Babies’ immune system development influenced by birth month

Newborn babies’ immune systems and vitamin D levels differ – depending on which month of the year they were born, Medical News Today reported.
The study, published in the journal JAMA Neurology, helps explain why a person’s risk of developing the neurological condition multiple sclerosis (MS) is impacted by their birth month.
Multiple sclerosis is a neurological condition in which the body’s own immune system harms the central nervous system. It obstructs the passing of messages between the brain and other areas of the body and can result in issues with memory, hearing, muscle control and vision.
Several studies have indicated that the month in which you were born can influence your risk of developing MS – a phenomenon known as the “birth month effect.”  The risk of MS appears to be highest for people born in May, and lower in those born in November, particularly for people living in England.
The study also identifies the need for more research into the potential advantages of vitamin D supplementation during pregnancy, Medical News Today said. Previous studies have suggested that low levels of vitamin D during pregnancy can result in gestational diabetes, preeclampsia and low birth weight in newborns.
And another study, published in the journal Neurology last year, indicated that higher levels of vitamin D during pregnancy could later prevent multiple sclerosis in mothers.
For the JAMA study, blood samples were taken from the umbilical cords of 50 babies born in November and 50 babies born in May. Researchers looked at levels of vitamin D and levels of autoreactive T-cells in the babies’ blood.
T-cells are the white blood cells that help the body’s immune system attack infectious agents like viruses. However, when T-cells are autoreactive, they attack the body’s healthy cells, causing autoimmune diseases.
The blood tests indicated that babies born in May had significantly lower levels of vitamin D and higher levels of autoreactive T-cells, compared to babies born in November, Medical News Today said.
Study co-author Dr. Sreeram Ramagopalan, a lecturer in neuroscience at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, part of Queen Mary, concluded:
"By showing that month of birth has a measurable impact on in utero immune system development, this study provides a potential biological explanation for the widely observed "month of birth" effect in MS. Higher levels of autoreactive T-cells, which have the ability to turn on the body, could explain why babies born in May are at a higher risk of developing MS.
“The correlation with vitamin D suggests this could be the driver of this effect,” Ramagopalan added. “There is a need for long-term studies to assess the effect of vitamin D supplementation in pregnant women and the subsequent impact on immune system development and risk of MS and other autoimmune diseases."

News Source: www.foxnews.com

Many Hospital Deaths Caused by Staff's "Alarm Fatigue"

Anyone who has spent any time in a hospital knows that the rooms are filled with a variety of noises - the whirring of machines, the occasional cough from a patient and a near-incessant barrage of beeping. While the flood of noises may be annoying to a visitor or even a patient staying in hospitals, the effect can be dangerous for the people who work there. According to a recent report by the Joint Commission, "alarm fatigue" may cause hospital staff to miss signs that a patient is in distress, leading to patient injuries and even death.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asserts that there have been over 560 deaths related to alarms. The Joint Commission says that there have been 80 deaths and 13 injuries related to alarms. Because the hospitals report the incidents themselves, the Joint Commission acknowledges that the number may be much higher. The commission, which is responsible for giving and maintaining hospitals coveted accreditation, also notes that ignoring the beeps may set off a chain reaction. That may, in turn, lead to a death or injury, but it is more difficult to attribute the beginning of the chain reaction to beeping alarms.
The Associated Press notes that devices may beep for any number of reasons: they may not be working or there may be an emergency. Since there is a lack of standardization and an abundance of technology, there is very little way for staff members to differentiate among the beeps, leading to a significant portion of the problem.
"Alarm fatigue and management of alarms are important safety issues that we must confront," Dr. Ana McKee, the executive vice president and chief medical officer of The Joint Commission, said in a statement. "The recommendations in this Alert offer hospitals a framework on which to assess their individual circumstances and develop a systematic, coordinated approach to alarms. By making alarm safety a priority, lives can be saved."
The organization suggests a number of steps: hospitals should issue guidelines for alarm settings, staff should check, inspect and maintain medical devices equipped with alarms; and that the hospitals should have a system in place for monitoring beeping alarms, among others.

