July 17, 2009

Curcumin may help protect against hormone replacement breast cancer risk
LIFE EXTENSIONS July 15, 2009
In an article scheduled for publication in the journal Menopause, scientists at the University of Missouri reveal that curcumin, the active compound in the spice turmeric, could help prevent one type of breast cancer in women who use estrogen and progestin hormone replacement therapy. The combined oral use of these hormones has been associated with an increased incidence of breast cancer among older women, although estrogen alone was not found to be associated with an increased risk of the disease.
Salman Hyder, who is a professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Missouri’s College of Veterinary Medicine and Dalton Cardiovascular Research Center, and his colleagues tested the effect of curcumin in an animal model of progestin-driven breast cancer and found that the compound delayed the appearance of tumors and reduced their incidence. Additionally, mammary glands of animals that received curcumin were protected against the appearance of morphological abnormalities. The researchers found that curcumin inhibited the progestin-induced secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which aids in the formation of tumor blood vessels.
"Approximately 6 million women in the United States use hormone replacement therapy to treat the symptoms of menopause," Dr Hyder observed. "This exposure to progestin will predispose a large number of postmenopausal women to future development of breast cancer. The results of our study show that women could potentially take curcumin to protect themselves from developing progestin-accelerated tumors."
"Curcumin and other potential antiangiogenic compounds should be tested further as dietary chemopreventive agents in women already exposed to hormone replacement therapy containing estrogen and progestin in an effort to decrease or delay the risk of breast cancer associated with combined hormone replacement therapy," Dr Hyder recommended.
http://www.lef.org/whatshot/2009_07.htm#curcumin-may-help-protect-against-hormone-replacement-breast-cancer-risk

Stanford discovery pinpoints new connection between cancer cells, stem cells

NewsRx.com 07-15-09
A molecule called telomerase, best known for enabling unlimited cell division of stem cells and cancer cells, has a surprising additional role in the expression of genes in an important stem cell regulatory pathway, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The unexpected finding may lead to new anticancer therapies and a greater understanding of how adult and embryonic stem cells divide and specialize (see also Stanford University Medical Center).
"Telomerase is the factor that accounts for the unlimited division of cancer cells," said Steven Artandi, MD, PhD, associate professor of hematology, "and we're very excited about what this connection might mean in human disease." Artandi is the senior author of the research, which will be published in the July 2 issue of the journal Nature. He is also a member of Stanford's Cancer Center.
In many ways, telomerase is the quintessential molecule of mystery hugely important and yet difficult to pin down. Telomerase was known to stabilize telomeres, special caps that protect the ends of chromosomes. It stitches short pieces of DNA on these chromosome ends in stem cells and some immune cells, conferring a capacity for unlimited cell division denied to most of the body's other cells. Its importance is highlighted by the fact that it is inappropriately activated in more than 90 percent of cancer cells, suggesting that drugs or treatments that block telomerase activity may be effective anticancer therapies. However, its vast size, many components and relative rarity it is not expressed in most of the body's cells hinder attempts to learn more about it.
Artandi and his lab have spent many years identifying and studying the components of the telomerase complex. In this most recent study, they were following up on a previous finding suggesting that one part, a protein called TERT, was involved in more than just maintaining telomeres. "This was a pretty clear hint that TERT was involved in something more than just telomere maintenance," he said.
Artandi and his colleagues recognized that the cells' response to TERT mimicked that seen when another protein, beta-catenin, was overexpressed in mouse skin. Beta-catenin is a component of a vital signaling cascade known as the Wnt pathway, which is important in development, stem cell maintenance and stem cell activation. Stanford developmental biologist and professor Roeland Nusse, PhD, a collaborator on the current study, identified the first Wnt molecule in 1982.
In this study, Artandi and his colleagues purified the TERT protein from cultured human cells and found that it was associated with a chromatin-remodeling protein implicated in the Wnt pathway. They showed that overexpression of TERT in the presence of the remodeling protein enhanced the expression of Wnt-inducible genes. Finally, they found that TERT is required for mouse embryonic stem cells to respond appropriately to Wnt signals and that blocking TERT expression impairs the development of frog embryos.
"This is completely novel," said Artandi, who went on to show that TERT physically occupies the upstream promoter regions of the genes. "No one had any idea that TERT was directly regulating the Wnt pathway." He speculates that interfering with the protein's Wnt-associated activity may be a faster way to inhibit cancer cells than blocking telomerase activity, which depends on the gradual shortening of telomeres with each cell division.
"The Wnt pathway and telomerase activity are two separate but coherent functions in stem cell self-renewal and cancer cell proliferation," said Artandi. "Nature evolved a way to connect these two crucial functions by recruiting a component of telomerase directly into the Wnt pathway." The researchers are now investigating what role TERT may play in normal and cancerous cells.
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=8514&Section=Disease

How Girls May 'Learn' Obesity from Mothers, While Boys Copy Fathers

The Scotsman 07-15-09
THE chance of a child becoming obese is strongly linked to its parents' own weight problems, research showed yesterday.
The study showed the link was gender specific - girls whose mothers were clinically obese and boys whose fathers had the same condition were more likely to follow suit at a young age. But researchers from the EarlyBird Diabetes Study found the trend did not exist between mothers and sons, or fathers and their daughters. The scientists said the results suggested behavioural rather than genetic factors could hold the key to finding out why so many British children are obese.
The EarlyBird Study, carried out by the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, is tracking 300 children over 12 years in the hope of discovering why diabetes - which in the case of Type 2 is associated with obesity - is on the increase in young people.
Data collected by the researchers found 35 per cent of eight- year-old girls whose mothers were classed as obese were also obese, compared with 8 per cent of the daughters of women who were overweight and 5 per cent of girls whose mothers were classed as normal weight.
In the case of boys, 17 per cent of those whose fathers were obese also suffered with the condition, compared with 5 per cent of the sons of men who were just overweight and 3 per cent of those with normal weight fathers. The researchers said the findings showed the daughter of an obese woman was ten times more likely to be obese than a girl with a normal weight mother. The son of an obese father was six times more likely to be obese than the son of a normal weight man, the study concluded. But the scientists said children's weight problems bore no relationship to obesity in their opposite-sex parent.
Professor Terry Wilkin, the study's director, said: "Any genetic link between obese parents and their children would be indiscriminate of gender. The clearly defined gender-assortative pattern which our research has uncovered is an exciting one because it points towards behavioural factors at work in childhood obesity.
"EarlyBird's evidence supports the opposite hypothesis - that children are becoming obese due to the influence of their same-sex parents, and we will need to focus on changing the behaviour of the adult if we want to combat obesity in the child."
Type 2 diabetes is linked to unhealthy lifestyles, including a lack of exercise and obesity, and accounts for around nine out of ten cases of the disease.
The other type of diabetes, Type 1, is not linked to obesity and usually develops in childhood or adolescence.
Colin Waine, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said the study should be "a wake-up call to families to work towards preventing obesity in all members. If the parents heed the advice it will help them as well as their children".
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=8513&Section=Disease

