After weight-loss surgery, new gut bacteria keep obesity away

After weight-loss surgery, new gut bacteria keep obesity away - The logic behind weight-loss surgery seems simple: rearrange the digestive tract so the stomach can hold less food and the food bypasses part of the small intestine, allowing fewer of a meal's calories to be absorbed. Bye-bye, obesity.

A study of lab mice, published on Wednesday, begs to differ. It concludes that one of the most common and effective forms of bariatric surgery, called Roux-en-Y gastric bypass, melts away pounds not - or not only - by re-routing the digestive tract, as long thought, but by changing the bacteria in the gut.

Or, in non-scientific terms, the surgery somehow replaces fattening microbes with slimming ones.

If that occurs in people, too, then the same bacteria-changing legerdemain achieved by gastric bypass might be accomplished without putting obese patients under the knife in an expensive and risky operation.

"These elegant experiments show that you can mimic the action of surgery with something less invasive," said Dr. Francesco Rubino of Catholic University in Rome and a pioneer in gastric-bypass surgery. "For instance, you might transfer bacteria or even manipulate the diet" to encourage slimming bacteria and squelch fattening kinds, said Rubino, who was not involved in the study.

FATTENING BUGS, SLIMMING BUGS

For many obese patients, particularly those with type 2 diabetes, gastric bypass has succeeded where nothing else has. Severely obese patients routinely lose 65 to 75 percent of their excess weight and fat after the operation, studies show, and leave their diabetes behind.

Oddly, however, the diabetes remission often occurs before significant weight loss. That has made bypass surgeons and weight-loss experts suspect that Roux-en-Y changes not only anatomy but also metabolism or the endocrine system. In other words, the surgery does something besides re-plumb the gut.

That "something," according to previous studies, includes altering the mix of trillions of microbes in the digestive tract. Not only are the "gut microbiota" different in lean people and obese people, but the mix of microbes changes after an obese patient undergoes gastric bypass and becomes more like the microbiota in lean people.

Researchers did not know, however, whether the microbial change was the cause or the effect of post-bypass weight loss.

That is what the new study, by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, set out to answer.

They first performed Roux-en-Y on obese mice. As expected, the animals quickly slimmed down, losing 29 percent of their weight and keeping it off, the researchers report in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

To make sure there was not something about the general experience of surgery, rather than gastric bypass specifically, that affected the animals, the scientists performed "sham" Roux-en-Y on other obese mice. In this procedure, the researchers made incisions as if they were going to do a gastric bypass, but instead connected everything up as nature had it.

The researchers then transferred gut microbiota from the Roux-en-Y mice to microbe-free obese mice. Result: the recipient mice lost weight and fat - no surgery required. Crucially, obese mice that received gut bugs from mice that had received sham Roux-en-Y, not the real thing, did not slim down.

It is the first experimental evidence that changes in the gut microbiota cause the weight loss after gastric bypass, and that the new, post-bypass mix of microbes can cause weight loss in animals that did not have surgery.

In particular, just a week after surgery the Roux-en-Y mice harbored relatively more of the same types of bacteria that become more abundant in people after gastric bypass and that lean people have naturally.

"The effects of gastric bypass are not just anatomical, as we thought," said Dr. Lee Kaplan, senior author of the study and associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "They're also physiological. Now we need to learn more about how the microbiota exert their effects."

Slimming bacteria work their magic in either of two ways, studies of gut microbiota show. They seem to raise metabolism, allowing people to burn off a 630-calorie chocolate chip muffin more easily.

They also extract fewer calories from the muffin in the first place. In contrast, fattening bacteria wrest every last calorie from food.

Transferring slimming bacteria into obese people might be one way to give them the benefits of weight-loss surgery without an operation. It might also be possible to devise a menu that encourages the proliferation of slimming bacteria and reduces the population of fattening bacteria.

Another new study found that figuring out whether you have slimming microbiota or fattening ones might be as easy as breathing.

In a study published on Tuesday in the online edition of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles report that people whose breath has high concentrations of both hydrogen and methane gases are more likely to have a higher body mass index and higher percentage of body fat.

Methane is associated with bacteria called Methanobrevibacter smithii, which in overabundance may cause weight gain by extracting calories from food super-efficiently, Cedars' Ruchi Mathur, who led the study, said: "It could allow a person to harvest more calories from their food."

The breath test could provide a warning that someone is at risk of obesity because he harbors fattening microbiota.

It could also validate what many overweight people have long suspected: if their slim friends eat two slices of bacon-cheeseburger pizza the 600 calories go through them like celery, but if the overweight person indulges then every calorie seems to turn into more fat. People absorb different quantities of calories from the exact same food, thanks to their gut microbiota. ( Reuters )

READ MORE - After weight-loss surgery, new gut bacteria keep obesity away

Sharks? Lions? Grizzly bears? Try bats

What Is the World’s Most Dangerous Animal? - Sharks? Lions? Grizzly bears? Try bats

Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky.  —Albert Camus, The Plague

In May, 1997, a 3-year-old boy was admitted to an ICU in Hong Kong after suffering from influenza for a week. Two days later, the boy died of pneumonia. His case would have been merely a curiosity if it weren’t for 17 more patients who came down with the illness months later. In all, six people died from a strain of influenza that had never been seen in humans before, dubbed H5N1.

How afraid should you be of animal-borne disease?

Robert Neubecker.

However, H5N1 wasn’t really “new.” It had caused outbreaks in Scottish chickens in 1959 and British turkeys in 1991. It had killed geese in Guangdong, China, in 1996. But these bird outbreaks weren’t considered important by physicians or researchers on human disease—this was an avian strain of influenza, and it was thought that humans had little to be concerned about. That changed abruptly in 1997, when the human cases led to the destruction of 1.3 million chickens in Hong Kong in an effort to stop the outbreak. That strategy seemed to work in the short term, but H5N1 has since surfaced in more than two dozen countries and caused more than 600 human infections since 1997—almost half of them fatal.

While scientists were closely following the movements of H5N1, another influenza virus—H1N1—snuck up on us in 2009 and spread around the world in a matter of weeks. This was the first influenza pandemic of the 21st century, and like H5N1, it moved to humans from animals—in this case, from pigs.

When new infectious diseases are discovered, one of the first questions is “where did this come from?” More often than not, the answer is one of our animal friends—a kind of disease called a zoonosis. Studies have shown that about 75 percent of emerging infectious diseases (diseases that are newly discovered, are increasing in frequency, or have moved into a new geographic area) are of animal origin, as are 60 percent of all known pathogens. Even diseases that have spread freely in the human population, such as tuberculosis, HIV, measles, and smallpox, have their roots in infections carried by animals.

Which animals are the most likely to harbor zoonotic pathogens?

Bats

For reasons that are not currently understood, bats are able to be infected with a huge variety of viruses. They pass these viruses to other animal species via bites or guano. The classic bat-origin virus is rabies, but bats have also been implicated as possible reservoir species for the Ebola and Marburg viruses, Nipah, Hendra, and others. Even influenza has recently been found in bats. Bats also appear to be the reservoir for the SARS coronavirus, which surfaced in 2002 in Asia. SARS eventually infected more than 8,000 individuals around the world and killed almost 800 of them between November 2002 and July 2003, spreading to at least 37 countries. A new SARS-related virus has recently surfaced in Saudi Arabia, and speculation is that it’s also from bats.

