Lifestyles affect cancer genes
美国研究发现人们全面改变生活方式，比如调整饮食结构、加强锻炼，不但有助于增强体质，而且还能使基因活动出现有利的变化，抑制有害基因的活动。这再次证明改变生活方式可以改善身体健康状况。
Genes may not fully control your destiny when it comes to cancer risk, according to a new study of men with prostate cancer. New research suggests that stringent dietary changes, exercise and stress reduction can change the expression of hundreds of genes. Some of the changes positively affect genes that help fight cancer while others help turn off genes that promote cancer development, according to a study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"These findings are very exciting. They counter the genetic nihilism I hear so often. People say, 'It's all in my genes, there's nothing I can do,' but actually you can do quite a lot," said the study's lead author, Dr. Dean Ornish, president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Dr. Ornish and his colleagues initially set out to see if altering diet and lifestyle could decrease the amount of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) in men who'd been diagnosed with early prostate cancer. PSA is a blood marker for prostate growth. In September 2005 they reported that after intensive lifestyle changes -- consuming a vegan diet with about 10 percent of calories from fat, walking 30 minutes six times a week and practicing stress management one hour daily -- men with early prostate cancer lowered their PSA scores by four percent while men in the control group saw their PSA score rise by six percent.
The researchers compared genetic expression from baseline samples to those taken after three months of study intervention and found positive changes in more than 500 genes, according to Ornish. In any case, he added, it's clear that if you can make lifestyle changes like those in the study, you can definitely improve your cardiovascular health.
Source: CT Agency

Health Anecdotes
健康趣闻

Flip－flops linked to skin cancer
穿凉拖增加患皮肤癌风险
Specialists say that wearing open-toed footwear can increase the chance of getting lesions as the skin becomes exposed to intense sunlight, a key cause of skin cancer, or melanoma. Skin cancer that affects the feet is known as "acral melanoma" and typically occurs on the sole of the foot, between the toes or under the toenails. One clinic has seen at least two patients with sun-related foot cancer in the past three months. Anthony Kontos, head of the clinic at the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth, said patients often mistook skin cancer on the feet for bruising.

Patient saved by cloned cells
克隆免疫细胞治愈癌症患者
Researchers successfully saved the life of an advanced skin cancer patient by treating him with his own cloned immune cells, according to last week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle treated the patient by extracting white blood cells, the key component of the immune system, and growing the infection-fighting T cells in the laboratory. The cloned T cells were then re-infused into the patient to fight the cancer.
Viruses killed by vibrations
激光震动或能灭艾滋
Scientists may one day be able to destroy viruses in the same way that opera singers shatter wine glasses. New research mathematically determined the frequencies at which simple viruses could be shaken to death. "The capsid of a virus is something like the shell of a turtle," said physicist Otto Sankey of Arizona State University. "If the shell can be compromised [by mechanical vibrations], the virus can be inactivated. Experiments must try a wide variety of conditions and hope that conditions are found that can lead to success," Sankey told LiveScience.

Kisses or hugs reduce chimp stress
黑猩猩用亲吻和拥抱减压
Researchers studying people's closest genetic relatives found that stress was reduced in chimps that were victims of aggression if a third chimp stepped in to offer consolation. The researchers found consolation usually took the form of a kiss or embrace. The result was a reduction of stress behavior such as scratching or self-grooming by the victim of aggression, Fraser and colleagues reported in last week’s edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Kiwi youth earliest to bed
新西兰孩子睡觉最多
A comparative study of a dozen countries shows children in New Zealand go to bed the earliest and get the longest sleep. The study, outlined in an oral presentation to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine conference. Cultural differences meant that young children in predominately Caucasian countries such as New Zealand had earlier bedtimes and more overall sleep than young children in predominately Asian countries. New Zealand children had the highest total sleep time of 13.3 hours of combined nightly sleep and daytime naps.

Coffee drinkers may live longer
女性常喝咖啡或能长寿
Drinking up to six cups of coffee a day might not lead to early death but rather help the heart, especially for women, a new study indicated. The findings were published in the June 17 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. The researchers found that women who drank two or three cups of caffeinated coffee daily had a 25 percent lower risk of death from heart disease during the follow-up than non-drinkers.

Homosexual brain
mystery
瑞典科研人员发现，同性恋者的大脑结构并不与其同性相同，相反却与异性大脑相似，也就是说男同性恋者大脑女性化，而女同性恋者大脑男性化。
Swedish researchers have found that some physical attributes of the homosexual brain resemble those found in the opposite sex, according to an article published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Psychological tests have shown differences between men and women in the extent to which they employ the brain’s hemispheres in verbal tasks. Other research has hinted that homosexuals may exhibit the tendencies of the opposite sex in brain behavior unrelated to sexual activity.
Ivanka Savic and Per Lindstrom of the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, now report that the brains of heterosexual men and homosexual women are slightly asymmetric, meaning the right hemisphere is larger than the left, while the brains of gay men and straight women are not.
Positron emission tomography (PET) scans taken by the researchers also show that in connectivity of the amygdala, which is crucial for emotional learning, lesbians resemble straight men and gay men resemble straight women. The researchers analyzed the brains of 90 subjects, using magnetic resonance imaging to assess brain volume and PET data partly gleaned from previous olfactory studies. One possible interpretation of the connectivity pattern in straight men and lesbians is that the amygdala is wired for a greater fight-or-flight response, the authors say.
Source: CT Agency
Vocabulary
prostate 前列腺
stringent 苛刻的
nihilism 虚无主义
vegan 绝对素食者
cardiovascular心血管的
asymmetric 不对称的
positron emission tomography
正电子断层扫描仪
amygdala （脑部）扁桃核