Gutsy Method: Australian doctor won Nobel Prize in unusual fashion

Winston-Salem Journal, N.C. 07-15-09
Jul. 15--Winning a Nobel Prize requires a number of variables. Hard work. Intelligence. Luck. Guts.
In Dr. Barry Marshall's case, his win involved guts, all right. His own.
Marshall, a clinical professor of microbiology and medicine at the University of Western Australia, and Robin Warren, a clinical pathologist who has worked most of his career at Royal Perth Hospital, won the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine in 2005. They proved that the bacteria Helicobacter pylori causes peptic ulcers and gastric cancer. As part of the experimental process, Marshall drank a culture of the bacteria and developed severe stomach inflammation. He then cured himself, proving that he had come up with the right combination of drugs to kill the bacteria and to eliminate ulcers.
Marshall recently visited Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, where he went on grand rounds and made a presentation. He talked about how people are usually infected with the bacteria in childhood and carry the infection throughout their lives. About half of the world's population harbors the bacteria, but most people show no symptoms from the infection. Those who do are at risk for ulcers and cancer.
Marshall showed a short film, produced by www.nobelprize.org, in which his discovery was said to have turned established medical theory on its head.
"We were looked on as being a bit crazy," said Warren in the film. Doctors had long believed that peptic ulcers were caused by stress, spicy food and alcohol. They thought that bacteria couldn't grow in the stomach.
"As a rule, they don't," Warren said. "But these do."
Warren had found spiral-shaped bacteria in tissue taken from the stomachs of many patients who had gone through gastroscopies, examinations of the stomach to look for abnormalities. He noticed that the samples showed signs of inflammation, and he thought that perhaps the bacteria caused gastritis. Marshall, who was looking for a research project, met Warren during his internal-medicine training at Royal Perth Hospital in 1981. They joined forces. In 1984, Marshall drank the bacteria.
At the medical center, Marshall said that his decision to experiment on himself is not unusual in medical circles. Dr. Werner Forssmann performed the first angioplasty on himself in 1929 when he anesthetized his arm, then maneuvered a catheter through a vein and into his heart. In the 1970s, Dr. David Clyde, who was trying to develop a vaccine for malaria, allowed infected mosquitoes to bite him and give him the disease.
Marshall had kept his self-experimentation to himself. When he finally talked about it, he said, "Everyone in my family got paranoid that they caught it." They didn't.
Marshall's and Warren's work has been called the most significant discovery in the history of gastroenterology, similar to such finds as vaccines for polio and smallpox.
In 1926, a Danish scientist won a Nobel Prize with his claims that a parasitic worm caused stomach cancer in mice and rats.
"We discovered the cause for stomach cancer, not him," Marshall said. "The great thing about the Nobel Prize (as far as the Danish scientist is concerned) is they can never take it back."
http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=8511&Section=Disease

Docs, nurses use and recommend diet supplements
Last Updated: 2009-07-16 10:00:54 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Doctors and nurses commonly take vitamin, mineral, and other dietary supplements themselves, and recommend the same to their patients, results of a survey indicate.
Yet, most of the 900 physicians and 277 nurses surveyed admitted having no formal education or training on the use of dietary supplements, according to a report in the Nutrition Journal, an online publication of BioMed Central.
Dr. Annette Dickinson, from Dickinson Consulting, LLC in St. Paul, Minnesota and colleagues found that 72 percent of the doctors and 89 percent of the nurses use some sort of dietary supplement regularly, occasionally, or seasonally. Moreover, 79 percent of the physicians and 82 percent of the nurses recommend dietary supplements to their patients.
The online survey was administered in October 2007 by New York City-based Ipsos Public Affairs for the Council for Responsible Nutrition, a Washington, D.C.-based trade association representing the dietary supplement industry.
The physicians, 83 percent male, included about equal numbers of primary care doctors, obstetricians/gynecologists, and other specialists, but no pediatricians. About 72 percent of the doctors were 40 to 59 years old, as were 69 percent of the mostly female (94 percent) nurses surveyed.
Overall, more than half of the doctors and nurses said they regularly use dietary supplements, most commonly for improved general health and wellness.
About 24 percent of the doctors and 27 percent of the nurses reported using only multivitamins. Another 27 and 32 percent, respectively, took individual vitamin and mineral supplements plus other supplemental compounds thought to benefit cardiovascular, joint, or general health, and cognition, such as green tea, fish oil, glucosamine, flax seed, chondroitin, and echinacea.
The findings further suggest a desire for improved education on the use of dietary supplements, as 75 and 79 percent of the doctors and nurses expressed interest in continuing education on these products.
Such education "would be beneficial for physicians and nurses as well as for the patients they treat and serve," Dickinson and colleagues conclude.
SOURCE: Nutrition Journal, published online July 1, 2009.
http://www.reutershealth.com/archive/2009/07/16/eline/links/20090716elin001.html

