Antidepressant Cools Hot Flash
Vaccines against West Nile, Ebola viruses
ANTIDEPRESSANT EASES HOT FLASHES
CHICAGO
An antidepressant may alleviate one of the most troubling symptoms of menopause without exposing women to the health risks associated with hormone replacement therapy (HRT), according to a study.
In a preliminary trial, a 25mg daily dose of the antidepressant paroxetine (Paxil/Seroxat) reduced hot flashes in a group of menopausal women by up to 65 percent. Further, 60 percent of women taking the drug reported a 50-percent or greater reduction in the severity and frequency of hot flashes after a six-week treatment course while 30 percent had no flashes by week six.
Paroxetine is "the best nonhormonal drug we know about right now," said lead author Vered Stearns, an assistant professor of oncology at Johns Hopkins' Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. "If a woman wants to try nonhormonal therapy, she will know within days whether it's going to work," said Sterns.
It's not entirely clear how the drug-one of the newer classes of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)-works to alleviate hot flashes: researchers decided to experiment with the drug after noting that breast cancer sufferers who took antidepressants had fewer hot flashes. SSRIs inhibit the brain's reuptake of serotonin, a natural chemical that modulates mood, emotion, sleep, and appetite.
But the findings come at a time when women and physicians are casting around for alternatives to HRT, the standard treatment for menopausal symptoms, since it has been shown to increase women's risk of heart attack, stroke, blood clots, and breast cancer. The findings reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association in early June are based on a trial involving 165 menopausal women experiencing at least two to three hot flashes a day.
FISH FOR ALZHEIMER'S
CHICAGO
Elderly people may be able to cut their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease (AD) by almost half by including one or more servings of fish in their diet every week.
In a study of more than 800 people aged 65 and up, individuals who ate fish at least once a week were found to be 60-percent less likely to develop the debilitating mental illness than their peers who rarely or never ate fish.
The findings are consistent with a number of previous studies which have shown a strong correlation between the omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids found in fish-(and also brain cell membranes)-and mental function. Laboratory animals fed diets enriched with these fatty acids have shown improved nerve function, learning, and memory, according to the study in the Archives of Neurology.
"Our findings suggest that consumption of fish-at least weekly-oil-based salad dressings and nuts may reduce the risk of Alzheimer disease," wrote Martha Clare Morris, a lead author on the study at Rush-Presbyterian St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois.
The 815 Chicago residents enrolled in the study were tracked for seven years between 1993 and 2000. None of them had AD at the beginning of that period, but 131 went on to develop the chronic, progressive disorder, and the most common form of dementia.
THE LIZARD OF AWE
PARIS
A hormone found in the saliva of the Gila monster, the only poisonous lizard in the United States, is showing promising results in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, according to a report issued at the congress of the International Diabetes Federation last August.
Amylin Pharmaceutical Inc. and Eli Lily and Company, which presented the report, said the hormone achieved a "statistically significant" reduction in glucose levels and body weight among sufferers of type 2 diabetes, which is often associated with obesity.
The squat Gila monster, an endangered species that lives in the desert of Mexico and southwestern US, produces a hormone called exendin-4, which stimulates the body to produce insulin in response to elevated sugar levels, and suppresses appetite.
Although the potent nerve toxin is usually not fatal for humans, the lizard acquired a sinister reputation thanks to the classic 1950s science-fiction horror movie The Giant Gila Monster.
The synthetically produced version of the hormone known as exenatide succeeded in reducing blood sugar to near recommended levels in 44 percent of patients who completed 24 weeks of treatment, the study said. This was consistent with results presented in June at the scientific sessions of the American Diabetes Association meeting in New Orleans.
The report said the main side effect of the treatment, which is administered by injection twice a day, was moderate nausea.
MAKE IT PLAIN
PARIS
Eating plain chocolate may actually be good for the heart.
An Italian study published late August in Nature said moderate consumption of dark chocolate rather than milk chocolate boosted levels of cardioactive antioxidant chemicals. "There is some speculation that dietary flavonoids from chocolate may promote cardiovascular health as a result of direct antioxidant effects or through antithrombotic mechanisms," said the article by Italian researchers at the Rome Institute for Food and Nutrition Research.
