Device 'could revolutionise blood pressure monitoring'

A device which can be worn like a watch could revolutionise the way blood pressure is monitored in the next few years, scientists say.

Researchers at the University of Leicester and in Singapore have developed a device to measure pressure in the largest artery in the body.

Evidence shows it gives a much more accurate reading than the arm cuff.

The technology is funded by the Department of Health and backed by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley.

It works by a sensor in the watch recording the pulse wave of the artery, which is then fed into a computer together with a traditional blood pressure reading from a cuff.

Scientists are then able to read the pressure close to the heart, from the aorta.

Professor Bryan Williams, from the University of Leicester's department of cardiovascular sciences at Glenfield Hospital, said: "The aorta is millimetres away from the heart and close to the brain and we have always known that pressure here is a bit lower than in the arm.
"Unless we measure the pressure in the aorta we are not getting an appreciation of the risks or benefits of treatment."
He said the device would "change the way blood pressure has been monitored for more than a century" and he expected the technology to be used in specialist centres soon, before being "used much more widely" within five years.
"The beauty of all of this is that it is difficult to argue against the proposition that the pressure near to your heart and brain is likely to be more relevant to your risk of stroke and heart disease than the pressure in your arm," he said.

The traditional blood pressure cuff on the upper arm is known not to give a completely accurate reading

But it was important to ensure the new device was as small as possible to encourage clinicians and patients to use it, he added.
The research work was funded by the Department of Health's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).
The NIHR invested £3.4m, with a further £2.2m of funding coming from the Department of Health, to establish a Biomedical Research Unit at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester.
The university collaborated with the Singapore-based medical device company HealthSTATS International.
Dr Choon Meng Ting, chairman of HealthSTATS, said: "This study has resulted in a very significant translational impact worldwide as it will empower doctors and their patients to monitor their central aortic systolic pressure easily, even in their homes and modify the course of treatment for blood pressure-related ailments."
Mr Lansley said the device was "a great example of how research breakthroughs and innovation can make a real difference to patients' lives".
Judy O'Sullivan, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said previous research had shown that measuring pressure close to the heart was a better indicator of the effectiveness of treatment for high blood pressure than the standard method.
"However, further research is needed before we can be certain of its superiority in the doctor's surgery," she said.

Cholesterol 'does not predict stroke in women'

High levels of cholesterol do not predict the risk of stroke in women, according to researchers in Denmark.

They did detect an increased risk in men, but only when cholesterol was at almost twice the average level.
The report in Annals of Neurology recommends using a different type of fat in the blood, non-fasting triglycerides, to measure the risk.
The Stroke Association said triglyceride tests needed to become routine to reduce the risk of stroke.
A total of 150,000 people have a stroke in the UK each year. Most are ischemic strokes, in which a clot in an artery disrupts the brain's blood supply.
The research followed 13,951 men and women, who took part in the Copenhagen City Heart Study.
During the 33-year study, 837 men and 837 women had strokes.
Poor predictor

They reported that the cholesterol levels in women were not associated with stroke, while there was only an association in men with levels higher than 9mmol/litre. The average in UK men is 5.5.

The researchers at Copenhagen University Hospital said this was "difficult to explain" as LDL, or bad, cholesterol is known to cause atherosclerosis which can block arteries.
They did notice a link, in both men and women, between the risk of stroke and non-fasting triglycerides.
They believe these fats are a marker for "remnant cholesterol" which is left behind when other forms of cholesterol are made.
Dr Peter Coleman, deputy director of research at The Stroke Association said: "Tests for triglyceride levels aren't routinely carried out in the UK unless there is significant concern."
"We know that high levels of fats, such as cholesterol, increase your risk of having a stroke. However, this research shows the importance of measuring the fat triglyceride, as well as cholesterol.
"This study highlights the importance of measuring triglycerides routinely in order to reduce a person's risk of stroke."

desk job is slowly killing you

Even if you exercise, the more hours a day you sit, the greater your risk of early death

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Your work might harm you, especially if it is a desk job. Experts have stated that sitting for long hours is deadly.
This is for everyone, even for those who exercise regularly. What matters is sitting, it does not matter where you are sitting, school, college, office, watching television or working infront of a computer.
Research is in initial stages but studies state that more hours of sitting could make you fat, you might experience a heart attack or even die.
Elin Ekblom-Bak of the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in an editorial published this week in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, suggested that authorities have to work their minds on how they define physical activity to highlight the dangers of sitting.
"After four hours of sitting, the body starts to send harmful signals," Ekblom-Bak said further adding that genes in the body that regulate the amount of glucose and fat start to shut down.
Spending more time in sitting could prove harmful for those also who exercise regularly.
Tim Armstrong, a physical activity expert at the World Health Organisation, said, "People who exercise every day but still spend a lot of time sitting may get more benefit if that exercise were spread across the day, rather than in a single bout."
Americans spend most of their time sitting whether in car, working or watching television, figures from a US survey in 2003-04 stated.
Experts however said that more needed to be done to figure out how many hours of sitting actually prove harmful.
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Do you lead an active lifestyle or a sedentary one? The question is simple, but the answer may not be as obvious as you think. Let's say, for example, you're a busy guy who works 60 hours a week at a desk job but who still manages to find time for five 45-minute bouts of exercise. Most experts would label you as active. (Put your body to the test: 10 standards to assess your fitness level.) But Marc Hamilton, Ph.D., has another name for you: couch potato. Perhaps "exercising couch potato" would be more accurate, but Hamilton, a physiologist and professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, would still classify you as sedentary. "People tend to view physical activity on a single continuum," he says. "On the far side, you have a person who exercises a lot; on the other, a person who doesn't exercise at all. However, they're not necessarily polar opposites."

Hamilton's take, which is supported by a growing body of research, is that the amount of time you exercise and the amount of time you spend on your butt are completely separate factors for heart-disease risk. New evidence suggests, in fact, that the more hours a day you sit, the greater your likelihood of dying an earlier death regardless of how much you exercise or how lean you are. That's right: Even a sculpted six-pack can't protect you from your chair.

But it's not just your heart that's at risk from too much sitting; your hips, spine, and shoulders could also suffer. In fact, it's not a leap to say that a chair-potato lifestyle can ruin you from head to toe.

Statistically speaking, we're working out as much as we were 30 years ago. It's just that we're leading more sedentary lives overall. A 2006 University of Minnesota study found that from 1980 to 2000, the percentage of people who reported exercising regularly remained the same—but the amount of time people spent sitting rose by 8 percent.

