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Health Benefits of Indium

David Bradley — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:10:39 +0000

Yet another health supplement hits the streets, this time in the form of indium sulfate. Never heard of it? Apparently, it “is a rare trace mineral that supports several hormonal systems in the body. Indium may strongly elevate immune activity and reduce the severity and duration of a myriad of human conditions.” That’s according to the NaturalHealthConsult.com website, which goes on to claim that the element will “normalize the hypothalamus and pituitary gland in the brain.”

The site explains, that “As the conductor of various studies on indium, Dr. Schroeder (the scientist best known for inventing the means to take lead out of gasoline) found that possibly the most important function of Indium is to normalize the hypothalamus and pituitary gland in the brain.”

Well, the late Henry A. Schroeder of Dartmouth Medical School, a leading toxicologist, spent years highlighting the problems of lead toxicity, but did not as far as I know despite the wording of the quote above, develop a method for removing lead from gasoline. Why would you need to do that? The petrochemical companies used to add tetraethyl lead as an antiknocking agent, so the simplest method for its “removal” is just not to add it in the first place.

Tetraethyllead was first added to gasoline in 1923 and it quickly became obvious that workers at the three manufacturing plants were becoming psychotic and dying from its toxic effects. The issue was essentially hushed up and “research” between 1926 and 1965 claimed a consensus that lead was only a problem at high exposure levels and atmospheric lead from vehicle exhausts was not a problem at all. We now know different, thanks partly to the efforts of Schroeder.

Meanwhile, back to indium. Elemental discoveries are a boon to any marketeer, especially if you can convince consumers to buy, buy, buy. A document entitled: “Patented Indium Trace Element in Marketing Form Available for License” suggests how this can be so

There are 3 questions that a company should ask when considering the addition of a new product for its product line:

What is it that I can sell abundantly, at a high profit and worldwide, exclusively?

Why will my customers want to continue to use it, daily, for the rest of their lives?
How will my customers be able to afford to use it daily, all of their lives, continuously?

It then tells us how these pertain to indium (In, element 49) and how a clever marketer might exploit the patent on the health benefits of indium.

So, where do the supposed health benefits of indium come from or is it just a marketing scam and what about those claims to affect the activity of glands in the brain. Well, indium is an element in the same group of the periodic table as boron, aluminium, and gallium, oh and thallium, so one would not expect it to be particularly beneficial or even essential to health. Indeed, aluminium is a neurotoxin.

However, Schroeder, towards the end of his life, wheelchair bound with muscular dystrophy, included indium in some of his last few experiments. He apparently, demonstrated that lab animals, on lifetime indium, had fewer cancers than controls. Other than references to the use of indium in imaging agents, I can find nothing in the medical literature regarding the positive health benefits of daily supplementation with indium, not then, not now.

Yet, the web is littered with so-called health food sites selling indium sulfate to unwitting consumers, presumably, exploiting that marketing guidance I found on at least one site. However, there is one site to which I shall refer you and that is the webelements site from Sheffield University’s Mark Winter. the entry for indium explains that depending on dose:

All indium compounds should be regarded as highly toxic. Indium compounds damage the heart, kidney and liver, and may be teratogenic

So, who do you trust most, a health website hoping to get repeat sales based on your fears of poor health as you get older, or a well-respected site from a leading research team at a top university? I’m pretty sure I don’t want to be ingesting an indium compound daily for the rest of my life in the vague hope that represents some undiscovered panacea, that would just be bad medicine

This item originally published July 25, 2005, was overhauled and updated at the request of a Sciencebase reader on July 2, 2008.

Health Benefits of Indium

Rubbing Up the Gene Genie

David Bradley — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 11:00:07 +0000

Sciencebase is this week proud to play host to the Gene Genie Blog Carnival thanks to an offer from Bertalan “Berci” Meskó over on the excellent ScienceRoll. For those who don’t already know, a Blog Carnival doesn’t usually involve a lot of be-costumed revellers dancing through the streets to the sound of the samba band, but is a gathering of like-minded bloggers brought together through the power of the tubular Interwebs to share their latest posts on a given subject.

