BLOOD PRESSURE VARIES WITH SOCIAL STATUS

Blood Pressure Varies With Social Status
France - A study by a team of Inserm Unit 707 and the Center for Preventive and Clinical Investigations of Paris shows that the more educated a person, but his district of residence, the lower blood pressure will be.

The study involved 7292 people aged 30 to 79 years, between March 2007 and February 2008 in Paris and its suburbs. She tried to target the social variations in health, including coronary diseases and their risk factors. He had already been shown that hypertension is more common in disadvantaged populations. But the study has pushed the analysis further.

Researchers are also interested in the education of the person and his parents, his profession, his state of unemployment, income, his financial stress, the tenure of housing, level of development country of birth, among others. In comparing all these factors, they noted a strong correlation between blood pressure, education level and the individual's home neighborhood.

Known causes of hypertension are the consumption of tobacco and alcohol use, overweight and obesity, lack of physical activity. Researchers have therefore included these cases in their analysis and showed that body mass index was higher by a factor widely implicated in hypertension. Obesity explain nearly half of the links between hypertension and education level of the neighborhood.

AVAIN FLU: IT's TOO COLD IN THE HUMAN NOSE THAT H5N1 CAN SPREAD

Avian flu: It's too cold in the human nose that H5N1 can spread
While all the media attention at the moment is focused towards the H1N1 influenza A (also known as swine flu), researchers continue to try to understand how the H5N1 avian influenza. In an article published in the journal free online access PLoS Pathogens (reference below), an Anglo-American study reveals that a likely reason why the H5N1 avian influenza infects human with difficulty is the relatively low temperature (32 ° C) environment of the proximal human airway. It is possible that the epidemic of avian influenza (H5N1) in Southeast Asia was in 2007, which inter-species transmission has remained sporadic, never ever be transformed into a human pandemic because the mutations that might have made virus infection in humans have not occurred.

Temperature difference between distal and proximal human airway
Because previous studies showing that the H5N1 virus infecting the more distal (bronchi) that the proximal side (nose, throat) of the human airway, scientists from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (U.S.) and Imperial College London (United Kingdom) have hypothesized that the temperature difference between the two areas have been crucial to prevent zoonosis (transmission of animal disease to humans and vice versa). To provide some answers to their hypothesis, the U.S. and British researchers have used an in vitro model of human ciliated cells from the airways, they were seeded at temperatures of 37 ° C or 32 ° C ( to mimic the existing conditions of distal or proximal). In the first case, the two types of human and avian viruses infecting cell cultures efficiently, while at 32 ° C, only the human virus demonstrated efficiency of infection of cells in culture. These results are consistent with the fact that the infection in birds takes place in the intestine, and then at 40 ° C.

The important role of glycoproteins in the adjustment to room temperature
It is furthermore known that the influenza virus present at position 627 in the PB2 polymerase (element responsible for the replication of influenza virus genome in the host cell), an amino acid plays a crucial role in Adaptation of virus to the environmental temperature within the same host. The replacement of this residue of the human virus by that of avian virus but did not explain the difference between the infectious properties of both viruses at different temperatures. The researchers then used two types of human viruses, the H3N2 and H1N1, and replaced some of their surface proteins (glycoproteins, see box) by surface proteins of influenza virus. The human viruses as amended showed reduced ability to infect human cells ciliated cells cultured at 32 ° C, suggesting an important role of these glycoproteins in the adjustment to room temperature, and therefore a crucial role in limited transmission of H5N1 influenza viruses in humans and in the inter-human contagion.

The study, funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC Council for Medical Research) in the United Kingdom and by the NIH in the United States is important because in the words of Professor Wendy Barclay, Imperial College London,

"It is impossible to develop vaccines against the 16 subtypes of avian viruses [...]. By studying a range of viruses, we can nevertheless determine what changes come to significantly increase the risk of zoonoses and contagion in the human species. "

The Influenza Virus
The influenza virus belongs to the family Orthomyxoviridae, enveloped viruses with single-stranded RNA and having a spherical shape 80 to 100 nm in diameter. There are three types of influenza viruses named A, B and C. Their surface is studded with surface proteins or glycoproteins, also known as surface antigens. Viruses A and B have two types, the hemagglutinin (H) and neuraminidase (N). The hemagglutinin is responsible for virus attachment on a sialic acid residue on the surface of cells of the ciliated epithelium of the respiratory tract, and the fusion of viral and cellular membranes during the penetration phase virus. Neuraminidase, in turn, allows the release into the host cell virions pre-formed, and the posting of the hemagglutinin (and therefore the virus particle) of the cell membrane of the host.

