Fatty Fish May helpful to Cut Heart Failure Risk in Men

Men who consume fatty fish and marine omega-3 fatty acids appear to have a reduced risk of heart failure, a new study has found.

Between 1998 and 2004, U.S. and Swedish researchers followed nearly 40,000 Swedish men, ages 45 to 79, recorded details of their diets and tracking their health outcomes. During that time, 597 men with no history of heart disease or diabetes developed heart failure, and 34 of them died from the disorder.

Men who ate fatty fish -- such as salmon, mackerel, herring, whitefish and char -- once a week were 12 percent less likely to develop heart failure than men who never ate fatty fish. The study also found that men who consumed a moderate amount (about 0.3 grams a day) of omega-3 fatty acids -- found in cod liver oil and other fish oils -- were less likely to develop heart failure than those who consumed little or no omega-3 fatty acids.

The beneficial heart effect was seen only in men who ate about one serving of fatty fish a week and who had a moderate intake of marine omega-3 fatty acids. Men who consumed more fatty fish or omega-3 fatty acids did not gain more heart protection and, in fact, had the same level of risk as men who never ate fatty fish or omega-3 fatty acids, the study found.

This was an unexpected finding and may be due to chance, the researchers said.

"Alternatively, these may be men in poor health who ate more fish to try to improve their ill-health, and therefore the fatty fish and fatty acids appear to be risk factors for heart failure," the study's leader, Dr. Emily Levitan, a cardiology research fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, said in a news release from the European Heart Journal, where the findings are published. "I suspect this is the most likely explanation, but we cannot be certain from our data."

Gene Studies and Cancer's Secrets

(HealthDay News) -- A close look at a tumor's or patient's genetics can provide important, potentially lifesaving clues to preventing and treating cancer.

So say scientists who outlined their research Tuesday in five presentations at the American Association for Cancer Research's annual meeting, in Denver.

"This is an interesting set of presentations," John S. Witte, a professor in the Institute for Human Genetics at the University of California, San Francisco, said during a midday press conference. "All the studies have an impact on the potential to predict risk or recurrence or response to treatment," he said.

In the first study, researchers led by Dr. Charles Mullighan, an assistant member at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, found that children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) who have mutations in the JAK tyrosine kinase gene generally have poor outcomes, including a higher risk of recurrence of their cancer. The finding suggests the gene could be a potential diagnostic tool and a new therapeutic target.

Despite improvements in treatment, some children with ALL will relapse, Mullighan told reporters.

For the study, the Memphis team analyzed the genes of 221 children with the disease.

Although JAK mutations were not previously known to occur in children with ALL, they were discovered in 10 percent of these patients. The mutations were associated with a deletion of the genes IKZF1 and CDKN2A/B and poor outcome. And, over four years, 71 percent of the children with JAK and IKZF1 alterations had a relapse of their disease, compared with only 23 percent for patients without these genetic alterations, the researchers found.

But there was good news, too. "When we treated the cancer cells with a JAK inhibitor, the cells died," Mullighan said. "This suggests that these JAC mutations are a new therapeutic target in this subtype of leukemia."

Another study on leukemia found that a set of genetic variants increases the risk for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL). The findings of this study add more pieces to the puzzle and could lead to better prevention and prognosis of the disease, according to lead researcher Susan Slager, associate professor of biostatistics at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.

About 15,000 Americans will develop CLL each year, and 4,000 will die, so it is one of the rarer cancers, Slager said during the teleconference. However, "if you have a family member with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, your chances of getting the disease are eight times higher than that of the general population," she noted.

An earlier analysis identified seven DNA sequencing aberrations called "single nucleotide polymorphisms" (SNPs) that might lead to chronic lymphocytic leukemia. In the current study, researchers confirmed these findings in a separate sample of patients. They found the strongest genetic association for the disease was for a SNP on the 11q24 gene, where the risk was 50 percent higher. This was followed by a 39 percent increased risk with a separate SNP on the 6p25 gene.

"Our findings will hopefully understand the biology of the disease, which may help us predict the disease, and it may help us develop better treatments and prognostic markers," Slager said.

