Yale hands out 64GB iPad 2s to entire Medical School student body

By David Goldman:
From http://www.edibleapple.com/

You just never know where the iPad 2 is going to show up these days. From airplane cockpits to the NFL, the iPad is increasingly becoming a favored replacement for massive reams of paper.

Not too long ago, we reported that the Tampa Bay Buccaneer football team gave all 90 of its players iPad 2s to serve as replacements for gargantuan playbooks that made the Yellow Pages seem small by comparison.

And now the iPad 2 is making inroads into medical schools, a fact which shouldn’t be too surprising given its current popularity with doctors and hospitals.

Starting this Fall, Yale Medical Students won’t have to worry about carrying around obscenely large textbooks. Nope, their shoulders will be spared the wear and tear of carrying around a collection of books that can seemingly way upwards of 30 pounds.

So out with the old textbooks and in with the iPad 2.

But far from solely serving as a textbook replacement, students will can use their new iPads to check out Yale’s curriculum and “read and handle confidential patient health information.” What’s more, students will be able to download lecture notes and access course materials as well.

Even better, the iPad 2s are genuine gifts and students will be allowed to keep them after graduation. Of course, that sounds like a great deal until you ponder the insane price of a Yale medical education these days.

All told, Yale plans on distributing 520 iPads to students this year at a cost of $600,000. In contrast, printing up, collating, and distributing course materials via paper eats up $100,000 every year. Not to worry, though, as Yale expects to cover the initial cost of the iPad 2s with the money it will cumulatively save on printing going forward.

The School of Medicine tested the use of iPads in the classroom with a pilot group of nine first-year students last spring. The group included some students who self-identified as not “technology-savvy,” but even they responded positively to the device, Schwartz said. For those who remain committed to pen and paper, printed course materials will be available for purchase.

Robert Stretch MED ’14, a student in the pilot group, said he much preferred reading course notes electronically to having them on paper.

“We get binder upon binder of notes, literally several feet of notes, and carrying them to the library or to class is just unrealistic,” Stretch said.

Oh, and did we mention that the iPad 2s supplied to Yale’s medical students are of the 64GB 3G variety and come with Apple’s Bluetooth keyboard. Must be nice to be a Yalie!

The iPad is also a more secure device than a laptop for handling Electronic Protected Health Information, Schwartz said. Students work with this confidential information when they do clinical training, and in the past campus staff needed to set up special security on students’ laptops for them to be able to handle it safely. By contrast, the iPad is encrypted and can be remotely locked or erased completely if it is lost or stolen.

Now you can bet that this is the type of story Apple would love to bring up the next time it holds a special media event centered on the iPad.

via Yale Daily News

Baby born from 21-year-old frozen sperm

CHARLOTTE, N.C., April 13 (UPI) -- The birth of a baby conceived from sperm frozen for 21 years may tie the world record for the longest-frozen, viable sperm, U.S. fertility specialists say.

Thirty-eight-year-old Chris Biblis of Charlotte, N.C., was treated for leukemia from age 13-18. In 1987, at age 16, his family encouraged him to freeze his sperm, even though there was no treatment for male infertility at the time.

It was not until 1992 that the first baby was born from intracytoplasmic sperm injection -- a breakthrough fertility technology in which scientists inject a carefully selected healthy sperm cell into a human egg in the lab -- fertility specialists of Reproductive Endocrinology Associates of Charlotte said.

Biblis has been clinically disease-free for more than 20 years. Last May, he and his wife, Melodie, 33, also in excellent health, sought fertility treatment with Reproductive Endocrinology Associates of Charlotte founder and fertility specialist Dr. Richard L. Wing.

"They achieved pregnancy on their first cycle of intracytoplasmic sperm injection used in conjunction with in vitro fertilization, a now-routine procedure for male infertility, using her eggs and his frozen sperm," Wing said in a statement. "We had every reason to expect a perfect baby but are thrilled nonetheless."

Baby Stella Biblis was born in excellent health March 4, Wing said.

Scientists discover gene that can grow TEETH

By Fiona Macrae

A breakthrough by scientists could see dentures bite the dust.

Researchers have pinpointed the gene that governs the production of tooth enamel, raising the tantalising possibility of people one day growing extra teeth when needed.

At the very least, it could cut the need for painful fillings.

Fillings could become obsolete in the future

Experiments in mice have previously shown that the gene, a 'transcription factor' called Ctip2, is involved in the immune system and in the development of skin and nerves.

The latest research, from Oregon State University in the U.S., adds enamel production to the list.

The researchers made the link by studying mice genetically engineered to lack the gene.

The animals were born with rudimentary teeth which were ready to erupt but lacked a proper covering of enamel, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

Researcher Dr Chrissa Kioussi said: 'It's not unusual for a gene to have multiple functions, but before this we didn't know what regulated the production of tooth enamel.

'This is the first transcription factor ever found to control the formation and maturation of ameloblasts, which are the cells that secrete enamel.'

The finding could be applied to human health and, if used in conjunction with fledgling stem cell technology, could one day allow people to grow replacement teeth when needed.

Alternatively, the knowledge could be used to strengthen existing enamel and repair damaged enamel, cutting decay and the need for fillings.

Dr Kioussi said: 'Enamel is one of the hardest coatings found in nature.

'A lot of work would still be needed to bring this to human applications, but it should work.

'It could be really cool, a whole new approach to dental health.'

Researchers hope that within ten years we will be able to grow new teeth from stem cells - the so-called master cells which have the potential to be used to grow any part of the body.

Scientists have successfully harvested stem cells from dental pulp - the nerves and tissue inside the teeth - and grown teeth in the lab which have been transplanted into mice.

Other innovations on the horizon include 'drills' that cut and polish teeth using nothing more than a blast of air and a mouthwash that could do away with the need for fillings.

Around 11million Britons wear dentures - more than one million of them in their 30s or younger.

The NHS pays for false teeth for around 12,000 six to 24-year-olds a year.

However, the making of dentures is a dying art.

The British Society for the Study of Prosthetic Dentistry has warned that time spent teaching dental students on the ins and outs of false teeth is now being devoted to lessons on tooth whitening, orthodontics and other techniques behind the much sought-after 'Hollywood smile'.

Eighty-five per cent of people claim to have good oral hygiene, but just two-thirds brush their teeth twice a day and nearly a third of adults have 12 or more fillings.

Man Wakes Up After Family OK's Disconnecting Life Support

Mike Connelly is greeted by his wife, Loris, at Tri-City Medical Center on Monday. (Photo by Bill Wechter - staff photographer)

By PAUL SISSON - Staff Writer

OCEANSIDE ---- Mike Connelly's family and many of his nurses are calling him a miracle man ---- and doctors are hard-pressed to disagree.

The 56-year-old Vista man's heart stopped in late January and he lay in a coma for 96 hours before his family tearfully gave the OK for physicians at Tri-City Medical Center to disconnect life support.

That's when Connelly woke up.

His stepson, Mike Cooper, was reading Scripture beside Connelly's hospital bed last week when he saw a tear slide down the man's cheek.

Cooper said he didn't think that was significant until he left the room and started walking down the hallway, only to hear shouts from a family member still at Connelly's side.

"He said Mike was responding," Cooper said. "I didn't believe him, but I went back in there, and it was true. You would say his name, and he would turn his head toward you. It was a miracle."

Though doctors had pronounced Connelly's case hopeless and said his brain would never recover, today he is showing steady progress. Those same doctors say Connelly seems headed for a full recovery.

