health tips

New candy eats ‘bad’ bacteria in the mouth, benefitting teeth

Our mouths are a delicate balance of good and bad bacteria. When we clean our teeth, the aim is to knock out cavity-causing bacteria, while allowing beneficial oral bacteria to thrive. Now, researchers have developed a sugar-free candy, which contains dead bacteria that bind to bad bacteria, potentially reducing cavities.

The importance of good oral health has been emphasized by doctors for years. Poor oral health has been linked to many conditions, from Alzheimer’s disease to pancreatic cancer, not to mention cardiovascular disease.

To promote better oral health, a team from the Berlin-based firm Organobalance GmbH, Germany, created a new candy, which they claim reduced levels of ‘bad’ bacteria in study subjects’ mouths.

Their research was published in Probiotics and Antimicrobial Proteins.

They note that after we eat, bacteria on the surface of the teeth release acid, which can dissolve the tooth enamel, leading to cavities.

The most common strain of this “bad” bacteria is called Mutans streptococci. However, the researchers say that in previous studies with rats, another bacteria called Lactobacillus paracasei has been shown to reduce levels of the cavity-causing bacteria, decreasing the number of cavities in the rodents.

The team, led by Christine Lang, believe that by binding with M. streptococci, the L. paracasei bacteria prevent this bad bacteria from reattaching to the teeth, causing it to get washed away by saliva.

Candy ‘significantly lowered’ bad oral bacteria levels
In a pilot trial involving 60 subjects, Lang and her team tested whether their sugar-free candy, which contained heat-killed samples of L. paracasei DSMZ16671, reduced levels of bad oral bacteria.

One-third of the subjects ate candies with 1 mg of L. paracasei, while another third ate candies with twice this amount (2 mg). The final third served as a control group and ate candies that were similar in taste but that contained no bacteria.

In total, all subjects ate five candies during the 1.5-day study. They were not allowed to perform any oral hygiene activities during this time, and they were also not allowed to consume coffee, tea, wine or probiotic foods.

Results showed that nearly 75% of the participants who ate candies with the good bacteria had “significantly lower” levels of Mutans streptococci in their saliva than before, compared with the control group.

Additionally, the subjects who ate candy with 2 mg of L. paracasei had a reduction in bad bacteria levels after eating only one piece of candy.

The researchers write:

“We think it remarkable that this effect was observed after exposure to only five pieces of candy containing 1 or 2 mg of dead L. paracasei DSMZ16671 consumed in 1.5 days.”

They say that by using dead bacteria, they avoided problems that live bacteria might have caused. They also note that the L. paracasei does not bind with beneficial oral bacteria, which is why this is a better cavity prevention method than other probiotics.

“Additionally,” they add, “sugar-free candies stimulate saliva flow, a benefit to oral health.”

Source: Medical News Today

Cause of infant deaths from SIDS identified

Researchers have claimed that babies dying from Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) have brain stem abnormalities regardless of whether they were exposed to risks like suffocation or co-sleeping.

The researchers analysed the brain stems of 71 infants who had died suddenly and unexpectedly over 11 years.
The study found that all the babies who died had abnormalities of four neurochemicals in the brain stem, located at the skull’s base and connects the brain to the spinal cord.

According to Boston Children’s Hospital and Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health’s Dr Jhodie Duncan, the research suggests that the abnormality leaves the toddlers unable to adequately respond when faced with a stressor while sleeping.
He said that if a pillow goes over a healthy infant’s face, their brain usually detects changes in oxygen levels and initiates response, so that the baby can turn its head and continue breathing. However, babies with the abnormality did not “respond properly” in the same situation, which lead to their death, News.com.au reported.

The next possible step of the research team would be to see if a blood test can be developed to be used as an early screening tool to identify infants at risk of sudden and unexpected death in their first year.
The research has been published in the journal Pediatrics.

Source: Yahoo news

Grape seed Extract Kills 76% of Leukemia Cancer Cells in 24 Hours

A new study by Indian origin researcher has revealed that the synthesis of the most active component of grape seed extract, B2G2, encourages the cell death known as apoptosis in prostate cancer cells while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

“We’ve shown similar anti-cancer activity in the past with grape seed extract (GSE), but now we know B2G2 is its most biologically active ingredient which can be synthesized in quantities that will allow us to study the detailed death mechanism in cancer cells,” Alpna Tyagi, PhD, of the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, said.

