April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

How many times were you told as a child that drinking your milk would give you strong bones? Turns out that might not be true.

A new study led by Uppsala University and published in The British Medical Journal reveals that drinking more milk not only doesn’t lower your risk of fractures, it might raise your risk of death.

The research team, which included members from Karolinska Institute and Uppsala University, believes their findings might be explained by the high levels of lactose and galactose (types of sugar) in milk. These sugars have been shown to increase oxidative stress and chronic inflammation in animal studies.

They caution, however, that their results can only show an association, not prove cause and effect. They recommend further studies before any firm conclusions or dietary recommendations can be made.

“A diet rich in milk products is promoted to reduce the likelihood of osteoporotic fractures,” writes Emma Dickinson for the British Medical Journal. “But previous research looking at the importance of milk for the prevention of fractures and the influence on mortality rates show conflicting results.”

The new study, led by Uppsala University’s Professor of Surgical Sciences Karl Michaëlsson, investigated whether oxidative stress, which affects the risk of mortality and fracture, would increase due to a high milk intake.

Food frequency questionnaires for 96 common foods — including milk, yogurt and cheese — were completed by two large groups of participants in Sweden. The first group included 61,433 women between the ages of 39-74 years in 1987-1990. The second group was made up of 45,339 men between the ages of 45-79 in 1997.

The researchers also collected lifestyle data, weight, height and factors such as education level and marital status. Fracture and mortality rates were tracked through the National registers.

The female group was tracked for an average of 20 years. During this period, 15,541 died and 17,252 suffered a fracture — 4,259 of those fractures were hip fractures. The researchers found no reduction in fracture risk for the women with higher milk consumption. In fact, women who drank more than three glasses of milk a day (average of 23 oz) had a higher risk of death than women who drank one glass of milk a day (average of 2 oz).

The male participants were tracked for an average of 11 years. During this time, 10,112 men died and 5,066 suffered fractures. Of those fractures, 1,166 were hip fractures. The risk of death was also higher in men who consumed large quantities of milk, but not as pronounced a difference as with women.

The research team was able to identify a positive association between milk intake and the biomarkers of oxidative stress and inflammation. Strangely, they found an association with reduced rates of mortality and fracture (especially in women) and a high intake of fermented milk products with low lactose content, such as yogurt and cheese.

“Our results may question the validity of recommendations to consume high amounts of milk to prevent fragility fractures,” they write. “The results should, however, be interpreted cautiously given the observational design of our study. The findings merit independent replication before they can be used for dietary recommendations.”

Professor Mary Schooling at City University of New York said in an accompanying editorial that the new study raises a fascinating possibility about the potential harms of milk. She stresses, however, that assessing diet precisely is difficult.

“As milk consumption may rise globally with economic development and increasing consumption of animal source foods, the role of milk and mortality needs to be established definitively now,” she concluded.

Related Reading:

> Ancient Europeans Were Lactose Intolerant For Thousands Of Years
> Study Re-examines The Evolutionary Origins Of Lactose Tolerance

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Provided by Tracy Hampton, American Society of Nephrology

Adhering to a Mediterranean-style diet may significantly reduce the risk of developing chronic kidney disease, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN).

Chronic kidney disease is a growing epidemic, and while there has been significant progress in protecting against kidney disease and its progression through aggressive treatment of risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes, many people still experience declining kidney function as they age. Minesh Khatri, MD (Columbia University Medical Center) and his colleagues wondered whether an improved diet might provide additional benefits.

“Many studies have found a favorable association between the Mediterranean diet and a variety of health outcomes, including those related to cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, and cancer, among others,” said Dr. Khatri. “There is increasing evidence that poor diet is associated with kidney disease, but it is unknown whether the benefits of a Mediterranean diet could extend to kidney health as well.” The Mediterranean diet includes higher consumption of fruits, vegetables, fish, legumes, and heart-healthy fats, while minimizing red meats, processed foods, and sweets.

The researchers examined the associations of varying degrees of the Mediterranean diet on long-term kidney function in an observational, community-based, prospective study. In their analysis of 900 participants who were followed for nearly 7 years, every one-point higher in a Mediterranean diet score, indicating better adherence to the diet, was associated with a 17% lower likelihood of developing chronic kidney disease. Dietary patterns that closely resembled the Mediterranean diet (with a score of ≥5) were linked with a 50% lower risk of developing chronic kidney disease and a 42% lower risk of experiencing rapid kidney function decline.

In an accompanying editorial, Julie Lin, MD, MPH, FASN (Brigham and Women’s Hospital) noted that a Mediterranean-style diet is only one component of an overall healthy lifestyle, which also needs to incorporate regular physical activity. “Although a seemingly simple goal, achieving this is challenging. We need to begin by embracing the reality that there is no magic pill or miracle food, only vigilance and discipline with diet and regular exercise, and the rare indulgence in cake for very special occasions,” she wrote.

