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(Reuters) – Acorda Therapeutics Inc Chief Executive Ron Cohen is already looking to spring, when data on a new use for its lone product could spur renewed investor interest and provide funding to enable his company to develop even more therapies.

The 2010 approval of Ampyra to improve walking in multiple sclerosis patients turned Acorda into a profitable company last year. If the drug can also help stroke victims who have suffered long term disability, it would open a large new market for Ampyra.

“If it works (in stroke) it’s a game changer for us,” Cohen told Reuters in the course of two recent conversations.

About half of the seven million people who have had a stroke have enough disability to make them potentially eligible for Ampyra treatment, Cohen said.

Ampyra, a drug that enhances signal transmission in damaged nerves, is expected to have sales in excess of $300 million next year, but company shares are down nearly 30 percent since the drug was launched in March of 2010.

An approval for stroke “could potentially double the company’s sales,” said RBC Capital Markets analyst Michael Yee.

“That is worth betting on given the significant upside,” Yee said. “The stock is underappreciating just sales in MS, let alone another indication that could double the company’s sales.”

Data from the eagerly awaited midstage post stroke study is due out in the second quarter of 2013.

“Right now, we can say with confidence that people who have pet rats that have suffered stroke we can help,” Cohen said with a chuckle.

The Phase II trial involves 66 people who suffered a stroke at least six months prior. “So it’s chronic disabilities. We’re measuring walking behavior as well as upper extremity disability,” Cohen said.

Ampyra is also being tested in a 20-patient trial of adults with cerebral palsy. That data is expected by the middle of 2013, giving the company yet another shot on goal for its lone product. “It’s one of those things you look at and go ‘it should work’,” Cohen said.

PIPELINE IN A PRODUCT

“The current pipeline is going to take a few years to mature even if it all works. One of the options is to have Ampyra in essence be a pipeline in a product,” Cohen explained. “So if we can show that it applies elsewhere, that’s going to help grow the company and enable us to do a lot more things.”

Acorda, which has more than $300 million in cash, is also looking to add products through deals.

“Would we pay $100 million for an opportunity? Sure, if we thought it was going to be a big enough opportunity. We’re looking for things that we think could get to market within the next couple of years,” said the 56-year-old Cohen, a former practicing doctor who once “had pretensions to be an actor” – something he pursued for a few years in New York.

“You couldn’t ask for a better training ground for what I do now, which is going out and raising money from investors. It’s basically auditioning constantly and always being rejected,” Cohen joked.

He said he began working on Acorda as a startup in late 1993. The company was incorporated in 1995. “I had no idea how drugs were developed. I knew how to administer them.

“It was amazing to me that it required this kind of money and effort,” said Cohen, adding that Acorda raised $600 million to develop Ampyra. “We did it on the cheap.”

Ardsley, New York-based Acorda will decide by the end of this year whether to exercise its option to buy Neuronex Inc and its nasal spray version of diazepam – the chemical name for Valium – to treat epileptic seizures. Acorda paid $2 million up front for the option and will have to pay only another $6.8 million to complete the acquisition.

By the end of next year, Cohen said, Acorda is likely to have three novel products move into clinical trials, including a molecule called GGF2, a nerve growth factor that holds promise for treating several debilitating conditions.

The first use to be tested will be for heart failure for which there are few good treatment options. It appears to work by “normalizing the metabolism of the damaged cells, so you actually get a more normal functioning heart muscle as opposed to something that reduces blood pressure so the heart is not taxed as much. So that’s really exciting,” Cohen explained.

GGF2 also has potential to help preserve or restore function even days after patients have suffered acute stroke, as well as address spinal cord injuries and restore erectile function following prostate surgery, Cohen said.

“The problem for us is we only have one drug generating revenue, so there’s only so much we can invest in at one time.”

But Cohen is anxious to see GGF2 tested on men for its potential to repair the cavernous nerve often damaged during delicate prostate surgery. About half the estimated 250,000 men who have prostate surgery each year suffer erectile dysfunction.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins have tested the theory on rats.

“The Hopkins group showed that if you apply this around the time of the injury the nerve grows back and you keep the erectile function,” Cohen said. “So there are a lot of happy rats in Baltimore.”

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Tim Dobbyn)

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Potentially game changing data awaits Acorda in 2013 is a post from What's going on around the world?

PROBLEM: Still in the throes of “Got Milk?” inundation, disagreement is rife over whether drinking cow’s milk is as good for us as we’ve been led to believe. After all, critics argue, it’s estimated that up to 75 percent of people experience a reduction in their ability to digest milk after infancy, and the beverage has also been associated with iron deficiency — not only because it’s low in iron itself, but because it also hinders the body’s ability to absorb iron from other sources. Milk remains, on the other hand, an important source of vitamin D, which among other things, has been shown to protect against both diabetes and the common cold in children. So, should you be giving your kids milk? And if so, how much?

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METHODOLOGY: Canadian researchers tracked the milk drinking habits of 1,300 “healthy urban preschoolers” over the course of two years. The children also submitted blood samples (probably reluctantly) from which their iron and vitamin D levels could be analyzed. Skin pigmentation, whether or not they were breast fed, use of vitamin D supplements, and variations in season (which affects how much sunlight they get) were all taken into account.

RESULTS: As children consumed more cow’s milk, their blood levels of vitamin D increased, but their iron levels proportionately decreased. At two glasses per day, however, children were able to get a healthy level amount of vitamin D without losing too much iron.

CONCLUSION: While there is a trade-off between the health benefits — increased vitamin D — and negative effects — depleted iron — of drinking milk, two cups a day seems to strike the ideal balance for young children.

IMPLICATIONS: Vitamin D is important, but milk is only a good source of it in moderation. During the winter months, and especially for children with darker skin pigmentation, the researchers suggest that children be given vitamin D supplements rather than extra milk.

The full study, “The Relationship Between Cow’s Milk and Stores of Vitamin D and Iron in Early Childhood,” is published in the journal Pediatrics.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/study-kids-should-drink-exactly-two-cups-of-milk-per-day/266437/

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Study: Kids Should Drink Exactly Two Cups of Milk Per Day is a post from What's going on around the world?

If a time traveler from the early 1990s were to arrive in the U.S. bars and restaurants of today, what would notice first? Perhaps that the food has become more interesting and varied, or that a perplexing number of diners are photographing it with their remarkable phones. The most obvious change, however, might register on the nose: the nearly complete absence of indoor smoking.

California implemented the United States’ first modern statewide smoking ban in 1998. Today twenty-nine states and 703 municipalities require bars and restaurants to be smoke-free, according to data maintained by the Americans for Nonsmokers’ Rights Foundation (North Dakota brought the tally to thirty states this month). Tobacco use has been banished from our culinary radar along with the question “smoking or non?” Most of us don’t miss it. Yet as a slew of new bans, taxes, and regulations drive smoking to the peripheries of society, it’s worth giving tobacco another look.

Tobacco is viewed as pure vice by public health officials. Surgeon General Everett C. Koop famously hoped for a smoke-free America by the year 2000. Koop echoed Lucy Page Gaston, the early twentieth century prohibitionist who campaigned for “a smokeless America by 1925.” This impulse was revived by Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who testified before Congress in 2003, “I see no need for any tobacco products in society.”

But millions of people do see the need, and they’re not all just looking for a nicotine hit. There is much more to tobacco than mass-produced cigarettes; premium tobacco is arguably every bit as artisanal as many of the other food and drink products that those of us in the culinary world obsess over. The unique leaf offers flavors that many find enticing, appearing occasionally in the works of creative chefs, bartenders, and baristas. At the French Laundry, Thomas Keller experimented successfully with desserts like coffee custard infused with tobacco. In Tampa, Cigar City Brewing crafts beers inspired by cigars. Tobacco bitters appear on fancy cocktail menus. In France, distiller Ted Breaux makes a liqueur called Perique that captures the essence of Louisiana pipe tobacco; it’s a remarkable elixir with a light, tea-like quality, and alas, as of this writing not imported to the United States. (Cautionary note: Tobacco infusions can extract dangerous levels of nicotine, so anyone curious to attempt one should first do careful research.)

Links between alcohol and tobacco are not new. In Elizabethan England, the then novel act of smoking was described as “dry drinking.” The metaphor is apt: Neither alcohol nor tobacco is essential to life, but both offer pleasant flavors while enhancing mood and sociality. And, of course, both are harmful when consumed in excess.

Stefan Wermuth/Reuters

My own introduction to tobacco came through the drink world too, though with coffee instead of alcohol. In my days as a barista, one of my best customers was a fitness instructor and avid cigar smoker. This combination perplexed me until I realized that he talked about his cigars the same way I talked about coffee. The varietal of the plant and the origin of the leaf mattered, a Cameroon wrapper tasting differently than one from Nicaragua. Flavors ranged from light claro tobacco to deep, dark oscuro, much as coffee roasts have their own spectrum from light to dark. I eventually realized that cigars offered rewards similar to those of the food and drink with which I was already enamored.

Though access to other quality goods has expanded in recent years, tobacco is ever more restricted. Smoking bans make it difficult to enjoy. Taxes make it expensive. And the Food and Drug Administration, which may soon regulate cigars, threatens to stifle the industry with heavy-handed rules.

Smoking bans are the most obvious difficulty for those of us who enjoy cigars. A good cigar could take an hour or more to burn, so huddling in the cold and rain to have one isn’t an appealing option. Smoking bans are an inconvenience to all smokers, but for cigar smokers they can mean not lighting up at all.

Not content with banning smoking in most indoor environments, legislators have moved on to shutting down the remaining exceptions and extending bans outdoors and into private homes. The bans creep steadily forward, beginning with seemingly reasonable exemptions that are soon eroded. Boston, Massachusetts is a prime example. The city’s original ban grandfathered in six existing cigar bars. This was apparently six too many for the city of more than 600,000 people, so a later ban wiped out that allowance and extended to outdoor patios. Boston’s remaining cigar bars are slated to shutter after a grace period, a delay granted because, as one member of the Boston Public Health Commission so generously put it, “We wanted to give them a bit more time to get used to the idea that they’ll have to close.”

Boston is far from alone. New York is banning smoking in parks. California has banned it on many beaches. In much of sunny Los Angeles one can no longer smoke on restaurant patios. The entire town of Calabasas, California, is smoke-free in public places. San Francisco suburb San Rafael has banned smoking in all multi-unit residences. In Oregon it’s essentially illegal to open a new cigar bar or smoking lounge. In North Dakota voters recently approved a ban that includes tobacco shops. In rainy Washington, even an indoor private smoking club protected by a twenty-five foot airlocked walkway was deemed to be in violation of the statewide ban. I could go on. Non-smokers understandably prefer to avoid secondhand smoke, but really, where’s a smoker supposed to go?

Taxes are another threat. As the percentage of smokers has fallen, tobacco has become an easy target for taxation. Tobacco taxes present an attractive opportunity to raise revenue while discouraging an unpopular activity.