Previous studies have shown the GSE effectiveness against cancer cells and have also shown its mechanism of action. However, Tyagi said that until recently, they didn’t know which constituent of GSE created this effect. This naturally occurring compound, GSE, is a complex mixture of polyphenols and also so far it has been unclear about the biologically active constituents of GSE against cancer cells.

Eventually the group pinpointed B2G2 as the most active compound, but, “it’s expensive and it takes a long time to isolate B2G2 from grape seed extract,” Tyagi says.

The current study reported the success of this effort, including the ability to synthesize gram-quantity of B2G2 reasonably quickly and inexpensively.

The study also showed anti-cancer activity of synthesized B2G2 similar in mechanism and degree to overall GSE effectiveness.

The study was published in the journal Nutrition and Cancer.

Source: Zee news

 

Tummy `clock` tells us how much to eat

Scientists have found the first evidence that the nerves in the stomach act as a circadian clock, limiting food intake to specific times of the day. The discovery, by University of Adelaide researchers , could lead to new information about how the gut signals to our brains about when we’re full, and when to keep eating.

In the University’s Nerve-Gut Research Laboratory, Dr Stephen Kentish investigated how the nerves in the stomach respond to stretch, which occurs as a consequence of food intake, at three-hourly intervals across one day. “These nerves are responsible for letting the brain know how much food we have eaten and when to stop eating,” said Kentish, who is the lead author of the paper.

“What we’ve found is that the nerves in the gut are at their least sensitive at time periods associated with being awake. This means more food can be consumed before we feel full at times of high activity, when more energy is required,” Kentish added.

“However, with a change in the day-night cycle to a period associated with sleeping , the nerves in the stomach become more sensitive to stretch, signalling fullness to the brain quicker and thus limiting food intake.

“This variation repeats every 24 hours in a circadian manner, with the nerves acting as a clock to coordinate food intake with energy requirements ,” he said. So far this discovery has been made in lab studies, not in humans. “Our theory is that the same variations in nerve responses exist in human stomachs , with the gut nerves being less sensitive to fullness during the day and more sensitive at night,” he said.

Source: Deccan Chronicle

Real-Time Flu Forecast Predicts Outbreaks in Each US City

real-time-flu-forecast-predicts-outbreaks-each-city_1

Borrowing ideas from weather forecasting, researchers have developed a system to predict, weeks in advance, when a city will see the peak of its seasonal flu outbreak.

A reliable flu forecast could limit an outbreak by informing people and health officials so they can step up protective measures, the researchers said.

The researchers tested the model on 108 cities across the United States during the 2012-2013 flu season, and found they could accurately predict the timing of the influenza peak in more than 60 percent of the cities two to four weeks in advance, on average, according to the study, published today (Dec. 3) in the journal Nature Communications.
Source: Live Science

Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Brain Damage, Says Study

A recent study, published by researchers from the University of Kentucky, in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine, suggests that low levels of vitamin D may cause brain damage.

Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin present in few natural foods, including fatty fish, cheese and egg yolks; a variety of foods, meanwhile, are artificially fortified with vitamin D, including milk, cereals and margarine. Vitamin D manufacture can also be achieved endogenously, when rays of light strike the skin. This photochemical process triggers the production of vitamin D3 (a.k.a. cholecalciferol) from its precursor, 7-dehydrocholesterol.

Vitamin D confers a number of benefits, ranging from promotion of calcium absorption in the gut, maintaining serum calcium and phosphate levels, as well as bone growth and remodeling. On top of this, vitamin D regulates a number of genes that are involved in cell division, differentiation and an essential form of programmed cellular death (apoptosis). It is thought that vitamin D serves a variety of roles in inflammatory processes and could even serve neuromuscular and immune functions.

The Rat Research Models
The latest scientific research suggests that the vitamin may serve a critical role in protecting the brain from free radical-induced damage. The researchers used a series of rat models to test the influence of differing concentrations of dietary vitamin D. A total of 27 male rats were divided into three separate groups; one group was fed a diet that contained low concentrations of vitamin D (100 IU/kg food), another was used as a control (1000 IU/kg food) and the final group received a diet enriched in the vitamin (10,000 IU/kg food).