Martin Nielsen, Connelly's pulmonary doctor, said it is not a stretch to call the sudden recovery miraculous.

"When we get a guy like Mike Connelly, it's almost like a miracle," Nielsen said. "I've never seen anybody come back like he has."

Connelly's ordeal started at his home around 6 a.m. Jan. 31, when he developed an arrhythmia ---- an electrical short circuit in the heart muscle that causes the vital organ to stop beating, usually with no warning.

Connelly's wife, Loris, said she awoke to the sound of choking.

She found her husband slumped forward in his easy chair, a half-eaten bowl of Raisin Bran in his lap, in the living room of the couple's Vista apartment.

At 6 feet 8 inches and more than 250 pounds, Connelly is not easy to move.

His wife was unable to get him out of his chair and onto the floor by herself.

"I found him totally unconscious," she recalled Monday. "I couldn't find a pulse. I couldn't find any air. He wasn't breathing."

Fearing her husband was dead, Loris Connelly called 911. According to NorthComm fire dispatch records, the call came in at 6:10 a.m. and paramedics arrived at the apartment on Shadowridge Drive at 6:16 a.m.

Nielsen said that when paramedics arrived, Connelly's heart had stopped beating.

He said an electrocardiogram tape recorded during resuscitation efforts showed that paramedics performed CPR and delivered multiple shocks with a portable defibrillator for about 35 minutes before they were able to get the man's heart beating again.

Although no one knows exactly how long Connelly's brain went without oxygen, Nielsen said it had to be at least 10 minutes. That length of time, he said, usually results in severe brain damage if a patient ever regains consciousness.

"Generally, the rule of thumb is if you go for more than four minutes without oxygen, you will see severe damage to the brain," Nielsen said.

Paramedics drove the unconscious man to Tri-City Medical Center, where doctors decided that inducing hypothermia was Connolly's best chance for survival.

They used special cooling blankets to drop his temperature from the normal 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit to about 93 degrees.

The cold, Nielsen explained, helps keep the brain from swelling and has been shown in clinical studies to reduce brain damage.

After 24 hours of cooling, doctors tried to bring Connelly out of an induced coma, but every time they did, he suffered seizures.

Seizures, Nielsen said, are usually a sign that a patient is not going to recover. The family prepared for the worst, but prayed nonetheless.

Connelly woke up a few days later.

Sitting in his hospital room Monday, Connelly conversed with family members and joked with nurses, some who have taken to calling him the "miracle man."

He said his chest aches from the CPR.

"Judging by the way my sternum feels, I'm pretty lucky," he said. "This is all still sinking in, and I think it will be for a long time."

In the 12 days since he awoke, Connelly has suffered muscle spasms ---- some violent ---- that have only recently begun so subside, his wife said.

Loris Connelly said she will always cherish the moment she saw her husband come around.

"When I finally heard the word 'hope,' that's the best word I ever heard," she said.

Family friends set up a "miracle man" trust fund at Wells Fargo Bank to help the Connellys defray the cost of his long hospital stay.

Donations can be made care of Marilyn Cipriani, 1075 Shadowridge Drive. Unit 70, Vista, CA 92081.

Contact staff writer Paul Sisson at (760) 901-4087 or psisson@nctimes.com.

What Are Your Chances Of Getting A Tapeworm?

Take the quiz to find out if you are likely to get a tapeworm.

read more | digg story

Researchers crack the code of the common cold

Scientists have begun to solve some of the mysteries of the common cold by putting together the pieces of the genetic codes for all the known strains of the human rhinovirus. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore and colleagues at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have completed the genomic sequences of the viruses and assembled them into a "family tree," which shows how the viruses are related, with their commonalities and differences. The study will be released on the online version of the journal Science (Science Express) at 2 p.m. EST on February 12.

The researchers say this work provides a powerful tool that may lead to the development of the first effective treatments against the common cold.

"There has been no success in developing effective drugs to cure the common cold, which we believe is due to incomplete information about the genetic composition of all these strains," says the study's senior author, Stephen B. Liggett, M.D., professor of medicine and physiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of its Cardiopulmonary Genomics Program.

"We generally think of colds as a nuisance, but they can be debilitating in the very young and in older individuals, and can trigger asthma attacks at any age. Also, recent studies indicate that early rhinovirus infection in children can program their immune system to develop asthma by adolescence," says Dr. Liggett, who is a pulmonologist and molecular geneticist.

Major discoveries of the study

The researchers found that human rhinoviruses are organized into about 15 small groups that come from distant ancestors. The discovery of these multiple groups explains why a "one drug fits all" approach for anti-viral agents does not work. But, says Dr. Liggett, "Perhaps several anti-viral drugs could be developed, targeted to specific genetic regions of certain groups. The choice of which drug to prescribe would be based on the genetic characteristics of a patient's rhinovirus infection."

Dr. Liggett adds that while anti-viral drugs seem to be the most likely to succeed, "the data gathered from these full genome sequences gives us an opportunity to reconsider vaccines as a possibility, particularly as we gather multiple-patient samples and sequence the entire genomes, to see how frequently they mutate during a cold season. That work is underway now."

The researchers also found that the human rhinovirus skips a step when it makes its protein product, a shortcut that probably speeds up its ability to make a person feel sick soon after infection. "This is a new insight," says co-investigator Claire M. Fraser-Liggett, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Genome Sciences and professor of medicine and microbiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "We would not have had any sort of intuition about this had it not been revealed through genome analysis. Information that comes from this discovery might present a completely different approach in terms of therapy."

The analysis shows that some human rhinoviruses result from the exchange of genetic material between two separate strains of the virus that infect the same person. Such a swap, known as recombination, was previously not thought possible in human rhinovirus. During cold season, when many different strains of rhinovirus may be causing infections, recombination could rapidly produce new strains.

Multiple mutations (as many as 800) were evident in virus samples taken recently from patients with colds, compared to older rhinovirus reference strains. Some viruses mutate by making slight changes in certain proteins to avoid being destroyed by antibodies from a person's immune system. "Mutations were found in every area of the genome," says Dr. Liggett.

The study's lead author, Ann C. Palmenberg, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and chair of the Institute for Molecular Virology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, notes, "As we begin to accumulate additional samples from a large number of patients, it is likely that hotspots for mutation or recombination will become apparent, and other regions resistant to mutational change may emerge. This will provide clues as to how flexible the virus is as it responds to the human environment, important hints if you are designing new therapeutics."

Study background

Human rhinovirus infection is responsible for half of all asthma attacks and is a factor in bronchitis, sinusitis, middle ear infections and pneumonia. The coughs, sneezes and sniffles of colds impose a major health care burden in the United States—including visits to health care providers, cost of over-the-counter drugs for symptom relief, often-inappropriate antibiotic prescriptions and missed work days—with direct and indirect costs of about $60 billion annually.

Prior to the start of this project, the genomes of only a few dozen rhinoviruses had been sequenced from what was considered the reference library, a frozen collection of 99 different rhinovirus strains taken from patients over a span of more than two decades. During this team's work, several other groups began to report the full genomes of some of these viruses, as well as some odd rhinovirus-like strains from relatively sick patients.

"It was clear to us that the spectrum of rhinoviruses out there was probably much greater than we realized. Further, we needed to develop a framework from which we could begin to figure out ways to combat these viruses and use their genetic signatures to predict how a specific virus would affect a patient," says Dr. Fraser-Liggett.

