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Giving up smoking 'raises diabetes risk' BBC News 06/01/10

Giving up smoking sharply increases the risk of developing type-two diabetes, a US study suggests.

Researchers found quitters had a 70% increased risk of developing type-two diabetes in the first six years without cigarettes compared with non-smokers.

This is because they tend to put on weight.

However, the Annals of Internal Medicine study stressed that this should not be used as an excuse to carry on smoking.

The Johns Hopkins team also stress that smoking is a well known risk factor for type-two diabetes - as well as many other health problems, such as heart disease, stroke and cancer.

Researcher Dr Jessica Yeh said: "If you smoke, give it up. That's the right thing to do.

"But people have to also watch their weight."

The study, based on 10,892 middle aged adults who were followed for up to 17 years, found the risk of developing type-two diabetes was highest in the first three years after giving up smoking.

Around 1.8% of people giving up smoking developed type 2 diabetes each year during that period.

If quitters avoided developing the condition for 10 years, then their long-term risk returned to normal.

People who made no effort to give up smoking had a constant 30% increased risk of type-two diabetes compared with non-smokers.

Blood sugarType-two diabetes means the body either fails to make enough of the hormone insulin, or cannot make proper use of it, leading to uncontrolled blood sugar levels.

Untreated this can cause serious disease, and complications such as blindness, kidney failure and nerve damage.

One of the major risk factors for the condition is being overweight, and the rise in obesity across the developed world has been blamed for a big increase in type-two diabetes.

The researchers found those who smoked the most and those who gained the most weight had the highest likelihood for developing diabetes after they quit.

On average, during the first three years of the study, quitters gained about 8.4lb (3.8kg).

The researchers said doctors should keep in mind the importance of weight control when counselling people about giving up smoking.

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Quitters tend to put on weight because smoking acts to suppress appetite.

The use of nicotine replacement therapy has been shown to blunt the weight gain associated with giving up smoking.

Martin Dockrell, of the anti-smoking charity Ash, said: "The researchers are clear that smokers should quit but - especially if you are a heavy smoker or are already overweight - you might want to gently increase your exercise when you quit.

"If you are a smoker who is also overweight you should talk to your doctor about how to get the best from quitting.

"A little more exercise could help improve your sense of well being, reduce weight gain and undo some of the harm done by smoking leading to a healthier, happier you."

Natasha Marsland, of the charity Diabetes UK, said: "On no account should people use the theoretical results of this study as an excuse not to give up smoking.

"The health benefits of giving up smoking far outweigh the risk of developing type-two diabetes from modest, short-term weight gain."

Mobile phone radiation 'protects' against Alzheimer's BBC News07/01/10

After all the concern over possible damage to health from using mobile phones, scientists have found a potential benefit from radiation.

Their work has been carried out on mice, but it suggests mobiles might protect against Alzheimer's.

Florida scientists found that phone radiation actually protected the memories of mice programmed to get Alzheimer's disease.

They are now testing more frequencies to see if they can get better results.

The study by the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Centre is published in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Genetically altered miceIt involved 96 mice, most of which had been genetically altered to develop beta-amyloid plaques in their brains, which are a marker of Alzheimer's disease, as they aged.

The rest of the mice were non-demented.

All the mice were exposed to the electro-magnetic field generated by a standard phone for two one-hour periods each day for seven to nine months.

Their cages were arranged at the same distance around a centrally located antenna generating the phone signal.

The researchers, led by Professor Gary Arendash, said that if the phone exposure was started when the Alzheimer's mice were young adults, before signs of memory impairment were apparent, their cognitive ability was protected.

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In fact, the Alzheimer's mice performed as well on tests measuring memory and thinking skills as aged mice without dementia.

If older Alzheimer's mice already showing memory problems were exposed to the electro-magnetic waves, their memory impairment disappeared.

Professor Arendash was the author of a previous study that said coffee could protect against Alzheimer's.

He said: "It will take some time to determine the exact mechanisms involved in these beneficial memory effects.

"One thing is clear, however - the cognitive benefits of long-term electro-magnetic exposure are real, because we saw them in both protection and treatment-based experiments involving Alzheimer's mice, as well as in normal mice."

Memory benefitsThe memory benefits of phone exposure took months to show up, suggesting that a similar effect in humans would take years.

The researchers conclude that electro-magnetic field exposure could be an effective, non-invasive and drug-free way to prevent and treat Alzheimer's disease in humans.

They are currently testing whether different sets of frequencies and strengths might produce a more rapid and greater cognitive benefit.

Chuanhai Cao, another author of the study, said: "Since production and aggregation of beta-amyloid occurs in traumatic brain injury, particularly in soldiers during war, the therapeutic impact of our findings may extend beyond Alzheimer's disease."

The authors say previous studies have linked a possible increased risk of Alzheimer's with "low-frequency" electro-magnetic exposure like the energy waves generated by power and telephone lines.

They say mobile phones emit "high frequency" electro-magnetic waves that are very different because they can have beneficial effects on brain function, such as increasing brain cell activity.

Organs normalThey did carry out autopsies on the mice and found no evidence of abnormal growth in the brains of the Alzheimer's mice following months of exposure to the electro-magnetic waves.

They also found all the major peripheral organs, such as the liver and lungs, were normal.

Rebecca Wood, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said: "This research has been carried out in mice that mimic some of the symptoms of Alzheimer's in people, so we don't know if any similar effects will be seen in humans.

"Although the researchers hope their findings will translate to people, much more research is needed to find out if there could be any beneficial effects of long-term exposure to electro-magnetism, and to guarantee its safety.

"We don't recommend spending 24 hours a day on a mobile phone - we don't know the long-term effects, and bills could go through the roof."

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Dr Susanne Sorensen, head of research at the Alzheimer's Society, said the results were "exciting and quite convincing".

