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UPI NewsTrack Health and Science News

Report: Flu shot benefits exaggerated

NEW YORK, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Flu vaccines may not provide a significant decrease in the risk of death for elderly patients, Canadian researchers said.

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Research by the University of Alberta, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, suggests the overall benefit of flu vaccines "appears to have been exaggerated," the American Thoracic Society said Friday in a release.

The study involved 700 matched elderly subjects, half of whom had taken the vaccine and half of whom had not.

"Previous studies were likely measuring a benefit not directly attributable to the vaccine itself, but something specific to the individuals who were vaccinated -- healthy-user benefit or frailty bias," Dean T. Eurich of the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta said. "Over the last two decades in the United Sates, even while vaccination rates among the elderly have increased from 15 (percent) to 65 percent, there has been no commensurate decrease in hospital admissions or all-cause mortality."

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Dr. Sumit Majumdar, principal investigator in the study, said people with chronic respiratory diseases, immuno-compromised patients, healthcare workers and family members or friends who take care of elderly patients should still be vaccinated each year.


Chewing gum may reduce stress

CHICAGO, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- An Australian study suggests chewing gum can reduce stress and anxiety, the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company said Friday.

The study by Andrew Scholey, professor of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at Swinburne University in Melbourne, said chewing gum helped relieve anxiety, improve alertness and reduce stress among individuals in a laboratory setting.

The findings will be presented Saturday at the 2008 10th International Congress of Behavioral Medicine in Tokyo.

The Wrigley Science Institute, which helped funded the research, said gum chewers showed a reduction in anxiety as compared to non-gum chewers by nearly 17 percent during mild stress and nearly 10 percent in moderate stress. Gum chewers showed improvement in alertness over non-gum chewers by nearly 19 percent during mild stress and 8 percent in moderate stress.


Skin cells create better artificial bones

ATLANTA, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers have found a way to use skin cells to create artificial bones that can blend into tendons and ligaments.

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The artificial bones provide better integration with the body, allowing them to handle weight more successfully, Georgia Institute of Technology said Friday.

The report, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said the technology holds promise for applications such as anterior cruciate ligament surgery.

"One of the biggest challenges in regenerative medicine is to have a graded continuous interface, because anatomically that's how the majority of tissues appear and there are studies that strongly suggest that the graded interface provides better integration and load transfer," Andres Garcia, a mechanical engineering professor at Georgia Tech, said in a statement.

The tissue was created by coating a three-dimensional polymer scaffold with a gene delivery vehicle that encodes a transcription factor known as Runx2. The skin cells on the parts of the scaffold containing a high concentration of Runx2 turned into bone, while the skin cells on the scaffold end with no Runx2 turned into soft tissue.


EPA disputes pesticide link to bee deaths

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it disputes allegations that the pesticide clothianidin is linked to bee colony collapse disorder.

The EPA said the Bayer AG pesticide was approved in 2003 but bee colony collapse disorder first occurred in 2006. EPA spokesman Dale Kemery said beekeepers are finding empty hives instead of dead bees, which might be expected if CCD was related to a pesticide.

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While the use of clothianidin has been halted in Germany due to concerns about its effect on bees, the EPA said recent bee deaths there appear to be related to inadvertent exposure to clothianidin and not CCD.

"Although pesticide exposure is one of four theoretical factors associated with CCD that the United States Department of Agriculture is researching, the facts in this case are not consistent with what is known about CCD," the agency said.

Bayer AG has said clothianidin won't harm bees if applied correctly.

Debra Edwards, the EPA's pesticide program director, was critical of a National Resources Defense Council lawsuit accusing the agency of failing to provide information about clothianidin. Edwards, in a letter on the EPA's Web site, said the agency requested more time to comply with the NRDC request.

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