Is salvia the next marijuana
Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:26:22 GMT
By JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press Writer
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - On Web sites touting the mind-blowing powers of Salvia divinorum, come-ons to buy the hallucinogenic herb are accompanied by warnings: "Time is running out!" and "stock up while you still can."
That's because salvia is being targeted by lawmakers concerned that the inexpensive and easy-to-obtain plant could become the next marijuana. Eight states have already placed restrictions on salvia, and 16 others, including
Florida, are considering a ban or have previously.
"As soon as we make one drug illegal, kids start looking around for other drugs they can buy legally. This is just the next one," said Florida state Rep. Mary
Brandenburg, who has introduced a bill to make possession of salvia a felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Some say legislators are overreacting to a minor problem, but no one disputes that the plant impairs judgment and the ability to drive.
Native to
Mexico and still grown there, Salvia divinorum is generally smoked but can also be chewed or made into a tea and drunk.
Called nicknames like Sally-D, Magic Mint and Diviner's Sage, salvia is a hallucinogen that gives users an out-of-body sense of traveling through time and space or merging with inanimate objects. Unlike hallucinogens like LSD or PCP, however, salvia's effects last for a shorter time, generally up to an hour.
Salvia divinorum is not one of the several varieties of common ornamental garden plants known as Salvia.
No known deaths have been attributed to salvia's use, but it was listed as a factor in one
Delaware teen's suicide two years ago.
"Parents, I would say, are pretty clueless," said Jonathan Appel, an assistant professor of psychology and criminal justice at Tiffin University in
Ohio who has studied the emergence of the substance. "It's much more powerful than marijuana."
Salvia's short-lasting effects and the fact that it is currently legal may make it seem more appealing to teens, lawmakers say. In the Delaware suicide, the boy's mother told reporters that salvia made his mood darker but he justified its use by citing its legality. According to reports, the autopsy found no traces of the drug in his system, but the medical examiner listed it as a contributing cause.
Mike Strain,
Louisiana's Agriculture and Forestry Commissioner and former legislator, helped his state in 2005 become the first to make salvia illegal, along with a number of other plants. He said the response has been largely positive.
"I got some hostile e-mails from people who sold these products," Strain said. "You don't make everybody happy when you outlaw drugs. You save one child and it's worth it."
An ounce of salvia leaves sells for around $30 on the Internet. A liquid extract from the plant, salvinorin A, is also sold in various strengths labeled "5x" through "60x." A gram of the 5x strength, about the weight of a plastic pen cap, is about $12 while 60x strength is around $65. And in some cases the extract comes in flavors including apple, strawberry and spearmint.
Web sites such as Salviadragon.com tout the product with images like a waterfall and rainbow and include testimonials like "It might sound far fetched, but I experience immortality."
Among those who believe the commotion over the drug is overblown is Rick Doblin of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a nonprofit group that does research on psychedelic drugs and whose goal is to develop psychedelics and marijuana into prescription medication.
"I think the move to criminalize is a misguided response to a very minimal problem," Doblin said.
Doblin said salvia isn't "a party drug," "tastes terrible" and is "not going to be extremely popular." He disputes the fact teens are its main users and says older users are more likely.
"It's a minor drug in the world of psychedelics," he said.
It's hard to say how widespread the use of salvia is. Because it is legal in most states, law enforcement officials don't compile statistics.
A study of released last month by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services found just under 2 percent of people age 18 to 25 surveyed in 2006 reported using salvia in the past year. A 2007 survey of more than 1,500
San Diego State University students found that 4 percent of participants reported using salvia in the past year.
Brandenburg's bill would make salvia and its extract controlled substances in the same class as marijuana and LSD.
Florida state Sen. Evelyn Lynn, whose committee unanimously passed the salvia bill on Tuesday, said the drug should be criminalized.
"I'd rather be at the front edge of preventing the dangers of the drug than waiting until we are the 40th or more," she said.
Health views differ along ethnic lines
Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:30:00 GMT
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Minorities are more likely than white patients to rate their health care as fair or poor, a view that is particularly true among Chinese-Americans, blacks born in Africa and Vietnamese-Americans.
Researchers have long stressed that improving patients' perception of their care is important to improving outcomes. That's because negative experiences can lead to less time spent with a physician and poor communications between doctor and patient.