"However, this research in mice is at an early stage and a lot more work is needed before we can say anything about the possible preventative or treatment effects of this type of radiation on people with Alzheimer's disease."

Psychic computer shows your thoughts on screenThe Sunday Times 01/11/09

Scientists have discovered how to “read” minds by scanning brain activity and reproducing images of what people are seeing — or even remembering.

Researchers have been able to convert into crude video footage the brain activity stimulated by what a person is watching or recalling.

The breakthrough raises the prospect of significant benefits, such as allowing people who are unable to move or speak to communicate via visualisation of their thoughts; recording people’s dreams; or allowing police to identify criminals by recalling the memories of a witness.

However, it could also herald a new Big Brother era, similar to that envisaged in the Hollywood film Minority Report, in which an individual’s private thoughts can be readily accessed by the authorities.

Earlier this year, Jack Gallant and Thomas Naselaris, two neurologists from the University of California, Berkeley, managed to 'decode' static images seen by the person from activity in the brain's visual cortex. Last week Gallant and Shinji Nishimoto - another neurologist - went one step further by revealing that it is possible to decode signals generated in the brain by moving scenes.

In an experiment which has yet to be peer reviewed, Gallant and Nishimoto, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology, scanned the brains of two patients as they watched videos.

A computer programme was used to search for links between the configuration of shapes, colours and movements in the videos, and patterns of activity in the patients’ visual cortex.

It was later fed more than 200 days’ worth of YouTube internet clips and asked to predict which areas of the brain the clips would stimulate if people were watching them.

Finally, the software was used to monitor the two patients’ brains as they watched a new film and to reproduce what they were seeing based on their neural activity alone.

Remarkably, the computer programme was able to display continuous footage of the films they were watching — albeit with blurred images.

In one scene which featured the actor Steve Martin wearing a white shirt, the software recreated his rough shape and white torso but missed other details, such as his facial features.

Another scene, showing a plane flying towards the camera against a city skyline, was less successfully reproduced. The computer recreated the image of the skyline but omitted the plane altogether.

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“Some scenes decode better than others,” said Gallant. “We can decode talking heads really well. But a camera panning quickly across a scene confuses the algorithm.

“You can use a device like this to do some pretty cool things. At the moment when you see something and want to describe it to someone you have to use words or draw it and it doesn’t work very well.

“You could use this technology to transmit the image to someone. It might be useful for artists or to allow you to recover an eyewitness’s memory of a crime.”

Such technology may not be confined to the here and now. Scientists at University College London have conducted separate tests that detect, with an accuracy of about 50%, memories recalled by patients.

The discoveries come amid a flurry of developments in the field of brain science. Researchers have also used scanning technology to measure academic ability, detect early signs of Alzheimer’s and other degenerative conditions, and even predict the decision a person is about to make before they are conscious of making it.

Such developments may have controversial ramifications. In Britain, fMRI scanning technology has been sold to multinational companies, such as Unilever and McDonald’s, enabling them to see how we subconsciously react to brands.

In America, security agencies are researching the use of brain scanners for interrogating prisoners, and Lockheed Martin, the US defence contractor, is reported to have studied the possibility of scanning brains at a distance.

This would allow an individual’s thoughts and anxieties to be examined without their knowledge in sensitive locations such as airports.

Russell Foster, a neuroscientist at Oxford University, said rapid advances in the field were throwing up ethical dilemmas.

“It’s absolutely critical for scientists to inform the public about what we are doing so they can engage in the debate about how this knowledge should be used,” he said.

“It’s the age-old problem: knowledge is power and it can be used for both good and evil.”

Swine flu: first death reported following vaccineThe TelegraphBy Rebecca Smith22/11/09

A person has died after being given the swine flu vaccine, it has emerged. Details of the person have not been released but officials said they had serious underlying medical conditions which are more likely to have been the cause of death than the vaccine.

The death was among over 1,300 suspected adverse reactions reported to the medicines regulator as part of surveillance of the vaccination programme.

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Nine reports relate to suspected adverse reactions in pregnant women, who were between five months and seven months pregnant when given the jab. All suspected reactions affected the mother only and were not serious, the regulator said in a report.

The majority of the reports are about Pandemrix which is being used more widely than Celvapan, which is primarily for use in people will allergies to eggs.

The report from the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency emphasised that the majority of people who have received the vaccines so far have had serious and chronic medical conditions 'over the next few months many of these patients will naturally suffer an exacerbation of their underlying illness including death'.

The document said: "Such events may occur shortly after vaccination and be reported as suspected adverse events. It is important to bear in mind that this temporal association does not in itself mean that the vaccine was responsible for the event and that this may be coincidental."

A report in The Lancet last month calculated the number of fatalities that would occur in Britain in people within six weeks of them being vaccinated as pure coincidence. Experts found that if ten million people were vaccinated there would be six sudden deaths.

The research also suggested that 397 per one million vaccinated pregnant women would be predicted to have a spontaneous abortion within one day of vaccination as a coincidence.

There are currently just over nine million people in priority groups being vaccinated who have long-term serious illnesses and pregnant women.

Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, announced this week that once the priority groups were completed the vaccination programme would be extended to around three million healthy children aged between six months and five years.

The MHRA report said up until November 12th, there had been 25 reports of suspected reactions in children aged between 11 months and 16-years and the majority were not serious. Two children experienced seizures and one was diagnosed with reactive arthritis which can occur as a result of infection. A link with the vaccine has not been established.

The MHRA report said the majority of the suspected adverse reactions have been pain and swelling at the injection site, nausea and vomiting, muscle aches and headaches, which are all to be expected.

The report concluded that no serious safety issues have been identified from the UK to date and the benefit-risk balance for both vaccines remains positive.