The Gene Genie carnival has an obvious theme. No, it’s not the songs of aging but outlandish popster David Bowie. No, it’s not the magical character of Arabian Nights entombed in a lamp, and no it’s nothing to do with quasi-sci-fi-retro-fit BBC cop show Ashes to Ashes. It’s about genes. See, I told you it was obvious.

Anyway, the carnival (from the Latin carnis, meaning meat, and levare, to put away) covers some of the hot topics in the world of genes, genetics, DNA and all things inherited.

So, here we go:

Gene Found for Ghosal Hematodiaphyseal Dysplasia Syndrome: A Rare Syndrome with Increased Bone Density (DNA And You)
Home DNA tests on the up, ’safer’ clinic DNA tests on the down (Genetics and Health)
Gene Plays a Role in Hair Loss Identified (The Biotech Weblog)
Extinction Fears of the Red-Headed Homo Sapien (GNIF Brain Blogger)
Where are brown people short? and Shadows of the Past in Genes (Gene Expression)
Genetics Cause of Smell Perception (ArticleBiz.com)
Why do we have common risk variants for metabolic diseases? (Genetic Future)
Researchers Discuss MEGF10 Gene Assocation To Schizophrenia (Scientificblogging)
Differences of gene expression between human populations (Anthropology)
Brain scan reveals cultural differences (Sciencebase)
Scientists Link Gene That Promotes Long Lifespan to Cholesterol (Biosingularity)

In the realm of personalized genetics:

NY Times: Insurance Fears and DNA Testing (DNA Direct Talk)
Ann Turner on Personal Genomics Companies 23andMe vs deCODEme and deCODE Launches PrCa Prostate Cancer DNA Test (Eye on DNA)
One Fifth of GDP! (Gene Sherpas)
Why should you get a free 23andme test? (bbgm)
23andMe Adds Paternal Ancestry and an Updated Gene Journal (Genetic Genealogist)
New York Times: Genetics and insurance (Tracing the Tribe)
SNPwatch: One SNP Makes Your Brown Eyes Blue (Spittoon)
Global Awakening in Genetic Counseling (Scienceroll)
Your Future IS Your Genes: Diagnosing Bipolar Disorder from a Blood Sample (Living the Scientific Life)
The next edition of Gene Genie will be hosted by DNA Direct Talk, watch out for it! For more information about the Carnival here.

a

Rubbing Up the Gene Genie

Slowburn Treatment for Chronic Disease

David Bradley — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 15:00:06 +0000

For years, the notion that bacteria could cause ulcers was brushed aside, until the work of Robin Warren, who “rediscovered” the gut microbe Helicobacter pylori, was finally accepted. More recently, periodontal disease, a bacterial infection of the gums, has been implicated in heart disease, it’s the toxins released by the bacteria that are to blame. And in a recent discussion with one leading researcher about the genetics of obesity, he told me that he considered it more likely that a bacterial infection was more likely to be to blame for some cases of obesity than genetics and conversely there may be bacteria that make some people thin.

Interestingly, Amy Proal of the Bacteriality blog also contact me to tell me that she believes doctors and the medical community are slow to warm to these very new ideas that bacteria might be to blame for chronic disease and obesity. “The evidence is overwhelming if you connect the dots,” Proal, a Biology graduate and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) sufferer told me, “Particularly interesting is the work of biomedical researcher Trevor Marshall who is using molecular modelling software to reveal many of the ways bacteria can interact with our innate immune system. Marshall is most famous for his eponymous Protocol, which uses low doses of antibiotics to apparently treat chronic health problems including CFS, fibromyalgia, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Key to
the
Protocol is
the concept of
“L-form bacteriaKey to the Protocol is the concept of “L-form bacteria. Bacteria that develop from classical bacteria, lose their cell walls, and then secrete themselves within white blood cells and biofilms, undetected. The Marshall Protocol is said to target these L-form bacteria and there are said to be thousands of patients with a variety of chronic illnesses undergoing this form of treatment and reportedly seeing serious improvement and even resolution of their symptoms.

