Research Sees Potential to Make Bone, Muscle From Human Stem Cells

THURSDAY, July 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Scientists say they’ve mapped the biological and chemical signals needed to make bone, heart muscle and 10 other cells types from human stem cells within a matter of days.

The researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine say the ability to quickly coax human embryonic (pluripotent) stem cells to generate such cell types as skeletal muscle, bone and blood vessels would be a major advance in regenerative medicine. Pluripotent means the cells can develop into any type of cell in the body.

The researchers said the findings could potentially enable scientists to repair heart tissue after a heart attack, make cartilage to repair painful joints or produce bone to help people recover from accidents or other trauma.

“Regenerative medicine relies on the ability to turn pluripotent human stem cells into specialized tissue stem cells that can engraft and function in patients,” said study co-senior author Dr. Irving Weissman. He directs Stanford’s Institute for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and its Ludwig Cancer Center.

“It took us years to be able to isolate blood-forming and brain-forming stem cells. Here we used our knowledge of the developmental biology of many other animal models to provide the positive and negative signaling factors to guide the developmental choices of these tissue and organ stem cells. Within five to nine days we can generate virtually all the pure cell populations that we need,” he said in a university news release.

Embryonic stem cells can become any type of cell by responding to cues within the developing embryo. These cues direct the cells to become specific cell types.

For the study, the researchers experimented with different combinations of known signaling molecules to prompt the stem cells to become more specialized precursor, or progenitor, cells.

“We learned during this process that it is equally important to understand how unwanted cell types develop and find a way to block that process while encouraging the developmental path we do want,” said co-lead author Kyle Loh. Loh is a graduate student at Stanford’s medical school.

After carefully guiding the stem cells’ choices, the scientists said they were able to generate bone cell precursors that formed human bone within mice, according to the study published July 14 in Cell. They also produced beating heart muscle cells along with 10 other specific cell types.

“Previously, making these cell types took weeks to months, primarily because it wasn’t possible to accurately control cell fate,” Loh said. “As a result, researchers would end up with a hodgepodge of cell types.”

At each stage of development, the researchers examined the activity of genes within single cells. This allowed them to identify brief, previously unknown patterns that occur as cells become increasingly specialized. They said the process reflects what happens in other animals.

The study authors said their findings could shed new light on how and when birth defects arise.

“Next, we’d like to show that these different human progenitor cells can regenerate their respective tissues and perhaps even ameliorate disease in animal models,” Loh said.

More information

The U.S. National Institutes of Health provides more on stem cells.

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1 in 5 Americans Uses a Tobacco Product

THURSDAY, July 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Despite decades of declines in smoking rates in the United States, one in five Americans still smokes or uses hookahs, e-cigarettes or other tobacco products, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

Cigarettes remain the most popular, but the emergence of hookah and e-cigarette use, especially among younger adults, is cause for concern, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report said.

Findings from the 2013-2014 survey underscore the need “to educate the public about the potential harms of all tobacco product use, including risks associated with occasional use,” CDC researcher Dr. Sean Hu and colleagues wrote.

Noting that e-cigarettes were used most often by 18- to 24-year-olds, the study authors suggested advertising and misleading marketing claims are to blame.

Patricia Folan, director of the Center for Tobacco Control at Northwell Health in Great Neck, N.Y., agreed.

“There is a misperception, fostered by e-cigarette and hookah pipe industry advertising, that these products are not harmful,” Folan said. “These products contain nicotine and other hazardous chemicals.”

Because they’re perceived as a healthier alternative to smoking, Folan said e-cigarettes and hookahs have the potential to dissuade smokers from quitting.

For the report, researchers from the CDC and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration analyzed data from the 2013-2014 National Adult Tobacco Survey.

More than 49 million Americans (21 percent) reported using a tobacco product every day or some days. And more than one-quarter said they used a tobacco product daily, some days, or rarely, the researchers found.

