Widespread and Increasing Vitamin D Deficiency

the problem of vitamin D deficiency across the globe has not only been increasing but also has become widespread, with potentiallt severe repercussions for overall health and fracture rates, according to a new report issued by the International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) which was published in the Osteoporosis International scientific journal.

the skin mainly produces vitamin D upon exposure to sunlight. it plays an important role in the maintenance of organ systems through the influence of calcium and is needed for normal bone mineralization and growth. Deficiency in vitamin D leads to an increased risk of osteoporosis and fractures, particularly hip fractures and, in severe cases, to the development of rickets which is a softening of bones in children that can lead to skeletal fractures and deformity.

there are several factors for decreased vitamin D levels, it includes old age, female, lower latitudes, winter season, darker skin pigmentation, less sunlight exporuse, dietary habits and the absence of vitamin D fortification in common foods. further more, it includes increase in urbanization, where people tend to live and work indoors, also cultural practices that ten towards sun avoidance and the wearing of traditional clothing that covers the skin. these are common in the Middle East and South Asia, and the severity of the problem arises from the combo of the said factors.

the report reviews the scope and causes of low vitamin D levels in six regions: Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, North America and Oceania. their findings suggest that prevention strategies must be initiated at the national level - partiuclarly given the increasing ageing of populations in many regions of the world. safe, limited exposure to sunlight and improved dietary intake of vitamin D, and considering fortification of foods are encouraged as a part of the national plans.

Anger and Blood

Stress, particularly mental stress, causes carotid artery dilation and increase brain blood glow. a series of experiments also found that this dilatory reflex was absent in people with increased BP.

Tasneem Naqvi and Hahn Hyuhn from the University of Southern California and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center determined carotid artery reactivity and brain blood flow in response to mental stress in 10 healthy young volunteers (aged between 19 and 27 years), 20 older healthy volunteers (aged 38 to 60 years) and in 28 patients with essential hypertension (aged 38 to 64 years). they found that in mental stress caused vasodilation in healthy subjects, and this vasodilation caused an increase in blood flow to the brain. on the other hand, the mental stress in hypertensive subjects produced no vasodilation and no significant changed in brain blood flow.

the researchers used UTZ imaging to measure the effects of activities that provoke mental stress, like reading, arithmetic and anger recall tests, on the carotid artery and an artery within the brain, also measuring the blood pressure and heart rate at the same time. Naqci said that the inappropriate vasoconstriction or lack of dilation in response to mental stress in stable coronary heart disease contributes to MI and those patients with CAD are in greater risk. the researchers also are looking forward to see whether the lack of mental stress induced dilation found defines subjects at increased risk of future cerebral events. Lack of required blood flow increase to the brain during mental activities may potentially affect cognition and cerebral performance during complex cerebral tasks.

Lung Cancer Driver

The study done by the researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), whihc was prublished in the online journal Cell on the 2nd of July, revealed the genetic underpinnings of what causes lung cancer to quickly spread to the brain and bone, which are the two most common sites of lung cancer spread.

the researchers discovered that the same cellular pathway that has been shown to be involved with the spread of colorectal cancer is also responsible for providing lung cancer with an enhanced ability to infiltrate and colonize other organs without delay and with little need to adapt to its new environment. this is a dramatic departure from other cancers, like breast cancer, in which recurrences tend to emerge following years of remission, suggesting that such cancer cells initially lack and need time to acquire the characteristics and ability to spread to other organs.

the researchers used bioinformatics to interrogate large collections of lung tumor samples. they found that the WNT cell-signaling pathway was the only one out of the six pathways tested that was hyperactive in lung tumors that went on to metastasize and was normal in those that did not spread. they also observed that WNT hyperactivity was associated with aggressive biological tumor characteristics and poor clinical outcome, suggesting that cancer metastasis is linked to poor survival.

"mutations that activate the WNT pathway are a common cause of colon cancer, but lung tumors are initiated by mutations in other genes so we were surprised that a hyperactive WNT pathway would be responsible for metastasis in lung cancer," said the study's senior author Joan Massagué, PhD, Chair of the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program at MSKCC and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

this finding was confirmed with additional experiments in mice that showed that lung cancer cells with tumor-initiating mutations in the genes KRAS and EGFR also depended on a hyperactive WNT pathway for metastasis. The researchers went on to find two genes – HOXB9 and LEF1 – that are activated by WNT and enhance the ability of lung cancer cells to swiftly invade and reinitiate tumor growth. these are what the cancer cells need in order to conquer other organs and that are being enabled by the WNT pathway in the primary tumor.

