Day: 01/26/2011

what is ZUMBA?

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Zumba is a fitness program that combines Latin music and easy-to-follow dance moves. Zumba routines incorporate interval training, alternating fast and slow rhythms and resistance training. Zumba’s fans say it’s so popular because Zumba is a fun way to work out.

Some research indicates that dance-type aerobic workouts like Zumba can improve cardiopulmonary endurance when done at moderate intensity and duration. The bottom line is if you enjoy Zumba, you’re more likely to stick with it — and more likely to enjoy the benefits of aerobic exercise.

As with any exercise, if a certain movement or position causes you pain, try to modify the workout to avoid the aggravating activities. And anytime you’re training with resistance, remember that proper technique is key — don’t get so caught up in the dance rhythm that you forget proper form.

source: mayo clinic housecall

Outcomes of Human Milk-Fed Premature Infants

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Significant benefits to infant host defense, sensory-neural development, gastrointestinal maturation, and some aspects of nutritional status are observed when premature infants are fed their mothers’ own milk. A reduction in infection-related morbidity in human milk-fed premature infants has been reported in nearly a dozen descriptive, and a few quasi-randomized, studies in the past 25 years. Human milk-fed infants also have decreased rates of rehospitalization for illness after discharge. Studies on neurodevelopmental outcomes have reported significantly positive effects for human milk intake in the neonatal period and long-term mental and motor development, intelligence quotient, and visual acuity through adolescence. Body composition in adolescence also is associated with human milk intake in the neonatal intensive care unit. Finally, human milk intake is less associated with the development of the metabolic syndrome than infant formula feeding.

source: science direct

Tamoxifen May Cut Lung Cancer Deaths

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Study Suggests Hormones Influence Some Lung Cancers

Jan. 24, 2011 — Tamoxifen, the medication long used to prevent the growth of breast cancer tumors, also appears to reduce the risk of dying from lung cancer, research suggests.

If the link bears out in future studies, giving tamoxifen for lung cancer may become another option for doctors, the researchers say.

The team of Swiss and French researchers followed more than 6,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer between 1980 and 2003. The researchers found that women on tamoxifen for their breast cancer who also contracted lung cancer were 87% less likely to die from the lung cancer than women who weren’t on tamoxifen.

“A reduction of 87% is definitely more than modest,” Elisabetta Rapiti, MD, senior epidemiologist at the Geneva Cancer Registry, tells WebMD in an email interview.

The study is published online in the journal Cancer.

Tamoxifen for Lung Cancer: The Back Story

The finding makes sense in the wake of previous research, Rapiti tells WebMD. In the past, research has found that hormone therapy taken during menopause increases the risk of dying from lung cancer.

“We have seen in the laboratory that estrogens can stimulate the growth and proliferation of lung cancer cells,” she says.

So, it would follow that the tamoxifen, an “anti-estrogen,” may work against lung cancer.

“Our findings are quite new and exciting, as they are the first to document such a strong association between the use of tamoxifen and reduced mortality of lung cancer,” she says.

The work builds on earlier studies, as far back as the late 1980s, that found evidence that estrogen may be involved in the development of lung cancer, she says, especially adenocarcinomas.

The adenocarcinomas occur in smokers and nonsmokers and are more common in women than in men, the American Cancer Society says. The tumors are usually found in the outer region of the lung and account for about 40% of all lung cancers.

Tamoxifen for Lung Cancer: Study Details

Rapiti’s team found that 40 women in the study — out of a total of 6,655 — contracted lung cancer during the follow-up, which lasted until December 2007. Although 46% of the women were prescribed tamoxifen or other anti-estrogen drugs to treat their breast cancer, 54% were not.

The researchers looked at which women had been treated with anti-estrogen drugs and didn’t find a difference between the groups when it came to getting lung cancer.

But fewer women with lung cancer on the anti-estrogen drugs died than what would be expected in the general population. They found 87% fewer cases of death from lung cancer in women on the anti-estrogen drugs than in the population at large.

The women not treated with anti-estrogen drugs had the same risk of dying from lung cancer as other women.