Reference:
Article: Avian Influenza Virus Glycoproteins Restrict Virus Replication and Spread Through Human Airway Epithelium at Temperatures of the Proximal Airways
Authors: Margaret A. Scull, Laura Gillim-Ross, Celia Santos, Kim L. Roberts, Elena Bordonali, Kanta Subbarao, Wendy S. Barclay, Raymond J. Pickles
Published Journal: PLoS Pathogens
DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1000424

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Source: BE UK number 97
http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/actualites/59855.htm

MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS : HOPE WITH AUTOLOGOUS STEM CELLS

Multiple Sclerosis : Hope With Autologous Stem Cell
A U.S. team has achieved encouraging results in the fight against multiple sclerosis (MS) using a new technique of autotransplantation of stem cells extracted from bone marrow of the patient. The results of this clinical trial was conducted on 21 patients in the first phase of the disease have been published in the online version of Lancet Neurology.

This technique of transplantation of autologous hematopoietic stem cell transplant is the patient's own bone marrow cells. The cells are harvested from bone marrow and the patient receives a cocktail of immunosuppressive drugs' anti-rejection". The infusion of these stem cells is then performed intravenously. The latter will somehow "reset" the immune system.

In this study, 37 months after transplantation, 21 patients have experienced no worsening of their condition, and 17 of them have seen a significant reduction in their handicaps.

Approximately 80,000 people in France suffer from multiple sclerosis whose forms and trends vary greatly from one patient to another. Multiple sclerosis is characterized by destruction of myelin, the protective layer around nerve fibers that carries nerve impulses (see illustration below). Problems with coordination, vision problems, dizziness, motor problems are some of the symptoms of the disease.


It is an autoimmune disease, ie an immune attack via cell become aggressive, which attack the body itself (in this case myelin). Therefore, researchers try to "reset" the immune system by transplanting hematopoietic stem cells, derived from bone marrow precursors of red blood cells and white blood cells (which include the lymphocytes).

DAILY SEX "HELPS IMPROVE SPERM QUALITY"

Daily Sex "Helps Improve Sperm Quality"

Australian study - Having sex daily increase sperm quality and thus assist men who have fertility problems.

The study was conducted on 118 Australians whose semen showed alterations, the researchers found that daily ejaculation for a week increased significantly reduce the number of DNA damage sperm of patients.

Dr David Greening and colleagues at the private clinic Sydney IVF (Australia), specializes in fertility problems, participants were asked to have sex every day for a week. After seven days, doctors have observed in 81% of subjects a decrease of 12% of the amount of damaged sperm. Sperm quality can also be improved if men do not smoke, do not abuse alcohol, do exercise and ingest more antioxidants.

Although the sperm count has dropped to 180 million per ml to 70 million per ml, men were still in the "range of fertility."

Since he led the study, Dr Greening said now recommend to all couples seeking advice to improve their fertility to begin to love more. One suggestion that seems to contradict the older men but delight the youngest, said the doctor.

Sex frequent help to improve sperm quality by preventing it from staying too long in the body. The sperm DNA was indeed more likely to be damaged when staying long in the body. Also heat can also make sperm less mobile.

Some experts welcomed the study but added that it does not prove that sex daily allows men with fertility problems to have a better chance of producing babies. Dr Greening and colleagues are still analyzing the results of the study to determine how many companions of participants became pregnant.

If confirmed, the discovery could have implications for in vitro fertilization (IVF) as was previously recommended for couples to abstain for two days just to increase sperm count.

"Studying the DNA of sperm is only part of the puzzle" said his side Bill Ledger, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Sheffield, Great Britain, who has not participated in the study.

"This may improve pregnancy rates, but we still need to study further" Mr. Ledger also believes that apply to couples with fertility problems to have greater love could harm their relationship.

"This could add to the anxiety and do more harm than good." Couples should not feel obliged to change their sexual life to have a baby, he said.
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This work was presented Tuesday, June 30, 2009 in Amsterdam at the Congress of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. (Website: http://www.eshre.com)
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Sources: BBC News, AP