redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

Flu symptoms such as fever, nausea, fatigue, headaches, sore throat and body aches can be difficult to deal with, but new research out of Taiwan claims that there may be a radical new possible treatment for such ailments — methamphetamines.

According to a report published Thursday by the Huffington Post, the researchers “exposed human lung cells to varying quantities of meth, then infected them with Influenza A (H1N1) viruses, a common subtype of human influenza.”

Twenty-four hours later, a control group of epithelial cells that had not been treated with the illicit drug contained the same concentration of the virus as the test group, but at the 30-hour mark, the group of cells that had been treated with meth contained “significantly” lower concentrations of the virus, and two full days after infection, the difference between the treated and untreated cells was “even more pronounced.”

Writing in the November 6 edition of the journal PLoS ONE, authors Yun-Hsiang Chen, Kuang-Lun Wu, and Chia-Hsiang Chen of the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) in Taiwan report that the psychostimulant that they used for the study was obtained in powder form from the country’s National Bureau of Controlled Drugs. The substance was then “dissolved in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) at a concentration of 250 mM, sterilized by filtering through membrane filters with a pore size of 0.2 µm, and stored at –20°C until use.”

The cells used for the study were specially-prepared human lung epithelial A549 cells.

The authors wrote that their findings “demonstrate that meth has no apparent cytotoxic effects on A549 cells at the pharmacological concentration range, but can significantly inhibit cell proliferation at high concentrations in a dose dependent manner,” and that “meth, used at a pharmacological concentration range, can attenuate rather than enhance influenza A/WSN/33 (H1N1) virus propagation in vitro.”

They believe that the substance could be targeting “the viral replication stage rather than the entry or adsorption stage in the infected cells, resulting in the reduction of virus production.”

“The suppression of viral replication is not due to inhibition of viral biological activities, reduction of cellular survival, or enhancement of infection-induced IFN responses,” the authors added. “Although further in vivo investigation is needed, our results suggest that meth might not enhance influenza A virus infection and spread among meth abusers. In addition, elucidation of the mechanism(s) responsible for meth´s action on influenza A virus replication may help to devise novel strategies against influenza A virus infection in all populations.”

Despite the findings, and the possibility that it could produce future health benefits, experts aren’t recommending that people begin taking meth in order to help fight off a bad case of the flu.

“Although the results could lead to new flu treatments it´s not good to self-medicate,” CBS Las Vegas explains. “Meth still reduces the effectiveness of the immune system and previous studies found that meth reduces the body´s ability to fight off diseases, such as HIV“¦ Meth is also extremely addictive and leads to tooth decay.”

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Using incentives at hospitals could help to make a significant drop in the mortality rates for certain medical conditions, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Researchers found the controversial pay-for-performance schemes actually may help to save lives of North West England patients.

The team examined how the introduction of a scheme that paid bonuses to hospitals based on measures of quality affected the delivery of care.

“Researchers have generally concluded that paying bonuses to hospitals for improving quality of care does not affect patient health,” lead author Matt Sutton, Professor of Health Economics in The University of Manchester’s Institute for Population Health, said in a statement. “We examined a unique initiative in which a bonus system from the U.S. was adopted only in North West of England.”

He said  they found while research has shown the U.S. scheme had no effect on patient health, the same scheme in North West England did work, and resulted in 890 lives being saved during the 18-month scheme.

The team suggested the reason for the scheme working is the bonuses in the U.K. were larger than those tried out in the U.S., and there was also a greater probability of earning a bonus.

They said despite the competitive nature of the program, staff met regularly within the region to share problems and ideas of best practice.

In the U.S., these schemes are voluntary and only 5 percent of hospitals take part, whereas all hospitals in North West of England took part of the pay-for-performance scheme.

The scheme is the first of its kind in England, and the initiative required each hospital to submit data on 28 quality measures concerning five clinical conditions.

Researchers examined mortality rates for three of the five specified clinical conditions including pneumonia, heart failure and myocardial infarction.

They combined the figures for in-hospital deaths within 30 days of admission in the 18 months before and after the scheme’s introduction.

The team found that all three conditions combined for a 1.3 percent decrease in mortally, or 6 percent relative reduction. The study concludes the possibility of incentive having a “substantial” effect on reducing deaths in North West England hospitals could not be ruled out.

“Pay-for-performance schemes are being widely adopted, yet until now there’s been little evidence that they improve patient outcomes,” co-author Ruth McDonald, Professor of Health Innovation and Learning at Nottingham University Business School, said in a statement. “Our findings suggest they can make a positive and significant difference but that, whether they do so, depends very much on how they’re designed and implemented.”

Performance bonuses were paid out at the end of the first year totaling $5.1 million. Another $2.5 million was paid out the following six months.

A nationwide pay-for-performance system based on withholding payments rather than bonuses is now operating at all hospitals in North West England.

“These schemes can seem very simple on paper, but in practice they can be very difficult to implement successfully,” McDonald said in the statement. “All of this suggests that how these schemes are put into practice and the context in which they’re introduced can be crucial to patient outcomes.”

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Information is power, and what better way to get this information than Google? Sure, the world´s largest search engine is a doorway to the massive stores of the world´s collected wisdom, but it turns out this door works both ways. Google and other organizations are able to study just what it is the world is searching for and turn that into even more information, providing an insight on trends and behaviors.

One such organization looking to Google for this kind of second-hand information is the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI). Dr. Leonard Bielory is an allergist with the ACAAI and claims Google search information can be used to tell where allergies are breaking out geographically and which symptoms are being felt.

After analyzing Google search data, Dr. Bielory discovered that nasal allergy symptoms get the most attention on Google in between March and May, likely due to tree pollen. These Googlers often have to conduct these searches in between bouts of sneezing and sniffling, as these symptoms are most common for tree pollen allergies.

“Allergy sufferers experience heightened allergy symptoms in the spring season, and again during September due to weed pollen and grass season,” explained Dr. Bielory in a press statement.

“The peak week for all allergy symptom searches is the second week of May, suggesting sufferers may be experiencing both spring and summer allergy symptoms.”

Nasal allergy sufferers returned to Google in the fall months as well, with those experiencing eye allergies following at number 2.

Dr. Bielory and the ACAAI are taking advantage of these predictable results and suggesting those who normally experience spring-time allergies to seek out their allergist in the winter months.

“Treating symptoms early, before they appear, means less suffering,” said Dr. Bielory. “An allergist will develop a customized treatment plan to keep you living an active, healthy lifestyle.”

The ACAAI statement also cites their own research which found that their board-certified allergists were more than capable of treating allergies. The ACAAI also suggests allergy sufferers visit their site, MyNasalAllergyJournal.org to track their symptoms.

The ability to find this kind of information from Google is widely available to anyone and very handy for determining how many people are Googling any topic.