The current study adds 80 new full genome sequences to the rhinovirus library and 10 more acquired recently from people with colds. Each sequence was modeled and compared to each other. Dr. Liggett says, "Now we can put together many pieces of the human rhinovirus puzzle to help us answer some fundamental questions: how these rhinoviruses might mutate as they spread from one person to another; which rhinoviruses are more associated with asthma exacerbations and why rhinovirus exposure in infancy may cause asthma later in life. With all this information at hand, we see strong potential for the development of the long-sought cure for the common cold, using modern genomic and molecular techniques."

"With recent improvements in technology, including next-generation DNA sequencing tools, it has become easier to generate whole genome sequence information," says Dr. Fraser-Liggett. "There is no reason any longer to focus on a very limited part of the rhinovirus molecule to learn what it's doing, what the predominant strain is in a population, or to try to infer what the evolution of the entire molecule might be. Instead, by studying the complete genome sequence, we can answer multiple questions in parallel."

Source: University of Maryland Medical Center

Cotton Candy, A Medical Wonder?

Courtesy Cornell University.

• A 3-D image of the vascular network created by cotton candy. Courtesy Cornell University

All Things Considered, February 14, 2009 · Eating too much cotton candy isn't particularly good for your health — but cotton candy itself could provide a big breakthrough for medical technology.

Two researchers are trying to use cotton candy to create a network of vessels that could carry blood through artificial tissue. If successful, the synthetic tissue they create could be used in applications from skin grafts to breast reconstruction.

Dr. Jason Spector, a reconstructive surgeon at New York Presbyterian Hospital, and Leon Bellan, then a graduate student at Cornell, teamed up to develop the idea.

The process involves taking a small piece of cotton candy and pouring a liquid polymer over it. After the polymer solidifies, the sugar is washed out, leaving behind a network of tiny channels.

Bellan came up with the idea to use cotton candy from his previous research with nanofibers. "The fibers that make up the cotton candy really are about the same size as the really small blood vessels within the tissues of our body," Spector says.

Though the research is in very early stages -– it's not even close to being tested on animals –- Spector says this technology has the potential to allow scientists to engineer much thicker tissue than ever before.

"Without a blood supply, cells will die," Spector says. "The key thing is to have a well-vascularized construct."

First US Face Transplant Patient Leaves Hospital

First US face transplant patient leaves Cleveland hospital, can now smile, eat solid food

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE

The Associated Press

Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic said the nation's first-ever face transplant surgery took 22 hours from start to finish. The identity of the recipient of the donor face remains a mystery.

(Getty/ABC News)

She can eat pizza. And hamburgers. She can smell perfume, drink coffee from a cup, and purse her lips as if to blow a kiss. Except that one lip is hers, and the other is from a dead woman. She is the nation's first face transplant patient, and on Thursday night, she went home from a Cleveland hospital. "I'm happy about myself," she told her doctors.

"She accepted her new face," said Dr. Maria Siemionow, the Cleveland Clinic reconstructive surgeon who led the historic operation in early December.

The woman's identity has not been revealed, and hospital officials won't say where she went. She and her family have declined requests for an interview.

She suffered a traumatic injury several years ago, the details of which doctors also won't reveal. But it left the woman with no nose, palate, or way to eat or breathe normally. In a 22-hour procedure, 80 percent of her face was replaced with bone, muscles, nerves, skin and blood vessels from another woman who had just died.

It was the fourth partial face transplant in the world, though the others were not as extensive.

The patient's recovery has been astonishing, Siemionow said. She shows no signs of rejecting her new face, is doing well on standard immune-suppressing drugs, and can breathe normally instead of through a hole in her windpipe.

A couple weeks ago, she ate pizza for the first time in years.

"She can actually feel the new face, and she does not feel the difference between her old face and her new face," Siemionow said.

"Before surgery, she couldn't smell at all," the surgeon said. Now, "she can recognize perfumes, she can eat and smell her hamburger ... she can drink her coffee from the cup."

Most surprising to doctors, who thought a transplanted face would never be able to do this: "She can wink her eye," Siemionow said.

Her face appears so normal, that she could probably even could go out in public and not be recognized as someone who had a face transplant, Siemionow said.

"The scars are nicely hidden because it's such a large transplant," she said. "We are really pleased with the outcome."

The woman must return a couple of times a week for follow-up care. She still needs restorative dental work. Doctors are working on a dental prosthesis to help fill the massive defect she suffered from her injury and to hold upper false teeth. Her lower teeth and lip are her own.

Already, the improvement in her quality of life is dramatic, and she is enjoying small pleasures "that we take for granted," Siemionow said.

"She enjoys cookies with her coffee," but could not drink from a cup before the transplant. "She loves hamburgers. For years, she could not eat chicken," and longed for its taste, the surgeon said.

The woman suffered emotionally from being called names and frightening children who ran away when they saw her, Siemionow said in a December news conference when the transplant was announced. Now, she has found inner happiness and confidence with the new face.

"It's something that will give a lot of hope to other patients," Siemionow said.

Such operations have been controversial because unlike transplants of vital organs like hearts and livers, face transplants are done to improve quality of life — not extend it. Recipients run the risk of deadly complications and must take immune-suppressing drugs for the rest of their lives to prevent organ rejection, raising their odds of cancer and infections.

However, leading physician groups and bioethicists praised the Cleveland case and have warmed to the idea for carefully selected patients who have exhausted other reconstructive surgery options.

The Cleveland Clinic has received a military grant to investigate face transplants for injured soldiers, and Siemionow visited Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio a few months ago to consider potential candidates.

The clinic hopes to offer more such operations, but "we'll give our results a little time" and make sure this patient does well, she said.

The world's first partial face transplant was performed in France in 2005 on a 38-year-old woman who had been mauled by her dog. Isabelle Dinoire received a new nose, chin and lips from a brain-dead donor. Apart from some rejection episodes, she has done well.

Two others have received partial face transplants since then — a Chinese farmer attacked by a bear and a European man disfigured by a genetic condition.

———

On the Net:

Cleveland Clinic: http://www.clevelandclinic.org/face

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

V

Thursday, Jan. 08, 2009

Photo-illustration for TIME by Andree Kahlmorgan; Images by istock Photo

Doctors used to have poetic names for diseases. A physician would speak of consumption because the illness seemed to eat you from within. Now we just use the name of the bacterium that causes the illness: tuberculosis. Psychology, though, remains a profession practiced partly as science and partly as linguistic art.

Because our knowledge of the mind's afflictions remains so limited, psychologists — even when writing in academic publications — still deploy metaphors to understand difficult disorders. And possibly the most difficult of all to fathom — and thus one of the most creatively named — is the mysterious-sounding borderline personality disorder (BPD). University of Washington psychologist Marsha Linehan, one of the world's leading experts on BPD, describes it this way: "Borderline individuals are the psychological equivalent of third-degree-burn patients. They simply have, so to speak, no emotional skin. Even the slightest touch or movement can create immense suffering."

Borderlines are the patients psychologists fear most. As many as 75% hurt themselves, and approximately 10% commit suicide — an extraordinarily high suicide rate (by comparison, the suicide rate for mood disorders is about 6%). Borderline patients seem to have no internal governor; they are capable of deep love and profound rage almost simultaneously. They are powerfully connected to the people close to them and terrified by the possibility of losing them — yet attack those people so unexpectedly that they often ensure the very abandonment they fear. When they want to hold, they claw instead. Many therapists have no clue how to treat borderlines. And yet diagnosis of the condition appears to be on the rise.

