Neurosciences, diets, cancer, politics and lots more
Fad diets ‘raise the risk of osteoporosis for women’
By FIONA MACRAE
Fad diets followed by millions of young women could be raising the odds of osteoporosis in later life, experts have warned.
Research shows that three in ten women are so desperate to lose weight that they are cutting out entire food groups.
The warning comes just weeks after Gwyneth Paltrow revealed she is suffering from osteopenia, a thinning of the bones that can be a forerunner to osteoporosis.
The 37-year-old actress follows a strict diet that is low in cheese, milk butter and other dairy foods that are rich sources of bone-strengthening calcium.
The mineral is not only vital for strong bones and teeth. It is also keeps the heart in check, muscles healthy and helps blood to clot.
There are also hints that it lowers blood pressure and even helps ward off cancers of the breast and bowel.
A poll of the eating habits of 4,500 British women found that 30 per cent admitted to avoiding entire types of food when trying to slim for summer.
Some 28 per cent of these said they give cheese the elbow and, for 11 per cent, all dairy products are taken off the menu.
More than four in ten (41 per cent) cut out bread, which, by law, is fortified with calcium.
Worringly, over a quarter of those surveyed (26 per cent) by supplement firm ellactiva said they only look at the fat and calorie content of food labels, ignoring all the other information about their nutritional content.
And 12 per cent said they choose foods based on their calorie count, rather than their nutritional value.
Failure to build strong bones by the age of 35 raises the risk of osteoporosis in later life.
The condition affects three million Britons and is blamed for more than 230,000 broken bones a year, with wrists, spines and hips being most fragile.
Fiona Hunter, a consultant nutritionist, urged women not to value short-term slimness over long-term health.
She said: ‘Obesity is a growing concern but we need to ensure we are not trying to combat this by relying on fad diets and cutting out important food groups to lose weight as this will only lead to more long-term problems later in life.
‘There needs to be much more of an emphasis placed on education so people can understand nutritional values of foods.’
The Food Standard Agency says adults should be able to get the 700mg of calcium a day they need from a varied or balanced diet.
Good sources other than bread and dairy products include broccoli and cabbage, tofu and nuts.
Sardines, pilchards, and other fish where we eat the bones are also rich in the mineral.
Those who rely on supplements should be aware that more than 1,500mg a day can cause stomach cramps and diarrhea.
A spokesman for the National Osteoporosis Society said: ‘This latest research highlights the worrying implications that body image can have on bone health. Both calcium and fat play a role in building bone so fad diets that cut these out completely can be damaging.”
‘There’s a lot of pressure to be slim, but by trying to stay too thin, bone health can be compromised.
‘Our YouGov survey found that only 21 per cent of people know that being underweight increases the risk for osteoporosis.
‘This is why we are currently working on educating young people of the benefits of a healthy body image.
‘A healthy balanced diet is the answer. We all need a little fat in our diet and calcium is key.
‘Low fat dairy products are available and many actually contain more calcium that the full fat varieties. For example, skimmed milk has more calcium than full fat.
‘There’s also a wide range of non-dairy calcium sources like dried fruit, green leafy vegetables, sesame seeds and tofu.’
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Warning: Gwyneth Paltrow developed osteopenia after following a strict diet that is low in calcium-rich dairy foods
Study links African ancestry to high-risk breast cancer
A new study finds that African ancestry is linked to triple-negative breast cancer, a more aggressive type of cancer that has fewer treatment options.
Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center found that, among women with breast cancer, 82 percent of African women were triple negative, 26 percent of African-Americans were and 16 percent of white Americans were.
Triple negative breast cancer is negative for three specific markers that are used to determine treatment: the estrogen receptor, the progesterone receptor and HER-2/neu.
‘The most significant recent advances in breast cancer treatment have involved targeting these three receptors. But these treatments do not help women with triple-negative breast cancer. Outcome disparities are therefore likely to increase, because fewer African-American women are candidates for these newer treatments,’ says study author Lisa A. Newman, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Breast Care Center at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The study, published online in the journal Cancer, looked at 581 African American women and 1,008 white women diagnosed with breast cancer at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, plus 75 African women diagnosed at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital in Ghana.
Researchers found that Ghanaian women were diagnosed at a younger age than American women, and with larger tumors and more advanced cancer. In addition, the Ghanaian women were more likely to test negative for each of the three markers.
Prior studies have shown that while African-American women are less likely than white women to develop breast cancer, those who are diagnosed are usually younger and are more likely to die from the disease. These characteristics, including the triple negative disease, are also more common among women with a known hereditary predisposition for breast cancer related to BRCA1 gene mutations. Other studies have also shown a hereditary breast cancer risk associated with racial-ethnic identity — most commonly among Ashkenazi Jewish women.
‘African ancestry might be associated with other links to hereditary predisposition for particular patterns of breast cancer. We hope that by studying breast cancer in African and African-American women we can identify biomarkers that might be useful for assessing risk or treating triple-negative breast cancer,’ says Newman, professor of surgery at the U-M Medical School.
Breast cancer statistics: 194,280 Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year and 40,610 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society
More information: DOI:10.1002/cncr.25276
Provided by University of Michigan Health System
SIRT1 gene important for memory
A protein implicated in many biological processes also may play a role in memory, according to a study led by the University of Southern California and the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health.