In fact, according to Google´s 2011 blog announcing their new service, called Correlate, the team got the idea for the tool when they noticed something similar to Dr. Bielory.

As the story goes, the team noticed in 2008 some trends about people searching flu related topics. Using this information, they were able to estimate the flu activity of some 28 countries. The Google team whipped up this little tool and put it online, available for any organization searching for a statistic to back up common knowledge and bring the customers in. Try it for yourself, you´ll be amazed at what Google knows about our habits and our allergies.

Dr. Bielory will present his research at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the ACAAI.

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

There are many experiments in which an analog works just fine. After all, popular television show Mythbusters wouldn´t be where it is today without their willingness to put a dummy or a slab of bacon in harm´s way to conduct particularly dangerous experiments. To test the way the body reacts to sudden shock or any manner of ballistics, a half pig often does the trick. However, there are some experiments and studies which must be felt in order to get an accurate result. Therefore, 2 researchers from Germany have decided it´s sometimes best to roll up our sleeves and take one on the chin for science.

In a paper published in the British Journal of Pharmacology, Bruno Georg Oertel and Jörn Lötsch suggest that when it comes to testing pain killers, the best kind of guinea pig is none other than a human being.

The thought behind their experiment is simple, elementary even.

“We thought that if a pain-relieving drug was effective in a particular experimental pain model and also in a specific type of clinical pain, then the experimental model should be predictive for the particular clinical setting,” said Lötsch, who works in the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology at the Goethe-University.

Overall, they found their hypothesis was largely correct. In fact, the human experimental pain models were even better at predicting how a drug would affect patients than some had previously estimated.

“Not using these pain models in drug development seems to be unjustified, in fact they should be used routinely in drug development programs,” explained Oertel, who works in the Fraunhofer Project Group for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology.

In order to test these medications, the human models must experience some sort of pain. When animals are involved, researchers must observe the way these models react before and after the pain stimuli is introduced. While making observations is certainly a credible way to draw conclusions, the fact that these animals can´t explicitly say how they feel is a major drawback. Additionally, as different bodies have different ways to reacting to both pain and the pain medications, humans are able to give a more fine-grained response to the question: “How do you feel?”

While the hypothesis may be simple enough, according to Lötsch, the process isn´t as elementary.

“However, by analyzing the way that drugs work in experimental and clinical settings, we identified that different sets of experimental pain models, rather than single models, may be best suited to provide cost-effective yet predictive studies in analgesic drug development,” explained Lötsch.

The importance of understanding pain, the way a body reacts to it and which medications can be used to curb this pain is pivotal to the pharmacology world. According to the researchers, Americans spend anywhere from $560 billion to $635 billion per year just dealing with pain. According to Ian McGrath, the Editor-in-Chief of the British Journal of Pharmacology, these two German researchers are already taking a bold first step into reducing pain in the future.

“It is difficult and unusual to undertake truly translational research in pharmacology,” said McGrath.

“This will help inform thinking on the refinement of human and animal models of pain, ultimately helping the pharmaceutical industry bridge the translational gap in the pain field.”

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

I know this sounds counter-intuitive. Possibly bordering on ridiculous. But it is the truth. If you want to boost your self-control, gargle sugar water. This, according to a study that has been co-authored by University of Georgia professor of psychology Leonard Martin. The study was published October 22 in the journal Psychological Science. A simple mouth rinse with glucose will improve your overall self-control. Allow me to explain.

The study recruited 51 students and had them perform two tasks to test their self-control. The first task, known to deplete self-control, was the arduous act of meticulously crossing out the ℠E´s on a page from a statistics book. This was followed by what is known as the Stroop task. In the Stroop, the students were asked to identify the color of a series of words that flashed on a screen. The words themselves spelled out the names of other colors. The goal of the Stroop is to turn off the student´s tendency to read the words and instead see the colors.

While performing the Stroop task, half of the students would rinse their mouths with lemonade that was sweetened with sugar. The other half of the students used a Splenda-sweetened lemonade. The researchers were able to determine that the students who had rinsed with the sugar were significantly faster at responding to the color rather than the word, as compared to the students that had rinsed with the artificial sweetener.

“Researchers used to think you had to drink the glucose and get it into your body to give you the energy to (have) self control,” Martin said. “After this trial, it seems that glucose stimulates the simple carbohydrate sensors on the tongue. This, in turn, signals the motivational centers of the brain where our self-related goals are represented. These signals tell your body to pay attention.”

In all, it took the students between 3 and 5 minutes to perform the Stroop task. Martin was careful to point out that the results show a measure of self-control, but that a glucose rinse might be ineffectual at combating some of the bigger self-control issues like trying to regulate your weight or the cessation of smoking.

“The research is not clear yet on the effects of swishing with glucose on long-term self-control,” he said. “So, if you are trying to quit smoking, a swish of lemonade may not be the total cure, but it certainly could help you in the short run.”

Collaborating on the study with Martin was co-author Matthew Sanders, a doctoral candidate also in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. The two both believe the motivation towards self-control in their subjects was most likely derived from a form of self-value or emotive investment.

“It is the self-investment,” Martin said. “It doesn’t just crank up your energy, but it cranks up your personal investment in what you are doing. Clicking into the things that are important to you makes those self-related goals salient.”

With this theory in mind, they believe the glucose causes emotive enhancement which leads a person to pay attention to their goals and perform better at the evocation of the non-dominant response.

“The glucose seems to be good at getting you to stop an automatic response such as reading the words in the Stroop task and to substitute the second harder one in its place such as saying the color the word is printed in,” he said. “It can enhance emotive investment and self-relevant goals.”

In other studies on self-control, there was a marked decrease in performance for the second task.

“Previous studies suggest the first task requires so much energy, you just don’t have the energy left for the second task that you need,” Martin said. “We are saying when people engage in self-control, they ignore important aspects of their goals and feelings. If you have to stay late at work, for example, but you really want to be going home, you have to ignore your desire to go home. Doing so will help you stay late at work, but it may also put you out of touch with what you personally want and feel on later tasks. Swishing glucose can focus you back on those goals and feelings and this, in turn, can help you perform better on the second task. In short, we believe self-control goes away because people send away, not because they don’t have energy. People turn it off on purpose.”

Martin was clear in expressing that the focus of his research was more upon the effects of swishing glucose psychologically, rather than physiologically. “We think it makes your self-related goals come to mind,” he said.

Martin and his lab have ongoing studies into how subjects evoke and interpret their emotive responses.

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy director James D. Coffey has been fired after allegedly ignoring complaints that Framingham-based New England Compounding Center (NECC) had illegally shipped bulk orders of drugs to Colorado hospitals, reports Boston.com‘s Kay Lazar.