The trial began as the rats hit middle-age and lasted for a period of four to five months. The research group measured the level of oxidative and nitrosative stress in a specific part of the rat brains, located in the posterior cortex.

Intriguingly, the group found an elevation in the level of a reactive nitrogen species, called 3-nitrotyrosine, in those rats that had received inadequate levels of vitamin D. Nitrotyrosine is considered a marker of cellular damage and inflammation and has been found to be elevated in a number of pathologies, including inflammatory diseases, lung disease, sepsis and atherosclerosis.

The researchers believe that the increase in nitrotyrosine is caused by disruption of a protein complex (NF-?B) that is recruited during cellular stress. In addition, after performing redox proteomics, a number of proteins in this region of the brain were found to be damaged in those rats that were provisioned low vitamin D diets.

When examining the real-world affect that this vitamin D deficiency had on the rats, the research team established that subjects provided with an abundance of the sunshine vitamin excelled in cognitive performance tests. Specifically, when investigating learning and memory capacity, rats given diets consisting of 100 IU/kg of food were found to lag behind the other two groups, significantly.

The Future
Allan Butterfield was the lead author of the latest study, who works as a professor in the UK Department of Chemistry and as the director of the Center of Membrane Sciences, faculty of Sanders-Brown Center on Aging. Also acting as the director of the Free Radical Biology in Cancer Core of the Markey Cancer Center, Butterfield briefly discussed his research endeavors and what they could mean for elderly populations.

“Given that vitamin D deficiency is especially widespread among the elderly, we investigated how during aging from middle-age to old-age how low vitamin D affected the oxidative the oxidative status of the brain… Adequate vitamin D serum levels are necessary to prevent free radical damage to the brain and subsequent deleterious consequences.”
This problem is exacerbated in developing countries, where food nutrition is problematic. Likewise, individuals that inhabit regions that receive little sunlight and those who work indoors for long periods are also prone to deficiency, as are elderly people who lead sedentary lifestyles.

In the past, prior scientific studies have implicated hypovitaminosis D in Alzheimer’s disease, with a number of researchers suggesting its use as a biomarker of disease progression. A recent study, published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, entitled Low serum vitamin D concentrations in Alzheimer’s disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis, found there to be low serum vitamin D levels in Alzheimer’s patients, relative to controls.

Meanwhile, a study produced by Lu’o’ng and Nguyen, which explored the beneficial role of vitamin D in Alzheimer’s patients, found that its absence could trigger mood problems and cognitive impairment. They also point to evidence that links vitamin D deficiency to a number of proteins that are adversely affected in Alzheimer’s disease pathology.

Aside from neurological disease, a number of studies have linked deficiency of the vitamin to the development of cancers and cardiovascular pathologies. Osteomalacia and rickets, witnessed in adults and children, respectively, are commonly documented complications of vitamin D deficiency, causing softening and bowing of bones.

In concluding, Butterfield recommends people consult their general practitioners to determine their vitamin D levels, eat food enriched in vitamin D and get a minimum of 10 to 15 minutes of sun exposure every day; he also suggests individuals prone to deficiency should ask their doctor for advice about taking vitamin D supplements.

Source: Guardian express

Radiographic imaging exposes relationship between obesity and cancer

Researchers at the National Institute for Aging are working to improve understanding about obesity and cancer. A study, published today in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, is the first to use direct radiographic imaging of adipose tissue rather than estimates like body mass index (BMI) or waist circumference, and focuses on the relationship between obesity and cancer risk in aging populations. Findings emphasize the negative impact of adiposity on long term health particularly for older men and women.

The researchers investigated relationships between fat mass and risk of developing cancer in 2,519 older adults in the Health, Aging, and Body Composition Study, a prospective, population-based study supported by the National Institute on Aging. They measured total body fat and body fat within the abdomen and thigh including visceral fat (adipose around the internal organs) and subcutaneous fat with radiographic images. Individuals were followed for cancer incidence over 13 years.

According to the study, “results suggest that adiposity may carry risk for cancers beyond those identified as obesity-related by the National Cancer Institute and further suggest a possible sex differential with respect to adipose and cancer risk.”

