Walking Speed, Hand Strength Predict Deadly Conditions?

(American Health Newswire) - Dementia and stroke affect thousands of Americans each year, with stroke being the third leading cause of death. However, simple tests such as walking speed and hand grip strength are helping doctors determine how likely it is a middle-aged person will develop these debilitating, often fatal, diseases.

Erica C. Camargo, MD, MSc, PhD, with the Boston Medical Center and her colleagues performed basic office tests to gain insight into the risk of dementia and stroke. More than 2,400 men and women, with an average age of 62, participated in this study.  Volunteers underwent tests for walking speed, hand grip strength and cognitive function. Brain scans were also performed. During the follow-up period of up to 11 years, 34 people developed dementia and 70 people had a stroke.

The study found people with a slower walking speed in middle age were one-and-a-half times more likely to develop dementia compared to people who walk faster. Stronger hand grip strength was associated with a 42 percent lower risk of stroke or transient ischemic attack (TIA) in people over age 65 compared to those with weaker hand grip strength. This was not the case, however, for people in the study under age 65.

"While frailty and lower physical performance in elderly people have been associated with an increased risk of dementia, we weren't sure until now how it impacted people of middle age," said Camargo.

Researchers also found that slower walking speed was associated with lower total cerebral brain volume and poorer performance on memory, language and decision-making tests. Stronger hand grip strength was associated with larger total cerebral brain volume as well as better performance on cognitive tests asking people to identify similarities among objects.

"Further research is needed to understand why this is happening and whether preclinical disease could cause slow walking and decreased strength," Camargo was also quoted as saying.

SOURCE: American Academy of Neurology, February, 2012

New Approach to Fighting Cancer

(American Health Newswire) - Blocking autophagy - the process of "self-eating" within cells - is turning out to be a viable way to enhance the effectiveness of a wide variety of cancer treatments.

Autophagy increases in cancer cells. Normally, it serves as a survival pathway, allowing a cell to recycle damaged proteins when it's under stress and reuse the damaged parts to fuel further growth. It is believed, that cancer cells might be addicted to autophagy, since this innate response may be a critical means by which the cells survive nutrient limitation and lack of oxygen commonly found within tumors. And, it is likely to explain how some cancer cells evade chemotherapies by using, essentially, a work around.

Ravi K. Amaravadi, MD, an assistant professor of Medicine at the Perelman School of Medicine and Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania discovered that adding hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) - an FDA-approved drug used commonly for malaria and rheumatoid arthritis - to many cancer therapies, including chemotherapy, targeted therapy, radiation, and immunotherapy, can enhance the antitumor activity of these drugs in laboratory models of treatment-resistant cancers, and ongoing clinical trials.

Nearly 30 phase I and Phase II clinical trials involving HCQ have been launched or are in planning stages in many different malignancies, including melanoma, multiple myeloma, renal cell carcinoma, colon cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, and others.
 

Preliminary results for most of the trials are encouraging. "Our assays performed on human blood and tissue samples indicate that high doses of HCQ are required to block autophagy in patients, and in some cases, such as in a brain tumor trial, these high doses, in combination with specific anticancer agents, can lead to toxicity for the tumor," says Amaravadi. "As the first phase I trials of HCQ are being completed, it is clear that in most cases the high-dose HCQ, in combination with existing cancer therapy is well tolerated."

Randomized controlled trials using HCQ combinations to truly determine the effectiveness of the approach are planned. While these are being considered, the team will conduct additional laboratory experiments to identify more potent and specific inhibitors of autophagy and to identify biomarkers that can predict which patients are most likely to respond to this approach. To that end, Amaravadi's lab has identified a compound called Lys05, which is 10-fold more potent than HCQ at blocking the cell from giving the cancer cell a source of raw energy.

"While our knowledge of the role of autophagy in cancer is still in its infancy, the opportunity to learn about autophagy, both at the bench and the bedside, could accelerate the translation of basic advances in this field into clinical benefit for patients with cancer," says Amaravadi.

SOURCE: Annual American Association for Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, February 2012.

New Hepatitis C Treatment

With an impending spike in illnesses among the hepatitis-C-infected population in the United States, researchers and physicians have been developing new tests and treatments. The latest in a series of improved therapies - and the focus of the study - are two new virus-targeting drugs called protease inhibitors, boceprevir (trade name Victrelis) and telaprevir (trade name Incivek).