The argument for tobacco taxes appears solid at first glance: Smokers impose health costs on the government, so it’s fair to make them pay for it. However the fiscal argument is not as clear as it seems. To put it bluntly, heavy smokers pay a lot of taxes and then die early. That’s nothing to cheer, but it does reduce governments’ health and retirement costs. Numerous studies, including a commentary from the Congressional Budget Office published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, confirm that in the long-run smokers are generally self-financing.

Cigars and pipe tobacco have faced less tax pressure than cigarettes, but that is changing. The 2009 Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act raised tobacco taxes across the board, including an eight-fold tax increase on large cigars. An unintended consequence of this law has been a shift in consumption. Pipe tobacco, which is taxed at a lower rate than cigarettes and roll-your-own tobacco, boomed in popularity as smokers began buying it to make their own cigarettes. Similarly, producers of small cigars added weight to their products to qualify as lesser taxed large cigars. The result is that an unusual coalition that includes public health groups, cigarette producers, and government agencies has come together to call for fixing the disparity.

Higher taxes would be detrimental to local smoke shops, among the few refuges left to cigar smokers. Some customers are simply priced out of the market, while others turn to online sales. And floor taxes, which are applied all at once to a store’s existing stock, can trigger such a substantial one-time cost that they shut down stores entirely.

Regis Duvignau/Reuters

Finally, there looms the threat of the Food and Drug Administration, which is signaling its intent to begin regulating premium tobacco. Anyone who liked clove cigarettes, which have been banned along with all flavorings aside from menthol, has already felt the pinch of new regulations. A 2011 report from the FDA suggests also banning menthol cigarettes, despite finding insufficient evidence that they are inherently more dangerous than their unflavored counterparts.

Producers of premium tobacco are understandably skittish about what such a mindset may mean for their industry. I spoke with Jeff Borysiewicz, Board Chairman of Cigar Rights of America and President of the Corona Cigar Company, about what he worries FDA regulation may entail. While this is inherently speculative, among the possibilities he cited are restrictions that would eliminate online sales or walk-in humidors, forced display of graphic warning labels on packaging, new fees and taxes, bans on promotional giveaways and events, regulation of nicotine content, and a requirement that new blends be approved by the agency prior to sale. Prior approval could be time-consuming, expensive, and may block some blends from ever coming to market. There is also the possibility that flavored cigars — not just “candy” flavors but also adult flavors like rum and cognac — could be forbidden, a measure pushed by several United States senators and already enacted in New York City.

Such regulations would drastically impact the cigar industry. In response, cigar advocates have introduced legislation to exempt premium cigars from FDA regulation. H.R. 1639, the “Traditional Cigar Manufacturing and Small Business Jobs Preservation Act,” would create a new definition for large cigars, requiring them to weigh at least six pounds per thousand count, contain no filter, and be wrapped in tobacco leaf. This definition is designed to distinguish traditional premium cigars from the “drugstore cigars” that have boomed in popularity thanks to tax and regulatory changes. Given the uncertainty of FDA regulation and the potential hostility the agency may hold toward the industry, this would be a sensible step.

More generally, we must stop treating smoking as pure vice. Lost in discussions of the very real problem of how to reduce deaths from smoking is an acknowledgement that tobacco has redeeming qualities, that it can be enjoyed in moderation, and that not all forms of tobacco use are equally dangerous. We can and should educate consumers about the risks of tobacco and tax it appropriately. But we should also respect the rights of consenting adults to gather in private places and decide for themselves what to ingest into their bodies. That doesn’t necessitate going back to the days of smoking on airplanes, but it does require fighting back against the extreme measures sought by today’s anti-smoking movement. It requires letting smokers have a few rooms of their own and not destroying the tobacco industry with excessive taxes and regulations.

I know that my own life has been improved by friendships deepened over sessions with cigars, and the match of a good cigar with an equally good rum or whiskey is as compelling as any wine and food pairing I’ve encountered. Having overcome my own anti-smoking prejudice, I’ve learned that it’s an indulgence worth defending.

There’s a funny legend about Sir Walter Raleigh, the Englishman who helped popularize pipe tobacco brought over from the New World. A servant, seeing him exhaling smoke, concluded that Raleigh was on fire and promptly doused him. Today’s anti-smoking activists understand tobacco about as poorly as Raleigh’s servant and have acquired some very large pails of water. Let’s not allow them to extinguish something wonderful.

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Researchers at two Michigan hospitals reviewed six years of records and found that they treated an average of 23 heart attacks on the Sunday Americans switched to daylight savings time. That compared to 13 on a typical Sunday.

“Nowadays, people are looking for how they can reduce their risk of heart disease and other ailments,” said Dr. Monica Jiddou, the study’s lead author and a cardiologist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak.

“Sleep is something that we can potentially control. There are plenty of studies that show sleep can affect a person’s health,” she added.

But one cardiologist not involved with the new study cautioned that people should be careful interpreting the findings.

“We haven’t generally thought that missing an hour of sleep causes heart attacks. This may or may not hold up,” said Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of the Robert and Suzanne Tomsich Department of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic.

This is not the first study, however, to find a connection between semiannual time shifts and heart attack rates.

A 2008 Swedish report, for instance, found the chance of a heart attack increased in the first three weekdays after the switch to daylight savings time, and decreased the Monday after the clocks returned to standard time in the fall. (See Reuters Health article of October 30, 2008. http://reut.rs/Z6cSH2)

Jiddou told Reuters Health that her team, which published its findings in The American Journal of Cardiology, wanted to see if their respective hospitals experienced the same increase and decrease in heart attacks seen in the Swedish study.

For the new work, she and her colleagues reviewed records for the 328 patients who were diagnosed with a heart attack during the week after a time change between 2006 and 2012, and for the 607 heart attack patients who were treated two weeks before and after the time shifts.

They found that except for the small increase on the Sunday that daylight savings time kicked in, there were no significant differences in heart attack rates in the first week after the spring clock change or in the fall, when people set clocks back.

The authors note, however, that the small trends they observed suggest shifts to and from daylight savings time may be linked with small increases in heart attacks in the spring, and small decreases in the fall.

They speculate that sleep-deprivation resulting from the time changes could raise levels of stress hormones and inflammatory chemicals just enough to trigger a heart attack, especially in those already at high risk.

Though the slight increase in heart attacks in the days following time shifts were so small they could have been due to chance, Jiddou told Reuters Health that she believes the problem was the size of the study population.

“(The findings) weren’t significant, but I think a lot of that is just because we didn’t have the numbers,” Jiddou.

“The numbers aren’t necessarily striking, but the trends make you stop and think,” she added.

Nissen told Reuters Health that the study looks at a good question and that he applauds the researchers’ efforts, but stressed the limitations of the results.

“Whenever you do this type of study you worry whether it’s by chance or not,” he said. “The size of the effect is not huge even though I realize the data on the first day seems worse.”

Jiddou said she doesn’t think the average person should be overly concerned, “but I think it’s something that they should be aware of.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/W391bW The American Journal of Cardiology, online December 10, 2012.

Hedy Burress Christina Applegate

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• Children as young as nine experimenting with kitchen cupboard essentials such as cinnamon and nutmeg to try and create ‘drug-like effects’
• Dozens of children treated in emergency rooms after trying to swallow cinnamon, while two choked to death on marshmallows
• ‘Seemingly silly games can have sinister effects,’ Chicago doctors warn

By Claire Bates

PUBLISHED: 12:46 EST, 19 December 2012 | UPDATED: 14:06 EST, 19 December 2012

Parents have been warned to watch their kitchen cupboards, after a spate of hospital admissions of children pursuing ‘legal highs.’

Researchers said youngsters were downing cinnamon, snorting nutmeg and even experimenting with marshmallows to try and create a drug-like effect.

Dr Christina Hantsch, from Loyola University Hospital in Chicago, felt compelled to speak out after a dozen nine-year-olds were treated in emergency departments.

A teenage girl about to attempt the ‘Cinnamon Challenge,’ which was posted on Youtube. Doctors have warned it could cause choking

They had been attempting to perform an internet craze known as the ‘Cinnamon Challenge’, which involves trying to swallow one tablespoon of ground cinnamon without water.

‘One girl had seen videos on the Internet and wanted to try it with her friends,’ Dr Hantsch said.

‘The dry, loose cinnamon triggers a violent coughing effect and also a burning sensation that actually can lead to breathing and choking hazards.’

In 2011, poison centres received 51 calls about teen exposure to cinnamon. In just the first three months of 2012, they had received 139 calls.

The American Association of Poison Control Centers reports that of those, 122 were classified as intentional misuse or abuse and 30 callers required medical evaluation.

‘The envelope is always being pushed to create something new that will get attention, potentially create a drug-like effect and can pass under the radar of law enforcers,’ Dr Hantsch said.

Parents have been warned to keep an eye on their kitchen cupboards as children try out dangerous games they find online

She added that she was concerned what was once horseplay by older teenagers is now being copied by younger children.

‘They have easy access to ingredients like cinnamon and marshmallows and think it is cool to do what their older peers are doing,’ Dr Hantsch said.

Another ‘game’ involving marshmallows continues to attract followers.

‘Two children have actually choked to death attempting this game, so it is not to be taken lightly,’ Dr Hantsch said.

Ground nutmeg has been snorted, smoked and eaten in large quantities in an attempt to produce a drug-like high.

Other common household products that are also being abused are hand sanitiser, ink markers and glue.

Dr Hantsch said: ‘Seemingly silly games can have sinister effects and the holidays are the worst time for this to happen.

‘Kids have more free time, greater access to the Internet and more opportunities to get together during vacations. And at Christmas, the kitchen pantry is loaded for holiday baking.

‘Adults are wise to keep an eye on their children to make sure they are using the ingredients for their proper use.’

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Instead of taking your fingerprint, maybe police should swab our belly buttons with Q-tips. No, that’s ridiculous, actually. But the idea illustrates a point made by a group of North Carolina-based researchers in their new Belly Button Biodiversity (BBB) project. Last month, the group published results of their first of many experiments, in which they swabbed 60 belly buttons and identified a total of 2,368 species of bacteria. People’s individual profiles were snowflake-ily, bacterially unique. 

As the BBB understands it, like exploring the depths of our majestic oceans, there’s much to be learned from our belly button hangers-on. National Geographic reported that 1,458 of the species “may be new to science,” and some of the bacteria were entirely out of their known context. One person’s belly button “harbored a bacterium that had previously been found only in soil from Japan,” where he had never been. Another had two types of “extremophile bacteria that typically thrive in ice caps and thermal vents.” 

Anonymous samples from a belly button sampling event. Which one are you? F/M/K?

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“The belly button has captured the imagination for centuries,” BBB notes on their impeccably-URL-ed site, WildLifeOfYourBody.org. Prior to those centuries, belly buttons captured no one’s imagination. To be fair, in those days, imaginations were much less amenable to capture. They wandered, wily and free, with a discerning taste, the likes of which our indolent, Internet-weary imaginations of today know nothing.