'Mono' linked to chronic fatigue syndrome in teens
Last Updated: 2009-07-15 16:51:27 -0400 (Reuters Health)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Teens who develop "mono," otherwise known as infectious mononucleosis, may be at risk for chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a study in Pediatrics.
Previous studies suggested that about one in ten adults with acute infectious mononucleosis go on to develop chronic fatigue syndrome, Dr. Ben Z. Katz, of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, and colleagues write. However, what happens to teens with mononucleosis is less well-studied.
The researchers monitored 301 adolescents with the infection. Six months after the mononucleosis diagnosis, 70 patients (24 percent) had not made a full recovery.
Thirty-nine of these subjects were diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, reflecting 13 percent of the original group of 301.
Six months later, at a 12-month follow-up visit, 7 percent had chronic fatigue syndrome, and at 24 months, chronic fatigue syndrome persisted in 4 percent. That is about 20 times higher than in the general teenage population.
All 13 patients who still had chronic fatigue syndrome at 24 months were female and, on average, they reported worse fatigue at 12 months.
Treatment with steroids for the infectious mononucleosis at the time of its diagnosis did not affect the risk of developing chronic fatigue syndrome.
"As part of our study, we also followed a group of adolescents who completely recovered from their mononucleosis," Dr. Katz told Reuters Health.
"We are now in the process of trying to figure out what differentiates adolescents who recover from those who don't," he said.
SOURCE: Pediatrics, July 2009.

Pre-, probiotics combo may reduce food allergy: Danone study

Nutraingredients.com, 16-Jul-2009

A supplement combining a prebiotic fibre and a probiotic strain may reduce allergic responses to cow’s milk, when used in conjunction with small amounts of whey, says a new study.
Mice fed the synbiotic mixture and undergoing oral sensitisation with whey displayed less allergic skin response and a decreased anaphylactic reaction, compared with whey-sensitised mice not receiving the supplement, according to findings published in the Journal of Nutrition.
“Dietary supplementation with [prebiotic] Immunofortis, [probiotic] Bifidobacterium breve M-16V, and particularly the synbiotic mixture, provided during sensitization, reduces the allergic effector response in a murine model of IgE-mediated hypersensitivity that mimics the human route of sensitization,”wrote the researchers led by Leon Knippels from Danone Research–Centre for Specialised Nutrition and the University of Utrecht.
Immunoglobulin E (IgE) is the predominant antibody associated with an allergic response.
“This model shows the potential for dietary intervention with synbiotics in reducing the allergic response to food allergens.”
If the results can be repeated in humans, synbiotics may offer hope for the increasing number of people suffering from allergic disease. An estimated eight per cent of children in the EU suffering from food allergies, according to the European Federation of Allergy and Airways Diseases Patients' Associations.
The most common food allergen ingredients and their derivatives are cereals containing gluten, fish, crustaceans, egg, peanut, soybeans, milk and dairy products including lactose, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame seed, and sulphites.
“Cow milk allergy is the most common food allergy in children,” explained Knippels and his co-workers. “So far, no effective treatment is available to prevent or cure food allergy.”
 “Mice fed pro- and prebiotic diets had a significantly reduced acute allergic skin response upon whey challenge in the ear compared with whey-sensitized mice fed the control diet,” report the researchers. “The synbiotic diet was even more effective and almost completely prevented occurrence of the acute skin response as well as anaphylactic shock reactions.”
While IgE levels were not affected by any of the interventions, said the researchers, but IgG2a levels were – the antibody specific to whey. These increases in IgG2a may reflect a response by T-cells in the pro-, pre-, or synbiotic diet, said the researchers.
“Synbiotics comprise a promising concept that may be more effective in reducing allergic symptoms than single preparations of pre- or probiotics,” concluded the researchers.
Definitions
According the FAO/WHO, probiotics are defined as "live microorganisms which when administered in adequate amounts confer a health benefit on the host". Prebiotics are "nondigestible substances that provide a beneficial physiological effect on the host by selectively stimulating the favourable growth or activity of a limited number of indigenous bacteria".
Prebiotics are defined as: “A selectively fermented ingredient that allows specific changes, both in the composition and/or activity in the gastrointestinal microflora, that confers benefits upon health wellbeing and health.” (2004)
Source: Journal of Nutrition July 2009, Volume 139, Pages 1398-1403, doi:10.3945/jn.109.108514 “Cow Milk Allergy Symptoms Are Reduced in Mice Fed Dietary Synbiotics during Oral Sensitization with Whey”
Authors: B. Schouten, B.C.A.M. van Esch, G.A. Hofman, S.A.C.M. van Doorn, J. Knol, A.J. Nauta, J. Garssen, L.E.M. Willemsen, L.M.J. Knippels
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Research/Pre-probiotics-combo-may-reduce-food-allergy-Danone-study

Think Twice Before Using Pesticides: Strong Link Found with Pre-Cancerous Condition
S. L. Baker, NaturalNews.com  July 16, 2009 

(NaturalNews) Just how dangerous are pesticides? No one knows the full answer to that question yet, but research is revealing that exposure to these toxins is clearly a bigger health risk than most people realize. For example, Natural News recently reported on the strong evidence suggesting pesticides causes Parkinson's disease (http://www.naturalnews.com/026177_d...) and that children who live in homes where pesticides are used are twice as likely to have brain cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/026155_p...). And now comes even more bad news for people who use pesticides.

A new National Cancer Institute (NCI) study just published in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology, has found for the first time that applying pesticides doubles the risk of developing an abnormal blood condition called MGUS (monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance). This disorder is characterized by an abnormal level of a plasma protein and requires lifelong monitoring with blood tests. The reason? MGUS can lead to the painful cancer of plasma cells in the bone marrow known as multiple myeloma. 

The NCI research involved a study of 678 individuals, culled from a U.S. Agricultural Health Study of over 50,000 farmers who had worked with pesticides. The ages of the study participants ranged from 30 to 94, with an average age of 60. They all lived in either North Carolina or Iowa and were licensed to apply restricted-use pesticides. The research subjects were asked to fill out questionnaires to assess their occupational exposure to a wide range of pesticides and to document how long they had used pesticides. They also answered questions about the pesticide application methods they used, as well as whether they wore protective gear while applying the chemicals.