Now consider how much we sit today compared with, say, 160 years ago. In a clever study, Dutch researchers created a sort of historical theme park and recruited actors to play 1850s Australian settlers for a week. The men did everything from chop wood to forage for food, and the scientists compared their activity levels with those of modern office workers. The result: The actors did the equivalent of walking 3 to 8 miles more a day than the deskbound men. That kind of activity is perhaps even more needed in today's fast-food nation than it was in the 1800s, but not just because it boosts calorie burn. (Tied to the treadmill? Try these seven ways to burn more fat on the belt.)

A 2010 study in the Journal of Applied Physiology found that when healthy men limited their number of footsteps by 85 percent for 2 weeks, they experienced a 17 percent decrease in insulin sensitivity, raising their diabetes risk. "We've done a lot to keep people alive longer, but that doesn't mean we're healthier," says Hamilton.

Today's death rate is about 43 percent lower than it was in 1960, but back then, less than 1 percent of Americans had diabetes and only 13 percent were obese. Compare that with now, when 6 percent are diagnosed with diabetes and 35 percent are obese.

The definition of an active life Make no mistake: "Regularly exercising is not the same as being active," says Peter Katzmarzyk, Ph.D., Hamilton's colleague at Pennington, the nation's leading obesity research center. Katzmarzyk is referring to the difference between official exercise activity, such as running, biking, or lifting weights, and so-called nonexercise activity, like walking to your car, mowing the lawn, or simply standing. "A person may hit the gym every day, but if he's sitting a good deal of the rest of the time, he's probably not leading an overall active life," says Katzmarzyk.

You might dismiss this as scientific semantics, but energy expenditure statistics support Katzmarzyk's notion. In a 2007 report, University of Missouri scientists said that people with the highest levels of nonexercise activity (but little to no actual "exercise") burned significantly more calories a week than those who ran 35 miles a week but accumulated only a moderate amount of nonexercise activity.

"It can be as simple as standing more," Katzmarzyk says. For instance, a "standing" worker—say, a sales clerk at a Banana Republic store—burns about 1,500 calories while on the job; a person behind a desk might expend roughly 1,000 calories. That goes a long way in explaining why people gain 16 pounds, on average, within 8 months of starting sedentary office work, according to a study from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

Work your entire body in 15 minutes with these three moves for fast muscle.

Why sitting too much is never a good thing But calories aren't the only problem. In 2009, Katzmarzyk studied the lifestyle habits of more than 17,000 men and women and found that the people who sat for almost the entire day were 54 percent more likely to end up clutching their chests than those who sat for almost none of the time. That's no surprise, of course, except that it didn't matter how much the sitters weighed or how often they exercised. "The evidence that sitting is associated with heart disease is very strong," says Katzmarzyk. "We see it in people who smoke and people who don't. We see it in people who are regular exercisers and those who aren't. Sitting is an independent risk factor."

This isn't actually a new discovery. In a British study published in 1953, scientists examined two groups of workers: bus drivers and trolley conductors. At first glance, the two occupations appeared to be pretty similar. But while the bus drivers were more likely to sit down for their entire day, the trolley conductors were running up and down the stairs and aisles of the double-decker trolleys. As it turned out, the bus drivers were nearly twice as likely to die of heart disease as the conductors were.

A more recent interpretation of that study, published in 2004, found that none of the participants ever exercised. But the two groups did sit for different amounts of time. The analysis revealed that even after the scientists accounted for differences in waist size—an indicator of belly fat—the bus drivers were still more likely to die before the conductors did. So the bus drivers were at higher risk not simply because their sedentary jobs made them resemble Ralph Kramden, but also because all that sitting truly was making them unhealthy.

Hamilton came to call this area of science "inactivity physiology" while he was conducting studies to determine how exercise affects an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase (LPL). Found in humans as well as mice, LPL's main responsibility is to break down fat in the bloodstream to use as energy. If a mouse (or a man) doesn't have this enzyme, or if the enzyme doesn't work in their leg muscles, the fat is stored instead of burned as fuel.

Hamilton discovered that when the rodents were forced to lie down for most of their waking hours, LPL activity in their leg muscles plummeted. But when they simply stood around most of the time, the gene was 10 times more active. That's when he added an exercise session to the lab-rat routine and found that exercise had no effect on LPL. He believes the finding also applies to people.

"Humans sit too much, so you have to treat the problem specifically," says Hamilton. "The cure for too much sitting isn't more exercise. Exercise is good, of course, but the average person could never do enough to counteract the effect of hours and hours of chair time."

If you're chair-bound, perform these seven easy office stretches every 20 minutes.

"We know there's a gene in the body that causes heart disease, but it doesn't respond to exercise no matter how often or how hard you work out," he says. "And yet the activity of the gene becomes worse from sitting—or rather, the complete and utter lack of contractile activity in your muscles. So the more nonexercise activity you do, the more total time you spend on your feet and out of your chair. That's the real cure."

"Your body adapts to what you do most often," says Bill Hartman, P.T., C.S.C.S., a Men's Health advisor and physical therapist in Indianapolis, Indiana. "So if you sit in a chair all day, you'll essentially become better adapted to sitting in a chair." The trouble is, that makes you less adept at standing, walking, running, and jumping, all of which a truly healthy human should be able to do with proficiency. "Older folks have a harder time moving around than younger people do," says Hartman. "That's not simply because of age; it's because what you do consistently from day to day manifests itself over time, for both good and bad."

Inactivity affects more than the heart Do you sit all day at a desk? You're courting muscle stiffness, poor balance and mobility, and lower-back, neck, and hip pain. But to understand why, you'll need a quick primer on fascia, a tough connective tissue that covers all your muscles. While fascia is pliable, it tends to "set" in the position your muscles are in most often. So if you sit most of the time, your fascia adapts to that specific position.

Now think about where your hips and thighs are in relation to your torso while you're sitting. They're bent, which causes the muscles on the front of your thighs, known as hip flexors, to contract slightly, or shorten. The more you sit, the more the fascia will keep your hip flexors shortened. "If you've ever seen a guy walk with a forward lean, it's often because of shortened hip flexors," says Hartman. "The muscles don't stretch as they naturally should. As a result, he's not walking tall and straight because his fascia has adapted more to sitting than standing."

