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Being cheerful may protect against heart problems, say US experts.
Happy, optimistic people have a lower risk of heart disease and stroke, a Harvard School of Public Health review of more than 200 studies – reported in Psychological Bulletin – suggests.
While such people may be generally healthier, scientists think a sense of well-being may lower risk factors such as high blood pressure and cholesterol.
Being an Optimist may Protect against Heart Problems
Stress and depression have already been linked to heart disease.
The researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health trawled medical trial databases to find studies that had recorded psychological well-being and cardiovascular health.
This revealed that factors such as optimism, life satisfaction, and happiness appeared to be linked associated with a reduced risk of heart and circulatory diseases, regardless of a person’s age, socio-economic status, smoking status or body weight.
Disease risk was 50% lower among the most optimistic individuals.
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Not Proof
Dr Julia Boehm and colleagues stress that their work only suggests a link and is not proof that well-being buffers against heart disease.
And not only is it difficult to objectively measure well-being, other heart risk factors like cholesterol and diabetes are more important when it comes to reducing disease.
The people in the study who were more optimistic also engaged in healthier behaviours such as getting more exercising and eating a balanced diet, which will have some influence.
But even when they controlled for these factors and others, like sleep quality, the link between optimism and better heart health remained.
Although they looked at 200 studies, the researchers say this number is still not enough to draw firm conclusions and recommend more research.
Much of the past work on mood and heart disease has looked at stress and anxiety rather than happiness.
Maureen Talbot, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “The association between heart disease and mental health is very complex and still not fully understood.
“Although this study didn’t look at the effects of stress, it does confirm what we already know which is psychological well-being is an important part of a healthy lifestyle, just like staying active and eating healthily. It also highlights the need for healthcare professionals to provide a holistic approach to care, taking into account the state of someone’s mental health and monitoring its effect on their physical health.”
Source: BBC News UK
A new technique to treat early prostate cancer may have far fewer side-effects than existing therapies, say experts.
A 41-patient study in the journal Lancet Oncology suggests targeted ultrasound treatment could reduce the risk of impotence and incontinence.
Researchers say it could transform future treatment if the findings are repeated in larger studies.
New Prostate Cancer Treatment May Reduce Side-effects
The Medical Research Council (MRC), which funded the study, welcomed the results, which it said were promising.
Each year 37,000 men in the UK are diagnosed with prostate cancer. Many face a difficult dilemma: the disease kills about 10,000 men every year, but for some it may not get worse if left untreated.
Standard treatment with surgery or radiotherapy involves treating the whole prostate gland, and can harm surrounding tissue, with a serious risk of side-effects, including urinary incontinence and impotence.
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Targeted Treatment
Doctors at University College Hospital in London have carried out the first trial using high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) aimed at small patches of cancer cells on the prostate.
This was a “proof of concept” study involving 41 patients.
They used a probe, placed close to the prostate, which emits sound waves that heat the targeted cells to 80C, while causing minimal damage to surrounding nerves and muscles.
Hashim Ahmed, a urological surgeon at the trust who led the study, says the results, 12 months after treatment, are very encouraging.
“We’ve shown in this study that focal therapy – by targeting the individual areas of cancer – can avoid the collateral damage. We’ve shown that nine in 10 men had no impotence and none of the men in the study had incontinence of urine.”
Mr Ahmed says the early evidence on cancer control is also very good. But he says this needs to be evaluated in much larger studies.
“This could offer a transformation of the way we treat prostate cancer. It could offer a cost-effective treatment for the NHS, and offer men with early prostate cancer an opportunity to treat their disease, but with very few side-effects.”
A patient on the trial, 72-year-old Robert Page, from Croydon, says his treatment, two years ago, was a great success.
“The outcome was very good,” he said. “I was very pleased with the treatment and very happy with the lack of side-effects, particularly when I contrast that with what might have been the case if I’d had one of the other, alternative, treatments.”
The study was funded by the Medical Research Council, the Pelican Cancer Foundation and St Peter’s Trust.
Further Trials
Professor Gillies McKenna, director of the Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology and Biology, a joint collaboration between the MRC and Cancer Research UK, welcomed the findings.
