ogs really are our best friends, according to a Swedish study that says canine ownership could reduce heart disease. A study of 3.4 million people between the ages of 40 and 80 found that having a dog was associated with a 23% reduction in death from heart disease and a 20% lower risk of dying from any cause over the 12 years of the study. Previous studies have suggested dogs relieve social isolation and depression – both linked to an increased risk of heart disease and early death.

Dog owners show better responses to stress (their blood pressure and pulse rates don’t soar), have higher levels of physical activity and slightly lower cholesterol levels. The American Heart Association was sufficiently swayed by a review of dozens of studies to release a statement in 2013 saying that owning a dog “was probably” associated with a reduced risk of heart disease. Their reluctance to more strongly endorse dog ownership is because most studies are what is called observational – researchers note an association, but can’t prove causation. This means that other factors might explain why dog owners are healthier than, say, goldfish owners – for example, perhaps only people who are fit in the first place buy pets that need daily walkies.

Tove Fall, an epidemiologist and the lead author of this latest study, says they tried their best to allow for any differences in education, existing ill-health and lifestyles between those with and without dogs. The study found the biggest positive impact of having a dog was on people living alone. “It seems that a dog can be a substitute for living with other people in terms of reducing the risk of dying,” says Fall. “Dogs encourage you to walk, they provide social support and they make life more meaningful. If you have a dog, you interact more with other people. If you do get ill and go into hospital and you have a dog, there’s a huge motivation to try to get back home.”

Of course, getting a dog and watching it from your sofa while you eat fatty food is not going to reduce your risk of heart disease. And a toy dog may look cute, but won’t have any effect either. Fall’s study showed the most health benefits came from having retrievers or pointers. Until her German shorthaired pointer died last year, she ran 10km with her most days. “In Sweden, we have one of the lowest rates of dog ownership in Europe,” says Fall, who has recently got a new puppy. “Maybe this will increase the acceptance that dogs are important to people.”

Source https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/dec/04/is-owning-a-dog-good-for-your-health

Ibuprofen taken by women in their first three months of pregnancy might reduce a daughter’s number of eggs, potentially affecting the child’s future fertility, according to research carried out on human cells in the lab.

It is generally thought that women are born with a fixed number of eggs, although controversial recent research has challenged the idea that adult ovaries are unable to produce more.

Previous work in rodents has suggested that painkillers including ibuprofen might affect the ovaries and hence fertility, while recent research in men has linked prolonged high doses of ibuprofen to disruption of male sex hormones. Up to 30% of women are thought to take ibuprofen during pregnancy.

“We know that fertility rates have declined over recent years, and essentially we are looking for a potential reason why that might be the case,” said Rod Mitchell, co-author of the research from the University of Edinburgh. “Because it is a relatively recent decline, it is felt that environmental factors [including painkillers] in addition to societal factors might have a role to play.”

Writing in the journal Human Reproduction, Mitchell and colleagues from France and Denmark report how they examined the impact of ibuprofen on developing ovaries using ovarian tissue taken from 185 terminated human foetuses aged between seven and 12 weeks.

In the first step of the study, the team analysed blood taken from the umbilical cords of 13 of the foetuses whose mothers had taken ibuprofen in the hours before termination, to reveal that ibuprofen did indeed cross the placental barrier.

For each of the 185 foetuses, tissue was then cultured under multiple conditions, with one sample exposed to no ibuprofen and others bathed in various concentrations of the drug in a dish, reflecting concentrations that would circulate in humans.

After seven days, compared to samples not exposed to ibuprofen, those bathed in the painkiller at a concentration on a par with the cord blood levels had an average of 50% fewer ovarian cells, and between 50 and 75% fewer “germ cells” – cells that develop into eggs. This was down to an increase in cell death and fewer cells multiplying.

Further experiments showed that the damage began as early as two days after exposure to the ibuprofen for foetuses aged 8–12 weeks. After a five day recovery period for a subset of the samples, only a partial recovery from the effects of the ibuprofen was observed, but only germ cells appeared to bounce back.

But Mitchell cautions that the situation in the body might differ from that in a dish, that it is not clear what level of germ cell loss would be tolerated before fertility is affected, or whether the ovaries could more fully recover over a longer period.

“If we see effects on germ cells, which we do in the dish, that could indicate that there are potential for effects in ‘real life’ and potential for effects on fertility – but we haven’t shown or proved that by what we have done [in this study],” he said.

For pregnant women, he added “The advice doesn’t change,” noting that they should take painkillers only when necessary, and at the lowest dose for the shortest time possible. Currently pregnant women are advised to choose paracetamol over ibuprofen, and not to take ibuprofen after 30 weeks.

William Colledge, professor of reproductive physiology at the University of Cambridge, who was not involved in the research, said the study was interesting since it looked at a period in which women might not realise they were pregnant. But he had reservations.