Independently, the European medicines regulator has analysed new data on the vaccines and also concluded that they are safe.

The European Medicines agency report said about five million people in the EU have been vaccinated so far and reported effects 'have mainly been mild symptoms such as fever, nausea, headache, allergic reactions and injection site reactions'.

A small number of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome and fetal death have been reported and that 'on the basis of the available information there is no evidence to link these to the vaccines'.

Guillain-Barré syndrome is a condition in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks part of the nervous system and can be fatal in rare cases and has been linked to infection with influenza

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and to a vaccine given in America in 1976 although the evidence of a link with the jab was 'weak' experts have said.

The World Health Organisation said this week that 65 million doses of various swine flu vaccines have been administered so far with a good safety profile.

In a briefing Dr Marie-Paul Kieny, Director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research at the WHO, said there was no difference in the safety profiles of the different vaccines.

She said 30 deaths have been reported worldwide and none of them have been found to have been caused by the vaccine and 12 cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome have been reported and all have recovered well.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: “There are no concerns about these reports - they show common and largely minor side effects like a sore arm, and are similar to the reports received elsewhere in Europe. Several million doses of Pandemrix are thought to have been issued globally.

“People who are offered the vaccine should have it to protect themselves.”

Dr Philip Bryan, MHRA Expert Scientific Assessor said: “Most people receiving the vaccine have serious and/or chronic underlying medical conditions which put them at greater risk of developing serious complications of swine flu.

"This is why it is important for these people to be vaccinated as a priority. Over the next few months, many of these patients will naturally suffer an exacerbation of their underlying illness, including death.

"Such events may occur shortly after vaccination and be reported as suspected side effects. It is important to bear in mind that this temporal association does not in itself mean that the vaccine was responsible for the event and that this may be coincidental. Such reports are fully evaluated by the MHRA."

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: "There are no concerns about these reports - they show common and largely minor side effects like a sore arm, and are similar to the reports received elsewhere in Europe. Several million doses of Pandemrix are thought to have been issued globally.

"People who are offered the vaccine should have it to protect themselves."

Could fad diets be making the obesity epidemic worse?The TelegraphBy Jenny Hope23/11/09

Celebrity 'fad' diets are fuelling the obesity epidemic, doctors warn. They claim such plans are actually keeping people fat, with just one in ten Britons predicted to be a healthy weight by 2050.

And they say weight-watchers should curb the amount they eat, rather than follow diets which offer only a short-term solution.

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Diets that recommend eating only grapefruit, for example, or fruit and seeds found in the Bible should be avoided, says Professor Chris Hawkey, president of the British Society of Gastroenterology.

He also criticised the Tiger diet - which advocates uncooked food and is reportedly followed by Mel Gibson - and the apple diet, which claims to boost the body's acidity and fight disease.

A survey commissioned by the BSG shows most dieters will try anything to get thin - except follow a sensible eating and exercise plan that has been shown to work.

One in 20 women said they would try the Atkins diet to lose weight - even though only 2 per cent think it is good for their health. At the same time, one in five of the 2,000 Britons questioned admitted they would use weight loss pills to help shed excess pounds.

Professor Hawkey, speaking today at the Gastro 2009 conference in London, will claim ruthless promotion of unhealthy foods and diets has fostered over-eating and the growth of pathological attitudes to eating.

These include anorexia, bulimia, orthorexia - an obsession with eating 'good' foods - and malnutrition.

Professor Hawkey said: 'In food fadism the virtue of favoured foods is exaggerated and purported to cure specific diseases, while supposedly harmful foods are eliminated from the diet.

'Foods fads are often based on a well elaborated scientific or, more often, pseudo-scientific theory but such is the complexity of diet that the specific value of the nutritional content is seldom tested.' And he will tell the conference: 'The problem facing society is not the content of our diet but the quantity we are consuming.

'We need to do away with quirky diets and get people to realise what will keep them healthy.

'In the majority of cases, simply increasing physical activity levels and eating sensibly will help prevent long-term conditions.'

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David Haslam, chairman of the National Obesity Forum, said: 'Diets don't work. You may lose weight in the short term, and there are a few exceptions when people manage to keep it off.

'But most people put the weight back on. The most effective way is making sustainable changes to reduce dietary intake and increase physical activity.'

Official figures show that one in four British adults is now obese - so overweight that it threatens their health - while 38 per cent are overweight.

The National Audit Office estimates obesity causes at least 30,000 deaths a year in the UK, through conditions such as cancer, heart disease, strokes and diabetes.

The condition is estimated to cost the Health Service at least £500million a year and the wider economy £2billion.

Hormone produced by pregnant women could keep breast cancer at bayThe TelegraphBy David Derbyshire25/11/09

Promising: Pregnancy hormones trigger the production of a protective protein that blocks breast cancer growthA chemical produced naturally in women's bodies during pregnancy offers hope as a powerful breast cancer drug, scientists say.

Alph-fetoprotein, or AFP, seems to halt the growth of existing tumours and prevent new ones from appearing, a study found.

Although experts stress the findings need to be repeated in human tests, they believe the molecule could eventually be converted into a breast cancer drug.

AFP is produced by the body in response to pregnancy hormones such as oestrogen and progesterone, which are known to fuel the growth of some types of tumour.

'Hormones in pregnancy, such as oestrogen, all induce AFP, which directly inhibits the growth of breast cancer,' said lead researcher Dr Herbert Jacobson.

'The body has a natural defence system against breast cancer. AFP needs to be safely harnessed and developed into a drug that can be used to protect women from breast cancer.'

Each year more than 45,500 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK and around 12,000 die from it.

Studies have shown that hormones released during pregnancy, such as oestrogen, progesterone and human chorionic gonadotropin, may protect against breast cancer.

