Splitting donated livers shown to be safe, allowing doctors to save 2 lives from single organ

Split liver transplantation carries no increased risk of failure in either recipient, allowing surgeons to safely save two lives from a single donated organ (graft), according to new research from Boston Children's Hospital published online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.
Due to their regenerative nature, livers donated by a deceased adult or adolescent can be surgically split into two unequally sized portions; the smaller segment is allocated to a young child awaiting transplant and the larger portion to an adult.
"Infants waiting for a donor liver have the highest waitlist mortality of all liver transplant candidates, and dozens of children die each year waiting for size-appropriate organs to become available," says Heung Bae Kim, MD, director of Boston Children's Hospital's Pediatric Transplant Center and lead author on the study. "If we can increase the number of split livers to just 200 a year, which would still affect less than four percent of the total number of livers transplanted each year, it would save virtually every small child waiting for a new liver."
Based on his recent findings, (which includes research on how well children function with split livers) Kim is advocating for changes in how donor livers are allocated—automatically placing infants and small children at the top of the liver waitlist, thereby giving pediatric transplant surgeons the option to split the first graft to become available. Once the liver has been split, the smaller portion is transplanted into a child and the larger portion is transplanted into the next appropriate adult on the list.
Analyzing United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) records, Boston Children's researchers looked at data compiled over a fifteen year period (1995-2010), studying the graft survival rates of 62,190 first-time adult deceased-donor liver transplant recipients, 889 of whom received partial grafts from a split liver transplant. The research shows that from 2002 forward the vast majority of adults who received a split graft experienced a risk of graft failure comparable to those who received a whole graft.
"After an extensive review of the data, it's clear that in the current era, with the exception of a small, very sick population of patients, adults who receive a split graft can expect to fare as well as those who received a whole organ," says Ryan Cauley, MD, MPH, first author on the paper. "Because risks once associated with this technique are now negligible, if a center has a patient waiting for a liver and it has access to a split graft, there's no reason not to accept it."

In addition to saving young patients, Kim's proposed amendments to the allocation process could take place without sweeping change, affecting only an extremely small portion of available grafts. "There are around 500 to 600 pediatric liver transplants done each year in the United States, with split liver transplant only accounting for 120 of the total number," Kim says. "By splitting just 80 more livers a year, it would make grafts available to virtually every small child on the waitlist. Given the current national debate on maximizing access to organs for children, it's my hope that implementing changes that would benefit children without harming adults would be considered favorably."

Source: Journal of the American College of Surgeons

Personality May Predict If You Like Spicy Foods

Certain aspects of an individual’s personality may be a determining factor in whether they like their food plain and bland or spicy and hot, according to research presented at the 2013 Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) Annual Meeting & Food Expo®.Nadia Byrnes, MS, a doctoral candidate at Pennsylvania State University, presented her research that set out to determine whether there was a correlation between personality types and hot-spice preferences. She conducted a study of 184 participants--nonsmokers ages 18 to 45 without any known issues that would compromise their ability to taste, primarily Caucasian and slightly more women than men (63 percent).Byrnes assessed the group using the Arnett Inventory of Sensation Seeking (AISS), a test for the personality trait of sensation-seeking, defined as desiring novel and intense stimulation and presumed to contribute to risk preferences. Those in the group who score above the mean AISS score are considered more open to risks and new experiences, while those scoring below the mean are considered less open to those things.The subjects were given 25 micrometers of capsaicin, the active component of chili peppers, and asked to rate how much they liked a spicy meal as the burn from the capsaicin increased in intensity. Those in the group who fell below the mean AISS rapidly disliked the meal as the burn increased. People who were above the mean AISS had a consistently high liking of the meal even as the burn increased. Those in the mean group liked the meal less as the burn increased, but not nearly as rapidly as those below the mean.“Theoretically, we know that burn intensity and liking are linear related. The more irritating a compound or food gets, the less people should like it,” she said. “But that’s not always the case.”Also during the same panel. Shane McDonald, Ph.D., principal flavor chemist at Kalsec, discussed the addition of “tingling” spices to foods, which is not very prevalent in the U.S. diet outside of carbonation. He said “Ma La,” a traditional Szechuan cuisine that combines chili peppers (the heat) and Szechuan peppers (the tingle), shows promise for American food manufacturers.The combination of the two sensates enhances the tingling while reducing the heat, which could make certain traditionally spicy foods more appealing to consumers, he said.

Source:Institute of Food Technologists 2013 Annual Meeting and Food Expo

​Poor Sleep in Pregnancy Can Disrupt the Immune System and Cause Birth-Related Complications, Pitt Study Finds

Poor sleep quality and quantity during pregnancy can disrupt normal immune processes and lead to lower birth weights and other complications, finds a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study published today in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine. Women with depression also are more likely than non-depressed women to suffer from disturbed sleep and to experience immune system disruption and adverse pregnancy outcomes. 

