A lot of chatter goes on inside each one of us and not all of it happens between our ears.

Researchers at McMaster University discovered that the “cross-talk” between bacteria in our gut and our brain plays an important role in the development of psychiatric illness, intestinal diseases and probably other health problems as well including obesity.

“The wave of the future is full of opportunity as we think about how microbiota or bacteria influence the brain and how the bi-directional communication of the body and the brain influence metabolic disorders, such as obesity and diabetes,” says Jane Foster, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.

Using germ-free mice, Foster’s research shows gut bacteria influences how the brain is wired for learning and memory. The research paper has been published in the March issue of the science journal Neurogastroenterology and Motility.

The study’s results show that genes linked to learning and memory are altered in germ-free mice and, in particular, they are altered in one of the key brain regions for learning and memory the hippocampus.

“The take-home message is that gut bacteria influences anxiety-like behavior through alterations in the way the brain is wired,” said Foster.

Foster’s laboratory is located in the Brain-Body Institute, a joint research initiative of McMaster University and St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton. The institute was created to advance understanding of the relationship between the brain, nervous system and bodily disorders.

“We have a hypothesis in my lab that the state of your immune system and your gut bacteria which are in constant communication influences your personality,” Foster said.

She said psychiatrists, in particular, are interested in her research because of the problems of side effects with current drug therapy.

“The idea behind this research is to see if it’s possible to develop new therapies which could target the body, free of complications related to getting into the brain,” Foster said. “We need novel targets that take a different approach than what is currently on the market for psychiatric illness. Those targets could be the immune system, your gut function…we could even use the body to screen patients to say what drugs might work better in their brain.”

Source: McMaster University Continue reading →

Taking photographs or video of unusual symptoms on an ordinary camera phone can help doctors diagnose uncommon problems, say researchers in an article published on bmj.

For example, doctors in Norway describe the case of a 25 year old pregnant woman who reported frequent episodes of severe nipple pain.

The pain came whenever her fingers, toes or nipples got cold, such as when walking barefoot on a cold floor or taking a shower, and typically lasted between five and 15 minutes and was so painful as to bring her to tears.

Along with the pain, the colour of the nipples also changed; first white combined with a tingling pain (“tightening a vice screw”), then blue with a burning pain (“pouring acid”), and finally a red phase combined with numbness as the pain decreased. After the birth of her baby, the pain became so intense that she considered giving up breastfeeding.

She presented three photographs from her camera phone showing the colour changes of a typical episode.

With the help of these photographs, doctors diagnosed Raynaud’s phenomenon of the nipple. The patient was given treatment, her symptoms completely resolved within one week, and she was able to continue breastfeeding with no side effects.

Raynaud’s phenomenon is possibly an underdiagnosed case of nipple pain, conclude the authors, partly because primary health care workers are often not aware of this condition, and partly because the symptoms have vanished before the patient reaches the GP surgery.

Link to paper

Source
British Medical Journal Continue reading →

Modern moms and dads snap thousands of photos, recording every drooling smile and flailing attempt to crawl. Until now, this frenzy of activity could be one more thing distracting parents from monitoring their child’s health and developmental progress.

Now Julie Kientz at the University of Washington has built a high-tech tool that takes photos and video, creates an online diary and family newsletters, and at the same time tracks a child’s developmental milestones. The multimedia system, called Baby Steps, combines sentimental snapping with medical record-keeping. Baby Steps feels like a fun toy for parents, but researchers found in a small pilot study that having it on their home computers doubled the parents’ collection of medically relevant information.

Kientz, an assistant professor of human-centered design and engineering and the Information School, presents the results this week in Boston at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Co-authors are Rosa Arriaga and Gregory Abowd of the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Most parents can tell you the first time their baby smiled, or took his or her first step. But what about the first time a baby could adjust his or her gaze to look in the direction of a pointed finger, which an inability to do at a certain age indicates a possible risk of autism?