This same effect can be seen in other areas of your body. For instance, if you spend a lot of time with your shoulders and upper back slumped over a keyboard, this eventually becomes your normal posture. "That's not just an issue in terms of how you look; it frequently leads to chronic neck and shoulder pain," says Hartman. Also, people who frequently cross their legs a certain way can experience hip imbalances. "This makes your entire lower body less stable, which decreases your agility and athletic performance and increases your risk for injuries," Hartman says. Add all this up, and a person who sits a lot is less efficient not only at exercising, but also at simply moving from, say, the couch to the refrigerator.

There's yet another problem with all that sitting. "If you spend too much time in a chair, your glute muscles will actually 'forget' how to fire," says Hartman. This phenomenon is aptly nicknamed "gluteal amnesia." A basic-anatomy reminder: Your glutes, or butt muscles, are your body's largest muscle group. So if they aren't functioning properly, you won't be able to squat or deadlift as much weight, and you won't burn as much fat. After all, muscles burn calories. And that makes your glutes a powerful furnace for fat—a furnace that's probably been switched off if you spend most of the day on your duff.

It gets worse. Weak glutes as well as tight hip flexors cause your pelvis to tilt forward. This puts stress on your lumbar spine, resulting in lower-back pain. It also pushes your belly out, which gives you a protruding gut even if you don't have an ounce of fat. "The changes to your muscles and posture from sitting are so small that you won't notice them at first. But as you reach your 30s, 40s, 50s, and beyond, they'll gradually become worse," says Hartman, "and a lot harder to fix."

So what's a desk jockey to do? Hamilton's advice: Think in terms of two spectrums of activity. One represents the activities you do that are considered regular exercise. But another denotes the amount of time you spend sitting versus the time you spend on your feet. "Then every day, make the small choices that will help move you in the right direction on that sitting-versus-standing spectrum," says Hamilton. "Stand while you're talking on the phone. It all adds up, and it all matters."

Of course, there's a problem with all of this: It kills all our lame excuses for not exercising (no time for the gym, fungus on the shower-room floor, a rerun of The Office you haven't seen). Now we have to redefine "workout" to include every waking moment of our days. But there's a big payoff: more of those days to enjoy in the future. So get up off your chair and start nonexercising

Is your laptop cooking your testicles?

Whoever invented the 'laptop' probably didn't worry too much about male reproductive health.

Turns out that sitting with a computer on your lap will crank up the temperature of your nether regions, which could affect sperm quality.

And there is little you can do about it, according to the authors of a study out today in the journal Fertility and Sterility, short of putting your laptop on a desk.

The researchers hooked thermometers to the scrotums of 29 young men who were balancing a laptop on their knees. They found that even with a lap pad under the computer, the men's scrotums overheated quickly.

"Millions and millions of men are using laptops now, especially those in the reproductive age range," said Dr. Yefim Sheynkin, a urologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who led the new study.

"Within 10 or 15 minutes their scrotal temperature is already above what we consider safe, but they don't feel it," he added.

So far, no studies have actually tested how laptops impact men's fertility, said Sheynkin, and there is no bulletproof evidence that it would. But earlier research has shown that warming the scrotum more than one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) is enough to damage sperm.

Under normal circumstances, the testicles' position outside of the body makes sure they stay a few degrees cooler than the inside of the body, which is necessary for sperm production.

"I wouldn't say that if someone starts to use laptops they will become infertile," Sheynkin told Reuters Health. But frequent use might contribute to reproductive problems, he said, because "the scrotum doesn't have time to cool down."

According to the American Urological Association, nearly one in six couples in the US have trouble conceiving a baby, and about half the time the man is at the root of the problem.

Both general health and lifestyle factors such as nutrition and drug use can influence reproductive health.

However, Sheynkin said tight jeans and briefs are generally not considered a risk factor.

"Clothes should not significantly change scrotal temperature, because you are moving around," he said.

To hold a laptop on your knees, however, you need to sit still with your legs closed. After one hour in this position, the researchers found that men's testicle temperature had risen by up to 2.5 C.

A lap pad kept the computer cool and also made sure less heat was transmitted to the skin. But it didn't do much to cool the testicles, and might give "a false sense of security," according to Sheynkin.

"It doesn't matter what pad you use," he said. "You can put a pillow beneath your computer and it still won't protect you."

As it turned out, leg position played a far bigger role. When the men sat with their legs spread wide -- made possible only by placing the computer on a large lap pad -- they could keep their testicles cooler. But it still took less than 30 minutes before they began overheating.

"No matter what you do, even with the legs spread wide apart, the temperature is still going to be higher than what we call safe," said Sheynkin.

Belkin International, Inc., which sells lap pads and other electronics accessories, did not wish to comment on the new findings.

Dr. James F. Smith, a urologist at the University of California, San Francisco, cautioned that a clear impact of laptop use on fertility had still not been shown, and that it probably didn't play a big role.

Still, he added in an e-mail to Reuters Health, heating up the scrotum is likely to be bad for sperm production. He often asks patients that he sees for infertility if they use a laptop and, if so, suggests that they spread their legs periodically or place the computer on a desk.

Dr. Smith said the consequences of continued overheating of the testicles -- so-called scrotal hyperthermia -- probably weren't permanent, but might take months to go away.

"When interested in maximizing fertility potential," he advised, "minimize harmful exposures, eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly.

Does airplane air really make you sick?

By Harriet Baskas

Every time she boards an airplane, Sheelagh Doyle of New York City worries that the dry, recirculated air onboard will make her sick.

“Most times, when I take a flight over a few hours, I get a cold or chest infection,” she said. “I’ve resorted to hiding under a blanket for long-haul flights trying to avoid it.”

Many travelers who fall ill within a day or two of a recent flight blame the quality of the cabin air. But as it turns out, airplane air is no worse than what you'd encounter in your average office building.

It's that coughing or sneezing seatmate that you need to worry about.

“Airplane air isn’t as bad as most people envision,” said Charles Gerba, an environmental microbiologist at the University of Arizona at Tucson. Gerba, also known as Dr. Germ, studies germs and where they congregate and doesn’t worry much about the air quality on airplanes. “On a trip, it’s more likely that the food you eat and the things you touch will make you sick.”

The air up there Many passengers mistakenly believe that the air in the cabin that they left the gate with is the air they have to breathe for the rest of the trip. “This is not true,” said Boeing spokesperson Bret Jensen.

He blames low humidity for giving airplane air a bad rap. “The overall relative humidity aboard an aluminum airplane is low — around 6 percent — and people become dehydrated on long flights if they don't drink water regularly. This can make people feel different than when they boarded the airplane.”

