Intestinal Bacteria linked to weight gain

November 30th, 2009

A high-fat, high-sugar diet does more than pump calories into your body. It also alters the composition of bacteria in your intestines, making it easier to gain weight and harder to lose it, research in mice suggests. And the changeover can happen in as little as 24 hours, according to a report Wednesday in the new journal Science Translational Medicine.

Many factors play a role in the propensity to gain weight, including genetics, physical activity and the environment, as well as food choices. But a growing body of evidence, much of it accumulated by Dr. Jeffrey I. Gordon of Washington University in St. Louis, shows that bacteria in the gut also play a key role.

Humans need such bacteria to help convert otherwise indigestible foods into digestible form.

Ninety percent of the bacteria fall into two major divisions, or phyla: the Firmicutes and the Bacteroidetes. Previous research had shown that obese mice had higher levels of Firmicutes, and lean ones had more Bacteroidetes.

Analyzing the genomes of the bacteria, Gordon and graduate student Peter Turnbaugh concluded that the Firmicutes were more efficient at digesting food that the body can’t.

Animals that have a higher proportion of Firmicutes convert a higher proportion of food into calories that can be absorbed by the body, making it easier to gain weight.

When the researchers transferred bacteria from obese mice into so-called gnotobiotic mice, which were raised in a sterile environment and had no bacteria in their guts, the mice gained more weight than did those receiving a similar amount of bacteria from lean mice, even though they were fed the same diet.

Gordon and Turnbaugh found that they could transfer bacteria from human intestines into gnotobiotic mice, which were fed a low-fat, plant-rich diet in the weeks before the bacteria were transplanted and for a month afterward.

After the bacteria were transplanted from a lean human donor, the colonies in the mice had a high proportion of Bacteroidetes and a low proportion of Firmicutes. But within 24 hours after the mice were switched to a high-sugar, high-fat diet, the proportions of the two phyla were reversed.

With time, the mice also grew fatter than their littermates who did not receive the human bacteria

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Kids need dirt

November 30th, 2009

Scientists are advising parents that a bit of dirt can be good for children.

The US team of scientists discovered that being ‘too clean’ can lead to the skin having problems with healing.

They say normal bacteria living on the skin trigger a pathway that helps prevent inflammation when a child gets hurt. The bugs can reduce the body’s natural overactive immune system, which can make cuts and grazes swell.

The findings further back the theory of the “hygiene hypothesis,” where the exposure to germs early on in life can actually lead to the body being better prepared for allergies.

Many believe our obsession with cleanliness is to blame for the recent boom in allergies in developed countries.

With the steady increase of allergies in the UK and other countries, it would seem that our obsession with keeping everything 100% clean is having a negative effect on the health of our children. Allergy rates have tripled in this decade alone, with one in three people now having an allergy of some form.

The bacteria found on most bodies who are not over-clean are considered to be ‘good’ bacteria. Staphylococci are the bacteria that aid the body in healing the skin.

The scientists looked at mice and human cells, and discovered that the harmless bacteria did this by making a molecule called lipoteichoic acid (LTA), which acted on keratinocytes – the main cell types found in the outer layer of the skin.

The LTA keeps the keratinocytes in line, halting them from creating an aggressive inflammatory response.

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A new step in diabetes research

November 30th, 2009

Researchers may have found a new way to delay, or perhaps prevent, type 1 diabetes.

Type 1 diabetes usually begins early in life, when the T-lymphocyte arm of the immune system attacks insulin-making beta cells in the pancreas. Researchers hoping to slow or stop this process have targeted T lymphocytes or T cells.

But recent research suggests that B lymphocytes play a role in T-lymphocyte immunity. In non- obese mice with diabetes, depleting B cells inhibits the disease. Can it work in humans?

Yes, find Indiana University’s Mark D. Pescovitz, MD and a team of diabetes experts from 12 U.S. and Canadian diabetes centers.

Pescovitz and colleagues report data from 78 newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes patients who completed a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial of the arthritis and cancer drug Rituxan. Rituxan, a man-made antibody, attacks B cells via the CD-20 molecule on the surface of the cells.

Patients got a single four-infusion course of Rituxan and then were followed closely for a year. Over the course of the year, patients who received the drug had slower loss of insulin-producing cells as measured by C peptide (during insulin production in the pancreas, proinsulin molecules are split into insulin and C-peptide).

Unfortunately, a single course of Rituxan wasn’t enough to stop diabetes. After a year, B cells in treated patients increased to 69% of their original values.