The shipments were in direct violation of Colorado´s state licenses, according to MA state health officials. Yet, the long-time director of the pharmacy board failed to take action on the complaint, which had been reported back in July.

NECC, blamed for the deadly meningitis outbreak that has so far claimed 31 deaths and has sickened hundreds, was shut down in October after federal officials learned the company had shipped some 17,000 vials of contaminated drugs to 76 medical facilities in 23 states.

However, if the July complaint was handled appropriately, it stands to reason that at least a third of the fungal meningitis cases may have been avoided.

The Colorado Board of Pharmacy had contacted Coffey on July 26 about the problem, and Coffey had forwarded the information to board attorney Susan Manning, who has been placed on administrative leave, and other department inspectors. Despite contacting officials, he failed to order an investigation into the issue, Dr. Lauren Smith, interim commissioner of the Mass Dept of Public Health, said in a statement.

Smith said since the director is the one person responsible for ordering an investigation, Coffey was the sole person fired.

“It is incomprehensible that Mr. Coffey and Ms. Manning did not act on the Colorado complaint given NECC´s past, and their responsibility to investigate complaints,” Smith said.

Even once the outbreak became public, the Pharmacy Board staff failed to disclose the existence of the complaint to the Dept of Public Health, the agency that oversees the board, according to Smith, adding there was no evidence either Coffey or Manning made any attempt to alert the board itself.

Colorado´s complaint stated NECC had distributed manufactured drugs to many hospitals in the state between 2010 and 2012 without patient-specific prescriptions, a violation of both Colorado and Massachusetts licenses, according to Smith.

The Colorado board had issued NECC a cease and desist order in April of 2011 after its investigators discovered the company had distributed prescription drugs unlawfully in that state. A routine inspection in July of this year revealed NECC had still been shipping bulk orders to at least one Colorado hospital.

It was then, on July 26, that Colorado authorities had decided to notify the Mass. Pharmacy Board, assuming the issue would be dealt with.

Coffey, on July 27, issued a response to the Colorado board, writing: “Please be advised that I am in receipt of the special report. The Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy will respond as soon as possible following a thorough review and analysis” and told Colorado officials he would provide any additional information they needed.

At the time Coffey received the Colorado complaint, two of the three contaminated lots of steroid injectables produced by NECC had already been shipped to medical facilities around the country; The third tainted lot was not produced until August 10.

“I find the actions of New England Compounding reprehensible,” Smith said, adding citizens have a right to expect that drug companies will comply with laws to ensure patient safety. “But I also expect the staff charged with oversight to perform their duties to the highest standards. That failed to happen here,” she concluded.

[WATCH VIDEO: Examples of Visual Stimuli Used in SSD Training]

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

It has been long believed that blindness in early infanthood makes sight restoration later in life next to impossible as the brain´s visual cortex has been deprived of visual information. But some researchers have shown that blind people, even those with lifelong blindness, can learn to process visual input using sound.

Working from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, researchers, with the use of specialized photographic and sound equipment, demonstrated that blind people can actually “see” and describe objects and even identify letters and words.

Publishing their work in the November issue of the journal Neuron, study leader Prof. Amir Amedi of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences and the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada at the Hebrew University and PhD candidate Ella Striem-Amit, said this work challenges long-held beliefs that people with lifelong blindness cannot visualize objects in their mind.

“The adult brain is more flexible that we thought,” Amedi noted in a press release.

For their study, Amedi and colleagues used sensory substitution devices (SSDs), non-invasive sensory aids that provide visual information to the blind via existing senses. Using a visual-to-auditory SSD allows a user to listen to and interpret visual information coming from this small camera that is connected to a small computer and stereo headphones. Images are converted into “soundscapes” using a predictable algorithm.

The participants using this device can reach a level of visual acuity technically surpassing the criterion for blindness set by the World Health Organization; This criterion came from the results of a previous study conducted by the same group of researchers.

The visual acuity attained via these SSDs is unique in the fact that rather than activating the ophthalmological system to garner visualizations, the devices actually activate the visual identification network of the brain.

Amedi showed that with a relatively brief 70 hours of unique training, blind people could easily use SSDs to characterize images into object categories, such as images of faces, body shapes, buildings and textures. They were also able to complete complex tasks, such as locating people´s positions, identifying facial expressions, and reading letters and words.

The researchers also studied what happens in the brain when these blind test subjects learn to see with sounds. Specifically, the researchers tested the ability of this high-acuity vision to activate the supposedly dormant visual cortex of the blind, even though it was taught to process the visual images through sounds only in adulthood.

Coauthors of the current research, Professors Laurent Cohen and Stanislas Dehaene of Pitie-Salpétriere Hospital-INSERM-CEA, of France, first discovered a specific brain area, known as the Visual Word Form Area (VWFA), in a previous study.

In sighted people this region is very selective, as it plays a role in reading and is activated by seeing and reading letters more than any other visual object category.

To the amazement of the researchers, the same was found in this brain region in people deprived of sight. The VWFA in blind people showed more activation for letters than any other visual category tested after only 10 hours of training, and showed increased activation for SSD letters after only two hours of training in one test subject.

These findings suggest that in the blind, brain areas might potentially be “awakened” to allow visual processing after years, if not a lifetime, of blindness, said Amedi, adding that the findings give hope that introduced input into the visual centers of the brain could potentially restore vision, and that SSDs might be useful for visual rehabilitation.

“SSDs might help blind or visually-impaired individuals learn to process complex images, as done in this study, or they might be used as sensory interpreters that provide high-resolution, supportive, synchronous input to a visual signal arriving from an external device such as bionic eyes” he concluded.

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

Advances in medical technology have made it possible for new treatments to be developed. One such example of the development of treatments is work done by BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc., a company focused on developing and commercializing biopharmaceuticals for serious diseases and other medical conditions. Having met the primary endpoint of change in a six minute distance walk as compared to a placebo at 24 weeks for participants taking in a weekly infusion of GALNS of 2 mg/kg, BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc. will be submitting marketing applications in 2013.

The randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study (MOR-004) looked at the effect of two doses of GALNS for patients who were diagnosed with lysosomal storage disorder Mucopolysaccharidosis Type IVA (MPS IVA), otherwise known as Morquio A Syndrome. According to the National MPS Society, children who are diagnosed with MPS IVA do not have the enzyme necessary for splicing the mucopolysaccharides keratan sulfate. As the mucopolysacchardies stay in the body incompletely broken down, it can cause damage to the body´s cells.

Subjects in the study were required to be clinically diagnosed as having MPS IVA. Researchers measured the six-minute walk distance, three-minute chair climb, and urinary Keratan Sulfate. For patients who were given dosages of 2 mg/kg of GALSN every week, they did not show a great deal of change from the baseline as opposed to the placebo. The company is also conducting an extension study, and only a few patients have participated in the study up to the 36 or 48-week points of time. The company plans to submit marketing applications based off of the results of the various studies it is conducting.