But the latest research suggests AFP may be the key to counteracting the cancer- causing properties of these hormones.

It is produced by the liver and the foetal yolk sac, the membrane which supplies nutrients to a foetus in the early stages of pregnancy.

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The researchers from Albany Medical College, New York, tested how it worked in lab rats which were exposed to cancer-causing chemicals.

They were then given pregnancy hormones such as oestrogen, oestrogen and progesterone, or human chorionic gonadotropin.

The levels of AFP in their bodies shot up.

This appeared to delay the creation of tumours or prevent them altogether in around half the rats.

AFP also halted the growth of breast cancer cells growing in a test tube, the scientists report in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.

The findings suggest pregnancy hormones prevent breast cancer by triggering the production of AFP.

Dr Powel Brown, professor of medicine and cancer prevention at the University of Texas Anderson Cancer Centre, said the findings were important - but it was too early to begin testing AFP on people.

'The researchers have not directly demonstrated the cancer-preventive activity of AFP; instead they found an association of these hormones preventing mammary tumours,' he said.

'None of these treatments prevented mammary tumours in 100 per cent of the rats, it appears to delay mammary tumour formation and prevent breast cancer development in approximately 30 to 50 per cent of the rats.

'This study is promising and suggests that additional animal studies need to be done before translation to humans,' he added.

Dr Jacobson and colleagues have isolated a fragment of the AFP molecule and are trying to develop it into a drug.

It will be about ten years before a treatment is available for patients.

Arlene Wilkie, of Breast Cancer Campaign welcomed the findings, but said 'more extensive long-term studies are needed before it could benefit patients'.

She said eating a balanced diet, maintaining a healthy weight and exercising regularly were the best ways to lower breast cancer risk.

Alcohol goes straight to your head (and begins to cause damage within 6 minutes)The TelegraphBy Fiona Macrae17/06/09

It's not just champagne that goes straight to your head - all alcohol does, a study has shown.

It takes only six minutes for the effects to hit the brain and begin to cause damage.

Both male and female brains react in the same way, despite women being generally more vulnerable to the effects of alcohol, the researchers found.

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Within six minutes of having a drink, the brain began to run on the sugar from the alcohol

They recruited 15 men and women to lay in brain scanners sipping alcoholic drinks through a straw.

Each drank the equivalent of two pints of beer or three glasses of wine. Within minutes, the brain began to run on the sugar from the alcohol, rather than glucose, its normal food.

Alarmingly, the concentration of compounds which protect the brain's delicate cells decreased as alcohol levels rose, the Journal of Cerebral Flow and Metabolism reports.

Scans carried out the following day showed that the changes were short-lived but the German researchers warned this need not always be the case.

Dr Armin Biller, of Heidelberg University Hospital, said: 'Our follow-ups on the next day showed that the shifts in brain metabolites after moderate consumption of alcohol by healthy persons are completely reversible.

'However, we assume that the brain's ability to recover from the effect of alcohol decreases or is eliminated as the consumption of alcohol increases.

'The acute effects demonstrated in our study could possibly form the basis for the permanent brain damage that is known to occur in alcoholics.'

Previous research has shown that drinking can make your brain shrink.

The U.S. study showed that heavy drinkers, who had more than 14 drinks a week, had brains that were 1.6 per cent smaller than teetotallers.

During the normal process of ageing, the death of brain cells leads to shrinkage of just 0.19 per cent per year.

Other studies have shown that alcohol can cut the risk of heart disease and extend life expectancy.

The £19 anti-wrinkle cream set to cause a stampede at Boots after scientists claim it DOES actually workThe TelegraphBy Fiona Macrae03/05/09

Miracle? Boots No 7's new serum has been proven by scientists to reduce the appearance of wrinklesTwo years ago, Boots produced a wrinkle cream so effective that stores sold out in a day.

On Thursday, when its latest product hits the shelves, the high street chemist sets out to show customers it has done it again.

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Aimed at mature skin with more wrinkles than its sister lotion, No7 Protect & Perfect Intense Beauty Serum is said to be twice as good as normal moisturisers at plumping up the skin and smoothing away wrinkles.

And Boots is offering proof. A year-long study at Manchester University found that 70 per cent of those who used the £19.75 cream for a year had fewer, finer lines, the British Journal of Dermatology reported.

The study was one of the first to put an off-the-shelf beauty cream through the rigorous testing usually applied to new medicines. Professor Chris Griffiths, who conducted the research, said: 'If someone has wrinkles, they are going to respond as well to it if they are 45 or 80.'

Dr Nick Lowe, a consultant dermatologist and clinical professor of dermatology, said the study appeared to confirm that the anti-wrinkle cream rejuvenated the skin.

The secret is thought to lie in a cocktail of vitamins, proteins and plant extracts which act together to boost production of fibrillin, a protein which makes ageing and sun-damaged skin more elastic.

It includes vitamin A and extract of lupin. And while the original Protect & Perfect Serum and the new cream share some ingredients, there are crucial differences. The original cream uses 'pentapeptides' - groups of five amino acids - to trigger the rejuvenation of skin.

Left, a volunteer's eye before applying Boots' Intense serum; right, the eye following a year's daily application of the cream

The Intense version, which has actually been on sale for 18 months under the name Refine and Rewind (but without the backing of the research), has pairs of peptides and extracts of alfalfa. Boots scientists say the combination gives it a stronger and quicker effect.

Professor Griffiths, who was funded by the chemist but designed the experiments independently, said: 'You could say Boots was very confident or very foolhardy but they were willing to go with it which was impressive to us.'

Stewart Long, the firm's skincare scientific advisor, said that it was likely other anti-ageing creams contained similar ingredients - but only Boots had been brave enough to put it to the test.

