Six-year vitamin E supplementation decreased mortality by 41% in elderly male smokers who had high dietary vitamin C intake, but increased mortality by 19% in middle-aged smokers who had high vitamin C intake, according to a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Large-scale controlled trials have not found any overall effects of vitamin E supplementation on the mortality of participants. Nevertheless, the effect of vitamin E on respiratory infections has significantly diverged between different population groups suggesting that the effects of vitamin E may not be uniform over all the population.

Dr. Harri Hemila, and Professor Jaakko Kaprio, of the University of Helsinki, Finland, studied whether the effect of vitamin E supplementation on mortality might diverge between different population groups. They analyzed the data of the large randomized trial (Alpha-Tocopherol Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study) which was conducted in Finland between 1985-1993 and included male smokers aged 50-69 years. There were 3571 deaths in 29,133 participants during the 6-year supplementation of 50 mg/day of vitamin E.

Although vitamin E had no overall effect on mortality, its effect was modified by age and dietary vitamin C intake. Vitamin E had no effect on participants who had low dietary vitamin C intake, less than 90 mg/day. However, in those who had high vitamin C intake, over 90 mg/day, the effect of vitamin E diverged so that it increased mortality in young participants (50-62 years), but decreased mortality in old participants (66-69 years).

The US nutritional recommendations, issued by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, consider that vitamin E is safe in doses up to 1000 mg/day. This new study gives further evidence indicating that in some population groups vitamin E may be harmful in a substantially lower dose, 50 mg/day.

The researchers concluded that “in people younger than 65 years, taking vitamin E supplements should be strongly discouraged, until clear evidence emerges that some population groups of younger or middle-aged people benefit”. They also concluded that the effect of vitamin E on elderly people should be further investigated.

Harri Hemilä and Jaakko Kaprio: Modification of the Effect of Vitamin E Supplementation on the Mortality of Male Smokers by Age and Dietary Vitamin C. American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on February 13, 2009

Helsingin yliopisto (University of Helsinki)
helsinki.fi

Are warning signals honest? We are familiar with the fact that dangerous prey animals advertise their toxins with bright colouration (bees, wasps, ladybirds etc).

The (antioxidant) molecules used by prey to make themselves brightly pigmented may also be used to prevent them poisoning themselvse with their own toxins.

We show that this joint use of antioxidants may cause the brightness of a prey’s warning signals to act as honest indicator’s of its toxicity. The nastiest prey may “shout loudest” about their anti-predator defences.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Proceedings B is the Royal Society’s flagship biological research journal, dedicated to the rapid publication and broad dissemination of high-quality research papers, reviews and comment and reply papers. The scope of journal is diverse and is especially strong in organismal biology.

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Researchers have discovered an added layer of complexity in the network that determines human embryonic stem cell fate. A report published online April 30th in the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, shows that a microRNA known as miR-145 lowers the activity of three key ingredients in the “recipe” for making embryonic stem cells. The discovery may have implications for improving the efficiency of methods designed to reprogram differentiated cells into embryonic stem cell-like cells and for the use of those transformed cells in replacing cells lost to disease or injury, the researchers said.

“The heart of the matter is that before this paper, we knew if you want to maintain a pluripotent state and allow self-renewal of embryonic stem cells, you have to sustain levels of transcription factors, including Oct4, Sox2 and Klf4,” said Kenneth Kosik of The University of California, Santa Barbara. “We also knew that stem cells transition to a differentiated state when you downregulate those factors. Now we know how that happens a little better.”

Transcription factors are genes that control other genes. On the other hand, microRNAs are single-stranded RNA molecules that control the activity of other genes. When microRNAs in the genome are transcribed from DNA, they target complementary messenger RNAs (mRNAs), which serve as the templates for proteins, to either encourage their degradation or prevent their translation into functional proteins. In general, one gene can be repressed by multiple microRNAs and one microRNA can repress multiple genes, the researchers explained. In a wide variety of developmental processes, microRNAs fine tune or restrict cellular identities by targeting important transcription factors or key pathways.

