EUROPEAN NETWORK OF FIBROMYALGIA ASSOCIATIONS

From the desk of Jeanne Hambleton

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) adopt written declaration 69/2008 on fibromyalgia initiated by five deputies and the European Network of Fibromyalgia Associations (ENFA).

Brussels (16.12.2008) – Written Declaration 69/2008 on fibromyalgia has been a success in the European Parliament by finding the necessary quorum of signatories of 393 deputies giving their support. The Written Declaration was initiated by five key MEPs active on health at the European Parliament: Mr. Adamou, Ms. Brepoels, Ms. Dičkuté, Mr. Popa and Ms. Sinnott. These MEPs decided to launch the declaration during the celebratory meeting of the 1st European Fibromyalgia Awareness Day in May 2008, organized by ENFA

The Written Declaration is calling on the European Union to recognize fibromyalgia in Europe as a disease, as WHO did in 1992. It is estimated that 14 million people in Europe suffer from fibromyalgia and the condition is more prevalent with women (87% of total prevalence).

Fibromyalgia is a complex disease with a variety of symptoms in addition to the defining symptom – chronic widespread pain. These include fatigue, non-restorative sleep, morning stiffness, irritable bowel and bladder, restless legs, depression, anxiety and cognitive dysfunction often referred to as “fibro fog.” All of these symptoms cause serious limitations in patients’ ability to perform ordinary daily chores and work and severely affect their quality of life. Some scientists believe that there is an abnormality in how the body responds to pain, and particularly a heightened sensitivity to stimuli.

Fibromyalgia imposes large economic burdens on society as well as on affected individuals. A study shows that an average patient in Europe consults up to 7 physicians and takes multiple medications over 5-7 years before receiving the correct diagnosis. The debilitating symptoms often result in lost work days, lost income and disability payments. Research in the UK has shown that diagnosis and positive management of Fibromyalgia reduce healthcare cost by avoiding unnecessary investigations and consultations

Thus, the European Parliament is calling through this declaration, for the European Commission and the Council, to help raise awareness of the condition and facilitate access to information for health professionals and patients, by supporting European and national awareness campaigns; to encourage Member States to improve access to diagnosis and treatment; to facilitate research on fibromyalgia through the work programmes of the EU 7th Framework Programme for Research and future research programmes; and finally to facilitate the development of programmes for collecting data on fibromyalgia.

Educating healthcare professionals, patients and the public to promote better understanding and management of Fibromyalgia will benefit patients, healthcare providers and the society.
A Written Declaration is a text of up to 200 words on a matter falling within the European Union’s sphere of activities. MEPs can use them in order to launch or relaunch a debate on a subject that comes within the EU’s remit. At the end of the lapsing date (3 months after its launch on 1 September for the declaration 69/2008) the declaration is forwarded to the institutions named in the text, together with the names of the signatories.

Contact:
European Network of Fibromyalgia Associations (ENFA)
Mr. Robert Boelhouwer
President of ENFA
contact@enfa-europe.eu
http://www.enfa-europe.eu

About ENFA
ENFA is a network of patient association and support groups working in close consultation with the national association in the relevant country. Our joint missions are to conquer the myths and misunderstandings around Fibromyalgia. The network will help collectively push forward the boundaries which currently exist in understanding, experiencing and treatment of Fibromyalgia. Our main goal is to see fibromyalgia receiving the recognition it deserves across Europe as an illness in its own right.

Agent orange chemical, dioxin, attacks the mitochondria to cause cancer, says Penn research team

Contact: Jordan Reese
jreese@upenn.edu
215-573-6604
University of Pennsylvania

PHILADELPHIA— Researchers with the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine have demonstrated the process by which the cancer-causing chemical dioxin attacks the cellular machinery, disrupts normal cellular function and ultimately promotes tumor progression.