Dr. Rachel Murphy, lead author on the study, is a researcher at the Laboratory of Epidemiology, and Population Sciences, Intramural Research Program, National Institute on Aging, in Bethesda, Maryland.
She said, “I think it’s important to realize that BMI is not the only indicator of health to concentrate on. After controlling for risk factors we found that greater fat confers risk for cancer in older men and women. For example, women with more overall fat mass and more visceral fat had a higher risk of developing cancer.”

“For men, greater visceral adipose was a particularly strong risk factor for many types of cancer regardless of the individual’s BMI. Men with the most visceral fat had a nearly 3 times higher risk of many types of cancer (esophagus, pancreas, colon and rectum, kidney, thyroid, and gallbladder) compared to men with little visceral fat. When we controlled for BMI, the risk for visceral fat was strengthened.”

“These findings provide new insight into obesity and cancer in old age, and suggest that interventions to target visceral adipose in addition to promotion of healthy body weight may impact future cancer risk.”

Source: Medical express

5 ways to stop snoring

There’s no miracle cure for snoring, but lifestyle changes may help.

As snoring can be related to lifestyle, there are some simple changes you can make to minimise it.

Snoring self-help tips:

Maintain a healthy diet and weight. Being overweight by just a few kilograms can lead to snoring. Fatty tissue around your neck squeezes the airway and prevents air from flowing in and out freely.

Try to sleep on your side rather than your back. While sleeping on your back, your tongue, chin and any excess fatty tissue under your chin will probably relax and squash your airway. Sleeping on your side prevents this.

Avoid alcohol before going to bed. Alcohol causes the muscles to relax more than usual during a normal night’s sleep. This added relaxation of the muscles makes the back of the throat collapse more readily, which then causes snoring.

Quit or cut down on smoking. Cigarette smoke irritates the lining of the nasal cavity and throat, causing swelling and catarrh. If the nasal passages become congested, it’s difficult to breathe through your nose because the airflow is decreased.

Keep your nasal passages clear so that you breathe in through your nose rather than your mouth. Try rubbing a few drops of eucalyptus or olbas oil onto your pillowcase. If an allergy is blocking your nose, try antihistamine tablets or a nasal spray. Ask your pharmacist for advice, and see your GP if you’re affected by an allergy or condition that affects your nose or breathing.

Source: nhs choices

Today’s elderly may be mentally sharper than yesterday’s

Elderly people today might be more mentally nimble than their counterparts were a decade or two ago, according to a new European study.

Researchers found people who were in their 80s when they took thinking and memory tests in the late 2000s performed similarly to others who were tested more than 10 years earlier while in their 70s.

General health in old age is probably improving for most people, Dallas Anderson said.

“People are better educated than they used to be, their economic wellbeing may be better compared to previous groups,” Anderson said. He studies dementia at the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Maryland, and was not involved in the new study.

“All these various factors working together lead to an improved situation.”

For their study, researchers tested the thinking and memory skills of 204 elderly French men and women selected from the memory clinic of a Paris hospital between 1991 and 1997. They compared their test scores to those from 177 similar people tested at the same clinic in 2008 and 2009.

None of the participants had dementia at the time.

As expected, people under age 80 performed better on the cognitive tests than older participants during both study periods, researchers led by Jocelyne de Rotrou from Hôpital Broca in Paris wrote in PLOS One.

The 2000s group as a whole also did better than the 1990s group. Participants tested more recently scored an average 83.2 out of a possible 100 on the exams, compared to 73.5 for their earlier counterparts.

The differences were consistent across almost every component of the tests, including how well people remembered stories and pictures and their ability to separate objects into different categories.

The authors said this trend might simply parallel increased life expectancies: the longer you live, the more good years you have.

But there could be something else going on too, Anderson told Reuters Health, like improvements in the average person’s education and socioeconomic status.

These new results may also indicate that better drug regimens for controlling blood pressure and heart problems are having a positive effect on aging, he said.

“This is consistent with other studies, especially a couple already published from Europe, in Denmark and the UK,” and it’s likely happening in the U.S. as well, he said.

But Louis Bherer, who studies cognitive decline at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, believes it is too soon to generalize the Paris results more broadly.