Following last year's report on BBC's Horizons that the Boots serum actually did help regenerate the skin's elasticity, the cream sold out in minutes and queues formed with customers vying for pots. Sales soared to two every ten seconds

'Consumers purchasing cosmetic skincare products can choose from a variety of products, which have only limited published data regarding their efficacy.

'We feel we have answered our customers and the market proving that Boots No7 products really can help to improve skin's appearance.

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'This study sets the bar for all beauty companies to test their products as rigorously as possible and make the results public.'

Two years ago, 20 weeks' supply of Boots Protect & Perfect Beauty Serum sold out in a day after BBC2's Horizon featured a study which revealed it could make the skin look younger.

But Professor Griffiths said: 'Most wrinkles are down to sun exposure and not to age. The best thing you can do to prevent wrinkles is to practise sensible sun advice and use sun screens.'

Nutritionists' cookbook to halt prostate cancer is revealedThe TelegraphBy Fiona Macrae10/09/09

Healthy eating: Salads and other dishes are among 50 pages of adviceA cookbook of recipes designed to keep prostate cancer at bay has been compiled by experts.

The Prostate Care Cookbook is the first to show how to put into practice the many scientific studies into the effects of diet on the disease.

Written by dieticians and nutritionists from Surrey University, it contains 50 pages of advice on different food groups, followed by dozens of recipes, including some from professional chefs such as Antony Worrall Thompson.

Foods believed to prevent the cancer or stop its growth or spread include garlic and other members of the allium vegetable family such as onions, as well as vegetables such as broccoli or cauliflower.

In one study, men who ate the highest levels of allium vegetables were almost half as likely to develop prostate cancer than those who ate the least.

Spring onions proved particularly beneficial, the British Science Festival heard.

Professor Rayman, the book’s lead author and a professor of nutritional medicine, said that men should eat at least three cloves of garlic a week or have at least three servings of onions, spring onions, shallots, leeks and chives.

How they are prepared is also important, because cooking allium vegetables can destroy many of their cancer-fighting qualities.

Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts may prevent the disease from spreading throughout the body, studies suggest.

These should be raw or lightly cooked and any water from steaming or boiling incorporated into gravies or sauces.

The £12.99 book advises three to five helpings a week.

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Tomatoes may also help keep prostate cancer at bay.

In one study, levels of a protein linked to the growth of the cancer fell by a fifth in men who had pasta with tomato sauce daily for five weeks.

The benefits are thought to come from lycopene, the pigment that gives tomatoes their red colour.

It is quickly used by the body, so ideally men should include tomatoes in their diet each day.

Other foods thought to be beneficial include oily fish, peas, beans and lentils, tofu and raspberries.

Large amounts of dairy products should be avoided, so should fatty foods such as cakes. Red meat should also be eaten in limited amounts.

Professor Rayman believes the diet plan could cut the odds of those with a family history of the disease developing it themselves.

The Prostate Care Cookbook may also be useful for men in the early stages of the disease.

Prostate cancer is often slowgrowing and, with surgery and radiotherapy carrying a high risk of side-effects, many men choose to put off treatment. The most common cancer in British men, it affects 35,000 a year and kills 10,000.

The professor said: ‘This may prevent, or at least postpone, surgical or radiotherapy intervention.

'I can’t say this is definitely going to make a difference but there is nothing that is going to do any harm.’

Drinking three cups of tea or coffee a day cuts risk of age-related diabetes by 23%

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The TelegraphBy Jenny Hope18/12/09

Have a cuppa: Drinking tea and coffee can help reduce the risk of diabetesDrinking more than three cups of tea a day cuts the risk of diabetes, say researchers.

Studies show that regular tea drinkers have a 25 per cent lower chance of developing Type 2 diabetes compared to those drinking tea occasionally or not at all.

Almost 80 per cent of Britons are tea drinkers, getting through 165million cups a day. Diabetes affects 2.3million.

Researchers are suggesting doctors tell patients most likely to develop the condition to step up their tea consumption.

The seven studies involved almost 300,000 tea drinkers, while further studies included information on those who drank regular coffee and decaffeinated coffee.

They showed coffee drinking was also linked with a reduced risk of developing diabetes, says a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine journal.

The researchers from the University of Sydney collated studies involving 286,701 people which looked at the association between tea consumption and diabetes risk published between 1966 and 2009.

In addition, 18 studies on coffee and diabetes found that drinking four cups cut the risk of getting diabetes by 25 per cent compared to those drinking no coffee.

Dr Rachel Huxley, who led the research team, said the protection appeared to be due to 'direct biological effects'

A link was also found with decaffeinated coffee, so caffeine was unlikely to be solely responsible for the effect.

She said: 'The identification of the active components of these beverages would open up new therapeutic pathways for the primary prevention of diabetes.'

Dr Carrie Ruxton, scientific adviser to the industry-backed Tea Advisory Panel, said: 'The authors found that individuals who drank three to four cups per day had a 25 per cent lower risk than those who drank between zero and two cups per day.

'This protective effect may be due to the variety of compounds present in tea, including antioxidants.'

Half of women are diagnosing themselves online, says OfcomThe Telegraph By Urmee Khan15/10/09

More than half of women are diagnosing themselves online, according to report, despite fears of bogus advice.

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Increasing numbers of people (48 per cent) say that they have used the internet to find out more about an illness according to a report by Ofcom, the media regulator.

The research found women are more likely to do so, with 53 per cent admitted to looking online for medical advice, in a trend has become known was ‘Dr Google’.

Ofcom's UK Adults' Media Literacy interim report found that use of NHS Direct/NHS 24 websites had increased from 70 per cent in 2007 to 84 per cent in 2009.

The report just says the increase in use of NHS websites could be related to the change in the profile of internet users since 2007.

Online diagnosis can now be done for swine flu as well, under the Government's National Pandemic Flu Service

Medical professionals have warned that online self-diagnosis can cause the worried well to fear the worst and creates “cybercondriacs”.