News Source: www.counselheal.com

Paragazole excels in preclinical models of triple-negative breast cancer

"Basically what we're trying to do is use triple-negative breast cancer models to develop targeted drugs for treatment. Paragazole is an especially exciting candidate," says Jennifer Diamond, MD, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center and medical oncologist at the University of Colorado Hospital. Paragazole is a novel histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor developed at CU Boulder in the laboratories of Xuedong Liu and Andy Phillips, being tested at the CU Cancer Center. In this study, Diamond and colleagues tested the drug against a range of breast cancer cell lines with and without combination with chemotherapies paclitaxel, gemcitabine or carboplatin. Interestingly, it was specifically the cell lines that didn't express estrogen – the aggressive, triple-negative cells – that were most affected by paragazole. Sure enough, the researchers saw increased expression of CARM1 mediated estrogen receptors in these especially sensitive cells. It was as if paragazole set up these triple negative cells so that chemotherapy could be more effective. "This really is a case in which the result was greater than the sum of its parts. Paragazole with chemotherapy was more effective than the combined effects of both drugs, alone," Diamond says. Studies with the drug are continuing with the eventual goal of moving the therapy from the lab to the clinic in selected patients.

News Source: medicalxpress.com

Scientists map dengue, estimate 390 million infections per year

An international team has released new estimates of the number of dengue infections around the world, mapping out the places where risk of getting the viral illness is great and those where it's low.

It estimated there are 390 million dengue infections per year, about a quarter of which are "apparent," meaning they are accompanied by symptoms of illness, such as fever or shock. It's a number far larger than the 50 million to 100 million cases a year commonly cited by groups such as the World Health Organization.

A paper describing the researchers' findings was published Sunday in the journal Nature, timed to coincide with the World Health Summit Regional Meeting in Singapore.

There are four different dengue viruses, all passed on to humans in the bites of Aedes mosquitoes. Infection with dengue doesn't always make people sick, but when it does, the symptoms can range from mild fever and muscle aches to a combination of fever, abdominal pain, vomiting and bleeding that can lead to death. There are no effective vaccines or antiviral therapies for the disease.  According to the WHO, 22,000 people die from the most severe dengue symptoms, known as dengue hemorrhagic fever, every year.  Most are children.

In the past, lead author Simon Hay of the Wellcome Trust and the University of Oxford and his colleagues wrote, global estimates of dengue infections were calculated in a simple manner, and did not break out the differences between regions or over time.  But taking more complete data and applying modern mathematical models to estimate infections let the group get a more granular view of the risk on the ground.

The team estimated there were 390 million dengue infections around the world in 2010, the year examined. Of these, 96 million resulted in apparent illness and 294 million did not. Dengue was ubiquitous in the tropics, with high numbers of infections in Asia (which carried 70% of the global burden, with India representing nearly half of those cases) and the Americas (with 14%, more than half of which occurred in Brazil and Mexico). There were more cases than previously thought in Africa, the team wrote -- about 16% of the total. Lots of rain and high temperatures coincided with an area's elevated risk, as did being located near urban centers.

The researchers wrote that using methods like this mapping technique to better understand the variations in dengue risk among regions could help health officials be efficient with surveillance efforts "by indicating where limited resources can be targeted to have their maximum possible impact."

In a statement, Hay said the results suggested that dengue risk would evolve in coming years.

"Climate and population spread were important factors for predicting the current risk of dengue around the world. With globalization and the constant march of urbanization, we anticipate that there could be dramatic shifts in the distribution of the disease in the future," he said. "We hope that the research will initiate a wider discussion about the significant global impact of this disease."

News Source: www.latimes.com

Molecule in meat may increase heart disease risk

Drop that hamburger, put down the can of Monster Energy and back away from the body building pills.

A nutrient found in red meat and added to energy drinks and supplements may crank up people’s risk of heart disease, a new study suggests. Bacteria in the gut digest the nutrient, L-carnitine, and help turn it into an artery-hardening chemical — particularly in meat eaters, researchers report April 7 in Nature Medicine.