Results of another study presented at the meeting showed that genetic variants in what's known as the microRNA processing pathway may predict a woman's risk for ovarian cancer.

"Ovarian cancer is the fifth leading cause of cancer in women in the United States, and one of the major risk factors is a family history of ovarian cancer, indicating that a genetic component contributes to ovarian cancer risk," Dr. Xifeng Wu, a professor in the department of epidemiology at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said during the teleconference.

For the study, Wu's and team evaluated 70 SNPs in eight microRNA pathway genes. These were taken from 380 ovarian cancer cases, as well as from 146 healthy women.

The researchers found 16 SNPs that were predictive of ovarian cancer risk. Patients who carried five or fewer of these SNPs were at low risk for ovarian cancer. However, patients with six and seven SNPs had more than a twofold increased risk, and those with eight or more had over a fivefold increased risk.

In addition, as the number of these SNPs increases, so does resistance to treatment and poorer survival, Wu said.

This information, along with other genetic and lifestyle risk factors, could be used to develop an ovarian cancer risk-prediction model, Wu said.

In a fourth study, researchers led by Dr. Gangning Liang, an associate professor of research in the department of urology at the University of Southern California, reported finding a DNA modification called a "methylation pattern," that may diagnosis bladder cancer and detect patients at risk for recurrence of the disease.

"Bladder cancer is the fifth most common cancer in men and the sixth most common in women," Liang said during the teleconference. "It is mainly found in smokers."

DNA methylation is a process in which genes can be either silenced or activated in cancer. For the study, researchers measured DNA methylation in 12 patients who did not have bladder cancer, 52 patients with non-invasive bladder tumors and 39 patients with invasive bladder tumors.

Comparing cancerous tissue with normal bladder tissue, they found 158 "hypermethylated" loci and 366 "hypomethylated" locations. In addition, they found 21 places that were hypermethylated in the normal-appearing bladder tissue in patients with bladder cancer.

These loci may be markers for identifying people at risk for bladder cancer, the researchers said.

In addition, the scientists found that non-invasive tumors had a distinct pattern of hypomethylation compared with invasive tumors. This finding supports the idea that two forms of bladder cancer develop along different paths.

Bladder cancer can easily recur, Liang noted. "It requires frequent and invasive monitoring. We think these results are clinically useful and have benefits for the patient, because we can detect these methylation changes in the patient's urine," he explained. "So, we can use a noninvasive method to monitor the patient and may also be able to screen for bladder cancer in high-risk populations, like smokers," he said.

In a final report, researchers led by Sunita Setlur, an instructor in pathology at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, found no association between the gene variant UGT2B17 and the risk of prostate cancer. Although this gene had been linked to the risk for prostate cancer in two earlier studies, this new study found no such association.

For the study, researchers looked at 269 men of whom 156 had prostate cancer. The researchers looked at the number of copies of the UGT2B7 gene and found that although deletion patterns for UGT2B17 and UGT2B28 genes were between 3.4 percent and 19.9, this did not increase the risk for prostate cancer.

"We did not see any association between polymorphism of UGT2B17 and UGT2B28 with cancer," Setlur said during Tuesday's teleconference.

What is Surgical Abortion ?

Vacuum aspiration (the suction method) is the most common type of abortion. It is a surgical procedure that involves anesthesia (mild sedation) and can be performed within the first trimester of pregnancy. During vacuum aspiration, the cervix (opening of the uterus) is gently dilated (widened) about a quarter-inch, a narrow tube is inserted through the vagina and cervix to the uterus, and then pregnancy and contents of the uterine internal lining are vacuumed out. The procedure takes only a couple minutes and the woman can usually return home later in the day.

Abortions are rare in the second trimester, which begins in the 13th week of pregnancy. During this type of abortion, a medication called prostaglandin is given in a clinic. This results in uterine contractions, which can last several hours, and is usually accompanied by some anesthesia. Many doctors who perform first-trimester abortions do not perform second-trimester abortions.

Second-trimester abortions are usually done for pregnancies with medical complications. There are usually only a few centers in an area that do them. "Elective" abortions are not done after 23 weeks. Third-trimester abortions (after 24 weeks) are only performed in cases of severely deformed fetuses or when the mother's life is in danger.

