Academics say 'no truth' to lying eyes theory

New research says the lying eyes theory is a myth

 

Research by academics at two universities have concluded that the common belief of lying eyes is a myth.

Many psychologists think when a person looks up to their right they are likely to be telling a lie and glancing up to the left is said to indicate honesty.
However, the experts from Edinburgh University and Hertfordshire University carried out tests and found the theory to be wrong.
The research appeared in the online journal Public Library of Science ONE.
The claimed link between eye movements and truth telling is a key element of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), a method of enhancing people's lives using psychological techniques.

Five ways to detect a liar

Prof Richard Wiseman outlined other ways to spot a liar;

1. Me, myself I: Liars make up stories that never actually happened, and so tend to reduce the number of times they refer to themselves. Look out for any sudden drop in words like me, mine and I
2. Shifty: Lying is difficult and people tend not to move around when they are concentrating on something. Be wary if a person suddenly becomes very still
3. Umm ... err: Liars are far more hesitant than truth tellers and tend to stumble over their words. Listen out for tell-tale umms and errs.
4. Timing: Liars often have to think about what they are going to say before they speak. Be suspicious if someone suddenly pauses before starting to answer a question.
5. Token gesture: Liars tend to move their hands around more than truth tellers. Be wary if someone suddenly starts covering up their mouth or touching their hair as they chat.

One aspect of NLP involves teaching people about the relationship between eye movements and thought.

According to the theory, when right-handed people look up to their right they are likely to be visualising a "constructed" or imagined event.
In contrast when they look to their left they are likely to be visualising a "remembered" memory.
For this reason, when liars are constructing their own version of the truth, they tend to look to the right.
The idea was tested by filming volunteers and recording their eye movements as they told the truth or lied.
A second group of volunteers was then asked to watch the films and try to detect the lies by watching the eye movements.
Co-author Dr Caroline Watt, from Edinburgh University, said: "A large percentage of the public believes that certain eye movements are a sign of lying, and this idea is even taught in organisational training courses.
"Our research provides no support for the idea and so suggests that it is time to abandon this approach to detecting deceit."
Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, from Hertfordshire University, said: "The results of the first study revealed no relationship between lying and eye movements, and the second showed that telling people about the claims made by NLP practitioners did not improve their lie detection skills."
A follow-up study involved analysing videos of high-profile press conferences in which people appealed for help in finding missing relatives, or claimed to have been victims of crime.
While some were telling the truth, others turned out to be lying.
Again, there was no evidence of a correlation between lying and eye movements.

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Warning over 'low prescribing' for elderly

Statins are cholesterol-lowering drugs

 

More elderly patients should be prescribed drugs to tackle high blood pressure and cholesterol, experts say.

Oxford and Birmingham university researchers said older patients were "largely ignored" after looking at prescribing for nearly 37,000 people.
They found for blood pressure-lowering drugs prescribing dropped after the age of 85, while for treatment for high cholesterol the fall started at 75.
But other experts said there could be valid reasons for the findings.
The study, published on the British Medical Journal website, showed that prescribing of both types of drugs increased every five years after the ages of 40 to 44.
But by the age of 75 statin use had peaked at 29%, falling to 23% after that.
The use of blood pressure drugs peaked later at 57% at age 80 to 84 and then started declining afterwards.

'Good reasons'

The researchers said this should not be happening, pointing out that blood pressure drugs had been shown to help reduce the risk of heart disease in the elderly, while there was nothing to suggest statins should not be used.
Writing for the BMJ, they said: "With continuing advances in healthcare, the elderly population is increasing and people are living to an older age. They should... not be ignored."
June Davison, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: "Available evidence would suggest that older people can benefit from heart protective drugs, but more research is needed.
"Sometimes there are good reasons for not prescribing certain medicines.
"An older person may be more vulnerable to particular side-effects or already be on multiple medicines for other health conditions, meaning it isn't always appropriate to prescribe additional medicines."

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Breast cancer surgery women 'risk more operations'

Surgery to conserve the breast can cause scarring

 

One in five women with breast cancer who has part of the breast removed, rather than the whole breast, ends up having another operation, a BMJ study suggests.

The reoperation rate increases to one in three for women whose early-stage cancer is difficult to detect.
In England, 58% of women with breast cancer have breast-conserving surgery.
Women should be told of the risk of further operations when choosing surgery, researchers say.
The study, led by researchers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and published in the British Medical Journal, looked at data collected on 55,297 women with breast cancer in England.
They all underwent breast-conserving surgery, rather than a mastectomy, on the NHS between 2005 and 2008. All the women were aged 16 or over.
They then looked at procedures carried out in the three months following the first breast operation.
The researchers took tumour type, age, socio-economic deprivation and other health problems into account.

When combined with radiotherapy, the study says that breast-conserving surgery is as effective as mastectomy, particularly for patients with an obvious, invasive tumour.

'Emotional distress'

However, because some pre-invasive cancers called 'carcinoma in situ' are difficult to detect, because they don't form a lump, breast conserving-surgery may not remove the cancer completely.
This could result in another operation.
The study says that additional operations put women's lives on hold while they wait for more surgery. It can delay their return to work, cause emotional distress and result in the need for reconstructive surgery to the breast.
Out of the 55,297 women who underwent breast-conserving surgery, 45,793 (82%) were suffering from isolated invasive cancer, 6,622 (12%) had isolated carcinoma in situ (pre-cancerous disease), and 2,882 (6%) had both types of cancer.
Another operation was more likely among women with pre-cancerous disease (29.5%) compared with those with isolated invasive disease (18%).
Around 40% of women who had a reoperation underwent a mastectomy.
Further results suggest that reoperation is less likely in older women and women from more deprived areas.

