According to a new study in the journal Nature Medicine, an experimental treatment known as the ‘couch potato pill’ may also help to prevent heatstroke in people genetically predisposed to it.

The pill first received its name due its ability to mimic the effects of exercise in inactive laboratory mice, eliciting much excitement in the medical community that it might eventually prove useful in activity-disinclined human patients as well.

Yet new research shows that the drug, known to scientists as AICAR, may also help to stave off heatstroke in mammals that have a genetic predisposition to it, potentially making it one of the first medications to specifically treat patients susceptible to sudden heat-induced death.

Dr. Robert Dirkson, the study’s chief author and professor of pharmacology and physiology at the University of Rochester Medical Center, noted that such a medication could eventually have some very practical medicinal uses as a prophylactic.

“There is a great need for the training staff of athletic teams, physicians in emergency rooms in places like Phoenix, and soldiers serving in the deserts of the Middle East to have a drug available to give to individuals during a heat-stroke event,” explained Dirksen.

“Our study takes an important first step towards developing a new drug therapy that may be part of the standard treatment regimen for heat stroke in the future.”

Together with his long-time colleague professor Susan Hamilton of Baylor College of Medicine, Dirksen studied the effects of the drug on mice with a mutation in the RYR1 gene that is associated with malignant hyperthermia.

Mutations in the RYR1 gene respond to heat by causing excessive quantities of calcium to leak out of their cellular storage centers, triggering uncontrolled muscle contractions.

These involuntary contractions in skeletal muscle brought on by the congenital disorder lead to a rapid rise in body temperature. If they persist, the contractions eventually cause the muscle cells to rupture, releasing high amounts of potassium and various proteins into the blood stream. Elevated potassium levels are extremely toxic, typically leading to cardiac arrhythmias and death if not quickly treated.

According to the results of Dirksen and Hamilton’s study, the administration of AICAR to affected mice appeared to protect them from such contractions, even when placed under additional heat stress.

Unfortunately, the study indicated that the drug was not successful in treating anesthetic-induced malignant hypothermia which, as the name indicates, is typically the result of anesthetic drugs rather than just heat exposure and genetic predisposition.

The researchers explained that AICAR typically functions by activating an enzyme known as AMPK, the body’s so-called metabolic “master switch.” One of AMPK’s many physiological effects is to regulate muscle activity, yet Dirksen’s team found that the drug’s ability to protect mice from heat stroke was a result of its direct influence on the protein product of the RYR1 gene rather than on the enzyme master switch.  The study indicated that AICAR causes a reduction in calcium leakage from RYR1, thus reducing heat-induced contractions, muscle damage, and death.

“AICAR stops the feed forward cycle that triggers these sustained muscle contractions,” explained Hamilton. “We have shown that it acts directly on the ryanodine receptor [RYR1] to decrease the calcium leak. It also protects intracellular calcium stores from depletion and this contributes to the ability of this compound to slow muscle fatigue.”

Although people with a genetic predisposition to heat stroke can generally avoid danger by simply avoiding physical activity in extreme heat, many either do not know they suffer from the condition or disregard the advice of medical experts.

“We were attempting to identify an intervention, something that could be used prophylactically to protect these sensitive individuals without significant side effects,” said Dr. Hamilton.

While much lab work is still needed before the drug can be considered for therapeutic uses in humans, the team expressed optimism, noting that the work they had already done on mice was very encouraging.

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On the Net:

• Nature Medicine
• University of Rochester Medical Center
• Baylor College of Medicine

The legal definition of rape is being overhauled for the first time in 80 years. The updates, spearheaded by the Obama administration, will include the ability to recognize men as victims of the crime as well as any victim who is unable to give consent or who is violated with an object.

The revisions are aimed at collecting more accurate data about sex crimes and come in the wake of high-profile sexual assault cases as well as years of pressure from women´s rights and gay advocacy groups to broaden the definition, reports Pete Yost for AP.

The previous law, since 1927, was defined as the “carnal knowledge” of a woman, forcibly and against her will, which included penetration of a woman´s vagina, but excluded oral or anal penetration and the rape of men.

The new definition details, “The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”

Under the new definition, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) will be able to collect better data on the number of rapes committed in the United States as well as give more accurate information to lawmakers about the crime in order to help prevent and prosecute it.

This wider definition is expected to have no impact on actual prosecutions, as each state has its own legal definition of rape, and Friday´s announcement does not change how local and state officials prosecute a crime.

Many states have already adopted a wider definition of rape, although advocates hope the new federal standard will convince any remaining states with narrower laws to expand them, reports Susan Heavey and Jeremy Pelofsky for Reuters.

Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama explains, “This major policy change will lead to more accurate reporting and far more comprehensive understanding of this devastating crime. Without an accurate understanding of the magnitude of the problem, how can we effectively solve it? Definitions matter because people matter.”

Previously, the FBI recognized only forcible vaginal penetration of a woman as “rape.” The new definition expands rape to include oral and anal sex acts against women as well as men. It also says if a victim cannot give consent for any reason, including drug or alcohol use, the crime is a rape even if force is not used.

Terry O´Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), tell Reuters, “It´s going to give us a better and more accurate picture nationwide of the incidence of rape and where it is occurring.”

Advocates applaud the move, responding that having a national definition would help raise awareness about what constitutes rape — an important first step in recognizing what is considered one of the most under-reported crimes in the US.

The FBI estimated in 2010, the latest data available, that there were almost 85,000 forcible rapes under the previous definition and that the crime occurs in the United States every 6.2 minutes, BBC News reports. Preliminary FBI statistics show that the forcible rape rate declined 5.1 percent in the first half of 2011 compared to the same period of the previous year.

