Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Less than a week after the CDC warned of a salmonella outbreak due to contaminated ground beef, a new outbreak is being investigated due to contact with pet hedgehogs. The CDC is working with officials from the USDA´s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and state health departments to investigate the latest outbreak.

The Salmonella typhimurium outbreak is relatively rare, with only one or two cases reported annually since 2002. However, in 2011 case counts rose to 14. Case counts of this particular strain, reported via CDC’s PulseNet (a national molecular subtyping network for foodborne disease surveillance), increased again in 2012 to 18 cases, and two additional cases so far in 2013.

Of the outbreaks since the beginning of 2012, eight states have been affected. State health officials in Alabama, Illinois, Indiana and Oregon have all reported one case. Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio have all seen three cases apiece, and Washington has seen the most with seven.

According to information in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (Feb. 1), four patients have been hospitalized from S. typhimurium, and one death has been associated with the outbreak. Fourteen out of 15 reported cases have been directly associated to handling a pet hedgehog during the week before onset of illness.

Interestingly, many of the infected hedgehogs were purchased from USDA-APHIS-licensed breeders. The CDC, USDA-APHIS and state health departments are now working to trace the illness back to see if there may have been other contaminated hedgehogs sold as pets.

Although the most common form of salmonella poisoning comes from contaminated foods, “contact with infected animals and their environments also can cause illness,” according to the CDC. The infection “can result from direct contact with hedgehogs during routine care and indirect transmission through contact with objects “¦ that come in contact with infected hedgehogs.”

The CDC recommends anyone who has a pet hedgehog to wash hands with soap and water after handling the animal, especially before handling food or drinks, to reduce chance of infection. Also, hedgehog cages, food and water dishes, and other objects associated with the pet should be cleaned outdoors to avoid contamination of other indoor surfaces.

The CDC said that “detailed safe handling instructions for hedgehogs should be provided at the point of sale, and owners should ensure that anyone in direct or indirect contact with hedgehogs is aware of proper precautions to prevent Salmonella transmission.”

Hedgehogs are not the only animal that can carry salmonella. Frogs, turtles, chickens, ducks, and hamsters have all been linked to salmonella outbreaks in the past by the CDC.

For more information on the latest outbreak visit the CDC´s website here.

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Ever wonder why some people don´t get the flu even though everyone around them is getting sick? A group of Australian researchers believe they have found an important clue for solving this mystery.

According to new research in the journal Nature Immunology, some T-cells found on exposed body surfaces help to ward off infection better than others due to the selective expression of a certain protein, IFITM3.

When the body is exposed to the influenza virus, it results in the production of anti-influenza resident memory T-cells; these memory T-cells become ℠experienced´ through their initial encounter with the flu virus. Subsequent infections typically result in a much faster and more aggressive response when detecting the same antigen.

Unfortunately, many of these memory T-cells, like those on exposed mucosal surfaces of the lung, come in contact with other pathogens over the course of time, potentially becoming infected and killed by other infectious agents.

In the study, researchers from University of Melbourne and The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute in nearby Parkville, Australia found that T-cells that produce the protein IFITM3 are less susceptible to other infections. Those cells that did not express the protein didn´t survive a secondary wave of infection.

When the scientists were successfully able to increase the amount of IFITM3-producing memory T-cells, the overall survival rates greatly increased during subsequent infections.

“If we learn how to increase the number and longevity of T-cells expressing IFITM3, this could lead to improved vaccines that promote the generation of more resistant T-cells able to provide the greatest protection, for longer,” study co-author Jose Villadangos, a biologist from the University of Melbourne, said in a statement.

The scientists speculated that future studies might focus on uncovering the mechanisms, genetic or otherwise, that select for the expression of the crucial protein.

“We are currently trying to understand why some T-cells and not others express this protective molecule,” added Linda Wakim, also from the University of Melbourne. “Probably they encounter some form of chemical signal (a cytokine, or a surface molecule) in the tissues where they lodge, which induces the expression of IFITM3. If we identify these chemical cues, we may be able to include them in future vaccines.”

IFITM3 is a product of the IFITM3 gene in humans and previous research has identified it as a key protein in the defense against many diseases, including the H1N1 Swine Flu.

A study published last year showed that a single nucleotide alteration to the IFITM3 gene resulted in increased susceptibility to H1N1 and was overrepresented in those hospital patients who had been admitted with the disease.

Some of the research on this latest study was performed at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Australia´s oldest medical research institute. Founded in 1915 by philanthropist Eliza Hall, the institute was initially hosted at the Melbourne hospital. The institute currently focuses heavily on cancer research, autoimmune diseases, and infectious diseases such as influenza and malaria.

In January, the researchers at the institute announced they had uncovered groundbreaking detail on the structure on functionality of the insulin molecule.

