Personal Health: News and Notes

Diet and exercise combined

may lower risk of Alzheimer's

Eating healthy foods and being physically active help stave off Alzheimer's disease, researchers report in the current Journal of the American Medical Association. Doing both is even more beneficial.

The researchers asked 1,880 elderly New Yorkers about their diet and exercise habits every year and a half for up to 14 years. Those who followed a Mediterranean-style diet and walked for four hours each week, for example, had about one-third the Alzheimer's risk of their sedentary, steak-loving counterparts.

The Mediterranean diet - traditional in Greece and Southern Italy - is heavy on fruits, vegetables, grains, fish, and olive oil. It also includes moderate alcohol consumption. Red meat, poultry, and saturated fats such as butter and lard are eaten seldom, if at all. The scientists scored on a scale of one to 10 how "Mediterranean" each participant's diet was.

According to the authors, this study is the first to show how the combined effect of diet and exercise reduces Alzheimer's risk. - Karen Knee

Little evidence that antivirals do much to fight children's flu

With more than 40 percent of preschoolers and 30 percent of school-age children infected during a typical flu season, and complications such as worsening of asthma symptoms common, many parents turn to antiviral drugs. A new review of previous research finds they don't do much.

The analysis of four studies of the prescription antivirals oseltamivir (sold as Tamiflu pills or liquid) and zanamivir (the inhalant Relenza) found that treatment with either drug reduced the length of illness by 0.5 to 1.5 days; the one study that included asthma symptoms found no effect.

The University of Oxford researchers also reviewed three other studies to assess prevention after a household exposure. They found that a 10-day course of either one reduced infection risk by 8 percent, meaning that 13 people would need to get the drug to prevent one case.

Although they were unable to look at the new swine flu, which disproportionately infects kids, the researchers said evidence to date suggested antivirals might have a similarly minimal effect.

"A more conservative strategy might be considered prudent," they reported last week in the online journal bmj.com, "given the limited data, side effects such as vomiting, and the potential for developing resistant strains of influenza." - Don Sapatkin

Breastfeeding may reduce risk of premenopause breast cancer

To the well-known benefits of breastfeeding, add one more: It may reduce breast cancer risk for premenopausal women with a family history of the disease.

Harvard University researchers examined data on 60,000 nurses followed from 1997 to 2005. The 608 who had at least one child and developed breast cancer before menopause were asked about their breastfeeding practices.

Among the 111 women with a family history of breast cancer, those who had breastfed had a 59 percent lower risk of the cancer than non-breastfeeders - almost as much risk reduction as from taking the drug tamoxifen. For women with no breast cancer among close relatives, breastfeeding made no difference in risk.

Never having children is known to increase breast-cancer risk, presumably because the breasts don't undergo protective changes. But previous studies looking for a link between lactation and cancer have had conflicting results, according to the study, which appears in the current Archives of Internal Medicine. - Marie McCullough
Aspirin may benefit some patients with colorectal cancer

For many patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer, taking aspirin regularly could lower the risk of dying from the disease, according to a study in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Doctors from Harvard University tracked 1,269 men and women diagnosed with colorectal cancer that had not yet spread for an average of nearly 12 years. Among 549 patients who regularly used aspirin, 81 (15 percent) died of the disease. Of the 730 study participants who did not regularly take aspirin, 141 (19 percent) died of colorectal cancer.

The researchers found that the effect of aspirin was a lot more beneficial for patients whose tumors overexpressed COX-2, an enzyme that promotes inflammation and cell growth.

But patients who took aspirin regularly before their diagnosis did not appear to do better, even if they continued the practice. That suggests the possibility that tumors that grow despite exposure to aspirin might be less susceptible to it to begin with, the researchers said.

For many patients with colorectal cancer that has not spread to other parts of the body or organs, regular use of aspirin was associated with lower risk of death, the researchers concluded. - Josh Goldstein