WASHINGTON - RESEARCHERS and students at Carnegie Mellon University have developed a website which allows users to calculate their risk of dying.
DeathRiskRankings.com uses public data from the United States and Europe to compare mortality risks by gender, age, cause of death and geographic region.
'Most Americans don't have a particularly good understanding of their own mortality risks, let alone ranking of their relevant risks,' said David Gerard, a former engineering and public policy professor at Carnegie Mellon.
DeathRiskRankings.com can calculate a user's risk of dying within the next year or a longer period and rank the probable cause of death. Paul Fischbeck, professor of social and decision sciences and engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon, said it can provide comparisons between, for example, a 54-year-old Pennsylvania woman or her counterpart in Britain.
'It turns out that the British woman has a 33 per cent higher risk of breast cancer death,' said Prof Fischbeck, the site developer. 'But for lung-throat cancer, the results are almost reversed, and the Pennsylvania woman has a 29-percent higher risk.' The risks of dying in the next year increase exponentially with age.
A 20-year-old US woman has a one in 2,000, or 0.05 per cent, chance of dying in the next year. By age 40, the risk is three times greater, by age 60, it is 16 times greater, and by age 80, it is 100 times greater, around one in 20, or five percent.
'At 80, the average US woman still has a 95 per cent chance of making it to her 81st birthday,' said Gerard, who is now an associate professor of economics at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. Researchers said that when it comes to dying within the year, there are dramatic differences between comparative groups.
For every age group, men have a much higher annual death risk than women. For 20 year old males, the risk is 2.5 to three times greater with accidents with homicides and suicides accounting for 80 per cent of their death risks. By age 50, however, these causes make up less than 10 per cent of the risk for men and heart disease is number one, accounting for more than 30 per cent of all deaths. Women's cancer risks are actually higher than men's in their 30s and 40s.
For heart disease and cancer, US blacks have a much higher death risk than US whites with blacks in their 30s and 40s twice as likely to die within the year as their white counterparts.
Western Europeans have a greater risk of dying from breast and prostate cancer than people in the United States, but people in the United States have a greater chance of dying from lung cancer than people living in Western Europe.
Obesity-related death risks are much higher in the United States than in Europe. Prof Fischbeck and Gerard said they hope the website will contribute to the debate currently under way about health care in the United States.
'We believe that this tool, which allows anyone to assess their own risk of dying and to compare their risks with counterparts in the United States and Europe, could help inform the public and constructively engage them in the debate,' Prof Fischbeck said. -- AFP
Friday, August 28, 2009
Cancer cure in tick saliva?
SAO PAULO - IT MAY be one of nature's repulsive little blood-sucking parasites, but the humble tick could yield a future cure for cancers of the skin, liver and pancreas, Brazilian researchers have discovered.
They have identified a protein in the saliva of a common South American tick, Amblyomma cajennense, that apparently reduces and can even eradicate cancerous cells while leaving healthy cells alone.
'This is a radical innovation,' said Ana Marisa Chudzinski-Tavassi, the molecular biologist at the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo who is leading the research.
'The component of the saliva of this tick could be the cure for cancer,' she told AFP.
She said she stumbled on the properties of the protein, called Factor X active, while testing the anti-coagulant properties of the tick's saliva - the way it stops blood thickening and clotting so the tick can keep gorging itself on its host.
The protein shares some characteristics with a common anti-coagulant called TFPI (Tissue Factor Pathway Inhibitor), specifically a Kunitz-type inhibitor which also has been shown to interfere with cell growth.
A theory that the protein might have an effect on cancerous cells led to laboratory tests on cell cultures - which exceeded all expectations.
'To our surprise it didn't kill normal cells, which were also tested,' Dr Chudzinski-Tavassi said. 'But it did kill the tumorous cells that were being analysed.' In her modest lab in the institute, housed in a rundown building, a line of immobile bloated ticks could be seen lined up with straws under their heads.
The small amounts of saliva captured that way was reproduced many times over in yeast vats so that tests could be carried out on lab rats with cancer.
The results have been more than promising.
'If I treat every day for 14 days an animal's tumour, a small tumour, this tumour doesn't develop - it even regresses. The tumour mass shrinks. If I treat for 42 days, you totally eliminate the tumour,' the scientist said -- AFP.
They have identified a protein in the saliva of a common South American tick, Amblyomma cajennense, that apparently reduces and can even eradicate cancerous cells while leaving healthy cells alone.