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Provided by Rhiannon Bugno, Elsevier Editorial Office

Ghrelin is a hormone released by the stomach and it stimulates appetite and food intake. Alcohol is commonly viewed as a psychoactive substance that primarily affects brain function, but it is also a highly caloric food.

This knowledge, combined with findings from animal studies, led researchers to the hypothesis that ghrelin has the potential to stimulate alcohol craving.

Dr. Lorenzo Leggio and his colleagues tested this in humans and found that, as they had anticipated, alcohol craving was increased in heavy drinkers following administration of ghrelin. Their work is published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.

“This study provides a direct translation on the role of ghrelin in alcohol-seeking behaviors in humans from previous research conducted in rodents,” said Dr. Leggio, Clinical Investigator in the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Leggio is also Chief of the Section on Clinical Psychoneuroendo-crinology and Neuropsychopharmacology, in NIAAA’s Laboratory of Clinical and Translational Studies.

The study was conducted in the laboratory, where 45 men and women, all of whom were alcohol-dependent, heavy-drinking individuals not seeking treatment, were randomized to receive one of three different doses of ghrelin. One of those doses, at 0 mcg/kg, served as a placebo.

Following intravenous administration of the drug, the volunteers then completed a cue-reactivity task, during which they were exposed to both neutral and alcohol cues. Throughout the laboratory session, their craving (e.g., urge to drink) for alcohol or juice was repeatedly assessed.

Compared to placebo, ghrelin significantly increased alcohol craving, but had no effect on urge to drink juice. There were no differences in reported side effects between those who received placebo versus those who received ghrelin.

Dr. John Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, commented, “This study sheds new light on a role for ghrelin in alcohol craving, raising the possibility that ghrelin signaling might be targeted by future treatments for alcohol use disorders.”

Leggio added, “There is a crucial need to identify neurobiological pathways linked to alcohol craving that may help in the development of novel effective medications aimed to reduce excessive alcohol use. In this context, future studies may explore the potential of blocking ghrelin signaling as a new promising treatment for alcoholism.”

The article is “Intravenous Ghrelin Administration Increases Alcohol Craving in Alcohol-Dependent Heavy Drinkers: A Preliminary Investigation” by Lorenzo Leggio, William H. Zywiak, Samuel R. Fricchione, Steven M. Edwards, Suzanne M. de la Monte, Robert M. Swift, and George A. Kenna (doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.03.019). The article appears in Biological Psychiatry, Volume 76, Issue 9 (November 1, 2014), published by Elsevier.

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Provided by Mary Beth O’Leary, Cell Press
In addition to providing other potential benefits to public health, all of those tweets and Facebook posts could help curb the spread of HIV.
Although public health researchers have focused early applications of social media on reliably monitoring the spread of diseases such as the flu, Sean Young of the Center for Digital Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles, writes in an October 29th article in the Cell Press journal Trends in Microbiology of a future in which social media might predict and even change biomedical outcomes.
“We know that mining social media will have huge potential benefits for many areas of medicine in the future, but we’re still in the early stages of testing how powerful these technologies will be,” Young said.
With the right tools in place, he says, social media offers a rich source of psychological and health-related data generated in an environment in which people are often willing to share freely.
His recent work on Behavioral Insights on Big Data (BIBD) for HIV offers the tantalizing possibility that insights gleaned from social media could be used to help governments, public health departments, hospitals, and caretakers monitor people’s health behaviors “to know where, when, and how we might be able to prevent HIV transmission.”
Young details a social-media-based intervention in which African American and Latino men who have sex with men shared a tremendous amount of personal information through social media, including when or whether they had ‘come out,’ as well as experiences of homelessness and stigmatization. What’s more, they found that people who discussed HIV prevention topics on social media were more than twice as likely to later request an HIV test.
In the context of HIV prevention, tweets have also been shown to identify people who are currently or soon to engage in sexual- or drug-related risk behaviors. Those tweets can be mapped to particular locations and related to actual HIV trends.
What’s needed now is the updated infrastructure and sophisticated toolkits to handle all of those data, Young said, noting that there are about 500 million communications sent every day on Twitter alone. He and a team of University of California computer scientists are working to meet that challenge now.
Although privacy concerns about such uses of social media shouldn’t be ignored, Young says there is evidence that people have already begun to accept such uses of social media, even by corporations looking to boost profits.
“Since people are already getting used to the fact that corporations are doing this, we should at least support public health researchers in using these same methods to try and improve our health and well being,” he said. “We’re already seeing increased support from patients and public health departments.”
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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
By using deep DNA sequencing, an international team of researchers led by the Autism Sequencing Consortium (ASC) has increased the number of genes identified with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) from nine to 33.
The research, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, analyzed data on several types of rare genetic differences in over 14,000 DNA samples from parents, autistic children and unrelated individuals, according to the study authors. In addition to quadrupling the number of definitive autism genes discovered to date, the researchers also found more than 70 other likely ASD genes.
Working at three different universities throughout the country, researchers from over three dozen institutions found seven genes that have mutations in three or more children with autism, implicating those genes with the disorder with a level of near-certainty. Another 20 genes with mutations were found in two children, giving each of them a better than 90 percent chance of being a true autism gene, the authors reported in their paper.
The majority of the newly identified mutations are de novo mutations, meaning that they are not present in unaffected parents’ genomes, but appear spontaneously in a single sperm or egg cell just prior to conception of a child, the research team explained. The DNA implicated fall into three broad classes: those involved in the formation and function of synapses, those that regulate transcription, and those involved in the cellular packaging of DNA.
The first group helps with the creation and operation of sites of nerve-cell communication in the brain, while the second regulates how the instructions in other genes are relayed to the protein-making machinery in cells, and the third impacts how genetic information is wound up and packed into cells in a structure known as chromatin. Mutations that alter chromatin and affect transcription are believed to affect the activity of many genes, the researchers noted.
“We have a set of genes for which now, if people see a likely gene-disrupting mutation when sequencing a young child, there’s a high risk of the child developing autism, and that, to my mind, is pretty powerful stuff,” the University of Washington’s Evan Eichler, who leads one of the laboratories involved in the study, said in a statement. “Recognizing this early on may allow for earlier interventions, such as behavioral therapies, improving outcomes in children.”
“Our findings lend new weight to the hypothesis that there are specific functional categories of genes – likely conserved by evolution in development of the human neurological system and brain – that strongly contribute to autism’s causation, such as genes expressed during embryonic development and genes that encode proteins that remodel chromatin, the bundles in which our DNA is stored,” added Michael Ronemus of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
This marks the first time that the scientists were able to assess the impact of both inherited genetic differences and the spontaneous de novo ones. While slight, rare genetic differences in over 100 top genes were found to increase a person’s risk by a relatively sizable amount, the research team said that looking at the prevalence of those variations allowed them to predict slight differences in up to 1,000 others that could eventually be found to increase ASD risk.
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May we suggest – Autism Spectrum Disorder (revised): The Complete Guide to Understanding Autism by Chantal Sicile-Kira
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John Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Google is in the initial phase of a project that may help us to detect cancer earlier, and we could depend on wearable technology to flag up problems rather than taking regular trips to the doctor.

