Low levels of vitamin D in newborns may increase the risk of respiratory infections and wheezing in children, but not asthma, according to an international study.

In some previous studies, a link has been found between vitamin D deficiency and increased risk of cognitive impairment and memory robbing condition dementia later in life.

Some other studies also touted the 'sunshine' vitamin as an effective and trustworthy nutrient packed with numerous health benefits, including warding off heart disease.

An earlier research has showed that women who take vitamin D supplements during pregnancy are less likely to have offspring who develop wheezing during childhood.

Vitamin D deficiency linked to wheezing, respiratory infections
Now researchers at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have suggested that newborn babies who are deficient in vitamin D seem to be more vulnerable to respiratory infections in their first few months of life, and wheezing during early childhood.

Carlos Camargo, MD, DrPH, of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston, who led the study, said that acute respiratory infections make children prone to health risks.

"For example, bronchiolitis - a viral illness that affects small airway passages in the lungs - is the leading cause of hospitalization in U.S. infants," he said.

Study details:

To reach findings, Camargo and researchers from New Zealand analyzed data from the New Zealand Asthma and Allergy Cohort Study, which followed 922 children in the cities of Wellington and Christchurch, for whom umbilical cord [The flexible cordlike structure connecting a fetus at the abdomen with the placenta and containing two umbilical arteries and one vein that transport nourishment to the fetus and remove its wastes.] blood was available.

According to WebMD.com, of the study infants, most were born at term, 40 weeks, with an average weight of about 3.6 kilograms.

As per the health website, the participants' mothers were also frequently asked about their children's history of asthma, wheezing, respiratory infection and other infectious diseases from age 3 months until the children were 5-years-old.

The children's umbilical chord blood was measured for levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) that is reflective of vitamin D status.

Study findings:

After testing the blood for 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) and comparing with parental reports of wheezing, asthma diagnoses and respiratory infection five years later, the researchers found that the overall average cord-blood level of 25(OH)-vitamin D was 44 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L), which was considered low.

Also 20 percent or slightly fewer than one in five had 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels below 25 nmol/L, which is considered insufficient.

Vitamin D deficiency was more common among children born in the winter, infants and children from lower socioeconomic status, and children who had family histories of asthma and smoking and who had been exposed to secondhand smoke at an early age.

Compared with infants whose cord blood levels were at least 75 nmol/L, those with levels between 25 and 74 nmol/L had a 39 percent increased risk of infection, and those with levels below 25 nmol/L were twice at risk.

"Or data suggest that the association between vitamin D and wheezing, which can be a symptom of many respiratory diseases and not just asthma, is largely due to respiratory infections," said Camargo.

"There's a likely difference here between what causes asthma and what causes existing asthma to get worse. Since respiratory infections are the most common cause of asthma exacerbations, vitamin D supplements may help to prevent those events, particularly during the fall and winter, when vitamin D levels decline and exacerbations are more common. That idea needs to be tested in a randomized clinical trial, which we hope to do next year."

The study findings appear in the January issue of the journal 'Pediatrics.'

A little about vitamin D
Vitamin D is also called the "sunshine vitamin" because of its exceptional quality of being produced by the body by just basking in the warm sun.

It is a fat-soluble vitamin that is naturally present in very few foods but is available as a dietary supplement.

As little as 30 minutes of early morning or late afternoon sunlight on the face, hands and arms two or three times a week can supply the entire Vitamin D one needs.

In addition, many experts recommend 400-600 IU a day for people over the age of 50, and 800 IU for those over the age of 70. For younger adults, 200-400 IU a day is probably sufficient.

Chilean researchers are developing a vaccine against alcoholism that could be tested on humans starting next year and works by neutralizing an enzyme that metabolizes alcohol.

The genetic therapy is based on aldehyde dehydrogenase, a group of enzymes that metabolize alcohol and are thus responsible for alcohol tolerance, said Juan Asenjo, who heads a team of researchers at Chile's Faculty of Sciences and Mathematics and the private lab Recalcine.

About 20 percent of the Asian population lacks this enzyme and thus experience "such a strong reaction that it discourages consumption," he added.

The vaccine would similarly increase unease, nausea and tachycardia (accelerated heart beat).

"With the vaccine, the desire to consume alcohol will be greatly reduced thanks to these reactions," Asenjo told Radio Cooperativa.

Researchers have already successfully tested the vaccine on rats who were dependent on alcohol, and got them to halve their consumption.

"The idea is to have 90-95 percent reduction of consumption for humans," Asenjo said.

It would work like patches or pills that help smokers kick the habit, but with better efficiency by specifically targeting liver cells and avoiding collateral effects on all cells.

This year, researchers plan to focus on mass production of virus cells and conduct tests on animals to determine proper dosage before launching human tests in 2012.

In October, US researchers announced they had discovered a gene variation known as CYP2EI that can protect against alcoholism and could lead to a preventative treatment.

Early detection & prevention: Healthcare IT. www.siemens.com/answers

London, Jan 7 (IANS) Green tea could be a far more powerful medicine for fighting cancer and dementia, experts have claimed.

Scientists were astounded at how effectively compounds within the drink, once they reached the gut, protected cells from attack, reports express.co.uk.

The green tea not only battled against toxins that allow plaques to build up in the brain, which lead to Alzheimer's, but it also stopped cancer cells from dividing.

