'Intensifed' Global Effort Needed to Further Cut Child Deaths: Report

THURSDAY, Sept. 19 (HealthDay News) -- Even in the best-case scenario, only 15 countries are projected to meet targets to reduce child deaths by 2035, a new study says.

The targets were set by international health agencies as a follow-up to the Millennium Development Goals,a United Nations initiative that expires in 2015.

Rates of child and mother deaths have fallen in most countries since 2000, when the Millennium Development Goals were set. However, efforts to improve mothers' and children's health must intensify to keep achieving significant reductions in the number of child deaths in low- and middle-income countries, according to the authors of the study, which appears Sept. 19 in The Lancet.

"While falling rates of maternal and child deaths are to be welcomed, our analysis shows that if historical trends continue, there will still be 5.4 million deaths in children under 5 in 2035," lead author Dr. Neff Walker, of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a journal news release.

"This number could be more than halved if all countries were able to match the performance of countries which have made the best improvements in recent years," Walker added. "Governments -- both of the countries most affected by maternal and child deaths, and of nations providing development assistance -- must redouble their efforts to deliver known and proven interventions at high and sustained levels and search for new interventions that will save the lives of more children."

He and his colleagues analyzed data from 69 low- and middle-income nations. Fifty-eight of the countries included in the study were from 75 "Countdown to 2015" countries, which account for more than 90 percent of all mother and child deaths worldwide.

"Countdown to 2015" is a movement of academics, governments, international agencies, health-care professional associations, donors, and nongovernmental organizations worldwide that works in partnership with The Lancet to support progress toward meeting the Millennium goals.

The researchers used the results from the 69 countries to project deaths to 2035 for all Countdown countries except South Sudan, for which there was too little data.

If current trends continue, the number of countries where the death rate for children younger than age 5 would be less than 20 per 1,000 would increase from four of the 74 Countdown countries in 2010 to nine in 2035, according to the study. However, if all countries matched the improvements seen in the best-performing countries, 15 of the 74 Countdown countries would be able to achieve that lower death rate.

Put another way, the number of under-5 deaths in the 74 Countdown countries would decrease from 7.6 million in 2010 to 5.4 million in 2035 if current trends continue, and fall to 2.3 million deaths if all countries could match the improvements in the best-performing countries.

"Both malaria and HIV interventions were introduced in the late 1990s, and benefited from high financial investment and political commitment. They are examples of what is possible, and of what needs to be done for other highly effective maternal and child health interventions," Walker said.

"The challenge to the global public health community is clear: Ways to reach more women and children with the full range of effective interventions need to be identified," he added.

More information

The World Health Organization has more about child deaths worldwide.

Copyright c 2013?HealthDay. All rights reserved.

View the original article here

E-readers can make reading easier for those with dyslexia

Sep. 18, 2013 — As e-readers grow in popularity as convenient alternatives to traditional books, researchers at the Smithsonian have found that convenience may not be their only benefit. The team discovered that when e-readers are set up to display only a few words per line, some people with dyslexia can read more easily, quickly and with greater comprehension. Their findings are published in the Sept. 18 issue of the journal PLOS ONE.

An element in many cases of dyslexia is called a visual attention deficit. It is marked by an inability to concentrate on letters within words or words within lines of text. Another element is known as visual crowding--the failure to recognize letters when they are cluttered within the word. Using short lines on an e-reader can alleviate these issues and promote reading by reducing visual distractions within the text.

"At least a third of those with dyslexia we tested have these issues with visual attention and are helped by reading on the e-reader," said Matthew H. Schneps, director of the Laboratory for Visual Learning at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and lead author of the research. "For those who don't have these issues, the study showed that the traditional ways of displaying text are better."

An earlier study by Schneps tracked eye movements of dyslexic students while they read, and it showed the use of short lines facilitated reading by improving the efficiency of the eye movements. This second study examined the role the small hand-held reader had on comprehension, and found that in many cases the device not only improved speed and efficiency, but improved abilities for the dyslexic reader to grasp the meaning of the text.

The team tested the reading comprehension and speed of 103 students with dyslexia who attend Landmark High School in Boston. Reading on paper was compared with reading on small hand-held e-reader devices, configured to lines of text that were two-to-three words long. The use of an e-reader significantly improved speed and comprehension in many of the students. Those students with a pronounced visual attention deficit benefited most from reading text on a handheld device versus on paper, while the reverse was true for those who did not exhibit these issues. The small screen on a handheld device displaying few words (versus a full sheet of paper) is believed to narrow and concentrate the reader's focus, which controls visual distraction.