But the study does show that a treatment targeting B cells can preserve beta-cell function in early type 1 diabetes.

“It is unlikely that treatment with [Rituxan] as administered in this study would be optimal,” Pescovitz and colleagues note. “Given our results, we believe that other anti-B-lymphocyte agents should be tested — for example, anti-CD20 antibodies.”

TYPE 2 diabetes medications

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Pneumonia cases increase

November 30th, 2009

Health officials are finding that bacterial pneumonia cases are rising along with instances of the A/H1N1 virus. Doctors are seeing an increase in flu complications leading to pneumonia.

At the same time, cases of seasonal flu are at record levels because of the new A/H1N1 virus. The number of cases is outpacing the typical number of regular flu cases at this time of year. Cases of regular flu usually peak between December and May.

“We’re seeing an increase in serious pneumococcal infectious around the country,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, who heads the U.S. National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A flu infection thins the lining of the respiratory tract, making the lungs more vulnerable to bacteria that can cause pneumonia. CDC officials in America are urging high-risk adults to obtain vaccinations against both pneumonia and A/H1N1.

Smokers and people with diabetes, chronic heart, lung and liver disease, or HIV are considered particularly high-risk. Only 25 percent of high-risk U.S. adults under age 65 have received a pneumonia vaccination, Dr Schuchat said at a news briefing Wednesday. “It’s a vaccine you pretty much get once as an adult, not every year, the way the flu vaccine works,” she said.

During a regular flu season, most serious cases of flu and flu-related pneumonia occur in people 65 or older. However, people younger than 65 are far more vulnerable to A/H1N1, because the virus is unlike any other flu their bodies have come in contact with.

The CDC also announced that 7 million more doses of the A/H1N1 vaccine have been made available since Friday, bringing the total doses available so far to 61.2 million in America. The health organization has also studied safety data since A/H1N1 vaccinations were started in early October. “So far, everything we’ve seen is very reassuring,” Dr Schuchat said, ” … we’re seeing patterns that are pretty much exactly what were seeing with the seasonal flu vaccine.”

There have been some side effects though it counts for a very small percentage of those receiving the inoculation. Most of the reported side effects include sore arms and tenderness at the injection site. But health officials are particularly interested in a side effect that can cause a rare neurological illness called Guillain-Barre syndrome.

In 1976, there was an alarming rise in Guillain-Barre cases following a large-scale pandemic vaccination program. However Dr Schuchat said only 10 potential cases of Guillain-Barre have so far been reported in the U.S.

Two weeks ago it was been reported that a French woman suffered a crippling illness after receiving the A/H1N1 vaccine. The woman, identified only as a health worker, was diagnosed with the crippling illness Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) after a flu shot. It followed other reports about an American teenager from Virginia who was similarly struck down by the disease hours after receiving the A/H1N1 vaccine.

According to the French health ministry the woman became ill within 6 days of being inoculated. Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot said the case diagnosed was light and that the woman was recovering. The Deutsche Press-Agenture said, news of the apparently vaccine-related illness is likely to dampen enthusiasm here for getting vaccinated against A/H1N1 flu.

There has also been outrage after it was reported in Germany that some ministers as well as the armed forces there received a special additive-free H1N1 vaccine that didn’t contain ingredients such as mercury and squalene that were included in shots for the general public.

France’s H1N1 flu vaccination program has barely even begun and reports of side-effects may shake the confidence of the public. According to the French paper Le Monde around 83 percent of the French public say they would not take the vaccine.

Similar resistance to taking the vaccine is widespread throughout the continent, from Scandanavia to Bulgaria to the Netherlands. In Germany only 13 percent of respondents to a survey said they would take the vaccine. There have only been a few reported deaths connected to the vaccine.

Meanwhile there was concern recently in the Ukraine where nearly two hundred died in what’s been described as an outbreak of a new “super flu”. The Sunday Express in Britain said that a “cocktail of three flu viruses” were reported to have mutated into a single pneumonic plague.

The death toll has reached 189 and more than 1 million people may have been infected, most of them in the nine regions of Western Ukraine, the Express reported. President of Ukraine Viktor Yushchenko called in the World Health Organization and a team of nine specialists carried out tests in Kiev and Lviv to identify the virus, samples of which were sent to London for analysis.

However, the World Health Organization says tests on the samples from Ukraine showed no significant mutation of the virus. WHO had sent an expert team to Ukraine last week after reports of the unusual flu outbreak.