Cigarettes were smoked by 17 percent of Americans; cigars and pipes by about 2 percent. More than 3 percent reported e-cigarette use, while almost 1 percent had tried hookahs (water pipes). And close to 6 million adults reported using smokeless tobacco, the findings showed.

Among the other findings:

• Males and adults up to age 44 were most likely to use a tobacco product.
• Midwesterners and southerners were more likely to use tobacco products than residents of other regions. So were people with less education; singles, including divorced and widowed individuals; poor people; and lesbians, gays and bisexuals.
• Asians and Hispanics were less likely than whites or blacks to use tobacco products.

Progress has been made over the past five decades to curb smoking, but more work is needed, the researchers said.

What will help?

“A combination of comprehensive smoke-free laws, high-impact media campaigns, tobacco price increases, and easy access to quitting assistance,” the study authors suggested.

Such strategies could help reduce tobacco-related disease, which causes smokers to die 10 years earlier than nonsmokers, the CDC said. Cigarettes alone lead to more than 480,000 deaths a year in the United States, including nearly 42,000 deaths from secondhand smoke exposure.

The FDA, which recently gained authority over all tobacco products, intends to ban sales of e-cigarettes and all other tobacco products to minors starting next month.

Hoping to prevent another surge of nicotine addiction, the agency will also require manufacturers to report ingredients and submit new or altered products for approval before bringing them to market.

Folan applauded the new rules.

Hopefully, with the FDA now having the authority to regulate these products, information about ingredients and manufacturing processes will be available to consumers,” she said.

The findings were published in the July 15 issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

More information

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services tells how smoking hurts your health.

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Latin America Zika Outbreak Should ‘Burn Out’ Within 3 Years, Scientists Say

THURSDAY, July 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — A team of British experts in disease outbreaks believes that the Zika epidemic afflicting Latin America will end within three years.

They based their estimate on modeling using available data on the outbreak, which has so far involved thousands of cases of Zika-linked birth defects, mainly in Brazil.

The Zika virus is typically spread by mosquito bites. For most people the health risks are mild. But, maternal infection in pregnancy can trigger microcephaly, a condition where babies are born with too-small heads and neurological issues.

The new analysis uses “all available data to provide an understanding of how the disease will unfold — and allows us to gauge the threat in the imminent future,” lead researcher Neil Ferguson said.

“Our analysis suggests that Zika spread is not containable, but that the epidemic will burn itself out within 2-3 years,” Ferguson, of Imperial College London’s School of Public Health, said in a college news release.

Reporting July 14 in the journal Science, Ferguson and his team pulled together all the existing data on Zika transmission throughout Latin America. They then used this data, along with information on outbreaks of similar viruses, such as dengue, to create a model that represented the current outbreak and future patterns of transmission.

Because people who have already been infected with Zika are unlikely to be re-infected, the epidemic should burn itself out within three years, the study authors estimated.

“The current explosive epidemic will burn itself out due to a phenomenon called herd immunity,” Ferguson explained. “Because the virus is unable to infect the same person twice — thanks to the immune system generating antibodies to kill it — the epidemic reaches a stage where there are too few people left to infect for transmission to be sustained.”

That will mean Zika can’t gain a foothold again in the Latin American population for at least a decade, when a new generation without exposure will emerge, the researchers said. “This mirrors other epidemics, such as chikungunia — a similar virus to Zika — where we have seen explosive epidemics followed by long periods with few new cases,” Ferguson said.

As for the current Zika outbreak, it may already be too late to do much to curb case numbers, he said.

“Efforts to contain the epidemic would have needed to have been implemented much earlier in the current Zika epidemic to have a major effect — but by the time we realized the scale of the problem it was too late,” Ferguson said.

He added that all of this means that efforts to find a vaccine should be encouraged, while Zika is still highly active.

