Archive for June, 2008

Jun 19 2008

Predictors of personal stigma among those with high levels of depressive symptoms

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Men’s Health News
Personal stigma associated with depression is higher among men and the less well educated, according to research published in the open access journal BMC Psychiatry. The findings by the Australian team highlight the importance of developing programs to tackle the stigma associated with depression.
Researchers from the Australian National University examined both personal stigma, which is the negative attitude a person has towards depression, and perceived stigma, which describes the stigma felt by a person with depression.
"We already know that stigma is a leading cause of concern for people suffering from depression but up until now not a lot has been done to examine it," explained lead researcher Kathleen Griffiths. "Our work is critical to the successful design and targeting of programs that address the public’s negative attitudes to people with depression and help to reduce the stigma felt by those who are already depressed."
Over six thousand Australian adults, including some with depression, answered the research surveys in an attempt to investigate and compare their own levels of perceived stigma as well as personal stigma. People who had come into contact with depression had lower levels of personal stigma. The researchers found that people who scored highest on a test of depression knowledge were less likely to stigmatize the condition.
At a national level, older people were more likely to hold stigmatizing views and to believe that the public viewed people with depression in a poor light. "Interestingly" said, Griffiths, "although it is often assumed that people from rural areas have more negative attitudes to mental disorders, we did not find any difference between stigma in the country and city."
Griffiths concluded; "This is the first study to investigate predictors of personal stigma among those people with high levels of depressive symptoms. Personal stigmas were higher for males, those with less education, those born overseas and people in greater psychological distress. While our study showed that stigma is not as high as many members of the public think, it is still a problem. generishe levitra online kaufen mastercard For example, as many as one-in-five Australians say that they would not work with someone with depression". We recommend developing targeted programs to reduce these levels of stigma. A good place to start might be with men, older people, those with lower education levels and those born overseas."

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Jun 19 2008

Mapping of prostate cancer genes opens the door to new treatments

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Men’s Health News
Genetic changes during the initiation and progression of prostate cancer have eluded scientists to date. Now for the first time researchers have identified a specific gene expression profile of prostate cancer stem cells, with important implications for future treatments.
The findings, published in BioMed Central’s open access journal Genome Biology, revealed 581 genes that are differentially expressed in certain prostate cancer cells, highlighting several pathways important in the cancer stem-cells biology, and offering targets for new chemopreventative and chemotherapeutic approaches.
The cells in the study represent less than 0.1% of prostate cancer tumors, and have properties that mark them out as cancer stem cells. The cells renew themselves, are highly invasive, and have a longer lifetime than normal stem cells. They also feature a primitive epithelial phenotype and can differentiate to recapitulate phenotypes seen in prostate tumors. The cells are found in all stages and types of prostate cancer.
Expression profiling of prostate cancers typically uses tumor cell mass samples to identify individual genes. In this study, researchers harnessed advances in microarray and target labelling technologies to produce a functionally annotated expression profile of these prostate cancer stem cells.
The team, from the YCR Cancer Research Unit at the University of York and Pro-cure Therapeutics Ltd, created a malignant stem cell signature by combining genes significantly overexpressed in stem cells with those significantly overexpressed in malignant stem cells. Quantitative RT-PCR, flow cytometry and immunocytochemistry were used to validate the gene expression changes.
Genes associated with inflammation were prominent in the cancer stem cell expression profile. Potential therapeutic target NF?is known to promote cell survival. generic lexapro online buy The researchers showed that an NF?inhibitor triggered programmed cell death in cancer stem cells, but spared normal stem cells. This provides a potential therapeutic target for this rare group of cells, which are unlikely to be affected by current chemotherapy regimens.
"For the first time we are looking at the subpopulation of cancer cells which actually initiate new tumors" explains Anne Collins, who coordinated the study. "The genetic profiling we have carried out should stimulate new lines of research directed towards stem cell treatments for cancer"

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Jun 19 2008

Developmental changes during the teenage years raise men’s heart disease risk

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Men’s Health News
Normal developmental changes during the teenage years leave young adult men at higher risk of heart disease than their female counterparts, researchers report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
"Women’s protective advantage against heart disease starts young," said Antoinette Moran, M.D., lead author of the study and professor and division chief of pediatric endocrinology and diabetes at the University of Minnesota Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis.
In adults, a constellation of factors increases the risk of heart disease. They include high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, physical inactivity, abnormal cholesterol levels and insulin resistance (a pre-diabetic condition in which the body can’t use insulin effectively).
To track the emergence of these risk factors, researchers followed 507 Minneapolis school children from ages 11 to 19, when they had all reached sexual maturity. Buy generic fosamax Fifty-seven percent of the children were male, 80 percent were white and 20 percent were black.
During the study, the researchers made 996 observations on the group, noting blood pressure, insulin sensitivity (opposite to insulin resistance), body mass index and other body composition measures, blood glucose and cholesterol measurements.
"We wanted to see which risks emerge first and how they relate to one another in normal, healthy school kids without diabetes or other major illnesses," Moran said.
At age 11, boys and girls were similar in their body composition, lipid levels and blood pressure, researchers said.
Boys and girls became heavier during adolescence, increasing in body mass index and waist size. As expected during puberty, changes in body composition differed sharply between genders, with percentage of body fat decreasing in boys and increasing in girls.
During the study, changes in several cardiovascular risk factors or risk markers differed significantly between boys and girls:
Triglycerides (a type of fat in the blood) increased in males and decreased in females.
High-density lipoprotein (HDL or "good") cholesterol decreased in males and increased in females.
Systolic blood pressure (the first number in the blood pressure reading, measuring the pressure when the heart contracts) increased in both, but significantly more in the males.
Insulin resistance, which had been lower in the boys at age 11, steadily increased until the young men at age 19 were more insulin resistant than the women.
Researchers found no gender difference in two other cardiovascular risk factors, total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL or "bad") cholesterol.
"By age 19, the boys were at greater cardiovascular risk," Moran said. "This is particularly surprising because we usually think of body fat as associated with cardiovascular risk, and the increasing risk in boys happened at the time in normal development when they were gaining muscle mass and losing fat."
Although girls gained cardiovascular protection when their proportion of body fat was increasing, excess fat is still a cause for concern.
"Obesity trumps all of the other factors and erases any gender-protective effect," Moran said. "Obese boys and girls and men and women all have higher cardiovascular risk."
The researchers said further studies are needed to better understand the development of cardiovascular protection during adolescence.
"That the protection associated with female gender starts young is fascinating and something that we don’t understand very well," Moran said. "That this protection emerges during puberty and disappears after menopause suggests that sex hormones give women a protective advantage. There’s still a lot that needs to be sorted out in future studies - estrogen may be protective or testosterone may be harmful."
Moran noted that this is normal physiology and not something that is influenced by lifestyle factors.

