Botox, Diabetes, Migraine Relief, Heart Health, Weight Loss, More

Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories):
1. Botox May Help Migraine Sufferers 
2. Too Much Exercise Could Wear Out Your Heart
3. Eating Fish May Help Maintain Heart Rhythm
4. Is it Possible to 'Burn Away' Certain Cancers?
5. Low Glycemic Index Diet Best at Reducing Weight
6. Smaller Plates Curb Appetite
7. New Procedure May Mean Fewer Open Heart Surgeries
8. Study IDs Cancer-Spreading Protein

1. Botox May Help Migraine Sufferers
Botox may help fix both wrinkles and migraine headache pain, stated Dr. Richard Glogau, professor of dermatology at UCSF at the 2005 annual meeting of the American Society of Dermatologic Surgery.

Glogau followed 24 migraine-stricken patients from his practice who received Botox treatments for cosmetic purposes. Botox is a purified and diluted form of the Botulinum toxin A (the same bacteria that can cause deadly food poisoning) which has successfully reduced the appearance of wrinkles in the forehead, eye, and mouth areas since 1992.

Each of Glogau's subjects had a long-standing diagnoses of migraines, each had been to a neurologist, and each was taking standard migraine medications.

His results indicate that Botox injections into the brow, eye region, forehead, sides, and back of the head may provide significant migraine relief for up to six months. In this case, the average dosage was 80 units per patients.

The dermatologist's findings followed on the heels of two previous reports presented to the American Association for the Study of Headache.

In the first study, researchers at the Michigan Head Pain and Neurological Institute in Anne Arbor and Michigan State University used a 25 unit dosage which helped decrease the severity of pain and vomiting by sufferers for up to three months. The second test by the University of California tried a 75 unit dose and reported that 96 percent of patients received relief, with some claiming to be migraine free for a limited period of time.

"It doesn't work on everyone and it doesn't work on all headaches," Glogau said. He added that more studies are needed since there are no published, randomized double-blind trials that prove the safety and efficacy of Botox for the treatment of migraines.

2. Too Much Exercise Could Wear Out Your Heart
Biologists used to think the human heart never got tired, beating ceaselessly from birth until death unless somehow damaged. But now a study suggests this is not necessarily so.

The Washington Post reports that an "unusual" group of people took part in an experiment that proves "if you flog the heart long and hard enough, it will tire. A little."

Euan A. Ashley, a Stanford University cardiologist, and a group of English, Scottish, Austrian, and American colleagues, studied people who finished the 2001 Adrenalin Rush, a 300-mile adventure race in the Scottish Highlands.

The race participants - in teams of four made up of both men and women - hike, run, ride horses, kayak, swim, bike, and rappel with ropes off rock faces to complete the competition.

Only about half the 120-odd starters made it to the finish. Before and after, the researchers took many measurements, including ultrasound pictures of the athletes' hearts.

Astonishingly, by the time the athletes were through racing, their hearts contracted one-fifth less, on average - a clear sign of a fatigued muscle. The hearts were also beating faster to compensate for the weakened state of the muscular pump.
By 48 hours later, the signs of heart-muscle fatigue were starting to reverse.
The study is in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
 

3. Eating Fish May Help Maintain Heart Rhythm
Eating tuna or other fish, broiled or baked, appears to have a beneficial effect on the electrical system of the heart, which may help prevent life-threatening heart rhythm disorders, according to a new report.

Evidence from animal studies has suggested a direct effect from fish oil intake on the hearts electrical circuitry.

As reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, of Harvard Medical School, Boston, and colleagues analyzed data from 5,096 adults enrolled in the Cardiovascular Health Study to investigate the link between dietary intake of fish n-3 fatty acid and features seen on electrocardiograms.

Intake of the fish at least once a week was associated with a slower heart rate than eating these fish less than once a month.

Moreover, fish intake at least five times per week was associated with an even healthier heart rhythm. Consumption of marine n-3 fatty acids appeared to have similar effects.

Intake of fried fish was not associated with any ECG changes.
Copyright Reuters 2006.  

4. Is it Possible to 'Burn Away' Certain Cancers?
Many men with testicular cancer beat the odds of survival. And researchers at Johns Hopkins University think they know why - heat.

In general, the testes are a few degrees cooler than the rest of the body. And, in a phenomenon dubbed the 'Lance Armstrong effect,' after the seven-time Tour de France winner who survived the cancer, experts believe that there is a direct correlation between those cancerous cells and temperature.

Johns Hopkins professor Robert Getzenberg and his colleagues recently stated in the Journal of the American Medical Association that their evidence suggests that testicular cancer cells may become weakened by hypothermia (a directed type of heat). This makes those cells more susceptible to chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

"We tried to put our heads together about what we know about the differences between testicular and other cancers," said Getzenberg. "There is an amazing difference in treatment success and we wanted to come up with a single idea that has biological basis."