"The high school students we tested at Landmark had the benefit of many years of exceptional remediation, but even so, if they have visual attention deficits they will eventually hit a plateau, and traditional approaches can no longer help," said Schneps. "Our research showed that the e-readers help these students reach beyond those limits."

These findings suggest that this reading method can be an effective intervention for struggling readers and that e-readers may be more than new technological gadgets: They also may be educational resources and solutions for those with dyslexia.

View the original article here

Alzheimer's brain scan advances

18 September 2013 Last updated at 20:29 ETBy James Gallagher Health and science reporter, BBC News

Pioneering brain imaging that can detect the build-up of destructive proteins linked to Alzheimer's has been developed by Japanese scientists.

It could lead to new ways of diagnosing the condition and of testing the effectiveness of new drugs.

The technology, reported in the journal Neuron, can identify inside a living brain clumps of a protein called tau that is closely linked to the disease.

Alzheimer's Research UK said it was promising work.

Alzheimer's disease is a problem for researchers trying to come up with a cure. The brain starts to die years before any symptoms are detected, which means drugs are probably given too late.

A diagnosis of Alzheimer's cannot be made with absolute certainty until a patient has died and their brain is examined. It is also not 100% clear what is the cause of the dementia and what are just symptoms.

One protein, called tau, is very closely linked to the disease, with tangles of tau thought to be one way in which brain cells are killed.

The team, lead by the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba, used positron emission tomography to build a 3D picture of tau in the brain.

They developed a chemical that could bind to tau and then be detected during a brain scan.

Finding tau in the brain

Tests on mice and people with suspected Alzheimer's showed the technology could detect tau.

Dr Makoto Higuchi, from the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Japan, said: "Positron emission tomography images of tau accumulation... provide robust information on brain regions developing or at risk for tau-induced neuronal death."

The research is at an early stage, but it could eventually lead to an actual test for Alzheimer's disease.

It might also allow researchers to closely follow the impact drugs that affect tau have on the brain.

Another protein - beta amyloid - is also linked to Alzheimer's and can be detected in similar tests.

Dr Eric Karran, director of research at Alzheimer's Research UK, said: "This promising early study highlights a potential new method for detecting tau - a key player in both Alzheimer's and frontotemporal dementia - in the living brain.

"With new drugs in development designed to target tau, scans capable of visualising the protein inside the brain could be important for assessing whether treatments in clinical trials are hitting their target.

"If this method is shown to be effective, such a scan could also be a useful aid for providing people with an accurate diagnosis, as well as for monitoring disease progression."

View the original article here

Elite Army units to stop taking anti-malarial drug

WASHINGTON (AP) — The top doctor for Green Berets and other elite Army commandos has told troops to immediately stop taking mefloquine, an anti-malaria drug found to cause permanent brain damage in rare cases.

The ban among special operations forces is the latest development in a long-running controversy over mefloquine. The drug was developed by the Army in the 1970s and has been taken by millions of travelers and people in the military over the years. As alternatives were developed, it fell out of favor as the front-line defense against malaria, a mosquito-borne disease that international health officials say kills roughly 600,000 people a year.

The new prohibition among special operations forces follows a July 29 safety announcement by the Food and Drug Administration that it had strengthened warnings about neurologic side effects associated with the drug. The FDA added a boxed warning to the drug label, the most serious kind of warning, saying neurologic side effects like dizziness, loss of balance and ringing in the ears may become permanent.

The drug's other side effects include anxiety, depression and hallucinations — conditions that some military families over the years believe prompted psychotic behavior in their loved ones, including killings and suicides.

Quoting the FDA's July safety warning, the Surgeon General's Office of the Army Special Operations Command sent a message to commanders and medical personnel last Friday ordering a halt in prescribing mefloquine for malaria prevention for the approximately 25,000 Green Berets, Rangers, Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations soldiers, command spokesman Lt. Col. Dave Connolly said.

The message also told commanders and medical workers to assess the possibility that some of their troops have been sickened by the drug but may mistakenly have been thought to be malingering or to have post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychological problems. That's because symptoms of toxic levels of mefloquine in the brain may mimic or be mistaken for other disorders. The message said questions about suspected cases of mefloquine toxicity should be submitted though the War Related Illness and Injury Center of the Veterans Affairs Department, which has been studying the issue.

