Secret Unlocked
Researcher says "oleocanthal" in olive oil has the same properties as antiinflammatory drugs
Dengue vaccine in three years?
BANGKOK
Thai researchers may have a dengue-fever vaccine on the market within three years. The vaccine, which has been tested on laboratory animals by scientists at Bangkok's Mahidol University, could be a world first, The Nation reported.
Three months of clinical trials on people in Ratchaburi province west of Bangkok are also under way. The vaccine has no side effects and is effective against all four strains of the virus, it said.
The vaccine has already been tested on sample groups of people in the first and second stages of dengue infection, said Suthee Yoksan, research director at Mahidol's vaccine-development center. "We shall very probably be able to make the vaccine available on a larger scale," he was quoted as saying by the English-language daily. "The knowledge and the technology are there. After we have tested the vaccine on sample groups of patients, we will focus on bringing it to the masses."
However, Pathum Sawanpanyalert of the health ministry's department of medical sciences, questioned the country's ability to mass-produce the vaccine. "Thai researchers have the potential (to create the vaccine), but the most worrying issue at the moment is the standard of factories set up to mass produce it," he said.
Vaccine developed against Ebola, Marburg
PARIS
A new vaccine against the deadly Ebola and Marburg viruses has been successfully tested on monkeys. The test model appeared "promising" for the development of future vaccines against the rapid-spreading viruses and could also be applied to other deadly viruses, an international team of scientists reported in Nature Medicine.
Twelve macaques were used in the experiments, with six being vaccinated against Ebola and six against Marburg. The vaccine was administered with a single intramuscular injection and caused no side effects. Twenty-eight days after the vaccination, the monkeys were subjected to a massive dose of Ebola or Marburg, according to the vaccine given. None of the animals showed any signs of the disease. However, none survived an injection of the virus from which it had not been protected.
Ebola and Marburg belong to a family of viruses that cause hemorrhagic fever. The patient literally bleeds to death, his internal organs transformed into a semiliquid mass, his skin, eyes, gums, and anus oozing blood. The viruses spread through contact with bodily fluids such as blood, excrement, vomit, saliva, sweat, and tears.
Schizophrenia drug can be used to treat SARS
BEIJING
Chinese and European scientists conducting research in eastern China have found that cinanserin, a medicine used to treat schizophrenia since the 1970s, is effective in treating patients with the deadly SARS. Cinanserin can inhibit the coronavirus that causes SARS, Xinhua news agency reported.
The drug was identified as the only ready-to-use medicine among 15 possible anti-SARS remedies recommended by scientists that took part in the Sino-European Project on SARS Diagnostics and Antivirals (SEPSDA).
"The finding means that cinanserin could be directly prescribed to prevent the SARS disease or treat SARS patients if the fatal epidemic mounts a comeback," Peter Kristensen, an academic from Denmark's University of Aarhus, was quoted saying.
The 14 other possible remedies have to go through lengthy animal tests before being used to treat human patients, said Kristensen, a participant in the three-year SEPSDA program. The program is funded by the European Union and involves eight Chinese and European institutions. Launched in 2004, it aims to find 50 chemical compounds to treat SARS.
Scientists working for the program also confirmed the finding of two homologous SARS coronaviruses in animals from the Netherlands and Hong Kong respectively. Both the newly found viruses and the formerly detected SARS virus were variations of an ancient virus, which had been in animals for ages but remained unidentified, said Rolf Hilgenfeld, a professor from Germany's University of Luebeck. The German scholar said other latent coronaviruses could pose dangers to human beings as the SARS virus did.
Sharp claims new technology can combat bird flu
TOKYO
Tests by Japanese electronics maker Sharp have found an air purifier using plasmacluster ion technology was 99-percent effective in killing off the bird-flu virus in a controlled environment. Plasmacluster ions also proved effective against 26 other kinds of harmful airborne substances, including bacteria, mold fungi, viruses, and allergens.
"The device is the first in the world to have been proven effective against avian virus," Sharp spokesperson Miyuki Nakayama said.
Plasmacluster ion technology, developed in 2000, is an air-purification technology that disables airborne microorganisms by releasing positive and negative ions into the air.
Sharp began five months of experiments, testing the technology on bird flu in collaboration with British research institute Retroscreen Virology Ltd. in January before announcing the results. The virus was sprayed into a one-cubic-meter box, then plasmacluster ions were turned on. Samples were then taken at 10-minute intervals and injected into cell cultures. The experiment showed that 99 percent of the H5N1 virus was eliminated.
"Four days after injection, the cells injected with the virus that had not been exposed to plasmacluster ions were deformed and damaged (by the virus). In contrast, cells injected with the virus that had been exposed to plasmacluster ions retained their normal condition with almost no change in evidence," the company said.
The technology can be installed in air conditioners, dehumidifiers and air purifiers for home and industrial use.
Secret of Mediterranean diet unlocked
PARIS
A stroke of good luck has helped scientists explain one of the mysteries of the Mediterranean diet, a world-famous regimen credited with cardiac fitness and a longer life span.