The findings, published this week in the Journal of Neuroscience, agree with research by a different team published online by Nature on July 11. Both studies found that mice lacking the protein SIRT1 exhibited impaired memory and learning, suggesting SIRT1’s importance to those functions.
However, the new study also found that boosting natural levels of SIRT1 protein did not improve learning or memory in the mice, raising questions about the case for supplementing a normal diet with sirtuin activators, a family of compounds targeted to activate SIRT1.
‘The over-expression of SIRT1 did not improve memory, implying that increasing the amount of the protein may not enhance memory. Many more studies with different models are necessary, however, to rule this out,’ said co-corresponding author Valter Longo, a molecular biologist in the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology with a joint appointment in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.
In mice, sirtuins have been shown to affect metabolism and other biological processes involved in aging. A number of studies have shown that resveratrol, a proposed sirtuin activator and much-advertised ‘anti-aging’ ingredient in red wine, has beneficial effects on some aspects of health, though it does not prolong life in normal mice. However, it does improve the health and extends the life span of mice on a high fat diet.
The physiological functions of sirtuins in humans are under intense investigation, with many ongoing studies on the effects of sirtuin activators and inhibitors on various diseases.
‘This is a very controversial topic since sirtuins have been shown to be both good and bad,’ Longo noted. ‘In our previous studies [in mice and mammalian cells], for example, we showed that it was the absence of SIRT1 that protected neurons.
‘So maybe there is a trade-off between protection against toxicity and function such as that which is essential for learning and memory.’
In the Longo group’s study, mice missing the SIRT1 gene not only had cognitive problems, but also physical defects in their neural networks. The neurons of such mice had simpler structures with less branching and complexity - indicators of a decreased ability to learn and adapt.
At the other end, mice engineered to over-express the SIRT1 gene performed no better on learning and memory tests than normal mice. Their brains did not show any adverse physical characteristics.
Provided by University of Southern California
Every Action Has A Beginning And An End (And It’s All In Your Brain)
Rui Costa, Principal Investigator of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (Portugal), and Xin Jin, of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institutes of Health (USA), describe in the latest issue of the journal Nature, that the activity of certain neurons in the brain can signal the initiation and termination of behavioral sequences we learn anew. Furthermore, they found that this brain activity is essential for learning and executing novel action sequences, many times compromised in patients suffering from disorders such as Parkinson’s or Huntington’s.
Animal behavior, including our own, is very complex and is many times seen as a sequence of particular actions or movements, each with a precise start and stop step. This is evident in a wide range of abilities, from escaping a predator to playing the piano. In all of them there is a first initial step and one that signals the end. In this latest work, the researchers explored the role of certain brain circuits located in the basal ganglia in this process. They looked at the striatum, its dopaminergic input (dopamine-producing neurons that project into the striatum) and its output to the substantia nigra, another area in the basal ganglia, and found that both play an essential role in the initiation and termination of newly learnt behavioral sequences.
Rui Costa and Xin Jin show that when mice are learning to perform a particular behavioral sequence there is a specific neuronal activity that emerges in those brain circuits and signals the initiation and termination steps. Interestingly these are the circuits that degenerate in patients suffering from Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases, who also display impairments both in sequence learning, and in the initiation and termination of voluntary movements. Furthermore, the researchers were able to genetically manipulate those circuits in mice, and showed that this leads to deficits in sequence learning by the mice again, a feature shared with human patients affected with basal ganglia disorders.
Rui Costa explains the implications of these results: ‘For the execution of learned skills, like playing a piano or driving a car, it is essential to know when to start and stop each particular sequence of movements, and we found the neuronal circuits that are involved in the initiation and termination of action sequences that are learnt. This can be of particular relevance for patients suffering from Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease, but also for people suffering from other disorders like compulsivity’.
Xin Jun adds: ‘This start/stop activity appears during learning and disrupting it genetically severely impairs the learning of new action sequences. These findings may provide a possible insight into the mechanism underlying the sequence learning and execution impairments observed in Parkinson’s and Huntington’s patients who have lost basal ganglia neurons which may be important in generating initiation and termination activity in their brain’.
Source: Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC)
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Frans de Waal on the human primate: Strength is weakness
By Frans B. M. de Waal Scientific American Guest Blog -
Editor’s Note: This post is the third in a four-part series of essays for Scientific American by primatologist Frans de Waal on human nature, based on his ongoing research. (The first post, on our sense of fairness, can be read here, and a second post, on the impact of crowding, is here.) De Waal and other researchers appear in a series of Department of Expansion videos focusing on the same topic.
Chimpanzees continually play coalition games; power is rarely in the hands of a single individual. The male with the most supporters usually wins, which is why size and strength are such poor predictors of the hierarchy. Diplomacy Is at least as important, as explained in Chimpanzee Politics (1982).
Once, in a large zoo colony an old male faced a choice between either attaching himself to the most powerful player, the reigning alpha male, and deriving a few benefits in return, or helping a young-and-coming male challenge the alpha. The old male took the second route. The result was a new leader who owed his position to the old male, and as a result the latter gained far more leverage than would have been possible under the reigning alpha male. Throwing his weight behind the young male was consistent with the ‘strength is weakness’ paradox known in international politics and coalition games played with humans. The most powerful player is often the least attractive political ally.