"What this is is a wake-up call telling troops, 'Look, you've been misinformed,'" said Remington Nevin, a former Army physician and epidemiologist who studies the psychiatric effects of anti-malarial toxicity at the Department of Mental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Nevin is a critic of military policy on mefloquine, which he says the Pentagon should have stopped using years ago, particularly because it confounds diagnosis of PTSD and traumatic brain injury, two signature health issues of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Others point out that the drug has been effective in preventing malaria and many people have preferred it because it is less expensive and has to be taken less often than alternatives.

"I take mefloquine when I travel," said Dr. David Sullivan of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. "For 80 percent, 90 percent of the people, they have no trouble with it."

Mefloquine is still prescribed to the traveling public and to volunteers in the Peace Corps, which also has reduced its use.

The new prohibition among commando units goes beyond guidance from top Defense Department health officials, who say mefloquine use by the different branches of the military has been dramatically reduced in recent years but is still given to troops who can't use alternatives.

The drug was given to 2,417 uniformed and civilian defense personnel and family members in the first seven months of this year, compared with more than 20,000 in all of 2009.

The Pentagon says it doesn't have data on the number troops who may have suffered ill effects from the drug. But two days after the FDA announcement, the department began a review "of potential neuropsychological effects on service members who were prescribed mefloquine," said Lt. Col. Cathy Wilkinson, a defense spokeswoman.

The review is expected to be finished in January.

Copyright c 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

View the original article here

Why parents think your partner isn't good enough

Sep. 18, 2013 — It is common for parents to influence mate choice -- from arranged marriages to more subtle forms of persuasion -- but they often disagree with their children about what makes a suitable partner. A new study has found an evolutionary explanation for why some parents try to control who their children pair up with.

The study, involving a University of Bristol researcher and published today in the journal Evolution & Human Behavior, shows that this conflict over mate choice may be rooted in an evolutionary conflict over resources.

Dr Tim Fawcett, a research fellow in Bristol's School of Biological Sciences, teamed up with scientists at the University of Groningen to investigate how the mate preferences of parents and children co-evolve. They found that parents tend to give more resources to children whose partners provide less support, and that this leads to a conflict over mate choice.

The team built a computer model to simulate the evolution of parental behaviour when their daughter is searching for a partner. The model shows that, typically, parents should prefer a son-in-law who is more caring and supportive than their daughter would otherwise choose.

Dr Fawcett said: "The conflict over parental resources is central to understanding why parents and children disagree in mate choice."

The model predicts that, when parents distribute resources equally among their children, their mate preferences should coincide exactly. But when parents contribute more to children whose partners invest less, a conflict arises.

Dr Fawcett explained: "Parents are equally related to all of their children, whereas children value themselves more than their siblings -- so each child wants to get more than their fair share of parental resources." This means that the children are willing to settle for a mate who is less caring than their parents would ideally like.

The new theory, if correct, sheds light on an intriguing aspect of human behaviour and may help to explain patterns of variation across cultures. Piet van den Berg, lead author on the study, said: "Our model predicts that the conflict will be stronger when fathers rather than mothers control resources, but this remains to be tested."

In future work, the scientists plan to investigate preferences for different aspects of quality. "Surveys show that children tend to place more importance on physical attractiveness, smell and sense of humour, whereas parents care more about social class and family background," said Mr van den Berg. "We don't yet understand the reason for this difference, but it probably has something to do with our evolutionary history."

View the original article here

Dyslexia: E-readers 'more effective'

18 September 2013 Last updated at 20:31 ET

A person with dyslexia has difficulty "decoding" words

Short lines of text on electronic devices may help some dyslexic readers increase their reading speed and comprehension, research suggests.

US scientists studied 100 pupils reading on paper and e-readers.

On the device, those who struggled most with sight-word reading read faster and those with limited visual attention spans had better comprehension.

The ability to display text in short lines with fewer words helped pupils focus on each word, they told Plos One.

Continue reading the main story

Dyslexia

• Dyslexia is one of the most common learning difficulties
• In England, 4%-8% of schoolchildren thought to have some degree of dyslexia
• Dyslexia affects people of all ethnic backgrounds, although a person's native language can play a role
• A language where there is a clear connection between how a word is written and how it sounds, and consistent grammatical rules, such as Italian and Spanish, can be easier for a person with dyslexia.
• Source: NHS Choices

Lead researcher Dr Matthew Schneps, from the Science Education Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told BBC News: "The key factor that's important in the effect being helpful is that there's a few words per line.

"We think that could apply on paper, the blackboard or on any device."

He said dyslexia came in many varieties, but some people may be helped by adjustments to the text that were visual in nature.