Another study published in the same issue of Science looks to the future of epidemic control, as well. Researchers in the United States believe new strategies are needed to prepare for unexpected mosquito-borne epidemics, such as the recent outbreak of the Zika virus.

The history of Zika, which was discovered in Uganda in 1947, may provide valuable lessons for the current crisis in Brazil, Colombia, Puerto Rico and other parts of the Americas, said scientists from Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.

“The rise of Zika after its long persistence as a disease of apparently little importance highlights how little we truly understand about the global spread of mosquito-borne viruses and other lesser-known diseases,” said the study’s co-leader, Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology.

“Over the past decades, dengue, chikungunya, West Nile virus and now Zika have emerged or re-emerged across the globe. Yet why these viruses have expanded their range and others have failed to invade areas potentially ripe for their spread remains a mystery,” Lessler said in a university news release.

Most people infected with Zika have few or minor symptoms. But since early 2015 thousands of women — largely in Brazil — exposed to the virus in pregnancy have had babies with serious birth defects. Many of the infants have smaller heads and brains associated with microcephaly.

The Hopkins researchers analyzed existing studies on Zika to assess its global threat. They came up with two main theories that could help explain why Zika has become such a risk.

One theory is that the virus mutated and became more dangerous and infectious.

The alternative theory is that the virus previously spread among just a small group of people, so its effects were less obvious. But once Zika spread to Brazil — a country with 200 million people having no immunity to the virus — the complications became more apparent.

“Despite knowing about this disease for nearly 70 years, we were completely surprised and rushing to discover the very basic things about it when it invaded the Americas,” Lessler said.

“We have been completely unable to stop its spread. That is a problem for how we approach public health,” he added.

Better preparation is essential, Lessler said. “We will always be in this situation when something new comes about or something little-known re-emerges unless we do a better job planning for threats more generally instead of always fighting the last battle,” he said.

There is currently no vaccine or cure for Zika. The Hopkins review called for more research to assess the effectiveness of mosquito-control methods.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on mosquito-borne diseases.

This Q&A will tell you what you need to know about Zika.

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Road Rage Rampant in America

THURSDAY, July 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Next time you’re ready to make a rude gesture when another driver cuts you off in traffic, take a deep breath.

America’s highways are already more than mean enough, according to a new study from the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

Nearly 8 of 10 drivers demonstrated significant anger, aggression or road rage in the past year, the study found. They admitted to tailgating, confronting other motorists and even hitting other cars on purpose.

“Inconsiderate driving, bad traffic and the daily stresses of life can transform minor frustrations into dangerous road rage,” Jurek Grabowski, the foundation’s director of research, said in a AAA news release. “Far too many drivers are losing themselves in the heat of the moment and lashing out in ways that could turn deadly.”

Anger or road rage provokes a number of risky behaviors. The study found about half of drivers, or roughly 100 million people, have tailgated or yelled at another motorist.

About 45 percent honk their horn when they are mad; 33 percent make rude gestures; 24 percent block another car from changing lanes; 12 percent cut off other cars; and 4 percent have gotten out of their car to confront someone.

The researchers also found that 3 percent — nearly 6 million people — have bumped or rammed another car on purpose due to road rage.

Most motorists believe aggressive driving has gotten worse in recent years and threatens their personal safety.

Road rage is more common among men between the ages of 19 and 39. Drivers in the Northeast are also much more likely to yell, honk or gesture out of anger than those elsewhere in the United States.

Road rage is also more common among those who also speed or run red lights, according to the study published July 14.

“It’s completely normal for drivers to experience anger behind the wheel, but we must not let our emotions lead to destructive choices,” Jake Nelson, AAA’s director of traffic safety advocacy and research, said in the news release.

“Don’t risk escalating a frustrating situation because you never know what the other driver might do. Maintain a cool head, and focus on reaching your destination safely,” Nelson added.