Information was also obtained about the participants' family history of cancer and their smoking and alcohol usage along with other basic health and medical data. If any research subject had a history of a lymphoproliferative malignancy, such as multiple myeloma or lymphoma, they were excluded from the study. Then, each year for five years the rate of cancer incidence and deaths in the research subject group were documented. At the end of the five year study, interviews were conducted to update the information about participants' occupational exposures, medical histories, and lifestyle factors. 

The NCI research team took blood samples from the research subjects and evaluated them for MGUS. No MGUS cases were observed among those who were younger than 50. However, the prevalence of MGUS in those older than 50 was 6.8 percent. And when that figure was compared to a group of men from the general population in Minnesota who did not work with pesticides, the findings showed that the incidence of MGUS was extraordinarily high among those who applied pesticides. Bottom line: the pesticide group had double the risk of having MGUS, placing them at an elevated risk for myeloma.

"Previously, inconclusive evidence has linked agricultural work to an increased multiple myeloma risk. Our study is the first to show an association between pesticide exposure and an excess prevalence of MGUS," said lead author and NCI scientist Ola Landgren, MD, PhD, in a statement to the media. "This finding is particularly important given that we recently found in a large prospective cancer screening study that virtually all multiple myeloma patients experienced a MGUS state prior to developing myeloma."

What pesticides appear to be the most dangerous? Of the chemicals studied, a significantly increased risk of MGUS was found among the people who used the insecticide dieldrin, the fumigant mixture of carbon tetrachloride and carbon disulfide, and the fungicide chlorothalonil. These pesticides increased the MGUS risk 5.6, 3.9, and 2.4 times, respectively. 

"As several million Americans use pesticides, it's important that the risks of developing MGUS from the use of pesticides is known," added senior study author and NCI investigator Michael Alavanja, DrPH, in the media statement.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026626_pesticides_cancer_NCI.html

Codex Continues to Assume GMO Labeling Would Confuse Ignorant Consumers
Dr. Gregory Damato, Ph.D., NaturalNews.com  July 16, 2009 

(NaturalNews) At the latest Codex Commission on Food Labeling (CCFL) meeting held in Calgary, Canada in May, the US and its allies continued to push for the case that food created through the use of genetic modification (GM) needs no labeling. Despite the fact that 90 percent of Americans, Africans and Europeans want genetically modified organisms (GMOs) labeled, the large multinational food corporations realize that profits come before health and believe that "GM/GE foods are in no way different from other foods simply due to their method of production". The representatives from the 49th Parallel International NonGovernmental Organizations (INGOs) countered that argument by stating, "If, as the United States has claimed, there is no difference between GM foods and non-GM food, then why do companies rush to the Patent Office to patent their special GM food?"

This contentious issue has been hotly debated for the past 19 years at Codex with no chance for agreement as the entire EU, Brazil, all African countries and Saint Lucia demanded that GMOs be labeled so consumers are able to make an informed choice. The US amazingly submitted a document detailing how labeling GMOs would in fact be in violation of Codex regulations which states, "food shall not be described or presented in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive, or is likely to create an erroneous impression regarding its character in any respect". The National Health Federation (NHF) challenged the US and stated that consumers want GMOs to be labeled and the only way GMOs would ever be sold is if consumers remain ignorant of what they are consuming. The multinational representatives of Codex simply believe that consumers would be too confused if GMOs were properly labeled. After some cantankerous infighting amongst representatives regarding the wording of the Draft Recommendation of GM-food labeling a stalemate emerged.

After an acrimonious debate, Chairman Paul Mayers intervened and declared that this issue will not be solved at this meeting and proposed a three-year reprieve from GM-food labeling. The intense pressure from the delegations of Kenya, Denmark and the EU caused the chairman to drop the idea of scrapping the GMO labeling issue for the next three sessions. The session once again ended with the chairman stating the importance of this issue and asked that the progress be continued at next years CCFL meeting to be held in Quebec City, Canada.

The labeling issue remains a contentious one and seems to revolve around the fact that countries who put profits ahead of health do not want any liability when the health effects (e.g., Morgellons Disease, increased allergies, cell death, liver, kidney and fertility problems) begin to be inextricably and causally linked to the long term consumption of toxic GMOs. Codex representatives are not elected by the people and therefore in no way do they represent the views of the majority; they are appointed bureaucrats by the large multinational industries of the western world as a means of securing future profits at the expense of the health of future generations. If you want to help oppose Codex please take a few minutes to sign a petition asking for Congressional oversight on the Trilateral Cooperation Charter (TCC) which has linked the Health Products and Food Branch, in Canada; the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in the United States; and the Federal Commission for the Protection from Sanitary Risks, Secretaria de Salud, in Mexico.http://www.thepetitionsite.com/5/co...

The TCC is attempting to force the US into a North American Union thereby ushering in Codex Alimentarius guidelines. You can also send a message to your congressperson about TCC using the link below.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026622_CODEX_food_GMO.html

CDC: School kids may have to get up to 4 flu shots in the fall

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer  Wednesday, July 15, 2009
School children who have never had a flu shot may need to get vaccinated four times in the fall - twice for seasonal flu, twice for pandemic swine flu - officials at the CDC told health professionals on Wednesday.
Most everyone else should expect three shots.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/business/content/business/epaper/2009/07/15/0715swineflu.html

