April 17, 2006, 10:24 PM CT

Big-brand Name Influence Diet

Mega-brands, those popular food products that dominate the supermarket shelves and dinner plates of mainstream America, are often under siege by consumer groups because of their ingredients, labeling, and marketing practices. Yet, mega-brands continue to rack up billions of dollars in sales each year. What is the secret to their success? As per James Tillotson, PhD, MBA, professor at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, "mega-brands maintain their strong grip on our diet because consumers, food companies, and supermarkets are intertwined in a symbiotic relationship that yields great benefits for all three."

In a two-part series in his Business and Nutrition column in Nutrition Today, Tillotson refers to mega-brands as "fortress brands" because of their durability in defending their market share against rivals. He explains how these products maintain their strong foothold in the market despite often being at odds with the USDA Dietary Guidelines for Americans with respect to sugars, fats, salt, calories, and lack of fiber. "In spite of a deluge of popular press coverage in recent years about pros and cons of following the Dietary Guideline recommendations, consumer surveys continue to report that taste still trumps all other rationales in motivating food purchases by catering to our strong liking for sweets, fats and oils, and salt," Tillotson writes.........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source

April 17, 2006, 10:20 PM CT

A Gene For Excessive Drinking

Scientists supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), have identified new genes that may contribute to excessive alcohol consumption. The new study, conducted with strains of animals that have either a high or low innate preference for alcohol, provides clues about the molecular mechanisms that underlie the tendency to drink heavily. A report of the findings appears in the April 18, 2006 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"These findings provide a wealth of new insights into the molecular determinants of excessive drinking, which could lead to a better understanding of alcoholism," notes NIAAA Director Ting-Kai Li, M.D. "They also underscore the value that animal models bring to the investigation of complex human disorders such as alcohol dependence."

Mice that have been selectively bred to have either a high or low preference for alcohol have been a mainstay of alcohol research for a number of years, allowing researchers to study diverse behavioral and physiological characteristics of alcohol dependence. In the current study, NIAAA grantee Susan E. Bergeson, Ph.D., of the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, and a multi-site team of researchers participating in NIAAA's Integrative Neuroscience Initiative on Alcoholism (INIA) used microarray techniques to study gene expression in the brains of these animals. Microarrays are powerful tools that researchers use for comprehensive analyses of gene activity.........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source

April 17, 2006, 10:02 PM CT

Understanding heart rhythm

Being able to witness the precise events that form the heart's orchestral rhythm or the rat-a-tat-tat of irregular heartbeats could enable scientists to better understand the underlying causes of arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death. Indeed, a team from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Carnegie Mellon University report they have developed unique chemical dyes that have made it possible to see what the naked eye has never seen before: action potentials, or voltage changes, of cardiac cells - including those deep inside the heart, which trigger and determine the pace of heartbeats.

The scientists describe seven of these "Pittsburgh" dyes - PGH I to IV and VI to VIII, for short - in the current issue of the Journal of Membrane Biology. Importantly, the PGH dyes are able to follow the electrical activity of cells several layers below the surface of the heart where the cardiac contractions are initiated and propagated.

"What exactly causes arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death remains an important question we hope to answer through our studies that make use of a combination of novel imaging approaches. Toward this end, these dyes have proved to be especially important for recording membrane potential changes and capturing in detail, and in real time, the synchronicity or asynchronicity of the heart. Obtaining such images had long been a challenge due to confounding motions of the heart," said lead author Guy Salama, Ph.D., professor of cell biology and physiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.........

Posted by: Daniel      Permalink         Source

April 17, 2006, 9:55 PM CT

Why Vioxx And Celebrex Cause Heart Problems

Scientists at Queen's University and the University of Pennsylvania have identified one reason why drugs like Celebrex and Vioxx - once popular for the therapy of pain and inflammation - cause heart problems.

Their findings offer the prospect of a new generation of anti-inflammatory drugs that will bypass this issue, says co-author Colin Funk, a professor of Biochemistry and Physiology at Queen's, and Canada Research Chair in Molecular, Cellular and Physiological Medicine. Eventhough these results are in mice, not people, they raise an exciting possibility which can be tested in humans, he adds.

The study is reported in the on-line edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Since the association of selective inhibitors of COX-2 such as Vioxx, Bextra and Celebrex with an increased incidence of heart attack and stroke, there has been intense interest in understanding the mechanism involved. Clarification of this issue offers the prospect of conserving the clinical benefit of these drugs for patients with arthritis, while managing the risk, the scientists say.

