Health Meaning

This week, researchers described an ambitious project to explore 1,000 years of the disease and the health of people buried since the year 1039 in a cemetery along with a wellness pilgrimage route known in Tuscany, Italy. By studying the skeletons of farmers, peasants, monks and nobles, paleopathologists hope to discover what diseases killed people from medieval times to the present day and how their general health has fluctuated during the famine, war, climate change and other challenges. They also use new tools, such as the ancient DNA to trace the origins and evolution of deadly pathogens that cause plague, tuberculosis, cholera and other diseases. Why is it important to study the health of our ancestors? What we learn from the study of ancient diseases? And what impact can study the evolution of pathogens have the treatment or prevention of modern epidemics?

Join us on Thursday, December 12, at 15 pm EST on this page for a live video chat. Our guests will be two experts on the study of ancient diseases with two different methods, using ancient DNA, or the study of fossil bones. Make sure you let your requests for them in the comment box below.

fiber consumed in fruits and vegetables appears to help calm the activity of overzealous immune system which leads to conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, Crohn's disease, and perhaps even colon cancer. Now it seems that a diet rich in fiber can also repel asthma, an inflammatory disease that constricts the airways of the lung, changing how certain immune cells are produced in bone marrow.

When we eat abundant fruit and vegetables, the bacteria that occur naturally in our intestines help us to digest the fiber. Microbes are fiber "soluble" such as pectin found in apples, pears, berries, citrus fruits and onions and simmer in specific types of fatty acids that interact with immune cells, helping to keep the inflammation under control. This anti-inflammatory effect extends beyond the gastrointestinal tract is less clear. But fatty acids in question are able to circulate through the bloodstream, may clash with the immune cells throughout the body.

This could mean that the influences of dietary fiber other inflammatory diseases such as asthma. It is known that asthma has increased in westernized countries since the 1960s, in which the amount of fiber consumed also decreased. In addition, asthma is not as common in less developed areas, such as Africa, where fruit and vegetables are a big part of the diet.

To test a possible link, Benjamin Marsland immunologist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and colleagues put one group of mice a diet low in fiber. After 2 weeks, the researchers sniff the animals a derivative of dust mite allergen (a key trigger allergy and asthma human). These mice showed exaggerated asthmatic responses, including inflammatory compounds in the lungs and narrowed airways causing wheezing and shortness of breath so familiar to asthmatic patients.

Moreover, mice that ate a diet rich in pectin for 2 weeks to obtain the extract of dust mites showed reduced inflammatory response. The levels of immune cells called eosinophils and immunoglobulin E antibodies, both generally increased in allergy and asthma have been almost halved, and the mice showed less constricted their airways.

To see if intestinal bacteria were responsible for the benefits of fiber to mediation, the scientists analyzed the mouse droppings on a normal diet, low and high fiber. In animals given pectin types of bacteria most able to produce anti-inflammatory fatty acids were about twice as common than other most common bacteria in a diet low in fiber. A closer examination, the researchers found proportionately higher amounts of fatty acids not only in the stools of pectin-eat mice, but also in their blood.

were the fatty acids in the blood tells the immune system to reverse, and this message was enough to call trigger an asthma attack? To find out, the researchers injected mice with propionate, one of these fatty acids. After 2 weeks, the rodents again showed reduced inflammatory markers and less airway constriction in response to treatment of dust mites, the team announced today online Nature Medicine . In addition, the key immune cells called dendritic cells behave differently. The dendritic cells can either reduce the activity of the immune system or rise of the response, depending on the signals they send to other types of immune cells. In mice on a diet rich in fiber, dendritic cells were less able to turn on cells called effector, which are key players in allergic asthma in mice and humans.

