Vitamin C greatly enhances the ability of vitamin E to prevent damage to LDL, the so-called bad cholesterol, which, if damaged, is suspected of being the first step in the progression to heart disease, according to researchers at the University of California at Berkeley.
In the last few years scientists have found that oxygen-free radicals, toxic byproducts of normal chemistry, can damage LDL.
The damaged LDL then becomes embedded into arterial walls, leading to a buildup of fatty deposits. Vitamin E neutralizes free radicals, but eventually peters out because the vitamin molecules themselves become damaged from free radicals, said molecular biologist Lester Packer.
Vitamin C comes to the rescue by converting vitamin E back into its active form, he said. Laboratory tests with human blood showed that when vitamin E`s ability to neutralize free radicals began to wane, a dose of vitamin C perked them up again, Packer reported in the Journal of Lipid Research.
Petroleum jelly does more than moisturize
Once thought to act only as a moisturizer, petroleum jelly penetrates the uppermost layer of skin and actually promotes healing, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have found.
Skin that was slightly damaged with a chemical that causes dryness, then coated with petroleum jelly, healed faster than unprotected skin, Dr. Ruby Ghadially reported in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. Using new techniques, the scientists were able to measure the action of the jelly as it penetrated the skin.
Arthritic knee pain can be reduced
The risk of developing osteoarthritis in the knee can be reduced among overweight women through weight loss, and, once the condition has developed, pain can be reduced and knee function improved with exercise, according to two reports in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
In a 10-year study of nearly 800 women, those who lost an average of 10 pounds decreased their risk of developing knee osteoarthritis by 50 percent, said Dr. David Felson of the Boston University Arthritis Center.
In the second study of 102 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee, those who underwent an eight-week supervised fitness walking program experienced a 27 percent decrease in arthritic pain and a 39 percent increase in knee function, said Pamela A. Kovar of the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York.
Older brothers influence drug use
Depending on their own behavior, older brothers may turn their younger brothers on to drugs or away from them, a study of 278 white, middle-class college students has found.
If the older brother took drugs or displayed other deviant behaviors, these behaviors were also commonly found in the younger brother, said Dr. Judith Brook of the New York Medical College.
Among older brothers who did not use drugs and were closely attached to their younger brothers, the younger sibling was less likely to abuse drugs, even if the younger brother had shown risk-taking behavior, she reported in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Phsychiatry.
Mysterious new illness bears close watching
Kawasaki syndrome is a new and mysterious illness that parents and physicians need to be alert to detect, according to Dr. Jane W. Newburger of Children`s Hospital in Boston.
”Kawasaki syndrome is both serious and difficult to diagnose. Because of this-and because early identification and rapid and aggressive treatment can greatly reduce the possibility of heart damage-physicians must be alert to the possibility of this diagnosis.”
An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 children, usually under 5 years old, are affected each year and about a fifth of them suffer heart damage, said Newburger. Treatment to reduce the risk of complications is simple: aspirin and a single dose of immunoglobulin.
Diagnosing the syndrome is difficult because the symptoms mimic many common disorders, she said. The symptoms include high fever for more than five days; sore throat; red, dry and cracked lips; a bright red or ”strawberry”
tongue; bloodshot eyes; swollen lymph nodes in the neck; body rashes;
irritability or fatigue; and arthritis-like symptoms.
Breast fluid a key to risk of cancer
A new way to determine a woman`s risk for breast cancer may be to extract and analyze breast fluid, researchers from the University of California at San Francisco report in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
In a study that began 18 years ago and included 2,700 women, researchers found that women whose breast fluid showed abnormal changes were three times more likely to develop cancer than women whose fluid showed no changes. And the women whose breast fluid showed no changes were at five times the risk as women whose breasts yielded no fluid.
The technique for extracting fluid is relatively simple and painless, researchers said. It involves putting a short tube connected to a syringe over the nipple and extracting the syringe plunger while the woman gently compresses her breast, said Dr. Nicholas Petrakis, prinicipal researcher for the project.
The technique proved even more useful in assessing cancer risk of women under age 54, finding that those whose fluid yielded abnormalities were at 16 times the risk of those who yielded no fluid at all.
Depression alone is bad, but it doesn`t stop there
Depression may now be added to the list of major risk factors for heart disease.
A study of more than 1,000 Finnish men found that depression appears to increase the danger of three other risks: LDL (the bad cholesterol), smoking and excessive blood clotting. The total impact of these risk factors was 2.7 times greater in depressed men, said Dr. George A. Kaplan, chief of the Human Population Laboratory in the California Department of Health Services, Berkeley.
Depressed patients had almost two times the buildup of atherosclerotic deposits in arteries than patients who weren`t depressed, Kaplan reported at a recent American Heart Association meeting.
Genetic influences linked to strokes
Genetics may play a larger role in determining who will suffer a stroke than researchers previously thought.
In a study of nearly 10,000 identical male twins, a Yale University researcher found that individuals with an identical brother who had a stroke saw their own risk for stroke increase five-fold.
”Our study indicates that genetics or family risk appears to be the single strongest risk factor that has been identified so far,” said Dr. Lawrence M. Brass, associate professor of neurology at Yale. By comparison, high blood pressure, which had been the most prominent stroke risk factor, only raises a person`s risk by a factor of two to four.
The Yale study was based on information collected on 9,475 male twins born from 1917 to 1927. The twin registry, begun in the early 1960s, is a project of the National Academy of Science-National Research Council.
