Beaten-down dog from Vick case has his day

Leo — rescued from heavy chains that confined him as one of the pit bulls in former NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s dogfighting ring — is a lover, not a fighter. He now happily frolics in a clown collar as he makes the rounds at the Camino Infusion Center, where he brings comfort to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Despite his training as a killer, Leo is a sweetheart as he visits his friends on the ward.

“He is wonderful, and all the patients love Leo,” said Paula Reed, the facility’s oncology director. “They really love his eyes and gentleness.”

Six months ago, Leo should have been dead.

When officers raided Vick’s Bad Newz Kennels in Smithfield, Va., last year, they found dogs, some injured and scarred, chained to buried car axles. Forensic experts discovered remains of dogs that had been shot with a .22-caliber pistol, electrocuted, drowned, hanged or slammed to the ground for lacking a desire to fight.

Vick, an All-Pro quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, was suspended indefinitely and is serving 23 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in August to bankrolling the dogfighting operation and helping to kill as many as eight dogs. Three co-defendants also pleaded guilty and were sentenced to prison.

About 50 dogs were rescued.

Animal advocates are divided over whether fighting dogs can be trusted to have new lives as pets or working dogs. One of the dogs seized at Bad Newz was put down as too aggressive, but the others were dispersed to sanctuaries and training facilities across the country.

An ‘incredible’ difference with patients
One of them was Leo, who ended up in the care of Marthina McClay, a certified trainer and counselor in Los Gatos, near San Francisco. McClay is president of Our Pack, an advocacy group for pit bulls.

“He was a little like a caveman at a tea party,” McClay said. “He didn’t have a lot of training.”

But after five weeks of intense instruction and supervision, and more weeks of acclimation, Leo is now — with all due respect —a pussy cat. He loves putting his head on a patient’s lap and batting his big brown eyes.

“The difference that he’s had with our patients has been incredible — the smiles on their faces, the joy when they see him,” said Reed of the cancer center.

“Leo is a survivor and our patients are survivors, and I think they can relate to each other,” she said.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25214356/

Middle-Age Smoking Can Lead to Memory Loss

New test to aid science of sleep

Are you an early bird or a night owl? A new technique to find out has been developed at Swansea University.

Instead of blood tests, now all that is needed is a simple mouth swab.

The technique could aid studies into Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and the effectiveness of chemotherapy at certain times.

The test indentifies genes that regulate sleep, and first test samples were taken on Thursday at a science festival.

The natural pattern of wake and sleep is known as the circadian rhythm.

A number of different genes control an individual's circadian rhythm and the levels of ribonucleic acid (RNA) produced by these different genes indicate how active they are at different times of day.

One gene known as Per2 produces the highest levels of RNA at about 4am, and is the gene associated with sleep.

The gene examined at the science festival in Cheltenham produces its highest levels at about 4pm, is known as REV-ERB and is thought by scientists to be associated with wakefulness.

Samples were taken before and after a talk at the festival and are being analysed by the Swansea researchers. The results will be made available to individuals online.

Sarah Forbes-Robertson, a research fellow at Swansea university, said if a person produces higher levels of REV-ERB before 4pm they are likely to be an early bird.

If someone produces higher levels after 4pm they are likely to be a night owl.

Paul Barnett, a freelance music promoter from Cardiff, said he had always been a natural night owl and would be even if he worked in a job without so many late nights.

"I get up at around 9 or 9.30 and don't go to bed until 1am. It's always been this way and it drives me mad!" he said.

"One of my former relationships was with a teacher and she went to bed at 11pm but I was never tired enough. It had an impact on the relationship."

Sleep pattern

Early riser Stephen Chant, a Royal Mail delivery office manager in Cardiff, said he has never got used to the early morning starts required in his job but he is in a pattern.

"I still wake up early in the morning at the weekend and it drives my wife potty," he explained.

"I would say I have become an early riser. I've had to discipline and condition myself to it and that means I have had to make sacrifices like not having a drink - even a pint - in the week."

Scientists believe the swab technique will open up their field of research because the individuals tested can continue with their normal day and night activities.

Previously samples would need to be taken every four hours over a full day and night.

It will also allow researchers to assess whether jet lag cures, like melatonin tablets, actually do anything to alter gene expression.

"Gene expression can be altered by external factors, such as jet lag," said Ms Forbes-Robertson.

"One interesting finding is that food affects gene expression. So, after lunch, Per2 has a small peak, leading to that post lunch slump," she noted.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/7439142.stm

'No stillbirth link' to Caesarean

Having a Caesarean does not raise the risk of a stillbirth in a subsequent pregnancy, a study has found.

The University of Calgary study contradicts previous research which suggested an increased risk.

The study suggests a mother's obesity - not whether she has a Caesarean - may instead be the key factor.

The study, which appears in the journal BJOG, suggests that previous research has failed to take this factor properly into account.

However, health professionals advise woman not to opt for a Caesarean lightly, as it is a major surgical procedure, with a risk of complications.

