‘We found that smokers who consume cigarettes immediately after waking have higher levels of NNAL — a metabolite of the tobacco-specific carcinogen NNK — in their blood than smokers who refrain from smoking a half hour or more after waking , regardless of how many cigarettes they smoke per day,’ said Steven Branstetter, assistant professor of biobehavioural health in Pennsylvania State University in a leading daily. 

Another research points out that NNK induces lung tumours in several rodent species and so levels of NNAL in the blood can predict lung cancer risk in rodents and in humans as well. Since NNAL levels are stable in smokers over time, a single measurement can reflect an individual’s exposure accurately.

‘People who smoke sooner after waking inhale more deeply and more thoroughly, which could explain the higher levels of NNAL in their blood,’ added Branstetter.

1,945 smoking adult participants from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey provided urine samples and information about their smoking behaviour – how soon they usually smoked after waking up, for analysis of NNAL. This data was examined by Branstetter and his colleague Joshua Muscat, professor of public health sciences.

It was found that about 32% people who were surveyed had their first smoke within 5 minutes of getting up, 31% had it within 6-30 minutes and 18% smoked within 31-60 minutes. Only 19% of people smoked after an hour of waking up.

‘Most importantly, we found that NNAL level was highest among people who smoked the soonest upon waking, regardless of the frequency of smoking and other factors that predict NNAL concentrations,’ Branstetter said.

“By 2014 we want to expand this facility. We will have a Phase II building and a state of the art research institute. We plan to increase the number of beds because right now in the phase I facility we have 90 percent occupancy,” said Mammen Chandy, director of Tata Medical Center. 

“The research centre will cost around Rs.100 crore, whereas the phase II facility will come up for Rs.150 crore. The construction will start as soon as plans are approved and Mr (Ratan) Tata gives the nod. The research centre will be known as Tata Transitional Research Center. In the phase II facility there will be high-tech Gastro Intestinal Surgery center,” he said.

The Tata Medical Center (TMC) was inaugurated on May 16, 2011, by Ratan Tata. It is a humanitarian initiative aimed specifically at helping cancer patients from the east and northeast of India and also from Bangladesh. 

Nearly 50 percent of the beds are reserved for poor and underprivileged, who either get free treatment or are charged at subsidised rates.

Source:IANS

A new aspirin compound, the latest to join the armoury of drugs against cancer, has shown great promise in fighting and shrinking 11 different types of human cancer cells, without harming normal cells.

The new designer drug curbed the growth of cancer cells including that of colon, pancreatic, lung, prostate, breast, and leukemia, in the lab, according to a team from the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education of The City College of New York.  ”The key components of this new compound are that it is very, very potent and yet it has minimal toxicity to the cells,” said Khosrow Kashfi, associate professor at City College and principal study investigator, the journal Medicinal Chemistry Letters reports. 

Prolonged use of aspirin is known to pose its own dangers: side-effects ranging from bleeding ulcers to kidney failure. To resolve this, researchers created a hybrid of two earlier formulations, which they have called “NOSH-aspirin.” They used the aspirin as a scaffold to support two molecules that have been shown to increase the drug’s safety and potency. 

One arm of the hybrid aspirin releases nitric oxide (NO), which helps protect the stomach lining. The other releases hydrogen sulphide (H2S), which the researchers have previously shown enhances aspirin’s cancer-fighting ability, according to a City College statement. The researchers suspected that the hybrid would be more effective than either of the two components alone to boost aspirin’s safety and power against cancer. 

The aspirin compound also shrank human colon cancer tumours by 85 percent in live animals, again without adverse effects, according to another study by the City College researchers and colleague Kenneth Olson of Indiana University School of Medicine, South Bend. ”If what we have seen in animals can be translated to humans,” said Kashfi, “it could be used in conjunction with other drugs to shrink tumors before chemotherapy or surgery.” 

Long the go-to drug for minor aches and pains, aspirin and other so-called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen and naproxen are known primarily for their ability to calm inflammation. Studies in the 1980s resolved a decades-old debate on the utility of a daily dose of aspirin to cut the risk of heart attack and stroke. 

More recent studies tracking regular use of the drug and other NSAIDs demonstrated their remarkable ability to inhibit the growth of cancer. ”There’s a lot of data on aspirin showing that when taken on a regular basis, on average it reduces the risk of development of colon cancer by about 50 percent compared to nonusers,” noted Kashfi. These findings will be presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Chicago, from March 31 to April 4. 

Source:IANS