Grape Seed Compound Kills Leukemia Cells

By: Sylvia Booth Hubbard

A natural compound extracted from grape seeds makes laboratory leukemia cells commit suicide, according to a new study by the University of Kentucky. When exposed to the extract, 76 percent of the leukemia cells were dead within 24 hours.

The extract forces leukemia cells to commit “apoptosis,” or cell suicide, which is a kind of programmed cell death that cells in the body undergo either in the normal course of growth and development or when something goes wrong with them. Leukemia and other cancers block the cell signaling pathway that allows apoptosis—this is how cancer keeps the defenses of the body at bay. Grape seed extract activates a protein called JNK that regulates the apoptotic pathway and allows damaged cells to commit suicide.

Grape seed extract has already shown beneficial activity in other laboratory cancer cell lines, including breast, skin, lung, and prostate cancers. Before the new study, however, no one had tested the effects of grape seed on hematological cancers, and neither had anyone found the exact mechanism involved.

“What everyone seeks is an agent that has an effect on cancer cells but leaves normal cells alone, and this shows that grape seed extract fits into this category,” said study author Xianglin Shi, Ph.D., who emphasized that research is still in an early stage. Hematological cancers, including leukemia, caused almost 54,000 deaths in 2006, making them the fourth leading cause of cancer death in the United States.

Pollution at Home Often Unrecognized

Many people may be surprised by the number of chemicals they are exposed to through everyday household products, a small study finds, suggesting, researchers say, that consumers need to learn more about sources of indoor pollution.


In interviews with 25 women who'd had their homes and bodies tested for various environmental pollutants, researchers found that most were surprised and perplexed by the number of chemicals to which they'd been exposed.


The women had been part of a larger study conducted by the Silent Spring Institute in which their homes and urine samples were tested for 89 environmental contaminants -- including pesticides and chemicals found in plastics, cleaning products and cosmetics.


An average of 20 chemicals was detected for each study participant.


Much is unknown about the possible health effects of the array of chemicals in everyday household products. But certain chemicals -- like phthalates and bisphenol-A, found in plastics -- have been linked to potential risks, including hormonal effects and higher risks of certain cancers, though the evidence mainly comes from research in lab animals.


Other household chemicals are known to irritate the skin, eyes and airways, and may exacerbate asthma, for example. Many more chemicals found in cleaning products, cosmetics and other household staples remain untested.


Chemicals that accumulate in household dust or urine likely come from a range of sources, so it is not always clear how to reduce people's exposure, according to Dr. Rebecca Gasior Altman, the lead researcher on the new study.


However, there are still measures that people can take, Altman, a lecturer in community health at Tufts University in Boston, told Reuters Health.


In the original study, she noted, women were given advice based on their particular chemical exposures -- such as reducing pesticide use or using fragrance-free detergent and personal-care products.


The term "fragrance" on household-product labels can signal the presence of potentially harmful chemicals. One of the uses of phthalates, for example, is to stabilize fragrances.


For the current study, published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Altman and her colleagues interviewed two dozen women who'd taken part in the Silent Spring study to see how people tend to react to information on their household chemical exposure.


They found that the women were generally surprised at the range of chemicals detectable in their homes and bodies. They were also surprised that even some banned substances, such as the pesticide DDT, were detected (as these chemicals persist in the environment).


With many unanswered questions about the health effects of household chemicals, some experts worry that giving people information about their everyday exposures will provoke unnecessary fear, Altman's team notes.


However, the researchers found that women in their study were typically not alarmed, and instead wanted "more rather than less" information on the issue.


SOURCE: Journal of Health and Social Behavior, December 2008.

Food Additive Jump-Starts Lung Cancer

By: Sylvia Booth Hubbard

Alarming new research shows that inorganic phosphates, which are commonly added to many processed foods, may accelerate the growth of lung cancer tumors and even trigger the development of tumors in people predisposed to lung cancer. Phosphates are routinely added to food products such as cheeses, meats, bakery products, and beverages in order to improve texture and increase water retention.


