InspireHealth Research Updates for October 2013

Research Updates for October 2013

Dear Reader,

In this issue:

• Gho et al. found that women who were more physically active had fewer side effects from breast cancer treatment than those who were less active.
• Cassileth and colleagues found that acupuncture was effective in reducing swelling caused by breast cancer related lymphedema.
• Arem and associates concluded that fish oil supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids reduced the risk of endometrial cancer. 
• Kyro and colleagues found that intake of whole grains was associated with a lower incidence of colorectal cancer.
• Tonorezos et al. found that adult survivors of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia who adhered to the Mediterranean diet had better metabolic profiles than those who did not.
• Paubelle and associates found that elderly patients with acute myeloid leukemia who were treated with a combination of deferasirox and vitamin D had an increased survival when compared to those who were receiving the best supportive care alone.
• Wang et al. found that an acupoint application with a Dingqi analgesic patch helped to enhance pain relief by conventional medications in patients with liver cancer.
• Hou and Yu found that acupuncture-moxibustion combined with cupping helped improve stomach emptying in abdominal cancer patients following surgery.
• Toliopoulos et al. evaluated the usefulness of several homeopathic complex remedies as adjuvant immunotherapies in advanced cancer patients.
• Zhao and colleagues found that the dietary therapy therapy of qi-yin-reinforcing porridge was beneficial in alleviating debility for patients undergoing FOLFOX chemotherapy for gastrointestinal tumours.

In our study of the month, Burton and associates concluded that many psychologists are willing and able to promote physical activity as part of psychological treatment.

Terry Talks Nutrition- Echinacea free online Oct 15

Event status:	Not started (Register)
Date and time:	Tuesday, October 15, 2013 9:00 am Central Daylight Time (Chicago, GMT-05:00) Change time zone
Duration:	1 hour
Description:	While echinacea is perhaps best known for its use in preventing and treating the common cold, researchers in Hungary have found that a unique extract of Echinacea angustifolia, used at a specific dosage, effectively relieves anxiety and worry. Clinical tests have found this extract to be as effective as anxiety-reducing prescription medications – without the adverse effects. Joining us to talk about this unique application for a well-known botanical medicine is Dr. Jozsef Haller, lead researcher into the anxiety reducing properties of echinacea. Dr. Haller is the head of the Behavioral Neurobiology Department of the Institute for Experimental Medicine, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, in Budapest, Hungary.

Arthur Conan Doyle - The Parasite

Just found out that in one of his non-Sherlock Holmes books, Conan Doyle creates a female villian who happens to be a white woman from Trinidad, W.I. It was a good book too.

citations - Plant essential oils as potential control agents of varroatosis

ew citations

Ethnomedicines used in Trinidad and Tobago for urinary problems and diabetes mellitus. Cited in: Suppressions of Serotonin-Induced Increased Vascular Permeability and Leukocyte Infiltrati... Authors: Yoke Keong Yong,NurShahira Sulaiman,Muhammad Nazrul Hakim Journal of Biomedicine and Biotechnology 09/2013 2013(Article ID 463145):7 pages. View BioMed Research International Volume 2013 (2013), Article ID 463145, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/463145 Research Article Suppressions of Serotonin-Induced Increased Vascular Permeability and Leukocyte Infiltration by Bixa orellana Leaf Extract Medicinal plant treatments for fleas and ear problems of cats and dogs in British Columbia... Cited in: Plant essential oils as potential control agents of varroatosis Authors: María Laura Umpiérrez,Estela Santos,Andrés González Phytochemistry Reviews 04/2012 10(2):227-244. View

Phytochemistry Reviews June 2011, Volume 10, Issue 2, pp 227-244 Plant essential oils as potential control agents of varroatosis María Laura Umpiérrez, Estela Santos, Andrés González, Carmen Rossini

Why inequality is a problem in Canada and what we can do about it" Armine Yalnizyan

Why inequality is a problem in Canada and what we can do about it"

Armine Yalnizyan

 Please join us on Wednesday October 16 at 7 PM (Room 150 Telus, University of Alberta, Edmonton) to hear Armine Yalnizyan deliver the Department of Political Science's 8th Annual Hurtig Lecture on the Future of Canada. 