Last month, a report published in the Annals of The Royal College of Surgeons of England, found a quarter of patients who researched common surgery on the internet were left "worried and confused" by the information they received.

Sue Woodward, chair elect of the Patient Liaison Group of the Royal College of Surgeons of England said: "Too often information provided online is patchy, unregulated and inconsistent”.

The Ofcom report also found that one in three adults (29 per cent) used the internet to watch downloaded television programmes or films, with 25 to 34-year-olds most likely to do this.

British web users have now grown used to catching up on shows at the click of a mouse on services such as ITV player and the BBC iPlayer.

Adults using social networking sites has also nearly doubled in two years – from 22 per cent to 38 per cent since 2007.

The research showed 42 per cent of women were likely to have a social networking site profile, compared to 34 per cent of men, according to the research, and nine out of ten users say they have a profile on Facebook.

But while the popularity has increased, more people are selective about who can view their profile.

The study showed 76 per cent restrict access to family and friends - up from 48 per cent in 2007.

According to the survey, which interviewed 812 adults over 16 in April, the number of internet users aged 65 and over had increased sharply since 2007, from 26 per cent to 41 per cent.

Eating mushrooms daily 'may cut breast cancer risk by two thirds' The Telegraph

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By Jo Willey17/03/09

A SMALL portion of mushrooms every day could slash the risk of breast cancer by two thirds, research has found.But when combined with drinking green tea regularly, the risk is cut by 9 per cent, it is claimed.

Scientists found that women who ate at least 10g – around a third of an ounce – of fresh mushrooms daily were 64 per cent less likely to develop a potentially fatal tumour.

Dried mushrooms had a slightly less protective effect, reducing the risk by around half.

Experts at the University of Western Australia in Perth analysed the eating habits of more than 2,000 women in China, half of whom had suffered breast cancer.

The researchers concluded: “Higher intake of mushrooms decreased cancer risk in both pre- and post-menopausal Chinese women.”

Some evidence suggests mushrooms act in a similar way to breast cancer drugs called aromatase inhibitors which block the body’s production of the cancer-feeding hormone oestrogen.

Previous research uncovered the re mark able health benefits of green tea, including reversing endothelial dysfunction – a sign of arteries clogging – in smokers.

Studies have found that drinking a cup a day can keep the heart healthy by opening up the arteries. It is thought green tea offers cancer-fighting benefits because it is not fermented before drying like the more popular black variety.

Fermentation is believed to reduce the content of flavonoids, which are beneficial antioxidants, by up to 90 per cent.

Dr Julie Sharp, Cancer Research UK’s senior science information manager, said: “Both green tea and mushrooms have previously been reported to lower cancer risk. While this study adds to the evidence, more research is needed to confirm these observations and find out if they are relevant to UK women.

“It is important to remember there is no one particular ‘super’ food that will protect you from cancer. Large scientific studies have proven that the best way to reduce your risk of many cancers is to eat a healthy, balanced diet.”

The latest findings were published in the International Journal of Cancer. Laboratory tests on animals show that fungi have anti-tumour properties and can stimulate the immune system’s defences.

Last month scientists in California began a trial to see if taking a mushroom extract twice a day for a month helps breast cancer survivors remain free of the disease.

More than 46,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK each year and it kills 12,400.

The disease affects one in nine women at some point in their lives and diet is thought to be a key factor.

Rates of the disease in China are up to five times lower than in some western countries.

A recent study revealed that mushrooms could be the key to huge weight loss.

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Research found that swapping meat for the fungus in four meals a week as part of a balanced diet saw people shed an average 12.7lb in five weeks, with the most successful dieter losing a stone-and-a-half.

Finger on the Pulse The TelegraphBy Max Pemberton 31/03/08

As the use of medication decreased, suicide rates increased, says Max Pemberton As a doctor, there are times when you can see that something is going to happen; you can plot the trajectory and predict the disaster, but are powerless to intervene. Frustrated, you watch from a distance the gentle ebb and flow of cause and effect. You try to step in, pick up the pieces and patch things up.

Mrs Shepherd is sitting in front of me crying and telling me she wants to kill herself. I predicted this. I look through her notes while she dabs her eyes. She has had depression for three years and has tried to kill herself once. Since starting antidepressants, though, she was making progress. I'd recently noted that she might soon be ready for discharge from the psychiatric outpatients' clinic.

Now this happens. I knew it would. Mrs Shepherd isn't the first person in the past few days to complain of a relapse in her illness, and she won't be the last. A month ago she stopped taking her medication. She did this because of reports in the media of a study, led by Professor Irving Kirsch at the University of Hull and published in a little-known journal, which concluded that "there seems little evidence to support the prescription of antidepressant medication".

If you took a tablet every day only to read about a scientific study that said you'd been wasting your time, wouldn't you stop taking it? The impact is now being seen up and down the country. And yet the media and the public are not privy to the complex, competing interests within academic circles that motivate research, or the varying ways in which statistics can be interpreted.

This particular study did not undertake any new clinical research. Rather it selected research undertaken by drug companies, some of which was obtained under the Data Protection Act, and compared the outcomes. From this, it concluded that antidepressants had little effect compared to placebos. But such a technique is flawed: they didn't look at all antidepressants, they didn't look at all the data, and they ignored the large amount of evidence that supports the efficacy of antidepressants. What is more, Prof Kirsch isn't even a medical doctor. He is a psychologist, a profession that is unable to prescribe and is often critical of medication - so it's no wonder he reached the conclusions he did.

Most worryingly, the very basis of what is "statistically significant" in his research is under question. A similar study of antidepressants' efficacy, led by Prof Erick Turner and published this year in the New England Journal of Medicine, found similar statistical results to Prof Kirsch, but its interpretations were different: each drug they studied was clinically superior to the placebo.