What is Medical Abortion ?

During the first 49 days of pregnancy, a medical termination is possible without surgery. Medical abortion uses two different drugs, methotrexate or mifepristone, which may be followed by another drug called misoprostol. While these drugs cause an abortion without surgical procedures such as dilation and vacuum, they do take longer to work than surgical abortion. Medical abortion involves several appointments at the physician's office or clinic, and it often results in a fair amount of cramping and bleeding at home. A medical abortion is only effective within the first 49 days of pregnancy. If a medical abortion isn't successful, you'll need a surgical abortion (if you still want an abortion).

What is Abortion ?

Abortion means ending a pregnancy before the fetus (unborn child) can live independently outside the mother. If abortion happens spontaneously before 24 weeks of pregnancy, it is called a miscarriage. An induced (or "therapeutic") abortion is caused deliberately in order to end the pregnancy.

In the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court sanctioned a woman's right to choose to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Since that ruling, courts have upheld this decision, with certain modifications over the years.

The decision to have an abortion is extremely personal and varies drastically from individual to individual. If you are considering an abortion, think carefully about what is right for you before taking action. This includes not just how you feel now, but how this might affect you in the future. Consulting your parents, doctor or another trusted adult can help you with this choice. Counselors at women's health clinics, such as Planned Parenthood, can provide information about different options (such as abortion, adoption or parenting) and the effect that each might have.

What is Alzheimer's Disease

As Alzheimer’s disease progresses, patients often lose the ability to express themselves, increasing their feelings of isolation and frustration. Communication difficulties can contribute to the aggressive or inappropriate behaviors often associated with the disease. Similarly, caregivers may feel anxious and depressed over their inability to communicate with their loved ones. Learning simple strategies for communicating with Alzheimer’s patients can make the process less difficult and thereby improve the relationship between caregivers and patients.

In order to better communicate with Alzheimer’s patients, caregivers must first understand some of challenges their loved ones face. Because of their diminishing attention spans, it is easy for Alzheimer’s patients to become distracted and lose their train of thought; therefore, a long-winded conversation partner or a noisy environment, such as a restaurant, may severely impede their ability to have a conversation. Poor short term memory often causes them to repeat what they already said or forget what they were already told, frustrating their conversation partner. It also takes much longer for them to verbalize what they are thinking, and they may be unable to grasp certain words. Finally, patients who are hard of hearing or legally blind, which are communication roadblocks in their own right, may find communication doubly frustrating. When communicating with Alzheimer’s patients, it is helpful for caregivers to keep these limitations in mind so that they can communicate with their loved one from a place of compassion rather than impatience or anxiety.

While the limitations that Alzheimer’s patients face in communicating are great, using some simple creative listening techniques can knock down many of the barriers between patient and caregiver. First, when communicating with Alzheimer’s patients, it is important to keep in mind that they want to express themselves and may do so with their nonverbal expressions of emotion and behaviors as much as with their words. These modes of communication should not be overlooked. Similarly, caregivers must listen nonverbally as well, with eye contact, a smile or a hug. Interrupting or arguing, which are impediments to conversation in normal circumstances, can be particularly frustrating for an Alzheimer’s patient, leading to disruptive behaviors. Caregivers must be patient and allow their loved ones extra time to speak. Finally, it is important to interpret statements made by Alzheimer’s patients as both literal expressions and expressions of emotion.

Caregivers can also employ various techniques to improve their chances of being understood by Alzheimer’s patients. They should establish rapport first by introducing themselves and using the patient’s name. They should focus on fundamentals, such as speaking slowly and clearly for short periods of time. If they have instructions to deliver, they should break them down into manageable chunks that won’t stress the patient’s attention span or memory. Rather than using questions that require further explanation from patients, such as “How do you feel?,” they should ask yes or no questions, such as “Do you feel tired?” This advice runs counter to typical communication techniques, but nonverbal communication, such as a nod of the head, and verbal responses requiring simple vocabulary speed communication with Alzheimer’s patients. Most importantly, caregivers should express themselves with an attitude of love and concern rather than frustration or impatience when communicating with Alzheimer’s patients.