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On the Net:

• White House
• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis has announced a recall of four of its over-the-counter medications marketed in the U.S.
According to the AFP news agency, the firm released a statement Sunday announcing the recall of Excedrin, NoDoz, Bufferin and Gas-X Prevention products due to a malfunction at a plant in Lincoln, Nebraska that was shut down last month.
Novartis Consumer Health (NCH) said that they were “taking this action as a precautionary measure, because the products may contain stray tablets, capsules, or caplets from other Novartis products, or contain broken or chipped tablets.”
“Mixing of different products in the same bottle could result in consumers taking the incorrect product and receiving a higher or lower strength than intended or receiving an unintended ingredient,” they added, according to the news agency’s report.
“This could potentially result in overdose, interaction with other medications a consumer may be taking, or an allergic reaction if the consumer is allergic to the unintended ingredient,” NCH said.
The Associated Press (AP) says that the voluntary recall involves bottles of Excedrin headache medication and NoDoz caffeine tablets with expiration dates of December 20, 2014 or earlier, as well as Bufferin pain medication and Gas-X stomach medicine with expiration dates of December 20, 2013 or earlier.
Consumers are being advised to either return the unused product to NCH, or destroy it.
The recall will cost Novartis a fourth-quarter loss of $120 million, according to Reuters’ Katie Reid.
“Novartis said there had not been any adverse events reported and that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was aware of the recall,” Reid reported, adding that the company “plans to gradually resume operations at its Lincoln site following implementation of planned improvements and in agreement with the FDA.”
“We are committed to a single quality standard for the entire Novartis Group and we are making the necessary investments and committing the right resources to ensure these are implemented across our entire network,” Novartis CEO Joseph Jimenez said in a statement. “The high quality of our products and operations has been critical to building the Novartis reputation over the past 15 years. We are committed to ensuring the highest standard for patients who rely on our products and medicines.”
The AP says that, starting on Monday, January 9, consumers can visit the website http://www.novartis-otc.com/otcmessage.html for more information regarding the recall. Concerned individuals can also call the company at 1-888-477-2403 from 9am to 8pm EST, Monday to Friday.
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On the Net:

• Novartis Consumer Health (NCH)
• NCH Recall Website

The behavior of a binge drinker is likely to influence the person with whom he or she is romantically involved, a new study by Canadian researchers has revealed.

According to Robert Preidt of USA Today HealthDay, researchers at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, studied 208 unmarried, heterosexual couples who saw each other at least five days each week.

The researchers said that they were able to predict the likelihood that one partner would binge drink based on the behavior of their significant other.

The participants were all in their early twenties, dating for a minimum of three months, and at least one of them had to be a college or university student, the UPI reported Saturday.

The researchers believe that the findings suggest that many young adults become binge drinkers because the person they are dating is one, added Preidt.

“In some respect this is a cautionary piece of research. Pick your friends and lovers carefully because they influence you more than you think,” Simon Sherry, an assistant professor at the Dalhousie University Department of Psychology, said in a press release, according to USA Today.

“We’re not so naive as researchers to think students are going to walk away from binge drinking. But our study shows there’s a large majority of students who form romantic partnerships where alcohol is a regularly occurring theme,” he added.

Furthermore, as Melissa D’costa of the Times of India reported Saturday, the study also found that the influence was not gender specific — that women were as likely to influence men as vice versa.

“Binge drinking in university students occurs in both young men and women. Studies with married couples show that men have more of an influence on women, but in our study, we found both young women and young men influence their partner’s binge drinking,” researcher Aislin Mushquash wrote, according to D’costa’s report.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Seema Hingorrany told the Times that she agreed with the study’s findings, saying, “Your partner plays a pivotal role in your day-to-day decisions. Both men and women can influence their partner’s drinking process. Subconsciously things get reinforced depending on what their partner says or does.”

An advanced online publication of the study appeared December 12 at the Psychology of Addictive Behaviors website, and can also be viewed as a PDF at the university’s website.

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On the Net:

• Dalhousie University
• Psychology of Addictive Behaviors

The brain´s capacity for memory, reasoning and cognitive function can start deteriorating as early as age 45, instead of age 60, as experts had previously thought, according to new research published in the British Medical Journal.

Researchers, led by Archana Singh-Manoux from the Center for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health in France and University College London in the UK, argue that it is important to investigate the age at which cognitive decline begins because medical interventions are more likely to work when individuals first start to experience mental impairment.

Singh-Manoux and colleagues observed 5,198 men and 2,192 women over a ten year period from 1997 to 2007. Volunteers of the study were London civil servants aged between 45 and 70 who had been enrolled in the Whitehall II cohort study established in 1985.

Cognitive functions of the participants were assessed three times over the study period. Individuals were tested for memory, vocabulary and aural and visual comprehension skills. The latter included recalling and writing as many words beginning with “S” and as many animal names as possible.

The results showed that cognitive scores declined in all categories except vocabulary and there was faster decline in older people. The authors of the study accounted for differences in education level when the tests were conducted.

The researchers found a 3.6 percent decline in mental reasoning in men aged 45 to 49 and a 9.6 percent decline in those aged 65 to 70. In women, the results were 3.6 percent and 7.4 percent, respectively.

The authors argue that robust evidence showing cognitive decline before the age of 60 has important ramifications because it demonstrates the importance of promoting healthy lifestyles, particularly cardiovascular health, as there is emerging evidence that “what is good for our hearts is also good for our heads.”

In an accompanying editorial, Francine Grodstein, Associate Professor of Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said the study “has profound implications for prevention of dementia and public health.” She added that further creative research needs to be undertaken.

The Alzheimer´s Society said research was also needed into how changes in the brain could help dementia diagnoses.

“There are things people can do to reduce their chances of getting dementia later down the line,” Dr. Anne Corbett from the Alzheimer´s Society told BBC News. “We now need to look at who experiences cognitive decline more than the average and how we stop the decline. Some level of prevention is definitely possible.”

“Rates of dementia are going to soar and health behaviors like smoking and physical activity are linked to levels of cognitive function,” she added. “It´s important to identify the risk factors early. If the disease has started in an individual’s 50s but we only start looking at risk in their 60s, then how do you start separating cause and effect?”

Dr. Simon Ridley, head of research at Alzheimer´s Research UK, said he wanted to see similar studies carried out in a wider population sample.

“Previous research suggests that our health in mid-life affects our risk of dementia as we age, and these findings give us all an extra reason to stick to our New Year´s resolutions,” he told BBC News. “Although we don´t yet have a sure-fire way to prevent dementia, we do know that simple lifestyle changes – such as eating a healthy diet, not smoking, and keeping blood pressure and cholesterol in check – can all reduce the risk of dementia.”

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On the Net:

• British Medical Journal
• University College London
• Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Parents of picky eaters can encourage their children to eat more nutritionally diverse diets by introducing more color to their meals, according to a new Cornell University study. The study finds that colorful food fare is more appealing to children than adults. Specifically, food plates with seven different items and six different colors are particularly appealing to children, while adults tend to prefer fewer colors only three items and three colors.

“What kids find visually appealing is very different than what appeals to their parents,” said Brian Wansink, professor of Marketing in Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management. “Our study shows how to make the changes so the broccoli and fish look tastier than they otherwise would to little Casey or little Audrey.”