Modern airplanes do recirculate air, “but don’t let that scare you,” said travel health expert Mark Gendreau, the senior staff physician and vice chair of emergency medicine at Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass.

“Airplanes take about 50 percent of the air collected in the outtake valves of the passenger compartment and mix it with fresh air from outside that gets heated by the engines. That air is then passed through HEPA filters that sterilize it before it’s reintroduced to the passenger cabin.”

Previously, some health experts were concerned that airlines might not service those HEPA filters as often as they should. But Gendreau says both health and economic concerns help insure that airlines do. “If HEPA filters age, they start collecting material. That creates drag and airplanes start burning more fuel. And these days airlines are not interested in wasting fuel.”

Breathe easy It may help you breathe easier next time you fly knowing that air flow is minimized between seat rows and that airplane air is refreshed more often than the air in office buildings.

“You are closer to people in the enclosed space of an airplane than you are in an office building,” Gendreau said. “But something called ‘dilution ventilation’ means that even with microorganisms in an air space, if you have good ventilation, there will be less of a chance of transmission.”

The airborne germs on an airplane to be wary of, say both Gendreau and Gerba, are the ones coming from an ill traveler in a row nearby.

“When someone coughs or sneezes, 20 to 30,000 particles fly out about three feet and settle on nearby surfaces. Those microorganisms can live from several minutes up to 24 hours,” said Gendreau. “If you’re more than six feet away from that person, you don’t have much to fear. It won’t propel far enough.”

But if you touch something that a sick passenger's germs have landed on, you’re at risk.

Watch what you touch Travel health experts say that instead of worrying about the cabin air, travelers should make an effort to avoid touching objects such as airplane toilet seats, soap dispensers, seatbacks, armrests and especially tray tables that can harbor infectious germs. “There are surfaces that everyone touches and you have no idea if a person has sniffles and then walks down the aisle touching the seats and armrests as they go,” said Gendreau.

“We find a lot of flu and cold germs on airplane tray tables,” said environmental biologist Gerba, who takes test swabs during his frequent travels. “And there’s no protocol or government requirement for airlines to clean those between flights.”

And don’t think that all the germs you encounter when traveling are on an airplane. “Think about all the places you can get exposed to an illness from the time you leave home,” said Gendreau. “You park in a garage, take the escalator and touch the hand rest. You touch the buttons on the ATM. You go through the security checkpoint, you buy coffee, you sit on a seat. Any of these surfaces might be contaminated.”   

Get moving To steer clear of germs on airplanes, Gerba suggests trying to avoid sitting next to someone with a cold and even asking to be moved away from a sneezer if there’s an open seat.

If you can’t change your seat, Gendreau said, try turning the air vent above your seat to medium flow and pointing the air current just slightly in front of your face so that germs from those coughing or sneezing nearby are deflected away from you.

He also urges travelers to stay hydrated. “Our nasal passages, our eyes, and the mucous membranes in lips and mouths have enzymes to fight bacteria,” he said. “If you’re dehydrated, those enzymes won’t work well.” Gendreau suggest drinking at least 8 ounces of water for every two hours.

Mostly, though, keep your hands clean.

“Airlines do minimal cleaning of the airplanes during the day,” said Gendreau. “So when I travel, after I put my stuff in the overhead bin, I’ll take out my hand sanitizer, put some drops on the tray table and clean it with a tissue. I’ll also clean the seat belt and the armrests and goop up my hands. Then I know my seat area is sanitized.”

And then he sits back, relaxes and takes a deep breath.

Learning a Second Language Protects Against Alzheimer's

Want to protect against the effects of Alzheimer's? Learn another language

That's the takeaway from recent brain research, which shows that bilingual people's brains function better and for longer after developing the disease.
Psychologist Ellen Bialystok and her colleagues at York University in Toronto recently tested about 450 patients who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Half of these patients were bilingual, and half spoke only one language.
While all the patients had similar levels of cognitive impairment, the researchers found that those who were bilingual had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's about four years later, on average, than those who spoke just one language. And the bilingual people reported their symptoms had begun about five years later than those who spoke only one language.
"What we've been able to show is that in these patients… all of whom have been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and are all at the same level of impairment, the bilinguals on average are four to five years older — which means that they've been able to cope with the disease," Bialystok said.
She presented her findings today (Feb. 18) here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Some results of this research were published in the Nov. 9, 2010 issue of the journal Neurology.
CT brain scans of the Alzheimer's patients showed that, among patients who are functioning at the same level, those who are bilingual have more advanced brain deterioration than those who spoke just one language. But this difference wasn't apparent from the patients' behaviors, or their abilities to function. The bilingual people acted like monolingual patients whose disease was less advanced.
"Once the disease begins to compromise this region of the brain, bilinguals can continue to function," Bialystok said. "Bilingualism is protecting older adults, even after Alzheimer's disease is beginning to affect cognitive function."
The researchers think this protection stems from brain differences between those speak one language and those who speak more than one. In particular, studies show bilingual people exercise a brain network called the executive control system more. The executive control system involves parts of the prefrontal cortex and other brain areas, and is the basis of our ability to think in complex ways, Bialystok said.
"It's the most important part of your mind," she said. "It controls attention and everything we think of as uniquely human thought."
Bilingual people, the theory goes, constantly have to exercise this brain system to prevent their two languages from interfering with one another. Their brains must sort through multiple options for each word, switch back and forth between the two languages, and keep everything straight.
And all this work seems to confer a cognitive benefit — an ability to cope when the going gets tough and the brain is besieged with a disease such as Alzheimer's.
"It's not that being bilingual prevents the disease," Bialystok told MyHealthNewsDaily. Instead, she explained, it allows those who develop Alzheimer's to deal with it better.
Moreover, other research suggests that these benefits of bilingualism apply not only to those who are raised from birth speaking a second language, but also to people who take up a foreign tongue later in life.
"The evidence that we have is not only with very early bilinguals," said psychologist Teresa Bajo of the University of Granada in Spain, who was not involved in Bialystok's research. "Even late bilinguals use these very same processes so they may have also the very same advantages."