Other Wild Animals

While bats appear to be responsible for a disproportionate amount of novel pathogens, every animal species carries its own unique microbiota—the collection of microbes that live on and in an animal’s body. Some of those can also spread to humans. As mentioned above, birds can spread many different types of influenza viruses. In fact, wild waterfowl serve as the ultimate reservoir for all known types of influenza viruses. Birds also can transmit a number of encephalitis viruses, such as West Nile. Because many migrate long distances, birds may be particularly efficient at introducing pathogens into new areas.

Primates also harbor a number of pathogens that have crossed over into human populations, often an easy jump since we are so closely related. HIV is the result of multiple species jumps from nonhuman primates into human populations, likely due to butchering of infected animals. Research carried out by Nathan Wolfe and others has shown that bushmeat hunters in Africa are still being infected with viruses from our primate relatives.

Rats and mice, of course, have long been associated with disease. Plague-infected fleas on rats spread Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for the Black Death. We know today that other species can also transmit this pathogen—including much cuter prairie dogs in the southwestern United States. Mice have recently been implicated in an outbreak of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome in Yosemite National Park that has killed three and sickened at least 10 campers. Mice carry this virus without showing symptoms and spread it to humans via urine and feces.

Livestock and Pets

The domestication of livestock and the taming of animals for pets certainly marked a turning point in human history. Having these animals on hand to provide food and milk, as well as companionship and assistance with hunting, gave humans a more ready food supply and meant less time had to be spent gathering food. However, it also put us in regular contact with germs that these animals carried. Human measles virus infections may have evolved from a similar cattle virus, rinderpest. Cattle can also be a source of tuberculosis in humans, even today. Industrial livestock production means that it’s not just a farm family that may be sickened by pathogens from a pig or cow, but potentially hundreds or thousands who consume meat or other products from those animals. Foodborne illnesses are estimated to sicken 76 million people yearly in the United States and kill approximately 5,000. Economic costs from these food-borne illnesses alone are estimated at approximately $77 billion per year

Finally, our smaller domesticated friends can expose us to their own pathogens, including the parasite Toxoplasma gondii in cats (which is particularly dangerous to pregnant women), and they can also bring along unintended visitors and their pathogens into the home in the form of fleas and ticks. Even “pocket pets” such as hamsters and guinea pigs can bring along potentially deadly viruses and infect their owners.

So, Why Aren’t We All Dead?

With so many potentially deadly organisms lurking in the animal species we share the Earth with, the question becomes not if we’ll have another novel pandemic, but when. However, these events—the new influenzas, the SARS coronaviruses, the HIV outbreaks—are actually relatively rare. “Spillover” events—an individual becoming infected with a zoonotic pathogen—are common, but typically the infected host is a dead end. He or she doesn’t spread the germ to a second person, which is a necessary factor for an epidemic (which is a localized outbreak) or a pandemic (a worldwide infection) to occur. Going back to H5N1 influenza versus H1N1, that’s why the former has caused only sporadic outbreaks and the latter has become pandemic. H1N1 is readily transmissible between people, and H5N1 (so far) is not. This is also why there was so much concern earlier this year when a genetically-modified H5N1 was created in a laboratory setting. This modified virus was able to spread readily between ferrets, a common animal model for human influenza research. The work caused worry that such a virus may escape from a lab and spread in the wild—The Stand come to life.

This controversy also highlights the difficulty in studying potential zoonotic pathogens. Many of these organisms have adapted to their hosts and do not always cause symptoms in their “natural” species. As such, it’s difficult to anticipate which microbes will 1) make the species jump successfully; 2) cause illness in the new host species (for example, in humans); and 3) transmit efficiently among members of the new host species. Prediction right now is very foggy, though we’re beginning to better understand the diversity of organisms out there, and with that, hopefully gain understanding into why some spill over and others do not.

One final note—while we often consider humans the victims of such pandemic events, that’s not always the case. Zoonoses are a two-way street, and humans can also spread our own native microbes to other species. Recent studies have shown that humans have spread antibiotic-resistant strains of Staphylococcus aureus to many different species, including domestic chickens, pigs, and even chimpanzees and dolphins. We, too, are a walking biohazard. ( slate.com )

READ MORE - Sharks? Lions? Grizzly bears? Try bats

Blood pressure 'should be measured in both arms'

Blood pressure 'should be measured in both arms' - Measuring blood pressure in both arms should be routine because the difference between left and right arm could indicate underlying health problems, says a study review.

The Lancet research found that a large difference could mean an increased risk of vascular disease and death.

Although existing guidelines state that blood pressure should be measured in both arms, it is not often done.

But a heart charity said it was too early to judge the findings.

The arm with the higher pressure can vary between individuals, but it is the difference between arms that counts, the study suggests.

Dr Christopher Clark and colleagues, from the Peninsula College of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Exeter, reviewed 28 previous study papers looking at this area.

Most people in the study had an elevated blood pressure risk and about one-third had a normal level of risk.

The study concluded that a difference in systolic blood pressure of 10 millimetres of mercury (mm Hg) between arms could identify patients at high risk of asymptomatic peripheral vascular disease.

“Start Quote

It's too early to say whether this idea could become part of standard healthcare practice.”

Natasha Stewart British Heart Foundation

A difference of 15mg Hg would also indicate an increased risk of cerebrovascular disease, a 70% increased risk of cardiovascular mortality and 60% increased risk of death from all causes, the authors said.

Peripheral vascular disease (PVD) is the narrowing and hardening of the arteries that supply blood to the legs and feet. There are often no symptoms.

The UK vascular check programme for over-40s which includes a test for hypertension, advises that blood pressure measurements be taken in both arms.

"But surveys have shown that the average GP doesn't do it," said Dr Clark.

'Routine care'

Early detection of PVD is important because these patients could then benefit from stopping smoking, lowering their blood pressure or being offered statin therapy.

Dr Clark said the findings supported the need for blood pressure checks in both arms to be the norm.

Writing in The Lancet, Prof Richard J McManus, department of primary care health sciences at the University of Oxford and Prof Jonathan Mant, from the department of public health and primary care at the University of Cambridge, said the review supports existing guidelines.

"Further research is needed to clarify whether substantial differences between arms should prompt aggressive management of cardiovascular risk factors.

"Ascertainment of differences should become part of routine care, as opposed to a guideline recommendation that is mostly ignored."

Natasha Stewart, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said measuring blood pressure on both arms to assess vascular disease is, theoretically, a quick and simple task.

"But it's too early to say whether this idea could become part of standard healthcare practice and so we need more research to confirm the findings."

Prof Bryan Williams, from the Blood Pressure Association and the University of Leicester, said the study reinforced the message already in the guidelines from health watchdog NICE. ( bbc.co.uk )

READ MORE - Blood pressure 'should be measured in both arms'

New Genetic Clues to Breast Cancer?

New Genetic Clues to Breast Cancer? -- Researchers have identified three new genomic regions they believe are linked with breast cancer that may help explain why some women develop the disease.

All three newly identified areas "contain interesting genes that open up new avenues for biological and clinical research," said researcher Douglas Easton, a professor of genetic epidemiology at the University of Cambridge in England.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women, with about 1 million new cases annually worldwide and more than 400,000 deaths a year.

Scientists conducting genome-wide association studies -- research that looks at the association between genetic factors and disease to pinpoint possible causes -- had already identified 22 breast cancer susceptibility loci. Locus is the physical location of a gene or DNA sequence on a chromosome.

