Archive for April, 2010

A case-control study was performed in Belgrade in order to investigate the association between Parkinson’s disease (PD) and some environmental factors. During the period 2001-2005, 110 new PD cases and 220 hospital controls were interviewed. Cases and controls were matched by sex, age (+/-2 years), and place of residence (urban/rural). According to multivariate conditional logistic regression analysis, PD was positively asssociated with exposure to insecticides (odds ratio (OR) 3.22, 95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.32-7.87), dyes (OR 25.33; 95% CI, 2.89-222.0), and naphtha and its derivates (OR 9.53; 95% CI, 1.04-86.96), and with gardening (OR 5.51; 95% CI, 3.04-10.01), well water drinking (OR 2.62; 95% CI, 1.40-4.90), and spring water drinking (OR 2.19; 95% CI, 1.15-4.16). Negative association was found for service-sector working (OR 0.15; 95% CI, 0.04-0.59). The results obtained did not changed after adjustment for smoking. The findings of the present study support the role of environmental factors in the occurence of PD.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20402575

Researchers have identified a gene that appears to increase a person’s risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of Alzheimer’s disease.

“Only recently have common variants in genes other than APOE been convincingly shown to be associated with a person’s risk of developing late-onset Alzheimer’s disease,” said senior author Margaret Pericak-Vance, PhD, Director of theUniversity of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s John P. Hussman Institute for Human Genomics in Miami, Florida.

The study found that individuals with a particular variation in the gene MTHFD1L may be almost twice as likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease as those people without the variation.

http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20100414/new-alzheimers-gene-identified

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) cuts a woman’s risk of developing colon cancer, new research confirms.

Millions of women stopped taking HRT when a Women’s Health Initiative study showed in 2002 that the hormones raised the risk of stroke, heart disease and breast cancer. But the Women’s Health Initiative had also found that HRT protected against colon cancer.

For example, women who used hormones for less than four years cut their colon cancer risk by about one-quarter; four to eight years of HRT cut risk by a third; nine to 14 years of use halved risk; and 15 years or more of HRT reduced risk by two-thirds.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6385AQ20100409

Those who adhered most to diets rich in dark, leafy vegetables, poultry, fish and nuts and low in red meat, butter and fatty dairy products had a 38 percent lower risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease than those who followed that plan the least, according to a report published April 12th 2010 in the Archives of Neurology. These foods may protect blood vessels in the brain, preventing tiny strokes that may contribute to Alzheimer’s.

Red more: http://archneur.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/2010.84?home

New study finds that breast tissue is more sensitive to adverse effects if exposure occurs when breast cells are still proliferating, so exposure to chemicals while a woman is still young can increase her risk of breast cancer after menopause.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Oncology/BreastCancer/19321