According to Dr. Massagué, their findings suggest that using treatments that target the WNT pathway may help prevent lung cancer from repeatedly seeding itself throughout the vital organs of patients at risk for metastasis.

The following investigators at MSKCC contributed to this research: Don X. Nguyen, Anne C. Chiang, Xiang H. F. Zhang, Juliet Y. Kim, Mark G. Kris, Marc Ladanyi, and the late William L. Gerald.

The work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the Hearst Foundation, and the Alan and Sandra Gerry Metastasis Research Initiative.

Omega-3 and Macular Degeneration

recently, researchers from Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research (LNVR), Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts University reports that the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish like tuna and salmon may protect against progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) but the advantages appear to depened on the stage of disease and whether certain supplements were taken. AMD is a progressive disease that attacks central vision, resulting in a gradual loss of eyesight and, in some cases, blindness. Th is the most common causes of non-remediable vision loss in Americans over 60, according to NEI.

the eight year trial Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) of the National Eye Institute (NEI) distributed questionnaires adm to 2,924 men and women, aged 55-80 years, and from this the researchers calculated intakes of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). the participants were randomly allocated to receive either a placebo or supplement containing the vit c & e and beta carotene, the minerals zinc and copper or both. the results of the trial suggest taking supplements of antioxidants plus zinc prevents progression of late-stage AMD.

according to the senior author Allen Taylor, their study showed that with early stages of AMD in the placebo group benefited from increased intake of DHA, but it appeared that the high-dose supplements of antioxidants or minerals or both somehow interfered with the benefits of DHA against early AMD progression. Allen Taylor is the director of LNVR at the USDA HNRCA and a professior at Tufts University School of Medicine.

the antioxidant supplements did not seem to interfere with the protective effects of DHA and EPA against progression to advanced stages of AMD. participants who consumed higher amounts of DHA and EPA appeared to have lower risk of progression to both wet and dry forms of advanced AMD.

according to Chiu, the data from the study also shows the supplements and omega-3 fatty acids collaborate with low-dietary glycemic index (dGI) diets against progression to advanced AMD. their previous research suggested a low GI diet may prevent AMD from progression to the advanced stage. the researchers have hypothesized that the rapid rise of blood glucose initiated by high-GI foods results in cellular damage that retinal cells can not handle, resulting to damage of eye tissues.

earlier data published by Taylor and Chiu suggested that daily substitution of five slices of whole grain bread for white bread out of a total intake of 250 g of carbohydrate might cut out almost 8% of advanced AMD over five years. eating two to three servings of fatty fish such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, shellfish, and herring every week would achieve the recommended daily intake of DHA and EPA. this is readily achievable with little diet behavior modification. however, the person has difficulty changing his dietary lifestyle, supplementation is recommended.

the author said that it is still too early to conclude dietary recommendations for people with AMD and more studies are warranted. the researchers study indicate that increasing diet of higher levels of omega-3, antioxidants and low-GI foods may delay compromised vision due to AMD and their study adds to the possibility that combination of dieatary intervention and combination of nutrients may be important.

the authors received funding for this study from the following: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Institutes of Health, the Johnson & Johnson Focused Giving Program, the American Health Assistance Foundation and the Ross Aging Initiative and the results were published in the British Journal of Opthalmology.

Deadly Inflammatory Breast Cancer

inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is the most lethal form of primary breast cancer that affects women and causing death within 18 to 24 months. it is aggressive, deadly and often misdiagnosed. a key gene — eIF4G1 — identified is found to be overexpressed in the majority of the cases of IBC, which allows the cells to form highly mobile clusters responsible for the rapid metastasis of the cancer, thus, makes it an effective killer. the gene was identified by the scientist from the Cancer Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center.

the new findings could lead to new approaches, therapies and a new class of medications to effectively target and treat IBC. since this cancer responds poorly to chemotherapy, radiation or any other forms of treatments for breast Ca, Dr. Robert Schneider, associate director for translational research at The Cancer Institute, co-director of breast cancer research, and the Albert B. Sabin Professor of Molecular Pathogenesis at NYU School of Medicine, and Dr. Deborah Silvera, a postdoctoral research fellow thought that this new finding will play a big role in the fight against IBC.