“If these promising results can be confirmed in a randomised controlled trial, focal therapy could soon become a reasonable treatment choice for prostate cancer alongside other proven effective therapies.”
The chief executive of the Prostate Cancer Charity, Owen Sharp, also emphasised the importance of further research.
“We welcome the development of any prostate-cancer treatment which limits the possibility of damaging side-effects, such as incontinence and impotence. These early results certainly indicate that focal HIFU has the potential to achieve this in the future. However, we need to remember that this treatment was given to fewer than 50 men, without follow-up over a sustained period of time. We look forward to the results of further trials, which we hope will provide a clearer idea of whether this treatment can control cancer in the long term whilst ridding men of the fear that treating their cancer might mean losing their quality of life.”
Are you receiving prostate cancer treatment? What do you think about the new technique? Please send us your comments and experiences. Please note, the BBC cannot pass contact details to the research group.
Source: BBC News UK
A Glasgow-based doctor is to lead the world’s biggest research study into the cause of Parkinson’s disease.
The brain condition affects almost 130,000 people in the UK.
Dr Donald Grosset, a neurologist at Glasgow University, said he hoped to find better ways of both diagnosing and treating the disease.
Charity Parkinson’s UK is looking for 3,000 volunteers with the condition – and their siblings – to take part in the study.
Glasgow University leads Biggest Study into Parkinson’s Disease
Parkinson’s is a debilitating condition with symptoms which include tremors, mood changes, movement difficulties, loss of smell and speech problems.
The charity said it was investing more than £1.6m in the Tracking Parkinson’s study with the long-term aim of boosting the chances of finding a cure.
The study will follow 3,000 volunteers – people recently diagnosed with the disease, people diagnosed aged under 50 and their brothers and sisters.
The aim is to identify markers in the blood which could be used to create a simple diagnostic test for the disease, something which does not yet exist.
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Parkinson’s UK said early diagnosis is crucial if doctors are to be able to prescribe the right drugs for people with the condition.
The responses to various treatments of those taking part in the study will be closely monitored for up to five years.
Eventually the project will link up to 40 research centres across the UK.
Dr Grosset said: “The cure for Parkinson’s is a global challenge and all the samples gathered from our thousands of volunteers will be available for analysis by researchers the world over.
“This, in itself, will speed up our ultimate goal – to develop a cure for Parkinson’s. I am very excited to be leading this cutting edge research collaborating with top researchers from Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland.”
Dr Kieran Breen, director of research and innovation at Parkinson’s UK, added: “Finding a cure for Parkinson’s is like building a gigantic jigsaw, but we still have a number of the pieces missing. This vital new study will help us fill in some of the gaps in our knowledge.”
Source: BBC News UK
Manipulating memories of drug use may help reformed addicts avoid a return to a life of drug abuse, according to scientists in China.
They said memories linking “cues” – such as needles or cigarettes – and the pleasurable effects of drugs caused cravings and relapsing.
Tweaking Memories could help Drug Addicts avoid Relapsing
Authors of the study, published in the journal Science, “rewrote” those memories to reduce cravings. Experts said targeting memories could become a new avenue for treatment.
Repeatedly showing people drug cues without actually giving patients the drug is a part of some therapies for addicts. It can break the link between cue and craving in the clinic. But this does not always translate to real life.
The researchers at Peking University tried to rewrite the original memory so that it would be as if the link between cue and the craving never existed.
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Flexible Memories
The work relies on the idea that a memory can become malleable after it is accessed, creating a brief window during which the memory can be “rewritten”.
Twenty-two heroin addicts who had not taken the drug for – on average – 11 years, took part in the study.
They were initially shown a brief video to remind them of taking drugs – opening the memory window. Ten minutes later they watched more videos and looked at pictures of heroin drug use.
Other addicts were shown an initial video of the countryside, which would not open the window.
Tests 180 days later showed that levels of cravings were lower in those treated during the ‘memory window’ than in the other groups. These experiments were backed up by further tests on “addicted” rats.