"If people are struggling to read they may want to try to simply blow the text up in their small computer-like device to see if having fewer words helps," he said.

Commenting on the study, the British Dyslexia Association said e-book formats and readers were more accessible as they had a large range of font, size, spacing and colour options.

"They can also instantly provide definitions of words from built-in dictionaries," a representative said.

"Additional text-to-speech software can make them even more accessible and ensure that reading is less challenging and remove the stigma that is so often associated for those who can't read."

View the original article here

Colonoscopy screening every ten years could prevent 40% of colorectal cancers

Sep. 18, 2013 — According to a large, long-term study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), 40% of all colorectal cancers might be prevented if people underwent regular colonoscopy screening. The new research also supports existing guidelines that recommend that people with an average risk of colorectal cancer should have a colonoscopy every 10 years.

The new study helps address previous uncertainty about the effectiveness of colonoscopy in reducing colorectal cancer incidence and mortality -- particularly among people with cancer that originates in the proximal, or upper part of the colon.

The study appears in the September 19, 2013 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Colonoscopy is the most commonly used screening test in the U.S. but there was insufficient evidence on how much it reduces the risk of proximal colon cancer and how often people should undergo the procedure," said Shuji Ogino, co-senior author and associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at HSPH. "Our study provides strong evidence that colonoscopy is an effective technique for preventing cancers of both distal and proximal regions of the colorectum, while sigmoidoscopy alone is insufficient for preventing proximal cancer."

According to the most recent statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 137,000 people in the U.S. were diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2009, and nearly 52,000 died that year from the disease. Colorectal cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer-related death in the nation.

The researchers analyzed data from 88,902 participants in two long-term studies: the Nurses' Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study. Based on data from questionnaires that participants filled out every two years between 1988 and 2008, the researchers obtained information on colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy procedures. They documented 1,815 cases of colorectal cancer and 474 deaths from the disease.

They found that both colonoscopy and sigmoidoscopy -- which screens for tumors in the distal, or lower part of the colorectum -- were associated with decreased risk of either getting colorectal cancer or dying from it. Only colonoscopy decreased the risk for cancers originating in the proximal colon, but not to the degree of its protective effect against distal colorectal cancers. The researchers suggested that colonoscopy's smaller effect in reducing risk for tumors in the proximal colon might be due in part to molecular or biological differences in those cancers.

Other findings include:

• The researchers estimated that if all participants in the study had undergone colonoscopies, 40% of colorectal cancers -- including 61% of distal cancers and 22% of proximal cancers -- would have been prevented.
• Sigmoidoscopy alone is likely insufficient for reducing the incidence or death risk of colorectal cancer that originates in the upper colon.
• People who get a clean bill of health after a colonoscopy have a significantly reduced risk of colorectal cancer for up to 15 years after the procedure, although the data support repeat screening at shorter intervals among individuals with a personal history of adenoma -- a benign tumor of glandular origin that can become malignant over time -- or a family history of colorectal cancer.
• Colorectal cancers diagnosed within five years of a colonoscopy had different molecular characteristics compared with cancers diagnosed more than five years after a colonoscopy, and they may be difficult to detect or completely remove.

"Each year, more than 1.2 million people are diagnosed with colorectal cancer worldwide. Our findings could help improve and strengthen the current guidelines for colorectal cancer screening," said Reiko Nishihara, lead author and research fellow in the Department of Nutrition at HSPH.

View the original article here

Identify new targets for treatment of Sanford-Burnham researchers malignant melanoma.

Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute, scientists announced discovery of an important role in the progression of the play development of genes, enzymes, and inositol phosphorus lipid dependent kinase 1 （ PDK1) and malignant melanoma. It offers new approach to disease treatment available in an advanced online publication gene finding with this life-threatening.

View the original article here

Examining the source behind Sherpa mountain fitness

Sep. 18, 2013 — The Sherpa population in Tibet is world-renowned for their extraordinary high-altitude fitness, as most famously demonstrated by Tenzing Norgay's ability to conquer Mount Everest alongside Sir Edmund Hillary. The genetic adaptation behind this fitness has been a topic of hot debate in human evolution, with recent full genome sequencing efforts completed to look for candidate genes necessary for low oxygen adaptation. However, few have looked at the Sherpa population by sequencing their mitochondrial genomes -- the powerhouse of every cell that helps determine the degree of respiratory fitness by providing 90 percent of the human body's energy demand, as well as controlling the metabolic rate and use of oxygen.