 “Our results highlight the importance of identifying sleep problems in early pregnancy, especially in women experiencing depression, since sleep is a modifiable behavior,” said Michele Okun, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at Pitt’s School of Medicine and lead author of the report. “The earlier that sleep problems are identified, the sooner physicians can work with pregnant women to implement solutions.”

 Adequate and high-quality sleep, both in pregnant and non-pregnant women as well as men, is essential for a healthy immune system. Pregnancy often is associated with changes in sleep patterns, including shortened sleep, insomnia symptoms and poor sleep quality. These disturbances can exacerbate the body’s inflammatory responses and cause an overproduction of cytokines, which act as signal molecules that communicate among immune cells. 

 “There is a dynamic relationship between sleep and immunity, and this study is the first to examine this relationship during pregnancy as opposed to postpartum,” added Dr. Okun.

While cytokines are important for numerous pregnancy-related processes, excess cytokines can attack and destroy healthy cells and cause destruction of tissue in pregnant women, thereby inhibiting the ability to ward off disease. For expectant mothers, excess cytokines also can disrupt spinal arteries leading to the placenta, cause vascular disease, lead to depression and cause pre-term birth.

 Previous studies conducted postpartum have shown higher inflammatory cytokine concentrations among women who experienced adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preeclampsia and pre-term birth. While infection accounts for half of these adverse outcomes, researchers discovered that behavioral processes such as disturbed sleep also may play a role, given the relationship between sleep disturbance and immune function.

Furthermore, higher concentrations of inflammatory cytokines also are found in depressed individuals. 

 The study is the first to evaluate all factors — inflammatory cytokines, depression and insomnia — and their possible combined effect on pregnant women. The study examined nearly 170 women, both depressed and not depressed, at 20 weeks of pregnancy and analyzed their sleep patterns and cytokine production levels over the course of 10 weeks (pregnancy-related physiological adaptations are in flux prior to 20 weeks).

 

The findings reveal:

• Women with depression and poor sleep are at greatest risk for adverse birth-related outcomes. Cytokine levels may be one biological pathway through which this is accomplished, particularly with regard to preterm birth.
•  Any shift in immunity, such as poor sleep and/or depression, could set the stage for increased risk for adverse outcomes.
• At 20 weeks, depressed pregnant women have higher levels of inflammatory cytokines compared to non-depressed women.
• At 30 weeks of pregnancy, differences in cytokines among depressed and non-depressed women were negligible, likely because as pregnancy progresses, levels of cytokines normally increase.
• Source:Journal  Psychosomatic Medicine

Walnuts can Protect Against Prostate Cancer

Eating a modest amount of walnuts can help protect against prostate cancer, say researchers. 
Researchers at the School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio injected immune-deficient mice with human prostate cancer cells.Within three to four weeks, tumors typically start to grow in a large number of these mice. The study asked whether a walnut-enriched diet versus a non-walnut diet would be associated with reduced cancer formation. A previous study found this to be true for breast cancer. 
Three of 16 mice (18 percent) eating the walnut-enriched diet developed prostate tumors, compared with 14 of 32 mice (44 percent) on the non-walnut control diet. 
Also of note, the final average tumor size in the walnut-fed animals was roughly one-fourth the average size of the prostate tumors that developed in the mice eating the control diet. 
"We found the results to be stunning because there were so few tumors in animals consuming the walnuts and these tumors grew much more slowly than in the other animals," study senior author Russel Reiter, Ph.D., professor of cellular and structural biology at the Health Science Center, said. 
"We were absolutely surprised by how highly effective the walnut diet was in terms of inhibition of human prostate cancer," he added. 
The study is published in the journal Cancer Investigation.
Source-ANI
  

Do Not Use Harsh Physical Punishment to Discipline Your Child

Parents would do good to not resort to "harsh" physical punishment to discipline their child as it results in health problems in adulthood.Punishments such as slapping or shoving may cause the child to suffer poor physical health in their adulthood, a study of 34000 US adults has found. 
Kids who have been disciplined harshly are at an increased risk of suffering from obesity, arthritis, emotional issues and heart disease. 
"It's an association. We can't say the punishment is causing the physical health problems," said lead researcher Tracie Afifi, of the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.
Though kids need to be disciplined, it should not be with the use of physical force. Physical punishment can be harmful to kids and can result in aggressive behavior. Harsh punishment produces only temporary relief as kids may stop the bad behavior only for a short while. 
Source:University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada.
 

