Kids’ obesity rates may be stabilizing, data hint
After years of bad news about skyrocketing numbers of overweight and obese children and adolescents, new data released today indicate that there has been no significant increase in the prevalence of obese children and teens in the United States in recent years.
“In the United States, the prevalence of overweight among children and adolescents increased between 1980 and 2004, and the heaviest children have been getting heavier,” note Dr. Cynthia L. Ogden, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Hyattsville, Maryland and colleagues in this week’s issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
To gauge the latest trends, they analyzed height and weight measurements obtained from 8,165 children and adolescents as part of the 2003-2004 and 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), which are nationally representative surveys of the U.S. population.
Common painkillers have anti-Alzheimer’s effect
Pooled data from six studies suggest that all painkillers classified as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or NSAIDs—including aspirin, ibuprofen and celecoxib—reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer dementia to a similar extent.
“This is an interesting finding because it seems to challenge a current theory that the NSAID group which includes ibuprofen may work better in reducing a person’s risk of Alzheimer’s,” Dr. Peter P. Zandi said in a statement.
“The NSAID group that includes ibuprofen was thought to target a certain type of plaque in the brain found in Alzheimer’s patients. But our results suggest there may be other reasons why these drugs may reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s,” added Zandi, a researcher with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
“Silent” heart attack boosts dementia risk
Men who are found to have had an unrecognized or “silent” heart attack are at increased risk of developing dementia or small lesions in the brain that can affect cognition, Dutch researchers report.
Dr. Monique M. B. Breteler told Reuters Health that her group had previously found that men, but not women, with a silent heart attack are more likely to have a stroke than men who had a recognized heart attack or those who had not had any heart attack.
To examine whether this might also be the case for dementia and so-called cerebral small vessel disease, Breteler of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and her colleagues examined data for more than 6300 participants in a population-based study.
Swayze ‘responding well’ to cancer treatment
Former “Dirty Dancing” star Patrick Swayze is responding well to treatment for pancreatic cancer, he told People magazine.
Swayze, 55, who announced in March that he had been diagnosed with cancer, is receiving treatment at Stanford University Medical Center near San Francisco.
Low-carb diets work for overweight diabetics
Overweight people with type 2 diabetes can keep their weight and blood sugar under control over the long term by following a low-carbohydrate diet, Swedish researchers report.
“It is indeed possible to have a lasting success in the treatment of some of these patients,” Dr. Jorgen Vesti Nielsen told Reuters Health.
The participants in the study limited their carbohydrate intake to 20 percent of total calories. The most significant effect of this low-carb diet is the absence of hunger, Nielsen added.
Estrogen Helps Drive Distinct, Aggressive Form of Prostate Cancer
Using a breakthrough technology, researchers led by a Weill Cornell Medical College scientist have pinpointed the hormone estrogen as a key player in about half of all prostate cancers.
Estrogen-linked signaling helps drive a discrete and aggressive form of the disease caused by a chromosomal translocation, which in turn results in the fusion of two genes.
“Fifty percent of prostate cancers harbor a common recurrent gene fusion, and we believe that this confers a more aggressive nature to these tumors,” explains study senior author Dr. Mark A. Rubin, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine, and vice chair for experimental pathology at Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. Rubin is also attending pathologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center.
Diagnostic Tool Provides Additional Therapeutic Treatment Guidance for Third Deadliest Form of Cance
Genzyme Genetics announced today that it now offers KRAS mutation testing for colorectal cancer. The Genzyme assay, now validated in colorectal cancer and other solid tumors, evaluates a patient’s tumor tissue for mutations in the KRAS gene. Recent studies have shown that identifying KRAS mutations can assist oncologists in selecting treatment for patients with colorectal cancer.
“Determining how efficacious a therapy will be for a cancer patient is an important component of personalized medicine,” said Michael C. Dugan, M.D., vice president of pathology services at Genzyme Genetics. “Colorectal cancer is not only the third most common type of cancer, but it is also the third deadliest. It is vital for oncologists to determine the best course of therapy for their patients, since time is of the essence when treating cancer. Choosing the most effective therapy can extend a patient’s life, as well as improve overall quality of life.”
Mutations in the KRAS gene have been associated with poor prognosis in patients with colorectal cancer and have been reported in approximately 30 to 50 percent of cases of colorectal adenocarcinoma. Recent studies have shown that KRAS mutations are associated with resistance to anti-epidermal growth factor receptor (anti-EGFR) therapy in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.
Why Some Treatments Rescue Aging Skin
Fine wrinkles, deeper creases, saggy areas around the mouth and neck – the sights in the mirror that make baby boomers wince – are not inevitable. They result from a structural breakdown inside the skin that some existing treatments effectively counteract by stimulating the growth of new, youthful collagen, University of Michigan scientists say.
The researchers report an emerging picture of collagen collapse and possible renewal, based on more than a decade of studies, in the May issue of Archives of Dermatology.
The article draws on dozens of studies since the early 1990s, conducted primarily by U-M dermatologists, to explain why three types of available skin treatments are effective: topical retinoic acid, carbon dioxide laser resurfacing and injections of cross-linked hyaluronic acid.
These treatments all improve the skin’s appearance – and its ability to resist bruises and tears – by stimulating new collagen. Collagen is a key supporting substance, plentiful in young skin, that’s produced in the sub-surface layer of skin known as the dermis. The U-M findings show that the breakdown of the dermis’ firm, youthful structure is a very important factor in skin aging – a much more straightforward thing to fix than genetic factors that others theorize may be involved.
When your memories can no longer be trusted
You went to a wedding yesterday. The service was beautiful, the food and drink flowed and there was dancing all night. But people tell you that you are in hospital, that you have been in hospital for weeks, and that you didn’t go to a wedding yesterday at all.
The experience of false memories like this following neurological damage is known as confabulation. The reasons why patients experience false memories such as these has largely remained a mystery. Now a new study conducted by Dr Martha Turner and colleagues at University College London, published in the May 2008 issue of Cortex offers some clues as to what might be going on.
The authors studied 50 patients who had damage to different parts of the brain, and found that those who confabulated all shared damage to the inferior medial prefrontal cortex, a region in the centre of the front part of the brain just behind the eyes.