The new study adds embryonic stem cell identity to that list. Kosik’s team found that levels of miR-145 change dramatically when human embryonic stem cells differentiate into other cell types. miR-145 was of particular interest because it had been predicted to target Oct4, Klf4 and Sox2. (Those three factors are perhaps best known as three of four ingredients originally shown to transform adult human skin cells into “induced pluripotent stem cells” (iPS cells), which behave in nearly every respect like true embryonic stem cells (eurekalert/pub_releases/2007-11/cp-srt111307.php). That four-ingredient recipe has since been pared down to one, Oct4, in the case of neural stem cells (eurekalert/pub_releases/2009-02/cp-sfc020209.php.)

A rise in miR-145 prevents human embryonic stem cells’ self-renewal and lowers the activity of genes that lend stem cells the capacity to produce other cell types, the researchers report. It also sends the cells on a path toward differentiation. In contrast, when miR-145 is lost, the embryonic stem cells are prevented from differentiating as OCT4, SOX2 and KLF4 concentrations rise.

They also show that the control between miR-145 and the “reprogramming factors” goes both ways. The promoter for miR-145 is bound and repressed by OCT4, they found.

“It’s a beautiful double negative feedback loop,” Kosik said. “They control each other.”

Because there is typically less “wiggle room” in the levels of microRNA compared to mRNA, further studies are needed to more precisely quantify the copy numbers of miR-145 and its targets to figure out exactly how this layer of control really works, Kosik said.

The findings in embryonic stem cells might also have importance for cancer.

“There are sets of microRNA that are widely up- or downregulated in cancers,” he said, noting that several studies have specifically linked low miR-145 levels to various forms of cancer. “Tumor stem cells are the engines of tumors. If miR-145 is sustaining or maintaining a differentiated state, loss of that may have something to do with malignant transformation.”

The researchers include Na Xu, The University of California, Santa Barbara, CA; Thales Papagiannakopoulos, The University of California, Santa Barbara, CA; Guangjin Pan, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI; James A. Thomson2, Kenneth S. Kosik, The University of California, Santa Barbara, CA.

Source:
Cathleen Genova

Cell Press

Best Health, in partnership with The Guardian offers freely available information and answers to questions about swine flu.

Produced by the BMJ Group, Best Health (formerly Best Treatments) explains which treatments work and which do not. Information is based on the best and latest research. The Best Health team has merged the finest research about swine flu and reviewed the evidence about prevention and treatment. Some of the important points are:

• Will the swine flu vaccine protect me?

The swine flu vaccine is likely to offer some protection against the disease. It is unlikely to cause any serious side effects.

• Is the vaccine safe for pregnant women?

There are no reports of the vaccine causing harm in pregnant women or their babies. It is strongly advised that pregnant women get the vaccine because they are at higher risk of serious complications from flu.

• Are antiviral drugs efficient?

Treatments that are likely to work if you have swine flu are the antiviral drugs: oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza).

These drugs are not a cure for flu. They may reduce the duration of the illness by one or two days. They also reduce the risk of getting complications from flu, such as pneumonia.

• What is the best way to avoid catching swine flu?

The best way to avoid catching swine flu (or any other type of cold or flu) is to wash hands regularly with soap and hot water. It is especially important after touching objects that many of other people have touched (such as a handrail on public transport, a public telephone), after sneezing and coughing into a tissue or hands, after using the toilet, and before eating or preparing food.

There is no need to use special hand-washes or alcohol hand rubs for protection from the virus. One study revealed that washing hands with soap and water is equally or more efficient in removing flu virus from people’s hands, than alcohol hand rubs.

• Will wearing a mask protect me?

There is no evidence that wearing masks on the street, or while going about daily business, will offer protection against swine flu. Most masks are designed to stop from passing on the germs that are breathed out, and not to stop germs from getting in. Masks might be helpful if a person has swine flu to avoid contagion to caregivers, or when caring for someone at home with swine flu.

Best Health

Stephanie Brunner (B.A.)