In the final phase of the experiment, the researchers found that the mice that received propionate were actually produce more immature cells "precursors" that develop into dendritic cells that protect against asthma . "Our study is the first to show that diet can influence the production of immune cells in the bone marrow, which could have important implications as the precursors of immune cells leave the bone marrow and spread to tissues throughout the body including the lungs, "Marsland said.

by Gary Huffnagle, an immunologist at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, researchers predicted that if compounds produced by bacteria influence the asthma, they would in the lung tissue. the channel connection events dietary changes, altered metabolism of the intestinal bacteria, a change in the production of immune cells in the bone marrow, and the relief of inflammation asthma is an exciting development, he said. "No one has ever put that together before. The study is a great convergence of observations. "

rigorous scientific work must be done, Marsland believes, to check whether dietary supplements, including purified propionate, or similar fatty acid, may be beneficial for people with asthma or those who do not have access to fruits and vegetables. at the same time, he said, a balanced diet high in fiber is the best way to get the anti-inflammatory benefit.

Johnson & Johnson announced an unusual partnership today with Yale University, where he will share the raw data most of its clinical trials. The project of Yale University Open Data Access (aptly nicknamed YODA) will "review requests from investigators and physicians seeking access to anonymous data on clinical trials of Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson" wrote the company in a press release. YODA The team will then decide that researchers can access the information for their own studies.

The announcement caused a small explosion of new. Forbes wrote that "First, it will only include products division of drugs, but it will be expanded to include devices and consumer products." Janssen Pharmaceuticals extend the range, including pills for acid reflux, schizophrenia, pain, and birth control, among others. the data to share with YODA go well beyond the study design and results, and include de-identified information on each volunteer. YODA is led by Harlan Krumholz, a cardiologist who has long pushed for more access to data in clinical research. (in 2010, Forbes named him "the Doctor stronger you never heard of. ")

Johnson & Johnson, of course, will get to decide what it sends to New Haven, even if it is put into wide release pledge. It's a bit in contrast to a brewing controversy in Europe where drug regulators hope to release the same kind of raw data submitted to it by pharmaceutical companies. This effort has been met with repression and prosecution. But it is part of a broader change in the US and Europe, where some researchers and regulators are increasingly frustrated by the secrecy surrounding many drug trials, and want to get the information outdoors.

It is called the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, after the region where almost all patients have been reported. But the name can prove to be a misnomer. A new study has found the virus in camels from Sudan and Ethiopia, suggesting that Africa, too, hosting the pathogen. This means more MERS can sicken humans than previously thought and perhaps already the most likely to trigger a pandemic.

MERS has sickened 183 people and killed 80, most of them in Saudi Arabia. If a couple have occurred in countries outside the region, such as France and the UK, but these clusters all started with a patient who had traveled to the Middle East before becoming ill.

Scientists have found more evidence implicating camels in the spread of the disease. They found that a large percentage of camels in the Middle East have antibodies against MERS in their blood, while other animals, such as goats and sheep, do not. The researchers also isolated RNA from MERS virus camel nose levies in Qatar, and earlier this week, they showed that the virus was circulating in the camels to Saudi Arabia for at least 2 decades.

Malik Peiris, a researcher in infectious diseases at Hong Kong University, and colleagues have expanded the research in Africa. In an article published last year, they showed that camels in Egypt made antibodies against MERS. For the new study, they took samples from four slaughterhouses around Egypt; Again they found antibodies against MERS in the blood of 48 of 52 camels they were tested. But the most interesting results came from making 110 camels nose samples. They found MERS RNA in four animals that had been shipped from Sudan and Ethiopia

Peiris warns that it is unclear whether the camels infected picked up the virus in Sudan and Ethiopia or their last trip in Egypt. Slaughterhouses could help MERS spread as live poultry markets are for influenza, he said. "You can not point the finger on exactly where these viruses came," he said. "But I would be very surprised if you can not find the virus in large parts of Africa."

If so, it changes the picture considerably MERS. No human cases of MERS were reported from Egypt or elsewhere in Africa, but if camels are infected, they may very well happen, said Marion Koopmans, a researcher of infectious diseases at Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. "It would be important to examine systematically in this," she wrote in an email. "The health authorities really need to test patients with severe pneumonia throughout Africa for MERS," Peiris said.

the researchers were able to sequence the virus of one of the camels almost completely, and it is more than 99% identical to viruses found in people. "I would be very surprised if this virus can not infect humans," said Christian Drosten, a virologist at the University of Bonn in Germany. But the virus also shows some interesting differences from samples of known camels, he said. "We have to analyze carefully in the coming days, but it seems that this sequence expands the viral directory found in camel," he said. If the virus found in camels show more genetic variation than those isolated from man, who is a strong new evidence that camels infect humans, not the reverse.