The global body said Tuesday that preliminary genetic sequencing at laboratories in Britain and the United States showed that the virus in Ukraine was similar to that used for production of the pandemic flu vaccine. The Ukrainian Health Ministry has registered some 1.4 million cases of flu and respiratory illness since the start of the A/H1N1 flu outbreak. The WHO says most cases are likely to be the A/H1N1 virus and the infection rate is in line with neighbouring countries such as Russia and Poland.

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Stress & Food

November 30th, 2009

HE secret of why comfort food tastes so good may be all in the mind, experts say.
Foods that are high in fat and sugar appear to be able to change the chemicals in the brain and aid relaxation.
Comfort foods may even reverse the anxiety triggered by stressful memories, a study suggests.
Scientists believe the research could lead them to understand why we feel unhappy and how this affects our behaviour.
It is already known that food can make us feel better. Dishes rich in carbohydrates, such as mashed potato or creamy pasta, boost levels of a mood chemical in the brain called seratonin.
The study in Australia suggests there may be an even more complex relationship between food and the brain. Published in a scientific journal, the findings say that trauma in early life can alter the way that nerves form in the brain. This could lead later in life to more feelings of stress and anxiety.
But a diet rich in fat and sugar seemed to balance these changes and ultimately provide the comfort food lift many people seek.
Margaret Morris, professor of pharmacology at New South Wales university where the study was carried out, said the results were exciting. She believes early studies in rats may provide a similar result in later research with humans.
“We are able to reverse a behavioural deficit that was caused by a traumatic event early in life, simply through a dietary intervention,” she said. “Many neurological diseases appear to have their origins early in life. Stress hormones definitely affect the way nerve cells grow in the brain. This discovery may be giving us a clue about a different way to tackle a range of conditions that affect mood and behaviour.”
In the study, laboratory rats were isolated from their mothers to cause stress or given normal maternal love. The researchers found that those who were separated suffered more stress and had higher levels of stress hormones in their bodies. But when they were fed high fat foods, the levels of stress and anxious behaviour dropped.
Professor Morris said the findings could suggest comfort food works in a similar way to anti-depressants.
“Eating palatable food seems to affect neurogenesis similar to the way anti-depressants promote nerve growth in the brain,” she said.

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Cholesterol dependant heart failure

November 30th, 2009

Abnormal cholesterol levels can significantly increase the risk of heart failure, a new study has found.

U.S. researchers analyzed data on 6,860 participants in the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Framingham Heart Study. None of the participants, average age 44, had coronary heart disease at the start of the study. After about 26 years of follow-up, 680 people had developed heart failure.
The incidence of heart failure was:

12.8 percent in participants with low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL, or “good”) cholesterol. Low HDL is less than 40 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) in men and less than 50 mg/dL in women.
6.1 percent among participants with desirable HDL levels (at least 55 mg/dL in men and 65 mg/dL in women).
13.8 percent in participants with high levels (at least 190 mg/dL) of non-HDL cholesterol, which includes triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad”) cholesterol.
7.9 percent in those with desirable levels (less than 160 mg/dL) of non-HDL cholesterol.
When the researchers factored in age, sex, body mass index, blood pressure, diabetes and smoking, the risk of heart failure was 29 percent higher in participants with high non-HDL cholesterol than in those with lower levels, and 40 percent lower in those with high HDL-cholesterol than in those with lower levels.

Further analysis showed that the risk of heart attack was 13 percent higher in participants with high non-HDL cholesterol and 25 percent lower in those with high HDL cholesterol.

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Herpes never truly goes into a dormant state

November 30th, 2009

Herpes, the sexually transmitted disease that causes genital lesions, never truly goes into a dormant state, new research suggests.
As a matter of fact, even when it’s not causing an outbreak, the virus is shedding tiny bits of itself in the genital tract.

While the study did not specifically address whether or not the very small amounts of virus being continually shed are enough to infect someone else, the findings have the potential to change the way in which scientists view the life cycle of the disease.

The herpes virus is believed to hide out in the neurons around the spine during latent periods, then periodically travel down neurons that end in the genital tract, where it infects the skin cells, causing a lesion.