A 2008 study of nearly 35,000 adults in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that 5.9% — which would translate into 18 million Americans — had been given a BPD diagnosis. As recently as 2000, the American Psychiatric Association believed that only 2% had BPD. (In contrast, clinicians diagnose bipolar disorder and schizophrenia in about 1% of the population.) BPD has long been regarded as an illness disproportionately affecting women, but the latest research shows no difference in prevalence rates for men and women. Regardless of gender, people in their 20s are at higher risk for BPD than those older or younger.

What defines borderline personality disorder — and makes it so explosive — is the sufferers' inability to calibrate their feelings and behavior. When faced with an event that makes them depressed or angry, they often become inconsolable or enraged. Such problems may be exacerbated by impulsive behaviors: overeating or substance abuse; suicide attempts; intentional self-injury. (The methods of self-harm that borderlines choose can be gruesomely creative. One psychologist told me of a woman who used fingernail clippers to pull off slivers of her skin."

Click here for the rest of the TIME ARTICLE

Does DNA Have Telepathic Properties?-A Galaxy Insight

DNA has been found to have a bizarre ability to put itself together, even at a distance, when according to known science it shouldn't be able to. Explanation: None, at least not yet.

Scientists are reporting evidence that contrary to our current beliefs about what is possible, intact double-stranded DNA has the “amazing” ability to recognize similarities in other DNA strands from a distance. Somehow they are able to identify one another, and the tiny bits of genetic material tend to congregate with similar DNA. The recognition of similar sequences in DNA’s chemical subunits, occurs in a way unrecognized by science. There is no known reason why the DNA is able to combine the way it does, and from a current theoretical standpoint this feat should be chemically impossible.

Even so, the research published in ACS’ Journal of Physical Chemistry B, shows very clearly that homology recognition between sequences of several hundred nucleotides occurs without physical contact or presence of proteins. Double helixes of DNA can recognize matching molecules from a distance and then gather together, all seemingly without help from any other molecules or chemical signals.

In the study, scientists observed the behavior of fluorescently tagged DNA strands placed in water that contained no proteins or other material that could interfere with the experiment. Strands with identical nucleotide sequences were about twice as likely to gather together as DNA strands with different sequences. No one knows how individual DNA strands could possibly be communicating in this way, yet somehow they do. The “telepathic” effect is a source of wonder and amazement for scientists.

“Amazingly, the forces responsible for the sequence recognition can reach across more than one nanometer of water separating the surfaces of the nearest neighbor DNA,” said the authors Geoff S. Baldwin, Sergey Leikin, John M. Seddon, and Alexei A. Kornyshev and colleagues.

This recognition effect may help increase the accuracy and efficiency of the homologous recombination of genes, which is a process responsible for DNA repair, evolution, and genetic diversity. The new findings may also shed light on ways to avoid recombination errors, which are factors in cancer, aging, and other health issues.

Posted by Rebecca Sato.

12 Health Fads That Never Made It

When it comes to our health, we're often ready to try almost any new potion that even a complete stranger suggests. Often many of these quick-fixes turn out to be baseless, and the so-called cures have only a placebo effect.

Here are 12 health fads that ‘fad-ed’ away with time. Some did not do what they claimed to do. Others were in fact bad for your health!

1. Bee Venom

Bee venom therapists apply bee venom to specific points on the surface of the body. The natural sting of the bee was believed to cure a wide variety of diseases including arthritis, multiple sclerosis, tendonitis, fibromyalgia, and even breast cancer.

There are several testimonials from people who claim to have been benefited from bee stings. A woman claims her rheumatoid arthritis was reversed after she got 80 stings every other day. The practice is particulalry strong in China where about 3,000 private clinics provided treatments to more than 230 million people in 2005.

• FACT: If you’ve ever been stung by a bee, you already have first-hand experience of how painful it can be. While the potential benefits of the therapy are still uncertain, the dangers are clear. Many people have allergic reactions. A person with a severe reaction to bee venom may get hives on skin, and swelling of the lips, eyes, throat and tongue. There may be vomiting, slurring of speech, mental confusion and even breathing difficulties. “It’s alternative medicine and has no basis in western medical science... I would doubt its efficacy,” Professor Christopher Lam, a chemical pathologist at the Chinese University in Hong Kong said.

2. Blood-group diets

Celebrities like Liz Hurley made the Blood Type diet one of the most talked about health fads. The diet meant people with blood type B should avoid corn, wheat, lentils, tomatoes, chicken, peanuts and sesame seeds, and they should eat goat, mutton, venison, eggs, green vegetables, and low fat dairy.

Your blood type was defined by your ancestors - so for example - type A blood groups are descended from farmers, so they should avoid meat and dairy and stick to being vegetarians. If you are type B, your ancestors were nomads, so meals should be of red meat and fish. Type O, you are descended from hunter-gatherers, so eat lots of animal protein with few carbohydrates and don't forget to exercise energetically. If you have AB blood group you will suffer most of the benefits and intolerances of both blood groups.

But does sticking to a diet specific to your blood type actually work?

• FACT: Experts say there is no science to back this. Cutting down on any particular group of food could result in an unbalanced diet with a low intake of certain important nutrients. Anything that promotes the restriction or avoidance of whole food groups should ring alarm bells.

3. Tapeworm Diet

Tapeworm diet pills were marketed in the early part of the 20th century. The practice involved swallowing beef tapeworm eggs and then taking a medicine to kill the tapeworm after reaching your target weight.

The tapeworm secretes proteins in the intestinal tract that make digestion of food much less efficient. A less efficient digestive system means that you can consume more calories since your 'guest' is also using them.

• FACT: The practice was both ineffective and unhealthy. Imagine encouraging a parasite in your body to suck all the nutritional value from your food! In addition eating habits weren't changed so it's likely that you would regain the weight after the worms were gone. Voluntarily ingesting a tapeworm to lose weight is legally a difficult thing to pull off, not to mention dangerous. The FDA has intervened and banned these unsubstantiated and dangerous products.

4. Placenta Drinks

A number of health and beauty products marketed by Japanese firms claimed to contain pig placenta or ‘afterbirth’ as the active ingredient.

The placenta products came as beverages, capsules, organic skin cream, wearable facial mask, and…er…placenta drinks and jellies!

The products claimed to ‘give tired lacklustre skin a nonsurgical face lift.’ Its proponents swear by its regenerative, anti-aging properties. They also claim it is a great weight loss booster and a natural cure to post-delivery depression.

So, are you ready for a pig placenta face mask for pink, kissable cheeks? Or a placenta cocktail for a great figure!

FACT: Is placenta truly an anti-ager? Not according to the FDA.

5. Ear Candling or Ear Coning

A long hollow tapering cone of muslin coated with wax is inserted into the ear and lit to create a vacuum.

Photograph: Roxana Marroquin

Its advocates claimed it treated hearing problems, headaches, migraine, sinusitis, rhinitis, and hay fever. Apparently the candle acts on the 'energetic level' and can also detoxify you and treat all sorts of ailments unconnected with your ear.

• FACT: There have been reports of external burns, ear canal obstruction with candle wax and of perforated ear drums. No ear wax is removed by the procedure. A study published in the journal Laryngoscope found no proof that ear candles produce a vacuum or result in the removal of earwax.

• Michael Godin, an ear, nose and throat doctor at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary adamantly opposes ear candling. “It’s a gimmick,” he says. “It’s a therapeutic procedure that is done with no scientific or clinical basis—there’s no basic way to check to see if the treatment even does what it claims.”