AAA offers these tips for preventing road rage:

• Don’t offend. Never force another driver to hit the brakes or change direction.
• Be tolerant. Don’t take driving personally. Other drivers may be having a bad day as well.
• Do not respond. Avoid eye contact, don’t make gestures and keep adequate space between cars. If an emergency arises, call 911.

More information

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration provides more information on aggressive driving.

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CDC Warns of Dangers of Plastic Surgery in Dominican Republic

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, July 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — U.S. health officials are warning about the dangers of “medical tourism” after at least 18 women from the East Coast became infected with a disfiguring bacteria following plastic surgery procedures they had in the Dominican Republic.

The infections, caused by a type of germ called mycobacteria, can be difficult to treat. At least several of the women had to be hospitalized, undergo surgery to treat the infection and take antibiotics for months, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One expert said the effects can be devastating.

“It’s a very mutilating infection. They’re going for cosmetic surgery, and they will be scarred. It’s a terrible scenario for people to go down there, get surgery and come back worse than they imagined they could be,” said Dr. Charles Daley. He is a Denver infectious disease physician whose clinic has seen patients infected after undergoing these kinds of procedures in the Dominican Republic.

According to the CDC, 21 women from six Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states appear to have been affected by mycobacterial infections after visiting five plastic surgery clinics in the Dominican Republic, a nation in the Caribbean. (Eighteen of the cases are confirmed, and three are considered probable.)

Mycobacteria, which are found worldwide in the environment, “usually infect the skin or lungs, and are responsible for chronic and recurrent infections that are notoriously resistant to antibiotics and difficult to treat,” said report co-author Dr. Douglas Esposito. He is a medical officer and epidemiologist with the CDC’s Travelers’ Health Branch.

More than 80 percent of the infected women reported swelling, pain and scarring. Daley, who works at the National Jewish Health respiratory hospital in Denver, said infected people often need to undergo reconstructive surgery.

It’s not clear how the women were infected, although Daley said it’s possible the bacteria entered their plastic surgery wounds through tap water or instruments used in surgery. Most underwent liposuction and at least one other surgery, such as procedures to expand the size of the breasts and buttocks, or breast reduction.

Daley said his clinic has seen two patients infected after plastic surgery and consulted on a third case. It’s not clear how many, if any, are among those in the CDC report.

The risk of this kind of infection is higher in countries like the Dominican Republic and Brazil, he noted, but patients have become infected in the United States, too. “We are definitely seeing more of these postoperative infections, particularly ones that are related to cosmetic surgery,” Daley said.

The CDC report warns about the risks of medical tourism, a term that describes leaving the United States for medical procedures to save money. According to the report, many of the women — most of whom were born in the Dominican Republic — said they went to the country for plastic surgery to save money.

People who have undergone plastic surgery in the Dominican Republic should talk to their doctor about getting tested, Daley suggested. And, people who plan to go there for a procedure should ask the clinic whether they’ve had infections, he added.

“I would never go to one of those places,” he said. “I know too many stories about what’s happened to people. It has ruined people’s lives.”

The study was published online July 13 in Emerging Infectious Diseases.

More information

For more about mycobacterial infections, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

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Normal Weight May Not Protect Against Diabetes

By Serena Gordon
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, July 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Type 2 diabetes has long been considered a disease of the overweight and obese, but a new study challenges that notion. It finds nearly one in five normal-weight people has prediabetes — a condition that can lead to type 2 diabetes.

And in folks over 45, one-third of those at a healthy weight have prediabetes, the study authors reported.

“Being at a healthy weight may not necessarily be healthy,” said the study’s lead author, Arch Mainous, a professor of health services research management and policy at the University of Florida.

“We have some strong data that says we need to rethink our model of what we think is healthy. This may require a paradigm shift so that we’re not just looking for diabetes in the overweight and obese,” he said.

People with prediabetes have higher-than-normal blood sugar levels, but not high enough to be considered diabetes.

