Doctors are calling for a clinical trial of an experimental drug treatment that it is claimed can reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease “in minutes”.

U.S. researchers say the treatment allowed an 82-year- old sufferer to recognise his wife for the first time in years.

In the UK, specialists believe the claims should be properly tested as only a few patients have been treated so far.

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* Blood test that gives ‘a six-year early warning’ of Alzheimer’s

The treatment involves injecting a drug called Enbrel – which is normally used to treat arthritis – into the spine at the neck.

Patients are then tilted to encourage blood flow into the brain where the drug is designed to block a chemical responsible for inflammation. At least one Alzheimer’s patient had his symptoms reversed “in minutes” while others have shown some continuing improvement in problems such as forgetfulness and confusion after weekly injections.

They needed less help from carers during treatment, which appears to reach a plateau at three months.

Around 50 people are being treated by the Institute of Neurological Research, a private clinic in California, with some having had injections for three years.

In one case, the clinic has video evidence of Marvin Miller, 82, which showed he was unable to answer basic questions by a nurse, or identify-everyday objects like a bracelet and a pencil.

Shortly afterwards he is injected with the drug and it is claimed that five minutes later he could greet his shocked wife, who said he had not recognised her for years.

The experiment follows the discovery that levels of TNF (tumour necrosis factor) can be up to 25 times higher in the fluid surrounding the brain in sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease.

Enbrel, a biologic treatment licensed for rheumatoid arthritis, binds to excess TNF in the body and makes it inactivate.

When used by arthritis sufferers, the drug is self-administered by injection and researchers had to develop a way of injecting the drug into the spine in order to get an effect in brain cells.

Enbrel is not approved for treating Alzheimer’s in the U.S. or in the UK and is regarded at this stage as a highly experimental therapy.

Professor Edward Tobinick, of the University of California Los Angeles and director of the Institute for Neurological Research, is leading the research.

He said the latest report was an in-depth account of one patient’s response to treatment.

He said: “It makes practical changes that are significant and perceptible, making a difference to his ability to do activities of daily living such as getting around, accomplishing things and conversing.”

He added: “Some patients have been able to start driving again. They don’t come back to normal but the change is good enough for patients to want to continue treatment, and some have been doing so for three years.

“We are working with several universities and larger trials are getting under way.”

Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “On the surface these results are exciting but we need to treat the study with caution.

“There are large gaps in the research, which only involved a small pilot group and we cannot draw any conclusions until a controlled trial is carried out.”

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer’s Research Trust, said: “It is too early to speak of a miracle cure and we need to do more research into this.”

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Some people are disqualified from donating blood because they have diseases that are transmissible via blood. Other potential donors are disqualified because their conditions could endanger themselves.

According to the American Red Cross:

* Being positive for the AIDS or hepatitis viruses rules one out as a blood donor.
* Individuals who have had ear, tongue, or other body part piercing are allowed to donate blood as long as the needle used in the piercing was sterile. If it was not or if this is unknown, the potential donor must wait 12 months from the time of the piercing.
* Being imprisoned rules one out as a blood donor.
* Being in the US military and serving in Iraq or Afghanistan rules one out as a blood donor for one year.
* A person with diabetes is allowed to donate blood. Insulin dependent diabetics are allowed to donate blood as long as their insulin syringe, if reused, is used only by them.
* Being deferred from travel to the UK and Western Europe due to concerns about Mad Cow Disease rules one out as a blood donor.
* Physically small people are not acceptable as blood donors as they have lower blood volumes and may not be able to safely lose a full pint of blood.
* One may not donate blood while one has the flu. But one can donate blood after exposure to someone with the flu provided the potential donor feels and has no symptoms.
* A minimum age limit exists as to how old a person must be in order to donate blood (usually age 17). There is no maximum age limit.
* Pregnancy and recent childbirth rule one out as a blood donor. The safety of donating blood during and shortly after pregnancy has not been fully established. There may be medical risks to the mother and baby during this time.
* Having high or low cholesterol does not exclude a person from donating blood.
* Potential blood donors may be temporarily prevented from donating if they have a low level of iron (hematocrit) in their blood. This requirement is for the safety of the donor in order to ensure that their blood iron level remains within the normal range for a healthy adult.
* For almost all cancers (such as breast, brain, prostate, and lung), a person may donate blood five years after diagnosis or date of the last surgery, last chemotherapy or last radiation treatment.
* For blood cancers (such as leukemia or lymphoma), a person is not allowed to donate blood.
* For non-melanoma skin cancer or a localised cancer that has not spread elsewhere, a person may give blood if the tumour has been removed and healing is complete.
* If a potential donor has had malaria they cannot donate blood for 12 months. This is because the parasite that causes malaria can lay dormant in a person’s system for as long as a year.
* A person cannot donate blood while they are on antibiotics. This is not because of the antibiotic, but due to the presence of the illness or infection requiring the antibiotic – it may be transmitted through the blood.

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A CATHOLIC leader has claimed condoms are infected with HIV deliberately. “Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose,” he alleged.