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online
Scientists from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) recently conducted a study that showed a significantly earlier onset of menopause for women who inherited a mutation in one of the breast cancer susceptibility (BRCA) genes. These genes, known as BRCA1 or BRCA2, are tumor suppressor genes, meaning that they prevent uncontrolled cell growth.
The study is of particular importance as it points to the possibility that women with mutations in any of the BRCA genes may have shorter reproductive opportunities and could have an elevated risk of infertility. The findings of the study were published January 29 in the online edition of the journal Cancer.
The  BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes normally help maintain the stability of the cell´s DNA and assist in limiting uncontrolled cell growth. However, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) describes how harmful mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have been connected to breast and ovarian cancer in the past. Particularly for women who inherit any of these harmful mutations, it can result in greater risk of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer.
The UCSF team of investigators discovered that women who were carriers of BRCA 1 or 2 mutations started menopause at an earlier age (50 years) than women who did not have the mutations (53 years). Along with these findings, female carriers of the gene who were also heavy smokers (where heavy smoking was defined as smoking over 20 cigarettes per day) were found to begin menopause at an earlier age (46 years) compared to their counterparts who were not smokers. The scientists noted that smoking is believed to have a number of hormonal effects such as shifting menstrual cycles and estrogen levels.
The researchers explained that this is the first control study to look at the link between the BRCA genes and their relation to the onset of menopause.
“Our findings show that mutation of these genes has been linked to early menopause, which may lead to a higher incidence of infertility,” explained the study´s senior author Dr. Mitchell Rosen, an expert in reproductive endocrinology and fertility at the UCSF Center for Reproductive Health and the director of the UCSF Fertility Preservation Center, in a statement.”This can add to the significant psychological implications of being a BRCA1/2 carrier, and will likely have an impact on reproductive decision-making.”
For the study, researchers observed almost 400 female carriers of mutations in the BRCA gene in northern California. The researchers compared the onset of menopause in this group´s to 765 women in the same geographic location who did not carry the mutation. According to Reuters, the researchers specifically looked at women who entered menopause naturally rather than females who underwent surgeries prior to menopause and had their ovaries removed.
Most of the study´s participants were ethnically white because the majority of BRCA1/2 carriers in the UCSF cancer risk registry were white. The researchers say it is not yet clear whether the results can be applied to other racial or ethnic groups.
An article in Health says the researchers advised women to think about having children at a younger age.
“Women with the mutation are faced with challenges in reproductive choices,” commented the study´s co-author Dr. Lee-may Chen, an associate clinical professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. “These data may help women understand that their childbearing years may be even more limited by earlier menopause, so that they can make decisions about their reproductive choices and cancer risk-reducing surgery.”
Based on the findings, the researchers believe that further study is needed to determine whether there is a higher risk of infertility due to the mutation.
Other medical experts, however, believe that the results of this study should be taken with a grain of salt.
“This study does not mean that you can’t have children, and it doesn’t mean that you have less time than you thought you did,” Ellen Matloff, a research scientist in genetics and director of Cancer Genetic Counseling at Yale Medical Group unaffiliated with the study, told Reuters. “I don’t think anything I read in this study would suggest that (mutation carriers) need to move their plans up.”
For those who are concerned about the possibility of BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations, there are genetic tests available to test for the mutation. According to the Mayo Clinic, BRCA genetic tests are only given to individuals who have a high likelihood of inheriting the BRCA mutation due to personal or family history, or who have a specific form of breast cancer. This particular genetic test is not normally offered to women who have an average risk of developing breast or ovarian cancers. Blood samples are needed in order to complete the genetic testing, and it is also recommended that genetic counseling be obtained prior to and following the genetic tests.
To discuss these issues with health care professionals trained in genetics, visit the NCI´s Cancer Genetic Service Directory online.

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

A new study by the Duke Cancer Institute discovered that women who were diagnosed with early stage breast cancer and received breast-conserving surgery had equal or better survival rates than women who had breast removal surgery.

In a breast-conserving surgery, or lumpectomy, surgeons attempt to remove only the lump or cancerous tumor from the breast while leaving the breast intact. In a mastectomy, by contrast, the entire breast is removed. Many women undergo mastectomies in the hope that the procedure will remove the entire tumor or tumors quickly and efficiently, providing the best possible opportunity for survival.

For this study, the researchers found that early stage breast cancer patients who had a lumpectomy had a 19 percent lower chance of dying from any cause over the nine-year period following the procedure compared to women who received a mastectomy. The team of investigators stated that there has been an increase in the number of mastectomies performed among specific groups of patients, and they hope that the study results will help to lessen anxiety for patients who are considering the more conservative surgery.

According to Mail Online, the research was conducted over a ten-year period and included 112,154 females in California who were diagnosed with early stage breast cancer between 1990 and 2004. Each of the patients received either a lumpectomy followed by radiation therapy for five to six weeks after the procedure, or a mastectomy. Over the course of the study, some 31,416 of the patients died, and approximately 39 percent of these deaths were attributed directly to breast cancer.

“Our findings support the notion that less invasive treatment can provide superior survival to mastectomy in stage one or stage two breast cancer,” Dr. E. Shelley Hwang, the study´s lead researcher and chief breast surgeon at Duke Cancer Institute, told Mail Online. “Given the recent interest in mastectomy to treat early stage breast cancers, despite the research supporting lumpectomy, our study sought to further explore outcomes of breast-conserving treatments in the general population comparing outcomes between younger and older women.”

“They need to be aware that lumpectomy gives them excellent long-term outcomes,” Hwang told Discovery News.

In the article, the researchers emphasized that the value of lumpectomies may differ from patient to patient. For example, the procedure is not recommended for individuals who have had chest radiation in the past, patients who have specific genetic mutations, or who have large tumors or a number of tumors in one breast. Lumpectomies, however, were particularly beneficial for women over the age of 50 as well as patients whose tumors were sensitive to hormones such as estrogen and progesterone.

“It’s good news in that a lot of women sometimes come in and feel that a mastectomy must be better than breast conservation,” explained Dr. Stephanie Bernik, Lenox Hill Hospitals´ chief of surgical oncology.