Ever since Thucydides wrote about the Peloponnesian War, it has been known that nations seek allies against nations perceived as a common threat. Fear and resentment drive weaker parties into one another’s arms, making them weigh in on the lighter side of the balance. The result is a power balance in which all nations hold influential positions. Sometimes a single country is the main ‘balancer,’ such as Great Britain was in Europe before World War I.
Balance of power theory remains heavily debated in international affairs, and I would argue that it also applies to primate coalitions. This means that no player can take its position for granted, because even the most powerful player—or precisely the most powerful—faces forces that seek to erode its power.
Balancing tendencies are reflected in our everyday psychological reactions, such as rooting for the underdog during a sports match or feeling schadenfreude over the mishaps of successful and powerful people. We don’t take any pleasure in the misfortune of the poor, but look at our fascination with political scandals and celebrities embarrassing themselves or going to jail. We’re continually ready to bring down those who rise to positions above ours, thus demonstrating our equalizing tendencies.
Cortical Call Out: The Brain’s Electric Field Creates a Feedback Loop That Synchronizes Neural Activity
In a positive feedback loop the electric fields generated in the brain affect the behavior of the neurons that produce them
By Ferris Jabr Scientific American News
The rhythmic electric fields generated by the brain during deep sleep and other periods of intensely coordinated neural activity could amplify and synchronize actions along the same neural networks that initially created those fields, according to a new study. The finding indicates that the brain’s electric fields are not just passive by-products of neural activity—they might provide feedback that regulates how the brain functions, especially during deep, or slow-wave, sleep. Although similar ideas have been considered for decades, this is the first direct evidence that the electric fields generated by the cerebral cortex change the behavior of the neurons that engender them.
‘I think this is a very exciting new discovery,’ says Ole Paulsen, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge who was not involved in the recent study. ‘We knew that weak electric fields can impact brain activity, but what no one had really tested before was whether electric fields produced by the brain itself can influence its own activity.’
The brain is an intricate network of individual nerve cells, or neurons, that use electrical and chemical signals to communicate with one another. Every time an electrical impulse, or action potential, races down the branch of a neuron, a tiny electric field surrounds that cell. ‘A few neurons are like individuals talking to each other and having small conversations,’ explains David McCormick, a neurobiologist at Yale University and co-author of the study published online July 15 in Neuron. ‘But when they all fire in unison, it’s like the roar of a crowd at a sports game.’ That ‘roar’ is the summation of all the tiny electric fields created by organized neural activity in the brain—it’s what scientists record using electroencephalography (EEG), when they place a net of electrodes on a person’s scalp.
‘The question going into the study,’ McCormick says, ‘was whether electric fields generated by synchronous activity in the brain were passive consequences of that neural activity or somehow actively involved in regulating that activity.’ Investigating this question in the brain of a living animal would be ideal, but raises both ethical dilemmas and experimental difficulties because researchers need to do more than just record electrical activity in the brain—they need to manipulate it.
Instead, McCormick and colleagues created an experimental model that mimicked what might happen in the intact brain of a living animal. First, the researchers suspended a slice of brain tissue from the visual cortex of a ferret in artificial cerebrospinal fluid. The living cortical tissue behaved as though the ferret brain were in slow-wave (non–rapid eye movement), sleep, during which the brain produces sluggish but highly synchronous waves of electrical activity. The team’s next step was to find out what would happen to the neural activity in the brain slice when it was subjected to a weak electric field.
They surrounded the cortical sample with an electric field that approximated the size and polarity of the fields produced by an intact ferret brain during slow-wave sleep to create an exaggerated version of the exact feedback loop they were investigating. Essentially, they enveloped the brain slice in an echo of itself.
When the team applied this electric field echo, they found it amplified and synchronized the neural activity in the brain slice. The field didn’t create disorder—it increased harmony. The ‘roar’ of the brain slice became louder and more regular. ‘It’s kind of like if you were cheering at a football game and someone played over the speaker the sound of the crowd cheering and you started responding to that, too, cheering along with both the real crowd and the speaker playback,’ McCormick explains. ‘It’s a kind of reinforcing feedback.’
Not only did the researchers show that this positive feedback facilitated the synchronous slow waves of electrical activity in the slice of ferret brain, they also showed that an electric field of the same strength, but opposite polarity, disrupted its synchronous neural activity. In other words, they showed that they could break the amplifying feedback loop with negative feedback. ‘Adding a positive feedback loop on top of what the slice produces itself increased synchronization,’ Paulsen explains, ‘but the clever bit was to demonstrate that negative feedback reduces synchronization. To me, it’s the negative feedback experiment that is important here, and that really demonstrates that the endogenous [internally generated] fields are contributing to the synchronization.’
The new study faces a couple methodological imperfections: First, the simple and uniform electric field created by electrodes in the laboratory does not perfectly mimic the complexity of electric fields generated by a living brain. Second, the experimental model relied on an incredibly thin slice of neural tissue—hardly the same as an intact brain. Paulsen says these flaws are unlikely to change the general conclusions of the study, however, because the underlying mechanisms of electrical activity remain consistent enough between the lab model and a living organism.