'This is a radical innovation,' said Ana Marisa Chudzinski-Tavassi, the molecular biologist at the Instituto Butantan in Sao Paulo who is leading the research.
'The component of the saliva of this tick could be the cure for cancer,' she told AFP.
She said she stumbled on the properties of the protein, called Factor X active, while testing the anti-coagulant properties of the tick's saliva - the way it stops blood thickening and clotting so the tick can keep gorging itself on its host.
The protein shares some characteristics with a common anti-coagulant called TFPI (Tissue Factor Pathway Inhibitor), specifically a Kunitz-type inhibitor which also has been shown to interfere with cell growth.
A theory that the protein might have an effect on cancerous cells led to laboratory tests on cell cultures - which exceeded all expectations.
'To our surprise it didn't kill normal cells, which were also tested,' Dr Chudzinski-Tavassi said. 'But it did kill the tumorous cells that were being analysed.' In her modest lab in the institute, housed in a rundown building, a line of immobile bloated ticks could be seen lined up with straws under their heads.
The small amounts of saliva captured that way was reproduced many times over in yeast vats so that tests could be carried out on lab rats with cancer.
The results have been more than promising.
'If I treat every day for 14 days an animal's tumour, a small tumour, this tumour doesn't develop - it even regresses. The tumour mass shrinks. If I treat for 42 days, you totally eliminate the tumour,' the scientist said -- AFP.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
WORST CASE PREDICTIONS
DR FRIEDEN also distanced himself from some of the worst-case predictions outlined in the council's report, which included a 'plausible' estimate that between 30,000 and 90,000 people might die and up to 1.8 million might clog hospitals.
'Unfortunately, the media coverage of it was not nearly as balanced as the report itself,' Dr Frieden said.
'Everything we have seen in the US and everything we have seen around the world to date suggests that we won't see that kind of number if the virus doesn't change.' Because this virus is new, more people are susceptible to it and the World Health Organization has been predicting for months now that 2 billion people will likely become infected.
'We will do everything in our power to reduce the number of people who die,' Dr Frieden said.
But officials fear H1N1 could worsen as US schools start their fall terms. Dr Frieden fears there could be a rush of demand for vaccine if that happens.
'As people become sick or severely ill or die from flu we'll get an increased demand for the flu vaccine and that is one of the challenges we have,' he said.
The Health and Human Services department estimates only 45 million doses will be available by mid-October, with 20 million a week coming after that.
Asked about surveillance, Dr Frieden said that will be difficult, too. The new flu does not always show up on standard, on-the-spot flu tests given in doctor's offices.
Special tests to differentiate pandemic H1N1 from seasonal flu have been sent to every state health department but it will be impossible to test everyone with symptoms, the tests are not 100 per cent reliable, and there is not much point in testing everyone anyway, Dr Frieden said.
'Once flu is in the community most people with flu don't need to be treated,' he said. People at high risk of death or severe symptoms, such as pregnant women or people with asthma, need to be treated right away anyhow and it is not worth waiting to test them, he added. -- REUTERS
'Unfortunately, the media coverage of it was not nearly as balanced as the report itself,' Dr Frieden said.
'Everything we have seen in the US and everything we have seen around the world to date suggests that we won't see that kind of number if the virus doesn't change.' Because this virus is new, more people are susceptible to it and the World Health Organization has been predicting for months now that 2 billion people will likely become infected.
'We will do everything in our power to reduce the number of people who die,' Dr Frieden said.
But officials fear H1N1 could worsen as US schools start their fall terms. Dr Frieden fears there could be a rush of demand for vaccine if that happens.
'As people become sick or severely ill or die from flu we'll get an increased demand for the flu vaccine and that is one of the challenges we have,' he said.
The Health and Human Services department estimates only 45 million doses will be available by mid-October, with 20 million a week coming after that.
Asked about surveillance, Dr Frieden said that will be difficult, too. The new flu does not always show up on standard, on-the-spot flu tests given in doctor's offices.
Special tests to differentiate pandemic H1N1 from seasonal flu have been sent to every state health department but it will be impossible to test everyone with symptoms, the tests are not 100 per cent reliable, and there is not much point in testing everyone anyway, Dr Frieden said.
'Once flu is in the community most people with flu don't need to be treated,' he said. People at high risk of death or severe symptoms, such as pregnant women or people with asthma, need to be treated right away anyhow and it is not worth waiting to test them, he added. -- REUTERS
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