FDA gives green signal to Novartis’s ‘Zykadia’ to treat lung cancer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has give its green signal to Novartis’s new therapy drug ‘Zykadia’(ceritinib) to treat a certain type of late stag non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

The early approval comes as a surprise as FDA was expected to finish reviewing the drug application by August 24, 2014 and then pronounce its verdict.

Zykadia is the fourth drug with breakthrough designation to get clearance from the U.S. regulator.

The new drug is an anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) tyrosine kinase inhibitor. It plays a crucial role by blocking the proteins that contributes to the development of cancerous cells.

According to FDA, Zykadia is strictly meant for those with ALK metastatic ALK-positive NSCLC and who were earlier treated with drug Crizotinib, the only approved treatment for the cancer till date.

Some of the common side effects of the drug include: vomiting, diarrhea, gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea and abdominal pain, increased liver enzymes, pancreatic enzymes and increased glucose levels.

In a statement, FDA’s Richard Pazdur said, “Today’s approval illustrates how a greater understanding of the underlying molecular pathways of a disease can lead to the development of specific therapies aimed at these pathways. It also demonstrates the FDA’s commitment to working cooperatively with companies to expedite a drug’s development, review and approval, reflecting the promise of the breakthrough therapy designation program.”

Pazdur is M.D., director of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research.

The FDA gave its nod following a clinical trial that included 163 patients with metastatic ALK-positive NSCLA. All of them were treated with Zykadia. While testing the safety and effectiveness of the drug, the researchers noticed that tumors in half of the patients shrank and the effect lasted on an average of seven months.

Source:

www.utahpeoplespost.com

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High-fibre diet 'benefits heart attack patients'

Fibre-rich foods, such as wholemeal bread, appear to help heart-attack survivors live longer

If you have had a heart attack, eat plenty of fibre because it may improve your long-term chances of recovery, say US researchers.

Heart-attack survivors were more likely to be alive nine years later if they followed a high-fibre diet, a study in the British Medical Journal found.

Every 10g-per-day increase in fibre intake was linked with a 15% drop in death risk during the study.

Dietary fibre may improve blood pressure and cholesterol, experts say.

On average, most people in the UK get about 14g of fibre a day, against a target of at least 18g. US experts recommend up to 38g a day.

Fruit, such as bananas and apples, root vegetables, such as carrots and potatoes, wholemeal bread, cereals and bran are all good sources of dietary fibre.

A jacket potato and baked beans contain about 10g of fibre; two slices of wholemeal bread about 4g.

Breakfast cereals

A low-fibre diet is associated with constipation and gut diseases, such as diverticulitis and bowel cancer, but it may also have implications for heart health, say US researchers.

The Harvard School of Public Health team analysed data from two large US studies involving more than 4,000 men and women who had survived a first heart attack and had provided information about their usual diet via questionnaires.

They were followed for an average of almost nine years after their heart attacks, during which time 682 of the women and 451 of the men died.

Chances of survival appeared to be linked with fibre intake, which was mostly from breakfast cereals.

The one in five who ate most fibre had a 25% lower chance of dying from any cause during the nine years after their heart attack compared with the fifth who ate the least.

The high-fibre group was 13% less likely to have a fatal heart attack.

The researchers say the findings point to a simple lifestyle step that people could take, alongside their medication, to improve their long-term health prospects.

Victoria Taylor, of the British Heart Foundation, said: "High-fibre foods are a key part of a healthy balanced diet, and this study suggests they may have a particular benefit for heart-attack survivors.

"We can't say for sure what caused the fibre benefit seen here, but we do know that, on average, we're not getting enough fibre in our diets.

"Fibre comes from a range of foods, including fruit and veg, beans and lentils, and also from cereal products, which this study found to be particularly beneficial.

"To get more fibre, you can make simple swaps, such as trading white bread for wholegrain versions or opting for higher-fibre breakfast cereals, like porridge or muesli."

Source:
www.bbc.com

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Insulin-producing cells derived from cloned human embryo

In a pioneering research involving stem cells, researchers in the US have successfully used a cloning technique to make insulin-producing cells with the DNA of a diabetic woman.

A team led by regenerative medicine specialist Dieter Egli at the New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute derived embryonic stem cells from a cloned embryo containing the DNA from a 32-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes.

The researchers also succeeded in differentiating these ES cells into insulin-producing cells - opening a new pathway for treating diabetes by replacing pancreatic cells.