6. Oxygenated water

‘Oxygenated water’ claimed to detoxify blood, enhance sports performance, and improve heart and muscle functions. Obviously, it became a craze among sportspersons.

• FACT: But a study reported in JAMA (2003; 290:2408-2409) showed that a single breath of air contained more oxygen than a bottle of oxygenated water. Just taking a deep breath was found to be better.

7. Mesotherapy

During the 1950s, women took multiple injections of several substances such as pharmaceutical and homeopathic products, vitamins, plant extracts etc. just under the skin to treat cellulite and as a pain relief therapy.

Mesotherapy Gun

Although mesothrapy is still practiced today there is no conclusive research to prove that these chemical compounds work to target fat.

• FACT: No one knows exactly what was put into the syringe. Phoshatidylcholine, a drug often used for this purpose, can cause serious reactions and has been banned in a number of South American countries. Studies showed mesotherapy caused skin lesions and irritation and could result in prolonged skin infections.

8. Breatherianism

Its believers claimed food and water are not necessary and humans can survive only on prana (the vital life force) and sunlight. The Breatherian Institute of America also promoted this age-old practice performed by eastern ascetics.

• FACT: Common sense and basic science both refute this one.

9. Detox Foot Baths

Simply putting your feet into a bath of salt water and activating a mouse sized device was believed to clean the body internally!

• FACT: What actually happened was the iron electrodes in the bath rapidly corroded due to electrolysation of the water. Rust accumulated turning the water yellow and then brown. The scum that you might see at the top was made of insoluble iron precipitates - and not the toxins from your body.

• You would see the same "toxic" substances discoloring the water, without you actually having to put your feet into it!

10. Colonics

In the early 90s, John Harvey Kellogg, the founder of the Kellogg cereal company, popularized colonic irrigation to flush out to toxins from the body.

• FACT: Remember, it can be rather uncomfortable. There have also been reports of serious infections, heart failure, electrolyte imbalance and even bowel perforation. The frequent use of colonics could lead to dependence. You may be unable to go to the bathroom without assistance or have withdrawal symptoms.

• Colonic cleansing should be done only when medically indicated, such as before radiological endoscopy.

11. Iridology

Iridology is an alternative medicine technique whose proponents believe that patterns, colors, and other characteristics of the iris can be examined to determine information about a patient's systemic health. Iridologists use charts to distinguish between healthy systems and organs in the body and those which are overactive, inflamed, or distressed.

• FACT: Scientific studies over the past decades reported in JAMA 1979;242(13), Arch Ophthalmol 2000;118:120-121, Journal of Alternative and Complimetary Medicine 2005, 11(3): 515-519 have proven even leading iridologists wrong. A wrong diagnosis can lead to wrong treatment.

12. Spanish Fly

This is a beetle from South Europe. The dried remains of the beetles were at one time believed to be one of the most potent aphrodisiacs. When Spanish fly powder is ingested, the body excretes 'cantharidin' in the urine. This causes intense irritation and burning in the urogenital tract, which then leads to itching and swelling of the genitals. This swelling and burning was once assumed to be sexual arousal and led to the belief that Spanish fly had aphrodisiac qualities

• FACT: It proved to be one of the most dangerous. The FDA says, ‘Spanish fly is a poison that burns the mouth and throat and can lead to genitourinary infections, scarring of the urethra, and even death’.

New transplant hope as lung is 'repaired' and given to patient

By Jo Macfarlane

Surgeons have for the first time repaired an injured donor lung and transplanted it into a patient.

The lung did not meet strict quality standards and would normally have been discarded. But, using a new technique, doctors kept it ‘alive’ and repaired it with a combination of drugs and stem cells.

Lungs are usually removed from patients who die of brain injuries. But because the brain releases inflammatory enzymes when it shuts down, only about 15 per cent are viable for transplant.

X-Ray: Doctors have for the first time repaired an injured donor lung and transplanted it into a patient

These healthy organs are then cooled and are usable for about six to eight hours.

Under the new procedure, the lungs are transferred to a protective chamber and connected to ventilators and filters, which allow an oxygen-carrying solution to flow through them.

The temperature of the lungs is increased over 30 minutes until it reaches 37C (99F), at which point they can be preserved for between 12 and 18 hours, allowing doctors to assess the quality of the organ and treat it accordingly.

The lungs also partially use their own regenerative powers to heal in the same way they would inside the body.

The system was developed in Toronto, Canada. Lead researcher Shaf Keshavjee said: ‘This will be a significant improvement in the utilisation, and quality of organs.

'It has applications for all organs, and transplantation will become more like blood banks, with organs tested and then stored.’

The technique has been successfully used in four transplants.

Artificial Human Bone Marrow Created In A Test Tube

Researchers have created artificial bone marrow that can continuously make red and white blood cells. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of Michigan)

This development could lead to simpler pharmaceutical drug testing, closer study of immune system defects and a continuous supply of blood for transfusions.

The substance grows on a 3-D scaffold that mimics the tissues supporting bone marrow in the body, said Nicholas Kotov, a professor in the U-M departments of Chemical Engineering; Materials Science and Engineering; and Biomedical Engineering.

The marrow is not made to be implanted in the body, like most 3-D biomedical scaffolds. It is designed to function in a test tube.

Kotov, principal investigator, is an author of a paper about the research currently published online in the journal Biomaterials. Joan Nichols, professor from the University of Texas Medical Branch, collaborated on many aspects of the project.

"This is the first successful artificial bone marrow," Kotov said. "It has two of the essential functions of bone marrow. It can replicate blood stem cells and produce B cells. The latter are the key immune cells producing antibodies that are important to fighting many diseases."

Blood stem cells give rise to blood as well as several other types of cells. B cells, a type of white blood cell, battle colds, bacterial infections, and other foreign or abnormal cells including some cancers.

Cancer-fighting chemotherapy drugs can strongly suppress bone marrow function, leaving the body more susceptible to infection. The new artificial marrow could allow researchers to test how a new drug at certain potencies would affect bone marrow function, Kotov said. This could assist in drug development and catch severe side effects before human drug trials.

Bone marrow is a complicated organ to replicate, Kotov said. Vital to the success of this new development is the three-dimensional scaffold on which the artificial marrow grows. This lattice had to have a high number of precisely-sized pores to stimulate cellular interaction.

The scaffolds are made out of a transparent polymer that nutrients can easily pass through. To create the scaffolds, scientists molded the polymer with tiny spheres ordered like billiard balls. Then, they dissolved the spheres to leave the perfect geometry of pores in the scaffold.

The scaffolds were then seeded with bone marrow stromal cells and osteoblasts, another type of bone marrow cell.

"The geometrical perfection of the polymer molded by spheres is very essential for reproducibility of the drug tests and evaluation of potential drug candidates," Kotov said. "The scaffold for this work had to be designed from scratch closely mimicking real bone marrow because there are no suitable commercially products.

"Certain stem cells that are essential for immunity and blood production are able to grow, divide and differentiate efficiently in these scaffolds due to the close similarity of the pores in the scaffold and the pores in actual bone marrow."

The researchers demonstrated that the artificial marrow gives a human-like response to an infectious New Caledonia/99/H1N1 flu virus. This is believed to be a first.

To determine whether the substance behaves like real bone marrow, the scientists implanted it in mice with immune deficiencies. The mice produced human immune cells and blood vessels grew through the substance.