Circulating Blood Cells Are Important Predictors Of Cancer Spread In Children
ScienceDaily (July 16, 2009) — Endothelial progenitor cells may play a role in the start and progression of metastatic disease in children with cancer, according to study results published in Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
"This is the first study to measure circulating endothelial cells and endothelial progenitor cells in children with cancer, which can provide insight as to the biology of their tumor vessels," said researcher Françoise Farace, Ph.D., director of the department of biology of circulating cells in the translational research laboratory, Institut Gustave Roussy, France.
"Not only were these cells found in higher levels in patients compared to healthy volunteers, but endothelial progenitor cells were found in strikingly higher amounts in patients with metastatic disease," Farace said.
Circulating endothelial cells are rare cells that shed from the lining of blood vessels after vascular damage. Both circulating endothelial cells and their precursors, endothelial progenitor cells, have been described in previous studies, but mainly in the context of cardiovascular disease.
Farace and colleagues measured circulating mature endothelial cells and bone marrow-derived endothelial progenitor cells in pediatric patients with solid tumors. They collected blood from 23 patients with localized disease, 22 patients with metastatic disease and 20 healthy participants and measured subsets of circulating cells.
While the researchers were not surprised to detect circulating endothelial cells and endothelial progenitor cells in pediatric patients, they were surprised to find these cell levels were significantly higher in patients with metastatic disease compared to levels found in healthy participants.
"This implies that these endothelial cells most likely play a role in the development of cancer in children," Farace said. "We also observed a large range of cell levels in patients with various tumor types. In some cases, very high levels were observed, which means that their role may be very important."
Preclinical studies have shown that these cells play a pivotal role in the initiation of metastasis or the spread of disease in mice; however, their association with metastatic spread has never been demonstrated in humans until now.
"Understanding the process of tumor vessel development in pediatric cancers is of utmost importance as pediatric patients are in dire need of new treatment strategies including those which could target tumor vessels," said researcher Melissa Taylor, M.D., pediatrician and doctoral student in the translational research laboratory, Institut Gustave Roussy, France.
Additional studies are needed in larger study populations to confirm that endothelial progenitor cells are implicated in metastasis. If confirmed, these cells could potentially be measured in patients to allow for early detection of metastatic disease and could be targeted by new drugs to prevent the spread of cancer, according to the researchers.
"This study is very interesting. It demonstrated that these rare cells detected in the blood of adult cancer patients are also important in pediatric cancers," said James L. Abbruzzese, M.D., F.A.C.P., chairman of the department of gastrointestinal medical oncology, M.G. and Lillie A. Johnson chair for cancer treatment and research and professor of medicine at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. He is also a deputy editor of Clinical Cancer Research.
One challenge with this study Abbruzzese pointed out is defining the characteristics of these cells, which may be more difficult to accomplish in a pediatric population because drawing a large volume of blood is not an easy task.
"Understanding these vascular precursor cells and seeing the changes over time may represent a real strategy for helping to identify drugs that might work in the pediatric population," he said. "Insights as to which patients are likely to develop metastases may help us to identify a subset of patients that require more extensive therapy."
Taylor believes these study results may potentially open new research strategies, which may take into account the study of circulating endothelial cells and progenitor cells in pediatric patients.
"Monitoring of these cells in larger and more homogenous study populations will help us understand the biology of tumor vessels and subsequently tumor growth in these diseases," she said.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090715074936.htm

U.S. Senate Health Committee Passes Health Care Reform Bill that will Bankrupt America
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews.com  July 16, 2009 

(NaturalNews) The great lumbering health care reform gears are in motion in Washington D.C., and the Big Government machine is spitting out a new recipe for the bankruptcy of America: A "health care reform" bill that pleases all the special interest groups and pharmaceutical companies but does nothing to improve the health of ordinary Americans.

Health care reform in Washington today isn't about health, or reform. It's about mandating monopoly-priced western medicine for the masses. It's about fining people who wisely opt out of the criminally-operated health insurance industry, and it's designed to keep the American people sick and diseased while emptying their pockets of any remaining earnings they might have somehow squirreled away during the ongoing financial / real estate crash.

For starters, this Senate health reform bill would financially penalize people who take care of their own health and choose not to hand over $1,000 or month (or more) to a corrupt, criminally-operated health insurance system. This is a bill that actually punishes people for staying healthy! At the same time, it just happens to expand the monopoly of western medicine to encompass the entire U.S. population, criminalizing those who have opted out of the failed health care system.

The other joke in this health care reform is the idea of a new government-run health plan, which is being hilariously presented as a way to "drive down costs."

Since when has Big Government ever been able to drive down the costs of anything? It was Big Government, under the Bush administration, that actually made it illegal for government to negotiate price discounts with drug companies, locking in monopoly prices that filled the coffers of Big Pharma while bankrupting the taxpayers.

Even now, the FDA (under the Obama administration) continues its outright war against the natural products industry, censoring truthful information about the health benefits of dietary supplements in a tyrannical effort to eliminate Big Pharma's competition. This has the effect of eliminating choice for consumers, ultimately driving up monopoly health care costs under the system of western medicine that (laughingly) claims to provide health care today.
Life is a pre-existing condition
The one good thing in the current discussions about health care reform is the idea of barring insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. Because, after all, who doesn't have a pre-existing condition? Simply being born is a pre-existing condition, isn't it? (Hospitals consider pregnancy and childbirth to be medical emergencies requiring drugs and surgery...)

According to drug-pushing psychiatrists, life itself is a pre-existing condition requiring pharmaceutical intervention. Merely experiencing emotions like sadness or happiness (or too much happiness followed by too much sadness) is a disease, they claim. Where are the reforms that would outlaw this psych drugging nonsense?

Meanwhile, there is nothing in these reforms that would actually teach Americans how to be healthy. Where are the calls for the arrest and imprisonment of Big Pharma executives, corrupt FDA officials and rogue FTC enforcers who have indirectly caused the deaths of millions of Americans through their war on natural remedies? Where is the ban on pharmaceutical TV ads, or the requirement that medical studies practice something resembling honest science instead of just making up whatever numbers they want and submitting those to medical journals for publication?

Why is aspartame still legal? Or monosodium glutamate? Or Ritalin? Where are the real reforms that Americans desperately need to raise a generation of healthy children?

Those reforms, of course, are never to be discussed. They would threaten the profits of too many powerful food and drug corporations. So they aren't even part of the discussion.

My own Health Revolution Petition (www.HealthRevolutionPetition.org) is the real pathway to health reform in America. And yet even that petition is still a long way from the needed 100,000 signatures. That's because good ideas don't get much traction in mainstream America these days. Now, if I had a movie about teenage vampires (Twilight), that would get some traction. But sensible ideas about helping teens get healthy are utterly ignored.
The last sputtering gasp of western medicine in America
I've watched the health care situation in America quite closely for the past five years, and it's not difficult to see where this is heading.