"The new work is a step toward providing genetically matched replacement cells for transplant," Egli said.

To produce the cloned embryos, the researchers used an optimised version of the laboratory technique called somatic-cell nuclear transfer (SCNT).

In the technology, the nucleus from a patient's cell is placed into an unfertilised human egg which has been stripped of its own nucleus.

This reprogrammes the cell into an embryonic state.

SCNT was the technique used to create the first mammal cloned from an adult cell - Dolly the sheep - in 1996.

The eggs were grown into early embryos.

From these, the scientists removed stem cells, which can grow into any cell type in the body.

The scientists turned these stem cells into the insulin-producing cells.

According to researchers, the breakthrough is a step toward providing perfectly genetically matched replacement cells for transplant.

In a previous research this month, researchers led by Young Gie Chung and Dong Ryul Lee at the CHA University in Seoul reported in Cell Stem Cell that they had cloned embryonic stem-cell (ES cell) lines made using nuclei from two healthy men, aged 35 and 752.

The studies show that the technique works for adult cells and in multiple labs, marking a major step.

"It's important for several reasons," said Robin Lovell-Badge, a stem-cell biologist at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research in London.

The research has been published in the journal Nature.

Source:

www.business-standard.com

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Workers' Memorial Day observed

MANSFIELD — In the 1980s, managers from a Mansfield-area steel mill decided to reduce their labor force by equipping workers with remote devices designed to control trains transporting materials.

Danny Bradshaw’s brother was responsible for operating one of those devices.

Bradshaw said a defect in a remote control caused an accident where his brother was hit by the train. The crash cost him both of his legs.

“We didn’t even know if he was going to live,” Bradshaw said.

“He’s a tough guy.”

Bradshaw’s brother learned to walk with prosthetic legs. He convinced his family to let him return to the steel mill, where he worked for the next 15 years.

Bradshaw was one of several hundred people gathered Monday at the USW Local 169 Union Hall to share his family’s story at the Workers’ Memorial Day commemoration organized by the Crawford-Richland Central Labor Council AFL-CIO.

The event, which drew about 100 people, included a video presentation from Sen. Sherrod Brown as well as a slideshow listing the names of workers who died in Richland and Crawford counties last year in workplace-related accidents.

“I think this is a great way to pay tribute to those workers who gave their lives and the families who suffered or are still suffering,” Bradshaw said.

“It’s important that we recognize all our brothers and sisters who have lost their lives.”

AFL-CIO labor unions and others across the nation observe Workers’ Memorial Day every year on April 28 — the same day the Occupational Safety and Health Act was enacted in 1971.

Each year during the past decade, the Crawford-Richland Central Labor Council has had an event to promote workplace safety issues and honor laborers who have lost their lives or who have been injured on the job.

Labor council president Ron Davis said his union started to observe the day about a decade ago with a small gathering of six people outside in the city.

The event has grown each year, Davis said, and now takes place at the USW Union Hall where it has been for the past five years.

“Jobs still need to be safer and the OSHA still needs to work better,” Davis said.

“And that’s what this is all about — we’re trying to make a safer workplace for everyone, union and non-union workers alike.”

Ohio Rep. John Patrick Carney, from the 22nd district, was the guest speaker at the commemoration event.

Carney encouraged those in attendance to continue fighting for worker rights and safety issues.

“It is our duty and our obligation on a day like today to remember all those who have given their lives for all of us to have this great nation that we live in,” Carney said.

“The idea of the labor movement and standing up on behalf of those who need to be stood up for still goes on today. We need to reinvigorate that fight.”

Davis and former labor union president Dan Martin both spoke on the importance of incorporating younger people into discussions of workplace safety.

Both made mention of how local labor leaders are becoming older and need the next generation of workers to pick up where they left off to ensure jobs are not only safe, but remain in the area.

“The labor movement has been good to us and we need to keep this thing going,” Martin said.

The honor guard from the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections performed the opening and closing ceremonies for the event.

Source:

www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com

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Sanofi Moves Closer To Vaccine For Dengue Virus

Sanofi SA’s dengue vaccine has succeeded in reaching its primary clinical endpoint in a Phase-III study; stock up 1.17% during early hours of trading

French Pharmaceutical Company Sanofi SA (ADR) (SNY) revealed today that its vaccine for the dengue virus had reached its primary end point in a Phase-III efficacy study. The trial included 10,000 volunteers from Asia, a region where the disease is widespread. Latin America is another region with a high incidence of the disease.

