Health and Medicine – Page 42 – David Bradley Science Writer

Hoodia gordonii

An extract of the succulent plant, Hoodia gordonii, with the seemingly cryptic name of P57AS3 (or P57 for short) has received a lot of media attention recently because this compound acts as a potent appetite suppressant. Indeed, trials have shown that it reduces daily calorie intake by 1000 kcal. According to Alok Jha writing in The Guardian on December 3, p57 has attracted the attention of food company Unilever having already been investigated by Pfizer and Cambridge-based Phytopharm. This begs the question, why? Surely, the last thing a company that manufactures icecream and such would want to suppress anyone’s appetite…

Anyway, a paper in the journal Brain Research describes p57 as a “steroidal glycoside” with “anorectic activity in animals”. Now, these are technical terms with precise definitions for professionals. Personally, I’d be cautious of taking a product that is essentially a steroid that triggers anorexia, wouldn’t you? Then again, the side-effects of obesity can be far worse. Just remember, if you’re chasing after this purportedly natural compound on the internet, that another infamous appetite suppressant, which goes by the name of cocaine is just as “natural”.

How to avoid colds and flu

These past few days I’ve felt rather listless, had vaguely aching limbs, a mild headache that comes and goes, and a dull, throbbing ache where I had my flu jab more than a month ago…could it be that I’ve actually caught flu, and that the vaccine has held off the worst of the symptoms? That throbbing pain at the site of the jab seems to be the smoking gun, but I’m not sure whether there is some persistent immune response at the site of an injection that might cause recurrent symptoms when one is struck subsequently by the live virus…

Anyone know for sure? I’d be interested in qualified comments

Meanwhile check out our practical tips on how to avoid colds and flu.

Kissing Tips

Interesting piece of research turned up in a recent PubMed search about the benefits of kissing on allergic response and how kissing can reduce prick test response to house dust mite and cedar pollen in susceptible individuals. It’s not new and subsequent work has shown that people with food allergies who kiss someone who has eaten foodstuffs to which they’re allergic can suffer nasty consequences. Still, it gives us a chance to show a Rodin sculpture on sciencebase (next month, I’ll drag out my mistletoe photographs, if someone adds a comment to this item to remind me)

Flight of the humble bee

By combining videos of free-flying honeybees with information from robotic models, researchers have come up with a sweet solution to explain the aerodynamics of bee flight.

Most flying insects beat their wings in large strokes to help them fly. But certain types of bee have to be different.

Michael Dickinson and colleagues demonstrated that honeybees fly using much shorter strokes (approximately degrees) and beat them faster than is to be expected based on the size of the bee. Aside from exploiting the effects of the wings rapidly changing at the start of each stroke, it also means that the bees’ buzz is of a much higher frequency than it should be.

By using a high-frequency, low-amplitude stroke, honeybees can gain a much wider range of aerodynamic power than other insects, which comes in handy when they’re loaded up with pollen.

Not exactly a story for the onset of winter here, but it got me buzzing (Hah!)

Treating Drug Addiction

There is not much in the plant world that people have not sniffed, snorted, smoked, rubbed in, injected or attempted to get inside their bodies in other ways in the hope of eliciting someone kind of magical response. The well-known plants that gave a positive result in the primitive tests – the coca plant, poppies, marijuana, tobacco, betel trees, coffee beans – have since grown infamous leaving the air heavy with their tragic scent in so many places. Find out about the plant that itself could be used in the fight against drug addiction.

Bird Flu Test

Researchers at McMaster University, Toronto, have developed a simple diagnostic that can spot all the major human respiratory viruses, including SARS.

The press release announcing this finding includes in the list of “major” viruses – H5N1 (bird flu), but H5N1 is yet to become a “major” human virus having only killed a few dozen people in the forty-odd years since it emerged! This contrasts sharply with the more common influenza type A viruses to which humans have been exposed for centuries that have killed thousands upon thousands.

Obviously, the writer of the press release wants to get the item into the media, hence the mention of H5N1 and SARS, and, admittedly, the diagnostic, which is still undergoing clinical evaluation, will be able to spot those viruses. There is enough disinformation regarding avian influenza as it is. It seems that almost any piece of viral research is likely to have some PR exploitable link to H5N1 these days, but there are two sides to every story and a lot of researchers have stated already that should H5n1 ever mutate into a human transmissable form it will lose its lethality without doubt. After all, it doesn’t kill wild birds, just that pampered stock we breed to eat.

Newborn Bonding

Compared with children raised by biological parents, children who were raised in foreign orphanages before adoption by American families apparently have altered levels of social-bonding hormones, researchers report.

Researchers are interested in how infants’ social experiences can affect brain organization. Seth Pollak and colleagues studied children adopted into American families after being raised from birth in foreign orphanages, where they often failed to receive standard emotional and physical contact from caregivers.

The researchers compared these children with a control group of American children raised by their families. Two hormones were of interest to the researchers: oxytocin and arginine vasopressin, both of which are associated with stress regulation and social bonding, and whose levels rise after socially pleasant experiences such as comforting touches.

Compared with the control group, children raised in orphanages showed lower baseline levels of vasopressin. Also, oxytocin levels of family-raised children increased after playful social contact with their mothers, but orphanage-raised children did not display the same response. The results suggest that a failure to receive typical care as a child can disrupt normal development of these hormonal systems, which can then interfere with the calming and comforting effects that typically emerge between children and their caregivers.

Amazing what a little interpersonal chemistry can do, isn’t it?

SOURCE: PNAS Press Release

Homeopathic Flu Remedy

It’s rather worrying to see the proliferation of books about avian influenza, as if people aren’t scared enough, but this one is more worrying still – its title alludes to the idea that homeopathy can somehow help us survive influenza epidemics and pandemics. Bizarrely, it says we can survive “past, present and future” episodes. Present and future are really pushing it, given the lack of valid trials of homeopathy in any area of medicine, but “past”?

Forget H5N1, H3N0 is a killer too

According to the People’s Daily Online, the first Vietnamese have died of H3N0 another strain of the influenza A virus, related to but different from the increasingly familiar H5N1. From the scaremongering point of view, there’s no need to hold the frontpage (at least outside Vietnam) as this strain is far less virulent than H5N1.

However, it does bring to light an aspect of flu viruses that gets little mention in the media – avian influenza has killed very few people, especially compared with the number of annual deaths from human influenza, but should any of these avian strains jump between species they are likely to lose their virulence to a great degree. One flu expert told us that, “H5N1 will surely decrease in lethality as it becomes more infectious between humans…no doubt about it.” More on that next week…

Molecular Model of Oseltamivir (Tamiflu)

tamiflu molecular structure Premier molecular modeller Stephan Logan has produced for us a timely reminder of the chemical structure of Tamiflu, the antiviral flu drug. You can order the necessary components to build the Molecular Model of Oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and other molecules from Stephan’s site. Perfect for that avian flu lecture!

In case you missed my how to avoid colds and flu article, it’s once again taking pride of place on the sciencebase site.