Excess weight continues to be a significant risk factor for type 2 diabetes, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Currently, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) recommends screening for type 2 diabetes in anyone overweight or obese. The ADA also recommends screening people for type 2 diabetes at age 45. If that test is normal, screening every three years is advised.

The focus on screening mostly overweight and obese individuals may lead to missed opportunities for early intervention in normal-weight people with prediabetes, Mainous pointed out.

The researchers used the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys — a nationally representative group — from 1988 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2012.

The study focused on normal-weight people. Normal weight was defined as a body mass index (BMI) of 18.5 to 24.9. Body mass index is a rough estimate of body fat based on height and weight.

In the earlier survey, 10 percent of people at normal weight had prediabetes. By the later study, that number jumped to 19 percent, the researchers said.

Also, the percentage of people over age 45 with prediabetes jumped from 22 percent in the earlier study to 33 percent in the later study.

A large waist circumference is often linked to type 2 diabetes. While roughly 6 percent of the normal-weight people had an unhealthy waist circumference in the first survey, almost 8 percent had a too-large waistline by 2012, the researchers said.

Mainous said he thinks the unhealthy changes in “healthy” weight people may be due to increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

“Saying that sitting is the new smoking sounds trite, but there’s a certain level of truth to it,” he said.

Other health professionals point to the way overweight and obesity are measured.

“BMI is a very crude way to look at obesity. BMI doesn’t correlate well with bad obesity [the type that collects around the abdomen],” said Dr. Joel Zonszein, director of the clinical diabetes program at Montefiore Medical Center in New York City.

Mainous agreed. His research team has been looking for alternative ways to screen people for diabetes and other chronic illnesses.

Genetics also play a role, said Zonszein. “Not everybody who is obese will get diabetes, and not everybody who has diabetes is obese,” he said.

And the U.S. diet likely contributes, too. “I always recommend that people stop drinking soda and juices and stop eating fast food,” he said.

Zonszein added that screening for type 2 diabetes often needs to be individualized depending on people’s personal risk factors. The same holds true for treatment of diabetes or prediabetes, he said.

“A healthy diet and regular exercise are givens. But you need to look at the person, their risk factors and lifestyle to decide how to treat them,” Zonszein added.

Mainous said: “I want to re-emphasize that diabetes prevention needs to include people at the highest risk who have the most to benefit from intervening, but now we know we have a group that is being missed. So, do we need to rethink the guidelines?”

The study appears in the July/August issue of the Annals of Family Medicine.

More information

Learn more about prediabetes from the American Diabetes Association.

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Base Body Babes full-body barbell workout

Get stronger, fitter and feel more confident in the gym with this exclusive full-body workout by the Base Body Babes.

"The barbell is our favourite piece of training equipment, as it can be used for such a great range of exercises. We like to say that ‘Load is King’ – the exercise that allows you to lift the heaviest loads will ultimately give you the best results, and the barbell allows you to do just that. Although there is no magical number, we love the eight rep range as it allows you to build strength while still keeping the heart rate elevated for optimal calorie burn," says the ladies, Felicia Oreb and Diana Johnson.

 

Here's what you need to do

• A1 Barbell Back Squat
• A2 Barbell Military Press
• A3 Barbell Romanian Deadlift
• A4 Barbell Bent-Over Row
• A5 Barbell Split Squat
• A6 Barbell Glute Bridges

 

Perform each exercise A1–A6 back to back, with no rest in between exercises

• Complete 8 repetitions of each exercise
• Rest for 4 minutes after A6
• Repeat 4–6 times

NOTE: Choose weights that you believe you can complete all repetitions and sets with without failing, yet still keep the weight challenging enough to complete a great workout. Technique is most important when lifting heavy, so don’t compromise your form. Ensure you are completing all repetitions and sets with perfect technique before increasing the weight.

Let's do this!

