Smoking banned in the cafes of France
Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:46:38 GMTBy JENNY BARCHFIELD, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - Non-smokers reveled. Some smokers grumbled. But others pondered kicking the habit as France's smoking ban went into effect Tuesday with the start of the new year. Owners of bars, restaurants, nightclubs and cafes, where smoking is now prohibited, worried it would be bad for business.
Newly hung no-smoking signs dotted the entrance and walls of the Cafe Elysees, off Paris' celebrated Champs-Elysees avenue, and staffers bundled up against the cold for sidewalk smoke breaks. Client Pierre Morgon, 22, praised the ban, saying the cafe's clean air allowed him to better appreciate the food.
"Today's filet mignon tastes richer than it did yesterday," the Cafe Elysees regular said with a sly smile.
Morgon, a smoker, said the restrictions would also help motivate him to quit: "There's no way I'll be able to put it off anymore."
Others saw the ban as attack on their rights.
Jean-Pierre Aiglement, a 55-year-old waiter at the Cafe Au Depart in northern Paris, vowed not to be "chased out onto the pavement" by the "stupid law."
"I'll smoke where I please," he said, lighting a cigarette with his morning coffee.
French officials gave smokers a New Year's day reprieve, saying they would only start enforcing the ban on Wednesday. But many Paris cafes and restaurants had already gone smoke-free.
also launched restrictions on smoking in bars and restaurants, though the measures were generally more flexible than in France.
Under France's ban, those caught lighting up inside face a $93 fine, while owners who turn a blind eye to smoking in their establishments face a $198 fine.
Restaurateurs and cafe personnel say the ban forces them to police their clients, and insist it will slice into their revenues.
"Once they start enforcing the ban, this place will be empty," Aiglement said.
Loic Chardonnay, a 22-year-old waiter at the Cafe Elysees, said he expected business to slow down for several months.
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With the ban, France joins the swelling ranks of European countries that have enacted broad anti-smoking restrictions. But for many in this country known for its smoky cafes, cigarettes are an integral part of what it means to be French.
About a quarter of France's 60 million people smoke. The Health Ministry said one in two regular smokers — or some 66,000 people annually — dies of smoking-related illness here, and about 5,000 nonsmokers die each year from second-hand smoke.
Last year saw the reinforcement of a long-standing prohibition on smoking in France's workplaces, schools, airports, hospitals and other "closed and covered" public places such as train stations. Restaurants and other so-called places of conviviality were given an extra 11 months to adapt to the new rules, which allow smoking only inside special sealed chambers.
Restaurateurs have decried the chambers, which they say are prohibitively expensive, and urged more flexibility.
In Germany, a group representing restaurant and bar owners filed a challenge to the country's supreme court against new anti-smoking laws — which took effect Tuesday in eight states.
American tourist Regina Sauma applauded the European efforts to go smoke-free. Sauma, a New Yorker who often travels to Europe for business, said she did not think the French ban was a threat to Parisian cafe culture.
"There's more to Paris than just smoke," Sauma said as savored a cigarette on a chilly outdoor terrace.
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Associated Press writer Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed to this report.
Sleep disruptions may up diabetes risk
Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:42:43 GMTBy RANDOLPH E. SCHMID, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON - When Shakespeare called sleep the "chief nourisher of life's feast," he may have been well ahead of his time, medically at least. Researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center report that disrupting sleep damages the body's ability to regulate blood sugar levels, potentially raising the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
More than 18 million Americans have diabetes and the most common form is type 2, in which the body either becomes resistant to insulin or doesn't produce enough of it to regulate sugar in the bloodstream.
In a small experiment, researchers led by Dr. Esra Tasali, an assistant professor of medicine, found that disrupting the deepest sleep periods of volunteers rapidly resulted in reduction in their ability to regulate blood-sugar levels.
The findings are reported in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The researchers studied the sleep patterns of nine volunteers, five men and four women, all of normal weight, in good health and aged 20 to 31.
considered the deepest.
Whenever the volunteers went into slow-wave sleep the researchers made noise — enough to disturb the sleep though not to fully awaken them.
After just three days the ability of the volunteers to regulate blood sugar was reduced by 25 percent, the researchers reported.
Earlier studies have indicated that lack of sleep can reduce the ability to regulate sugar, and this report adds evidence that poor sleep quality is also a diabetes risk.