Because the brain produces especially large electric fields during highly synchronized neural activity, like that of slow-wave sleep, the researchers suspect the feedback loop they discovered could coordinate such phases of deep sleep—which are thought to bolster memory consolidation. ‘During slow-wave sleep, all your neurons march in order. The whole cortex takes part in this activity and the electric field feedback might help keep the neurons synchronized,’ McCormick says. ‘I think this is really going to change how people view the brain’s electric fields.’
Right now, though, researchers can only speculate as to the exact role of this feedback loop in everyday brain function, says Joseph Francis, a physiologist at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center who has studied similar feedback in the hippocampus of a rat. ‘Originally, when I was doing my thesis work, what I wanted to know was whether one part of the brain could interact with another without physical contact,’ Francis explains. ‘What this new study shows is that it’s possible for electric fields to have an influence on the neural activity itself without direct contact. But now we need to determine how much it has to do with normal functioning.’
Family life key ingredient in infant IQ
Andrew Duff-Southampton
An infant’s intelligence is shaped more by family environment than by the amount of omega 3 fatty acid from breast milk or fortified formula, new research shows.
Scientists followed 241 children from birth until they reached four years of age to investigate the relationship between breastfeeding and the use of DHA–fortified formula in infancy and performance in tests of intelligence and other aspects of brain function.
Details appear in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
After taking into account the influence of mothers’ intelligence and level of education, researchers found no relationship between the estimated total intake of DHA in infancy and a child’s IQ.
‘This study helps to dispel some of the myths surrounding DHA,’ says Catharine Gale of the University of Southampton.
‘We do know that there are clear health benefits to breast feeding but DHA, which is naturally present in breast milk and added into some formulas, is not the secret ingredient that will turn your child into an Einstein.
‘Children’s IQ bears no relation to the levels of DHA they receive as babies. Factors in the home, such as the mother’s intelligence and the quality of mental stimulation the children receive, were the most important influences on their IQ.’
Omega 3 fatty acids, particularly DHA, are found in high concentrations in the brain and accumulate during the brain’s growing spurt which occurs between the last trimester of pregnancy and the first year of life.
Although the current research shows a child’s IQ is not influenced by DHA, previous studies in animals have shown that a lack of DHA during periods of rapid brain growth may lead to problems in brain development.
Researchers used data from the Southampton’s Women’s Survey at the University’s School of Medicine, the largest project studying women’s health and lifestyle ever carried out in the UK.
Funding was provided by the Medical Research Council and the Foods Standards Agency.
More news from the University of Southampton: http://www.soton.ac.uk/
For the meaning of bigotry we’ve got this…
Two Muslim women marched out of swimming pool in French holiday village because they were wearing burkinis
By IAN SPARKS
Not allowed: A woman models the burkini. Two Muslim women wearing the specialized bathing suit have been banned from a public swimming pool in France
Two Muslim women were ordered out of a swimming pool in France because they were wearing ‘burkinis’.
They jumped into the water wearing garments that covered their entire bodies, including veils over their heads.
The incident came ten days after French MPs voted to outlaw the burka in public places.
The new law, which brands the garment ‘an insult to the country’s values’, means women will be fined or jailed for hiding their faces in public.
The women at the Rives des Corbieres holiday camp in Port Leucate, southern France, were told the rules stated only swimming costumes may be worn in the water.
They were asked to either change into conventional bikinis or one-piece costumes or leave the swimming pool.
Police were then called to the drama on Wednesday after the husband of one of the women threatened the pool’s lifeguard with a bowling ball.
A holiday camp spokesman said: ‘The husbands became very irate that their wives were not allowed to swim with their bodies covered, and one of them threatened violence.
‘Police were called and he eventually backed down. The two Muslim couples left the pool area and no charges were brought.’
Regional government official Marie-Paule Bardeche said: ‘This is an issue stemming from the holiday centre’s own regulations.
‘They state men and women must wear ordinary swimwear for hygiene reasons. Men are not even allowed to wear long shorts in the water.’
Last year a Muslim woman was banned from wearing a burkini at a public swimming pool also for hygiene reasons.
She later failed in her bid to sue the council in the Paris suburb for discrimination.
Police have this year also stopped and fined two women for wearing a burka while driving because the garb impaired their field of vision.
The burka has a mesh mask that covers a woman’s eyes so that every part of her is hidden
France has now become the second country in Europe after Belgium to outlaw Muslim veil that hides the face.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has already described the burka as a ’sign of debasement’.
His immigration minister Eric Besson called it ‘a walking coffin’.
The law was passed with an almost total majority of 335 to one MPs in the Paris parliament last week.
It must now be rubber-stamped by the Senate in September and is expected to come into force by spring next year.
The law will create a new offence of ‘incitement to cover the face for reasons of gender’.
It will state: ‘No-one may wear in public places clothes that are aimed at hiding the face.’
Under the new rules, women who hide their faces and husbands who force them to do so will both face fines and jail terms.
Men can be fined up to £25,000 and jailed for a year for forcing their wives to wear a burka.