The system involves swallowing a pill containing tiny magnetic particles that move around the bloodstream searching for and attaching themselves to abnormal cells. The findings would then be relayed to a sensor on a wearable device. Data from these nanoparticles, which could number as many as 2,000 inside a single red blood cell, could also be uploaded and sent to doctors via the cloud, giving a comprehensive picture of a patient’s health. The information available to doctors would go beyond the scope of blood tests.

The project from the secretive yet much discussed Google X lab is part of Google’s broader efforts on healthcare, in which it claims to be focusing on the early prevention side of medicine rather than cures. The latest development follows work on contact lenses that are able to monitor glucose in tears for diabetics, and the acquisition in September of Lift Labs, who makes ‘shake-canceling’ eating utensils for people with Parkinson’s disease.

As well as detecting cancers during their early stages, including some such as pancreatic cancer which at the moment are often detected too late to cure, the nanotechnology could also be useful in early detection of other life-threatening conditions. Potential heart attacks and strokes could be prevented by identifying fatty plaques about to break free from the lining of blood vessels, which can stop blood flow, while porous nanoparticles that change color as potassium passes through could warn of the high levels of potassium that cause kidney disease.

Google’s head of life sciences Dr. Andrew Conrad, a molecular biologist who developed a cheap and now widely employed HIV test, told the BBC News reporters Leo Kelion & James Gallagher that, “Nanoparticles… give you the ability to explore the body at a molecular and cellular level,” explaining that, “What we are trying to do is change medicine from reactive and transactional to proactive and preventative.”

TechCrunch’s Sarah Buhr also quoted Dr. Conrad from a speech given to the Wall Street Journal Digital conference in which he appeared to compare the nanoparticle pill to Google’s self-driving car project. We could, “Think of it as sort of like a mini self-driving car. We can make it park where we want it to.” He made the analogy that current healthcare systems are guilty of trying to change oil after we have broken down.

Concerns about Google’s venture relate to the security of the huge amounts of data that would be collected, along with the possibility that being able to constantly monitor ourselves would lead to obsessive worry about the readings. The BBC’s health editor James Gallagher suggests that, “Screening the body for disease is littered with dangers, and if it is not done carefully, it could make hypochondriacs out of all of us.”

On the subject of privacy, Dr. Conrad said that a partner rather than Google would be responsible for individual data. “It’d be like saying GE (Healthcare) is in control of your x-ray. We are the creators of the tech and they are the disseminators,” he clarified.

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April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

According to Chinese legend, tea was discovered by Emperor Shennong around 2,700 BC. Originally, tea was used in religious rituals and for medicinal purposes. For at least the last 300 years, tea has been a drink enjoyed by the masses around the world. The history of citrus fruits is nearly as long, migrating from the Far East and India to Europe during the Middle Ages. The consumption of both might reduce a woman’s risk of epithelial ovarian cancer, a new study from the University of East Anglia finds.