If the remaining trials of the vaccine meet set requirements, Sanofi could well become the first pharmaceutical to come out with a vaccine to combat a virus that affects around 100 million people each year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

The virus spreads via mosquitos, especially those that can breed in clean water. It causes high fever along with severe joint pain in affected individuals, and is especially dangerous for children since it is accompanied by immensely painful and sometimes fatal symptoms.

Results from the study showed a 56% reduction in the virus in patients administered Sanofi’s treatment – a significant improvement compared to safety profiles from prior studies.

Sanofi has been developing the vaccine for the past 20 years. The current study attracted over 40,000 volunteers for all three phases of the study. Phase-III of the study was conducted in several countries and included children aged two to 14 years. It began in 2011 and continued till 2013.

Volunteers for the study were divided into two groups. Those administered the vaccine received three injections over a six-month period, while a placebo group was given dosages also spanning a six-month period. To study the success of the vaccine, the company looked at the number of symptomatic virologically-confirmed dengue cases caused by any serotype

The vaccine, if successfully commercialized, has the potential to become a blockbuster drug, given the number of patients that are diagnosed with the virus each year. This makes it Sanofi’s most prized pipeline product. The company has been facing generic competition for its other vaccines, and its consolidated sales have declined 5.7% year-over-year.

Source:

www.bidnessetc.com

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Breast cancer patients 'face unemployment due to chemotherapy'

Many women wish to continue with paid employment after being diagnosed with early stage breast cancer. But a new study suggests that a large number of breast cancer patients lose employment after diagnosis and that the type of treatment they receive may be to blame.

According to the research team, led by Dr. Reshma Jagsi of the University of Michigan Health System, more than 225,000 women are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in the US every year. Most of these women are working age and survive through retirement age.

In the short-term, employment loss is common among breast cancer patients, as treatment schedules and side effects can take their toll. But the researchers say there is little known about the long-term effects of cancer treatment on paid employment.

To investigate further, the team analyzed 2,290 women who had been diagnosed with nonmetastatic breast cancer between 2005 and 2007.

All patients completed surveys shortly after diagnosis, which asked them about paid employment, financial issues and other quality-of-life factors. Of these women, 1,536 completed an additional 4-year follow-up questionnaire, of which 1,026 were under the age of 65.

Initial chemotherapy 'puts patients at higher risk of unemployment'

The researchers found that of the patients under 65 who completed both surveys and whose breast cancer did not recur, 746 (76%) were in paid employment prior to their breast cancer diagnosis.

Many women want to continue working after breast cancer diagnosis, but new research suggests that a large number lose their jobs as a result of treatment.

But from the 4-year follow up survey, it was revealed that 236 (30%) of these patients were no longer working.

From looking at the cancer treatment these women received, those who had chemotherapy as part of their initial treatment were less likely to be in paid employment at the 4-year follow-up, compared with those who did not receive chemotherapy as their first treatment.

The researchers calculated that women who underwent chemotherapy at the time of breast cancer diagnosis were 1.4 times more likely to be unemployed following treatment.

The team found that of the women who were not in paid employment after receiving chemotherapy, 50% said that they felt it was important for them to work and 31% said they were actively seeking work.

Commenting on these findings, Dr. Jagsi says:

"Many clinicians believe that although patients may miss work during treatment, they will 'bounce back' in the longer term. The results of this study suggest otherwise and highlight a possible long-term adverse consequence to adjuvant chemotherapy that may not have been fully appreciated to date."

She says it is important to create strategies that identify breast cancer patients who may gain little benefit from chemotherapy, and therefore, may be able to avoid the treatment.

"We also need to ensure that patients who are deciding on whether to receive chemotherapy understand the potential long-term consequences of receiving treatment," she adds, "including possible implications for their employment and financial outcomes."

However, the team points out that their study has several limitations. For example, they focused on patients from two large metropolitan areas in the US - Los Angeles and Detroit. This could limit the generalizability of their findings to other populations, particularly to those who reside in more rural areas.

The researchers note that their findings were based on patients' self reporting, which could have been biased. But they note that because of the study context, "evidence supports the validity of self-report."