This didn't make it into the press. Instead, Prof Kirsch's study did, because it provokes fear. But research shows a correlation between public fears provoked by scientific research and the discontinuation of medication. As the use of antidepressants in adolescents increased in America between 1990 and 2003, suicide rates declined. Yet when concerns over side effects were reported, use of medication between 2003 and 2004 decreased. The suicide rate in American adolescents rose during this period for the first time in a decade.

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I am no fan of the pharmaceutical industry or the way it tries to manipulate data to promote its drugs. I think antidepressants are too readily prescribed and access to psychotherapy too limited. But provocative studies such as Prof Kirsch's do more harm than good. As an academic, he doesn't have to witness its impact. While he sits in his ivory tower, those on the ground pick up the pieces.

The mini ice age starts hereThe Mail on SundayBy David Rose10/01/10

The bitter winter afflicting much of the Northern Hemisphere is only the start of a global trend towards cooler weather that is likely to last for 20 or 30 years, say some of the world’s most eminent climate scientists.

Their predictions – based on an analysis of natural cycles in water temperatures in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans – challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy’s most deeply cherished beliefs, such as the claim that the North Pole will be free of ice in summer by 2013.

According to the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007 – and even the most committed global warming activists do not dispute this.

The scientists’ predictions also undermine the standard climate computer models, which assert that the warming of the Earth since 1900 has been driven solely by man-made greenhouse gas emissions and will continue as long as carbon dioxide levels rise.

They say that their research shows that much of the warming was caused by oceanic cycles when they were in a ‘warm mode’ as opposed to the present ‘cold mode’.

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This challenge to the widespread view that the planet is on the brink of an irreversible catastrophe is all the greater because the scientists could never be described as global warming ‘deniers’ or sceptics.

However, both main British political parties continue to insist that the world is facing imminent disaster without drastic cuts in CO2.

This image of the UK taken from NASA's multi-national Terra satellite on Thursday shows the extent of the freezing weather

Last week, as Britain froze, Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband maintained in a parliamentary answer that the science of global warming was ‘settled’.

Among the most prominent of the scientists is Professor Mojib Latif, a leading member of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which has been pushing the issue of man-made global warming on to the international political agenda since it was formed 22 years ago.

Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start.

He and his colleagues predicted the new cooling trend in a paper published in 2008 and warned of it again at an IPCC conference in Geneva last September.

Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 per cent.

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'They have now gone into reverse, so winters like this one will become much more likely. Summers will also probably be cooler, and all this may well last two decades or longer.

‘The extreme retreats that we have seen in glaciers and sea ice will come to a halt. For the time being, global warming has paused, and there may well be some cooling.’

As Europe, Asia and North America froze last week, conventional wisdom insisted that this was merely a ‘blip’ of no long-term significance.

Though record lows were experienced as far south as Cuba, where the daily maximum on beaches normally used for winter bathing was just 4.5C, the BBC assured viewers that the big chill was merely short-term ‘weather’ that had nothing to do with ‘climate’, which was still warming.

The work of Prof Latif and the other scientists refutes that view.

On the one hand, it is true that the current freeze is the product of the ‘Arctic oscillation’ – a weather pattern that sees the development of huge ‘blocking’ areas of high pressure in northern latitudes, driving polar winds far to the south.

Meteorologists say that this is at its strongest for at least 60 years.

As a result, the jetstream – the high-altitude wind that circles the globe from west to east and normally pushes a series of wet but mild Atlantic lows across Britain – is currently running not over the English Channel but the Strait of Gibraltar.

However, according to Prof Latif and his colleagues, this in turn relates to much longer-term shifts – what are known as the Pacific and Atlantic ‘multi-decadal oscillations’ (MDOs).

For Europe, the crucial factor here is the temperature of the water in the middle of the North Atlantic, now several degrees below its average when the world was still warming.

But the effects are not confined to the Northern Hemisphere. Prof Anastasios Tsonis, head of the University of Wisconsin Atmospheric Sciences Group, has recently shown that these MDOs move together in a synchronised way across the globe, abruptly flipping the world’s climate from a ‘warm mode’ to a ‘cold mode’ and back again in 20 to 30-year cycles.

'They amount to massive rearrangements in the dominant patterns of the weather,’ he said yesterday, ‘and their shifts explain all the major changes in world temperatures during the 20th and 21st Centuries.

'We have such a change now and can therefore expect 20 or 30 years of cooler temperatures.’

Prof Tsonis said that the period from 1915 to 1940 saw a strong warm mode, reflected in rising temperatures.

But from 1940 until the late Seventies, the last MDO cold-mode era, the world cooled, despite the fact that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere continued to rise.

Many of the consequences of the recent warm mode were also observed 90 years ago.

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For example, in 1922, the Washington Post reported that Greenland’s glaciers were fast disappearing, while Arctic seals were ‘finding the water too hot’.

It interviewed a Captain Martin Ingebrigsten, who had been sailing the eastern Arctic for 54 years: ‘He says that he first noted warmer conditions in 1918, and since that time it has gotten steadily warmer.

'Where formerly great masses of ice were found, there are now moraines, accumulations of earth and stones. At many points where glaciers formerly extended into the sea they have entirely disappeared.’

As a result, the shoals of fish that used to live in these waters had vanished, while the sea ice beyond the north coast of Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean had melted.

Warm Gulf Stream water was still detectable within a few hundred miles of the Pole.In contrast, Prof Tsonis said, last week 56 per cent of the surface of the United States was covered by snow.

‘That hasn’t happened for several decades,’ he pointed out. ‘It just isn’t true to say this is a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while.’

He recalled that towards the end of the last cold mode, the world’s media were preoccupied by fears of freezing.