The study finding ”makes sense based on what we have seen in the lab,” says Carolyn M. Klinge, PhD, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Louisville, who reviewed the study findings for WebMD. She has done basic research in the laboratory on lung cancer cells.

In her research, she found that lung adenocarcinoma cells sometimes grew when treated with estradiol, a potent natural estrogen, and sometimes did not.

On looking further, she discovered that the cells that originated from women grew, but those from men did not.

Tamoxifen for Lung Cancer: The Future

”The question now is not whether there is an effect [of tamoxifen on lung cancer] but just how big it really is,” Rapiti says.

The value of tamoxifen for lung cancer treatment will probably be in a select group of patients, she says.

source: webMD

Understanding the genetics of anorexia

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Scripps Research Professor Nicholas Schork

If a girl’s mother was anorexic, there’s a very high chance that she will be, too. In the world of science, odds like this strongly suggest a genetic element to the disease, but the research is only beginning to get off the ground – pushed forward by an interdisciplinary team of scientists at Scripps Research.

The team, composed of Scripps Research Professor Nicholas Schork, a genomics researcher and director of biostatistics and bioinformatics with Scripps Translational Science Institute (a collaboration between Scripps Research, Scripps Health, and other institutions), Dr. Cinnamon Bloss, a clinical psychologist, and Dr. Ashley Van Zeeland, a neuroscientist, believes that a better understanding of the genetic variations associated with eating disorders could lead not only to better treatments, but could also shed light on other disorders such as autism, obesity, and obsessive compulsive disorder.

As with many other diseases, genetic variants may not guarantee that a patient will develop a disease, but might tell doctors who is most susceptible.

Last year, Dr. Bloss and Dr. Schork collaborated with scientists at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia on the largest genetic study ever on anorexia. The project identified both common and rare genetic variants associated with the disease, but the team says the study was just a first step.

“Now we’re kicking it up in gear,” Dr. Schork said. “We’re working on a study that looks at 150 genes thought to play a role in anorexia and we’re spelling out all of the variations in those genes.”

The team is not treating all anorexia patients the same, though. By dividing them into sub-groups – for example, separating the patients who restrict their caloric intake from those who binge and purge – the team is able to refine their search and increase the odds that the variants they find will be specific to the disorder.

The study, which will be the first of its kind, has already identified a number of variants never before seen. Now, the scientists are in the second phase, using statistical and physiological analysis to determine whether these variants play a role in anorexia.

One of the most helpful ways of separating the patients may be to look at the genetic differences between people who recover and those who remain chronically ill.

“Anorexia is highly treatment-resistant, nothing really works that well,” Dr. Bloss said.

The scientists hope that genetic factors could hold a clue to this. In recent years, research has pointed toward commonalities between people with anorexia and those with autism, including Dr. Van Zeeland’s work on social rewards.

“A lot of anorexia treatment is family therapy, but it doesn’t work well if you don’t understand the social cues,” she said. “It doesn’t become internalized. Instead of seeing the social world as an exciting place, it becomes anxiety-ridden.”

Better understanding of the genetic factors behind anorexia may not only help scientists develop better treatments for the disorder, it may also hold value for other diseases as well. Scientists say that in looking for genetic variants that affect mechanisms related to anorexia – for instance, mechanisms related to feeding – their findings may also apply to overeating. Similarly, in looking at mechanisms related to anxiety, their findings could hold helpful information for obsessive-compulsive disorder.

“Studying anorexia is important in and of itself, but we are of the mind that whatever we find could shed light on other disorders,” said Dr. Schork.

The team also believes that time is of the essence. Anorexia has the highest mortality rate of all psychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

“Once someone is locked into these behaviors – not eating, exercising all the time, cutting off the rest of the world – it’s very hard to get them out of that trough,” Dr. Schork said. “If you can’t help, then people will die.”

source: sipple research

Non-Invasive Brain Scan And Blood Test Are Future Candidates To Assess Risk And Monitor Progression Of Alzheimer’s Disease

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It is complicated to predict the risk for healthy individuals to develop dementia. If an individual does experience a problem with memory and brain function, it is difficult to determine whether it is Alzheimer’s disease. Two studies published in the January 19, 2011 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) describe methods developed to detect a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease—beta-amyloid protein—in the brain and blood. Both tests are not commercially available, but are important breakthroughs in the push for early detection and monitoring of this debilitating disease.