Pediatricians often ask parents to complete medical charts that record six categories of developmental milestones from birth to age five. Tracking this information may help with earlier diagnosis of conditions such as speech delays, autism and hearing or visual impairment.

“So much of the medical literature shows that the quality of decision making and diagnosis really depends on the amount of data that doctors have,” said Kientz, whose research focuses on technology for medical and educational record-keeping.

In a perfect world, parents would record milestones as soon as they were observed. In the real world, busy parents often fill out records before each checkup — sometimes in the doctor’s office parking lot.

“Parents are busy, they have a lot going on in their life. Even though they have a lot of good intentions, the time between visits goes by very quickly,” Kientz said.

Baby Steps encourages participation by adding social incentives. Researchers tested the system with eight families over three months. Four families were given a computer system designed strictly for medical record-keeping. The other four families used a more elaborate system with added features such as a keepsake album, pop-up reminders and e-mail alerts, tools to print or e-mail newsletters, as well as a button to create a report for the doctor’s visit.

Adding sentimental functions caused parents to use the system three times more frequently, uploading three times as many pictures and videos and ultimately recording twice as many developmental milestones. Parents also reported enjoying the Baby Steps system more.

On top of the high-tech scrapbook tools, researchers built a wireless video camera with a time-lapse save function to help record events, similar to how a digital video recorder works. Parents set up the camera where their child plays, and if the child does something new, parents can press the camera’s button and save footage of what just happened. Otherwise, the camera keeps rolling and footage older than 20 minutes is deleted. The videos can then be easily synchronized with a child’s records.

“Kids do unpredictable things, and usually when they do these things you don’t have a camera running. By the time you go and grab a camera they fall down, they’re crying, or they’ve moved on to something else. We tried to find a way to help capture those moments,” Kientz said.

Baby Steps lets parents share these videos with family and friends by e-mail or by posting to YouTube. Parents can also bring the video camera to the doctor’s office.

Doctors reported that parents using Baby Steps seemed much better prepared and more confident during their well-child visits.

Kientz hopes to modify the tool so it requires less expensive electronics, perhaps running entirely on a cell phone, so families would not need a personal computer and high-speed Internet connection to use the system.

Baby Steps mimics some of the functions of popular baby-centered sites such as Tumblon, BabyAlbum and BabyCenter. Kientz said parents would likely also benefit from those sites because they incorporate many of the same features, though the medical goals are not yet as closely integrated in the commercial ventures.

The research was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Experts at the Centers for Disease Control were consulted about the design, and the researchers are looking for a partner to manufacture and distribute the system commercially.

Notes:

The presentation and demonstration will take place today, Wednesday, April 8, at 2:30 p.m. in the Hynes Convention Center in Boston as part of the session “Photos and Life Logging.”

Source:
Hannah Hickey

University of Washington Continue reading →

Bionovo, Inc. (Nasdaq: BNVI), a pharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of safe and effective treatments for women’s health and cancer, today announced that enrollment has started for the Phase 1 clinical trial testing the safety of two doses of Menerba in postmenopausal women for the treatment of menopausal hot flushes (study # MF101-008), also known as “menopausal hot flashes.”

This Phase 1, open-label, randomized, clinical trial of Menerba will be conducted at three clinical sites in Northern California. Forty postmenopausal women between the ages of 40 and 65 years will be randomized to one of two doses of Menerba and treated for 28 days. The primary goal of this study is to assess the safety of two doses of MF101 after 4 weeks of treatment. Dr. Wulf Utian will serve as the Principal Investigator for this study.

“We are pleased to announce that we are initiating the Phase 1 tolerability clinical trial. We are confident that the trial will proceed quickly and successfully. We are diligently executing on all our milestones, clinical and non-clinical activities, in 2011,” commented Dr. Isaac Cohen, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Bionovo, Inc.

