The flu bug is the target of new seasonal vaccines announced today by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The influenza vaccines include new strains of the virus likely to appear during the 2008-2009 season. The strains were identified in a group effort with the FDA, the World Health Organization, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and other institutions after study of virus samples and patterns collected around the globe during the last year.

“One of the biggest challenges in the fight against influenza is producing new vaccines every year,” said Jesse L. Goodman, M.D., M.P.H., director of FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “There is no other instance where new vaccines must be made every year. The approval of flu vaccines is a part of FDA’s mission to promote the health of Americans throughout the year.”

While many Americans reported getting the flu last year, even after receiving a flu shot, experts say vaccination remains the cornerstone of preventing the contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses.

The CDC says an average of 5 to 20 percent of the U.S. population gets the flu annually. Of those, more than 200,000 are hospitalized from flu complications and there are about 36,000 flu-related deaths.

“People have a hard time adhering to diets and our research shows that choosing eggs for breakfast can dramatically improve the success of a weight loss plan,” said Nikhil V. Dhurandhar, Ph.D., lead researcher and associate professor in the laboratory of infection and obesity at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, a campus of the Louisiana State University system. “Apparently, the increased satiety and energy due to eggs helps people better comply with a reduced-calorie diet.”

Significant Weight Loss Related to Egg Breakfast

Compared to the subjects who ate a bagel breakfast, men and women who consumed two eggs for breakfast as part of a reduced-calorie diet:

* lost 65 percent more weight
* exhibited a 61 percent greater reduction in BMI
* reported higher energy levels than their dieting counterparts who consumed a bagel breakfast [1]

The egg and bagel breakfasts provided the same number of calories and had identical weights (energy density), which is an important control factor in satiety and weight loss studies.

The researchers also found that blood lipids were not impacted during the two month study. They found that blood levels of HDL and LDL cholesterol, as well as triglycerides, did not vary compared to baseline cholesterol blood levels in subjects who ate either the bagel or egg breakfasts. These findings add to more than 30 years of research that conclude that healthy adults can enjoy eggs without significantly impacting their risk of heart disease.

New Emphasis on the Importance of High-Quality Protein

This study adds to the growing body of research which supports the importance of high-quality protein in the diet. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN) published a special issue in May 2008, which contains nine articles that focus on the value of high-quality protein in the American diet. A major finding was that not getting enough high-quality protein may contribute to obesity, muscle wasting (loss) and increased risk of chronic disease.

Jump Start the Morning with Eggs

Jackie Newgent, registered dietitian and chef, stresses the importance of obtaining adequate high-quality protein when advising consumers about weight loss. “Eggs are a good source of all-natural, high-quality protein, so they can help keep you satisfied longer, making it easier to resist tempting snacks,” said Newgent. “Nearly half of an egg’s protein, and many of the other nutrients, are found in the yolk, so make sure to eat the whole egg for maximum benefits.”

Newgent suggests these nutrition tips for a successful weight loss plan:

- Manic Monday: Make a batch of hard-cooked eggs on Sunday, so you’ll have all-natural, high-quality protein meals for your on-the-go schedule during the week. Plus, eggs are incredibly affordable. At an average of $1.93 per dozen (or $0.16 per egg), [5] eggs are one of the most affordable high-quality protein foods in the marketplace.

- In-a-Minute Morning Meal: In less than 60 seconds, you can prepare an egg breakfast to help jump start your day. Simply beat one whole egg in a microwave-safe mug then cook in the microwave oven on high for 60 seconds. Slide the egg onto a whole grain English muffin. Add flavor with a sprinkling of fresh herbs, salsa, or cheese. Serve fresh seasonal fruit slices, like peaches in the summer, on the side for a balanced meal.

Source: Edelman Public Relations.

That’s because scientists say watermelon has ingredients that deliver Viagra-like effects to the body’s blood vessels and may even increase libido.

“The more we study watermelons, the more we realize just how amazing a fruit it is in providing natural enhancers to the human body,” said Dr. Bhimu Patil, director of Texas A&M’s Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center in College Station.

“We’ve always known that watermelon is good for you, but the list of its very important healthful benefits grows longer with each study.”

Beneficial ingredients in watermelon and other fruits and vegetables are known as phyto-nutrients, naturally occurring compounds that are bioactive, or able to react with the human body to trigger healthy reactions, Patil said.

In watermelons, these include lycopene, beta carotene and the rising star among its phyto-nutrients – citrulline – whose beneficial functions are now being unraveled. Among them is the ability to relax blood vessels, much like Viagra does.

Scientists know that when watermelon is consumed, citrulline is converted to arginine through certain enzymes. Arginine is an amino acid that works wonders on the heart and circulation system and maintains a good immune system, Patil said.

“The citrulline-arginine relationship helps heart health, the immune system and may prove to be very helpful for those who suffer from obesity and type 2 diabetes,” said Patil. “Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it.”

While there are many psychological and physiological problems that can cause impotence, extra nitric oxide could help those who need increased blood flow, which would also help treat angina, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems.