View drug information on Relenza; Tamiflu capsule.

The key finding of an ECDC-initiated assessment on the importance and magnitude of vector-borne diseases for Europe is that climate and environmental changes may increase the risk of vector-borne disease outbreaks in the future. Vector-borne diseases are those spread by mosquitoes, sand-flies, ticks and rodents. They include diseases such as dengue, West Nile and chikungunya fever, nephropathia epidemica and tick-borne encephalitis (TBE), which all have the potential to cause outbreaks in parts of Europe. The outbreak of chikungunya fever in the area of Ravenna, Italy, last summer is an illustration of this risk. The initial findings of the risk assessment were presented today at ECDC in Stockholm, at the end of two day meeting of experts from across Europe. The final report on the assessment will be published in the coming months.

The Director of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), Zsuzsanna Jakab, said:

“The climate and environmental changes being predicted by experts will alter the risk to Europe from vector borne diseases. We are likely to see the spread of diseases such as tick-borne encephalitis, or even chikungunya fever, to places where they have not been seen before. It’s not just environmental changes that give rise to this risk. Globalisation, and the increased travel and trade that it brings, is also quickening the pace at which diseases can spread to new areas. We need to better understand how these changes will alter the risk of vector-borne diseases, to better target surveillance and control, and improve preparedness in European countries.”

An example of how globalisation can drive the spread of vector-borne diseases is the international spread of the Aedes albopictus mosquito (also know as the Asian Tiger Mosquito), which has been linked to outbreaks of the disease chikungunya fever. This species of mosquito has spread across large parts of Asia, Africa and the Americas in recent decades. It has also spread to some parts of Europe, including most of Italy. In the summer of 2007, a traveller from India introduced chikungunya fever to the mosquitoes in the area of Ravenna, Italy, and there was an outbreak affecting nearly 250 people.

Key factors contributing to a heightened risk of vector-borne diseases

Disease vectors are extremely sensitive to environmental and climate change, in particular changes in temperature and humidity. Authoritative climate scenarios for the future predict that many parts of Europe will become hotter and wetter. These changes are likely to impact on disease vectors, such as mosquitoes transmitting West Nile fever, chikungunya fever and possibly even dengue or Rift Valley fever.

Globalisation and increasing international travel are also contributing to the spread of disease vectors as well as the diseases they transmit. It is documented that the Aedes albopictus mosquito was introduced to Europe by the used tyre industry, as the tyres provide excellent breeding sites for mosquitoes. In the summer of 2007, it took only one man infected with the chikungunya virus to trigger an outbreak after he was bitten by an Aedes albopictus mosquito on his return from Kerala, India, to a village close to Ravenna, Italy.

Human factors are also identified as important in heightening the risk of vector-borne diseases. For example, the more time that people spend in forested areas, the more they increase their chances of being exposed to diseases transmitted by ticks, such as TBE, or by rodents, such as nephropatica epidemica.

What is the public health importance of vector-borne diseases?

Every year millions of people around the world, including in Europe, are affected by vector-borne diseases, the symptoms and severity of which are variable. For example, chikungunya virus is transmitted from human to human by Aedes mosquitoes, such as the Aedes albopictus (Asian Tiger Mosquito). The virus causes sudden onset of high fever, severe joint pain, muscle pain and headache. While chikungunya fever is usually non-fatal, a small number of patients may develop serious complications or chronic conditions. A huge epidemic has been striking Africa, the Indian Ocean and India over the last 3 years, with millions of cases. The 2007 outbreak of chikungunya fever in Ravenna district, Italy was the first documented transmission of the virus on the European continent.

Similarly, humans are infected with dengue virus through the bites of Aedes mosquitoes. Dengue is endemic in most tropical countries. After an incubation of 8-10 days, many people infected with the virus develop a mild flu-like illness. A small number of these cases may develop into dengue hemorrhagic fever, which has become a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in some Asian and South American countries. The last documented dengue outbreak in Europe took place in Greece during 1927-8 (1 million cases, 1,000 deaths).

Tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) is one of the most dangerous infections of the central nervous system in Europe. TBE has become a growing public health challenge as a result of an increasing incidence in some areas of Europe where the disease is endemic, as well as an increase in its geographical distribution. The number of human cases in all endemic regions of Europe has increased by almost 400% in the last 30 years. TBE has become an international public health problem also because of increased travel to risk areas.

Further information

Link to articles published in
Eurosurveillance.

Link to Mission Report:
Chikungunya in Italy

Link to ECDC webpage on vector-borne diseases

European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control

Easily accessed and plentiful, adult stem cells found in a male patient’s testicles might someday be used to create a wide range of tissue types to help him fight disease — getting around the need for more controversial embryonic stem cells.

That’s the promise of a breakthrough study in mice led by a team from Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, who report their findings in the September 20 issue of Nature.

Using spermatogonial progenitor stem cells (SPCs) obtained from the mouse’s testes, the researchers were able to redirect the cells’ development in the lab to form so-called “multi-potent adult spermatogonial-derived stem cells” (MASCs).

It was these cells that went on to develop into working blood vessel (endothelial) cells and tissue, as well as cardiac cells, brain cells and a host of other cell types.

Prior research conducted elsewhere has used genetic manipulation to reprogram adult cells derived from connective tissue to acquire stem-cell potential, differentiating into various organ-specific tissues. However, this reprogramming method — called “induced pluripotency” — resulted in generation of multi-potent stem cells that carried an increased risk of transforming into malignant cells.

“What’s really novel about our work is that — unlike induced pluripotency — these mouse SPCs do not require any addition or tweaking of genes to get them to form the multi-potent cells (MASCs) that then go on to produce all of these cell types,” notes senior author Dr. Shahin Rafii, Arthur Belfer Professor of Genetic Medicine and director of the Ansary Stem Cell Center for Regenerative Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College and a noted Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.

“Some hurdles remain, of course — we have to replicate these findings in humans, and we haven’t discovered the exact ‘switch’ that would allow us to control SPC development on demand,” Dr. Rafii says. “Nevertheless, it appears that these unique specialized spermatogonial cells could be an easily obtained and manipulated source of stem cells with exactly the same capability to form new tissues that we see in embryonic stem cells.”

SPCs lie within a specific area of the testes and their sole function is to generate the precursors to sperm. “Normally, the spermatogonial progenitor cell is committed to only that function, and they’re remarkably efficient, keeping men fertile well into advanced age,” notes the study’s lead author, Dr. Marco Seandel, researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and researcher/medical oncology fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Dr. Seandel provided the first real breakthrough in this research, developing the first efficient means of growing large quantities of SPCs for experimental use in the lab.

“That really allowed us to go full steam ahead in examining the potential of these very interesting cells,” explains Dr. Rafii.

In their experiments, the Weill Cornell team concocted the perfect in vitro biochemical environment for the SPCs. This included particular helper cell types and growth factors aimed at fostering SPCs development away from creating germ cells and towards what scientists called “multipotency” — the ability to develop into many different cell types.

Along the way, the team also cleared another hurdle.

“One problem with working with SPCs is that they’ve been extremely difficult to identify. We discovered that, within the testicular environment, only SPCs express a particular marker called GPR125,” Dr. Seandel says. “That’s a quantum leap forward in terms of being able to harvest and work with these cells.”

Left to “soak” in their specially designed cell culture conditions, SPCs eventually made the change the team was hoping for. They did not develop into germ cells but instead grew to become multi-potent adult spermatogonial-derived stem cells (MASCs).

In both in vitro and mouse-tissue studies, the Weill Cornell group watched as the MASCs differentiated into the full range of cell types.

“We took them furthest when it came to endothelial cells,” says Dr. Daylon James, a co-author and investigator in Dr. Rafii’s laboratory. “In experiments in live mouse tissue, we were able to show that these MASC-derived endothelial cells did more than just form — they also joined up with, and functioned alongside, other blood vessels.”

