Breast cancer survivors 'do not exercise enough'

   

Adults should exercise regularly, guidelines say

Exercise can aid recovery after breast cancer but many women are not active enough, a study suggests.

Being active is known to be beneficial but US researchers, writing in the journal Cancer, said they had found many women did too little.

Only a third met recommended activity levels.

UK breast cancer groups said women here also needed more support to keep active after having the disease.

Caroline Dalton, Breakthrough Breast Cancer

The American study looked at the pre and post-diagnosis exercise levels of 1,735 women aged 20-74 who had breast cancer between 2008 and 2011 in North Carolina.

In the US and the UK, adults are recommended to do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity physical activity each week.

But this study found only 35% of women who had experienced breast cancer met the physical activity guidelines.

 'Helps patients cope'

In the UK, campaigners said women here also needed to exercise more.

Caroline Dalton, of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "Physical activity after a breast cancer diagnosis has been shown to improve a patient's chances of survival and there is also some evidence that it may help to reduce the risk of breast cancer returning.

"Keeping active may also help patients cope, both during and after treatment, by improving general health and wellbeing."

She added: "Although this study was conducted in America rather than the UK, the results suggest that women who have received a breast cancer diagnosis need better support to keep active."

"There are no specific guidelines in place at the moment to tell us precisely how much physical activity is needed after a breast cancer diagnosis, but Breakthrough Breast Cancer suggests aiming for 3.5 hours per week, after checking with your treatment team to see what is appropriate for you."

Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive at Breast Cancer Campaign, said: "This study serves as a reminder of how important it is that women with breast cancer are made aware that physical activity can improve their chances of survival. 

"Recent research has shown that even small increases to the amount of exercise done after a breast cancer diagnosis can give women a better chance of survival.

"This is why it is essential that women are given a clear written follow-up care plan, which should include practical advice about diet and exercise."

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Although this study was conducted in America rather than the UK, the results suggest that women who have received a breast cancer diagnosis need better support to keep active”

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Karachi airport attack: 11 ASF men among 22 martyred.

 KARACHI: Twenty-two people (ASF) were martyred in a harrowing armed assault by terrorists clad in ASF uniforms on Karachi airport late Sunday night.  

 Ten terrorists were killed in the retaliatory action by the security forces at Karachi Jinnah International Airport in the dark of the night as random echoes of gunshots and blasts filled the air from some portions of the tarmac area.
According to the security forces, 10 terrorists heavily laced with state-of-the-art weapons sneaked into the airport minutes before mid night from Terminal one.They opened indiscriminate fire and blew up explosives targeting the ASF personnel standing guard. This spread terror as airport staff on ground ran here and there for safety while passengers and those accompanying them were overcome by a chilling fear.
Contingents of police and Rangers rushed to the site of terror strike and without wasting any time engaged in the counter-terror mission. The attack was intense, as trigger-happy armed-to-teeth terrorists continued the killing spree inside the biggest airport of Pakistan. In view of the gravity and scale of the deadly attack, well-prepared army troops also reached the airport to take the fight to its logical end.
Following a well coordinated strategy, the army and Rangers took their positions and succeeded in first tracing and then hunting down the terrorists who were hiding in different parts of the airports.
Ten terrorists were taken out in the joint action while 47 rifles, hand grenades, RPGs, and other arms were seized.
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed credit for the attack.

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Exposure to Bacteria Lowers Toddlers’ Risk of Wheezing.

 

Children who did not have wheezing or sensitivity at the age of three were more likely to have been exposed to allergens, such as those found in cats, when they were one. 

          According to a new study, exposing toddlers to a combination of certain allergens and bacteria can help reduce the children's risk of developing wheezing and allergic diseases. The researchers reported that exposure should ideally occur before the toddlers turn one.

In this study, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the researchers examined data gathered by the Urban Environment and Childhood Asthma (URECA). URECA has enrolled 560 children since it started in 2005. The children were from four large cities, which were Baltimore, Boston, New York and St. Louis. They were all considered high risk for asthma or allergies because they had at least one parent with these conditions.

