Animal fats pancreas cancer link

reposted from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/8119093.stm

Eating a diet high in red meat and dairy products is linked to an increased risk of pancreatic cancer, a US study has suggested.

Researchers followed 500,000 people who had completed a food diary for an average of six years.

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute paper found those who had the most animal fats in their diet had a higher risk of developing the cancer.

UK experts said cutting down on the fats was a way of reducing risk.

There has previously been confusion over whether there was a link between animal fats and pancreatic cancer, with different studies reaching opposite conclusions.

About 7,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the UK each year, with smoking being the biggest risk factor.

The prognosis is poor - the time between diagnosis and death is usually about six months.

'Welcome addition'

This latest research was carried out by the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, which felt earlier studies had been too small to give reliable results.

The participants were being followed to see if they developed a range of diseases.

This large study adds to the evidence that pancreatic cancer is more common in people who eat too much fat, particularly saturated fat  Josephine Querido, Cancer Research UK

Of the half a million studied, 1,337 developed pancreatic cancer.

Men who consumed the highest amount of total fats had a 53% higher relative rate of pancreatic cancer compared with men who ate the least.

In women, there was a 23% higher rate of the disease in those eating the most fat compared with those who ate the least.

Overall, people who consumed high amounts of saturated fats had 36% higher relative rates of pancreatic cancer compared with those who consumed low amounts.

Writing in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the researchers led by Dr Rachel Stolzenberg-Solomon, said: "We observed positive associations between pancreatic cancer and intakes of total, saturated, and monounsaturated fat overall, particularly from red meat and dairy food sources.

"We did not observe any consistent association with polyunsaturated or fat from plant food sources.

"Altogether, these results suggest a role for animal fat in pancreatic carcinogenesis."

In an editorial in the journal, Dr Brian Wolpin, of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, and Dr Meir Stampfer, of the Harvard School of Public Health, said the study was a "welcome addition to the understanding of a disease that is in great need of new insights".

Josephine Querido, senior science information officer for Cancer Research UK, said: "This large study adds to the evidence that pancreatic cancer is more common in people who eat too much fat, particularly saturated fat.

"Understanding ways of reducing the risk of pancreatic cancer is very important because it can be very difficult to treat.

"Apart from stopping smoking, the best way to reduce your risk of cancer is to eat plenty of fruit vegetables and fibre, and to cut down on fatty foods, red and processed meat and limit your intake of alcohol."

Grey hair may be protecting us from cancer

reposted from: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227135.000-grey-hair-may-be-protecting-us-from-cancer.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

GREY hair may be unwelcome, but the processes that produce it are now better understood and could be protecting us from cancer.

Cells called melanocytes produce the pigments that colour hair and their numbers are kept topped up by stem cells. Hair goes grey when the number of stem cells in hair follicles declines. Now Emi Nishimura of Tokyo Medical and Dental University in Japan and colleagues have found what causes this decline in mice.

When the researchers exposed mice to radiation and chemicals that harmDNA, damaged stem cells transformed permanently into melanocytes. This ultimately led to fewer melanocytes, as it meant there were fewer stem cells capable of topping up the melanocyte pool. The mice also went grey (Cell, vol 137, p 1088). Nishimura's team proposes that the same process leads to the reduction in stem cells in the follicles of older people, especially as DNA damage accumulates as we age.

David Fisher, a cancer researcher at Harvard Medical School, suggests such processes may help protect us from cancer, by discouraging the proliferation of stem cells with damaged DNA, which could pass on mutations. "One likely beneficial effect is the removal of potentially dangerous cells that may contain pre-cancerous capabilities," he says.

'Sip red wine' for health - Resveratrol

reposted from: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/06June/Pages/Sipredwineforhealth.aspx

'Sip red wine' for health

NHS ChoicesJun 15, 2009 16:21:00 GMT Share

Scientists have said that people should sip wine to get the benefit of its “cancer-busting antioxidant”, the Daily Express reported. It said that the mouth absorbs 100 times more resveratrol than the stomach (resveratrol is a compound that attacks cancer cells and can protect the heart and brain from damage).

This news story is based on a review of recent research on the effects of resveratrol on health, disease and longevity. The newspaper reports the authors as saying that the mouth absorbs 100 times more resveratrol than the stomach. However, although this compound has shown benefits in animal experiments, the equivalent human doses “are well above those achievable... through a normal diet”. Research on fish, for example, achieved a 50% extension in the fish's lifespan, but a person would need to consume around 60 litres of red wine a day. Resveratrol has health improvement potential, but clearly more research in humans is needed.