In addition, the team says they did not have access to full chemotherapy regimens of patients, meaning they were unable to determine whether certain approaches may have had a greater impact on employment than others.

This is not the first study to raise concerns about employment for cancer patients. In 2009, a study published in JAMA found that survivors of breast and gastrointestinal cancers are less likely to be employed, compared with healthy control participants.

Written by Honor Whiteman

Source:

www.medicalnewstoday.com

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Breast Cancer's Costly Side-Effect: Long-Term Unemployment

Women who get chemotherapy for breast cancer may end up unemployed for a very long time, researchers reported on Monday.

A few may lose their jobs because they cannot work consistently — although it’s usually illegal to fire someone for being ill. But many may underestimate just how much chemotherapy can take out of you, doctors said.

Dr. Reshma Jagsi of the University of Michigan Health System and her colleagues studied 2,290 women in the Los Angeles and Detroit areas diagnosed with breast cancer between 2005 and 2007. They spoke with more than 1,500 of them four years later.

About 1,000 of the women were under 65 and interviewed both times, and of them, 76 percent had paid jobs before they were diagnosed.

The women who got chemo were less likely to still be working four years later, they reported in the journal Cancer. The researchers found that 38 percent of the women who were able to skip chemo had jobs four years later, versus 27 percent of the women who got chemo.

"Basically, I lost my business."

And some lost their jobs or stopped working soon after diagnosis. Two years after they were diagnosed, 30 percent of the women who got chemo were unemployed, compared to 14 percent of the women who did not.

The findings suggest that even though women want to get back to work as soon as they can, chemo may be changing their lives more than they think, Jagsi said.

“We also need to ensure that patients who are deciding on whether to receive chemotherapy understand the potential long-term consequences of receiving treatment, including possible implications for their employment and financial outcomes,” she said.

Most didn’t quit on purpose. Of the 127 women who had not worked since they were diagnosed, more than half said it was important for them to work, and 39 were actively looking for a job, the researchers wrote.

It happened to Kris Snow of Ann Arbor, Michigan. She was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer in 2008, and her doctors recommended chemotherapy before she had surgery, to help shrink her tumor and make it easier to remove.

COURTESY KRIS SNOW

Kris Snow with son Alex, 14, says she was too weak and tired to work after receiving chemotherapy.

"You send an army in to weaken it and beat the crap out of it and then surgically take it out. So I said OK," Snow told NBC News

At first, it wasn't so bad.

"Other than being extremely fatigued I didn’t get that nauseous," Snow said. "When they started taxol, immediately I got numbness and tingling in (my) fingers and toes and hands," she added.

Snow, a former scientist, had reinvented herself as a home remodeler but couldn't set up contracts because of the side-effects.

"I couldn’t work. I was weak and tired," she said. "The tiles and boards I picked up were heavy ... I couldn’t even do painting because I was too tired." And clients were demanding the work be done immediately.

Now Snow, who is 53 and who has a 14-year-old son, is on disability. "Basically, I lost my business," she says.

"I couldn’t work. I was weak and tired."

The findings don’t surprise breast cancer experts. “For the vast majority of patients, side effects are manageable and they can improve after, but some patients don’t feel fully functional for the long term,” said Dr. Jennifer Litton, a breast oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

“So I think it’s really good that the study looked at employment as long as four years after diagnosis.”

Side-effects include “chemo brain” — a fogginess that’s been documented — and neuropathy, which is a numbness or pain in the arms, legs and feet that can affect a person’s ability to do some jobs, such as driving.

“I can think of a patient of mine, a nurse who had chemotherapy, she felt foggy, and she felt unsafe dispensing drugs to her patients, so we had to go back and forth talking to her and her employer,” Litton told NBC News.

“I sometimes have to advocate for long-term disability on behalf of my patients.”

People who are in poor health often have less money because their illness has affected their ability to work, says James Smith, chair of labor markets and demographic studies for the think tank RAND Corp.

Source:

www.nbcnews.com

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Former Georgia technician falsified nearly 1,300 mammogram reports

Sharon Holmes found a lump in her left breast quite by accident. At work one day as a high school custodian, her hand brushed up against her chest and she felt a knot sticking out. She was perplexed. After all, just three months earlier, she had been given an all-clear sign from her doctor after a mammogram.

A new mammogram in February 2010 showed she in fact had an aggressive stage 2 breast cancer. The horror of the discovery was compounded by the reason: The earlier test results she had gotten weren't just read incorrectly. They were falsified.