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Using mobile phones for more than 10 years gives a consistent pattern of increased risk for at least two different types of brain tumors. This was the conclusion of a summary that reviewed sixteen other research studies from seven countries – USA, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan.

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AAt least one in 10 teenage girls is carrying a sexually-transmitted disease which could give them cancer, shocking figures revealed last night.

More and more girls aged under 16 are infected with the human papilloma virus – putting them at risk of developing cervical cancer later in life.

Last night the Health Protection Agency warned that the risk a girl is carrying the HPV virus rises ’substantially’ after the age of 14 – two years before they can legally have sex.

By the age of 18, around 20 per cent of girls will have contracted the virus, while by the age of 24, 40 per cent will have done so.

HPV is linked to most cases of cervical cancer, which kills more than 1,000 middle-aged women in Britain every year.

A vaccine against the sexually-transmitted disease is available but must be given before puberty to be effective.

In June the Government said it would start vaccinating girls as young as 12 against HPV – saying it would save at least 700 lives a year.

The decision caused controversy, with some claiming the jab would promote promiscuity among young girls.

Pregnancies among under-18s rose in 2005 to 39,683 – up from 39,593 in 2004 and much higher than the 35,400 recorded a decade earlier in 1995.

And rates of chlamydia and genital herpes are also climbing, despite Government attempts to reduce the number of teenagers with sexual infections.

The latest figures, published in the British Journal of Cancer, reveal for the first time just how many young women are catching HPV.

Scientists tested blood samples from 1,483 girls and women between the ages of 10 and 29.

They found that 21 per cent had the virus and that the risk of infection increased sharply at the age of 14.

Most HPV infections show no symptoms and clear on their own. But they can cause genital warts in men and women, and cervical cancer in women.

Professor Pat Troop, chief executive of the Health Protection Agency, said: “This study is a valuable addition to our understanding of HPV infection in women in England and should contribute to effective policies to prevent genital warts and cervical cancer.

“With the Government’s recent announcement of the possible introduction of HPV vaccination, such research will help us and other public health experts to determine the impact of HPV vaccination.”

Juliet Hillier, of the sexual health charity Brook, said: “Statistics like this demonstrate a real need to improve education and prevention programmes which target young people.

“The Government must urgently implement a vaccination programme for girls and boys before they become sexually active and ensure resource is available to do so.

“Sex and relationships education must be made a statutory part of the national curriculum. Young people must also have access to information and advice before they become sexually active.’

Norman Wells of Family and Youth Concern said: “These disturbing figures highlight the failure of sex education programmes which tell children that there is nothing wrong with sex at any age so long as they use a condom. “So long as the government continues to encourage teenage sexual activity by making contraception freely and confidentially available in school clinics and other settings, sexually transmitted infection rates will continue to rise. “The real need is not to normalise condom use, but to normalise saving sex for marriage and then remaining faithful to your husband or wife for life.”

Official figures show that sexually-transmitted diseases among the young are continuing to rise – up 2 per cent in 2006.

Experts have expressed particular concern over a 16 per cent rise in the number of girls with the incurable and unpleasant condition of genital herpes.

Chlamydia rates increased by 4 per cent and genital warts by 3 per cent.

Concerns over HPV led the Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation to recommend that girls aged 12 and 13 should be offered injections of the vaccine Gardasil from autumn 2008.

Ministers accepted the advice in principle, subject to an independent analysis of the benefits compared to the costs. The final verdict is due next month.

The vaccine, which is given in three injections over six months, must be given before puberty to be most effective.

Like all vaccination programmes, the scheme will be voluntary and parents will be able to refuse permission for their daughter to have the jab.

Experts say it could be 20 years before the first health benefits are seen – but they insist it will save thousands of lives.

Each jab costs £300 and if every first-year secondary school child receives it, it will cost £100 million.

But the anti-vaccination pressure group Jabs says the injection has not been tested enough on young girls, meaning possible side effects such as birth defects and juvenile arthritis have not been properly assessed.

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The researchers believe vitamin D deficiency may be to blame for 600,000 cancer cases worldwide each year, particularly in northern European countries where sun exposure levels are relatively low.

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MORE than one million babies could be saved worldwide if mothers were to start breastfeeding within the first hour of birth. “Exclusive breastfeeding (where all nutrients are naturally pro- vided from the mother) is crucial for the first six months of a baby’s life.

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In this feature, you will be faced with an ethical dilemma that is progressively illustrated with ideas and imagery you might find repugnant, even abhorrent. At the end of each page you will be asked if, based on what you now know, you still believe that doctors and scientists should be able to use the data from death-camp experiments.

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A compound extracted from tangerine peel can kill certain human cancer cells, research shows.
A team from Leicester School of Pharmacy found Salvestrol Q40 was turned into a toxic compound in cancer cells, destroying them.

Salvestrol Q40 is found at higher concentrations in tangerine peel, than in the flesh of the fruit. The researchers suggest the modern trend to throw away peel may have contributed to a rise in some cancers.

Lead researcher Dr Hoon Tan said his work was still at an early stage, but together with his colleagues he has formed a company to investigate further the potential to develop natural anti-cancer therapies.