To get a more detailed view of the differing perceptions that patients have, researchers at
Harvard University and the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation surveyed 4,334 adults last year. The researchers asked patients such questions as how quickly they were able to get an appointment the last time they were sick and whether their doctor explained things in a way the patient could understand. The researchers found that whites routinely rated their experience higher than did the minority patients, who still had largely favorable views of their care.
For example, 91 percent of whites rated their care as excellent or good. That percentage fell for most ethnic groups, with the lowest ratings recorded among Chinese-Americans, 74 percent; African-Americans born in Africa, 73 percent; and Vietnamese-Americans, 72 percent.
When it came to getting an appointment, about 63 percent of whites were able to get an appointment on the same day or the next day after they became sick or injured. That percentage dropped to 42 percent for Cuban-Americans and 39 percent for African-Americans born in the Caribbean.
About three-quarters of whites reported that their doctor listened carefully to them. That percentage fell to 62 percent for Korean-Americans and 58 percent for those from Central America or South America.
Previous research on disparities tended to take a broad look at the major ethnic groups even though group members often came from different countries. The Harvard study used much more detailed categories. For instance, there were three categories for African-Americans based on whether they were born in the Caribbean, Africa or the United States.
The researchers said the additional detail was important because the best ways to reduce disparities will reflect the unique experiences and needs of minority groups.
Dr. Anne Beal, assistant vice president at the Commonwealth Fund, said the latest study results are consistent with previous research of how minority patients view the quality of their health care. She said perception is reality when it comes to patients being treated with respect.
"Because the findings are so consistent, it's not something where we can say it's just about the patients," Beal said. "They are reporting their experiences and the results should be taken seriously."
Beal said the Harvard study also showed that there are steps that health care providers can take to improve patients' perceptions, such as resolving language barriers. She said health care providers should incorporate translation services into their practice. Even physicians who work in small practices or on their own can make use of phone banks designed to improve
doctor-patient communications.
Beal said doctors now pay for that service out of their own pocket, but that service should be reimbursable through
government health programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
The report will be published in the journal Health Affairs.
____
On the Net:
Health Affairs: http://www.healthaffairs.org
Kids fear 2 parents with Alzheimers
Tue, 11 Mar 2008 23:08:44 GMT
By CARLA K. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
CHICAGO - One parent with
Alzheimer's disease is tough enough, but imagine the memory-robbing illness striking both parents — and knowing chances are high you'll get it, too. A study of more than 100 families for the first time gauges the size of that risk.
"I'm scared," said Jackie Lustig, 52, of
Sudbury, Mass., whose father died of Alzheimer's and whose mother is living it. "I'm hoping to heck that the pharmaceutical companies come up with something better than there is now. It's not a nice way to go."
The study, appearing in March's Archives of Neurology, found more than 22 percent of the adult children of 111 couples with Alzheimer's had the disease themselves. Risk grew with age. Among offspring older than 60, more than 30 percent were affected. In those older than 70, nearly 42 percent had the disease.
Prior studies have found a 6 to 13 percent prevalence of the disease in the U.S. population older than 65.
At age 62, Gayle Dorman worries every time she misplaces her car keys. "Is this the day I'm going to start losing it?" she wonders.
The suburban
Tacoma, Wash., woman spent eight years caring for her parents, who died of Alzheimer's, and in a cruel coincidence, her husband's mother, who also died of the illness.
She said she was surprised to learn "a lot of other people have a double whammy like I do." No one knows how many people have two afflicted parents, but experts say that as baby boomers age, there are likely to be more.
For now, there's no cure for the more than 26 million people worldwide estimated to have Alzheimer's, which gradually destroys memory and other mental abilities.
Dorman took part in the
University of Washington study to find out more about her risk and to help researchers identify culprit genes that could lead to new treatments. Families were recruited through the university's
Alzheimer's research center.
In the study, diagnoses were confirmed through medical records, autopsies and examination by researchers. The parents with Alzheimer's had 297 children who lived to adulthood and 67 of those children had Alzheimer's.
Senior author Dr. Thomas Bird of the
University of Washington said he was uncomfortable saying the normal risk tripled or quadrupled in people with two affected parents because the study was small and had no comparison group.
"What I'm comfortable saying is that risk is increased and we're working on trying to find out what the magnitude is," Bird said.