---

Journal reference:

1. Nichols et al. In vitro analog of human bone marrow from 3D scaffolds with biomimetic inverted colloidal crystal geometry. Biomaterials, 2008; DOI: 10.1016/j.biomaterials.2008.10.041

Adapted from materials provided by University of Michigan.

Sharpen Your Sense of Smell and Taste

Every Bite and Sniff

20 strategies to protect your senses as you get older

We all know that feeling of having a bad taste in our mouth, or the way a stuffy nose makes even the most fragrant garlic pizza taste like cardboard. But did you know that our sense of smell and taste naturally declines as we age?

Often the change is so gradual you barely notice it. That wouldn't be a problem, except that it can affect your health -- studies find people with impaired ability to smell and taste tend to follow less healthful diets. It also puts you in danger: Your sense of smell serves as an early warning system for things like rotten food and gas leaks.

Here's how to sustain smell and taste so that every bite (and sniff) tells you what you need to know:

comstockcomplete.com

A dry mouth can affect your sense of taste. Drink water regularly.

1. Serve food that looks like itself. Forget fancy-schmancy presentation. If you're serving fish, keep it looking like a fish. Your sense of taste is stronger if your brain can connect what you're eating with how it looks.

2. Put on your seat belt. A common cause of loss of smell (which then directly affects taste) is automobile accidents, even low-speed crashes, says Alan Hirsch, M.D., neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago. Any impact can shift the brain within your skull, tearing delicate nerve fibers that connect your nose to your brain.

3. Go for a brisk, 10-minute walk or run. Our sense of smell is higher after exercise. Researchers suspect it might be related to additional moisture in the nose.

4. Drink a glass of water every hour or so. Dry mouth -- whether due to medication or simply dehydration -- can adversely affect your sense of taste, says Evan Reiter, M.D., an otolaryngologist at Virginia Commonwealth University's Eye & Ear Specialty Center in Richmond.

5. Shuck a dozen oysters. Among their other benefits, oysters are one of the highest food sources of zinc, and zinc deficiencies contribute to a loss of smell as well as taste.

6. Make a list of any medicines you're taking and ask your doctor about their effect on smell and taste. Hundreds of medications affect taste and smell, including statins, antidepressants, high blood pressure medications, and chemotherapy drugs like methotrexate, also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis. If your meds are on the list, talk to your doctor about possible alternatives or lower doses. Don't, however, stop taking your medication or cut your dosage on your own.

7. Stub out that cigarette and make it your last. Nothing screws up the smell receptors in your nose and the taste receptors on your tongue like cigarettes. Long-term smoking can even permanently damage the olfactory (a.k.a., sniffing) nerves in the back of your nose.

8. Eat only when you are hungry. Our sense of smell (and thus taste) is strongest when we're hungriest.

9. Humidify your air in the winter. Our sense of smell is strongest in the summer and spring, says Dr. Hirsch, most likely because of the higher moisture content in the air.

10. Eat in a restaurant or with other people. Dr. Hirsch calls this the "herd response." He cites studies that find that eating in the presence of other people makes food taste better than eating alone.

11. Stay away from the diaper pail and other stinky smells. Prolonged exposure to bad smells (like the sewer plant up the road) tends to wipe out your ability to smell, says Dr. Hirsch. So if you must be exposed to such odors on a prolonged basis, wear a mask over your nose and mouth that filters out some of the bad smells.

12. Add spices to your food. Even if your sense of smell and taste has plummeted, you should still retain full function in your "irritant" nerve, which is the nerve that makes you cry when you cut an onion, or makes your eyes water when you taste peppermint or smell ammonia. So use spices like hot chili powder to spice up your food.

13. Blow your nose and clean it out with saline spray. A simple thing, but it can help, because a blocked nose means blocked nerve receptors.

14. Chew thoroughly and slowly. This releases more flavor and extends the time that the food lingers in your mouth so it spends more time in contact with your taste buds. Even before you start chewing, stir your food around. This has the effect of aerating the molecules in the food, releasing more of their scent.

15. Stick to one glass of wine or beer. Dr. Hirsch's research finds the sense of smell declines as blood alcohol levels rise.

16. Eat a different food with every forkful. Instead of eating the entire steak at once, then moving on to the potato, take a bite of steak, then a bite of potato, then a bite of spinach, etc. Recurrent new exposures to the scent will keep your olfactory nerves from getting bored, thus enhancing your taste buds.

17. Make an appointment with an allergist. Stop trying to treat recurrent allergies or runny nose with over-the-counter products. See an expert. There are a range of lifestyle changes and medications that can have you breathing clearly (thus improving your sense of smell and taste) in just a week or so.

18. Reset your taste for sugar and salt by cutting them out for at least a week. Processed foods have so much sugar and salt that you'll practically stop tasting them if you eat these foods often. Try this experiment: Check the salt content of your favorite cereal, and if it's more than 200 mg sodium per serving, switch to a low-sodium brand for two weeks. Once you switch back, you'll suddenly taste all the salt you were overlooking. Same goes for sugar.

19. Avoid very hot foods and fluids. They can damage your taste buds.

20. Try sniff therapy. It is possible to train your nose (and brain) to notice smells better. Start by sniffing something with a strong odor for a couple of minutes several times a day. Do this continually for three or four months and you should notice your sense of smell getting stronger -- at least where that particular item is involved, says Dr. Hirsch.

Surgeon finds foot in baby's brain

American neurosurgeon discovers tiny body parts while removing tumour from newborn

• Associated Press
• guardian.co.uk
  

An American surgeon found a tiny foot and other partially formed body parts inside a tumour he removed from an infant's brain.

Dr Paul Grabb, a paediatric neurosurgeon, said he operated on Sam Esquibel at Memorial Hospital for Children, Colorado Springs, after an MRI scan showed a microscopic tumour on the newborn's brain. Sam was three days old and otherwise healthy.

Grabb said that while removing the growth he discovered it contained a nearly perfect foot and the formation of another foot, a hand and a thigh.

"It looked like the breach delivery of a baby coming out of the brain," Grabb said. "To find a perfectly formed structure (like this) is extremely unique, unusual, borderline unheard of."

Grabb was not sure what caused the growth but said it may have been a type of congenital brain tumour. However, such tumours were usually less complex, he said.

The growth may also have been a case of "fetus in fetu" in which a fetal twin begins to form within another. But such cases very rarely occurred in the brain, Grabb said.

Sam's parents, Tiffnie and Manuel Esquibel, said their son was at home now but faced monthly blood tests to check for signs of cancer or regrowth, along with physical therapy to improve the use of his neck. They said he had mostly recovered from the surgery.

"You'd never know if he didn't have a scar there," his mother said.

Star Trek Now: Lasers Close Incisions

By Bill Christensen

Laser welding of body tissues may provide a means of closing surgical incisions that is better than traditional methods. The technique, pioneered by Professor Abrahim Katzir of Tel Aviv University, can also be used with great efficacy on cuts made inside our bodies during surgery.

Prof. Katzir set out to find the right temperature for optimal wound healing, and to perfect a device that could maintain this temperature. He is the first to apply the carbon dioxide laser, coupled to optical fibers, for wound closure under a tight temperature control.

Successful clinical trials have already been made on people undergoing gall bladder removal surgery. Following surgery, four cuts were left on the skin of the abdomen, two of which were sutured and two laser-bonded. The results of the trials suggest that the laser-bonded tissues heal faster, with less scarring.

