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New alcoholism vaccine is made

The new alcoholism vaccine, which works like patches used for kicking smoking, is believed to be more efficient as it specifically targets liver cells.

It works by neutralizing aldehyde dehydrogenase, a group of enzymes that metabolizes alcohol and are therefore responsible for alcohol tolerance, said the lead Chilean researcher Juan Asenjo.

Apart from contributing to a general feeling of ''unease,'' the vaccine would increase nausea, heartbeat and sweating following drinking alcohol.

"The therapy has been tested in rats that are genetically alcoholics, and has worked successfully to decrease the addiction by 50 percent," researchers said, hoping that the vaccine may reduce the alcohol consumption by 90-95 percent.

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FROM THE NEW ZCIENTIST

A fat tummy shrivels your brain


HAVING a larger waistline may shrink your brain.

Obesity is linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, which is known to be associated with cognitive impairment. So Antonio Convit at the New York University School of Medicine wanted to see what impact obesity had on the physical structure of the brain. He used magnetic resonance imaging to compare the brains of 44 obese individuals with those of 19 lean people of similar age and background.

He found that obese individuals had more water in the amygdala - a part of the brain involved in eating behaviour. He also saw smaller orbitofrontal cortices in obese individuals, important for impulse control and also involved in feeding behaviour (Brain Research, in press). "It could mean that there are less neurons, or that those neurons are shrunken," says Convit.

Eric Stice at Oregon Research Institute, Eugene, thinks that the findings strengthen the "slippery slope" theory of obesity. "If you overeat, it appears to result in neural changes that increase the risk for future overeating," he says. Obesity is associated with a constant, low-level inflammation, which Convit thinks explains the change in brain size.

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FROM WEBMD

U.S. Wants to Reduce Fluoride in Drinking Water

an. 7, 2011 --The recommended level of fluoride in U.S. drinking water supplies should be lowered to prevent dental problems, according to a joint announcement today by officials from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The HHS is recommending that water supplies contain 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water, replacing the current recommended range of 0.7 to 1.2 milligrams.

WOW BIG CHANGE!!!! As if they cannot have a range!!! As if getting rid of it altogether would turn everyone into red blooded critical thinkers anyways LOL!

continued...

That recommendation won't go into effect immediately. It will be published in the Federal Register, followed by a period of comment from the public and others for 30 days.

In other action today, the EPA said it will review the maximum amount of fluoride that will be allowed in drinking water, looking at the most recent research.

''Today's announcement is part of our ongoing support of appropriate fluoridation for community water systems, and its effectiveness in preventing tooth decaythroughout one's lifetime," says  HHS Assistant Secretary for Health Howard K. Koh, MD, MPH, in a news release.

The HHS recommendation comes in the wake of data finding that excess fluoride consumption during the tooth-forming years in children age 8 and younger may lead to dental fluorosis, a condition in which teeth can become streaked or spotty due to excess fluoride.

Fluorosis CasesThe recommendation is a proposed recommendation, says J. Nadine Gracia, MD, chief medical officer in the office of the assistant secretary for health at HHS. "These guidelines are voluntary guidelines and the decisions [about water fluoridation] are made by state and local municipalities," she tells WebMD.

Even if the new proposed recommendation goes into place, she says, municipalities may choose not to follow it.

"What we are proposing is based on the most up to date science," Gracia says. She estimates a final recommendation could be issued by spring of 2011.

Meanwhile, there's no reason to panic, says Matthew Messina, DDS, a Cleveland dentist and spokesman for the American Dental Association.

''Fluorosis in its most severe form [involves] tooth enamel becoming more opaque, so teeth look splotchy," he tells WebMD. "The vast majority of fluorosis cases are mild or moderate and you are not going to see it unless you are a dentist."

In the severe form, which is rare, according to HHS, there can be staining and pitting of the tooth surface.

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So Young and So Many Pills
More than 25% of Kids and Teens in the U.S. Take Prescriptions on a Regular Basis

By ANNA WILDE MATHEWS

Gage Martindale, who is 8 years old, has been taking a blood-pressure drug since he was a toddler. "I want to be healthy, and I don't want things in my heart to go wrong," he says.

And, of course, his mom is always there to check Gage's blood pressure regularly with a home monitor, and to make sure the second-grader doesn't skip a dose of his once-a-day enalapril.

These days, the medicine cabinet is truly a family affair. More than a quarter of U.S. kids and teens are taking a medication on a chronic basis, according to Medco Health Solutions Inc., the biggest U.S. pharmacy-benefit manager with around 65 million members. Nearly 7% are on two or more such drugs, based on the company's database figures for 2009.