The intestinal microbes of vegetarians and vegans didn’t make much of the chemical, even when researchers fed them an 8-ounce sirloin steak.

“I always thought that what I ate mattered, but I never realized that my gut bacteria might matter more,” says biochemist Harry Ischiropoulos of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, who was not involved with the study.

What’s more, high blood levels of the bacterial by-product of L-carnitine, called trimethylamine N-oxide or TMAO, were an “astoundingly good” warning sign of impending heart attack, stroke and death, says study coauthor Stanley Hazen of Cleveland Clinic. A test for TMAO, which will become commercially available this year, could give physicians a new tool for gauging heart disease risk.

Scientists have long known that eating red meat jacks up a person’s chances of developing heart disease, but reliable biomarkers — blood-borne indicators of disease or health — have been hard to find. One way physicians gauge risk is with blood tests for cholesterol, a greasy molecule in meat and other foods, which gums up arteries. But tests for cholesterol and other molecules don’t wholly explain meat’s link to heart disease, Hazen says. “Cholesterol, saturated fat and salt only account for a tiny little piece of the risk.”

Gut bacteria might account for a bit more. Hazen’s team first linked intestinal microbes to heart disease in 2011, when they spotted TMAO in blood collected from people who later suffered heart attacks, had strokes or died (SN Online: 4/7/11).

For the new study, Hazen zeroed in on L-carnitine because the nutrient is structurally similar to a compound that gut microbes can convert to TMAO.

Volunteers — a mix of omnivores, vegetarians and vegans — ate steak and L-carnitine capsules, and then researchers measured TMAO levels in the blood. Only meat eaters could make TMAO from L-carnitine, Hazen’s team found, and they needed their gut bacteria to do it. TMAO production shut down when researchers wiped out volunteers’ intestinal microbes with antibiotics.

L-carnitine passed right through the guts of long-term vegans and vegetarians, leaving their blood practically TMAO-free. When researchers examined volunteers’ stool, they found different groups of bacteria in people who did and didn’t eat meat.

Hazen’s group also found that blood levels of TMAO and L-carnitine could predict heart disease risk, which they learned by collecting blood samples from 2,595 patients and tracking their health for three years.

The findings are new and exciting but need to be confirmed, says cardiovascular researcher Ishwarlal Jialal of the University of California, Davis Medical Center. Molecules proposed as biomarkers for heart disease often look promising in initial studies but fizzle out clinically. “We’ve been down this road so many times before.”

But one message is clear, Jialel says: “L-carnitine is not good for you. It’s not good as a supplement and it’s not good in red meat. That’s one thing you can take to the bank.”

News Source: www.sciencenews.org

Judge orders morning-after pill available for all ages

A federal judge in Brooklyn ruled Friday that emergency contraception must be available over the counter without restriction for women of all ages, giving the product the same retail status as cough drops and condoms.
U.S. District Judge Edward Korman's ruling caps a battle that began a dozen years ago when women's health activists first petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to make the so-called morning-after pill readily available without a prescription.
As he did in 2009, Korman on Friday assailed the FDA for delaying and defying the petition and subsequent lawsuit. But this time, he also blasted Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius for vetoing the FDA in 2011 when the agency was finally poised to remove restrictions on the backup birth-control pills.

Sebelius' decision was "politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent," Korman declared.

Emergency contraception contains a hormone used in birth-control pills and can be taken up to 72 hours after sex to reduce the chance of pregnancy.

Sold as Plan B One-Step and Next Choice, it is currently available without a prescription only to women 17 and older. The products are also kept behind the pharmacist's counter; purchasers must show a government-issued ID with proof of age.
Korman ordered an end to those limits within 30 days.
Reaction to the ruling was predictably polarized, reflecting the divide that has existed since advocates and the original manufacturer began pushing for over-the-counter sales.

Public health and medical groups called the ruling a victory for women's health, contending it will reduce unintended pregnancy and abortions. Conservative and antiabortion groups called it a blow to women's health, contending it will lead teenagers to have earlier, riskier sex, avoid consulting physicians, and become victims of sexual abuse.