"This decrease in slow-wave sleep resembles the changes in sleep patterns caused by 40 years of aging," Tasali said in a statement. Young adults spend 80 to 100 minutes per night in slow-wave sleep, while people over age 60 generally have less than 20 minutes. "In this experiment," she said, "we gave people in their 20s the sleep of those in their 60s."
, these results suggest that strategies to improve sleep quality, as well as quantity, may help to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes in populations at risk," said co-author Dr. Eve Van Cauter, a professor of medicine.
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UVa. tests Viagralike drug for women
Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:54:36 GMTCHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - A drug that could do for women what Viagra has done for men is being tested at the University of Virginia. The drug is a testosterone-laden ointment called LibiGel and it's intended to boost the libido of women who have lost interest in sex. It will be prescribed at UVa in coming months to women who are suffering from hypoactive sexual desire disorder.
The condition is believed to affect one-third of American women.
"It is the most common sexual problem that women have," said Dr. Anita Clayton, a psychiatrist with the UVa Health System and author of the 2007 book "Satisfaction: Women, Sex and the Quest for Intimacy."
UVa joins 99 other medical institutions participating in testing the drug's efficacy and safety.
, Illinois-based BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc. hopes to offer the drug to any woman complaining of a low sex drive.
For now, though, Clayton will enroll 25 women between the ages of 30 and 65 to take part in the national study.
Those women must have had both ovaries surgically removed, be currently taking an estrogen supplement and be distressed about their lack of libido.
Ovariectomies, or surgical menopause, can lead to a drop in sexual interest because ovaries produce roughly half of the testosterone in a woman's body.
Testosterone plays a key role in sexual functioning for men and women.
LibiGel comes in a pump bottle. The woman rubs the small dot of gel into the skin of her upper arm. Over the next 24 hours, the gel's testosterone seeps into her bloodstream, boosting her energy and libido.
Clayton, who is running the clinical trial at UVa, said the drug is better than previous testosterone treatments because it keeps levels of the chemical constant, much like naturally occurring testosterone.
"I expect this will work," she said.
In its second-phase clinical trials at 17 institutions, LibiGel led to a 283 percent increase of satisfying sexual encounters for the women taking the drug.
"A lot of women have this problem, but unfortunately they've been largely ignored by pharmaceutical companies," said BioSante's chief executive, Stephen M. Simes. "It's not fair that women have no drugs, while men have many."
Doctors target germs ability to cluster
Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:54:52 GMTBy LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON - Think of germs as gangsters. One thug lurking on a corner you might outrun, but a dozen swaggering down the street? Yikes. Bacteria make their own gangs, clustering quietly in the body until there's a large enough group to begin an attack. This is the next frontier in fighting drug-resistant superbugs. The idea: Don't just try to kill bacteria. The bugs will always find a way to thwart the next antibiotic.
The new goal is to disable bacteria's ability to sicken, so scientists can throw superbugs a one-two punch. And attempts to bust up germ gangs are leading the race to create these novel anti-infectives — using everything from compounds in Pinot Noir to some popular bone-building drugs.
"It's a stealth approach," says chemist Kim Janda of the Scripps Research Institute, who is developing a vaccine against notorious drug-resistant staph that prevents the bacteria from ganging up.
— who did find one.
germ from spreading antibiotic-resistance genes to another. Interrupting this recruitment of new gangsters confused the drug-resistant bugs enough that they committed suicide, leaving only easy-to-treat germs behind.
All of this research is in very early stages. But Dr. Julie Gerberding, chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, calls disarming bacteria a long-needed new approach.
It is "like lasers going in to destroy certain parts of the bacteria as opposed to a bomb that blows the whole thing up," Gerberding told Congress recently. These "next-generation strategies are not proven yet, but really something that needs a lot more attention and focus."
Indeed, despite a rise in bacteria that withstand today's best treatments, there are few novel antibiotics under development — and germs have evolved such complex ways to survive antibiotics' frontal assault that new ones eventually will wear out, too.
Hence the quest to disarm germs. Scientists are trying to disable "virulence factors," molecules that help germs worm their way into the body, or block germ-emitted toxins.
But much of the new research centers on simply keeping germs from clustering.
"We're finding new ways to prevent disease without killing the microbial agent ... rather, neutralizing it somehow," says University of Rochester dentist Hyun Koo, who is using compounds left over from vineyards' wine-making to bust up gooey bacteria masses known as biofilms.
Adds Scripps' Janda: "If you break them up, they don't have that strength in number. They're not going to do like a gang and beat people up."