The results, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, reveal that women who consume foods containing flavonols and flavanones can significantly decrease their risk of this type of cancer, which is currently the fifth-leading cause of cancer death among women. Flavonols (found in tea, red wine, apples and grapes) and flavonones (found in citrus fruits and juices) are both subclasses of dietary flavonoids.

The research team used data on the dietary habits of 171,940 women between the ages of 25 and 55, collected over a thirty year time span during the Nurses’ Health Study at Harvard University. They found that women who consumed these foods were less likely to develop the disease.

In the UK alone, ovarian cancer affects more than 6,500 women a year. In the US, the number is closer to 20,000. According to the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, epithelial ovarian cancer develops from the cells that cover the ovaries, not in the ovaries themselves.

Prof Aedin Cassidy, from the Department of Nutrition at UEA’s Norwich Medical School, said: “This is the first large-scale study looking into whether habitual intake of different flavonoids can reduce the risk of epithelial ovarian cancer. We found that women who consume foods high in two sub-groups of powerful substances called flavonoids – flavonols and flavanones – had a significantly lower risk of developing epithelial ovarian cancer.”

“The main sources of these compounds include tea and citrus fruits and juices, which are readily incorporated into the diet, suggesting that simple changes in food intake could have an impact on reducing ovarian cancer risk. In particular, just a couple of cups of black tea every day was associated with a 31 percent reduction in risk.”

Cassidy collaborated with Professor Shelley Tworoger of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Their study was the first to perform a comprehensive examination of the six major subclasses of flavonoids found in a normal diet, as well as the first to investigate the impact of polymers and anthocyanins on ovarian cancer risk.

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April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

In the US, every 33 seconds someone dies from cardiovascular disease and, according to The Heart Foundation, more than 920,000 will have a heart attack this year alone.

Men and women suffering a heart attack go through very similar stages of pain, but their reactions are very different. According to a study presented at the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress (CCC), women will delay seeking care, putting their health at risk.

“The main danger is that when someone comes to the hospital with a more severe or advanced stage of heart disease, there are simply fewer treatment options available,” said Dr. Catherine Kreatsoulas, a Fulbright Scholar and Heart and Stroke Foundation Research Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Enough isn’t known about how people perceive heart symptoms, Kreatsoulas said, nor at what stage they should decide to seek medical care. The new study, which was conducted in two parts, made use of patients with suspected coronary artery disease, just before they underwent their first coronary angiogram test.

In the first part of the study, Kreatsoulas’ team interviewed cardiac patients regarding their experience with angina. The patients were also questioned about their decision to seek medical care. The second phase of the study included a new set of patients. The research team used their answers to quantify reasons for seeking care by gender.

Angina is a warning signal that you are at risk of heart attack, cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death. Angina — which can present as pressure, tightness or burning — occurs when the heart doesn’t receive enough blood and oxygen because of a blockage of one or more of the heart’s arteries.

The team developed a theory of the “symptomatic tipping point,” which is defined as that transitional period between experiencing cardiac symptoms and seeking medical care. Six transitional stages, common to both men and women, were identified.

The stages below are in chronological order:

1. uncertainty, during which the patient attributes symptoms to another health issue

2. denial or dismissal

3. asking for assistance or opinion of a friend or family member

4. a feeling of defeat when symptoms are recognized for what they are

5. seeking medical attention

6. acceptance of diagnosis

The researchers found that women stayed in stage 2 – denial – longer than men, waiting “for others to tell them they looked horrible,” said Dr. Kreatsoulas. “Women displayed more of an optimistic bias, feeling that the symptoms would pass and get better on their own.”

The results of the second phase of the study upheld this belief. The researchers found that women were one and a half times more likely to wait for symptoms to become more severe and more frequent before seeking medical care than men.

Kreatsoulas attributes this to women prioritizing differently than men — such as on caregiving or from risk aversion. She cites prior studies which found when women are ill, “they are often more concerned with how long they may be out of commission and not necessarily as concerned about the best treatment options.” Women are also more likely to dismiss symptoms when they feel even a small improvement.

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Provided by Eric Sorensen, Washington State University

Americans are in a world of hurt. Nearly one in five US adults are in pain most every day for spells of three months or longer, according to an analysis by Jae Kennedy, professor of health policy and administration at Washington State University Spokane. The estimated 39 million adults in persistent pain outnumber the residents of California.

Previous studies have said so much pain costs hundreds of billions of dollars a year in lost productivity and health care. And that doesn’t take into account pain’s psychic toll.

“A sizeable portion of American adults are dealing with persistent pain and that’s affecting their lives profoundly,” said Kennedy. “Access to good pain management for this population is limited, and there’s a real risk that taking short-term pain medications for a long period of time will lead to dependency or addiction.”

His study, published this month in the Journal of Pain, drew from the first national survey to measure persistent pain, defined as daily or nearly daily pain lasting three months, which is usually ample time for an injury to heal. The National Center for Health Statistics survey questioned 35,000 households.

