Health Costs Loom

Retirees’ Health Costs Loom Over U.A.W. Talks

That shift has the greatest impact on medical costs. Detroit automakers cover the health care expenses of both current and former union members — more than 1.1 million of them combined — and their dependents. That adds up to an annual bill of about $12 billion.

So even as the struggling car companies try to restructure, announcing plans in the last two years to shed more than 80,000 workers, their health care bill continues to rise as those people age.

The car companies’ ability, or willingness, to continue paying those generous benefits, including negligible co-payments for drugs and doctor visits, will be a crucial sticking point when pivotal negotiations begin Friday between the U.A.W. and the auto companies.

It may also be a touchy issue for active U.A.W. members and retirees, who must grapple with whether one group should bear the brunt of any cuts more than the other.

The stakes are enormous for both sides in talks that General Motors calls “the most important in a generation.”

The union is trying to protect a signature feature of the middle-class lifestyle that its blue-collar members have enjoyed. The retirees, roughly 600,000 of them, risk seeing an erosion of benefits that they had assumed would be secure when their working days ended.

“This is what we were promised,” said Jim Ziomek, who retired in 2002 from a Ford Motor parts distribution center in Livonia, Mich., after working for the company for 34 years. “You’re going to have a pension, you’re going to have health care. Well, now all of a sudden things have changed and they want to take it away.” G.M., Ford Motor and the Chrysler Group say these so-called legacy costs have hampered their fight against surging foreign competitors. Health care and pension benefits cost them $1,000 for each vehicle they sell, they say, compared with a few hundred dollars for companies like Toyota, Honda and Nissan.

The carmakers have long sought to lower these costs, but the status quo has remained largely in place after previous contracts, the most recent being signed in 2003. At that time, the companies were relatively healthy; they also feared a strike if they challenged the union.

The U.A.W.’s president, Ron Gettelfinger, has insisted publicly that neither the change in demographics nor the auto companies’ decline alters the union’s philosophy of fighting to keep previous contract gains. In fact, he recently said, workers have compromised enough on health care. The union has declined to say what will be discussed in negotiations.

But the union’s stance has changed since the current labor agreement was signed.

Mr. Gettelfinger, for example, put up little resistance to plant closings at G.M., Ford and Chrysler; he cut deals for lower wages with bankrupt parts suppliers like Delphi and Dana; and most important, he agreed to arrangements at G.M. and Ford that eroded the fully paid health care coverage that was one of the union’s most cherished achievements.

David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich., said the two sides have no choice but to find a health care solution.

“You probably have to do this now; there is no delaying,” Mr. Cole said. “If you put it off, the companies are going to be weaker, and the bargaining position may be less favorable” for the union.

In the last two years, G.M., Ford and Chrysler have collectively lost more than $30 billion, prompting them to announce plans to shut more than two dozen plants, and put a variety of operations up for sale, including Chrysler itself, which has been bought from DaimlerChrysler by a private equity group.

Talks begin Friday at Chrysler, and move to Ford and G.M. on Monday. The current contract expires Sept. 14.

In recent months, one unusual solution has come up in pre-negotiations between auto executives and the union, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

The automakers and the U.A.W. could create a health care trust, called a Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, that could take over the responsibility for worker and retiree benefits.

That would allow the three companies to get their combined long-term health care liability, about $100 billion, off their books, and would give the U.A.W. a more direct say in the benefits that its workers would receive.

But the solution carries an enormous price tag: the trust, known as a V.E.B.A., must be funded with cash upfront, with most of the liability accounted for.

The U.A.W. recently agreed to such an arrangement at Dana. It called for the company to pay upfront about 71 cents on the dollar for workers’ estimated health care expenses, or about $800 million.

In the U.A.W.’s case, the car companies would need to come up with far more money, probably in the range of $60 billion to $65 billion, experts say. The more money that is put in the trust, the less risk exists for the union.

But that presents a quandary for the automakers, who would have to fund it. The car companies have tens of billions of dollars in cash on hand, but need that money to run their operations, given that their debt ratings are in junk status, making it expensive for them to borrow money.

And Ford’s assets are already mortgaged to fund its turnaround plan, although it could use whatever it gets from selling its European luxury brands for its part of a trust.

Study Shows High Fiber Diet Not More Helpful Fighting Breast Cancer

Study Shows High Fiber Diet Not More Helpful Fighting Breast Cancer

We are going to find out about two studies on breast cancer. One studied whether a diet very high in fiber and low in fat could reduce the risk of recurring breast cancer.  Another study focused on women with a high risk of developing breast cancer to see if their chances of dying from the disease were greater than those with a lower risk of developing breast cancer.  VOA's Carol Pearson has more on the results of both studies.

Eating five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, and getting no more than 30 percent of total calories from fat may help breast cancer survivors avoid getting this cancer again.

"What we've got here is a good example of the bold colors and the strong flavors that we've emphasized in the study," explains John Pierce with the University of California Cancer Center in San Diego. He led an international study involving more than 3,000 breast cancer survivors.

"The study dramatically increased vegetables up to about eight vegetable servings.  Part of that was done with vegetable juice.  We got three fruit servings and we took energy from fat down to about 24 percent," says Pierce, with the Moores Cancer Center.

Over a period of six years, half the women in the study ate five servings of fruits and vegetables a day and limited their fat intake to 30 percent of total calories.  The other half ate a diet higher in fiber and lower in fat.  The findings?  There was no difference between the two groups in recurring breast cancer or living longer.