Anthony Mounts, the point person for MERS at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland, said it is very likely that human MERS cases occur in Africa. "Wherever we find [infected] camels, there is a good chance that we will find [human] case if one looks closely," he said. And humans can be exposed to camels in Africa much more often as in the Middle East: There were about 260,000 camels in Saudi Arabia in 2012, but nearly one million in Ethiopia and 4.8 million in Sudan, according to the UN Food and agriculture the UN. human cases are, the more the risk that the virus will one day learn to become easily transmissible among people, which could trigger a pandemic.

the researchers also looked at the blood of 179 people working in slaughterhouses camels for antibodies against the MERS virus, but found none. This shows that the virus is rarely able to infect humans, Peiris said. "what we now know is the result of these rare transmissions."

When an article published on March 17 asked if the fats from fish oils or vegetables are healthier than meat or butter, he quickly made headlines around the world; after all, the study seemed to demystify the cornerstone of many dietary guidelines. But a new version of the publication was to be published shortly after his appearance on the site of Annals of Internal Medicine to correct several errors. And although the first author of the study held by the findings, a number of critical scientific paper and even calling the authors to retract.

"They have done a huge amount of damage," says Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "I think the withdrawal to promoting similar release should be considered. "

health officials have long argued that so-called saturated fats, found in butter, meat, chocolate and cheese, increase the risk of heart disease, and that people should instead eat more unsaturated fatty acids, the type that dominates in fish, nuts, and vegetable oils.

in the new study, a meta-analysis, scientists from Europe and the United States together 72 individual studies to assess how different fats influence the risk of heart attack or other cardiac events such as angina. These included trials in which participants were assigned randomly to different diets, as well as observational studies in which the consumption of fatty acids of participants was determined by asking them about their diet or measuring fatty acids circulating in the blood.

When the researchers compared those with the highest and the lowest saturated fat intake, they found no significant difference between the risk of heart disease or other cardiac events. Similarly, they found no significant difference between those who consume high or low amounts of supposedly healthy unsaturated fats. "Current data do not clearly taking guidelines that encourage high consumption of polyunsaturated fats and low intake of saturated total fat," the authors conclude.

But even before the document was published , other scientists began to report the errors, said first author Rajiv Chowdhury, an epidemiologist at the University of Cambridge in the UK. for example, the authors took a study on omega-3 fats, a type of unsaturated fats, to show a slightly negative effect, while in fact he showed a strong positive effect. the correction means that the meta-analysis now shows the people who report eating a lot of this particular fat have much less heart disease ; previously, he said there was no significant effect

critics have also pointed out two major studies on omega-6 fatty acids that the authors missed.. Errors "demonstrate research of poor quality and are wondering if there is more that has not been detected," wrote Jim Mann, a researcher at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, writes in an e-mail. "had I been the referee I would have recommended rejection."

Mann and others say the paper has other problems, too. for example, it does not deal that people who reduced their consumption of saturated fats consumed instead. a 09 study concluded that replacing saturated fats with carbohydrates was no benefit, while replacing them with polyunsaturated fatty acids reduced the risk of heart disease. Many scientists say that should have been mentioned in the new document.

Chowdhury said the conclusions of the paper are valid, however, even after the corrections. randomized clinical trials are the "hard "such evidence, he says, and they do not show a significant effect of saturated and unsaturated fats. But even one of the authors of the article, Dariush Mozaffarian of Harvard School of Public Health, admits he is not happy with the main conclusion that the evidence does not benefit from polyunsaturated fats. "Personally, I think the results suggest that fish and vegetable oils should be encouraged," he said. But the document was drafted by a group of authors, he says. "And science is not a dictatorship . "

another study author, Emanuele Di Angelantonio from the University of Cambridge, said the main problem is that the paper was" misinterpreted by the media. "" We are not saying the guidelines are false and people can eat as much saturated fat as they want. We say that there is no strong support for the guidelines and we need more good tests. "