Determining pain’s economic, social costs

Kennedy was inspired to look at the data after seeing the 2011 national Institute of Medicine report, which found nearly half of Americans suffer what it called chronic pain. The report’s chronic pain definition is more inclusive and can include arthritis, joint pain, moderate or severe pain in the past four weeks and any work or housework disability.

“I don’t think that half of the population is dealing with chronic pain in the sense that we would describe chronic pain as a risk factor for deteriorating mental health and substance abuse,” said Kennedy. “So we wanted to come up with a subset of chronic pain that focused on something that we could look at across different chronic conditions rather than saying, ‘OK, if you’ve got arthritis, then you’ve got chronic pain.’”

By focusing on persistent pain, he said, health policy makers and providers can get a clearer sense of pain’s economic and social costs.

“Persistent pain is going to have the biggest impact on people’s daily lives,” he said. “If you’re dealing with pain constantly for a long period of time, that’s going to affect your work life, your family life, your social life. It also puts you at higher risk for things like mental illness and addiction.”
Pain triggers psychological distress

The study presents a rough demography of the problem. Naturally, older adults are more likely to report persistent pain, particularly between the ages of 60 and 69. Women are at a higher risk than men, as are those without high school degrees. Latino and African American adults are less likely to report pain than whites.

Two-thirds of those with persistent pain said it is “constantly present.” Half said it is sometimes “unbearable and excruciating.”

People with persistent pain were also more likely to report daily feelings of anxiety, depression and fatigue. This makes sense, said Kennedy.

“Being in pain is depressing,” he said. “Being in pain all the time is tiring. Being in pain all the time is anxiety-provoking. So it’s plausible that pain is triggering other kinds of more psychological distress.”

Policies, practices that ease pain

He said he would like to see questions about persistent pain asked in future national health surveys to get a more consistent measure of it across different groups of people. And while pain is in some ways inherent in the human condition, he would like to see policies and practices that ease it.

The rate of pain could be lowered, he said, “with responsive health systems that look at the entire person and the range of therapeutic services that they may need. It may be more expensive in the short term but in the long term – if we can get those people back to work, paying taxes, supporting their families, engaged in the community – there will be all kinds of economic as well as social benefits.”

Kennedy’s co-authors are John Roll, principal investigator and WSU Spokane College of Nursing professor; Taylor Schraudner, graduate student in health policy and administration when the paper was researched; Sean Murphy, assistant professor in health policy and administration; and Sterling McPherson, assistant professor in the College of Nursing.

Support came from the Washington Life Sciences Discovery Fund.

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Provided by The JAMA Network Journals

Pasteurized agave nectar and placebo were both perceived to be better by parents for treating nighttime cough and the resulting sleep difficulty in infants and toddlers than doing nothing at all, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.

Cough is a frequent symptom in children and one of the main reasons they visit a health care professional. Little evidence supports the use of over-the-counter medicine for acute cough. An alternative to treat cough is honey but children younger than 1 year are precluded from consuming honey because of concerns over infant botulism. Agave nectar has properties similar to honey but has not been associated with botulism.

Researchers Ian M. Paul, M.D., M.Sc., of the Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Penn., and colleagues compared treatment with agave nectar, placebo or no treatment at all on nighttime cough and the accompanying sleep disturbance in a group of 119 children who were randomized to one of the three treatment groups. The one-night study included children 2 to 47 months old who had nonspecific acute cough for seven days or less.

Study results indicate that agave nectar and placebo resulted in perceived symptom improvement by parents compared with no treatment, but agave nectar did not outperform placebo when a comparison was made between the two.

“Both physicians and parents want symptomatic relief for children with these common and annoying illnesses. The significant placebo effect found warrants consideration as health care providers and parents determine how best to manage the disruptive symptoms that occur in the setting of upper respiratory tract infections among young children. Placebo could offer some perceived benefit, although at a financial cost, while reducing inappropriate antibiotic prescribing,” the study concludes.

In a related editorial, James A. Taylor, M.D., and Douglas J. Opel, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Washington, Seattle, write: “Although the study intervention provided no more relief from cough symptoms than placebo, both treatments were statistically superior to no treatment. The investigators contend that these findings are indicative of a placebo effect.”

“Rather, what the investigators are observing in this study is a placebo effect in the parents who assessed outcomes in study children using a cough symptom questionnaire,” they continue.

“As investigators such as Paul and colleagues continue to evaluate pharmacologic treatments, perhaps we should also conduct research designed to identify other components of care (e.g., communication techniques and nonspecific treatments) that improve outcomes after visits to clinicians by children with cold symptoms, even if the improvement is simply caused by a placebo effect, as broadly characterized,” the authors conclude.

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Provided by Laura Snider, University of Colorado at Boulder

The type of sound processing that modern hearings aids provide to make speech more understandable for wearers may also make music enjoyment more difficult, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder.

The findings, published in the journal Ear and Hearing, suggest that less sophisticated hearing aids might actually be more compatible with listening to music, especially recorded music that has itself been processed to change the way it sounds.