“Watermelon may not be as organ specific as Viagra,” Patil said, “but it’s a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side-effects.”

The benefits of watermelon don’t end there, he said. Arginine also helps the urea cycle by removing ammonia and other toxic compounds from our bodies.

Citrulline, the precursor to arginine, is found in higher concentrations in the rind of watermelons than the flesh. As the rind is not commonly eaten, two of Patil’s fellow scientists, drs. Steve King and Hae Jeen Bang, are working to breed new varieties with higher concentrations in the flesh.

In addition to the research by Texas A&M, watermelon’s phyto-nutrients are being studied by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in Lane, Oklahoma.

As an added bonus, these studies have also shown that deep red varieties of watermelon have displaced the tomato as the lycopene king, Patil said. Almost 92 percent of watermelon is water, but the remaining 8 percent is loaded with lycopene, an anti-oxidant that protects the human heart, prostate and skin health.

“Lycopene, which is also found in red grapefruit, was historically thought to exist only in tomatoes,” he said. “But now we know that it’s found in higher concentrations in red watermelon varieties.”

Lycopene, however, is fat-soluble, meaning that it needs certain fats in the blood for better absorption by the body, Patil said.

“Previous tests have shown that lycopene is much better absorbed from tomatoes when mixed in a salad with oily vegetables like avocado or spinach,” Patil said. “That would also apply to the lycopene from watermelon, but I realize mixing watermelon with spinach or avocadoes is a very hard sell.”

No studies have been conducted to determine the timing of the consumption of oily vegetables to improve lycopene absorption, he said.

“One final bit of advice for those Fourth of July watermelons you buy,” Patil said. “They store much better uncut if you leave them at room temperature. Lycopene levels can be maintained even as it sits on your kitchen floor. But once you cut it, refrigerate. And enjoy.”

Source: Texas A&M University

In the flood-ravaged midwest, health officials are concerned that standing water could provide the perfect breeding ground for scores of mosquitoes.

The Centers for Disease Control says so far this year, eight human cases have been reported in five states (Arizona, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas), and animal cases in nine states (Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas and Utah).

Last year, there were 2,630 human cases of West Nile reported in the United States. Health officials have been tracking West Nile since the disease first showed up in New York in 1999.

The CDC advises people to protect against mosquito bites with the following tips:

• Use Mosquito Repellent
• Eliminate standing water where mosquitoes can lay eggs
• Install or Repair Window and Door Screens
• Support Community-Based Mosquito Control Programs

Photo above courtesy of the Illinois Department of Public Health website.

The study represents a collaboration between researchers at the University of Maryland, Stanford University, and École Supérieure d’Électricité (Gif-sur-Yvette, France).

“By combining novel biological data and mathematical modeling, we found rules for designing adaptive treatments for each specific patient,” said Professor Doron Levy. “Give me a thousand patients and, with this mathematical model, I can give you a thousand different customized treatment plans.”

The study by Levy, Professor Peter P. Lee and Dr. Peter S. Kim uses data collected over four years from CML patients during imatinib therapy.

“Our results suggest that it is not only the drug that sends the leukemia into remission, it’s also the natural immune response,” Levy said. “After starting imatinib, the anti-leukemia immune response gradually increases. However, it begins to weaken after it reaches a peak [as the leukemia cells are greatly diminished in number]. This typically happens well into the treatment.”

This provides a window for cancer cells to develop drug resistance that could render the therapy ineffective. The authors therefore recommend strengthening the immune system at this, its weakest point through “cancer vaccines” in which pre-therapy blood taken from patients is irradiated to kill active cancer cells and then introduced back to the patient.

Levy and Lee are currently conducting further studies to expand on the results of this research, which they hope will lead to the development of animal models and, eventually, clinical trials.

Source: Public Library of Science.

that’s why a consumer group is urging retailers to stop selling PVC shower curtains.

The Center for Health, Environment & Justice has just published “Volatile Vinyl: The New Shower Curtain’s Chemical Smell”, which claims more than 100 chemicals are released into the air when consumers open the packages containing the curtains. The CHEJ is also calling on the Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall the curtains from store shelves.

The CHEJ says it discovered the hazards in a study of shower curtains made with polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic. The curtains reportedly contain many harmful chemicals including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), phthalates and organotins. The study found that exposure to the chemicals creates health problems such as respiratory irritation, central nervous system, liver and kidney damage, nausea, headaches and loss of coordination.

The CHEJ purchased PVC shower curtains at Bed Bath & Beyond, Kmart, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart to be used as samples for the testing.

For more information: www.chej.org/showercurtainreport

One of the latest studies shows that younger women battling the disease may benefit from a drug used to treat the brittle bones disease known an osteoporosis.

Austrian researchers have found that women who took Zometa had a one-third lower risk of the cancer spreading to the bone, along with other benefits.

The findings were presented today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.

Zometa (zoledronic acid) is used to treat bone metastases and was recently approved to treat osteoporosis. When given to premenopausal women undergoing ovarian suppression and hormone therapy, it was found to significantly reduce the risk of recurrence in early-stage breast cancer.