Olive oil, one of the diet's mainstays, contains a painkilling compound similar to an ingredient found in over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs, they say. The compound has been found to inhibit cyclooxygenase (COX) enzymes, which play a key role in causing inflammation, said the report in Nature. The widely used painkiller ibuprofen has a similar pharmacological action.
The discovery came accidentally, thanks to a trip to Italy by US-based biologist Gary Beauchamp, of the Monell Chemical Senses Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
Beauchamp had previously noted that whenever he took ibuprofen he experienced a stinging sensation in the back of the throat--and he suddenly noticed the same tingling when he tasted pungent newly pressed olive oil while attending a molecular gastronomy conference on Sicily.
On returning home, Beauchamp and colleagues worked to identify the intriguing chemical.
Isolated from the complex bouquet of molecules that make up olive oil, the compound has been dubbed oleocanthal ("oleo" for olive, "canth" for sting, and "al" for aldehyde). To rule out the possibility that other compounds may be responsible for the irritation, Beau-champ's team assembled a synthetic form of oleocanthal and tested it on volunteers, and also tested it in lab dishes of COX enzymes.
According to the researchers, taking 50 grams of extra-virgin olive oil containing up to 200 micrograms of oleocanthal per day is roughly equivalent to 10 percent of the recommended dose of ibuprofen for adult pain relief.
The next step will be to identify exactly how oleocanthal inhibits the enzymes, and how this is related to throat sting.
The much-trumpeted Mediterranean diet is based on olive oil; fish; fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts; and a daily glass of red wine.
Ibuprofen has been associated with a reduction in the risk of developing some kinds of cancer and of dangerous blood clotting. Another COX inhibitor is aspirin, regular but modest doses of which are deemed to help cardiovascular health.
Women's heart not taken as seriously as men's
STOCKHOLM
Women showing heart disease symptoms are not treated with the same intensity as men, according to a Europe-wide study presented at a cardiology congress in Stockholm on September 4.
The Euro Heart Survey, a joint European study based on examinations of 3,779 patients across 32 European countries, revealed that women complaining of chest pains are generally taken less seriously and receive worse treatment than men. It showed that women with chest pains were 20 percent less likely than men to be given a stress test, which is the first step towards confirming a heart disease diagnosis and determining what kind of treatment is needed. And even after accounting for fewer positive stress tests, they were 40-percent less likely than men to be referred for an angiography to determine whether they suffered from coronary obstruction. Once such a diagnosis was made, women were also less likely to receive life-prolonging therapies.
"Most alarmingly, during one-year follow-up, women with angina who had proven coronary disease were twice as likely to die or suffer a heart attack as men with similar symptoms," said the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) study.
The survey did indicate some improvement in the treatment of women with heart disease symptoms between a first batch of patients examined in 2000 and a second group in 2004.
"This is a step in the right direction, but we must do more to make people aware of the fact that [heart disease] is just as big a problem for women as it is for men," commented Eva Swahn head of the Swedish Cardiology Society Eva Swahn. "This study is a confirmation that we need to do more than just agree that there is a problem. Concrete measures are needed," she added.
According to the ESC, cardiovascular disease kills more women in Europe than all cancers combined. "Despite the fact that cardiovascular disease is the most frequent cause of death in women in Europe, and the cause of death in more women (55 percent) than men (43 percent), the perception remains that women form just a small 'subgroup' of the coronary-disease population," said the study.
Two treatments better than one for high cholesterol
STOCKHOLM
Most European cardiologists believe the problem of high cholesterol would be better treated by a twin-pronged attack.
Most doctors today prescribe statin, a treatment aimed at limiting the body's own cholesterol production in the liver. But eight out of 10 European cardiologists believe that far better results would be achieved if they simultaneously prescribed drugs aimed at limiting cholesterol absorbed in the intestine, according to a survey conducted by Harris Interactive in July. Of the 388 senior cardiologists questioned, most agreed that treating both cholesterol sources at the same time with so-called dual-inhibition therapy would speed up and increase the efficiency of the treatment.
"Statin therapy is great, but it is not the final answer, since it offers protection against only about 30 percent" of dangerous low-density lipoprotein (LDL), Prof. John Kastelein, of the Department of Vascular Medicine in Amsterdam, said at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Stockholm.
And while most high-cholesterol patients are told to cut back on fatty foods, Kastelein pointed out that only a third of the cholesterol absorbed in the intestine actually comes from what we eat.
"About two-thirds come from bile, so if you restrict your diet it will help, but just a little. You also need to inhibit the bilary cholesterol," he said, pointing out that a cholesterol-absorption-inhibiting drug must also be used. "If you use both drugs together you can reduce cholesterol by 50 to 60 percent," he said, adding that using low doses of two drugs also gives fewer side effects than the traditionally high doses of statins.
According to the Harris Interactive survey, which was commissioned by the Merck and Schering-Plough Cholesterol Partnership, 61 percent of European cardiologists agree with him.
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