When you return from this journey into the belly button of your mind, you can participate in one of the BBB’s very real “sampling events,” where you volunteer to be navally swabbed with a Q-tip. They then assign you an anonymous number, and in a few days you can then go online and look photos of what grows — your belly button bacterial profile — and learn about the little beings with whom you share your body.

If you’re just starting to date someone, or more seriously vetting them as a marriage candidate, you might suggest going to one of these sampling sessions as a fun date. But then, like so many dates, it’s actually a test to see how dirty they are. It’s anonymous, yes, but if you stand next to each other in line, you’ll know what their number is, and you can look it up later.

It’s up to you how you interpret the results. Dirtier is not necessarily worse, and that’s one important point BBB wants their work to make. The vast majority of bacteria in the world live in harmony with us, and don’t want to kill us. No, they want us to live and thrive, so we can keep being their warm homes. So they may actually be helping us.

As the BBB puts it, most bacteria are, like people, “either good or simply present.”

So should you be making extra effort to clean out the many bacteria in your belly button? I say no. Unless it’s visibly grimy, or you have a history of belly button infections, or just reading about this research no longer allows you to live comfortably with the knowledge that you are an infestation. Others will disagree — like Dr. Claire Cronin of the Massachusetts Medical Society. She notes that in the era of laparoscopic surgery, where the belly button is commonly used as a port of surgical access, there is virtue in keeping tidy down there:

There is a surprising lack of awareness on the public’s part as to what can accumulate in a belly button … the volume of material increases as the patient ages and, just like their arteries, can harden. I like to think of it as a cache of a lifetime of little treasures. … Most patients have not received adequate instruction on proper umbilical hygiene. It has not received the same level of attention that the area behind the ears has. … There is a technique to cleaning the belly button. It involves soap and water and gentle probing. … Alcohol should not be used, in order to not disturb the delicate pH balance of the area.

Beyond worrying about the embarrassment of doctors discovering “blackened wax casts,” in your belly button, though, the BBB project could make important progress in understanding how the bacteria that colonize us actually affect our health. Analogous to the parasite Toxoplasmosis gondii – which we only recently found out is present in 20-50 percent of our brains, subtly shaping our personalities and maybe even making us try to hurt ourselves — some of these little bacteria that go unnoticed are probably affecting us in ways unknown, good and bad. Ways that we’re currently just chalking up to chance or genetics or God or gluten. 

Meanwhile, BBB is now in the pilot phase of testing armpits, which is less fascinating, but doesn’t lose sight of their thesis that “in all likelihood your body hosts species that no scientist has ever studied.” That’s not meant to be used as a pick-up line.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/1-458-bacteria-species-new-to-science-found-in-our-belly-buttons/266360/

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By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 15:58 EST, 17 December 2012 | UPDATED: 15:58 EST, 17 December 2012

A man who weighed 710lbs and was unable to walk from his car to a store entrance without resting for fifteen minutes, has lost more than 200lbs and counting in an effort to get his life back.

Jason Stevens, 34, had an average Sunday night dinner of one large pizza, some bread sticks, and hot wings two years ago.

But the Bakersfield man had had enough of carrying nearly half a tonne of weight around with him, and started an old-fashioned healthy eating and excessive program at Lyday Fitness with personal trainer and owner Neal Lyday.

Mr Stevens told Bakersfield Now that ‘a lot of the personal trainers around town wouldn’t do it, they all said I was a heart attack waiting to happen.‘

But with a good support system to keep him motivated, he has proven them wrong.

Mr Lyday said nutrition is 80per cent of the battle, with exercise accounting for the rest.

Changing his habits: Mr Stevens, 34, had an average Sunday night dinner of one large pizza, some bread sticks, and hot wings two years ago, now he lives on vegetables and whole grains

Exercise: After he started an old-fashioned healthy eating and excessive program at Lyday Fitness with personal trainer and owner Neal Lyday, the weight began to drop off

By changing his eating habits, and introducing exercise slowly by walking, before moving on to five days a week of cross-fit training, Mr Stevens is on his way to his goal of 300lbs.

‘I eat healthy foods now,’ he said. ‘Whole grains, vegetables, fruits, supplementing some of my meals with replacement shakes.

‘I’m actually able to do physical labor!’ he said. ‘Which I couldn’t do before.’

Support network: With a good support system to keep him motivated, Mr Stevens has stuck to an 80per cent nutrition, 20per cent exercise program

Keeping on going: By changing his eating habits, and introducing exercise slowly by walking, before moving on to five days a week of cross-fit training, Mr Stevens is on his way to his goal of weighing 300lbs

Mr Stevens says he hopes to reach his goal of weighing 300lbs in the next year and a half.

‘At 300lbs I can go to see a plastic surgeon about body sculpting, after that it depends where I am with muscle mass versus my body type versus my height.‘

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Among its many distinctions, like being the birthplace of both peanut butter and hot dogs on buns, St. Louis holds two less cheerful records: Its cigarette tax is the lowest in the United States, and it also ranks as the seventh worst “Asthma Capital” in the country, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

Although an indoor smoking ban took effect nearly two years ago, fines on first-time violators are mild, ranging from $50 to $100, and casinos and bars are exempt. More importantly, researchers have found that smoking bans are ineffective in changing the behavior of smokers. In areas with bans, smokers are no less likely to have tried to quit, and studies indicate that bans mostly affect where people smoke, not how much. Higher cigarette taxes, though, are a statistically significant factor in getting smokers to quit, implying that price matters for the prevalence of smoking in a community. Last month, however, Missouri voters narrowly voted down a proposition to raise cigarette taxes from 17 to 90 cents per pack, which would have still ranked far below the nation’s average of $1.49. This was the third effort in eleven years to raise tobacco taxes in the state.

Medical providers, local communities, and the public wellness movement. See full coverage

Meanwhile, residents of St. Louis, particularly children, continue to struggle with respiratory issues. The number of children suffering from asthma in the St. Louis metropolitan area is nearly three times the national average, according to Asthma Friendly St. Louis, a community program designed to help school-age kids and teens manage respiratory illness. Despite the efforts of several community initiatives, the disease is often poorly managed because of a lack of access to care and educational resources. At the St. Louis Children’s Hospital, asthma is the number one reason for patient admissions, and the county’s rate of emergency room visits for asthma-related incidents among children under 15 is 52 percent higher than in the rest of Missouri.

Certain communities in the area struggle with asthma more than others, pointing to a complex set of root causes underlying the prevalence of childhood respiratory problems in the area. In 2008, African American children accounted for 91.9 percent of asthma-related emergency room visits in St. Louis City, a rate nine times greater than that among white children. In East St. Louis, which sits across the Mississippi River from St. Louis in Illinois, asthma rates are among the highest in the nation, and experts suspect that this is linked to the high rates of pollution and poverty in the city. 44 percent of East St. Louis residents live on incomes below the federal poverty line.

With a smoking rate 19 percent higher than the rest of the country and an estimated $2.13 billion in annual healthcare costs directly related to smoking in Missouri as a whole, in St. Louis, smoking clearly aggravates these underlying causes of poor respiratory health.

Solutions to these kinds of systemic problems are clouded by a lack of resources and education, and by attitudes about health. “Survival needs are more important than long-term prevention needs,” explained one participant at The Atlantic’s Conversation on Community Health in St. Louis on Wednesday. Her comments pointed to the vast number of pressing, everyday problems, such as poverty, lack of education, and problems with the built environment, like pollution, that have to be overcome in battles for better community health. 

As another participant put it, this leads to “band-aid surgeries” on area health problems, which only amount to temporary solutions for structural problems. Although the summit’s panelists and participants focused heavily on root cause analysis of public health problems in the city, many agreed that real change will depend upon broad shifts in attitude and approach to the social, economic, and environmental problems affecting struggling communities.

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/the-makings-of-an-asthma-epidemic-in-st-louis/266289/

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WebMD talked to Leslie Garrard, PsyD, a child psychologist at Miami Children’s Hospital, and Melissa Brymer, PhD, director of terrorism and disaster programs at the UCLA-Duke National Center for Child Traumatic Stress. We asked for their best suggestions on what parents and others can do now to help children cope.

Q: What reactions should parents and other caregivers in Newtown expect from the children who have gone through this tragedy?

A: Kids can have a wide range of reactions, Garrard says. “Any exposure to trauma can have immediate reactions and lasting effects. Parents need to be very [mindful] and watch their children.”

“Some kids withdraw, some are dismissive, although internally they are scared. Some cry and some are outwardly terrified. Some become depressed. Some just kind of shut down. Some might have nightmares and re-experience the traumatic events. … They may be fearful of leaving their parents.”

Q: What reactions are typical from children who didn’t go through it, but watched news coverage or heard details about the tragedy?

They can also have [the same range of] reactions — maybe not as strong, but they can also be impacted, Garrard says. “When watching it and seeing it on TV, it’s very scary.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics President Thomas McInerny, MD, says in a statement that if possible, “young children should not be exposed to the extensive media coverage of the event — in other words, turn off the TV, computer, and other media devices.”

Q: Is this age — elementary school — a particularly difficult one to experience trauma?

A: Yes, according to Garrard, because it affects emotional development and the way we view the world — whether it’s safe or not.  But “I think kids are very resilient. They can learn to maneuver the world and get through and past things. However, they do need a lot of care to get through things.”

Q: What is the best thing parents can do now?

A:  The most important thing parents can do is talk to their children, Garrard says. “Sit down with your child. Tell them a really bad thing has happened. Maybe they have already heard it on the news. Tell them, ‘We need to talk about this.’”

See how they feel about it, Garrard says. You want them to share their feelings.

“Technology makes things a lot more complex,” Brymer says. “They are getting information through Twitter feeds and Facebook. It’s harder to keep up with what your kids are hearing. When we tweet, we hear something from someone and then you re-tweet. You can’t fact-check when you tweet or post something on Facebook.”

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(Reuters) – A novel drug to fight alcohol dependency was given a green light by European regulators on Friday, providing a boost to Danish drugmaker Lundbeck at a time when its top product faces a big drop in sales.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Friday it recommended approval of Selincro in conjunction with counseling for the reduction of alcohol consumption in adults dependent on drink.

Recommendations from the EMA are normally endorsed by the European Commission within two or three months, implying the drug could be launched in Europe early next year.

That is good news for Lundbeck, which needs new drugs to replace lost sales from antidepressant Cipralex, sold as Lexapro in the United States and Japan, which is now coming off patent.

Alcohol abuse is theoretically a vast market, although it is unclear whether doctors will be ready to prescribe a drug as a treatment and whether Lundbeck has the marketing muscle to make a big impact.

