Starving cancer

First, the caveats. Cancer patients, don’t try this on your own. Cancer research is riddled with the rise and fall of promising rodent findings, and the following study has been done only in mice.

Still, a study published March 31 in the online Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers hope for cancer treatment, seductive in its simplicity. Valter Longo, an anti-aging researcher at USC, was part of a team of researchers who found that mice injected with aggressive human tumors and starved for two days before receiving a high dose of chemotherapy thrived and lived longer than untreated mice. Their well-fed rodent counterparts fared much worse. Half of the normally fed mice  died following chemotherapy and those who survived suffered lasting weight and energy loss.

It's unknown whether fasting for two days before chemotherapy would improve results in people. But starved normal cells go into a kind of hibernation and are more able to resist outside stresses, like harmful chemotherapy agents. On the other hand, cancer cells never hibernate. Their on/off switch is stuck in the "on" position. So in theory, after a fast cancer cells remain vulnerable to toxic chemotherapy drugs, while starved normal cells are better able to resist their damage. The full study requires a paid subscription to the journal, but you can see the abstract for free.

The study offers a flip side to a top cancer research goal of targeting only cancer cells with toxic chemo drugs. The fasting strategy, rather than offering a silver bullet that aims only at cancer cells, instead offers a kind of silver shield to protect normal cells.

 

The next step is to design clinical trials with humans to test the effectiveness and safety of fasting before chemotherapy. In a press release, USC onlologist David Quinn, says, “Don’t try and do this at home. We need to do the studies.”

--Susan Brink

Probiotic popsicles? Yum!

Probiotics are hot health items right now. Laced with beneficial microbes such as Lactobacillus acidophilus or the alluringly-named Bifidobacterium bifidus (is that the microbe in the yogurt Jamie Lee Curtis is promo-ing on TV?) such products have variously been purported to aid digestion, ward off infections, boost immunity and things more extravagant besides. You'll find them in supplements, yogurts, drinks, cereals, snack bars--a colleague even spotted a probiotics skin care line at a recent natural products trade show.

Now news from England: the world's biggest ice cream maker, Unilever, has launched a new treat for kids: probiotic popsicles (or "ice lollies," as they're called in Blighty). Yum! The launch "comes at a time when ice cream sales have been falling across western Europe," notes the report from Dairyreporter.com, a website that covers news related to the dairy industry. 

Hmm. Could it be that--as usual--we're going a tad overboard on how we dole these products out and assuming if a little of something's good we should go whole hog and put it in the water?

--Rosie Mestel

Photo: Karen Tapia-Anderson / Los Angeles Times

Your medicine is watching you

This is cool. A Silicon Valley startup company is working on technology that monitors pill taking by embedding a microchip the size of a grain of sand into the pill.

   The company, Proteus Biomedical, says it’s in the business of “intelligent medicine,” meaning the integration of electronics, sensors and wireless communications into medical devices and pharmaceuticals.

  The smart pill—which is still on the drawing board—would work something like this: a patient swallows the pill and the microchip is activated upon ingestion. The chip then puts out a high-frequency electrical current that is picked up by a receiver that is contained on a patch placed on the patient’s body. The sensor could also monitor physiological processes, such as heart rate and temperature. The data could be uploaded to a server and transmitted to the person’s doctor.

The product, which the company calls a Raisin, would help people remember when, or if, they have taken medication and would help in cases where patients must otherwise be directly observed taking their medication. But, notes the MIT Technology Review: “Privacy issues are an obvious concern.”

--Shari Roan

Photo: Sven Thoene / For The Times

Dancing with the Stars pro sticks her neck out

If “Dancing With the Stars” pro hoofer Karina Smirnoff and celeb dance partner Mario, win this season’s competition, it will be thanks to the dancer’s true grit and modern medical technology. Smirnoff, “Dance” fans will remember, propelled actor Mario López to a second place finish in season 3, then languished with Billy Ray “Feet of Clay” Cyrus and Floyd “Not So Money” Mayweather Jr. in seasons 4 and 5.

