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Urgent Need For Worldwide Ban On Lead-based Paint
The report appears in the early online edition of the journal Environmental Research, would be published in September 2006.
The scientists say that this lead-based paint production poses a global health threat, and a worldwide ban is urgently needed to avoid future public health problems.
Lead is a malleable metal previously used to improve the durability and color luster of paint used in homes and other buildings and on steel structures, such as bridges. Now scientifically associated with impaired intellectual and physical growth in children, lead is also found in some usually imported consumer products, including candy, folk and traditional medications, ceramic dinnerware and metallic toys and trinkets.
In a two-year study headed by Scott Clark, PhD, the UC-led research team observed that more than 75 percent of the consumer paint tested from countries without controls-including India, Malaysia and China-had levels exceeding U.S. regulations. Collectively, the countries represent more than 2.5 billion people. In Singapore, which enforces the same lead restriction on new paint as the United States, lead levels were significantly lower.........
Posted by: Emily Permalink Source
Diabetes Drug Shows Promise In Treating Alzheimer's
New research at the University of Virginia Health System and Case Western Reserve University shows that a drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat type 2 diabetes may hold promise in treating Alzheimer's as well, without serious side effects. "We think that the drug may reduce the body's inflammatory reaction to one of the toxic components that builds up in Alzheimer's, called amyloid plaque, " said Dr. David Geldmacher, an associate professor of neurology at UVa.
The drug, called pioglitazone HCl, was tested in a placebo-controlled trial involving 25 people with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. The study assessed the safety of the drug and, eventhough the therapy appeared to reduce Alzheimer's progression, the study was too small for researchers to be sure of the effects on memory and everyday abilities. However, the findings are promising enough, scientists say, to carry out larger studies of pioglitazone.
The research was presented July 16 to the world's largest Alzheimer's conference, ICAD 2006, in Madrid, Spain. It was selected by ICAD organizers to be highlighted because of a growing sense of the relationship between diabetes and Alzheimer's.........
Posted by: Jessica Permalink Source
Mesothelioma Drug In Progress
Mesothelioma is a type of cancer arising from the cells, known as mesothelium, with the majority of cancers beginning in the chest cavity. The occurence rate of mesothelioma increases with age and is rarely diagnosed in patients under 55 years old. Exposure to asbestos is thought to bethe main cause of the disease.
National Cancer Institute is sponsoring the current clinical trial with CuraGen. Those who are having a diagnosis of mesothelioma, which is not removable by surgery and who have failed at least one line of chemotherapy are eligible for the clinical trial. The drug PXD101 is given by intravenous infusion once every three weeks.
The researchers are trying to determine if the drug PXD101 has any significant activity on mesothelioma in terms of clinical response. The study is also aimed at determining the safety of the drug and time to treatment failure. The study would also look for any survival advantage resulting from the use of the drug.
Researchers are planning to enroll a total of 37 patients at different sites across the United States.........
Posted by: Jessica Permalink
Physical activity does not protect from ovarian cancer
A new research has found that exercise programs do not protect women from developing ovary cancer. This is according to reports published in International Journal of Cancer.
"However, despite not protecting for ovary cancer, physical activity has so a number of other positive health effects that women should be encouraged to exercise daily, if possible," study chief Dr. Elisabete Weiderpass from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm emphasized in comments to Reuters Health.
She and her colleagues assessed associations between physical activity during different periods of life and ovary cancer incidence in roughly 96,000 women from Norway and Sweden who were followed for more than a decade.
"We asked the women how much they exercised at ages 14, 30 and between ages 30 and 50 year," Weiderpass said.
A total of 264 women developed ovary cancer during the time they were followed.........
Posted by: Jessica Permalink Source
Prices Soaring For Cancer Drugs
Spiraling prices for new cancer therapies, up to $10,000 a month for a single drug, are causing alarm among patients and insurance companies.
"These costs are out of control," says Fran Visco, president of the National Breast Cancer Coalition, which is planning a conference focused on drug costs in the fall. "We can't allow it to continue".........
Posted by: Jessica Permalink Source
Wrinkle Treatment For Radiation Side Effects
Penny Cecil said she was stunned when she was diagnosed with breast cancer a year ago.