He said: “It is very exciting to find a compound in food that can target cancers specifically.”

Plant immune system

Salvestrol 40 is a type of phytoalexin – a chemical produced by plants to repel attackers, such as insects or fungi.

It is converted into a toxic compound by the P450 CYP1B1 enzyme, found in much higher levels in cancer cells.

As a result, the researchers found, it proved to be 20 times more toxic to cancer cells than their healthy equivalents.

Dr Tan said Salvestrol was found in other fruit and vegetables, such as the brassica family, which includes broccoli and brussels sprouts.

However, the compound tends to be produced at higher levels when infection levels among crops are high.

Therefore, the use of modern pesticides and fungicides, which have cut the risk of infections, have also led to a drop in Salvestrol levels in food.

Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK’s science information manager, said: “Many naturally occurring substances have anticancer properties, but while this research shows that salvestrols have an effect on cells in the laboratory, there is no evidence that they have a similar effect in patients.

“Clinical trials would be needed to tell us if these substances could be developed into a cancer treatment.”

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We all know about heartache. For some, feeling alone can be physically painful. And a strong body of recent research has established that it’s not just in our minds. Chronic social isolation is linked to heart disease—it stresses the entire cardiovascular system—and can also hurt our ability to fend off colds and other viruses. But the cause of those connections has been unclear. Is it that lonely people have fewer social resources, meaning no one to rely on when they fall ill, or can the sensation of loneliness change their biology?

A study out this week suggests that it’s the latter: loneliness actually changes how the body functions at a molecular level. The research links feelings of social isolation to an alteration in the activity of specific genes—ones that put lonely people at higher risk for serious disease. And the study, published in the current issue of Genome Biology, also points to the startling fact that it is the perception of loneliness that triggers the adverse health conditions, independent of how much social interaction an individual actually has. Even someone with hundreds of “friends” on Facebook or at the office might think of herself as a lonely person.

So how can feeling lonely translate into poor health? Researchers believe that chronic social isolation sets off a biological chain reaction that causes normal immune responses to malfunction. It starts with the lonely individual’s outlook on the world, in which, typically, other people are perceived as threatening. This makes social interactions—going to a party, for example—more stressful. “Chronically lonely people have a subjective theory of the world that says that people can’t be trusted,” says Steven Cole, assistant professor at the UCLA School of Medicine and the study’s lead author. “It’s not that they’re hostile; they just perceive the world as somewhat more threatening.”

That perception cues the body to produce a stress hormone called cortisol. In a healthy immune system, cortisol tells a group of genes to shut down the body’s inflammatory response. But in a person who’s chronically stressed or anxious due to loneliness, that process is altered. Here’s how it works: for most people a low level of inflammation is normal; it means the body is performing general maintenance and responding to minor, sometimes unnoticeable threats. However, high levels of inflammation are worrisome. In autoimmune diseases, for example, the body attacks its own tissues and causes an increase in inflammation. Inflammation is also linked to a number of serious health risks, including cancer. Cole and his colleagues found that lonely individuals consistently had higher levels of inflammation even though they were producing a slightly higher level of cortisol—the hormone that should be shutting down the inflammatory response. The receptors, Cole says, were not responding properly, probably because they were receiving a constant stream of cortisol. “If you send a signal to a receptor all day long it will stop listening,” says Cole. “Essentially, it’s like the immune system saying that cortisol is crying wolf.”

That accounts for the higher levels of inflammation the researchers observed in chronically lonely individuals. But they also found other faulty immune responses: lonely people produced fewer antibodies, which the body uses to tag pathogens, like bacteria and viruses. They also had a lower antiviral response; a group of genes involved in fighting viruses were not expressing themselves as much. “The risky parts of the immune system are going too hard, and the health-protective parts are not going hard enough,” says Cole.

Interestingly, what causes that imbalance isn’t how many pals an individual has or the number of social interactions. Rather, the loneliness that leads to these adverse health conditions is tied to how individuals perceive their social situations. “Loneliness is inherently subjective,” says Steven Asher, a psychology professor at Duke University who was not affiliated with the study. Asher has spent decades studying friendship and loneliness and says that an individual’s level of social interaction does not necessarily say anything about his or her loneliness.

“You can measure how many friends they have, and whether they provide support, but the only way you can know if somebody is lonely is to ask them,” says Asher. He has observed individuals with many friends who will report being lonely and, on the opposite side, those with few friends who do not. And, like Cole, Asher has found that lonely individuals tend to have a distinctly different outlook on social interactions. “We find that people who are lonely are more socially anxious,” Asher says. “They’re definitely feeling more stress and more anxiety.”

So what should lonely guys and gals do if they’re worried about their health? Harvard Medical School experts suggest talk therapy. For those who want to tackle the loneliness head on, helping others can be a fantastic way to make essential social connections. Tutoring in a subject you know at a local school or any kind of volunteer work can provide all-around benefits and bring you close to people of like mind. Even just one new but meaningful contact can make all the difference. And to manage creeping stress, you can take some basic relaxation measures like meditation or paced breathing.

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