Testosterone may guard against eating disorders

NEW YORK, Mar 5: Research suggests that young adult women exposed prenatally to testosterone have a reduced likelihood of developing eating disorders. The finding, researchers say, provides further evidence that biological factors - and not just social influences - are involved in anorexia and bulimia.

In an ongoing study of 538 sets of twins in Michigan, researchers observed that females who were in the womb with male twins have lower risk for eating disorder symptoms than females who were in the womb with female twins.

Previous research has shown that females in the womb with males are exposed to higher levels of testosterone, Dr Kelly L Klump and colleagues from Michigan State University in East Lansing explain in the March issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

''From these findings, it appears that testosterone exposure could have a protective effect against the development of disordered eating,'' Klump noted in a university-issued statement.

Women are more apt to develop eating disorders than men, perhaps due to social influences such as thinness ideals aimed largely at women. But the question of whether biological influences also play a role has not been well studied.

To investigate, Klump's team studied data on twin pairs enrolled in the Michigan State University Twin Registry -- 304 same sex female twins, 59 opposite sex female twins, 54 opposite sex male twins and 165 same sex male twins -- and a control group of 69 women who were raised with at least one brother. Ages ranged from 18 to 29 years.

They assessed levels of disordered eating using the Minnesota Eating Behavioru Survey, which includes measures of body dissatisfaction, weight preoccupation, binge eating, and compensatory behavior such as purging to control weight.

''Importantly, these types of disordered eating symptoms have shown robust sex differences,'' note Klump and colleagues, ''with females exhibiting significantly more of these symptoms than males.''

The investigators observed a linear trend of average disordered eating scores, with same sex female twins -- those with the lowest level of prenatal testosterone exposure -- showing the highest levels of disordered eating, followed by opposite sex female twins, opposite sex male twins, and same sex male twins.

Anxiety only partially mediated the associations between co-twin's sex and disordered eating, the researchers report, and in fact the opposite sex female twins showed lower levels of disordered eating than women raised with brothers.

While pressure for thinness in women has typically been used to explain the sex difference in eating disorder prevalence, ''our results suggest that the masculinizing effects of prenatal testosterone, characteristic of male development, may also play a significant role,'' the team concludes. (AGENCIES)

Russia advises Iran to study incentives from major powers

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 5: Russia had some advice for its neighbour and good friend Iran: Study the incentives the world's key powers are offering - including improved relations with the United States - and suspend uranium enrichment as the UN Security Council is demanding.

Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said there is a broader consensus among the world's powers on how to deal with Iran and a new reality on the ground that will hopefully create the right conditions for Tehran to halt enrichment and start negotiations on its nuclear program.

But in Tehran, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini yesterday called the council's resolution imposing a third round of sanctions "worthless" and politically motivated, and said Iran would move ahead with its uranium enrichment program, according to the official news agency IRNA.

Speaking to reporters yesterday at UN headquarters, Churkin highlighted the unity of the six countries that have been in the forefront of efforts to ensure that Iran's nuclear intentions are peaceful and not aimed at producing atomic bombs.

Foreign ministers of the six countries - the US, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany - issued a joint statement after Monday's council vote reaffirming their dual track approach. They would improve a package of economic incentives and political reward offered in June 2006 if Iran suspends enrichment, but would push for even more sanctions if Tehran continued its defiance. (AGENCIES)

Irritating odors set off alarms in nose -study

CHICAGO, Mar 5: Smells so irritating they make you cough or gag may act upon a single type of cell in the nose that senses caustic chemicals and warns the brain of potential danger, US researchers said.

Scientists had thought such smells acted directly on nerve endings in the nose, but the study in mice suggests special cells in the tip of the nose act as air quality control sensors that protect the body from harmful chemicals.

''You can imagine walking into an environment where there is a lot of irritating dust in the area. This would give you pause,'' said yesterday Thomas Finger of the University of Colorado Denver, whose study appears in the Journal of Neurophysiology.

Finger said these chemosensory cells are found in most aquatic vertebrates, including sharks, bony fish and lampreys. He thinks they are part of an ancient sensory system and they are likely present in all mammals.

''The current study is the first in mammals that has a clear idea of what these cells are responding to,'' Finger said in a telephone interview.

''Some fish use them to detect predators,'' he said.

In people, the cells likely trigger a response to high concentrations of irritating chemicals. Ammonia, paint thinner or even the spray from opening a carbonated soda can set of the alarm.

''That is the carbon dioxide triggering that little gasping response,'' Finger said.

