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Quitting smoking improves artery health

Smokers who quit have a significant improvement in the health of their arteries within a year of their last cigarette, as media reported quoting a new study Monday.
The improvement is the equivalent of a 14 percent reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease, according to the University of Wisconsin-Madison study.
\”A lot of people are afraid to quit smoking because they\’re afraid to gain weight,\” said the study\’s leader, Dr. James Stein, a University of Wisconsin-Madison cardiologist.
The research shows these people gained a health benefit even though also gaining an average of 9 pounds after they quit, researchers found. Their levels of so-called good cholesterol improved, too.
Hardening of the arteries is an early step to heart disease. About one-third of premature smoking deaths are due to cardiovascular disease.
However, smokers who quit face a 70 percent increased risk of developing diabetes within the first two to three years. Within 10 years, that increased risk goes down to zero, said Neal Benowitz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco who was not a part of the study.

Women on birth control pill may live longer: study

A study has found that women who take the contraceptive pill can expect to live longer rather than increasing the risk of death, media reports on Saturday.
The research, published in the British Medical Journal on Friday, observed 46,000 women for nearly 40 years. Researchers compared the number of death of women on the pill with those who never took it.
British researchers said their study should reassure many millions of women across the world who have taken oral birth control pills. In general, the health benefits of the pill outweigh any risks.
In the study, women on the pill generally took it for four years. Experts concluded that the pill cut the risk of dying from bowel cancer by 38 percent and from any other diseases by about 12 percent.
But the scientists said their findings may only be true for women who have taken older-style pills rather than those on more modern types of drugs, since their study began in 1968.
Moreover, the research describes a slightly increased mortality risk in women younger than 45 who are recent or current users of the pill. The effects in younger women disappear after around 10 years, said the study authors.

Calcium may help you live longer: study

Getting a bit more calcium in your diet could help you live longer, new research suggests.
Swedish researchers found that men who consumed the most calcium in food were 25 percent less likely to die over the next decade than their peers who took in the least calcium from food. None of the men took calcium supplements.
The findings are in line with previous research linking higher calcium intake with lower mortality in both men and women, the researchers point out in a report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
While many researchers have looked at calcium and magnesium intake and the risk of chronic disease, less is known about the association between consumption of these nutrients in food and mortality.
To investigate, Dr. Joanna Kaluza of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and her colleagues looked at more than 23,000 Swedish men who were 45 to 79 years old at the study\’s outset and were followed for 10 years. All had reported on their diet at the beginning of the study. During follow-up, about 2,358 died.
The top calcium consumers had a 25 percent lower risk of dying from any cause and a 23 percent lower risk of dying from heart disease during follow-up relative to men that had the least amount of calcium in their diet. Calcium intake didn\’t significantly influence the risk of dying from cancer.
Men in the top third based on their calcium intake were getting nearly 2,000 milligrams a day, on average, compared to about 1,000 milligrams for men in the bottom third. The US Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for calcium intake is 1,000 milligrams for men 19 to 50 years old and 1,200 milligrams for men 50 and over.
\”Intake of calcium above that recommended daily may reduce all-cause mortality,\” Kaluza and her colleagues conclude.
Calcium could influence mortality risk in many ways, they note, for example by reducing blood pressure, cholesterol, or blood sugar levels. For the men in the study, the main sources of calcium in the diet were milk and milk products and cereal products.
In contrast to calcium, there was no relationship between magnesium consumption and overall mortality or deaths from cancer or heart disease. Study participants\’ intakes ranged from around 400 milligrams per day to around 525 milligrams; the RDA for magnesium is 420 milligrams for men 31 and older.
This analysis, the researchers say, may have found no effect for magnesium because all of the men in the study seemed to be getting enough of the mineral in their diet. \”Further studies are needed in other populations with lower dietary magnesium intakes to address this issue,\” they say.
Future research should also look into calcium and magnesium intake from drinking water, they add, which can be a significant source of these minerals.