"You don't need to go ten a day in vegetables and fruits.  Five a day is enough," Pierce says. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Another study, this one published in the New England Journal of Medicine looked at women who have a high risk for inherited breast cancer.

All of us have genes known as BRCA, but women with a genetic mutation of this gene have a 70 to 90 percent chance of developing breast cancer. 

Researchers studied nearly 1800 women with breast cancer.  About 10 percent had the high-risk genetic mutations.  In both groups more than half the women were still alive 10 years after being diagnosed.  What is more, the women with the BRCA mutation responded equally as well to chemotherapy as the women without this genetic risk.

The only thing that can prolong the lives of women with this genetic mutation is to be monitored closely to catch the early signs of cancer and then to be treated appropriately.

Could nerve-snip spur weight loss

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An old ulcer operation is getting new attention as a possible alternative obesity surgery: a quick snip of a nerve that helps control hunger.

It's far from clear whether cutting the vagus nerve really helps -- initial pilot studies in a few dozen patients have just begun. Skeptics abound, and even proponents say it wouldn't lead to nearly as much weight loss as more traumatic operations that shrink the stomach and reroute intestines.
It's part of a hunt for middle-ground options for people scared of today's surgery, or those not quite fat enough to qualify for it.
"By no means do I think this is a panacea," cautions Dr. Robert Lustig of the University of California, San Francisco, who, along with University of Rochester surgeons, is studying the method.
"But I think this will be a rational alternative for a cadre of patients that are sort of in the middle there. With as much obesity as we have in this country, that's a big middle."
More than 177,000 people underwent obesity surgery last year, according to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. The most popular method is gastric bypass, stapling the stomach to create a tiny pouch. Options include placing an adjustable band around the stomach, or cutting off the stomach's side and rerouting the intestines.
Surgery can produce life-altering weight loss, if recipients adhere to diet and exercise advice, but each method comes with varying degrees of pain and risk, including a rare chance of death. So doctors are searching for alternatives.
Enter the vagus nerve, which snakes from the brain to the abdomen, with fibers reaching into multiple organs with different effects. Among them: The nerve spurs gastric acid production, and in the 1970s, surgery to cut where it attaches to the front and back of the stomach brought ulcer sufferers great relief -- after they recovered from open-abdominal surgery. Once better acid-reducing medications came along, this arduous operation was abandoned.

Yet surgeons at the time noticed, and subsequent animal studies confirmed, that these vagotomies could trigger weight loss. In addition to a less acidic stomach's slower digestion, the vagus helps control appetite-stimulating brain hormones and signals our bodies to store more fat, Lustig explains.
Since doctors today can snip the nerve far less invasively, through just five pencil-sized cuts in the abdomen, it was time to test in the obese.
Thirty patients had a vagus snip at UCSF or the University of Rochester. The study isn't complete. But of the 11 who are a year past surgery, all but one are shedding pounds, losing an average of 18 percent of excess weight so far, Lustig and Rochester's Dr. Thad Boss reported at last month's bariatric society meeting.
They suffered no serious side effects, and went home hours later with little pain.
"Every patient who had the vagus nerve cut says they're not hungry," adds Lustig -- although the one who didn't respond got hungry again six weeks after surgery, perhaps because the nerve healed.
That's less than half the weight loss of standard surgeries, warns Dr. Neil Hutcher of Bon Secour St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, and a past president of the bariatric society.
"I have my doubts that vagotomy alone is going to be a significant weapon," says Hutcher, who often cuts the nerve during standard gastric bypasses for a different reason -- to help those patients avoid the side effect of heartburn-causing acid buildup.
But, when Greensboro, North Carolina, surgeons added a vagotomy to 25 patients getting bands on their stomachs, the nerve-snip seemed to make that usually more modest operation about as effective as a gastric bypass -- with 43 percent loss of excess weight at six months, and counting.
Other doctors are testing whether implants that treat epilepsy by stimulating the vagus nerve also might trigger weight loss, with mixed results so far.
For now, Boss stresses that vagus nerve-snipping remains highly experimental. He and Lustig will track their 30 patients for 18 months to check if ultimate weight loss is enough to warrant further study, and who responds best.
The goal is to help people like Garth Michaels of Walnut Creek, California, who twice backed out of standard obesity surgery, fearful of side effects and a long recovery. Thirteen months after he volunteered for the vagotomy experiment, he has dropped 66 pounds, to 246.
That's a much more gradual loss than with regular surgery, but Michaels says having his hunger curbed help him finally learn to exercise. He spends a half-hour on an exercise bike most days. And he learned to avoid former diet saboteurs -- french fries, sweets -- that caused foul burping after his vagotomy, in favor of fruits and vegetables.
"I will lose more, there's no doubt about it," says Michaels, 56, whose goal is 175 pounds. "It has given me such hope. >>>Cnn

SUSAM TOHUMU VE FAYDALARI

SUSAM TOHUMU VE FAYDALARI

a . Susam Ekini
Bir metre boyunda, yağ veren bir yıllık otsu bir bitkidir. HİNDİSTAN, SUDAN, ÇİN ve NİJERYA dünya rekoltesinde ilk sıraları almaktadır. Lezzet ve yağ oranı açısından Türkiye'de yetişen susam daha üstündür. Bitkilerin alt yaprakları karşılıklı ve loblu üst yaprakları tam ve mızrak şeklindedir. Çiçekleri beyaz veya pembe olup yaprakların koltugunda salkım durumunda toplanmışlardır

