Stomach ulcer bug may be behind bad breath

Washington:A new study has suggested that bacteria, which cause stomach ulcers and cancer, may be behind bad breath.
Scientists, for the first time, have found that Helicobacter pylori living in the mouths of people, who are not showing signs of stomach disease.
The mouth is home to over 600 different species of bacteria, some of which can cause disease.
Helicobacter pylori has recently been shown to cause stomach ulcers and is behind a large proportion of gastric cancers.
"Recently, scientists discovered that H. pylori can live in the mouth. We wanted to determine whether the bacteria can cause bad breath, so we tested patients complaining of halitosis for the presence of H. pylori," said Dr Nao Suzuki from Fukuoka Dental College in Fukuoka, Japan.
The researchers found that the bacteria in the mouths of 21 out of 326 Japanese people with halitosis.
In these people, the concentration of a bad breath gas and the level of oral disease were significantly higher.
In patients with periodontal (gum) disease, 16 of 102 people had H. pylori in their mouths.
"Halitosis is a common problem in humans, and bad breath is largely caused by periodonitis, tongue debris, poor oral hygiene and badly fitted fillings," said Dr. Suzuki.
"Bacteria produce volatile compounds that smell unpleasant, including hydrogen sulphide, methyl mercaptan and dimethyl sulphide. Doctors often measure the levels of these compounds to diagnose the problem. Gastrointestinal diseases are also generally believed to cause halitosis," Dr. Suzuki added.
Patients who were carrying H. pylori had more blood in their saliva and were also carrying Prevotella intermedia, which is one of the major periodontal bacteria.
"Although the presence of H. pylori in the mouth does not directly cause bad breath, it is associated with periodontal disease, which does cause bad breath," said Dr. Suzuki.
"We now need to look into the relationship between H. pylori in the mouth and in the stomach. We hope to discover the role of the mouth in transmitting H. pylori stomach infections in the near future," Dr. Suzuki added.
The study is published in the December issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology.

'For men, the penis is the window to the heart'

Melbourne: Forget pills and creams, the secret to maintaining a healthy sex life well into old age is as simple as fighting the extra flab, according to a leading expert.
According to Gary Wittert, endocrinologist and Professor of Medicine at the University of Adelaide, erectile dysfunction is often a warning sign of underlying lifestyle-related diseases, which include heart disease, diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
"For men, the penis is the window to the heart," ABC Online quoted Wittert, while speaking at the Australian Health and Medical Research Congress in Brisbane.
"The blood vessels in the penis are exactly the same as the blood vessels in the heart. If they have some erectile dysfunction then they've probably got subclinical coronary artery disease," the expert added.
A study of more than 19,000 men by Dr Ian Thompson of the Texas Health Science Center and colleagues, which was conducted in 2005, found that those who reported erectile dysfunction were just as likely to have a heart attack or stroke as smokers.
Much coverage has been given to the age-related decline in testosterone and it effect on sexuality, however Professor Wittert says there is plenty of evidence that healthy, active men are able to maintain a healthy, active sex life well into their later years.
"What I truly believe is it's not just age. It is not inevitable that you lose your erections with age," the expert added.
He says, as obesity becomes more prevalent in younger men, they too are experiencing erectile problems as a result of their weight and associated health problems.
"You're starting to see with obesity a very high prevalence of erectile dysfunction in younger men and it's a warning sign," the researcher said. [From Internet]

Eating an egg a day can up, type two diabetes risk by 60 percent

Melbourne: Eating an egg every day can raise the risk of developing diabetes, a shocking new study has found.
What's more, intake of more than a couple of eggs a week can make the condition worse in those who already have diabetes.
Scientists in Australia have urged that type 2 diabetics and people at risk of developing the blood glucose condition should limit their egg intake after a US study found them to be detrimental to their health, reports News.com.au.
According to Harvard Medical School scientists, eating an egg every day may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes by about 60 per cent.
Women were most susceptible, with females consuming seven eggs or more a week increasing their risk by 77 per cent, the study found.
Dr Michael Dr Gaziano wrote in the journal Diabetes Care that eating just one egg a week carried no increased risk.
The study reached the conclusions after tracking the egg-eating habits of almost 57,000 men and women over two decades. [From internet]