The study is published in the January issue of Acta Paediatrica (101:1).

Wansink and co-authors Kevin Kniffin and Mitsuru Shimizu, Cornell postdoctoral research associates; and Francesca Zampollo of London Metropolitan University, presented 23 preteen children and 46 adults with full-size photos of 48 different combinations of food on plates that varied by number of items, placement of entrée and organization of the food.

“Compared with adults, children not only prefer plates with more elements and colors, but also their entrees placed in the front of the plate and with figurative designs,” Kniffin said. “While much of the research concerning food preferences among children and adults focuses on ‘taste, smell and chemical’ aspects, we will build on findings that demonstrate that people appear to be significantly influenced by the shape, size and visual appearance of food that is presented to them.

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On the Net:

• Cornell University
• Acta Paediatrica
• More information about adding color and variety to children’s plates

Two teams of Michigan State University researchers — one working at a medieval burial site in Albania, the other at a DNA lab in East Lansing — have shown how modern science can unlock the mysteries of the past.

The scientists are the first to confirm the existence of brucellosis, an infectious disease still prevalent today, in ancient skeletal remains.

The findings, which appear in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, suggest brucellosis has been endemic to Albania since at least the Middle Ages.

Although rare in the United States, brucellosis remains a major problem in the Mediterranean region and other parts of the world. Characterized by chronic respiratory illness and fever, brucellosis is acquired by eating infected meat or unpasteurized dairy products or by coming into contact with animals carrying the brucella bacteria.

Todd Fenton, associate professor of anthropology, said advanced DNA testing at MSU allowed the researchers to confirm the existence of the disease in skeletons that were about 1,000 years old.

“For years, we had to hypothesize the cause of pathological conditions like this,” Fenton said. “The era of DNA testing and the contributions that DNA can make to my work are really exciting.”

Here´s how the discovery came about.

Fenton and a group of MSU graduate students were serving as the bioarcheologists, or bone specialists, for a multinational team of archaeologists excavating sites in the ancient Albanian city of Butrint. Once a large Roman colony, Butrint in its final centuries served as an outpost of the Byzantine Empire until it was abandoned in the Middle Ages due to flooding.

Fenton and his team developed biological profiles of the human remains, which included determining sex, age and skeletal pathologies, or health histories. Vertebrae from two of the Byzantine-era skeletons — both adolescent males from the 10th century to the 13th century — had significant lesions, leading the researchers to theorize the boys had suffered from tuberculosis.

Samples of the ancient bone were sent to the forensic DNA lab in East Lansing, which is headed by David Foran, director of MSU´s Forensic Science Program. Foran and his team of graduate students took tiny portions of the bone, extracted DNA and tested it for any residual DNA that might still exist from the expected pathogen.

But the results came back negative for tuberculosis.

Fenton´s team re-examined the bones that tested negative for tuberculosis and concluded the disease might instead be brucellosis. The infection from brucellosis and tuberculosis causes similar damage — basically eating away the bone — although no one had ever confirmed brucellosis in human bone recovered from an archaeological site.

Foran´s team then developed a different set of tests for detecting the brucella bacteria and undertook a new round of testing on the diseased vertebrae.

This time the results came back positive for brucellosis.

Foran said the collaboration on the project highlights the benefits of modern science and interdisciplinary research, even when the respective research teams are some 5,000 miles apart.

“In this case it was a combination of inquisitiveness, persistence and of course collaboration,” Foran said. “It is amazing to find something brand new in something that is a thousand years old.”

Co-investigators on the project included Michael Mutolo, former master´s student in forensic science; Lindsey Jenny, who recently completed her doctorate degree in anthropology; and Amanda Buszek, current master´s student in forensic science.

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Image 1: This vertebra, about 1,000 years old, was ravaged by brucellosis. Photo by G.L. Kohuth

Image 2: Brucellosis has effectively eaten away much of this spinal column. Courtesy photo

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On the Net:

• Michigan State University
• American Journal of Physical Anthropology

[ Watch the Video ]

From a health care perspective, the best cigarette is no cigarette, but for the millions of people who try to quit smoking every year, researchers from Cornell University may have found a way to make cigarette smoking less toxic.

Using natural antioxidant extracts in cigarette filters, the researchers were able to demonstrate that lycopene and grape seed extract drastically reduced the amount of cancer-causing free radicals passing through the filter. The research will be the 1500th article published in the ground-breaking Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), the only peer-reviewed, PubMed indexed video-journal.

“The implications of this technique can help reduce the hazardous effects of tobacco smoke,” said Dr. Boris Dzilkovski, who co-authored the paper, “because free radicals are a major group of carcinogens.”

Scientists have tried to make safer cigarettes in the past. Haemoglobin (which transports oxygen in red blood cells) and activated carbon have been shown to reduce free-radicals in cancer smoke by up to 90 percent, but because of the cost, the combination has not been successfully introduced to the market.

JoVE Content Director, Dr. Aaron Kolski-Andreaco, is very excited to be publishing this article as the journal´s landmark 1500th article.

“Practically, this research could lead to an alternative type of cigarette filter with a free radical scavenging additive,” said Kolski-Andreaco. “It could lead to a less harmful cigarette.”

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On the Net:

• Cornell University
• Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE)

A new study conducted by UCLA researchers suggests that yoga could help breast-cancer survivors overcome post-treatment fatigue that can affect as many as one-third of them.

The research, which was published December 16 in the journal Cancer, discovered that after three months worth of twice-weekly yoga classes, “a group of breast cancer survivors in California reported significantly diminished fatigue and increased ‘vigor,” Andrew M. Seaman of Reuters Health said on Friday.

“A control group of women who took classes in post-cancer health issues, but didn’t do yoga, had no changes in their fatigue or depression levels,” he added.
Thirty-one breast-cancer survivors took part in the UCLA study, which lasted 12 weeks at the university’s medical center. According to Seaman, each participant was randomly assigned to take part in either a pair of 90-minute yoga sessions or a single two-hour health class each week.

“At the start of the study, each group of women had similar scores on a questionnaire that gauges fatigue levels,” the AP reporter said. “The group taking the educational classes experienced about the same amount of fatigue and energy throughout the initial study period.”

“However, the group taking the yoga class reported about a 26 percent drop in fatigue and a 55 percent increase in energy after the 12-week yoga regimen,” he added. “The women in the yoga group also continued to report significant improvements in fatigue levels three months after the classes stopped.”

