Day: May 3, 2017

As they get older, most people tend to gain weight.  But it’s not their fault, according to scientists who have discovered a biological mechanism that causes peoples’ waistlines to expand in middle-age.  

Endocrinologist Jay Chung says the average weight gain is 13 kilos or more between the ages of 20 and 50.

Chung, head of the laboratory of obesity and aging research at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute near Washington, DC, led a team of scientists that discovered the role of an enzyme called DNA-PK in middle-aged spread.  Chung said it becomes overactive as we age.

“It’s like trying to accelerate with a foot on a brake,” said Chung.  “And what it does is prevents fat release from our belly and it prevents fat burning by our tissues like skeletal muscle.”

Chung explained that overactive DNA-PK causes people to gradually lose a tiny structure inside their cells called mitochondria that act as powerhouses to fuel the body, at the same time burning fat.

In a paper published in the journal Cell Metabolism, Chung and colleagues described the role of DNA-PK in weight gain among aging adults.  They reported testing a compound that inhibited the enzyme in mice.

After discovering the biological pathway in middle-aged monkeys, investigators fed older mice high fat diets.  Half of the mice were given the DNA-PK inhibitor while the others were not.  

Chung said the treated animals didn’t gain as much weight as the untreated rodents, “about 40 percent less weight and they were protected against type 2 diabetes.  They also ran on a treadmill significantly longer than control mice.”

In addition to reducing the risk of diabetes, Chung said the DNA-PK inhibitor could potentially bring down rates of heart disease and other illnesses that tend to occur in older adults.

The finding could address what Chung called the middle-age paradox.  As people grow older, they usually gain a significant amount of weight even though they tend to eat less, and they are blamed for their condition.

“Our society attributes middle age weight gain, lack of exercise, to lifestyle choices, and lack of willpower and discipline.  But what our study shows is that there’s actually a genetic program that makes us the way we are in middle age,” Chung said.

Chung said the DNA-PK inhibitor is unlikely to work in younger people who are obese because they eat a poor diet, rather than experience a reduction in mitochondria.

More animal studies are needed before the DNA-PK could be tested in humans, according to Chung, who said drug approval could take many years after that. 
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A relatively nearby planetary system is structured remarkably like what ours probably looked like when it was young, the U.S. space agency NASA confirms.

The system around the star Epsilon Eridani, or eps Eri, is just 10.5 light-years away and astronomers say it provides an excellent example of how planets form around stars in systems like ours.

Previous studies of the system using the Spitzer Space Telescope led to two theories about how the system formed. One suggested a wide debris disk made up of gas, dust and small rocky and icy bodies. Another suggested several thin debris disks similar to our system, which has an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and the Kuiper Belt of mostly icy objects beyond the dwarf planet Pluto.

Using the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, astronomers found eps Eri has two narrow bands like our system. Furthermore, they detected a Jupiter-sized planet roughly the same distance from its star as Jupiter is from the sun.

“It really is impressive how eps Eri, a much younger version of our solar system, is put together like ours,” said Kate Su of the University of Arizona who led the study.

SOFIA, which is a larger telescope than Spitzer, is mounted on a Boeing 747. It previously found oxygen in Mars’ atmosphere, offered close-up looks at Jupiter and has documented the formation of new stars.

If the name eps Eri sounds familiar, you may have already heard of it as the setting for the science fiction television series Babylon 5.

The description of eps Eri was published in the Astronomical Journal on April 25, 2017.
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Stacey Blank remembers the day she first read about an innovative tool for her chronic lung patients. The Coordinator of the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Department at the Western Maryland Health System describes it as “something outside the box.”

Blank’s career objective was to help her patients breathe better. “You don’t realize how tough it is to live everyday and be short of breath,” she says.

She became instrumental in the nationwide Harmonicas for Health Program

through the COPD Foundation (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) in conjunction with the Academy of Country Music and its Lifting Lives charitable division.

Blank met country music sensation Chris Janson, who explained how playing the harmonica calmed his asthma. Since then, medical groups have formed across country and the COPD foundation sells Harmonica for Health leader and players’ kits on their website.

Better breathers, now vacuuming with oxygen

“One, two, three….” Stacey Blank counts the beats as her 25 pulmonary patients, appropriately named, “Better Breathers” alternately “blow” and “draw” on their harmonicas. The song, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” emerges as a fun cacophony of pitches. The harmonica strengthens lungs as the player exhales and inhales to create notes.