Experts note that the results could have been influenced by differences that were not accounted for, such as varying access to health care. One weakness of the study is that it could not provide information on the likelihood of cancer recurrence for patients who had lumpectomies. However, others say that despite these weaknesses, the study´s results are still helpful.

“We welcome these significant findings, as we have known for some time that lumpectomy and radiotherapy is as effective as mastectomy for some women. These findings go further to suggest that lumpectomy with radiotherapy could be better than mastectomy in early stage invasive breast cancer,” said Sally Greenbook, a senior policy officer at the UK´s Breakthrough Breast Cancer organization.

“We know, through speaking to women with breast cancer every day, how difficult it is to choose between a mastectomy and a lumpectomy. This study provides further reassurance allowing women to be more confident when making this decision. More research is needed to confirm these results, and we urge anybody concerned to speak to their surgeon so they can make an informed decision, as every choice is personal,” Greenbook continued.

The findings of the study were recently featured in the journal Cancer.

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center recently revealed that fried food consumption is linked with a higher risk of prostate cancer.

In particular, the team of investigators found that consumption of deep-fried foods on a regular basis can have a stronger impact. These foods include items such as French fries, fried chicken, and doughnuts. They found that this effect has more of a connection with aggressive types of cancer. The findings of the study were recently featured in the online edition of The Prostate.

The results of the study specifically showed how men who consumed French fries, fried chicken, fried fish, and/or doughnuts at least once a week had an elevated risk of developing prostate cancer as compared to their counterparts who stated that they had consumed these fried foods less than once a month. Those who consumed one or more of these fried foods were found to have a higher risk of prostate cancer, ranging from 30 to 37 percent. Weekly consumption of the foods was also linked to a higher risk of more aggressive prostate cancer.

“The link between prostate cancer and select deep-fried foods appeared to be limited to the highest level of consumption — defined in our study as more than once a week — which suggests that regular consumption of deep-fried foods confers particular risk for developing prostate cancer,” explained the study´s author Janet L. Stanford, who serves as the co-director of the Hutchinson Center´s Program in Prostate Cancer Research, in a prepared statement.

The scientists believe that that the increase in cancer risk may be due to the carcinogenic compounds found in fried food when oil is heated to temperatures needed for deep frying. Carcinogenic compounds in fried foods include acrylamide (included in carbohydrate-rich foods like French fries), heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (chemicals produced during the cooking of meat at high temperatures), aldehyde (organic compound included in perfume), and acrolein (chemical included in herbicides). With the re-use of oil and elevated length of frying time, the amounts of these various compounds can increase.

Along with toxic compounds, there are also boosted levels of advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) that have been linked to chronic inflammation and oxidative stress. For example, a piece of chicken that was deep fried for 20 minutes will have nine times more the amount of AGEs than a chicken that was boiled for an hour. The team of investigators stated that the study may also show the effects of the growth in the number of fast-foods restaurants and fast-food consumption in the U.S. in the past few years

“To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to look at the association between intake of deep-fried food and risk of prostate cancer,” concluded Stanford in the statement.

In this study, the participants completed a dietary questionnaire that detailed their food intake.

Other studies have looked at the influence of fast-food consumption of children. A study published last November by the University of Illinois, Chicago (UIC) found that kids consumed more calories and soda at fast-food shops or full-service restaurants than when they ate at home.

“We need an environment that promotes healthy rather than unhealthy food and beverage choices,” said Lisa Powell, the lead author and a professor of Health Policy and Administration at the UIC School of Public Health, in the statement.

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
PepsiCo Inc has announced that they will discontinue the use of a controversial ingredient in some flavors of their Gatorade-brand sports drink, though they insist the move was not made in response to a Mississippi teenager´s petition seeking the chemical´s removal.
The ingredient in question, brominated vegetable oil (BVO), is a chemical that contains bromine, which is also found in fire retardants, according to Reuters.
The news agency reports that small quantities of the substance can be legally used in some citrus-flavored beverages in the US as an emulsifier, meaning that it keeps flavor distributed evenly throughout the beverage. BVO had reportedly been used in the orange, lemonade, and citrus cooler flavors of the drink, as well as a handful of other types of Gatorade-brand products.
However, within the next few months, the ingredient will be replaced by sucrose acetate isobutyrate, “an emulsifier that is ℠generally recognized as safe´ as a food additive by the Food and Drug Administration,” Stephanie Strom of the New York Times explained on Friday.
Gatorade spokesperson Molly Carter told Strom that the company had been testing potential replacements for BVO in their drinks for approximately a year due to “customer feedback,” and said that initially they did not plan to announce the change because they did not consider BVO to be “a health and safety risk.”
They ultimately changed their mind, however, because of the Change.org petition that was started by 15-year-old Hattiesburg, Mississippi native Sarah Kavanagh when she became concerned about the use of BVO in the drinks after reading about it online.
According to the Associated Press (AP), Kavanagh collected more than 200,000 signatures on her online petition as of January 25.
In a telephone interview with Strom, Kavanagh said that she was in the middle of her algebra class when a friend passed along the news. She said that they asked the teacher to be excused to the restroom, then called her mother and said, “Mom, we won.”
Furthermore, in an online statement cited by Reuters, she said that she initially believed her petition “might get a lot of support because no one wants to gulp down flame retardant, especially from a drink they associate with being healthy“¦ but with Gatorade being as big as they are, sometimes it was hard to know if we’d ever win.”
She wasn´t the only one hailing PepsiCo´s decision to do away with BVO, which has been banned in Japan and the European Union. According to Reuters, Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said that he applauded the company “doing the responsible thing and voluntarily getting it out of Gatorade without waiting for government officials to require it to do so.”
Gatorade isn´t the only American drink that used the flame retardant chemical as an emulsifier, though. In fact, it isn´t even the only PepsiCo beverage that contained BVO, according to the New York Times. It is also included in their citrus-flavored soda Mountain Dew, as well as select flavors of Coca-Cola´s Powerade and Fresca lines, and Dr Pepper Snapple Group´s Squirt and Sunkist Peach Soda.
“PepsiCo said it had no plans to remove the ingredient from Mountain Dew and Diet Mountain Dew, both of which generate more than $1 billion in annual sales,” Strom said.