The researchers tracked the infants and measured their frequency of wheezing episodes. They also recorded the levels of the five most common allergens that exist in the inner-city, which were cat, cockroach, dog, dust mite and mouse. The team found that exposure to cockroach, mouse and cat within the first year of life was tied to a reduced risk of wheezing by the time the infants turned three.

In a smaller study that also examined data from the URECA sample, researchers divided 104 children into four groups, which were wheezing only, allergen-sensitivity only, wheezing and allergen-sensitivity, and neither. They discovered that children who did not have wheezing or sensitivity at the age of three were more likely to have been exposed when they were one. The combination of bacteria mainly included those found in house dust. The researchers identified the bacteria as belonging to the Bacteriodes and Firmicutes.

"These observations support the emerging concept that early-life exposure to high bacterial diversity may protect kids from developing allergies. Most importantly, the findings show that this protection is even stronger when children also encounter high allergen levels during this time," written in the press release.

The study, "Effects of early life exposure to allergens and bacteria on recurrent wheeze and atrophy in urban children," was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

Tags Bacteria, wheezing, Toddler, infant, Exposure, allergens, Health

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Woman loses accent after suffering migraine.

  

JULIE MATTHIAS: speaks in foreign accents since her migraine

JULIE MATTHIAS, from Chatham in Kent, says she lost her “chav” accent in 2011 and has since been diagnosed with the very rare Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS).

The mother of two has been mistaken for a South African, an Italian and a French woman, on one occasion she says she was even racially abused because of it.

She commented “People take the Mick and say I am speaking French-ese- a cross between French and Chinese. Before it happened I was Chatham chav, I had a typical local accent as I was born and bred here and still live here.”

Julie, a 49-year-old hairdresser, says she has completely lost her local Chatham accent and now only ever speaks in foreign accents -around 60 people are affected by FAS worldwide.

Matthias, who runs a hairdressing salon in Gillingham, fell ill in 2011 and, at the time, thought she had had a stroke as, when she tried to speak, she barely recognised her own voice. She was later referred to Kings College Hospital in London where she consulted with various doctors, among them a speech therapist and a neurologist, and was eventually diagnosed with FAS.

The voice change is just one of the many symptoms of the rare condition which can sometimes leave her unable to walk for up to eight days at a time. She commented that she had to take each day one at a time and couldn’t make any plans as she never knew when she would be OK and when the FAS would leave her incapacitated.

Experts are now using her case for research in a new book.

Sleep's memory role discovered.

The mechanism by which a good night's sleep improves learning and memory has been discovered by scientists.

 The team in China and the US used advanced microscopy to witness new connections between brain cells - synapses - forming during sleep.

Their study, published in the journal Science, showed even intense training could not make up for lost sleep.

Experts said it was an elegant and significant study, which uncovered the mechanisms of memory.

It is well known that sleep plays an important role in memory and learning. But what actually happens inside the brain has been a source of considerable debate.

Researchers at New York University School of Medicine and Peking University Shenzhen Graduate School trained mice in a new skill - walking on top of a rotating rod.

They then looked inside the living brain with a microscope to see what happened when the animals were either sleeping or sleep deprived.

Their study showed that sleeping mice formed significantly more new connections between neurons - they were learning more.

 
A connection between two brain cells.

And by disrupting specific phases of sleep, the research group showed deep or slow-wave sleep was necessary for memory formation.

During this stage, the brain was "replaying" the activity from earlier in the day.

Prof Wen-Biao Gan, from New York University, told the BBC: "Finding out sleep promotes new connections between neurons is new, nobody knew this before.

"We thought sleep helped, but it could have been other causes, and we show it really helps to make connections and that in sleep the brain is not quiet, it is replaying what happened during the day and it seems quite important for making the connections."

Analysis

This is just the latest piece of science to highlight the importance of sleep.

A new reason for sleep was discovered last year when experiments showed the brain used sleep to wash away waste toxins built up during a hard day's thinking.

However, there are concerns that people are not getting enough sleep.

As part of the BBC's Day of the Body Clock, Prof Russell Foster argued that society had become "supremely arrogant" in ignoring the importance of sleep, leading to "serious health problems".

These include:

• cancer
• heart disease
• type-2 diabetes
• infections
• obesity

The reward for more sleep, Prof Foster argues, is we would all be "better human beings."