The authors wrote: “The [memory] procedure decreased cue-induced drug craving and perhaps could reduce the likelihood of cue-induced relapse during prolonged abstinence periods.”
Dr Amy Milton, who researches memory and addiction at the University of Cambridge, said: “I’m quite excited by this research.”
She said it was “such a minor” difference from current therapies which “tapped into an entirely different memory process” and the reconstruction of the original memory. Full clinical studies are needed, but it could be really important for treatment of addiction,” she said.
Dr Milton added: “There is no theoretical reason it couldn’t apply to other addictions such as alcohol. That’s obviously very exciting.”
Source: BBC News UK
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People with Huntington’s disease, a debilitating brain condition, appear have a “protection” from cancer, according to a study in Sweden.
Nearly 40 years of medical records showed patients with Huntington’s had half the normal expected risk of developing tumours.
Researchers, writing in The Lancet Oncology, said the reason was unclear. Cancer Research UK said the findings presented another avenue to explore in tackling cancer.
Academics at Lund University analysed Swedish hospital data from 1969 to 2008. They found 1,510 patients with Huntington’s disease.
Huntington’s disease Lowers Cancer Risk
During the study period, 91 of those patients subsequently developed cancer. The authors said that was 53% lower than the levels expected for the general population.
Huntington’s is one of a group of illnesses called “polyglutamine diseases”. Data from other polyglutamine diseases also showed lower levels of cancer.
The authors said: “We found that the incidence of cancer was significantly lower among patients with polyglutamine diseases than in the general population.
“The mechanisms behind the protective effects against cancer are unclear and further research is warranted.”
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Dr Jianguang Ji, from the Center for Primary Health Care Research at Lund University, told the BBC: “Clarification of the mechanism underlying the link between polyglutamine diseases and cancer in the future could lead to the development of new treatment options for cancer.”
Eleanor Barrie, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: “These are interesting results. It’s not clear how the genetic changes that cause Huntington’s and other similar diseases could protect against cancer, and research in the lab will help to find out more.
“Scientists at Cancer Research UK and around the world are probing the genetic faults that contribute to cancer in their quest to beat the disease, and this is another potential avenue to explore.”
Source: BBC News UK
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A three-year-old boy has been kept alive with an artificial heart for more than eight months, which doctors say is a record for a child in the UK.
Joe Skerratt from Gillingham, Kent, was diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy, which meant his heart struggled to pump blood around his body.
He was temporarily fitted with a “Berlin heart”, to give his own a helping hand. After 251 days, he finally had a heart transplant last year.
Joe’s mother, Rachel, said “we started to see his character coming back” after he was fitted with the Berlin heart. But this was the start of a long wait for a heart donor.
She said, “When Joe passed the 200-day mark on the Berlin heart we started to really question what else could be done if a heart wasn’t found, but we knew deep down there wouldn’t be much. On day 251 the call we had been waiting for came. We were offered a heart for Joe. The call came early in the morning and time seemed to stand still before he was taken down to theatre.”
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After the operation, Joe’s chest would not be closed for four days. Rachel said: “Seeing his new heart – a normal size and thumping away in his chest – was incredible.”
Their first night back home was celebrated with Joe’s favourite meal – pizza.
Joe was first diagnosed with dilated cardiomyopathy when he was taken to hospital looking grey at just three weeks old. An X-ray showed his heart was severely enlarged. He was later diagnosed with a genetic disorder – Barth syndrome, which leads to muscle weakness, short stature and feeding problems.
Artificial Heart Keeps Boy Alive for Record 251 Days
In December 2010, Joe’s heart was failing and doctors found his valves were leaking. His heart had now become even more enlarged and was taking up too much space in his chest.
A few days later his heart stopped twice while he was in hospital. He was then transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, where his heart stopped for a third time.
Doctors stabilised Joe and he was fitted to a Berlin heart.
The Berlin heart is about the size of a small fridge. Some children need to be on the device for only a couple of weeks, while for others, the wait for a new heart can take many months.
Dr Alessandro Giardini, consultant paediatric cardiologist at Great Ormond Street, said: “We are really delighted to see Joe doing so well and thriving at home. He spent a long time with us in hospital.