Early baldness doubles risk of prostate cancer

Men who start to lose their hair by age 20 -- a syndrome known as pattern baldness -- are twice as likely to develop prostate cancer later in life, according to a new study.
The findings, published this week in the Annals of Oncology, could help identify men who should be screened early and more often for disease, the researchers said.
Prostate cancer is the commonest non-skin cancer among men worldwide and, after lung tumours, is the second biggest cause of death from cancer among men in the United States and Europe. Most cases occur among men aged in their sixties.
Earlier research has shown that sex hormones called androgens play a key role in the development of both pattern baldness and cancer of the prostate, a walnut-sized gland near the bladder crucial to the male reproductive system.
But the link between the two remained obscure, with at least one study suggesting that premature baldness actually pointed to a reduced risk of cancer.
To probe further, a team of scientists led by Philippe Giraud of Georges Pompidou European Hospital in Paris asked 669 men -- 338 of whom had a history of prostate cancer -- how bald they were at ages 20, 30 and 40, using standardised images for reference.
Men who did not start to lose their hair until age 30 or 40 showed no increased risk compared to the control group of developing the dreaded disease.
But for those who had early-onset balding -- a condition known to doctors as androgenic alopecia -- at age 20, the risk doubled.
Giraud said balding men should not panic. "The fact that a (young) man is losing his hair does not mean that he will have cancer," he said by telephone.
He also cautioned that the results would need to be verified in follow up studies.
But the findings suggest that premature balding could become a useful marker to help doctors screen for the disease, he said.
"Current prostate screening protocols are very controversial because some worry that systematic screening at 50 years old -- without taking other criteria into account -- will lead to over-treatment," he said.
Many countries have routine screening programmes for men in their middle age.
One of the problems, however, is that the so-called PSA antigen test, now 20 years old, cannot distinguish between low-risk tumours and aggressive lesions that are often fatal.
Antigen levels can also fluctuate according to the individual and may be skewed by prostate inflammation.
One out of two men lose their hair, but of the 50 percent of men who go partially or totally bald, only 10 to 15 percent suffer from androgenic alopecia, Giraud said.
Another study published last year showed that finger patterns could also help identify which men should undergo regular screening.
Men whose index fingers are longer than their ring, or fourth, fingers run a significantly lower risk of prostate cancer, the study found.

Fighting cancer with fibre-rich food

Eat food like medicine or you may have to consume medicines like food, says Dr Anupama Krishnan


In Ayurveda, cancer can broadly brought under the heading of arbuda — the word means ‘one hundred million’, which points towards the mad multiplication of abnormal cells.

Arbuda is negative reflection of energy, which involves the malfunctioning of the three doshas (namely vata, pita and kapha), the mutation of dhatu (tissue elements accounting for structural entity), the disruption of agni (error in digestion and transformation at the cellular, molecular and metabolic level), and the weakening of vyadhikshamatva (power of the body to resist progression of disease). All these factors collectively lead to the decline of ojus (vital essence of the human body).

Among the preventable and modifiable factors, diet management has a significant role to perform.

Food follies include poor selection, unhealthy combination, faulty processing and storage, poor quantity and faulty consumption (time of the day and season).

*Food selection should be based on the knowledge of one’s constitution, age, season, gender, and status of health.

*One should eat only after the previous meal has been digested.

*One must include the six rasas (sweet, sour, salt, pungent, bitter, astringent) in every meal.

*One must avoid over-eating.

*Incompatible and unhealthy combinations, such as milk and fish, milk and sour fruits, must be avoided.

*Eating in good company and in a clean place is advised.

*One must give due respect to food — avoid talking, laughing or walking when you eat.

*One must abstain from eating when the mind is agitated, distressed, depressed or anxious.

Ayurveda classifies food into:

Sattvik ahara: Food that pleasantly nourishes the body, like broken wheat porridge, whole wheat roti, buttermilk, seasonal fruits.

Rajasik ahara: Food linked to action and restlessness, like fried or spicy food, bitter/sour/ salty/ pungent food, fast food, chillies, alcohol.

Tamasik ahara: Food linked to a state of inertia, negative obstructive energy, lethargy, depression, addiction, extreme action. Such food causes bowel irritation, nausea, and degeneration. Unfortunately the flourishing food patterns of today are rajasik and tamasik, thereby resulting in stress, lack of insight and compassion.

Refined or raw?

On entering a bakery, one is tempted by the goodies made with maida (refined flour), which causes indigestion, heartburn and bloating of the abdomen. Moreover, saturated fats or transfats are used in puffs, cakes and biscuits to give them a long shelf life.

The use of unhealthy oil, reheated oil and deep frying food are harmful cooking practices. So is the excessive reliance on ready-to-eat/ processed food.

Ready-to-eat processed meats are known to contain nitrosamine and ajinomoto, which cause conditions ranging from skin allergy, heartburn, liver trouble, menstrual abnormalities, repeated abortions to cancer.

Parota and chicken curry are seen on almost every dining table at dinner time, when the ideal choice  should be light and easily digestible food. Another favourite meal is rich, spicy biryani followed by ice cream. All such meals can be categorised under virudhaahara (discrepant) foods.

The long-term consumption of such meals weakens the body, causes malfunctioning of the  system and renders the body vulnerable to ailments ranging from fever, indigestion, gastric disorders to obstinate skin disease and cancer.

Dietary do’s and dont’s
The daily consumption of vegetables and fruits is strongly advised. Plant products are cancer-fighting powerhouses as they are rich in fibre.

Fibre helps in moving toxins swiftly out of the gastro intestinal tract. Moreover, fibre reduces the production of fecapentanes, which are bacteria produced by decaying food in the stomach.

For those suffering from hereditary pre-cancerous colorectal polyp, a daily intake of 15 grams of wheat bran is suggested. Wheat bran, whole wheat, beans and legumes are important fibre sources.

Vegetables like carrot, spinach, yellow and dark green leafy vegetables contain beta carotene which neutralises free radicals.

Fruits like pomegranate, gooseberry and grapes have high anti-oxidant concentration. All seasonal fruits and vegetables contain organic compounds that inhibit carcinogens from accessing the target site. They protect the cell memory and prevent faulty metabolism. The phytochemicals present in brightly- coloured fruits and vegetables are immunity boosters and disease fighters.

Whole wheat and brown rice should be bought instead of polished varieties of rice and flour. Spices like garlic, ginger and turmeric are advised because they have proven evidence of cancer resistance.

In Ayurveda, milk and ghee are considered sattvik food items which should be consumed every day.

Indigenous oil should be the prime choice because, logically, the vegetation of a particular region will nourish its inhabitants.

However, use of reheated oil should be discouraged.

Meat consumption should be marginalised. The amount of meat consumed in a day should be equivalent to the size of one’s palm.

Eating fruits like gooseberries and oranges (rich in Vitamin C) is advised for obsessive meat eaters since Vitamin C can neutralise the harmful nitrosamine effect in processed meat to a large extent.