Touchy feely couples less likely to be stressed

London: Couples who hug and kiss more often or become physically intimate are less likely to be stressed, especially if they are married.
A week-long study of 51 double income German couples (mostly married) by Zurich University found that touchy feely pairs, who did everything from holding hands to having sex, had lower levels of stress hormone cortisol in their saliva.
The body secretes more cortisol during its fight or flight response and is at the root of stress-related bodily changes.
The study found that couples experiencing more work-related problems had the lowest levels of cortisol through such displays of affection and intimacy, according to online reports.
Beate Ditzen of Zurich University, who conducted the research, informed that intimacy perked up moods that tended to improve hormone levels.
But she cautioned couples not to compete in expressing such intimacy, but involve themselves in tasks that nurture togetherness in both partners.
The finding appeared in Psychosomatic Medicine. [From Internet]

Gender matching in heart transplantation leads to long-term survival

Washington: A new study has revealed that gender matching between donors and recipients is important to short- and long-term survival in heart transplantation,
"In clinical transplantation, we generally don't assume that organs from male and female donors have inherent differences affecting long-term outcomes, but our data suggest that there are important differences which must be taken into account," said Eric Weiss, M.D., first author of the study and a post doctoral research fellow in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at The Johns Hopkins University Medical Institutions in Baltimore, Md.
For the study, the researchers analyzed data from the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS), identifying 18,240 patients who received their first orthotopic (replacing a failing organ with a healthy one) heart transplant between 1998 and 2007. In this dataset, patients were followed for 10 years, with the average follow-up time being 3.4 years.
Patients were sorted into four groups: male donor with male recipient, female donor with male recipient, male donor with female recipient, and female donor with female recipient.
Overall, 71 percent were matched by gender to their donor (77 percent of male recipients and 51 percent of female recipients). Twenty-five percent of patients died during the study.
The researchers found that matching donor and recipient by gender resulted in 13 percent lower risk of graft rejection within the first year; 14 percent lower rate of graft rejection over the study period; 25 percent drop in 30-day death rate; and 20 percent lower one-year death rate.
Statistical modelling revealed that the greatest chance for death during the study occurred when pairing a male donor with a female recipient, which made the risk of death an estimated 20 percent higher compared to a male donor with male recipient.
The most successful transplants occurred between male recipients and male donors, when the cumulative chance for survival was 61 percent.
"These results fit with our hypothesis that sex matching in heart transplantation leads to improved survival rates. We hypothesized that we would see a big difference in the short-term survival - which we did, most likely because of heart-size issues - but what was interesting was the substantial difference in the long term, as well," said Weiss.
The study has been presented at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2008. [From Internet]

'Anti-aging' pill may reverse time clock in humans

Washington : After successfully conducting studies on mice, scientists have claimed that SRT1720, touted as an 'anti-aging pill,' can be tested in human trials.
The new drug study from Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Inc., based in Cambridge, Mass., claimed that SRT1720 activates the same receptor as the much-discussed resveratrol, the chemical in red wine that may slow some effects of aging.
Scientists are testing both resveratrol and SRT1720 for first treating type-two diabetes, and possibly later for other age-related diseases.
"We are very excited by these results. These compounds are mimicking calorie restriction and exercise while lowering levels of glucose and insulin in mice. It's a game changer," Discovery News quoted Michelle Dipp of Sirtris as saying.
In the study, the scientists overfed two groups of mice by about 40 percent, which can make up for almost eating 3,000 calories a day, and enough to pack on significant weight.
After drug administration in various concentrations, the scientists found that after 15 weeks of eating the high-calorie diet, the control mice gained significant weight.
However, the mice taking 500 mg of the drug, did not gain any weight. The cholesterol levels of the mice on the drug also improved.
The animals' exercise habits were also recorded. Mice without SRT1720 ran for roughly half a mile. Mice given 100 mg ran roughly seven-tenths of a mile. And mice on 500 mg of SRT1720 were able to run a full mile, twice the distance of untreated mice.
Dipp said that tests have shown that above 500 mg, the drug's effects plateau. SRT1720 has no known side effects.
Johan Auwerx at the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland led the research.
The SIRT1 receptor is also activated during caloric restriction diets, which have been shown to lengthen life span in multiple animal models, and during exercise.
SIRT1 receptors are found in mitochondria, often called the powerhouse of the cell because of all the energy they produce.
The study was published in the journal Cell Metabolism. [From Internet]

