April 2, 2012 Clippings

Brain Awareness Week from April 9 Observed by AIIMS

Opening April 9, The All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) will observe a brain awareness week, which will cover a series of public awareness lectures on headache, migraine, stroke, prevention of head injury and backache among other ailments.

"The awareness about diseases associated with the brain is very low. The idea is to educate people in easy language on prevention and following early signs of brain-related diseases," a senior doctor from the AIIMS neurosurgery department said Saturday.

"What one assumes to be just headache could actually be signs of something severe. So a lot depends on awareness," the doctor added.

The 'brain awareness week' poster put across the sprawling AIIMS campus mentions a series of lectures between 1.30 p.m. to 3 p.m. April 9 at the AIIMS auditorium. The event is in collaboration with the National Brain Research Centre, Manesar.

"Our target audience is general public, students, paramedical staff, nurses and doctors. There is no entry fee for attending lectures," the doctor added.

Source: www.medindia.net

02.04.2012

Diabetes drug may help prevent liver cancer

According to researchers at the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center primary liver cancer, or hepatocellular carcinoma, is an often-deadly form of cancer that is on the rise worldwide and is the fastest-growing cause of cancer-related deaths among American men.

Patients with Type II diabetes have a two- to three-fold increased relative risk of developing primary liver cancer.

Also at risk are people who are obese, have hepatitis or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Metformin, which is derived from the French lilac, is used to treat NAFLD as well as diabetes, and currently is being studied in connection with the prevention of a variety of cancers.

"Our research demonstrated that metformin prevents primary liver cancer in animal models. Mice treated with metformin had significantly smaller and fewer tumors than those who did not receive the medication," Geoffrey D. Girnun, the study's senior author, said.

"Based on these findings, we believe metformin should be evaluated as a preventive agent in people who are at high risk. Many patients with diabetes already are taking this medication, with few side effects.

"There have been several retrospective epidemiological studies linking metformin with reduced risk of liver cancer, but our study is the first to formally test whether metformin can protect against carcinogenesis - not just tumor growth and development, but actual tumor formation in the liver," Girnun said.  Glucose is converted into fatty acids in the liver through a process called lipogenesis.

This process is increased in people who have diabetes, hepatitis, fatty liver disease as well as cancer.  According to Girnun, metformin reduces the level of glucose and inhibits this fatty acid synthesis.

"When you block this process, you prevent the cells from making more building blocks to make more cells. There is also no energy to put the building blocks together, and the cells are not able to proliferate, thereby preventing tumours from developing," he added.

In the study, the researchers found that mice treated with metformin in their food developed 57 per cent fewer liver tumours than the mice that did not receive the drug; the size of the tumours was reduced by about 37 per cent.

The study has been published in Cancer Prevention Research.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

02.04.2012

If the idiots hate you, it proves you're not one of them!

Ted Nugent