She wasn't alone in facing this news. The lead radiological technologist at Perry Hospital in Perry, a small community about 100 miles south of Atlanta, had for about 18 months been signing off on mammograms and spitting out reports showing nearly 1,300 women were clear of any signs of breast cancer or abnormalities.

Except that she was wrong. Holmes and nine other women were later shown to have lumps or cancerous tumors growing inside them.

Holmes said the discovery was horrific enough. With a son in his 20s and another in high school at the time, she trembled at the thought of leaving them without a mother. "To me, that meant a death sentence," she said. She underwent successful surgery the month after the cancer was discovered to remove the lump from her breast and followed that with chemotherapy and radiation treatments.

Her breast has been cancer-free for four years and subsequent cancers found elsewhere, in her lymph nodes and thyroid, have been successfully treated. Now she just prays it doesn't come back.

But to find out later that she had been deceived made it even worse. "I'm thinking I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, getting my tests done, and then I find out someone else isn't doing their job," Holmes told The Associated Press.

The tech, Rachael Rapraeger, pleaded guilty earlier this month to 10 misdemeanor charges of reckless conduct and one felony charge of computer forgery. She was sentenced to serve up to six months in a detention center, to serve 10 years on probation during which she can't work in the health care field and to pay a $12,500 fine.

The reasons she gave were vague. She told police she had personal issues that caused her to stop caring about her job, that she had fallen behind processing the piles of mammogram films that stacked up. So she went into the hospital's computer system, assumed the identities of physicians, and gave each patient a clear reading, an investigative report says. That allowed her to avoid the time-consuming paperwork required before the films are brought to a reading room for radiologists to examine, her lawyer Floyd Buford told the AP.

Her actions were uncovered in April 2010 after a patient who'd received a negative report had another mammogram three months later at another hospital that revealed she had breast cancer. As hospital staff began to investigate, it was determined that the doctor whose name was on the faulty report had not been at the hospital the day the report was filed. Rapraeger quickly confessed to her supervisor that she was responsible and was fired from her job about a week later, according to an investigator's report.

Rapraeger told police she knew what she was doing wasn't right, but that she didn't consider the consequences until she realized a patient with cancer had been told her scan was clear.

She didn't return a phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment. Her attorney said she feels great remorse about any pain that she caused.

Cary Martin, CEO of Houston Healthcare, which operates Perry Hospital, released a statement saying he is "pleased this component of Ms. Rapraeger's unfortunate action is concluded" and declined to comment further.

Sara Bailey also received a false-negative report. By the time it was discovered, her breast cancer progressed to the point that doctors had to remove her entire breast rather than just going in and removing a lump, she said.

The surgery was successful and the cancer hasn't returned, but Bailey carries a bitterness inside her that surfaces when she talks about her experience.

"I'm not hurting and I don't think I have cancer, but I'm not a woman anymore," the 80-year-old said, her eyes welling with tears and her voice catching as she talked about the loss of her breast.

The emotional wound was opened again this month when Rapraeger received a sentence that Bailey saw as a slap on the wrist.

"I feel like we were thrown under the bus, and there will be an election day," Bailey said, explaining that she plans to organize an effort to get Houston Judicial Circuit District Attorney George Hartwig voted out of office.

Hartwig said he understands how Bailey feels and knows some people think Rapraeger got off easy, but he said his office weighed the evidence in the case very carefully and concluded the plea was a fair outcome. Even though Rapraeger did make statements and admissions to police, they were too general to prove specific instances of wrongdoing, he said.

"Given the entirety of the case and the issues that were there, I really feel like we did the best we could do to get a measure of justice for these women," he said, adding that it would have been even more disappointing if the case had gone to trial and she'd been found not guilty and walked out of there with no penalty.

For her part, Holmes, 49, has tried to move on, and testifying at Rapraeger's sentencing helped with that.

"I wanted her to know I'm a person, not just a name on a paper," she said.

But she's still angry because lingering effects from her chemotherapy and radiation -- treatments she said her doctors told her might not have been necessary if the cancer had been caught by the original mammogram -- have kept her from returning to work as a high school janitor.

Like Bailey, she thought Rapraeger's sentence was too light, and she was disappointed that Rapraeger didn't speak in court, instead letting her attorney read a statement for her.