This season, paired with fleet-footed Mario, a 21-year-old R&B singer with the speed and coordination of a cheetah, she appeared to have hit pay dirt, when disaster struck. The five-time U.S. champion and all-around pixie from the Ukraine injured her neck just three weeks before the start of this season’s filming.

She underwent neck surgery 17 days before the first show and was back to work just three days after surgery, with a collar and a band-aid on her neck.

Dr. Robert S. Bray Jr., the neurological spine surgeon who performed the delicate microsurgery on her neck, detailed her progress by phone. (He was on his way to a “Dancing” taping to view Smirnoff perform a demanding, lightning-fast dance known as the Quick Step.)

“Karina had been having a little pain and then had an acute rupture,” says Bray. He believes she had a weak spot in the disc originally, “and then one day, it just went.” Bray is the CEO and founding director of D.I.S.C. Spine and Sports Center in Marina del Rey.

Smirnoff underwent what is known as a posterior cervical microdiscectomy C5-C6, performed with help from a $250,000 Zeiss microscope, to remove three fragments from her neck that were compressing a nerve in her arm. She had consulted with other physicians who had recommended other more invasive procedures, such as a fusion, which would have required weeks, if not months, of recovery time.

“She has more guts and heart than anyone I’ve ever seen,” says Bray. “I’ve taken care of every kind of athlete, hockey, soccer, volleyball, weight lifters, and I think she has the most determination. She just said, ‘I’m going to do this.’”

--Janet Cromley

Photo: Kelsey McNeal / ABC

Cure for mysterious fevers

Few things are as worrisome to parents as when a child spikes a fever. When the fever goes as high as 104 or 105 degrees, most parents are on the phone with the pediatrician or speeding toward the emergency room. For some children, with a syndrome characterized by unexplained high fevers occurring every few weeks, the usual culprits—infection, or juvenile arthritis—are ruled out, and the cause remains a mystery. Treatments--antibiotics or children’s Motrin or Tylenol--don’t help. Rather, the fever just vanishes on its own in four or five days, only to roar back in a few weeks.

Now, surgeons at Children’s Hospital Boston, reported in the February issue of Archives of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery that removing the child’s tonsils almost always cures the mysterious condition, even though the tonsils and adenoids appear normal. “Why is unclear, but it works in almost every single kid,” lead author Dr. Greg Licameli says in a press release.

In the largest surgical trial to date, surgeons at Children’s Hospital Boston performed tonsillectomies on 27 children with the syndrome, and for 26 of them, the cyclical fevers didn’t return. Since the study, Licameli has seen a total of 60 children treated for the condition, and the findings remain the same.

His research interest was triggered by his own daughter’s bout with the syndrome. By the time she was 19 months old, she was suffering unexplained fevers every three weeks. He scanned the medical literature for answers and found two case studies in Europe where removal of the tonsils resulted in the children immediately getting better.

Surgeons removed his daughter’s tonsils, and the fever cycles stopped. She's six years old now, and they have not returned.

--Susan Brink

Photo: MedioImages/Corbis

Remembering your medication

Anyone who gets confused about which medicine they should take—and when they should take it—might consider creating a pill card.

The pill card is a new service from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. With a computer and printer, you can log onto the pillcard web site and go through the step-by-step instructions to make a card for yourself or a friend or relative who has difficulties with a medication schedule. Pictures and icons can be added to the card for easy reminders of what a particular pill looks like and when to take it. The card can be given to caretakers, doctors and others.

--Shari Roan

Safer swinging

Now that spring has arrived, more golfers will be hitting the links. But before that first swing, some precautions should be taken to help prevent injuries. The following are recommendations from the department of orthopedics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City:

Few people really like to stretch, but it’s necessary, to get ready for play. Spend five minutes stretching the shoulders, arms, torso and legs. Add some practice swings and you’ll increase blood flow to the extremities. (Here's some good stretches from the Mayo Clinic.)