The research by Newcastle University was carried out only on cells in a laboratory but scientists insist this provides an insight into how the tea will work in our bodies.

Ed Okello, from the university's School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, said: 'What was really exciting about this study was that we found, when green tea is digested by enzymes in the gut, the resulting chemicals are actually more effective against key triggers of Alzheimer's development than the undigested form of the tea.'

'In addition, we found the digested compounds had anti-cancer properties, significantly slowing down the growth of the tumour cells which we were using in our experiments,' he added.

The only problem with the results is the huge amounts of green tea should be drunk to gain the same effects.

But Okello pointed out : 'There are many factors that together have an influence on diseases such as cancer and dementia - a good diet, plenty of exercise and a healthy lifestyle are all important.'

'But it's fair to say that at least one cup of green tea every day may be good for you and I would certainly recommend it,' he added.

Going bald? Blame stem cell inactivation, say researchers.

A new study, led by George Cotsarelis of University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, has found that stem cells do play an unexpected role in explaining what happens in bald scalp, the 'Journal of Clinical Investigation' reported.

Using cell samples from men undergoing hair transplant, the researchers compared follicles from bald scalp and non-bald scalp, and found that bald areas had the same number of stem cells as normal scalp in the same person.

However, they did find that another, more mature cell type called a progenitor cell was markedly depleted in the follicles of bald scalp.

The researchers surmised that balding may arise from a problem with stem-cell activation rather than the numbers of stem cells in follicles. In male pattern balding, hair follicles actually shrink; they don't disappear. The hairs are essentially microscopic on the bald part of the scalp compared to other spots.

"We asked: 'Are stem cells depleted in bald scalp?' We were surprised to find the number of stem cells was the same in the bald part of the scalp compared with other places, but did find a difference in the abundance of a specific type of cell, thought to be a progenitor cell.

"This implies that there is a problem in the activation of stem cells converting to progenitor cells in bald scalp," Cotsarelis said.

At this point, the researchers don't know why there is a breakdown in this conversion. "However, the fact that there are normal numbers of stem cells in bald scalp gives us hope for reactivating those stem cells," said Cotsarelis.

In 2007, the researchers found that hair follicles in adult mice regenerate by re-awakening genes once active only in developing embryos.

In the latest study, the team also found a progenitor cell population in mice that is analogous to the human cells; these cells were able to make hair follicles and grow hair when injected into an immunodeficient mice.

The researchers say their next steps will be to study the stem and progenitor populations in other types of hair loss, including female pattern hair loss.

The information may assist in developing cell-based treatments for male pattern balding by isolating stem cells and expanding them to add back to the scalp directly.

They will also focus on identifying factors that could be used topically to convert stem cells to progenitor cells to generate normal large hairs.

The research was funded in part by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases; the Pennsylvania Department of Health; the Fannie Gray Hall Center for Human Appearance; and L'Oreal.

Chubbiness in babies may be a sign of good health, but it may also be a warning sign of obesity in early childhood.

In a newly published study, babies who weighed the most at the age of 9 months tended to be among the heaviest when they reached age 2.

The study is among the first to track the weight of a nationally representative sample of very young children; researchers say it suggests that even babies are not exempt from the obesity epidemic.

"We are certainly not saying that overweight babies are doomed to be obese adults," study researcher Brian Moss, PhD, of Detroit's Wayne State University tells WebMD. "But we did find some evidence that being overweight at 9 months of age is a predictor of being overweight or obese later in childhood."
Heavy Baby, Heavy Kid?

Since there is no accepted measure of obesity in very young children, Moss and colleagues considered kids in the study to be at risk for becoming obese if their weight was in the 85th to 95th percentile on standard growth charts.

For the purposes of the study, babies and 2-year-olds whose weight was above the 95th percentile were considered obese.

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, the researchers tracked the weight of around 7,500 children at age 9 months and 2 years. The children were born in 2001.

They concluded that around 32% of the children were either at risk for becoming obese or were obese at the age of 9 months and 34% were at risk or obese by the age of 2.

Children who were considered obese at the age of 9 months had the highest risk for being obese at age 2.

Forty-four percent of babies who met the study's definition of obese remained obese at age 2. The overall percentage of children considered obese increased from 17% at 9 months to 20% at age 2.

Hispanic children and children living in low-income families had the highest risk for obesity at both time points. At age 2, 40% of children living in the lowest income homes were obese or at risk for obesity, compared to 27% of children living in the highest income homes.

And 40% of Hispanic children were obese or at risk, compared to 31% of whites and 35% of blacks.

The study appears in the January-February 2011 issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion.
Expert: 'Keep Junk Food Out of Diet'

While baby fat may prove to be a predictor of being overweight in childhood, no one is suggesting putting babies on diets.

Childhood obesity expert Joyce Lee, MD, of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, says babies who are exclusively breastfed or bottle-fed should never be denied the breast or bottle.

Once solid foods are introduced, however, Lee says parents can and should make healthy choices for their children.

"These days, children are introduced to junk food at earlier and earlier ages," she says. "I know of 9-month-olds who eat French fries. "

She says keeping junk foods out of young children's diets and including lots of fruits and vegetables can have a big impact on a young child's weight.

Lee is an assistant professor in pediatric endocrinology and health services research at the University of Michigan.

"You can't tell a 9-month-old or a 2-year-old to eat right and exercise more, but you can make healthy choices for them," she says.