GOOD NEWS

New muscle drugs

Muscle weakness and fibre deterioration seen in muscular dystrophy can be countered by a class of drugs currently under study for their effects against cancer, a Burnham Institute study has found. The report shed light on the potential use of these drugs, called histone deacetylase inhibitors, in promoting regeneration and repair of dystrophic muscles. These drugs countered the progression of the disease in experimental mice. The team discovered that ongoing treatment with Trichostatin A, currently under clinical study for breast cancer, restored skeletal muscle mass and prevented the impaired function characteristic of muscular dystrophies.

Cancer resistance

Researchers at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia may have found a new way to sidestep drug resistance by the enormously successful leukemia drug Gleevec. Recent studies had linked the drug to heart failure in a small number of patients. But the Kimmel team has discovered that by reactivating a protein that is normally shut off in leukemia and in Gleevec-resistant cancer cells, leukemia development is halted. The drug that could turn on the gene that makes the protein C/EBP-alpha, a “transcription factor” required for cells to differentiate. It might control or even eliminate the cancer.

BAD NEWS

Ovary woes

Death rates rise when women under 45 undergo bilateral ovariectomy — surgical removal of both ovaries — and do not receive proper hormone replacement therapy, according to a new Mayo Clinic study to be published in The Lancet Oncology. Mortality from all causes increased 1.7 times for women in this age category, and was particularly increased for estrogen-related cancers and diseases of the brain and cardiovascular system. The increased risk was mainly restricted to those women who were not given estrogen after the surgery until at least age 45.

Calcium no good

Calcium supplements have little benefit in preventing fractures in both childhood and adulthood, concludes a study in the British Medical Journal. Children taking such supplements have small improvements in bone density, which rarely reduce fracture risk, say researchers at Menzies Research Institute, Australia. Increasing intake of vitamin D, fruit and vegetables were found to be more beneficial.