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

Empty Nest Syndrome, the non-clinical condition that can lead to feelings of loneliness in middle-aged adults after their children have grown and moved out, is becoming a thing of the past in an age where those individuals are caring for both aging parents and kids who have trouble finding employment and escaping the family home — but researchers say that this new situation brings with it problems of its own.

Writing in the Journal of Aging Studies, researchers from Oregon State University report current economic conditions and a highly-competitive job market have made it difficult for young adults to set out on their own, start a career and a family independent of their parents. At the same time, seniors are living longer, and the special care they need often requires them to move in with their children, potentially placing three generations under the same roof.

“The end result, researchers suggest, are ℠empty nest´ plans that often have to be put on hold, and a mixed bag of emotions, ranging from joy and “happy-to-help” to uncertainty, frustration and exhaustion,” the university said in a statement Friday.

“We mostly found very positive feelings about adults helping their children in the emerging adulthood stage of life, from around ages 18 to 30,” explained Karen Hooker, director of the OSU Center for Healthy Aging Research. “Feelings about helping parents weren´t so much negative as just filled with more angst and uncertainty. As a society we still don´t socialize people to expect to be taking on a parent-caring role, even though most of us will at some point in our lives. The average middle-aged couple has more parents than children.”

Hooker and her team based their findings on data obtained from six different focus groups between 2009 and 2010. They found the majority of middle-aged parents with young adult children are reasonably happy to help them through tough times, and they also understand it is harder to get started in life now than it was in the recent past. That´s due to a variety of different social, economic and cultural factors which have “combined to radically challenge the traditional concept of an empty nest,” the scientists said.

“The recession that began in 2008 yielded record unemployment, substantial stock market losses, lower home values and increased demand for higher levels of education,” the university said. “Around the same time, advances in health care and life expectancy have made it possible for many adults to live far longer than they used to — although not always in good health, and often needing extensive care or assistance.”

The study also discovered while parents do not necessarily expect their children to be 100-percent financially independent during their early 20s, they have a somewhat different reaction to caring for aging parents. Mothers and fathers who require an increasing amount of care could be both a joy and a burden. The care of their parent was not, in most cases, something the middle-aged adults had expected to deal with.

“Many middle-aged people said it was difficult to make any plans, due to disruptions and uncertainty about a parent´s health at any point in time. And most said they we´re willing to help their aging parents, but a sense of being time-starved was a frequent theme,” the statement said. “The dual demands of children still transitioning to independence, and aging parents who need increasing amounts of care is causing many of the study participants to re-evaluate their own lives.

“Some say they want to make better plans for their future so they don´t pose such a burden to their children, and begin researching long-term care insurance. Soul-searching is apparent,” it added. “An increasing awareness of the challenges produced by these new life stages may cause more individuals to anticipate their own needs, make more concrete plans for the future, reduce ambivalent approaches and have more conversations with families about their own late-life care,” the researchers said in their study.

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Researchers from Tel Aviv University say that smoking a little marijuana could help provide dramatic relief for the elderly who suffer from a variety of chronic ailments.

The scientists tested the effects of marijuana treatment on 19 residents of the Hadarim nursing home in Israel. During the study, the participants reported dramatic physical results, including healthy weight gain and the reduction of pain and tremors.

According to the study authors, the elderly participants also experienced an immediate improvement in their moods and communication skills after smoking cannabis.

Zach Klein, a graduate of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Film and Television Studies, said that the use of prescription medications was also significantly reduced as a result of using medical marijuana.

The active ingredient in marijuana THC was first discovered in Israel by professors Raphael Mechoulam and Yechiel Gaoni. Israel is known as the world leader in medical cannabis research, according to Klein.

During the nursing home study, 19 patents between the ages of 69 and 101 were treated with medical cannabis in the form of powder, oil, vapor or smoke three times daily over the course of a year for conditions like chronic pain, lack of appetite, and muscle spasms and tremors.

Both researchers and nursing home staff members monitored participants for signs of improvement in their conditions as well as their overall quality of life.

Seventeen of the study participants achieved a healthy weight during their use of marijuana and experienced a noticeable reduction in pain, muscle spasms, joint stiffness and tremors. Nearly all of the patients using cannabis slept better, longer and had a reduced incidence of nightmares and flashbacks related to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The researchers also reported a decline in the amount of prescribed medications taken by patients, such as antipsychotics, Parkinson’s treatment, mood stabilizers and pain relievers. Towards the end of the study, researchers found that 72 percent of participants were able to reduce their drug intake by an average of 1.7 medications per day.

For the next phase of his research, Klein wants to study the connection between medical cannabis and an improved ability to swallow. Difficulties in swallowing can lead to a decline in nutrition and, ultimately, premature death. He believes that cannabis will have a positive impact on patients suffering from this disorder, which is known in medical jargon as dysphagia.

