Asparagus, garlic and artichokes 'could help fight obesity and diabetes'

Scientists are examining whether a diet rich in certain types of fibre can suppress hunger and improve the body’s ability to control blood sugar levels.

Foods such as garlic, chicory, asparagus and artichokes are known as fermentable carbohydrates, which are thought to activate the release of gut hormones that reduce appetite.

They also enhance sensitivity to insulin – the hormone produced by the pancreas that allows glucose to enter the body’s cells – thereby leading to better glucose control, it is believed.

The charity Diabetes UK is now funding research into the health benefits of such foods. If proved to be effective, the findings could revolutionise treatments for obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Nicola Guess, a dietitian at Imperial College, London, who is leading the three-year study, said: "By investigating how appetite and blood glucose levels are regulated in people at high risk of Type 2 diabetes, it is hoped that we can find a way to prevent its onset.

"If successful, this study will be able to determine whether fermentable carbohydrates could provide the public with an effective and affordable health intervention to reduce an individual's risk of developing diabetes."

There are 2.35 million people diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in Britain, and a further half a million sufferers who are unaware that they have the condition. If left untreated, it can lead to complications such as kidney failure, heart disease, stroke and amputation.

Research by the University of Leicester, published last week, suggests that eating green leafy vegetables could help cut the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Broccoli, kale, spinach, sprouts and cabbage can reduce the risk by 14 per cent when eaten daily, according to the study published in the British Medical Journal.

The vegetables are rich in antioxidants and magnesium, which has been linked to lower levels of diabetes.

Via : telegraph.co.uk

Gastric Surgery – A Good Option for Shunning Off Weight

Obesity is becoming a curse for a number of people, who along with amassing fat around their body, also get attacked with a various related diseases.

Dieting is not the effective way of losing weight as it takes years to shun off a few pounds. There are other surgeries getting popular with people to put off the extra weight; one of these is gastric band surgery, which has increased ten times on NHS.

The surgery involves the fitting a band around the stomach that helps reducing it. Patients are guided to consume little quantity of food and the fat starts melting on its own. This way, people can reduce their weight by 33%, on an average.

Along with the advantage of the surgery, it has some side-effects, which were brought out in a latest survey conducted by a team from the University of Western England and Southmead Hospital, Bristol. It was discovered that gastric band surgery left a strong negative psychological influence on patients. The respondents in the survey divulged the problems of depression, low self-esteem and relationship troubles, which they faced after the surgery.

The surgery blocked their urge to have more food, which used to be their stress-busters.

Despite having its mild side-effects, one should go for the surgery that costs around £11,000, as nothing is as perilous as obesity. Around 3400 people succumb to obesity every year and it costs NHS £475m annually.

Via : topnews.co.uk

Government splashes out £32 million on weight loss surgery per year

Weight loss surgery is costing the British government £32 million every year.

The startling figure was reported by the Daily Mail. The newspaper also revealed the results of a new study that is published in the British Medical Journal. The study shows that weight loss operations surged to 4,619 by June last year. This figure is a record high, and is almost double the number of operations of 2 years earlier.

Many experts warn that overweight people are opting for a ‘quick fix’. Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum said: “It takes an age for a patient to slim down, but one flick of the surgeon's knife will address the problem.”

Celebrities who undergo weight loss surgery, such as Fern Britton, may be fuelling the trend. Britton shed more than 5 stone after having a gastric band fitted.

Gastric bands reduce stomach capacity, forcing patients to eat less. Gastric bypass operations also have this effect. Whilst these procedures were once a rarity, they are becoming increasingly popular and socially accepted.

The Daily Mail writes that some dieters are even deliberately putting on weight, in order to qualify for weight loss surgery. In the UK patients must be morbidly obese (i.e. have a body mass index, or BMI, of over 40) before they are eligible. A band can cost between £5,000 and £7,000, while gastric bypasses can cost between £8,000 and £14,000.

Lead researcher in the BMJ study, Omar Faiz, said that obese people should not see weight loss surgery as a quick fix. He told a reporter: “These procedures are treating various conditions associated with excess weight, such as diabetes, which means patients get a number of health benefits.”

