New evidence of infection link to childhood Leukaemia

Every 20 minutes someone in the UK is diagnosed with cancers of the blood such as leukaemia, lymphoma and myeloma. UK researchers have for the first time identified the molecule that stimulates leukaemia to develop in children, according to a study published in the April edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Scientists at The Institute of Cancer Research have observed that pre-leukaemic stem cells multiplied substantially at the expense of normal cells when exposed to a molecule produced in the body called TGF.

TGF is triggered as a normal response by the body to infection and so the new finding provides the first experimental evidence as to how common infections might trigger childhood leukaemia.

“We had already identified that a genetic mutation occurring in the womb created these pre-leukaemic cells,” Dr Anthony Ford from The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) says. “But we have been looking for a trigger that could send these cells down the pathway to leukaemia. We believe TGF is part of that missing link.”

In a study of identical twin girls last year, ICR scientists discovered a genetic mutation – the fusion of the TEL (ETV6) and AML1 (RUNX1) genes – was responsible for initiating childhood acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in the womb.

This mutation means pre-leukaemic cells grow in the bone marrow as a silent time bomb that can stay in the body for up to 15 years, but requires other factors to convert into leukaemia. Evidence suggests the mutation may be present in as many as one in 100 babies,but only about one in 100 of those children with the mutation then go on to develop leukaemia.

The latest ICR study, funded by Leukaemia Research, found TGF creates conditions that allow the pre-leukaemic cells to multiply. This increases the chance that some will become even further damaged in a way that results in the child developing leukaemia. Before this study, there had been only circumstantial evidence to implicate infections in the progression from a child carrying pre-leukaemic cells to actually having leukaemia. There was no evidence of the mechanism by which this might happen. While infection is clearly only one factor in triggering progression, this study greatly increases the strength of evidence for its role in the commonest form of childhood leukaemia.

It also gives hope for the development of more effective early diagnosis and treatment for childhood leukaemia.

How your body clock affects how you age

We all have an internal body clock, or circadian rhythm that dictates whether we are an owl or a lark and governs many of our normal functions such as body temperature, brain activity, hormone production and metabolism. These things are well known and we can study our own rhythms to help us balance our lives better so we don’t study at a time when our body is not at its mental best, or try to sleep when it is naturally ready to go out and party.

Now it also appears to affect how we age, at least according to new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who have discovered that our inner biological clock actually communicates directly with the processes that govern aging and metabolism.

As we age, our circadian rhythm declines and the researchers believe that this could be a contributing factor to age-related disorders such as type 2 diabetes and is linked to a gene called SIRT1 which at the center of a network that regulates aging, coordinates metabolic reactions throughout the body and manages the body’s response to nutrition. This biochemical mechanism can directly drive the oscillation of the body’s daily clock and is potentially a way to correct metabolic disorders and improve health as people age.

Fried eggs can benefit cholesterol!

You can’t entirely blame Edwina Currie, though anyone who writes as badly as she does ought to be blamed for something, but we have steadily been eating fewer and fewer eggs. The dreaded phrase ‘high in cholesterol’ have sealed their fate, but ironically it now seems that new research shows they could actually reduce a risk factor for heart disease.

We have been warned over and over again about the dangers of eggs producing cholesterol that will clog up your arteries – though as cholesterol is essential to our health and wellbeing it has always been a mixed message.

The main target has been those people who have high blood pressure, and instead of a natural regime of exercise and diet many doctors have been prescribing an Angiotensin- Converting Enzyme (ACE) inhibitor drug. How about a couple of fried eggs instead? Two splendid Canadian researchers at the University of Alberta recently ran lab tests to see whether eating fried eggs or boiled eggs would produce greater amounts of ACE inhibitory peptides and the fried eggs were the winners!

They found that cooked eggs could generate a number of potent ACE inhibitory peptides and although I am not advocating you have them every day, do not remove them from your diet because of the cholesterol scare but eat in moderation – as you should do with all things in your diet.

Incidentally, the research that led to the egg/cholesterol scare was done on powdered eggs and the problem has always been cholesterol that has been heated and exposed to air for an extended period. This does not occur with ‘real’ eggs as the yolk sac insulates the cholesterol from oxidation. Many doctors believe that there is no link between eggs and having high cholesterol levels and in fact if you don’t have enough cholesterol from food sources then your body is forced to manufacture it as it is essential for your health. This form of cholesterol that the body produces is more likely to be deposited in blood vessel walls than any form of cholesterol found in eggs.

Egg and chips anyone?

New hope for infertility treatment

It has just been reported in the Society for Endocrinology journal that the hormone kisspeptin shows promise as a potential new treatment for infertility. Research carried out at Imperial College London, have shown that giving kisspeptin to women with infertility can activate the release of sex hormones which control the menstrual cycle. For women with low sex hormone levels this could be a breakthrough for a new fertility therapy. Kisspeptin sounds like a loving form of antacid, but is actually a product of the KISS-1 gene and a key regulator of reproductive function. If we do not have this then gene, then puberty does not occur and we do not achieve sexual maturity.

