Environmental Medicine News

The News Review:

- Small-Dose Bird Flu Vaccine Proves Effective in Trials
- How Can Identical Twins Be Genetically Different?
- Stanford Snake Venom Study Shows That Certain Cells May Eliminate…
- UK kava kava ban upheld
- How can identical twins be genetically different?

Small-Dose Bird Flu Vaccine Proves Effective in Trials
NPR - Jul 27, 2006
For some patients, Gleevec has been nothing short of remarkable. And unlike most cancer chemotherapies, it seemed to have minimal side effects. But in the current issue of Nature Medicine, researchers at Thomas Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia report that 10 patients developed severe congestive heart failure after taking Gleevec. The researchers say the same property that makes the drug effective against cancer may make it toxic to the heart. In a statement, Gleevec’s manufacturer Novatis says its data show that heart failure is extremely rare in Gleevec patients. And the company says the drug clearly does more good than harm. — Joe Palca Share this Page Share this page using one of the following services:.

How Can Identical Twins Be Genetically Different?
Medical News Today - Jul 27, 2006
Identical twins represent the best experimental system to address this question,” says Joseph Holoshitz, M. , an associate professor of internal medicine at U-M Medical School and co-author of the study. The advantage of studying twins is that they start out with the exact same genetic information. Therefore, differences in gene expression are attributable to different environmental factors rather than genetics. Such factors could cause a random genetic mutation or affects how DNA is packaged. “There’s a lot of variability in the severity of the disease, symptoms, and the response a patient will have to treatment… There are many other categories of genes where expression varies between twins. We are just beginning to understand how RA is able to affect people in different ways. The newly discovered genes provide important insights into the nature of the disease and facilitate the design of novel treatment strategies for RA,” says Holoshitz. —————————-Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release. —————————-The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Arthritis Foundation, and the Office of Research and Development, Department of Veterans Affairs. The lead authors were Christian S.

Stanford Snake Venom Study Shows That Certain Cells May Eliminate…
Free with registration - Business Wire - AccessMyLibrary.com - Jul 27, 2006
Such misery is produced by a veritable witches’ brew of toxins in snake venom. It’s long been thought that the body’s own immune system, rather than reducing the symptoms, may make things worse. But now researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that the immune system really does side with the victim, at least in four kinds of venom that were used in their experiments. Their findings will be published in the July 28 issue of Science. Venom from three species of poisonous snakes and one species of honeybee were studied by a group led by Stephen Galli, MD, professor and chair of the Department of Pathology. Using mice, they analyzed how mast cells, a vital part of the immune system in mammals, reacted to the.

UK kava kava ban upheld
BakeryAndSnacks.com - Jul 27, 2006
Kava kava is a herb from the pepper family with a long history of use in the Pacific Islands, and more recently in Europe, the US and Australia as a herbal medicine and in foods such as tea, cereal products, smoothies and spirit drinks. The UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority (MHRA) both dismissed the reinstatement of the UK kava kava market this week, even though some within the herbal products industry have maintained that grounds for the ban were unmerited. The sale and import of kava kava containing foods and herbal medicine products was originally banned in the UK in early 2002, following data supplied to the MHRA the previous year by the Committee on Safety of Medicines’ Expert Working Group (EWG) and the Medicines Commission, which agreed that, in rare cases, the use of unlicensed medicines containing kava kava could lead to liver damage. The FSA subsequently reviewed this evidence and, after consulting with the Committee on Toxicology (COT), agreed that the risk also held true for food uses. Both the Medicines for Human Use (kava kava) (Prohibition) Order 2002 and the Kava kava in Food Regulations 2002 came into effect on January 13 2003. The FSA insists that it was necessary to bring in laws banning kava kava, as it was “the only means by which we can adequately protect public health”. However at the time of the original ban Professor Edzard Ernst, chair of Complementary Medicine at Exeter University, said that it went too far… The FSA’s COT looked at evidence submitted to the agency and reviews scientific literature at a meeting held in December 2005, and the MHRA’s EWG at a meeting in October 2005, following three months of public consultation at the beginning of last year. The COT reviewed human studies on urinary metabolites, case reports, clinical trails and epidemiological studies, as well as animal and in vitro studies and review articles. “Members considered that the new data were not sufficient to demonstrate the safety of food products containing kava kava, particularly considering the severe nature of the hepatoxicity linked with kava kava consumption,” it said in the meeting minutes. Likewise the MHRA’s EWG concluded from its review that the prohibition order on kava kava remained “justified and proportional”. A spokesperons for the MHRA told NutraIngredients. com that it took nine months to communicate the outcome of the EWG meeting to the public since the detailed report first had to be circulated around members of the group for comments. The FSA indicated that since its consultation was conducted in parallel to the MHRA’s, it made sense to publish at the same time.

How can identical twins be genetically different?
innovations report - Jul 27, 2006
Identical twins represent the best experimental system to address this question," says Joseph Holoshitz, M. , an associate professor of internal medicine at U-M Medical School and co-author of the study. The advantage of studying twins is that they start out with the exact same genetic information. Therefore, differences in gene expression are attributable to different environmental factors rather than genetics. Such factors could cause a random genetic mutation or affects how DNA is packaged. "There's a lot of variability in the severity of the disease, symptoms, and the response a patient will have to treatment… There are many other categories of genes where expression varies between twins. We are just beginning to understand how RA is able to affect people in different ways. The newly discovered genes provide important insights into the nature of the disease and facilitate the design of novel treatment strategies for RA," says Holoshitz. Rossitza Iordanova | Quelle: EurekAlert! Weitere Informationen:.