 

Words/Workout: Felicia Oreb and Diana Johnson 

Photography: Vanessa Natoli / @vanesSanatoliphotography

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Barbell back squat 

1. Grabbing the barbell with your hands, place the barbell on the muscles of your upper back (trapezius) and squeeze the shoulder blades together to engage the muscles of your upper back so the bar is secure.

 

2. Stand with your feet slightly wider than your shoulders, and toes pointing slightly outwards. The feet must remain flat on the floor throughout the entire movement.

3. Keep your chest up and look straight ahead.

4. Squat as deep as your body will allow while still maintaining a neutral spine and perfect posture.

 

5. Stand back up and repeat the movement.

Tip: If it is difficult to maintain correct posture and squat to full depth (below parallel), elevate your heels with a one-inch block or some small weight plates.

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Barbell military press

1. Pick up the barbell with a pronated grip (hands over the barbell).

2. Standing tall, hold the bar high on your chest, across the front of your shoulders.

3. Push the barbell straight up above your head, maintaining a neutral spine throughout the movement. 

4. Control the barbell back down to the starting position and repeat the movement.

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 Barbell romanian deadlift

1. Pick up the barbell with your hands positioned on the outside of your legs. This ensures that the weight is close to your centre of gravity, which makes the weight easier to lift and reduces the risk of injury to the lower back.

2. Stand with your feet slightly wider than your shoulders, ensuring your feet are firmly on the floor and the weight is distributed evenly across the whole foot throughout the entire movement.

3. Hold your body tight and imagine putting your shoulder blades back and down into your back pockets. Holding this tight position, pick up the weight while keeping it as close to your body as possible, until you are standing in an upright position.

4. Still maintaining tightness, lower the weight back down by bending forward at the hips. Move the barbell back down the front of your legs until your hamstrings reach a full stretch while maintaining a neutral spine. The hips must be below the shoulders at all times. This ensures that you are using the muscles of the lower body and not just the muscles of the lower back.

5. Repeat the movement. 

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Barbell bent-over row

1.  Pick up the barbell with a pronated grip (hands over the barbell).

2. Bring your body down till you reach parallel to the ground.

3. Pull the barbell in towards your sternum, squeezing your upper back.

4. Maintain a neutral spine throughout the movement.

5. Release the barbell back down and repeat the movement.

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Barbell split squats

1. Place the barbell on the upper back muscles (trapezius).

2.Take a step forward with one leg, keeping your chest up high and shoulders back.

3.Lower your back knee down to the ground (without touching the ground) and stand back up.

5.Repeat all reps on one leg before swapping legs. 

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Barbell glute bridges

1. Begin by lying on your back on the floor.

2. Place the barbell across your pelvic area.

3. Bring your feet up to your bottom, pressing your feet into the ground.

4. Lift your hips up high and squeeze your bottom.

5. Lower your hips back down and repeat the movement.

Want to know how the Base Body Babes started? Read more about their journey here. 

 

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Is Swimming Safe in Areas With the Freshwater ‘Brain-Eating’ Amoeba?

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, July 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — The headlines are terrifying, and the story details are even worse as you read about a child who goes for a swim in a lake or river and then falls prey to a “brain-eating amoeba.”

The brain infection brought on by Naegleria fowleri, an amoeba that flourishes in warm open waters, can quickly prove fatal, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

As disturbing as these reports are, parents don’t need to bar their kids from the local swimming spot due to fear of Naegleria, infectious disease experts say.

These cases make headlines because they are so unexpected and devastating, but the infection itself is “very, very uncommon,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior associate with the University of Pittsburgh’s UPMC Center For Health Security.

“You have to think about how many times people have exposure to water that has Naegleria in it, and how few cases we actually see every year,” said Adalja, who’s also a spokesman for the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

“Each case grabs the headlines because it is so rare but so severe. I don’t think you should restrict a child’s activities because of this,” he said.

In fact, between 1937 and 2013, there were only 142 cases of Naegleria-related brain infections reported. That works out to fewer than two infections per year, a 2015 study in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society said.