“Hearing aids have gotten very advanced at processing sounds to make speech more understandable,” said Naomi Croghan, who led the study as a doctoral student at CU-Boulder and who now works at Cochlear Americas in Centennial, Colorado. “But music is a different animal and hasn’t always been part of the hearing aid design process.”

A frequent complaint among people who use hearing aids is that music can sound distorted, said Croghan, and it’s common for people to remove their hearing aids to listen to music.

Modern hearing aids use processing called “wide dynamic range compression,” which leaves loud sounds untouched but amplifies softer sounds. This kind of processing is useful for helping people with hearing loss follow a conversation, but it can distort music, which often covers a wider range of volumes than speech.

Adding to the distortion is the fact that recorded music commonly undergoes its own processing, known as “compression limiting,” which squeezes louder and softer sounds together into a narrower range, increasing the perceived volume. Too much compression limiting can affect the quality of music even for people with normal hearing, Croghan said, but it compounds the problem for hearing aid users.

“The recorded music is processed through multiple layers by the time the person with hearing loss actually hears it,” Croghan said.

The research team—which also included Professor Kathryn Arehart and Scholar in Residence James Kates, both in CU-Boulder’s Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences—asked 18 experienced hearing aid users to listen to classical and rock music samples that ranged from being unprocessed to highly processed. The participants also used simulated hearing aids set at a variety of processing levels.

Regardless of which music sample the participants listened to, they generally preferred using the hearing aids with the simplest additional processing—essentially devices that just boost the volume. The participants also tended to prefer less processed music to more processed music. However, the level of processing of the music itself wasn’t as important as the type of hearing aid used for listener enjoyment.

“What’s interesting about this is that more is not necessarily better,” Arehart said. “If I am in a noisy restaurant and I want to hear the people at my table, then more processing may be better in order to suppress the background noise. But when listening to music, more processing may actually do more harm than good.”

Despite general agreement among study participants that less processing in the hearing aid was better for listening to music, individual preferences varied from person to person.

“When it comes to hearing, like a lot of things, the average result does not fit everyone,” Croghan said.

The study was funded by a grant from hearing aid manufacturer GN ReSound.

Related Links:

> Original University of Colorado at Boulder Statement
> Hearing Aids Worn By Only One Fifth Of People With Hearing Problems – University of Manchester
> Parasitic Fly Inspires New Type Of Hearing Aid

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Antioxidant-rich naturally occurring dietary compounds found in cocoa could help reverse age-related memory decline in otherwise healthy older adults, claims research led by Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) and published Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
In research supported by Mars Inc., a global food manufacturer known largely for its chocolate and candy products, senior author Dr. Scott A. Small and colleagues from several other US universities recruited 37 healthy volunteers between the ages of 50 and 69. Each study participant randomly received a diet that was either high in dietary cocoa flavanols (900mg per day) or a low-flavanol diet (10mg) for three months.
Brain imaging and memory tests were administered to each subject both before and after the study, the researchers said. The brain imaging measured blood volume in a part of the hippocampal formation known as the dentate gyrus, a measure of metabolism, and the memory test involved a 20-minute session of pattern-recognition exercises designed to evaluate the type of memory controlled by this particular brain structure.
[ Watch the Video: Dietary Flavanols Reverse Age-Related Memory Decline ]
According to Rosa Silverman of The Telegraph, “those who had consumed a high dose performed much faster than those who received a low dose.” The difference, she explained, is believed to be the result of an increase in blood volume in the dentate gyrus directly attributable to the higher intake of cocoa flavanols. Previous research had linked a decline in function in that region of the brain during old age to gradual memory loss.
“When we imaged our research subjects’ brains, we found noticeable improvements in the function of the dentate gyrus in those who consumed the high-cocoa-flavanol drink,” Dr. Adam M. Brickman, lead author of the study and an associate professor of neuropsychology at Columbia University’s for Research on Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain, said in a statement.
Specifically, Dr. Small told New York Times reporter Pam Belluck that the members of the high-flavanol group performed an average of 25 percent better on the memory test than their low-flavanol counterparts. That means their results were about as good as people who were two to three decades younger, the CUMC researcher noted.
“If a participant had the memory of a typical 60-year-old at the beginning of the study, after three months that person on average had the memory of a typical 30- or 40-year-old,” Dr. Small said. However, he also cautioned that their study was small, and that the findings needed to be replicated in a forthcoming larger study planned by his team.
“This well-designed but small study suggests the antioxidants found in cocoa can improve cognitive performance by improving blood flow to a certain region of the brain,” said Dr. Clare Walton, research manager at the Alzheimer’s Society, according to the Daily Mail. “The brain region is known to be affected in ageing, but as yet we don’t know whether these brain changes are involved in dementia.”
Likewise, Dr. Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, said that people should not look at the study findings as a sign to stockpile candy bars, because the supplement used in the study was specially formulated from cocoa beans. In fact, the researchers pointed out that most methods of processing cocoa actually remove many of the flavanols found in the cocoa plant itself – they must be specially extracted using a proprietary process.
“The precise formulation used in the CUMC study has also been shown to improve cardiovascular health. Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston recently announced an NIH-funded study of 18,000 men and women to see whether flavanols can help prevent heart attacks and strokes,” the university explained. “The researchers point out that the product used in the study is not the same as chocolate, and they caution against an increase in chocolate consumption in an attempt to gain this effect.”
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Provided by Charlotte Hsu, University at Buffalo

The family of viruses housing Ebola and Marburg is ancient, and the two viruses last shared a common ancestor millions of years ago, scientists say

A new study is helping to rewrite Ebola’s family history.