Where did the story come from?

The research was carried out by Dr Lindsay Brown and colleagues from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in the US, the University of Debrecen in Hungary and the University Hospital of Heidelberg at Manheim in Germany. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Dietmar Hopp Foundation. It was published in the medical journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

What kind of scientific study was this?

This is a narrative review of recently published research on the potentially beneficial ingredients in red wine. The authors discuss how these ingredients, particularly polyphenols (chemical substances which include resveratrol), could work in the human body and their potential therapeutic uses.

Resveratrol is a type of compound known as a small polyphenol. It has been studied extensively in animals and insects and shown to extend the life of some yeasts, roundworms, fruit flies and obese mice that were given a high-calorie diet. It is thought to have similar effects to a low-calorie diet and that it may slow the ageing process.

The authors discuss recent evidence of the effects of resveratrol and put forward some theories about how it might have these effects. In particular, they discuss the apparent contradiction that while low doses improve the survival of some cells, providing a cardioprotective or neuroprotective effect, it kills cancer cells when given in high doses.

They discuss research into the potential benefits of resveratrol on cancer, inflammation, gastrointestinal diseases, neuroprotection, diabetes, heart health, blood pressure, blood vessels and cellular health, structure and function.

The researchers also discuss what is known about how the ingredients in red wine may benefit the body. They talk about the “bioavailability” of resveratrol and other polyphenols. Bioavailability is a property of a drug that describes how much of it enters the circulation and becomes “available” for the body to use.

What were the results of the study?

There are a number of different aspects to the researchers’ discussion into resveratrol. Some of the news reports of this research summarise them all, concluding that resveratrol has therapeutic potential. The Daily Express focused on the bioavailability of the compound.

What interpretations did the researchers draw from these results?

The researchers say that further research is needed to understand the role of resveratrol and other polyphenols, and how low-to-moderate amounts of red wine provide health benefits compared to white wine, beer or spirits.

They say that the known harms associated with alcohol consumption have prevented a fully controlled clinical trial of the effects of moderate consumption of red wine on cardiovascular disease risk.

What does the NHS Knowledge Service make of this study?

This narrative review discussed research on how resveratrol and other components of red wine may benefit health and how this might occur. Some news reports have focused on one aspect of the review: the bioavailability of resveratrol.

The researchers note that, so far, the positive observations in research have been made with doses of resveratrol “that are well above those achievable in humans through a normal diet”. They say that red wine is almost the only source of resveratrol in the human diet. To achieve an equivalent dose to the one that extended the lifespan of fish by 50%, a person would need to consume around 60 litres of red wine a day, which is certainly not feasible (or recommended!).

There is a growing body of evidence, largely from animal studies, that resveratrol can have a positive effect on health. The researchers emphasise that red wine contains only a small amount of resveratrol and a human would need to drink an unrealistically large quantity to have the same levels as those demonstrated in animal studies. Excessive alcohol consumption is associated with serious health risks and recommendations to drink in moderation should be taken seriously. If sipping wine prevents excessive alcohol intake then it should be encouraged, but human studies are needed to investigate the real health effects of red wine before it is recommended for health reasons.

Links To The Headlines

Red wine is good for you, if you let it linger. Daily Express, June 14 2009

Red wine ingredient is a 'wonderdrug'. Daily Telegraph, June 11 2009

Links To Science

Brown L, Kroon PA, Das DK et al. The Biological Responses to Resveratrol and Other Polyphenols from Alcoholic Beverages. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 10 Jun 2009 (published online)

Yeast genes inspire anti-ageing drugs

• 
  07 June 2009

GENES that protect yeast DNA from oxidising free radicals could one day lead to drugs that prevent cancer and ageing in people.

Produced by the body, free radicals damage DNA, so some people take supplements to mop them up. But this could be a bad idea as small doses of free radicals trigger changes in most cells that stop more from entering.

