Baby Dies as New Milk Powder Scare Spreads Across China

Tainted milk formula has killed one baby and caused the development of kidney stones in dozens of others who may have drunk the same product, Chinese authorities concluded on Thursday, in a grim reminder of a milk-powder scandal that killed 13 infants four years ago.

Traces of cyanuramide, which can cause kidney stones, were found in Sanlu-brand milk formula, the Ministry of Health said late on Thursday. The Sanlu Group issued an immediate recall of milk formula made before Aug 6.

Doctors in Gansu Province, in northwestern China, told the Xinhua news agency this week that "fake milk powder" from one brand could have been responsible for kidney stones developing in 14 patients, all infants under 11 months.

Parents of the affected babies, mostly from poor and remote areas, said they had bought the powder much more cheaply than usual, Xinhua said.

Gansu health authorities were aware of the problem as early as July 16, after a local hospital reported seeing 16 babies with kidney stones who had all drunk the same brand of formula, Xinhua said, without explaining the delay in disclosure.

Dozens of other cases of babies developing kidney stones had been reported in Gansu this year, after none was reported in 2006 and 2007. It was unclear whether they had drunk the same brand of milk formula.

Cases of babies developing kidney stones had since emerged in two other hospitals in Gansu and also in Jiangsu, Shandong, Hunan, Anhui, Ningxia and Shaanxi, Xinhua said.

A Sanlu Group spokesman surnamed Cui said the milk powder may have been mislabeled and that "someone" might be counterfeiting their product, Xinhua said.

Sanlu Group, based in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, is partly owned by New Zealand dairy export giant Fonterra Co-operative Group Ltd. In a statement carried by the New Zealand Press Association, Fonterra said its Chinese partner was moving to ensure its products were safe.

Sanlu has previously been involved in quality scandals. Authorities in the northern port city of Tianjin seized hundreds of cases of mislabeled Sanlu-brand yoghurt in 2005.

Kidney stones are small, solid masses that form when salts or minerals normally found in urine crystallize inside the kidney.

If they become large enough, they can move out of the kidney, cause infection and lead to permanent kidney damage.

In 2004, at least 13 babies in eastern Anhui province died after drinking fake milk powder that investigators later found had no nutritional value, a scandal that rocked the country and triggered widespread investigations into food and health safety.

China is the world's second-biggest market for baby milk powder.

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Bacterial infections linked to cot deaths

The condition, also known as Sudden Infant Sudden Death Syndrome (SIDS), kills 250 babies in Britain every year but the exact cause is not known.

Parents have been advised not to smoke during or after pregnancy and put babies to sleep on their backs to avoid SIDS, but the precise reasons why this helps are not completely understood.

Now a new study has identified a bacterial infection that appears to contribute to some cot deaths.

The research, published in Archives of Disease in Childhood, found samples from babies who had died for no apparent reason often carried Staphylococcus aureus, a particularly virulent bacteria better known for the MRSA strain in which it becomes resistant to the antibiotic methicillin.

Associate professor Paul Goldwater, from The Women's and Children's Hospital and the University of Adelaide in Australia, analysed the post mortem reports for 130 babies who had died of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), 32 who had died suddenly as a result of infection, and 33 who had died of non-infectious cause, such as a road traffic accident.

He then analysed the bacterial isolates from "sterile" sites which are normally free of infections, such as heart blood or spleen in all of the babies.

Unsurprisingly he found infection at a sterile site was rare in those infants who had died of non-infectious causes and common in the babies who had died as a result of infection.

However he also found infection was relatively common in those babies that had died of SIDS.

In many cases, the infection was caused by S. aureus. a particularly virulent bacteria, known to produce potentially lethal toxins.

"The finding of S. aureus in a normally sterile site in a large proportion of cases of SIDS would indicate that a proportion of these babies died of staphylococcal disease," said Dr Goldwater.

S. aureus is common in organisms carried by most healthy adults and scientists said colonisation of infants does not imply lack of hygiene but is bound to happen.

Further research is now needed to find out how to prevent death involving these organisms.

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Painkillers Appear To Lower Prostate Cancer Marker

New research from the US found that men who regularly took common painkillers like aspirin and ibuprofen and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) had lower circulating levels of PSA (prostate-specific antigen), the biomarker that doctors use to assess whether a man is at risk of prostate cancer. However, the researchers were keen to stress that this does not necessarily mean that NSAIDs lower the risk of prostate cancer.

The study was the work of first author Dr Eric A Singer, chief urology resident at the Department of Urology, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York, and colleagues, and is published on 8th September in the online issue of Cancer.

Singer and colleagues said men should not start taking NSAIDs on the strength of their findings:

"We showed that men who regularly took certain medications like aspirin and other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDS, had a lower serum PSA level," said Singer, but he then added that:

"There's not enough data to say that men who took the medications were less likely to get prostate cancer."

He explained that this was a limited study, and they did not find out how many of the men they studied actually went on to get prostate cancer.

For the study, Singer and colleagues looked at data on 1,319 men over 40 who participated in the 2001-2002 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) conducted by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

They looked for links between the men's use of NSAIDs like aspirin and ibuprofen, and another painkiller, acetaminophen (paracetamol) and their PSA levels, and adjusted for the effects of: age, race, educational level, smoking status, body mass index, co-existing inflammations, and heart disease.