Nerves damaged by brain and spinal cord injuries regenerated in mice

Washington: Nerves damaged by brain or spinal cord injury may be regenerated by silencing natural growth inhibitors, according to a new study.
Researchers at Children's Hospital Boston conducted an experiment on mice by temporarily silencing genes that prevent mature neurons from regenerating, and causing them to recover and re-grow vigorously after damage.
Dr. Zhigang He, Associate Professor of Neurology who is also the senior author of the paper, highlights the fact that currently there is no treatment for spinal cord or brain injury because injured neurons cannot regenerate.
Studies conducted in the past, which looked at removing inhibitory molecules from the neurons' environment, have found only modest effects on nerve recovery.
However, He and Dr. Mustafa Sahin have found that re-growth is primarily regulated from within the cells themselves.
"We knew that on completion of development, cells stop growing due to genetic mechanisms that prevent overgrowth. We thought that this kind of mechanism might also prevent regeneration after injury," says He.
The researchers point out that the key pathway for controlling cell growth in neurons, called the mTOR pathway, is active in cells during development, but is substantially down-regulated once neurons have matured.
Upon injury, this pathway is almost completely silenced, presumably for the cell to conserve energy to survive.
The researchers are of the view that preventing this down-regulation may allow regeneration to occur.
During the study, He's team used genetic techniques to delete two key inhibitory regulators of the mTOR pathway, known as PTEN and TSC1, in the brain cells of mice.
The mice were subjected to mechanical damage of the optic nerve two weeks later.
Two weeks post-injury, it was observed that about 50 percent of injured neurons in the mice with gene deletions of PTEN or TSC1 survived, compared to about 20 percent of those without the deletions.
Up to 10 per cent of the surviving mutant mice showed significant re-growth of axons, the fibre-like projections of neurons that transmit signals, over long distances.
This re-growth, according to the research team, increased over time.
He says that though the current study used genetic techniques, it may be possible to accomplish the same re-growth through pharmacologic means.
"This is the first time it has been possible to see such significant regeneration by manipulating single molecules. We believe that these findings have opened up the possibility for making small-molecule drugs or developing other approaches to promote axon regeneration," adds He.
The researchers have also to determine whether such regenerated axons can restore function.
They are presently looking at axon regeneration after spinal cord injury, hoping that their approach may lead to future neural regeneration therapies. [From Internet]