"The three [newly identified] loci take the number of common susceptibility loci from 22 to 25," said Easton.

However, the three new susceptibility loci might explain only about 0.7 percent of the familial risks of breast cancer, bringing the total contribution to about 9 percent, the researchers said.

Michael Melner, scientific program director for the American Cancer Society, said this current research adds some important new clues to existing evidence, but he agreed that the number of cases likely associated with these three variants is probably low.

"So the total impact in terms of patients would be fairly small," Melner said.

The study is published online Jan. 22 in Nature Genetics.

To find the new clues, Easton's team worked with genetic information on about 57,000 breast cancer patients and 58,000 healthy women obtained from two genome-wide association studies.

The investigators zeroed in on 72 different single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A SNP -- pronounced "snip" -- is a change in which a single base in the DNA differs from the usual base. The human genome has millions of SNPs, some linked with disease, while others are normal variations.

The researchers focused on three SNPs -- on chromosomes 12p11, 12q24 and 21q21.

Easton's team found that the variant on the 12p11 chromosome is linked with both estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer (which needs estrogen to grow) and estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer. The other two variants are only linked with ER-positive cancers, they said.

One of the newly identified variants is in an area with a gene that has a role in the development of mammary glands and bones. Easton said it was already known that mammary gland development in puberty is an important period in terms of determining later cancer risk. "But these are the first susceptibility genes to be shown to be involved in this process," he said.

One of the other SNPs is in an area that can affect estrogen receptor signaling, the researchers found.

Melner, noting some of the research is "fine tuning" of other work, said in his view the new understanding of the signaling pathways and their genetic links is the most important finding.

"When you delineate a pathway, you bring up new potential targets for therapy," he said. "The more targets you have, you open up the potential for having multiple drugs and attacking a cancer more easily, without it becoming more resistant."

Overall, Melner added, the results underscore the complexity of the different mechanisms involved in breast cancer development. ( HealthDay News )

READ MORE - New Genetic Clues to Breast Cancer?

Study of freakish mystery illness finds no cause

Study of freakish mystery illness finds no cause — Imagine having the feeling that tiny bugs are crawling on your body, that you have oozing sores and mysterious fibers sprouting from your skin. Sound like a horror movie? Well, at one point several years ago, government doctors were getting up to 20 calls a day from people saying they had such symptoms.

Many of these people were in California and one of that state's U.S. senators, Dianne Feinstein, asked for a scientific study. In 2008, federal health officials began to study people saying they were affected by this freakish condition called Morgellons.

The study cost nearly $600,000. Its long-awaited results, released Wednesday, conclude that Morgellons exists only in the patients' minds.

"We found no infectious cause," said Mark Eberhard, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official who was part of the 15-member study team.

The study appears in PLoS One, one of the Public Library of Science journals.

Sufferers of Morgellons (mor-GELL-uns) describe a variety of symptoms, including fatigue, erupting sores, crawling sensations on their skin and — perhaps worst of all — mysterious red, blue or black fibers that sprout from their skin. Some say they've suffered for decades, but the syndrome wasn't named until 2002, when "Morgellons" was chosen from a 1674 medical paper describing similar symptoms.

Afflicted patients have documented their suffering on websites and many have vainly searched for a doctor who believed them. Some doctors believe the condition is a form of delusional parasitosis, a psychosis in which people believe they are infected with parasites.

Last May, Mayo Clinic researchers published a study of 108 Morgellons patients and found none of them suffered from any unusual physical ailment. The study concluded that the sores on many of them were caused by their own scratching and picking at their skin.

The CDC study was meant to be broader, starting with a large population and then went looking for cases within the group. The intent was to give scientists a better idea of how common Morgellons actually is.

They focused on more than 3 million people who lived in 13 counties in Northern California, a location chosen in part because all had health insurance through Kaiser Permanente of Northern California, which had a research arm that could assist in the project. Also, many of the anecdotal reports of Morgellons came from the area.

Culling through Kaiser patient records from July 2006 through June 2008, the team found — and was able to reach — 115 who had what sounded like Morgellons. Most were middle-aged white women. They were not clustered in any one spot.

That led to the finding that Morgellons occurred in roughly 4 out of every 100,000 Kaiser enrollees. "So it's rare," Eberhard said.

Roughly 100 agreed to at least answer survey questions, and about 40 consented to a battery of physical and psychological tests that stretched over several days.

Blood and urine tests and skin biopsies checked for dozens of infectious diseases, including fungus and bacteria that could cause some of the symptoms. The researchers found none that would explain the cases.

There was no sign of an environmental cause, either, although researchers did not go to each person's house to look around.

They took fibers from 12 people, which were tested at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Nothing unusual there, either. Cotton and nylon, mainly — not some kind of organism wriggling out of a patient's body.

Skin lesions were common, but researchers concluded most of them were from scratching.

What stood out was how the patients did on the psychological exams. Though normal in most respects, they had more depression than the general public and were more obsessive about physical ailments, the study found.

However, they did not have an unusual history of psychiatric problems, according to their medical records. And the testing gave no clear indication of a delusional disorder.

So what do they have? The researchers don't know. They don't even know what to call it, opting for the label "unexplained dermopathy" in their paper.

But clearly, something made them miserable. "The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence," said Felicia Goldstein, an Emory University neurology professor and study co-author.

She said perhaps the patients could be helped by cognitive behavioral therapy that might help them deal with possible contributing psychological issues.

The study is not expected to be the last word on the subject.

Among those with additional questions is Randy Wymore, an Oklahoma State University pharmacologist who for years was the most reputable scientist to look into it and who has concluded Morgellons is not a psychiatric disorder.

On Wednesday, Wymore said he had not seen the CDC paper and was unable to comment on it. But when the study began, he questioned whether Kaiser patients with Morgellons would participate, especially if they were unhappy with how they were previously handled by their Kaiser doctors.

"There is always the question: How many of the study participants actually have Morgellons Disease?" he said, in an email.

The CDC is not planning additional study, however. The agency's expertise is in infectious diseases and environmental health problems, and the researchers saw no evidence of that.

"We're not mental health experts," one CDC spokeswoman said. ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Study of freakish mystery illness finds no cause

UK scientists grow super broccoli

UK scientists grow super broccoli — Popeye might want to consider switching to broccoli. British scientists unveiled a new breed of the vegetable that experts say packs a big nutritional punch.

The new broccoli was specially grown to contain two to three times the normal amount of glucoraphanin, a nutrient believed to help ward off heart disease.

"Vegetables are a medicine cabinet already," said Richard Mithen, who led the team of scientists at the Institute for Food Research in Norwich, England, that developed the new broccoli. "When you eat this broccoli ... you get a reduction in cholesterol in your blood stream," he told Associated Press Television.

An AP reporter who tasted the new broccoli found it was the same as the regular broccoli. Scientists, however, said it should taste slightly sweeter because it contains less sulphur.

Matt Dunham - In this photo taken Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011, an employee puts items on shelves near packs of Beneforte super broccoli, at left, at a branch of Marks & Spencer in London. The new variety was bred to contain two to three times the normal amount of glucoraphanin, a nutrient believed to help ward off heart disease. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham)

Glucoraphanin works by breaking fat down in the body, preventing it from clogging the arteries. It is only found in broccoli in significant amounts.