Co-author with Dr. Funk on the study is Dr. Garret FitzGerald, director of Penn's Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics. Funding comes from the U.S. National Institutes of Health and a grant from Merck.........

Posted by: Daniel      Permalink         Source

April 17, 2006, 9:48 PM CT

Less Antibiotic Use In Food Animals Leads To Less Drug Resistance In People

Australia's policy of restricting antibiotic use in food-producing animals may be linked with lower levels of drug-resistant bacteria found in its citizens, as per an article in the May 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, now available online.

Campylobacter jejuni is a leading bacterial cause of foodborne illness in industrialized countries. Drug resistance can make Campylobacter infections difficult for physicians to treat, and can result in longer bouts of diarrhea and a higher risk of serious or even fatal illness. Bacterial resistance to drugs is generally attributed to inappropriate prescribing or overuse of antibiotics.

An Australian solution to the drug resistance problem has been to prohibit the use of certain antibiotics, called fluoroquinolones, in food animals such as poultry. Such a policy puts Australia in a relatively unique position, since its animal and food production levels are comparable to those of other industrialized nations, but it has avoided using the antibiotics that have been standard in the other countries' food animal production.

To evaluate whether the country's restrictive antibiotic policy has affected bacterial drug resistance, Australian scientists examined C. jejuni isolates collected from 585 patients in five Australian states. None of the patients had received fluoroquinolone therapy within the month previous to becoming ill. The scientists discovered that only 2 percent of the locally acquired Campylobacter isolates were resistant to ciprofloxacin, a type of fluoroquinolone. Countries that allow fluoroquinolone use in animals may have a drug resistance prevalence of up to 29 percent. Ciprofloxacin can be used to treat severe Campylobacter disease, so a low level of bacterial drug resistance should lead to better therapy efficacy.........

Posted by: Mark      Permalink         Source

April 17, 2006, 12:33 AM CT

Alcohol Use During Pregnancy Affects Newborns

Babies born to women hospitalized for alcohol-related reasons during pregnancy are smaller, have lower Apgar scores and are more likely to be admitted to a special care unit, a large Australian study finds.

These women have a higher number of prior pregnancies, smoke more heavily and are less likely to be privately insured, as per the study in the recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

"To reduce alcohol consumption by pregnant women, there needs to be a government-society approach to the issue, rather than simply regarding it as a health problem," said lead researcher Lucy Burns, Ph.D., of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre in Sydney.

Burns' team studied 416,834 admissions of pregnant women from 1998 through 2002 and found that 342 women had at least one alcohol-related diagnosis at admission. Their babies had lower Apgar scores - which rate appearance, pulse, responsiveness, muscle activity and breathing - than the other newborns at five minutes after birth.

In addition, 30 percent of the babies in the alcohol group had low birth weight compared with 10 percent in the non-alcohol group. Sixteen percent were born prematurely, compared with 6 percent in the non-alcohol group.

Deliveries in the alcohol group were more likely to be induced due to intrauterine growth retardation and premature rupture of membranes. Of babies in the alcohol group, 29 percent were delivered by Caesarean section for fetal distress compared with 14 percent for the other babies, and they were 1.6 times more likely to be transferred to the special care unit.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

April 17, 2006, 8:46 AM CT

TV Viewing During Lunch

In a recent Penn State laboratory study, preschool children who commonly eat meals at home while watching TV ate one-third more lunch when they were shown a cartoon video during lunchtime versus when they ate lunch without TV.

The children who did not eat in front of the TV at home and for whom TV viewing during meals and snack was novel, actually ate significantly less on the days the lunchtime cartoon was shown compared to the days on which there was no video.

Dr. Lori Francis, assistant professor of biobehavioral health and first author of the recently published paper on the study, "The study shows that TV viewing can either increase or decrease preschool children's food intakes and suggests that when children consistently view TV during meals, TV viewing may distract children from normal fullness cues which can lead to overeating in children as it may in adults".

In their paper, the scientists write, "To promote self-regulation of energy intake in young children, parents and caregivers should be advised against providing opportunities for children to eat during TV viewing".