MASCs also produced contractile “beating heart” cardiac cells, neurons, and muscle cells in the laboratory, the researchers add.

But challenges remain. “We still don’t understand the exact biochemical and genetic ‘switch’ that tells the cells to become MASCs,” Dr. Seandel says. “Discovering that switch will be crucial to our being able to create MASCs on a routine basis.”

“The other hurdle is to repeat this success in human cells, by utilizing the same stem-cell markers, including GPR125 and also another specific marker, Plzf,” states Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi, a collaborator in the study. Dr. Pandolfi is currently a professor at Harvard Medical School. Drs. Ilaria Falciatori, Sergey Shmelkov and Jiyeon Kim are other researchers in Dr. Rafii’s lab, who are using GPR125 to isolate stem cells from other adult tissues with the potential of converting them into multi-potent stem cells with regenerative potential.

Still, the findings in Nature are extremely promising.

“For male patients, it could someday mean a readily available source of stem cells that gets around ethical issues linked to embryonic stem cells. It also avoids issues linked to tissue transplant rejection, since these ‘autologous stem cells’ are derived from the patient’s own body,” Dr. Rafii says. Given the pioneering surgical technology developed by the Department of Urology at Weill Cornell — by Drs. Peter Schlegel, Marc Goldstein and Douglas Scherr — it is expected that routine retrieval of adult human testicular tissue could be performed safely and in a timely fashion.

Would such an approach work in the female ovary, which also contains a large population of germ cells? The Weill Cornell team says similar techniques might work there as well, although at this point it’s just a theory.

“Our achievement using these testes-derived cells has taken us over a decade of painstaking investigation to achieve,” says Dr. Rafii. “It points to the potential of this remarkable, but — until now — poorly accessed and understood stem cell.”

“We hope this seminal paper will set the stage for designing clinical strategies for regenerating failing organs in patients with heart disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, stroke, diabetes, arthritis, macular degeneration and infertility induced by chemotherapy and irradiation,” Dr. Rafii adds. “Delivering stem cells derived from MASCs, loaded with toxic factors, to the tumor microenvironment may also provide a novel strategy to target tumor blood vessels and inhibit cancer growth and metastasis.”

This study was funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ansary Stem Cell Center for Regenerative Medicine, American Association for Cancer Research and the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Additional co-researchers include Dr. Sai Chavala and Dr. Fan Zhang — both of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Weill Cornell Medical College, New York City; Dr. Douglas Scherr, of Weill Cornell Medical College; Dr. Nicholas Gale, Dr. George Yancopolous and Dr. Andrew Murphy — of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Tarrytown, N.Y.; and Dr. Robin Hobbs of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York City, currently a fellow at the Harvard Medical School.

Weill Cornell Medical College

Weill Cornell Medical College — Cornell University’s Medical School located in New York City — is committed to excellence in research, teaching, patient care and the advancement of the art and science of medicine, locally, nationally and globally. Weill Cornell, which is a principal academic affiliate of NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, offers an innovative curriculum that integrates the teaching of basic and clinical sciences, problem-based learning, office-based preceptorships, and primary care and doctoring courses. Physicians and scientists of Weill Cornell Medical College are engaged in cutting-edge research in such areas as stem cells, genetics and gene therapy, geriatrics, neuroscience, structural biology, cardiovascular medicine, AIDS, obesity, cancer, psychiatry and public health — and continue to delve ever deeper into the molecular basis of disease in an effort to unlock the mysteries behind the human body and the malfunctions that result in serious medical disorders.

The Medical College — in its commitment to global health and education — has a strong presence in such places as Qatar, Tanzania, Haiti, Brazil, Salzburg, and Turkey. With the historic Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, the Medical School is the first in the U.S. to offer its M.D. degree overseas. Weill Cornell is the birthplace of many medical advances — from the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer to the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial for gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease, the first indication of bone marrow’s critical role in tumor growth, and, most recently, the world’s first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally-conscious brain-injured patient.

medrnell.edu

A process that cleans wastewater and generates electricity can also remove 90 percent of salt from brackish water or seawater, according to an international team of researchers from China and the U.S.