In the abstract of their study, authors Julienne E. Bower, Deborah Garet, Beth Sternlieb, Patricia A. Ganz, Michael R. Irwin, Richard Olmstead, and Gail Greendale said that the severity of the yoga group’s fatigue levels “declined significantly from baseline to post-treatment and over a 3-month follow-up in the yoga group relative to controls.”

“In addition, the yoga group had significant increases in vigor relative to controls,” they added, noting that “both groups had positive changes in depressive symptoms and perceived stress and that “no significant changes in sleep or physical performance were observed.”

While Seaman points out that the findings do not prove that yoga was the reason that the fatigue levels in the study group improved, the researchers said that the expectations of the potential benefits of their respective treatments were similar and that as a result, the placebo effect is not believed to be a possible explanation for the benefits witnessed in the yoga group.

A December 30 UPI article discusses a similar study, published in the Western Journal of Nursing Research, which discovered that a form of meditation that also incorporates yoga can help breast-cancer survivors “improve their emotional and physical well-being.”

The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of Missouri, concluded that “breast cancer survivors who learned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction lowered their blood pressure, heart rate and respiratory rate, and their mood improved,” the news organization said.

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On the Net:

• Cancer
• UCLA
• Western Journal of Nursing Research
• University of Missouri

Tiny areas of dead tissue located within the brain might be the cause of some instances of memory loss in older adults, a new study scheduled for publication this week has suggested.
According to Alan Mozes of USA Today HealthDay, the study — which was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and will be published in the January 3 edition of the journal Neurology — looked at 658 men and women at least 65 years of age.
None of the study participants had a history of dementia, and all of them underwent MRI brain scans and various memory, linguistic skill, visual perception and related tests, Mozes said. The researchers discovered that 174 subjects had experienced silent strokes, and that those individuals did not perform as well on the memory exams as the other study participants.
“Given that conditions like Alzheimer’s disease are defined mainly by memory problems, our results may lead to further insight into what causes symptoms and the development of new interventions for prevention,” study co-author Adam M. Brickman, an assistant neurology professor with the Columbia University Medical Center, said in a statement, according to Jeannine Stein of the Los Angeles Times.
Lara Salahi of ABC News notes that Brickman and his colleagues also analyzed the hippocampus sizes of their subjects, who had an average age of 79 years old. Prior research had linked a smaller hippocampus with cognitive decline, she said, but this was said not to be a factor in the comparatively poor performance of those subjects confirmed to have suffered silent strokes.
“We showed that above and beyond size, stroke also contributed to the memory loss and could be a potential indicator for Alzheimer’s development,” Brickman told Salahi, noting that it might be beneficial to monitor older adults at risk for the condition in order to potentially “prevent stroke, which may be a viable way of preventing cognitive changes of aging.”
“While the study suggests some connection between silent strokes and memory decline, it’s unclear whether silent strokes are a potential marker for later development of Alzheimer’s disease,” ABC News also reported. “Researchers are now following participants over a longer period of time to see whether some will develop Alzheimer’s.”
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On the Net:

• Neurology
• National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Columbia University Medical Center

On Friday, the World Health Organization warned scientists who have been involved in engineering a highly pathogenic form of the deadly bird flu virus.

The WHO said it was “deeply concerned about the potential negative consequences” of work by two leading flu research teams who said they found ways to make the H5N1 strain into an easily transmissible form.

The work was stiffened by U.S. security advisers who wanted the details of how to make the deadly virus unpublished.

The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity asked the two scientific journals to publish the results without giving away the formula.  Both the journals and the scientists were reluctant to do so.

The WHO said in its first comment on the controversy: “While it is clear that conducting research to gain such knowledge must continue, it is also clear that certain research, and especially that which can generate more dangerous forms of the virus….has risks.”

The bird flu strain H5N1 is extremely deadly and has the potential to cause a pandemic.  The virus was first detected in 1997, and about 600 people have contracted it since then.  About 60 percent of those who contract the virus die from it.

Flu researchers were trying to determine which mutations would give H5N1 the ability to spread easily from one person to another, while at the same time maintaining its deadly properties.

The U.S. National Institutes of Health funded two research teams to carry out research into how the virus could become more transmissible in humans.

The WHO said this research should be done “only after all important public health risks and benefits have been identified” and “it is certain that the necessary protections to minimize the potential for negative consequences are in place.”

The WHO said it was vital that new rules on sharing the viruses and the scientific how-to-manual on producing the H5N1 were enforced.

A new Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Framework was agreed and adopted by all WHO member states in May 2011 to set rules for sharing flu viruses that have pandemic potential.

“WHO considers it critically important that scientists who undertake research with influenza viruses with pandemic potential samples fully abide by the new requirements,” the U.N. agency said in its statement.

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On the Net:

• World Health Organization
• National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity
• National Institutes of Health

Xinhua news agency reported on Friday that Chinese food safety regulators in the southern city of Shenzhen found carcinogenic mildew in peanuts and cooking oil.
Aflatoxin, the cancer-causing substance, triggered public concern this week after milk giant Mengiu Dairy Co said its Sichuan plant had destroyed products found by a government quality watchdog to contain it.
Aflatoxin occurs naturally in the environment and is produced by certain common types of fungi.
Xinhua said the Shenzhen market supervision bureau had said it found up to 4.3 times the permitted level of aflatoxin in peanuts sold in two supermarkets and one frozen food store.
The carcinogenic mildew can infect crops before harvest and during harvesting and storage.  The crop then enters the food chain either directly, or indirectly through animal feed.
Food safety officials recalled cooking oil produced by three companies on Thursday in the southern Guangdong province because they may contain excessive levels of aflatoxin.
At least six children died and 300,00 became ill in China from drinking powdered milk laced with melamine in 2008.
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On the Net:
Mengiu Dairy Company
http://www.mengniuir.com/html/index.php

A new study shows that eating a diet high in certain vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids improves brain function.

Older people who ate this diet were found to have less brain shrinkage, which is linked to Alzheimer´s disease. The participants also had higher scores on mental acuity tests than participants who ate a diet high in trans fats, which are found in packaged baked goods and fast foods like crackers and potato chips.

Recent studies have shown that a heart healthy diet is good for brain function, but this study was different in that the researchers used blood tests to determine the nutrient levels in the participant´s blood.

Study author Gene L. Bowman, ND, MPH, assistant professor of neurology at the Layton Aging and Alzheimer´s Disease Center, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland said, “The combination of the B vitamins, the antioxidants C and E, plus vitamin D was the most favorable combination of nutrients in the blood for healthy brain aging in our population.”