University of Colorado Denver researcher Diego Restrepo, who also worked on the study, said high concentrations of irritants can even trigger a reflex that causes you to stop breathing for a few moments.

''This is one of these really hard-wired reflexes. It gives you time to get out,'' Restrepo said in a telephone interview.

The researchers used nasal tissue from mice to measure changes in chemosensory cells as they exposed them to low and high levels of several irritating, volatile chemical odors.

They saw evidence that the cells not only responded to the stimuli but that they were relaying that information to nerve fibers in the nose.

And they said it takes more than a mere whiff of an offending odor to trigger the response. Restrepo said only potentially dangerous levels of odors can set off the protective gagging-and-coughing response.

''There are some people who are especially sensitive to these irritants. This could have implications for their treatment,'' Restrepo said.

The study was funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, part of the US National Institutes of Health.

(AGENCIES)

Study of hormone therapy shows some risks persist

CHICAGO, Mar 5: A follow-up analysis of women taking hormone replacement therapy found that their heightened risk of breast cancer persisted even after they stopped taking the drug combination, researchers said.

The Women's Health Initiative study was halted prematurely in 2002 because of a 24 per cent higher risk of breast cancer associated with the combination therapy of estrogen and progestin. Progestin is used to offset the heightened risk of uterine cancer from taking estrogen.

The original study found women taking the combination of hormones also doubled their risk of blood clots, and raised their risks of stroke and heart attack.

The overriding conclusion from the two Women's Health Initiative trials involving 27,347 post-menopausal women, aged 50 to 79, was that the overall risks of long-term use of hormone therapy outweighed the benefits.

The 2-1/2-year followup analysis, led by Gerardo Heiss of the University of North Carolina and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, assessed through 2005 the health of 15,730 women who took the combination of hormones.

After the women stopped therapy, their heightened risk of breast cancer remained roughly the same. But their risks of heart attack, blood clots and stroke receded quickly back to levels among women who had not taken hormone therapy.

The ancillary benefits of combination hormone therapy -- lower risks of colon cancer and bone fractures -- also disappeared after therapy was stopped.

''The good news is that after women stop taking combination hormone therapy, their risk of heart disease appears to decrease,'' said Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the US National Institutes of Health that sponsored the original WHI study.

''However, these findings also indicate that women who take estrogen plus progestin continue to be at increased risk of breast cancer, even years after stopping therapy,'' Nabel said in a statement.

EFFECTS LINGER

''The hormones' effects on breast cancer appear to linger,'' said Dr. Leslie Ford of the Division of Cancer Prevention at the NIH's National Cancer Institute. ''These findings reinforce the importance of women getting regular breast exams and mammograms, even after they stop hormone therapy.''

The WHI study, designed to examine whether hormone therapy prevented heart attacks, has been closely scrutinised. The surprise findings triggered a steep drop in the use of combination therapy and recommendations to employ lower dosages of the hormones for the shortest possible time.

In a news conference organized by drug maker Wyeth, the company, which is the leading maker of hormone replacement therapy, said the follow-up analysis was likely to add to the confusion for women faced with the decision about what to do about disruptive symptoms of menopause such as hot flashes, night sweats and vaginal atrophy.

For one thing, the company said, the women in the study tended to be older -- average age 63, compared to the early 50s for most women at the onset of menopause -- and many did not have menopausal symptoms when they began taking the therapy.

''In recent years there has been reanalysis of WHI findings that have shown that the increased risks associated with the older women, as described in this study, were not consistently shared by the younger women who participated in the study,'' said Wyeth's chief medical officer Gary Stiles. (AGENCIES)

Expensive sugar pills work better than cheap ones

WASHINGTON, Mar 5: Want a sugar pill to work really well? Charge more for it.

A study published yesterday shows the well-known ''placebo effect'' works even better if the dummy pill costs more.

Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist at Duke University in North Carolina, and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology tested 82 volunteers.

All got a light electric shock and were offered what they were told was a painkiller.

Half were given a brochure describing the pill as a newly approved painkiller that cost 2.50 dollars per dose and half were given a brochure describing it as marked down to 10 cents.

Writing in a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association, Ariely and colleagues said the effects were unexpectedly strong.

Eighty-five percent of volunteers who thought they were getting a 2.50 dollars pill said they felt less pain after taking it, compared with 61 per cent of those who thought they were getting a discounted drug.

The results fit with other studies that show charging more for something makes people value it more. But Ariely said the combination with the placebo effect was especially interesting.

''The placebo effect is one of the most fascinating, least harnessed forces in the universe,'' Ariely said in a statement.