“France is a country in which education is free and open to everyone, and where everyone has access to free medical care,” he told Reuters Health. “Generalization to countries that do not offer the same social advantages would be misleading.”

It’s possible that more careful screening for early stages of dementia in 2008 and 2009 led to a more mentally sound group, said Bherer, who didn’t participate in the new research.

As often happens, it’s hard to tell whether researchers are sensing a true trend in the population, or tools have improved and changed what they can see.

Bherer and Anderson agreed these types of studies need to be replicated before any larger conclusions can be drawn.

A recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine highlighted evidence of declining dementia rates in the U.S.

“The idea that some people will get extra years of healthy living before they get demented, that’s important,” Anderson said. “When you look at it from a public health perspective, it’s huge.”

But the trend might not continue, he said, especially in the U.S. as more obese, diabetic generations age into retirement. Their health problems could help speed mental decline.

Dementia is still a public health issue, especially with the baby boomer generation getting older, he said.

“Even if the rates go down, the numbers are still going to go up.”

Source: Reuters

New Test May Help Predict Survival From Ovarian Cancer

By counting the number of cancer-fighting immune cells inside tumors, scientists say they may have found a way to predict survival from ovarian cancer.

The researchers developed an experimental method to count these cells, called tumor-infiltrating T lymphocytes (TILs), in women with early stage and advanced ovarian cancer.

“We have developed a standardizable method that should one day be available in the clinic to better inform physicians on the best course of cancer therapy, therefore improving treatment and patient survival,” said lead researcher Jason Bielas, at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, in Seattle.

The test may have broader implications beyond ovarian cancer and be useful with other types of cancer, the study authors suggested.

In their current work with ovarian cancer patients, the researchers “demonstrated that this method can be used to diagnose T-cells quickly and effectively from a blood sample,” said Bielas, an associate member in human biology and public health sciences.

The report was published online Dec. 4 in Science Translational Medicine.

The researchers developed the test to count TILs, identify their frequency and develop a system to determine their ability to clone themselves. This is a way of measuring the tumor’s population of immune T-cells.

The test works by collecting genetic information of proteins only found in these cells.

“T-cell clones have unique DNA sequences that are [comparable] to product barcodes on items at the grocery store. Our technology is comparable to a barcode scanner,” Bielas said.

The technique, called QuanTILfy, was tested on tumor samples from 30 women with ovarian cancer whose survival ranged from one month to about 10 years.

Bielas and colleagues looked at the number of TILs in the tumors, comparing those numbers to the women’s survival.

The researchers found that higher TIL levels were linked with better survival. For example, the percent of TILs was about three times higher in women who survived more than five years than in those who survived less than two years.

“We are hoping to investigate whether this is a general phenomena of all cancers,” Bielas said. “There is good evidence now that the same associations can be made for melanoma and colorectal cancer.”

This new technology potentially could be used to predict treatment response, cancer recurrence and disease-free survival earlier and more effectively than current methods, Bielas noted.

It could therefore be used to guide personalized medicine. For example, it could be used to determine which immune and chemotherapy drugs are best to treat a particular patient, Bielas suggested.

“Thus, TIL can be used to guide the selection of drugs for cancer therapy, thereby improving patient outcome. The implementation of this assay in the clinic should improve cancer diagnostics and ultimately save lives,” he said.

Because the test is still experimental, Bielas could not estimate what the test might cost if it were eventually approved and used widely in patients.

Right now the test isn’t ready for general use, according to Dr. Franck Pages, a professor of immunology at the Hospital European Georges Pompidou in Paris, and author of an accompanying journal editorial.

“The new technology does not obviously fulfill the requirements for an easy routine clinical use to quantify T-cell infiltration in a tumor,” Pages said, “but the technology could help in immunotherapy trials to determine the immunological response induced in the tumor.”

Another expert agreed that more work must be done before the test can be used clinically.

“It’s been known for some time that there is a correlation between the level of natural killer cells — T-cells — and the prognosis of patients,” said William Chambers, interim national vice president for extramural research at the American Cancer Society.

“There is going to be a need for other people to verify the findings from this study,” Chambers said. “There is also a need to figure out how this would fit in the context of any sort of clinical approach.”

source: Philly