"If she had gotten up and at least said, `I'm sorry for what I did. I'm sorry these women had to go through this,' that, to me, would have meant that she was truly sorry for what we went through," Holmes said.

Mary Brown had a mammogram in August 2009. She was contacted by the hospital in May 2010 and told to come back for another. That one came back positive, and she had a mastectomy to remove her right breast. She considers herself lucky that she apparently had a slow-growing cancer and didn't need to have chemotherapy or radiation.

Brown, a 78-year-old Jehovah's Witness, credits her strong faith in God with helping her get through the ordeal and with helping her forgive Rapraeger.

"I don't have any hard feelings about her. Whatever she did, she brought it on herself," Brown said, though she conceded her relative good fortune might also be coloring her reaction. "Maybe if I had been dying sick from it I would feel different."

Source:

www.foxnews.com

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Parents of conjoined twins say no to separation

INDIANA, Pa. - Pennsylvania parents of conjoined twins have decided not to pursue the surgery to separate their babies.

“The best thing is to keep them together,” their mother, Michelle Van Horne, told ABC News. “They were born together they can stay together. It would hurt to lose one and have the other.”

Andrew and Garette Stancombe were born two weeks ago in Indiana, Pa., joined from the breastbone to the waist. Doctors said separating them would be too risky because they share a heart and a liver.
“Losing them isn’t an option,” Van Horne said.

Van Horne said her favorite thing about her babies is “just spending time with them.” Her biggest fear is losing them.

“We’re grateful they have been able to survive this long and they’re both going strong,” said the twins' father, Kody Stancombe.

According to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, conjoined twins occur once for every 50,000 to 60,000 births and about 75 percent of conjoined twins are joined at the chest.
 

Source:

www.theindychannel.com

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Study links marijuana to increased heart attack risk

MARSHFIELD — Marijuana use could increase heart attack risk, according to a study with input from local doctors published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

“Most people think marijuana is safe to use ... even some doctors, but it was found that it can give you significant health problems,” said Marshfield Clinic cardiologist Dr. Shereif Rezkalla, who wrote the editorial that accompanied the study.

About 2 percent of marijuana-related health complications reported between 2006 and 2010 to the French Addictovigilance Network, which monitors drug abuse, were cardiovascular complications, including heart attacks and strokes.

Heart attacks were more likely to occur during the first hour after marijuana use, and the majority of patients were young males with no cardiovascular risk factors, Rezkalla said.

“What is most serious is, the heart attacks that occur after marijuana use have higher mortality rates than regular heart attacks,” he said. A four-fold increase in mortality was observed in marijuana users compared to non-users after heart attack, according to the study.

Rezkalla said heavy marijuana use can produce a condition in the heart and brain that results in slow blood flow, cardiac arrhythmia and increased heart attack and stroke risk.

“It’s highly likely if you’re a current user and stop use, you may reduce your cardiovascular risk, but we need a good study that shows that,” Rezkalla said.

Gary Storck of the Madison branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, said the study doesn’t prove a causal connection between marijuana use and cardiovascular problems and shouldn’t worry people.

“It’s interesting this study is showing up at a time legalization seems to be winning across the nation,” he said.

Storck encouraged lawmakers faced with the decision to legalize marijuana to weigh this research with studies highlighting the benefits of medical marijuana, including one that showed delivering a low dose of cannabinoid after a stroke or heart attack could reduce the risk of ischemic damage.

“Speaking from my own experience as someone with heart defects because of Noonan syndrome, I’ve felt cannabis is a great heart medicine,” he added.

Storck said he had a heart valve replacement, which leaked and began to narrow, but vaporized cannabis allowed him to continue living a normal life, including walking up stairs to his third-floor apartment.

“There is medicinal use for marijuana for diseases such as glaucoma,” Rezkalla said. “Marijuana is for therapeutic benefit. The one thing I have a problem with is legalizing marijuana for recreational use, because it’s not proven to be safe.”

 Source:

www.wisconsinrapidstribune.com

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Taking a Walk May Lead to More Creativity than Sitting

Details

Published on Saturday, 26 April 2014 21:11

Written by YNN

Washington, DC - When the task at hand requires some imagination, taking a walk may lead to more creative thinking than sitting, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

“Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking,” said Marily Oppezzo, PhD, of Santa Clara University. “With this study, we finally may be taking a step or two toward discovering why.” 

