Now, a simple device for early detection of viral infections
Meat-eaters more prone to cancer: study
London: Vegetarians are less likely than meat eaters to develop some cancers, a major study has found.
The study involving 61,566 people found that vegetarians developed fewer cancers of the blood, bladder and stomach but their diet did not seem to protect bowel cancer.
During the research conducted over 12 years, 3,350 participants were diagnosed with cancer. Of those, 68 percent (2,204) were meat eaters, 24 percent (800) were vegetarians and 9.5 percent (300) ate fish but no meat.
The study by researchers from universities in Britain and New Zealand, published in the British Journal of Cancer, followed meat-eaters, those who ate fish but not meat, and those who ate neither meat nor fish.
Fish eaters actually had the lowest rate of cancer - 18 percent lower than meat eaters - but they were also the smallest sample.
According to a 2006 State of the Nation survey by The Hindu-CNN-IBN, 31 percent of Indians are vegetarians. Women and people above the age of 55 are more likely to be vegetarian, the survey found. But it did not disaggregate the figures according to those who eat fish but no meat.
The cancer study published Wednesday suggested that while in the general population about 33 people in 100 will develop cancer during their lifetime, for those who do not eat meat that risk is reduced to about 29 in 100.
The study found that vegetarians are 45 percent less likely to develop cancer of the blood than meat eaters and are 12 percent less likely to develop cancer overall.
In the case of multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow, vegetarians were 75 percent less likely to develop the disease than meat-eaters.
Co-author Naomi Allen, from the epidemiology unit at Oxford University, said: "Previous research has found that processed meat may increase the risk of stomach cancer, so our findings that vegetarians and fish eaters are at lower risk is plausible. But we do not know why cancer of the blood is lower in vegetarians."
Although the numbers of cases were small, fish-eaters and vegetarians were about a third as likely to develop stomach cancer as meat-eaters.
Professor Tim Key, the lead author, said it was impossible to draw strong conclusions from this one single study.
"At the moment these findings are not strong enough to ask for particularly large changes in the diets of people following an average balanced diet."
A spokesperson for Cancer Research UK, which funded the research, said: "We know that eating a lot of red and processed meat increases the risk of stomach cancer.
"But the links between diet and cancer risk are complex and more research is needed to see how big a part diet plays and which specific dietary factors are most important.”
In 2005, a European study concluded that eating just two portions of red meat a day - the equivalent of a bacon sandwich and a fillet steak - increased the risk of bowel cancer by 35 percent.
It found that eating fibre in the form of vegetables, fruit and wholegrain cereals, lessened the risk of cancer and that fish, eaten at least every other day, was also protective.
Village adoption to ensure zero paediatric mortality
Coimbatore: The Indian Academy of Paediatrics (IAP) would soon adopt a village in the district to ensure zero child mortality and also total elimination of pneumonia there, a senior health official has said.
The village would be selected on the basis of low socio economic status, with more SC/ST and Tribal population, Dr S Elango, Director, Public Health, Tamil Nadu, said, during a conference on Sunday.
A five-member doctor team would carry out an awareness campaign on health, vaccination for children and importance of breast feeding. They would also work for achieving 100 per cent "institutional deliveries", he said.
Every child in the village would be treated free of cost for any disease and would be provided with identity cards in this pilot project-- a joint venture of IAP in collaboration with Paediatric Specialists and Corporation health officials.
"Depending on the success, the project would be extended across India, to control infant mortality, since the country was leading in infant mortality with 20 lakh children under five years of age dying every year," Dr. Elango said.
Malnutrition was the major reason for pneumonia, he said, adding about 60 per cent of the paediatric deaths occurred within seven days after birth.
New treatment method may possibly eradicate HIV infection
London, June 22: A collaborative team of researchers from VGTI Florida and the University of Montreal say that they have made certain findings that may provide a method to eradicate HIV infection in the human body.
They say that their study has even uncovered new information on how HIV persists in the body, even in patients receiving drug treatments, and how the virus continues to replicate itself in individuals undergoing treatment.
According to background information in a research article on their study, medical advancements in the past 20 years have significantly increased the survival rates of AIDS patients.
The report further states that about 90 percent of patients infected with AIDS can survive with the disease as long as they are treated with a complex series of antiretroviral drugs.
"Current medications allow us to control HIV and limit its progression in most cases," Nature magazine quoted senior author Dr. Rafick-Pierre Sekaly, current scientific director for VGTI Florida, a former scientist at the University of Montreal, as saying.
"However, the medications do not eradicate the disease. Instead, the disease persists within the body - much like water in a reservoir - and is never fully destroyed. We believe our latest research may help scientists and physicians overcome this hurdle," the researcher added.
The researchers say that their study enabled them to identify a possible new way of attacking HIV by first identifying the specific cells where HIV infection persists in patients currently undergoing treatment.
They have found that the disease is able to survive within two subsets of memory T-cells.
Memory T-cells are a portion of the body's immune system and have the ability to learn, detect and attack certain types of infectious diseases.