Lundbeck Chief Executive Ulf Wiinberg told Reuters last week that Selincro was “a bit of a joker in our portfolio” because of uncertainty as to how it will be used in practice.

The drug, which blocks the action of opioid receptors in the brain, was licensed to Lundbeck from Finland’s Biotie Therapies and shares in Biotie jumped as much as 16 percent on the news, while Lundbeck rose around 1 percent.

“Clearly, the news is a much-needed boost to sentiment for the (Lundbeck) shares,” said Deutsche Bank analyst Tim Race.

“However, we suspect the market will refrain from pricing-in significant upside from the drug given uncertainties in reimbursement and Lundbeck’s ability to penetrate this market without a major partner.”

Race said current consensus forecasts suggested modest sales of 540 million Danish crowns ($95 million) in 2016.

More important for Lundbeck will be the verdict from regulators in North America and Europe late next year on a new antidepressant being developed with Japanese partner Takeda Pharmaceutical that analysts see as a potential $1-2 billion-a-year seller.

Developing new treatments for depression has proved an uphill battle for drugmakers in recent times but vortioxetine has produced encouraging clinical trial results and its unique mode of action and flexible dosing could make it a winner.

Another approval prospect for next year is Abilify Maintena, a once-monthly version of schizophrenia drug Abilify that Lundbeck is working on with Otsuka.

Further out, Lundbeck is also developing a drug for the symptoms of Alzheimer’s that will be ready to go into final-stage clinical testing next year and could be partnered with a larger drug company.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Chris Wickham and Mark Potter)

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CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – A South Carolina psychiatrist and his wife, a nurse, have taken an uncommon, controversial approach to helping war veterans who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder by treating them with MDMA, a pure form of the party drug known as Ecstasy.

Their studies have found that the psychoactive stimulant decreases fear and defensiveness while increasing trust in those who take it as part of a therapy program, say Dr. Michael Mithoefer and Ann Mithoefer.

The MDMA-assisted therapy could eventually provide relief for thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans who suffer from combat trauma, the Mithoefers say, noting that nearly 300 military personnel from around the country have contacted them seeking help.

Though concerns may arise about creating drug dependence or abuse by administering a tightly controlled substance, Dr. Mithoefer said he hasn’t seen that problem. The couple’s use of MDMA in studies has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, he said.

MDMA “does cause some euphoria. But for people with PTSD, it can be pretty intense anxiety as well,” he said. “You need to have the support there. This is not a take-home medicine.”

Not everyone is convinced the benefits outweigh the potential dangers.

Ron Acierno, director of the PTSD clinical team at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston, said the Mithoefers’ results were interesting, but he remains skeptical of the treatment.

“I don’t think any VA is going to touch this with a 10-foot pole because of the type of drug it is,” Acierno said. “It’s hard to switch conceptual gears that it might actually be very useful for a relatively common emotional disorder.”

“Because the abuse potential is high, we have to be very careful about it,” he said.

SHIFTING CONSCIOUSNESS

Dr. Mithoefer, an assistant professor in the Medical University of South Carolina’s department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, said he has long been interested in experiential techniques that help patients shift their consciousness to revisit their traumas.

He developed the protocol for MDMA-assisted therapy in 2001 and published the first completed study of its effect on patients with trauma in 2010. He found that after two months of treatment, at least 74 percent of the patients, including rape victims and a veteran, no longer qualified for a PTSD diagnosis.

A follow-up review of those patients, published last month in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, showed more than 80 percent of them still had lasting benefits 3-1/2 years after treatment.

The Mithoefers currently are treating 24 veterans, firefighters, police officers or victims of military sexual trauma who have chronic PTSD that hasn’t been helped by other kinds of treatment. This three-year study will be completed in 2014.

The participants travel to Dr. Mithoefer’s private practice in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, for treatment over a period of five to eight months. After being screened to eliminate anyone with cardiovascular problems or a psychotic disorder, patients are given a series of doses of MDMA.

The Mithoefers are both present for the eight-hour drug-assisted sessions, which include therapy and support. The patients also participate in therapy before, in-between and after the medication sessions, they said.

Those who suffer from PTSD often can’t sleep, have nightmares, isolate themselves emotionally and avoid “anything that reminds them of Iraq,” including crowds, fireworks or overpasses, Ann Mithoefer said.

The use of MDMA seems to help the brain learn to process traumatic memories without becoming overwhelmed by emotion or fear, Dr. Mithoefer said.

“People have said things like, ‘It’s changed my relationship to my emotions,’” he said. “They realize, ‘I don’t have to be so afraid of the fear anymore.’”

Other studies that might include veterans are pending in Colorado and Canada and are being planned in the United Kingdom, Israel and Australia, said Brad Burge, a spokesman for the nonprofit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which funds the research efforts.

The Santa Cruz, California-based organization said the pure MDMA used in treatment is different from Ecstasy, which often contains other harmful substances. Ecstasy’s recreational use has caused deaths from heat exhaustion or over-hydration, Dr. Mithoefer said.

Medical use of recreational drugs has been taboo since the 1960s, but the nonprofit is investing $10 million over 15 years in an effort to win FDA approval for MDMA as a prescription medicine in the United States.

“The taboos are lifting, and people are getting practical about science,” Dr. Mithoefer said. “If we took away everything in medicine that is being abused outside of medicine, we wouldn’t have too much left.”

Roland Griffiths, a professor in the psychiatry and neuroscience departments at Johns Hopkins University, called the Mithoefers’ research “groundbreaking.”

“It’s a potentially important, new application of use for a set of compounds that have not been available for clinical research for decades now,” Griffiths said. “PTSD is an awful, awful disease … I don’t think we should stick our heads in the sand.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/WJSlBm Journal of Psychopharmacology, online November 20, 2012.

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• Book of 200 photographs featuring Princess Diana, Gwyneth Paltrow and Bianca Jagger

By Bianca London

PUBLISHED: 10:51 EST, 13 December 2012 | UPDATED: 14:52 EST, 14 December 2012

Rose Hartman has documented the fashion world’s trendsetters for three decades and what better way to celebrate her work than release a book which captures the world’s most stylish women in all their glory?

Featuring 200 photographs of the world’s most beautiful and stylish women, Incomparable: Women of Style is the perfect coffee table book and truly defines what we has come to be known as glamour.

Catering to fashion aficionados, photography fanatics and avid popular culture fans the volume spans more than 35 years and includes both iconic and rarely seen pictures of celebrated women from all walks of the showbiz world.

Iconic: Rose Hartman’s book reveals famous photos such as Bianca Jagger arriving at Studio 54 on a white horse

Jerry Hall, Jackie Onassis Grace Jones and Anna Wintour, feature as well as Paloma Picasso, Lauren Hutton, Diane von Furstenberg, Rachael Zoe, and Daphne Guinness.

Celebrated for her sharp eye, Rose’s work has already featured in countless glossies, books and as part of world famous campaigns.

From iconic snaps of Bianca Jagger on a white horse entering Studio 54 to Isabella Rossellini at a private dinner in the Hamptons, Rose has seen and captured it all and now she is sharing it with the world.

She said: ‘It takes a few seconds to get the image … plus 35 years of work to produce the results that I can in my best pictures.’

Of the Bianca Jagger shot she said: ‘I was surprised at the many party goers celebrating Bianca’s birthday at Studio 54 in 1977, when she rode that great white horse for a minute or 2. I had to be fast and capture a moment that would be sent around the world.’

And her ultimate glamoour role model? “Anna Wintour, because she personifies both style and extraordinary dedication to her profession… No matter who I’ve shot, capturing style is my passion.’

Talented: Rose has photographed most of the supermodels and Linda Evangelista graces the cover of the photography book

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• Nigella Lawson, Delia Smith and Gordon Ramsay also made top five

By Martha De Lacey

PUBLISHED: 06:12 EST, 14 December 2012 | UPDATED: 08:56 EST, 14 December 2012

Generations-old family recipes for Brussels sprouts, bread sauce and sausage stuffing could soon be the stuff of Christmas legends.

More people than ever are turning to celebrity chefs for help in the kitchen on 25 December, and cockney family-man Jamie Oliver is proving the most popular choice.

Almost half of British households (47 per cent) will be eschewing granny’s roast potatoes this year, instead using cookbooks by popular chefs to create their festive spread.

And Oliver has leapt over fellow foodies Gordon Ramsay, Nigella Lawson – and even former queen of Christmas Delia Smith – claiming one third of all votes for the title of celebrity Christmas chef of 2012.

The father-of-four took 32 per cent of the vote in a survey by vouchercodes.co.uk, followed by Nigella Lawson with 21 per cent, Delia Smith with 19 per cent and Gordon Ramsay with 12 per cent.

A brave eight per cent of people questioned said they will be attempting to recreate festive dishes invented by molecular gastronomy whizz Heston Blumenthal this year

A brave eight per cent of respondents said they would even be attempting to recreate the festive dishes of molecular gastronomy whizz Heston Blumenthal.

Duncan Jennings, co-founder of VoucherCodes.co.uk says: ‘Celebrity chefs are very much part of Christmas these days whether we’re following their recipes or buying their ranges at the supermarket.

‘If you are struggling for festive food inspiration, there are lots of great deals on celebrity chef books at this time of year so snap one up and you can create some delicious Christmas cuisine for your guests.’

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Analyzing the medical records of nearly 1,000 knee-replacement surgery patients, researchers found that 30 percent of them gained five percent or more of their body weight in the five years following surgery.

One possible explanation for the counterintuitive results, experts said, is that if people have spent years adapting to knee pain by taking it easy, they don’t automatically change their habits when the pain is reduced.

“After knee replacement we get them stronger and moving better, but they don’t seem to take advantage of the functional gains” and become more active, said Joseph Zeni, a physical therapy professor at the University of Delaware, who was not part of the study.

“I think that has to do with the fact that we don’t address the behavioral modifications that have happened during the course of arthritis before the surgery,” he added.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. undergo knee replacement surgery each year.

The goal of putting in a new knee is to alleviate pain and get people moving around more, but Daniel Riddle, lead author of the new study and a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said his team had noticed that patients tended to gain weight after surgery.

To see whether this was common, Riddle’s group used a patient registry from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, which collected information on 917 knee replacement patients before and after their procedures.

The researchers found that five years after surgery, 30 percent of patients had gained at least five percent of their weight at the time of the surgery. That’s 10 pounds or more on a 200-pound person, for example.

In contrast, less than 20 percent of those in a comparison group of similar people who had not had surgery gained equivalent amounts of weight in the same period.

Riddle’s team explains in their report, published in Arthritis Care & Research, that this degree of weight gain can lead to “meaningful effects on cardiovascular and diabetes related risk as well as pain and function.”

Part of the explanation for the weight gain the researchers observed could be the age at which patients get surgery, Riddle said. People in their 50s and 60s tend to gain weight anyway.

Still, in light of the lower rates of weight gain in the comparison group, which was also middle aged and older, Riddle said something else may also be at work among knee surgery patients.