'Empowering patients'

Prof Jerome Pereira, study author and consultant breast surgeon at James Paget University Hospitals in Great Yarmouth, said the findings would help women to make decisions about their treatment.
"Patients should feel reassured that clinicians can now advise them more clearly.
"We all have a different attitude to risk but this is empowering patients to make the right decision for themselves."
Prof Pereira said the study results would help surgeons too.
"This research focuses surgeons and challenges us to try and reduce reoperation rates.
"We need to refine imaging techniques to make this happen - and this opens up more areas for more research."

'Increase survival'

Ramsey Cutes, Cancer Research UK breast cancer surgeon at the University of Southampton, said it was standard practice to discuss the possibility of further surgery with patients.
"It's important for patients to fully understand the pros and cons of surgery. The ultimate aim of these repeat operations after breast-conserving surgery is to reduce the chance that breast cancer will return in the breast, and increase survival from the disease.
"Rates of breast cancer recurrence are also reduced by other treatments such as radiotherapy, hormone therapy and chemotherapy where appropriate.
"There's an ongoing need to better identify those at high risk of breast cancer recurrence, and to carefully select those who would benefit the most from further surgery."

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Seaweed toothpaste 'to stop tooth decay'

The purple shows up the plaque on the half of the dentures that has not had the "seaweed" treatment

 

Adding enzymes from seaweed microbes to toothpaste and mouthwash could provide better protection against tooth decay, a team of UK scientists have said.

Researchers at Newcastle University had been studying Bacillus licheniformis to see if it could clean ships' hulls.

But the scientists now believe it could protect the areas between teeth where plaque can gather despite brushing.

Their lab tests suggest the microbe's enzyme cuts through plaque, stripping it of bacteria that cause tooth decay.

Dr Nick Jakubovics, of the university's school of dental sciences, said: "Plaque on your teeth is made up of bacteria which join together to colonise an area in a bid to push out any potential competitors.

"Traditional toothpastes work by scrubbing off the plaque containing the bacteria - but that's not always effective - which is why people who religiously clean their teeth can still develop cavities.

"We found this enzyme can remove some of these undesirable bacteria from plaque."

Plaque is made up of lots of different decaying bacteria.

When bacterial cells die, the DNA inside them leaks out and makes a biofilm that sticks to the teeth.

Instead of removing the plaque entirely, Dr Jakubovics believes the treatment could strip away the harmful bacteria, like Streptococcus mutans,that cause tooth decay.

"Ultimately we hope to harness this power into a paste, mouthwash or denture-cleaning solution."

He said more studies are needed to show the technique works and is safe before any products could be brought to market.

He is presenting the latest findings to a meeting of the Society for Applied Microbiology, the organisation that is funding the research along with the Newcastle Healthcare Charity.

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US approves first over-the-counter HIV home-use test

A home HIV test is expected to go on sale in the US within months, after winning regulator approval.

The OraQuick test checks saliva from a mouth swab for HIV and can produce results in 20 to 40 minutes.
Government estimates suggest 1.2 million people in the US are HIV-positive, but 20% do not know they are.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said it hopes the over-the-counter test will reach people who might not otherwise get tested.
The test is expected to be sold in as many as 30,000 pharmacies and homeware shops, as well as online.
The manufacturer, OraSure, has not said how much the test will sell for but confirmed it would cost less than $60 (£38).
"We expect all the major retail outlets to carry this product," chief executive Douglas Michels said.
The company is planning a "pretty massive effort" to market the test, Mr Michels added.
'Empowering people' Approval of the test has been praised by HIV/Aids awareness groups.
"This test will allow anyone to empower themselves to know their HIV status when, how and with whom they want to," Tom Donohue, founding director of Who's Positive, told the Associated Press.
But the FDA has highlighted in its announcement that the test may not be 100% accurate, and has stressed the need for additional testing by medical professionals to confirm the result.
OraSure said that in trials the test was able to correctly detect HIV among people carrying the virus only 92% of the time.
It was 99% accurate for negative results - or identifying that someone does not carrying the virus.
Meanwhile, Dr Jonathan Mermin, director of the HIV unit at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said people who receive negative results should take the test again after three months, because it can take weeks before antibodies to HIV appear.
Healthcare professionals have been using a version of the OraQuick test since 2002.
For the last two decades there have been about 50,000 new cases of HIV in the US each year.

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Smoking mothers' embryos 'grow more slowly

Time-lapse photography has shown that embryos of smoking women develop more slowly.

French academics in an IVF clinic took regular pictures of an egg from the moment it was fertilised until it was ready to be implanted into the mother.

At all stages of development, embryos from smokers were consistently a couple of hours behind, a study showed.

The lead researcher, from Nantes University Hospital, said: "You want a baby, quit smoking".

Smoking is known to reduce the chances of having a child. It is why some hospitals in the UK ask couples to give up smoking before they are given fertility treatment.

As eggs fertilised through IVF initially develop in the laboratory before being implanted, it gave doctors a unique opportunity to film the embryos as they divide into more and more cells.

Slow start

Researchers watched 868 embryos develop - 139 from smokers.

