New research suggests that tobacco not only promotes cancer development, but also helps early cancer cells evade gucci mall detection by the immune system, which might otherwise mop up harmful cells before they reproduce and spread.
Dr. Jane A. McCutcheon and her colleagues at New York University in New York City discovered that cells exposed to tobacco have fewer substances on their surfaces used to signal whether or not the cell is dangerous and should be destroyed by the immune system. As such, McCutcheon suggested in an interview with Reuters Health, cells with fewer of these warning devices, if they become cancerous, would be more likely to evade detection by the immune system, grow and spread throughout the body.
The cellular warning devices are known as HLA class 1 molecules, which are usually unique to each person. These molecules sit on the surface of cells and present a protein to the outside environment. If this protein is derived from harmless substances inside the cell, immune system components known as killer T cells will bypass the cell, considering it to pose no threat to the body. However, if the protein inside a class 1 molecule was made as a result of a cancer inside the cell, or comes from a virus, the T cells hone in on the cell and destroy it.
In a recent issue of the Journal of Immunology, McCutcheon and her colleagues presented the results of experiments in which they found that cells exposed to tobacco showed fewer HLA class 1 molecules. Further experiments revealed that cells exposed to tobacco show lower levels of a particular protein that forms a link in the chain that assembles HLA class 1 molecules inside the cell. Reductions in this protein, known as TAP1, likely lead to lower amounts of HLA class 1 on the cell surface, the authors suggest.
In an interview with Reuters Health, McCutcheon cautioned that these changes do not cause cancer, but simply allow the cancer to thrive in the body once it appears.
“The class 1 is gone before the cell becomes cancerous,” she said. “If those cells become cancerous, there isn’t enough class 1 for T cells to kill them.”
McCutcheon noted that tobacco has a lot of ingredients, and she and her colleagues remain unsure about which particular ingredients might interfere with the cells’ production of HLA class 1. In the meantime, she noted that all tobacco-containing substances-not just those that people smoke-would likely have the same effect. “If you just sucked on a cigarette it could do this to you,” she said.
In the future, McCutcheon predicted, it may be possible to design a product that smokers could suck or somehow ingest that could help restore healthy HLA class 1 levels. Tobacco still triggers cancer, she said, but boosting the body’s ability to destroy early cancers might help smokers fight off more cases of the disease than they would otherwise. However, the bottom line remains the same, McCutcheon noted: “Cigarettes are bad.” Bone marrow transplants can save patients suffering from diseases that were once a death sentence. But a shortage of donors has left thousands waiting for treatment.
Every year, 2,000 American lives are saved by the selflessness of others. These are the bone marrow donors who give the gift of life to patients fighting deadly diseases such as leukemia, lymphoma, and aplastic anemia. That’s the good news.
The bad news is that thousands more die each year because not enough people have signed on to the registries that would help the ill find a suitable match for a transplant.
Bone marrow or stem-cell transplants are usually a last resort, intended for those whose illnesses have not responded to traditional treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation. How do they work? We all store a special type of cell in our bone marrow called stem cells. These primitive cells give rise to the three types of blood cells: red, white and platelets. Everyone’s stem cells have certain genetic characteristics or markers that make them unique from others. Despite this uniqueness, there are some shared characteristics between people. This is important, because a patient’s immune system will reject blood or organs received from gucci shoes someone else if they do not share sufficient similarities.
Family members, especially siblings, are always the first to be considered as donors, because there’s a greater chance that the genetic markers on their cells will have enough in common to prevent rejection after trans? plantation. In many cases, however, a familial match can’t be found and then the search begins for an unrelat? bed donor. These donors typi? cally come from a pool of people who have already signed up on a donor registry in the event that their cells match a needy recipient.
Once the lab has verified a match between donor and re?鄄cipient, the next phase starts. The patient is given radiation or chemotherapy to kill the unhealthy cells. Healthy cells are harvested from the donor – either extracted from the pelvic bones or taken from the arm in a way that is similar to having blood drawn – and prepared in a laboratory. Once they’re ready, they’re given to the patient through a vein – the same way as one would receive a blood transfusion. Once these transplanted donor cells get settled within the patient’s bone marrow, they make the healthy red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets necessary to support life.
One of the major problems currently faced by transplant centers is that while bone-marrow transplants can cure more than 70 different diseases, there aren’t enough donors on the registry to treat the more than 3,000 patients awaiting transplants. The National Marrow Donor Program, the largest registry in the country, has approximately 4.8 million adult volunteer donors, but that isn’t nearly enough for the thousands who need transplants.
Why isn’t a pool of more than 4 million donors isn’t enough to cover 3,000 needy patients? Here’s the reason: in the vast majority of cases, finding a suitable match isn’t easy. Because we are unique individuals with a variety of ancestral backgrounds and integration patterns, finding someone similar to us is a major task. In the end, it comes down to a numbers game-the more potential donors listed on the registry, the greater a chance of finding a match, especially for those with unusual genetic characteristics. Fewer vegetarians than meat-eaters are overweight. That doesn’t mean avoiding meat is the key to weight control, though. With or without meat, filling up on fruits and vegetables instead of sweets, high-fat snack foods, high-sugar drinks and alcohol make weight control easier.