Meyve başakları 2-3 cm. boyunda, uzun, prizmatik ve çok tohumlu bir kapsüldür. Susam , sıcağı çok sever. Isı miktarı fazla olan yerlerde tohum verimi ve yağ oranı artar. Orta derecede ağır ve humuslu topraklarda iyi yetişir. Hasat zamanı EKİM ayında ekimi ise NİSAN-MAYIS aylarındadır. Dekar başına 1-1,5 Kg. Tohum atılır. 

b. Susamın Tarihçesi kullanımı ve Temel Özellikleri
Susam küspesinin de insan gıdası ve hayvan yemi olarak değeri büyüktür. Susam ilk defa kültüre alınan yağ bitkilerinden birisidir. Langham and Rodri (1947) , susamın İsa'dan 450 sene evvel Hindistan'da ve Çin' de besin maddesi olarak kullanıldığını bildirmişlerdir. (Elçi et al.,1994).

Susam tohumu insanoğlunun bildiği en eski tohumlardan biridir. Susam tohumlarının kökeni tam olarak bilinmesede, Eski Mısırlıların bu tohumdan un elde ettikleri ve bu undan ekmek yaptıkları gerçeğini kabul etmektedirler.Ayrıca susam tohumlarının Güney Hindistan'da M.Ö.3.000 yıllarında kullanılmaya başlandıgı yani 5.000 yıllık bir bitki oldugu'da kabul edilir.Susam tohumlarının, ilk defa yemeklere bir çeşni, tat vermek için katıldığına ve yağı çıkarılabilen ilk bitki olduğuna inanılır

Tropik ve subtropik iklim kuşağı susamın en iyi yetişme koşullarıdır. Vegetasyon devresinde aylık sıcaklık ortalaması 20 C 'den aşağı olmamalıdır. Gece ile gündüz arasındaki sıcaklık farkı az olursa susamın verimi artar. Orta derecede ağır, humuslu topraklarda iyi yetişir. pH nötr olmalıdır. Her kültür bitkisi ile ekim nöbetine girebilir. Pamuk, ayçiçeği, mısır, darı ile karışık tarım yapıldığı gibi yurdumuzda Güney Anadolu ve Ege bölgesin de ikinci ürün olarak ekilir (Elçi et al. 1994)

Dünyada susam daha çok Afrika, Orta ve Güney Amerika ile Arap ve Asya ülkelerinde yetiştirilmektedir. En fazla ekimi Sudan, Venezuella, Hindistan, Nijerya, Çin, Meksika ve Burma'da yapılmaktadır. Bu ülkelerin birçoğu aynı zamanda ihracatçı durumundadır. FAO kaynaklarına göre 1982 yılı için Hindistan, Çin ve Sudan ağırlıklı olmak üzere yıllık üretimin 1,870,000 ton olduğu tahmin edilmektedir. (Anonymous, 1982).

Türkiye'de üretilen susam genellikle iç pazarda tüketilir. Üretimin ancak % 2 - 3 'ü ihraç edilmektedir. 1950 yılından bu tarafa memleketimizde susamdan yağ çıkarılmamaktadır. Yurdumuzda Güney, Güneybatı, Batı ve Marmara ile trakya bölgesinde birinci ve ikinci ürün olarak tek bitki, ara tarımı veya bazı bitkilerle karışık olarak ekilmektedir. İllere göre en fazla ekiliş Adana, Antalya, Çanakkale, Muğla, Edirne, İçel, Balıkesir, Manisa, İzmir ve Aydın'da yapılmaktadır. Türkiye susamlarının başlıca özellikleri yağ oranları oldukça yüksek fusarium hastalığına karşı mukavim dallanmaları kaba genellikle koyu renkli susamlardır. (Elçi et al. 1994)

Susamın Sistematikteki Yeri:
Takım: Tubifloralcs
Familya: Pedaliaccac
Cins: Sesamun
Tür: Sesamun indicum L.(n=13)

Dış görünüşü daha doğrusu kabuk rengi bakımından beyaz ve kahverengi olmak üzere iki çeşit susam vardır.

Opps

DNA molecules

Scientists track the influence of a cancer inhibitor on a single DNA molecule

Researchers in Delft University of Technology’s Kavli Institute of Nanoscience in The Netherlands have cast new light on the workings of the important cancer inhibitor topotecan. Little had been known about the underlying molecular mechanism, but the Delft scientists can now view the effects of the medicine live at the levelin of a single DNA molecule.

The research is being published this week in the journal Nature. The lead author of the article, Daniel Koster, will receive his PhD at TU Delft on Monday June 25, partly on the results described in the article.

The medicine investigated, topotecan, interacts with an important protein (TopoIB), causing a (cancer) cell to malfunction. The TopoIB protein is responsible for the removal of loops from DNA, which arise amongst other things during cell division. The TopoIB protein binds to the DNA molecule, clamps around it and cuts one of the two DNA strands, after which it allows it to unwind and finally joins the broken ends together. PhD candidate Daniel Koster, Master’s student Elisa Bot and researcher Nynke Dekker of the Molecular Biophysics group of the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience Delft have managed to unravel this mechanism in an extremely direct manner. In the laboratory they fixed a single DNA molecule between a glass plate and a magnetic sphere. With the help of two magnets they could both pull and twist the DNA molecule. When they added TopoIB to a twisted piece of DNA, they saw that the loops were slowly removed.