In the clinic the embryos of non-smokers reached the five-cell stage after 49 hours. In the smokers it took 50 hours. The eight-cell stage took 62 hours in smokers' embryos, while non-smokers' embryos reached that point after 58 hours.

Senior embryologist and lead researcher, Dr Thomas Freour, told the BBC: "Embryos from smoking women, they behave slower, there is a delay in their development.

"On average it is about two hours, it is significant and nobody knew that before."

This study cannot say what impact the slower development has, or if this affected the chances of having a child.

Dr Freour speculated that "if they go slower, maybe something is starting to go wrong and they wouldn't implant."

His advice was simple: "You should quit smoking, it couldn't be easier. What else can I say? You want a baby, quit smoking."

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in andrology at the University of Sheffield, said it was an "interesting" study which pioneered the use of new technology.

"It uses a fancy piece of equipment called an embryoscope which allows scientists to watch in real time how embryos develop without disturbing them.

"It's early days for this machine but we need trials like this to test its potential, we know our current methods of embryo selection are based on what looks good down the microscope to a trained eye."

The findings were presented at the European Society for Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) meeting in Turkey.

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New generation bionics - wireless and touch-sensitive

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EPFL's Dr Stephanie Lacour shows the BBC around her lab and describes what flexible electronics could do

A new generation of bionics which can connect wirelessly with the nervous system and feel are under development.

Animal tests have already been conducted in which devices are implanted directly into the nerve to process and transmit signals wirelessly to an external device.
Other researchers are developing prosthetic skin which might wrap around a bionic limb and feed back sensory information to the nervous system, in theory enabling users to detect and feel objects.
The current generation of bionic hands can pinch or grasp using two or more electrodes fitted inside the portion of the prosthetic which fits over the stump.

Stephanie Lacour EPFL

These electrodes are positioned to pick up signals from the user's peripheral nerve system that are naturally amplified by muscles in the stump.

Progress is almost continuous. German company Otto Bock has developed a hand incorporating multiple electrodes which can drive wrist flexing and rotation.
While Scottish company Touch Bionics builds hands which use software to control individual finger movement, so that the hand can clasp around objects.
The surgical rewiring of nerves in an amputee can also offer a great deal, enabling those with no arm at all, for example, to drive bionic arms with elbow and hand movement.
But there are problems. Sweat on the skin or any movement in the prosthetic can disrupt the signal to the bionic limb. The prosthetics can also rub against the skin and cause discomfort and sores.
The next generation of bionics will try to overcome these problems and offer some sensory feedback to the user.

Wireless bionics

Researchers in Britain have already developed the Intraosseous Transcutaneous Amputation Prosthesis (ITAP), a rod screwed into the bone of an amputee onto which prosthetics can be fitted directly and securely, be they hands, legs or fingers.
The rod means higher loads can be carried than with traditional prosthetics which fit over the stump of an amputee like a glove. It also avoids friction between the prosthetic and the skin.

Neural interfaces would be embedded in nerve trunks to read and transmit signals

Scientists such as Prof James Fawcett, of the Cambridge Centre for Brain Repair, are meanwhile developing neural interfaces whereby prosthetics will communicate wirelessly with implants fitted directly into the nerve fibres in the stump.
"People have produced very sophisticated prosthetics which will do very sophisticated things, but in almost every case the thing that people are struggling with is to link it up successfully to the nervous system," he says.
"A lot of soldiers who have lost limbs apparently have given up using these devices and gone back to a simple hook, which at least is reliable.
"The device we're producing is for recording sensory impulses in a nerve and gets inserted into the limb nerve itself."
Once the device is inserted into the nerve, nerve fibres grow through it. Nerve signals associated with particular movements are then selected, and these signals transmitted wirelessly to a receiver in the prosthetic.
So far the device has been tested in mice and rats for up to 12 months. While the researchers do have some concerns that scarring within the device could strangle nerve fibres and disrupt signals, no such problems have been detected to date, says Prof Fawcett.
"We have a programme which will develop a prototype interface in about three years' time and that will then be taken forward through the legislature for human safety and toxicity trials," he predicts.
Researchers in Italy are also working on wiring bionics to the peripheral nerve system, and have already conducted trials in which electrodes temporarily connected to the nerves were used to drive an unattached prosthetic hand.

Prosthetic skin

Elsewhere, researchers are looking to make more responsive prosthetics with many looking to flexible electronics or "prosthetic skin" to do the job.
"We're looking into putting electronics onto surfaces that can be deformed, flexed but also stretched like a rubber band," says Stephanie Lacour of Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne.
"The idea with the prosthetic skin would be to have some kind of a glove like a latex glove which we could fit around the current prosthetic limb but that would be full of electronic sensor function that would mimic the sense of touch we have in human skin."
Eventually, such sensors might feed information back to the brain via neural interface devices, but in the meantime there are other options.