Women will face a smaller fine of around £130 because they are ‘often victims who are not given any choice’, the law states.
Repeat offenders who persistently refused to pay their fines will be sent to prison.
If caught wearing a burka, a woman will not be ‘unveiled’ in the street but instead taken to a police station to be formally identified.
The law will also apply to Muslim tourists - including the thousands of wealthy Middle Eastern visitors to the French capital every year.
Penalties will not be imposed until the law has been in operation for six months, to allow burka-wearers to adapt to the ban.
The new law comes comes after a year of heated debate on burkas and niqabs that is growing in Europe, and mounting public tensions over the issue.
There is also widespread support for a similar ban in the Netherlands, while Switzerland recently voted to ban the construction of new minarets on mosques.
Spain recently rejected a ban on the burka, and there are calls for a similar ban in Britain.
France has already banned wearing any religious garb such as veils, Jewish skullcaps and crucifixes in schools.
Only around 5,000 women among France’s five million strong population, the largest in Europe, wear full Muslim face veils in public.
But despite widespread support for a full ban, their highest legal body the Council of State has warned any legislation could be overturned by European human rights laws.
A French Council of State spokesman said in March: ‘There appears to be no legally unchallengeable justification for carrying out such a ban.’
Left-wing politicians across Europe have also warned that a law banning the burka could inflame tensions in Muslim communities.
And human rights group Amnesty International has voiced its strong opposition to countries banning the burka.
The organization’s Interim Secretary General Claudio Cordone said: ‘A general ban on the wearing of full-face veils would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who choose to express their identity or beliefs in this way.’
Al Qaeda terrorists have also vowed revenge on France if it banned the burka on its streets.
Leaders of Al Qaeda’s North African network wrote on an Islamic extremist website: ‘We will seek dreadful revenge on France by all means at our disposal, for the honor of our daughters and sisters.’
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Saudi man chains his son in the basement for six years because he is ‘possessed by an evil female genie’
A semi-comatose Saudi man has been chained in a basement apartment for more than six years because his father believes he is possessed by an evil female genie.
‘When he has fits he has convulsions and his entire body twists and his eyes become completely white,’ said the father of the 29-year-old man who has been identified only as Turki.
‘Then the voice of a woman can be heard coming from him.’
Evil spirits: Turki, 29, lies chained on the bed in the basement apartment where he has been for six years after being ‘possessed by a genie’
When Turki first began behaving bizarrely, his father took him to local Muslim clerics to recite the Koran over him.
‘But most of them became scared when they heard the female voice telling them that she was a royal jinn (genie) and that no-one can exorcise her unless Turki dies,’ his father said.
One cleric advised him to shackle his son’s arms and legs in chains and read the Koran to him.
DREAM OF A GENIE THAT IS MORE LIKE A NIGHTMARE
Most Westerners know the term genie from the tale of Aladdin and his magic lamp or the hit 1960s sitcom, I Dream of Jeannie.
But genies, or jinn, in Islamic theology can be much more sinister. Some are good, others bad.
They are believed to be normally invisible but have the ability to assume human or animal form and are often said to be motivated by jealousy or revenge.
‘We did this. My son became quiet but is totally unaware of what is happening around him. He does not talk and is now unable to harm anyone,’ Turki’s father told Arab News, an English language Saudi daily.
A Saudi family last year took a ‘genie’ to court, accusing it of theft and harassment.
The jinn was said to have terrified the children by throwing stones, stealing mobile phones and speaking in male and female voices.
Turki lives in a tiny, two-room basement apartment with his impoverished mother and her three other children in the holy city of Mecca. They survive on £150 a month from social security.
His parents divorced before he was ‘possessed’.
Turki’s father claimed he himself was afflicted by a jinn at the age of nine and suffered for more than four decades until it was exorcised by a cleric.
‘I used to see a woman who would at times appear very beautiful and at times extremely ugly,’ he said.
On some occasions she was ’surrounded by fire’ and on others appeared ‘with animal limbs’.
A Saudi human rights activist and professor in Sharia (Islamic law) who visited Turki found him to be in a ’semi-coma’.
Muhammad Al-Suhali said Turki ‘did not know what was going on around him. He could not eat, drink or use the toilet without the help of others’.
The professor added that when started to read some Koranic verses, Turki became furious and shook until he nearly fell out of his bed.
‘When I stopped reciting, he became quiet again but was distant and unaware of what was happening,’ Suhali told Arab News.
He praised Turki’s young wife for staying with him despite his frightening condition.
Suhali called on Saudi Ministry of Social Affairs to provide the family with better accommodation and to include Turki in its social security program.
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Observations
Is this Islamic exorcism as practiced in the Catholic Church?
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Half the man he used to be: Wedding album shames bridegroom into losing 9 STONE
By DAILY MAIL REPORTER
Last updated at 7:16 PM on 19th July 2010
A bridegroom who tipped the scales at nearly 21 stone has lost half his body weight after becoming ashamed of his wedding photos.
Karl Indge, 25, was 20 stone (280lbs) when he married his high school sweetheart Kim, 22, in April last year.
But he was horrified when he saw the wedding photos and felt that his weight had ‘ruined’ the entire album.