The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Bird disclosed in the paper that he has a licensing agreement with Athena Diagnostics Inc. The company does lab testing for a gene related to late-onset Alzheimer's. But Bird's agreement involves genetic discoveries unrelated to Alzheimer's, he said, and the company had nothing to do with the research.
Many people with two affected parents ask their doctors to quantify their risk, experts said.
"I tell them it's our strong hope that by the time they reach the age of risk, we'll have better interventions," said Dr. Steven T. DeKosky of the
University of Pittsburgh. He recommends controlling cholesterol and blood pressure, and staying mentally active.
But Dr. David Bennett of
Chicago's
Rush University Medical Center said evidence is mixed on whether nutrition, exercise and stimulating mental activity can prevent or delay disease in people with culprit genes.
"Lifestyle changes may not be beneficial, but in other cases it may be," Bennett said. "We just need to do the research and figure that out."
Worried about her own risk, Lustig has bought long-term care insurance. She reads up on research and hopes her job will keep her brain active.
"I eat a balanced diet. I exercise," she said.
Would she want to know her exact risk?
"I don't want to know," Lustig said. "I think I've done what I can do. It's sort of in God's hands."
___
On the Net:
Archives of Neurology: http://archneur.ama-assn.org
Hospitals file lawsuit over Medicaid
Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:14:07 GMT
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Groups representing most of the nation's hospitals announced Tuesday they were suing
federal health officials to block the enactment of regulations that some hospitals claim threaten their survival.
The regulations would restrict
federal Medicaid payments so they don't exceed the cost of providing care. But hospital officials said the rules would make it harder to offset the expense of treating the uninsured.
Hospitals with a large percentage of patients with private insurance charge those patients more to offset health care for the indigent. Hospitals with a large percentage of poor patients don't have that ability. They're reliant on Medicaid to make ends meet, said Wright Lassiter III, chief executive officer of the
Alameda County Medical Center in
Oakland, Calif.
Lassiter said the regulations would trim $85 million to $100 million from his hospital's annual operating budget, or about 20 percent of revenue. Such a cut in Medicaid payments would require the hospital to review whether it could maintain trauma care, clinics to treat AIDS patients, and outpatient programs to treat patients with substance abuse or psychiatric problems, he said.
"The first question that I have to consider and discuss with our board and community is: Can we find a way for the system to still be viable?" Lassiter said during a press conference announcing the lawsuit.
The cost limits sought by the Bush administration affect health care providers supported financially by local governments. The administration has said the limits make it harder for states to use financing schemes designed to increase federal Medicaid payments without increasing the state's share similarly.
"The fact is, the purpose of the cost rule is to preserve the integrity of the Medicaid partnership, in which the federal government and the states share the financial obligations for serving people who rely on this important program," said Jeff Nelligan, spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Nelligan cited reports from the
Government Accountability Office recommending that Congress "prohibit Medicaid payments that exceed costs to any government-owned facility." The recommendation dates back to 1994.
The lawsuit, which will be filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, would bar federal health agencies from enacting the Medicaid regulations. The hospitals claim the
Department of Health and Human Services would be in violation of federal law if it enacted payment limits that Congress previously rejected.
Last year, Congress imposed a moratorium that prohibited the regulations from going into effect, but that moratorium expires May 25.
HHS officials estimated that the regulations would save the federal government about $3.8 billion over five years, which is just a fraction of the $1.2 trillion that it will spend on Medicaid during that time.
Participants in the lawsuit include the
American Medical Association, the National Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, and the Association of American Medical Colleges.
____
On the Net:
American Hospital Association:
http://www.aha.org/aha/issues/Medicaid/080311-alameda-v-leavitt.html
Are fat moms to blame for fat kids Answer unclear
Tue, 11 Mar 2008 06:28:21 GMT
WASHINGTON - British researchers who tried to
show why overweight mothers tend to have overweight children
said on Monday they had filled in one small piece of the
puzzle.
Their reassuring finding: women who are too fat when
pregnant are probably not somehow driving the obesity epidemic
by programming their children to be fat.
But there is a strong link between overweight mothers and
overweight children that still needs to be explained, Debbie
Lawlor of Britain's University of Bristol and colleagues said.