CBSNews.com notes that B vitamins are found in a variety of foods like dairy, whole grain cereals, enriched bread and peanut butter. Vitamin C is found in fruits and vegetables, E is in nuts and oils and Vitamin D is found in the flesh of fatty fish like salmon and also in milk.

The study consisted of 104 people with an average age of 87 with no risk factors for memory or mental acuity. The blood tests checked 30 different biomarkers in the blood. Forty-two participants had MRI scans to measure brain volume.

Several different demographic and lifestyle habits were examined including age, gender, education, smoking, drinking, blood pressure, and body mass index. The researchers found that much of the variation in mental performance depended on age or education, but nutrient status accounted for 17 percent of thinking and memory scores and 37 percent of the variation in brain size.

The research is published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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On the Net:

• Layton Aging and Alzheimer´s Disease Center
• Neurology

Having a pet cat as a child may protect against future allergies, but a new study has found that getting a pet cat as an adult nearly doubles the risk of developing an immune reaction to it.

The study, published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, found that people who already had other allergies were at a higher risk of having an allergic reaction to a new feline in the house.

“Our data support that acquiring a cat in adulthood nearly doubles the risk of developing cat sensitization,” Mario Olivieri, from the University Hospital of Verona in Italy, told Rick Dewsbury of The Daily Mail Online. “Hence, cat avoidance should be considered in adults, especially in those sensitized to other allergens and reporting a history of allergic diseases.”

More than 6,000 adult Europeans took part in the study, with researchers surveying them twice over a nine year period and taking blood samples. None of the participants had antibodies to cats in their blood at the beginning of the study, meaning they were not sensitized to the pet´s dander.

About three percent of the study group who did not have a cat at either time of the survey became sensitized over the course of the study, compared to five percent of those who acquired a cat during the nine year period.

Four in ten of the newly sensitized people also said they had experienced allergy symptoms around animals, four times the rate seen in people without antibodies against cats. It also turned out that only people who let their cat into the bedroom became sensitized.

“If you are an adult with asthma and/or allergies, you should think twice about getting a cat and particularly, if you do so, letting it into your bedroom,” Dr. Andy Nish of the Allergy and Asthma Care Center in Gainesville, Georgia, who wasn´t involved in the study, told Frederik Joelving of Reuters.

The team also found that people who had a pet cat in their child years had a much smaller risk of becoming sensitized to it than those who were new cat owners as adults.

“We thought that having a cat in early childhood may be protective against the development of cat allergy in childhood, but this study seems to indicate that that protection extends into adulthood,” Nish told Reuters Health.

For those who have a cat and have become allergic, Nish recommends finding a new home for the pet.

“Second best is to keep the cat outdoors always,” Nish added. “If it comes in even occasionally, its dander will remain in the house for months. If the cat needs to be indoors, at least keep it out of your bedroom, consider a HEPA filter for your bedroom and consider washing the cat at least once a week.”

And for those who cannot or will not avoid pet contact, Nish said there are medical treatment options available, including allergy shots and immunotherapy, to help sensitized persons cope with the allergies.

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On the Net:

• The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology

It has been discovered that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has known about problems with French breast implant manufacturer Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) at La Seyne Sur Mer, since sending an investigator in May, 2000.
The FDA then sent a letter to the company´s founder Jean-Claude Mas stating that the company had “adulterated” the implants and citing at least 11 other deviations from good manufacturing practices.
The problems in 2000 dealt with the company´s line of saline implants, not the silicone implants that brought the company under the scrutiny of French authorities. But the same plant manufactured both types of implants.
Critics question why the letter did not bring about greater scrutiny by French and European regulators of PIP´s manufacturing processes.
A spokesman for AFSSAPS, France´s drug and medical device regulatory, told Reuters that they had no evidence that the FDA had warned them of their letter sent to PIP.
The spokeswoman said, “The FDA wouldn´t be obliged to send it to us if there wasn´t a health risk. Therefore there doesn´t seem to be a reason why we would have been informed.”
According to the FDA, they routinely share confidential information with foreign regulators with whom they share confidentiality agreements, but they were unable to comment on whether this information was shared with French authorities in 2000.
According to Reuters, no one has been charged with any crime in this case. But four to six ex-PIP employees may soon be charged with fraud. French authorities are also investigating whether there was involuntary homicide committed by the company because of a woman who died of cancer last year after she received PIP implants. The French government, though, has not presented any evidence of increased cancer risk with this product.
The FDA´s letter was cited in a lawsuit that was filed in the US District Court for the southern District of Texas on behalf of US patients who received saline implants in the late 1990´s up to 2001, who said the implants deflated several years after implantation.
According to the FDA´s letter, dated June 22, 2000, PIP failed to investigate the deflation issues of its saline implants, they failed to report 120 French complaints about the implants to the FDA. The FDA also complained about the company´s lack of a process to ensure the implants were manufactured to its design specifications.
PIP sold its saline implants in the US beginning in 1996 under a 510(k) accelerated review process, where the company did not have to show clinical trial data about the safety and efficacy of their medical product, because they claimed it was equivalent to devices already on the market.
In 2000 all implant manufacturers had to submit to a formal application process to continue selling their products. PIP was one of three companies to submit an application, but after the review process they were denied by the FDA panel to continue selling their implants in the US, even though they had sold over 35,000 implants over the years.
The panelists were not reassured by PIP´s data and the clinical trials did not include enough patients being followed for an extended period of time to fully evaluate the devices risks.
Boyd Burkhardt, an Arizona plastic surgeon and one of the panelist members, said of the application, “Like it or not, we have a regulatory threshold which is probably higher or at least different than it is elsewhere in the world, and I think in order to get your product approved, you´re just going to have to bite your tongue and meet that threshold.”
The FDA then mysteriously inspected the PIP plant and they stopped selling the implants immediately in the US, according to SEC filings.
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On the Net:

• US Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
• AFSSAPS

A new study has found that toddlers with a poor quality relationship with their mothers are more likely to be obese in their teenage years.
More than a quarter of those participants in the study who had the lowest-quality emotional relationships with their mothers were obese as teens while only 13 percent of adolescents were obese who had closer relationships with their mothers.
This lead the researchers to think that obesity prevention programs need to focus on more than just diet and exercise as a remedy to the growing problem of obesity among children. Parents and children should work to improve the mother-child bond.
According to Sarah Anderson, assistant professor of epidemiology at Ohio State University and lead author of the study, “It is possible that childhood obesity could be influenced by interventions that try to improve the emotional bonds between mothers and children rather than focusing only on children´s food intake and activity.”
The data from the study came from 977 participants in the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a project of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The participants lived in nine US states and the children were born in 1991.
During the study, observers watched and documented child attachment security and maternal security sensitivity of mothers and children at three ages, 15-, 24-, and 36-months old.
The maternal sensitivity was rated based on many aspects of the mother´s behavior, including supportiveness and respect for autonomy, signs of intrusiveness or hostility.
The child attachment security, for the 15- and 36-month old was rated by examining a child´s separation from and reunion with the mother. While at 24 months the researchers observed the children´s attachment security by monitoring mothers and children in their home.
By observing the maternal-child relationships, the researchers came up with a maternal-child relationship quality score for their statistical analysis. The system gave a number to the relationship from zero to six, with each point reflecting the child´s display of insecure attachment. A score of three or greater indicated a poor-quality emotional relationship.
According to the scores in the study 24.7 percent (241 children) had a poor-quality maternal-child relationship with a score of three or higher. Out of this group the prevalence of obesity in adolescence was 26.1 percent. The rate of obesity was lower for children with lower scores, or better maternal-child relationships, 15.5 percent, 12.1 percent and 13 percent for those who had scores of two, one and zero respectively.
Anderson and her colleagues believe the link to adolescent obesity lies in the limbic system in the brain, which controls the response to stress, the sleep/wake cycle, hunger and thirst and other metabolic processes, mostly through the regulation of hormones.
According to Anderson, “Sensitive parenting increases the likelihood that a child will have a secure pattern of attachment and develop a healthy response to stress. A well-regulated stress response could in turn influence how well children sleep and whether they eat in response to emotional distress – just two factors that affect the likelihood for obesity.”
The study is published online in the January 2012 issue of the journal Pediatrics.
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On the Net:

• Ohio State University
• Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
• Pediatrics

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that it has received twelve reports of humans infected with the A(H3N2) – or swine flu virus – from West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maine, Iowa, and Indiana.
Eleven of the victims were children, and half of all the cases could not be connected to exposure to swine, the CDC adds. All patients have made a full recovery after three had been admitted to hospital, Medical News Today reports.
The investigation into the West Virginia case suggests the child was infected by another person, not an animal. Some amount of human-to-human spread of the virus took place in the unnamed community where the child lives, according to details released by the CDC.
The H3N2 case is the 12th in five states reported in the US since this new virus was first spotted in July of this year.
The CDC acknowledges there are probably more cases that haven´t been picked up by the country´s flu surveillance systems. “We don´t think these are all the cases,” said Dr. Joe Bresee, head of the influenza epidemiology team in the CDC´s Influenza division.
No other known country has reported seeing these virus infections in humans which has also been isolated from pigs in the US, The Canadian Press reports.
An adult male was reported in late October of this year by the Indiana Dept. of Health as likely having the A(H2N2) virus infection contacted through his workplace.
The patient explained that he had been in direct contact with pigs during the week before his symptoms appeared. He reported not having worn any PPE (personal protective equipment) because the swine appeared healthy. No other family or coworkers reported any similar illness.
The patient exhibited symptoms including body aches, vomiting, nausea, shortness of breath, cough, and fever – which started appearing on October 20th. He was admitted to hospital and stayed there for four days. He was not treated with antiviral drugs and fully recovered
A 4-year-old child developed flu-like symptoms, including an elevated body temperature in November. This was preceded by a week of congestion and coughing. Initial tests did not detect influenza or respiratory syncytial virus, however, an alternative rRT-PCR test carried out at the hospital identified influenza A.
The child had neither been exposed to pigs nor travelled recently. A few days afterwards, the patient was discharged from the hospital and made a full recovery.
Six of the 12 had exposure to pigs but in the other six, no contact with swine could be found. The CDC has said it believes some of these cases are the result of human-to-human spread, but suggests spread among people is probably still limited at this point.
“It´s not clear yet that these viruses have acquired the ability to circulate in humans in a sustained way. We certainly haven´t seen that in the outbreaks that we´ve investigated,” Bresee said.
Public health experts don´t believe these latest infections should be cause for alarm given the amount of immunity the human population has to human H3N2 viruses. However it might be able to seed itself in humans enough to continue to spread, potentially creating a situation where there might be three families of circulating influenza A viruses: the H1N1s, the human H3N2s and these variant H3N2s.
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On the Net:

• CDC

With global obesity levels rising, an increasing number of people find themselves suffering from acid reflux, which in turn could lead to a higher rate of those contracting esophageal cancer, according to a new study published last week in the journal Gut.
According to Steven Reinberg of USA Today, researchers from Norway have observed a nearly 50% increase in acid reflux — also known as gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD — over the past decade.
By studying the health information of nearly 30,000 people who participated in a Norwegian health study from 1995 through 2009, they discovered a 30% increase in the number of people suffering from acid-reflux, a 47% spike in those who experienced GERD symptoms at least once a week, and a 24% rise in the number of those suffering from severe symptoms.
Jenny Hope of the Daily Mail adds that the latest research shows that the overall prevalence of those suffering from GERD, which occurs when stomach acid leaks into the esophagus and results in heartburn, jumped from 11.6% in 1995 through 1997 to 17.1% in 2006 through 2009.
The Norwegian researchers, including Dr. Eivind Ness-Jensen of the HUNT Research Center’s Department of Public Health and General Practice at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), have called obesity “the main attributable factor” and said that the phenomenon is not limited to Norway, but is occurring in the U.S. and other Western nations as well.
“The problem is that these symptoms are associated with adenocarcinoma of the lower esophagus,” Ness-Jensen told Reinberg on Friday. “What we are afraid of is increasing incidence of this cancer, which is increasing already. It might get worse in the future.”
He told USA Today that there aren’t many treatments currently available for this form of esophageal cancer, and that the prognosis is said to be poor for few who contract the disease.
Thus, a potential spike in adenocarcinoma cases is a cause for concern, and Ness-Jensen told Reinberg that he and his colleagues now plan to see if losing weight would reduce the risk of developing GERD, and ultimately, preventing the development of this deadly cancer.
The study also found that “women are more at risk than men of developing the condition” and that “middle-aged people suffer the most severe symptoms,” Hunt added. Furthermore, Professor Hugh Barr of the British Society of Gastroenterology’s (BGS) esophageal division told the Daily Mail that occasional GERD symptoms affect up to one out of every five people.
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On the Net:

• Gut
• Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
• British Society of Gastroenterology (BGS)

The U.S. obesity epidemic has forced the Coast Guard to increase the estimated average weight of adult passengers, meaning that fewer passengers will be allowed onboard ferries and similar crafts at any given time, various media outlets reported last week.
According to the Associated Press (AP), the new Coast Guard stability regulations that went into effect on December 1 increased the estimated weight of adult passengers from 160 pounds to 185 pounds.
Those figures are based on population data originating from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), who claim on their website that there has been a dramatic increase in obesity among Americans over the past two decades, and that nearly one-third of them fit the criteria.
The Washington state ferry system is one of those who will be most affected by the new rules, according the AP. On Wednesday, Coast Guard Lt. Eric Young told the wire service that the ferry service has been forced to reduce the amount of passengers permitted to board their vessels at one time “by about 250 passengers or so the particular ferry“¦ They generally carry about 2,000, so it’s down to 1,750 now.”
“It’s about safety,” Coast Guard Lt. Kirk Beckman added in an interview with Theron Zahn of KOMO-TV on Tuesday. “We don’t want to have vessels that are overloaded and cause a vessel to capsize or anything.”
The Washington state ferry service is the largest in the U.S., operating 23 vessels on 10 routes and carrying over 22 million people across Puget Sound and through the San Juan Islands to British Columbia, spokeswoman Marta Coursey told the AP. The potential loss in passengers has led to some speculation that ferry rates could increase to make up for lost revenue.
However, ferry systems such as the one in Washington won’t be the only maritime vessels effected by the new regulations, according to the AP.
“The new stability rules may have a bigger impact on the smaller charter fishing boats, such as those that take anglers fishing out of the Pacific Ocean ports of Westport and Ilwaco,” the AP reported, citing Young as the source of the information. “Any vessel that carries more than six paying customers has to be inspected and certified by the Coast Guard as a passenger vessel.”
However, Zahn says, since boats typically do not reach full capacity, Coast Guard officials believe that the new ratings will not have a major impact on passengers. However, Beckman told KOTO-TV that it was a “safety” issue, adding, “We don’t want to have vessels that are overloaded and cause a vessel to capsize or anything.”
According to the CDC website, in 2010, no U.S. state had an obesity prevalence rate under 20%, and 36 of them topped 25%. Furthermore, they report that a dozen states — Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia — had a prevalence rate of at least of 30%.
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On the Net:

• U.S. Coast Guard
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

According to a new study, toddlers do not respond to their own voice the same way that adults have been found to do.

The study, published in the journal Current Biology, suggests that young children must have some other strategy to control their speech production.

Ewen MacDonald of the Technical University of Denmark said in an example that as violinists play music, they will listen to the notes to ensure they are in tune.  He said if their instrument is not in tune, the musician will adjust the position of their fingers to bring the notes back in tune.

“When we speak, we do something very similar. We subconsciously listen to vowel and consonant sounds in our speech to ensure we are producing them correctly,” McDonald said in a press release. “If the acoustics of our speech are slightly different from what we intended, then, like the violinists, we will adjust the way we speak to correct for these slight errors.”

The authors had adults, four-year-olds, and two-year-olds say the word “bed” repeatedly while hearing a recording of themselves saying “bad” to trick their brain into thinking they were making the wrong sound.

The adults and four-year-olds began trying to compensate by changing the vowel, saying something more like the word “bid”.  However, the two-year-olds continued pronouncing “bed” correctly.

In our study, we found that four-year-olds monitor their own speech in the same way as adults. Surprisingly, two-year-olds do not,” McDonald said in the press release.

He said the results suggest a need to reconsider assumptions about how children make use of auditory feedback.

Two-year-olds may depend on their parents or other people to monitor their speech instead of relying on their own voice.  MacDonald said that caregivers often do repeat or reflect back to young children what they have heard them say.

The team will now be exploring potential applications for understanding or addressing delayed and abnormal early speech development.

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On the Net:

• Current Biology
• Technical University of Denmark

Containers of Enfamil Premium Newborn formula are being pulled from Walmart shelves after an infant in Missouri became sick and died after developing a rare infection from the bacteria Cronobacter sakazakii that has previously been found in powdered infant formula, reports Kim Carollo for ABC News.

Only ten days-old, Avery Cornett of Lebanon, Mo., died Sunday of an infection from the bacteria after being fed Enfamil Newborn formula, Elizabeth Weise reports for USA Today. The bacteria was found in 12.5 ounce cans of the formula with lot number ZP1K7G. Customers who purchased the formula should discard it or return it to the store.

A Walmart spokesperson told ABC News Radio, “This is not a formal government recall. We just did this out of an abundance of caution, and we´re currently holding the product until the investigation is complete. The product could possibly be returned to shelves at a later date.”

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said in a statement samples of the formula were sent to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for testing.

Regulators are testing not just the powdered formula, but also the water used to prepare the products and the clothes the children wore, explained Siobhan DeLancey, an FDA spokeswoman. “We are trying to figure out whether it came from the food. We take these into local labs and test them. We expect first results back next week,” Stephanie Armour and Michelle Fay Cortez reported for Bloomberg.

The FDA has responded saying they, “don´t have anything that indicates this is linked to Enfamil.” However, the agency is testing samples from the open packet of formula fed to the infant, an unopened packet of the formula and the water used to mix the formula. They expect results by the middle of next week.

Reiterating some basic cleaning techniques, especially for newborns, Lorry Rubin, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at Cohen Children´s Medical Center of New York explained the importance of sterilizing glassware and bottles. The water should be boiled and cooled before it is added to powered formula, he said. Any extra prepared formula should be immediately refrigerated and used within 24 hours.

Bacteria from the Cronobacter family are known to have contaminated infant formula, he said in a telephone interview. The strains are similar to the bacteria humans carry in their gut and typically don´t cause significant concern, he said.

“The powder formula isn´t necessarily a sterile product, but taking precautions, even if there is a small amount of bacteria in there, it shouldn´t be enough to harm the baby,” Rubin said. “If you re-warm it or make improperly, the bacteria can multiply and you have a higher risk of getting ill.”

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On the Net:

• Walmart
• Enfamil Premium Newborn
• Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services
• CDC
• FDA

According to a recent medical study, one indicator for the eventual onset of Alzheimer´s in elderly people may be a thinner cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain. As yet, however, researchers say this discovery can only be used to detect, not prevent, the development of the degenerative disease.