Women's hands carry more diverse bacteria than men's

Washington: Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found that human hands harbor far higher numbers of bacteria species than previously believed, and that women's palms carry a significantly greater diversity of microbes than those of men.
Assistant Professor Noah Fierer, the lead author of the study, says that the new findings have implications for better understanding human bacteria, and should help establish a "healthy baseline" to detect microbial community differences on individuals that are associated with a wide variety of human diseases.
Reporting their study in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers revealed that they used powerful gene sequencing techniques for their research, which revealed that a typical hand in had roughly 150 different species of bacteria living on it.
The researchers detected and identified more than 4,700 different bacteria species across 102 human hands in the study, but only five species were shared among all 51 participants.
"The sheer number of bacteria species detected on the hands of the study participants was a big surprise, and so was the greater diversity of bacteria we found on the hands of women," said Fierer.
He further said that the diversity of bacteria on individual hands was not significantly affected by regular hand washing.
Fierer said that the research team's observations suggested that the standard skin culturing of human skin bacteria, a technique used by many labs, dramatically underestimated the full extent of microbial diversity.
The researcher said that skin pH might be behind the higher bacterial diversity on women's hands, since men generally have more acidic skin, and other research has shown microbes are less diverse in more acidic environments.
He added that the difference could also be due to differences in sweat and oil gland production between men and women, the frequency of moisturizer or cosmetics applications, skin thickness or hormone production.
The study also revealed that the right and left palms of the same individual shared an average of only 17 percent of the same bacteria types.
The participants, who were CU undergraduates, shared an average of only 13 percent of bacteria species with each other.
Fierer said that while the composition of bacterial communities on dominant and non-dominant hands of subjects was significantly different, diversity levels were similar.
He said that the differences found between dominant and non-dominant hands were likely due to environmental conditions like oil production, salinity, moisture or variable environmental surfaces touched by either hand of an individual.
The researchers also observed that some groups of bacteria were less abundant following hand washing, while others were more abundant.
Biochemistry Assistant Professor Rob Knight stressed that regular hand washing with anti-bacterial soap was beneficial.
"The vast majority of bacteria are non-pathogenic, and some bacteria even protect against the spread of pathogens. From a public health standpoint, regular hand washing has a very positive effect," Knight said.
In their study report, the researchers wrote: "Although hand washing altered community composition, overall levels of bacterial diversity were unrelated to the time since the last hand washing. Either the bacterial colonies rapidly re-establish after hand washing, or washing (as practiced by the students included in this study) does not remove the majority of bacteria taxa found on the skin surface."
Knight revealed that the research team used the metagenomic survey to simultaneously analyze all of the bacteria on a given palm surface.
According to him, the procedure involved isolating and amplifying tiny bits of microbial DNA, then building complementary DNA strands with a high-powered sequencing machine that allowed the team to identify different families, genera and species of bacteria from the sample.
He said that the richness of bacteria types on the palm was three times higher than that found on the forearm and elbow.
Fierer added that the total diversity of hand bacteria appeared to match or exceed levels of bacteria colonizing other parts of the body, including the esophagus, the mouth and lower intestine.
"I view humans as 'continents' of microscopic ecological zones with the kind of diversity comparable to deep oceans or tropical jungles. Today we have the ability to answer large-scale questions about these complex microbial communities and their implications for human health that we weren't even asking six months or a year ago," Fierer said. [From Internet]

How to get rid of belly fat

Washington: Want to get rid of your belly fat? Well, then all you need to do is follow the simple tips given in a new book, 'The Flat Belly Diet'.
The book is written by Liz Vaccariello and Cynthia Sass, the editors of health magazine 'Prevention', reports CBS News.
Here are some tips that can help you get rid of belly fat:
1. Eat four 400-calorie meals per day
2. Never go more than four hours without eating
3. Incorporate monounsaturated fats or "MUFAS" into meals
4. When the body is under stress, it produces a hormone called "cortisol," which turns into belly fat. Learning to control the stress in life can go a long way toward reducing the belly fat.
5. Keep a strong social support group. Get your friends to join you, or find an online support group.
6. Keep a record of what you've eaten, and how much. [From internet]

Kids who sleep less more likely to be obese as adults: Study

Melbourne: Kids who sleep less are more likely to be obese as adults, according to a New Zealand study.
For the study, researchers at the University of Otago followed more than 1000 children born in Dunedin between 1972 and 1973.
They found that kids aged between five and 11 who spent less time in bed had higher Body Mass Indexes as adults and were significantly more likely to be obese.
Lead author of the study Erik Landhuis said the importance of getting a good night's sleep was well known, but this was the first study to show potential implications for adult obesity from lack of sleep during childhood.
"It is not clear why lack of sleep might lead to weight gain, but experimental studies have shown that sleep deprivation may disrupt the hormones that regulate appetite," the Age.com.au quoted Landhuis, as saying.
"It has also been suggested that tired kids may simply have less energy and are therefore less active.
"Our findings indicate that ensuring adequate sleep time in childhood may play an important part in the prevention of adult obesity," Landhuis added.
Researchers documented participants' time in bed every two years between ages five and 11 and measured body weight at age 32.
They ruled out early signs of obesity such as socioeconomic factors, parental control, television watching, and a parental history of obesity as possible explanations for the results.
The study is published in the United States journal Paediatrics. [From Internet]