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Addiction is a serious disorder of the brain that is characterized by a chronic and compulsive need to take a substance, typically with an increase in dosage and frequency. Someone suffering from addiction will continue their behavior even in the face of negative consequences. The root cause of addiction is not specifically known, however. A new study out of the University of Texas at Austin (UT) may just point to one indicator of future substance abuse and addiction.

Researchers at UT published their findings this week in the journal Neuron, where they detail their findings after having created a social isolation scenario with laboratory rats. They were able to determine that the isolation, presented during the critical period of adolescence, led to an increased vulnerability to addiction of both alcohol and amphetamines. They also determined that an addiction to amphetamine was more difficult to eradicate in the population of rats that experienced the adolescent social isolation and that the addiction effect persisted well after the rats had been reintroduced to the community of other rats.

“Basically the animals become more manipulatable,” said Hitoshi Morikawa, associate professor of neurobiology in the College of Natural Sciences. “They’re more sensitive to reward, and once conditioned the conditioning takes longer to extinguish. We’ve been able to observe this at both the behavioral and neuronal level.”

Traits such as anxiety, aggression, cognitive rigidity and special learning have long been known to be resultant from social isolation during adolescence, according to Morikawa. Until now, however, there was no data supporting the specific kind of behaviors and brain activity related to addiction as a result of isolation during the crucial period of adolescence.

“Isolated animals have a more aggressive profile,” said Leslie Whitaker, a former doctoral student in Morikawa’s lab and now a researcher at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “They are more anxious. Put them in an open field and they freeze more. We also know that those areas of the brain that are more involved in conscious memory are impaired. But the kind of memory involved in addiction isn’t conscious memory. It’s an unconscious preference for the place in which you got the reward. You keep coming back to it without even knowing why. That kind of memory is enhanced by the isolation.”

The method employed in the experimentation in Morikawa´s UT lab involved isolating the selected rats from their peers for the period of one month from 21 days of age. This age in a rat is comparable to early/middle adolescence in humans. After one month, the subject rats were tested to see how they might respond to different levels of exposure to both amphetamine and alcohol.

According to Mickaël Degoulet, a postdoctoral researcher in Morikawa’s lab, the results were striking. The team found the subject rats were much more apt to form a preference for the small, distinctive box from which amphetamine and alcohol were received than were their peers in the control group who did not experience isolation. In fact, the isolated rats presented a preference after just one exposure to either drug while the control rats required repeated exposure to the substances to display a conditioned behavior response.

The researchers, according to Morikawa, believed this kind of preference for the environmental context in which the reward was received provided them with a more useful way of understanding addiction rather than seeing it as a desire for more of the addictive substance.

“When you drink or take addictive drugs, that triggers the release of dopamine,” he said. “People commonly think of dopamine as a happy transmitter or a pleasure transmitter, which may or may not be true, but it is becoming increasingly clear that it is also a learning transmitter. It strengthens those synapses that are active when dopamine is released. It tells our brain that what we’re doing at that moment is rewarding and thus worth repeating.”

Morikawa cited the import of the constellation of environmental, behavioral and physiological cues that are reinforced when the substance triggers the release of dopamine in the brain over the idea that the individual is actually addicted to the experience of pleasure or relief from the substance.

Neuronal changes were able to be documented by the research team. According to both Morikawa and Whitaker, the social isolation affected the dopamine neurons in the rats´ brain to be able to quickly learn to generate spikes in response to inputs from other brain areas. They claim this implies the dopamine neurons are then able to learn to respond to the context more quickly.

The rats in the control group were not, themselves, immune to the perils of addiction. The control group was able to, upon repeated exposure to amphetamine, achieve the same degree of addiction as the socially isolated rats were. Though, even with a comparable addiction level, the team was able to recognize there were differences between the two groups. Perhaps most interestingly, with both groups being exposed to the same substance extinction protocols, the isolated rats required a much longer period of time to overcome their amphetamine addiction.

“So the social isolation leads to addiction more quickly, and it’s harder to extinguish,” said Whitaker.

The implications of these findings, according to Whitaker, as they apply to humans, are obvious. This is due to the wealth of literature that documents the negative effects of social isolation in humans. Add to that the evidence that points to the functional similarity of addiction between humans and rats at the neurological level.

“It’s not a one-to-one correlation, but there are socially impoverished human environments,” she said. “There are children who are neglected, who have less social input. It’s reasonable to make guesses about what the impact of that is going to be.”

Morikawa points out that their findings may also have implications for how social isolation during adolescence affects conditionability when it comes to other kinds of rewards.

“We think that maybe what’s happening is that the brain reacts to the impoverished environment, to a lack of opportunities to be reinforced by rewarding stimuli, by increasing its sensitivity to reward-based conditioning,” said Morikawa. “The deprived brain may be overinterpreting any reward it encounters. And if that’s the case, it’s likely that you are more conditionable not only to drugs but to any sort of reward, including food reward. One interesting possibility is that it might also make adolescents more prone to food ‘addiction,’ and then to obesity.”

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A perfect storm of research studies has come together to show, if not a broken, at least a failing system of healthcare in the US. Researchers looked at the rate of acute emergency care and hospital readmission for patients who had been discharged no more than 30 days prior to their seeking additional care. The studies, published in this week´s issue of JAMA, were compiled by researchers at the Columbia University Medical Center, the Yale School of Medicine and Boston Children´s Hospital. Each of the studies looked not only at readmission to the hospital but also explored the wide variety of diagnoses, upon readmission, finding that they often differed from the original cause for hospitalization in the first place.