Among the methods under study:
_Germs talk to each other, by sending out radar-like chemical signals that sense when enough of their mates are lurking for them to switch on and sicken. Scientists call this "quorum sensing." Jam their frequencies, and the germs won't know when they've got a quorum — they'll just hang around harmlessly until the immune system picks them off.
Janda's team designed a molecule that triggers the immune system to form bloodhound-like antibodies that gobble up the communication chemicals sent by deadly staph aureus bacteria. Janda injected some mice with those antibodies and others with a dummy drug. Then he gave all the mice a lethal dose of staph. The antibody-protected mice never got sick, while their unprotected neighbors died within a day.
snuggles up to a still treatable germ and shoots the newcomer with DNA that will turn it drug-resistant, too.
At UNC, Redinbo's team found the enzyme that sparks that whole process could be blocked by bone-building osteoporosis drugs already on the market, including one called etidronate. When they added just a bone drug, not antibiotics, to the drinking water of E. coli-infected mice, the rodents' bacteria levels plummeted. Why? The resistant germs not only couldn't spread their bad genes, they wound up committing suicide.
"This was a huge surprise," says Redinbo, who now is testing if the approach will work on other bacteria — and is checking his hospital's records to see if women taking osteoporosis drugs just might be less vulnerable to hospital-spread infections.
_Then there are biofilms, where germs literally glue themselves together under a crusty shell difficult for antibiotics to penetrate. Rochester's Koo aims to break up cavity-causing dental plaque, the best known biofilm, with compounds called polyphenols culled from fermented grape skins.
A type of strep bacteria forms dental plaque, by secreting enzymes called GTFs that in turn produces the biofilm's glue. When Koo added polyphenols to lab dishes teeming with strep, GTF production plummeted 85 percent. The germs couldn't get sticky enough. For the record, extracts from Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir worked best.
The approach should work against strep strains that cause pneumonia, too, Koo says. His ultimate goal is a cavity-preventing rinse, but much more research is required — and Koo warns not to swish with wine in the meantime. It's too acidic.
"You'll wind up with stained teeth and also erosion from the acidity," he cautions.
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EDITOR's NOTE — Lauran Neergaard covers health and medical issues for The Associated Press in Washington.
Highfat highcarb meals more harmful to obese
Fri, 28 Dec 2007 19:31:07 GMTBy Anne Harding
NEW YORK - Eating a high-fat, high-carb fast food meal produces damaging cellular changes that are greater and longer-lasting in obese people than in normal-weight people, a new study shows.
Dr. Paresh Dandona and colleagues from Kaleida Health in Buffalo, New York looked at inflammation and oxidative stress, which occurs when levels of normal byproducts of metabolism known as free radicals exceed the body's ability to neutralize them.
In previous research they found that obese individuals have higher levels of oxidative stress and inflammation than normal-weight individuals. They also demonstrated that eating a high-fat, high-carb meal increased oxidative stress and inflammation in normal-weight people.
To test whether these increases might be greater in obese people, Dandona and his team had 10 normal-weight and 8 obese people eat a 1,800-calorie meal consisting of a large hamburger, a large serving of fries, a large cola, and a slice of apple pie.
Both groups showed increases in oxidative stress two hours after eating the meal. By three hours, oxidative stress had returned to baseline levels in the normal-weight individuals, but it continued to climb in the obese individuals. The same pattern was seen for inflammation.
"If obese people who already have oxidative and inflammatory stress take the same meal, they get far greater and more prolonged levels of oxidative and inflammatory stress," Dandona told Reuters Health. "Since oxidative and inflammatory stress predispose you to atherosclerosis , heart attack and stroke, this risk is far greater in obese people."
In another study, Dandona and his colleagues demonstrated that a high-fruit, high-fiber meal with the same calorie content as the fast food meal tested in the current study produced no increase in oxidative or inflammatory stress.
The findings provide yet more evidence that people should avoid high-fat, high carb fast food meals and consume as much fruit and vegetables as possible, Dandona said.
SOURCE: The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, November
Chinesemade supplements contain Viagra drug US regulator warns
Mon, 31 Dec 2007 23:26:28 GMTWASHINGTON - The US drug safety watchdog warned Monday on its website that several Chinese-made 'dietary supplements' contain the active ingredient found in Viagra, and could be harmful to consumers.
