News

Friday, March 23, 2007

Monday, March 5, 2007

Research links vasectomy with higher dementia risk

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- Men who have had a vasectomy may face an increased risk of developing a rare type of dementia marked by a steady loss of language skills, researchers said Tuesday.

Researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois, writing in the journal Cognitive and Behavioral Neurology, linked this male sterilization surgery to a neurological condition called primary progressive aphasia, or PPA.

They surveyed 47 men with the condition being treated at Northwestern's Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center, as well as 57 men who did not have PPA. Their ages ranged from 55 to 80.

Of those with primary progressive aphasia, 40 percent had undergone a vasectomy, compared with 16 percent of the others. Those with PPA also suffered the ailment an average of four years earlier than the others.

Preliminary data also linked vasectomies to another form of dementia involving behavioral changes. Among 30 men with frontotemporal dementia, more than a third had undergone a vasectomy, the researchers said.

Sandra Weintraub, who led the study, acknowledged that the research involved a small number of people and said she planned to conduct a larger national study to see whether the findings hold up. In the meantime, she said her findings should not stop men from getting vasectomies.

"I was hoping not to, but unfortunately it's the kind of news that ends up scaring people even though they may not need to be scared," Weintraub said in an interview.

"This was just a clinical observation that started with one of my patients telling me that he first noticed the onset of his symptoms a couple of years after he had a vasectomy, and he wondered whether that might have something to do with it," Weintraub said. "In his mind, these things were connected."

Primary progressive aphasia, which affects people usually after age 50, can be mistaken for Alzheimer's disease since initial symptoms are similar. In this incurable disorder, nerve cells die in the brain region responsible for language skills.

It causes people's language capabilities to decline steadily, with symptoms such as faulty recollection of names of people and things, difficulties in speech, reading and writing, and poor comprehension.

A vasectomy is an operation in which the tubes through which sperm travels are cut, leaving sperm unable to reach the testes and making a man unable to impregnate a woman.

The study did not look at the mechanism behind any link between PPA and vasectomies, but Weintraub said it may be because the surgery allows sperm to leak into the blood. Antibodies produced by the immune system in response to the sperm might trigger damage that causes dementia, she said.

Bob Woodruff recovering, able to speak

NEW YORK (AP) — Five weeks after ABC anchorman Bob Woodruff was seriously injured in an Iraqi explosion, he remains hospitalized but is able to say a few words and is starting to walk, his brother said Tuesday.
Woodruff suffers from serious head injuries and other wounds in an Iraqi explosion. Woodruff suffers from serious head injuries and other wounds in an Iraqi explosion.
ABC

"In the last couple of days, he's taken a lot of great leaps forward," David Woodruff said. "He's definitely doing so much better."

Bob Woodruff and ABC cameraman Doug Vogt were standing in the hatch of an Iraqi mechanized vehicle, reporting on the war from the Iraqi troops' perspective, when the roadside bomb exploded Jan. 29. Both were wearing body armor, which doctors say likely saved their lives.

The men underwent surgery in Germany before being flown to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

Woodruff, 44, still is on heavy pain medication as his body recovers from the serious head injuries and other wounds. But he recognizes people, he can tell his daughter he loves her, and the multilingual journalist has even said a few words in Chinese and German, his brother David Woodruff told ABC's Good Morning America.

The first response David Woodruff recalls getting from his brother in the hospital was a smile when he told him: I hate to tell you this, but you still have a face for TV.

"My brother's been an overachiever his entire life. I think none of us expected him to do anything less in this whole process," David Woodruff said. "We know that top on his mind is getting back to his family, to his kids and getting back to doing what he loves to do."

Bob Woodruff grew up near Detroit in Oakland County's Bloomfield Township and is a 1979 graduate of Cranbrook Schools in Bloomfield Hills.

Vogt left Bethesda Medical Center in late February and returned home to France, where he is undergoing rehabilitation, the network said.

Charles Gibson and Diane Sawyer have been substituting for Woodruff, who started as co-anchor of ABC's World News Tonight with Elizabeth Vargas earlier this year.

Saturday, March 3, 2007

If you've had a traumatic day, sleeping it off might not be the best idea.

New research out of the Medical University of Lübeck in Germany suggests that sleep following learning could bolster long-term retention of emotional memories. Therefore, a nap after trauma could increase the likelihood that a patient will develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the psychological fallout of a horrific experience. Symptoms of PTSD include nightmares, flashbacks, emotional detachment, clinical depression and anxiety. The research is published in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

Neuroendocrinologist Ullrich Wagner had one group of subjects read a text designed to provoke an emotional response—the passage either detailed the sexual problems of a paraplegic man or the various killing procedures of a child murderer—and a control group read an emotionally neutral text on either bronze sculpture or dressmaking patterns. The subjects rated their emotional reactions to the pieces, and Wagner measured galvanic skin response—the change in the skin's ability to conduct electricity—to get an objective measure of emotional response. Then half of each group slept for three hours while the others were kept awake.
Advertisement
<A TARGET="_blank" HREF="http://ad.doubleclick.net/click%3Bh=v8/350a/3/0/%2a/x%3B75931486%3B4-0%3B0%3B15440334%3B4307-300/250%3B20048306/20066200/1%3B%3B%7Efdr%3D70529221%3B0-0%3B0%3B13617627%3B4307-300/250%3B19772224/19790118/1%3B%3B%7Esscs%3D%3fhttp://www.intel.com/core2duo?ppc_cid=c2dMulRe1H07us_125"><IMG SRC="http://m1.2mdn.net/1058302/300x250_mult_yourlife_REF.gif" BORDER=0></A>

Four years later, Wagner called his subjects to see if they remembered what they had read. The subjects who read an emotional text and slept afterward exhibited significantly greater recall than any other group.