The team identified for the first time that mitochondria, the cellular sub-units that convert oxygen and nutrients into cellular fuel, are the target of tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, or TCDD. The study showed that TCDD induces mitochondria-to-nucleus stress signaling, which in turn induces the expression of cell nucleus genes associated with tumor promotion and metastasis.

The mechanism the research team has described is directly relevant to understanding incidences of breast and other cancers in human populations exposed to these chemicals. With a better understanding of this underlying cellular mechanism, researchers hope to improve their understanding of tumor growth and promotion.

“Now that we have identified this signaling mechanism we can look at ways to disrupt this complex chain of events,” said Narayah Avadhani, chair of the Department of Animal Biology at Penn’s School of Veterinary Medicine and the study’s lead investigator. “Our ultimate goal is to block the propagation of this mitochondrial stress signaling and inhibit the expression of the proteins that combine to assist cancer growth.”

A well-characterized mechanism of TCDD action occurs through activation of arylhydrocarbon receptors, AhR, by directly binding to the protein subunits. Activated AhR mediates the transcriptional activation of many genes including those involved in fatty acid metabolism, cell cycle regulation and immune response. The present study, however, shows that TCDD starts the chain of events that promote tumor progression in vivo by directly targeting mitochondrial transcription and induction of mitochondrial stress signaling. A unique feature of this TCDD-induced signaling is that it does not involve the action of AhR but occurs through increased calcium levels in cells and activation of calcium responsive factors. A net result of signaling cascade is slowing down of cellular apoptosis, increased cell proliferation and tumor cell metastasis. Taken together, this study describes a novel mechanism of TCDD-induced tumor progression and emergence of metastatic cancer cells.

TCDD is the most toxic compound in the dioxin family. Formed as a by-product during waste incineration, paper, chemical and pesticide manufacturing, it was the toxic ingredient in Agent Orange and closed the Love Canal in Niagara Falls. The public health impact of dioxin, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, compares to that of the pesticide DDT.

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The study appears online and in the Dec. 17 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was performed by Avadhani, Gopa Biswas, Satish Srinivasan and Hindupur Anandatheerthavarada of the Penn School of Veterinary Medicine.

The research was supported by a grant from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health.

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Cholesterol-lowering drugs and the risk of hemorrhagic stroke

Contact: Angela Babb
ababb@aan.com
651-695-2789
American Academy of Neurology

ST. PAUL, Minn. – People taking cholesterol-lowering drugs such as atorvastatin after a stroke may be at an increased risk of hemorrhagic stroke, or bleeding in the brain, a risk not found in patients taking statins who have never had a stroke. But researchers caution the risk must be balanced against the much larger overall benefit of the statin in reducing the total risk of a second stroke and other cardiovascular events when making treatment decisions. The research is published in the December 12, 2007, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

For the study, researchers conducted a secondary analysis of the results of the Stroke Prevention with Aggressive Reduction in Cholesterol Levels (SPARCL) clinical trial. The trial enrolled 4,731 people who were within one to six months of having had a stroke or transient ischemic attack, or mini-stroke, and with no history of heart disease. Half of the participants received atorvastatin and half received a placebo. The participants were then followed for an average of four and a half years.

Overall, treatment was associated with a 16-percent reduction in total stroke, the study’s primary endpoint, as well as significant reductions in coronary heart events. However, secondary analysis found that the overall reduction in stroke included an increase in the risk of brain hemorrhage. Of those people randomized to atorvastatin, the study found 2.3 percent experienced a hemorrhagic stroke during the study compared to 1.4 percent of those taking placebo. The study also found there was a 21-percent reduction in ischemic stroke, a more common type of stroke involving a block in the blood supply to the brain, among people taking atorvastatin.

Other factors were also found to increase the risk of brain hemorrhage. For example, those who had experienced a hemorrhagic stroke prior to the study were more than five times as likely to suffer a second stroke of this kind. Men were also nearly twice as likely as women to suffer a hemorrhagic stroke. People with severe high blood pressure at their last doctor’s visit prior to the hemorrhagic stroke had over six times the risk of those with normal blood pressure.