Weight gains: Super slimmer Karl Indge, 25, is delighted with his new figure having shed nine stone. He had topped the scales at 20 stone 9lbs on his wedding day
So he joined a local slimming group, cut out takeaways and began exercising - and lost nine stone in ten months.
Karl, who now weighs 11 stone 9lbs, said: ‘I didn’t realize I’d put on so much weight because the way you look at yourself every day in the mirror is a gradual thing.
‘But looking at the pictures I just thought, ‘I’ve ruined them,’ because my wife looked so beautiful and I just didn’t.
‘My lovely wife disagreed of course, but that was the shock I needed to force me into change.
‘I feel amazing - like it’s given me my life back. I dread to think if I’d carried on eating the way I was, and not exercising, what could have happened.
‘I think I’ve prolonged my life - by looking at my wedding photos. It’s quite amazing. And I’m lucky that I’ve done it while I’m young enough to really change my life.’
Karl, an engineer, of Swindon, Wiltshire, joined his local Slimming World group in May last year after returning from his honeymoon with Kim.
Shocked into action: Karl felt his weight had ruined all the photographs of his wedding to high school sweetheart Kim
He ditched the takeaways, of which he was eating up to five a week, and started on a low calorie food plan coupled with cardiovascular exercise at his gym.
Amazingly, 5ft 9in tall Karl managed to shed nine stone in only ten months, hitting a stable weight of 11 stone 9lbs in March this year.
He says he can ‘barely recognize himself’ and his waist has also shrunk from 48 inches to a modest 32 inches.
He no longer suffers the embarrassment of being unable to pull his tray table down on holiday flights, and getting up and down ladders at work no longer leaves him breathless.
He added: ‘I think the hardest bit for me was admitting that I needed to lose weight. It’s always easy to joke about it, but underneath it hurts.
‘But the wedding topped it off. I knew I needed to do something. And in the future we want to have children and I want to be able to run around and stuff like that.
‘I weighed 20 stone 9, and I had a 48 inch waist. Then I just changed my lifestyle totally. I went to eating four or five takeaways a week to maybe having one once a month.
‘I go to the gym about five times a week now and I’ve started playing football again.
‘Kim’s over the moon. She never said anything before because she always loved me for who I was, but without her help I wouldn’t have been able to do it.’
‘She did it with me, and even though she’s always been quite small and didn’t really need to lose any weight she’s lost just over a stone.’
Karl’s transformation saw him nominated as Man of the Year at the National Slimming World Awards last month, where he was handed a £500 cheque for his achievement.
Brenda Allen, Karl’s consultant for Highworth Slimming World group, said: ‘I am so proud of what Karl has achieved.
‘It takes a lot to admit you are overweight and that you need to do something about it but he has really embraced his new lifestyle and is a great source of inspiration for others.
‘Seeing him standing on the podium at the awards was a great moment and he deserves all the recognition he gets for all the hard work he has put in.’
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Study finds structural brain alterations in patients with irritable bowel syndrome
A large academic study has demonstrated structural changes in specific brain regions in female patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a condition that causes pain and discomfort in the abdomen, along with diarrhea, constipation or both.
A collaborative effort between UCLA and Canada’s McGill University, the study appears in the July issue of the journal Gastroenterology.
The findings show that IBS is associated with both decreases and increases in grey matter density in key areas of the brain involved in attention, emotion regulation, pain inhibition and the processing of visceral information.
IBS affects approximately 15 percent of the U.S. population, primarily women. Currently, the condition is considered by the medical field to be a ‘functional’ syndrome of the digestive tract not working properly rather than an ‘organic’ disorder with structural organ changes. Efforts to identify structural or biochemical alterations in the gut have largely been unsuccessful. Even though the pathophysiology is not completely understood, it is generally agreed that IBS represents an alteration in brain-gut interactions.
These study findings, however, show actual structural changes to the brain, which places IBS in the category of other pain disorders, such as lower back pain, temporomandibular joint disorder, migraines and hip pain — conditions in which some of the same anatomical brain changes have been observed, as well as other changes. A recent, smaller study suggested structural brain changes in IBS, but a larger definitive study hadn’t been completed until now.
‘Discovering structural changes in the brain, whether they are primary or secondary to the gastrointestinal symptoms, demonstrates an ‘organic’ component to IBS and supports the concept of a brain-gut disorder,’ said study author Dr. Emeran Mayer, professor of medicine, physiology and psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. ‘Also, the
finding removes the idea once and for all that IBS symptoms are not real and are ‘only psychological.’ The findings will give us more insight into better understanding IBS.’
Researchers employed imaging techniques to examine and analyze brain anatomical differences between 55 female IBS patients and 48 female control subjects. Patients had moderate IBS severity, with disease duration from one to 34 years (average 11 years). The average age of the participants was 31.
Investigators found both increases and decreases of brain grey matter in specific cortical brain regions.
Even after accounting for additional factors such as anxiety and depression, researchers still discovered differences between IBS patients and control subjects in areas of the brain involved in cognitive and evaluative functions, including the prefrontal and posterior parietal cortices, and in the posterior insula, which represents the primary viscerosensory cortex receiving sensory information from the gastrointestinal tract.