Lawlor's team looked at the developmental overnutrition
hypothesis -- the idea that if a woman is overweight during
pregnancy, the higher levels of sugar and fatty acids in her
blood would affect the developing fetus, dooming or at least
predisposing the child to poor appetite control and a slower
metabolism.
"The offspring of these mothers would be expected to be
programmed to become more obese themselves," Lawlor's team
wrote in their report, published in the Public Library of
Science journal PLoS Medicine.
They studied 4,091 mothers, their children born in
1991-1992 and the fathers of these children. They also studied
the DNA of everyone, height, weight and body mass index, which
is a measurement of obesity, as well as smoking, education and
other factors.
They did find that if a child became overweight by age 9 or
11, the mother was more likely to have been overweight or obese
than was the father.
Then they looked at one gene that may explain this
association -- the "fat mass and obesity associated," or FTO
gene. FTO has been shown to predispose people to type 2
diabetes if they are overweight.
They found that people with certain variants of FTO are
more likely to become overweight. Inheritance from the mother
appeared to have a stronger effect, although why was not clear.
"At this stage, the exact mechanisms by which FTO results
in increased BMI are not known. Consequently, we cannot
discount it having an effect via dietary and physical activity
behaviors," Lawlor's team wrote in the report, available online
at
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&
doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050033.
What they did conclude was that obese mothers are unlikely
to be driving a growing obesity epidemic by having babies who
are metabolically programmed to get fat as they get older.
But mothers are somehow involved in other ways, they added.
In a commentary, Frank Hu of the Harvard School of Public
Health said the study was unable to disprove the overnutrition
hypothesis.
Hu said the obesity epidemic is clearly alarming and other
researchers should be doing studies like Lawlor's to make sure
that a "vicious cycle" of obese mothers, children and thus
grandchildren is not somehow causing it.
One in 4 Teen Girls Has a Sexually Transmitted Disease
Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:46:12 GMT
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, March 11 -- More than 3 million
teenaged girls have at least one sexually transmitted disease , a new
government study suggests.
The most severely affected are African-American teens. In fact, 48
percent of African-American teenaged girls have an STD, compared with 20
percent of white teenaged girls.
"What we found is alarming," Dr. Sara Forhan, from the
U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, said during a teleconference Tuesday. "One
in four female adolescents in the U.S. has at least one of the four most
common STDs that affects women."
"These numbers translate into 3.2 million young women nationwide who
are infected with an STD," Forhan said. "This means that far too many
young women are at risk of the serious health effects of untreated STDs,
including infertility and cervical cancer."
These common STDs include human papillomavirus , chlamydia, herpes
simplex virus and trichomoniasis, Forhan said.
Forhan announced the results as part of the
CDC's 2008 National STD
Prevention Conference, in
Chicago.
"These findings are really giving us a lot of pause about how we
provide care to adolescent girls who are sexually active," said Dr.
Elizabeth Alderman, an adolescent medicine specialist at Children's
Hospital at Montefiore in
New York City and chairperson of the Executive
Committee of the Section of Adolescent Health of the American Academy of
Pediatrics. "The numbers are really astonishing."
Forhan noted that most of the burden of STDs falls on young
African-American women. "Among African-American teenagers, about one in
two were affected compared to one in five white teens," she said.
In terms of the racial disparity, "it's what we've always seen, which
is very unfortunate," Alderman said.
In the study, Forhan's team collected data on 838 girls aged 14 to 19
who took part in the 2003-2004 National Health and Nutrition Examination
Survey. The study did not include syphilis, gonorrhea or
HIV, as earlier
studies found very low prevalence of these diseases in this age group.
HPV and chlamydia are the most common STDs found among teenage girls,
Forhan said. "Almost one in five overall had a strain of HPV associated
with cervical cancer or genital warts," she said.
"We need to be screening adolescent girls who are sexually active and
providing them with HPV vaccine," Alderman said. "The recommendations are
to screen sexually active girls, but many girls don't disclose to their
health-care provider that they are sexually active, even when asked," she
said.
As for chlamydia, 4 percent of teenaged girls had this STD, Forhan
said. "The majority of chlamydia infections do not have symptoms. If left
untreated, it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, which leaves these
young women at risk for atopic pregnancy, chronic pelvic pain or
infertility," she said.