Cooking style should be preferably steaming and low-flame cooking instead of deep frying.

Cause of male baldness discovered

Experts say they have discovered what they believe is the cause of male pattern baldness.

It is not simply a lack of hair, but rather a problem with the new hair that is made.

A manufacturing defect means the hair produced is so small it appears invisible to the naked eye, giving the classic bald spot or receding hairline.

The US team told the Journal of Clinical Investigation the fault lies with the stem cells that make new hair.

It may be possible to 'cure' male baldness by restoring the normal function of these cells, the experts hope.

Ultimately, they hope to be able to develop a cream that could be applied to the scalp to help the stem cells grow normal hair.

Using men undergoing hair transplants as guinea pigs, the University of Pennsylvania team compared hair follicles in bald patches and hairy areas of the scalp.

Although bald areas had the same number of hair-making stem cells as normal scalp, there were fewer of a more mature type, called the progenitor cell.

This difference means that hair follicles in bald patches shrink rather than disappear and the new hairs made are microscopic compared to normal hair.

Dr George Cotsarelis who led the research said: "This implies that there is a problem in the activation of stem cells converting progenitor cells in bald scalp.

"The fact that there are normal numbers of stem cells in bald scalp gives us hope for reactivating those stem cells."

Until now it has been unclear what the exact cause of male pattern baldness is, but experts believe the male hormone testosterone is involved and baldness also tends to run in families.

Blood test for detecting Alzheimer's

A new technique could lead to a blood test for detecting Alzheimer's, a US study claims.

The small trial, published in the journal Cell, used thousands of artificial molecules to "fish" for the disease.
Researchers hope to use this method to diagnose other diseases earlier, including lung and pancreatic cancers.
The Alzheimer's Research Trust said it could result in a new test, but more research was needed.
The technique relies on the immune system's ability to recognise foreign material.
Proteins on viruses and bacteria are recognised as alien so the body produces antibodies, and the same is true for Alzheimer's.
So if you can test for the antibody, you can test for the disease - traditionally, however, this has been very hard to do.

The team at the Florida campus of the Scripps Research Institute took blood samples from six patients with Alzheimer's, six with Parkinson's disease and six healthy individuals.

They then used 15,000 synthetic peptoids (the bait), to "fish" for antibodies.
In this very small sample size, the researchers found two antibodies which identified Alzheimer's sufferers.
Dr Simon Ridley, head of research at the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: "This very early research poses a new way of testing blood to diagnose Alzheimer's, but much more research must be done.
"We need to know how accurate and sensitive the test is and it also needs to be trialled in larger and more diverse groups of people."
There is still no cure for Alzheimer's, but using early testing could help with finding patients for clinical trials of future treatments.
Dr Ridley believes a test will help: "Detecting Alzheimer's and other dementias early is essential to defeating the condition. We know that treatments for many diseases can be more effective if given early and this is likely to be true for dementia."
Wider applications
The method was also successful in testing mice for a condition similar to multiple sclerosis and the report's authors hope the technique can be used to detect other diseases.
Professor Thomas Kodadek, from the Scripps Research Institute, said: "If this works in Alzheimer's disease, it suggests it is a pretty general platform that may work for a lot of different diseases. Now we need to put it in the hands of disease experts to tackle diseases where early diagnosis is key.
"Of course, this kind of simple diagnostic technology would have the biggest effect in diseases where early detection will have a significant effect on therapy, for example in various cancers."
The researchers are now investigating whether the method works in lung and pancreatic cancers.

Dubai Health Authority strengthens its medical tourism strategy

 The Dubai Health Authority recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) with the Medical Tourism Association at the World Medical Tourism and Global Health Congress which took place in Los Angeles from 22nd to 24th September 2010
The Dubai Health Authority was the Diamond Sponsor in the Congress. With the signing of this MoU, both parties will work towards further strengthening the medical tourism sector in the Emirate of Dubai.

Dubai is already known to be one of the top tourism destinations in the world and the DHA is further building its healthcare capabilities, policies and regulations to ensure that Dubai enjoys the same position as a healthcare destination.

Dubai will host the prestigious regional Medical Tourism Congress, which will take place in February 2011 and will be held for the first time in the Middle East.

At the conference the DHA and the private sector will represent their centres of excellence in their related fields such as diabetes management, rehabilitation facilities, surgery etc. The conference will be a platform representing Dubai’s healthcare tourism strengths to the global medial tourism industry.
His Excellency Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, Director General of the DHA said, “In recent years, Dubai has seen a phenomenal growth in the health sector and this has been possible because of the vision of our leader, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, who has given significant importance to the health sector in the Dubai strategic plan 2015.

“Medical tourism is an integral aspect of healthcare, especially in the context of today’s globalised world and the DHA is keen to further strengthen and establish Dubai’s position on the medical tourism and global healthcare map.” 
Al Murooshid emphasised that the DHA considers the private sector to be its key stakeholder and thus encourages the sector to develop state-of-the-art healthcare facilitates in the Emirate of Dubai.

Over the years, the patient base indicates an increase in the number of regional patients who visit Dubai for treatment and thus the DHA sees tremendous potential in the growth of the medical tourism sector for the Emirate of Dubai.
He said that over the years Dubai has established itself as a healthcare hub for the Middle East region and is now looking to strengthen its position on the global healthcare tourism map.

Laila Al Jassmi, CEO of the Health Policy and Strategy Sector at the DHA seconded this opinion and said, “The medical tourism industry generates over 30 billion dollars worth of revenue annually. It is a huge industry globally and Dubai already has many factors that work to its benefit. At the DHA, we are strengthening our policies, regulations and further developing our healthcare capabilities to strengthen the medical tourism sector.
In terms of the GCC region, we are already witnessing an increase in the number of patient base and now we are keen to provide the international patient will lucrative healthcare opportunities in Dubai. At the DHA, we consider the private sector to be a key stakeholder and thus both the public and the private health sector in Dubai will be a part of the medical tourism conference which takes place in 2011.”

Al Jassmi said that the conference will hold international workshops and educational programs for the health sector to benefit from the experience of renowned global players who will be present at the conference.

The DHA and the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing are strategic partners in this initiative which aims to strengthen Dubai’s position as a global medical tourism hub.

UAE wins bid to host World Congress of Cardiology 2012

United Arab Emirates, Dubai, 30 June, 2010   Dubai, one of the seven Emirates in the UAE, has won the bid to host the World Heart Federation’s World Congress of Cardiology that will take place in 2012.

