E-Cigarettes May Be Just as Bad as The Real Thing

E-Cigarettes May Be Just as Bad as The Real Thing http://news360.com/article/284534688

Two new studies have turned out some scary findings about e-cigarettes. The first one, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, revealed that e-cigarette vapor can harbor hidden formaldehyde - a known carcinogen - at levels up to 15 times greater than regular cigarettes. "We discovered this form of formaldehyde hidden in the tiny liquid droplets of the vapor, where it hadn't been detected before," says lead researcher David Peyton, a chemistry professor at Portland State University in Oregon. "It has the potential to distribute deeply into the lungs and collect there."

The second study showed that e-cigarette vapors directly harm human lung tissue. Researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York found that when the aerosol produced by heated liquid nicotine hits lung cells, it churns up disease-causing free radicals and triggers marked inflammation; they also found the presence of up to six times the level of heavy metals, like copper. What's more, they discovered that various flavor additives, which are often added to e-cigs, cause additional oxidative damage to lung tissue. This isn't after years of e-cig use, either. The negative effects "occurred after a few days of vaping," he says. "Chronic exposure may lead to even more damage."

These findings add to the fast-amassing stack of research revealing the many potential hazards of e-cigarettes. Since these smokeless devices are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, they can contain any number of toxins, carcinogens, or other mystery chemicals. And because e-cigarettes are so new, the long-term health consequences of using them are unknown.

Even so, many people assume that, compared to regular tobacco cigarettes, e-cigs are the lesser of two evils. But that's not necessarily the case, says Dr. Roy Herbst, chief of medical oncology at Yale Cancer Center and a spokesman for the American Association for Cancer Research. "In the oncology community, we feel they are both evil," he says. "The big concern with e-cigarettes is lung tissue damage. Regular cigarette smoke contains 60 to 80 known carcinogens, which makes it very bad for the lungs too. However, hot e-cigarette vapor going straight to the lungs can cause actual burning and injury. It's a different type of damage - but it's still significant."

And that's just their immediate impact. "We still don't know the long-term effects that e-cigarettes can have on the body," Herbst says. "There is still so much to learn about them."

Herbst also thinks e-cigs are an unproven and even detrimental smoking cessation tool - which is, of course, a huge reason why people puff on them. "I treat people with lung cancer, so certainly my goal is to stop people from smoking," he says. "But these devices deliver such high concentrations of nicotine that they get people very addicted to the drug. If you need help with smoking cessation, there are other, FDA-approved forms of nicotine, such patches or lozenges, that would much better than e-cigarettes."

And because e-cigs crank out so much nicotine, Herbst also fears that they can be a gateway to tobacco cigarettes. "E-cigarettes are very expensive, so we worry that people will start on them, get addicted to nicotine, and then move on to regular cigarettes, which are generally less expensive and easier to get," he adds.

Potential for ALS treatment found in three #proteins

Potential for ALS treatment found in three proteins http://news360.com/article/284360340

Where ALS comes from and how it progresses are mysteries that continue to vex medical science. But recent research at Sweden's KTH Royal Institute of Technology has found three proteins that could shed some light on the mechanisms behind this deadly disease.

Anna Häggmark, a researcher in affinity proteomics at KTH and Science for Life Laboratory, says the three proteins were identified in what is one of the most extensive plasma profiling studies performed in this field of research.

In the search for treatments and earlier diagnoses of ALS, scientists are focused on biomarkers, or biological characteristics that reflect a physiological change in the body during or after an illness. A typical example of a biomarker is troponin, which is secreted into the blood when a heart muscle is damaged following a heart attack.

"This is a really nice clue," Häggmark says. "The three proteins we have found seem to represent different aspects of this disease's pathogenesis. After further evaluation of their role within ALS, they can perhaps help to support diagnostics or even serve as a drug targets for those stricken with the disease."

There are currently no reliable markers for ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that destroys the nerve cells that control muscle movement, causing muscles to become weak and then paralyzed. ALS affects all skeletal muscles, including those used for breathing and swallowing.

Häggmark explains that one protein, NEFM, is a structural component of neurons in the central and peripheral nervous system. If found in blood plasma, it could indicate nerve fiber death as a result of ALS.

RGS18, on the other hand, is a cell signaling protein. The increase of this protein may reflect its leakage from the degenerated muscles in these patients, the study states.

The third protein, SLC25A20, is a mitochondrial protein thereby representing a cellular structure that that has previously been shown as linked to ALS.

The team's partners at the Medical University of Warsaw provided plasma samples from 367 Polish ALS patients and 101 controls. The initial protein profiles were obtained by using 352 antibodies from the Human Protein Atlas, targeting 278 proteins.

"As far as we know it's the most extensive plasma profiling study published within ALS, in terms of numbers of patients included," Häggmark says.

The researchers will work further with the verification of their results, using an expanded collection of plasma samples from Sweden, Poland and Germany as well as cerebrospinal fluid from ALS patients. "We'll look at these proteins in additional sample materials and see if we can confirm our findings," she says.

Häggmark says the ongoing study will include examining "disease specificity" of the markers, that is, whether what they find in ALS is also relevant for other neurological degenerative diseases, such as multiple sclerosis.

