Health Headlines - May 30

Fewer Strong Doses of Radiation Effective for Breast Cancer

Fewer, stronger doses of radiation are just as effective as more frequent, weaker treatments for women with breast cancer, researchers found.

A 10-year trial sponsored by Cancer Research U.K. found that 13 bigger bursts of radiotherapy were as effective in preventing breast cancer recurrence as 25 smaller doses, the researchers wrote in the journal Lancet Oncology. Women who had the stronger doses also had no greater risk of side effects, the scientists said.

Fewer treatments would reduce the inconvenience of radiotherapy and probably would be more cost-effective, they said.

Among 1,410 women who participated in the study, those given 25 doses of radiation over five weeks had a breast-cancer recurrence rate of 12.1 percent, while women given 13 doses in larger amounts over the same span had a recurrence average of 12.2 percent, according to a report in the London Telegraph.

Mothers Who Eat Dairy Tend to Have Twins: Study

Women who eat dairy products are up to five times as likely to have fraternal twins as those who don't, researchers at New York City's Albert Einstein College of Medicine said.

According to The New York Times, one theory holds that cows injected with synthetic growth hormone may be responsible for the trend. This explanation says eating these dairy products boosts women's levels of a blood hormone that raises their chances of multiple ovulation.

In the May issue of The Journal of Reproductive Medicine, the researchers wrote that women who ate a vegan diet had 13 percent lower levels of insulin-like growth hormone (IGF) in their blood than women who regularly ate dairy products.

"The more IGF, the more [a woman's] ovary is stimulated to release additional eggs at ovulation," said study lead author Dr. Gary Steinman, Einstein's assistant clinical professor of obstetrics. But he warned that further study was needed "before rigid recommendations can be made concerning health care."

Dairy farmers frequently inject cattle with a synthetic growth hormone to boost the animals' size and milk production, the Times said.

Music Helps People Deal With Chronic Pain

People cut levels of chronic pain by up to 21 percent simply by listening to their favorite music, researchers at the Cleveland Clinic found.

The study of 60 people who had endured years of pain also found that levels of depression fell by up to 25 percent among those who listened to music for an hour every day, the scientists wrote in the Journal of Advanced Nursing.

Study participants had been diagnosed with conditions including osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and spinal disc problems, BBC News Online reported.

Previous research published in the same journal found that listening to 45 minutes of soft music before bedtime improved sleep by more than one-third, the BBC said.

Herceptin Boosts Survival in Some Breast Cancer Patients

Roche Inc. announced on Monday that Herceptin extended the lives of women with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer when it was used in conjunction with the hormone therapy known as Arimidex.

"Patients who received Herceptin had a statistically significant improvement in progression-free survival," the Swiss drug maker said in a statement.

HER2-positive breast cancer is a particularly aggressive form of hormone receptor-positive breast cancer; the prognosis for these patients is typically bleak. Hormone receptor-positive breast cancers account for two-thirds of all cases worldwide, and roughly a quarter of these cases are also HER2-positive. Roche noted that this was the first randomized trial to look at how Herceptin works in this subset of breast cancer patients.

According to the company statement, Herceptin is currently only licensed to treat metastatic cancer -- where tumors have spread throughout the body - in the European Union. The drug is marketed in the United States by Genentech.

To date, more than 230,000 breast cancer patients have been treated with Herceptin worldwide, according to the company statement.

2.3 Million Kids Have HIV, Global Report Says

More than 2 million children under the age of 15 are living with HIV, almost all in sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new report by seven leading child advocacy organizations.

The organizations released a report Friday that showed that 700,000 children were infected with the AIDS virus in 2005, bringing the total to 2.3 million, and that 570,000 died of AIDS, The New York Times reported.

Less than 5 percent of HIV-positive children have access to the pediatric AIDS treatment they desperately need, the report said.

"We are failing children," said Dean Hirsch, chairman of the Global Movement for Children, which issued an urgent appeal to governments, donors and the pharmaceutical industry to recognize a child's right to treatment as fundamental.

Last year, world leaders at the U.N. summit and leaders of the seven richest industrialized nations and Russia pledged to come as close as possible to universal treatment by the end of the decade, the Times reported.

For this to happen, the new report said special efforts must be made for children, starting with providing drugs to pregnant women with HIV to prevent mother-to-child transmission -- the way 90 percent of children with HIV became infected.

"Without treatment, most children with HIV will die before their fifth birthday," the report said.

WHO Puts Tamiflu Maker on Alert

The World Health Organization has now put the maker of the bird flu drug Tamiflu on alert after the suspected human-to-human transmission of the virus in a family in Indonesia.

But WHO officials stressed Saturday that there was no need for Swiss drug maker Roche Holding AG to take further action, the Associated Press reported.

"We have no intention of shipping that stockpile," said Dick Thompson, WHO spokesman. "We see this as a practice run."

WHO officials said the move was part of standard operating procedure when the agency has "reasonable doubt" about a situation that could involve human-to-human transmission.

The WHO acted after the Indonesian Health Ministry on Monday reported on a human cluster in Kubu Simbelang village in North Sumatra in which six of seven members of one family died from bird flu.

Meanwhile, two more people in Indonesia have been killed by bird flu, according to preliminary test results.

The latest victims were an 18-year-old boy and his 10-year-old sister from West Java. They died Tuesday within a few hours of each other less than a day after they were admitted to hospital in the city of Bandung, AP reported.

Initial tests showed that the two were infected with the H5N1 virus. The tests will be sent to a World Health Organization (WHO) laboratory for confirmation. To date, the WHO has confirmed 33 human deaths from bird flu in Indonesia and 124 deaths worldwide.