Hospital readmission has garnered significant interest from patient advocates, payers such as insurance companies, and policymakers, but neither the timing nor causes of readmissions have been, until now, well described.

The Columbia University Medical Center study, led by Kumar Dharmarajan, MD, MBA, focused on readmission rates among elderly patients who were originally admitted to the hospital due to heart failure, heart attack or pneumonia. These conditions are responsible for 15 percent of hospitalizations for older people. Dharmarajan and his team analyzed Medicare data collected between 2007 and 2009, comparing initial hospitalization with a readmission among this group within 30 days of the patients discharge from the hospital.

Contained in their findings, the researchers claimed, “Hospital readmissions are common and can be a marker of poor health care quality and efficiency. To lower readmission rates, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began publicly reporting 30-day risk-standardized readmission rates for heart failure, acute myocardial infarction, and pneumonia after these measures were endorsed by the National Quality Forum. These measures are part of a federal strategy to provide incentives to improve quality of care by reducing preventable readmissions. Critical to the development of effective programs to reduce readmission is an understanding of the diagnoses and timing associated with these events. Insights into the diversity and variation of readmission diagnoses can illustrate the potential benefits of general vs. disease-specific interventions in reducing the overall number of readmissions.”

Over the two year period for which they collected data, the team was able to identify 329,308 30-day readmissions after 1,330,157 hospitalizations for the three specific diagnoses. Individually, the diagnosis of heart failure accounted for 24.8 percent of readmissions, heart attack accounted for 19.9 percent of readmissions, and pneumonia accounted for 18.3 percent of readmissions. With the exception of those patients originally hospitalized for pneumonia, most patients who returned to the emergency room were readmitted with a diagnosis different than for what they originally sought care for.

“Of all 30-day readmissions, we found that 61.0 percent of the [heart failure], 67.6 percent of the [heart attack], and 62.6 percent of the pneumonia cohorts occurred during days 0 through 15 following discharge. More than 30 percent of 30-day readmissions occurred during days 16 through 30 for all 3 cohorts,” the authors write.

“To reduce readmissions, doctors and hospitals should design interventions that apply broadly across multiple potential medical conditions and time periods associated with rehospitalization,” said lead author Dharmarajan. “Interventions that are specific to particular diseases or time periods may only address a fraction of patients at risk for rehospitalization. We need to be more holistic in our approach.”

“We are just now recognizing that upon leaving the hospital patients may have entered a transient period of generalized risk,” said senior author Harlan Krumholz, M.D., the Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine (cardiology) and professor of investigative medicine and of public health (health policy); director of the Clinical Scholars Program; and director of the Yale-New Haven Hospital Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation. “Patients need to know that they are at risk for rehospitalization from a wide variety of medical conditions.”

Lead author of the Yale School of Medicine research team´s findings, Anita Vashi, MD, a Robert Wood Johnson clinical scholar said, “It´s frustrating to see people ending up back in the emergency room so soon after leaving the hospital. It makes me wonder about the cause. Are we not educating them well enough about how to safely transition home? Or do we not have the capacity in the system for their care team to coordinate follow-up care if they have a complication? Either way, care that is fragmented in this manner can lead to conflicting recommendations, medication errors, distress, and higher costs.”

While Dharmarajan´s team maintained a strict focus on the impact of readmission on elder care, Vashi and her team took a broader approach to the issue. She and her researchers studied more than five million patients who were discharged from acute care hospitals across the three states of California, Florida and Nebraska, over the years 2008 and 2009. What they were able to determine from data they collected and analyzed showed that nearly 18 percent of hospitalized patients returned to the hospital within 30 days of their discharge. Vashi´s conclusions also supported Dharmarajan´s conclusions that the percentage of return patients was higher among elderly patients.

“The big question is how many of these emergency room visits could have been avoided by tightening up our healthcare system, and ensuring close collaboration and communication between patients and their health providers inside and outside the hospital,” said senior author Cary Gross, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine and director of the Cancer Outcomes, Public Policy, and Effectiveness Research (COPPER) center at Yale. “Future work should focus on identifying how to decrease the need for patients to seek emergency room care right after they leave the hospital.”

Among Vashi´s findings was the fact that the highest emergency room rates were related to mental health, drug and alcohol abuse, and prostate issues. “High and varying rates of emergency room utilization suggest there is potential to improve care coordination and acute care delivery,” she said. “If we don´t expand our view of post-acute care from readmissions to include emergency room visits, we will severely underestimate patient needs and system resources required to care for them.”

In a partner study, conducted by Jay G. Berry, MD, MPH, and his colleagues at Boston Children´s Hospital, a national sampling of 72 children´s hospitals showed that while the readmission rate among discharged patients was lower than the other two groups, a full 6.5 percent of hospitalized children were unexpectedly readmitted within 30 days.

“Although readmissions for adults have been the subject of substantial research, readmissions for children have received less attention. “¦ To understand potential opportunities to improve pediatric practice and reduce readmissions, information is needed on which diseases have the highest number of readmissions and whether there are differences in readmission rates across hospitals.”

Berry and his team looked not only at unplanned readmissions, but also reviewed which diagnoses had the highest rate of readmission, and also if there were varying rates of readmission among the sample hospitals.

“Adjusted rates were 28.6 percent greater in hospitals with high vs. low readmission rates (7.2 percent vs. 5.6 percent). For the 10 admission diagnoses with the highest readmission prevalence, the adjusted rates were 17.0 percent to 66.0 percent greater in hospitals with high vs. low readmission rates. For example, sickle cell rates were 20.1 percent vs. 12.7 percent in high vs. low hospitals, respectively,” the authors write.