Test developed to predict menopause

London: Scientists have developed a test to predict when a woman will go through menopause, enabling older women to plan for motherhood.
The breakthrough by American scientists will help women prepare mentally for losing their fertility and allow those in their late 30s and 40s who are considering trying for a baby to pinpoint just how long they have left to conceive, The Observer newspaper reported Sunday.

“This test seems to be reasonably predictive of menopause. Lots of people want to know when it's going to happen so that they can plan their life and work and their children, if possible, and this test would give them an idea of that,” said Bill Ledger, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Sheffield.

“It would give them an idea of where their body is in relation to the menopause, how soon it's coming,” he added.

The test, developed by international researchers led by MaryFran Sowers of the University of Michigan, measures three hormones in the blood to calculate how many eggs are left in a woman's ovaries.

The researchers found that changes in the levels of anti-Müllerian hormone (AMH), the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and inhibin B concentrations foretold when they would enter menopause.

AMH fell to a very low or non-measurable level five years before a woman has her final period, the newspaper said, quoting the study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. [From Intenet]

WHO warns against melamine contamination in milk products

New Delhi: In view of reports about the melamine contaminated milk leading to death of infants in China, World Health Organisation has alerted South East Asian countries against possible dangers of distribution and consumption of melamine-contaminated milk products leading to serious health hazards.
Contaminated batches of infant formula or other milk-containing products such as biscuits, chocolates and snack food have reportedly been exported to Member States in South-East Asia, posing a serious public health risk, especially to infants, WHO South East Asia Regional Office pointed out.
WHO has recommended that countries set standards for maximum limits of melamine content in food products. A surveillance case definition based on clinical manifestations, key diagnostic criteria (notably ultrasound examination features) and guidelines on differential diagnosis, clinical treatment and necessary medical follow-up have also been provided to Member States.
WHO recommends exclusive breastfeeding for all infants for the first six months of their lives. No other liquid or food, not even water, is needed during this period. Thereafter, infants should receive adequate and safe supplementary foods, while breastfeeding can continue up to two years of age and beyond, it said.
Replacing powdered infant formula with other products such as condensed milk, honey mixed with milk, or fresh milk is not recommended as this could compromise safety and nutrition.
WHO-SEARO is taking steps to support Member States in dealing with the issue. Information on reported and confirmed contaminated products, including a compilation of official test results obtained through the International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN) , has been shared with all Member States. [From Internet]

Bone-building find hold hope for improved osteoporosis treatment

Washington: A team of American scientists claims to have uncovered an important step in hormone-triggered bone growth, paving the way for new osteoporosis drugs and better bone-building therapies.
The research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) showed that parathyroid hormone (PTH) given intermittently enhances the body's own bone-building action through a specific "co-receptor" on the surface of bone cells.
While scientists have known for long that PTH stimulates bone formation, the exact mechanism underlying this effect has been unknown to date.
"Our study uncovers a novel mechanism for how parathyroid hormone signaling selectively stimulates bone formation. We have identified the protein co-receptor crucial to the whole process," said Dr. Xu Cao, UAB professor of pathology and senior author on the study.
During the study, the researchers focused on PTH signals in mice to see which cell receptors would actively recruit calcium from the blood.
Dr. Mei Wan, UAB associate professor of molecular and cellular pathology and first author on the study, said that the team's efforts helped uncover the one co-receptor responsible for turning on bone building.
Dr. Jay McDonald, pathology professor and director of UAB's Center for Metabolic Bone Disease, pointed out that the exact mechanism of PTH-signalled bone formation was previously shrouded by the joint production of osteoblasts and osteoclasts, two types of cells that are instrumental in regulating a healthy skeleton.
While osteoblasts regulate a healthy skeleton by forming new bone, and osteoclasts do so by resorbing old and brittle bone.
McDonald highlighted the fact that many existing osteoporosis drugs target both osteoblasts and osteoclasts, which can lead to zero or minimal bone formation.
"The ideal would be to have one drug to shut down the osteoclasts and turn on the osteoblasts to effectively build bone. We don't have that yet, but this study shows us the path to get there," he said.
An article describing the new study has been published in the journal Genes and Development. [From Internet]