Willett said the correct paper is not enough." It is good that they set the record, but it has caused massive confusion and the public has not heard about the correction. "the paper should be removed, he said.

the controversy should serve as warning about the meta-analyzes, Willett says. These studies compile data from many individual studies to get a clear result. "it looks like a summary of scanning all the data it receives much attention," says Willett. "But these days meta-analyzes are often made by people who are not familiar with the field, who do not have primary data or do not make the effort to get it." And while the drug trials are often very similar in design, making it easy to combine their results, nutritional studies vary greatly in how they are implemented. "Often the strengths and weaknesses of the individual studies are lost," says Willett. "He is dangerous."

After taking an antibiotic or catching an intestinal bug, many of our belts down probiotic drinks restore the "natural balance" of bodies in the intestines. Probiotics are one of the food industry's most dynamic products now added to yoghurts, drinks and baby food. Still, not everyone needs to stay healthy. A new study of the gut bacteria of hunter-gatherers in Africa found that they completely lack a bacterium that is a key ingredient in most probiotics and considered healthy food. In addition, the Hadza are not suffering from colon cancer, colitis, Crohn's disease, or other diseases of the colon that are found in humans eating modern diets in western countries.

The new study is the first to report on the gut bacteria of hunter-gatherers who hunt and forage for most of their food, just as our ancestors did before invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago. So far, studies on intestinal bacteria have focused on people living in industrialized countries, many eat diets rich in sugar, salt and fat. These regimes have changed the type of bacteria in our guts, known as the microbiome. Gut bacteria react quickly to changes in the diet of their hosts, and humans who live in rural areas and eating less processed foods have more diverse microbiomes. Conversely, the researchers also found an association between less diversity in the microbiome and disease of the colon, such as Crohn's disease and colon cancer.

In the new study, an international team worked together to collect and analyze bacteria in stool samples from one of the last hunter-gatherers of the remaining communities in the world, the Hadza of Tanzania. As part of his thesis project, Stephanie Schnorr, a graduate student at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, had the unenviable task of asking the Hadza for fecal samples. But when the interpreter explained what she wanted, she got lucky when one elder, named Panda, said: "We normally give ground. We will give him instead. "

Once Schnorr had samples of 27 Hadza, aged 8 to 70, she sent them in frozen or dried at the University of Bologna in Italy, where a specialized team and extraction sequencing the DNA of bacteria. the team identified the bacteria using the DNA of the Hadza and also analyzed the type of nutrients in feces, including microbial metabolites, which are fatty acids that microbes use in the gut to get their energy. when they compared the DNA from the Hadza with those of the Italians, the team found that the Hadza have an intestinal ecosystem more diverse microbe. in addition, when they also examined these bacteria in two groups of farmers in Africa, they found that the Hadza were the only people who did not have a type of bacteria commonly added to probiotic drinks known as Bifidobacterium - Perhaps because it is associated with dairy products, the Hadza do not consume. The Hadza also had high levels of bacteria as Treponema , which is considered a sign of disease in Western populations because different types are associated with systemic lupus and periodontitis, and the syphilis. Yet Hadza experience almost no autoimmune diseases, obesity or diabetes, which are associated with imbalances in the various types of intestinal bacteria.

"We must redefine our notions of what is considered healthy and unhealthy, since these distinctions are clearly addicted to food," says Alyssa Crittenden, nutritional anthropologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and lead author of the study, which appears online today in Nature Communications .

other surprise is that Hadza men and women had significant differences in the type and amount of intestinal bacteria a sex difference ever observed before. the disparity reflects the sexual division of male Hadza hunting work and eat meat and honey, while women primarily dig tuberous plants. both sexes eat more what they see, and women eat more fibrous tubers. "We think that bacteria women are particularly good at digesting fiber," said Amanda Henry palaeobiologist of Max Planck. The team is currently testing the Hadza intestinal bacteria in laboratory studies to see if they are more efficient to break the fiber that Westerners of gut bacteria.