“This Phase 1 clinical trial is testing two doses of Menerba that are higher than the already proven efficacious dose evaluated in our Phase 2 trial, which showed efficacy equivalent to recently approved low dose menopausal hormone therapy (MHT). We are escalating the dose of Menerba to reach similar efficacy as the high doses of MHT. Our goal is to define a full therapeutic window that matches or improves on currently approved MHT drugs,” said Mary Tagliaferri, M.D., Bionovo’s President and Chief Medical Officer.

Source: Bionovo, Inc Continue reading →

UroToday – We recently reviewed evidence relating diet and prostate cancer, suggesting that a traditional Cretan Mediterranean style diet based on a variety of plant foods (fruits, vegetables, wholegrain cereals, nuts and legumes), olive oil as the main source of fat, low intake of red meat, moderate to low intake of dairy foods, moderate to high intake of fish and moderate intake of wine, mostly consumed with meals, may be helpful in reducing prostate cancer risk.

Importantly, the Mediterranean diet has other health benefits that further support its widespread adoption. A recent meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies using an a priori score to assess adherence to a Mediterranean diet found that stronger adherence was associated with reduced all cause, cardiovascular and cancer mortality, as well as decreased incidence of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases (1).

Two intervention studies have supported the benefits of a Mediterranean style diet on metabolic risk factors (2) (3). In a Spanish study, men and women with elevated levels of cardiovascular risk factors were randomized to either of two “Mediterranean” diets and provided with either olive oil or nuts, or to a control low fat diet. After 3 months the Mediterranean diet groups had lower mean plasma glucose, systolic blood pressure and total/HDL cholesterol ratio than the control group (2). Italian adults with the Metabolic Syndrome were randomized to a “Mediterranean” diet or a “prudent” diet, both with similar macronutrient composition. The “Mediterranean” diet was associated with greater improvements in markers of vascular risk and endothelial function than the control group (3). It should be noted however that in both studies the “Mediterranean” diet groups received more nutrition education than the control groups.

The Lyon Heart Study demonstrated that a modified Cretan diet low in butter and meats, and high in fish, fruits and enriched with ?±-linolenic acid from canola oil was more effective than a ‘prudent’ diet in the secondary prevention of coronary events and overall mortality (4). We have also shown that a Cretan style diet reduced HbA1c from a mean of 7.1% (95% CI: 6.5-7.7) to 6.8% (95% CI: 6.3-7.3) (p=0.012), in people with type 2 diabetes (unpublished data).

Simopoulos (5) notes that the traditional Greek diet resembles the Paleolithic diet in terms of fibre, antioxidants, saturated and monounsaturated fat, thus is consistent with human evolution. While traditional diets must reflect the regionally available foods, the characteristics of the traditional Greek diet can be applied in many countries, notwithstanding the likely effect of environment and growing methods on the nutrient composition of plant and animal foods. The evidence suggests that a traditional Greek or Cretan style diet is consistent with what humans have evolved to consume and may protect against common chronic diseases, including prostate cancer.

Allison Hodge, MD, and Catherine Itsiopoulos, MD as part of Beyond the Abstract on UroToday.

References:

1. Sofi F, Cesari F, Abbate R, Gensini GF, Casini A. Adherence to Mediterranean diet and health status: meta-analysis. Bmj 2008;337:a1344.
2. Estruch R, Martinez-Gonzalez MA, Corella D, et al. Effects of a Mediterranean-style diet on cardiovascular risk factors: a randomized trial. Ann Intern Med 2006;145:1-11.
3. Esposito K, Marfella R, Ciotola M, et al. Effect of a Mediterranean-style diet on endothelial dysfunction and markers of vascular inflammation in the metabolic syndrome: a randomized trial. J Am Med Assoc 2004;292:1440-6.
4. de Lorgeril M, Salen P. Modified Cretan Mediterranean diet in the prevention of coronary heart disease and cancer. In: Simopoulos AP, Visioli F, eds. Mediterranean Diets. World Review Nutr Diet. Basel: Karger, 2000:1-23.
5. Simopoulos AP. The traditional diet of Greece and cancer. Eur J Cancer Prev 2004;13:219-30.