Journal Reference:

  •  Anna Häggmark, Maria Mikus, Atefeh Mohsenchian, Mun-Gwan Hong, Björn Forsström, Beata Gajewska, Anna Barańczyk-Kuźma, Mathias Uhlén, Jochen M. Schwenk, Magdalena Kuźma-Kozakiewicz, Peter Nilsson. Plasma profiling reveals three proteins associated to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology, 2014; 1 (8): 544 DOI: 10.1002/acn3.83

Scientists discover how to change human leukemia cells into harmless immune cells

Scientists discover how to change human leukemia cells into harmless immune cells http://news360.com/article/284355310

SOURCE: Stanford Medicine

Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have discovered that when a certain aggressive leukemia is causing havoc in the body, the solution may be to force the cancer cells to grow up and behave.

After a chance observation in the lab, the researchers found a method that can cause dangerous leukemia cells to mature into harmless immune cells known as macrophages.

The findings are described in a paper that published online March 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia with a mutation called the Philadelphia chromosome is a particularly aggressive cancer with poor outcomes, said Ravi Majeti, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine and senior author of the paper. So finding potential treatments is particularly exciting.

Majeti and his colleagues made the key observation after collecting leukemia cells from a patient and trying to keep the cells alive in a culture plate. "We were throwing everything at them to help them survive," said Majeti, who is also a member of the Stanford Cancer Institute and the Stanford Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine.
An unusual metamorphosis

Postdoctoral scholar Scott McClellan, MD, PhD, a lead author of the paper, mentioned that some of the cancer cells in culture were changing shape and size into what looked like macrophages. Majeti concurred with that observation, but the reasons for the changed cells were a mystery until he remembered an old research paper, which showed that early B-cell mouse progenitor cells could be forced to become macrophages when exposed to certain transcription factors - proteins that bind to certain DNA sequences.

"B-cell leukemia cells are in many ways progenitor cells that are forced to stay in an immature state," Majeti said. So he, McClellan and student Christopher Dove, an MD/PhD student and the paper's other lead author, did more experiments and confirmed that methods shown to have altered the fate of the mouse progenitor cells years ago could be used to transform these human cancer cells into macrophages, which can engulf and digest cancer cells and pathogens.

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Syrian people feel abandoned as world focuses on Islamic State: U.N.

By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The people of Syria feel "increasingly abandoned by the world" as global attention focuses on Islamic State militants, while violence and government bureaucracy hinder attempts to deliver aid to 12 million people, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon said on Monday. In his 13th monthly report to the United Nations Security Council on Syria, Ban said a lack of accountability during the four-year civil war has also led to a rise in allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other human rights abuses. "While global attention is focused on the threat to regional and international peace and security which terrorist groups such as ISIL (Islamic State) and (al Qaeda's) Nusra Front pose, our focus must continue to be on how best to help and support the Syrian people," Ban said in the report, seen by Reuters. Extremist Islamist groups have exploited the chaos and complicated diplomatic efforts to end the conflict with Islamic State, declaring a caliphate in the swaths of territory it has seized in Syria and Iraq.

March 23, 2015 at 11:46PM

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Montana officials end bighorn sheep hunting after die-off

The die-off of bighorn sheep from pneumonia led Montana wildlife managers on Monday to take the unusual step of abruptly closing a hunting season tied to a wild herd near Yellowstone National Park whose seasonal mating rituals attract scores of wildlife watchers. The emergency closure came after state biologists estimated that pneumonia had claimed nearly 40 percent of a herd near Gardiner, Montana, whose numbers fell to 55 this month from 89 last year, state wildlife managers said on Monday. Such pneumonia outbreaks have been linked to contact between wild sheep and domestic ones that graze on public allotments and private lands across the Rocky Mountain West. More than 1 million bighorns once roamed the region but their numbers had fallen to just tens of thousands in the first decades of the 20th century because of unregulated hunting and disease, according to the Wild Sheep Foundation.

March 23, 2015 at 11:20PM

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Tenet in deal to create largest outpatient surgery provider

Tenet Healthcare Corp on Monday said it would become the largest U.S. provider of outpatient surgery services through a joint venture with United Surgical Partners International and expects to fully own the company within five years. More medical procedures are being performed on an outpatient basis as technology improves, thus lowering costs by allowing patients to go home sooner. Tenet's shares rose 5.4 percent to $52.32 in midday trading, as investors applauded the move into an area of healthcare that is seeing faster growth and higher margins. Tenet, the third-largest U.S. hospital operator, said it will pay $425 million to private equity firm Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe and other USPI shareholders and assume $1.5 billion of USPI's debt for a 50.1 percent stake in the venture. March 23, 2015 at 03:15PM

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Drug-resistant TB threatens to kill 75 million people by 2050, cost $16.7 trillion

By Astrid Zweynert LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Over the next 35 years, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis will kill 75 million people and could cost the global economy a cumulative $16.7 trillion - the equivalent of the European Union’s annual output, a UK parliamentary group said on Tuesday. If left untackled, the spread of drug-resistant TB superbugs threatens to shrink the world economy by 0.63 percent annually, the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Global Tuberculosis (APPG TB) said, urging governments to do more to improve research and cooperation. "The rising global burden of multidrug-resistant TB and other drug-resistant infections will come at a human and economic cost which the global community simply cannot afford to ignore", economist Jim O'Neill said in a statement. March 23, 2015 at 08:02PM

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