“Although treatment of patients with a stroke or transient ischemic attack was clearly associated with an overall reduction in a second stroke, hemorrhagic stroke was more frequent in people treated with atorvastatin, in those with a prior hemorrhagic stroke, in men and in those with uncontrolled hypertension,” according to study author Larry B. Goldstein, MD, with Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. “This risk of hemorrhagic stroke also increased with age.”

“Treatment with atorvastatin did not disproportionately increase the frequency of brain hemorrhage associated with these other factors. The risk of hemorrhage in patients who have had a transient ischemic attack or stroke must be balanced against the benefits of cholesterol-lowering drugs in reducing the overall risk of a second stroke, as well as other cardiovascular events,” said Goldstein.

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The SPARCL trial was funded by Pfizer, the maker of atorvastatin.

The American Academy of Neurology, an association of more than 20,000 neurologists and neuroscience professionals, is dedicated to improving patient care through education and research. A neurologist is a doctor with specialized training in diagnosing, treating and managing disorders of the brain and nervous system such as stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, Parkinson disease, and multiple sclerosis.

For more information about the American Academy of Neurology, visit http://www.aan.com.

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FOOD FOR SKINNY KIDS – A STORY WHICH NEEDS TO CIRCULATE FOREVER

by Jeanne Hambleton © 2007
NFA Leader Against Pain – Advocate

Maybe I should mention that you just might need some kleenex tissues before you start this story but please read it anyway, if only in the spirit of Goodwill to All Children. The men are big enough to look after themselves.

As folks in the UK were getting ready this morning to do some Christmas shopping an email arrived on my desktop with a warning, which said,  “This email needs to circulate forever.”

How could I pass up this invitation to inquire within? The email also stated, “This is a real eye opener. A real tear jerker No prerequisites (commitments).  Simply, because everyone should be reminded.“

This was sent to me by a lady from Montevideo, Uruguay called Marta. Where the pictures, shown in the email, were taken, it does not say, but I am sure it conveys a worldwide message, especially within the African continent.

Picture 1. shows European students sat at computers working, with the caption, “Does studying annoy you?”
Picture 2. reveals children, possibly from Africa, without shoes, sat on a bench and drawing their lessons in the dirt with their fingers. The caption says, “ Not them!”

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Picture 3. is a happy family picture of a father with his daughter enjoying a beef burger roll with the words, “Hate veggies?”
Picture 4. is a picture of a long line of native mothers and starved children, clothed, in rags and waiting in line with a bowl for some food handouts. This caption says, “They starve from hunger!”

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Picture 5. reveals the back view of a jolly obese child having fun, with a caption which reads, “On a diet?”
Picture 6. gives a close-up of a painfully thin starved child with a tape measure around the child’s matchstick thin arm. The caption referring to diet says, “They die from it!” Or the lack of any kind of diet.

Picture 7. shows a baby being cuddled by a parent revealing the lovely cuddly cheeks of a child’s bottom. This reads, “Does your parent’s care tire you?”
Picture 8. shows a sibling cuddling a child with the last bone in the baby’s spine clearly visible as she rests in sister’s arms for comfort. This caption tells us these children have no parents to grow tired of. “They don’t have any!”

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Picture 9. reveals youngsters sat at a games console and states, “Bored with the same game?”
Picture 10. Shows a young unclothed child playing in the dirt with a bit of stick, next to the human skull of someone who had probably died from starvation. The caption reads, “They have no option!”

Picture 11. shows a smart new trainer with a caption which reads, “Someone got you Adidas instead of Nike?”
Picture 12. pictures the feet of a child with half of a plastic bottle cut to make the sole of a pair of sandals. The picture clearly reveals the screw top of the plastic bottle on the footwear, which is tied onto the foot with rag. This caption states, “They only have one brand?” Maybe it is cola?????