Click to read on…

Slowburn Treatment for Chronic Disease

Male-Female Crabs Split their Difference

David Bradley — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 11:00:55 +0000

David Johnson and Robert Watson thought they had seen all there was to see in the Chesapeake Bay in almost three decades until they pulled out a crab from the way that had a male left half and a female right half. Now, that crab, acquired by Romuald Lipcius of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary, has moved sideways into the world of natural metabolites where its gynandromorphic peculiarities have helped scientists, for the first time, discover that some molecules can be made only by one sex and not the other.

The male-female crab is a unique example of the blue crabs. It turns out that the males of this species produce a natural metabolite that is absent in females. This suggests that some complex biochemistry is underway that is activated only in males. Robert Kleps of the University of Illinois at Chicago and colleagues have isolated this small molecule and identified it as 2-aminoethylphosphonic acid (AEP), an uncommon but well-documented natural metabolite.

We used low-field NMR using phosphorus-31, to observe the small molecule, explains Kleps. He points out that science tends to get lost in the rush for higher field NMR running hydrogen-1 and carbon-13 on 100 kilodalton proteins. However, he adds that, “Even low-field NMR spectroscopists can make interesting discoveries. I’m very happy to have stumbled over this metabolite, while doing basic research on invertebrate metabolism.”

So, why might the existence of a metabolite in the males of this blue crab species and not the females have any bearing on our everyday lives? Well, there are well known differences between the sexes in people, such as disease susceptibility, anatomy and drug metabolism. Kleps points out that these differences might in fact be due to the presence or absence of a crucial metabolite.

Now that the existence of a sex-specific metabolite has been found for one animal the search is on for others, including ones that might exist in people.

For more details on the NMR study check out my column on SpectroscopyNOW.com, the research paper itself is available in Plos One.

You can hear a description of the crab from Lipcius here and listen to Kleps’ podcast

Male-Female Crabs Split their Difference

MMR and Statistical Manipulation

David Bradley — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 15:00:55 +0000

When I was still at high school, way back in the late 1970s, there was a health scare that got a lot of media attention. Apparently, there was a perceived risk that the whooping cough vaccine could cause brain damage. The fall off in vaccination for this disease is claimed to have led to the widespread outbreaks of whooping cough in 1979 and 1982, there having previously been almost zero annual cases. At the peak there were some 60,000 cases.

Fast forward to the near present and you will recall similar scare stories about the combined measles-mumps-rubella vaccine, the MMR, and claims by researcher Andrew Wakefield (Lancet, 1998) that MMR could cause autism in some children. It’s a topic guest blogger Michael Marshall covered on Sciencebase in November 2004. It seemed that, at the time, the debate was pretty much over. However, despite repeated demonstrations of the apparent inadequacies of the original research into a link between MMR and autism, the issue is resurrected on a regular basis. Most recently in a cover story in The Observer, which drew much flack, but also left the chattering classes once more in a flap.

Right now, I’m looking at an article from the print edition of The Times offering an answer to the Question of the Week - “Measles or vaccine?” - the article talks of how measles has reappeared and it is apparently all down to many parents’ reluctance to have their children vaccinated with the MMR jab. The article talks of “herd immunity” and how enough children have had a double dose of MMR which should stave off an epidemic. The emergence of herd immunity, of course, will be little comfort for a parent whose child experience any of the potentially severe side-effects of vaccination.

In the article, pictured alongside a blow-up of the measles virus and an image of a nasty-looking hypodermic needle, are two charts, one showing the number of cases of measles in the UK from 1940 to the present day and the other showing the number of deaths over the same period. Incidence of the disease ebbed and flowed during the period up to the early 1970s whereupon cases began to fall rapidly from a peak of 800,000 a year in the early 1960s to just one or two hundred a year by the mid-1970s.