To create the vegetable, sold as "super broccoli," Mithen and colleagues cross-bred a traditional British broccoli with a wild, bitter Sicilian variety that has no flowery head, and a big dose of glucoraphanin. After 14 years, the enhanced hybrid was produced, which has been granted a patent by European authorities. No genetic modification was used.

It's been on sale as Beneforte in select stores in California and Texas for the last year, and hit British shelves this month. Later this fall, the broccoli will be rolled out across the U.S.

The super vegetable is part of an increasing tendency among producers to inject extra nutrients into foods, ranging from calcium-enriched orange juice to fortified sugary cereals and milk with added omega 3 fatty acids. In Britain, the new broccoli is sold as part of a line of vegetables that includes mushrooms with extra vitamin D, and tomatoes and potatoes with added selenium.

Not enough data exists to know if anyone could overdose on glucoraphanin, but vitamin D and selenium in very high quantities can be toxic.

Mithen and colleagues are conducting human trials comparing the heart health of people eating the super broccoli to those who eat regular broccoli or no broccoli. They plan to submit the data to the European Food Safety Agency next year so they can claim in advertisements the broccoli has proven health benefits.

"There's a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to (glucoraphanin and related compounds) as the most important preventive agents for (heart attacks) and certain cancers, so it's a reasonable thing to do," said Lars Ove Dragsted, a professor in the department of human nutrition at the University of Copenhagen. He previously sat on panels at the International Agency for Research on Cancer examining the link between vegetables and cancer.

Dragsted said glucoraphanin is a mildly toxic compound used by plants to fight insects. In humans, glucoraphanin may stimulate our bodies' natural chemical defenses, potentially making the body stronger at removing dangerous compounds.

Other experts said eating foods packed with extra nutrients would probably only have a minimal impact compared with other lifestyle choices, like not smoking and exercising.

"Eating this new broccoli is not going to counteract your bad habits," said Glenys Jones, a nutritionist at Britain's Medical Research Council. She doubted whether adding the nutrients in broccoli to more popular foods would work to improve people's overall health.

"If you added this to a burger, people might think it's then a healthy food and eat more burgers, whereas this is not something they should be eating more of," Jones said. She also thought the super broccoli's U.K. price — it costs about a third more than regular broccoli — might discourage penny-pinching customers.

But that wasn't enough to deter Suzanne Johnson, a 43-year-old mother of two young children in London.

"I'm very concerned about the food they eat and would happily pay a bit more to buy something that has an added benefit," Johnson said.

But for her children, taste is ultimately more important than any nutritional value. "Broccoli is one of the vegetables they actually like, so I'm glad it's the one (scientists) have been working on," she said. "This wouldn't work if it had been mushrooms or asparagus." ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - UK scientists grow super broccoli

How a simple sugar pill from the doctor may not be a thing of the past

How a simple sugar pill from the doctor may not be a thing of the past - The placebo effect is so powerful that doctors want to make more use of our ability to 'trick ourselves better’

Not so long ago, it wasn’t unusual for your friendly GP to have at hand a bottle of sugar pills for patients’ minor aches and pains. While sugar pills are no longer on offer, a report out last week revealed that half of all German doctors are happily dishing out placebos to their patients for ailments such as stomach upset and low mood.

The study, published by the German Medical Association, said that placebos – here defined as sham treatments without any active constituents – from vitamin pills to homeopathic remedies and even surgery, can prove effective as treatments for minor problems and are completely without side effects.

So if placebo treatments are such a good thing, should UK patients be getting them?

The idea of the healing power of the mind is nothing new

The power of the placebo first came to light during the Second World War. Morphine was in short supply in military field hospitals and an American anaesthetist called Henry Beecher, who was preparing to treat a soldier with terrible injuries, feared that without the drug the operation could induce a fatal heart attack.

In desperation, one of the nurses injected the man with a harmless solution of saline. To Beecher’s surprise the patient settled down as if he had been given morphine and felt little pain during the operation. Dr Beecher had witnessed the placebo effect.

Wind forward 70-odd years and the story of the placebo continues to fascinate, even though in the UK placebo treatments are usually confined to clinical trials, as a comparison with “real” treatments. Recent research suggests the placebo effect is not confined to subjective areas such as pain but may bring about physical changes. In one (albeit small) trial, published in the journal Science, people with Parkinson’s disease given placebo injections showed significantly higher dopamine levels in the brain, similar to the effects of medication.

Interestingly, the German study found that the efficacy of a placebo can depend on the size and colour of a pill and on its cost (with more expensive placebos being more effective) and that injections work better as placebos than tablets.

What causes the placebo effect? No one really knows; but the idea of the healing power of the mind is nothing new. The discovery in the 1980s of the rich supply of nerves linking the brain with the immune system, which led to a new branch of medical research known as psychoneuroimmunology, clearly goes some way to explain it.

Nor does the placebo have to be a pill or injection: just seeing your doctor can work wonders. Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at the University of Exeter, believes that the key is the relationship between the patient and the doctor or therapist.

“Trust can generate a placebo response. People are already anticipating getting better when they come to the surgery. If the doctor then gives that patient an aspirin for a headache and does it in an empathic manner, the aspirin will have a pharmacological effect and the therapeutic relationship will generate the placebo effect,” explains Prof Ernst.

One widely publicised analysis of clinical trial data on modern antidepressants from the University of Hull found that leading brands of antidepressants worked little better than placebos. Subsequent reporting by the press concluded that antidepressants were useless. However, this failed to mention that the patients’ response to placebos was “exceptionally large”. In other words, it wasn’t that antidepressants didn’t work – but that placebos worked very well. “If the drugs are no better than a placebo, then why not give a placebo which has none of the nasty side-effects?” argues Irving Kirsch, professor of psychology at Hull and lead researcher.

But others say using placebo treatments other than in clinical trials poses an ethical dilemma. While it is not illegal for a doctor to prescribe a placebo if they believe it is in the best interests of the patient, Dr Tony Calland, chair of the BMA’s Medical Ethics Committee, says: “Long ago doctors would give people medication that was scientifically of no value. These days, we believe patients should have an informed choice. Giving a patient a placebo without telling them is regarded as unethical and deceptive.”

But if deception is the problem, could patients be informed they were getting a placebo? A recent study of 80 patients with irritable bowel syndrome at Harvard Medical School in Boston showed that, even though patients were told, their symptoms still improved, compared to those who had no treatment.

Dr Calland points out there is a bigger problem with the placebo response. “In one patient it may be very strong while in another it may be virtually non-existent,” he says. And placebos do not work for everything: they cannot alter blood sugar levels in diabetics, mend a broken leg or cure cancer.

“To hope you will get a placebo effect would simply be not very good medicine,” Dr Calland argues. “Why not just give a treatment that actually works?” ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - How a simple sugar pill from the doctor may not be a thing of the past

Nuclear plant downplayed tsunami risk

Nuclear plant downplayed tsunami risk – In planning their defense against a killer tsunami, the people running Japan's now-hobbled nuclear power plant dismissed important scientific evidence and all but disregarded 3,000 years of geological history, an Associated Press investigation shows.

The misplaced confidence displayed by Tokyo Electric Power Co. was prompted by a series of overly optimistic assumptions that concluded the Earth couldn't possibly release the level of fury it did two weeks ago, pushing the six-reactor Fukushima Dai-ichi complex to the brink of multiple meltdowns.

Instead of the reactors staying dry, as contemplated under the power company's worst-case scenario, the plant was overrun by a torrent of water much higher and stronger than the utility argued could occur, according to an AP analysis of records, documents and statements from researchers, the utility and the Japan's national nuclear safety agency.