Doctors advise that the most effective, and most natural, route to weight loss is a healthy diet and plenty of exercise.

Via : weightworld.co.uk

FDA Okays Embryonic Stem-Cell Trials on Humans

Even as a federal agency gave a California biotech firm the go-ahead to begin the first human trials of therapy employing human embryonic stem cells, a federal court approved a pro-life legal action that could lead to blocking President Obama’s promised expansion of federal funding for research using these cells.

Geron Corp. of Menlo Park, Calif., is seeking people paralyzed by spinal injuries to be the first human test subjects for the clinical use of human embryonic stem cells, which some scientists say is dangerous, wasteful of taxpayers’ dollars and unethical.

Stem cells are undifferentiated, primitive cells that have the ability both to multiply and to differentiate into specific blood cells and other cell/tissue types. This ability allows them replace dead or defective cells and/or tissues.

Embryonic stem-cell research, which involves the killing of a unique human being in an attempt to cure different diseases, has proven not only lethal and costly, but has not produced a single cure. On the other hand, adult stem-cell research, which utilizes cells from adult tissues or umbilical cords, does not require the taking of human life. It has proven successful in treating more than 70 kinds of cancers and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

Pope John Paul II said that all research using stem cells from human embryos was “morally unacceptable.” In his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, John Paul said, “This moral condemnation also regards procedures that exploit living human embryos and fetuses — sometimes ‘produced’ for this purpose by in vitro fertilization — either to be used as ‘biological material’ or as providers or organs or tissue for transplants in the treatment of certain diseases.

“The killing of innocent human creatures, even if carried out to help others, constitutes an absolutely unacceptable act.”

At the end of July the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave Geron permission to proceed with clinical trials for GRNOPC1, its privately-developed line of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells derived from stem cells from aborted unborn babies. A variant developed from animal embryos proved effective in regenerating damaged animal spinal cords, Geron claims in a press release, while a problem with cysts developing near the injection site in the test animals has apparently been addressed with “new markers and assays.”

Geron did not return the Register’s calls to explain just how these “markers and assays” reassured the FDA enough to get it to approve human trials. In its press release Geron stated the stem cells tested on animals had “demonstrated remyelinating and nerve growth properties.”

Remyelinating is the re-growth of the lining around nerves which is known to improve the transmission of signals to and from the brain and lead to the “restoration of function in animal models.”However, Theresa Deisher, a Seattle adult stem-cell researcher who is seeking an injunction against any expansion of federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, warns that embryonic stem-cell therapy has proved very problematic in animals.

“I will predict that in these early human trials we will probably see a short-term benefit, but it will be followed by devastation and disaster,” Deisher told the Register. “And I would ask why we as a society would go forward with that and put our taxpayers’ dollars in this area when we have adult stem cells that need taxpayer funding and that taxpayers could afford and that we know are successful.”

Read More @ ncregister.com

Advanced Cell Technology believes transdifferentiation will play a part in regenerative medicine

Advanced Cell Technology (OTCBB:ACTC) stated this morning that it sees potential for transdifferentiation in the field of regenerative medicine.  

Transdifferentiation involves reprogramming one type of adult cell, such as skin, into an altogether different type of cell, such as muscle or insulin-producing cells, without having to generate stem cells.

For over a decade, Advanced Cell Technology has developed a proprietary technology and has made “significant progress”  discovering protocols and factors for inducing reprogramming of somatic cells with defined factors.

“One of the fruits of ACT’s early research efforts,” said William Caldwell, Chairman and CEO of ACTC “comes in the form of a robust intellectual property estate generated by the company. We have patent filings with priority dates going back a decade or more, and are positioned to control central factors involved in inducing heart cell formation, including factors described in recent publications.”

This month scientists successfully turned ordinary fibroblasts into beating heart cells providing evidence that transdifferentiation could play an important part in regenerative medicine.

“Our field has evolved from considering cell differentiation as an irreversible event to slowly accepting that cell fate is responsive to manipulation even late in differentiation,” said Robert Lanza, Chief Scientific Officer at ACT. “Only now is the regenerative medicine industry realizing its therapeutic appeal, and that some of the same techniques used for generating iPS cells can be used to directly reprogram one cell type into another. “

Advanced Cell Technology has also been progressively protecting its intellectual property relating to novel protocols and agents for predisposing differentiated cells to transdifferentiation. “We have a very strong IP position in place through pending and issued patent filings, including a recently-issued broad patent for enhancing the generation of nerve cells from fibroblasts through transdifferentiation,” Caldwell added.

