From NeuroSkills.com:

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found direct evidence that mild repetitive head injuries can lead to Alzheimer’s disease. Their evidence suggests that brain trauma accelerates Alzheimer’s by increasing free radical damage and the formation of plaque-like deposits of Amyloid beta (Ab) proteins. Perhaps just as importantly, the special breed of mice developed for the study could serve as a model in screening drugs to treat Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injuries. Their findings are published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

“This is the first experimental evidence linking head injuries to Alzheimer’s disease by showing how repetitive concussions can speed up the progress of the disease,” said Kunihiro Uryu, PhD, a senior research investigator at Penn’s Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research (CNDR). “It also shows the tremendous utility of the transgenic mice and the trauma model we have developed for Alzheimer’s research.”

In recent years, researchers have made remarkable progress in uncovering the genetic basis of inherited Alzheimer’s disease. They do not, however, know much about the causes of the sporadic, or non-inherited, forms of the disease despite the fact that almost 90% of all Alzheimer’s cases can be termed sporadic. While there are a few documented genetic risk factors that predisposes a person to Alzheimer’s, one very robust environmental factor, head trauma, has been identified. Although recurrent head trauma is thought to cause Punch Drunk Syndrome (dementia pugilistica) in boxers, researchers had been unable to prove a mechanistic link between head injury and Alzheimer’s.

Until now, however, researchers have lacked a good animal model for studying the development of Alzheimer’s disease. The transgenic mice used in the CNDR contain the human gene that produces the Ab protein. With the aid of techniques developed at the Penn Head Injury Center, Uryu and his colleagues were able to study how just mild repetitive head injuries could influence the progress of Alzheimer’s disease.

Even without head trauma, these mice would eventually develop Ab plaques later in life. With the trauma, they produce symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease at a remarkably increased rate.

“Here, we can clearly see a direct cause and effect relationship between repetitive concussions and Alzheimer’s,” said John Q. Trojanowski, MD, PhD, co-director of the CNDR and professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. “Using the head trauma model in these mice represents a step forward in our ability to understand the basic molecular mechanisms behind Alzheimer’s disease. More importantly, we believe this model system can be used to screen for new medications in the search for a cure.”

While there are a number of medications that treat the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, there are no medications, as yet, that address the root of the disease.

Over the course of the study, mice were sedated and given mild repetitive concussions. In the ensuing weeks, Uryu and his colleagues monitored their behavior and brain pathology. In addition to looking for deposits of Ab, they also monitored amounts of a molecule called isoprostane. Last year, Penn researchers discovered that urine isoprostane levels serve as an indicator of the sort of free radical damage found in Alzheimer’s disease.

“Two days after the injuries, and again at nine and sixteen weeks, we measured amyloid deposits and levels of isoprostanes and amyloid beta proteins,” said Uryu, “At each point, we saw a dramatic increase of indicators for Alzheimer’s disease in the mice that received repetitive head traumas.

According to their findings, repetitive – but not single – mild traumatic brain injuries increased Ab deposition as well as levels of Ab and isoprostanes in the transgenic mice. The repetitive injuries induced cognitive impairments in the mice, but did not interfere with their motor functions and dexterity.

Upward of four million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, a statistic that is likely to rise along with the aging population. Alzheimer’s develops slowly, beginning with frequent memory problems and resulting in severe brain damage. Within the brain, amyloid plaques and fibrous tangles of nervous tissue tangles choke off and eventually destroy brain cells. Eventually, sufferers require fulltime medical care.

“Alzheimer’s disease has a very real and understandable molecular basis and it will be curable,” said Trojanowski. “Developing a working animal model of how head trauma augments Alzheimer pathology, as we have in our studies here, is just one more step in reaching the inevitable treatment.”

From NaturalNews.com:

For all its broad health benefits there is still yet another exciting role for Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) that offers promise for those challenged with cancer. CoQ10 is a naturally occurring compound found in every cell in the body where it plays a critical role in the mitochondria that burn or oxidize food for fuel. Levels of CoQ10 decline as we age which leads to speculation that certain diseases and aging are a result of this diminished enzyme.

The scientific community is taking another look at CoQ10 due to encouraging evidence that suggests CoQ10 has a positive impact in battling cancer. If a patient chooses chemotherapy drugs, rather than less harmful alternative treatments, it appears the drugs are more effective battling cancer if CoQ10 is added as a supplement, even though irreversible damage is inflicted from the toxic drugs. One of the reasons chemotherapy doesn`t cure more cancer is because there are inherent toxicity limits to the dosage administered. While cancer is being eradicated by high dosage chemotherapy treatment the overwhelming damage to healthy cells and permanent immune suppression can be severe enough that treatment must be discontinued or the patient is left to face fatal infections.

For example, Adriamycin (doxorubicin) is in a powerful class of anthrachcline chemotherapy drugs that kill cancer cells, but has side effects so lethal that at high doses vital heart muscle is damaged.