What is exceptional is that the action of one TopoIB enzyme on one DNA molecule could be observed live. In collaboration with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Memphis (USA) the mechanism could also be observed in living yeast cells.

New nano-method

A team of chemists at Brown University have devised a simple way to synthesize iron-platinum nanorods and nanowires while controlling both size and composition. Nanorods with uniform shape and magnetic alignment are one key to the next generation of high-density information storage, but have been difficult to make in bulk.

[Simply changing the ratio of two chemicals in solution changes the length of iron-platinum nanowires and nanorods: transmission electron microscope images of a) 200 nm wires; b) 50 nm wires; c) 20 nm rods; d) two individual 50 nm wires. Credit: Chao Wang & Jaemin Kim/Brown University]

The technique, published online June 22 in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition, pro-duces nanorods and nanowires from 20 nm to 200 nm long, simply by varying the ratio of sol-vent and surfactant used in synthesis. Shouheng Sun, a professor of chemistry at Brown Univer-sity, postdoctoral researcher Yanglong Hou, and colleagues have also demonstrated that the same technique works to control the shape of cobalt-platinum nanorods, suggesting that it may work for many other combinations as well.

Just a few years ago, the average computer user’s documents, applications and even photos seemed to rattle around a 120 GB disk drive. Today’s multimedia-intensive user can exhaust that capacity in no time and the need continues to grow, but engineers expect to max out conven-tional magnetic storage techniques by about 2010. At that point, they’ll be looking for nanotech-nology to step up.

Whether it will be ready, remains to be seen. Getting tiny magnetic particles to align with each other has been one of the major obstacles to squeezing more information density out of the technology. Sun and Hou think they can harness particle shape to accomplish that critical task. “Many people think that shape can control alignment,” said Sun, “but controlling shape has not been so easy. This method gives us a really simple way to tune length, diameter and composition all at the same time.” A magnetic storage surface – the disk of a hard-disk drive -- consists of tiny sectors of magneti-cally-aligned particles. When the read-write head of a disk drive passes over a sector, it flips the magnetic field to the opposite direction – encoding a zero or a one. When it reads, it senses the magnetic field for the whole sector.

To pack more information into a smaller area, engineers can make the particles smaller or the sectors smaller, but they need enough particles so that the occa-sional random flip doesn’t corrupt the whole sector. It is now possible to apply magnetic nanoparticles in a thin, dense layer, but the magnetic fields of randomly-oriented spherical particles tend to cancel each other out. Instead of lining up at six o’clock or twelve o’clock, many particles align at two, three, four or five o’clock, diluting the overall strength of the magnetic signal.

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Fish Oil

The Ultimate Battle: Flax Seed Oil vs Fish Oil
Understanding the differences – flax seed oil vs fish oil
It’s the ages-old debate of flax seed oil vs fish oil. Which one is better, which one should you take? The questions abound.
I’m going to breakdown the differences between flax seed oil vs fish oil so you know which does exactly what and which one is best for you.

Flax Seed Oil vs Fish Oil
Are the Omega 3 oils in flax seed oil the same as the Omega 3 oils found in fish oil? The answer is a resounding no. While the Omega-3 fats in flax seed oil and fish oil are related, they do have a different chemical makeup.
The Omega 3 Fatty Acids
There are three main types of fatty acids. EPA, DHA and ALA. Flax seed oil vs fish oil is as simple as EPA and DHA vs ALA.
The Omega 3 fatty acids in fish oil are the EPA and DHA fatty acids and the Omega 3 fatty acids in flax seed oil are the ALA fatty acids.
It is harder for your body to get the Omega 3 out of the ALA fatty acids and that’s why it’s so important that any Omega 3 supplement you take be derived from fish oil like the supplement available at this website.
Do I Need Both?
There is no harm in taking both flax seed oil and fish oil, if you’re taking the supplements to get the benefits touted for Omega 3 then you probably would be well off just taking fish oil supplements.
When taking fish oil supplements, make sure that the supplements you are taking are pharmaceutical grade fish oil. This will ensure that you’re getting quality fish oil supplements without getting any nasty toxins left in the fish.
In the battle of flax seed oil vs fish oil, both have their benefits, but fish oil definitely wins the battle.

About Omega 3

Exactly What You Might Want to Know About Omega 3
So you've heard about Omega 3, but you're not sure exactly what it is? Worry not! My name is "Dr. Omega" and I'm here to give you the ins and the outs of Omega 3.

I'm rather an expert on the subject of Omega 3 fatty acids and I'm going to make sure you learn everything you need to know about the subject.
It's Good For You -- Body and Soul
From healthy hearts to healthy minds, Omega 3 has been helping people improve their quality of life. The problem is that getting Omega 3 from diet alone isn't the easiest thing to do -- nor is it the safest.
What You'll Find on This Site
I'm going to show you how to get enough Omega 3, where to get it, and what to look for.
You'll learn who should take Omega 3 and what it can do for you.
I'll also be sharing the nitty-gritty information on Omega 3, as well as some easy tips and tricks for you to use, so get ready for the ride of your life -- you're about to learn everything there is to know about Omega 3!

The original nano workout

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have developed a new method of compacting carbon nanotubes into dense bundles. These tightly packed bundles are efficient conductors and could one day replace copper as the primary interconnects used on computer chips and even hasten the transition to next-generation 3-D stacked chips.