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CMS on Thursday announced the approvals of 143 new Medicare Advantage plans for 2005,… CQ HealthBeat reports. The approvals will provide Medicare beneficiaries in 49 states with access to 428 health plans — 41 of which are new to the program and 66 of which are new local PPOs. CMS said that about 90 current Medicare Advantage plans will increase their service areas this year. As a result of the approvals, 73% of Medicare beneficiaries in 2005 will have access to HMOs, 52% will have access to PPOs and 80% will have access to private fee-for-service plans, according to CMS. Most Medicare beneficiaries in rural areas in 2005 will have access to private fee-for-service plans, and almost 20% of those beneficiaries will have access to HMOs, PPOs and other coordinated health plans for the first time, CMS said. HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said in a news release, “We have created a market for plans to compete in providing the best deal for seniors. Now it is our responsibility to make sure seniors get the information they need to take advantage of these plans” (CQ HealthBeat [1], 6/30).

Barton Calls on CMS To Address Medicare ‘Loophole’
In related news, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Joe Barton (R-Texas) on Thursday said that CMS must close a “loophole” under which Medicare often overpays for prescription drugs dispensed in hospitals. According to a recent Government Accountability Office report, Medicare pays 20% more than the hospital purchase price for 13 medications. Barton said, “In the worst case, GAO found the government is paying hospitals $79.04 for a dose of paclitaxel … when doctors are paid $18.76 for administering the same dose” (CQ HealthBeat [2], 6/30).

“Reprinted with permission from kaisernetwork kaisernetwork. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at kaisernetwork/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . ?© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved. Continue reading →

On 17 February the award-winning documentary Here’s Johnny, which highlights the battle against multiple sclerosis (MS) of artist Johnny Hicklenton, will be screened on More4.

The film enters the surreal world of the acclaimed graphic novel artist and follows his journey living with MS – escaping the confines of his condition through his artwork.

Independent production company Animal Monday followed Johnny for more than five years, racking up hundreds of hours of footage, which has been distilled into the one hour documentary to be screened on Tuesday (17 February).

The film gives a raw and sometimes upsetting account of Johnny’s life with MS through the expression of his imagination, allowing viewers an insight into a condition from which he cannot escape.

Often dark graphic works conceptualise what Johnny himself describes as a war that he is waging against MS – with images depicting feelings of anger and aggression.

“Drawing is my walking now,” Johnny says. “I can’t wait to get a piece of paper and a pen now because I’m in control. I haven’t got MS when you’re looking at my pictures, in fact I haven’t got it when I’m drawing them either.

“It gives me the ability to express fear – the stuff that I do is aggressive art. I think all the aggression is coming out of the fear.

“I was doing it before when I was well but the characters are now representing a different mindset.”

Here’s Johnny was launched at the Science Museum in January 2008 and premiered at the South by South West film festival in March 2008. The film then went on to win two prestigious Grierson Awards in November 2008.

Winning both the ‘Best Arts Documentary’ and ‘Best Newcomer’ awards, Here’s Johnny is the first film ever to win two awards in the Griersons’ 36 year history.

Simon Gillespie, Chief Executive of the MS Society, said: “Here’s Johnny is a raw account of one person’s fight against MS. Johnny’s case is extreme and, while it may not be everyone’s experience, shows MS as the truly devastating condition it can be.”

Here’s Johnny, Tuesday 17 February, 10pm, More4.

MS Society Continue reading →

Two leading cancer centers have carried out groundbreaking radiosurgery treatments for multiple brain metastases using new RapidArc radiotherapy technology from Varian Medical Systems (NYSE:VAR). The MIMA Cancer Center in Melbourne, Florida and VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, Netherlands were each able to treat brain metastases more quickly and efficiently than would have previously been possible.