“The positive results from this pivotal study will help support GALNS as the first therapy available to help the approximate 3,000 people worldwide suffering from MPS IVA — a rare, degenerative, life-threatening genetic condition with no available therapy,” explained Dr. Hank Fuchs, Chief Medical Officer at BioMarin, in a prepared statement.

In particular, patients who were given doses of 2 mg/kg of GALSN every week improved in the six-minute walk distance during week 12 as compared to the baseline. They continued to improve at week 24 of the study as well. Regarding the secondary endpoint that looked at the three-minute stair climb, patients who were given does of 2 mg/kg of GALSN every week continued to improve and made progress at the 24-week mark of the study. Patients who reached the 36 and 48 week marks also showed sufficient improvement in the three-minute stair climb. Based on the findings, the scientists believe that doses of GALNS boost pulmonary function.

“We are very pleased with the clarity that the MOR-004 study has provided us with respect to the appropriate dosing of GALNS. The weekly 2 mg/kg dose provided a statistically significant and clinically meaningful improvement in the study’s primary endpoint, and positive trends toward improvement in other clinically meaningful endpoints, including three-minute stair climb and pulmonary function tests. By contrast, the 2 mg/kg every other week dose was shown to be similar to placebo on the primary and clinical secondary and tertiary endpoints,” continued Fuchs in the statement.

Even though the study showed success, some participants in the MOR-004 studied suffered adverse effects. The team of investigators reported that over 25 percent of treated patients had symptoms like cough, headache, nausea, pyrexia, and vomiting. The researchers were able to respond to these situations by modifying the treatments.

“The GALNS clinical program is currently the highest development priority at BioMarin, and this positive Phase 3 study serves as a potentially transformative milestone for the company,” noted Jean-Jacques Bienaimé, CEO of BioMarin, in a prepared statement. “We are applying our track record of success in developing novel treatments for orphan diseases and our existing commercial infrastructure for Naglazyme to bring GALNS to patients as rapidly as we can.”

The team of investigators plans to present the complete results of the study at the WORLD Symposium next February. With the National MPS Society and The Carol Ann Foundation/International Morquio Organization, there is more and more awareness about this disease. The Morquio Organization reported that MPS IVA, which is a lysosomal storage disorder (LSDs), can affect approximately one out of 7,7000 newborns. Those diagnosed with the illness usually have a wide range of symptoms and signs.

In the prognosis of MPS IVA, cervical myelopathy, where there is injury to the spinal cord, can develop early in patients as a more severe version of Morquio syndrome. Patients with this form of the disease may not be able to survive in their twenties and thirties, as paralysis, restrictive chest wall movement, and valvular heart disease are factors that can affect the individual. The clinical features of MPS IVA include fatigue, difficulty breathy, sleep apnea, recurring infections, hearing loss, a tendency to fall while walking, corneal clouding, short neck and trunk dwarfism, among other things. Warning signs of the disease that appear during infancy include skeletal deformities, a waddling gate, delayed ability to stand and walk, as well as delay of growth.

Lastly, MPS IV is an inheritable disease, caused by a recessive gene. There is currently no cure for this disease, but there are options for managing and treating problems related to the illness; current treatments include bone marrow transplant/hematopoetic stem cell translation, palliative care, orthopedic surgeries, or physiotherapy.

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

I said to a guy, “Tell me, what is it about cocaine that makes it so wonderful,” and he said, “Because it intensifies your personality.” I said, “Yes, but what if you’re an [expletive deleted]?”

Bill Cosby, in his seminal stand up performance ℠Bill Cosby: Himself´, talked about what it is about cocaine that attracts an often loyal audience that uses the drug recreationally.

When cocaine is ingested or inhaled, its effects are almost immediate and the user experiences dissipation anywhere from a few minutes to an hour afterwards. When consumed in small doses, the user can experience feelings of euphoria, increased energy and become excessively talkative and mentally alert. The physiological drives for food and sleep are typically subverted, as well.

The addictive nature of cocaine is very strong. Individuals trying it for the first time, therefore, might be unable to predict or control the extent to which they might continue to want or use the drug. There have been studies that show that even during long periods of abstinence, the memory of the initial cocaine experience can trigger a tremendous craving for the drug, leading to relapse.

Physiologically, the effects of cocaine use include constricted blood vessels, dilation of the pupil, increased body temperature, heart rate and also blood pressure. When users begin using larger amounts of the drug, their high may be intensified but not at the expense of experiencing adverse effects. While a certain someone may have thought he was “WINNING”, he was, in fact, presenting the known effects of bizarre, erratic and even violent behavior associated with the prolonged use of cocaine. If help is not sought during this time, it is not unlikely that the user would experience a cardiac arrest or seizure followed by respiratory arrest. These are, too often, fatal in nature for the user.

A new study out of Australia has focused on the recreational user and the cardiovascular abnormalities they experience even long after the immediate effects of the cocaine have worn off. They presented their findings this week at the American Heart Association´s Scientific Sessions 2012 in Los Angeles.

Individuals who have a social relationship with cocaine, meaning they use regularly but recreationally, typically have stiffer arteries, higher blood pressure and a thicker heart wall muscle than do non-users, according to the study.

The study, comprised of 20 subjects who were chronic cocaine users and 20 non-users, used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure the effects of cocaine use on the otherwise healthy adults. When compared to the 20 non-users, the researchers determined that the users had higher rates of multiple factors associated with higher risks of heart attack and stroke. These include a 30 to 35 percent increase in aortic stiffening, an elevated systolic blood pressure and an 18 percent increase in the thickness of the heart´s left ventricle wall.

“It´s so sad,” said Gemma Figtree, M.B.B.S., D.Phil., lead researcher of the study. “We are repeatedly seeing young, otherwise fit individuals suffering massive heart attacks related to cocaine use. Despite being well-educated professionals, they have no knowledge of the health consequences of regularly using cocaine.”

“It´s the perfect heart attack drug,” she said.

She pointed out how the combined effects of greater blood clotting, increased heart stress and more blood vessel constriction puts users at a higher risk of a spontaneous heart attack. Figtree, as well as being the lead researcher, is also an associate professor of medicine at Sydney Medical School at the University of Sydney in Australia.

It wasn´t until after a surge of cocaine-related infarcts at Sydney´s Royal North Shore Hospital that the team decided to launch the study into the incidences of cardiovascular abnormalities in what would otherwise appear to be healthy, regular cocaine users.

To conduct the study, the researchers had to recruit recreational users who had reported using cocaine at least one time a month for the previous year. This group was comprised of 17 men and 3 women. They each completed a questionnaire that delved into their drug use, cardiovascular risk factors and socioeconomic statuses.