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Picture 13. is of a sweet little girl in clean pyjamas snuggled up in her cosy bed. This caption reads, “Aren’t you thankful for a bed to sleep in?”
Picture 14. The final contrast picture shows a child laying in the dirt, half covered with a piece of old rag, trying to sleep, with a caption that reads, “They’d wish not to wake up!”

By fmsglobalnews

The closing slide asks, “Are you still complaining? Observe around you and be thankful for all that you have in this transitory lifetime…. We are fortunate to have much more than what we need to be content. Let us try not to feed this endless cycle of consumerism and immortality in which this ‘modern and advanced’ society forgets and ignores the other two thirds of our brothers and sisters. Send this information without any obligation or expectation in receiving good luck. Don’t keep it! Send it and it won’t be in vain. Let us complain less and give more!”

I imagine you feel as I do. I work hard for my dollar and I do not believe in sharing my hard earned cash with large charities who have magnificent offices, managing directors, hundreds of paid staff and devote just a fraction of their donations to their ‘good’ works. You can call me the woman with the long pockets if you like, but I want to know my money is going where it will doing some good and helping those would really need it. How to be confident about that I am not sure? In true Scorpion fashion I hate to be misled or deceived.

Quite how we can help these starving children is the burning question. I have had masses of appeals for all sorts of charities drop on my doormat in recent weeks. At least these ends up in the local hospice waste paper recycling skip and help them a little along with our papers and magazines. I looked on the Internet at our UK BBC Children in Need but could not see children in a similar situation.

SAVE THE CHILDREN
The UK Save the Children organisation has produced a Christmas shopping catalogue, on line, so should you decide to buy Christmas gifts from them you are indirectly donating while shopping, just how much remains to be seen! Perhaps this might be more acceptable – buying and giving at the same time. It is easy to look at this site to see the work they are doing and possibly shop with them. Every Christmas I seem to receive more and more cards printed by charities and sent by to me by friends.

http://www.savethechildrenshop.co.uk/home

However I should mention that if you telephone their UK number – 0844 557 5425 – instead of ordering on line, it could cost you 40p a minute as you give your details and make your mind up. Some of that money will be going to the charity.

Our doctors’ surgery is using this 0844 prefix number and getting a rake off which is a bit vexing considering how much our GPs are reported to be earning – but that is another story.

No – I am not a sales rep for any charity – just a concerned parent. No, this is not a commercial for children’s charities – it is a wake up call.

The American Save the Children website also appears to have a programme for under privileged children in developing countries, who are suffering from hunger and poverty. It seems you can also purchase festive gifts from them indirectly helping the cause.

http://www.savethechildren.org/

What you decide to do is between you and your conscience. I would however like to leave you with these thoughts.

These pictures and words certainly do bring you down to earth especially when you consider the wastage by governments the world over.  I am just sorry I could not reproduce the pictures but I am sure you know the kind of scenes I mean – you must have seen them on TV from time to time. Send me your email address with the request for these pictures if you would like them forwarding.

Just consider the money all of the worldwide governments squander… it is time someone added the total figure and gave us some home truths.

These starving children, if they live, may be our next generation – our future leaders. Do you think if they survive they could be future terrorists? I am sure they will have a grudge against the world – surely they will feel the world owes them a living. This is all very sad and really makes you think. Whatever happened to the innocence of childhood?  

Just imagine what we spend on consumerism not to mention what we will spend on our own children this Christmas 2007. I wonder what our children would think if we put these pictures under the Christmas tree on Dec.25 instead of a new bike, a new game toy and all the other things children of our modern world expect to receive from their parents aka Father Christmas?

What would it be like if children all over the world went without just one toy from their festive gifts in aid of the starving and poverty stricken children. It would take a lot of organizing to gather in that money and it is a huge task but it could be done – all it needs is a good website supported by reliable well known people…. even if it took until Easter to collect the money – the children would still be starving.

Where are you Bob Geldorf? Can you help us with this? Does someone know his email address? My mind is boggling at the power of the people…… How about Skinny Kids for a campaign title – that rather sums it up!