The research, which was conducted at Seoul National University and appears in the January issue of the American Thoracic Society’s magazine American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, was carried out with mice. Study leader Myung-Haing Cho, D.V.M., Ph.D., said, “Our study indicates that increased intake of inorganic phosphates strongly stimulates lung cancer development in mice, and suggests that dietary regulation of inorganic phosphates may be critical for lung cancer treatment as well as prevention.”


Cancer of the lung is the most lethal of all cancers, and non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the form it takes more than 75 percent of the time. Previous research has shown that 9 out of 10 cases of NSCLC were linked to the activation of signaling pathways in lung tissue, and the new research shows that inorganic phosphates can stimulate the same pathways. “Lung cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell proliferation in lung tissues,” said Dr. Cho, “and disruption of signaling pathways in those tissues can confer a normal cell with malignant properties.”


Lung cancer-model mice used in the study received a four-week diet of either 0.5 or 1.0 percent phosphate, which is an amount that simulates modern human diets. When the effects of the two levels of dietary phosphates were analyzed, the diet higher in phosphates, according to Dr. Cho, “caused an increase in the size of the tumors and stimulated growth of the tumors.”


Dr. Cho said that while the 0.5 amount of phosphate was defined as close to the equivalent “normal” amount in the average human diet today, the real-world equivalent may be closer to the 1.0 amount or may even exceed it. “In the 1990s, phosphorous-containing food additives contributed an estimated 470 mg per day to the average daily adult diet,” Cho said. “However, phosphates are currently being added much more frequently to a large number of processed foods, including meats, cheeses, beverages, and bakery products. As a result, depending on individual food choices, phosphorous intake could be increased by as much as 1000 mg per day.”


Future studies will seek to determine “safe” levels of inorganic phosphates. Future research will also address possible involvement of phosphates in the development of lung cancer in smokers, since up to this time no one has known why some smokers develop lung cancer while others never do.

Scientists Figure Out How Alcohol Lowers Blood Sugar

Patrick Totty

Swedish scientists have found that alcohol lowers blood sugar by redirecting blood within the pancreas and sending massive amounts of it to the islets.

The finding by the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, is the first to show how alcohol is able to lower blood sugar levels. What happens is that by sending more of the pancreas's internal blood flow to the islets, alcohol spurs insulin production, which in turn lowers glucose levels.

The scientists injected rats with ethanol alcohol and noted that blood flow to the islets increased fourfold. The alcohol did not affect the amount of blood reaching the pancreas, only the distribution of blood within it.

The study also found that alcohol induced the changes in blood flow by affecting nitric oxide, a chemical compound that medical studies suggest is instrumental in glucose transport and the actions of insulin. Alcohol also affected the vagus nerve, which descends from the brain and into the abdomen and, among other things, signals organs there to secrete.

Source: Endocrinology, January 2008

Demand for health care help booming

Michigan's health care industry, the state's largest employer, desperately needs thousands of workers to fill jobs with critical shortages.

That may include you -- autoworkers, social workers, accountants, computer technicians and others laid off in one of the nation's worst recessions.

As jobs evaporate, the health care industry remains a field with job growth, benefits and, usually, stability.

"It's a very strong forecast for health care for a long time to come," said Andy Levin, deputy director of Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth. ....more

Waist Size Predicts Stroke Risk

A large waist circumference, which is known to raise the risk of cardiovascular disease, may also raise the risk of stroke or mini-stroke, researchers from Germany report.

A large waistline seems to be a better indicator of a person's risk for suffering a stroke or mini-stroke, also known as "transient ischemic attack" or TIA, than a person's overall body weight, they report.

Dr. Tobias Back at Saxon Hospital Arnsdorf in Arnsdorf/Dresden and colleagues investigated the extent to which various markers of obesity were associated with the risk of stroke or mini-stroke in 379 adults with a history of stroke or TIA and 758 stroke-free controls of similar age and gender.