“Joe was very lucky to be able to have a heart transplant. There is a chronic shortage of donor organs for children in the UK and at any one time we have several children in the hospital awaiting a transplant. Lots of children wait years for an organ to become available and can very sadly die while they are doing so.”
Joe’s parents have both called for people to join the NHS organ donor register. Rachel said: “We are eternally grateful to the donor family. We cannot imagine what they went through, their generosity of thought at such a horrendous time is completely selfless and amazing.”
Source: BBC News UK
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Obese women and those with Type 2 diabetes could be increasing their chances of having a child with autism or another development disorder, a US study suggests.
Researchers at the University of California Davis said that high glucose levels during pregnancy could affect brain development in the foetus.
The Paediatrics study looked at 1,000 children and mothers over seven years. Diabetes UK said further research was needed.
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In California, where the study was carried out, 1.3% of women have Type 2 diabetes and 7.4% have diabetes which developed during pregnancy.
The children in the study were aged between two and five years old and were enrolled between 2003 and 2010.
Obesity and Diabetes Link to Child Disorders
Among children whose mothers had Type 2 diabetes during their pregnancies, the study found that 9.3% of those children had autism. And 11.6% of that group of children showed evidence of a developmental disability.
This was nearly twice as high as the 6.4% of children with these problems born to women with no metabolic conditions.
Over 20% of the mothers of children with autism or other developmental disability were obese, compared with 14% of the mothers of normally developing children.
Communication skills
In the US, the study noted that 34% of women of child-bearing age are obese and nearly 9% are diabetic.
Around 29% of the children with autism had mothers with a metabolic condition during pregnancy, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity.
Nearly 35% of the children with another developmental disorder had mothers with metabolic conditions, compared to 19% of children in the control group.
The study also examined the link between hypertension and autism or developmental disorder.
The prevalence of high blood pressure was low for all groups, but more common among mothers of children with autism or developmental disorder, although it was not statistically significant.
When analysing children’s cognitive abilities, the study found that among the children with autism, children of mothers with diabetes did not perform as well as children of non-diabetic mothers in tests of expressive language and communication skills.
And the presence of any metabolic condition was linked to lower scores on all of the tests among children without autism.
The authors say that obesity is a significant risk factor for diabetes and hypertension, and is characterized by increased insulin resistance.
Paula Krakowiak, from the MIND Institute at the University of California Davis, said: “Our finding that these maternal conditions may be linked with neurodevelopmental problems in children raises concerns and therefore may have serious public-health implications.”
Dr Matthew Hobbs, head of research at Diabetes UK, said more research was needed to answer questions not investigated in the study.
“It is important to note that while it does show an association, it does not show that diabetes causes developmental problems. We continue to advise that women with diabetes should tell their diabetes health care team if they are planning to become pregnant. They can then work together to make sure they are aware of the steps they should take to help them have a healthy pregnancy. “
Source: BBC News UK
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Healthcare in rural India is often basic, meaning people die unnecessarily.
Take anaemia for instance, more than half the cases can easily be cured with a course of free iron pills, but if left untreated it is potentially fatal, especially for pregnant women.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate Myshkin Ingawale first heard about the problem from friends who worked as young doctors in remote areas of India.
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“One in five deaths among pregnant women was traced back to this. I was not aware of this problem but my friends were seeing it on an ongoing basis in the field,” he told the BBC.
Mr Ingawale decided to put his technology background to the test and come up with a solution that would be easy for healthcare workers – often untrained – to use in the field.
Lunch box
“I knew a little about technology and how to put things in a box,” he said.
He took his inspiration from an unlikely source – Hollywood.
“I had seen this machine in Hollywood movies – when someone was lying in a hospital bed they were hooked up to it,” he told the BBC.
The device he is talking about is a pulse oximeter, a non-invasive method of monitoring the oxygenation of haemoglobin using light. The patient is attached to the machine via a finger clip.
A similarly non-invasive device was perfect for his needs because healthcare workers in India are often not trained to conduct blood tests using needles and lack the equipment to assess the results of such tests.