“We think plastic surgeons will especially love this invention. Bonding tissues that heal well without scarring is a true art that few people possess,” says Prof. Katzir. This method, he says, will be much easier to master than suturing and will generate a watertight bond, preventing infections and accelerating healing.

“It could also become a device for the battlefield, allowing soldiers to heal each other on contact with a laser wand,” says Prof. Katzir

If this sounds like space age medicine, you're right. Fans of Star Trek: The Next Generation will no doubt find this idea familiar. Starting in the 2250's, the laser scalpel was the surgical instrument of choice and was available in different wavelengths for varied cutting strength and depth of cut.

However, as far as Dr. Katzir's work on closing surgical incisions is concerned, I'm more interested in the dermal regenerator.The dermal regenerator was used on a number of occasions in the television show to heal cuts and burns. (Tip to Dr. Katzir - it is also useful in removing scars.)

Those of us who grew up watching the original Star Trek series are seeing Dr. McCoy's medical tools everywhere, from LifeBed Systems Like Star Trek's Sick Bay to Handheld Personal Biosensors.

Source: Tel Aviv University.

Japan scientists eye made-to-order bones

Japanese hospitals are running a clinical trial on the world's first custom-made bones which would fit neatly into patients' skulls and eventually give way to real bones.

If successful, the Japanese method could open the way for doctors to create new bones within hours of an accident so long as the patient has electronic data on file.

Doctors usually mend defective bones by transplanting real bones or ceramic substitutes. The Japanese implants use a powder of calcium phosphate, the substance that makes up real bones.

The new implants are called CT Bone as they are crafted using the patient's computer tomography (CT) data, a form of medical imaging.

It can match the complicated structures of the jaw, cheek and other parts of the skull down to one millimetre (0.039 of an inch), a level significant enough to make a difference in human faces, researchers told AFP.

"It can also be replaced by your own bone, which wasn't possible before" with conventional sintered ceramic bones, said Tsuyoshi Takato, an orthopedic surgeon and professor at the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Medicine.

The implants are currently limited to use in the skull because, unlike limbs, they do not have to carry the body weight.

The custom-made bones are created from the calcium phosphate powder and a solidifying liquid which is more than 80 percent distilled water, using computer-assisted design.

In the same way that an ink-jet printer propels droplets onto a piece of paper, a device squirts the liquid on a 0.1-millimetre-thick layer of the powder to form a desired shape.

The device, which was developed with Tokyo-based firm Next 21, repeats the process and builds up layers that have different shapes. For example, 100 layers create a one-centimetre thick implant.

Theoretically, a laboratory in Tokyo could one day use CT data to create a custom-made bone within hours for someone hurt in a car accident halfway across the world.

The clinical tests will last for some two years, covering a total of 70 adults at 10 hospitals. Prior to the current project, the University of Tokyo Hospital implanted CT Bone in 10 adults, who showed promising results.

The researchers expect to put it into practical use in three to four years.

The same technology has been used to make prototypes of industrial products.

"But it is the first time in the world to use materials that can and were implanted into the human body," said Chung Ung-il, a University of Tokyo bioengineering professor who is also part of the project.

---

Chung said previous studies showed the implants are replaced with regenerated real bone after one or two years, depending on the extent of the defects.

Takato said the host bone serves as "an incubator" that helps replace artificial bone as cells invade the implant in what could be called "in-body tissue engineering".

As ceramic implants are brittle, surgeons often have to scrape the patient's host bone instead to help conventional implants fit better, Takato said.

Doctors also often take bone from elsewhere in the body, particularly the hip, for conventional transplants.

"Nearly half of it is often wasted in the process of making an implant that fits. It is very good to be able to reconstruct bone without taking a piece from elsewhere," Takato said.

Takato hopes to use CT Bone for children if the clinical tests go well.

"Even if I want to treat their skeletal damage or development abnormality, I can't take bone from children for grafts. This technology should benefit children," Takato said.

Children usually have excellent bone growth. "Implants would be quickly replaced with their own bone, which would grow as the child grows," he said.

The technology also has narrow holes running through the artificial bones, inviting blood vessels and cells to come and help regenerate bone.

The research team is also working on a second-generation CT Bone, which contains materials that facilitate bridging between the artificial and real bone.

Experiments with implanting it in the skulls of Beagle dogs are underway with good results, he said.

The ultimate goal is to be able to construct bone from the living cells of patients, allowing them to take in larger pieces.

© 2008 AFP

Cannabis 'could stop dementia in its tracks'

By Fiona Macrae

Cannabis may help keep Alzheimer's disease at bay.

In experiments, a marijuana-based medicine triggered the formation of new brain cells and cut inflammation linked to dementia.

The researchers say that using the information to create a pill suitable for people could help prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's.

A medicine based on cannabis (right) could help to delay the onset of Alzheimer's

The incurable disease affects 400,000 Britons, with around 500 new cases diagnosed every day as people live longer.

For some sufferers, drugs can delay the progress of devastating symptoms such as memory loss and the erosion of ability to do everyday things such as washing.

However, there they do not work for everyone and, with the number of patients forecast to double in a generation, there is a desperate need for new treatments.

The US researchers studied the properties of a man-made drug based on THC, the chemical behind the 'high' of cannabis.

When elderly rats were given the drug for three weeks, it improved their memory, making it easier for them to find their way round a water maze, the Society for Neuroscience's annual conference heard yesterday (WEDS).

Researcher Dr Yannick Marchalant said; 'Old rats are not very good at that task. When we gave them the drug, it made them a little better at that task.'

Other experiments showed that the drug acts on parts of the brain involved in memory, appetite, pain and mood.

The Ohio State University experiments also showed that the drug cut inflammation in the brain and may trigger the production of new neurons or brain cells.

Researcher Professor Gary Wenk said: 'When we're young, we produce neurons and our memory works fine.

'When we age, the process slows down, so we have a decrease in new cell formation through normal ageing.

'You need these cells to come back and help form new memories and we found that this THC-like agent can influence the creation of these cells.'

Although the drug used was not suitable for use in people, the results could aid the creation of new medicines for Alzheimer's.

It is likely such a drug would be taken to prevent the disease, rather than treat it.

Asked if those with a family history of Alzheimer's should smoke cannabis to prevent them developing the disease, Dr Wenk said: 'We're not saying that but it might actually work.

'What we are saying its that it appears that a safe, legal substance that mimics the important properties of marijuana can work on the brain to prevent memory impairments in ageing. So that's really hopeful.'

Dr Marchalant added: 'We hope a compound can be found that can target both inflammation and neurogenesis, which would be the most efficient way to produce the best effects.'

The medicinal properties of cannabis have already been harnessed to treat multiple sclerosis.

Sativex, a cannabis-based drug, has been shown to ease the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, including pain, spasms, shaking, depression and anxiety.

The Alzheimer's Society cautioned against using cannabis itself to stave off dementia.

Professor Clive Ballard, the charity's director of research, said: 'There are encouraging findings from studies with animals suggesting that some cannabis derivatives may help protect nerve cells in the brain.

'We therefore look forward to robust clinical trials into potential benefits of non-psychoactive components of cannabis.

'It is important for people to note that these treatments are not same as recreational cannabis use which can be potentially harmful.'

US teen lives 118 days without heart

By Jim Loney

MIAMI, Nov 19 (Reuters) - An American teen-ager survived for nearly four months without a heart, kept alive by a custom-built artificial blood-pumping device, until she was able to have a heart transplant, doctors in Miami said on Wednesday.

The doctors said they knew of another case in which an adult had been kept alive in Germany for nine months without a heart but said they believed this was the first time a child had survived in this manner for so long.