"The US Food and Drug Administration is advising consumers not to buy or use Super Shangai, Strong Testis, Shangai Ultra, Shangai Ultra X, Lady Shangai, and Shangai Regular, also marketed as Shangai Chaojimengnan, products," the FDA said in a statement.
"These products, which originate in China, are being marketed for the treatment of erectile dysfunction and for sexual enhancement," the statement said.
None of the product labels mention that they contain sildenafil, the active drug in Viagra, or a similar compound, it said.
"The undeclared ingredients in these products may interact with nitrates found in some prescription drugs and can lower blood pressure to dangerous levels," the statement warned.
Particularly at risk are sufferers of diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or heart disease.
"Erectile dysfunction is a common problem in men with these medical conditions," the FDA statement said.
"Because they may have been advised against taking erectile dysfunction drugs, they may seek out products like these because they are marketed as 'all natural' or as not containing the active ingredients in approved drugs."
The products, which were distributed in the United States by a company based in Puerto Rico, have not been approved by the FDA and are illegal.
Researchers work on cocaine vaccine
Wed, 02 Jan 2008 03:38:47 GMTHOUSTON - Two Baylor College of Medicine researchers in Houston are working on a cocaine vaccine they hope will become the first-ever medication to treat people hooked on the drug. "For people who have a desire to stop using, the vaccine should be very useful," said Dr. Tom Kosten, a psychiatry professor who is being assisted in the research by his wife, Therese, a psychologist and neuroscientist. "At some point, most users will give in to temptation and relapse, but those for whom the vaccine is effective won't get high and will lose interest."
The vaccine, currently in clinical trials, stimulates the immune system to attack the real thing when it's taken.
The immune system — unable to recognize cocaine and other drug molecules because they are so small — can't make antibodies to attack them.
To help the immune system distinguish the drug, Kosten attached inactivated cocaine to the outside of inactivated cholera proteins.
In response, the immune system not only makes antibodies to the combination, which is harmless, but also recognizes the potent naked drug when it's ingested. The antibodies bind to the cocaine and prevent it from reaching the brain, where it normally would generate the highs that are so addictive.
"It's a very clever idea," says David Eagleman, a Baylor neuroscientist. "Scientists have spent the last few decades figuring out reward pathways in the brain and how drugs like cocaine hijack the system. It turns out those pathways are difficult to rewire once they've seen the drug. But the vaccine just circumvents all that."
in December to green-light a multi-institutional trial to begin in the spring and is awaiting a response.
Approval would mark a breakthrough in the treatment of cocaine addiction, which now mostly involves psychiatric counseling and 12-step programs. It presumably would be the final clinical hurdle before the vaccine — more than a decade in the making — might be approved for treatment. But one expert warns against expecting too much.
. "Still, if they prove successful, they will give those working in drug addiction an important option."
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Children Who Sleep Less Weigh More
Wed, 02 Jan 2008 04:47:02 GMTTUESDAY, Jan. 1 -- Children who get less than nine hours of sleep a night are more likely to be overweight or obese, new research shows.
also have more than a 3 percent increase in body fat on average compared to youngsters who sleep for more than nine hours nightly.
The researchers also reported that children's sleep patterns vary by season and day. Children sleep fewer hours in the summer and on weekends, according to the study.
studied the sleep patterns of 591 seven-year-old children using actigraphy -- a movement-based, noninvasive method used to study sleep-wake patterns and circadian rhythms. The children were assessed at birth, at one year of age, at three-and-a-half years and at seven years.
The team found that the children slept 10.1 hours on average. They slept fewer hours on weekend days than on weekdays, in the summer and when bedtime was set as after 9 p.m. They also slept fewer hours if they had no younger siblings.
In addition to increased weight and body fat, shorter sleep periods correlated with more emotional volatility, reported the research team.
"Sleep is important for health and well-being throughout life," said lead author Ed Mitchell in a prepared statement. "Few studies have objectively measured sleep duration. In this large study of sleep in seven-year-olds, there was considerable variation in duration of sleep. Sleep duration was 40 minutes longer in winter than summer and was 31 minutes longer on weekdays than on the weekend. Short sleep duration was associated with a threefold increased risk of the child being overweight or obese. This effect was independent of physical activity or television watching. Attention to sleep in childhood may be an important strategy to reduce the obesity epidemic."
recommends that children in preschool sleep between 11 and 13 hours a night and school-aged children between 10 and 11 hours of sleep a night.