“There’s something going on in these patients that predisposes them above and beyond their peers to weight gain,” Riddle told Reuters Health.

Indeed, the team also found that patients who had lost weight before their surgery were slightly more likely to gain weight afterward.

Riddle said that could be because when people lose weight in anticipation of an event, such as knee surgery, they are more likely to put on weight after they’ve achieved that goal.

Zeni said that to help people stave off the pounds after surgery, health care providers need to address the sedentary lifestyle people often adopt to accommodate their arthritis.

“We need to encourage patients to take advantage of their ability to function better and get them to take on a more active lifestyle,” he told Reuters Health.

Riddle agreed that the habit of being sedentary before knee replacement may carry over after surgery.

He said it will be important to develop and study weight loss interventions for these patients, and to target them to those who are most at risk of getting heavier, like relatively younger patients in their 50s and 60s and those who have lost weight before knee surgery.

In the meantime, Riddle said, patients can also take some action on their own by talking with their doctors about maintaining a healthy weight and consulting with a nutritionist and physical therapist about lifestyle changes.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TJTz24 Arthritis Care & Research, online November 30, 2012.

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The war on cancer is a civil war. It is a battle of two armies, cancer and therapy, fighting it out within a common space. It is an unfair fight.

A recent article in the Washington Post describes a controversial surgery devised by a pioneering and big-thinking surgeon, Paul Sugarbaker. This surgical procedure, known as cytoreduction and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy (HIPEC), removes metastatic cancer before bathing the abdominal cavity in heated chemotherapy. There are many who celebrate it as life-saving, some who loathe it as toxic, and others who debate its merits and shortcomings endlessly.

The approach may be right for some particular tumors (e.g. pseudomyxoma peritonii), but is certainly wrong for others, and remains untested in still others (stomach, colon). The greatest advance seen in this procedure is the reduction in complication rates and the better selection of appropriate patients. Still, one percent of those treated die during or shortly after the operation, and about 12 percent experience serious post-operative problems. The greatest failures that accompany this procedure remain the lack of scientifically sound proof of effectiveness, as well as the perceived lack of alternative treatment for the patient.

HIPEC surgery is complex and arduous, often lasting 12 hours or more. Given the intensity of the procedure and the likely need to travel to one of the 27 states that boast of an expert, those who pursue such treatment tend to be highly motivated, younger, healthier, and wealthier. These patients also tend to use the militaristic lexicon that often accompanies a cancer diagnosis — “fighting a war,”"winning a battle,”"not giving up.” Dr. Sugarbaker is their ally in that war.

My job is to arm patients with the information they need so they make a thoughtful decision and move forward with no regrets.

In more than a decade of treating patients with gastrointestinal tumors, I have had more than a dozen proceed with this approach and another handful who wished to but were turned down by surgeons. Did these patients who received HIPEC benefit from this surgery? No one has been cured, some may have lived longer than they would have without it, and some undoubtedly suffered as a result. Over these 10 years, there have been advances in chemotherapy that have allowed patients longer lives, as hoped for with this surgery.

Unfortunately, in the war on cancer, a chance at a cure is the only acceptable option for most. Simply living longer doesn’t cut it.

The scientific merit of HIPEC has been discussed and debated eloquently by others. When I speak with patients considering this surgery, I encourage them to identify their goals and consider their definition of an acceptable outcome. These are motivated people who desperately want to be well again, and they see the chance of a cure in their sights. I ask them what they have heard from their surgeon, and many say things like “He thinks he can get it all,” or echo the hollow statistical report: “There’s a 50 percent chance.” To which I always reply, “Chance of what?”

The reality is that the majority of these patients will not be cured and will continue living with cancer. In the best of cases, when that cancer returns, devastating disappointment ensues. Still, most patients resume chemotherapy just as before, with no regrets for having gone through this surgery. In the worst of cases, patients never recover, experience continued wasting, suffer bowel obstructions, and endure misery for the remainder of their lives.

Regret is a terrible emotion to live with, as well as an often unbearable feeling for caregivers and loved ones that can linger long past a patient’s death. In our Western culture, regret is most commonly associated with not doing something or missing out on some opportunity. As Mark Twain said, “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than the ones you did do.” To turn down a chance at a cancer cure is unthinkable.

My job is to arm patients with the information they need so they make a thoughtful decision and move forward with no regrets. If the goal is curative, I encourage them to ask their surgeon, “What are the chances that this is going to cure me?” If cure is not the goal, I want to ensure they have a clear understanding of this surgery’s benefits. Will undergoing HIPEC prolong life? Will HIPEC improve quality of life? These are simple, pertinent questions that, unfortunately, often go unasked.

One of my patients, Joanne, was 32 years old when she was diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer with peritoneal tumors. She had her main tumor removed but was left with others on her abdominal lining. She was treated with chemotherapy and had good control of her disease — without any expectation of cure. She continued working, attending her children’s soccer games, Girl Scout meetings, and engaging in other activities that brought meaning to her life.

Joanne and I had discussed HIPEC, and she was reluctant to consider it. Eventually, she decided to speak with a surgeon who specializes in peritonectomy. She asked him the tough questions and continued in her inquiry until she had a clear understanding of the surgery’s benefits and risks. Once she did so, Joanne decided the disruption in her daughters’ lives that would occur as a consequence of HIPEC and its recovery process was not worth the unlikely odds she had of being cured. Joanne lived a full and rich life for five more years. She was fully present for her daughters and her husband, and she prepared them all as best she could for their futures — eventually to be lived without her.

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Joanne had moments when she wondered if she was selfish in choosing not to pursue this therapy. Would she have lived longer had she had HIPEC? We will never know. Would she have lived better had she gone through with it? I can’t imagine that being the case.

This procedure has helped many people; there are numerous testimonials and scientific reports detailing such success. But to offer HIPEC as the only option, the only hope, is unfair. It is also incomplete. Patients should be armed with clear information, lacking in euphemism but directed in setting well-defined goals. Since I recall only one patient that declined HIPEC when the surgery was offered, it is clear that most will continue to pursue winning the battle — even if they lose the war.

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(Reuters) – California Governor Jerry Brown is undergoing treatment for early-stage prostate cancer with an excellent prognosis for recovery, and the 74-year-old Democrat is expected to keep up a full work schedule, his office said on Wednesday.

“Fortunately, this is early-stage localized prostate cancer, which is being treated with a short course of conventional radiotherapy,” Dr. Eric Small, Brown’s oncologist, said in a statement.

“The prognosis is excellent, and there are not expected to be any significant side effects,” he added. Small is the co-director of the urology program at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.

The announcement came as California lawmakers prepare for a 2013 legislative session that will kick off a historic year in which Democrats have supermajority control of both houses – the first time any party has had such a grip on the Legislature in 79 years.

Brown, who had a cancerous growth removed from the right side of his nose in April 2011, will complete his treatment for prostate cancer in early January, around the same time the Legislature is due to convene, his office said.

He is expected to keep a full work schedule, it added.

Brown is riding a string of successes in recent months. Voters in November approved a tax hike he championed, while soundly rejecting a measure he opposed that would have gutted union political power.

He also oversaw approval of a high-speed rail project and has been reining in an unwieldy budget deficit that has plagued California in recent years.

AFFECTS ONE IN SIX MEN

Brown’s office did not immediately respond to questions as to when the governor was diagnosed with prostate cancer, how long he had been undergoing treatment, or where he was being treated.

During Brown’s outpatient cancer treatment in 2011, doctors removed basal carcinoma cells and did reconstructive surgery to his nose.

The California Democratic and Republican parties both wished the governor a speedy recovery. Also weighing in was a Twitter account set up for the governor’s dog, a Welsh corgi named Sutter, that said the dog would take good care of his owner.

One in every six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health. It is the most common cause of cancer-related death for men over 75 years of age.

Brown became one of the youngest governors of California when he took office in 1975 at age 36, going on to serve two consecutive terms. He later returned to that office in 2011 and is now the oldest governor the state has ever had.

Brown faded from public view after two failed presidential runs, but resurrected his political career in 1998, transforming himself into a quirky, pragmatic mayor of Oakland.

After eight years in Oakland, Brown was elected California attorney general and held the post until he was elected governor again in 2010.

(Reporting by Mary Slosson; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Peter Cooney)

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By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 16:18 EST, 12 December 2012 | UPDATED: 05:11 EST, 13 December 2012

Honey Boo Boo returns to screens this holiday season with four television specials, and in anticipation, the 6-year-old has revealed her most prized and hated Christmas gifts.

During the Christmas special, which airs on February 17, Mama June also joins in and explains why the mother-daughter-duo will be on Santa Claus’ ‘nice’ list this year.

The precocious youngster says in a TLC preview: ‘The worst Christmas gift I ever got was my Barbie car that I had to take back because it was too small.’

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Christmas cheer: Honey Boo Boo returns to screens this holiday season with four television specials, and in anticipation, the 6-year-old has revealed her most prized and hated Christmas gifts

Meanwhile, her favourite gift is something she treasures everyday.

‘My best Christmas present was my tent that goes over my bed,’ she says.

Mama June’s top gift was just as versatile.

Naughty or nice? The precocious youngster says in a TLC preview: ‘The worst Christmas gift I ever got was my Barbie car that I had to take back because it was too small’

Gift giving: Mama June says she can’t remember the worst gift she was given, but recalls a $5 gift card for Walmart somewhere along the way

She reveals: ‘The best Christmas gift I got was a year ago when I got my crock pot, ’cause we were able to put meals in there and then just forgot about it, come back like eight hours later and it would be ready.‘

Worst gift: Honey Boo boo says this Barbie car was the worst gift she got

The mother of four can’t remember the worst gift she was given, but recalls a $5 gift card for Walmart somewhere along the way.

‘What are you gunna by nowadays with $5? I mean come on now,’ she scolds.

On whether the pair will be on Santa’s naughty or nice list, both say they’ll definitely be placed in the ‘nice’ category.

Mama June said: ‘I think I’m going to be on Santa’s nice list this year. We give a lot back to our community and that, and i think we get a few extra brownie points because Sugar Bear is Santa’s little helper.

Without missing a beat, Honey Boo Boo agreed.

‘Nice list,’ she said. ‘My daddy’s always Santa Claus, so…’

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo Halloween special airs on TLC January 6, the Thanksgiving special on January 13, the Clip Show on February 10 and the Christmas special on February 17.

Sonya Kraus Angelu DeLeon

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By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 18:12 EST, 12 December 2012 | UPDATED: 18:12 EST, 12 December 2012

Mountains of Christmas pud takes it toll on our waistlines over the festive season.

Research from the British Dietetic Association found the average person eats an estimated 500 additional calories a day during the Christmas season, which equals a weight gain of 5lb.

And it’s not just food that piles on the pounds: a glass of mulled wine contains 227 calories and eggnog has 343 – more than a chocolate bar. 