The research was primarily concerned with a small group of ten women whose periods had stopped due to a hormone imbalance and who were injected with either kisspeptin or saline as a control measure. All the women gave blood samples to measure their levels of the two sex hormones essential for ovulation and fertility: luteinising hormone (LH) and follicle stimulating hormone (FSH).

The group who were given the kisspeptin showed to a 48-fold increase in LH and a 16-fold increase in FSH, when compared to the control group who were given only saline. The lead researcher, Dr Waljit Dhillo, said that this discovery offers huge promise as a treatment for infertility as it suggests that kisspeptin treatment could restore reproductive function in women with low sex hormone levels.

Lies – Drug companies and ‘official’ research

The health community in the US is reeling from the fact that it has just been revealed that the data used in over twenty pharmaceutical studies published in peer-reviewed medical journals was partially or completely altered-in other words it was faked.

Dr. Scott Reuben was known as a highly-respected and influential clinical researcher, whose findings were accepted in many major medical journals. What has just come to light is that his favourable reviews of many new drugs as being both safe and beneficial are seriously flawed as he has been on the payroll of two major pharmaceutical companies – Pfizer and Merck. He was actually a member of Pfizer’s speaker’s bureau (which I would have thought was not too difficult to find out) and received five ‘independent research grants’ from the company as well.

What we tend to look for when evaluating a new piece of research is whether it has been peer reviewed – in other words that scientists of equal substance and standing have read and agreed with the findings. What is now clear is that they are nothing of the sort but have taken their colleagues findings as gospel.

Dr. Scott Reuben didn’t just puff off the drugs from the companies he worked for, he actually falsified the data and by having it accepted by leading medical journals got it accepted as genuine. As a faculty member at the respected Tufts Medical School, Reuben had impeccable credentials to bolster his research.

Beginning in 2000, Reuben used his own research to target orthopaedic surgeons and convince them to stop prescribing NSAIDs and switch to the newer, branded COX2 inhibitors produced by Pfizer and Merck. He claimed in his research that using these drugs and others both pre and post operatively would reduce pain and lessen the need for addictive drugs such as morphine. For the last 12 years, he wrote papers promoting pain relieving drugs for orthopaedic surgery that were universally adopted. Now that ‘research’ he so assiduously promoted has been shown not only to be completely fabricated but that the drugs he advocated actually may have actually slowed postoperative healing in those patients. This research was taken up world wide and was certainly profitable for both Pfizer and Merck as their profits from these drugs are alleged to run into billions.

He further attempted to boost his credibility by co-authoring papers with respected, established orthopaedic surgeons, one of whom was Evan Ekman, who worked at the Southern Orthopaedic Sports Medicine in Columbia, South Carolina. He asked Ekman to review his manuscript on surgery on the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee but no orthopaedic surgeon was listed in the study. When Ekman asked for his details Reuben never replied and yet a year later he saw a copy of the manuscript Reuben had originally given him. This had been published in a per reviewed journal and Ekman was listed as the co-author. He discovered that his signature had been forged by Reuben on the submission form.

More of Reuben’s falsity came to light during a routine audit at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts which is the western campus for Tufts University School of Medicine. It was discovered that he had not received approval from the hospital’s review board to conduct two of his studies and has now been stripped of his research and educational duties and is on ‘medical leave’.

You might have thought that a medical researcher who always came out in favour of the pharmaceutical companies might have been a little suspicious – but sadly I am not at all convinced that this sad and sordid story is at all unique.

Oh really?

You know me, I love a good – really useless – piece of research that anyone with a brain cell could have deduced in a nanosecond. In this case, you will be astounded to learn that if you give very young children swimming lessons it will apparently not increase their risk of drowning. I would have thought it would actually be helpful, but truly I could not make this up, and am indebted to the researchers at the National Institutes of Health in the USA for this truly revelatory information.

The research came about because apparently health professionals in the US are concerned that giving swimming lessons to children under 4 might indirectly increase drowning risk by making parents and caregivers less vigilant when the kids are in the water. While acknowledging that even good swimmers can drown, they want to reassure parents that teaching kids to swim won’t increase their risk.

So glad to have cleared that up for you, and if you know of any research grants available for studying the effects on blood pressure of lying on a couch reading Georgette Heyer novels do let me know, I could make medical history.

Small waist – Good lungs?

A trim waist is usually admired, for beauty if not for health, but now there’s an even better reason to avoid putting on weight around your midriff. There’s more bad news for people who carry excess weight around their middle because having a big waist measurement is now shown to affect your lungs. The study was done at the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research on 120,000 Parisians and found that factors such as whether the subjects had been or were smokers did not impact their lung function as much as having a large waistline did.

If you are wondering what ‘large’ means, they defined it as over 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men.

Another reason to drink wine

One of the fastest growing cancers is Barrett’s Esophagus, which is a precursor to oesophageal cancer. That cancer has increased 500 percent in the last 30 years so anything that can help prevent it is good news. Just one glass of red wine a day can lower that risk by 56 percent, according to a new study by the US Kaiser Permanente Division of Research and reported in the March issue of Gastroenterology.