Andrei Ninu of Otto Bock shows the BBC's Neil Bowdler the firm's experimental prosthetic hands

Otto Bock are working on simpler devices whereby electronic sensors on a prosthetic detect information about objects and temperature which is fed back to the user via vibrations or pressure applied to the adjacent skin.
The surgical rerouting of sensory nerves in the stump (or chest muscles where an entire arm is replaced by a prosthetic) could enhance the effect, by creating areas of skin which feel what fingers would once have felt.
A new generation of bionics could also enhance the lives of individuals who are paralysed from the neck downwards or who have conditions like Locked-In Syndrome.
Last year, a paralysed US man made headlines after temporary electrodes placed on his brain were used to control a remote prosthetic hand which he used to stroke his girlfriend's hand.
Back in Switzerland, researchers are testing a thought-controlled wheelchair which uses electrodes placed on the skin in a skullcap to drive the chair.
Prof Fawcett says such machines will be "a very exciting technology for the future" but says there are big problems to overcome.
"The issue with electrodes which record from the brain is bandwidth. You can transmit very little information and it's slow.
"The electrodes also have to be very localised so you can only record from one bit of the brain and at the moment the electrodes are very unreliable and tend to produce inflammation and this stops the electrodes working.
"The other issue is that the electronics which you have to add are very complicated and you have to attach large structures to these skulls."

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Can you build a human body?

The Bionic Bodies series on the BBC News website will be looking at how bionics can transform people's lives. We will meet a woman deciding whether to have her hand cut off for a bionic replacement and analyse the potential to take the technology even further, enhancing the body to superhuman levels. The series continues on Wednesday with a look at some of the earliest prosthetics from ancient Egypt.

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US Supreme Court upholds healthcare reform law

The US Supreme Court has said President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare reform act is constitutional.

The court upheld a core requirement known as the "individual mandate" that Americans buy insurance or pay a fine.
Of the nine justices on the bench, Chief Justice John Roberts' vote was decisive in the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling in favour of the law.
The ruling comes months before the US election, with Republicans vowing to push for a repeal of the bill.
Healthcare is a deeply polarising issue in the US and Republicans strongly opposed Mr Obama's legislation.

The state of Florida, along with 12 other states, filed a legal challenge to the bill minutes after Mr Obama signed The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law in March 2010.

They were later joined by 13 more states, the National Federation of Independent Businesses and several individuals.
'Implement and improve' Speaking afterwards, President Obama called the court's decision a victory for the country, saying people would not need to "hang their fortunes on chance" or fear financial ruin if they became sick.
"The highest court in the land has now spoken. We will continue to implement this law and we'll work together to improve on it where we can," Mr Obama said, speaking at the White House.
"What we won't do - what the country can't afford to do - is re-fight the political battles of two years ago or go back to the way things were. With today's announcement, it's time for us to move forward.

"We will be better off because we had the courage to pass this law," Mr Obama added.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said the healthcare bill was "bad law yesterday, it's bad law today".
"This is a time of choice for the American people. If we're going to get rid of Obamacare we're going to have to replace President Obama. My mission is to make sure we do exactly that."
He called "Obamacare" a tax rise that would add to the national debt, a "job-killer", and said it would put the federal government "between you and your doctor".
Congressional leaders also responded quickly to the verdict. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, said: "We've passed plenty of terrible laws around here that were constitutional."
On the Senate floor, he said the only way to fix the law was "full repeal".
Meanwhile, the Senate's Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, disagreed: "Now that this matter is settled, let's move on to other things. Like jobs."

'Triggering a tax'

The mandate was eventually upheld by the justices, citing the taxation powers granted to Congress by the US constitution.

Chief Justice Roberts said: "We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation's elected leaders.

"We ask only whether Congress has the power under the Constitution to enact the challenged provisions."
A majority of justices agreed that the penalty individuals must pay if they refuse to buy health insurance falls within Congress' power to levy taxes, upholding the "individual mandate".
"The mandate can be regarded as establishing a condition - not owning health insurance - that triggers a tax - the required payment to IRS," Justice Roberts wrote.
The government's main argument was that the law was legal under Congress' ability to regulate "interstate commerce" - but a majority of justices did not agree with this view.
Four dissenting justices said that limits on the power of Congress to regulate commerce and raise taxes "cannot be such as will enable the Federal Government to regulate all private conduct and to compel the States to function as administrators of federal programs."
"That clear principle carries the day here," they added.
In an opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the dissenting justices went further, to say: "In our view, the entire Act before us is invalid in its entirety."

 Medicare clause limited

While the court described the penalty as a tax, it did not invoke a law that could have prevented the justices from ruling on the case.

Under a law called the Anti-Injunction Act, taxes cannot be legally challenged until after they have been levied. This could have delayed a verdict till 2015 - after the "individual mandate" comes into effect and the first round of penalties have been paid.

They were also not required to rule on the issue of "severability", which would determine whether other parts of the healthcare law could stand even if the mandate was struck down.
In addition to the individual mandate, the Supreme Court was asked to consider another part of the law that deals with the expansion of Medicaid, a government healthcare programme for low-income citizens.
The court ruled to limit that provision but did not strike it down altogether, saying Congress could place conditions on the use of federal funds.
"What Congress is not free to do is to penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding," the Supreme Court's opinion said.
Some hospital and health insurance stocks were trading higher in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling.

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EEG brain trace 'can detect autism'

The researchers found 33 EEG patterns linked to autism

 

A simple brain trace can identify autism in children as young as two years old, scientists believe.

A US team at Boston Children's Hospital say EEG traces, which record electrical brain activity using scalp electrodes, could offer a diagnostic test for this complex condition.
EEG clearly distinguished children with autism from other peers in a trial involving nearly 1,000 children.
Experts say more work is needed to confirm the BMC Medicine study results.
Early detection There are more than 500,000 people with autism in the UK.
Autism is a spectrum disorder, which means that it is not a single condition and will affect individuals in different ways.
Commonly, people with autism have trouble with social interaction and can appear locked in their own worlds.
It can be a difficult condition to diagnose and can go undetected for years.