 A frequent contributor of Canadian economic debates and a celebrated economist, Ms. Yalnizyan will address the growing problem of income inequality in Canada, especially intergenerational inequality and suggest what we can do about it.

Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?

Why Are There Still So Few Women in Science?

Hint: The answer has more to do with “The Big Bang Theory” than with longstanding theories about men’s so-called natural aptitude.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/magazine/why-are-there-still-so-few-women-in-science.html?smid=pl-share

International Organization - The Gender Citation Gap in International Relations

International Organization - The Gender Citation Gap in International Relations

LibriVox audio books

LibriVox has a large collection of free audio books in the public domain read by volunteers. I have been listening to them while making things. After listening to several classics I found the ghost and short story collection. I am not a fan of very scary stuff but some are quite good and many are interesting. What I was surprised at is the good character sketches of the people involved and even that the traditional masculine attitudes of  previous centuries was responsible for the death of some of the female leads. Some of the expressions that Caribbean people are so proud of are British, even the ones that I would not have thought were like "Please God".

ABC book - Native American Medicinal Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary

This week's featured book is Native American Medicinal Plants: An Ethnobotanical Dictionary written by Daniel E. Moerman, published in 2009.

Adapted from Moerman's Native American Ethnobotany, this book describes the medicinal uses of more than 2,700 plants by 218 Native American tribes. It includes 82 categories of medicinal uses such as analgesics, contraceptives, gastrointestinal aids, hypotensive medicines, sedatives, and toothache remedies.

Extensive indexes are arranged by tribe, usage, and plant common name, making it easy to access the wealth of information in this detailed text. Softcover, 800 pages.

Remember that ABC members get 10% off the retail price when logged in to the online bookstore before ordering. Looking for the International Store? You can find it here.

https://secure2.convio.net/abc/site/Ecommerce;jsessionid=47CA9CA252475372FA6012798C4940F3.app253b?VIEW_DEFAULT=true&store_id=1241&autologin=true

A review of the medicinal potentials of plants of the genus Vernonia (Asteraceae)

A Review of the Medicinal Potentials of Plants of the Genus< i> Vernonia</i>(Asteraceae)

NJ Toyang, R Verpoorte - Journal of ethnopharmacology, 2013 - Elsevier

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE: The Vernonia genus has about one thousand
species and members of the genus are widely used as food and medicine. The aim of this
review is to analyze published data on the ethnomedicinal, ethnoveterinary and ...

 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037887411300069X

The JP Morgan apologists of CNBC - Felix Salmon

The JP Morgan apologists of CNBC - Felix Salmon http://reut.rs/15C5R4A

The New Normal? Slower R&D Spending

The New Normal? Slower R&D Spending

http://macroblog.typepad.com/macroblog/2013/09/the-new-normal-slower-r-and-d-spending.html

In case you need more to worry about, try this: the pace of research and development (R&D) spending has slowed. The National Science Foundation defines R&D as “creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge” and application of this knowledge toward new applications. (The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) used to treat R&D as an intermediate input in current production. But the latest benchmark revision of the national accounts recorded R&D spending as business investment expenditure. See here for an interesting implication of this change.)
The following chart shows the BEA data on total real private R&D investment spending (purchased or performed on own-account) over the last 50 years, on a year-over-year percent change basis. (For a snapshot of R&D spending across states in 2007, see here.)

Notice the unusually slow pace of R&D spending in recent years. The 50-year average is 4.6 percent. The average over the last 5 years is 1.1 percent. This slower pace of spending has potentially important implications for overall productivity growth, which has also been below historic norms in recent years.
R&D spending is often cited as an important source of productivity growth within a firm, especially in terms of product innovation. But R&D is also an inherently risky endeavor, since the outcome is quite uncertain. So to the extent that economic and policy uncertainty has helped make businesses more cautious in recent years, a slow pace of R&D spending is not surprising. On top of that, the federal funding of R&D activity remains under significant budget pressure. See, for example, here.
So you can add R&D spending to the list of things that seem to be moving more slowly than normal. Or should we think of it as normal?
By John Robertson, vice president and senior economist in the Atlanta Fed’s research department

September 26, 2013 

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 The New Normal? Slower R&D Spending:

Research article

Guava pomace: a new source of anti-inflammatory and analgesic bioactives

Carina Denny, Priscilla Melo, Marcelo Franchin, Adna P Massarioli, Keityane B Bergamaschi, Severino M de Alencar and Pedro L Rosalen

• http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/13/235/abstract

Author Affiliations

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BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 2013, 13:235 doi:10.1186/1472-6882-13-235
Published: 24 September 2013

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Guava pomace is an example of the processing waste generated after the manufacturing process from the juice industry that could be a source of bioactives. Thus, the present investigation was carried out in order to evaluate the anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive potential and determinate the main phenolic compounds of a guava pomace extract (GPE).

Methods

The anti-inflammatory activity was evaluated by carrageenan, dextran, serotonin, histamine-induced paw edema and neutrophils migration in the peritoneal cavity models. Acetic acid-induced abdominal writhing and formalin test were performed to investigate the antinociceptive effects. In addition, the content of total phenolic and of individual phenolic compounds was determined by GC/MS.

Results

GPE showed anti-inflammatory activity by carrageenan, dextran, serotonin, histamine-induced paw edema and neutrophils migration in the peritoneal cavity models (p < 0.05). GPE also demonstrated antinociceptive activity by acetic acid-induced abdominal writhing and formalin test (p < 0.05). The total phenolic value was 3.40 +/- 0.09 mg GAE/g and epicatechin, quercetin, myricetin, isovanilic and gallic acids were identified by GC/MS analysis.

Conclusions

The presence of bioactive phenolic compounds as well as important effects demonstrated in animal models suggest that guava pomace could be an interesting source of anti-inflammatory and analgesic substances.

Call for Nominations: Lurie Prize in the Biomedical Sciences

Call for Nominations: Lurie Prize in the Biomedical Sciences

Posted: 17 Sep 2013 04:59 AM PDT

Call for Nominations: Lurie Prize in the Biomedical Sciences
Nomination Deadline: October 1, 2013 1:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
In 2014, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) will present the second annual Lurie Prize, an award recognizing outstanding achievement by a promising young scientist in biomedical research. The Prize amount is $100,000, to be used as the awardee chooses. It is made possible by a generous gift from FNIH board member Ann Lurie. The 2013 Lurie Prize was awarded to Ruslan M. Medzhitov, Ph.D., David W. Wallace Professor of Immunobiology at Yale University School of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
The awardee will be selected by a jury of six distinguished biomedical researchers, chaired by Solomon H. Snyder, M.D., Distinguished Service Professor of Neuroscience, Pharmacology & Psychiatry, The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The Award will be presented to the selected scientist in spring, 2014.
Nomination Criteria
Nominations are broadly solicited and can be made by any member of an accredited educational and/or scientific institution. There is no limitation on the number of nominations that may be made by a single nominator or institution. No institutional approval is required.
Nominations are to be for an outstanding young biomedical investigator, who must be 52 years of age or younger as of January 1, 2014. A candidate nominated in a previous year may be nominated again as long as he or she still meets the age requirement.
Nomination materials must be in English.
Nominations will not be accepted for candidates whose current location or permanent residence is in countries sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Asset Control. See the current list of sanctions at http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Pages/Programs.aspx.
No self-nominations will be accepted.
If the nominee is a U.S. federal government employee or anyone else whose receipt of personal cash awards MAY be restricted, the nominator must confirm with the appropriate authority the nominee’s eligibility to receive this award. (For NIH employees, that authority is the NIH Ethics Office.)
Nominations must include the following information:
The name and full contact information of the candidate (name, professional title, institutional affiliation, mailing address, telephone number, e-mail address, earned degrees, birthdate).
The name and full contact information of the nominator (name, professional title, institutional affiliation, mailing address, telephone number, e-mail address, highest degree).
A 50 word citation of the basis for nomination.
A 250 word description of the candidate’s contributions.
The candidate's curriculum vitae (CV) including no more than 10 citations of publications on which the nomination is based.
Nominations submitted with CVs listing more than 10 publications will be rejected. Those nominations may be resubmitted in accordance with the guidelines IF the submission deadline has not passed.
Questions? Please contact us at lurieprizeinfo@fnih.org.