The political whores and sellouts in Washington routinely and predictably trade your future for their own short-term political gain, and that means selling out to medical special interest groups that thrive on disease and disinformation. The last thing these people want is a healthy population that needs fewer medical services. They don't want a cure for cancer. They don't want natural remedies for reversing heart disease. They don't want kids to be healthy and happy without drugs.

What they want is a nation of drug addicts who play the role of helpless medical system dependants. They want people to be uninformed, nutritionally ignorant and irreversibly diseased because that's the way they make more money and stay in power.

And that's why health care reform in America is ultimately about appeasing the special interest groups of the medical-pharmaceutical-agriculture industrial complex. It's all about keeping them in power (and in the money), and it has absolutely nothing to do with improving the health of a single American.

Yes, health care in America today is a disaster. But the last thing it needs is more Big Government running the show. Think about where our nation is headed right now with Big Government:

• Big Government now owns 50% of the homes in America (through the bailout fiasco involving Freddie and Fannie).

• Big Government now owns the biggest banks and investment houses in America.

• Big Government wants to become the landlord-in-chief by turning homeowners into home renters, where half the population rents from the government (and has no ownership of the homes in which they live).

• Big Government now runs a significant portion of the auto industry.

• And now, Big Government wants to run the health care system, too!

How is this not some strange brand of American Communism? When government owns (and runs) everything, and the free choice of the citizens is stripped from them, you no longer have a free country; you have Communism.

And that, unfortunately, is where America is headed: The land of the medical-financial-economic dictatorship, where all decisions are made for you by Big Brother, and free citizens who exercise free choice are either fined or imprisoned. It's already happening with vaccines and cancer treatments. Just wait to see what happens when you dare say "no" to the new Obama health insurance plan!
Health care dictatorship
This new "health care reform" bill might as well be called the health care dictatorship bill. They say it will cover all Americans. Yes, it will, but it will cover them in a smokescreen of sickness and bankruptcy, accelerating the rapid decline of the American empire and trapping its people in a quagmire of medical enslavement from which the nation will never escape.

We are, in a very real sense, watching the slow, miserable death of a nation. Between its insurmountable financial problems ($12 trillion in debt right now, and nearly another $100 billion each month) and its health care failures (widespread degenerative disease now dominates the American population), America has positioned itself as a geopolitical failure of truly historic proportions. Yet instead of working to actually solve its problems, America has decided to spend more debt money, drug more people, take over more banks, print more fictitious money and hurl itself head-first into a brick wall with even more rapidity than anyone had previously thought possible.

It's almost as if America's leaders can't wait to kill the nation, and they'd love to take a few million more citizens with them.

The philosophy in Washington today is like this:

• If the debt is too great to bear, spend more debt money!

• If health care is a disaster due to the monopolistic medical industry, enforce the monopoly nationwide!

• If the financial system isn't working because of bad decisions made by investors, just make bigger and "badder" decisions at a higher level! (And bail out the investors while you're at it.)

• If the money runs out, just print more!

Such is the mindset dominating America's decisions today. They are beyond reckless. They are hopelessly suicidal. And what we're seeing with health care reform today is merely a reflection of the national suicide being committed by our ethically-compromised representatives in Washington who would rather shore up their own six-year terms than help protect the next hundred years for the very people they hypocritically claim to represent.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026628_health_America_health_care.html

Arctic Sea Ice Images Derived From Classified Data Should Be Made Public, According To A New Report
ScienceDaily (July 17, 2009) — Hundreds of images derived from classified data that could be used to better understand rapid loss and transformation of Arctic sea ice should be immediately released and disseminated to the scientific research community, says a new report from the National Research Council. 
The committee that wrote the report emphasized that these Arctic images show detailed melting and freezing processes and also provide information at scales, locations, and time periods that are important for studying effects of climate change on sea ice and habitat -- data that are not available elsewhere.
"To prepare for a possibly ice-free Arctic and its subsequent effects on the environment, economy, and national security, it is critical to have accurate projections of changes over the next several decades," said committee chair Stephanie Pfirman, professor and chair of the department of environmental science at Barnard College, New York City.  "Forecasts of regional sea-ice conditions can help officials plan for and adapt to the impact of climate change and minimize environmental risks."
Projections of future Arctic ice cover are hampered by poor understanding of sea-ice physical processes because few observations exist at appropriate times and scales.  Readily available satellite images are too coarse to capture the details, the report says.  In addition, collecting ground-based data by maintaining manned-drifting stations is challenging due to rapidly changing environmental conditions and the weak platform of ice, and collecting data from observational aircraft flights is difficult and expensive.   
"At a time when there is concern that Earth observation systems are decreasing and aging, releasing these images would be a step toward continuing the flow of critical information to the scientific community," said Ralph J. Cicerone, president of the National Academy of Sciences.  "We hope that these images are the first of many that could help scientists learn how the changing climate could impact the environment and our society."
During the 1990s, a program was started in which scientists recommended collection and archival of high-resolution classified imagery from intelligence sources at environmentally sensitive locations around the globe, with the eventual goal of declassifying and releasing the images to the broader scientific community for research purposes.  In 1999, scientists requested that images of sea ice at four locations in the Arctic basin be collected during the summer months; two additional locations were added in 2005.  Data have been collected at these sites during the summer months until the present day.
In later years of the program, images called Literal Imagery Derived Products (LIDPs) were produced from the classified data at a resolution deemed suitable for unclassified release.  To date, several hundred unclassified LIDPs have been produced from the images collected at the six Arctic sites.  If these sea-ice LIDPs are publicly released and disseminated to the Arctic research community, scientists could use them in conjunction with available commercial and civilian satellite data to provide new insight into critical physical processes and how these processes are represented in climate models, the committee said. 
Some of the specific processes that could be explored from the images include the relationship of snow to ice-surface topography, the initiation and development of meltwater ponds in summer, and the relationship of stress and strain and how they are reflected in the pattern of cracks and other features in the ice.  Moreover, the report says that the 2007 and 2008 images would greatly enhance the benefits and value of a broad range of intensive ground-based observations carried out during the Fourth International Polar Year (March 2007-March 2009).  The summer 2007 sea-ice coverage minimum was a record-breaking low -- more than 20 percent below the previous low in 2005 and nearly 40 percent below the 1979-2000 average minimum.  Such a dramatic loss of sea ice could be investigated in more detail using the high-resolution imagery. 
To maximize the fullest potential of the LIDP dataset in scientific research, the committee recommended that the release include thumbnail copies of the images, exact information on the location of the images, calibration information, the time of acquisition, and the information on the pointing angle. 
The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies.  They are independent, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and health policy advice under an 1863 congressional charter.  Committee members, who serve pro bono as volunteers, are chosen by the Academies for each study based on their expertise and experience and must satisfy the Academies' conflict-of-interest standards.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090715112033.htm