In addition, the study found that 2.9 percent of young women had
trichomoniasis, and 2 percent were infected with genital herpes, Forhan
said.
According to Forhan, about 50 percent of the teens reported having sex,
and the prevalence of STDs in this group was 40 percent. "Even for young
women with only one reported lifetime sexual partner, one in five had an
STD," she noted.
"If you choose to be sexually active, you need to protect yourself and
be screened for these infections," Alderman said. "And all girls between
the ages of 11 and 26 should get vaccinated for HPV."
Among women with an STD, 15 percent had more than one infection, Forhan
added.
"These data provide a clearest picture to date of the overall burden of
STDs in adolescent women in the United States," Forhan said. "The study
also underscores the importance of addressing racial disparities in STD
rates among young women."
Race itself is not a risk factor for STDs, Forhan said. However,
factors such as limited access to health care, poverty, community
prevalence of STDs, and misperceptions about individual risk are some of
the reasons that STD rates are particularly high among African-Americans,
she said.
More information
For more on STDs, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
U.S. drug sales grew at slowest rate since 1961 IMS
Wed, 12 Mar 2008 04:55:38 GMT
NEW YORK -
Sales of prescription drugs in the
United States grew by just 3.8 percent in 2007, marking the
lowest growth rate since 1961, according to data compiled by
IMS Health.
Total U.S.
prescription drug sales reached $286.5 billion
last year with slowing growth blamed on factors including
patent expirations of lucrative medicines that opened the door
to cheaper generic versions.
Other reasons cited by IMS in its annual U.S.
Pharmaceutical Market Performance Review were fewer new product
approvals, safety concerns, and the leveling of year-over-year
growth from the Medicare Part D program.
The 3.8 percent growth rate compares to 8 percent growth
seen in 2006.
"The moderating growth trend that began in 2001 resumed
last year following the one-time impact on market growth in
2006 from the implementation of Medicare Part D," Murray
Aitken, IMS's senior vice president for healthcare insight,
said in a statement.
Cholesterol drugs, such as
Pfizer Inc's Lipitor, once again
led all therapy groups with prescription sales of $18.4 billion
in 2007 despite a 15.4 percent decline in sales, primarily due
to the availability of cheaper generics.
Acid reflux medicines known as
proton pump inhibitors,
including AstraZeneca's Nexium, ranked second with prescription
sales of $14.1 billion and 2.8 percent growth.
Antipsychotics, such as
Eli Lilly and Co's Zyprexa,
overtook antidepressants as the third largest therapeutic class
with $13.1 billion in sales and a 12.1 percent growth rate,
according to IMS, which provides industry data on drug
prescriptions and sales.
Brand name drugs with some $17 billion in sales lost patent
protection in 2007, helping drive prescription volume growth of
10 percent for generic medicines.
Generic drugs claimed 67.3 percent of U.S. prescriptions
dispensed in 2007, IMS found.
IMS is forecasting compound annual U.S. pharmaceutical
sales growth of 3 percent to 6 percent through 2012, noting
that new biotech medicines and vaccines as well as the expected
launch of a handful of drugs with at least $1 billion a year
potential will partially offset major patent expirations.
Some $13 billion in branded products are likely to start
facing generic competition this year, IMS said.
"The U.S. pharmaceutical market has entered a new era --
one characterized by more modest growth due to the continuing
impact of new generics products, fewer and more narrowly
indicated novel medications and closer scrutiny of safety
issues," Aitken said.
U.S. says UCB cough medicine overdose can kill
Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:50:40 GMT
WASHINGTON/BRUSSELS -
U.S. health officials
warned parents and doctors about Tussionex, the prescription
cough medicine, saying it may have fatal side effects if used
inappropriately.
The
U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an alert on
Tuesday saying it had received reports that indicate doctors
may be over prescribing the cough medicine made by UCB.
Some people also are taking the medicine, Tussionex
Pennkinetic Extended-Release Suspension. more frequently than
every 12 hours, the recommended time interval, or giving it to
children under age 6, the
FDA said. Tussionex is not approved
for children younger than 6 years old.
The FDA said it had received numerous reports of health
problems and deaths among children and adults who took
Tussionex, which contains the narcotic pain reliever
hydrocodone. Too much hydrocodone can cause life-threatening
breathing problems.