The MMR vaccine was introduced in the US in 1971 and later in the UK, thereafter incidence of measles has pretty much fallen to levels close to zero. It seems that the pre-vaccine drop had another cause, presumably reduced overcrowding, improved nutrition, better hygiene and healthcare. No one knows at what point this fall would have reached a plateau.

In contrast, the second chart of death rates shows an exponential decline in measles deaths since the 1940s, by about 1970 measles deaths were also close to zero. The risk of getting measles is about one in three, assuming no vaccination coverage at all. The risk of serious consequences to this disease, which personally I had in 1972 or thereabouts, is somewhere between 1 in 5000 and 1 in 15,000. Compare that to the risk of death in a road accident. According to Transport2000 , the UK’s national environmental transport body, each of us has a 1 in 17 chance of being killed or seriously injured in a road crash during our lives. Such figures damn the disease statistics somewhat. Of course, vaccination does come with some risks, but adverse reactions, such as seizures with an associated risk of brain damage, exist at the 1 in 10,000 level.

There has been one UK death from measles since 1992 (as opposed to the several hundred each year during the 1940s). The unfortunate victim was apparently suffering an underlying lung disease for which he required long-term immunosuppressant drugs. He was very unfortunate to be exposed to the measles virus, and when he contracted the disease he was very unlikely to have recovered. This is one fatal case. Even with near 100% vaccination, there would still be a finite risk of any random member of the population contracting the disease. Unfortunate, but true. The statistics would not lie surely?

MMR and Statistical Manipulation

Intellectual genetics

David Bradley — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:00:08 +0000

Two worthy legal moratoria - the Agreement on the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS)
and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) - are potentially in direct conflict when it comes to plant genetic resources and intellectual property rights, at least that is the conclusion of legal expert Megan Bowman. However, potential conflicts could be reconciled in this context by applying the common sense notion of remaining true to the over-arching principle of global welfare-maximisation in TRIPS and by utilising patent exemptions in appropriate circumstances. This, Bowman claims, will allow TRIPS and CBD to operate in a way that achieves both their objectives equally well so that intellectual property rights can be appropriately recognised and biodiversity can be sustained.

Writing in the International Journal of Intellectual Property Management (2007, Vol. 1, pp 277-292), who is a trained barrister and a lecturer in the Law School and Centre of Strategic Economic Studies, at Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia, points out that international recognition of intellectual property rights has grown, particular in the biotech arena, as biodiversity levels have fallen across the globe. Bowman points out that these two trends have become related since the creation of TRIPS and CBD in 1993 whose spheres of operation overlap significantly, particularly in relation to plant genetic resources and intellectual property rights. Bowman states that this is because biological diversity, at both genetic and physical levels, is being exploited as the key ingredient for lucrative biotech and pharmaceutical industrial creation. Patent protection of that creation raises questions about biodiversity sustainability and also access to the resultant benefits and technologies derived from use of a raw product ‘owned’ by source countries or communities.

Currently we are experiencing global biodiversity degradation and decimation due to causes such as global warming that may result in the extinction of nearly half the current lifeforms by 2050. Bowman comments: “Apart from the intrinsic value of biological diversity, without healthy and diverse ecological systems on this planet there is no quality of life for humans – no fresh air or water, no arable land or edible food, and exposure to devastating storms, floods and droughts. But at the same time, humans are evolutionary creatures and we see that clearly with technological innovation. We are also wed to the dollar and we see that, in the context of this discussion, in the jealous guarding of rent for patents, specifically in the growing sector of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals based on plant genetic resources. So the question is how do we marry these components in a way that honours each of them? I look at this question from a purely legal standpoint. Undoubtedly any solution is complex, multi-faceted and multi-disciplined. Nonetheless, the legal principles embedded in the key international treaties on protection of biodiversity and protection of intellectual property rights in plant genetic resources share a commitment to global welfare enhancement. So it becomes clear that the legal foundations exist for cooperation between these two sectors. This knowledge paves the way for productive dialogue and action in boardrooms, patent offices and parliaments around the world.”