The accepted view is that the virus was largely inactive during latent periods, said study author Dr. Joshua Schiffer, a senior fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“We’ve known for many years that herpes maintains a latent state in the nerves around the spinal cord. In effect, it hibernates there,” Schiffer said. “The older idea was that it didn’t do much while it was there … But what our model suggests is the virus is continually being released from the neurons.”
The study looked at herpes simplex 2 virus, not herpes simplex 1 virus, which causes cold sores or fever blisters, though it can also cause genital lesions. Schiffer said he suspected the findings would hold true for herpes simplex 1 as well, though previous studies suggest herpes simplex 1 may shed less often.

Schiffer and his colleagues used data from two previous studies. In the first, participants swabbed their genitals every day during an outbreak and until their lesions went away. In the second, patients swabbed their genitals four times a day for 60 days, even when they were asymptomatic.

The data was then put into a mathematical model to determine the probable rate of shedding. According to the study, 85 percent of shedding episodes were asymptomatic, or did not cause a lesion. About 60 percent lasted less than 12 hours.

About 45 million Americans, or one in five over the age of 12, are infected with the genital herpes virus in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But many of them aren’t aware they are infected because they’ve never had, or have never been aware of, their lesions. “Within their skin there is this constant battle going on within the virus and the immune system,” Schiffer explained.

Typically, patients are counseled to avoid having sex during an outbreak and to use a condom to prevent transmission when they are not having symptoms.

Antiviral drugs available, including acyclovir, valacyclovir and famciclovir, can control many, but not all, outbreaks, Schiffer said.

Nancy Sawtell, a researcher in the division of infectious diseases at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said the study opens up new avenues for research. But it’s too soon to suggest that low levels of viral DNA necessarily mean a person can still infect another.

She noted that the researchers tested for viral DNA, which is only a portion of the virus and doesn’t in and of itself mean a person is infectious. “The presence of viral DNA does mean you are infected, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have an infectious particle there,” Sawtell said.

Secondly, because the neurons themselves were not examined, it’s possible the viral DNA that’s present could have originated from somewhere else in the body. Previous animal studies have shown herpes does indeed go into an inactive state.

“It would be really nice to be able to look at the neurons in this human model to determine that the virus is coming from the spine, and wasn’t just present in the genitalia and missed by an earlier swab,” Sawtell said.

Couples trying to avoid infecting one partner should continue to take the same precautions they did prior to the study, including using condoms even when asymptomatic.

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Report: Sexually Transmitted Diseases

November 17th, 2009

Teen girls aged 15 to 19 accounted for the largest number (409,531) of the 1.5 million reported chlamydia and gonorrhea cases in the United States in 2008, followed by women aged 20 to 24, according to an annual federal report released Monday.

The researchers also found that black females continue to have a higher rate of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) than any other racial or ethnic group.

Last year, there were about 1.2 million reported cases of chlamydia and nearly 337,000 reported cases of gonorrhea in the United States, according to the Sexually Transmitted Disease Surveillance, 2008, report.

Among the other findings from the report:

Gonorrhea rates among blacks were higher than any other racial or ethnic group and 20 times higher than among whites. While blacks represent 12 percent of the U.S. population, they accounted for about 71 percent of reported gonorrhea cases, 48 percent of chlamydia cases, and 49 percent of syphilis cases.
Black females aged 15 to 19 had the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea (10,513 per 100,000 and 2,934 per 100,000, respectively), followed by black women aged 20 to 24 (9,373 per 100,000 and 2,770 per 100,000, respectively).
There were 13,500 cases of syphilis in 2008, an increase of nearly 18 percent from 2007. About 63 percent of the cases were among men who have se* with men. However, syphilis rates among women increased 36 percent from 2007 to 2008 (1.1 cases per 100,000 versus 1.5 cases per 100,000), compared with a 15 percent increase among men (6.6 cases per 100,000 versus 7.6 cases per 100,000).
“We cannot ignore the glaring racial disparities in rates of STDs, particularly when we consider the hard truth that gonorrhea rates among African-Americans are 20 times those of whites,” Dr. John M. Douglas Jr., director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of STD Prevention, said in a news release.

“Research has shown that socioeconomic barriers to quality health care and higher overall prevalence of STDs within minority communities contribute to this pervasive threat. It is imperative that we improve access to effective STD prevention and treatment services in local communities for those who need them most,” he said.

Early testing, diagnosis and treatment are essential to prevent long-term health consequences of sexually transmitted diseases. Each year in the United States, untreated STDs lead to complications that cause at least 24,000 women to become infertile, according to the CDC.