Pope says unemployed should fight for work

PHILIP PULLELLA

Reuters

September 22, 2013

Pope Francis made one of his strongest attacks on the global economic system on Sunday, saying it could no longer be based on a "god called money" and urged the unemployed to fight for work.
Francis, at the start of a day-long trip to the Sardinian capital, Cagliari, put aside his prepared text at a meeting with unemployed workers, including miners in hard hats who told him of their situation, and improvised for nearly 20 minutes.
"I find suffering here ... It weakens you and robs you of hope," he said. "Excuse me if I use strong words, but where there is no work there is no dignity."

- See more at: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/09/22/Pope-Francis-Says-Unemployed-Need-Fight-Work#sthash.kAvbKqJv.dpuf

Monsanto Protection Act of ‘No Concern’ to Senate?

Monsanto Protection Act of ‘No Concern’ to Senate?

Are our Senators hard of hearing?

Hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions and called their representatives and senators when word first surfaced of a law designed to give biotech firms immunity from federal prosecution for illegally growing GMO crops. The Farmers Assurance Provision, dubbed the “Monsanto Protection Act,” was nonetheless, in March, quietly and without debate slipped into the Continuing Resolution, a bill to fund the government through September 30.

Now, with a new deadline looming for another possible government shutdown, the Monsanto Protection Act is back, thanks to House Republicans who have kept it in their version of the new Continuing Resolution (H.J.RES.59). Once again, the public is up in arms over this blatant gift to the biotech industry, and slap in the face to the public.

But according to a Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the House Appropriations Committee, all of our protests have fallen on deaf ears. Hing told the Huffington Post that she doesn’t expect the Senate to reject the Monsanto Protection Act: "We have received no indication that this is a concern," she said.

Wow. Speechless. No indication of concern? Okay, let’s keep trying. Please call your senator and ask him or her to vote no on the new Continuing Resolution (H.J.RES.59) unless the Farmers Assurance Provision, aka Monsanto Protection Act, is removed. Then send your Senator a note. And while you’re at it, call your representative, too.


TAKE ACTION: Tell Congress to Vote No on the Continuing Resolution unless the Monsanto Protection Act is removed

Journal agrees to retract paper after university found study was never done

The University of Queensland has asked the European Journal of Neurology to retract a research paper after finding no evidence that the study described was ever carried out.

The lead author of the paper, which was published online in October 2011, is Bruce Murdoch, the founding head of the university’s Centre for Neurogenic Communication Disorders and former head of the university’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences.

The paper described a technique, transcranial magnetic stimulation, which the authors claimed would help patients with Parkinson’s disease regain some of their ability to speak.

BMJ 2013; 347 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.f5500 (Published 6 September 2013)

Cite this as: BMJ 2013;347:f5500

Ancient Drugs: Pharmacology Across the Ancient World

Ancient Drugs: Pharmacology Across the Ancient World. Oct. 18, 2013. Philadelphia, PA. This symposium from the University of Pennsylvania Center for Ancient Studies will feature speakers including Alain Touwaide, Mark Plotkin, Robert Ritner, Pierce Salguero, Steve Tinney, Laurence Totelin, Douglas Emery, and William Noel. Free and open to the public. More information.

$40,000 one-year postdoctoral grant

The American Fund for Alternatives to Animal Research and the New England Anti-Vivisection Society are offering a $40,000 one-year postdoctoral grant for 2014-15 (with possible renewal) to a woman committed to developing, validating, or using alternatives to animal methods in the investigation of women’s health or sex differences. Applicants should send a cover letter explaining their commitment to alternative research methods and career goals along with a CV, research proposal, and three letters of recommendation (including one from their mentor) by October 31 to afaar@neavs.org.

Job insecurity and health Health risk from job insecurity needs to be mitigated in these “VUCA times”

Health risk from job insecurity needs to be mitigated in these “VUCA times” | BMJ http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5504

Virtanen and colleagues’ meta-analysis provides high level evidence of a modest link between job insecurity and risk of ischaemic heart disease.1 The association between unemployment and raised morbidity and mortality is known, but few studies have examined measures of health in employees at risk of unemployment,2 some notable studies being reviewed in the meta-analysis.