‘The grey-matter changes in the posterior insula are particularly interesting since they may play a role in central pain amplification for IBS patients,’ said study author David A. Seminowicz, Ph.D., of the Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain at McGill University. ‘This particular finding may point to a specific brain difference or abnormality that plays a role in heightening pain signals that reach the brain from the gut.’
Decreases in grey matter in IBS patients occurred in several regions involved in attentional brain processes, which decide what the body should pay attention to. The thalamus and midbrain also showed reductions, including a region — the periaqueductal grey — that plays a major role in suppressing pain.
‘Reductions of grey matter in these key areas may demonstrate an inability of the brain to effectively inhibit pain responses,’ Seminowicz said.
The observed decreases in brain grey matter were consistent across IBS patient sub-groups, such as those experiencing more diarrhea-like symptoms than constipation.
‘We noticed that the structural brain changes varied between patients who characterized their symptoms primarily as pain, rather than non-painful discomfort,’ said Mayer, director of the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress. ‘In contrast, the length of time a patient has had IBS was not related to these structural brain changes.’
Mayer added that the next steps in the research will include exploring whether genes can be identified that are related to these structural brain changes. In addition, there is a need to increase the study sample size to address male-female differences and to determine if these brain changes are a cause or consequence of having IBS.
Provided by University of California - Los Angeles
FDA Cautions Against Using Unapproved IUDs
Top of Form
http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdates/ucm219837.htm
Federal health officials are warning medical practitioners around the country not to use unapproved intrauterine devices (IUDs).
In a July 22 letter, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reminds health professionals that using unapproved IUDs raises concerns about effectiveness and safety—as well as the potential for fraud and counterfeiting.
‘Federal law requires that IUD/IUSs (intrauterine systems) be FDA-approved prior to marketing. This law is designed to protect patients from products that are unsafe and ineffective,’ Theresa Toigo, FDA’s liaison with health professionals, says in the letter. ‘The recent issue with patients in Rhode Island unknowingly receiving imported, unapproved IUD/IUSs highlights the unacceptable risk patients may be exposed to when a product’s identity, purity, source, handling, and storage cannot be verified.’
Still, patients can use their FDA-approved IUDs with confidence, Toigo says.
FDA experts say women who received unapproved IUDs from practitioners in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Kentucky could be at an increased risk for unwanted pregnancy.
The small, T-shaped devices—often made of flexible plastic or copper wire—are inserted into a woman’s uterus to prevent pregnancy. Some IUDs also deliver small amounts of hormone as added protection from pregnancy.
FDA says women should not try to remove IUDs by themselves. The agency is advising women who think they may have an unapproved IUD to use another form of birth control—such as condoms, birth control pills, or the patch—and contact their health care professional. Women may want to ask:
· What advantages are there for keeping my IUD in?
· Should I think about having my IUD removed?
· If I keep my IUD in, how long should I use another form of birth control?
· If I want my IUD removed, can I get a new, FDA-approved one?
· I don’t want to use condoms. Will other birth control products, such as the pill, patch, or ring, be equally effective?
· Will this affect my ability to get pregnant in the future?
· What should I do if I think I’m pregnant?
Nationwide Problem
What started out as a Rhode Island investigation has spread beyond the state’s borders. The FDA is aware of the use of these unapproved products in several states and is continuing to investigate.
FDA says doctors, nurses, midwives—and possibly patients themselves—might buy unapproved products from what appear to be Canadian or other foreign websites in a bid to save money. Purchasing medical products from websites that are outside of the U.S. may be illegal and may increase the risk of receiving a potentially harmful product, since many websites sell products that are not FDA-approved and could be manufactured in other countries.
‘Unapproved products bring a lot of unknowns into the equation,’ says FDA compliance officer Kathleen Anderson. ‘An Internet ad may claim to sell IUDs made in Canada, but there’s no way to be sure. They might have been made anywhere in the world and in unsanitary or undesirable conditions.’
Advice for Consumers
FDA investigators routinely monitor the Internet for the sale of unapproved drugs and devices in an effort to protect the public, but the rapidly growing number of websites trafficking in fraudulent medical products means consumers must remain alert.
Experts advise consumers to learn how to buy health-related products safely over the Internet. Legitimate Internet pharmacies are licensed by the appropriate state board of pharmacy and follow laws and regulations of the state where they operate.
Legitimate Internet pharmacies will also display a seal from the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy—known as VIPPS seal or Verified Internet Pharmacy Practice Sites. VIPPS pharmacies are listed at vipps.nabp.net/verify.asp.
FDA is also asking the public to report information about the distribution of unapproved IUDs. To contact the agency’s criminal investigators visit www.fda.gov/oci.
This article appears on FDA’s Consumer Updates page, which features the latest on all FDA-regulated products.
