Health

BOSTON – High levels of phosphates — found in sodas and processed food — may accelerate signs of aging, U.S. re- searchers suggest. The study, published in the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, also finds high phosphate levels may increase the prevalence and severity of chronic kidney disease and cardio- vascular calcification and skin atrophy. “Humans need a healthy diet and keeping the balance of phosphate in the diet may be important for a healthy life and longevity,” Dr. M. – Shawkat Razzaque of the Harvard School of Dental Medicine says in a statement. “Avoid phosphate toxicity and enjoy a healthy life.” Razzaque and a colleague examined the effects of high phosphate levels in mice missing the gene klotho, which when absent, causes mice to have toxic levels of phosphate in their bodies. These mice lived from eight to 15 weeks. Mice fed a high phosphate diet also died within 15 weeks, while mice not fed a high phosphate diet lived for 20 weeks.

BETHESDA, Md. – U.S. medical investigators said Wednesday there is no firm evidence any preventive measures for cog- nitive decline or Alzheimer’s disease are effective. An independent panel convened by the National Institutes of Health said many preventive measures including mental stimulation, exercise and a variety of dietary supplements have been studied over the years. But the experts said the value of such strategies for delaying the onset or reducing the severity of decline or disease has never been demon- strated by rigorous studies. “Alzheimer’s disease is a feared and heart-breaking disease,” said Dr. Martha Daviglus, the panel’s chairwoman and a professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University. “We wish we could tell people that taking a pill or doing a puzzle every day would prevent this terrible disease, but current evidence doesn’t support this.”
The panel’s members said they found no evidence of even moderate scientific support associating any dietary supple- ment, prescription or non-prescription drug, diet, exercise or social engagement with reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
The panel said evidence surrounding risk reduction for cog- nitive decline is similarly limited, although low-grade evidence shows weak associations between many lifestyle choices and reduced risk of Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline. “These associations are examples of the classic chicken or the egg quandary,” Daviglus said. “Are people able to stay mentally sharp over time because they are physically active and socially engaged or are they simply more likely to stay physically active and socially engaged because they are mentally sharp?” Daviglus said. The panel included experts in preventive medicine, geriatrics, internal medicine, neuro- logy, neurological surgery, psychiatry, mental health, nutri- tion, pharmacology, genetic medicine, nursing, health econ- omics, health services research and family care-giving. The report is available at:

http://www.ahrq.gov/downloads/pub/evidence/pdf/alzheimers/alzcog.pdf.

MONTREAL – An international team of scientists, including some from Canada, has linked 20 genes with osteoporosis, including 13 never before associated with the disease. Re- searchers at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal and colleagues said osteoporosis is a highly heritable trait, but the study marks the largest international effort to conclusively identify genes linked to the often-devastating bone disorder. Dr. J. Brent Richards collaborated with more than 30 co-authors worldwide in reviewing data collected from nearly 20,000 individuals in five recent international genetic studies. “Hip fractures are a common and costly condition which has a 50 percent mortality rate at two years, worse than some cancers,” Richards, an assistant professor at McGill University, said. “Not only did we find
13 entirely new genes, we also demonstrated that some of these genes were related not just to bone density, but also to fracture risk itself.” He said the findings will allow scientists to better study the genetic mechanisms that control bone strength, and to intervene to prevent peoples’
bones from becoming weak. “Also, if we are able to uncover more genes which influence bone strength, then we may be able to identify whole populations that require early pre- ventive treatment,” he added. The research was reported recently in the journal Nature Genetics.

DURHAM, N.C. – Duke University medical researchers say they’ve found some commonly used steroid medications might aid in tissue-repairing regenerative therapy. The steroid hormone called glucocorticoids is usually used for asthma inflammation and skin injury. But the scientists said they determined during studies on cells from mice, the drugs appeared to promote and protect stem cell populations that perform tissue repair. “We found that these common compounds could help to produce populations of (nerve-repairing) neuronal stem cells and may even have a protective effect on the new stem cells, which could assist in tissue repair processes,” said Assistant Professor Wei Chen, the study’s senior author. “Next we would like to study how these drugs work in specific conditions, starting with spinal cord in- jury repair and neural regeneration in the setting of Parkinson’s disease.” The study that included Associate Professor Larry Barak and researchers Jiangbo Wang, Jiuyi Lu, Michael Bond, Minyong Chen and Xiurong Ren appears in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

BETHESDA, Md. – U.S. scientists say they’ve found a combi- nation of eye injection and laser therapy has better outcomes than laser treatment alone for diabetic macular edema. The National Institutes of Health-supported study by the Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network showed ranibizumab
(Lucentis) eye injections combined with laser treatment re- sult in better vision than laser treatment alone for diabetes- associated swelling of the retina. The researchers said although laser treatment alone has been the standard care for 25 years, nearly 50 percent of patients who received the new treatment experienced substantial visual improvement after one year, compared with 28 percent who received the standard laser treatment. “These results indicate a treatment breakthrough for saving the vision of people with diabetic macular edema,” said Dr. Neil Bressler, chief of the retina division of the Wilmer Eye Institute at Johns Hopkins Uni- versity. “Eye injections of ranibizumab with prompt or de- ferred laser treatment should now be considered for patients with characteristics similar to those in this clinical trial.”
The researchers said diabetic retinopathy is the most common cause of vision loss in working-age Americans. The condition damages small blood vessels in the eye’s retinal tissue. That results in blood vessel leakage and causes swelling that can lead to vision loss if left untreated. The study is reported in the early online edition of the journal Ophthalmology.

BETHESDA, Md. – Scientists say a U.S. government project is making progress in finding ways to use nanotechnology to im- prove diagnosis, treatment and prevention of cancer. Piotr Grodzinski and colleagues at the National Cancer Institute’s Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer say the $145 million project is producing innovations that will radically improve care for the disease. Grodzinski says the alliance builds on more than 50 years of advances in cancer care that, although substantial, still leave cancer as the No. 1 cause of death worldwide. The researchers, in an update of the status of the program, describe a range of advances, including some showing significant promise in clinical trials that would have a big impact on cancer. They promise earlier disease diagnosis, highly targeted treatments that kill cancer cells but leave normal cells alone, fewer side effects and improved survival. The report appears in the American Chemical Society journal Nano.

PITTSBURGH – U.S. medical investigators say they’ve deter- mined MicroRNAs appear to play a significant role in the development of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. Researchers led by Associate Professor Naftali Kaminski at the the Uni- versity of Pittsburgh School of Medicine said MicroRNAs are short strands of genetic material involved in regulating the expression, or activity, of genes. They are a new family of RNA molecules thought to be factors in embryonic development, multiple cancers and chronic heart failure. “Our research now indicates that microRNA changes also contribute to IPF,”
Kaminski said. “We have identified an entirely new molecular mechanism for the disease, which gives us new ideas about how to treat it.” The study that included scientists in Greece, Mexico and Germany appears in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.