The word placebo comes from the Latin word for ''I shall please.'' Placebos, or sugar pills, are routinely used in trials of new drugs to see if they really work.

''How do we give people cheaper medication, or a generic, without them thinking it won't work?'' Ariely asked. (AGENCIES)

UN wants tougher stance on celebrity drug users

LONDON, Mar 5:Prosecutors worldwide are too lenient on celebrities who use drugs, sending a dangerous message to young people, the United Nations said today in its global report on illegal narcotics trends.

The UN International Narcotics Control Board said overall drug usage appeared stable, but soaring opium production in Afghanistan was fuelling heroin use in its neighbours and globally.

It also warned that drug smugglers were increasingly using West Africa as a transit point to bring cocaine and other substances into Europe from Latin America by air and sea.

The board said too many governments disproportionately targeted ordinary addicts and street dealers while doing too little to tackle the larger narcotics gangs -- and letting high-profile users walk free.

''The fact is that when a celebrity uses drugs, he or she breaks the law,'' board member and report author Hamid Ghodse told a news conference in London. ''Young people are quick to pick up on, and react to, perceived leniency... It also makes people become cynical about drug enforcement.''

He refused to name any particular individuals or countries considered too soft on famous users.

To be effective, authorities must get tougher on those at the top of the illicit drug trade, Ghodse said, adding that because this was not easy, many law enforcers chased the easy pickings at the bottom of the pyramid.

Overall, Ghodse said, more coordination across borders was key to cracking the trade. But he said the situation in the world's fastest growing drug producer Afghanistan, now producing more than 93 percent of global opiates, was out of control.

Despite attempts to curb poppy growing, opium production has grown steadily from a low point in 2001, shortly before the Islamist Taliban were ousted by U.S.-led forces.

The report attributed the world's highest addiction rate -- almost 3 per cent of adults in Iran -- on Afghan heroin.

INCB said part of the problem was that key chemicals used in refining opium into heroin were being freely allowed into Afghanistan. Drug control has become secondary as U.S., NATO and Afghan forces try to stop a resurgent Taliban in the southern drug producing provinces.

''The answer has obviously to begin with security, tackling the insurgency,'' Ghodse said. ''But we should also be tackling eradication and not waiting until we have dealt with one to deal with the other... Despite all the efforts that have been done we have lost control, but that does not mean it is impossible.''

Opiates such as morphine can serve a medical purpose as painkillers -- but Ghodse said legal demand for medical opiates would not come close to soaking up Afghanistan's current 8,200 tonne crop.

(AGENCIES)

Canada under fire over Saudi death sentence case

OTTAWA, Mar 5: Canadian officials said the Government would plead for clemency for a Canadian man sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia but a senior opposition legislator said the announcement could put the prisoner in even more danger.

Mohamed Kohail, 23, of Montreal was convicted on Sunday of killing a teenager in a schoolyard brawl in Jeddah in 2007. He has 80 days to appeal.

Ottawa traditionally pleaded for clemency for all Canadians sentenced to death abroad but last year the minority Conservative Government said it would not do so for prisoners handled by what it called ''democratic jurisdictions.''

Critics said this meant that when Canada did try to intervene in a particular case, it would be sending the message that Ottawa did not trust the judicial system in that country.

''We will be appealing for clemency,'' said a spokesman for Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier yesterday.

The official opposition Liberal Party said it was worried that Riyadh would take the message the wrong way.

''When we ask for clemency, it seems the new rule of thumb means that we have fundamental disagreements with that country,'' said Liberal Party legislator Dan McTeague, a former junior minister responsible for Canadians jailed abroad.

''I hope this won't be taken as a slight (by the Saudis) but I can't see how it won't be. ... I fear we're going to have the door slammed in our face,'' he told Reuters.

Canada carried out its last death sentence in 1962 and abolished capital punishment in 1976. Opposition parties say the Conservatives want to bring back capital punishment, a charge the government denies.

Relations between Saudi Arabia and Canada were damaged earlier this decade over William Sampson, a Canadian man who spent three years in a Saudi jail on a murder charge.

Sampson, released in 2003 after he was granted clemency by the Saudi king, said he was tortured in prison. Saudi authorities denied the charge.

Speaking earlier in the day, Bernier told reporters he was disappointed by the death sentence for Kohail.

''We're going to help the family ... So we'll do our best to have another decision (after the appeal). We want to have a decision that will be in line with our values,'' he said.

Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc Quebecois said the new policy on clemency was ''an unforgivable blunder'' and one that would undermine relations with the Saudis if Ottawa intervened. (AGENCIES)

Scientists find hibernating fish in Antarctic

LONDON, Mar 5: Scientists have found an Antarctic fish that hibernates to conserve energy during the long southern winters.

The cod Notothenia coriiceps enters a dormant state, similar to hibernation in land animals like hedgehogs, British scientists said today.

Researchers already knew Antarctic fish had antifreeze chemicals in their blood and their ability to effectively put themselves ''on ice'' is another remarkable adaptation to an extreme environment.

''It appears they utilise the short Antarctic summers to gain sufficient energy from feeding to tide them over in winter. The hibernation-like state they enter in winter is presumably a mechanism for reducing their energy requirements to the bare minimum,'' said Keiron Fraser of the British Antarctic Survey.

Fraser and colleagues published their findings in the Public Library of Science's online journal PLoS ONE. (AGENCIES)

Hollywood braces for threat of actors strike

LOS ANGELES, Mar 5: The final chapter to the tumultuous writers strike has been written, but Hollywood is bracing for a possible a sequel to the costly walkout -- this one starring film and television actors.

While the TV industry has rushed to bring derailed shows back on the air since screenwriters returned to work three weeks ago, the threat of renewed labor unrest by actors in the months ahead has put movie studios in a tenuous situation.

Filmmakers are reluctant to launch any production that cannot be completed before the expiration of the Screen Actors Guild's major film and TV contract on June 30 -- a date being treated as the union's de facto strike deadline.

Assuming a typical 60-day movie shoot, plus extra time for days off, possible overruns and re-shoots that might be necessary, that means few if any big-studio movies will start filming after the end of this month, industry experts say.

''The studios for the most part are not greenlighting any movies that would have to be in production after that (June 30) deadline,'' said an insider at one leading talent agency who was not authorized to speak publicly about client issues.

Labor jitters have even prompted Hollywood's leading insurance carrier, Fireman's Fund Insurance Co, to offer a first-of-its-kind ''strike expense'' policy for studios.

The policy covers the costs of a strike-related production shutdown in case an actor's illness, equipment damage or other unexpected loss pushes the shooting schedule of a movie past SAG's June 30 contract deadline.

To qualify, a film must be scheduled to finish shooting by June 15 and already be covered by a so-called completion bond, which insures a movie's financial backers against the cost of failing to finish a picture on time and on budget.

STRIKE WAIVERS

SAG itself sought on Tuesday to assist smaller, independent producers having trouble getting bonded by offering special waivers that permit them to employ union actors in the event of a strike. The producers in turn must accept the terms of any interim contract SAG may offer and any final settlement reached with the major studios, which are ineligible for a waiver.

SAG has already signed several producers to one of its ''guaranteed completion contracts,'' and several more applications are pending, union sources said.

Nerves are still raw from a 14-week strike by 10,500 writers that shut down much of the television industry and derailed numerous film projects, idling thousands of production workers and costing the local economy some 3 billion dollars.

The walkout ended February 12 after the two sides reached agreement on a deal giving writers more money for work distributed over the Internet. The contract was formally ratified by the Writers Guild of America membership last week.

The Screen Actors Guild shares many of the same contract demands. But SAG also faces issues unique to its 120,000 members, such as forced commercial endorsements through product placement in TV shows and movies.

Many in Hollywood believe strike fatigue is running too high for another work stoppage to materialize. But with tens of millions of dollars at stake when a film production is disrupted, movie studios are playing it safe.

Steven Spielberg has called off the April start to a DreamWorks film about the trial of the 1968 anti-war activists, the Chicago Seven, according to Daily Variety newspaper SAG leaders have come under mounting pressure to open contract talks with the studios as soon as possible, leading to tensions inside the guild and with its sister union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA).

SAG President Alan Rosenberg has insisted the guild will not be ready to begin official talks before early April.

Rosenberg and SAG executive director Doug Allen recently suggested informal talks like those that led to contracts with the WGA and the Directors Guild of America were already underway. ''We will certainly continue to meet with the CEOs of the major networks and studios as we prepare for formal negotiations,'' they wrote in a Feb. 28 memo to members.

(AGENCIES)

German soldiers are chubby and unfit -study says

BERLIN, Mar 5: Germany's young soldiers are fat, smoke too much and don't exercise enough, a report on the armed services said.

''The public perception is that soldiers are slim, sporty and healthy. Unfortunately, the reality is very different,'' said Germany's army commissioner Reinhold Robbe yesterday as he presented the report.