They found that regular use of NSAIDs was linked to a 10 per cent lower PSA level compared to non-use. The figures for acetaminophen (paracetamol) were similar but not statistically significant, because of the much smaller proportion of men who took this painkiller compared to the others. Only 1.3 per cent of the men regularly took acetaminophen (paracetamol) compared to 19.8 per cent who regularly took NSAIDs like aspirin and ibuprofen.

Singer and colleagues concluded that their findings:

"Suggest that regular NSAID consumption may reduce serum PSA levels. Whether this is indicative of a protective effect on prostate cancer risk or masks possible prostate injury resulting in reduced detection of prostate cancer is unclear. Given the widespread consumption of NSAIDs and the regular use of PSA for the assessment of prostate cancer risk, the potential implications of the current study's findings may be substantial and warrant further investigation."

While some people might suggest that a lower PSA level directly translates to a lower risk of prostate cancer, Singer and colleagues cautioned against this conclusion. Corresponding co-author, Dr Edwin van Wijngaarden who is assistant professor in the Department of Community and Preventive Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said:

"While our results are consistent with other research that indicates that certain painkillers may reduce a man's risk of getting prostate cancer, the new findings are preliminary and don't prove a link."

Singer added that PSA can go up for other reasons, not to do with cancer. PSA is also an indicator of inflammation that is often but not always linked to cancer, and reduced PSA could just mean that the inflammation has reduced without affecting cancer risk. It could also be possible that the NSAIDs have lowered the PSA and masked a man's risk of getting prostate cancer, but the real risk is unaltered, said Singer.

"These findings underscore the importance for doctors to know what medications their patients are on," said Singer. He said doctors were aware of medications used to treat an enlarged prostate that can also reduce PSA levels, but they should now also ask patients about their use of NSAIDs.

"The data is very interesting, but it will take more research to determine how to interpret the findings," said Singer, adding that:

In the meantime, this shouldn't change men's behavior or prompt them to take these medications to try to prevent prostate cancer."

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Physical Activity May Be Able To Counter Genetic Predisposition To Obesity

For people who have a genetic mutation that predisposes them to a high body mass index (BMI), physical activity may be a way for them to reduce their heightened risk for obesity. These findings are published in the September 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

Researchers and medical professionals have acknowledged that there exists a genetic component to BMI and obesity. In fact, the fat mass and obesity associated (FTO) gene variant has recently been shown to have a strong association with BMI. These gene mutations that are linked to obesity exists in some 30% of European populations and can lead to an about 3.9 pounds (1.75-kilogram) increase in body weight. Although additional contributions to weight gain relate to lifestyle factors such as diet and physical activity, it is now well understood how these factors affect or are affected by genetics.

This recent study, conducted by Evadnie Rampersaud, M.S.P.H., Ph.D. (University of Miami, but formerly of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore) and colleagues, included DNA analyses of 704 healthy Amish adults. The participants, about 43.6 years old and 53% men, were recruited from 2003 to 2007. In addition to a series of physiological tests, participants had physical activity monitored for seven days using an accelerometer.

The researchers found that 54% of men and 63.7% of women were overweight, with 10.1% of men and 30.5% of women classified as obese. The genetic analysis revealed that 26 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs - single base letter changes in DNA) in the FTO gene were linked with BMI.

After separating the participants into two groups that reflected physical activity levels, Rampersaud and colleagues studied the relationship between BMI and the two strongest SNPs. Only in individuals with low physical activity scores for age and sex were both SNPs associated with BMI. That is, the SNPs seemed to have no effect on individuals with above-average physical activity scores.

The authors clarify that, "Activity levels in the 'high-activity' stratum were approximately 900 calories [860 calories for women and 980 calories for men] higher than in the 'low-activity' stratum, which, depending on body size, corresponds to about three to four hours of moderately intensive physical activity, such as brisk walking, house cleaning or gardening."

"We have replicated the associations of common SNPs in the FTO gene with increased BMI and risk to obesity in the Old Order Amish," conclude the researchers. "Furthermore, we provide quantitative data to show that the weight increase resulting from the presence of these SNPs is much smaller and not statistically significant in subjects who are very physically active. This finding offers some clues to the mechanism by which FTO influences changes in BMI and may have important implications in targeting personalized lifestyle recommendations to prevent obesity in genetically susceptible individuals."

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Abused Children More Likely to Develop Asthma

A study by scientists at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has concluded that childhood abuse is a factor which influences chances that a person develops asthma. The researchers found that children in Puerto Rico who endure physical or sexual abuse are twice as likely to suffer from asthma as in their youth than those who do not face maltreatment.

The presence or absence of childhood abuse was shown to be more important for the development of asthma than the family's social status. Unfortunately, around 25 percent of Puerto Rican children are diagnosed with asthma during childhood. White, non-Hispanic children have a 13 percent chance of being diagnosed, while black children are facing a 16 percent chance.

The problem might be caused by a hormone called cortisol, which is frequently depleted in children who faced abuse. The hormone's functions include reducing inflammation, thus it might influence asthma and other types of inflammations. Cortisol is a corticosteroid hormone often referred to as the "stress hormone."

There's also the possibility that children were more likely to be abused because they had asthma. Overall, the study found that 20 percent of those who admitted past abuse suffered from asthma, compared to 11.5 percent of those who were not abused.

In mid-August, a study found that boys are more likely than girls to beat asthma by adolescence. Despite the fact that boys are more predisposed to childhood asthma, the study showed that more boys than girls grew out of the condition during puberty.

source : www.efluxmedia.com