Then, at least 48 hours after their last encounter with cocaine, the volunteers would have their blood pressure taken and then undergo a cardiac MRI to assess heart mass and levels of heart and aortic functioning. The non-user group also underwent similar comparison. They were assessed also for certain health conditions, like a history of diabetes, smoking and other drug use.

What the study showed, conclusively, was that the user group presented with higher systolic blood pressure and increased arterial stiffness. They also were able to determine that there was a significant thickening of the heart wall.

“Stiffer vessels are known to be associated with elevated systolic blood pressure.  As a result, the heart is required to work harder, and its walls become hypertrophied or thicker,” Figtree said.

This study is the first instance of documentation of persistent hypertension and vascular stiffness in cocaine users, long after the initial acute effects have dissipated. Previous studies had focused on the immediate effects of cocaine on the heart muscle. Also, those studies observed cocaine addicts, primarily, and not the social user.

The current data doesn´t properly explain how repeated social cocaine use causes the blood vessels to stiffen, but researchers are investigating if there is a signaling pathway that might be activated to cause this response.

Overall, Figtree states that the outcomes of the study underscore the need for education about short- and long-term effects of cocaine use to help prevent heart attack and stroke.

Co-authors are Ravinay Bhindi, M.B.B.S., Ph.D.; Stefan Buchholz, M.B.B.S.; Shane Darke, Ph.D.; Stuart Grieve, M.B.B.S., D.Phil.; Sharlene Kaye, Ph.D.; and Rebecca Kozor, M.B.B.S.

The North Shore Heart Research Foundation funded the study.

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

New research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing found that long work shifts can cause nurses to feel burned out and dissatisfied with their job, while leaving their patients dissatisfied with their care.

The researchers stated that prolonged working hours were becoming more and more common in hospitals. The study is touted as the first to look at the connection between the length of a nurse´s shift and the reaction to the quality of care from patients. In particular, the team of investigators discovered that nurses who took on working shifts that were ten hours or longer had a two and half times higher risk of experiencing burnout and job dissatisfaction as compared to the nurses who worked shorter shifts. As well, seven out of ten patients reported having negative responses to the care provided by nurses who worked longer shifts.

“Traditional eight-hour shifts for hospital nurses are becoming a thing of the past. Bedside nurses increasingly work twelve-hour shifts. This schedule gives nurses a three-day work week, potentially providing better work-life balance and flexibility,” explained Amy Witkoski Stimpfel, a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for Health Outcomes and Policy Research at Penn Nursing, in a prepared statement. “When long shifts are combined with overtime, shifts that rotate between day and night duty, and consecutive shifts, nurses are at risk for fatigue and burnout, which may compromise patient care.”

The study included participants from a number of states, including California, Florida, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The combination of these states amounted to an estimated 25 percent of the United States population and 20 percent of U.S. hospitalizations that occur every year. As well, almost 23,000 registered nurses were included in the three-year project. Of these nurses, 65 percent of the nurses worked shifts that were between 12 to 13 hours and reported having an increasing risk of experiencing burnout and the desire to leave the job.

The findings of the study, recently published in the policy journal Health Affairs, showed that a number of issues can arise in hospitals that have a high percentage of nurses working overly long shifts. For one, a higher proportion of patients noted that nurses rarely or never communicated with them. The patients also stated that pain was rarely or never controlled well, leaving them the impression that they never received the help and care that they needed.

Based on the results of the study, the team of investigators advised that management should monitor the number of hours worked by nurses. They also recommended that the state boards of nursing look into the effect of voluntary overtime and nurse shift length.

“Nursing leadership should also encourage a workplace culture that respects nurses´ days off and vacation time, promotes nurse´s prompt departure at the end of a scheduled shift, and allows nurses to refuse to work overtime without retribution,” concluded Witkoski Stimpfel in the statement. “These types of policies that facilitate manageable work hours can contribute to the development of a healthier nursing workforce, prepared to manage the complex care needs of patients and their families.”