Doctors and parents warn that prescribing medications to children can be problematic. There is limited research available about many drugs' effects in kids. And health-care providers and families need to be vigilant to assess the medicines' impact, both intended and not. Although the effects of some medications, like cholesterol-lowering statins, have been extensively researched in adults, the consequences of using such drugs for the bulk of a patient's lifespan are little understood.

Many medications kids take on a regular basis are well known, including treatments for asthma and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

 Listen: Kids are taking more drugs that are associated with adults
But children and teens are also taking a wide variety of other medications once considered only to be for adults, from statins to diabetes pills and sleep drugs, according to figures provided to The Wall Street Journal by IMS Health, a research firm. Prescriptions for antihypertensives in people age 19 and younger could hit 5.5 million this year if the trend though September continues, according to IMS. That would be up 17% from 2007, the earliest year available.

Researchers attribute the wide usage in part to doctors and parents becoming more aware of drugs as an option for kids. Unhealthy diets and lack of exercise among children, which lead to too much weight gain and obesity, also fuel the use of some treatments, such as those for hypertension. And some conditions are likely caught and treated earlier as screening and diagnosis efforts improve.

Gage, who isn't overweight, has been on hypertension drugs since he had surgery to fix a heart defect as a toddler, says his mother, Stefanie Martindale, a Conway, Ark., marketing-company manager.

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Vaccine blocks cocaine high in mice

January 4, 2011
Researchers have produced a lasting anti-cocaine immunity in mice by giving them a safe vaccine that combines bits of the common cold virus with a particle that mimics cocaine.

 
In their study, published Jan. 4 in the online edition of Molecular Therapy and funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the researchers say this novel strategy might be the first to offer cocaine addicts a fairly simple way to break and reverse their habit, and it might also be useful in treating other addictions, such as to nicotine, heroin and other opiates.

"Our very dramatic data shows that we can protect mice against the effects of cocaine, and we think this approach could be very promising in fighting addiction in humans," says the study's lead investigator, Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, chairman and professor of genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.

He says the antibody immune response produced in lab mice by the vaccine binds to, and sequesters, cocaine molecules before the drug reached the brains of these animals — and prevents any cocaine-related hyperactivity. The vaccine effect lasted for at least 13 weeks, the longest time point evaluated.

"While other attempts at producing immunity against cocaine have been tried, this is the first that will likely not require multiple, expensive infusions, and that can move quickly into human trials," Dr. Crystal says. "There is currently no FDA-approved vaccine for any drug addiction."

"An approach that works is desperately needed for cocaine addiction, which is an intransigent problem worldwide," he adds. "There are no therapies now."

The novelty of this possible treatment is that it hooks a chemical that is very similar in structure to cocaine, onto components of the adenovirus, a common cold virus. In this way, the human immune system is alerted to an infectious agent (the virus) but also learns to "see" the cocaine as an intruder as well, Dr. Crystal says. Once the structure of the new intruder is recognized, natural immunity builds to cocaine particles, so any time cocaine is snorted or used in any way, antibodies to the substance are quickly produced and the cocaine molecules are engulfed by the antibodies and prevented from reaching the brain.

"The human immune system doesn't naturally tag cocaine as something to be destroyed — just like all small-molecule drugs are not eliminated by antibodies," he says. "We have engineered this response so that it is against the cocaine mimic."

In this study, a team of researchers — scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University in Ithaca, and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif. — ripped apart an adenovirus, retrieving only the components that elicit an immune response and discarding those that produce sickness. They then hooked the cocaine analog on to these proteins to make the vaccine. "We used the cocaine analog because it is a little more stable than cocaine, and it also elicits better immunity," Dr. Crystal says.

The researchers then injected billions of these viral concoctions into "garden variety" laboratory mice (mice that are not genetically engineered). They found a strong immune response was generated against the vaccine, and that these antibodies, when put in test tubes, gobbled up cocaine.

They then tested the vaccine's effect on behavior, and found that mice that received the vaccine before cocaine were much less hyperactive while on the drug than mice that were not vaccinated. The effect was even seen in mice that received large, repetitive doses of cocaine. Proportionally, the cocaine doses reflected amounts that humans might use.

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'

The USDA’s Organic Deception


By Barbara H. Peterson
Farm Wars
Organic is organic, or is it? It would seem that it is all a matter of perspective when one takes a stroll through the mountains of documents on the FDA and USDA websites.

The word “organic” is fast becoming a high-dollar money-maker for corporations smart enough to jump on the bandwagon and start marketing their products as “made with organic ingredients,” or “certified organic.” Even Monsanto is taking advantage of this burgeoning market, and people naïve enough to believe that what we have traditionally thought of as pure, organic food, is still that way, are being duped.