DNA Not The Same In Every Cell Of Body: Major Genetic Differences Between Blood And Tissue Cells Revealed
ScienceDaily (July 16, 2009) — Research by a group of Montreal scientists calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell. Their results appear in the July issue of the journal Human Mutation.
This discovery may undercut the rationale behind numerous large-scale genetic studies conducted over the last 15 years, studies which were supposed to isolate the causes of scores of human diseases.
Except for cancer, samples of diseased tissue are difficult or even impossible to take from living patients. Thus, the vast majority of genetic samples used in large-scale studies come in the form of blood. However, if it turns out that blood and tissue cells do not match genetically, these ambitious and expensive genome-wide association studies may prove to have been essentially flawed from the outset.
This discovery sprang from an investigation into the underlying genetic causes of abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) led by Dr. Morris Schweitzer, Dr. Bruce Gottlieb, Dr. Lorraine Chalifour and colleagues at McGill University and the affiliated Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital. The researchers focused on BAK, a gene that controls cell death.
What they found surprised them.
AAA is one of the rare vascular diseases where tissue samples are removed as part of patient therapy. When they compared them, the researchers discovered major differences between BAK genes in blood cells and tissue cells coming from the same individuals, with the suspected disease "trigger" residing only in the tissue. Moreover, the same differences were later evident in samples derived from healthy individuals.
"In multi-factorial diseases other than cancer, usually we can only look at the blood," explained Gottlieb, a geneticist with McGill's Centre for Translational Research in Cancer. "Traditionally when we have looked for genetic risk factors for, say, heart disease, we have assumed that the blood will tell us what's happening in the tissue. It now seems this is simply not the case."
"From a genetic perspective, therapeutic implications aside, the observation that not all cells are the same is extremely important. That's the bottom line," he added. "Genome-wide association studies were introduced with enormous hype several years ago, and people expected tremendous breakthroughs. They were going to draw blood samples from thousands or hundreds of thousands of individuals, and find the genes responsible for disease.
"Unfortunately, the reality of these studies has been very disappointing, and our discovery certainly could explain at least one of the reasons why."
AAA is a localized widening and weakening of the abdominal aorta, and primarily affects elderly Caucasian men who smoke, have high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. It often has no symptoms, but can lead to aortic ruptures which are fatal in 90 per cent of cases.
If the mutations discovered in the tissue cells actually predispose for AAA, they present an ideal target for new therapies, and may have even wider therapeutic implications.
"This will probably have repercussions for vascular disease in general," said Schweitzer, of McGill's Department of Medicine. "We have not yet looked at coronary or cerebral arteries, but I would suspect that this mutation may be present across the board."
Schweitzer is optimistic that this discovery may lead to new treatments for vascular disease in the near to medium term.
"The timeline might be five to 10 years," he said. "We have to do in-vitro cell culture experiments first, prove it in an animal model, and then develop a molecule or protein which will affect the mutated gene product. This is the first step, but it's an important step."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090715131449.htm

Pharmacy Research Shows Prescribers Miss Potentially Dangerous Drug Pairs
ScienceDaily (July 13, 2009) — Research led by The University of Arizona College of Pharmacy has found that medication prescribers correctly identified fewer than half of drug pairs with potentially dangerous drug-drug interactions.
These findings raise concern because of the high number of drugs Americans take: an average of 2.3 medications is prescribed during each physician office visit.
A synopsis of the research was published in May Research Activities, a digest of research findings intended to contribute to the national policymaking process.
The researchers, led by Daniel Malone, PhD, professor at the UA College of Pharmacy, mailed a questionnaire to 12,500 U.S. prescribers who were selected based on a history of prescribing drugs associated with known potential for drug-drug interaction. Prescribers were primarily physicians, physicians’ assistants and nurse practitioners.
Recipients were asked to classify 14 drug pairs as “contraindicated,” “may be used together but with monitoring” or “no interaction.” Respondents could also state that they were “not sure.”
For the drug pairs, one commonly prescribed medication was matched with another commonly prescribed medication.
The 950 respondents classified 42.7 percent of all drug combinations correctly.
Of the 14 drug pairs presented, four of them were contraindicated, meaning they should not be used together. A majority of prescribers correctly identified only one of the four pairs as contraindicated.
Moreover, for half of the 14 drug pairs, more than one-third of the respondents answered that they were “not sure,” and two of these drug pairs were contraindicated.
“The study found a very low rate of recognition of these particular interactions,” says Malone, “and some of these interactions are very common.”
Use of several of the contraindicated drug pairs could be dangerous. For example, taking sildenafil (Viagra®) and nitrates, such as isosorbide mononitrate, can be life-threatening.
According to Malone, the research indicates that health professional programs are not doing enough to teach students about potential drug-drug interactions. Consequently, patients should be sure to tell their pharmacist of all the medications they are taking.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713160518.htm

Coconut Oil is the Antiviral of Nature
Kim Evans, NaturalNews.com  July 15, 2009 

(NaturalNews) In a time when strange viruses are making headlines around the world, perhaps it's time you knew about the most powerful natural antiviral around: coconut oil. The antiviral activity in coconut oil is remarkable, even among the most resistant viruses, and the best part is, if it's virgin and organic, there isn't a man-made chemical in the mix.

Think it's too good to be true?