The team say that HIV avoid antiviral treatments by infecting cells within the body's own immune system, and that it uses the body's own defence system as a hideout.
As to how the HIV-infected memory T-cells replenish themselves, the researchers found that when populating T-cells, HIV does not replicate itself as it does in other cell types on the body.
They say that HIV instead persists in memory T-cells through cell division, a finding that holds significant implications for possibly stopping the disease.
"Based on this research, we believe one possible method for eliminating HIV in the body is to use a combined approach. We propose the use of medications that target viral replication of HIV throughout the body, in combination with drugs that prevent infected memory T-cells from dividing. We believe that by attacking the disease in these distinct two ways at once for an extended period of time, we can eliminate the reservoirs of HIV that currently persist within the human body, leaving an individual disease-free," said Dr. Sekaly.
The researchers say that they will next use animal models and newly developed therapies to test their proposed treatment method.
"While this is a preliminary finding, we are hopeful that this research discovery will guide us in eradicating HIV infection in the body," said Dr. Sekaly.
The findings of the study have been reported in the online edition of the journal Nature Medicine. (ANI)
Scientists uncover new trigger for chronic inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis
London, June 29: Scientists at Imperial College London say that blocking a signal molecule made by the human body, which triggers the immune system into action, may make it possible to develop more effective treatments for rheumatoid arthritis.
Rheumatoid arthritis is the most common autoimmune disease that causes painful and persistent swelling in the joints, which can result in damage to the bone and cartilage.
Considering that around half of all patients do not respond to one or more of the treatments currently available, the researchers say that stopping the disease closer to the root of the problem could be the best way to treat it.
In their study paper, the researchers point out that the body responds to an infection by a microbe by turning on a molecular switch to set the immune system into action.
They say that their findings show that a signal molecule called tenascin-C can trigger the same molecular switch, and also activate the immune system.
They add that high levels of tenascin-C present in joints, therefore, may cause the activated immune system to attack the joint leading to the persistent inflammation of rheumatoid arthritis.
The researchers also reveal that the molecular switch called TLR4 is found on the surface of immune cells.
According to them, studies conducted in the past have shown that mice without TLR4 do not show chronic joint inflammation.
The team hope that scientists can develop new treatments that target the interaction between tenascin-C and TLR4, which may help to combat rheumatoid arthritis.
"Rheumatoid arthritis is a debilitating and painful disease and, unfortunately, there is no cure. Furthermore, current treatments are not effective for many patients," Nature magazine quoted Dr. Kim Midwood, lead author of the study from the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology at Imperial College London, as saying.
"We have uncovered one way that the immune system may be triggered to attack the joints in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. We hope our new findings can be used to develop new therapies that interfere with tenascin-C activation of the immune system and that these will reduce the painful inflammation that is a hallmark of this condition," added Dr. Midwood.
The authors say that the next step will be to work out the precise mechanism by which tenascin-C increases these levels of inflammatory molecules in the human joint, and to find ways to inhibit this action.
A research article on their findings has been published in the journal Nature Medicine. (ANI)
Now, a simple device for early detection of viral infections
Washington, June 29: Vanderbilt University scientists in the US have developed a respiratory virus detector that is sensitive enough to detect an infection at an early stage, takes only a few minutes to return a result, and is simple enough to be performed in a doctor's clinic.
Biomedical engineer Frederick "Rick" Haselton and chemist David Wright are the brains behind this device.
Writing in the journal The Analyst, they say that their technique, which uses DNA hairpins attached to gold filaments, can detect the presence of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)-a leading cause of respiratory infections in infants and young children-at substantially lower levels than the standard laboratory assay.
"We hope that our research will help us break out of the catch-22 that is holding back major advances in the treatment of respiratory viruses," says Wright.
He points out that major pharmaceutical companies are not investing into the development of antiviral drugs for RSV and the other major respiratory viruses, as there is no way to detect the infections early enough for the drugs to work effectively without harmful side-effects.
"There are antiviral compounds out there - we have discovered some of them in my lab - that would work if we can detect the virus early enough, before there is too much virus in the system," he says.
He further points out that the lack of a reliable early detection system adds to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.
Given that the symptoms of respiratory infections caused by viral agents are nearly identical to those caused by bacteria, Wright says that antibiotics used to target bacteria are often incorrectly prescribed for viral infections.
The researcher further says that not only is this ineffective, but it also increases the number of antibiotic-resistant strains.
The available standard tests for RSV require doctors to send a mucous sample from a patient to a special laboratory, and by the time the results come, respiratory viruses often multiply and make it too late for antiviral drugs to work.
"(By contrast) our system could easily be packaged in a disposable device about the size of a ballpoint pen," says Haselton.
The researchers also revealed that tests on the sensitivity of their system had shown that it could detect the presence of RSV virus particles at levels that are 200 times below the minimum detection level of the standard ELISA method.
That extreme sensitivity, combined with the basic simplicity of the approach, could make it "attractive for further development as a viral detection platform," the scientists wrote in the Analyst article.
According to them, the next major step in the development process is to see how the device performs with real patient samples. (ANI)