The results of the study are detailed in, "Does Eating During Television Viewing Affect Preschool Children's Intake?," reported in the recent issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. The authors are Francis and Dr. Leann L. Birch, distinguished professor of human development and family studies, at Penn State.........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source

April 16, 2006, 8:29 PM CT

Infused Spleen Cells Have No Effect On Type-Diabetes Recovery In Mice

Scientists from Joslin Diabetes Center have reported in the March 24, 2006, issue of the journal Science a significant study about islet cell recovery and reversal of type 1 diabetes in mice.

It is generally believed that an effective cure for type 1 diabetes will require two substantial scientific advances. First, in order to restore the pancreas' ability to produce insulin, new islet beta cells must be provided, either by transplanting cells from a healthy donor or by encouraging the growth and/or function of the diabetic patient's own cells. Second, to protect the new beta cells, no matter what their origin, it is necessary to repair the breakdown in immunological tolerance that precipitated the anti-islet attack in the first place.

In a widely discussed paper that appeared in Science in 2003, Dr. Denise Faustman and her colleagues reported successful achievement of both of these advances, resulting in the "cure" of a substantial fraction of severely diabetic NOD mice, the most popular animal model of human type 1 diabetes. Their method entailed giving diabetic mice a temporary islet transplant from a genetically identical mouse, administering a single injection of an immuno-stimulatory compound called Complete Freund's Adjuvant (CFA), and repeatedly injecting a large number of spleen cells taken from genetically different mice. It was thought that the islets served to keep the animals with diabetes healthy long enough for the other therapys to have their effects, that the CFA eliminated the autoimmune attack on the islets, and that the spleen cells somehow gave rise to insulin-producing cells, presumably beta-cells, ultimately leading to islet regeneration.........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source

April 16, 2006, 8:21 PM CT

Low Dose Vitamin A Derivative Not Effective In Cancer Prevention

Taking a vitamin A derivative called isotretinoin did not reduce the risk of second primary tumors or improve survival in patients with stage I or II head and neck squamous cell cancers (HNSCC), as per a research studyin the April 5 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. In addition, current smokers had an increased risk of second primary cancers and death.

HNSCCs are the fifth most common cancers and sixth leading cause of cancer related death today. In 2002, there were 600,000 new cases diagnosed worldwide. Some studies have suggested that vitamin A derivatives called retinoids may halt or even reverse growth of head and neck tumors. A clinical trial of high doses of a retinoid called isotretinoin, widely used to treat cystic acne, in patients with HNSCC found that those receiving isotretinoin developed fewer second primary tumors, especially smoking-related tumors. However, there were substantial side effects among those who received the high-dose isotretinoin, and subsequent studies of the compound have shown mixed results.

To assess the effect of lower, more tolerable doses of isotretinoin on the development of second primary tumors and survival among patients with early-stage HNSCC, Fadlo R. Khuri, MD, associate director of the Emory Winship Cancer Institute, and his colleagues conducted a randomized clinical trial of 1,190 patients diagnosed with stage I or II HNSCC. Patients were randomly assigned to receive low-dose isotretinoin (30 mg/day) or a placebo for 3 years. They continued to monitor the patients for 4 or more years after therapy. This clinical trial is the largest chemoprevention study to date to examine the use of retinoids in patients with early-stage HNSCC.........

Posted by: Janet      Permalink         Source

April 16, 2006, 8:16 PM CT

Protein Facilitates "Hard-Wiring" of Brain

A mechanism underlying the molecular switch that turns young, adaptable brains into older, less malleable brains has been discovered by an international team of scientists led by a Duke University Medical Center neurobiologist.

The scientists discovered how neurons switch between neurotransmitter receptors during early brain development. This molecular switch signals the end of a critical period of brain "plasticity" in which simple sensory experiences, such as a mother's touch on the skin, are mandatory to "wire" the brain appropriately. The scientists describe a key role for a neurotransmitter receptor called NR3A that is abundant in the brain for only a few weeks following birth.

As per the researchers, their findings could lead to a better understanding of disorders of early brain development. NR3A levels have been reported to be elevated in patients with schizophrenia, which is believed to be caused by subtle alterations of brain circuitry during development, said the scientists.

The team's results appeared this week in the advance online edition of Nature Neuroscience and will be published in an upcoming print issue of the journal. The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the Raymond and Beverley Sackler Foundation and the Ruth K. Broad Foundation.........

Posted by: Daniel      Permalink         Source