There’s healthier alternatives for drinks this Christmas

So it’s unsurprising that the drinks industry has been rushing out low-calorie versions of our favourite tipples to tempt weight-conscious consumers.

Huge consumer demand for low-alcohol products has promped Sainsbury’s to aim to double sales of lighter alcohol, wines and beers by 2020.  So, what should you pick?

For conventional drinks, try The Skinny Vine, which makes wines with up to 35 per cent fewer calories (theskinnyvine.com), or for the truly health-conscious, Equator beer (available at Tesco) which contains no calories, no sugar… and no alcohol.

For more exotic drinks, try new Voli Light Original (£45, urban-drinks.co.uk) which contains 25 per cent fewer calories than normal vodka, or low-calorie Laurent Perrier Ultra Brut Champagne (£39.95, drinks direct.co.uk).

Choose a healthier tipple to save on calories

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PROBLEM: An often fatal intestinal disease, necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) disproportionally targets premature infants — particularly those that are given formula instead of being breastfed. While the correlation between formula and NEC has long been known, the causation remains elusive.

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METHODOLOGY: No infants were harmed in the testing of this theory. Instead, UC San Diego bioengineers mixed intestinal fluids in petri dishes with fresh human breast milk and nine different infant formulas. After each type of milk had been “digested,” they tested for levels of free fatty acids, which have been shown in adult stomachs to damage cell membranes. To see whether this was applicable to NEC, they also tested whether the free fatty acids were capable of killing three types of cells implicated in the disease.

RESULTS: Cells that line the intestine and blood vessels, along with white blood cells that control inflammation caused by trauma, were virtually eliminated during the process of digesting formula. At the extreme end of this, 99 percent of cells would die in under five minutes. The digestion of breast milk was responsible for only minimal cell death.

CONCLUSION: Breast milk is able to significantly reduce cell death, while formula may lead to the development of NEC in infants. 

IMPLICATION: Premature infants are often fed formula for their duration of time in the NICU. These findings underscore the importance of putting in the extra effort necessary for getting breast milk to them instead.

Full-term and otherwise healthy infants, too, are encouraged to be fed breast milk, especially if they are at risk for disorders like autism, which is associated with gastrointestinal problems. 

The full study, “Digested formula but not digested fresh human milk causes death of intestinal cells in vitro: implications for necrotizing enterocolitis,” is published in the journal Pediatric Research.

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(Reuters) – Texas Governor Rick Perry called on state lawmakers on Tuesday to pass a bill banning late-term abortions, a controversial prohibition that has been pushed by anti-abortion activists since 2010.

Seven states – Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska and Oklahoma – have put laws into effect in the past several years banning late term abortions, based on questionable medical research suggesting that a fetus feels pain starting at 20 weeks of gestation.

Another state, Georgia, has such a law scheduled to go into effect in January, although a lawsuit over the measure is pending in state court. Arizona also passed a similar law banning abortions 18 weeks after fertilization, but it has been blocked by federal courts.

Texas would be the largest state to pass such a measure, although Perry, a Republican, did not outline details of what he envisioned in a bill.

“We cannot, and we will not, stand idly by while the unborn are going through the agony of having their lives ended,” Perry, a failed 2012 Republican presidential candidate, said in prepared remarks for a news conference on Tuesday.

Opponents of such proposals say they are based on unfounded science.

“And yet we see these bills proliferating across the country,” said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager for the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights. “It looks like this issue is one that state legislatures are going to be wrestling with for another year.”

Arkansas, Virginia, Wisconsin and South Dakota are also expected to introduce such bills, Nash said.

The position of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is that there is “no legitimate scientific information that supports the statement that a fetus experiences pain.”

The group notes that certain brain and neurological developments, including neurotransmitted hormones, have to be in place to perceive pain. Animal studies show these hormones are developed only in the last third of gestation.

Some anti-abortion arguments on fetal pain are taken from research by Kanwaljeet J.S. Anand, a professor of pediatrics, anesthesiology, anatomy and neurobiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

Anand has said that prenatal surgeries are routinely done with anesthetic, and that despite ACOG’s 2005 statement, “the consensus opinion seems to be in favor of the fact that fetuses do perceive pain.”

In Texas, the Legislature convenes in January with Republican majorities in both chambers. In 2011, Perry successfully pushed a measure requiring women seeking an abortion to first get a sonogram.

(Editing by Paul Thomasch and Christopher Wilson)

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By Niamh O’doherty

PUBLISHED: 19:55 EST, 11 December 2012 | UPDATED: 19:55 EST, 11 December 2012

The slower you grow, the longer you live, a new study suggests. Scientists looking at growth patterns in stickleback fish say they discovered lifespan is affected by the rate at which bodies expand early in life.

Bodies which grow quickly accumulate greater tissue damage, with life-shortening results.

A team from Glasgow University altered the growth rate of 240 fish by exposing them to brief cold or warm spells, putting them ahead or behind their normal growth schedule.

‘You might well expect a machine built in haste to fail quicker than one put together carefully and methodically, and our study suggests that this may be true for bodies too,’ explained Professor Neil Metcalfe from Glasgow University

Researchers noticed the fish got back on track once their environmental temperature was returned to normal, but the change in growth rate affected their rate of ageing.

The slow-growing fish lived for around 30% longer than the stickleback’s two-year average, with a lifespan of nearly 1,000 days.

The lifespan of the fast-growing fish was 15% shorter than normal.

Professor Neil Metcalfe, from the university’s Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, said the ‘striking’ results occurred despite all the fish reaching the same adult size.

A team from Glasgow University altered the growth rate of 240 stickleback fish by exposing them to brief cold or warm spells

‘You might well expect a machine built in haste to fail quicker than one put together carefully and methodically, and our study suggests that this may be true for bodies too,’ he said.

‘The results of the study are striking. It appears that bodies which grow quickly accumulate greater tissue damage than those that grow more slowly, and their lifespan is substantially reduced as a result.

‘These findings are likely to apply to many other species, including humans, since the manner in which organs and tissues grow and age is similar across very different kinds of animal.

‘It has already been documented in humans, for example, that rapid growth in early childhood is associated with a greater risk of developing ailments later in life such as cardiovascular disease in middle or old age, possibly because of the way in which the tissues of a fast-grown heart are laid down.’

Earlier attempts to test links between growth rates and lifespan by altering diet proved inconclusive because the results could have been affected by the diet itself rather than its effect on growth.

The Glasgow team avoided the problem by keeping the fish on identical diets. All that changed were the temperatures to which they were exposed.

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Every day — and through the night — in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, doctors report to work in a hospital where there are no patients.

And in over 70 rural communities in four states, patients stricken by heart attacks, or injured in car accidents, or facing other urgent health issues are rushed to an E.R. where there are no doctors. Or, more precisely, there’s one doctor. More often than not, he or she is trained in family practice, not emergency care. And if the call’s coming in the middle of the night, he legally has a half-hour to get out of bed and report in.

They report an 18 percent decrease in transfers to major hospitals, equating to $6.6 million saved.

In these small-town hospitals, which often have 25 or fewer beds, South Dakota’s largest city is the closest available source of comprehensive healthcare. The people who choose to live in small, geographically isolated communities throughout the Midwest are used to making the trek — long car rides come standard with country life. But during emergencies, the up-to 200 miles to Sioux Falls becomes very, very far away.

But when the call comes in the middle of the night, with the push of a button — mounted right on the ER’s wall — the nurses on-duty are able to connect with ER doctors in Sioux Falls, who have been waiting, in their patient-less hospital, for their call. 

Avera Health Network is believed to have the only long-distance critical care center in the U.S., and possibly the world. Based at Avera Mckennan Hospital, the nonprofit provides a range of “telemedical” services that take advantage of technology — including high-definition two-way video consulting — to make it possible for experts to be available 24/7 in locations throughout South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Wyoming, and Nebraska.

Their four main services — eConsult, eICU Care, eEmergency, and ePharm — are set up to provide resources and support to the 10 percent of America’s doctors currently serving the 25 percent of the country’s population that resides in rural areas. As the rural population ages — the proportion of people over the age of 65 is about 72 percent higher in South Dakota than the rest of the U.S. and is expected to double by 2020 — the need for easy access to high-quality care will only increase.

“If you think about, there’s an awful lot of medicine that is just done through visualization of X-rays, looking at the chart, talking to the patient, making assessments, writing prescriptions,” said Fred Slunecka, COO of Avera Health. “There’s an amazing amount of care that can be done that way.” The Avera team calls this “hands in pocket doctoring.” Of course, physical hands are needed to carry out virtual orders, and real doctors and nurses are always on hand to provide that. But even IRL (in real life), crisis situations require someone at the head of the room, keeping tabs on everyone and calling the shots. In emergency situations, where every second counts, the long-distance physician is able to be in the room an average of 14 minutes sooner than the local doctor.

The doctors back at the hub spend their time monitoring ICU patients — they have virtual access to 60 percent of the beds in South Dakota. Pharmacists are on-hand to review prescriptions, make sure doctors aren’t missing any allergies or medical history, and keep them abreast of the newest recommendations and standards of care.

“The magic is being able to see into room,” said Jay Weems, the executive director of eCare. “But the bigger magic, we think, is the people are on both ends — in the rural community and in the hub — that support each other and work together as team, as medicine is meant to be practiced.”

Medical providers, local communities, and the public wellness movement. See full coverage

When the concept for eICU was invented in 2004 at Johns Hopkins, its innovators saw it as a way for the hospital to extend its vast resources to slightly smaller, but still very sophisticated, medical centers. Avera, with the help of grant money from the Helmsley Trust, has been able to expand the technology’s potential. And it’s still far from being maximized: at the same time that they’re adding more hospitals to their network, they’re also developing new programs. Recently introduced were “eLongTermCare,” for nursing homes, and a service for prison infirmaries which has reduced transfers by 60 percent. According to Senior Vice President of Quality and eCare Deanna Larson, the latter has garnered praise from the Secretary of Health, if not the inmates.

As of October, they report an 18 percent decrease in ambulance and helicopter transfers to major hospitals, equating to $6.6 million saved. What’s more, every time they’re able to maximize a small community’s ability to care for its patients on-site, they’re keeping health care dollars in the local economy. In the long run, they hope for the programs to be self-sustaining. 

This might be the most important metric to watch, because at the heart of Avera’s innovations is not just a mission to save lives and reduce spending, but to preserve a dying way of life. “I think technology like this is actually the best opportunity that rural communities have for ongoing success,” said Slunecka. “I think we can reverse, or at least limit, the decline of these small communities.”

This article available online at:

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/12/where-er-doctors-work-entirely-via-skype/265935/

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By Associated Press

PUBLISHED: 17:33 EST, 11 December 2012 | UPDATED: 17:33 EST, 11 December 2012

Some well-known male chefs are getting behind a New Jersey girl’s call for Hasbro to make a gender-neutral Easy-Bake Oven.