Clean water for drinking, washing and industrial uses is a scarce resource in some parts of the world. Its availability in the future will be even more problematic. Many locations already desalinate water using either a reverse osmosis process — one that pushes water under high pressure through membranes that allow water to pass but not salt — or an electrodialysis process that uses electricity to draw salt ions out of water through a membrane. Both methods require large amounts of energy.

“Water desalination can be accomplished without electrical energy input or high water pressure by using a source of organic matter as the fuel to desalinate water,” the researchers report in a recent online issue of Environmental Science and Technology.
“The big selling point is that it currently takes a lot of electricity to desalinate water and using the microbial desalination cells, we could actually desalinate water and produce electricity while removing organic material from wastewater,” said Bruce Logan, Kappe Professor of Environmental Engineering, Penn State

The team modified a microbial fuel cell — a device that uses naturally occurring bacteria to convert wastewater into clean water producing electricity — so it could desalinate salty water.

“Our main intent was to show that using bacteria we can produce sufficient current to do this,” said Logan. “However, it took 200 milliliters of an artificial wastewater — acetic acid in water — to desalinate 3 milliliters of salty water. This is not a practical system yet as it is not optimized, but it is proof of concept.”

A typical microbial fuel cell consists of two chambers, one filled with wastewater or other nutrients and the other with water, each containing an electrode. Naturally occurring bacteria in the wastewater consume the organic material and produce electricity.

The researchers, who also included Xiaoxin Cao, Xia Huang, Peng Liang, Kang Xiao, Yinjun Zhou and Xiaoyuan Zhang, at Tsinghua University, Beijing, changed the microbial fuel cell by adding a third chamber between the two existing chambers and placing certain ion specific membranes — membranes that allow either positive or negative ions through, but not both — between the central chamber and the positive and negative electrodes. Salty water to be desalinated is placed in the central chamber.

Seawater contains about 35 grams of salt per liter and brackish water contains 5 grams per liter. Salt not only dissolves in water, it dissociates into positive and negative ions. When the bacteria in the cell consume the wastewater it releases charged ions — protons — into the water. These protons cannot pass the anion membrane, so negative ions move from the salty water into the wastewater chamber. At the other electrode protons are consumed, so positively charged ions move from the salty water to the other electrode chamber, desalinating the water in the middle chamber.

The desalination cell releases ions into the outer chambers that help to improve the efficiency of electricity generation compared to microbial fuel cells.

“When we try to use microbial fuel cells to generate electricity, the conductivity of the wastewater is very low,” said Logan. “If we could add salt it would work better. Rather than just add in salt, however in places where brackish or salt water is already abundant, we could use the process to additionally desalinate salty water, clean the wastewater and dump it and the resulting salt back into the ocean.”

Because the salt in the water helps the cell generate electricity, as the central chamber becomes less salty, the conductivity decreases and the desalination and electrical production decreases, which is why only 90 percent of the salt is removed. However, a 90 percent decrease in salt in seawater would produce water with 3.5 grams of salt per liter, which is less than brackish water. Brackish water would contain only 0.5 grams of salt per liter.

Another problem with the current cell is that as protons are produced at one electrode and consumed at the other electrode, these chambers become more acidic and alkaline. Mixing water from the two chambers together when they are discharged would once again produce neutral, salty water, so the acidity and alkalinity are not an environmental problem assuming the cleaned wastewater is dumped into brackish water or seawater. However, the bacteria that run the cell might have a problem living in highly acidic environments.

For this experiment, the researchers periodically added a pH buffer avoiding the acid problem, but this problem will need to be considered if the system is to produce reasonable amounts of desalinized water.

King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia and Ministry of Science and Technology, China, supported this work.

Source:
A’ndrea Elyse Messer

Penn State

There may be thousands of things large and small that can be done to better control pollution on even the smallest waterways, and a new tool developed at Purdue University may help sort out how to choose the best ones.