Getzenberg's team is using nanotechnology to directly target cancer cells with iron particles. Once attached to the malignant cells, the heat produces an external magnetic field to hopefully weaken them for more effective treatment.

To be successful, the heat therapy must be targeted to cancer cells only while leaving healthy cells unharmed. Nanoparticles may provide a way of achieving this goal.

"The advantages are you don't have to put them in every cell as long as you are getting a warming environment," Gatzenberg said. He is currently assessing the treatment for other types of malignancies including bladder cancer.

Ed Yong, cancer information officer at Cancer Research U.K. said "Nanotechnology is a very exciting new field of science and it is set to play an increasing role in detecting and treating cancers."

5. Low Glycemic Index Diet Best at Reducing Weight
A diet rich in carbohydrates with a low glycemic index appears to be more effective in reducing fat mass and lowering the chances of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) than diets with a high glycemic index or high in protein, an Australian research team reports. 

The glycemic index of a food indicates how quickly it is broken down and causes a rise in sugar levels in the blood. Generally, low glycemic index foods are complex carbs like whole grains, rather than refined sugars, for example. 

According to a paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. Jennie Brand-Miller, at the University of Sydney, and colleagues conducted a trial in which 129 overweight subjects ages 18 to 40 were randomly assigned to one of four weight-loss diets for 12 weeks.

Brand-Miller and her team report that the diets resulted in similar reductions in weight. However, in the high-carbohydrate diets, lowering the glycemic load doubled the fat loss. The investigators also found that total and LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels decreased with a low glycemic load.

"In the short term, our findings suggest that dietary glycemic load, and not just overall energy intake, influences weight loss," the team concludes. 
Copyright Reuters 2006.  

6. Smaller Plates Curb Appetite
A huge weapon in the battle of the bulge may be a small-size serving spoon!
A new study has found that the correct size of serving bowls and spoons may help dieters avoid overeating.

Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University threw an ice cream social for his colleagues to find if using oversized ice cream scoops and extra-large bowls would influence how much ice cream volunteers dished up.
Eighty-five food and nutrition experts were given either 17-ounce or 34-ounce bowls and either 2-ounce or 3-ounce scoops and were allowed to serve themselves. All but three finished all of their ice cream.

"Just doubling the size of someone's bowl increased how much people took by 31 percent," said Brian Wansink, lead author and a consumer researcher. "We also saw that giving people a scoop that was a little bit larger increased things by about 14.5 percent.

"Four ounces of ice cream in a small bowl may appear an appropriate amount for a mid-afternoon snack, but the same in a larger bowl may appear too small, leading one to over-serve," said Wansink.

The study's implications - that decreasing the size of serving utensils may be an effective and easy way to eat less - are even larger for the average dieter since the volunteers were nutrition experts who could estimate size and calories of portions better than the majority of Americans.

7. New Procedure May Mean Fewer Open Heart Surgeries
British doctors announced the successful use of a tiny device to plug a gap in the ruptured wall of a heart attack victim.

Traditionally, patients with an inner heart wall rupture (which is often fatal) needed open heart surgery, in which a patch is stitched over the hole and requires surgeons to open up both sides of the heart. It puts such strain on the body that nearly half of those who undergo the procedure die.

In this case, the 75-year-old man was originally slated for a quadruple bypass surgery. However, surgeons at the King's College Hospital in London placed a 10 millimeter-long piece of rolled up metal mesh into the hole of his heart wall via an incision in the right heart.

The device was then unfolded so that it formed an umbrella shape on either side of the wall, with a segment that filled in the hole in the middle.

Until now, the device was used only for children with heart conditions or patients with long-term holes in their hearts.

"This represents a huge step forward in the treatment of heart rupture," said Dr. Olaf Wendler, who performed the procedure along with Dr. Jonathon Hill.

Approximately 1.25 million people suffer from heart attacks each year in the United States, according to the American Heart Association. Of those, nearly 1 to 2 percent experience an inner wall heart rupture.

Dr. Wendler said "Because we are now able to use this less invasive approach we hope to have better results in the future."

8. Study IDs Cancer-Spreading Protein
Edinburgh scientists have identified the way a specific cell protein can trigger the spread of cancer. The study by researchers in the Cell Signalling Unit, University of Edinburgh Cancer Research Centre could pave the way for new drugs which limit the protein's ability to turn a normal cell cancerous.

MDM2 is a protein that usually controls the activity of a key cancer preventing protein called p53. But in certain cells, the biochemical ratio between MDM2 and p53 can be upset, causing MDM2 to instead function as a cancer-promoting agent.

The project's lead investigator, Dr Kathryn Ball, a researcher at the University, explains: "One way in which MDM2 controls the p53 protein is by activating its destruction and we are interested in understanding how this happens at a biochemical level.

"In the current study, funded by Cancer Research UK, we have identified protein fragments which can bind to MDM2, inhibiting its activity. These fragments could be a good template for drugs designed to hinder the role of MDM2 in the p53 destruction pathway. We hope our findings may lead to improved treatments for a broad range of cancer types."