Lu’s team discovered that by immersing vertically grown carbon nanotube bundles into a liquid organic solvent and allowing them to dry, the nanotubes pull close together into a dense bundle. Lu attributes the densification process to capillary coalescence, which is the same physical principle that allows moisture to move up a piece of tissue paper that is dipped into water. The process boosts the density of these carbon nanotube bundles by five to 25 times. The higher the density, the better they can conduct electricity, Lu said. Several factors, including nanotube height, diameter, and spacing, affect the resulting density, Liu added. How the nanotubes are grown is also an important factor that impacts the resulting shape of the densified bundles. Images of the experiment are more striking than any “before and after” photos of the latest fad diet. In one instance, Liu started with a carbon nanotube bundle 500 micrometers in diameter, shaped somewhat like a marshmallow, and dipped it into a bath of isopropyl alcohol. As the alcohol dried and evaporated, capillary forces drew the nanotubes closer together. Van Der Waals forces, the same molecular bonds that boost the adhesion of millions of setae on gecko toes and help the lizard defy gravity, ensure the nanotubes retain their tightly packed form.

Despite his initial successes, Lu said the density results obtained are not ideal and carbon nanotubes would have to be further compacted before they can outperform copper as a conductor. A close-up photo, taken using a scanning electron microscope, reveals there are still large empty spaces between densified nanotubes. The research team is exploring various methods to achieve ever-higher density and higher quality of carbon nanotube bundles, he said. Lu is confident that these densified carbon nanotubes, with their high conductivity, ability to carry high current density, and resistance to electromigration, will be key to the development of 3-D computer chips. Chips used today can only shrink so much smaller, as their flat surface must have enough room to accommodate scores of different components. But the semiconductor industry and academia are looking at ways to layer chip components into a vertical stack, which could dramatically shrink the size of the overall chip. Densified carbon nanotubes, with their ends trimmed and polished, can be the basic building blocks for interconnects that would link the stacked layers of a 3-D computer chip, Lu said. “Carbon nanotubes are one of the most promising materials for interconnects in 3-D integration,” he said. Other potential applications of the densified nanotubes are high surface area electrodes for supercapacitors, fuel cell electrodes for hydrogen storage, heat dissipation materials for thermal conductors, and other situations that require high electrical, thermal, or mechanical performance.

BEST 2007 PIC

'Virtual Patient' to simulate real-time organ motions for radiation therapy

Rensselaer researchers awarded major NIH grant to develop 4-D virtual patient model With a $2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute are developing a physics-based virtual model that can simulate a patient's breathing in real time. When used in conjunction with existing 3-D models, adding the fourth dimension of time could significantly improve the accuracy and effectiveness of radiation treatment for lung and liver cancers.

The key challenge in this project is to develop the algorithms that will make the virtual lungs and adjacent tissues move in real time according to realistic tissue biomechanical properties, De said.

Xu expects that the physics-based 4-D VIP-Man will eventually be used as an even more general anatomical modeling tool for the biomedical community to help patients with respiratory and cardiac diseases. At the same time, Xu will continue to work on the 3-D VIP-Man to create a "family" of virtual patients, ranging in ages and sizes, in collaboration with researchers worldwide through the Consortium of Computational Human Phantoms (http://www.virtualphantoms.org), co-founded by Xu.

The collaboration with the group in Texas came about when Xu's former student, Chengyu Shi, a clinical medical physicist, and Martin Fuss, a radiation oncologist, expressed their interests to develop better radiation treatment by accounting for lung movement. Xu contacted De, who had been using the 3-D VIP-Man to simulate tissue deformation for surgical procedures, and the idea to take 3-D VIP-Man into the fourth dimension was born.

Xu has been working on the 3-D VIP-Man since 1997 using the original Visible Human Project dataset provided by the National Library of Medicine, also funded by several grants from NIH as well as a National Science Foundation CAREER grant. The new four-year, $2 million grant is funded by the National Library of Medicine, which is part of NIH.

Cellular message movement captured on video

These time-lapse images of a bovine aortic endothelial cell reveal the motion toward the cell's nucleus of a message-carrying protein called paxillin (orange) in tandem with actin filaments (green). Credit: UC San Diego

Proper signaling step required for controlled cell growth -- otherwise, cancer and other diseases can result
Scientists have captured on video the intracellular version of a postal delivery service. Reporting in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications (BBRC), bioengineering researchers at UC San Diego published videos of a key message-carrying protein called paxillin moving abruptly from hubs of communication and transportation activity on the cell surface toward the nucleus. Paxillin was labeled with a red fluorescence marker to make it stand out in live cells.

“It’s amazing to us. We thought the cell was so simple,” said Shu Chien, the senior author of the BBRC paper and a professor of bioengineering at UCSD’s Jacobs School of Engineering. “But it’s really very complex and I’m not sure we’re covering much as yet. We certainly don’t know all the interactions among these molecules that bring the cell into action.”

Cancer researchers are eager to understand paxillin’s many interactions because their malfunctions have been linked to a variety of cancers, tumor metastasis, and other disease processes. Tumor-causing versions of signaling molecules may attach to paxillin and disturb the normal adhesion and growth factor signaling steps required for controlled proliferation and cell growth. For example, human papilloma virus, which can cause cervical cancer, makes a protein that binds to paxillin and that interaction may contribute to the carcinogenic potential of the sexually transmitted virus.

Chien and Hu obtained cells for their most recent study from the inner membranous lining of a cow aorta. They added genetically engineered proteins tagged with red and green fluorescence markers to the bovine aortic endothelial cells, grew them in tissue culture, and filmed them while they passed fluid across the cells’ surface in a simulation of flowing blood. With that physical stimulus, paxillin consistently moved in the same direction as the fluid flow.