Unlike genomic DNA, the mitochondrial genome is unique inherited only through the mother, is small in size, and has a high mutation rate. Researchers Longli Kang, Li Jin et al. have sequenced 76 Sherpa individuals' complete mitochondrial genomes living in Zhangmu Town, Tibet, and found two mutations that were specific to the Sherpa population. The authors suggest that variants for one recent mutation in particular that was introduced into the Sherpa population about 1,500 years ago, A4e3a, that may be an important adaptation for low oxygen environments, or hypoxic conditions. This mutation is found in an "entry enzyme" stage in the mitochondrial respiratory complex, which may explain the importance of the role of mitochondria in the Sherpa population's ability to adapt to the extreme Himalayan environment.

The authors also shed light on the demographic history of Sherpa population size over evolutionary time, showing a significant expansion from 3,000 to 23,000 around 50,000 years ago, followed by a very recent bottleneck in the past several hundred years that reduced the population from 10,000 to 2,400, matching known historical migration patterns.

Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google:

Other social bookmarking and sharing tools:

---

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Molecular Biology and Evolution, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.

---

Journal Reference:

1. L. Kang, H.-X. Zheng, F. Chen, S. Yan, K. Liu, Z. Qin, L. Liu, Z. Zhao, L. Li, X. Wang, Y. He, L. Jin. MtDNA lineage expansions in Sherpa population suggest adaptive evolution in Tibetan highlands. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2013; DOI: 10.1093/molbev/mst147

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

View the original article here

New role for protein family could provide path to how crop traits are modified

Sep. 18, 2013 — Pioneering new research from a team of Indiana University Bloomington biologists has shown for the first time that a protein which has been long known to be critical for the initiation of protein synthesis in all organisms can also play a role in the regulation of gene expression in some bacteria, and probably land plants as well.

The protein, called translation initiation factor 3, or IF3, is one of three proteins that make up the core structure of the machinery needed to guide the joining of messenger RNAs and ribosomes as protein translation commences. These three proteins have been widely considered to simply operate in a constitutive manner and play little, if any, role in regulating the expression of genes.

The new findings, from the laboratory of David M. Kehoe, professor of biology in the Indiana University Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences, reveals that IF3, in addition to its well-accepted function during translation initiation, also regulates the expression of genes that encode components of the photosynthetic machinery in response to changes in the color of light in the surrounding environment, a process known as "chromatic acclimation."

These photosynthesis genes produce red-pigmented proteins called phycoerythrin in cyanobacteria when the cells are grown in green light and allow these organisms to efficiently absorb the predominant ambient light color for photosynthesis. The team uncovered the novel function of IF3 while searching for mutants that incorrectly regulated phycoerythrin. The discovery of this mutant was at first surprising, because in all other bacteria that have been examined, mutations in infC (the gene that encodes IF3) are lethal.

The team solved this puzzle by uncovering a second infC gene in Fremyella diplosiphon, the model organism for the study of light color responsiveness in cyanobacteria. While both IF3s, which have been named IF3a and IF3b, can act in the traditional role of translation initiation, only IF3a was found to also regulate photosynthetic gene expression.

By exploring the genomes of hundreds of prokaryotes and eukaryotes in collaboration with members of the laboratory of Indiana University Distinguished Professor and Class of 1955 Professor Jeffrey Palmer, the group identified a wide range of species whose genomes appear to have the potential to encode multiple IF3s, with one organism apparently encoding five distinct IF3 family members. And since almost none of these species are capable of chromatic acclimation, Kehoe believes that multiple IF3s must be used to regulate a wide range of environmental and perhaps developmental responses in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

"Particularly interesting was our finding that IF3 families exist in a number of plant species, including commercially important crops," Kehoe said. "This means that new approaches to the modification of traits in agriculturally significant plant species may be possible by manipulating the expression patterns of different IF3 family members."

The discovery has generated excitement for an additional reason. Historically, scientists have had a difficult time studying IF3 because it is so essential for translation initiation that it can not be altered without causing death. In fact, it remains one of the few proteins involved in translation for which no effective antibiotic has been developed. But the ability of the Kehoe team to delete either of the two infC genes in F. diplosiphon without causing lethality will allow the group to modify both IF3a and IF3b at will.

"Now that we know that F. diplosiphon contains two functionally different IF3s, and that each is nonessential, we have a unique opportunity to enhance our understanding of how the structural features of IF3 are related to its function," Kehoe said. "Advancing our understanding of the role of IF3 in translation is likely to provide opportunities to develop new antibiotics that are targeted to this class of proteins."

View the original article here