Further tests showed how significant sleep was.

Mice doing up to an hour's training followed by sleep were compared with mice training intensively for three hours but then sleep deprived.

The difference was still stark, with the sleepers performing better and the brain forming more new connections.

Prof Gan added: "One of the implications is for kids studying, if you want to remember something for long periods you need these connections.

"So it is probably better to study and have good sleep rather than keep studying."

Commenting on the findings, Dr Raphaelle Winsky-Sommerer, from the University of Surrey, told the BBC: "This is very impressive, carefully crafted and using a combination of exquisite techniques to identify the underlying mechanisms of memory.

"They provide the cellular mechanism of how sleep contributes to dealing with experiences during the day.

"Basically it tells you sleep promotes new synaptic connections, so preserve your sleep."

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Were bodies of Brazil's poor used for organ research?

Reports suggest some 3,000 bodies have been illegally buried in the cemetery of Perus.

 Brazil's prosecutors are investigating allegations that organs are being illegally taken from unidentified bodies and sold for medical research.There are claims that organs were taken from bodies without proper efforts to find the relatives and obtain their consent, prosecutors told the BBC.The Coroner's Service in Sao Paulo is the focus of the investigation.Officials of the Coroner's Service, or SVO, deny any illegal activity, saying procedures were followed at all times.Until recently, people who died in the street or in public hospitals were buried as paupers if their bodies were not reclaimed by relatives within 72 hours. The SVO says procedures have since been improved.Selling organs is against Brazilian law.

'Mass graves'

Sao Paulo's office of public prosecutors told the BBC their investigation, which began last November, was prompted by claims from relatives who said authorities had not made proper efforts to contact them before their loved ones were buried in the cemetery of Perus. 

 

Unidentified bodies are buried in mass graves marked only by numbers.

  

 Relatives claimed the authorities did not contact them before burying their loved ones.

 

Later, two witnesses also told prosecutors that organs from some of the bodies had been removed and sold for medical research.

Prosecutors say they currently have no material proof of trade in human organs.

But investigations suggest that over the last 15 years the bodies of 3,000 people have been taken from the autopsy centre to mass graves - even though they had documents identifying them.

'No legal obligation'

The SVO is run by pathology teachers from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Sao Paulo - one of Brazil's most prestigious universities.

The SVO's director, doctor Luiz Fernando Ferraz da Silva, told BBC Brasil that the service acts "strictly within the law" and that bodies are "generally... buried intact".

"There are specific situations in which organs are used, but always with the purpose of being used for research," he said.

"But where patients' bodies are not claimed, that does not happen."

When asked about the allegations that organs were sold for medical research, he said that information required by the investigating authorities would be sent directly to them.

 Continue  reading the main story.

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D-Day: Francois Hollande's plea to fight threats to peace.

Every year I lay a cross at graves"

 Honouring the sacrifices of those who fought on D-Day, Francois Hollande has urged people to fight today's threats to peace with equal vision and courage.

 The French president was addressing world leaders and almost 2,000 veterans in Normandy on the 70th anniversary of the momentous World War Two mission.

Mr Hollande said today's threats included terrorism, global warming and mass unemployment.

The Queen said the day was filled with "sorrow and regret" as well as "pride".

Earlier, the monarch laid a wreath at a military cemetery in Bayeux.

'Helped end war'

The main ceremony took place on the French northern coast at Sword Beach, the code name for one of the Allies' five landing points where, following Mr Hollande's speech, scenes from the invasion were re-enacted.

The 1944 landings - involving 156,000 troops - were the first stage of the invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. 

 

  The Queen attended a ceremony at Bayeux cemetery along with other royals and French Prime Minister Manuel Valls

 

 

 

 

 Large screens at the Sword Beach ceremony showed veterans as part of the coverage

 

 

 

 

 The crowds were treated to a flypast by aircraft from World War Two, including Lancasters and Spitfires.

 

 The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge attended a tea party in Arromanches, near Gold landing beach

 

By the end of D-Day on 6 June 1944, the Allies had established a foothold in France - an event that would eventually help bring the war to an end.

More than 4,000 British, American and Canadian troops lost their lives on that first day of the battle.

Continue reading the main story

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