Related article from the Sciencebase archives on corporate academia: Will publicly funded research become mired in patent protection and intellectual property rights or remain purely altruistic?

(Updated: August 21, 2007)

Intellectual genetics

Mice and a slice

David Bradley — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 15:00:11 +0000

A new methodology for fibre-optic Raman mapping and FTIR imaging of secondary cancer cells, metastases, and detecting tumour cells has been developed by researchers in Germany. The technique facilitates imaging of samples thicker than 50 micrometres and could be used in detecting cancer cells, as a tool for molecular histopathology, in metabolic fingerprinting, general disease diagnostics.

Team member Christoph Krafft is currently in the Department of Materials and Natural Resources, at the University of Trieste, Italy, but will be returning to Dresden University of Technology with a new research grant in September. I spoke to him about the research and he told me that, “This fibre-optic Raman method will allow detecting tumour cells and tumour tissue in vivo and enable studies of tumor development.” You can read more details in the latest issue of SpectroscopyNOW.com in the Raman ezine.

Mice and a slice

Master AND commander

David Bradley — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 20:37:30 +0000

An fMRI scan of the upper echelons of the human brain, reveals that there are apparently two commanders at the helm, according to US neuroscientists; it is as if Russell Crowe were joined by his twin brother to captain the ship. The work may suggest new insights into behavioural problems that occur following brain injury.

Neuroscientist Steven Petersen and his team at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis also found that these two captains at a single helm do not consult each other in the control of voluntary, goal-oriented behaviour. Such behaviour encompasses a vast range of activities from reading and surfing the net to singing a song or even sailing a ship. In contrast, involuntary behaviour, such as pulse rate, breathing, and digestion are not controlled in this way.

You can read the full story in my SpectroscopyNOW column in the MRI channel.

Master AND commander

Ragworm Ragtime

David Bradley — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 15:00:19 +0000

When I was a youngster I used to do a spot of sea fishing on the freezing cold north east coast. It wasn’t so much a hobby as an obsession at one point. Key to success was a plentiful supply of lugworm which could be dug from the wet golden sand at lowtide and stored ready for the next angling venture, while ragworm, which have a nasty bite, came from the local fishing bait supplier. Never would it have occurred to my 11-year old self that these lowly creatures could harbour the secrets of our own evolution.

However, apparently it does. Detlev Arendt of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory has been studying the multifunctional neurones that sense the environment and release hormones in vertebrates (including ourselves), flies, and worms. The last common ancestor of all of these creatures must provide the evolutionary basis of our modern brains that endow us with the skills to varying degrees of success to dig up ragworm, take part in fishing trips, and ponder our origins.

Hormones control growth, metabolism, reproduction and other biological processes. In humans, as indeed in all vertebrates, the chemical signals are produced by the hypothalamus and other specialist brain centres and secreted into the blood for circulation around the body. This signalling system is not, it turns out, the preserve of those creatures with a backbone. Arendt and his colleagues now believe that the hypothalamus and its hormones have
their
evolutionary origins
in an ancient wormhormones have their evolutionary origins in an ancient worm-like creature that lived hundreds of millions of years ago and is the common ancestor of vertebrates, flies, and worms.

Hormones work slowly, on the whole, and have body-wide effects. Insects and nematode worms use hormones, but the specific molecules they use are very different from their vertebrate counterparts.

“This suggested that hormone-secreting brain centres arose after the evolution of vertebrates and invertebrates had split,” explains Arendt, “But then found vertebrate–type hormones in annelid worms and molluscs, indicating that these centres might be much older than expected.” Comparisons of two types of hormone-secreting nerve cells from zebrafish, a vertebrate, and the annelid worm Platynereis dumerilii, in Arendt’s lab have now revealed some stunning similarities that point to a shared and ancient ancestry for our hormonal systems.