-
Related Consumer Updates
· Pregnant Women to Benefit from Better Information
· Update to Label on Birth Control Patch
· The Possible Dangers of Buying Medicines Over the Internet
· Health Fraud Awareness (video)
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For More Information
· Unapproved Drugs: Important Documents
· FDA Approves Additional Use for IUD Mirena to Treat Heavy Menstrual Bleeding in IUD Users
Researchers find genetic link to children’s emotional problems precipitated by bullying
Bullying victimization is common among children of school age, although its consequences are often anything but benign. The recent death of a Massachusetts teen by suicide prompted state lawmakers to pass one of the most far-reaching anti-bullying laws within the U.S. Whether such legislative actions result in measurable decreases in physical or emotional distress among school peers remains to be seen, but a team of researchers from Duke University and Kings College London have discovered a genetic variation that moderates whether victims of bullying will go on to develop emotional problems.
Gene and environment interactions are a burgeoning area of scientific research and an increasing body of evidence demonstrates that children who are victims of bullying are at risk for developing emotional problems including depression. However, not all children who are bullied go on to develop such problems. Whether a gene variant could contribute to emotional disturbance in children that are bullied is the focus of a study reported in the August 2010 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP).
In the article titled, ‘The Serotonin Transporter Gene Moderates the Development of Emotional Problems Among Children Following Bullying Victimization’ Dr. Sugden and colleagues report on the findings in a study sample of 2,232 same-sex 5 year-old twins. Home visit-assessments were conducted in 1999-2000 when the children were 5 years of age, and follow-up assessments were made at 12 years of age. The children were evaluated for emotional problems reported by their mothers and teachers using the Child Behavior Checklist and the Teacher’s Report Form. In addition to interviews, DNA samples acquired via buccal swabs were evaluated to determine the presence or absence of the genetic variation under investigation.
The researchers observed that genetic differences in the 5-HTTLPR gene, specifically the SS genotype, interact with bullying victimization to exacerbate emotional problems. Second, the strength of this genetically influenced response is related to the frequency of the bullying experience (i.e., the gene and environment interaction was strongest for frequently bullied children).
In the article, Sudgen and colleagues state, ‘This genetic moderation persists after controlling for children’s previctimization emotional problems and for other risk factors shared by children growing up within the same family environment.’ The present findings are consistent with the recent report by Benjet and colleagues2 that SS genotype victims of relational aggression are prone to depression.
This article is discussed in an editorial by Dr. James J. Hudziak and Dr. Stephen V. Faraone in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 3 In talking about the use of twin studies to determine whether an illness or psychological disorder can be inherited, Drs. Hudziak and Faraone state, ‘These designs have moved us well beyond the fiery but misguided debates about nature versus nurture. We have learned that both domains affect psychopathology, exerting effects that sometimes act independently of one another and sometimes interactively, as when risk DNA variants make some children more susceptible to the onset of illness. Twin studies show that gene action can be complex, with DNA variants at a gene locus sometimes acting additively (in a dose-response manner) and sometimes with classic dominant or recessive modes of inheritance.’
On the relevance of Dr. Sugden and colleagues’ findings, Drs. Hudziak and Faraone report, ‘Candidate gene studies such as these could lead to public health interventions (e.g. greater efforts to decrease bullying) that may lower the prevalence of child psychopathology.’
More information:
1. Sugden K, Arseneault L, Harrington H, Moffitt TE, Williams B, Caspi A. The Serotonin transporter gene moderates the development of emotional problems among children following bullying victimization. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 2010; 49:830-840.
2. Benjet C, Thompson RJ, Gotlib IH. 5-HTTLPR moderates the effect of relational peer victimization on depressive symptoms in adolescent girls. J Child Psychol Psychiatry Allied Disc. 2009;51:173-179.
3. Hudziak JJ, Faraone SV. The new genetics in child psychiatry. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. 2010; 49:729-735.
Provided by Elsevier
And now for a spectacular startled look at the obvious: Read this piece of information
Add Bicycling to List of Activities That Minimize Long-Term Weight Gain
During 16 years of follow-up, women who bicycled or walked briskly gained less weight that those who were sedentary or walked slowly.
Almost two thirds of U.S. women are overweight or obese. Although brisk walking helps to control weight, less is known about the outcomes of bicycling. In a 16-year follow-up of 18,414 healthy premenopausal women in the Nurses’ Health Study II (NHS II), researchers assessed weight gain in women who regularly bicycled or walked slowly (
2.9 miles per hour) or briskly (
3 mph).
Between 1989 and 2005, participants overall gained a mean of 9.3 kg, and their total discretionary activity fell by a mean of 8.6 minutes daily. Women who were normal weight at baseline gained less (mean, 7.9 kg) than did overweight or obese women (12.6 kg). Bicycling and brisk walking, but not slow walking, were associated with attenuated weight gain; women who were overweight or obese experienced greater benefits than did those of normal weight. Women who did not bicycle at baseline and began bicycling as little as 5 minutes daily benefited (mean weight increase, 0.74 kg less than in nonbicyclers); amount of weight gain fell as bicycling duration rose.
Comment: Exercise limits weight gain, and widening the range of activities that confer this benefit is useful. However, NHS II participants are primarily white and better educated than the general population, which might limit the generalization of these findings across diverse populations. Helping women to incorporate physical activity into their daily lives can curtail weight gain over time. In some areas (e.g., certain cities), bicycles are a viable form of functional transportation; moreover, some women might find combining ‘green transportation’ with exercise to be a motivator. But remind them to wear helmets!
Published in Journal Watch Women’s Health
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