Some 40 per cent of soldiers bewteen 18 and 29 are overweight compared to 35 per cent among Germany's civilian population, said the report, which also found young male and female soldiers smoked too much and failed to do enough sport.

''I make no secret of the fact that these results worry me a lot,'' said Robbe, who blamed a passive lifestyle among troops. Once one of the world's most-feared fighting forces, Germany's armed forces now have about 245,000 uniformed staff.

Dogged by the legacy of World War Two, it is only nine years ago that Germany engaged in its first foreign combat operations since 1945, taking part in NATO air strikes in Yugoslavia.

Roughly 9,000 German troops are deployed today in global hotspots including Afghanistan and Kosovo. (AGENCIES)

Hobbits modern humans with thyroid deficiency?

SYDNEY, Mar 5: The prehistoric hobbit-sized people were modern humans suffering from an iodine deficiency that stunted their growth and not a new human species, Australian scientists have stated.

The study, however, has been dismissed as ''complete nonsense'' and a ''travesty'' by members of the discovery team, as well as other scientists.

The discovery team and other researchers believe the diminuitive people, who lived on the Indonesian Island of Flores between 95,000 and 12,000 years ago, were the descendants of more primitive humans, such as Australopithecines.

The bitter scientific squabble over the true identity of the fossil hobbit erupted within days of the 2004 announcement that remains of the metre-tall people, named Homo floresiensis, had been discovered by Australian and Indonesian researchers in a cave.

The recent study states an environmental contribution to the disease suggesting the hobbit's diet was low in iodine and selenium. ''Dwarf cretinism is the result of severe iodine deficiency in pregnancy in combination with a number of other environmental factors,'' researcher Peter Obendorf said. The findings suggest that fossils are not a new species but rather the remains of human hunter-gatherers that suffered from this condition.

But the idea that Homo floresiensis was in fact a human with a thyroid problem has been greeted with scorn by some scientists. Peter Brown of the discovery team rubbished the claims saying the study was ''complete nonsense and without a glimmer of factual support''

Many of the claims lacked evidence and it was distressing to see reputable scientists involved in such a travesty, the Sydney Morning Hearld quoted Prof Colin Groves, a bioanthropologist at the Australian National University, as saying.

The team's conclusion rests partly on the shape of a depression in one of the skull bones called the pituitary fossa that houses the pituitary gland.

The University of New England team had theorised that the little people may have been descendants of prehistoric hominids, Homo erectus, who reached Flores nearly 1 million years ago.

They had been trying to have the hobbits enshrined as a separate branch of the human family tree.

Leader of the discovery team, Mike Morwood, said the remains of at least 12 hobbits had been found in the cave dating as far back as 95,000 years ago, which was too early for modern humans ''normal or pathological'' to have been there.

(UNI)

Short people could live longer..

LONDON, Mar 5: Those with short height can take heart as scientists have now found link between height and longevity, suggesting that some short people will live longer than their taller peers.

Scientists say normal variation in human height is due to a blend of environmental factors, notably diet, and genetic factors. One such inherited factor that could extend the human lifespan by as much as one third in theory has been uncovered, though it may come at the cost of a few inches in height, they added.

The research also suggested that use of growth hormone as an anti-ageing medicine might actually be shortening lifespan.

The study by Prof Nir Barzilai, Director, Institute for Aging Research, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, revealed that rather than being a passive, haphazard process of wear and tear, some people might be blessed with genes that make them more likely to live to a ripe old age.

Earlier work by a French team showed that mice lacking one copy of the gene IGF-1 lived on average 26 per cent longer than normal, with females enjoying a bigger advantage (33 per cent increase in lifespan) than males (16 per cent increase).

Damping down the same pathway of the metabolism also resulted in extension of lifespan in yeasts, worms, and flies too. And the same pathway was affected by diets low in calories, the only proven way to extend lifespan.

The results, reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found the same gene was involved in the ''oldest old'' of people, revealing in the long run how to postpone the physiological ageing process.

''Practically, this discovery supports the notion that growth hormone, which is injected as anti-ageing medicine in the US (and other countries) may be dangerous, because it is the people who have low growth hormone levels that are living longer,'' Prof Barzilai told The Daily Telegraph.

''So avoiding growth hormone may increase ones longevity,'' he added.

The team has not confirmed yet if longevity could be assured by having low growth hormone action throughout life, or whether it would

be enough to have it decreased at a certain age.

''The fact is that growth hormone levels and actions are decreased in old age,'' Prof Barzilai pointed out.

(UNI)