Even just one extra hour of sleep made a big difference to body weight, reducing young children's chance of being overweight from 36 per cent to 30 per cent, and reducing older children's risk from 34 per cent to 30 per cent. The study was conducted in two stages, approximately five years apart, and involved 2,182 children. At the start of the study and again five years later, diaries were kept by either the children's carers or the children themselves, recording bedtime, time asleep and wake time during one weekday and one weekend day. Later bedtime was linked to being overweight in children aged 3 to 8, and earlier wake time had the greatest effect on weight in those aged 8 to 13. Child Dev
2007;78 (Snell E, et al)
HIGH blood pressure during pregnancy could be a sign of things to come, with new research in Hypertension finding that women who suffer from this condition while pregnant are more likely to develop heart disease later in life, compared to those who maintain normal blood pressure. The authors claim that pregnancy acts like a "stress test" for women, and developing high blood pressure is a sign that the blood vessels and heart are not in the best of health. They studied 491 healthy postmenopausal women, one third of whom had developed high blood pressure during pregnancy. The women were tested for any build-up of calcium in the heart's blood vessels – a sure sign of heart disease. Women with a history of high blood pressure during pregnancy had a 57 per cent greater chance of having calcium build-up compared to women whose blood pressure was normal during pregnancy.
Hypertension
2007;doi:10.1161/01.HYP.
0000258595.09320.eb (Sabour S, et al)
LONELY people are more than twice as likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, according to a study in the latest issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. Over a four-year period, researchers studied 823 adults who had an average age of 80 and were free of dementia at the start of the study. Loneliness was measured on a scale of one to five, with a higher score indicating a more intense feeling of loneliness. At the start of the study, the average loneliness score was 2.3, and this was tested again at yearly intervals. Over the next four years, 76 participants were diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. For each point on the loneliness scale, the risk of Alzheimer's disease increased by 51 per cent. So a person with a high loneliness score (3.2) had 2.1 times the risk of developing the disease as a person with a low score (1.4). The authors stress that further studies are needed to discover how negative emotions may cause changes in the brain.
Arch Gen Psychiatry
2007;64:234-240 (Wilson RS, et al)
TEENAGE couch potatoes are more likely to have high blood pressure than their more active friends, regardless of whether they are overweight. In the Journal of Adolescent Health this week, researchers report a direct link between "sedentary" activities, like watching TV, and high blood pressure in adolescents. The study included 4508 participants aged 12 to 19. Surveys were used to assess their diet and activity levels, while blood pressure and body mass index were measured directly. Regardless of body mass index, higher blood pressure was strongly associated with higher levels of TV and video watching, particularly in the 12- to 15-year-old age group. The authors claim that reducing sedentary activity may improve teenagers' blood pressure and lower their later risk of heart disease and stroke.
J Adolesc Health
2007;40:166-172 (Sugiyama T, et al)
NALTREXONE – the drug used to ease withdrawal symptoms from drugs and alcohol – could soon be used to treat sufferers of a painful intestinal condition known as Crohn's disease. The study, published this week in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, involved 17 patients with active Crohn's disease. They were treated with a low dose of naltrexone (4.5mg per day in tablet form) for 12 weeks, and monitored for any improvement in their symptoms. While the study did not include a group of patients taking placebo tablets for comparison, 89 per cent of participants showed an improvement in their symptoms with naltrexone treatment, and 67 per cent reported that their symptoms disappeared. The only side effect of naltrexone was sleep disturbance in some patients. The authors note that a thorough placebo-controlled trial is now required to prove the drug's effectiveness.
Am J Gastroenterol
2007;102:1-9 (Smith JP, et al)
SEA squirts could hold the key to new and improved cancer-fighting drugs with fewer side effects than current chemotherapies. Research published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week shows that a synthetic form of sea squirt toxin called diazonamide can stop human cancer cells from multiplying, while leaving normal cells unharmed – at least in the laboratory. When small samples of human breast, prostate or colon tumours are implanted under the skin of mice, diazonamide can reduce the size of the tumours without the harmful side effects seen with other cancer drugs. The sea squirt, known as Diazona angulata, is around 10cm wide. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA
2007;doi:10.1073/pnas.0611340104 (Williams NS, et al)