“It is a big step to go from something that happens in the petri dish to saying, well, that definitely may happen in a pregnant woman – although it shows that we could be cautious,” he said, adding that the number of germ cells in the ovaries naturally declines from a peak of about three million mid-pregnancy. “At best [women] are only releasing one [egg] each month. So you can cope with the loss of quite a lot of these eggs,” he said.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/02/ibuprofen-taken-in-early-pregnancy-could-affect-daughters-fertility-study

A new study raises a novel idea about what might trigger celiac disease, a condition that makes patients unable to tolerate foods containing gluten.

The study suggests that a common virus may be to blame.

For people with celiac disease, gluten can wreak havoc on their digestive systems. Their immune systems mistake gluten as a dangerous substance.

Scientists have known for a while that genetics predisposes some people to celiac. About 30 percent of Americans carry the genes that make them more susceptible to the disease. And yet, only about one percent of Americans have celiac.

Researchers wondered why not everyone with the risk genes gets the disease.

The answer is likely complicated, but one theory has emerged. Perhaps a “viral infection can serve as a trigger to celiac,” explains Dr. Terence Dermody, who chairs the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh, and is an author of the new study published in Science.

He and a team of collaborators, led by Bana Jabri of the University of Chicago, decided to test this in experimental mice. They had been studying reovirus – a common virus that infects most Americans beginning in childhood, yet isn’t considered dangerous. The researchers genetically engineered the mice to be more susceptible to celiac disease. Then they exposed mice to reovirus. At the same time they also fed gluten to the mice.

“It’s all about the timing,” Dermody says. The idea is that when the virus and gluten are introduced at the same time, the immune system mistakes the gluten-containing food as dangerous.

But could this be true in humans too?

The second phase of the new study suggests an answer. Dermody and his collaborators analyzed the antibody levels to various viruses in a group of people. They found people who have celiac disease have two- to five-fold higher levels of reovirus-specific antibodies.

“It’s a clue that people who have celiac may have been exposed to reovirus before the development of their disease,” Dermody says. But, he stresses that “it’s just a clue.”

It will take a long time to figure out if there’s a causal link between reovirus infections and the onset of celiac disease. Dermody envisions a study involving thousands of children who would be followed for several years. For now, he and his collaborators have some grant funds from the National Institutes of Health to continue their research.

The upside of understanding this possible connection is significant, explains Dr. Bana Jabri, of the University of Chicago, who is a co-author of the new study.

If it’s true that the virus can trigger celiac disease, then young children who carry the risk genes for celiac could be vaccinated against Reovirus. “It may be useful to start thinking about vaccinating people who are at a high risk of celiac disease against [these] types of viruses,” she says.

Links between viral infection and the development of auto-immune disorders such as celiac disease have been proposed before, “but this is the first tractable experimental model to tackle this question,” says Julie Pfeiffer, an Associate Professor of Microbiology at University of Texas Southwestern, who has followed the research, but is not involved in the new study. Given the interest and the findings, “more studies in humans are warranted,” she says.

As awareness of celiac disease has grown, so too has the number of people experimenting with gluten-free diets due to concerns about gluten sensitivities. This is evident from the growth in gluten-free food sales and most recently, the introduction of gluten-free dining halls on two college campuses.

Source: http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/04/08/523002516/when-gluten-is-the-villain-could-a-common-virus-be-the-trigger

Oooooh, I love this stuff. It’s like becoming the new general of an army. OK, here’s what I would do to win your new team over. First, have a plan. You’re a manager for a reason. Figure out what the company needs and turn that into a strategy. Make a great presentation and have a rousing team meeting to present it. Ask for your team’s ideas: they should contribute and help shape the direction of the work. Get them fired up that you are going to make a change.

After the meeting, take your team out. Make an effort to speak to everyone and find out what motivates them. Some people are driven by money, some by targets, some by family expectations. This will be useful for you to know.

Quietly leave at a respectable time and write up all the notes from the meeting. You’re the manager: they need to know that you got this role because you go above and beyond. Earn their respect. Also, it will be fresh in your head because you were drinking lemonade – you’re the responsible one now.

Draft an email to send the next day, which is a recap of the meeting. (Send it at 7am so they can read it on the way to work and not waste desk time doing so.) Call out and praise specific people who contributed great ideas: this shows you’re not afraid to give credit. Make sure you end with an action list, so everyone knows what to do.

Schedule one-to-one meetings with everyone. In these chats, make sure they know what their part of the strategy is and the tangible targets to measure their success. Ask them what they think might be in their way – note it down, because it’s now on you to help them do their job.

Let a fortnight go by and repeat. Good management doesn’t happen by accident, and it’s also never-ending. Congrats and good luck.

Source https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/feb/05/made-manager-first-time-what-do-sharmadean-reid