“Considering the millions of times that kids jump into the water every summer, it’s a very low risk,” agreed Dr. Sunil Sood, chair of Pediatrics-Infectious Disease at Southside Hospital, in Bay Shore, N.Y.

Naegleria fowleri is found in warm bodies of fresh water, such as lakes, rivers and hot springs, according to the CDC. Because the amoeba prefers warm water, it’s most commonly found in southern states.

The amoeba infects people when contaminated water forcefully enters the nose, Sood said. It migrates from the sinuses into the brain, where it causes a severe brain infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM).

While most cases occur from a person jumping into a lake or river, the infection also can occur during a sinus rinse using a neti pot filled with tap water, Sood added. People should always use water labeled “distilled” or “sterile” in a neti pot, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Or, you can boil water yourself and use it after it has cooled down to lukewarm — about five minutes, the FDA says.

A person can’t become infected with the amoeba by drinking contaminated water, the CDC says.

More cases have been reported to the CDC in recent years, causing some to wonder if climate change is allowing the amoeba to thrive in the south and range farther north. The journal article noted that four infections have occurred in more northern states — Indiana, Kansas and Minnesota — since 2010.

But Adalja said it’s just as likely that doctors are more aware of the amoeba, increasing the odds that the brain infection will be accurately diagnosed.

“You’re starting to see more reports, but it’s hard to discern if this is because people are much more attuned to the risk now in 2016 than they were in 1985, for example,” Adalja said.

Symptoms of PAM start about five days after brain infection, the CDC says. Initial symptoms can include headache, fever, nausea or vomiting. As the disease progresses, the person may suffer from a stiff neck, confusion, difficulty thinking, hallucinations, loss of balance and seizures.

“Basically it’s infecting the brain and the membranes surrounding the brain,” Adalja said. “Because of that, it causes a pretty big inflammatory response. You have this invader there, and you have the immune system attacking it, and the brain is caught in the middle.”

After symptoms start, the disease progresses rapidly and usually causes death within about five days. The fatality rate is roughly 97 percent; only three out of 138 people infected with Naegleria between 1962 and 2015 have survived, the CDC says.

Treatments are available for Naegleria infection. For example, the CDC keeps a supply of miltefosine, an investigational breast cancer drug, on hand for treating Naegleria because the drug has been shown to effectively kill off amoeba infections.

However, survival is rare because early symptoms are common with many other illnesses, and patients don’t get the appropriate treatment until it’s too late, Adalja said.

“It will just start out with people having fever, chills and headache,” he said. “At that point, it’s hard to tell what this might be.”

Adalja and Sood said people can lower their risk of infection by avoiding activities that could send water up their noses.

“Hold your nose before you jump in the water,” Sood said. “It’s a common-sense thing, but nobody thinks of it. That will prevent that pressure that allows water to shoot up through the nose.”

Concerned parents should keep a close eye on kids who’ve been swimming, he added.

“Go to the emergency room right away if your child has a headache and a fever, especially if it occurs after swimming or a sinus rinse with a neti pot,” Sood said.

More information

For more on the Naegleria fowleri amoeba, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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Early Bedtime for Preschoolers, Healthier Weight Later?

THURSDAY, July 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Sending preschoolers off to bed early may bring them an unexpected benefit: less chance of obesity when they are teens.

So suggests research that compared preschoolers who went to bed at 8 p.m. with same-age kids who had later bedtimes. A team at the Ohio State University College of Public Health found that a bedtime just one hour later seemed to double the likelihood that young children will be obese teens.

“For parents, this reinforces the importance of establishing a bedtime routine,” said the study’s lead author, Sarah Anderson, an associate professor of epidemiology. “It’s something concrete that families can do to lower their child’s risk.”

She added that the earlier bedtime is also likely to benefit youngsters’ social and emotional development as well as their brain development.

The study reviewed data on nearly 1,000 children who were part of a study that followed healthy babies born in 1991 at 10 U.S. locations.