Five deaths have been reported among children under 6 who
took Tussionex since its approval in 1987, company spokesman
Eric Miller said on Friday. He said then that UCB has proposed
a stronger warning for the medicine following the reports of
the deaths.
Miller said on Tuesday the number of deaths reported to the
company for that age group remained at five.
The FDA urged doctors and patients to follow prescribing
instructions and to only use a medical syringe or other device
designed to measure liquid medications. Household spoons vary
in size and should not be used, the FDA said.
"There is a real and serious risk for overdosing if this
medication is not used according to the labeling," Dr. Curtis
Rosebraugh, acting director of the FDA office that regulates
prescription cough medicines, said in a statement.
UCB, based in
Belgium, will update the Tussionex label to
address the concerns, the FDA's statement said.
"The FDA's alert is fully in line with our efforts to make
sure this product is properly used," a spokeswoman for UCB told
Reuters, adding the company had already taken steps to clarify
the label of the product in 2007.
The spokeswoman said she could not see any reason why UCB
would withdraw the product as the FDA alert only addressed an
improper use of the medicine.
Tussionex sales in the U.S. totaled 114 million euros ($176
million) in 2007, the spokeswoman added.
The FDA alert was posted at
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/hydrocodone/default.htm.
(Reporting by Lisa Richwine and Julien Ponthus, editing by
Tim Dobbyn, Leslie Gevirtz)
Two Parents With Alzheimer39s Raises Child39s Risk
Tue, 11 Mar 2008 03:46:48 GMT
By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, March 10 -- If both parents have
Alzheimer's disease, their children face an increased risk of developing
the condition, a new study suggests.
Overall, 42 percent of offspring whose parents both had Alzheimer's
went on to develop the disease themselves by age 70, the researchers
found.
The risk is also greater of developing the disease early if additional
relatives had Alzheimer's disease, researchers say.
Most experts agree that genetics plays a role in Alzheimer's disease,
but the degree to which genetics is responsible for the disease is still
unclear.
"There probably is an increased risk of Alzheimer's disease in the
children of spouses that both have the disease," said lead researcher Dr.
Thomas D. Bird, a professor of neurology at the
University of Washington
School of Medicine in
Seattle. "The exact magnitude of the risk, we don't
know yet."
Bird's group is trying to determine the genetic factors at play in
Alzheimer's disease. So far, only one genetic factor has been documented,
Bird said. "The hope is, there will be others and they will be found," he
said. "Presumably, these children would have a higher concentration of
those factors. So, that's what ought to be looked for."
The report appears in the March issue of the
Archives of
Neurology.
In the study, Bird's team collected data on the grown children in 111
families where both parents had Alzheimer's disease.
"There were 98 children who had gotten to age 70, and of that group 41
had developed Alzheimer's disease. That's about 42 percent," Bird said.
"We felt that's pretty important."
The researchers found that for the total group of 297 children, 22.6
percent had developed Alzheimer's disease. That compares with an expected
6 percent to 13 percent of people in the general population who would be
expected to develop the disease.
Alzheimer's typically started at about age 66 in children with two
affected parents, the study found, and the odds of developing Alzheimer's
rose as the children got older. In fact, 31 percent of those older than 60
developed Alzheimer's, as did 41.8 percent of those older than 70.
"A majority of adult children in these families haven't reached 70 yet,
and that's when Alzheimer's really begins to become a problem," Bird
noted.
Among the 240 children who have not developed Alzheimer's, 78.8 percent
have not reached 70. This could mean that the estimate of 22.6 percent is
really an underestimate of their true risk, Bird said.
If other family members also develop Alzheimer's disease, the children
in the study were more likely to develop the disease earlier. If only the
parents developed Alzheimer's, the typical age of onset among the children
was 72. However, if one parent also had a family history of Alzheimer's,
the typical age of disease onset in their child was much lower -- about
age 60. And if both parents had other family members who developed
Alzheimer's the typical age of onset for the children was 57, the
researchers found.
But one expert said the study still hasn't teased out the role genes
play in Alzheimer's disease.
"With early onset, Alzheimer's disease is typically clearly inherited,
but the vast majority of the disease victims are older and the genetic
factors involved are apparently weaker and evidently not powerful enough
to cause early disease," said Greg M. Cole, associate director of the
Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at the
University of California, Los
Angeles.
