How sugar 'feeds'cancer

Gaining fresh insights into the notion that sugar "feeds" cancer, researchers at Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah may have moved a step closer to realising potential treatments to stop tumour growth.

"It's been known since 1923 that tumour cells use a lot more glucose than normal cells. Our research helps show how this process takes place, and how it might be stopped to control tumour growth," says Dr. Don Ayer, a Huntsman Cancer Institute investigator and professor in the Department of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah.

The researchers point out that during both normal and cancerous cell growth, a cellular process takes place that involves both glucose (sugar) and glutamine (an amino acid).

Glucose and glutamine are both essential for cell growth, they say.

While it was long assumed they operated independently, Ayer's research shows they are inter-dependent.

He has found that glucose utilization is stopped when glutamine availability is restricted.

"Essentially, if you don't have glutamine, the cell is short circuited due to a lack of glucose, which halts the growth of the tumour cell" he says.

Dr. Mohan Kaadige, a postdoctoral fellow in Ayer's lab, focused on a protein called MondoA, responsible for turning genes on and off, during the study.

In the presence of glutamine, MondoA blocks the expression of a gene called TXNIP. TXNIP is thought to be a tumour suppressor, but when it's blocked by MondoA , it allows cells to take up glucose, which in turn drives tumor growth.

Ayer believes that his team's work may lead to new drugs that would target glutamine utilization, or target MondoA or TXNIP.

He says that the next step in his research is to develop animal models to test his ideas about how MondoA and TXNIP control cell growth.

"If we can understand that, we can break the cycle of glucose utilization which could be beneficial in the treatment of cancer," he says.

A research article describing the study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Weight loss pill reduces 25% fat in a week

Scientists in the U.S. have created an anti-obesity pill that could dramatically reduce weight in a week. Tests on mice have shown that the drug could decreasebody weight by a quarter and their fat content by 42% after seven days. After a month, the weight of the mice had been reduced by 28% and their fat mass by 63%. The researchers say further research is needed before the drug is tested on humans. However, they say the results point to a new approach for the treatment of obesity and adult-onset diabetes.

The drug is an artificial hormone made out of glucagon and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) - natural hormones that regulate glucose metabolism. These two hormones are similar in structure but they differ in their chemical structure and biological function. Previous studies have shown they can suppress appetite or cause weight loss by increasing the body's calorie usage.

Dr Richard DiMarchi and colleagues at Indiana University in the US created the synthetic hormone and carried out the trials on mice. "Obesity and its associated consequences, including adult-onset diabetes, remain a primary health and economic threat for modern societies," the Telegraph quoted DiMarchi as saying. At the moment, surgical interventions such as gastric bypass remain the only therapeutic options with the potential for a cure.

Dr DiMarchi said acute glucagon administration reduces food intake in animals and in humans, and some reports indicate that sustained glucagon receptor activation not only decreases food intake but also promotes weight loss.

"Pharmacological treatment of obesity using single agents has limited efficacy or presents risk for serious adverse effects," he said.

"No single agent has proven to be capable of reducing body weight more than 5 to 10% in the obese population. Combination therapies using multiple drugs simultaneously may represent the preferredpharmaceutical approach to treat obesity, and there is ample precedent for combination therapy in treatment of chronic diseases. "Here we present results that prove the principle that single molecules can be designed that are capable of simultaneously activating more than one mechanism to safely normalize body weight.

"The present results trigger an array of new questions and the opportunity for further enhancement of the pharmacology.

"First, there is no reason to assume that the fine-tuned combination of these two particular gut hormones in a single molecule represents the only or optimal pharmacological approach to prevent or treat obesity.

"Second, it seems at least theoretically possible to include circulating factors other than gut hormones in an analogous single-molecule co-agonist," he added.

Dr DiMarchi said that a combination of more than two metabolic control peptides into a single molecule may "provide an even more potent" weapon against obesity.

The findings have been published online in Nature Chemical Biology.

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New drug to treat arthritis patients

A drug in development for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis has been found to be well tolerated and effective in a clinical trial, say researchers.