Indrajeet Chaubey, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering, combined a best management practices tool with a complex genetic algorithm that can search out the best solutions for non-point source pollution control in a watershed. By analyzing data from an area, in just a few hours the tool can compute the most cost-effective pollution-control strategies for water resources affected by agriculture, a process that currently takes weeks or months.

A paper on the work appeared this past week in the journal Water Resources Research.

“When you have got limited resources to control non-point pollution in an area, you have to decide where to best use your resources,” Chaubey said. “At the same time, you want to be sure you don’t disrupt the agricultural production in an area.”

Chaubey has spent the last several years developing a best management practices tool that takes into consideration all feasible solutions for decreasing non-point source pollution, or pollution that gets into water through runoff. The tool determines the best solution – such as changes in tillage practices, grass coverage and structural changes on the land – based on the amount of pollution that can be eliminated, the economic impact to agricultural land and other factors. The calculations used include soil, water, topography and other data usually collected by governmental agencies.

The algorithm assesses which of those practices will result in the most pollution control for the amount of money available with as little disruption to agriculture as possible.

“You have to look at the economic information at the same time. If the solution we provide will negatively impact farmers, it will not be adopted,” Chaubey said. “Combining economic analysis with environmental analysis gives solutions that are more likely to be acceptable to farmers and watershed managers.”

Current methods used to choose watershed-management practices include funding projects based on a first-come basis or spending on the project or projects seen as most beneficial. The problem is that one major project might break the budget, while several smaller projects could result in better pollution control for the same money.

Chaubey said the system was tested with information from the L’Anguille River Watershed in eastern Arkansas. Further testing is being done on six locations in Indiana. The U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the research.

Chaubey also expects to develop the tool in a format accessible by government officials to evaluate projects in their jurisdictions.

Brian Wallheimer

Source
Purdue University

Adding to its recent endovascular aortic repair
(EVAR) innovations, Medtronic, Inc. (NYSE: MDT), today announced the U.S. launch of
the Talent Abdominal Stent Graft on the Xcelerant Hydro Delivery System.

EVAR is a treatment for aortic aneurysm, a dangerous bulge or weakening in the body’s
main artery that can rupture with fatal consequences if left untreated. In the United
States, abdominal aortic aneurysms – the most common type – are responsible for
approximately 15,000 deaths annually. Worldwide, it is estimated that more than one
million people are living with undiagnosed aortic aneurysms, and that 95 percent of
these could be successfully treated if detected before rupture.

EVAR involves the navigation of a stent graft, via the body’s arteries, to the aorta. The
stent graft is then deployed to create a reinforced tube within the aorta, reducing
pressure on the aneurysm and the risk of rupture. EVAR is a minimally-invasive alternative to open surgical repair.

The Xcelerant Hydro Delivery System features a hydrophilic coating which attracts and
holds water at the device surface to reduce friction. The coating is designed to aid
navigation through the femoral and iliac arteries en route to the aorta.

“The combination of the Xcelerant Hydro Delivery System and the Talent Abdominal
Stent Graft represents another major step forward for the treatment of patients with
abdominal aortic aneurysms,” said Dr. Manish Mehta of Albany Medical College and
Albany Medical Center Hospital in New York. “The hydrophilic coating takes
deliverability to a new level and gives endovascular interventionalists like me greater
control over the deployment of this excellent stent graft, which has no equal in terms of
sizes and profile. Taken together, these technologies simplify the procedure and
enhance patient care – a powerful combination indeed.”

“The Xcelerant Hydro Delivery System again demonstrates Medtronic’s innovation in
the field of EVAR,” said Tony Semedo, vice president and general manager of
Endovascular Innovations at Medtronic. “The launch of the Talent stent grafts earlier
this year made EVAR available to significantly more patients than possible with earlier
technologies. Now, by introducing the Talent Abdominal Stent Graft on the Xcelerant
Hydro Delivery System in the United States, we have enhanced navigation. All of these
innovations benefit physicians and patients alike.”