Chefs including Manuel Trevino of TV’s Top Chef and Michael Lomonaco of Porterhouse New York are featured in a YouTube video applauding McKenna Pope’s online petition, which had reached about 40,000 signatures as of Tuesday on the website Change.org.

The 13-year-old 8th-grader from Garfield, N.J., started the petition when she went to buy an Easy-Bake Oven for her four-year-old-brother, Gavyn Boscio, but discovered it comes only in purple and pink.

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Sparking change: McKenna Pope, 13 (right) pictured with brother Gavyn Boscio, four, is demanding that Hasbro make its Easy-Bake Oven more boy friendly. She was inspired when Gavyn put the toy on his list for Santa

Too girly: McKenna started the petition when she went to buy an Easy-Bake Oven for her four-year-old-brother, but discovered it comes only in purple and pink

She wants Pawtucket, R.I.-based Hasbro to feature boys on the box of the toy and to make it in gender-neutral colors.

Leading the charge: Chef Bobby Flay said last week he agreed that Hasbro should make an oven in other colors to appeal to boys

Celebrity chef Bobby Flay said last week he agreed that Hasbro should make an oven in other colors to appeal to boys, and in the nearly 3-minute-long video posted online Tuesday by Flay’s publicist, several chefs from around the country joined in on the call.

A spokesman for Hasbro did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Lomonaco is known for his TV appearances and was executive chef at Windows on the World atop the north tower of the World Trade Center at the time of the September 11 terrorist attacks. In the video, he and other chefs root for McKenna.

‘We signed your petition McKenna! You get Hasbro to change that packaging! Little boys and little girls can all be chefs,’ he says to cheers from the rest of his kitchen.

Laurent Tourondel, who has started restaurants around the world, says cooking is for girls AND boys, while New York chef Spencer Rubin asks: ‘Hasbro, please make an Easy-Bake for dudes.’

Joshua Whigham, of The Bazaar by Jose Andres in Los Angeles, says he supports making an Easy-Bake that’s more friendly for boys.

‘I can understand not wanting to cook on a pink oven,’ he says.

‘Ask Hasbro for a steel, or a black or a something really cool oven.’

Support network: Michael Lomonaco (centre) of Porterhouse New York roots for McKenna in the YouTube video, saying: ‘We signed your petition McKenna! You get Hasbro to change that packaging!’

Brad Spence of Amis Trattoria in Philadelphia says he has young children at home.

‘My son, I cook with him every Sunday, so I’d love to see something like that happen,’ he says.

McKenna’s mother, Erica Boscio, told The Associated Press that McKenna is scheduled to meet with Hasbro on Monday.

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By Associated Press

PUBLISHED: 15:21 EST, 11 December 2012 | UPDATED: 15:21 EST, 11 December 2012

A holiday tradition in the upstate New York resort town of Saratoga Springs has a peppermint twist: Pig-shaped hard candies are sold with little metal hammers to smash them at Christmas.

The peppermint pigs, which can weigh up to a pound, are considered good luck charms by some. Family members will take turns whacking the piggy tokens of holiday cheer into little candy shards.

‘We do find that some people are a little taken aback: “What’s the whole idea of the pig and the hammer? What are you doing? And is someone insulting me by giving me a pig?”‘ said Mike Fitzgerald, owner of Saratoga Sweets, which makes the pigs that can be the size of a big bar of bath soap.

Christmas confection: Peppermint pig-shaped hard candies, sold with little metal hammers to smash them, are a popular holiday tradition in the upstate New York resort town of Saratoga Springs

Fitzgerald has pigs on his brain this time of year. A small crew at his shop south of Saratoga Springs in Halfmoon makes the hard candy from dawn to dark in a shop distinguished by boiling red pots of candy and an overwhelming scent of peppermint. Fitzgerald is hurrying to fill thousands of pig orders around the country.

Why pigs?

It could be related to the marzipan pigs northern European confectioners make at holiday time as good luck symbols. Fitzgerald said it’s possible chefs at the old hotels in Saratoga Springs in the late 19th century couldn’t easily make marzipan, so they improvised with peppermint hard candy.

Traditional methods: The candy mix is hand-poured into cast aluminum molds to make the pigs

Quality sweet: The pigs have a shiny, glassy quality that hard candies with a higher corn syrup content lack

In the old days, the pig was placed on the Christmas dinner table. Father would wrap it in a napkin and crack it with the steel rod used to sharpen knives so the family could share the sweet-tasting bits, Fitzgerald said. But by the mid-20th century, the area holiday tradition went the way of lit candles on Christmas trees.

Porcine empire: Mike Fitzgerald poses with Willie the Pig, the store mascot, outside his Saratoga Sweets store in Halfmoon, NY

In 1988, Fitzgerald made a first run of 60 peppermint pigs at the request of the local historical society. He was surprised to see people lining up to buy them, many of them older people who fondly recalled smashing pigs when they were young. He sold out his run and never looked back.

‘It’s been a pig race ever since. This year we’ll make about 130,000 pigs,’ he said.

As Fitzgerald spoke, workers stirred bubbling tea pots filled with a Pepto-pink mix of sugar and corn syrup. The candy mix is hand-poured into cast aluminum molds to make one of three pigs: Holly (3 ounces and 3 1/2-inches long), Noel (a half pound and 5 1/2 inches) or the big man, Clarence (1 pound and 6 inches).

The hardened pigs have a shiny, glassy quality other hard candies with a higher corn syrup content lack. A quick strike by Fitzgerald’s hammer shattered a pig.

‘It has to break like glass,’ Fitzgerald said with satisfaction.

It’s not as though sales of candy canes – more than 1.8 billion are made a year – are being threatened. But the pigs are a popular item in gift stores in Saratoga Springs and other retailers, dressed in red velvet bags with a shiny, silver hammer. (Once you get the hammer, you can order a refill without one.)

‘Thanksgiving sort of kicks it off and from here on in, it gets crazy,’ said Marianne Barker of Impressions of Saratoga.

History: The tradition may be related to marzipan pigs northern European confectioners made as good luck symbols. It is possible that late 19th century hotels couldn’t easily make marzipan, so they improvised

And the pigs have extended beyond their upstate New York habitat through online sales and catalogs. In Georgia, Lynn Barlow bought a pig on a lark in 1997 and shared it with her family on Christmas. A good luck streak followed that included a raise for her husband, one son bagging the biggest buck of his life and another son’s team winning a basketball tournament.

The White, Ga., resident said pigs have been passed around at the holiday table ever since, now with grandchildren taking a turn with the hammer.

‘My husband hits it first,’ Barlow said, ‘and then the peppermint is hard, so we usually go around the table twice just because the kids enjoy doing it so much.’

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(Reuters) – Drugmaker Eli Lilly & Co is confident it will do for Alzheimer’s patients what it did almost a century ago for diabetics – find a breakthrough treatment, even though skeptics say it could take years.

“We are on the cusp here of writing medical history again as a company, this time in Alzheimer’s disease,” Jan Lundberg, Lilly’s research chief, said in an interview.

Just as the Indianapolis-based company made history in the 1920s by producing the first insulin when type 1 diabetes was a virtual death sentence, Lundberg said he is optimistic that the drugs Lilly is currently testing could significantly slow the ultimately fatal memory-robbing disease.

“It is no longer a question of ‘if’ we will get a successful medicine for this devastating disease on the market, but when,” said Lundberg, 59.

To be sure, companies often tout drugs in the pipeline that never make it to market. Lundberg’s degree of confidence is striking given that Lilly’s most closely watched experimental drug – solanezumab – failed two big late-stage studies earlier this year. Analysts said the drug still has a slight chance of approval because it delayed memory loss in Alzheimer’s patients with mild symptoms – something no other drug has ever done.

Lilly desperately needs new big-selling medicines to replace lost sales of several of its biggest products that now face competition from cheaper generics. A successful Alzheimer’s drug could bring in billions of dollars each year.

An estimated 5 million people in the United States have Alzheimer’s, the biggest cause of dementia. More than 35 million people worldwide are believed to have dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease, and those numbers are expected to rise as more countries see lifespans increase. But truly effective treatments have eluded researchers.

“Alzheimer’s is fatal, ultimately with no survivors, so we are in desperate need for an effective therapy,” said Dr. Ronald Petersen, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center at the Mayo Clinic. “Is Lilly poised to make that contribution? I don’t know. But they are pursuing very good options.”

Petersen said Alzheimer’s may be more complex than diabetes, and thus harder to make quick strides against, as Lilly did with insulin. “There may not be a silver bullet. We’ve had so many failures of Alzheimer’s drugs, so we don’t want to be inappropriately optimistic.”

THE WAIT FOR APPROVAL

And even as Wall Street looks for an Alzheimer’s treatment that will deliver blockbuster revenues, many remain cautious.

“Lilly is one of the leaders, but this is going to take a lot longer than we all want it to,” said Cowen and Co analyst Steve Scala. “I doubt a drug will have a meaningful impact on the course of the disease for the next five years.”

Lilly also faces competition from other drugmakers like Merck & Co and Roche Holding AG that have promising Alzheimer’s compounds that could reap annual sales in the billions of dollars.

Lilly is ahead of other drugmakers in Alzheimer’s research after solanezumab, in Phase III trials, was shown in August to slow cognitive declines in patients with mild symptoms of the disease. But the drug, given by intravenous infusion, failed its overall goal of delaying cognitive and physical decline in the larger group of patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s.

Industry analysts said Lilly might ask the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve solanezumab only for patients with mild Alzheimer’s. But the FDA would likely require new trials for that narrower population of patients with mild disease, analysts said.

Leerink Swann analyst Seamus Fernandez said a new trial would likely take three years, but that solanezumab could generate annual sales of up to $7 billion if approved and become Lilly’s biggest source of earnings growth.

Lundberg, who joined Lilly in early 2010 after heading research for a decade at British drugmaker AstraZeneca, would not say whether Lilly would seek approval of solanezumab, based on already completed trials.

Lundberg noted that test results were mixed for solanezumab. “What we saw was a slowing of cognitive decline — the memory problem — while the activities of daily living were much less affected.”

But he said solanezumab’s results were impressive nonetheless, especially compared with a similar drug from Pfizer Inc, called bapineuzumab, that failed in large closely watched trials over the summer. Both drugs target toxic plaques in the brain made of a protein called amyloid.

“We have an agent that was safer and also showed a statistically significant benefit” against mild Alzheimer’s, he said.

A MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR OPPORTUNITY

Some researchers believe far earlier use of solanezumab, and other drugs that target amyloid, could prevent symptoms of the disease. One such prevention study will begin next year at Washington University in St. Louis, and includes use of solanezumab.

Lundberg was cautiously optimistic about Lilly’s mid-stage trials of a different oral class of Alzheimer’s drugs called beta secretase inhibitors — or BACE inhibitors — which work by blocking production of amyloid.