When the children were about 4 years old, they were divided into three groups: those who went to bed by 8 p.m.; those whose bedtime was between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., and those went to bed later.

Half of the youngsters went to bed between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. The rest were evenly divided between early and late bedtimes, according to the study published July 14 in the Journal of Pediatrics.

Researchers then looked at the kids’ weight at an average age of 15. They found that only 10 percent of kids with the earliest bedtimes were obese teens. That compared to 16 percent of the children with bedtimes between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m., and 23 percent of those who went to bed after 9 p.m.

Most likely to become obese were kids who went to bed latest and whose mothers’ interactions with them were observed to be less supportive and more hostile, the researchers found. They said later bedtimes were more common among non-white children who had less-educated mothers and lived in lower-income households.

However, only an association was seen between bedtimes and obesity risk, rather than a cause-and-effect link.

“It’s important to recognize that having an early bedtime may be more challenging for some families than for others,” Anderson said in a university news release. “Families have many competing demands and there are tradeoffs that get made. For example, if you work late, that can push bedtimes later in the evening.”

The study authors said their findings suggest that household routines for preschoolers are important.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute provides more information on the importance of sleep.

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Weight Loss Might Reduce Cancer Risk: Study

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, July 14, 2016 (HealthDay News) — Overweight and obese women who lose weight may lower their odds of developing cancer as their levels of cancer-linked proteins drop, a new study suggests.

These proteins — VEGF, PAI-1 and PEDF — promote the growth of blood vessels, a process that is necessary to help tumors thrive. The more weight the women lost, the greater the drop in the levels of these proteins, the researchers found.

“It’s another piece of evidence in the jigsaw of the benefits of losing weight, and how important weight loss is to prevent cancer,” said lead researcher Catherine Duggan. She is a principal staff scientist in the public health sciences division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

In general, losing weight reduces the risk of breast, colon and prostate cancer by as much as 20 percent, she said. This might be due to a reduction in inflammatory factors stored in fat as well as a drop in levels of these proteins, Duggan suggested.

These proteins increase with weight, she explained. “As people gain weight, new blood vessels are required to bring oxygen and nutrients to the stored fat,” she said. The same process happens in men.

Whether these proteins cause cancer isn’t clear, and the study did not prove that, but they might make the environment favorable for tumors to start growing, Duggan said.

“We can’t say these factors cause cancer, but we do think that these factors may make tumors grow. So if you reduce them, these dormant cancer tumors might not make the switch and start to grow, but we can’t say for sure,” she said.

For the study, Duggan and her colleagues randomly assigned 439 overweight and obese postmenopausal women, aged 50 to 75, to one of four groups.

The groups included: a calorie-restricted diet of no more than 2,000 calories a day; an aerobic exercise program of 45 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise five days a week; a combination of diet and exercise; or no diet or exercise. The researchers took blood samples at the start of the study and a year later.

After adjusting for weight, age, race and ethnicity, the researchers found that women in the diet and exercise groups lost from 2 percent to 11 percent of their body weight, while women who did not take part in these programs lost less than 1 percent of their body weight.

Moreover, compared with women who did not diet or exercise, those who dieted, or dieted and exercised, had significantly lower levels of the proteins. However, this effect was not apparent in women in the exercise-only group, Duggan said.

The report was published July 15 in the journal Cancer Research.

One expert isn’t sure that lowering these proteins might reduce the risk for cancer.

“We really don’t know how far down these proteins have to go to have a real effect,” said Victoria Stevens, strategic director of laboratory services at the American Cancer Society.

Cutting the blood supply to tumors has been tried, but so far the results of this approach have been mixed, she said.

But, “we know being obese or overweight increases cancer risk, so anything to avoid that, such as weight loss, should be a good thing in reducing cancer risk,” Stevens said.

More information

Visit the American Cancer Society for more on cancer.

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