Carrying a heavy golf bag may prove that you’re tough, but it can also add a great deal of stress to the shoulders and back. Better to use a pull cart or golf cart.

Avoid divots. Creating a divot produces a sudden change in velocity that can cause enormous strain in the shoulders and may aggravate an existing shoulder condition.

Engage in a regular strength and conditioning routine to shore up the entire kinetic chain, including the legs, hips, back and abdominals. It will go a long way in improving distance, power and swing mechanics.

--Jeannine Stein

Photo: Warren Little / Getty Images

What's a booger?

 

Please don’t call it that. Don’t call it snot, either. It’s mucous. (Can you say myoo-kus?) The answer to what it is can be found under “Nose” in the "how things work" section of a kids health website, along with answers to why we sneeze and scads of information on the work a nose does: breathing, smelling, filtering air for the lungs.

Kids can find healthy recipes, ideas for active play, and information on “growing up,” divided into boy stuff and girl stuff. Children with curiosity about health problems can look up allergies or asthma. They can find out what a coma is, how chemotherapy works or how to prevent diabetes. Or they can click on a number of body parts to find out how they work.

The site’s press release says, “Since 2004, more than 1.6 million people have viewed a “How the Body Works” feature.  Using kid-friendly language, animations, and activities, “How the Body Works” is a popular resource for homework help and an entertaining way for kids to get answers to their questions.  The new interactive module builds upon the previous features and now includes more than 100 articles, quizzes, word searches, activities, and movies featuring everything from the adventures of Glandman to Col. Lucy Leukocyte, commander of a body’s immune system.”

And it’s all overseen by medical editor and pediatrician, Dr. Mary L. Gavin.

--Susan Brink

Photo: Annie Wells / Los Angeles Times

 

This just in: Anger can be handy

It can be useful, that is, when you've got a confrontational task to perform, according to a new study conducted by psychologists Maya Tamir and Christopher Mitchell of Boston College, and James Gross of Stanford.

According to a press release from the Association for Psychological Science, the researchers first told study volunteers they had either a confrontational task to perform--a shoot-your-enemies-dead computer game called "Soldier of Fortune"--or a nonconfrontational one, "Diner Dash," a computer game wherein you play a waitress serving customers.

The researchers' first finding: Subjects who knew they had the confrontational game to perform expressed a stronger wish to make themselves angry ahead of the task--say, by listening to mad songs or remembering things from the past that angered them.

The second finding: these anger-inducing strategies actually improved subjects' performance on the kill-your-enemies game. It didn't aid performance in the serve-the-customers waitress game.  (We'd imagine that serving customers in a crowded restaurant would be enough to induce plenty of anger on its own, however.)

The study will appear in April issue of the journal Psychological Science, which is one of those, unfortunately, that you have to pay to read. What a pity! The March issue has an intriguing lineup of scholarly reports, including ones entitled "Happiness Is a Personal(ity) Thing: The Genetics of Personality and Well-Being in a Representative Sample" and "Can an Angry Woman Get Ahead? Status Conferral, Gender, and Expression of Emotion in the Workplace," and--my personal favorite--"Where Do We Look During Potentially Offensive Behavior?"

--Rosie Mestel

Photo: Kyle Mills / Lewiston Tribune

What lurks within....

If you've ever wondered how many bacteria reside inside your mouth, be reassured, scientists are actively at work on the question. So far, they've tallied roughly 600 distinct critters--including such beasts as Streptococcus mutans, a significant contributor to tooth decay, as well as many, many others less notorious.

In fact, the data are coming so thick and fast and the naming of the bugs has become such an anarchic free-for-all that this week scientists at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research announced they're bringing order to the field. They've started a central clearinghouse for listing all things to do with mouth microbes--genes, proteins, names, you name it.  The Human Oral Microbiome Database, as it's called, is just one strand of a larger project aimed at tallying all the organisms that occupy the human body-- in/on the human mouth, skin, digestive tract, nose and female urogenital tract.