While being overweight in general (that is, having a high body mass index or BMI) increased the risk of stroke, this association became nonsignificant after the investigators accounted for "confounding" factors, like being physical inactive, smoking, having high blood pressure or diabetes.

However, being fat around the middle remained strongly associated with an increased risk of stroke or TIA.

For example, individuals with the highest so-called "waist-to-hip ratio" had a greater than 7-fold increased risk of stroke or TIA compared with those with the lowest waist-to-hip ratio.

Waist-to-hip ratio is calculated by dividing the circumference of the waist by the circumference of the hips. More belly fat results in higher ratios.

"If the waist-to-hip ratio values were greater than 0.97 for men and 0.84 for women, then individuals faced almost 8 times increased risk for stroke compared to individuals with a waist-to-hip ratio less than 0.92 in men or less than 0.78 in women," Back stated.

A large waistline also showed a strong association with stroke and TIA. If the waist circumference was greater than 40.2 inches for men or 34.6 inches for women, the risk of stroke increased more than 4-fold compared with individuals with a normal waist size, according to the researchers.

SOURCE: Stroke, December 2008.

Dogs More Effective Than Prozac

By: Sylvia Booth Hubbard

Want to cut down on doctor visits and be more active? Get a dog! University of British Columbia professor and author Stanley Coren says dogs work better at reducing stress than the antidepressant Prozac.

A recent study published in the journal “Psychosomatic Medicine” found that positive effects produced by dogs included several signs of reduced stress, including lowered blood pressure, slowed heart rate and more relaxed muscles. And those relaxing effects were attained much more rapidly than pills. Having a dog close by reduced stress in as little as five minutes, where prescription medications can take weeks before taking effect.

“The data is absolutely unambiguous,” Coren told Canada.com. “This actually works better than having a loved one next to you.”

Amazingly, research shows that dog owners visit their doctors less often and are more physically active than non-dog owners. And seniors who own dogs are four times less likely to be victims of depression.

“It’s quite an amazing statistic,” said Coren, author of several books on how humans interact with dogs including “How to Speak Dog: Mastering the Art of Dog-Human Communication.”

Don’t take health tips from celebs if you know what’s good for you

From Madonna’s quest to “neutralise radiation” to Tom Cruise’s dismissals of psychiatry, celebrities are seldom shy about expressing their views on health and science – even when they appear not to know what they are talking about.

A roll call of public figures such as Cruise and Delia Smith have offered bogus advice or “quackery” this year, according to scientists and doctors. The charity Sense About Science is concerned that celebrities mislead the public when they endorse theories, diets or health products while misrepresenting the science involved.

Some – such as Oprah Winfrey and Kate Moss – espouse “detox” regimes, while others, such as Sharon and Kelly Osbourne, believe (mistakenly) that the Pill can cause cancer.

Nor are politicians exempt from lending credence to health myths. The US President-elect is among several American public figures who continue to suggest that the MMR vaccination is a potential cause of autism, despite an overwhelming weight of scientific evidence to the contrary.

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God's got it right again! Circumcision Reduces HIV Risk in Heterosexual Men

A new U.S. study has found that being circumcised significantly reduced the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual African American men known to have been exposed to the virus. The findings complement those of recently reported clinical trials in Africa, where interventional use of adult male circumcision similarly reduced the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men. The findings of the new study, along with similar results from other studies, suggest that circumcision may protect other heterosexual males in the U.S. The promising new findings are reported in the January 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online.

Lee Warner, PhD, MPH, and colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine studied the records of more than 26,000 African American men who had had HIV testing during visits to two Baltimore, Maryland, STD clinics from 1993 to 2000. The subjects selected for the study said that they did not inject drugs and had sex only with women. Their visits to the clinics were classified as involving known HIV exposure if there had been a recent notification of such exposure by a sex partner or by a clinic’s disease intervention specialists; clinic visits for other reasons were classified as involving unknown HIV exposure. By these criteria, the investigators found 394 visits with known exposure and 40,177 visits with unknown exposure.