It makes perfect sense, however, in a Machiavellian sort of way. Flood the food supply with poisons, then lead people to believe that the only safe choice left is USDA Certified Organic. Then buy up the organic companies one by one, and start changing the “organic” rules from the inside out via the bought and paid for government agencies so that you can reap the profits from those trying to escape the poisons.

READ ENTIRE CONCISE ARTICLE HERE

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

PepsiCo Inc. is betting that consumers want to "snackify" drinks.

As part of its strategy to tap into the market for more nutritious convenience foods, the company is hoping people will pay a premium for a new pureed fruit product that it considers thick enough to be a snack rather than a beverage.

Tropolis, an 80-calorie fruit puree, which comes in brightly colored pouches, will be marketed to moms and kids. PepsiCo's Tropicana unit is rolling out apple, grape and cherry Tropolis pouches in test markets in the Midwest next month, at $2.49 to $3.49 for a four-pack.

It's not clear how profitable a niche product that is more complicated to produce and distribute than juice will be for the food and beverage giant, whose shares have been underperforming U.S. rivals Coca-Cola Co. and Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc.

Coke and Dr Pepper have no significant food business and have made bigger bets on soda, which is by far the industry's most profitable product.

PepsiCo is best known for its namesake cola and Lay's potato chips, part of its "fun-for-you" (Doritos, Mountain Dew) and "better-for-you" (Baked Lay's, Diet Pepsi) portfolios, which make up $50 billion of the company's $60 billion in revenue.

But Chairman and Chief Executive Indra Nooyi is staking her reputation on building out the company's "good-for-you" portfolio, uniting the Tropicana, Quaker and Gatorade units under one umbrella and expanding their product lines. Ms. Nooyi has said she wants to build the nutrition business to $30 billion from $10 billion by 2020.

To that end, PepsiCo announced earlier this month it would buy Russian dairy and juice-maker OAO Wimm-Bill-Dann in a deal valuing the company at $5.4 billion. "We see the emerging opportunity to 'snackify' beverages and 'drinkify' snacks as the next frontier in food and beverage convenience," Ms. Nooyi said. She cited examples such as kefir, a sour, yogurt-like drink that is popular in Russia and that some say aids in digestion. She said she expects to see dairy products mixed with juice, grains, fruits and nuts, all of which PepsiCo markets.

Mehmood Khan, a former Mayo Clinic endocrinologist who heads PepsiCo's nutrition group, said in an interview that it's outdated to think that snacks are dry and beverages are wet.

"Consumers don't wake up in the morning and say, 'I'm going to have a whole grain; I want a dairy product,'" Dr. Khan said. "They're looking for combinations of those things." Dr. Khan wouldn't specify what combinations might come next.

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FROM CURRENT AND FULL WRITE UP @ WASHINGTON POST

Obama Appoints Monsanto Man as FDA Food Safety Czar

Taylor is a familiar figure at the FDA. He began his career as a staff attorney at the agency in 1976. Then he worked for a decade at King & Spaulding, which represented Monsanto Corp., the agribusiness giant that developed genetically engineered corn, soybeans and bovine growth hormone.

He returned to the FDA in 1991 as deputy commissioner for policy and pushed through requirements that producers of seafood and juices adopt measures to prevent bacterial contamination. During the same period, the FDA approved Monsanto's bovine growth hormone, and Taylor was partly responsible for a controversial policy that said milk from BGH-treated cows did not have to be labeled as such.


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From CARE2

Playing In The Dirt Could Make Kids Smarter

That's right! Put away the baby wipes and hand sanitiser! Eating dirt could actually make kids smarter.

Exposure To Bacteria Could Enhance Learning

Research published earlier this year by ScienceDaily.com shows the positive side of a soil-borne bacteria that is likely to be inhaled when children are playing outside. Researchers found that exposure to specific bacteria could enhance learning.

"Mycobacterium vaccae is a natural soil bacterium which people likely ingest or breathe in when they spend time in nature," said Dorothy Matthews of The Sage Colleges in Troy, New York.

Previous studies exposing mice to these bacteria showed stimulated growth of some neurons in the brain, leading to increased levels of serotonin and decreased anxiety. Curious as to whether live mycobacterium vaccae could thus improve learning in mice, researchers discovered that it did.

Mice Navigated Maze Twice As Fast

"We found that mice that were fed live M. vaccae navigated the maze twice as fast and with less demonstrated anxiety behaviors as control mice," Matthews explained. And continued, "It is interesting to speculate that creating learning environments in schools that include time in the outdoors where M. vaccae is present may decrease anxiety and improve the ability to learn new tasks."

Take this as extra incentive to get children outside and exploring nature, which is important for so many reasons.

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