This little known condition currently affects 5 percent of the US population and happens when heartburn or acid reflux permanently damages the oesophageal lining. Unfortunately those who develop Barrett’s Esophagus have a 30 – 40 fold higher risk of developing oesophageal cancer because of the Barrett’s Esophagus cells ability to mutate into cancer cells.

If you regularly suffer heartburn and take over the counter or prescribed medicines for it then you must check with your doctor on a regular basis because you will not get any warning signs that you may have this condition because it has no obvious symptoms. It is usually diagnosed when someone has an endoscopy for a bleeding ulcer or heartburn and the condition is revealed.

There is also no treatment available at the moment, so anything that helps prevent it is to be welcomed. In this case that means drinking a glass of wine (red or white – they don’t mention rose) every day and that will reduce your risk by 56 per cent. It’s only wine that does this – spirits or beer had no effect – at least on the Barrett’s Esophagus risk. Wine is already known to be beneficial for the heart, but why it works here is not really known. It may be that the antioxidants in the wine neutralize the oxidative damage caused by gastroesophageal reflux – a known risk factor for Barrett’s Esophagus. Or, because most people drink wine with their meals, that the food reduces the potential for damage to the tissue in the oesophagus.

Not a drinker? Then keep your weight down and increase your 5 a day of fruit and vegetables to at least 8 portions and that will also reduce your risk. This research is also backed up by other studies looking at the same issue in Australia and Ireland.

However, if you do constantly suffer from acid reflux and heartburn it would be better to tackle it directly with dietary and lifestyle changes, rather than relying on antacids. Achieving and maintaining a normal body weight and ensuring your diet is high in antioxidants with plenty of vegetables and fruit will go a long way to helping.

Gout in men helped by vitamin C

Crusty old colonels with their feet propped on a cushion and waving a glass of port is the popular stereotype of gout, but sadly the truth is far more common. Traditionally, gout has most commonly developed in middle aged and older people – mostly men – but the condition is now being seen in younger people and also more frequently in women. A recent report suggested that, in the UK, it had increased by about 17 percent between 2007 and 2008. The reasons for this increase are unclear but it may be linked with dietary change and obesity definitely seems to increase the risk of gout.

It’s caused by a build-up of uric acid in the blood which forms crystal deposits in and around the joints, a form of arthritis, which is what causes the pain and inflammation typical of the condition. However a new study in British Columbia, Vancouver, has some good news – at least for men. The researchers suggest that vitamin C might affect the reabsorption of uric acid by the kidneys, increase the speed at which the kidneys work, or protect against inflammation; all of which can reduce the risk of gout.

They examined the relationship between vitamin C intake and gout between 1986 and 2006 in 46,994 men and during 20 years of follow-up, 1,317 men developed gout. Compared with men who had a vitamin C intake of less than 250 milligrams per day, the relative risk of gout was 17 percent lower for those with a daily intake of 500 to 999 milligrams, 34 percent lower for those with an intake of 1,000 to 1,499 milligrams per day and 45 percent lower for those with an intake of 1,500 milligrams per day or higher. For every 500-milligram increase in their vitamin C intake, the men’s risk for gout appeared to decrease by 17 percent. Compared with men who did not take vitamin C supplements, those who took 1,000 to 1,499 supplemental milligrams per day had a 34 percent lower risk of gout and those who took 1,500 supplemental milligrams per day had a 45 percent lower risk. and vitamin C appears to reduce the levels of uric acid in the blood.

What all those boring statistics actually mean is that vitamin C definitely seems to lower a man’s risk of gout so it’s worth supplementing to a level of around 1000mg a day, best in two doses of 500mg if you have any history of gout in your family

The only thing you need to know about losing weight

There are a million diets out there, but if you want to lose weight the only thing you need to focus on is eating less. Obvious but true, and now Dr. Frank Sacks, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, has published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that confirms what – if you have any sense – you already know. No one diet is better than any other, just find one you like and take in fewer calories than you are currently consuming. You just need to get the ratio right between the calories you burn up, and the calories you take in and the ideal diet plan would be to have 750 fewer calories each day than you are expending.

The Professor tested out various heart-healthy diets and asked the participants to also exercise 90 minutes a week. They all lost on average around 13 lbs.after six months of dieting, or about 7% of their starting weight, regardless of which diet plan they followed. As ever I am astounded that anyone would pay good money to prove something we all know – and may not like, but that’s another issue – but the US National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute handed over the funds for the study and they were delighted with the findings. However, most of the participants couldn’t sustain that 750 calorie mark and most by the end of the trial consuming only 225 calories less than they expended.

The researchers concluded that this target was too high, and a gradual reduction is better, and I entirely agree with them. A small reduction in calorie intake that is gradual and sustained will see the best results and a weight loss of just 5 percent can make a substantial difference to your health. So whatever diet you choose just eat less, and exercise more = boring, but effective.

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