In visits by men with known HIV exposure, being circumcised was associated with a 51 percent reduction in HIV prevalence (10.2 percent of circumcised men vs. 22.0 percent of uncircumcised men). In contrast, HIV prevalence did not significantly differ in circumcised compared to uncircumcised men with unknown HIV exposure (2.5 percent vs 3.3 percent).

The investigators noted that three other U.S.-based studies had previously suggested that circumcision may be associated with reduced HIV risk, but the findings were limited by small sample size or extremely low HIV prevalence and did not achieve statistical significance. Indeed, HIV prevalence in the United States is very low (about 0.4 percent), and the proportion of circumcised adult males is high (about 80 percent), which could make it hard for conventional observational studies (i.e., studies that are not clinical trials) to discern whether circumcision actually has a protective effect. By focusing on patients who had documented exposure to an HIV-infected female partner, the current study was able to reveal that there was indeed a protective effect. This approach, the investigators said, “represents a significant methodological advancement over most previous observational studies.”

In a separate editorial on the topic, Ronald H. Gray, MBBS, MSc, of Johns Hopkins University, pointed out that circumcision may be especially important for minority U.S. populations, including Hispanic as well as African American men—subgroups most at risk for HIV infection. He also noted that the American Academy of Pediatrics has thus far not recommended routine neonatal circumcision, and that Medicaid does not cover the procedure. “It is to be hoped,” he said, “that the paper by Warner et al., in conjunction with the weight of evidence from international studies, will persuade the Academy to recognize the public health importance of this surgery for prevention of HIV in minority U.S. populations.”

Fast Facts:

Recently reported clinical trials in Africa have shown that interventional use of adult male circumcision reduced the risk of HIV infection in heterosexual men.

The current U.S. study was able to show that circumcision significantly protected heterosexual African American men. It did so by focusing on subjects who had documented exposure to an HIV-infected female partner.

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Disease and Sanitation rules found in the Bible:

Delicate decision: To circumcise or not?

Circumcision 'does not curb sex'

Health Scan: Surgery still sometimes needed to get rid of kidney stonesSome people know that if a person is diagnosed with kidney stones, he can be tr

Some people know that if a person is diagnosed with kidney stones, he can be treated non-invasively with a soundwave device called a lithotripter, which smashes the stones into tiny fragments. Another technique is to insert an optic fiber into the urinary tract to destroy the stones. But Dr. Mordechai Duvdevani of the andro-urology unit at Hadassah University Medical Center in Jerusalem's Ein Kerem notes that these treatments are not so simple, and that the condition may still require minimally invasive surgery.

Writing in the latest issue of Urology Updates published by Medical Media, Duvdevani says these procedures are sometimes not successful - especially when stones are larger than 20 millimeters in diameter or very dense. In some cases, the fragments don't flush out of the body. Instead, a better technique, called percutaneous nephrolithotomy, is recommended.

The urologist explains that kidney stones result when there are bacteria able to break down uric acid and allow minerals to accumulate in the urinary tract. Antibiotics are not enough to get rid of these stones, as layer after layer of minerals accumulate. Sometimes, kidneys that are congenitally shaped differently than the norm are more prone to stones.

In percutaneous nephrolithotomy, which is performed under general anesthesia in one to four hours, a path is created to the kidney via the hip. Ultrasound, laser or other energy-based devices are introduced to smash the stones in situ and "vacuum" them out. Sometimes a supportive stent in inserted into the urethra that remains for a day or two. The procedure takes so long because the path must be at exactly the right location, angle and size. Sometimes a second path has to be created. The patient is hospitalized for two days to a week. Serious complications, writes Duvdevani, are rare.

Nephrolithotomy can be used by a well-trained team on a wide variety of patients, he concludes, including those with chronic illness and anatomical changes in the urinary tract. As kidney stones can recur, patients should be followed up.