“These findings revolutionise the way we see the brain,” says Kristin Tessmar-Raible who carried out the comparison, “So far we have always understood it as a processing unit, a bit like a computer that integrates and interprets incoming sensory information. Now we know that the brain is itself a sensory organ and has been so since very ancient times.” The research appears in detail in the journal Cell.

Bewildering to think that I used to skewer these little creatures on a barbed hook and cast them into the sea to catch scaly marine creatures. It almost makes no sense.

Ragworm Ragtime

Genetic Research Hits Pay Dirt

David Bradley — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 17:00:56 +0000

The budget for the Human Genome Project and all that post-genomic, proteomic, metabonomic, immunomic…research was almost on a par with defense spending; it was almost c-omical really. Well, maybe not quite, but it stretches out with a lot of zeros nevertheless. At the time the grants were written and the funding given, we, as a society, were promised all kinds of medical miracles from gene therapies and new treatments to cure all those nasties - cystic fibrosis, sickle cell, thalassemia, cancer, heart disease and more.

We were promised personal medicine courtesy of pharmacogenomics. This would allow your doctor to profile your genome and tailor your medication to the particular set of enzymes running in your liver and whether or not you were likely to respond positively, suffer adverse effects, or simply not respond at all. We have even seen, this last few days, the sequencing of James Watson’s genome; an effort that cost less than $1m and took under four months. But do any of these promises add up to very much beyond myriad PhD theses and thousands of biotech startups many of which have already crashed?

Hopefully, the answer is yes. In the next few years, gene science will hit pay dirt as genes finally give up their real secrets and the true
meaning
of so-called
junk DNA will
become clearthe true meaning of so-called junk DNA will become clear. Our understanding and ability to treat a wide range of disease from breast cancer and obesity to hypertension and bipolar disorder will come of age and perhaps finally succumb to all this genetic scrutiny and manipulation.

Nature, Science and the Wellcome Trust provided a useful summary of the genetic state of the art for a recent Times report by Mark Henderson on our genetic future. In the summary Henderson highlighted the latest “in press” results, most of which are now online, so I am providing here the hyperlinked executive summary:

Breast cancer - Three papers published in Nature and Nature Genetics at the end of May reported four new genes and one genomic region associated with increased risk. 10.1038/nature05887, 10.1038/ng2075, 10.1038/ng2064

Obesity - An obesity gene, the FTO gene, was published in Science in April and reported in Sciencebase at the time.

Diabetes - Again in Science (and 10.1126/science.1142382 and 10.1126/science.1142358, three common genes for increased diabetes type 2 risk were reported, bringing the total known genes associated with diabetes to nine.

Alzheimer’s disease - New results also published this week in Neuron discuss an Alzheimer’s gene

Data that were still under press embargo at the time Henderson’s feature appeared in The Times, however, meaning he could only hint at the true potential of human genome results were revealed today.

The largest ever study of genetics of common diseases in which almost 10 billion pieces of genetic information were analysed were published just one minute ago, so I can now outline the findings in a little detail. The new study compared 2000 cases each of seven common diseases with 3000 shared control patients, and reveals new genetic associations with these disorders. A pair of related papers in Nature Genetics (a and b) offer further insights into two of the seven diseases investigated.

In the Nature article, scientists from the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium report genetic variants associated with the development of bipolar disorder, Crohn’s disease, coronary heart disease, type 1 and type 2 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and hypertension. This is the first study from this large scope and it, the scientists found one genetic region newly associated with bipolar disorder, and another with coronary artery disease. A separate group of three markers have been found to be associated with rheumatoid arthritis. The researchers also identify nine new genetic associations for Crohn’s disease and ten chromosome regions that contain genes related to diabetes.

These new results would suggest a medical revolution is at hand and that the Human Genome Project and its spinoff -omics really are about to hit pay dirt. But, are we really on the verge of a new era in medicine, or are the various genetic revelations simply more grant-baiting hyperbole?

Genetic Research Hits Pay Dirt