In small earlier trials, Lilly’s experimental drug cut levels of amyloid beta in cerebrospinal fluid by 60 percent. A similar drug from Merck & Co lowered levels by about 90 percent in a separate Phase 1 trial. Each company claims to be ahead of the other in the potentially lucrative race to develop the first approved BACE inhibitor.

Excitement about the class of drugs intensified in July, when researchers in Iceland identified a mutation in a gene that slows the body’s production of beta secretase, Lundberg said. Those aged 85 and older with the beneficial mutation were 81 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer’s than others in that age group.

Lilly and Merck are expected to complete their mid-stage trials by early 2014, and show whether their BACE inhibitors are safe.

“This category could be enormous,” said Leerink Swann’s Fernandez, estimating that a successful drug could capture as much revenue – $10 billion – annually as some of the most successful cholesterol drugs.

“We’re looking at multi-billion opportunities because of desperation and the cost of treating this disease,” he said.

(Reporting By Ransdell Pierson in New York; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Leslie Adler)

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• Naturally occurring antioxidants in coffee may have a protective effect, say the U.S. researchers
  
• The association held true regardless of how often the person drank alcohol or smoked
• But drinking tea did nothing to prevent the disease

By Pat Hagan

PUBLISHED: 10:39 EST, 11 December 2012 | UPDATED: 10:54 EST, 11 December 2012

Drinking four cups of coffee a day almost halves the risk of deadly mouth cancer

Drinking four cups of coffee a day almost halves the risk of deadly mouth cancer, according to new research.

The latest study shows downing the beverage every day has a powerful protective effect against tumours that form in the mouth and throat.

The association held true regardless of how often the person drank alcohol or smoked.

Scientists found decaffeinated coffee also reduced the risk, although to a lesser extent, while drinking tea did nothing to prevent the disease.

The latest findings, by a team of researchers from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, Georgia, suggest it may not be caffeine that protects against the formation of malignant growths in and around the mouth.

Instead, they said, it’s likely to be due to some of the hundreds of other naturally-occurring antioxidant chemicals found in coffee.

The results back up a similar study published two years ago by a different team of researchers, who found four cups a day slashed cancer risk by 39 per cent.

British consumers guzzle their way through an estimated 70 million cups of coffee a day.

The popular drink has already been linked with reducing the chances of getting bowel cancer, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease.

However, drinking too much may increase heart rate and blood pressure and pregnant women are advised to limit their intake because of concerns that excess coffee may increase their chances of having small babies.

More than 6,000 people a year in the UK are diagnosed with mouth cancer and the disease kills around 1,600 annually.

Smoking and excessive drinking are major risk factors.

To see if coffee offered any protection, researchers studied nearly one million men and women who signed up to the Cancer Prevention Study II, which started in the US back in 1982.

The protective effect is likely to be due to some of the hundreds of naturally-occurring antioxidant chemicals found in coffee

They identified 868 volunteers who had died from cancer of the mouth or pharynx – the cavity between the nose and mouth – over a 30 year period.

When they studied patients’ dietary habits and compared them with others who stayed cancer free during the same period, they found drinking caffeinated coffee in reasonably large quantities appeared to have a potent effect.

Those downing more than four cups a day were 49 per cent less likely to suffer tumours than others who drank little or no coffee.

Decaffeinated coffee also showed some protection, but the numbers involved were insufficient to draw firm conclusions, the researchers said.

Tea lovers, on the other hand, got no protection against mouth cancers from their favourite beverage.

In a report on the findings, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, the researchers said it was likely that coffee’s multitude of health-boosting ingredients shielded the body against the formation of tumours.

‘Coffee contains multiple biologically active compounds that may help to lower the risk of developing and dying from cancer,’ they said.

‘In animal and cell cultures, no single anti-cancer mechanism has been identified but rather many pathways appear to be involved, depending upon the specific compound and anatomic site.’
 

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By Will Stewart

PUBLISHED: 12:23 EST, 10 December 2012 | UPDATED: 11:05 EST, 11 December 2012

Real life Barbie Valeria Lukyanova has found herself a twin and now both intend to take America by storm.

Valeria caused an internet sensation – but also deep concern – when her cosmetically-enhanced looks turned her into a living doll.

Now she is joined by 24-year-old ‘Dominica’ – real name Olga Oleynik – who also owes her shape and image to the surgeon’s knife.

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Barbie girls: Valeria Lukyanova, left, and Olga Oleynik have transformed their looks thanks to surgery

‘We met on the internet five years ago,’ said Valeria, explaining that both come from the Ukrainian city of Odessa.

‘We were curious about our similarities. We had the same hairstyle, make-up, and even dressed in a similar way. Our friends were sure that we were blood sisters.

‘We are really sisters – but only in spiritual way. We have the same outlook and lifestyle.’

Living dolls: The pair are working together holding lectures on spirituality

The pair have been holding lectures on spirituality at £50 a session. They use their looks to attract participants, it is claimed.

‘We are planning to move to America soon. Dominica’s boyfriend is living in the US and my husband wants to start a business there too,’ said Valeria. ‘I am not going to be bored abroad, I’m often invited to photo-shoots and parties.’

Cut from the same cloth: Olga, left, and Valeria say they are like sisters

When images of Valeria first started appearing, there were questions about whether she actually existed with her porcelain looks, minuscule waist and razor sharp features. Some claimed she must be a PhotoShop creation.

The model calls herself ‘the most famous Russian woman on the Russian-speaking internet’.

Her average day includes meditation, travel in her astral body, going to the gym while she admits her ideal dinner is to ‘make dinner for the man I love’.

VIDEO: Living Doll Valeria teams up with spiritual sister Dominika

 

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Analyzing the medical records of nearly 1,000 knee-replacement surgery patients, researchers found that 30 percent of them gained five percent or more of their body weight in the five years following surgery.

One possible explanation for the counterintuitive results, experts said, is that if people have spent years adapting to knee pain by taking it easy, they don’t automatically change their habits when the pain is reduced.

“After knee replacement we get them stronger and moving better, but they don’t seem to take advantage of the functional gains” and become more active, said Joseph Zeni, a physical therapy professor at the University of Delaware, who was not part of the study.

“I think that has to do with the fact that we don’t address the behavioral modifications that have happened during the course of arthritis before the surgery,” he added.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. undergo knee replacement surgery each year.

The goal of putting in a new knee is to alleviate pain and get people moving around more, but Daniel Riddle, lead author of the new study and a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, said his team had noticed that patients tended to gain weight after surgery.

To see whether this was common, Riddle’s group used a patient registry from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, which collected information on 917 knee replacement patients before and after their procedures.

The researchers found that five years after surgery, 30 percent of patients had gained at least five percent of their weight at the time of the surgery. That’s 10 pounds or more on a 200-pound person, for example.

In contrast, less than 20 percent of those in a comparison group of similar people who had not had surgery gained equivalent amounts of weight in the same period.

Riddle’s team explains in their report, published in Arthritis Care & Research, that this degree of weight gain can lead to “meaningful effects on cardiovascular and diabetes related risk as well as pain and function.”

Part of the explanation for the weight gain the researchers observed could be the age at which patients get surgery, Riddle said. People in their 50s and 60s tend to gain weight anyway.

Still, in light of the lower rates of weight gain in the comparison group, which was also middle aged and older, Riddle said something else may also be at work among knee surgery patients.

“There’s something going on in these patients that predisposes them above and beyond their peers to weight gain,” Riddle told Reuters Health.

Indeed, the team also found that patients who had lost weight before their surgery were slightly more likely to gain weight afterward.

Riddle said that could be because when people lose weight in anticipation of an event, such as knee surgery, they are more likely to put on weight after they’ve achieved that goal.

Zeni said that to help people stave off the pounds after surgery, health care providers need to address the sedentary lifestyle people often adopt to accommodate their arthritis.

“We need to encourage patients to take advantage of their ability to function better and get them to take on a more active lifestyle,” he told Reuters Health.

Riddle agreed that the habit of being sedentary before knee replacement may carry over after surgery.

He said it will be important to develop and study weight loss interventions for these patients, and to target them to those who are most at risk of getting heavier, like relatively younger patients in their 50s and 60s and those who have lost weight before knee surgery.

In the meantime, Riddle said, patients can also take some action on their own by talking with their doctors about maintaining a healthy weight and consulting with a nutritionist and physical therapist about lifestyle changes.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/TJTz24 Arthritis Care & Research, online November 30, 2012.

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(Reuters) – Being overweight is known to increase the risk of needing a knee replacement, but a new study finds that knee replacement surgery may also raise a person’s risk of gaining weight, according to a U.S. study.

Researchers, whose findings appeared in the journal Arthritis Care & Research, analyzed the medical records of nearly 1,000 knee-replacement surgery patients, and found that 30 percent of them gained five percent or more of their body weight in the five years following surgery.

One possible explanation for the counter-intuitive results, experts said, is that if people have spent years adapting to knee pain by taking it easy, they don’t automatically change their habits when the pain is reduced.

“Patients who undergo knee arthroplasty are at increased risk of clinically important weight gain following surgery,” wrote study leader Daniel Riddle, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University.

“Future research should develop weight loss/maintenance interventions particularly for younger patients who have lost a substantial amount of weight prior to surgery, as they are most at risk for substantial post surgical weight gain.”

Riddle’s group used a patient registry from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, which collected information on 917 knee replacement patients before and after their procedures.

The researchers found that five years after surgery, 30 percent of patients had gained at least five percent of their weight at the time of the surgery – at least 5 kg or more on a 100-kg person, for example.

In contrast, fewer than 20 percent of those in a comparison group of similar people who had not had surgery gained equivalent amounts of weight in the same period.

“After knee replacement we get them stronger and moving better, but they don’t seem to take advantage of the functional gains,” said Joseph Zeni, a physical therapy professor at the University of Delaware, who was not part of the study.

“I think that has to do with the fact that we don’t address the behavioral modifications that have happened during the course of arthritis before the surgery.”

Riddle’s team explained that this degree of weight gain can lead to “meaningful effects on cardiovascular and diabetes related risk as well as pain and function.”

Part of the explanation for the weight gain could be the age at which patients get surgery. People in their 50s and 60s tend to gain weight anyway. Still, in light of the lower rates of weight gain in the comparison group, which was also middle aged and older, Riddle said something else may also be at work.

Indeed, the team found that patients who had lost weight before their surgery were slightly more likely to gain weight afterwards – perhaps because when people lose weight in anticipation of an event, such as surgery, they are more likely to put it back on after they’re achieved the goal.

Zeni said that to help people stave off weight gain after surgery, health care providers need to address the sedentary lifestyle people often adopt to accommodate their arthritis.

“We need to encourage patients to take advantage of their ability to function better and get them to take on a more active lifestyle,” he said. SOURCE: bit.ly/TJTz24

(Reporting from New York by Kerry Grens at Reuters Health; editing by Elaine Lies)

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