The latest study found 33 specific EEG patterns that appeared to be linked to autism.

These patterns consistently spotted autism in children across a range of age groups, spanning from two to 12 years old.
Hallmark brain activity The researchers repeated their analysis 10 times, splitting up their study group (children with a medical diagnosis of autism and children with no signs of autism) in different ways.
Around 90% of the time, the EEG patterns could correctly detect the children diagnosed with autism.
The team now plan to repeat their study in children with Asperger's syndrome - one particular subset of autism. Typically, people with Asperger's have higher-than-average intelligence and struggle less than people with other types of autism with their speech.
Dr Frank Duffy who is leading the investigation said the work could help determine if Asperger's should be thought of as an entirely separate condition.
And it could point the way to determining if younger siblings of children with autism are likely to develop the same condition themselves.
"It is a great cause of anxiety when an older sibling develops autism.
"EEG might offer a way to check for the same condition in younger siblings in advance of them having symptoms."
EEG could also be used to track what effect different autism treatments are having on the condition, he said.
Caroline Hattersley of The National Autistic Society said: "We welcome any research that may help us to understand autism better and improve diagnosis times for those with the condition.
"In a recent survey we commissioned, 50% of people with autism and their families said it was difficult to get a diagnosis and 55% said the process took too long.
"While further testing of EEG scans is still required, any tools that help identify autism at a younger age could potentially improve a person's quality of life by allowing the right support to be put in place earlier."

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"Morning smoking has cancer risk"

Is there an increased risk to morning smoking?

People who smoke soon after getting up in the morning are more likely to develop cancer than those who light up later in the day, say US researchers.

A study of 7,610 smokers, published in the journal Cancer, said the effect was independent of other smoking habits.
Smoking in the first 30 minutes after waking nearly doubled the, already high, risk of lung cancer.
Cancer Research UK suggested people who were quick to smoke may inhale more smoke into the lungs.
Scientists at the Penn State College of Medicine in the US looked at 4,776 smokers with lung cancer and 2,835 smokers without cancer.
They showed that patients who smoked in the first 30 minutes after waking up were 79% more likely to have developed cancer than those who waited at least an hour.

Professor Robert West Cancer Research UK

The researchers said that the "time to first cigarette" effect was present even after they statistically adjusted for other factors such as the number of cigarettes smoked in a day.

Uncertainty Another study in the same journal looked at 1,850 smokers, 1,055 of whom had head and neck cancers. It said people who smoked in the first half hour were 59% more likely to have developed a tumour than those who waited at least an hour.
The authors admit: "It is uncertain what explanation there is for the relationship".
Dr Joshua Muscar, lead researcher, said: "These smokers have higher levels of nicotine and possibly other tobacco toxins in their body, and they may be more addicted than smokers who refrain from smoking for a half hour or more."
Cancer Research UK's Professor Robert West said: "Smokers who light up soon after waking tend to smoke each cigarette more intensively.
"So the most likely explanation of this finding is that the sooner a smoker lights up, the more smoke is taken into the lungs, and the higher the level of exposure to cancer causing chemicals.
"This may help estimating levels of tobacco exposure more than just looking at the usual daily cigarette consumption."

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"Smoking 'more harmful' to women"

Research suggests that smoking does more harm to women's health than to men's.
A study in the Lancet suggests smoking increases women's risk of developing heart disease significantly more than it increases men's risk.
Jane Hughes reports.

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Baby gender blood tests 'accurate'

Many couples do not want to be told the sex of their baby before the birth

 

Parents-to-be wanting to find out their baby's gender can be assured that a blood test on the mother gives an accurate result, say scientists.

The tests, which look for foetal DNA in the mother's blood, are sold privately in many countries, including the UK.
Yet few studies, until now, have scrutinised how well they perform.
US experts examined over 6,000 test results and found it was reliable 98% of the time - providing it was used after the seventh week of pregnancy.
Anything earlier than this made the test unreliable, the Journal of the American Medical Association reports.
And urine-based tests appeared to be unreliable altogether.

 

Professor Richard Fleming, of the Glasgow Centre for Reproductive Medicine

A routine ultrasound scan of the baby can only give a gender prediction at about 12 weeks. For couples who need to know the sex of their child for medical reasons - to see if their baby might be affected by a genetic disorder that affects only boys, for example - this wait can seem too long.

Dr Stephanie Devaney, who led the work at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, said the blood tests could be useful in clinical settings to aid early detection.
Some hospitals, like Great Ormond Street, already use them to help detect male babies that could have haemophilia.
But critics of the tests argue that the blood tests could also be used for family balancing - where couples will only continue with the pregnancy if, for example, the baby is a girl because they already have three boys.
The review, which looked at 57 studies representing 6,541 pregnancies, found the blood tests gave a genuine result (sensitivity) 95% of the time and that this result was accurate or correct for gender (specificity) 98.6% of the time.
For example, if the test was used by 100 couples, only a few of them would be left still not knowing with certainty what the sex of their unborn child was.
Professor Richard Fleming, of the Glasgow Centre for Reproductive Medicine, said it was important to have confirmation that the tests are valid.
"If you can test from seven weeks of pregnancy then that means knowing the sex a month before a scan could tell you, which is helpful."
He said it could help doctors check for sex-linked genetic conditions earlier. But he said the technology was likely to be used for social reasons.
Dr Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services, agreed, saying: "In the UK we would not normally approve of someone who decided to terminate because it was a 'blue' pregnancy rather than a 'pink' one.
"Sex selection for social reasons is illegal in the UK. But there's the danger that this is part of a slippery slope."