"The main finding in the present study is that only three hours of sleep after learning exert a memory-enhancing effect that persists over several years," Wagner said.

James McGaugh, a neurobiologist at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine, said Wagner's results make sense.

"It's just a fact that we remember accidents, insults, embarrassments, praises, prizes, failures. All of those events are remembered selectively better—either a little better, or a lot better—than emotionally neutral or less exciting events," he said. "[And] most fair-minded people would say, 'Yes, if you learn something and fall asleep, there's pretty convincing evidence that you're going to remember something better later on than if you learn something and stay awake.'"

But Wagner said the exciting part of the study was the duration of the effect.

"This is remarkable, because normally in studies on sleep effects on memory, the memory test is performed immediately after sleep or wakefulness," he said. "So it was widely unknown so far how long such sleep effects can persist."

Wagner noted that his experiments were performed on healthy individuals, so he can't make any certain conclusions about clinical applications without further study. But he said his findings do suggest that keeping people awake after a trauma could help dull memory formation, decreasing the likelihood that they would develop PTSD.

But our bodies may have already discovered this technique, Wagner said.

"The frequent observation in cases of traumatic experiences that sleep is disrupted involuntarily in the nights following trauma means that possibly 'the body' already knows that sleeping less after the trauma may help to prevent a deeper engraving of the traumatic event in memory," he said, "which could later result in PTSD."

Friday, February 23, 2007

Lawmaker Sugimura continues to have woman trouble

LDP lawmaker Taizo Sugimura is in trouble again. The 26-year-old exchanged engagement presents in a customary ceremony on April 8 and is now awaiting his wedding day, or so it seemed. But once again a scandal with a woman has surfaced for the young politician.

"I would like to ask you about the night you spent with 'Miss A' last year on Oct 21," a Shukan Post reporter asked Sugimura in an office building of the Lower House recently.

Sugimura's face turned pale and his appearance became unsettled as soon as he heard the woman's name. "There is nothing to say. If you'll excuse me, I have to go to a meeting," he said, hurrying away.

On May 11, he is scheduled to get married, but not to Miss A. Not only that, right before the announcement of his engagement in March,news of an affair with the secretary of former PM Tsutomu Hata surfaced.

Miss A, who is only 19, lives in Tokyo. She resembles the actress Hinano Yoshikawa. She was only 18 when she met and spent the night with Sugimura last October. Unlike Sugimura, she has been willing to tell her side of the story.

"On Oct 14, I went out to a club with a girlfriend of mine," A said. "The staff invited us to the VIP lounge saying that 'the Taizo' was there. It was right after the election and I was curious to meet the person of the moment."

Once in the VIP room, she said they celebrated with champagne. "If the media ever takes a picture of me right now, it would be worth at least 5 million yen, because I am hot!" bragged Sugimura.

Miss A, who was preparing for a college entrance exam at the time, was uncertain about her future. Sugimura had told her that he would listen to her problems, and had given her his cell phone number and email address that he "rarely gives out," A recalled.

Sugimura emailed and phoned her several times after the initial encounter. "When he sent me an email, it was all in hiragana. I couldn't stop myself from laughing," she said.

The second encounter happened suddenly on Oct 21, a week after the initial contact, when Sugimura called her. "Let's have dinner together. I can listen to your concerns about your future," he told her.

She accepted the invitation as she was depressed from studying for the exam too much and wanted to get out. "He called me again and told me to come to a hotel he was staying at," A said. She questioned him about the wisdom of having dinner together, and said that Sugimura told her: "I am surrounded by the media and the only safe place I can see you is the hotel room."

She arrived at the hotel room just after 11 p.m. "He was drinking beer and requested room service send up vanilla ice cream, a basket of fruit and champagne," she said. The two ate a bento which Sugimura had brought back to Tokyo from a campaign speech earlier that day in Miyagi Prefecture.

With a view of the Diet out the window, Sugimura talked passionately how becoming a politician was his childhood dream and that he wanted to become the prime minister one day.

As for her future, A said he told her: "I recommend you to go to this community college. The students there party more than study. If you go there, I can make you a fashion model, too. I've got connections."

But she wondered if going to a four-year-college was a better option. "I dropped out of college but I was able to land a job at a foreign company and also was able to become a politician. One's academic record is not so important," he assured her.

He also said having a part-time job during college days is a valuable experience. "What job was the best one of all?" she asked. "When I was a bartender, a lot of girls asked me out. Those were good days," he replied. As the talking continued, he continued to hold her hand and looked into her eyes.

The two awoke the next morning. Sugimura told Miss A that he could get her anything she wanted for her upcoming birthday, except a car, and that he wanted to see her at least once a week. She wanted to know how he felt about her and asked if he had a girlfriend. "That's not important," he said, avoiding her question.

Miss A said Sugimura gave her 5,000 yen for a taxi back home. "That was the last time I saw him," she said. "His advice was not really helpful and I thought I didn't want to see him any more."

He emailed her once in March, asking how the entrance exam went. That was right before the big announcement of his engagement. "I was surprised to hear of his engagement as he had just emailed me at the time," she said.

Disappointed by his rudeness and by how he used his power as a politician to seduce her, Miss A decided to tell her story to Shukan Post.

Shukan Post contacted Sugimura through the phone number that Miss A had provided. He answered but when the Shukan Post reporter identified himself and requested an interview about Miss A, he quickly replied "I am in the middle of a meeting," and hung up. He has since declined numerous requests for an interview.

Sugimura has no sense of risk management as far as women are concerned. There was the girlfriend in his college days, who he told to have an abortion. There was the woman who suffered aphasia after she realized he had cheated on her. And there was the recent scandal of dating the secretary of another politician after the announcement of his engagement. (Translated by Toshiya Fujii)