The research shows that filoviruses — a family to which Ebola and its similarly lethal relative, Marburg, belong — are at least 16-23 million years old.

Filoviruses likely existed in the Miocene Epoch, and at that time, the evolutionary lines leading to Ebola and Marburg had already diverged, the study concludes.

The research was published in the journal PeerJ in September. It adds to scientists’ developing knowledge about known filoviruses, which experts once believed came into being some 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the rise of agriculture. The new study pushes back the family’s age to the time when great apes arose.

“Filoviruses are far more ancient than previously thought,” says lead researcher Derek Taylor, PhD, a University at Buffalo professor of biological sciences. “These things have been interacting with mammals for a long time, several million years.”

According to the PeerJ article, knowing more about Ebola and Marburg’s comparative evolution could “affect design of vaccines and programs that identify emerging pathogens.”

The research does not address the age of the modern-day Ebolavirus. Instead, it shows that Ebola and Marburg are each members of ancient evolutionary lines, and that these two viruses last shared a common ancestor sometime prior to 16-23 million years ago.

Clues in ‘fossil genes’

Taylor and co-author Jeremy Bruenn, PhD, UB professor of biological sciences, research viral “fossil genes” — chunks of genetic material that animals and other organisms acquire from viruses during infection.

In the new study, the authors report finding remnants of filovirus-like genes in various rodents. One fossil gene, called VP35, appeared in the same spot in the genomes of four different rodent species: two hamsters and two voles. This meant the material was likely acquired in or before the Miocene Epoch, prior to when these rodents evolved into distinct species some 16-23 million years ago.

In other words: It appears that the known filovirus family is at least as old as the common ancestor of hamsters and voles.

“These rodents have billions of base pairs in their genomes, so the odds of a viral gene inserting itself at the same position in different species at different times are very small,” Taylor says. “It’s likely that the insertion was present in the common ancestor of these rodents.”

The genetic material in the VP35 fossil was more closely related to Ebola than to Marburg, indicating that the lines leading to these viruses had already begun diverging from each other in the Miocene.

The new study builds on Taylor’s previous work with Bruenn and other biologists, which used viral fossil genes to estimate that the entire family of filoviruses was more than 10 million years old. However, those studies used fossil genes only distantly related to Ebola and Marburg, which prevented the researchers from drawing conclusions about the age of these two viral lines.

The current PeerJ publication fills this viral “fossil gap,” enabling the scientists to explore Ebola’s historical relationship with Marburg.

Possible relevance to disease prevention

The first Ebola outbreak in humans occurred in 1976, and scientists still know little about the virus’ history. The same dearth of information applies to Marburg, which was recognized in humans in 1967 and implicated in the death of a Ugandan health worker this month.

Understanding the virus’ ancient past could aid in disease prevention, Taylor says. He notes that if a researcher were trying to create a single vaccine effective against both Ebola and Marburg, it could be helpful to know that their evolutionary lineages diverged so long ago.

Knowing more about filoviruses in general could provide insight into which host species might serve as “reservoirs” that harbor undiscovered pathogens related to Ebola and Marburg, Taylor says.

“When they first started looking for reservoirs for Ebola, they were crashing through the rainforest, looking at everything — mammals, insects, other organisms,” Taylor says. “The more we know about the evolution of filovirus-host interactions, the more we can learn about who the players might be in the system.”

Collaborators: Taylor and Bruenn’s co-authors on the PeerJ study include UB students Matthew Ballinger, Laura Hanzly and Jack Zhan, all in the UB Department of Biological Sciences.

Related Links:

> Original Statement
> The Facts About Ebola: How The Disease Can (And Can’t) Be Spread
> US Response To Ebola Scrutinized As International Situation Worsens

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Experts from the University of Cincinnati and the US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio are joining forces to develop a lightweight, wearable device that can analyze sweat using a smartphone in order to perform a variety of health-related diagnostic tests.

The new gadget uses sensors that are as light and flexible as an adhesive bandage and capable of gathering vital medical information in almost real time. The technology is similar to that used by home pregnancy tests, collecting electrolytes, metabolites, proteins, small molecules, amino acids and other biomarkers that are carried with sweat, the researchers explained.

“With that kind of information, athletes could avoid the killer cramps that could cause them to be carried off the field at the peak of their game or competition,” the university said. “Preemies’ vitals could be monitored without drawing blood – the pain and blood loss causing even more stress on a physically-stressed infant. One day, diabetics could maybe even avoid those painful sticks as well, as they check their glucose levels.”