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Jun 19 2008

Erection Hardness Scale Proves Effective In Assessing Erection Quality

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The Erection Hardness Scale (EHS), an easy-to-use, four-point scale for erectile dysfunction (ED), provides a reliable measure of erection hardness and an indicator of other health and wellbeing outcomes, according to new data reported at the European Association of Urology.
EHS rates the hardness of erection on a scale of one to four, with four being the maximal score. The language used is simple and direct, so that men with ED can use the scale to assess the severity of their condition and to monitor the impact of treatment. A score of 1 indicates that the penis is larger than normal, but not hard; 2 means the penis is hard, but not hard enough for penetration, 3 means the penis is hard enough for penetration but not completely hard, and 4 indicates that the penis is completely hard and fully rigid.
generic ultram online buy A new study, SCORE 4 (Scoring Correspondence in Outcomes Related Erectile Dysfunction Treatment on a 4-point Scale), compared ratings on the Erection Hardness Scale with other scales commonly used in clinical trials of ED, including the International Index of Erectile Function (IIEF). It included 209 men (mean age 52 years) diagnosed with ED who were randomised to sildenafil or placebo, followed by an open-label extension period with flexible-dose sildenafil (50mg or 100mg).
The results showed a nearly linear relationship between EHS ratings and results from other scoring systems. The relationship between the discrete points of the EHS and scores on components of other rating scales, including the IIEF, showed the close correspondence between erection hardness and erectile function, satisfaction with the quality of an erection, the overall sexual experience and emotional well-being in men with ED.
Commenting on the clinical implications of the findings, Professor Herman van Ahlen, Professor of Urology, Klinikum Osnabruck, Muenster University, Germany, said: "These data validate the importance of measuring erection hardness because of its link to other factors."
Professor van Ahlen said that the Erection Hardness Scale provided a simple, effective tool that could be used in clinical practice for assessing patients with ED. He added: "The EHS measures more than just erection hardness. It can also provide an assessment of the other factors associated with this debilitating condition. A patient’s satisfaction with erection hardness has the scope to predict satisfaction with other quality of life measures."
European Association of Urology.
Written by - Susan Mayor
susanmayor@mac.com
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today
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Jun 19 2008

Have A Smoke Free Holiday

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Smoking cigarettes causes cancer and increases the risk of cardiovascular and other diseases, but there’s even more bad news for men who smoke. They have an increased risk of experiencing erectile dysfunction, and the more cigarettes smoked, the greater the risk, according to a study by Tulane University researchers published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
Although erectile dysfunction, the consistent inability to achieve or maintain an erection sufficient for satisfactory sexual performance, is not a life-threatening condition, it compromises well-being and quality of life. The study results suggest that smoking prevention is an important approach for reducing the risk of erectile dysfunction.
A team of researchers led by Jiang He, professor and chair of epidemiology at the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, examined the association between cigarette smoking and erectile dysfunction in a 2000-2001 study in China involving 7,684 men. The researchers used questionnaires to assess the status of cigarette smoking and erectile dysfunction.
"The association between cigarette smoking and ED was found in earlier studies," says He. "However, most of those studies were conducted in patients with hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. What distinguishes this study is that it is the first to find this association among healthy men."
Jiang He, professor and chair of epidemiology, leads the team of researchers who examined the association between cigarette smoking and erectile dysfunction in men.
Those surveyed by the team were men between the ages of 35 to 74 who did not have vascular disease. generishe viagra soft online kaufen mastercard The researchers also found that there was a significant statistical link between the number of cigarettes that the men smoked and the likelihood they would experience erectile dysfunction. Overall, an estimated 22.7 percent of erectile dysfunction cases among Chinese men might be attributable to cigarette smoking, according to the study.
"This study was conducted in China, but of course these results also apply to the U.S. population," says He.
More than 18 million American men — nearly one in five — experience erectile dysfunction, according to a study this year from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.
"There have been studies done in this country that show the same association between cigarette smoking and ED, but those were conducted in patients with diabetes, hypertension or cardiovascular disease. Our study shows that even in healthy men the association is very strong," He concludes.
Raising further caution flags about the dangers of starting to smoke cigarettes, the researchers found that even when cigarette smokers quit, their risk of developing erectile dysfunction did not decrease. The risk is statistically about the same for former cigarette smokers as for current cigarette smokers.
"This study really has a strong message for young men," He says. "It may get their attention if they know that smoking is associated with ED even in the healthy population. So the message is: Don’t start."
Tulane University
215 Gibson Hall
New Orleans, LA 70118-5698
United States

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