Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Test your genes for cancer? 23andme.com

Your 23andMe scan includes genetic analysis on all of the following diseases, traits, and conditions. This list grows every month as new research is published.

Clinical Reports (23)
Clinical Reports give you information about conditions and traits for which there are genetic associations supported by multiple, large, peer-reviewed studies. Those associations must also have a substantial influence on a person's chances of developing the disease or having the trait. Because these associations are widely regarded as reliable, we use them to develop quantitative estimates and definitive explanations of what they mean for you.
Age-related Macular Degeneration
Alcohol Flush Reaction
Bitter Taste Perception
Celiac Disease
Crohn's Disease
Cystic Fibrosis (Delta F508 mutation)
Earwax Type
Eye Color
G6PD Deficiency
Lactose Intolerance
Malaria Resistance (Duffy Antigen)
Muscle Performance
Non-ABO Blood Groups
Norovirus Resistance
Parkinson's Disease
Prostate Cancer
Psoriasis
Resistance to HIV/AIDS
Rheumatoid Arthritis
Sickle Cell Anemia & Malaria Resistance
Type 1 Diabetes
Type 2 Diabetes
Venous Thromboembolism

Research Reports (72)
Research Reports give you information from research that has not yet gained enough scientific consensus to be included in our Clinical Reports. This research is generally based on high-quality but limited scientific evidence. Because these results have not yet been demonstrated through large, replicated studies, we do not perform complete quantitative analyses of their effects. We do, however, explain how they may–if confirmed–affect your odds of having or developing a trait, condition or disease.
Research Reports also includes scientifically accepted, established research that does not have a dramatic influence on a person's risk for a disease.
Alcohol Dependence
Aneurysm
Ankylosing Spondylitis
Antidepressant Response
Asthma
Atrial Fibrillation
Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Avoidance of Errors
Back Pain
Baldness
Beta-Blocker Response
Bipolar Disorder
Birth Weight
Bladder Cancer
Blood Glucose
Breast Cancer
Breast Cancer
C-reactive Protein Level
Caffeine Metabolism
Celiac Disease
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia
Cluster Headaches
Colorectal Cancer
Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
Developmental Dyslexia
Endometriosis
Esophageal Cancer
Eye Color
Food Preference
Freckling
Gallstones
Glaucoma
Gout
HDL Cholesterol Level
HIV Progression
Hair Color
Heart Attack
Height
Heroin Addiction
High Blood Pressure (Hypertension)
Kidney Disease
Larynx Cancer
Longevity
Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS)
Lung Cancer
Lupus (Systemic Lupus Erythematosus)
Male Infertility
Measures of Intelligence
Memory
Multiple Sclerosis
Neuroblastoma
Nicotine Dependence
Obesity
Obesity
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
Odor Detection
Oral and Throat Cancer
Osteoarthritis
Pain Sensitivity
Peripheral Arterial Disease
Persistent Fetal Hemoglobin
Placental Abruption
Pre-eclampsia
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy
Restless Legs Syndrome
Schizophrenia
Sjögren's Syndrome
Skin Cancer
Stomach Cancer
Tardive Dyskinesia
Tourette's Syndrome
Uterine Fibroids
The genotyping services of 23andMe are performed in LabCorp's CLIA-registered laboratory. The results presented in Health and Traits have not been cleared or approved by the FDA but have been analytically validated according to CLIA standards.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Study: Vitamins E and C Fail to Prevent Cancer in Men

A large clinical trial of almost 15,000 male doctors taking vitamins E and C for up to 10 years has found that neither supplement had any effect on cancer rates, including cancer of the prostate.

The study comes on the heels of a disappointing finding regarding vitamin E reported late last month. After following 35,000 men taking selenium and vitamin E, investigators halted their trial because no benefit was seen and in some supplement users there appeared to be a slight increase in the risk of cancer or diabetes.

An author of the current study, an abstract of which was presented on Monday at the American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Washington, D.C., said his trial found neither risk nor benefit to use of the vitamins.

“The good news is you don’t appear to be hurting yourself ,” said Howard D. Sesso, an assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. But, he added, “There’s very little evidence to recommend taking these supplements for prevention of cancer, particularly in the case of vitamin E.”

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Achilles' Heel Of Pancreatic Cancer Discovered