The patient, D'Zhana Simmons of South Carolina, said the experience of living for so long with a machine pumping her blood was "scary."

"You never knew when it would malfunction," she said, her voice barely above a whisper, at a news conference at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center.

"It was like I was a fake person, like I didn't really exist. I was just here," she said of living without a heart.

Simmons, 14, suffered from dilated cardiomyopathy, a condition in which the patient's heart becomes weakened and enlarged and does not pump blood efficiently.

She had a heart transplant on July 2 at Miami's Holtz Children's Hospital but the new heart failed to function properly and was quickly removed.

Two heart pumps made by Thoratec Corp (THOR.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) of Pleasanton, California, were implanted to keep her blood flowing while she fought a host of ailments and recovered her strength. Doctors implanted another heart on Oct. 29.

"She essentially lived for 118 days without a heart, with her circulation supported only by the two blood pumps," said Dr. Marco Ricci, the hospital's director of pediatric cardiac surgery. During that time, Simmons was mobile but remained hospitalized.

When an artificial heart is used to sustain a patient, the patient's own heart is usually left in the body, doctors said.

In some cases, adult patients have been kept alive that way for more than a year, they said.

"This, we believe, is the first pediatric patient who has received such a device in this configuration without the heart, and possibly one of the youngest that has ... been bridged to transplantation without her native heart," Ricci said.

Simmons also suffered renal failure and had a kidney transplant the day after the second heart transplant.

Ricci said her prognosis was good. But doctors said there is a 50 percent chance that a heart transplant patient will need a new heart 12 or 13 years after the first surgery. (Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Ovary transplant mother speaks of her "indescribable" joy after giving birth

Dozing peacefully in her mother's arms, this is four-day-old Maja Butscher, the first baby to be born as the result of a whole ovary transplant.

Exclusive by Gordon Rayner and Rebecca Smith

Susanne and Stephan Butscher with their new baby Maja Charlotte Shasa Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley

Maja, appropriately named after the Roman goddess of fertility, is a symbol of hope to millions of infertile women around the world who could benefit from the same pioneering procedure which enabled her mother Susanne to conceive naturally.

Mrs Butscher, 39, who went through an early menopause, fell pregnant a year after being given an ovary by her identical twin sister.

Recovering from the birth at the Portland Hospital in London, she said: "Being a mother at last is an indescribable feeling. It's been hard to take my eyes off her since she was born.

"I'm so lucky to have had this wonderful opportunity which has given me a sense of completeness I would never have had otherwise.

"Being the first woman in the world to give birth after a whole ovary transplant hasn't sunk in yet, but I'm just so grateful to the doctors who enabled this to happen and to my sister, of course.

"I'm happy to be sharing my story with the world to give other women hope who might have similar problems."

Doctors believe the pioneering transplant treatment which Mrs Butscher underwent in the US last year will not only benefit women who suffer an early menopause, but could also help women who undergo chemotherapy or radiotherapy for cancer and who could freeze one of their ovaries before beginning treatment.

Mrs Butscher, whose primary reason for the transplant was to halt the advance of osteoporosis which she was suffering as a result of her early menopause, began ovulating naturally for the first time in her life after receiving the ovary from her sister Dorothee.

She said she feared her transplanted ovary had failed when she missed her period eight months ago.

"It was a little bit worrying, but something inside me told me this was different," she said. "For the first time in my life, I went out and bought a pregnancy testing kit. When it showed up positive, I couldn't believe it, so I went out and bought another one to check."

Mrs Butscher, who is originally from Hamburg but has lived in London for the past six years with her husband Stephan, who is also German, said: "Ever since I found out I was pregnant it has been a magical journey.

"At the same time I was super-nervous. Every time we went over a bump or pothole in the road I was worried."

After a straightforward pregnancy, baby Maja Charlotte Shasa Butscher, whose third name means "precious water", was born by elective caesarean at 2.42 on Tuesday afternoon, weighing 7lbs 15oz.

Doctors at the Portland decided to perform a caesarean because Mrs Butscher had reached full term with no signs that she was about to go into labour.

"When I saw her for the first time I just cried," said Mrs Butscher. "You can't really put into words that feeling when you see your daughter for the first time. I heard her scream first, as she was delivered, and then I saw her. She really is a little miracle."

Mr Butscher, 40, said: "I don't think anyone has invented the right words to describe what it feels like to become a father."

Mrs Butscher, an acupuncturist and complementary therapist, was diagnosed as being infertile 12 years ago following years of tests on her ovaries and hormone levels.

She said: "I never had periods when I was younger, whereas my twin sister had regular periods. I was very slim and the doctors said that when I put weight on my periods would start.

"No-one realised at the time that my ovaries weren't working, they just said my hormone levels weren't normal, so I was put on the Pill to compensate.

"I had all sorts of blood tests, genetic tests, DNA tests, but it wasn't until we moved to Boston in America in 1996 that I was diagnosed with premature ovary failure.

"I was also told I had osteoporosis and that it would be very, very difficult for me to have children. It was hard to take on board."

Mrs Butscher and her husband Stephan, whom she had married that year, discussed the possibilities of egg donation and adoption, but, said Mrs Butscher: "We decided in the end we wouldn't go for any of this. We had a very full life and we were happy. We came to terms with the fact that we wouldn't have children."

Mr Butscher, a management consultant, said: "It was just part of what we were. It was never a massive issue because we had happy lives."

Mrs Butscher was put on hormone replacement therapy but was concerned about the long-term side-effects and began to look for other ways of treating her osteoporosis.

Her gynaecologist suggested she should contact Dr Sherman Silber, who had carried out pioneering ovary transplant procedures at the Infertility Centre of St Louis in Missouri. He suggested she might be a suitable candidate for a whole ovary transplant if her twin sister could be the donor.

"I wanted to make sure it wouldn't harm my sister, because it's such a big thing for someone to donate an organ," said Mrs Butscher. "She said she was happy to go along with it if it was what I wanted.

"At the time my primary concern was to treat my osteoporosis, but at the back of my mind it was also about fertility, even though I had been told so many times I couldn't have children. Dr Silber said it was possible I might start to ovulate, and that was what happened."

Mrs Butscher received her sister's right ovary in a four-and-a-half-hour operation in January 2007.

"It was really emotional because I'm very, very close to my sister and I knew I was the one putting her through this, so it was difficult from a physical point of view and from an emotional one," she said.

"After the surgery there was this tiny flame of hope that I might have a child, but it was difficult trying to balance hope with realistic expectations."

The moment Mrs Butscher had never dared hope for came 13 months after her operation, with confirmation that she was pregnant.

She said: "My husband was away at a conference in Dubai at the time and I didn't want to tell him until I was sure, so I said nothing when I spoke to him that evening and it was only the next day, after it was confirmed by my doctor, that I told him he was going to be a father."

Stephan Butscher said: "I was standing on a platform just about to make a speech in front of 50 people when Susanne rang me and said: 'I have to tell you something.'

"She asked me if I was sitting down, then said 'I'm pregnant.' It was the most fantastic news, and it was difficult to keep the grin off my face as I made my presentation."

Mrs Butscher, who now hopes to have more children, said: "Maja has been absolutely fantastic, she is a good feeder and she sleeps really well. She's got her own personality and she loves to observe everything that's going on around her."

As for her status as a world first, Mr Butscher said of Maja: "She is very calm and relaxed about the whole thing. She's just such a good baby."