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Conflicting studies were highlighted at this year’s American Heart Association Scientific Sessions meeting concerning stem cell therapy for heart attack patients.
The first study, from the University of Louisville and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, reported “holy grail” results for a Phase I clinical trial: marked sustained improvement in all patients with zero adverse effects.
Roberto Bolli, M.D., of the University of Louisville and Piero Anversa, M.D., of Brigham and Women’s Hospital presented data from their groundbreaking research in the use of autologous adult stem cells with patients who had previous heart attacks in a Late-Breaking Clinical Trial session.
The researchers report that all patients receiving the stem cell therapy showed improved heart function after two years, with an overall 12.9 absolute unit increase in left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). LVEF is a standard measure of heart function that shows the amount of blood ejected from the left ventricle during a heartbeat. They saw no adverse effects from the therapy. In fact, nine patients showed evidence of myocardial regeneration — new tissue replacing formerly dead tissue killed by heart attack — in MRI scans.
“The trial shows the feasibility of isolating and expanding autologous stem cells from virtually every patient,” said Bolli, who is the Jewish Hospital Heart and Lung Institute Distinguished Chair in Cardiology and director of the Institute for Molecular Cardiology in the Department of Medicine at UofL. “The results suggest that this therapy has a potent, beneficial effect on cardiac function that warrants further study.”
“In all patients, cells with high regenerative reserve were obtained and employed therapeutically,” said Anversa, professor of Anesthesia and Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. “Our efforts to carefully characterize the phenotype and growth properties of the cardiac stem cells may have contributed to these initial positive results.”
The Stem Cell Infusion in Patients with Ischemic CardiOmyopathy, or SCIPIO, trial was a randomized open-label trial of cardiac stem cells (CSCs) in patients who were diagnosed with heart failure following a myocardial infarction and had a LVEF of 40 percent or lower. A normal LVEF reading is 50 percent or higher.
The CSCs, referred to as “c-kit positive” cells because they express the c-kit protein on their surface, were harvested from 33 patients during coronary artery bypass surgery. The stem cells were then purified and processed so that they could multiply, and once an adequate number was produced — about one million for each patient — they were reintroduced into the region of the patient’s heart that suffered scarring during the heart attack.
At four months after infusion, the researchers report that LVEF increased from 29 percent to 36 percent for 200 patients. On average, the 13 control patients who did not receive a CSC infusion showed any improvement.
AT both the one and two-year mark, the beneficial effects of the CSCs persisted. LVEF increased by 8.1 percent and 12.9 percent respectively.
Of the nine patients who received MRI scans, there was a profound reduction in the size of the infarct, that area of the heart that is dead tissue as a result of the heart attack. Prior to treatment, the infarct size was 33.9 grams, and at 18.2 at two years. The MRI also revealed an increase in viable left ventricle tissue, from 146.3 to 164.2 grams. The rest of the study participants were not able to undergo MRIs because of previously implanted devices which interfered.
Jim Dearing of Louisville showed no trace of the two heart attacks he suffered prior to participating in the trial. His ejection fraction went from 38 percent to 58 percent and his heart is working normally, according to Echocardiograms performed in 2011 and 2012.
“Anyone who looks at his heart now would not imagine that this patient was (ever) in heart failure or that he had a heart attack,” Bolli said. “What’s striking is that we are seeing what appears to be a long-lasting improvement in function,” Anversa said.
The plan is to follow the study cohort for two additional years, and expand the original research.
“The findings warrant larger, phase 2 studies,” Bolli said. “If the larger studies continue to confirm our findings, we potentially have a cure for heart failure because we will have something that conceivably, for the first time, actually regenerates dead heart tissue.”
CONTRADICTORY RESULTS
The second clinical study, presented by Jay Traverse, MD of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation, shows that administering autologous stem cells obtained from bone marrow either 3 or 7 days following a heart attack did not improve heart function six months later.
The results of the Transplantation In Myocardial Infarction Evaluation, or TIME, trial mirror a previous, related study (LateTIME). LateTIME found that autologous bone marrow stem cell therapy given 2-3 weeks after a heart attack did not improve cardiac recovery. Both studies were supported, in part, by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and carried out by the Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network (CCTRN).
“The data presented by TIME do much to advance stem cell therapy research,” said Jay Traverse, MD of the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation and Principal Investigator of this study. “While this study did not provide a demonstrated cardiac benefit after six months, we still learned a great deal. Together, TIME and Late TIME have shown that stem cell therapy is safe, and they have set a baseline in terms of quantity of stem cells, type of stem cells, and severity of heart attack.”
The 120 participants, with an average age of 57, were enrolled between July 2008 and February 2011. They all had moderate to severe impairment in their left ventricle and had undergone coronary stent placement as treatment for the heart attack. They were assigned to one of four possible groups; day 3 stem cell, day 3 placebo (inactive cells), day 7 stem cell, or day 7 placebo. Stem cells from the bone marrow of each patient were processed and purified to ensure a uniform dose of 150 million stem cells for each patient.
After six months, heart improvement was assessed by measuring the percentage of blood that gets pumped out of the left ventricle during each contraction (left-ventricular ejection fraction, or LVEF). No significant differences between the change in LVEF readings at the six month follow-up were found in either the Day 3 or Day 7 stem cell groups when compared with placebo or with each other. Across the board, the groups had about a 3 percent improvement in LVEF, however, the researchers found that younger patients randomized to Day 7 had greater improvement in their LVEF compared to their placebo counterparts.
“The lack of six-month improvement seen for TIME and, prior to that, LateTIME, does not mean stem cell therapy is not a viable post-heart attack strategy,” said Traverse. “Because we have this data we can start to address some parameters; for example this therapy may work better in younger people, or maybe we need to use cells from healthy volunteers (allogeneic) since their cells may provide greater therapeutic benefit. There will also be upcoming studies using novel cell types which we look forward to using in future clinical trials.”

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

At the American Heart Association´s Scientific Sessions 2012, researchers recently revealed that genetically engineered tomato plants were able to create a peptide, a string of amino acids, that works similarly to good cholesterol when it is consumed.

In the study, mice that consumed modified, freeze-dried, ground tomatoes showed signs of less inflammation and had a decreased amount of plaque build-up in the arteries (otherwise know as atherosclerosis).

“We were looking for a way to be able to make. The good cholesterol that might be able to be practical in the standpoint of being easily produced and available without having to chemically purify it. So that led us to genetically engineered tomatoes, so the tomatoes actually make the peptide as part of the tomatoes. To our surprise and delight, when we fed it to the mice, without having to chemically remove the peptide and purify it, it worked just fine. That was the main finding of our study,” said the study´s senior author Dr. Alan M. Fogelman, who serves as the executive chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in a video clip.

To produce 6F, a small peptide that copies the ability of chief protein in high-density lipoprotein ApoA-1, the scientists genetically engineered the tomatoes. High density lipoprotein is also known as HDL or “good” cholesterol. Mice that didn´t have the ability to take out low density lipoprotein, otherwise known as “LDL” or bad cholesterol, from their blood were offered the tomatoes.

“We have found a new and practical way to make a peptide that acts like the main protein in good cholesterol, but is many times more effective and can be delivered by eating the plant,” explained Fogelman, who also works as director of the Atherosclerosis Research Unit in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, in a prepared statement.

Following consumption, the peptide-enhanced tomatoes were able to help reduce blood levels of inflammation, increase levels of good cholesterol, decrease atherosclerotic plaque, as well as reduce lysophosphatidic acid which lowered the amount of plaque build-up in the arteries of animals.

“To our knowledge this is the first example of a drug with these properties that has been produced in an edible plant and is biologically active when fed without any isolation or purification of the drug,” continued Fogelman in the statement.

The researchers believe that the findings have long-lasting implications.

“Anything that we do is not a substitute for eating a proper diet and exercising or not smoking. It´s additive. If we ever get to humans, and we´re a long way from that, it would not be to enable people to ignore what they eat. But to make it so that, with the best diets, we can do better than we are doing currently—that would be our hope,” noted Fogelman.

“To our knowledge, this is the first time that someone has engineered a plant to a peptide or protein that can be fed without having to purify or isolate it and get ht effect o the reduction in inflammation. We would hope that this technology would potentially have broad applications, in a way for us to think of delivering therapeutic agents that would be different from the way that we do now,” he concluded.

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

New research from the University of Chicago, Illinois recently found that kids will drink more soda and eat more calories when they are out eating at fast food stops or sit-down restaurants as opposed to when they are at home.

Published online by the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, the findings are the first to observe separately the impact of fast food and full-service restaurants. In the study, the team of investigators looked at the calorie intake, consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages like soda, and the diet quality of meals of kids at home compared to meals when they were dining out. The data, pooled from the National Health and Nutrition Survey, included 4,717 children between the ages of two and eleven as well as 4,699 adolescents between 12 to 19 years of age. The information spanned from 2003 and 2008 and highlighted the fact that kids took in higher amounts of saturated fat, sodium, sugar and total fat when they ate at restaurants.

Interestingly, youth consumed twice as much as soda when they were eating meals at a restaurant as opposed to when the same dish was bought to-go and eaten at home. The researchers also discovered that adolescents and children consumed less milk on the days that they were eating out at restaurants.

“We attribute that to the free refills,” explained the study´s lead author Lisa Powell, professor of health policy and administration in the UIC School of Public Health, in a prepared statement.