Now Trey Ideker at the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues have found genes that control this response in yeast. If similar genes are found in people, drugs that mimic their protective effects could be a better strategy against cancer and ageing than simply mopping up all free radicals (PLoS Genetics, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1000488).reposted from:

reposted from: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227121.800-obesity-and-hunger-the-problem-with-food.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=health

Obesity and hunger: The problem with food

• 16 June 2009 by Debora MacKenzie
• • Book information
  • Enough: Why the world's poorest starve in an age of plenty by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman
  • Published by: Public Affairs
  • Price: $27.95
  • Book information
  • Famine: A short history by Cormac Ó Gráda
  • Published by: Princeton University Press
  • Price: $27.95/£16.95
  • Book information
  • Let Them Eat Junk: How capitalism creates hunger and obesity by Robert Albritton
  • Published by: Pluto Press
  • Price: $28.95
  • Book information
  • Waste: Uncovering the global food scandal by Tristram Stuart
  • Published by: Penguin
  • Price: £9.99
  EVERY minute, 17 people die of hunger, 10 of them children. For years that number had been going down. Then, two years ago, it started rising again. We live in a world of record harvests, a world in which obesity is the main food-related health problem for many. Yet hunger is again on the march.
  Compared to swine flu or the credit crunch, famine seems an old-fashioned, even Biblical worry - or worse, something from the 1980s. Surely those whopredicted worldwide famine in the recent past were wrong. So won't today's warnings of catastrophic food shortages prove equally unfounded?
  Unfortunately not. We produce our record harvests by harnessing fossil-fuel energy for farming. Thermodynamics rules: you can't get something for nothing. Oil prices have begun to climb, and will keep climbing as oil sources diminish. Meanwhile, demand for food grows. So food prices are on the rise, boosted further by climate change, demand for biofuel, and limits on soil and water. Higher food prices mean that the impoverished eat less nutritiously - or simply less.
  Last year, high prices sparked food riots around the world, and global attention briefly turned to the crisis. It has since looked elsewhere, but the crisis continues, and now it has spawned a crop of books analysing what causes hunger and what we might do to stave it off.
  Food is our biggest and most complex industry, and faced with such an elephant, different authors understandably focus on different bits. For a general wrap-up of how we got into this mess and what we need to do about it, you can't do better than Enough by Roger Thurow and Scott Kilman. This very readable book argues that the agricultural science and technology of the green revolution, which ended famine in much of the world last century, was on the whole a good thing, and that we need more of it.
  Not everyone agrees. Historically two camps have battled it out in the famine wars. One side argues that we already grow enough food for everyone, and that we merely fail to distribute it fairly; the other says we need to grow more. The title of Enough suggests that the authors belong firmly in the first camp, but the book is crammed with moving descriptions of why the second is often right. For instance, the authors talk with African farmers who want to grow more food, not be given it.
  Some argue that we already grow enough food for everyone, but fail to distribute it fairly
  In reality, both sides are right. But some of those in the second camp have sown bitterness by painting famine as a "natural and inevitable brake on human population". This warped view is admirably corrected by Cormac Ó Gráda inFamine, a scholarly but approachable history of famine through the ages.
  Ó Gráda finds that famine may never have been the main regulator of human populations, and is now largely relegated to history. Thanks to our huge harvests, we have never had it so good. Sure, there are occasional harrowing pictures of famine in Africa, but at the sight of them the world rushes to feed its victims. It hasn't always, as Irish history shows.
  Ó Gráda believes that only war and blockade will cause a renewed upsurge in famine in the future, but he fails to connect all the dots. For instance, he sees last year's price crisis as a temporary blip, while many agricultural economists do not. Ultimately, this book tracks where famine has been, and less where it is going.
  So what of the issue of distribution? In Waste, Tristram Stuart shows how we could have much more food overnight simply by not tossing away so much of it. This simple concept ingeniously unites many food scandals that often do not get the attention they deserve: the mould that destroys a third or more of Third World harvests; the fish caught by accident that must be thrown back, dead, under rules intended to conserve stocks; the millions of tonnes of edible food wasted by modern food processing and "sell-by" dates; even western squeamishness about eating "every part of the pig but the squeal".
  We waste a stupendous amount of food for a planet with so many starving people. Usefully, Stuart offers examples of what we could be doing better, from processing technologies to offal sausages.
  Finally, in Let Them Eat Junk, Robert Albritton speaks a language that has gone unheard for too long. Karl Marx felt that capitalism's focus on short-term profit was a recipe for disaster when it came to agriculture. Now Albritton shows that, in many ways, the old man was right.
  Albritton's hard science is iffy - for instance, he says one study shows that organic farms produce three times as much as standard ones, which it didn't. Still, the book is well worth a read for its Marxist analysis of the capitalist problem Marx may have understood best. These days, we need all the insights we can get.
  Debora MacKenzie is a New Scientist correspondent based in Brussels