"I had no problems. No pain. No lumps. Nothing," said Cecil.
She said the discovery was made in a routine mammogram.
Cecil said she was determined to survive for the sake of her daughter.
"I just couldn't imagine her going through life without her mother," said Cecil.
Cecil had a lumpectomy and radiation, but doctors offered something else. A way to prevent the burning and pain that comes with radiation.........
Posted by: Jessica Permalink Source
Removal Of Ovaries Does Not Completely Eliminate Risk
About four per cent of women who had the preventive procedure, called a salpingo-oophorectomy, went on to develop peritoneal cancer within 10 years of the operation, the researchers, from the Hereditary Ovarian Cancer Clinical Study Group, reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Senior author Dr. Steven Narod, a leading researcher in the field of inherited breast and ovarian cancers, said that means that even after having their ovaries and fallopian tubes removed women with the mutations - known as BRCA1 or BRCA2 - still face a risk of developing peritoneal cancer that is significantly higher than that faced by women who didn't inherit either of the genes.........
Posted by: Jessica Permalink Source
Prostatic Radiation Does Not Increase Rectal Cancer Risk
This year, 235,000 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer. The main ways of dealing with the disease are radiation therapy, surgery and watchful waiting - each of which has its benefits and disadvantages. Researchers have hypothesized that one disadvantage of using radiation to kill the cancer cells in the prostate is that it might also make men more likely to develop cancer in the nearby rectum.
In this study, doctors in Canada evaluated the records of 237,773 men who had prostate cancer. Of them, 33,841 received radiation therapy, 167,607 had their prostate removed surgically and 36,335 received neither treatment. On an initial simple evaluation, doctors found that rectal cancer developed in 243 men who received radiation (0.7 percent), 578 men treated with surgery (0.3 percent), and 227 of the men given neither treatment (0.8 percent). Once doctors had adjusted for the age differences between all the men in the irradiated and non-irradiated groups, they could not find any significant increased risk of rectal cancer in the irradiated men compared to those not given radiation therapy.........
Posted by: Jessica Permalink Source
Biological Clock And Cancer
Their work, reported June 29 in Science Express, the advance electronic publication of Science, implies a protective dimension for the biological clock in addition to its pacemaker functions that play such a sweeping role in the rhythms and activities of life.
"The notion that the clock regulates DNA-damage input and that mutation can affect the clock as well as the cell cycle is novel," says Jay Dunlap, professor and chair of genetics at DMS. "It suggests a fundamental connection among circadian timing, cell cycle progress, and potentially the origins of some cancers".
Dunlap is a co-author of the paper with DMS colleagues, Jennifer Loros, professor of biochemistry, graduate student Christopher L. Baker, and former students Antonio M. Pregueiro and Qiuyun Liu.
The team of Loros and Dunlap were among to first to delineate the intricate web of clockwork genes, proteins and feedback loops that drive circadian rhythms, working chiefly in the classic genetic model organism Neurospora, the common bread mold.........
Posted by: Jessica Permalink Source
Random Thoughts On Cancer Prevention
While tamoxifen and raloxifene are primary breast cancer preventive drugs meaning they are effective in prevention of breast cancer in women who never had breast cancer. Drugs like tamoxifen, Arimidex (anastrozole), Femara (letrozole), and Aromasin (exemestane) are also used as secondary preventative agents in women who had been diagnosed with beast cancer but had undergone surgical removal of the cancer.
The story of tamoxifen and raloxifene is not projected as an outright success in the breast cancer prevention. Taking these pills for a long time may trigger some other troubles. Tamoxifen is associated with increased risk of blood clots (DVT and pulmonary embolism) and increased risk of uterine cancer. A recent clinical trial has shown that raloxifene may be safer in this regard and would provide same level of breast cancer prevention. Raloxifene has the added advantage of improving the bone density with long term use.
Drugs like Arimidex, Femara, and Aromasin are members of a group called aromatase inhibitors. These drugs are safer than tamoxifen in terms of increased risk of blood clots and uterine cancer, but are associated with increased risk of causing fractures.........
Posted by: Jessica Permalink