"There is a real danger that Plan B may be given to young girls, under coercion or without their consent," Anna Higgins of the Family Research Council said in a statement.

Neither wonderful nor awful social effects have been substantiated, despite more than 1,000 studies of emergency contraception now in the medical literature.

Princeton University population researcher James Trussell now acknowledges that his early predictions of the method's impact were way too optimistic. In 1992, he and colleagues published a mathematical model that suggested making emergency contraception widely available could reduce abortions and unintended pregnancies in the United States by half.

But he still believes women should have the preventive option.

"This is a real victory for all women who want a convenient way to obtain emergency contraceptive pills," he said. It's "way overdue. Science finally trumps politics."

Plan B One-Step maker Teva Pharmaceuticals, an Israeli firm with U.S. headquarters in North Wales, Montgomery County, conducted safety studies requested by the FDA and cited by Korman in his ruling. But the company has consistently refused to discuss the legal battle or its sales plans.

News Source: www.philly.com

Should male baldness be a new heart disease risk factor?

Should men have their hairline checked -- along with their weight, blood pressure, and cholesterol -- to assess their heart disease risk? That seems to be the take-home message of a study published Wednesday in the British Medical Journal Open, which found that men with severe baldness had as much as a 44 percent greater risk of developing heart disease over the course of 10 to 15 years than men with hair.

Men who had more severe baldness at the top of their head -- especially if they hadn’t yet hit 60 -- had the greatest increase in risk.

The findings aren’t new. Back in 2000, Dr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and her colleagues tracked more than 19,000 men over 11 years and found that male pattern baldness was associated with a 34 percent increased heart disease risk compared with men who had receding hairlines or no hair loss.

I asked Manson what she thought of the latest research, in which University of Tokyo researchers analyzed six studies involving nearly 37,000 men.

“These findings shouldn’t be a cause of alarm,” Manson said. “It’s a small association compared to other risk factors.” Cigarette smoking quadruples a person’s risk of heart disease, while having uncontrolled hypertension or high cholesterol doubles a person’s risk. Those 100 percent to 300 percent risk increases are much greater than the increased risk associated with male pattern baldness.

That should provide some comfort to the 30 percent to 40 percent of men who start thinking about comb-overs in middle-age.

But Manson also believes that baldness could be an important heart disease risk marker and “may identify men who should be especially vigilant about controlling other risk factors like blood pressure, diabetes, or cholesterol.”

She said she wouldn’t, though, recommend additional screening tests such as a procedure to image the arteries for balding men who have no heart symptoms or other signs of heart disease.

At this point, researchers still don’t understand how baldness connects to clogged arteries. Previous studies have suggested that balding men are more likely to also have high blood pressure and insulin resistance, which often leads to diabetes. “Those relationships really do need additional study,” Manson said.

The missing link may be testosterone and other male sex hormones. Bald men tend to have higher levels of male hormone receptors in their scalp and also have higher levels of testosterone in their blood. An enzyme in the body converts testosterone to another hormone that causes hair follicles to shrink and wither, wrote the Japanese study authors. This same enzyme has been found to also interact with testosterone in the arteries, they added, which causes the buildup of plaque or atherosclerosis.

High testosterone levels have also been implicated in the association between male pattern baldness and prostate cancer in previous studies conducted over the past few years.

None of these statistical links, of course, prove that a predisposition to baldness causes heart disease or other ills. Nor do baldness treatments help the heart. “There’s currently no evidence that a treatment like minoxidil will affect heart disease risk in either a favorable or unfavorable way,” Manson said.

Ditto for hair transplantation.

Unfortunately, men who have inherited a baldness gene have little control over when or whether they’ll lose their hair. What they can control is other lifestyle factors such as what they eat and how much they exercise, whether they smoke, and how well they comply with their doctor’s instructions to take cholesterol, diabetes, and hypertension medications.

“Research has found a tremendous reduction in heart disease risk in those who can control these established risk factors,” Manson said. “They can certainly help offset any increased risk associated with baldness, and that’s really where our emphasis should be at this point.”

News Source: www.boston.com