Sugar might not be the infant pain reliever clinicians have long thought it to be, according to a study in the Lancet. At a hospital in London, researchers randomly assigned 44 newborns to receive a squirt of either sugared or plain water before pricking their heels. (The heel prick is a common method for drawing infants' blood.) Meanwhile, electroencephalography (EEG) electrodes measured the infants' pain-specific brain activity.
Previous studies have found that newborns exhibit fewer grimaces and other facial expressions of pain when given sugared water before a procedure. Despite that, in this study the EEGs showed no difference in pain between children given sugared or plain water.
Caveat: Activity in the targeted brain regions might not capture the entirety of infant pain, an accompanying editorial said. The small number of infants in the study meant that the researchers would only have been able to detect a large difference between the two groups.
- Oral Sucrose as an Analgesic Drug for Procedural Pain in Newborn Infants: A Randomised Controlled Trial
Internal Clocks: Tissue from hair follicles can reveal where people are in the circadian rhythm that governs their sleeping and waking periods, according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The genes regulating this so-called circadian clock leave traces of their activity throughout the body.
Previously, the researchers tried sampling blood and mouth-tissue cells for DNA to track circadian phases. They decided that collecting follicle cells, attached to the bottom of plucked chin or head hairs, would be an easier and less-invasive method. In one experiment, they found that follicle cells from an average of 10 hairs contained enough information to differentiate among workers with morning, afternoon or night shifts.
Caveat: The study doesn't include the costs of processing hair follicles. The technique, which could help diagnose erratic or slow-to-adapt circadian clocks, needs to be improved before it's ready for clinical use, the researchers said.
Lung Cancer: The world's most prescribed anti-diabetes drug halved the eventual size of lung tumors in mice, according to a study in Cancer Prevention Research. Metformin, typically the first choice for treating Type 2 diabetes, may slow tumor growth by regulating enzymes that become overactive during cancer.
The researchers injected cancer-prone mice with a carcinogen specific to cigarette smoke, and then gave them either a placebo or moderate doses of metformin. After 13 weeks, the lung tumors in metformin-fed mice were 38% to 53% smaller than those in the placebo-fed mice on average. More-potent, injected doses of metformin led to a 72% tumor reduction.
Caveat: As with all animal studies, the findings might not apply to human subjects. The National Cancer Institute is planning a clinical trial to test metformin in people at highest risk of developing lung cancer.
Brain Exercises: Reading and other cognitive exercises compress late-life dementia into a shorter but more-rapid decline, according to a study in Neurology. At the beginning of the study, 1,157 dementia-free seniors reported how often they read newspapers, magazines and books; listened to the radio; watched television; played games like cards or crosswords and visited museums. Every three years, the researchers tested a subset of the participants for cognitive impairment, and followed those patients for another 5.7 years on average.
Cognitive exercise appeared to delay dementia. Every one-point increase on a five-point mental-activity scale corresponded to an average 52% slower cognitive impairment at first. But the exercises appeared to have the opposite effect on subjects who had developed Alzheimer's: for every one-point increase on the scale, cognitive skills declined 42% more quickly.
Caveat: The researchers tested each participant fewer than four times on average, and the participants reported their cognitive exercises just once.
Migraine: Researchers discovered the first common gene linked to migraine risk, according to their report in Nature Genetics. The researchers compared DNA samples from 2,731 migraine sufferers to 10,747 otherwise similar subjects, examining more than 400,000 DNA sequences per participant. A variation in only one sequence, on the long arm of chromosome 8, appeared to have any effect on the debilitating condition.
The researchers confirmed their initial findings by examining this sequence in another 3,202 people with migraine and 40,062 controls. Overall, 24.3% of migraine sufferers and 20.6% of non-sufferers carried the variant—an 18% higher rate for sufferers. The sequence's location, between two genes that help regulate the neurotransmitter glutamate, provides fresh clues for understanding and treating migraine.
Caveat: All subjects were European, and all migraine sufferers were recruited from specialized headache clinics. It's unclear whether the variant is as common, or as closely associated with migraine, in other populations.
Low-Carbohydrate Diets: Low-carbohydrate diets based on animal protein appear to shorten dieters' lives, while those based on vegetable proteins appear to increase longevity, according to a study in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Researchers tracked 85,168 female nurses between 1980 and 2006. They also tracked 44,548 male health-care professionals (such as optometrists and veterinarians) between 1986 and 2006. During that time, about 16% of the participants died.
The participants who consumed few carbohydrates and the greatest proportion of animal protein and fat were 23% more likely to die than those who consumed the least. On the other hand, the mortality rate was 20% lower for participants on low-carb diets who consumed the most vegetable protein and fat, compared to those who consumed the least.
Caveat: Smaller differences in diet—for example, between diets in the 40th and 60th percentiles for carbohydrates, instead of the top and bottom 10%—were mostly insignificant. The researchers adjusted their analyses for age, physical activity and smoking, but not race, income or education.
Esophageal Cancer: The most popular anti-osteoporosis medications may boost the risk of esophageal cancer, according to a study in the British Medical Journal. The Food and Drug Administration raised the possibility last year of a link between oral bisphosphonates and esophageal cancer, based on case reports it collected. Yet a recent analysis of a large British patient database suggested that the medications weren't to blame for the cancer.
The BMJ study used the same database, but tracked patients for nearly twice as long: 7.7 years versus 4.5 years on average. Over the longer period, a greater proportion of the 2,954 patients with esophageal cancer had used oral bisphosphonates, compared to a control group. (There was no association between the medication and gastric or colorectal cancer.)
The risk was concentrated among patients who had received at least 10 prescriptions for oral bisphosphonates. They were 93% more likely to get esophageal cancer than subjects who received no prescriptions. The overall risk for esophageal cancer in Europe and North America is about 1 in 1,000.
Caveat: The data didn't show whether patients who were prescribed oral bisphosphonates actually used them, or whether they followed the instructions meant to reduce esophageal irritation.
- Oral Bisphosphonates and Risk of Cancer of Oesophagus, Stomach, and Colorectum: Case-Control Analysis Within a U.K. Primary Care Cohort
Heart Health: Margarine fortified with omega-3 fatty acids appears not to prevent second heart attacks, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dutch researchers gave 4,837 elderly heart-attack survivors, all taking "state-of-the-art" medications, each a 40-month supply of margarine. One-quarter of patients received standard margarine, while the others were given margarine laced with omega-3s derived from fish, plants or a mix of the two.
By the end of the 40 months, 14% of the patients had another heart attack, a stroke or other major cardiovascular trauma. The type or amount of margarine the patients consumed had no significant influence on this rate.
The findings contrast with earlier studies, which found that omega-3s helped to protect the heart. One possible explanation, according to the researchers: the increasing use of highly effective cardiovascular drugs, particularly cholesterol-reducing statins, could have outweighed any benefits of omega-3s.
Caveat: If the study had enrolled more patients, particularly women, it would have had more power to detect possible omega-3 effects. Nearly 80% of the participants were male, yet the fortified margarines seemed more effective in women.