The small cap Biotechnology and regenerative medicine company announced last week that it another of its proprietary technologies, a Blastomere technique for deriving human embryonic stem (ES) cells would unlikely to be affected by a federal court ruling which temporarily blocked federal funding for embryonic stem cell research involving the destruction of embryos, as ACT`s technology is "embryo-safe".

The company’s novel technique generates embryonic stem cell lines without destroying embryos, a breakthrough in the ethical debate surrounding the industry. Since then, the company has announced on multiple occasions the successful creation of human embryonic stem cell lines without the destruction or disruption of the developmental potential of the embryos.

In addition, ACT`s Phase I/II trial using embryonic stem cells to treat Stargardt`s disease is already fully-funded. In late July, ACT filed documentation with the FDA to proceed with these trials and initiate a multi-centre study. In November last year, the company also filed an Investigational New Drug (IND) Application to commence treating patients, as it believes its product is “ideal” to gain early experience and knowledge about ES cell safety.

The company’s unique technology has attracted a considerable amount of mainstream press coverage recently, including The Washington Post this morning.

 

Via : proactiveinvestors.com 

One reason why U.S. healthcare is so expensive

Why is healthcare so expensive? Stephen Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, topped Modern Healthcare’s list of highest-paid executives at $106 million — $7.5 million in salary and benefits and $98.5 million in stock options in 2009. Hemsley is not alone, says an editorial in St. Louis Today. The CEOs at insurance giants Cigna, Humana, Aetna, Coventry Health Systems and WellPoint all took home between $10 million and about $18 million.

Get with the program. French drug maker Sanofi-Aventis disclosed its $18.5 billion bid for Genzyme on Sunday, intensifying pressure on the American biotechnology company to engage in discussions about a sale,

Embryonic stem cell tests coming. As supporters of human embryonic stem cell research reel from last week’s sudden cutoff of federal funding, another portentous landmark is quietly approaching: the world’s first attempt to test the cells in people, writes the Boston Globe.

FDA pauses on Avastin. Avastin is a class of drug that attacks cancer by attacking its blood supply. But using it to treat metastatic breast cancer has given the Food and Drug Administration pause, reports the Science-Based Medicine blog.

Stem cells treat heart failure. The largest clinical trial so far of transplanting patients’ own stem cells into their failing hearts has shown several functional benefits as well as reduced mortality, according to The Heart.

Via : medcitynews.com

MS affected by warmer weather

Researchers warn changes in temperature may affect patients with multiple sclerosis. Warmer temperatures may have the greatest impact, according to a new study.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston took regular brain scans of untreated MS patients for one year. 

They found the number of lesions appearing on the scans was two to three times higher between March and August, compared to the rest of the year.

Warmer temperatures and solar radiation were also linked to disease activity. Rain had no effect on MS lesions.

 

The study was published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. 

 

Via : kjrh.com

Weather Does Affect Multiple Sclerosis’ Activity!

A study conducted by the U. S. researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston showed that multiple sclerosis (MS) is directly connected to temperature and that the intensity of its symptoms changes according to the weather conditions.

The study, which was published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, revealed that during the spring and summer seasons, especially in the months between March and August, the activityof the disease reaches its maximum in comparison to the rest of the year.

Although rain has proved to cause no changes in the disease, warm temperature and solar radiations showed to increase the number and the magnitude of brain lesions in patients who already have MS and have been untreated. However, the researchers did not figure out the reasons behind these changes.

MS is basically an inflammatory condition, which attacks the central nervous system of the human body, causing a series of symptoms related to the body’s control over balance and senses.

The study lasted for more than a year, tracing the data of 44 patients, including their MRI scans.

Dr Susan Kohlhaas, a Research Communications Officer at the MS Society, stated “This small study is intriguing and, if validated in larger studies, has the potential to influence the way clinical trials are designed".

Via : topnews.us