Additionally, the authors continued, ““¦ we found substantial readmission rate variation across children’s hospitals that remained after controlling for patient age and chronic conditions. If hospitals with the highest readmission rates in this study were able to achieve the rates of the best performing hospitals, then the overall count of readmissions would be much smaller. It is possible that the distribution of pediatric readmission rates in this study could help hospitals interpret their own performance, identify target conditions for quality improvement, and determine whether an examination of the causes of their readmissions would be useful.”

Viewing each component of the studies, the researchers from each workgroup found there was substantial variability affecting patients utilization of emergency acute care facilities across the 470 different index discharge conditions.

“Although patients returned to the [emergency department] for a variety of reasons, for the highest volume conditions, [emergency department] treat-and-release visits were always related to the index hospitalization,” the authors write.

“In conclusion, hospital-based acute care encounters are frequent among patients recently discharged from an inpatient setting. An improved understanding of how the [emergency department] setting is best used in the management of acute care needs–particularly for patients recently discharged from the hospital–is an important component of the effort to improve care transitions. The use of hospital readmissions as a lone metric for post-discharge health care quality may be incomplete without considering the role of the [emergency department]. Just as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires the development of programs to reduce readmissions, further initiatives are necessary to understand the drivers of post-discharge [emergency department] use and the clinical and financial efficiency associated with providing such acute care in the [emergency department].”

[Watch ABC News Video: Food Fraud]

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

As consumers, we often rely on what we read on labels as to what´s inside. When it comes to most food, we really have no choice but to rely on what the label is telling us. But it could be very likely that we are being deceived.

Experts, working for the US Pharmacopeial Convention (USP), have discovered rising numbers of fake ingredients in products such as seafood, olive oil, spices, honey, fruit juice, and even wine. They call this economically motivated adulteration, or simply “food fraud.”

“Food products are not always what they purport to be,” Markus Lipp, senior director for Food Standards for USP, told ABC News.

In a new database set to be released today, the USP warns consumers that the amount of food fraud found is up by more than 50 percent, and as much as 60 percent this year.

Shaun Kennedy, of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense (NCFPD), said: “10 percent of the food you buy in the grocery shelf is probably adulterated.”

This either means it is mislabeled, diluted or misrepresented. Some of the biggest culprits are fish products.

“You think you´re getting crab, you´re getting fake crab,” he said.

Fruit juices are equally as bad. Sometimes juice is labeled as fresh squeezed, or premium, when actually it is from concentrate.

“In some cases, pomegranate juice has been found to be nothing more than water, citric acid and red food coloring,” he added.

And as much as 65 percent of the olive oil consumers buy has been found to actually be other low grade oils.

“Consumers have almost gotten used to this flavor, these off flavors that reflect the defects you find in bad olive oil,” said Dan Flynn with the UC Davis Olive Center.

For their database, the USP examined more than 1,300 published studies and media reports from 1980 to 2010. The update to the database includes nearly 800 new food fraud entries, nearly all published in 2011 and 2012.

USP said that liquid and ground foods are the easiest foods to adulterate. Olive oils, lemon juice, tea, and spices are all foods that may or may not be what you think they are. Even milk, honey, syrup and coffee may not be what they say on the label.

As for lemon juice, the National Consumers League did their own probe and found that four different products that claimed to be 100 percent lemon juice were far from pure.

“One had 10 percent lemon juice, it said it had 100 percent, another had 15 percent lemon juice, another…had 25 percent, and the last one had 35 percent lemon juice,” Sally Greenberg, Executive Director for the NCL said. “And they were all labeled 100 percent lemon juice.”

She noted that there are ways to tell if what you are reading on a label is truly what´s inside the package or not. When it comes to olive oil, check to see if it has a harvest date, and try to avoid products in dark bottles. Usually if the price seems too good to be true, then most likely it is.

“$5.50, that’s pretty cheap for extra virgin olive oil,” Greenberg said. “And something that should raise some eyebrows for consumers.”

But not getting what you are paying for is not the only concern.

“There’s absolutely a public health risk,” said John Spink, associate director for the Anti-Counterfeit and Product Protection Program (A-CAPPP) at Michigan State University. “And the key is the people that are unauthorized to handle this product, they are probably not following good manufacturing practices and so there could be contaminates in it.”

Consumers should use caution and might find more solace in buying product from “suppliers, retailers, brands, that have a vested interest in keeping us as repeat customers.”

The FDA, along with the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), takes food fraud “very seriously.”

The FDA recently issued an alert for pomegranate juice that was mislabeled as 100 percent pure juice, and honey that was fraudulently misrepresented as pure.

“Ensuring the safety and integrity of our products — and maintaining the confidence of consumers — is the single most important goal of our industry,” the GMA told ABC News in a statement. They added that their members have “robust quality management programs and procedures in place, including analytical testing, to help ensure that only the safest and highest quality products are being offered to consumers.”

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

According to the Mayo Clinic, beta carotene is a member of the carotenoid family of chemical compounds, which are fat-soluble compounds that are highly pigmented and found in a variety of fruits, grains, oils and vegetables (especially carrots). The body converts beta carotene to vitamin A (retinol), and vitamin A helps provide eye health and a strong immune system as well as healthy skin and mucus membranes.

In order to better understand beta carotene, the team of investigators utilized “big data” to observe interactions between gene variants that were previously linked with a higher risk for type 2 diabetes along with blood levels of substances previously related to type 2 diabetes risk.