The prestigious congress takes place once in two years and is a platform where the global healthcare community and cardiologists from all over the world discuss the latest advances in the prevention and control of cardiovascular disease.
His Excellency Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, Director General of the Dubai Health Authority represented the Emirate of Dubai, UAE, at the World Congress of Cardiology which took place in Beijing, China from the 19th of June, 2010.

His Excellency Al Murooshid extended his thanks to Pekka Puska,  President of World Heart Federation and highlighted that Dubai is pleased to host such a prestigious conference.

Al Murooshid said, “We are proud to host this congress which will take place for the first time in the UAE and will be attended by over 20,000 delegates from across the world.  Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading cases of death globally and I assure you that Dubai will provide all its support to battle this disease both in terms creating awareness and further establishing specialized protocols and centers to tackle this disease.

“Such an esteemed congress, provides a platform where international experts can share state-of-the-art knowledge to combat this condition. As the Director General of the Health Authority for the Emirate of Dubai, I would like to mention that we are working at various levels to tackle this condition and the Dubai Heart Centre in Dubai Hospital is one such initiative that provides state-of-the art treatment for our population and the GCC region as well.”

His Excellency Al Murooshid expressed this thanks to the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing in Dubai( DTCM) and the UAE embassy in China for their support. He extended his special thanks  to H.E. Omar Ahmed Oudai Naseeb Al Betar, UAE Ambassador to China for his support and cooperation.

Al Murooshid said that over the past few years healthcare in Dubai has seen a tremendous growth and this has been possible because of the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Rule of Dubai who has given significant important to the health sector in the Dubai strategic plan 2015.

His Excellency Al Murooshid said that Dubai is aware of the huge impact that hosting this conference will have and that it will greatly contribute to further creating much-needed awareness about heart diseases.
The congress which was first held in 1950 in Paris, attracts people from over 100 different countries. The congress is an initiative of the World Heart Federation, a nongovernmental organization committed to helping people achieve a longer and better life through prevention and control of heart disease and stroke, with a focus on low-and middle income countries.

 His Excellency said that the DHA is aware of the importance of hosting such conferences and over the years Dubai has become a hub for international conferences due to its outlook, world-class infrastructure and strategic location in the Middle East and North Africa( MENA) region.

His Excellency Al Murooshid highlighted that this conference in particular is crucial to creating awareness about a disease. He highlighted that the DHA has previously supported all awareness initiatives of the  World Heart Federation such as the ‘go red for women campaign’ which is held every year to  educate women about the risk of heart attack and heart disease.

Other delegates from the DHA that were present at the conference were Tony Batour Elzoghbi, Director of Governance and Internal Audit, Dr Obaid Al Jassim, Head of Cardiology Section at Dubai Hospital and Vice-President of Emirates Cardiac Society, Dr Nooshin Mohd Bazargani, Cardiologist at Dubai Hospital and Member of Emirates Cardiac Society, Professor J M Muscat-Baron, Professor of Medicine, Consultant Physician & Cardiologist, Clinical Dean, Clinical Faculty, Dubai Medical College and Dr Wael Almahmeed President of Emirates Cardiac Society and Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Medical Services, Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, Abu Dhabi, UAE 

Smoking doubles dementia risk in late life

Heavy smoking during middle age can double the risk of Alzheimer's disease and dementia two decades later, researchers said on Monday.
Smoking already causes millions of deaths each year from cancer and heart disease.
"Our study suggests that heavy smoking in middle age increases the risk of both Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia for men and women across different race groups," Rachel Whitmer, a research scientist with Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
They said smoking also causes cancer and heart disease. The new findings show it threatens public health in late life, when people are already more likely to develop dementia.
Whitmer's team analyzed data from 21,123 members of a health plan who took part in a survey when they were in their 50s and 60s.
About 25 percent of the group, 5,367 volunteers, were diagnosed with some form of dementia in the more than 20 years of follow up, including 1,136 people who were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia, is a fatal brain disease in which people gradually lose their memories and their abilities to reason and care for themselves. It affects more than 26 million people globally.
People who smoked more than two packs of cigarettes a day had a higher risk of both Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia.

"The increase in risk is not just for heavy smokers," Whitmer said in a telephone interview. "It's not if you smoke less you are in the clear, that is for sure."

She said compared with nonsmokers, those who smoked more than two packs a day had a 114 percent increased risk of dementia, a 157 percent increased risk of Alzheimer's disease and a 172 percent greater risk of vascular dementia.

Whitmer said it has been difficult to study the effects of smoking on brain health because heavy smokers often die from other conditions first.

"This is the first time someone has been able to look really over the long term," Whitmer said.

"We've known for some time that smoking is bad for your respective health," she said. "This really adds to our understanding that the brain is also susceptible.

The World Health Organization says 5 million people die every year from tobacco-related heart attacks, strokes and cancers. Another 430,000 adults die annually from breathing second-hand smoke.

A report last month said the worldwide costs of coping with dementia will reach $604 billion in 2010, more than one percent of global GDP output, and those costs will soar further as the number of sufferers triples by 2050.

It has been documented that smoking increases the risk of most diseases and mortality, but some studies have shown that smoking can reduce the chances of developing Parkinson's disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.

"The link between smoking and risk of Alzheimer's disease, the most common subtype of dementia, has been somewhat controversial, with some studies suggesting that smoking reduces the risk of cognitive impairment," the authors wrote in the report, posted online on Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Minna Rusanen from the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio University Hospital in Kuopio, Finland, analyzed data with colleagues from 21,123 members of a healthcare system who participated in a survey between 1978 and 1985, when they were between the ages of 50 and 60.
The diagnosis of Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia were made between January 1994 and end in July 2008. The patients were on average 71.6 years old at the time.
Of those patients studied, 5,367 participants, or 25.4 percent, were diagnosed with dementia during an average follow-up period of 23 years, including 1,136 and 416 in Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.
Those of the patients who smoked more than two packs of cigarettes per day in their fifties had a very high risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer's in particular compared to non-smokers.
Race and sex were not factors in the study, the authors said.
Smoking is a known risk factor for stroke, and may help increase the risk of vascular dementia in a similar manner, the authors wrote.
The habit also contributes to oxidative stress and inflammation, believed to be important in the development of Alzheimer's disease.

Smoking may affect dementia development via vascular and neurodegenerative pathways, the authors write.