Although about 5 percent of participants had had chemotherapy before surgery to shrink the tumor, none received later chemo. In Europe, breast cancer patients are commonly treated with endocrine therapy alone,” said Dr. Joanne Mortimer, vice chairwoman of medical oncology at City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. In the United States, some, but not all, women in this group are treated without chemotherapy.

“This is not a trial about hormones instead of chemo. It’s about Zometa,” Mortimer said. “We know that this drug improves bone health, but there is also some evidence that it may actually have an effect on cancer cells, and the fact that this was seen in this population is very exciting.”

The press briefing also highlighted research on the effectiveness of chemotherapy after
surgery for older women with early-stage breast cancer. The study suggests that standard adjuvant chemotherapy is effective in older women and cannot be replaced by the entirely oral chemotherapy agent, capecitabine. The study is important since little data exist on the effects of adjuvant chemotherapy in older women, and physicians have little guidance about whether chemotherapy may do more harm than good in this population.

For more information on cancer, visit www.cancer.net

Human cases have been reported in Arizona, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Avian, animal or mosquito WNV infections have been reported from the following states in 2008: Alabama, California, Florida, and South Carolina.

The CDC says when dealing with the threat, prevention is your best bet. Fighting mosquito bites reduces your risk of getting this disease, along with others that mosquitoes can carry.

The CDC recommends everyone to take the commonsense steps below to reduce risk:

*Avoid bites and illness
*Clean out the mosquitoes from work & play areas
*Help your community control the disease

Something to remember: The chance that any one person is going to become ill from a single mosquito bite remains low. The risk of severe illness and death is highest for people over 50 years old, although people of all ages can become ill.

For more information, visit the Centers for Disease Control website.

A discovery described as “true serendipity” made by Leeds University PhD student Dr Yahya Bahnasi, has provided a clue that may unravel the enigma of general anaesthesia – and offer the opportunity to design new generations of anaesthetics without harmful side effects.

“We take general anaesthesia for granted nowadays, but it’s still true to say that we don’t know exactly how it works on a molecular level,” says Dr Bahnasi, a qualified medical doctor on an Egyptian Ministry of Higher Education Scholarship at the University’s Faculty of Biological Sciences.

“However, I was examining the relationship between lipids and atherosclerosis [the furring up of arteries] and it just so happened that the lipids I was using were supplied already dissolved in chloroform. I noticed that the chloroform inhibited, or blocked, the calcium ion channel TRPC5 – it was quite a striking effect.”

Ion channels are pathways that allow electrically charged atoms to pass across cell membranes to carry out various functions such as pain transmission and the timing of the heart beat. TRPC5 calcium ion channels are found in many tissues around the body but are predominant in the brain.

“We know that this ion channel plays a signalling role in the central nervous system, which regulates the conscious and unconscious states, so I was left wondering whether inhibiting this calcium ion channel was one mechanism by which anaesthesia works,” says Dr Bahnasi.

Dr Bahnasi then carried out further experiments with several other modern anaesthetic compounds, both intravenous and inhaled, and found that the blocking effect on the TRPC5 ion channel was the same.

He says that the discovery opens up the opportunity to design and develop new generations of anaesthetics which directly target TRPC5, but with minimised side effects.

“Of course there are multi-molecular events that work together in anaesthesia, and inhibiting the TRPC5 ion channel may just be one of them. But it’s a great start in piecing together the underlying mechanisms and providing a novel molecular target for new drug design,” he says. “And it’s particularly fitting that this evidence was revealed by chloroform, the ‘grandfather’ of modern anaesthetics.”

source:University of Leeds.

The process of discarding computers and other consumer electronics has emerged as one of the fastest growing segments of the global waste stream.

Image above caption: Scientists report environmental contamination from crude recycling practices after collecting dust samples near e-waste processing workshops. Above are discarded printed circuit boards outside a shop in the Beilin district of Guiyu, Guangdong Province.

Credit: Courtesy of Croucher Institute for Environmental Sciences, Hong Kong Baptist University

Known as e-waste, these scrapped electronic goods contain lead, copper and other hazardous materials, which can release dangerous toxins that cause air and water contamination. Up to 50-million tons of e-waste is generated worldwide each year — enough to fill a line of garbage collection trucks stretching halfway around the world — according to the United Nations Environment Program.

China is now the destination for 70 percent of the computers, TVs, cell phones, and other e-waste recycled globally each year. Ming H. Wong and colleagues collected dust samples from roads adjacent to e-waste processing workshops in Guiya, China, to find that lead levels were 330 and 371 times higher than non e-waste sites located 5 miles and 19 miles away. Copper levels were 106 and 155 times higher. “Currently, there are no guidelines or regulations for heavy metals in dust. It is hoped that the results can serve as a case study for similar e-waste activities in countries such as Africa, India and Vietnam where e-waste is becoming a growing problem, so that the same mistakes could be prevented.”

source:Hong Kong Baptist University.