Just a thought – maybe if that £5 we would be spending on a nonsense stocking gift for someone who has everything, was replaced with a warm note telling them Christmas is for children – starving children in particular – and they would be receiving his gift money with a tax gift aid. Sorry but this has been sent to starving “Skinny Kids” who have nothing.

I would hope we would get a really warm hug for this initiative. This friend really did not need an air freshener toy for his car or a key ring. If we did not get a big hug that receiver is a Christmas Meanie…. Take it from me. We will cross him off our Christmas list in future – so there.

Sorry to be a party pooper – but someone has to do it.  I will make up for it and send you some happier stories in the near future.

Take care. Jeanne.

Satellites witness lowest Arctic ice coverage in history

14 September 2007

The area covered by sea ice in the Arctic has shrunk to its lowest level this week since satellite measurements began nearly 30 years ago, opening up the Northwest Passage – a long-sought short cut between Europe and Asia that has been historically impassable.

2007 Envisat mosaic of Arctic Ocean

In the mosaic image above, created from nearly 200 images acquired in early September 2007 by the Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) instrument aboard ESA’s Envisat satellite, the dark gray colour represents the ice-free areas while green represents areas with sea ice.

Leif Toudal Pedersen from the Danish National Space Centre said: “We have seen the ice-covered area drop to just around 3 million sq km which is about 1 million sq km less than the previous minima of 2005 and 2006. There has been a reduction of the ice cover over the last 10 years of about 100 000 sq km per year on average, so a drop of 1 million sq km in just one year is extreme.

“The strong reduction in just one year certainly raises flags that the ice (in summer) may disappear much sooner than expected and that we urgently need to understand better the processes involved.”

Arctic sea ice naturally extends its surface coverage each northern winter and recedes each northern summer, but the rate of overall loss since 1978 when satellite records began has accelerated.

Mosaics of Arctic Ocean for 2005, 2006, 2007

The most direct route of the Northwest Passage (highlighted in the top mosaic by an orange line) across northern Canada is shown fully navigable, while the Northeast Passage (blue line) along the Siberian coast remains only partially blocked. To date, the Northwest Passage has been predicted to remain closed even during reduced ice cover by multi-year ice pack – sea ice that survives one or more summers. However, according to Pedersen, this year’s extreme event has shown the passage may well open sooner than expected.

The previous record low was in 2005 when the Arctic area covered by sea ice was just 4 million sq km. Even then, the most direct Northwest Passage did not fully open.

A 2007 ice-free portion of the Northwest Passage

The Polar Regions are very sensitive indicators of climate change. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change showed these regions are highly vulnerable to rising temperatures and predicted the Arctic would be virtually ice free by the summer of 2070. Still other scientists predict it could become ice free as early as 2040 due to rising temperatures and sea ice decline.

Because sea ice has a bright surface, the majority of solar energy that hits it is reflected back into space. When sea ice melts, the dark-coloured ocean surface is exposed. Solar energy is then absorbed rather than reflected, so the oceans get warmer and temperatures rise, making it difficult for new ice to form.

The Arctic is one of Earth’s most inaccessible areas, so obtaining measurements of sea ice was difficult before the advent of satellites. For more than 20 years, ESA has been providing satellite data to the cryosphere communities. Currently, ESA is contributing to the International Polar Year (IPY) – a large worldwide science programme focused on the Arctic and Antarctic.

Since 2006, ESA has supported Polar View, a satellite remote-sensing programme funded through the Earthwatch GMES Service Element (GSE) that focuses on the Arctic and the Antarctic.

In 2009, ESA will make another significant contribution to cryosphere research with the launch of CryoSat-2. The observations made over the three-year lifetime of the mission will provide conclusive evidence on the rates at which ice cover is diminishing.

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Kenyan malaria success strengthens call for free insecticide-treated nets for all

Experts have today called for international agencies to provide insecticide-treated bed nets for all children in Africa as the most equitable way of tackling malaria. Their call is supported by new research co-funded by the Wellcome Trust showing how successful a scheme run by the Kenyan government has been at distributing the nets.