"Our study suggests that heavy smoking in middle age increases the risk of both Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia for men and women across different race groups. The large detrimental impact that smoking already has on public health has the potential to become even greater as the population worldwide ages and dementia prevalence increases."
The authors said it is the first study that studies "the amount of midlife smoking on long-term risk of dementia and dementia subtypes in a large multiethnic cohort."
Smoking is blamed for several million deaths per year from causes such as heart disease and cancer, according to background information in the article.

.Girls Want to Talk About Sex -- With Dad

By BELINDA LUSCOMBE

Mostly, the conversation that dare not speak its name, the most excruciating 25 minutes of either a parent or an offspring's life, The Talk, is left to Mom. Make lunch, do laundry, figure out where the thing is that goes on that other thing, tell kids about sex. But a new study from New York University suggests that young women could actually use a little more talk about intimate matters from their dads.

Yes, I know, eeeew. Previous studies have concluded that girls who have open communication with their fathers - about everything - tend to have intercourse later in life and also have fewer sexual partners, both of which can be very good for sexual and mental health. But do they actually have to talk about sex to have this effect? (More on Time.com: 5 Little-Known Truths About American Sex Lives)

While young women are still mostly influenced and informed on this subject by their mothers, Katherine Hutchinson, associate professor at the NYU College of Nursing, wanted to figure out whether fathers had a role to play. As part of a larger study examining family influences on adolescent sexual risk, she asked a representative sample of 250 or so women aged 19 to 21 what kind of impact their fathers had on their sex education.

The answer was: very little. And, surprisingly, a lot of the women, most of whom were sexually active, wished their fathers had told them more. Specifically, they wanted to hear stuff only guys would know, about how to communicate with men and what the carnal landscape looked like from a male's vantage point. "They felt that if they could have been more comfortable talking with their fathers about issues around sex, they might have been more comfortable talking to boyfriends or potential sexual partners about them," says Hutchinson, whose study was published in the Journal of Family Issues. "And they wanted to know how to negotiate intimacy issues with men." (More on Time.com: Study of American Sex Habits Suggests Boomers Need Sex Ed)

So does this mean dads should be the ones sitting down and explaining where we all come from? "I'm not a big proponent of The Talk, whether it's from a mother or a father," says Hutchinson. "It takes away from the normalcy of sexuality." She advocates instead for ongoing communication with kids about their bodies, sexual development and sexual issues, so that the subject is not so fraught. But she feels dads could weigh in on how to politely tell a guy you don't want to have sex with him, or that you're not ready for sex with anyone right now, or that you want him to wear a condom.

One note of warning to dads: probably best not to bring the subject up while the guy your daughter likes is in the room. Awkward.

Aspirin May Help Beat Prostate Cancer

One of the world's most ubiquitous and pedestrian drugs -- aspirin -- may cut the risk of dying for men who have prostate cancer that has not yet spread beyond the gland, a new study suggests.
In looking at the records of more than 5,000 men with prostate cancer, 2,000 of whom were taking aspirin or another blood-thinning drug, researchers presenting at the annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) in San Diego report that the risk of dying from the cancer was reduced by more than half.
"We show that patients taking anticoagulant [blood thinning] medication had better outcomes with regards to prostate cancer death and that this benefit was most prominent in patients who had high-risk disease," said study lead author Dr. Kevin Choe, a radiation oncologist with the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. High-risk tumors are more aggressive and thus more likely to eventually kill the patient.
Choe spoke at a Monday ASTRO teleconference.
Of the blood thinners used in the study, aspirin was the one which seemed to account for most of the benefit, the researchers said
There has already been some evidence that cancer and the body's coagulation system might be linked in some way.
"Cancer patients tend to develop clots in their legs and lungs more frequently and also patients who develop clots in their legs and lungs tend to develop cancer more frequently," Choe noted. "We hypothesized that anticoagulant medication may lower the chance of death from prostate cancer in men who have localized prostate cancer."
And, at least according to this retrospective review of medical records, this did indeed appear to be the case. Retrospective studies -- where researchers look back over previously collected data, looking for associations -- are not as reliable as prospective trials, however.
The study included 5,275 men diagnosed with prostate cancer that had not yet spread beyond the prostate gland and had been treated with surgery or radiation. Of the almost 2,000 patients on anticoagulants in the study, 1,649 were taking aspirin, 428 warfarin, 287 clopidogrel (Plavix), 26 enoxaparin, and 408 a combination of blood thinners.
After an average follow-up of about seven years, only 1 percent of men who had been taking an anticoagulant had died versus 4 percent of those in the control group. At 10 years, 4 percent of those taking one of these medications had died versus 10 percent in no-blood thinner group.

This translates to a risk reduction of about 50 percent, the researchers calculated.

The chances of the cancer spreading to the bone were reduced while PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood levels -- thought to be a marker for cancer's advance -- were also better controlled.
"This benefit was seen whether these patients were treated with surgery or radiotherapy," Choe added.
Cancer cells are coated by platelets when they enter the bloodstream and are on their way to spreading. This protects them from immune cells and also helps them stick to their next location, Choe explained. Anticoagulants may work by interfering with this process.
But Choe said he is not ready to recommend routine aspirin use in men diagnosed with prostate cancer.
"It's premature to say that aspirin should be used in a standard-therapy way in all patients with prostate cancer," he said. "But we may expect to see this benefit in those who are taking aspirin for other [usually cardiovascular] reasons."
Aspirin also comes with some risks of its own, including stomach bleeding, Choe pointed out.
A second study, conducted in the United States, Canada and Great Britain and also being presented at ASTRO, suggests that a combination of hormone therapy plus radiation may be the best treatment for men who have locally advanced prostate cancer with a high risk of returning.
This usurps the previous view that hormone therapy was useless or even "unkind or toxic," said study lead author Dr. Malcolm Mason, a radiation oncologist with Cardiff University in Wales.
This trial, the largest of its kind, involved about 1,200 men who were randomly chosen to receive hormone therapy alone or a combination of that and radiation.
An initial review at six years suggested that those taking the combination therapy had a 43 percent reduced risk of dying from prostate cancer, while side effects were not "major," Mason said. "If the figures from the interim analysis are similar to the final analysis, we would expect a 43 percent reduction in the chances of death from prostate cancer in men with this regimen," he said.
"We feel these results are practice changing," Mason added. "The standard treatment for localized, high-risk prostate cancer for people who are fit for radiotherapy should be a combination of hormone therapy plus radiotherapy."
Experts note that studies presented at scientific meetings do not face the same peer-review scrutiny as those published in reputable journals.