The trial of the drug called masitinib was carried out by researchers from several French hospitals. It involved 43 patients with arthritis resistant to current treatments. Reporting their findings in BioMed Central's open access journal Arthritis Research and Therapy, the researchers have revealed that treatment with masitinib significantly reduced the severity of active arthritis. "In choosing which interventions to use for the management of rheumatoid arthritis, it is important to recognise that treatment should aim to keep the disease in remission and not be used intermittently to manage exacerbations. We are encouraged from this study that masitinib not only appears to be effective, but that within the first 3 months of treatment the worst of its side-effects were over, possibly making it suitable for long-term treatment regimens," said Olivier Hermine, one of the researchers. "The results of this study also help establish the critical role of mast cells in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis and demonstrate their viability as a therapeutic target. There is sufficient compelling evidence to warrant further placebo-controlled investigation," he added.

The researchers have revealed that masitinib inhibits the activity of mast cells, a component of the immune system thought to be involved in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis. The clinical improvement described in the study was supported by laboratory evidence of reduced inflammation. The authors found that adverse effects of the treatment were mainly mild to moderate. Alain Moussy from AB Science, a pharmaceutical company who are developing masitinib for multiple indications in human and animal medicine, said: "This is a milestone article for us, being the first publication of masitinib in a human study." Moussy added: "Our preclinical studies have shown that masitinib selectively targets cell receptors known to be involved in various disease processes but does not affect those associated with toxicity, particularly cardiotoxicity."

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HIV-positive above 50s high: WHO

The rate of HIV infection is "surprisingly high" among people aged over 50 years, the World Health Organization said \, warning that cases among older people may be growing worldwide. "The scant data that exist suggest a surprisingly high prevalence and incidence of HIV among individuals 50 years of age and over," said the WHO in its March bulletin. According to authors of the study, in the United States, the proportion of people aged over 50 with HIV soared to 25 percent in 2006 from 20 percent in 2003. In Europe, only eight percent of reported cases arise from older people. In Brazil, the number of people over 50 with HIV doubled between 1996 and 2006 -- from 7.5 to 15.7 cases per 100,000 inhabitants. "The frequency of infection with HIV in older people is worrying. We need to understand why and when these people are becoming infected so that public health campaigns can be better targeted to prevent such infections,"

George Schmid, a WHO scientist said. Public perception of the disease may be part of the reason, with AIDS still being viewed as a "disease of young people." As a result, screening is less common among older people, leading to delayed diagnosis, said the WHO. "The number of older people with HIV may be increasing worldwide, but doctors seldom consider screening them for HIV so diagnosis is often delayed," added the WHO. At the same time, older people have lower immunity, which could have led to more rapid deterioration from HIV infection to AIDS, said the study.

The life expectancy of those infected at age 65 or older is just four years, while people who are infected at age five to 14 have life expectancies of over 13 years. The authors noted that sexual activity remains the most likely mode of transmission for older people. Potency drugs such as Viagra emerging in the 1990s have extended the sex life of older people, who are also less likely than younger people to practise safer sex, said the WHO.
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Stress can make you look 2 years older

Wrinkles are not due to genetics alone but also to stressful environmental factors, such as a divorce, abnormal weight loss and use of antidepressants, according to a new study. “A person’s heritage may initially dictate how they age - but if you introduce certain factors into your life, you will certainly age faster. Likewise, if you avoid those factors, you can slow down the hands of time,” said the lead author of the study, Bahaman Guyuron, an American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) member. Researchers examined 186 pairs of identical twins because “they are genetically programmed to age exactly the same”, explained Guyuron, chairman of the department of plastic surgery at the University Hospitals Case Medical Center, in Cleveland, Ohio. The study found that twins who had been divorced looked nearly two years older than their identical siblings who were married, widowed or single. Researchers found that anti-depressant use and weight gain were also factors in perceived age difference. In sets of twins younger than 40, the heavier twin seemed older, while in sets of twins more than 40 years old, the heavier twin seemed younger. “The presence of stress could be one of the common denominators in those twins who appeared older,” said Guyuron. Continued relaxation of the facial muscles due to antidepressant use could explain sagging, and losing abnormal amounts of weight has harmful effects on health and appearance, the rexperts found.
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Kids playing sports lead active lives