The team of investigators believes that adolescents and youths are consuming fast food too frequently and in extreme amounts. The results of the study showed that adolescents who visited fast food shops ate an extra 309 calories, while young children consumed an extra 126 calories. Those who visited restaurants showed similar results, with teens consuming an additional 267 calories and children consuming an additional 160 calories.

The researchers also discovered that there was a difference of fast food and restaurant food consumption by low-income children versus higher-income children. Teens from low-income families tended to consume more fast food, thus resulting in higher amounts of sodium, sugar, saturated fat, and total fat.

“When lower-income youths are eating fast food, they are choosing more energy-dense, lower quality foods that tend to be higher in fats and sodium and can be purchased cheaply,” commented Powell in the statement. “They are not going to the fast food restaurant and getting a salad or the healthier turkey sub with lots of veggies.”

With these staggering statistics, the scientists recommended that teens and kids limit their visits to restaurants. They also stated that better nutritional standards are necessary in terms of providing better options to diners and changing the obesity trend.

“At the same time, regulatory and voluntary policies that aim to set standards for the nutritional content of meals obtained from restaurants are increasingly being implemented, and continued efforts are needed to improve and promote healthy food options in restaurants,” wrote the authors.

However, the researchers noted the difficulties that may arise with this issue as many fast food companies advertise their meals to children through advertising on television. As well, fast food restaurants tend to pop up around schools. There are also a higher number of these stores in low-income communities.

“We need an environment that promotes healthy rather than unhealthy food and beverage choices,” concluded Powell in the statement.

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

You might want to think twice before ordering that dollar cheeseburger today at McDonalds, because according to a new study, it ultimately comes at a higher price later on down the road.

People who suffer from a heart attack face more than a physical recovery, they also suffer from an economic recovery as well. A study presented at the American Heart Association‘s Scientific Sessions 2012 found that the economic impact of a heart attack and other forms of acute coronary syndrome can be costly.

The team used data from Integrated Benefits Institutes‘ Health and Productivity Benchmarking Databases and IMS Lifelink for their study. They analyzed medical, pharmacy and short- and long-term disability claims to calculate direct and indirect costs for more than 37,000 employees and their dependents from 2007 to 2010.

They found that the annual healthcare cost for each worker, including out-of-pocket expenses, was $8,170. Of this total, they said $7,545 was for hospitalization and other medical care, and $625 was for pharmacy costs.

They also found that workers with acute coronary syndrome (ACS) lost 60.2 days of work in the short term, and 397 days in the long term.

Employers saw that their disability costs outweigh direct costs. The team estimated per claim productivity loss for short-term disability was $7,943, and $52,473 for long-term disability.

“ACS can have devastating effects from an economic standpoint on employers in terms of lost productivity, but more importantly on costs to the employee reflected in the average lost time per incident,” Robert L. Page II, Pharm.D., M.S.P.H., the study´s lead author, said in a press release.

Page said that about 47 percent of all patients who took part in the study are younger than 65, which is the working class population.

“We want to target individuals early on in terms of risk factor modification for ACS, including smoking cessation, weight loss, appropriate diet, pharmacotherapy for high cholesterol and high blood pressure,” he said.

Men and women with acute coronary syndrome face additional economic burdens in both lost time and income from work, along with the possibility of an inability to return to work, the researchers said.

ACS is a term for situations in which blood supplied to the heart muscle is suddenly blocked, which includes heart attack and angina or chest pain.

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

The artificial pacemaker, a device that helps regulate the human heart through electrical impulses, has been widely used in cardiac patients for decades. However, these patients must undergo regular procedures to replace batteries when they wear out, raising the risk for infections and other complications. But now, researchers believe they have a new form of energy that can power pacemakers well beyond the life of conventional batteries: the heart itself.

Scientists from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor have developed a prototype pacemaker that actually runs on the electrical charge generated from the motion of the heart beating, called piezoelectricity.

This is a promising technical solution for pacemakers, because they require only small amounts of energy to operate, according to Amin Karami, PhD, of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at UMich, lead author of the study.

Initial tests suggest the device could produce 10 times the amount of energy needed, and patients could power their own pacemakers, eliminating the need for battery replacement operations.

The British Heart Foundation said, however, that clinical trials would be needed to prove the device´s effectiveness and to ensure its safety.

The research team suggest piezoelectricity could also power other implantable cardiac devices such as defibrillators, which also require only minimal energy needs, said Karami.

“Many of the patients are children who live with pacemakers for many years,” he said. “You can imagine how many operations they are spared if this new technology is implemented.”

The researchers actually came across the medical breakthrough by accident–they were looking to design a light unmanned aircraft that could be powered by the vibrations of its own wings. Through this research, the team realized that the properties of power-generating piezoelectric materials could potentially be applied to powering pacemakers.

Using piezoelectricity to power pacemakers could save patients from countless operations, noted Karami.

To be sure, Karami and his colleagues measured heartbeat-induced vibrations in the chest. They then used a ℠shaker´ to reproduce the vibrations in the lab setting and connected it to a prototype cardiac energy harvester they had developed. Measurements of the device´s performance, based on a wide range of simulated heartbeats, showed the energy harvester generated more than enough power required by modern pacemakers.

Karami said the device they used in the experiments is about half the size of batteries now used in pacemakers and also includes a self-powering back-up capacitor.

Typical pacemakers can be powered by two types of energy: linear and nonlinear. Linear harvesters only work well at specific heart rates, so if the heart´s rate changes it may prevent the linear harvester from working properly.

But nonlinear harvesters–the type used in the study–use magnets to enhance power production, making them less sensitive to heart rate changes. Using the nonlinear harvester, the team was able to generate enough power, even when changing heartbeats from 20 to 600 beats per minute.

Another plus with nonlinear harvesters: devices such as cellphones and microwave ovens do not affect them, noted Karami.

“What we have proven is that under optimal conditions, this concept is working,” he told Mail Online.

Karami presented the findings of his work at the Scientific Sessions 2012 meeting of the American Heart Association on Sunday.