“I found that there was no commercial availability of a device to measure haemoglobin in the same way,” said Mr Ingawale. So he set about designing one. When we first saw it is was just circuitry housed in a lunch box,” said Noah Perin, commercialisation officer at the Program for the Appropriate Technology in Health (Path).
Path follows the development of new medical technologies and has been looking for devices that can help detect anaemia for the past 20 years.
Device to Fight Anaemia in India about to go on Sale
No needle
The finished product was a little more sophisticated, a hand-held, battery-operated device that can measure haemoglobin levels without the prick of a needle.
Known as TouchHb, it comes with a probe into which the finger is inserted. When light-emitting diodes in the probe shine light through the nail, a photodiode on the other end interprets the absorption patterns to produce an instant reading of the volume of haemoglobin in the patient’s blood.
It can diagnose anaemia in less than a minute and is currently being piloted in clinics in South India as part of the vital data collection exercise that could see the device go commercial later this year.
The batteries can be recharged and are expected to last for more than 100 tests. The probe will also require yearly maintenance.
Mr Ingawale’s firm, Biosense Technologies, aims to sell the machines for between $200 and $300 (£125-£188) and the cost of individual tests will be just 5 rupees (10 cents; 6p).
The costs are outweighed by the benefits, he thinks.
He said “Pregnant women are recommended to get a haemoglobin test at least once in every trimester of their pregnancy but it is inconvenient for a women to walk to the nearest primary healthcare centre that could more than 5km away. They do not feel sick enough to justify that trip that could even come against losing a day’s wages, so a large number of women skip the screening and monitoring.”
With this simple test, available in their own community, there is much greater likelihood of spotting and subsequently treating anaemia, he suggested.
Local need
“We are quite excited about it because it is targeted at and developed for front-line health workers,” said Mr Perin. This device won’t cure anaemia but it can have a dramatic impact in alerting people to the fact that they have a problem,” he added.
Mr Ingawale wants to see more devices developed at grassroots level, based on the needs of patients in the field.
“There needs to be a rethink in the way healthcare is delivered to people. It needs to be far more decentralised. It can become a consumerist movement in the same way that Wikipedia has been for information,” he said.
Mr Perin agrees.
“We have seen devices like this before but they have been huge sophisticated machines made for the developed world and adapted. There is a real advantage in inventing devices based on local needs,” he said.
Source: BBC News UK
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Taller women have a slightly higher risk of ovarian cancer, according to a review of studies.
Obesity is also a risk factor among women who have never taken HRT, say international researchers.
Previous studies have suggested a link, but there has been conflicting evidence.
Women’s Height Linked to Ovarian Cancer
The latest research, published in the journal PLoS Medicine, analysed all worldwide data on the topic.
It looked at 47 epidemiological studies in 14 countries, including about 25,000 women with ovarian cancer and more than 80,000 women without ovarian cancer.
Lead researcher Prof Valerie Beral of the Oxford University Epidemiology Unit told the BBC: “By bringing together the worldwide evidence, it became clear that height is a risk factor.”
She said there was also a clear relationship between obesity and ovarian cancer in women who had never taken HRT.
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“Ovarian cancer can clearly be added to the list [of cancers linked to obesity],” she added.
Sarah Williams, health information officer at Cancer Research UK, said the study produced a clearer picture of the factors that could affect a woman’s risk of developing ovarian cancer, and found that body size was important.
“Women can reduce their risk of this and many other diseases by keeping to a healthy weight,” she said. For women trying to lose weight, the best method is to eat healthily, eat smaller amounts and be more physically active.”
Commenting on the study, Dr Paul Pharoah, reader in cancer epidemiology at the University of Cambridge, said the increase in risk was small.
“If we compare a woman who is 5ft tall with a woman who is 5ft 6in tall, there is a relative difference in ovarian cancer risk of 23%. But the absolute risk difference is small. The shorter woman will have a lifetime risk of about 16-in-a-1000 which increases to 20-in-a-1000 for the taller woman. A similar difference in absolute risk would be seen when comparing a slim woman with a body mass index of 20 to a slightly overweight woman with a body mass index of 30. ”
Source: BBC News UK
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