However a fascinating study was done by researchers in Italy who tested children with leukemia or lymphoma. One group was given chemotherapy treatment with anthrachcline drugs and a CoQ10 supplementation, while another group was treated without CoQ10. Exciting results showed children in the CoQ10 supplemented group demonstrated “a protective effect of CoQ10 on cardiac function.” Is it just coincidental that the majority of heart failure patients have a CoQ10 deficiency in their heart muscle or that several studies have shown cancer patients have a CoQ10 deficiency? Moreover is it too far a reach to wonder if CoQ10 by itself might be a component in cancer`s ultimate demise.

Biochemical researchers at the Post Graduate Institute of Basic Medical Sciences in Madras, India were intrigued by that same thought and conducted studies successfully showing that CoQ10 and other vitamins could manage cancer even before chemotherapy was begun and could actually prevent healthy cells from undergoing malignant changes.

Inspired by these results, Japanese researchers at the National Cancer Center Research Institute in Tokyo wondered if CoQ10 could even prevent cancers from beginning and proliferating? They used a deadly carcinogenic chemical, azoxymethane, to induce colon cancer in rats. For one month the animals were fed a defined unsupplemented diet, while another was fed a diet containing CoQ10. The results were remarkable. At the first signs of colon cancer in the rats, they found the cancer was less than half that in the unsupplemented group. This led scientists to conclude, “CoQ10 may be an effective chemopreventive agent against colon carcinogenesis.”

The National Cancer Institute says laboratory and animal studies indicate that CoQ10 makes the body better able to resist certain infections and types of cancer and that analogs of CoQ10 (similar CoQ10 nutrients) may stop cancer cells from growing.

Integrative medicine advocate, Andrew Weil, advises his devotees to take 300 mg. of CoQ10 daily as a possible hedge for survival in breast cancer patients, basing his recommendation on two reports from the 1990s by a Coenzyme Q 10 manufacturer in Denmark. The trial was conducted on 32 breast cancer patients who had highly effective results that kept them from losing weight and free from usual levels of pain while five of them had tumor regression from their daily dose of vitamins, minerals, fatty acids and CoQ10. But because the test lacked proper parameters no definitive conclusions can be drawn.

There are also anecdotal reports that CoQ10 supplementation increases survival of patients with cancers of the pancreas, lung, colon, rectum and prostate.

CoQ10 has proven itself as a tissue-protecting antioxidant molecule enhancing brain and cardiovascular health. Now it seems this multi-faceted enzyme`s role may have expanded to be a key nutrient in the battle to kill cancer cells and protect healthy cells from undergoing malignant damage.

 The Associated Press

LONDON�(AP) --�Pharmaceuticals company GlaxoSmithKline PLC said Tuesday it has advised medical staff in Canada to not use one batch of swine flu vaccines in case they trigger life-threatening allergies.

Company spokeswoman Gwenan White said that they issued the advice after reports that one batch of the swine flu vaccine might have caused more allergic reactions than normal.

"We have advised health care professionals not to use that batch while health authorities and GlaxoSmithKline investigate," she said.

White said the batch at issue, which has been distributed across Canada, contains 172,000 doses of the vaccine. She declined to say how many doses had been administered before the advice to stop using them was given.

White said U.K.-based GlaxoSmithKline wrote to Canadian health care professionals advising them to stop using the batch on Nov. 18. She says a total of 7.5 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed in Canada.

GlaxoSmithKline is the world's second largest drug maker by revenue. Its shares were down 0.08 percent on the London stock exchange at 1,276.50p ($21.16)

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

GENEVA -- An unusual number of severe allergic reactions to swine flu vaccinations have been recorded in Canada, where a batch of the vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline has been recalled, the WHO said on Tuesday.

“An unusual number of severe allergies to the vaccine have been detected in Canada,” World Health Organization spokesman Thomas Abraham told AFP.

“The Canadian authorities are conducting the appropriate investigations on the vaccines” and “recalled a batch of vaccine from GSK.”

“We need to understand what happened in Canada,” he added.

Mr. Abraham said, however, that the WHO had not changed its recommendations regarding swine flu vaccines.

Last week, the WHO said checks on many of the 30 deaths recorded following mass pandemic flu vaccinations had so far ruled out a direct link to the vaccines.

The fatalities made up a minute fraction of at least 65 million doses of swine flu vaccines which have been administered, said the WHO, citing data from 16 countries.

For every 10,000 doses of vaccines administered, only one report of adverse effect had been logged.

Of every 100 reports of adverse effects, five are serious cases such as death, according to the WHO.

© Copyright (c) National Post

It just keeps getting more interesting!

From USNews.com:

MRI appears to be better than mammograms at finding breast cancer before it spreads, German researchers report.

However, despite the technology’s advantages, its cost and a lack of people skilled at reading breast MRIs means it won’t replace mammograms any time soon, experts say.

“MRI is more powerful and accurate for diagnosing pre-invasive breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS),” concluded lead research Dr. Christiane Kuhl, from the Department of Radiology at the University of Bonn.

Her team published its findings in the Aug. 11 issue of The Lancet.

Most breast cancers arise from cells that build up in the inner lining of the milk duct, Kuhl explained. As long as this cancer is confined to the duct, it is considered benign and does not spread.