UC Davis Cancer Center researchers have discovered a metabolic deficiency in pancreatic cancer cells that can be used to slow the progress of the deadliest of all cancers.
Published in the October issue of the International Journal of Cancer, study results indicate that pancreatic cancer cells cannot produce the amino acid arginine, which plays an essential role in cell division, immune function and hormone regulation. By depleting arginine levels in cell cultures and animal models, the team was able to significantly reduce pancreatic cancer-cell proliferation.
"There have been few significant advances in 15 years of testing available chemotherapy to treat pancreatic cancer," said Richard Bold, chief of surgical oncology at UC Davis and senior author of the study. "The lack of progress is particularly frustrating because most patients are diagnosed after the disease has spread to other organs, eliminating surgery as an option. We have to turn back to basic science to come up with new treatments."
Bold explained that average survival time for those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer is just four-and-a-half months, although chemotherapy can extend that prognosis up to six months.
"There is a dire need to find new options for these patients. While our findings do not suggest a cure for pancreatic cancer, they do promise a possible way to extend the life expectancies of those diagnosed with it," Bold said.
Bold and his colleagues hypothesized that pancreatic cancer cells lack the ability to produce arginine. In human pancreatic tumors, they measured levels of an enzyme — argininosuccinate synthetase — required to synthesize arginine.
The enzyme was not detected in 87 percent of the 47 tumor specimens examined, suggesting that the majority of pancreatic cancers require arginine for cell growth because of an inability to synthesize the amino acid.
The researchers then conducted further tests using pancreatic cell lines that represent the varying levels of argininosuccinate synthetase observed in human tumor specimens. Focusing on the lines with lowest levels, the researchers depleted arginine levels in cultures of pancreatic cell lines using arginine deiminase, an enzyme isolated from a Mycoplasma bacteria.
The enzyme was modified by adding polyethylene glycol chains to increase size and circulatory time.
The researchers found that exposing the pancreatic cancer cell lines to the modified arginine deiminase enzyme inhibited cancer-cell proliferation by 50 percent. They then treated mice bearing pancreatic tumors with the same compound and found an identical outcome: a 50 percent reduction in tumor growth. According to Bold, the current study represents a unique approach to cancer treatment in that it is one of the first to identify a metabolic pathway that can be leveraged to interrupt cancer growth.
"Instead of killing cells as with typical chemotherapy, we instead removed one of the key building blocks that cancer cells need to function," Bold said.
Metabolic interruptions like this one are also being studied for their potential in treating cancers of the blood, such as leukemia and lymphoma. In those cases, depleting the amino acid asparagine may be used in slowing cancer-cell growth.
Bold and his colleagues are continuing their laboratory work on the effects of arginine deprivation on pancreatic cancer. They will next be looking for ways to increase pancreatic cell sensitivity to arginine deprivation.
The researchers have also begun designing human clinical trials in cooperation with the manufacturer of arginine deiminase, Polaris Pharmaceuticals.
"We're looking at whether we can combine this treatment with certain kinds of chemotherapy," Bold said. "This additional research is needed to inform the clinical work and move it forward more quickly. The better we understand this process, the more we can use it in the fight against pancreatic cancer."
Additional study authors included Tawnya Bowles, Joseph Galante, Colin Parsons and Subbulakshmi Virudachalam of the UC Davis Department of Surgery; and Randie Kim and Hsing-Jien Kung of the UC Davis Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Epeius Biotechnologies Corporation announced today the expansion of clinical trials using intravenous Rexin-G for pancreatic cancer and breast cancer in Manhattan, New York. Rexin-G is the world's first tumor-targeted genetic medicine that is designed to seek out and destroy both primary tumors and metastatic cancers that have spread throughout the body. Clinical data from on-going studies in Los Angeles, California, indicating dose-dependent tumor control rates and survival benefits with no major toxicity in Rexin-G-treated patients prompted the extension of these clinical trials to the East Coast. Rexin-G has gained orphan drug status from the U.S. FDA for three clinical indications: pancreatic cancer, osteosarcoma and soft tissue sarcoma.
The New York clinical trials will be conducted at the Bruckner Oncology Center in Manhattan, New York with Howard W. Bruckner, M.D. as the Principal Investigator. Dr. Bruckner is a board certified medical oncologist who trained at Yale University School of Medicine and performed research at the NIH with specialists and collaborative groups. Dr. Bruckner is internationally renowned for his work in pancreatic, breast, gastrointestinal, colon, and ovarian cancers and was the first medical oncologist to treat patients with Rexin-G for advanced pancreatic cancer in the United States (Int'l J Oncol 2006). He has served as an Expert Consultant and Safety Monitor for the National Surgical Adjuvant Project for Breast and Bowel Cancers Project (NSABP) sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. For further information concerning these clinical trials in New York, please go to http://www.clinicaltrials.gov and search Epeius-sponsored protocols C07-104 and C07-105.

Digestive Care Completes NDA Submission for Pancreatic Drug

US-based pharmaceutical company Digestive Care has completed the submission of the new drug application for Pancrecarb, used in the treatment of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency, to the FDA.

The FDA has previously granted the product fast track designation and approved a rolling new drug application (NDA) submission schedule.


The company has recently announced results of the completed randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multi-center, crossover study on Pancrecarb.

Tibor Sipos, president and chief scientific officer of Digestive Care, said: "Pancrecarb is a unique bicarbonate buffered enteric-coated formulation of pancrelipase that has been an essential component of the armamentarium for the treatment of exocrine pancreatic insufficiency associated with cystic fibrosis and other diseases affecting the pancreas."

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.

After months of battling pancreatic cancer, actor Patrick Swayze is speaking out about the difficulties that have come with his struggle.

"How do you nurture a positive attitude when all the statistics say you’re a dead man?" Swayze told the New York Times. "You go to work."

The 56-year-old actor and star of upcoming A&E series "The Beast" says that his work has been what has helped him through his struggle with his diagnosis.

While he has been healthy enough to continue working, Swayze told the Times that cancer has been a "battle zone." "Chemo, no matter how you cut it, is hell on wheels."

When the news of Swayze's illness surfaced in March, several reports claimed that he had only weeks to live.

But his physician George Fisher, an associate professor of teaching at Stanford University Cancer Center offered a more optimistic take on the actor's condition.

"Patrick has a very limited amount of disease and he appears to be responding well to treatment thus far. All of the reports stating the timeframe of his prognosis and his physical side effects are absolutely untrue," Fisher said in a statement.

Caught in its advanced stages, pancreatic cancer, which strikes about 30,000 people a year, has a less than 5 percent survival rate for five years. If caught early and treated aggressively with surgery and chemotherapy — and if the cancer has not spread to lymph nodes — the five-year survival rate can go as high as 17 to 25 percent, said Avram Cooperman, surgical director for the Pancreas and Biliary Center at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan.

"I've made a pretty decent mark so far – nothing to scoff at," he said. "But it does make you think: Wait a minute. There’s more I want to do. Lots more. Get on with it."