The study´s co-author, Dr. Brad Dickerson of Harvard Medical School, is nonetheless hopeful that the discovery will eventually be put to constructive use. He says that the find could play a key role in helping researchers track the progression of Alzheimer´s and thus test the efficacy of different medications.

The results of their study were published in Wednesday´s online issue of the medical journal Neurology.

Dickerson´s researchers examined the thickness of their patients´ cerebral cortexes, the outer sheet of neural tissue that encompasses the cerebrum of all mammalian brains. The cortex is critical for a number diverse brain functions, such as  memory, attention, perceptual awareness, thought, language, and consciousness.

According to Dickerson, scientists were looking for those areas of the brain that are “particularly vulnerable” to Alzheimer´s. “We´re looking at [“¦] parts that are important for memory, problem-solving skills and higher-language functions,” he explained to Randy Dotinga of USA Today’s HealthDay.

Previous studies have found that different segments of the cerebral cortex were smaller in people suffering from Alzheimer´s-induced dementia.

“It´s like an orange that´s shriveling,” says Dickerson. “The thickness of the outer skin might get thinner as it dries out.”

His research team examined the MRI brain scans of 159 men and women with an average age of 76. After a three-year interval, subjects were asked to return to undergo various exercises testing their brain function.

Researchers found that the 15 percent of participants with the thinnest cortexes scored the worst on the tests. Of these, some 20 percent exhibited clear signs of cognitive decline. For patients in the middle range of cortex thickness, about 7 percent experienced degenerating cognitive abilities, while those with the thickest exhibited no signs cognitive decline at all.

Dickerson´s team also found that those patients with the thinnest outer layers of brain matter also showed increases in signs of abnormal spinal fluid, one potential sign of Alzheimer´s disease.

The cost of MRI scans has declined in recent years, and some believe that they may eventually become an standard tool for helping to predict Alzheimer´s. And because an increasing number of elderly patients are already getting scans for other reasons, checking for a thinning cortex could someday be tacked on to other diagnostic procedures.

Cathy Roe, an assistant professor of neurology and Alzheimer´s expert at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis believes the recent findings could prove useful in the not-so-distant future when better medications are created for fighting the disease.

“Right now, there is not much we can do to delay the progression of dementia,“ Roe told Dotinga, “But once effective treatments are identified, this research could help to identify which patients should receive that treatment and when they should receive it.”

With no cure for the fatal disease on the immediate horizon, Dickerson agreed that the best way to put these findings to work is to use them to figure out which medications work and which don´t.

According to the Alzheimer´s Association, the degenerative mental disease is the sixth leading cause of death in the US, with the number of Alzheimer´s-related deaths rising annually.

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On the Net:

• Harvard Medical School
• Neurology

Scientists at a secret German laboratory have grown human skin from baby foreskins.
The process takes cells from foreskins donated to the project, known as the Skin Factory at the Fraunhofer Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, and grows swatches of skin for use in testing cosmetics and other consumer products.
Project spokesman Andreas Traube said that its creators claim that one day their process could replace all animal testing.
Scientists extract a single layer of cells from each foreskin and then grow on layers of collagen and connective tissue in the Skin Factory, which is a sealed growing environment.
They keep the skin heated to roughly 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, which is the temperature of the human body.  Robotic hands then meticulously extract cells from foreskins donated to the project.
Traube said the project uses foreskins taken from boys up to just four years old.  “The older the skin is, the worse it performs,” he in a statement.
Scientists take the extracted cells from the foreskin and incubate them inside tubes, where they multiply hundreds of times.
The process can produce 10 million cells from a single foreskin and make skin up to 0.19 inches thick in six weeks.
European authorities are examining the Skin Factory to determine whether or not it can be used commercially.
“It’s logical that we’d want to take the operation to a bigger scale,” Traube said in a statement. “In the future there are all sort of possible applications for the Skin Factory like cancer research, pigmentation diseases, and allergic reactions.”
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On the Net:

• Fraunhofer Institute

According to a new study released by French scientists in the Archives of Dermatology, maggots may be the best tool known to man for healing large, infected wounds quickly. Whether they confer any real long-term benefits, however, is another question.

In Western medicine, doctors have traditionally used a combination of razor-sharp scalpels and enzyme solutions to excise portions of dead or infected wound tissue, a process known as ℠debridement´ in medical jargon.

Yet as medical experts know, this method can be both extremely incredibly time-consuming and dangerously ineffective.

While the ancient world was well aware of the healing potential of the maggots, modern physicians have shied from the practice of using the loathsome critters.

However, the French study has indicated that the species Lucilia sericata has a particularly hi-tech method of disposing of human tissue that may prove more effective in cleaning wounds than those used in current medical practice.

According to researchers, the larvae of the common green bottle fly releases a biological substance into the wound that selectively liquefies dead and infected tissue, allowing the maggot to then ingest it.

The study examined two groups of 50 hospital patients, all of whom suffered from large venous ulcers on their legs. Over a period of two weeks the first group received traditional scalpel-enzyme wound treatment while the second was treated with sterile maggots which were placed in a small bag and laid on top of the wound.

Patients were not allowed to see which treatment they were administered, and researchers report that the subjects were not able to detect any difference in terms of pain or crawling sensations.

The study´s results indicated that the wounds on the patients treated with maggots were cleaned about twenty-percent more thoroughly than those cleaned using traditional methods.

However, the initial benefits of maggot cleaning appeared to disappear after about two weeks, and researchers say they were unable to see any significant difference in wound closure between the two groups of patients.

Professor of nursing Nicky Cullum at the University of Manchester believes that this is reason enough to leave the larval insects out of modern medical practice for now.

“If clinicians and patients are primarily aiming to get wounds healed, maggots seem to offer no benefit and therefore are not a good option,” Cullum, who has previously studied the use of maggots in wound care, told Reuters reporter Frederik Joelving.

“Exactly as our previous study, it shows that maggots clean wounds more quickly than conventional treatment but with no benefit on healing,” she explained in an email to Joelving.

Moreover, she says that real-life patients would know that they were being treated with maggots, a fact that would likely make many squeamish. Earlier studies have even indicated that patients who know they are being treated with maggots have the sensation of a more painful experience than those who have their wounds cleaned with a scalpel.

The medicinal use of maggots in the Unites States was approved in 2004, but the practice still remains a rarity.

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On the Net:

• Archives of Dermatology