The team measured antioxidant levels of 12 volunteers one hour after they had eaten chocolate. One hundred grams of plain chocolate boosted blood antioxidant levels by nearly 20 percent-an effect not seen when subjects drank milk with plain chocolate, or ate milk chocolate by itself, they reported. "Our findings indicate that milk may interfere with the absorption of antioxidants from chocolate...and may therefore negate the potential health benefits that can be derived from eating moderate amounts of plain chocolate," they reported.
The research team had speculated that "this effect may occur because secondary bonds form between milk proteins and the flavonoid molecules found in chocolate," Nature said. A flavonoid is any of a large class of plant pigments having a structure based on or similar to that of flavone, a colorless crystalline compound, which is the basis of a number of white or yellow plant pigments.
VACCINE VERSUS WEST NILE VIRUS
WASHINGTON
A virus found in Australia may serve as the basis for a vaccine that protects against West Nile virus, which killed 284 in the US last year, a new study said.
Kunjin virus (KUN), similar in genetic sequence to the New York strain of West Nile virus, was found to produce mild symptoms only in very rare cases, according to a study by the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences.
To demonstrate the protective effects of Kunjin virus, scientists injected mice with various doses of Kunjin DNA, after using a weakened strain of KUN, the PNAS said. Researchers led by Roy Hall of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, found that after 19 days the blood serum of the mice contained antibodies against Kunjin virus and West Nile virus.
The mice, innoculated with a fatal dose of West Nile virus, survived after receiving Kunjin DNA, according to the study. Kunjin is a member of the Flavivirus family, responsible for an encephalitic syndrome found in Australia and Thailand. West Nile virus, a member of the same family of viruses, at times can be fatal, producing encephalitic meningitis.
EBOLA VACCINE BREAKTHROUGH
WASHINGTON
The US has developed an experimental vaccine believed to be capable of protecting primates from the Ebola virus in what is seen as a major breakthrough in fighting one of the deadliest diseases known to man.
Ebola, which has already ravaged several African countries, normally kills 90 percent of its victims.
"This research has enormous public health implications not only because it might be used to limit the spread of Ebola virus, but also because this vaccine strategy may be applied to other highly lethal viruses, such as the Marburg and Lassa fever viruses and the SARS coronavirus," commented Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
"After years of developing candidate Ebola vaccines that protected rodents but failed in primates, it is gratifying to have a vaccine that holds great promise for protection of humans," said Peter Jahrling, a researcher at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, a partner in the experiment.
The National Institutes of Health said the fast-acting vaccine was successfully tested on eight macaque monkeys and may one day allow scientists to quickly contain Ebola outbreaks with ring vaccinations, a method used in the past to fight smallpox.
The experiment is also seen an important step toward boosting defenses against biological terrorism.
The rub is that the vaccine requiring just one shot has not been tested on humans. But scientists insisted that medicines effective on primates usually have a high likelihood of working on humans.
The breakthrough came when researchers from the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center decided to use findings obtained in the course of their work on the so-called "prime-boost" vaccine strategy. The strategy provides for first injecting noninfectious genetic material from the disease-causing microbe into a body to prime its immune system.
A second injection, made several weeks later, delivers attenuated carrier viruses containing key genes from the microbe itself, which usually substantially boost the immune response. But as they worked on the Ebola vaccine, the scientists decided to make a shortcut to the second stage of the process, trading off a weaker immune response for time, which is a critical factor in combating the fast-spreading disease.
Each of the eight monkeys was given a single boost injection, consisting of attenuated carrier viruses containing genes for Ebola antigens, the officials said. After waiting a month, they were taken to Fort Detrick where they were injected with various doses of an Ebola virus strain obtained in 1995 from a fatally infected person in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The shots proved to be a lifesaver for all eight animals, even those who received higher doses of the virus.
A hemorrhagic fever that turn tissue into mush, Ebola was first identified in 1976 in southwestern Sudan and in a nearby region of Zaire, as Congo was then called, where it killed a total of 564 people, according to the World Health Organization.
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