Researcher Dr Stephen Wood said the finding was particularly important as the number of Caesareans had increased in recent years.

He said obesity had been consistently linked to both Caesareans and stillbirths, but it had proved difficult to tease out its independent effect on each.

Confounding factors

The Calgary study examined 157,029 second births, and took potentially confounding factors, such as maternal weight, into consideration.

Once they had done that they found that, among women who had previously had a Caesarean, the stillbirth rate was 2.1 per 1,000, compared with 1.6 per 1,000 in women who had no Caesarean history - not a statistically significant difference.

The researchers admit that they were not able to completely account for maternal weight, but had done so far more than previous research.

Dr Wood said: "Our study strongly suggests that previous Caesarean section does not increase the risk of stillbirth in subsequent pregnancies.

"Although previous research has made a link between the two, it is likely that maternal obesity played a part as it was not controlled for."

Professor Philip Steer, editor-in-chief of BJOG, said: "Caesarean section rates are increasing across the developed world and the increase in risks for subsequent pregnancies have been well-documented.

"The increase in stillbirth risk previously reported was especially concerning, so it is somewhat reassuring that the study by Dr Wood and his team suggests that this may have been due to the confounding factor of maternal obesity."

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7433884.stm

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New Hints Seen That Red Wine May Slow Aging

Red wine may be much more potent than was thought in extending human lifespan, researchers say in a new report that is likely to give impetus to the rapidly growing search for longevity drugs.

The study is based on dosing mice with resveratrol, an ingredient of some red wines. Some scientists are already taking resveratrol in capsule form, but others believe it is far too early to take the drug, especially using wine as its source, until there is better data on its safety and effectiveness.

The report is part of a new wave of interest in drugs that may enhance longevity. On Monday, Sirtris, a startup founded in 2004 to develop drugs with the same effects as resveratrol, completed its sale to GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million.

Sirtris is seeking to develop drugs that activate protein agents known in people as sirtuins.

“The upside is so huge that if we are right, the company that dominates the sirtuin space could dominate the pharmaceutical industry and change medicine,” Dr. David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School, a co-founder of the company, said Tuesday.

Serious scientists have long derided the idea of life-extending elixirs, but the door has now been opened to drugs that exploit an ancient biological survival mechanism, that of switching the body’s resources from fertility to tissue maintenance. The improved tissue maintenance seems to extend life by cutting down on the degenerative diseases of aging.

The reflex can be prompted by a faminelike diet, known as caloric restriction, which extends the life of laboratory rodents by up to 30 percent but is far too hard for most people to keep to and in any case has not been proven to work in humans.

Research started nearly 20 years ago by Dr. Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed recently that the famine-induced switch to tissue preservation might be triggered by activating the body’s sirtuins. Dr. Sinclair, a former student of Dr. Guarente, then found in 2003 that sirtuins could be activated by some natural compounds, including resveratrol, previously known as just an ingredient of certain red wines.

Dr. Sinclair’s finding led in several directions. He and others have tested resveratrol’s effects in mice, mostly at doses far higher than the minuscule amounts in red wine. One of the more spectacular results was obtained last year by Dr. John Auwerx of the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Illkirch, France. He showed that resveratrol could turn plain vanilla, couch-potato mice into champion athletes, making them run twice as far on a treadmill before collapsing.

The company Sirtris, meanwhile, has been testing resveratrol and other drugs that activate sirtuin. These drugs are small molecules, more stable than resveratrol, and can be given in smaller doses. In April, Sirtris reported that its formulation of resveratrol, called SRT501, reduced glucose levels in diabetic patients.

The company plans to start clinical trials of its resveratrol mimic soon. Sirtris’s value to GlaxoSmithKline is presumably that its sirtuin-activating drugs could be used to treat a spectrum of degenerative diseases, like cancer and Alzheimer’s, if the underlying theory is correct.

Separately from Sirtris’s investigations, a research team led by Tomas A. Prolla and Richard Weindruch, of the University of Wisconsin, reports in the journal PLoS One on Wednesday that resveratrol may be effective in mice and people in much lower doses than previously thought necessary. In earlier studies, like Dr. Auwerx’s of mice on treadmills, the animals were fed such large amounts of resveratrol that to gain equivalent dosages people would have to drink more than 100 bottles of red wine a day.

The Wisconsin scientists used a dose on mice equivalent to just 35 bottles a day. But red wine contains many other resveratrol-like compounds that may also be beneficial. Taking these into account, as well as mice’s higher metabolic rate, a mere four, five-ounce glasses of wine “starts getting close” to the amount of resveratrol they found effective, Dr. Weindruch said.

Resveratrol can also be obtained in the form of capsules marketed by several companies. Those made by one company, Longevinex, include extracts of red wine and of a Chinese plant called giant knotweed. The Wisconsin researchers conclude that resveratrol can mimic many of the effects of a caloric-restricted diet “at doses that can readily be achieved in humans.”

By NICHOLAS WADE

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Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/tea-articles/effective-natural-health-beauty-products-413773.html