Jodie Steward has been battling COPD since 2008. She joined Better Breathers two years ago and is amazed at what she’s accomplished. “I can even run my sweeper with my oxygen attached,” she says. “I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do that.”

91 years of playing

Jack Hopkins doesn’t have a pulmonary condition, but he played his harmonica in the hospital last year while recovering from a heart attack. Hopkins — who is quick to laugh or to run up a flight of steps — turned 97 at the Virginia Harmonicafest in late April.

The group saluted him with a “Happy Birthday” song on their harmonicas and a cake shaped like a silver harmonica. Hopkins responded by playing “This Old Man” on his instrument. “Got to watch out for us old guys on the harmonica!” he chuckles.

He says his harmonica kept him breathing all those years. He doesn’t smoke. “I do a lot of drinking.” He pauses for effect. “… water,” he adds with another of his signature chuckles.

Santa brought Hopkins his first harmonica in his Christmas stocking when he was six years old. Within two weeks he was playing complete songs and convinced his dad to buy him a chromatic harmonica – one with sharps and flats.

Hopkins didn’t take formal lessons until he was 49. “Sometimes I’m playing it before I get out of bed. Usually I’m singing before I get out of bed. I love singing too!”

Physical, social, emotional benefits

Medical professionals say the instrument small enough to fit in a shirt pocket benefits the player physically and mentally. It’s been known to bring COPD patients out of depression, since the disease isolates people from normal activities.

A group like “Better Breathers” is a social venture too. “I think we laugh the whole time,” says Blank. “The whole hour and a half that we are here, we’re just having a great time.”
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Bison once thundered across the North American plains by the millions.  But they were hunted to near extinction in the 19th century for their hides.  Today, their numbers are growing again, thanks in part to the important role they can play in land restoration.

The 429-hectare Kankakee Sands Nature Reserve is a sea of tall dried grass, with bits of spring green filling in here and there, but it once was Beaver Lake, the largest body of water in Indiana.  Pioneers drained it for farmland in the 19th century.  While the Indiana chapter of the Nature Conservancy can’t bring back the lake, it can restore the prairie.

And that’s where the bison come in.

Doing what bison do

This spring, a dozen or more fuzzy bison calves, notable for their orange hue and tiny stature, will gambol across the landscape.  

That’s good news, says Ted Anchor, the program manager for this Nature Conservancy project, because although they are very young, they and their herd are responsible for fixing a very old problem: more than 100 years of environmental damage.  “By creating this large-scale restoration project, we’ve been able to harbor all those species that were just barely hanging on.”

The Indiana Chapter of the Nature Conservancy has been working for 20 years to restore the prairie at Kankakee Sands.  Late last year, they took the final step, bringing in 23 bison, including 16 pregnant cows. The Conservancy now owns 13 herds, in preserves from Mexico to North Dakota.

“Bison are a really easy way to get short grass prairie,” Anchor explains.  “Just by living and doing what bison do which is eat grasses and make little bison, they create the short grass prairie for us.”

Environmental managers

Unlike domestic animals, the wild herd basically takes care of itself.  The only thing Conservancy members do is make sure there’s enough water on the land and provide salt licks.

While farmed bison are raised for meat, these animals exist solely for environmental management.  In addition to grazing on prairie grasses, which allows wildflowers to grow and provides habitat for rare birds, the bison wallow.  The depressions they create fill with rainwater, which attracts amphibians and other small animals.  

The animals are also a tourist attraction, bringing new sources of revenue to the community. Some visitors return again and again.

It’s expected that the Kankakee Sands herd will eventually grow to between 55 and 75 animals, and return the landscape to resemble what it was when herds numbering in the thousands roamed here.
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Global health experts are striving to identify a mysterious illness in Liberia that has already killed 12 people.

Officials with the World Health Organization in Monrovia have already ruled out Ebola, yellow fever and a regional virus called Lassa.

They have sent samples to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta for further tests.

The illness causes fever, vomiting, diarrhea and headaches.

At least 21 cases have been confirmed so far and nearly all of the victims had attended the funeral of a religious leader last month in Sinoe County.

The health experts are looking for a link between the victims and food and drinks they may have consumed at the funeral.
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