“If you identify breast cancer at this stage and remove it, the patient is healed — always,” she said. “Avoiding invasive breast cancer is even better than early diagnosis.”

In the study, Kuhl and colleagues collected data on more than 7,300 women over five years. In addition to mammograms, the women were also given MRIs. The researchers wanted to see if MRIs could detect DCIS.

They found that among the 167 women who had a DCIS, 92 percent were found by MRI compared with 56 percent found by mammography.

Moreover, of the 89 women diagnosed with “high grade” DCIS — the ones most likely to develop into cancer — 98 percent were found by MRI, compared with 52 percent found by mammography. In addition, 48 percent were missed by mammography but found by MRI alone.

High-grade DCIS almost always becomes invasive and does so after a short time, Kuhl explained. “When it becomes invasive, it is biologically aggressive — that means it kills,” she said.

In contrast, low-grade DCIS usually remains within the duct and poses no threat. In fact, women can have low-grade DCIS for a lifetime with no ill effects, Kuhl said.

Also, MRI was not associated with many false positive findings. The positive predictive value of both methods was similar — 55 percent for mammography and 59 percent for MRI, the researchers reported.

There’s one big downside, however: MRI is very expensive compared with mammography. “Also, MRI is more difficult to read, and you have to use different criteria to diagnose DCIS than for invasive breast cancer,” Kuhl said.

Since MRI is used less often than mammography “the number of radiologists who are experienced in interpreting breast MRIs is far smaller than the number of radiologists who are able to accurately interpret a mammogram,” further limiting its use, the German researcher said.

And more studies that compare MRI with mammography are needed before MRI can be recommended as the best way to diagnose DCIS, she added. “This is the beginning of the death of mammography, but that is going to be a long death,” Kuhl predicted.

One expert wasn’t surprised by the findings.

“This study shows that MRI is definitely better than mammography for detecting DCIS,” said Dr. Kristin Byrne, chief of breast imaging at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “We have known that MRI is better for detecting cancer, but there has been a debate whether MRI was best for detecting DCIS,” she said.

The enhanced ability to find DCIS using MRI is due to better quality images and improved ability in reading the MRI, Byrne said. “We are now detecting much more DCIS than what is seen on the mammogram,” she said.

The American Cancer Society does recommend that women who are at high risk for breast cancer get an MRI in addition to their yearly mammogram, Byrne noted.

Still, it will take a long time before breast MRI replaces mammograms, she said, for the reasons Kuhl laid out.

Another expert agreed that a larger study is needed before MRI can become the preferred breast cancer screening method.

“We don’t know yet how much MRI screening will add and at what price this comes, economically and psychologically, [because of the] emotional burden due to increased absolute amount of unnecessary recalls,” said Dutch radiologist Ritse M. Mann, of Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre in Nijmegen.

But Mann, the co-author of an accompanying journal editorial, said that “MRI can no longer be regarded as [just] an adjunct to mammography, even though this needs considerable funding.”

“MRI screening will detect malignancies more often and earlier and will increase breast cancer survival. Therefore, it is time to start a large multicenter trial on MRI screening for breast cancer in the general population,” Mann said.

Thermography has also been said to be a better method of picking up breast cancer earlier than mammograms.

Comment by Dr. Perlmutter:
This particular detoxification genetic marker is easily tested and widely available.
From WebMD.com:

A single gene variant predicts breast cancer survival after tamoxifen treatment, a new study finds.

In the 46% of women with the “good” gene, tamoxifen works as well as newer drugs. For women with the gene variant linked to poor response to tamoxifen treatment, other treatment strategies would be a better choice.

In the past 25 years, tamoxifen has prevented more than half a million deaths from breast cancer. The drug helps prevent breast cancer recurrence after surgery. Tamoxifen is still a useful drug, although newer drugs called aromatase inhibitors seem to work better in clinical trials.

Now it appears that some women will do at least as well if they’re treated with tamoxifen. Such women carry a version of a gene called CYP2D6 that makes tamoxifen work better.

The gene encodes an enzyme crucial to tamoxifen activity. About 46% of women have a version of the gene that contributes to high enzyme activity. Others have genes that contribute to low or intermediate activity of the enzyme.

Werner Schroth, PhD, of Germany’s Fischer-Bosch Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, and colleagues analyzed CYP2D6 genes in 1,325 postmenopausal women treated with tamoxifen for early-stage breast cancer in Germany and in the U.S.

They found that women with the highly active version of the gene were significantly less likely to have their breast cancer come back after five years of tamoxifen treatment. These women had outcomes similar to those seen in women treated with aromatase inhibitors.

“[This] should provide new impetus to the medical and scientific community to revisit the issue of the relative efficacy of these two approaches in women with early breast cancer,” Schroth and colleagues conclude.

The researchers suggest that genetic testing could identify women who should not be treated with tamoxifen.

Schroth and colleagues report the findings in the Oct. 7 issue of TheJournal of the American Medical Association.

Let see how many one in a million turn up?

The CDC is not telling the truth when they say there is not a correlation with the H1N1 vaccine and Guillain-Barre Syndrome.