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''Super antibody' fights off flu"

The first antibody which can fight all types of the influenza A virus has been discovered, researchers claim.

Experiments on flu-infected mice, published in Science Express, showed the antibody could be used as an "emergency treatment".

It is hoped the development will lead to a "universal vaccine" - currently a new jab has to be made for each winter as viruses change.

Virologists described the finding as a "good step forward".

Many research groups around the world are trying to develop a universal vaccine. They need to attack something common to all influenza which does not change or mutate.
Human source

It has already been suggested that some people who had swine flu may develop 'super immunity' to other infections.

Scientists from the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill and colleagues in Switzerland looked at more than 100,000 samples of immune cells from patients who had flu or a flu vaccine.

They isolated an antibody - called FI6 - which targeted a protein found on the surface of all influenza A viruses called haemagglutinin.

Sir John Skehel, MRC scientist at Mill Hill, said: "We've tried every subtype of influenza A and it interacts with them all.

"We eventually hope it can be used as a therapy by injecting the antibody to stop the infection."

Professor Antonio Lanzavecchia, director of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine, Switzerland, said: "As the first and only antibody which targets all known subtypes of the influenza A virus, FI6 represents an important new treatment option."

When mice were given FI6, the antibody was "fully protective" against a later lethal doses of H1N1 virus.

Mice injected with the antibody up to two days after being given a lethal dose of the virus recovered and survived.

This is only the antibody, however, not the vaccine.

A vaccine would need to trigger the human body's immune system to produce the antibody itself.

Sir John said the structure of the antibody and how it interacted with haemagglutinin had been worked out, which would help in the search for a vaccine, but that was "definitely years away".

Professor John Oxford, a virologist at Queen Mary, University of London, said: "It's pretty good if you've got one against the whole shebang, that's a good step forward."

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"Breast screening benefits questioned"

Screening has not had a significant impact on the fall in deaths from breast cancer, a study claims.

Researchers compared three pairs of European countries, where one had introduced a screening programme much earlier than the other.

But the British Medical Journal paper found similar death rates.

The authors say better treatment and efficient health systems were likely to explain the improvements, and suggest a move away from universal screening.

It has been shown that cervical cancer screening has led to a fall in deaths from that disease, and the researchers from France, the UK and Norway wanted to see if the same was true for breast cancer.

They compared the Netherlands with Belgium and Sweden with Norway, as well as Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland - each pair of countries had similar healthcare services and risk factors for breast cancer.

Mammography screening was implemented around 10 to 15 years later in the second country of each pair.
 
'Saddened'

The researchers expected that a reduction in breast cancer mortality would appear sooner in countries with earlier implementation of screening.

They studied data from the World Health Organization (WHO) mortality database on cause of death covering the period 1980 to 2006 and data sources on risk factors for breast cancer death, mammography screening, and cancer treatment.

Breast cancer death rates varied little between countries where women had been screened by mammography for a considerable time compared with those where women were largely unscreened during that same period, say the authors.

And the greatest reductions were in women aged 40-49, regardless of the availability of screening in this age group, they said.

From 1989 to 2006, deaths from breast cancer fell by 29% in Northern Ireland and 26% in the Republic of Ireland; by 25% in the Netherlands, 20% in Belgium and 25% in Flanders; and by 16% in Sweden and 24% in Norway.

Dr Philippe Autier, director of the International Prevention Research Institute in Lyon, France, who led the study, told the BBC he was "sad" to see its results.

"There is a real question about the benefits of breast screening. It's clear from the data that screening is not a panacea for reducing women's risk of dying from breast cancer."

Dr Autier said there should no longer be a "blanket offer" of screening, and that the process should be "much more targeted".

And he said the findings would apply to other countries, including the rest of the UK which has the same screening policy as Northern Ireland.
 
'Early detection'

But a spokeswoman for Northern Ireland's breast screening programme said: "Evidence shows that breast screening reduces deaths from breast cancer.

"It is the most reliable way of detecting early breast cancer at a stage where treatment can be more successful."

Professor Julietta Patnick, director of the NHS Cancer Screening Programmes in England, said: "Here in England we do know that the best evidence available shows that women aged 50-69 who are regularly screened are less likely to die from breast cancer.

"The WHO's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) estimates that there is a 35% reduction in mortality from breast cancer among screened women aged 50-69 years old; and in England, the independent Advisory Committee on Breast Cancer Screening estimates breast screening saves 1,400 lives each year."

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"Doctors begin major stem cell trial for MS patients"

A major clinical trial will investigate whether stem cells can be safely used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS).

It is hoped eventually to slow, stop or even reverse the damage MS causes to the brain and spinal cord.

The trial, involving up to 150 patients across Europe, is due to start later this year.

Dr Paolo Muraro from Imperial College London said: "There is very strong pre-clinical evidence that stem cells might be an effective treatment."

Researchers will collect stem cells from the bone marrow of patients, grow them in the laboratory and then re-inject them into their blood.

The stem cells will make their way to the brain where it is hoped that they will repair the damage caused by MS.

The research has been part-funded by the UK's MS Society, which is concerned about the availability of unproven stem cell treatments.