Paxillin is found primarily at focal adhesions, busy intersections of activity scattered around the cell’s cytoplasmic membrane. Focal adhesions are regions rich with receptors for growth factors and they are also structural attachment points that link the extracellular world to the protein filaments and tubes that comprise a cell’s internal cytoskeleton.

While researchers showed that paxillin serves as a docking station for a variety of signaling and structural proteins, they have been limited to visualizing paxillin with dyes that stain cells rigidly attached to microscope slides. Those snapshots of fixed cells can’t reveal paxillin movement.

“We can now see the dynamics of how paxillin and other proteins move inside the cell with new fluorescent labels and live-cell video microscopy,” said Chien, director of the Whitaker Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the Jacobs School.

The two-color labeling technique of Chien and Hu revealed that red-labeled paxillin is linked to green-labeled actin filaments, the thinnest of three types of protein filaments that make up the cytoskeleton of cells of higher organisms. Paxillin either slides along the actin filaments or is pulled by them. In a surprise, Chien and Hu also showed that paxillin itself forms long, fibrous structures in the cell cytoplasm.When actin is chemically removed, paxillin no longer moves and its fibrous structures disappear.

“As least by showing that paxillin and actin filaments move together we have some insight into the possibility of how paxillin can transmit information from one region of the cell, such as the periphery, to another region of the cell, such as the nucleus,” said Chien. “The whole situation is much more complex than we have been able to show.”

Chien, Hu, and their colleagues at UCSD had previously reported that paxillin can be rapidly assembled and disassembled, and they hypothesize that this process enables cell migration by assembling new focal adhesion sites in the direction of cell movement and disassembling them on the trailing side of the cell. Researchers are applying the fluorescence-labeling technique to the many other signaling and structural proteins found predominantly at focal adhesions.

“When we piece all of these things together we can get a more complete understanding of how the cell functions, both in migration and signal transduction,” said Chien. “If we can understand the details of these processes, we can not only understand how normal cells function, but we can also look at diseased cells to see why they sometimes don’t move properly or why they don’t transmit information properly.”

Woman&Woman

Birth danger risk could be cut by taking aspirin

TAKING aspirin during pregnancy could help to reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia, scientists said yesterday.

Researchers in the UK and Australia looked at studies involving more than 30,000 women to see if the common drug significantly cuts the danger of the potentially fatal condition, which kills about 1,000 babies a year in the UK.

They found that a daily low dose of aspirin or similar drugs cut the risk of developing pre-eclampsia, which is associated with high blood pressure, by 10 per cent.

The likelihood of giving birth before 34 weeks and of having other serious complications also fell by 10 per cent.

Doctors and campaigners welcomed the findings, but there were warnings about other side-effects from aspirin.

Pre-eclampsia is caused by a defect in the placenta, which joins mother and child and supplies the baby with nutrients and oxygen from the parent's blood.

The condition occurs in about one in ten pregnancies - and in one in 50 in its most severe form.

It is thought to be responsible for the deaths of 600 to 1,000 babies a year in the UK and up to five mothers.

The condition is curable only by delivering the baby, which puts some infants at risk of death caused by prematurity.

The research, published in the medical journal Lancet, examined the use of aspirin in pregnant women combining data from 31 clinical trials.

In these trials, involving 32,000 women, 8 per cent of expectant mothers developed pre-eclampsia.

But the researchers found that those taking aspirin had a 10 per cent lower chance of developing the condition, as well as lower risks of pre-term births and other serious complications.

As pre-eclampsia is thought to be linked to irregular blood flow, aspirin's anti-clotting effect could be leading to the benefits, the study said.

The researchers, including teams from Oxford University and York University, did not find any particular group of women who were more likely to benefit from taking aspirin during pregnancy.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said the latest study findings were "very valuable". Patrick O'Brien, a spokesman for the college, said: "It is a moderate reduction of around 10 per cent, but given that pre-eclampsia is potentially serious for some women and their babies, this is an important finding.

"No single sub-group of women seems to benefit particularly from low-dose aspirin.

"The decision on whether to take it in pregnancy should be made following discussion between the woman and her obstetrician, taking into account her individual risk of developing the condition," he said.

Despite the findings, the baby charity Tommy's said it believed that not all pregnant women should routinely be prescribed aspirin. Professor Andrew Shennan said: "It's important to bear in mind that if this were the case, for every 50 women prescribed aspirin, it would only have an impact on one.

"Only pregnant women at increased risk of developing pre-eclampsia should be given aspirin during pregnancy. Risk factors range from women who've had pre-eclampsia before, those women carrying multiple pregnancies and women over 35 years of age."

In another article also published online in the Lancet, doctors from the United States said that the potential risks of aspirin use must be considered.

Long-term use has been linked to an increased risk of stomach ulcers.

They said in lower-risk cases, it was more difficult to judge whether benefits outweighed long-term risks.

A CURE FOR EVERY ILL?

ASPIRIN has been used to help prevent heart attacks and stroke among those with cardiovascular disease for some time.

Various studies have found the drug can significantly reduce the risk of heart problems, although concerns about side-effects such as stomach ulcers remain.

This is a particular concern for healthy people taking a daily dose of aspirin believing it is good for their health.

This belief has been boosted by repeated reports of the drug's benefits.