New Insights on Cancer Cell Signaling Offered By Notre Dame Researchers

A pair of studies sheds light on a biological process which is activated across a vast range of malignancies. The studies were led by a team of University of Notre Dame researchers led by Crislyn D'Souza-Schorey, professor of biological sciences.Wnt proteins are a large family of proteins that active signaling pathways (a set of biological reactions in a cell) to control several vital steps in embryonic development. In adults, Wnt-mediated functions are frequently altered in many types of cancers and, specifically, within cell subpopulations that possess stem cell-like properties. 
In two studies, one in the recent issue of the journal Molecular and Cellular Biology and a second, published earlier this year in Science Signaling, D'Souza-Schorey's laboratory reports on the importance of the protein "ARF6" in Wnt signaling. 
The best documented role of Wnt is its triggering of the canonical (idealized or generalized) signaling pathway that leads to the stabilization of a protein called beta-catenin. This in turn leads to activation of various target genes that result in changes in a wide spectrum of cell behaviors."We have had a long standing interest in understanding the role of ARF6 in cell behavior," D'Souza-Schorey said. "ARF6 is an interesting molecule at the nexus of several important cell-signaling pathways. Our interest in this line of investigation has only been heightened by emerging reports from many labs that ARF6 activity is dramatically increased in several cancers. In our most recent study, we show how ARF6 can propagate Wnt signaling leading to proliferative phenotypes that are frequently seen in epithelial tumors (a growth of irregularly-shaped cells on the outer membrane of an organ or gland)." 
In the paper published in Science Signaling, the laboratory collaborated with researchers at the University of Utah to document the importance of ARF6-regulated activation of canonical Wnt signaling in the spread of melanoma. The study showed that a small molecule that prevents ARF6 activation could stop tumor invasion and the spread of the cancer. 
"The relevance of Wnt signaling in human cancers in manifest by the frequency with which this pathway is aberrantly activated across a wide range of malignancies," D'Souza-Schorey said. "Given the number of Wnts, Wnt signaling has been difficult to target therapeutically. It is important to note that while there are many mechanisms that drive aberrant Wnt/beta-catenin signaling in diverse cancers, these different mechanisms nearly always occur in a mutually exclusive manner. Thus, a better understanding of mechanisms involved in Wnt signaling transduction offers several target molecules for cancer drug development." 
Notre Dame graduate students James Clancy, Oscar Pellon-Cardenas, Alanna Sedgwick and Henriette Uwimphuwe were co-authors on the two studies from D'Souza-Schorey's laboratory.
Source:Journal Molecular and Cellular Biology
 

 

Salty foods, BMI to blame for more children with high blood pressure

Salty meals, combined with higher levels of body mass indexes (BMIs) and obesity, are triggering a scary side effect among young people: high blood pressure.

The risk for elevated blood pressure levels among children and adolescents has increased 27 percent in the past 13 years, according to a new study in the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension.

“It is a public health issue that our children, their blood pressures are higher,” study co-author Dr. Bonita Falkner, professor of medicine and pediatrics at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, told FoxNews.com. “Though it may be only a 4 to 5 mm Hg (increase), that extra pressure burden at a young age, carried through life, can become a large burden.”

Doctors have long known that factors like obesity, high BMI and excess belly fat can lead to an increased risk for high blood pressure among both adults and children.  Yet researchers have had difficulty pinpointing other factors contributing to high blood pressure – until now.

In this study, researchers were able to pinpoint for the first time another clear culprit contributing to high blood pressure levels: sodium intake.

Researchers examined the records of over 11,500 children between the ages of 8 and 17 participating in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They analyzed data from 1988 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2008.

Through this analysis, researchers were able to clearly identify the relationship between high salt intake and the risk for higher blood pressure levels.

“It has (previously) been very difficult to identify any relationship of salt and blood pressure in children or adolescents for some time,” Falkner said.

More than 80 percent of children, from both time periods, had a daily sodium intake in excess of 2,300 milligrams. The American Heart Association recommends consuming no more than 1,500 milligrams of sodium per day.

Falkner and her fellow researchers said increased consumption of processed foods is likely to blame.

“The salt content of the food supply has increased markedly over the past few decades, and there’s been a progressive rise in the proportion of the average daily diet that is processed food,” Falkner said. “There’s probably much more salt exposure in children now.”

While doctors are still examining the repercussions of children developing high blood pressure at such a young age, there is some preliminary evidence that shows hypertension could cause damage to some of the body’s key organs.

“Children who already have confirmed hypertension, a good portion of them already have enlargement of the heart; they may have some albumin in the urine suggesting they have kidney strain; they are beginning to show they have thickening in carotid artery and a stiffening of aorta,” Falkner said. “The implication is that the blood pressure level is causing some stress or injury to the cardiovascular system.”

When a doctor discovers high blood pressure in a child, they first check for other health problems that could be exacerbating the blood pressure levels, like cardiovascular or kidney disease. If no underlying issues are identified, they will encourage parents and children to adopt lifestyle changes – such as eating fresh foods and exercising more.

“If it cannot be controlled by lifestyle changes, diet, physical activity and weight control, then we treat them with medication,” Falkner said.

Overall, Falkner hopes people will take note of the role that sodium is playing in increased blood pressure levels.

“It had been difficult to prove this, and now that we know it really is there, we have to pay attention to it,” Falkner said.

Source:Fox News