And while TEPCO and government officials have said no one could have anticipated such a massive tsunami, there is ample evidence that such waves have struck the northeast coast of Japan before — and that it could happen again along the culprit fault line, which runs roughly north to south, offshore, about 220 miles (350 kilometers) east of the plant.

A protester wears a mask during an antinuclear rally in Tokyo Sunday, March 27, 2011. Leaked water in Unit 2 of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant measured 10 million times higher than usual radioactivity levels when the reactor is operating normally, Tokyo Electric Power Co. spokesman Takashi Kurita told reporters in Tokyo

TEPCO officials say they had a good system for projecting tsunamis. They declined to provide more detailed explanations, saying they were focused on the ongoing nuclear crisis.

What is clear: TEPCO officials discounted important readings from a network of GPS units that showed that the two tectonic plates that create the fault were strongly "coupled," or stuck together, thus storing up extra stress along a line hundreds of miles long. The greater the distance and stickiness of such coupling, experts say, the higher the stress buildup — pressure that can be violently released in an earthquake.

That evidence, published in scientific journals starting a decade ago, represented the kind of telltale characteristics of a fault being able to produce the truly overwhelming quake — and therefore tsunami — that it did.

On top of that, TEPCO modeled the worst-case tsunami using its own computer program instead of an internationally accepted prediction method.

It matters how Japanese calculate risk. In short, they rely heavily on what has happened to figure out what might happen, even if the probability is extremely low. If the view of what has happened isn't accurate, the risk assessment can be faulty.

That approach led to TEPCO's disregard of much of Japan's tsunami history.

In postulating the maximum-sized earthquake and tsunami that the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex might face, TEPCO's engineers decided not to factor in quakes earlier than 1896. That meant the experts excluded a major quake that occurred more than 1,000 years ago — a tremor followed by a powerful tsunami that hit many of the same locations as the recent disaster.

A TEPCO reassessment presented only four months ago concluded that tsunami-driven water would push no higher than 18 feet (5.7 meters) once it hit the shore at the Fukushima Dai-ichi complex. The reactors sit up a small bluff, between 14 and 23 feet (4.3 and 6.3 meters) above TEPCO's projected high-water mark, according to a presentation at a November seismic safety conference in Japan by TEPCO civil engineer Makoto Takao.

"We assessed and confirmed the safety of the nuclear plants," Takao asserted.

However, the wall of water that thundered ashore two weeks ago reached about 27 feet (8.2 meters) above TEPCO's prediction. The flooding disabled backup power generators, located in basements or on first floors, imperiling the nuclear reactors and their nearby spent fuel pools.

___

The story leading up to the Tsunami of 2011 goes back many, many years — several millennia, in fact.

The Jogan tsunami of 869 displayed striking similarities to the events in and around the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors. The importance of that disaster, experts told the AP, is that the most accurate planning for worst-case scenarios is to study the largest events over the longest period of time. In other words, use the most data possible.

The evidence shows that plant operators should have known of the dangers — or, if they did know, disregarded them.

As early as 2001, a group of scientists published a paper documenting the Jogan tsunami. They estimated waves of nearly 26 feet (8 meters) at Soma, about 25 miles north of the plant. North of there, they concluded that a surge from the sea swept sand more than 2 1/2 miles (4 kilometers) inland across the Sendai plain. The latest tsunami pushed water at least about 1 1/2 miles (2 kilometers) inland.

The scientists also found two additional layers of sand and concluded that two additional "gigantic tsunamis" had hit the region during the past 3,000 years, both presumably comparable to Jogan. Carbon dating couldn't pinpoint exactly when the other two hit, but the study's authors put the range of those layers of sand at between 140 B.C. and A.D. 150, and between 670 B.C. and 910 B.C.

In a 2007 paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Pure and Applied Geophysics, two TEPCO employees and three outside researchers explained their approach to assessing the tsunami threat to Japan's nuclear reactors, all 54 of which sit near the sea or ocean.

To ensure the safety of Japan's coastal power plants, they recommended that facilities be designed to withstand the highest tsunami "at the site among all historical and possible future tsunamis that can be estimated," based on local seismic characteristics.

But the authors went on to write that tsunami records before 1896 could be less reliable because of "misreading, misrecording and the low technology available for the measurement itself." The TEPCO employees and their colleagues concluded, "Records that appear unreliable should be excluded."

Two years later, in 2009, another set of researchers concluded that the Jogan tsunami had reached 1 mile (1.5 kilometers) inland at Namie, about 6 miles (10 kilometers) north of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant.

The warning from the 2001 report about the 3,000-year history would prove to be most telling: "The recurrence interval for a large-scale tsunami is 800 to 1,100 years. More than 1,100 years have passed since the Jogan tsunami, and, given the reoccurrence interval, the possibility of a large tsunami striking the Sendai plain is high."

___

The fault involved in the Fukushima Dai-ichi tsunami is part of what is known as a subduction zone. In subduction zones, one tectonic plate dives under another. When the fault ruptures, the sea floor snaps upward, pushing up the water above it and potentially creating a tsunami. Subduction zones are common around Japan and throughout the Pacific Ocean region.

TEPCO's latest calculations were started after a magnitude-8.8 subduction zone earthquake off the coast of Chile in February 2010.

In such zones over the past 50 years, earthquakes of magnitude 9.0 or greater have occurred in Alaska, Chile and Indonesia. All produced large tsunamis.

When two plates are locked across a large area of a subduction zone, the potential for a giant earthquake increases. And those are the exact characteristics of where the most recent quake occurred.

TEPCO "absolutely should have known better," said Dr. Costas Synolakis, a leading American expert on tsunami modeling and an engineering professor at the University of Southern California. "Common sense," he said, should have produced a larger predicted maximum water level at the plant.

TEPCO's tsunami modelers did not judge that, in a worst-case scenario, the strong subduction and coupling conditions present off the coast of Fukushima Dai-ichi could produce the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that occurred. Instead, it figured the maximum at 8.6 magnitude, meaning the March 11 quake was four times as powerful as the presumed maximum.

Shogo Fukuda, a TEPCO spokesman, said that 8.6 was the maximum magnitude entered into the TEPCO internal computer modeling for Fukushima Dai-ichi.

Another TEPCO spokesman, Motoyasu Tamaki, used a new buzzword, "sotegai," or "outside our imagination," to describe what actually occurred.

U.S. tsunami experts said that one reason the estimates for Fukushima Dai-ichi were so low was the way Japan calculates risk. Because of the island nation's long history of killer waves, Japanese experts often will look at what has happened — then project forward what is likely to happen again.

Under longstanding U.S. standards that are gaining popularity around the world, risk assessments typically scheme up a worst-case scenario based on what could happen, then design a facility like a nuclear power plant to withstand such a collection of conditions — factoring in just about everything short of an extremely unlikely cataclysm, like a large meteor hitting the ocean and creating a massive wave that kills hundreds of thousands.

In the early 1990s, Harry Yeh, now a tsunami expert and engineering professor at Oregon State University, was helping assess potential threats to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant on the central California coast in the United States. During that exercise, he said, researchers considered a worst-case scenario involving a significantly larger earthquake than had ever been recorded there.

And then a tsunami was added. And in that Diablo Canyon model, the quake hit during a monster storm that was already pushing onto the shore higher waves than had ever been measured at the site.