Over a million children die from malaria in Africa each year. Scientists have known for over 15 years that sleeping under a mosquito net treated with insecticide can halve the number of episodes of malaria and save lives. However, successful and equitable distribution of the nets has been difficult – by the end of 2004, only 7% of children in rural Kenya were reported to sleeping under the nets and only 3% among the poorest sectors of these communities.

“Even when the price of a treated net is heavily subsidised and made more accessible through clinics, parents have to choose between school fees and food or a net,” explains Professor Bob Snow from the Kenya Medical Research Institute–Wellcome Trust (KEMRI-WT) Research Programme in Kenya, who led the research. “The result is that few children are protected. Those who can afford to protect their children tend to benefit most, but not those who can’t.”

In 2006 the Kenyan government initiated a programme to provide 3.4 million treated nets free to as many young children as possible in only two weeks. The nets were distributed at clinics, schools, vaccination points and by Ministry of Health staff walking from house-to-house . In this short period of time, coverage rose to two-thirds of all children sleeping under a treated net, with no difference between children from rich or poor homes. The results of the study to evaluate the initiative are published today in the open access journal PLoS Medicine.

However, despite the success of the Kenyan government’s programme, Dr Abdisalan Mohamed Noor, lead author of the study, warns against complacency.

“We’ve shown what can be achieved with the right strategy, but one in three children are still unprotected, and every year 1.5 million children are born in Kenya who require new treated nets,” says Dr Noor from KEMRI-WT and the University of Oxford. “The momentum started in 2006 must continue and not be seen as a one off success.”

The researchers believe that the findings should prompt international aid agencies to revisit their distribution policies to make the nets more widely accessible.

“For a decade now, we have been asking the international agencies to recognise the importance of treated nets in child survival programmes,” says Professor Snow. “We would never expect countries or African families to pay for measles vaccination. Why then ask them to pay for an intervention that saves more lives in Africa each year””

Contact: Craig Brierley
c.brierley@wellcome.ac.uk
44-207-611-7329
Wellcome Trust

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New study highlights link between unemployment and hospital trauma admissions

Press Releases

Heidelberg, 8 August 2007

Unemployment cuts

Socioeconomic status, and unemployment rates in particular, predict both the type of trauma seen in emergency rooms and the population groups more likely to be victims of trauma, according to Atul Madan (1) from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and his team. Their findings have just been published online in Springer’s World Journal of Surgery.

The researchers looked at the link between unemployment rates and the types of trauma admissions in New Orleans over six years. Unemployment rates were obtained from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The trauma registry of the Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans (Charity Hospital) provided data on the trauma emergency room admissions, including patient demographics.

Between January 1994 and November 1999, there were over 24,000 trauma admissions. During that period, the higher the unemployment rate, the higher the number of admissions for penetrating trauma – injuries that occur primarily by an object piercing the skin or entering a tissue of the body, such as bullets and knives.

The lower the unemployment rates, the higher the number of admissions for blunt trauma – physical trauma caused to a body part, either by impact, injury of physical attack which can result in contusions, abrasions, lacerations and bone fractures. In this instance, the majority of blunt trauma was the result of motor vehicle collisions. The authors suggest that a possible explanation for this surprising finding could be the fact that with higher incomes, more travel is likely, which in turn increases the likelihood of motor vehicle collisions. Alternatively, more tourism to the area may have reduced unemployment but caused more road accidents.

The study also shows that as the socioeconomic status, measured here by unemployment rates, of the community changes, so do the demographics and mortality rates of the trauma population. There were more male patients, African American patients and deaths at times of high unemployment. These results suggest that during times of economic hardship, certain population groups are at higher risk of life-threatening injuries.

The authors recommend that “injury prevention efforts targeted at economically disadvantaged populations and high-risk groups should be stressed when designing community trauma outreach programs, especially during times of economic hardships.”