Men want sex until almost dead: researchers

Men have shorter life spans than women on average, but when it comes to sexual life expectancy, they gain the advantage.
According to a report published Wednesday in the British Medical Journal, men want sex pretty much until they are almost dead.
Men are more likely than women to be sexually active, and the disparity increases with age.
The research found 67 percent of men aged between 65 and 74 said they had been sexually active in the past year, compared with just 40 percent of women in the age group.
The differences are greatest among the age group of 75 to 85: 38.9 percent of men compared with 16.8 percent of women were sexually active, and still 41.2 percent of men were interested in sex, while only 11.4 women had the \”passion.\”
The study also seems to conclude that a happy sex life can help you live longer.

AIDS 2010 to focus on marginalized group

AIDS 2010, the 18th International AIDS Conference being held in Vienna later this year, will focus on marginalised groups living with the disease, such as injecting drug users in Eastern Europe, organisers said Wednesday. (Xinhua)

AIDS virus can hide in bone marrow


 
AIDS virus [File Photo]
Medications can reduce the level of the AIDS virus in the blood, but HIV doesn\’t disappear, a new research shows as quoted by AP Monday.
The virus that causes AIDS can hide in the bone marrow, avoiding drugs and later awakening to cause illness.
According to the Associated Press, Dr. Kathleen Collins of the University of Michigan and her colleagues report in this week\’s edition of the journal Nature Medicine that the HIV virus can infect long-lived bone marrow cells that eventually convert into blood cells.
The virus is dormant in the bone marrow cells, she said, but when those progenitor cells develop into blood cells, it can be reactivated and cause renewed infection. The virus kills the new blood cells and then moves on to infect other cells, she said.
So why not use a medication to kill all those parent cells, thereby perhaps ridding the body of HIV, the researchers suggested.
It sounds simple, but killing all of these blood-producing marrow cells would be lethal to humans, Collins said. However, \”maybe we could find ways of targeting only the latently infected bone marrow cells,\” she added.

Women drinking lightly less likely to gain weight

Consuming light-to-moderate drinks might help women keep slim, a new study suggests.
The study involved 19,220 women, 39 years or older, who had normal body-mass index at the start. The study lasted for an average of 13 years. Although, on average, the women all tended to gain weight as time progressed, the amount of weight gained decreased as alcohol consumption went up, said study researchers at Brigham &Women\’s Hospital in Boston.
Among those who benefited from light drinking, abstainers gained the most, according to the study published in the March 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. There could be any number of reasons for the findings, including different ways that women metabolize alcohol, compared with men, the researchers explained.
Also, the researchers pointed out, women tend to substitute alcohol for other foods, whereas men tend to simply add alcohol to everything else they\’re ingesting.
\”The impact of alcohol consumption on body weight needs to be considered in the context of energy balance,\” said study author Dr. Lu Wang, an epidemiologist with the division of preventive medicine at the hospital.
\”Among women, those who regularly consume light-to-moderate alcohol usually have a lower energy intake from non-alcohol sources. On the other hand, alcohol intake tends to induce increased energy expenditure beyond energy contents of the consumed alcohol in women. Taken together, regular alcohol consumption in light-to-moderate amount may lead to a net energy loss among women.\”
\”Our study results showed that middle-age and older women who have normal body weight initially and consume light-to-moderate amounts of alcohol could maintain their drinking habits without gaining more weight, compared with similar women who did not drink any alcohol,\” said Wang.

Genes test may guide dieting

Diet not working? A new test claims to show whether people will do better on a low-fat or a low-carb weight loss plan, according to media reports Thursday.
According to Associated Press, a study this week found that women on diets well-matched to their genes, as defined by the test, lost roughly five times more weight than those on mismatched diets.
\”We were able to explain why some people were successful\” and others were not, even though they ate the same way, said Mindy Dopler Nelson, a nutritional biologist at Stanford University who led the study.
While some scientists find this hard to swallow, it\’s another test being peddled without enough research to show it really works, it said.
\”I\’m afraid this may be another attempt to lure the public into purchasing genetic tests that provide little value for those struggling with their weight,\” said Raymond Rodriguez, director of the National Center of Excellence for Nutritional Genomics at the University of California, Davis.
The research shows \”nothing that should move the American public out to get their genome tested,\” said Dr. Robert Eckel, a former American Heart Association president and cardiologist at the University of Colorado-Denver.