About 100,000 people each year in the US who have heart rhythm disturbances get a pacemaker. These devices sell for about $5,000, which does not include the cost of surgery. And further care–operations that need to be done to replace the batteries, about once every seven years–adds to this cost.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
Youngsters who intentionally harm themselves aren’t necessarily demonstrating signs of mental illness, according to research presented recently at Lund University in Sweden.
Psychologist Jonas Bjärehed, author of the thesis entitled “Characteristics of Self-Injury in Young Adolescents: Findings from Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Studies in Swedish Schools,” and his supervisor Lars Gunnar Lund surveyed 1,000 young people in the southern part of the country starting in 2006.
He discovered 40% of them had purposefully injured themselves at some point, but only “a small minority” of them did so on a regular basis, comparable to adults dealing with mental health issues, the university said in a Friday press release.
“It is important that school and health professionals know how to deal with young people who self-harm. They need to react appropriately and not judge all young people alike,” Bjärehed said.
“For many of these young people, the behavior seems to be fairly mild and often of a temporary nature,” he added. “It may be viewed as a matter of experimentation or problems that are not of a serious nature.”
Knowledge of self-harm was limited among professional organizations when Bjärehed began his research six years ago, the university said. Nowadays, the situation has changed, with some issues (including eating disorders amongst youngsters) now well-known among school staff and health care professionals.
Bjärehed said he hopes awareness of self-harm issues will soon become as widespread, because even if teenagers who injure themselves are not suffering from a mental illness, the behavior can become “a vicious circle.” Once a person starts, the risk that they will continue harming themselves increases, which can lead to deterioration of their mental health, even if there wasn’t any to begin win.
“We are grappling with the fact that many signs of stress and mental illness appear to be increasing in our society, especially among young people, without us really understanding why,” he said. “The fact that many young people suffer mental health problems during a time in their lives when they are in the process of becoming adults and developing the skills they need to contribute to society has become a serious public health problem.”
“An important challenge is to understand this trend and the signs of mental illness that we are seeing in young people, in order to be able to take the necessary measures to prevent it or provide help,” Bjärehed added.

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

A new study from the University of Copenhagen recently revealed that high blood cholesterol is a serious hereditary disease that has been overlooked and has not been given effective treatments as compared to other illnesses.

In particular, the scientists discovered that there are more Danes who have high blood cholesterol than previously thought. They believe that few individuals and families with the disease have been identified; these same individuals have rarely been given statins, a drug that targets high cholesterol, for treatment. The findings were published in the The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).

“We have now investigated 69,000 Danes to see how many have hereditary high blood cholesterol and have undergone sufficient treatment for the disease. We can see that out of 137 people in Denmark 1 has hereditary high blood cholesterol. That corresponds to 40,000 people with the disease in the Danish population of 5.5 million,” explained Dr. Børge Nordestgaard, a clinical professor at the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Copenhagen, in a prepared statement.

The randomly selected participants were pooled from the Herlev/Østerbro Study.

The scientists measured the cholesterol level of all of the individuals and interviewed them about their statin use as well as their family’s health history. The study involved internationally recognized Dutch criteria for hereditary high blood cholesterol that was based on extremely high blood cholesterol levels and early-onset coronary disease in the participant and his/her family, along with findings of mutations related to hereditary high blood cholesterol.

Among the Danes who already exhibited high blood cholesterol due to hereditary factors, one-third stated they already had coronary disease and the other half of the group were already treated with statins. Those with hereditary high blood cholesterol who were not being treated had a 1,200 percent higher chance of developing coronary disease. Even if individuals with hereditary high blood cholesterol were undergoing treatment with statins, they still had a 900 percent higher risk than other individuals who have coronary disease.

“Never before anywhere in the world has the ordinary population been studied to see how many people and families with hereditary high blood cholesterol there actually are. It was previously assumed that only 1 out of every 500 people had it, so it was quite a surprise for us suddenly to find 3 ½ times as many people with this serious disease. At the same time, it was also startling to discover that a disease that can easily be prevented by treatment to reduce blood cholesterol has not been treated sufficiently,” noted Dr. Marianne Benn, a senior physician from the University of Copenhagen, in the statement.

Based on the findings, the team of investigators determined that approximately 15 million people through out the globe have hereditary high blood cholesterol. Many of the people are not diagnosed with the disease and, as a result, are not treated and have a higher risk of dying earlier from coronary disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that coronary disease is the most common cause of death in adults throughout the world and at least 17 million die from coronary disease every year.

“We have known for decades about high blood cholesterol and how to prevent it. Nonetheless the disease is massively underdiagnosed and undertreated. This means that many people unnecessarily develop early-onset coronary disease and die far earlier than normal,” concluded Nordestgaard, who also serves as senior physician at Herlev Hospital.

Moving forward, the scientists hope to continue to identify the number of people who have hereditary high blood cholesterol and find the mutation that causes the disease so that they can better track families who are affected by this issue. The study comes at a critical time as many people suffer from high blood cholesterol and an elevated risk of coronary heart disease, such as angina or blood clots.

Researchers believe that hereditary high blood cholesterol may be caused by mutations in the LDL-receptor in the liver, which works to remove LDL particles with cholesterol from the blood. When the LDL-receptor cannot function correctly, the cholesterol level in the blood becomes higher and can cause atherosclerosis, heart attack and even early death.

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

It´s clear that green tea is one of the most popular flavors with foodies these days. Even though green tea can be found integrated with other types of food, it is still considered a popular beverage. More importantly, green tea can have a number of health benefits. In particular, researchers at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center recently found that green tea can help decrease the rate of some digestive system cancers, particularly those illnesses related to the cancers of the esophagus/stomach and colorectum.

The findings were recently published online of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“For all digestive system cancers combined, the risk was reduced by 27 percent among women who had been drinking tea regularly for at least 20 years,” explained Sarah Nechuta, an assistance professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt University, in a prepared statement. “For colorectal cancer, risk was reduced by 29 percent among the long-term tea drinkers. These results suggest long-term cumulative exposure may be particularly important.”

In the study, the researchers aimed to look at the impact of green tea on cancer risk. They surveyed a group of women who were part of the Shanghai Women´s Health Study, which included an estimated 75,000 middle-aged and older Chinese women. The population-based study included initial interviews with participants on their tea drinking habits, such as the type of tea they consumed or the amount of tea that was consumed. Many of the women who participated in the study stated that they primarily consumed green tea.

Based on the findings, the scientists discovered that regular tea consumption for a minimum of three times a week over a six-month period was related to a 17 percent reduction of a combination of all digestive cancers. Furthermore, they found that higher level of tea consumption reduced the risk of cancer even more. In particular, the participants who consumed approximately two to three cups a day or a minimum of 150 grams of tea per month showed a 21 percent reduction of risk for developing digestive system cancers.

The team of investigators believes that there may be a number of factors that may have impacted the results. For one, tea includes polyphenols or natural chemicals that have catechins such as EGCG and ECG. More importantly, catechins have antioxidant properties and can help prevent cancer by lowering DNA damage and stopping the invasion and growth of tumor cells.

As well, the researchers saw that lifestyle factors could affect the risk of developing some digestive system cancers. They interviewed the participants on the types of food they ate on a daily basis, their exercise regime, the highest education they obtained and their current job. The scientists found that regular tea drinkers exercised more, ate more fruits and vegetables, reached higher education levels and were younger in age.

Lastly, Chinese women who did not drink nor smoke were included in the study to limit the possible impact that these two lifestyle factors would have on the individuals.