Reference
(1) Madan A et al (2007). Unemployment rates and trauma admissions. World Journal of Surgery (DOI 10.1007/s00268-007-9190-4)

Contact:
Renate Bayaz
tel +49-6221-487-8531

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A pioneering study opens roads for tailor-made antidepressants

In spite that the causes of depression have not still been fully identified, scientists acknowledge that genetic and environmental factors play a common role in the onset of this disorder. One of the environmental risk factors more often related to depression is exposure to threatening life events. On the other side, from a genetic point of view, the serotonin transporter gene, with a crucial role in communication between neurons, could predispose to depression.

An international group of scientists, headed by professors Jorge Cervilla Ballesteros and Blanca Gutiérrez Martínez, from the department of Legal Medicine, Toxicology and Psychiatry of the University of Granada, has recently published in the prestigious journal Molecular Psychiatry the pioneering study PREDICT-gene, confirming the relation between allele s in the serotonin transporter gene and exposure to threatening life events in the onset of depression. The study proves, for a population sample accounting for gender, age and family history of psychiatric disorders, that 24% of the Spanish population, comprising people with the s/s genotype, need minimal exposure to threatening life events, unlike individuals with s/l or l/l genotypes, thus confirming the relation between genetic and environmental factors in this mental disorder.

Tailor-made antidepressants

The most important consequence of research on interaction between genetic and environmental factors is that, in a foreseeable future, scientists will be able to produce measures to predict response to antidepressants taking into account each individual’s genotype, i. e. they will be able to design tailor-made drugs according to each person’s genetic configuration and their exposure to environmental factors.

The research group headed by professor Cervilla Ballesteros and Gutiérrez Martínez is currently working at the University of Granada to open roads for psycho-pharmaco-genetics, a field that will allow for individual treatments, tailor-made drugs, for each patient with depression, a disorder affecting one in every five Spaniards visiting the doctor’s.

This study is framed in the international project PREDICT and is funded by the European Union and the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. One of its most important novelties is that it has been carried out through a very representative sample: a total of 737 people agreed to participate in the genetic tests, with ages ranging from 18 to 75, patients of nine primary care centres in the South of Spain. That is why this is the first representative population-based replication of earlier research, as until now research had been done into restricted population samples, comprising only women, adolescents, twins or people with affective disorders.

Contact: Professor Jorge Cervilla Ballesteros
jacb@ugr.es
34-663-075-835
Universidad de Granada

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Multicenter study nets new lung tumor-suppressor gene

BOSTON–Collaborating scientists in Boston and North Carolina have found that a particular gene can block key steps of the lung cancer process in mice. The researchers report in the journal Nature that LKB1 is not only a “tumor-suppressor” gene for non-small cell lung cancer in mice, it also may be more powerful than other, better-known suppressors. The study will be published on the journal’s Web site on Aug. 5 and later in a print version.

If further research shows LKB1 has a similar effect in human lung cells, it could influence the way non-small cell lung cancer is diagnosed and treated, says the study’s senior author, Kwok-Kin Wong, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber, one of three institutions, along with Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, leading the work. If tumors with LKB1 mutations are found to be especially fast-growing, for example, patients with such tumors might be candidates for more aggressive therapy.

People born with defective versions of LKB1 often develop Peutz-Jeghers syndrome, which is marked by intestinal growths and an increased risk for certain cancers. Non-inherited mutations of the gene have been found in some lung cancers. This suggested that LKB1 normally thwarts tumors from forming. Mutated versions may be unable to act as a brake on cancer.

To find out, the investigators ran a series of experiments in mice with a defective form of a gene called Kras, which drives the formation and growth of lung cancer. They tracked the development of lung cancer in animals with mutated LKB1 and compared it to the experience of animals with abnormalities in either of two well-known tumor-suppressor genes.