Bruce Fife, C.N., N.D. and author of The Coconut Oil Miracle shares, "Laboratory tests have shown that the MCFAs (medium chain fatty acids) found in coconut oil are effective in destroying viruses that cause influenza, measles, herpes, mononucleosis hepatitis C, and AIDS; bacteria that can cause stomach ulcers, throat infections, pneumonia, sinusitis, urinary tract infections, meningitis, gonorrhea, and toxic shock syndrome; fungi and yeast that lead to ringworm, candida, and thrush; and parasites that can cause intestinal infections such as giardiasis." Sounds like a powerhouse to me.

The antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties of coconut oil are directly attributed to the medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs) in the oil, including capric acid and caprylic acid, and the powerful lauric acid. These fatty acids are concentrated in coconut oil; they make up over 60 percent of all that's in the oil.

Medium chain fatty acids are unique and found in only a few places in nature. Interestingly, another place medium-chain fatty acids are found is in mother's milk. In mother's milk, these medium-chain fatty acids are what protects the infant as his/her immune system is developing. And the more the mom has in her body, the more protection the infant will receive.

As antiviral and antibacterial agents, medium chain fatty acids work like this:

Like humans, viruses and bacteria have a skin, or outer coating to keep foreign invaders out. Most viruses and bacteria have a malleable, fluid-like skin that is composed of a fatty substance. Inside this fatty skin resides the rest of the organism, including the organism's DNA.

Because the fatty acids in coconut oil are similar to the pathogen's own skin, the fatty acids are attracted to the organism and are easily absorbed right into it. For the pathogen, it's like opening the door to an ax murderer, because they look like its best friend.

Once inside, the pathogen finds that the medium chain fatty acids are actually much smaller than the fatty acids that make up its own outer casing and this begins to break apart the pathogen's casing.

According to Fife, the smaller medium chain fatty acids "weaken the already nearly fluid membrane to such a degree that it disintegrates. The membrane literally splits open, spilling its insides and killing the organism."

It does this all without causing any harm to human cells or tissues.
http://www.naturalnews.com/026624_coconut_oil_fatty_acids_viruses.html

Researchers find that eating high levels of fructose impairs memory in rats
Georgia State University. July 16, 2009
ATLANTA — Researchers at Georgia State University have found that diets high in fructose — a type of sugar found in most processed foods and beverages — impaired the spatial memory of adult rats.
Amy Ross, a graduate student in the lab of Marise Parent, associate professor at Georgia State's Neuroscience Institute and Department of Psychology, fed a group of Sprague-Dawley rats a diet where fructose represented 60 percent of calories ingested during the day.
She placed the rats in a pool of water to test their ability to learn to find a submerged platform, which allowed them to get out of the water. She then returned them to the pool two days later with no platform present to see if the rats could remember to swim to the platform's location.
"What we discovered is that the fructose diet doesn't affect their ability to learn," Parent said. "But they can't seem to remember as well where the platform was when you take it away. They swam more randomly than rats fed a control diet."
Fructose, unlike another sugar, glucose, is processed almost solely by the liver, and produces an excessive amount of triglycerides — fat which get into the bloodstream. Triglycerides can interfere with insulin signaling in the brain, which plays a major role in brain cell survival and plasticity, or the ability for the brain to change based on new experiences.
Results were similar in adolescent rats, but it is unclear whether the effects of high fructose consumption are permanent, she said.
Parent's lab works with Timothy Bartness, Regents' Professor of Biology, and John Mielke of the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada to examine how diet influences brain function.
Although humans do not eat fructose in levels as high as rats in the experiments, the consumption of foods sweetened with fructose — which includes both common table sugar, fruit juice concentrates, as well as the much-maligned high fructose corn syrup — has been increasing steadily. High intake of fructose is associated with numerous health problems, including insulin insensitivity, type II diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.
"The bottom line is that we were meant to have an apple a day as our source of fructose," Parent said. "And now, we have fructose in almost everything." Moderation is key, as well as exercise, she said.
Exercise is a next step in ongoing research, and Parent's team will investigate whether exercise might mitigate the memory effects of high fructose intake. Her lab is also researching whether the intake of fish oil can prevent the increase of triglycerides and memory deficits. Results from that research will be presented by her graduate student Emily Bruggeman at the 2009 Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago this fall.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-07/gsu-rft071609.php

Pine bark extract 'helps reduce inflammation'

Times of India 16 July 2009,

WASHINGTON: An antioxidant plant extract from the bark of the French maritime pine tree has been found effective in reducing inflammation, and soothing pain associated with various health problems, claim researchers. 

According to lead researcher Dr. Raffaella Canali of the National Research Institute on Food and Nutrition in Rome, Italy, pycnogenol can actually decrease pain and reduce inflammatory conditions by shutting down the production of enzymes COX-2 and 5-LOX involved with inflammation. 

During the study, the researchers investigated healthy volunteers ranging from ages 35-50, who consumed Pycnogenol tablets (150 mg) for five consecutive days in the morning before breakfast. 

Blood was drawn before and after supplementation to investigate how immune cells respond towards pro-inflammatory stimuli. 

The behaviour of specific white blood cells (leukocytes) for generating a repertoire of enzymes in inflammatory condition was tested by real-time PCR. 

The gene expression of enzymes COX-2, 5-LOX, FLAP and COX-1 were monitored and the products these enzymes generate, prostaglandins and leukotrienes, were quantified. 

The researchers found that the volunteers' immune cells rapidly initiated production of COX-2, 5-LOX and FLAP enzymes upon pro-inflammatory stimulation. 

Taking Pycnogenol almost entirely subdued COX-2, 5-LOX and FLAP induction in the immune cells of volunteers. 

"Standard NSAID medications reduce the production of prostaglandins by COX enzymes for lowering the pain," said Dr. Canali. 

"In contrast, Pycnogenol turns to the root of the problem, completely stopping the production of COX-2 in inflammation. Thus far, Pycnogenol seems to be a unique tool for modulating inflammatory processes," Canali added. 

The study is published in International Immunopharmacology.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS-Health-Science-Health-Pine-bark-extract-helps-reduce-inflammation/articleshow/4784351.cms