Of the almost 19 million new cases of sexually transmitted diseases that occur each year in the United States, almost half are among those aged 15 to 24 years. STDs cost the nation’s health-care system as much as $15.9 billion a year, the CDC said.

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Tonsillectomy. Antibiotic usage.

October 21st, 2009

About 45.6 of every 10,000 children younger than 15 undergo tonsillectomies, most often as a treatment for sleep-related breathing disorders and recurrent tonsillitis, according to background information in the article. Tonsillectomy is a relatively safe procedure with a low death rate, but complications such as pain, bleeding, lethargy and bad breath often occur, particularly in the week following surgery.
“Pain can lead to decreased oral intake and ultimately dehydration,” the authors write. “The use of postoperative antibiotics to relieve pain following pediatric tonsillectomy was first reported more than 50 years ago. It is thought that the normal oral bacterial flora colonize the denuded tonsilar fossae [cavity] and release inflammatory mediators that cause pain. Antibiotic use after tonsillectomy may quantitatively lessen the bacterial content and thus reduce pain.”
Paul E. Johnson, M.D., of New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, and colleagues studied 49 patients scheduled to undergo tonsillectomy with or without adenoidectomy (removal of glands in the back of the throat). Twenty-six of the patients were randomly assigned to receive seven days of postoperative antibiotics, and 23 received three days of antibiotics followed by four days of placebo. Parents were asked to record how much pain medication the child took for the first seven days after surgery, as well as when the child resumed a normal diet and activity level and whether he or she required treatment for bleeding or dehydration.
A total of 47 patients (96 percent) completed the study. No statistically significant difference was observed between the two groups in postoperative pain or in the amount of time it took children to resume their normal diet and activity level.
One adverse effect from the antibiotics — diarrhea — was reported in one patient in each study group. “A potential disadvantage [of a shorter course of antibiotics], outside of the study measures, would be increased postoperative fever and infection,” the authors write. Both patients with this problem, and one patient with postoperative bleeding, were in the seven-day antibiotic group.
“Based on our results, a three-day course of antibiotics is as effective as a seven-day course,” the authors write. “A shorter course of antibiotics carries other potential advantages, including decreased cost, increased patient compliance with medications and a decrease in antibiotic-associated complications and bacterial resistance.”

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The causes and risk of diarrhea

October 16th, 2009

Diarrhea is a condition in which loose, watery stools are passed more often than normal.
What is going on in the body?
Diarrhea occurs when the colon or large intestine becomes irritated. This can be caused by many things, including infection, chemical toxins, inflammation, stress, or anxiety. The colon responds to this irritation in these ways:
- The amount of water and mucus in the stool is increased.
- The amount of water the colon reabsorbs from the stool is decreased.
- The intestine empties the stools from the body more often.

What are the causes and risks of the condition?

Viruses cause most episodes of diarrhea. Other common causes are as follows:
- a bacterial infection, such as traveler’s diarrhea
- certain medicines, including antibiotics
- diet, including an excess of fruit or fruit juice
- inflammatory bowel disorders, such as Crohn’’s disease or ulcerative colitis
- intestinal obstruction, or blockage, in the lower part of the bowel
- irritable bowel syndrome, a condition in which the intestines are abnormally sensitive to stimuli

What are the treatments for the condition?

Dehydration is common in people with severe diarrhea. That is why getting plenty of fluids is very important in treating diarrhea. If diarrhea leads to dehydration, intravenous fluids may be given through a tube in a vein in the hand or arm.

People who have diarrhea should try to keep eating their normal diet. Adults and children should have regular meals three times a day. It is important that infants continue to drink formula or milk. There are oral electrolyte solutions, like Pedialyte, that replace lost minerals in infants with diarrhea.

Over-the-counter medicines, such as loperamide and bismuth subsalicylate, can help control diarrhea in adults. These medicines should not be used for children, and should not be used for more than 2 to 3 days in adults. If bacteria or certain parasites are found in the person’s stool sample, antibiotics or other prescription medicines may be used.
What are the side effects of the treatments?

Over-the-counter medicines for diarrhea may cause:
- bloating
- constipation
- drowsiness
- nausea

Antibiotics and other medicines may cause stomach upset, allergic reactions, and rash.
What happens after treatment for the condition?

Diarrhea usually ends in 2 to 3 days, if not sooner. Generally, diarrhea that lasts a few days is not a cause for concern. If the diarrhea lasts longer, it’s important to contact the healthcare provider. Any new or worsening symptoms should also be reported to the provider.

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