Stereotactic radiosurgery is used to quickly eradicate tumors by targeting them with high doses of radiation using precisely-shaped, image-guided, X-ray beams in just one to five treatment sessions. Varian’s RapidArc, which targets treatment beams at tumors while rotating continuously around the patient, makes it possible to complete stereotactic radiosurgery sessions many times faster than conventional techniques that use stationary beams.

At VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam, doctors used a RapidArc-equipped linear accelerator from Varian to treat six patients with multiple brain metastases, delivering in a single plan a combination of whole brain radiotherapy with a stereotactic integrated boost, an extra measure of dose that is focused directly on the multiple tumors. “Our experiences to date have demonstrated that RapidArc appears to be excellent for stereotactic radiosurgery,” says Dr. Frank Lagerwaard of VU Medical Center.

The patients, all of whom had developed multiple brain metastases stemming from primary lung or breast cancer, received their high-dose treatment over five sessions. “The total time needed for patients to enter and leave the treatment room has decreased to less than 15 minutes as we gain experience,” adds Dr. Lagerwaard. “In these treatments the ‘delivery’ time was just 210 seconds per session.” By comparison, conventional stereotactic treatment of three brain metastases using multiple dynamic conformal arcs takes more than 50 minutes from first beam on to last beam off, according to Dr. Lagerwaard.

At MIMA, Dr. Todd Scarbrough and his team treated a 77-year-old man with a history of small-cell lung cancer who had recently developed a brain metastasis. “Given his smoking and lung cancer history he was not considered a candidate for conventional neurosurgery,” says Dr. Scarbrough. “We felt fast, non-invasive radiosurgery would be easier on this patient.”

Joseph Ting, PhD, medical physicist, compared a RapidArc radiosurgery treatment plan with a non-coplanar IMRT plan using 14 stationary beams, which is how this patient would have been treated prior to RapidArc’s availability. “We were delighted to see that the RapidArc plan actually conformed the dose more closely to the size, shape and location of the tumor and could be delivered in three minutes instead of the 40 minutes needed for the 14-beam plan,” Scarbrough said. The treatment was completed in four sessions over a four-day period.

Dr. Scarbrough adds, “Our plan is to use RapidArc any time the treatment plan gives us a dose distribution that is equal to or better than what we can get with standard IMRT, because RapidArc is so much faster. And that’s much better for our patients.”

In the August 15, 2008, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, (published online August 12) researchers from the University of Chicago Medical Center report that targeted radiation therapy had completely controlled all signs of cancer in 21 percent of patients who had five or fewer sites of metastatic disease.

Treatment planning analyses show that RapidArc matches or exceeds the precision of conventional IMRT systems and spares more of the healthy tissue surrounding the tumor. Unrelated clinical studies on radiotherapy correlate the ability to spare more healthy tissue with reduced complications and better outcomes.

Studies Revealed at AAPM

VU Medical Center’s studies into the use of Varian RapidArc plans for brain metastases and other key tumor sites were showcased at this year’s American Association of Physics in Medicine (AAPM) show in Houston in July. Delivered using a Varian linear accelerator and measured in a solid water phantom, the 25 resulting film measurements showed high agreement with calculations, the VU team concluded. “RapidArc accurately delivers the planned dose distributions,” stated Dr. Wilko Verbakel, medical physicist at VU Medical Center.

Dr. Ben Slotman, head of the radiation oncology department of VU University medical center said the hospital, among the first in Europe to introduce Varian’s RapidArc, began clinical treatments using this fast and efficient form of volumetric modulated arc therapy in early May and more than 20 patients have so far been treated using the capability. “In the first few months we used RapidArc to replace IMRT treatments for head & neck, brain and prostate tumors but from September onwards RapidArc will replace all conventional IMRT,” said Dr. Slotman. “Treatment planning is at least as good, and sometimes even better, than with conventional IMRT and planning and delivery using RapidArc is significantly faster.”