Since it was first distributed to doctors in 1899, numerous studies have suggested the drug is effective against a whole host of illnesses. These include:

• ASTHMA: Earlier this year research published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine suggested aspirin might reduce the chance of adults developing of asthma.

The study found that among a large group of healthy men, those taking a single aspirin every other day were 22 per cent less likely to develop asthma than those who did not.

• PROSTATE: Last year researchers from the Mayo Clinic in the United States said that the use of certain drugs, including aspirin, could help reduce or delay the risk of an enlarged prostate. Another study found that men who regularly took aspirin might increase their chance of surviving prostate cancer.

• SKIN: Australian researchers have suggested that the regular use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, including aspirin, could offer protection against skin cancer and the growth of certain types of malignant cells.

• BREAST: Research conducted at Columbia University in 2004 found that the regular use of aspirin might reduce the risk of breast cancer, particularly among women with hormone-sensitive tumours. Daily use seemed to have the biggest benefits.

• HODGKIN'S DISEASE: Research from the Harvard School of Public Health found that low-dose aspirin use might lower the risk of Hodgkin's disease.

• BOWEL: In 2004, research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that aspirin in higher doses might protect against bowel cancer. The study, involving 27,000 women, discovered that, as use of aspirin increased, the risk of developing cancer fell.



• PANCREAS: A study by the University of Minnesota in 2002 found that women who regularly took aspirin might be less likely to get pancreatic cancer.

• VIRUSES: In 2002 a study found that aspirin might block the replication of a common virus linked to birth defects and immune system disorders

Study: Adult mice can regenerate hair

U.S. scientists have discovered adult mice can regenerate hair follicles and hair in a study that might help in developing treatments for skin disorders.

The research by George Cotsarelis and colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine has also helped resolve a 50-year-long controversy and might aid in the design of treatments for both hair loss and degenerative skin problems.

For half a century, most people believed mammalian hair follicles form only during development and that loss of adult follicles is permanent. But the new study shows that is not the case, at least for adult mice with skin wounds.

Wounding, said the researchers, triggers new hair-producing follicles to form. Exposure to Wnt signaling -- a genetic pathway involved in normal hair follicle development and cycling -- following wounding increases the number of regenerated hair follicles. And Wnt signaling inhibition after regrowth of the epithelium prevents new follicles from forming.

The study, said the scientists, suggests mammalian skin can respond to wounding with plasticity and a much greater regenerative capacity than was previously believed.

The research is detailed in the journal Nature.

Risk of Cancer

Doctors: Swedish Snus Cut Risk of Cancer

People who use Swedish moist snuff (snus) run twice the risk of developing cancer of the pancreas. This is the main result of a follow-up study conducted by Karolinska Institutet researchers amongst almost 300,000 male construction workers. The study is published today online in the prestigious medical journal The Lancet.

Tobacco smoking is a known risk factor for pancreatic cancer, which is an unusually malignant form of the disease. Since it is common for people who take snus – a tobacco product designed for insertion between the gum and upper lip – to also smoke cigarettes, the challenge facing epidemiological research into snus and cancer has been to isolate the effects of the different kinds of tobacco. What makes this new study unique is that it has been possible to study the correlation between snus and cancer risk in a large enough group of men who have never smoked. The subjects attended health check ups between 1978 and 1992, during which they were asked to report on their smoking and ’snusing’ habits. The researchers have also studied rates of oral and lung cancer amongst the men, but found no correlation to snus. "We’re actually not that surprised," says project leader Professor Olof Nyrén of the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics. "Pancreatic cancer has been under discussion in several earlier epidemiological studies on humans, both regarding Scandinavian snus and American smoke-free tobacco. On the other hand, previous studies of oral and lung cancer in relation to Scandinavian snus have been negative." The main contribution of the new study is its conclusion that Swedish moist snus can be carcinogenic. However, the study also shows that the risks for users are small, and, as far as can be judged, much smaller than the risks associated with smoking.

"If 10,000 non-smoking snus users are monitored for ten years, according to our data, eight or nine of them will develop pancreatic cancer, as opposed to four amongst those who use neither product. But 9,991 won’t, so the odds aren’t that bad," he says. The debate on whether the net effect of snus is positive or negative has been raging for many years. Some scientists and health carers have advocated the use of snus, as it is likely to lead to that people will smoke less. However, Professor Nyrén argues that it is important to have all the facts on the table before any advice can be given about snus as a way to cut down on smoking. "We don’t only need reliable and accurate measures of the risks of both smoking and taking snus, we also need know the effects of other, alternative methods to cut smoking. We also have to be certain that an increase in snus marketing will not cause addictions in young people who otherwise wouldn’t have started to smoke," he says.

Pistachios lower cholesterol

Pistachios lower cholesterol, provide antioxidants

A handful of pistachios may lower cholesterol and provide the antioxidants usually found in leafy green vegetables and brightly colored fruit, according to a team of researchers.

"Pistachio amounts of 1.5 ounces and 3 ounces – one to two handfuls – reduced risk for cardiovascular disease by significantly reducing LDL cholesterol levels and the higher dose significantly reduced lipoprotein ratios," says Sarah K. Gebauer, graduate student in integrative biosciences, Penn State, to attendees at the Experimental Biology meeting today (April 30) in Washington, D.C.