A pioneer of EVAR, Medtronic has been an innovator and leader in the stent graft
industry for over a decade. Its history includes more than 150,000 patients treated with
stent grafts dating back to 1995. Medtronic offers the broadest portfolio of aortic stent
grafts. The AneuRx AAAdvantage ® and Talent Abdominal Stent Grafts with the
Xcelerant Hydro Delivery System and the Talent Thoracic Stent Graft with the Xcelerant
Delivery System are commercially available in the U.S. The Valiant ® Thoracic Stent Graft and the Endurant ® Stent Graft Systems are commercially available only outside
the U.S. The Reliant ® Stent Graft Balloon Catheter is commercially available worldwide.

About Medtronic

Medtronic, Inc., headquartered in Minneapolis, is the global
leader in medical technology – alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life for
millions of people around the world.

Any forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties such as those
described in Medtronic’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended April 25, 2008. Actual results may differ materially from anticipated results.

Medtronic

Elderly individuals who had a diet that included higher consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, cereal and fish and was low in red meat and poultry and who were physically active had an associated lower risk of Alzheimer disease, according to a study in the August 12 issue of JAMA. In a second study, higher adherence to a Mediterranean diet was associated with slower cognitive decline, but was not associated with a decreased risk of dementia.

Research regarding the effect physical activity can have on the risk of Alzheimer disease (AD) or dementia has shown mixed results, as has the effect of dietary habits. Their combined association has not been investigated, according to background information in the article.

Nikolaos Scarmeas, M.D., of Columbia University Medical Center, New York, and colleagues examined the association between physical activity and risk of AD and also the effect of physical activity and adherence to a Mediterranean-type diet on AD risk. The study included 2 groups that consisted of 1,880 community-dwelling elderly residents of New York city without dementia at the start of the study, for whom there was both diet and physical activity information available. Standardized neurological and neuropsychological measures were administered approximately every 1.5 years from 1992 through 2006.

The participants received measurements of their adherence to a Mediterranean-type diet (scale of 0-9; categorized as low, middle, or high) and their physical activity (sum of weekly participation in various physical activities, weighted by the type of physical activity [light, moderate, vigorous]; categorized into no physical activity, some, or much, also low or high), separately and combined. A higher score for diet was obtained with higher consumption of fruits, vegetables, legumes, cereals, and fish; lower consumption of meat and dairy products; a higher ratio of monounsaturated fats to saturated fats and mild to moderate alcohol consumption.

Individuals were followed up for an average of 5.4 years, during which a total of 282 developed AD. In considering only physical activity, the researchers found that more physical activity was associated with lower risk for developing AD. “Compared with physically inactive individuals, report of some physical activity was associated with a 29 percent to 41 percent lower risk of developing AD, while report of much physical activity was associated with a 37 percent to 50 percent lower risk,” the authors write.

When considered simultaneously, both physical activity and Mediterranean diet adherence were significantly associated with AD incidence. According to the researchers, “Belonging to the middle diet adherence tertile was associated with a 2 percent to 14 percent risk reduction, while belonging to the highest diet adherence tertile was associated with a 32 percent to 40 percent reduced risk. Similarly, compared with individuals with no physical activity, individuals reporting some physical activity had a 25 percent to 38 percent lower risk for AD, while individuals reporting much physical activity had a 33 percent to 48 percent lower risk for AD.”

The authors also write, “Compared with individuals with low physical activity plus low adherence to a diet (absolute AD risk, 19 percent), high physical activity plus high diet adherence was associated with a 35 percent to 44 percent relative risk reduction (absolute AD risk, 12 percent). … Absolute AD risks declined from 21 percent in the group with no physical activity plus low diet adherence to 9 percent in the group with much physical activity plus high diet adherence.”

“In summary, our results support the potentially independent and important role of both physical activity and dietary habits in relation to AD risk. These findings should be further evaluated in other populations.”

JAMA. 2009;302[6]:627-637.

Source
Journal of the American Medical Association