Other researchers also note that previous studies suggested that humans had less diversity in their gut microbiome on average than other primates. But this may be partly because researchers have not collected stool samples of human subjects eating different diets and living in a wide range of habitats. "This is a really important study because it helps us to find the range of variation in the microbiome in humans," says Steven Leigh biological anthropologist at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

This information will help researchers understand how our ancestors adapted to new habitats and diets that spread around the world because their intestinal bacteria co-evolved with them as their diet has changed. and it can be essential to understand that the spectrum diversity and how different species of bacteria interact with each other (and, perhaps, resist antibiotics) before consuming probiotic products on an "industrial scale", as if a single type, Leigh said.

Every day our cells produce small amounts of a molecule which, in higher doses, could be the key to lead a longer and healthier life. A team of researchers has discovered that this molecule increases the lifespan of worms over 50%, raising the possibility that it will increase human longevity.

"I think the data is really compelling," says molecular geneticist William Mair of the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. "They have a strong effect of lifetime use the [compound]."

The way a long life does not lead through the kitchen. Researchers have known for decades that when animals eat considerably less than undergo what is known as caloric restriction or dietary restriction they live longer and delay or prevent age-related problems such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes. But if you intend to try at home, there are a few catches. On the one hand, scientists have not confirmed the benefits of calorie restriction in primates, including humans. While eating less helps monkeys age, it is difficult to know whether calorie restriction increases their lifespan. And survive on far fewer calories is no picnic. "The problem is that this requirement is so strict that almost no one can do it," says Jing Huang of the University of California, Los Angeles.

Therefore, the researchers tested other ways to slow aging and prolong life, such as resveratrol grape extract and immunosuppressive drug rapamycin. Although both have shown promise in experimental animals rapamycin increases the life of middle-aged mice-they've disadvantages also represented. Rapamycin, e.g., blends sugar metabolism and can lead to diabetes. Huang and his colleagues concluded that because aging depends on the metabolism, the compounds produced in the cells by metabolic reactions known as metabolites, may also increase the lifetime.

The researchers tested their idea on nematodes, worms long millimeter commonly used in longevity studies. They hit the jackpot with the first molecule they tried, α-ketoglutarate (α-KG), an intermediate in a metabolic cycle that helps a cell extract energy from food. When the researchers added the compound to the culture dishes worms, the animals survived up to 70% longer than normal, the team announced today online Nature . Animals transported about 50% of α-KG in their cells than to witnesses. As caloric restriction, the α-KG supplement postponed the physical deterioration of worms.

To understand how α-KG works, Huang and his colleagues used a technique they developed that identifies proteins in human cells that interacts with a-KG. The results showed that the compound binds to the ATP synthase, an enzyme that makes ATP, main carrier molecule of the cell's energy. ATP synthase lies in the power generation structures called mitochondria. By studying the mitochondria of cow heart cells, the researchers found that the α-KG blocks ATP synthase, turning down the metabolism of the cell.

When the researchers tracked more cellular effects of α-KG, they discovered that indirectly inhibits a protein called TOR which measures the supply of nutrients and scientists suspect, to determine how speed we age. Alpha-KG "can be an inner fountain of youth, if you like, which can be adjusted to counteract aging," says Huang. Caloric restriction causes side effects in animals such as reduced reproduction, but researchers not see these problems in the worms that ate α-KG.

mitochondrial biochemist Michael Ristow of the Swiss federal Institute of technology in Zurich said that the molecular mechanism of this effect took him by surprise. He noted that d other studies have shown that calorie restriction increases the synthesis of ATP by making more efficient mitochondria, so you had predicted that α-KG would do the same. "that's what makes it interesting," he said. "It is unexpected."

Dietary supplements that contain α-KG and supposedly strengthen the muscles are already on the market. The study drops a barbell on their use, however, suggesting that α-KG inhibits TOR, thus counteracting muscle growth. "If people take this as a muscle builder, one might think that this does not cause the desired effect," says Mair.