In recent years many people living with MS have been attracted to overseas stem cell clinics which claim to cure long-term conditions in exchange for large amounts of money.

But there is no proven stem cell therapy available for MS anywhere in the world.

The MS Society hopes these new trials will eventually lead to a proven treatment - and a reduction in the draw of overseas treatments.

Common condition

MS is the most common neurological condition to affect young people in the UK.

Three million people are thought to be affected worldwide and up to 100,000 in the UK.

The condition is caused by the body's own immune system attacking and damaging a substance called myelin in the brain and nerve cells.

The myelin damage disrupts messages from the brain to the body which leads to a number of symptoms such as sight loss, bladder and bowel problems, muscle stiffness and eventually physical disability.

Drugs are available to alleviate the symptoms - but they do not prevent the progression of the condition.

Experiments in test tubes and laboratory animals suggest stem cells extracted from bone marrow may be able to offer a more effective treatment.

Their role in the bone marrow is to protect the cells that make blood. But they also seem to protect myelin from attack by the immune system.

There is also some evidence that these cells might also be able to repair damaged tissue.

Hold potential

Dr Doug Brown, of the MS Society, said: "These experiments have confirmed that these stem cells hold that potential - but these need to be confirmed in large scale clinical trials."

There is some way to go, however, before laboratory promise can be translated into a treatment that can be offered to patients.

The international team will begin so-called phase two clinical trials in six months' time designed to determine whether the treatment is safe and effective.

It will take five years to carry out and assess the results of the trials after which large phase three trials may be required.

But Dr Muraro believes that the stem cell approach has real potential.

He said: "The great hope is the fact that we are exploiting a biological system that has evolved over millions of years and harnessing it for treatment that takes advantage of the stem cells' flexibility."

Sir Richard Sykes, chair of the UK Stem Cell Foundation, said Dr Muraro's research was the first of its kind to take place in the UK.

"Given the high incidence of MS in the UK in comparison to other countries, I am delighted that we have at last progressed stem cell research to this stage, which will bring much-needed hope to so many people affected by this devastating condition."

The MS Society is also funding two other stem cell studies.

One, based at Queen Mary Hospital, London will examine how stem cells made from the brains of aborted foetuses can be used to repair nerve damage in people with MS.

The other, based at the University of Nottingham, will compare stem cells from people with a progressive form of MS to those without the condition to aid the discovery of effective treatments.

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"Mum's stress reaches baby in womb"

Mum's stress is passed to baby in the womb

 A mother's stress can spread to her baby in the womb and may cause a lasting effect, German researchers propose.
They have seen that a receptor for stress hormones appears to undergo a biological change in the unborn child if the mother is highly stressed, for example, because of a violent partner.

And this change may leave the child less able to handle stress themselves.

It has already been linked to mental illness and behavioural problems.

The findings, published in the journal Translational Psychiatry, are based on a small study of 25 women and their children, now aged between 10 and 19.

And the researchers point out that the women involved in the study had exceptional home circumstances and that most pregnant women would not be exposed to such levels of stress day in and day out.

Furthermore, the researchers say the findings are not conclusive - many other factors, including the child's social environment while growing up, might be involved.


But they suspect it is the child's earliest environment, the womb, that is key.

For their study, they looked at the genes of the mums and the adolescents to find any unusual patterns.

Some of the teens had changes to one particular gene - the glucocorticoid receptor (GR) - that helps regulate the body's hormonal response to stress.

Such genetic alterations typically happen while the baby is still developing in the womb.

And the scientists believe they are triggered by the mum-to-be's poor state of emotional wellbeing at the time of the pregnancy.
 
Sensitive window

In the study, these mums had been living with the constant threat of violence from their husband or partner. And it would appear this continued stress took its toll on the pregnancy.

When the babies were followed up one to two decades later as adolescents, they had changes in the genetics of their GR that other teenagers did not.

This "methylation" of GR appears to make the individual more tuned in or sensitised to stress, meaning that they will react to it quicker both mentally and hormonally.

As people, they tend to be more impulsive and may struggle with their emotions, explain the researchers, who carried out detailed interviews with the adolescents.

Professor Thomas Elbert, one of the lead researchers at the University of Konstanz, said: "It would appear that babies who get signals from their mum that they are being born into a dangerous world are faster responders. They have a lower threshold for stress and seem to be more sensitive to it."

The investigators now plan to carry out more detailed investigations following larger numbers of mothers and children to see if they can confirm their suspicions.

Dr Carmine Pariante, an expert in the psychology of stress at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, said: "This paper confirms that the early foundation years start at minus nine months."

He added: "Pregnancy is uniquely sensitive to a challenging maternal psychosocial environment - much more than, for example, after the baby is born. As we and others have been advocating, addressing maternal stress and depression in pregnancy is a clinically and socially, important strategy."

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"Fat 'top breast cancer driver'"

Obesity 'leading driver' of breast cancer

Obesity is the biggest driving force behind the most common form of breast cancer in older women, say researchers.

Alcohol and then cigarettes are the next largest culprits, according to Cancer Research UK.

One in eight women in the UK develop breast cancer in their lifetime, data shows, and the majority of these tumours are "hormone sensitive" meaning their growth is fuelled by hormones.

Too much stored fat in the body raises the level of these "sex" hormones.

Studies show that post-menopausal women with high levels of oestrogen and testosterone have between two and three times the risk of breast cancer than women with the lowest levels.