One of the major heart-related benefits of vegetarian eating is probably the low level of cholesterol-raising saturated fat in these diets, but this doesn’t mean completely omitting meat from the diet is necessary for good health. Foods like fish, skinless poultry and even lean red meats don’t add much saturated fat, as long as portions are kept moderate.
Cholesterol-raising trans fat is another issue to consider. A “vegetarian” diet rich in deep-fried or high-fat foods is far from healthful.
Some studies have linked red meat to a greater risk of colon cancer, but a new report in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition questions such a link. Even if cancer or heart disease is related to processed meats and sausages, high-fat meats and those cooked at high-temperatures (which form carcinogens), that doesn’t necessarily mean all meat, fish and poultry pose a risk.
AICR claims that vegetarian eating may reduce the risk of some cancers, but emphasizes that any beneficial effects of a vegetarian diet may also be gained from one that limits meat and other animal products, and emphasizes an abundance of a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and beans. The same conclusion probably applies to heart-related and other health benefits of vegetarian eating. It’s not just what you avoid, it’s what you eat that counts. There’s cipro, potassium iodide and the smallpox vaccine to ward off biological agents. But is there an antidote to anxiety? “I’m very frightened,” said Julie White. But she has a remedy: the stretching and deep breathing of yoga. The practice is so calming that after the terror upgrade, White made an upgrade of her own – from one class a day to two. Yoga, she says, “is my tranquilizer.”
You may find the lotus pose hopelessly warm and fuzzy in the face of terror. But there are a host of activities, from working out to going for a massage, that can temper the anxiety. Many of these techniques have been used for decades, if not centuries; now advances in science are showing they can reduce the hormones associated with stress and even affect brain activity. The common trait among all: maintaining control and recognizing that our concerns are a natural response to the world we live in. “We’re justified in having this fear,” says Dr. Herbert Benson, president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute of Boston. “Life was stressful before 9-11. It’s gotten progressively worse.”
The first step toward combating fear is identifying it. Keep in mind that headaches, stomachaches, sleeplessness and rapid heartbeat are all symptoms of anxiety. Confront the emotion head-on by naming it, even saying, “I feel fear about this,” says Saki Santorelli, executive director of the University of Massachusetts Medical School’s Center for Mindfulness. Acknowledging anxiety makes us less passive, less vulnerable and, as a result, more able to cope.
Understand that fear is a component of stress, the complex fight-or-flight response ingrained in us since the cave days. When we’re confronted with danger, epinephrine (adrenaline) starts pumping, the heart speeds up, blood pressure increases, breathing quickens.
One of the most efficient ways to reduce stress is to focus inward on one thing we can effectively control: our own breath. At the Mind/Body Medical Institute, participants elicit a “relaxation response,” repeating a word – anything from “om” to “Hail Mary” – silently as they exhale. In numerous studies, Benson has found that the practice leads to lower blood pressure, slower breathing and an overall calm. Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently found that a form of meditative breathing pioneered at the Center for Mindfulness can affect the brain. In a small, soon-to-be-published study, Davidson took brain images of 25 members of a biotech firm who practiced meditation six days a week for eight weeks. He found increased activation in the left side of the prefrontal part of the brain, an area associated with lower anxiety, positive emotion and inhibition of the amygdala, the brain’s fear center.
If sitting in one position for more than five minutes sounds impossible, you might try yoga. Concentrating on the physical intricacies of different poses forces you to filter out the “endless tape loops of chatter and fear,” says Dr. Timothy McCall, medical editor of Yoga Journal, allowing you to be present in the moment. In so doing, you begin to clear the mind of future worries.
That experience helps get rid of distorted thinking, says Stanford University psychiatrist Dr. David Burns. What to do in the face of terrorism? Accept your anxiety, but don’t let it control you. And certainly don’t ruminate on your own. “Anxiety feeds on itself,” says Dr. Paul Appelbaum, president of the American Psychiatric Association, so talk to family and friends.“Sharing the concern with others can be enormously helpful.”
Scientists are finding that it can help to get outside your head completely. In a study of 60 schoolchildren traumatized by Hurricane Andrew, Tiffany Field, director of the University of Miami’s Touch Research Institute, found that depression dropped in kids who received 30 minutes of massage twice a week for a month; kids who watched a relaxing video showed no improvement. And cortisol levels, the body’s marker for stress, declined significantly in the massage group. If massage isn’t your thing, go for a vigorous walk, swim or bike ride. Exercise is not only good at keeping you fit; it reduces anxiety and depression, too.
It may be difficult, but in troubled times, researchers say, people need to take comfort from life’s simplest pleasures.In a small study at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, Dr. O. J. Sahler found that bone-marrow transplant patients who listened to music reported less pain and nausea, and their transplants took less time to become functional. And, yes, laughter may be good medicine, too. Dr. Lee Berk, of the gucci outlet Loma Linda University School of Public Health, discovered that a group of students who watched a comic video for an hour had marked reductions in epinephrine and cortisol levels. “If fear is too great,” says Berk,“send in the clowns.”Now that’s something we can all meditate on.