There is no guarantee that α-KG will have the same effects on aging in people that's in worms. and before researchers can not even answer that question, they will need to determine if the compound also extends the life of laboratory organisms such as flies and mice. However, Mair said, researchers have long hoped to identify small molecules that slow human aging and the study "is the next step towards this goal."

an opinion column in the edition today of New York Times addresses a long tension in the world of clinical trial: the reluctance to include older individuals, even if they 're most of the population to take medication. bar regularly tests the elderly in their ranks, in part because researchers and regulators fear that medication older you are, the more likely you are to have complicated health conditions that are testing new drugs more difficult. The opinion cites an article in The Journal of the American Medical Association in 07, which revealed that nearly 40% of trials in big name magazines between 1994 and 06 excluded over 65

It is time to change the system, say the authors. "Older Americans are our patients, too. We can not leave them out," write doctor Donna Zulman and psychologist Keith Humphreys, working at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, and the health care system for veterans . Extrapolating the results of young people to older is risky, because biology is moving with age. Moreover, "old age is not a reliable proxy for poor health," Humphreys Zulman and support. Researchers can even exclude voluntary test if they have certain conditions, but health "not only on their age."

university pushed a cautious sigh of relief when the European Medicines Agency (EMA) announced yesterday that he would soften project controversial rules to open the clinical trial data to public scrutiny. In particular, the agency said it will allow researchers "to download, save and print the test data for academic research purposes and not commercial." A previous plan would have allowed only to view the data on their computer screens.

last month, researchers and the European Ombudsman criticized the proposed agency policy for data sharing as too restrictive and impractical. Today, they welcomed the announced changes, but sounded a note of caution, like other controversial elements are likely to remain in the final text.

"This is a good thing. It means the researchers will be able to review, compare and share information on clinical trials. To allow researchers access to information on clinical trials on the screen only have obstructed their work, "said Síle Lane, director of campaigns in the UK pressure group Sense about science, in a statement today.

But in an email sent to science Insider today, European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly said she did not know if the agency responded to its remaining concerns and "consider carefully" the final text. The draft rules "imposed broad legal requirements" on data access and use, and a "limited only authorized access to clinical trial data by expunge important information," says O'Reilly.

"The Ombudsman remains puzzled as to why EMA has abandoned its original policy the Disclosure Project in 2012 and replaced by a different political project, more in line with industry wishes pharmaceutical, "his email statement added.

spokesman EMA Martin Harvey-Allchurch said the policy stems from a long consultation process." We listened and we tried to come what we think is a viable solution, "he said. the final text should be adopted in mid-July, before the new rules are implemented in October.

An effort at the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to diagnose mysterious ailments is expanding. Representatives of the Undiagnosed Diseases Program (UDP), administered by the Institute (NHGRI) of the NIH National Human Genome Research, announced today that six medical centers will join the program, the formation of a network of clinical sites to investigate on refractory cases of patients across the country. The program aims to provide patients with a diagnosis and treatment as sometimes waited while building data for scientists studying the genetic basis of rare diseases

The new sites-Baylor College of Medicine. Harvard teaching hospitals (Boston children, of Brigham and Women, and the Massachusetts General); Duke University; Stanford University; the University of California, Los Angeles; and the Centre will Vanderbilt University Medical each receive a 4-year grant of approximately $ 7.2 million to participate. As the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, who served as a pilot site, the centers host the patients for about a week at a time, performing many clinical tests and genetic sequencing to search for an explanation of their symptoms.

Harvard Medical School in Boston, who received an award of $ 9 million in January to act as a "focal point" facilitate collaboration between researchers and will make the data widely available to patients through public deposits such as the NIH database of genotypes and phenotypes, said Anastasia Wise, director of the genomic medicine NHGRI Division, at a press conference today .

since the program launched in May 08, he received requests for about 30 patients, 750 who were selected for the study. "There was never a shortage of references to the program," said UDP Director William Gahl today. (Indeed, in 2011, the program temporarily stopped accepting applications to catch the flood of inquiries.) The roadmap program for medical sleuthing depends on how you define a diagnosis, Gahl said. Between 25% and 50% of cases are considered "solved" based on clinical diagnosis, molecular, biochemical or so about a quarter are closed without reply. "You can see that this is hard work, in which we fail sometimes," he added.

The program now admits about 150 patients a year at the NIH Clinical Center, but plans to host 50 per year to each of the seven sites by summer 2017.