In contrast, when TEPCO calculated its high-water mark at 18 feet (5.7 meters), the anticipated maximum earthquake was in the same range as others recorded off the coast of Fukushima Dai-ichi — and the only assumption about the water level was that the tsunami arrived at high tide.

Which, as is abundantly clear now, could not have been more wrong. ( Associated Press. )

READ MORE - Nuclear plant downplayed tsunami risk

Radiation in seawater may be spreading in Japan

Radiation in seawater may be spreading in Japan – Highly radioactive iodine seeping from Japan's damaged nuclear complex may be making its way into seawater farther north of the plant than previously thought, officials said Monday, adding to radiation concerns as the crisis stretches into a third week.

Mounting problems, including badly miscalculated radiation figures and no place to store dangerously contaminated water, have stymied emergency workers struggling to cool down the overheating plant and avert a disaster with global implications.

The coastal Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant, located 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo, has been leaking radiation since a magnitude-9.0 quake on March 11 triggered a tsunami that engulfed the complex. The wave knocked out power to the system that cools the dangerously hot nuclear fuel rods.

AP Photo/The Yomiuri Shimbun, Masanobu Nakatsukasa

Evacuees from Fukushima, where the troubled Dai-ichi nuclear power plant is located, receive meals for dinner at an evacuation center in Saitama, Japan, Sunday, March 27, 2011

On Monday, workers resumed the laborious yet urgent task of pumping out the hundreds of tons of radioactive water inside several buildings at the six-unit plant. The water must be removed and safely stored before work can continue to power up the plant's cooling system, nuclear safety officials said.

The contaminated water, discovered last Thursday, has been emitting radiation that measured more than 1,000 millisieverts per hour in a recent reading at Unit 2 — some 100,000 times normal amounts, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. said.

As officials scrambled to determine the source of the radioactive water, chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano repeated Monday that the contaminated water in Unit 2 appeared to be due to a temporary partial meltdown of the reactor core.

He called it "very unfortunate" but said the spike in radiation appeared limited to the unit.

However, new readings show contamination in the ocean has spread about a mile (1.6 kilometers) farther north of the nuclear site than before. Radioactive iodine-131 was discovered just offshore from Unit 5 and Unit 6 at a level 1,150 times higher than normal, Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, told reporters Monday.

He had said earlier there was no link between the radioactive water leaking inside the plant and the radiation in the sea. On Monday, though, he reversed that position, saying he does suspect that radioactive water from the plant may indeed be leaking into the ocean.

Closer to the plant, radioactivity in seawater tested about 1,250 times higher than normal last week and climbed to 1,850 times normal over the weekend. Nishiyama said the increase was a concern, but also said the area is not a source of seafood and that the contamination posed no immediate threat to human health.

Up to 600 people are working inside the plant in shifts. Nuclear safety officials say workers' time inside the crippled units is closely monitored to minimize their exposure to radioactivity, but two workers were hospitalized Thursday when they suffered burns after stepping into contaminated water. They were to be released from the hospital Monday.

Meanwhile, a strong earthquake shook the region and prompted a brief tsunami alert early Monday, adding to the sense of unease across Japan. The quake off the battered Miyagi prefecture coast in the northeast measured magnitude-6.5, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

No damage or injuries were reported, and TEPCO said the quake would not affect work to stabilize the plant. Scores of strong earthquakes have rattled Japan over the past two weeks.

Confusion at the plant has intensified fears that the nuclear crisis will last weeks, months or years amid alarms over radiation making its way into produce, raw milk and even tap water as far as Tokyo.

On Sunday, TEPCO officials said radiation in leaking water in the Unit 2 reactor was 10 million times above normal — an apparent spike that sent employees fleeing the unit. The day ended with officials saying the huge figure had been miscalculated and offering apologies.

"The number is not credible," TEPCO spokesman Takashi Kurita said late Sunday. "We are very sorry."

A few hours later, TEPCO Vice President Sakae Muto said a new test had found radiation levels 100,000 times above normal — far better than the first results, though still very high.

But he ruled out having an independent monitor oversee the various checks despite the errors.

Muto acknowledged it could take a long time to clean up the Fukushima complex.

"We cannot say at this time how many months or years it will take," he said. ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Radiation in seawater may be spreading in Japan

Low-dose aspirin may cut colon cancer risk

Low-dose aspirin may cut colon cancer risk – A new analysis suggests that taking a low dose of aspirin may modestly reduce the risk of developing colon cancer or dying of the disease.

But experts say aspirin's side effects of bleeding and stomach problems are too worrisome for most people to take the drug for that reason alone. A U.S. health task force specifically recommends against it for those at average risk.

Previous studies have found a daily dose of at least 500 milligrams of aspirin could prevent colon cancer, but the adverse effects of such a high dose outweighed the benefits. Now, researchers say a low dose, equivalent to a baby or regular aspirin, also appears to work. But side effects are still a concern.

The European researchers pooled the 20-year results of four trials with more than 14,000 people. Those studies were designed to study aspirin's use in preventing strokes, not colon cancer.

The researchers tracked who developed the disease through cancer registries and death certificates in Britain and Sweden, where the studies were done.

They found those who took a low dose daily for about six years reduced their colon cancer risk by 24 percent and their risk of dying from the disease by 35 percent. That was compared to those who took a dummy pill or nothing. There seemed to be no advantage to taking more than a baby-sized dose.

The studies used European baby aspirin of 75 milligrams and regular aspirin, 300 milligrams. US. baby aspirin is 81 milligrams and regular aspirin, 325 milligrams.

Some researchers said the drug would benefit certain people, though no one should start taking aspirin daily without consulting their doctor.

If taken in high doses over a long period, aspirin can irritate the stomach, intestines and bowel, causing lesions and major bleeding.

"Anyone with any risk factors such as a family history (of colon cancer) or a previous polyp should definitely take aspirin," said Peter Rothwell, a professor at the University of Oxford and one of the paper's authors. The finding also "tips the balance" for anyone considering aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes, he said.

No funding was provided for the study and it was published online Friday in the journal Lancet. Rothwell and some of his co-authors have been paid for work by the makers of anti-clotting drugs like aspirin.

Other experts warned against aspirin for the general population.

"It's not for everybody," said Robert Benamouzig, of Avicenne Hospital in Bobigny, France, who co-authored a commentary in the Lancet. He said he would advise some of his high-risk patients to take aspirin, but only after explaining its side effects.

Scientists think aspirin works by stopping production of a certain enzyme linked to cancers including those of the breast, stomach, esophagus and colon.

The trials analyzed in the Lancet paper were done before the widespread introduction of screening tests like sigmoidoscopies and colonoscopies. Rothwell said taking aspirin would still help, because the drug seems to stop cancers in the upper bowel, not usually caught by screening tests.

Colorectal cancer is the second most common cancer in developed countries, and there are about 1 million new cases and 600,000 deaths worldwide every year. The average person has about a 5 percent chance of developing the disease in their lifetime. ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Low-dose aspirin may cut colon cancer risk

Are you tired all the time? You could be ill

Are you tired all the time? You could be ill. A quarter of the population claim to suffer from fatigue.

But sometimes extreme tiredness can be hiding a more serious illness.

It is easy to blame exhaustion on the stresses of an increasingly demanding lifestyle or work.

But if after six months those feelings of exhaustion haven't gone away then you may have an illness classified by doctors as chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Chronic fatigue syndrome also known as ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) is a potentially disabling neurological disorder.