For example, in 1974, a Time magazine cover story predicted ‘Another Ice Age’, saying: ‘Man may be somewhat responsible – as a result of farming and fuel burning [which is] blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the Earth.’

Prof Tsonis said: ‘Perhaps we will see talk of an ice age again by the early 2030s, just as the MDOs shift once more and temperatures begin to rise.’

Like Prof Latif, Prof Tsonis is not a climate change ‘denier’. There is, he said, a measure of additional ‘background’ warming due to human activity and greenhouse gases that runs across the MDO cycles.

'This isn't just a blip. We can expect colder winters for quite a while'But he added: ‘I do not believe in catastrophe theories. Man-made warming is balanced by the natural cycles, and I do not trust the computer models which state that if CO2 reaches a particular level then temperatures and sea levels will rise by a given amount.

'These models cannot be trusted to predict the weather for a week, yet they are running them to give readings for 100 years.’

Prof Tsonis said that when he published his work in the highly respected journal Geophysical Research Letters, he was deluged with ‘hate emails’.

He added: ‘People were accusing me of wanting to destroy the climate, yet all I’m interested in is the truth.’

He said he also received hate mail from climate change sceptics, accusing him of not going far enough to attack the theory of man-made warming.

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The work of Profs Latif, Tsonis and their teams raises a crucial question: If some of the late 20th Century warming was caused not by carbon dioxide but by MDOs, then how much?

Tsonis did not give a figure; Latif suggested it could be anything between ten and 50 per cent.

Other critics of the warming orthodoxy say the role played by MDOs is even greater.

William Gray, emeritus Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Colorado State University, said that while he believed there had been some background rise caused by greenhouse gases, the computer models used by advocates of man-made warming had hugely exaggerated their effect.

Dr David Viner stands by his claim that snow will become an 'increasingly rare event'

According to Prof Gray, these distort the way the atmosphere works. ‘Most of the rise in temperature from the Seventies to the Nineties was natural,’ he said. ‘Very little was down to CO2 – in my view, as little as five to ten per cent.’

But last week, die-hard warming advocates were refusing to admit that MDOs were having any impact.

In March 2000, Dr David Viner, then a member of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit, the body now being investigated over the notorious ‘Warmergate’ leaked emails, said that within a few years snowfall would become ‘a very rare and exciting event’ in Britain, and that ‘children just aren’t going to know what snow is’.

Now the head of a British Council programme with an annual £10 million budget that raises awareness of global warming among young people abroad, Dr Viner last week said he still stood by that prediction: ‘We’ve had three weeks of relatively cold weather, and that doesn’t change anything.

'This winter is just a little cooler than average, and I still think that snow will become an increasingly rare event.’

The longer the cold spell lasts, the harder it may be to persuade the public of that assertion.

Leading climate scientist challenges Mail on Sunday's use of his research [see above for Mail on Sunday’s article]The GuardianBy David Adam12/01/10

Mojib Latif denies his research supports theory that current cold weather undermines scientific consensus on global warming

A leading scientist has hit out at misleading newspaper reports that linked his research to claims that the current cold weather undermines the scientific case for manmade global warming.

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Mojib Latif, a climate expert at the Leibniz Institute at Kiel University in Germany, said he "cannot understand" reports that used his research to question the scientific consensus on climate change.

He told the Guardian: "It comes as a surprise to me that people would try to use my statements to try to dispute the nature of global warming. I believe in manmade global warming. I have said that if my name was not Mojib Latif it would be global warming."

He added: "There is no doubt within the scientific community that we are affecting the climate, that the climate is changing and responding to our emissions of greenhouse gases."

A report in the Mail on Sunday said that Latif's results "challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy's most deeply cherished beliefs" and "undermine the standard climate computer models". Monday's Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph repeated the claims.

The reports attempted to link the Arctic weather that has enveloped the UK with research published by Latif's team in the journal Nature in 2008. The research said that natural fluctuations in ocean temperature could have a bigger impact on global temperature than expected. In particular, the study concluded that cooling in the oceans could offset global warming, with the average temperature over the decades 2000-2010 and 2005-2015 predicted to be no higher than the average for 1994-2004. Despite clarifications from the scientists at the time, who stressed that the research did not challenge the predicted long-term warming trend, the study was widely misreported as signalling a switch from global warming to global cooling.

The Mail on Sunday article said that Latif's research showed that the current cold weather heralds such "a global trend towards cooler weather".

It said: "The BBC assured viewers that the big chill was was merely short-term 'weather' that had nothing to do with 'climate', which was still warming. The work of Prof Latif and the other scientists refutes that view."

Not according to Latif. "They are not related at all," he said. "What we are experiencing now is a weather phenomenon, while we talked about the mean temperature over the next 10 years. You can't compare the two."

He said the ocean temperature effect was similar to other natural influences on global temperature, such as volcanos, which cool the planet temporarily as ash spewed into the atmosphere reflects sunlight.

"The natural variation occurs side by side with the manmade warming. Sometimes it has a cooling effect and can offset this warming and other times it can accelerate it." Other scientists have questioned the strength of the ocean effect on overall temperature and disagree that global warming will show the predicted pause.

Latif said his research suggested that up to half the warming seen over the 20th century was down to this natural ocean effect, but said that was consistent with the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "No climate specialist would ever say that 100% of the warming we have seen is down to greenhouse gas emissions."

The recent articles are not the first to misrepresent his research, Latif said. "There are numerous newspapers, radio stations and television channels all trying to get our attention. Some overstate and some want to downplay the problem as a way to get that attention," he said. "We are trying to

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discuss in the media a highly complex issue. Nobody would discuss the problem of [Einstein's theory of] relativity in the media. But because we all experience the weather, we all believe that we can assess the global warming problem."

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