Dr. Schneider said that IBC is often misdiagnosed and misclassified, it looks like an inflammation of the breast and is often mistaken for an infection rather than a lump. so instead of treating the client for cancer, often times physicians prescribe antibiotics, without knowing the cancer has already spread. IBC accounts for several percent of all breast Ca cases but takes a high toll on mortality, with an incidence that is 50% higher in African American women. Dr. Schneider adds that there has been little progress in treating this form of cancer for the past decades and there are no specific drugs available for this form of cancer, as a matter of fact, IBC has only recently been recognized as unique and genetically distinct.

the research team found that the overexpression of the gene eIF4G1 reprograms how the IBC tumor cells make proteins. other researchers have identified genes associated with IBC, but this is the first gene shown to orchestrate how IBC tumor cells form special structures—unique to this disease—known as "tumor emboli." These small clusters of highly mobile tumor cells are responsible for the rapid metastasis of IBC. Because these cell clumps are not stationary or fixed, they can quickly travel to other areas of the body.

aside from understanding of IBC at molecular and genetic level, Dr. Schneider is hopeful that, through this finding, a new drug will be discovered which will be able to target only the harmful cells. according to Dr. Schneider, their next step will focus on the genetic basis of IBC and study the genetic changes underlying the disease to reveal more targets at this level.

New Stem Cell Source: Fallopian Tube

normally, human tissues thrown away after surgery which could be a rich additional source of stem cells for regenerative medicine. recently, for the first time, research shows that human fallopian tubes are abundant in mesenchymal stem cells which have the potential of becoming a variety of cell types.

the researchers have had great interests on looking for sources of multipotent stem cells from discarded tissues without having any ethical problems. previously, it has been shown that mesenchymal stem cells obtained from all boilogical discards like umbilical cords, dental pulp and adipose tissue, are able to differentiate into muscle, fat, bone and cartilage cell lineages.

Tatiana Jazedje, and the research team from Human Genome Research Centre at the University of São Paulo, directed by Mayana Zatz, with the collaboration of medical doctors from the reproductive area, set out to isolate and assess the differentiation potential of mesenchymal stem cells from discarded human fallopian tubes. In the study, human fallopian tubes were obtained from hysterectomy and other gynecological procedures from fertile women in their reproductive years (range 35-53 years) who had not undergone hormonal treatment for at least three months prior to surgery.

The Brazilian team found that human fallopian tube mesenchymal stem cells could be easily isolated and expanded in vitro, and are able to differentiate into muscle, fat, cartilage and bone cell lines. The cells' chromosome complement showed no abnormalities, suggesting chromosomal stability.

according to Jazedje, the findings might contribute to reproductive science as a whole and additional source for regenerative medicine. more importantly, the use of human tissue fragments which are supposed to be discarded after surgery.

Pregnant Women at Risk of H1N1Complications

the H1N1 flu outbreak is now elevated to pandemic level, pregnant women, particularly those in the third trimester, are at high risk of serious complications from the H1N1 A influenza virus. an article in the Canadian Medical Association Journal says that oseltamivir (Tamiflu®) and zanamivir (Relenza®) are relatively safe drugs for use in pregnant and breast-feeding women.

the study was conducted by researchers from the Motherisk Program at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto and the Japan Drug Information Institute in Pregnancy in Tokyo, Japan.

according to Dr. Shinya Ito the oseltamivir (Tamiflu) appears to be the drug of choice for the treatment or prevention during the current pandemic of H1N1 because there are more data on its safety in pregnancy. althought there is less data available about the safety use of zanamivir (Relenza), it can also be used. neither drug appears to affect the growth and development of the fetus, although ongoing data collection is important.

the groups at high risk of flu-related complications from the novel H1N1 influenza are the same as those for seasonal flu and this includes the pregnant women, children under 5 years, the elderly and others such as those with chronic lung conditions.

if the mother is breast feeding, only small amounts of the drug are excreted into human milk. the recommended dose of oseltamivir or zanamivir should be given to the infant if he is breastfed by the mother while on these drugs.