The academy suggested that parents give their children an opportunity to get the recommended amount of sleep by keeping a consistent bedtime routine in a relaxed setting. Children may also sleep better if they have a parent to relate to before bed, instead of TV or video games. Food, drinks and medicines that contain caffeine are all enemies of sleep, according to the academy.
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Fish Oil May Help Prevent Alzheimer s
Sat, 29 Dec 2007 04:46:43 GMTFRIDAY, Dec. 28 -- The omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil might play an important role in preventing Alzheimer's disease, according to a research team at the University of California, Los Angeles .
, the scientists demonstrated that the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid increases the production of LR11, a protein that is found at reduced levels in Alzheimer's patients. LR11 is known to destroy the protein that forms the plaques associated with the disease, the researchers explained.
The plaques are actually a buildup of a protein called beta amyloid, which is thought to be toxic to brain cells. Higher levels of LR11 prevent the manufacturing of the toxic proteins, which is why researchers believe the low levels found in the brains of Alzheimer's patients may be a contributing factor to the disease.
Alzheimer's is a debilitating neurodegenerative disease that causes memory loss, dementia, personality change and ultimately death. The Alzheimer's Association estimates that 5.1 million Americans are currently afflicted with the disease. The association predicts that may increase to between 11 million and 16 million people by 2050.
The researchers tested the effects of DHA by adding it directly to human and animal neurons grown in the laboratory.
"We found that even low doses of DHA increased the levels of LR11 in rat neurons, while dietary DHA increased LR11 in brains of rats or older mice that had been genetically altered to develop Alzheimer's disease," lead researcher Greg Cole, associate director of UCLA's Alzheimer Disease Research Center, said in a prepared statement.
Fatty acids such as DHA are considered essential fatty acids, because the body cannot make them from other sources and must obtain them through diet. Years of research have shown that DHA is the most abundant essential fatty acid in the brain, Cole said, and that it is critical to fetal and infant brain development. Studies have also linked low levels of DHA in the brain to cognitive impairment and have shown that lower levels may increase oxidative stress in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
The research team acknowledged that their work does not identify a dosage of DHA that people could take to prevent Alzheimer's, but they recommend eating more fatty fish or taking a supplement. They did not recommend taking DHA to try to slow the progression of Alzheimer's.
To learn more about Alzheimer's disease, visit the National Institute on Aging.
Colon cancer risk traced to common ancestor
Wed, 02 Jan 2008 05:15:25 GMTBy Michael Kahn
LONDON - A married couple who sailed to America from England around 1630 are the reason why thousands of people in the United States are at higher risk of a hereditary form of colon cancer, researchers said on Wednesday.
Using a genetic fingerprint, a U.S. team traced back a so-called founder genetic mutation to the couple found among two large families currently living in Utah and New York.
in Utah did not name the families but said thousands of people across the country may have the mutation that spread widely as the couple's descendants branched apart over many generations.
"The fact that this mutation can be traced so far back in time suggests it could be carried by many more families in the United States than is currently known," said Deb Neklason, who led the study. "In fact, this founder mutation might be related to many colon cancer cases in the United States."
Colorectal cancer is the third-leading cause of cancer death in the United States. It will affect 153,000 Americans in 2008, according to the American Cancer Society, and will kill 52,000.
Family history, smoking and diet are all linked with colorectal cancer but experts are still struggling to identify the causes that underlie most cases.
An estimated less than 1 percent of these cases are due to this particular genetic mutation, according to the study published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
The U.S. team first focused on the Utah branch of the family -- numbering about 5,000 people today -- 14 years ago because its members had an unusually high risk of colon cancer.
Because the family was Mormon, the researchers were able to mine a wealth of genealogical information taken from detailed church records over the years that is now part of a large genetics database in Utah, Neklason said.
While most of the records in the study related to the Utah part of the family, the researchers eventually identified the New York branch as well.
"We just know about these two branches of the family," Neklason said. "The significance of it going so far back is there are probably many branches of the family out there that aren't aware of the mutation."
In the study, the team identified the mutation that causes a condition called attenuated familial adenomatous polyposis , which makes people more prone to developing polyps that can cause colon cancer.
Without proper treatment, people with this mutation have a greater than 2 in 3 risk of developing colon cancer by age 80, compared to about 1 in 24 for the general population. Early treatment, however, can just about eliminate this risk.
"This study highlights that you need to pay attention to your family history," Neklason said. "With intervention to remove the polyps, the risk goes to near nothing."