Since the majority of the children in the study still have not reached
their 70s and 80s -- when Alzheimer's claims most of its victims -- it's
still not clear how powerful the combined genetic effect will be, Cole
said.
"The real value of this approach may be that additional and larger
studies will allow us to find these weaker
genetic risk factors as they
act in concert to cause Alzheimer's and perhaps any environmental factors
that are able to counteract them," Cole said. "Is there more than luck to
the secret of the children who inherit risk of Alzheimer's disease from
both parents and yet manage to escape the disease?" he wondered.
Another expert wasn't surprised by the findings.
"This new paper documents that the children of two affected parents do
indeed have risks higher than the general population, as expected," said
Dr. Sam Gandy, chairman of the National Medical and Scientific Advisory
Council of the Alzheimer's Association.
"Plus, the paper goes on to provide direct support for the existence of
an 'additivity' of the risk of each of the two parents. For children of
two parents with Alzheimer's, these data provide direct evidence that
their risk of developing dementia is nearly one in two," Gandy said.
More information
For more information on Alzheimer's disease, visit the
Alzheimer's
Association.
Teen honored for advancing cancer study
Wed, 12 Mar 2008 03:54:37 GMT
By MIKE BAKER, Associated Press Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. - A
North Carolina high schooler beat out 1,600 others nationwide to win a $100,000 scholarship Tuesday for developing a model she used to identify stage II
colon cancer patients at a high risk for recurrence.
The model created by Shivani Sud, 17, also focused on identifying what may be the most effective drugs for treatment for those with a high risk of recurring tumors, according to organizers of the annual
Intel Science Talent Search.
Sud, a senior at Jordan High School in Durham, was named the winner of the competition at an awards banquet in Washington, D.C., where 40 finalists have been showing their projects in competition for top honors.
More than 1,600 high school seniors entered the talent search with a wide range of projects, including one that identified more efficient solar cells for energy production and another that looked at the effects of a common pesticide on breast cancer and nerve cell degeneration.
The 67-year-old science search competition has previously awarded top honors to students who went on to win six Nobel Prizes, three National Medals of Science, 10
MacArthur Foundation Fellowships and two Fields Medals.
Sud developed a 50-gene model for predicting recurrences of stage II colon cancer, in which the cancer has spread into nearby tissue. Using public information including 125 patient samples and clinical data, she identified genetic markers that allowed her to characterize various types of tumors.
Doctors generally use visual information, such as size, to characterize a tumor.
The model also allowed Sud to identify the drugs that may be the most effective way to treat those tumors. Such a system would allow doctors to save the most aggressive or toxic therapy for those who need it most, said Dr. Andrew M. Yeager, chairman of the judging panel and a professor at the
University of Arizona College of Medicine.
"The idea is that if someone was diagnosed with cancer, their tumor could be analyzed to find what specific genes are abnormally expressed, and then look at potential targets for therapy," Yeager said.
Sud said she was motivated in part by personal experience.
"One of my immediate family members had a
benign brain tumor. It left a big emotional imprint on me," said Sud, adding that an internship also introduced her to other patients, one of whom was a girl facing a nerve disorder with her mother.
"Seeing a mother and daughter together and the prospect of losing each other reminded me of my family member," she said. "It reminded me that life is something you shouldn't take for granted."
Along with her research work, Sud represents students at school board meetings, works as a Teen Court student attorney, serves as a Durham Rescue Mission volunteer and performs classical and modern Indian dance. She said she wants to have a career in research, and hopes to attend
Princeton University or
Harvard University.
But for now, she has more immediate matters to tend to: "I have a lot of homework to catch up on."
The other nine scholarship winners were Graham Van Schaik, 17, of Columbia, S.C., $75,000; Brian McCarthy, 18, of Hillsboro, Ore., $50,000; Katherine Banks, 17, of
New York, $25,000; Eric Delgado, 18, of Bayonne, N.J., $25,000; David Rosengarten, 18, of
Great Neck, N.Y., $25,000; Xiaomeng Zeng, 18, of
Iowa City, Iowa, $20,000; Philip Mocz, 18, of
Mililani, Hawaii, $20,000; Alexis Mychajliw, 16, of
Port Washington, N.Y., $20,000; and Evan Mirts, 18, of Jefferson City, Mo., $20,000.
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