Jason Heikenfeld, a UC professor of electrical engineering and computing systems and a member of a team working on the device, explained in the latest issue of IEEE Spectrum Magazine that the ultimate goal is to use sweat as an alternative for being punctured for a blood test or providing a urine sample for diagnostic tests, and to figure out if perspiration could provide constant updates about how a person’s body is responding to a specific drug or injury.

Image Above: The next generation of sweat sensor pad and flexible Bluetooth circuit. Credit: UC/USAF

“Sweat contains a trove of medical information and can provide it in almost real time,” Heikenfeld said. “Researchers have understood the richness of the information carried in sweat for some 50 years, but they have been unable to take advantage of it because of the difficulty of collecting, transporting, and analyzing the samples.”

“With the many recent advances in sensing, computing, and wearable technology providing inspiration – and with more than a little perspiration in the laboratory – we are on the verge of a true revolution in wearable diagnostics,” he added. “Ultimately, sweat analysis will offer minute-by-minute insight into what is happening in the body, with on-demand sampling in a manner that is convenient and unobtrusive.”

The joint UC/USAF team initially started work on the device five years ago as part of a search for an easy-to-use and convenient method to monitor how an airman responds to disease, medication, diet, injury, stress and other physical changes during both training and missions. During their research, they developed patches that stimulate perspiration, then measured and transmitted health-related information based on those sweat samples.

He explained that paper in the patch wicks sweat in a tree-root pattern in order to maximize the amount of perspiration collected while minimizing the volume of paper required. It comes with a built-in sodium sensor, voltage meter, communications antenna, as well as microfluidics and a controller chip externally powered by the smartphone.

“Right now our industry partners are preparing to use standard flexible-electronic manufacturing processes to produce several hundred patches for more extensive human trials, which are expected to start before the end of the year,” Heikenfeld wrote. “We’re also adding about a half dozen other sensors that will detect additional ions besides sodium and chloride and use them to predict things like exertion level and muscle injury or damage.”

He noted that the initial results “look promising” and that pilot program testing on college athletes could begin as early as next year. If that does well, he said that if those trials go well, “it’s not a far stretch to imagine using the patch” in conjunction with radio frequency identification (RFID) reading mats currently used to record marathoners’ split times to also identify runners who might be at risk of a potentially-dangerous electrolyte imbalance.

“If all goes well, we could have sweat-sensing patches – at least sensors for athletics – on the market in low volume next year. These do not have to go through a lengthy approval process with the US Food and Drug Administration because they are not meant to be used for diagnosis or treatment of disease,” Heikenfeld said, adding that a second-generation patch that includes Bluetooth communication, data storage and more is “nearly complete.”

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Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Although alcohol consumption is typically associated with negative effects on the brain, a new study from a team of American researchers has found that people over 60 who are moderate drinkers have better episodic memory, meaning they are better at recalling specific events.

Published in the American Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias, the new study also found moderate alcohol consumption is associated with a larger volume of the hippocampus, a brain region vital for episodic memory.

Study author Faika Zanjani, a behavioral and community health professor at the University of Maryland, noted that the study findings were significant considering the fact that episodic memory is typically lost with dementia.

“Over time, you don’t necessarily lose memory for [how to do] things, like driving or having coffee,” Zanjani told Laura Tedesco of Yahoo Health. “You usually lose memory of events — memories that you have to retrieve, instead of just use. It’s not just forgetting your keys. It’s forgetting key moments in your life.”

The study was based on data for over 660 patients in the Framingham Heart Study Offspring Cohort. Participants in the study provided information on their alcohol intake, underwent a battery of neuropsychological tests, had MRIs taken of their brains and were tested for the genetic Alzheimer’s disease risk factor APOE e4.

The scientists learned that light and moderate alcohol usage in the over 60 set is connected with greater episodic memory and a larger hippocampal brain size. Quantity of alcohol usage did not influence executive function or overall mental ability.

Results from animal analyses indicate that moderate alcohol intake may help with preserving hippocampal volume by supporting the generation of nerve cells in the hippocampus. Additionally, subjecting the brain to moderate amounts of alcohol may boost the discharge of brain chemicals involved with mental processing, the researchers said.

“There were no significant differences in cognitive functioning and regional brain volumes during late life according to reported midlife alcohol consumption status,” said study author Brian Downer, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. “This may be due to the fact that adults who are able to continue consuming alcohol into old age are healthier, and therefore have higher cognition and larger regional brain volumes, than people who had to decrease their alcohol consumption due to unfavorable health outcomes.”

Even though the advantages of light to moderate alcohol intake with respect to cognitive learning and memory down the road have been reported before – long periods of abusing alcohol, typically considered having five or more alcoholic beverages during a single session, is proven to be damaging to the brain, the study team pointed out.

“We constantly recommend that people not consume more than one drink a day,” Zanjani told Tedesco. “So when we actually find benefits for the moderate level, we’re pretty surprised.”

“As long as you don’t get intoxicated and stop doing the things you need to do, drinking alcohol seems to be okay,” she added.

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