There is no simple diagnostic test, so your GP will need to go through a process of elimination.

How to tell if you are suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME

Symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and ME include: profound exhaustion, muscle pain, memory loss or concentration, sore throat or enlarged lymph glands, abdominal pain, fever or chills, sensitivity to light, noise and smell, disturbed sleep patterns and persistent headaches.

Sufferers often complain of disturbed sleep, but in many cases a good night's sleep will not make any difference.

When CFS/ME was first outlined as a condition in the 1980s many doctors were sceptical about whether it was a real condition or 'all in the mind.'

In fact, around 20 per cent of sufferers are so severely affected that they are either house or bed-bound and have enormous difficulty performing even basic personal tasks unaided.

For most people, however, the illness is less severe. The vast majority of people find that their symptoms fluctuate from day to day.

CFS/ME can last anywhere between a few months and many years. Only 20 per cent of sufferers are likely to make a full recovery in two to four years, and around 60 per cent of people will improve significantly.

But feeling tired all the time, without anyone being able to tell you why, is extremely frustrating and depressing. So what are the possible causes and what can you do about it?

What causes CFS/ME?

It is estimated that around two-thirds of all cases are preceded by a viral infection of some kind.

It is also common for many patients to report periods of stress during or before the viral infection took hold.

CFS/ME may also be triggered by an immunisation or traumatic event.

However, there are a great number of sufferers who are unable to give a precise moment when the illness began and recall feeling increasingly worse over a long period of time.

In her book ME, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: A Practical Guide, Dr Anne Macintyre claims the illness can also be inherited or caused by contact with nerotoxins such as organophosphates.

Factors which will make the illness less likely to improve:

• A persistent viral infection or chronic bacterial infection.

• Repeated over-activity or lack of rest.

• Emotional stress.

• A poor diet.

• Too little activity, which can lead to isolation and depression.

• Exposure to chemicals and environmental pollution.

As with many diseases, people are more at risk if their body or mind is under stress. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Are you tired all the time? You could be ill

Sex Isn't Just Fun, It's Healthy

Sex Isn't Just Fun, It's Healthy. Take care of your body and live life as a confident sexual being as you age. Want a simple way to increase your longevity?. Try sex. It's one of the most fun things we humans can do.

But first of all, safe sex - or more accurately, "safer sex" - is using techniques and products to reduce the risk of infection or pregnancies from intercourse. Products shown to reduce the transmission of infections include condoms or protective barriers such as dental dams and female condoms.

Most of us don't need a medical excuse to have sex, but for those of you who need arm-twisting, here are some important reasons to get playful:

Sex may reduce pain: The chemical oxytocin is released from the brain during orgasm, and this in turn seems to release endorphins into the body. Endorphins are the body's natural painkillers.

Sex may prevent illnesses such as colds and flus: A 1999 study at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania found that people who have sex one or two times a week had higher levels of immunoglobulin A, the immune cell protein that protects against viral illnesses.

Sex burns calories: perhaps 200 calories.

Sex gives muscles a workout: Muscles in the pelvic floor (the ones that help bladder control) are strengthened during sex. Muscles in the back, thighs, glutes, abs and arms can get a workout.

That's great, you may say, but you're older now, and your sex drive has tanked a bit. Remember that intention is the most powerful force at work when you want to bring something into your life. Make it your intention to have a passionate sex life.

Take care of your body and live life as a confident sexual being as you age. Here are more tips for enhancing your sex life:

• Keep healthy. Obesity, diabetes and vascular disease can wreak havoc on sex. Avoid smoking, eat a healthy diet and keep a healthy weight.

• Get exercise. Aerobic exercise enhances blood supply to the genitalia, which enhances orgasm.

• Try using sex toys and lubricants. The hands get more arthritic, the penis gets softer, the vagina gets drier and the female orgasm takes longer. Vibrators and lubricants are a great ways to get around these challenges.

( healthkey.com )

READ MORE - Sex Isn't Just Fun, It's Healthy

Viruses vs. bacteria

Viruses vs. bacteria. Bacteriophage (or 'phage' for short) therapy, is an alternative to antibiotic treatment, and has recently been gaining favour and appeal amongst western scientists.

This treatment involves injecting or applying a cocktail of bacteriophages, which consist of a virus that attacks specific infection-causing bacteria. In short, the bacteriaphages "eat" the bacterium concerned.

Phage therapy is currently the subject of mainstream research and application in Georgia in the former Soviet Union.

History

The history of phage therapy can be traced as far back as 1896. M.E Hankin reportedly witnessed the antibacterial action of the Indian rivers Ganga and Yamuna against the bacterial strain Vibrio Chlorae. Hankin’s findings are said to have explained the low numbers of cholera cases among people who consumed the river water.

In 1915 and 1917, Frederick Twort and Felix d'Hérelle from England reported similar results. It was d'Hérelle who named these ultra-microbes ‘bacteriophages’ (bacteria eaters) and who pioneered the use of phages for treating Shigella dysentery in France. Around the same time, a Georgian by the name of George Eliava was conducting phage research of his own.

Eliava met d'Hérelle at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, after which he established the Eliava Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, dedicated to the further study of phages.

How they work

Bacteriophages are divided into two types: lytic and lysogenic. References to bacteriophages for therapeutic reasons allude to lytic bacteriophages. Lysogenic phages are not useful for therapeutic purposes.

Phages attach themselves onto bacteria and inject their DNA into the cells. In a matter of minutes, a bacterium becomes a phage factory, producing more and more phages after having corrupted the reproductive mechanism of the bacterium. Eventually the new phages burst through the walls of the cell, destroying the bacterium and continuing the process by spreading to other bacterial cells.

By nature, most phages are ‘bacterium-specific’, meaning that they can only affect specific strains within a species. Phage therapy therefore results in less harm to the body than traditional antibiotic treatment. This also helps prevent secondary infections usually caused by the use of antibiotics.

The manner in which phages are applied depends on the type of condition from which a patient suffers. They can be applied topically, during surgery or orally. They can also be applied by means of injection. The nature of the immune system (that automatically fights against any viruses introduced into the bloodstream or lymphatic system) means that injected bacteriophages are only used on rare occasions, such as when no other method of application would be effective.

Better than antibiotics?

Bacteria eventually grow resistant to antibiotics, but phages are able to change and adapt in ways that make them a constant threat to bacteria. All viruses change and adapt themselves in time, and bacteriophages are no exception. Also, phages have the advantage of being able to penetrate deeper into an infected area than antibiotics can, because phages keep reproducing, unlike antibiotics, which eventually lose efficacy.

On a practical level, phages are more viable than antibiotics for a number of reasons. These include:

• There are almost no serious side-effects (antibiotic use can result in secondary infections).


• Selecting new phages to combat an infection is a much quicker process than finding new antibiotics, which sometimes take up to several years.
• Phages replicate at the site of infection, but antibiotics are eliminated from the body after they’re metabolised.

( health24.com )

READ MORE - Viruses vs. bacteria

Sleep Apnea May Cause Nighttime Urination

Sleep Apnea May Cause Nighttime Urination. Many doctors unaware the sleep disorder boosts urine production, experts say

People who wake up during the night to urinate shouldn't automatically blame a urological problem. Sleep apnea, a breathing-related sleep disorder, could be the cause.