About Varian Medical Systems

Varian Medical Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto, California, is the world’s leading manufacturer of medical devices and software for treating cancer and other medical conditions with radiotherapy, radiosurgery, proton therapy, and brachytherapy. The company supplies informatics software for managing comprehensive cancer clinics, radiotherapy centers and medical oncology practices. Varian is a premier supplier of tubes and digital detectors for X-ray imaging in medical, scientific, and industrial applications and also supplies X-ray imaging products for cargo screening and industrial inspection. Varian Medical Systems employs approximately 4,800 people who are located at manufacturing sites in North America and Europe and in its 60 sales and support offices around the world.

Varian Medical Systems Continue reading →

Alabama had an overall self-reported obesity level of 31 percent for adults. The obesity
epidemic affects every state, according to a new CDC report. No state met the country’s Healthy
People 2010 goal to lower obesity to 15 percent.

New data show that nine states had an obesity rate of 30 percent or higher in 2009 – an
increase over zero states in 2000, and three states in 2005. Alabama’s ranking improved
slightly.

The study appears in the Aug. 3 CDC Vital Signs Report, titled “State-Specific Obesity
Prevalence Among Adults – United States, 2009.” It points out that people who are obese incur
$1,429 per person extra in medical costs compared to people of normal weight, and that the
nation’s total medical costs of obesity were $147 billion.

“Obesity is a complex problem that requires both personal and community action,” State Health
Officer Dr. Donald Williamson said. “People in all communities should be able to make healthy
choices. To reverse this epidemic, we need to change our communities into places that strongly
support healthy eating and active living.”

Miriam Gaines, director of the Nutrition and Physical Activity Division of the Alabama
Department of Public Health, said, “We focus on empowering Alabamians to make healthy
lifestyle choices while collaborating with various community, worksite and school system
partners to promote overweight and obesity prevention management throughout Alabama.
Environmental and policy changes are important as we address solutions. The healthy choices
must be available for our citizens to make.”

The report is based on new data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. BRFSS
is the states’ source of data for monitoring Healthy People 2010 objectives. To assess obesity
prevalence, approximately 400,000 survey respondents were asked to provide their height and
weight, which is used to calculate their body mass index (BMI). A person is considered obese if
he or she has a BMI of 30 or above.

Source:
ADPH Continue reading →

A study conducted at the University of Granada has proved that children eat up to 80 percent more vegetables when they are allowed to choose. Researchers have also found that the bitterness of calcium which is noticeably present in vegetables such as spinachs, collard greens cabbage, onions, chard or broccoli can be a factor negatively influencing children’s consumption of vegetables.

A gesture as simple as allowing children to freely choose the vegetables they want to eat helps to increase the consumption of these foods in children, as University of Granada has found. Moreover, his work suggests that the bitter taste of calcium, present in vegetables such as spinach, collard greens, cabbage, onions, chard or broccoli, can be a factor negatively influencing children’s consumption of vegetables.

To carry out this experimental study, the authors analyzed the main factors determining vegetable consumption in children under 6 years by evaluating the effectiveness of a strategy called “Provision of choice”. In this strategy children were allowed to choose the vegetables they wanted to take in each meal.

Provision of choice

Researchers worked with 150 children at four public schools in Granada, Spain, managed by the Foundation Granada Educa. Children were allowed to choose the vegetables they wanted to eat for lunch. Similarly, they were given a tool known as “Provision of Choice”, which was found to increase consumption of vegetables by up to 80 percent. They further noted that children who were allowed to choose ingested 20 grams more, representing an average of 40 grams per day between lunch and dinner. Given that the ration of vegetables served was 150 grams, “it is a very important quantity”, the authors of the paper state.

Sources: University of Granada, AlphaGalileo Foundation. Continue reading →