They found that while Kras “cooperated” with the mutated tumor-suppressor genes to produce lung cancer, it cooperated even more strongly with mutated LKB1. “The LKB1-deficient tumors grew more rapidly and spread more frequently than the others, and comprised all three types of non-small cell lung cancer — squamous cell carcinoma, large-cell carcinoma, and adenocarcinoma — rather than just one or two,” Wong says. “This suggests that LKB1 plays a role at major stages of the tumors’ development: initiation, differentiation of normal lung cells into cancer cells, and metastasis.”

An examination of human non-small-cell lung tissue suggests LKB1 mutations play a role there as well. Of 144 samples analyzed, 34 percent of the lung adenocarcinomas and 19 percent of the squamous cell carcinomas contained abnormal versions of the gene, researchers report.

“We were surprised at how significant a role LKB1 mutations play in non-small cell lung cancer development in mice,” say Wong, who is also an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “This suggests there may be additional lung tumor-suppressor genes yet to be discovered. We’re currently examining whether these results apply to human lung cancers as well and, if so, how such information can improve treatment.”

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The lead author of the study was Hongbin Ji, PhD, of Dana-Farber. Other Dana-Farber co-authors include Dongpo Cai, PhD, Liang Chen, PhD, Pasi Janne, MD, PhD, Bruce Johnson, MD, Jussi Koivunen, MD, PhD, Danan Li, Mei-Chih Liang, PhD, Kate McNamara, Matthew Meyerson, MD, PhD, Samanthi Perera, PhD, Geoffrey Shapiro, MD, PhD, and Takeshi Shimamura, PhD. Other authors were based at Children’s Hospital Boston, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Broad Institute of Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Sidney Kimmel Foundation for Cancer Research, the American Federation of Aging, the Joan Scarangello Foundation to Conquer Lung Cancer, the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute, the Waxman Foundation, the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and the Linda Verville Foundation.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (www.dana-farber.org) is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center (DF/HCC), designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute.

Contact: Bill Schaller
william_schaller@dfci.harvard.edu
617-632-5357
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

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Identifying the mechanism behind a genetic susceptibility to type 2 diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions in the developed world. Determining if and how certain genes predispose individuals to type 2 diabetes is likely to lead to the development of new treatment strategies for individuals with the disease.

In a study appearing in the August issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation Valeriya Lyssenko and colleagues from Lund University in Sweden show that certain variants of the gene TCF7L2 make individuals more susceptible to type 2 diabetes. The susceptibility variants were associated with increased expression of TCF7L2 in pancreatic islet cells and decreased islet cell secretion of insulin. Consistent with this, ectopic overexpression of TCF7L2 in human islet cells decreased insulin secretion in response to exposure to glucose. This study identifies TCF7L2 type 2 diabetes susceptibility variants and provides a mechanism by which these genetic variants might cause susceptibility to the disease. As discussed by the authors and in the accompanying commentary by Andrew Hattersley from Peninsula Medical School in the United Kingdom, future studies are likely to investigate the potential for manipulating the signaling pathways controlled by TCF7L2 for the development of new therapeutics for type 2 diabetes.

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TITLE: Mechanisms by which common variants in the TCF7L2 gene increase risk of type 2 diabetes

AUTHOR CONTACT:
Valeriya Lyssenko
Lund University, University Hospital Malma, Malma, Sweden.
Phone: 46-40-391214; Fax: 46-40-391222; E-mail: Valeri.Lyssenko@med.lu.se.

View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=30706

ACCOMPANYING COMMENTARY
TITLE: Prime suspect: the TCF7L2 gene and type 2 diabetes risk

AUTHOR CONTACT:
Andrew T. Hattersley
Institute of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences, Peninsula Medical School, Exeter, United Kingdom.
Phone: 44-1392-406806; Fax: 44-1392-406767; E-mail: Andrew.Hattersley@pms.ac.uk.

View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=33077

Contact: Karen Honey
press_releases@the-jci.org
215-573-1850
Journal of Clinical Investigation

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