this, a bunch of Bar-tailed Godwits or Kuakas, as they're called in New Zealand, are hanging out in western Alaska, eating a rich medley of clams, worms, seeds and berries, guaranteed to add ounces to their slight frames (check our exclusive Kuaka Workout Program below). They eat so much, they double their body weight. To do that, their intestines and gizzard, not much needed in flight, literally shrink, making space for more fat.

Then they wait. What they want is a good wind to help them south. This time of year, at the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in Alaska, the weather often obliges.

According to wildlife biologist Bob Gill and his colleagues at the U.S. Geological Survey Science Center, between late August to early November, roughly "two and five cyclones track into the Gulf of Alaska each month that generate winds favorable for southward departure." So when a storm system comes their way, they somehow know it's time, and off they go, up into the sky, riding the winds, which keep them moving at, Gill figures, an average speed of 35 miles an hour, with storms, gusts and cyclones boosting them south.

Fighting The Winds

Pacific winds will constantly change; both for them and against them. Once they hit mid-passage, equatorial breezes slow, and the bird has to beat his or her way south without much help. They burn half their body weight as they fly, and sleep, bird-style, by shutting down one side of the brain at a time. Past the equator, they bump into the southeasterly trades, which is the runner's equivalent of an uphill slog, pushing them west, so they have to navigate to keep on course.

How they do that, many of them never having been in the southern hemisphere, never having seen the southern stars, nobody seems to know. But they manage. One female, dubbed E7, because that was the code on her wireless transmitter, is the current world champion: she flew 11,680 kilometers (7,369 miles) in 8.1 days. Non-stop. (Gill knows that because the transmitter told him so.)

Nobody Does It Better

What a bird! There are 70,000 of them, but they seem to be losing population. The trek back north in the spring takes them west, to Asia, where they stop and feed. Wetlands are being drained in that part of the world, which may make it hard for them to make the last leg home to Alaska. It would be a terrible thing to have these fierce, athletic birds wink out.

So while they're with us, performing their unmatched Kuaka feats of flight, I think it's only right that we go to bat for them, pr-wise, get them a show on Bravo ("The Real Kuakas of New Zealand"), get them booked on Leno and Letterman, get Mario Batali to reproduce their miracle diet, and — why not? — reach out to other birds who might want to know a little more about the "Kuaka lifestyle."

I asked my friend Josh Kurz to work on a few ideas — he has dabbled in advertising — and he came up with an ad that celebrates these birds so much, you're going to have to click on it two times to read it all. It's aimed, strangely, at owls and turkeys — who don't share the Kuaka's migratory urge, but hey, Josh is just publicizing what the rest of us — human, bird, whatever — really ought to know: that these birds may look puny, but under those plain brown feathers lies a mighty heart.

Illustrator (and reporter/producer) Josh Kurz regularly contributes to this blog. He recently illustrated a story about the last living wild cycad and before that produced an enormous stack of fish cans to illustrate acceptable ways to spell the word mackerel.

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NASA Satellite Expected To Collide With Earth

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According to NASA, a retired U.S. research satellite the size of a school bus has been sucked into the Earth's gravitational pull. The space agency expects the satellite to break into pieces on entry to the atmosphere, and for some of those pieces — some as heavy as 300 pounds — to rain down later this week. Donald Kessler, who served as NASA's senior scientist for orbital debris research, tells Michele Norris that an event of this nature is highly unusual — and odds are slim that the debris will injure people or destroy property.

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MICHELE NORRIS, host: According to NASA, a retired U.S. research satellite has been sucked into the Earth's gravitational pull. The space agency believes it will break apart, and pieces of it will crash into the planet later this week. But where and when exactly, they don't yet know.

Now, space junk falls to Earth on an almost daily basis without injuring people or property. But this piece of falling space junk is far bigger than the norm. It's 1,300 pounds, the size of a school bus.

Donald Kessler spent more than 30 years with NASA, most recently as the agency's senior scientist for orbital debris research. And he joins me now to talk about a particular piece of orbital debris. Welcome to the program.

Dr. DONALD KESSLER: Thank you.

NORRIS: When was the last time a spacecraft of this size crashed into Earth?

KESSLER: Well, it has been a while but things re-enter almost every day and most of it does burn up. And there have been within the last year several objects that have survived re-entry. And people have found those objects and displayed them. You can usually find them on the Web. There are pictures of things that have survived re-entry.

NORRIS: And when they land they just arrive with a thud in someone's farm field?

KESSLER: That's exactly what happened, though. It was around February of this year when a person in Wyoming was walking out in his field and heard a thud, and eventually found this cylinder that was about 20 inches in diameter in a crater. It turned out to be a piece of Russian spacecraft. And it's the type of things that usually survive re-entry.

Things that are made out of titanium or stainless steel, beryllium, that all have high temperatures for melting, survive re-entry. But usually most everything else burns up.

NORRIS: So, tell us a little bit more about this research satellite. What will likely happen when it re-enters the atmosphere?

KESSLER: Well, it will start to break up is the first thing that will happen to it because the outer skin will not be able to withstand the heat and the forces of re-entry. And as it breaks up, it'll start releasing various pieces of it. And most of those pieces will just totally disintegrate and not survive to the ground. But there'll be...

NORRIS: Most.

KESSLER: Yes. There will definitely be at least a handful of pieces that it will survive and land somewhere, and could be found if it happened to land on land.

NORRIS: And there's a handful, not literally a handful, not something that'll fit in your hand. So this will actually probably be quite large, right?

KESSLER: Yeah, one piece may be as large as 300 pounds.

NORRIS: Now, we don't want to freak people out, you know? And we certainly don't want to send people into a panic. But what's the likelihood that this could actually fall on a person or a building or actually strike someone or something?

KESSLER: Well, the calculated risk is 1 in 3,800 that somebody would be injured on the Earth. And since there are literally billions of people on Earth, the chances that it be either be you or me is something like one chance and 10 trillion.

NORRIS: I have one small, last question for that farmer who found that debris in his field. If this lands someplace on open land, who owns that piece of debris?

KESSLER: The person who put it in orbit. Any time you launch something into space, the launching nation is responsible for that no matter what happens. And for that reason, there is a lot of responsibility then placed on the people who put things in space. And so, if they cause an injury, they are liable for it.

NORRIS: So that lands in your backyard, if this lands on your backyard, you can't put it on eBay.

KESSLER: Well, you probably could because they would bother to ask for it.

NORRIS: Oh, okay. Maybe you shouldn't put it on eBay.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

KESSLER: Right, at least not without permission.

NORRIS: Donald Kessler spent more than 30 years with NASA. He was most recently the agency's senior scientist for orbital debris research. Donald Kessler, thank you very much.

KESSLER: You're welcome.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

NORRIS: More coming up on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

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