While at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education, Oppezzo and colleague Daniel L. Schwartz, PhD, conducted studies involving 176 people, mostly college students. They found that those who walked instead of sitting or being pushed in a wheelchair consistently gave more creative responses on tests commonly used to measure creative thinking, such as thinking of alternate uses for common objects and coming up with original analogies to capture complex ideas. When asked to solve problems with a single answer, however, the walkers fell slightly behind those who responded while sitting, according to the study published in APA’s Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition^®.

While previous research has shown that regular aerobic exercise may protect cognitive abilities, these researchers examined whether simply walking could temporarily improve some types of thinking, such as free-flowing thought compared to focused concentration. “Asking someone to take a 30-minute run to improve creativity at work would be an unpopular prescription for many people,” Schwartz said. “We wanted to see if a simple walk might lead to more free-flowing thoughts and more creativity.” 

Of the students tested for creativity while walking, 100 percent came up with more creative ideas in one experiment, while 95 percent, 88 percent and 81 percent of the walker groups in the other experiments had more creative responses compared with when they were sitting. If a response was unique among all responses from the group, it was considered novel. Researchers also gauged a participant’s total number of responses and whether a response was feasible and appropriate to the constraints of the task. For example, “Putting lighter fluid in soup is novel, but it is not very appropriate,” Oppezzo said.

In one experiment with 48 participants, each student sat alone in a small room at a desk facing a blank wall. When a researcher named an object, the student came up with alternative ways to use the object. For example, for the word “button,” a person might say “as a doorknob on a dollhouse.” The students heard two sets of three words and had four minutes per set to come up with as many responses as possible. To see how walking might affect more restricted thinking, the researchers also had the students complete a word association task with 15 three-word groups, such as “cottage—Swiss—cake,” for which the correct answer is “cheese.” Participants repeated both tasks with different sets of words first while sitting and then while walking at a comfortable pace on a treadmill facing a blank wall in the same room. 

With a different group of 48 students, some sat for two different sets of the tests, some walked during two sets of the test and some walked and then sat for the tests. “This confirmed that the effect of walking during the second test set was not due to practice,” Oppezzo said. “Participants came up with fewer novel ideas when they sat for the second test set after walking during the first. However, they did perform better than the participants who sat for both sets of tests, so there was a residual effect of walking on creativity when people sat down afterward. Walking before a meeting that requires innovation may still be nearly as useful as walking during the meeting.” 

Students who walked in another experiment doubled their number of novel responses compared with when they were sitting. The 40 students in this experiment were divided into three groups: One sat for two sets of tests but moved to separate rooms for each set; another sat and then walked on a treadmill; and one group walked outdoors along a predetermined path. 

To see if walking was the source of creative inspiration rather than being outdoors, another experiment with 40 participants compared responses of students walking outside or inside on a treadmill with the responses of students being pushed in a wheelchair outside and sitting inside. Again, the students who walked, whether indoors or outside, came up with more creative responses than those either sitting inside or being pushed in a wheelchair outdoors. “While being outdoors has many cognitive benefits, walking appears to have a very specific benefit of improving creativity,” said Oppezzo. 

More research will be necessary to explain how walking improves creativity, the authors said. They speculated that future studies would likely determine a complex pathway that extends from the physical act of walking to physiological changes to the cognitive control of imagination. “Incorporating physical activity into our lives is not only beneficial for our hearts but our brains as well. This research suggests an easy and productive way to weave it into certain work activities,” Oppezzo said.

Funding for the study was provided by the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and a Stanford Graduate School of Education Dissertation Support Grant.

Washington, DC (NAPSI) - Are you interested in learning more about the importance of saving and investing and possibly having your member of Congress visit your school? Learn more about the Capitol Hill Challenge.

Here’s How

Using the SIFMA Foundation’s award-winning Stock Market Game™ program, each student team manages a hypothetical $100,000 online portfolio and “invests” in real stocks, bonds and mutual funds.

The program teaches the importance of saving and investing, promotes a better understanding of the government, and helps students learn about the global economy, strengthen their personal financial skills and improve their knowledge of math, economics and business.

At the end of the 14-week competition, the Top 10 teams get to visit Washington, D.C. to meet their representative and attend an awards reception in their honor.

Learn More

Further facts are at www.sifma.org/chc, smg@sifma.org and (212) 313-1200.

Source:

www.yumanewsnow.com

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