A new study suggests that nighttime urination, or nocturia, is comparable to loud snoring as a marker for obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder in which soft tissue in the throat blocks the flow of air into the lungs, disrupting sleep.

Previous studies established a link between nocturia and sleep apnea, a potentially serious condition that affects about 25 percent of U.S. men and 10 percent of U.S. women, the researchers said. But they believe this is among the first to show that screening for nocturia could help doctors identify patients with apnea.

The study also suggests that a common treatment for sleep apnea -- positive airway pressure (PAP) therapy -- can reduce symptoms of nocturia, thereby improving sleep and preventing debilitating falls among elderly people who get out of bed at night to use the bathroom.

PAP involves wearing a pressurized air mask while sleeping.

Typically, doctors screen for apnea by assessing patients' weight (the condition is associated with overweight/obesity) and asking if they snore heavily, notice breathing problems at night or feel tired during the day (because of interrupted sleep). But because many patients, especially those who sleep alone, are unaware that they snore, apnea often goes undiagnosed.

"When you ask people about symptoms like snoring and gasping, they tend to say, 'No, I don't have them'," said study author Edward Romero, research coordinator at the Sleep & Human Health Institute in Albuquerque, N.M. "But it's very easy for them to realize that they wake up at night to go to the bathroom."

One of Romero's co-authors, institute director Dr. Barry Krakow, said doctors and patients are quick to blame nocturia on diabetes, prostate enlargement and other medical conditions with which it is associated. "I see patients all the time who think they're waking up to urinate because they have prostate trouble or a small bladder," Krakow said. "About 80 percent of the time we discover that apnea is the cause of their problem."

Besides nocturia and snoring, symptoms of sleep apnea include daytime drowsiness, memory problems and depression. Untreated sleep apnea can lead to high blood pressure, blood clots and heart disease.

For the study, published online recently in Sleep and Breathing, the researchers reviewed data on 1,007 adults treated at two sleep clinics in New Mexico between 2005 and 2007. Of the participants, 797 were diagnosed with sleep apnea, 777 reported snoring and 839 reported nocturia. Neither snoring nor nocturia was proof of apnea, but the two symptoms were similar in their power to predict it: snoring was reported by 82.6 percent of apnea sufferers, and 84.8 percent of apnea sufferers reported nocturia.

The authors propose further research be conducted to confirm the effectiveness of nocturia as an apnea screening tool.

Mary Umlauf, a professor at the University of Alabama Capstone College of Nursing in Tuscaloosa and a noted nocturia researcher, said the study could play an important role in dispelling "old wives' tales" about nocturia.

"Many health-care providers and ordinary people think of nocturia as a urological or gynecological problem," she said. "They don't understand that sleep apnea can cause the body to produce too much urine at night.

"People who wake up to urinate shouldn't assume that it's my prostate, or 'I'm just old'," she said. (HealthDay News)

READ MORE - Sleep Apnea May Cause Nighttime Urination

It's Not a Tumor, It's a Brain Worm

It's Not a Tumor, It's a Brain Worm. Doctor Surprised to Find a Worm Living Inside a Woman's Brain. Late last summer, Rosemary Alvarez of Phoenix thought she had a brain tumor. But on the operating table her doctor discovered something even more unsightly -- a parasitic worm eating her brain.

Alvarez, 37, was first referred to the Barrow Neurological Institute at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Phoenix with balance problems, difficulty swallowing and numbness in her left arm.

An MRI scan revealed a foreign growth at her brain stem that looked just like a brain tumor to Dr. Peter Nakaji, a neurosurgeon at the Barrow Neurological Institute.

"Ones like this that are down in the brain stem are hard to pick out," said Nakaji. "And she was deteriorating rather quickly, so she needed it out."

Yet at a key moment during the operation to remove the fingernail-sized tumor, Nakaji, instead, found a parasite living in her brain, a tapeworm called Taenia solium, to be precise.

"I was actually quite pleased," said Nakaji. "As neurosurgeons, we see a lot of bad things and have to deliver a lot of bad news."

When Alvarez awoke, she heard the good news that she was tumor-free and she would make a full recovery. But she also heard the disturbing news of how the worm got there in the first place.

Nakaji said someone, somewhere, had served her food that was tainted with the feces of a person infected with the pork tapeworm parasite.

"It wasn't that she had poor hygiene, she was just a victim," said Nakaji.

Pork Tapeworms a Small, But Growing Trend

"We've got a lot more of cases of this in the United States now," said Raymond Kuhn, professor of biology and an expert on parasites at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. "Upwards of 20 percent of neurology offices in California have seen it."

The pork tapeworm has plagued people for thousands of years. The parasite, known as cysticercosis, lives in pork tissue, and is likely the reason why Jewish and Muslim dietary laws ban pork.

Kuhn said whether you get a tapeworm in the intestine, or a worm burrowing into your brain can depend on how you consumed the parasite.

How Humans Get Worms

Eat the parasite in tainted meat and you'll end up eating the larvae, called cysts. Kuhn said in that case, a person can only end up with a tapeworm.

(ABCNEWS.com)

"You can eat cysts all day long and it won't get into your brain," said Kuhn. Instead, the larvae go through the stomach and mature in the intestine.

"When it gets down into their small intestine, it latches on, and then it starts growing like an alien," said Kuhn.

Once there, the tapeworm starts feeding and gets to work. A single tapeworm will release 50,000 eggs a day, most of which usually end up in the toilet.

"They can see these little packets pass in their feces," said Kuhn. "And ... sometimes people eat the eggs from feces by accident."

Kuhn said it is then feces-tainted food, and not undercooked pork, that leads to worms burrowing into the brain.

Unlike the cysts, the eggs are able to pass from the stomach into the bloodstream. From there, the eggs may travel and lodge in various parts of the body -- including the muscle, the brain or under the skin -- before maturing into cysts themselves.

According to Kuhn, who has traveled to study this parasite, cysticercosis is a big problem in some parts of Latin America and Mexico where health codes are hard to enforce and people may frequently eat undercooked pork.

As people travel across the border with Mexico for vacation and work, Kuhn said so does the tapeworm. One person infected with a parasite, who also has bad hand washing habits, can infect many others with eggs.

"These eggs can live for three months in formaldehyde," said Kuhn. "You got to think, sometimes, a person is slapping lettuce on your sandwich with a few extra add-ons there."

Getitng the Worms Out

Dr. Christopher Madden, an assistant professor in the University of Texas Southwestern department of neurological surgery in Dallas, has operated on a number of these cysts himself. He said not every worm needs to be surgically removed; those whose location is not an immediate threat to the patient's health can be treated with medications that cause the worms to die.

But when the cysts are in problematic locations, as was the case for Alvarez, an operation is necessary. Fortunately, the long-term prognosis for most patients is positive.

"Most patients we see actually do very well with medicines and/or surgery to take out a large cyst," Madden said.

Alvarez is not alone in accidentally eating tainted food, but Nakaji rarely sees cases so severe that people require surgery. Nakaji said he only removed six or seven worms in neurosurgery this year.

"But lodging in the brain stem is bad luck," he said.

Nakaji said other parts of the brain have more "room" or tissue to expand around a growing cyst. However the brain stem, which is crucial to life, is only the width of a finger or two.

"She could have recovered," said Nakaji. "But if the compression lasted for long enough, she could have been left permanently disabled or dead." ( abcnews.go.com )

READ MORE - It's Not a Tumor, It's a Brain Worm