Obese kids face greater risk of future heart disease

Kids suffering from obesity are more likely to develop heart disease in the future, a new study suggests.
In the study, researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine found warning signs for future heart disease in children as young as three.
Obese children have higher levels of C-reactive protein — a sign of inflammation and heart disease risk, according to the study published online on Monday in the journal Pediatrics.
Obese kids at ages six and nine also have higher levels of two other signs of inflammation.
\”We\’re seeing a relationship between weight status and elevated inflammatory markers much earlier than we expected,\” said study author Asheley Cockrell Skinner, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the school.
\”Most adults understand that being overweight or obese isn\’t good for them. But not as many people realize that it may be unhealthy for young children to be overweight,\” said Skinner.
The researchers came to their conclusions after analyzing data collected between 1999 and 2006 in a national survey. More than 16, 000 children aged one to 17 took part in the study.
Nearly 15 percent of the children were defined as overweight, 11 percent were obese and 3.5 percent were considered very obese.
\”A lot more work needs to be done before we figure out the full implication of these findings,\” said study co-author Dr. Eliana Perrin.
\”But this study tells us that very young, obese children already have more inflammation than children who are not obese, and that\’s very concerning. It may help motivate us as physicians and parents to take obesity at younger ages more seriously,\” said Perrin.

Sleep habits linked to fat gain in younger adults

Younger adults who get either little sleep or a lot of it may see a greater expansion in their waistlines over time, a study published on Monday suggests.
Researchers found that among black and Hispanic adults younger than 40, those who typically slept for five hours or less each night had a greater accumulation of belly fat over the next five years, versus those who averaged six or seven hours.
Those who logged eight hours or more in bed each night also showed a bigger fat gain – but it was less substantial than that seen in \”short sleepers.\”
The study, reported in the journal Sleep, does not prove that too little or too much sleep directly leads to excess fat gain. But the findings support and extend those of other studies linking sleep duration – particularly a lack of sleep – to weight gain and even to higher risks of diabetes and heart disease.

The study adds to past research in part because it focused on black and Hispanic Americans – two understudied groups who are at increased risk of obesity and its related ills, said lead researcher Dr. Kristen G. Hairston, of Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
It also zeroed in on the relationship between sleep and gains in abdominal fat – both the superficial fat layers just below the skin and the \”visceral\” fat that surrounds the abdominal organs. Deep abdominal fat is believed to be particularly important in the risks of health conditions like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease, Hairston told Reuters Health.
The study included 332 African-American and 775 Hispanic-American men and women ages 18 to 81. At the outset, all reported on their sleep habits, diets, exercise levels and other lifestyle factors. The researchers used CT scans to measure participants\’ abdominal fat, at the start of the study and again five years later.
Among participants younger than 40, the study found, those who said they slept for five hours or less each night gained more belly fat than those who averaged six or seven hours of sleep.
On average, short sleepers showed a 32 percent gain in visceral fat, versus a 13 percent gain among those who slept six or seven hours per night, and a 22 percent increase among men and women who got at least eight hours of sleep each night.
A similar pattern was seen with superficial abdominal fat. Even when the researchers considered factors like calorie intake, exercise habits, education and smoking, sleep duration itself remained linked to abdominal-fat gain.
The findings, according to Hairston, support the belief that sleep habits affect weight, and health in general. \”Sleep is an important part of your overall health – not just in whether you\’re tired during the day,\” she said.
Individuals vary in their sleep needs, so there is no one set prescription. But \”extremes of sleep,\” such as less than five hours per night, should raise concerns, according to Hairston. \”And if you\’re concerned about your sleep,\” she said, \”discuss it with your healthcare provider, just as you would discuss diet or exercise.\”
As for why sleep duration might affect abdominal-fat gain, there are several theories.
There may be indirect effects; people who get too little sleep may be too tired during the day to exercise, while those who spend a lot of time in bed may spend less time being active, relative to people who sleep fewer hours.
Research also suggests that sleep loss alters people\’s levels of appetite-regulating hormones – which could, in theory, spur them to overeat.
Depression, which often affects people\’s sleep and has been linked to weight gain, could also be a factor, Hairston noted. She and her colleagues had no information on study participants\’ depression symptoms.