“Type-2 diabetes affects about 15 percent of the world’s population, and the numbers are increasing,” explained the study´s senior author Dr. Atul Butte, an associate professor of systems medicine in pediatrics at Stanford University Medical Center, in a prepared statement. “Government health authorities estimate that one-third of all children born in the United States since the year 2000 will get this disease at some point in their lives, possibly knocking decades off their life expectancies.”

The findings of the study, featured in the online edition of the journal Human Genetics, highlight possible ways to determine whether beta carotene and gamma tocopherol are, respectively, “protective and harmful” or simply “markers” in the blood that are indicative of some other, truly harmful factor.

With the risk of diabetes influenced by beta carotene´s and gamma tocopherol´s interaction with a common gene variant, the researchers became more interested in studying the protein SLC30A4 and its impact on the disease. The scientists believe that SLC30A4 is abundant in the islet cells of the pancreas which produce insulin where it helps the cells to import zinc. The transport of zinc causes a release of insulin by the pancreas which is then taken up by muscle, liver and fat tissue. This, in turn, offsets the buildup of glucose in the blood and ultimately prevents the development of type 2 diabetes.

“While plenty of genetic risk factors for type-2 diabetes have been found,” continued Butte in the statement. “None of them taken alone, and not even all of them taken together, comes close to accounting for the prevalence of type-2 diabetes.”

The scientists plan to continue their work in this field and are interested in conducting additional research where lab mice are given purified beta carotene and gamma tocopherol. They believe that further research will allow them to determine whether these two substances are necessary in preventing or quickening the development of type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, these studies could help scientists understand how the substances impact the production or performance of the protein.

“We can’t say, based on just this study, that ‘vitamin E is bad for you,'” concluded the study´s first author Chirag Patel, who was previously a graduate student in Butte’s lab and is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Prevention Research Center.

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A new study led by Johns Hopkins finds that older adults with hearing loss are more likely to develop cognitive function and memory problems than adults of a similar age whose hearing is normal.

This study is significant as the prevalence of dementia is projected to double every 20 years because of the world’s aging population so identifying the factors and understanding the pathways that lead to cognitive decline and dementia in older adults is a public health priority.

Study participants with hearing loss underwent repeated cognitive testing over six years and showed cognitive abilities that declined 30 to 40 percent faster than those whose hearing was in the normal range. The research team finds a direct correlation between the amount of hearing loss and levels of brain function decline. Older adults with hearing loss, on average, developed a significant impairment in their cognitive abilities 3.2 years sooner than those with normal hearing.

Reported online in the JAMA journal Internal Medicine, these findings are among the first to emerge from a larger study — known as the Health, Aging and Body Composition, or Health ABC study – monitoring the health of older black and white individuals in Memphis, Tennessee and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Believed to be the first study to investigate the impact of hearing loss on brain function over the long-term, these findings concern a subset of 1,984 men and women between the ages of 75 and 84. According to Frank Lin, M.D., Ph.D., Johns Hopkins otologist and epidemiologist, all participants had normal brain function when the study began in 2001, and were initially tested for hearing loss, defined as recognizing only those sounds louder than 25 decibels.

“Our results show that hearing loss should not be considered an inconsequential part of aging, because it may come with some serious long-term consequences to healthy brain functioning,” says Lin, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“Our findings emphasize just how important it is for physicians to discuss hearing with their patients and to be proactive in addressing any hearing declines over time,” says Lin. As many as 27 million Americans over age 50, including two-thirds of men and women aged 70 years and older, Lin estimates, suffer some form of hearing loss, with only 15 percent of those needing a hearing aid actually receiving one.

Lin asserts that possible explanations for the cognitive slide include the ties between hearing loss and social isolation, with loneliness being well established in previous research as a risk factor for cognitive decline. Too much energy might be diverted by the brain to dealing with processing sound at the expense of memory and thinking because of degraded hearing. There might also be other underlying damage or health issues that have led to this loss of hearing and cognitive function.

All participants were in good health at the study’s onset in 1997. In 2001, volunteers were given hearing tests, during which they individually listened to a range of soft and loud sounds, from 0 decibels to 100 decibels, in a soundproof room.

Again in 2001, brain function was also assessed using two well-recognized tests of memory and thinking ability; the Modified Mini-Mental State (3MS) and Digit Symbol Substitution (DSS), respectively. Participants were asked to memorize words, given commands or instructional tasks to follow, and asked basic questions as to the correct year, date and time in the 3MS study. In contrast, in the DSS test, participants were asked to match specific numbers to symbols and timed on how long it took them to complete the task. Both tests were repeated for each subject three more times until the study ended in 2007. The analysis accounted for factors already know to contribute to loss of brain function including age, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke.

“Our results demonstrate that hearing loss is independently associated with accelerated cognitive decline and incident cognitive impairment in community-dwelling older adults,” the authors comment. “The magnitude of these associations is clinically significant, with individuals having hearing loss demonstrating a 30 percent to 40 percent accelerated rate of cognitive decline and a 24 percent increased risk for incident cognitive impairment during a six-year period compared with individuals having normal hearing.”

“In conclusion, our results suggest that hearing loss is associated with accelerated cognitive decline and incident cognitive impairment in older adults. Further research is needed to investigate what the mechanistic basis of this observed association is and whether such pathways would be amendable to hearing rehabilitative interventions,” the study concludes.

Lin and his colleagues are planning to launch a much larger study designed to test whether hearing aids or other devices might slow or forestall the loss of cognitive decline.