New hair counting software may turn out boon for baldies

Melbourne: Counting hairs to check the efficacy of baldness treatments and depilatory creams is now just a matter of a mouse click, all thanks to a new software developed by Australian researchers.
Researchers from CSIRO Mathematical and Information Sciences in Sydney has developed the software, which can analyse exactly how many hairs there are in a patch of skin.
The software makes use of images captured by a small flatbed scanner pressed onto the skin.
Developed in collaboration with a UK company, the software, according to image analyst Dr Pascal Vallotton, would make it easier for scientists developing hair removal creams to accurately assess how well they work
"Up to now they were counting the number of hairs that survived after treatment manually," ABC Online quoted him as saying.
He added: "That's hard work and it's difficult because you may count a hair twice or you may miss it, so image analysis offers distinct advantages because you always get the same counts and you get the right counts."
The software makes use of a mathematical algorithm to identify and trace each individual hair relying on the understanding of a hair's unique features, such as its relative straightness.
It can also differentiate between hairs and other features on the skin such as wrinkles, wounds or moles.
"We have a lot of defects in our skin irregularities that make it difficult to say this is a hair or this is a wrinkle," said Vallotton.
He added that by comparing the earlier and later images, it is possible to determine if hair is growing quickly or slowly.
However, the researchers checked the accuracy of the software by manually counting the hair strands, and were pleased to find that the counts matched.
According to Vallotton, the software could also be useful in testing the effectiveness of balding treatments and counting or tracing substances other than hairs, that are long and thin and otherwise difficult to image.
For instance, one can use the software to work out the number of neurons in a cell sample or to trace biological polymers such as long strings of protein.
The findings have been published in the latest issue of the journal Skin Research and Technology. [From Internet]

Frequent urination protects against bladder cancer

Washington: Frequent urination at night might be a good thing after all, it protects your bladder against cancer, according to an exhaustive study.
The results indicate that those people who usually get up at night at least twice to pass urine reduced their risk of suffering from bladder cancer by 40 to 59 percent.
This "protective effect" was found in both men and women and did not relate to the consumption of tobacco or the quantity of water they drank.
Night-time is usually the period during which there is the longest interval between urination.
For this reason carcinogenic agents like tobacco "are present in the urine, (that) constitutes an important factor towards the likelihood of developing bladder cancer", explained Juan Alguacil, a researcher from University of Huelva (Spain) and one of the authors of the study.
The research group, made up of Spanish and North American scientists, analysed the urinary frequency in 884 recently diagnosed bladder cancer cases and in 996 non-cancer 'control patients', from five regions in Spain.
The patients, aged between 21 and 80 years, came from 18 hospitals in Vallés, Barcelona, Asturias, Alicante and Tenerife, according to a release of Plataforma SINC.
The study authors underlined that "it would be necessary to transport this discovery from the lab to the hospital in order to achieve the prevention of almost 357,000 new cases diagnosed every year globally and 145,000 deaths.
Although the best advice is to avoid exposure to stop smoking and to avoid direct contact with chemical products or pollution particles, the risk of bladder cancer could be reduced by increasing urinary frequency and drinking more water.
The research appeared recently in the International Journal of Cancer. [From Internet]