If you want to read more about (and see pictures of) the bacteria that normally live in, and on, us  humans, you can also check out a chapter in Todar's Online Textbook of Bacteriology for an impressive, illustrated list.

And if you're interested in a little science experiment and have a petri dish to hand, you could always try making a kiss plate.

--Rosie Mestel

Photo: Valerie Ulene

The working scared

A new survey finds that employed, insured folks, presumably those most likely to be happy with America’s health care delivery system…well, they just aren’t. From Jan. 14 to March 3, more than 26,000 people responded to a health care survey sponsored by the AFL-CIO and its affiliate, Working America. Some 77% of respondents had health insurance, more than half had college degrees and another 29% had some college education. Still, a third reported skipping medical care because of the cost, and 95% said they were worried about being able to afford health insurance in the future. And about half of those surveyed said they stayed in a job they would have preferred to leave because of health insurance. For full survey results, go here. And to read some of the more than 7,000 posted personal stories, go here.

Here’s one story:

“I’m a 64-year-old single grandmother raising my two grandchildren. Now we’re all covered under my employer. When I retire my employee health coverage will end because I will qualify for Medicare, but my grandkids will have no coverage. It appears that I will make just too much money with my pension and social security for them to qualify for (the State Children’s Health Insurance Program), but I don’t know that I can keep my house and buy private insurance for them too. Both kids have disabilities that require daily medication and ongoing therapy. I’m tired—very tired, and I’d love to retire, but I’m too scared. I don’t think we’d make it if I do.”—Patsy, Milwaukee, Wisc.

--Susan Brink

Flu season update

The 2007-08 flu season is winding down -- with the rate of reported influenza cases decreasing according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- however, the danger isn't over yet. The CDC reports that for the 10th consecutive week the proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza is "above the epidemic threshold."

One doctor, PalMD, guest blogging at denialism, reports from the flu frontlines: 

While still widespread, numbers are finally starting to drop. I'm ready to drop myself. It's been a terrible season---the worst I've ever seen. This is probably due, at least in part, to this year's flu vaccine missing some unanticipated strains. For those of you out there who don't "believe in" flu shots, remember that vaccination isn't a religion. The anti-vaccination forces are, however, rather cult-like. Here's some info for you.

Influenza is a serious illness, and vaccination can prevent or reduce severity of illness. Partly as a response to some anti-vaccine nuttery,  I think we should talk about this a little bit.

Last month, the CDC adjusted its guidelines, recommending that all children  6 months and over get the influenza vaccine every year, but that edict could create major logistical problems according to Dr. Sydney Spiesel in a National Public Radio interview. 

--Martin Beck

Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times

   

Women's Health Resource

Information on women’s health topics is available through a new web site of the National Library of Medicine. The site will include the latest news in women’s health from scientific journals and other peer-reviewed sources. The idea is to provide consumers with reliable and user-friendly information on a wide range of topics.

Women’s Health Resources from the NML Web can be found at: http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/outreach/womenshealthtopicsnlm.html

--Shari Roan

Cat naps are good

Maybe nodding off during that meeting isn’t so bad. Studies show that people retain information better after they sleep. Now German scientists have shown that even a six-minute daytime nap can help people recall information they’ve just learned. The researchers say that the mere onset of sleep may trigger the processes that consolidate memories, making them easier to recall. The study is published in this month’s issue of the Journal of Sleep Research.

Sleep expert Michael Breus, writing on his Web MD blog has this to say: “Think about it: every day you have the opportunity to become a better, sharper you, ready to learn new things quickly and take on challenges in just 6 minutes. Oh, but don’t get too excited if you’re sleep deprived. In other words, don’t try to make up for lost sleep with those 6 minutes. They are the bonus 6 minutes after your good night’s sleep. So sleep tight first, and practice the art of napping second.”

--Shari Roan

Photo: Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times

Booster Shots

Oddities, musings and some news from the world of health.