Experts have known for some time that factors that influence hormone levels - like pregnancy, the oral contraceptive pill and the menopause - can change a woman's breast cancer risk.

This latest work, published in the British Journal of Cancer, suggests obesity should go at the top of this list, not least because it is a lifestyle factor that women can have some control over.

The Oxford University team, funded by Cancer Research UK, studied the health records of nearly 6,300 post-menopausal women, looking for factors that might explain why some developed hormone sensitive breast cancer when others did not.

A woman's weight had the greatest bearing on a woman's sex hormone levels, shortly followed by smoking and alcohol consumption.

Women who are overweight or obese - meaning they have a body mass index of 25 or more - had high levels of hormones like oestrogen and progesterone.

So too did women who drank more than two and a half units of alcohol a day or smoked more than 15 cigarettes daily.

Experts say women should be made aware of these modifiable risk factors.

Dr Julie Sharp, of Cancer Research UK, said: "This is an important study as it helps to show how alcohol and weight can influence hormone levels. Understanding their role in breast cancer is vital and this analysis sheds light on how they could affect breast cancer risk.

"We know that the risk of the disease can be affected by family history and getting older, but there are also things women can do help reduce the risk of the disease. Maintaining a healthy body weight and reducing alcohol consumption are key to reducing breast cancer risk."

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"Clue to male infertility found"

As many as a quarter of men have a genetic change which makes them less fertile than usual, research suggests.

The discovery could lead to a new screening test to identify those who will take longer to father a child, experts report in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The change is in a gene that codes for a key protein found on the outside of sperm.

Sperm lacking in the substance find it harder to swim to the egg.

Researchers believe a man with the altered gene can still get his partner pregnant, but this will take longer than usual.

Dr Edward Hollox of the University of Leicester is a co-author of the study.


He told the BBC: "If you've got this gene variant you should allow that little bit longer if your partner's planning to get pregnant.

"It takes two - it's the genetic variation in a man that affects fertility in this particular case."
 
Molecular events

He said the discovery raised the possibility of a new test to identify couples who might need fertility treatment.

"It's another tool in the toolkit of fertility treatment," he said.

The genetic change is in a gene called DEFB126, which codes for a protein that clings to sperm, helping them swim through the woman's body to fertilise the egg.

Researchers believe men with the defective gene have sperm that find it harder to make their way through mucus, causing low fertility.

A study of more than 500 married couples in China found that women who had partners with two copies of the defective gene (one from the mother and one from the father) were less likely to get pregnant.

The women also took longer to get pregnant by a couple of months.

Further studies, carried out in people from the US, UK, China, Japan and Africa, found the gene mutation is common around the world.

About half of all men carry one copy of the defective gene; while a quarter have two defective copies.

Commenting on the study, Dr Allan Pacey, Senior Lecturer in Andrology at the University of Sheffield, said:

"We actually understand very little about the subtle molecular events which occur in sperm as they make their journey through the woman's body to fertilise an egg.

"We know even less about how a man's genes may contribute to how his sperm work, in the absence of an obvious defect that we can see down the microscope.

"Therefore, this paper is an important step forward and makes a significant contribution to our sperm-knowledge."

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"Goal to rid world of polio by end of 2012 'off track'"

A plan to rid the world of polio by the end of next year is "off track", say international experts.

India is praised for having had just one case of polio in the first six months of this year.

But the report by independent monitors warns that Pakistan "risks becoming the last global outpost of this vicious disease". It has also resurfaced in four other countries.

There were around 1,000 cases of polio worldwide last year.

The virus remains present in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan and in the countries where it has resurfaced, there have been twice as many cases - 162 - as there were in the endemic countries.

The experts are particularly concerned about new cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chad.
 
'Vicious disease'

England's former chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, is leading the board monitoring the efforts of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which works to support the goal set in 1988.

Sir Liam said: "Polio is a very resilient disease. There was a big impact in tackling it in the first two decades since the goal.

"But we still have this very big rump of cases left behind. Tackling the remaining 1% of polio is the greatest challenge yet.

"India has done something simple - it's run very high quality vaccination campaigns. They have public health leaders who are meticulous in making sure every child is vaccinated.

"If they can do it, why can't other countries?"

Polio is highly infectious - and tends to strike children aged under five. It invades the nervous system, leading to irreversible paralysis.

There is no cure, but a vaccine of mouth droplets can give good protection.
 
Untrained vaccinators

Sir Liam and his colleagues say strong political and community leadership is important in the countries with polio outbreaks. They also identify a funding gap of £366m.

The report highlights problems that occur within some vaccination programmes. In one part of Pakistan, paid vaccinators had sub-contracted their tasks to untrained children.

And in another campaign, the vaccinators stood passively at their post in the town square, rather than mingling with the crowds and encouraging immunisation.

The monitoring board said: "Our view remains that stopping polio transmission needs to be treated as a global health emergency.

"Fourteen countries have had polio outbreaks since the start of 2010. It is alarming and bad for the programme's morale that there are still these surprises.

"Polio eradication is still possible in the near-term if there is enhanced political commitment, secure funding and strengthened technical capacity."

Rotary International, which is part of the Eradication Initiative, said: "We welcome this frank assessment of the programme.

"We will work with our members in countries affected by polio to follow the board's recommendation of creating a checklist, to enhance the impact of the immunisation teams and ensure standardisation."

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