The researchers conducted a randomized, crossover design, controlled feeding experiment to test the effects of pistachios added to a heart healthy moderate-fat diet on cardiovascular disease risk factors. Controlled feeding experiments provide all the food eaten by study subjects for the duration of the study segment. Participants began the study by eating an Average American Diet consisting of 35 percent total fat and 11 percent saturated fat for two weeks. They then tested three diets for four weeks each with a two-week break between each diet. All three diets were variations on the Step I Diet, a cholesterol-lowering diet in general use. The diets included a Step I Diet without pistachios which had 25 percent total fat and 8 percent saturated fat; a Step I Diet including 1.5 ounces of pistachios per day which had 30 percent total fat and 8 percent saturated fat, and a Step I Diet including three ounces of pistachios per day which had 34 percent total fat and 8 percent saturated fat. The researchers added pistachios into the diets by including about half the amount of pistachios as a snack and by incorporating the rest into such foods as pistachio muffins, granola and pistachio pesto. "We had really good compliance and participants were generally pleased with the diets," says Gebauer. Standard blood tests determined the various cholesterol levels in the participant’s blood after each diet. Researchers found that 3 ounces of pistachios reduced the amounts of total cholesterol in the blood by 8.4 percent and low-density lipoprotein (LDL), the so-called bad cholesterol, by 11.6 percent. The study also found that non-high density lipoproteins (non-HDL) decreased by 11.2 percent. Non-HDL levels are considered reliable predictors of cardiovascular disease risk.

Not so contoversial anymore

Not so contoversial anymore -- panel says moderate coffee drinking reduces many risks

Although the American Society for Nutrition’s popular “controversy session” at Experimental Biology 2007 focuses on the health effects of coffee drinking, panel chair Dr. James Coughlin, a toxicology/safety consultant at Coughlin & Associates, says that recent advances in epidemiologic and experimental knowledge have transformed many of the negative health myths about coffee drinking into validated health benefits

Indeed, panel co-chair Dan Steffen, who follows coffee and health issues in the Scientific and Regulatory Affairs group of Kraft Foods, note that the “controversy” is often to educate a wider audience about this transformation in understanding.

Coffee is among the most widely consumed beverages in the world, and Dr. Coughlin says that the preponderance of scientific evidence - some by the panelists - suggests that moderate coffee consumption (3-5 cups per day) may be associated with reduced risk of certain disease conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease. Some research in neuropharamacology suggests that one cup of coffee can halve the risk of Parkinson’s disease. Other studies have found it reduces the risk of Alzheimer's disease, kidney stones, gallstones, depression and even suicide. Dr. Coughlin and two distinguished researchers discussed some of the benefits - and a couple of the remaining increased risk factors (possible increase in blood pressure and plasma homocysteine) - on April 30 at the Experimental Biology meeting in Washington, DC. Dr. Rob van Dam, an epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Harvard Medical School, studies the link between diet and the development of type 2 diabetes. Worldwide, an estimated 171 million persons have diabetes, mostly type 2 diabetes, and an alarming increase to 366 million persons is expected for the year 2030. While increased physical activity and restriction of energy intake can substantially reduce risk of type 2 diabetes, he believes insight into the role of other lifestyle factors may contribute to additional prevention strategies for type 2 diabetes. In recent epidemiological studies in the U.S., Europe and Japan, persons who were heavy coffee consumers had a lower risk of type 2 diabetes than persons who consumed little coffee. Interestingly, he says, associations were similar for caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, suggesting that coffee components other than caffeine may be beneficial for glucose metabolism. Coffee contains hundreds of components including substantial amounts of chlorogenic acid, caffeine, magnesium, potassium, vitamin B3, trigonelline, and lignans. Limited evidence suggests that coffee may improve glucose metabolism by reducing the rate of intestinal glucose absorption and by stimulating the secretion of the gut hormone glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) that is beneficial for the secretion of insulin. However, most mechanistic research on coffee and glucose metabolism has been done in animals and in lab tubes and therefore metabolic studies in humans are currently being conducted. Further research may lead to the development or selection of coffee types with improved health effects.

Dr. Lenore Arab, a nutritional epidemiologist in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, notes that the first coffee controversy dates back 430 years when in 1570 some monks petitioned the pope to condemn this drink, so popular among Muslims. Pope Clement VIII, liking how it kept the monks from falling sleep during mass, purportedly blessed it instead. The rest, including the United States’ wholesale conversion to coffee following the Boston Tea Party, is history. In reviewing the latest epidemiologic literature on cancers and coffee, Dr. Arab has found there to be close to 400 studies of the associations between coffee consumption and cancers various at various sites.

The earlier controversy with regard to colon cancer was based on flawed analyses, she says. More thorough analyses and the accumulation of evidence suggest no negative effect on the incidence of colon cancer, and possible protective effects for adenomas of the colon as well as for rectal cancer and liver cancer.

Mechanisms which might contribute to a possible anticarcinogenic effect include reduction in cholesterol, bile acid and neutral sterol secretion in the colon, increased colonic motility and reduced exposure of epithelium to carcinogens, the ability of diterpenes to reduce genotoxicity of carcinogens, and lower DNA adduct formation, and the ability of caffeic acid and chlorogenic acid to decreased DNA methylation. In other cancers - breast, ovarian, and prostate - the evidence is not suggestive of either risk or protection.

There are two areas, says Dr. Arab, in which there is some evidence of increased risk: leukemia and stomach cancer. The evidence for the former is intriguing, for the latter insubstantial. She concludes that a systematic review of the newer data for liver, rectal, stomach cancer and for childhood leukemia is due.