The first study, by Christopher M. Clark, M.D. of Philadelphia-based Avid Radiopharmaceuticals, used a dye, called Florbetapir, that binds beta-amyloid protein and pinpoints plaques with a brain-imaging machine (PET scanner). This is an important discovery, because detection of amyloid plaques in the brain and confirmation of a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease normally is done by autopsy after death. On January 20, an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed Dr. Clark’s and his colleagues’ data, but rejected its use until the researchers show the brain scans can be properly read and interpreted. Once the technique is refined and accepted by the FDA, this test could be used to predict the risk of developing the disease and to determine whether an individual would be a good candidate for enrollment in an Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial.

The second study—conducted by Kristine Yaffe, M.D. of the University of California, San Francisco, the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and colleagues—showed that low blood levels of beta-amyloid protein fragments, called beta-amyloid 42/40, indicate increased risk for the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer’s. If a test is eventually offered on the market, it could give more time for intervention and prevention of cognitive decline. This is important in light of another finding from the study: fewer years of formal education and lower levels of literacy indicate a greater risk of dementia. Though our funding did not cover this study, AHAF supports Dr. Yaffe for separate research examining the link between diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.

Statins for Patients with Fatty Liver Disease and Mildly Elevated Transaminases

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Benefits seem to outweigh hepatotoxicity risk.

Patients with hyperlipidemia often have elevated transaminase levels, usually caused by nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), an independent predictor of mortality. Small studies have suggested that statins lower transaminase levels and improve liver histology in patients with NAFLD, but many clinicians are reluctant to start or continue statins in such patients. In two recent studies, investigators examined the effects of statins in patients with NAFLD who were enrolled in trials with cardiovascular primary endpoints.

In a Greek study, researchers randomized 1600 patients with coronary heart disease and hyperlipidemia to receive either structured care including atorvastatin (titrated to achieve LDL cholesterol level <100 mg/dL) or usual care by their own physicians for an average of 3 years (Angiology 2003; 54:679). Of these patients, 437 had elevated transaminases (≤3 times the upper limit of normal) at baseline; most had ultrasound findings consistent with NAFLD and no other apparent cause of transaminitis. In this subgroup, mean transaminases declined significantly from baseline in patients assigned to statins and rose significantly from baseline in those assigned to usual care. Patients with baseline transaminitis who were assigned to statins had 68% lower risk for cardiovascular events than those receiving usual care; patients with normal baseline transaminases exhibited 39% relative risk reduction with statins. Fewer than 1% of patients assigned to statins in the original study had hepatotoxicity related to treatment.

In a U.S. study, researchers randomized 1000 apparently healthy adults with elevated coronary calcium scores to receive a daily combination of atorvastatin (20 mg), vitamin C (1 g), and vitamin E (1000 IU), or matching placebos for a mean of 3.6 years (JW Cardiol Aug 12 2005). At baseline, all patients had LDL cholesterol levels between 90 and 174 mg/dL and transaminases <1.5 times the upper limit of normal. Among the 455 patients who underwent baseline and follow-up abdominal computed tomography (CT) scans, 80 met radiological criteria for NAFLD at baseline (defined as a ratio of liver to spleen attenuation <1). Follow-up CT scans showed significantly fewer patients with NAFLD in the treatment group than in the placebo group (37% vs. 78% at 2 years). Three patients exhibited transient transaminase elevations during the study.

Comment: In patients with NAFLD and mildly elevated transaminase levels, the cardiovascular benefits of statins seem to outweigh any risk for hepatotoxicity. Whether statins (with or without antioxidant vitamins) can interrupt the progression from NAFLD to advanced liver disease will require longer-term study. Also, randomized trials of statins in patients with more-severe fatty liver disease are needed.

— Bruce Soloway, MD

Published in Journal Watch General Medicine January 25, 2011