Learning to play games that involves kicking, catching and throwing a ball can be the best bet for leading a physically active life for ten year-old growing kids, a new research has said. "This study has shown that motor skills have an impact on later activity and fitness," Lisa Barnett, an Australian public health specialist, Sydney University, who carried out the research said. In a longitudinal study Barnett and her team followed 276 children from age 10 to age 16 in schools in northern New South Wales. They compared groups of children who developed different skills at the age of 10. One group developed proficiency at hopping, side galloping and vertical jumping - so-called "movement skills". Another group developed proficiency at kicking, catching and throwing a ball - labelled "object control" skills. Barnett found that 10-year-olds who were good at object control skills were more fit when they reached age 16, than others. These children as they grew up engaged in more sports that require these skills, as well as other activities such as swimming, aerobics, dancing, bike-riding and skateboarding. "The kids that had better [object control] skills when they were younger were more likely to participate in any sort of activity as adolescents," Barnett said.
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Smoking is injuries to health!!But Who cares

Smoking is injurious to health, but for some chain smokers, smoking is a pleasure and habit. Supreme Court has banned smoking in public places yet you can see some smoking zone where people can go and have a pleasure of puff. Supreme Court also imposed fine and imprisonment on employer who allows his employee to smoke, but these measures were not yielded much result. "According to a WHO study, around 14.1 per cent of school going children are using some or the other form of tobacco." Recently, Minister for Health Ramdoss has announced that you can not smoke public or private places, government offices, shopping malls, airports, railway stations and even in your own home, you have to take permission of your wife, family members and children, if you want to smoke in your own house. Minister for Health Ramdoss permitted to smoke on the road. This policy will be implemented from October 2 onwards. Mahatma Gandhi Jayanthi Day. Very ambitious proposal, but how far the government will achieve non-smoking India. It is experience in past that in India there are many good laws but when it comes to implementation there is no proper implementation of law. Government has good intention that the citizens should have good health, away from diseases like cancer. Any law can be properly implemented unless there is proper enforcement force, nothing can be imposed and people should be educated first the dangers of smoking. Until then the laws will be on paper. The ban from the day coinciding with Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary would also cover hotels, restaurants and offices. "Though in the beginning, the fine would be only Rs 200, we will try to amend the act in the future, after which the fine can be increased to Rs 1,000 and the employer can also be fined if somebody is found smoking within the office premises in accordance with the National Tobacco Control Act. To begin with, the pictorial warnings would be those cleared by the Group of Ministers and would cover 40 per cent of the product covers, but after around one year, more pictures can be brought in” according toMinister of health Ramadoss said. Next time, if you want to smoke you have to walk near by road from October 2 onwards, so that every one who goes on road knows that you are smoker and you had bad habit, with that guilty feeling, at least you may give up smoking, that may be the reason and idea of Minister for Health Ramdoss, has allowed citizens of India to smoke on the road. India there are innumerable law but implementation of these law are tardy.your health is in your hands you can decide whether you want to smoke or not. Is road is not a public place? This is the matter for debate!!!!!!!

Mahatma Gandhi is happiest person to see smoke less India from October 2 onwards. Can we achieve this???

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Eating veggies shrinks the brain

Scientists have discovered that going veggie could be bad for your brain-with those on a meat-free diet six times more likely to suffer brain shrinkage. Vegans and vegetarians are the most likely to be deficient because the best sources of the vitamin are meat, particularly liver, milk and fish. Vitamin B12 deficiency can also cause anaemia and inflammation of the nervous system. Yeast extracts are one of the few vegetarian foods which provide good levels of the vitamin. The link was discovered by Oxford University scientists who used memory tests, physical checks and brain scans to examine 107 people between the ages of 61 and 87. When the volunteers were retested five years later the medics found those with the lowest levels of vitamin B12 were also the most likely to have brain shrinkage. It confirms earlier research showing a link between brain atrophy and low levels of B12. Brain scans of more than 1,800 people found that people who downed 14 drinks or more a week had 1.6% more brain shrinkage than teetotallers. Women in their seventies were the most at risk. Beer does less damage than wine according to a study in Alcohol and Alcoholism. Researchers found that the hippocampus-the part of the brain that stores memories - was 10% smaller in beer drinkers than those who stuck to wine. And being overweight or obese is linked to brain loss, Swedish researchers discovered. Scans of around 300 women found that those with brain shrink had an average body mass index of 27 And for every one point increase in their BMI the loss rose by 13 to 16%.
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