Diabetes risk factors much higher in young Sri Lankans

Scientists at King's College London and the National Diabetes Centre (Sri Lanka) have found evidence of a high number of risk factors for type 2 diabetes among the young urban population in Sri Lanka. The study is the first large-scale investigation into diabetes risk among children and young people in South Asia, and provides further evidence that the region is rapidly becoming a hotspot in the growing international diabetes epidemic.

The study, published in the journal PLoS One, is part of a research program aiming at developing methods to prevent diabetes in young people in Sri Lanka, as the disease is now having a major public health impact. The scientists suggest that urgent action is now required to raise awareness of diabetes and obesity in developing countries and encourage young people to make lifestyle changes to reduce their risk.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 346 million people worldwide have diabetes, with 80 percent of diabetes deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries. Recent research has shown that urban populations in South Asia are increasingly at risk from developing type 2 diabetes, which develops largely as a result of excess body weight and physical inactivity. In Sri Lanka, studies have shown that one in five adults has either diabetes or pre-diabetes, but until now no research has been carried out into risk-factors among young people. The DIABRISK-SL project is an international collaboration between scientists in Sri Lanka, led by Dr Mahen Wijesuriya and the UK, led by Dr Janaka Karalliedde from the Cardiovascular Division at King's College London. The team surveyed 22,507 people aged between 10 and 40 from cities in Sri Lanka to check for various early risk factors for type 2 diabetes - such as high body mass index (BMI), raised waist circumference and high levels of physical inactivity. They also checked for family history of the disease.

The survey revealed that 5,163 people (23 percent) had two or more risk factors for diabetes, with two or more risk factors found in 24 percent of children aged 10-14. Raised BMI was found in nearly 20 percent of children aged 10-14, and 15 percent of children aged 15-19. Most worryingly, the prevalence of physical inactivity and central obesity was nearly 40p.c. in females aged under 16. The results also showed that physical inactivity was a lot higher among females in all age groups, with overall inactivity rising in both sexes with age.

'What we have found in this report really confirms that South Asia is becoming the centre of a worldwide diabetes epidemic,' said Dr Karalliedde.

'We were expecting the levels of risk factors to be high, but we were still surprised at just how high they were.

The fact that we found such a high prevalence in children has not been shown Sri Lanka before, or anywhere else in South Asia, and is of great concern.

'This dramatic rise is clearly linked to a decline in physical activity and mirrors global trends of rising childhood obesity. Being overweight in childhood means people are much more likely to become obese as adults and will have a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Now that we know how widespread the problem is, we can take steps towards identifying high risk groups to evolving preventive strategies.' Dr Mahen Wijesuriya, of the National Diabetes Centre, said: 'These data highlight the need for early intervention in younger people in Sri Lanka.

A primary prevention intervention trial is now under way to evaluate the effects of intensive lifestyle intervention on improving diet and exercise.

We will have the results of this in the next two years.' Dr Wijesuriya emphasised the importance of public health education and awareness and stressed that these results have already contributed to the development of a National Non-Communicable Disease Strategy to combat type 2 diabetes in Sri Lanka.

Prof Jean Claude Mbanya, President of the International Diabetes Federation, said: 'These figures reflect the disturbing rise in risk factors for type 2 diabetes among young people being seen worldwide.

This is an example of good-quality scientific research that will bring solutions to the global epidemic of diabetes and other chronic non-communicable disease.

'We hope that the DIABRISK-SL project in Sri Lanka will lead to effective and cost-effective interventions that work in the real world.

This is a golden opportunity to make a very deep and very positive long-term impact on individuals, families and entire communities in Sri Lanka.'

MNT

The meaning of spoken words understood by 6-9-month-olds

At an age when "ba-ba" and "da-da" may be their only utterances, infants nevertheless comprehend words for many common objects, according to a new study.

In research focused on 6-to-9-month-old babies, psychologists Elika Bergelson and Daniel Swingley demonstrated that the infants learned the meanings of words for foods and body parts through their daily experience with language.

These findings unseat a previously held consensus about infant learning.

It was widely believed that infants between six and nine months, while able to perceive and understand elements of the sounds of their native language, did not yet possess the ability to grasp the meanings Comprehension though speech.

Most psychologists believed word comprehension didn't emerge until closer to a child's first birthday.

In fact, infants are often referred to as "pre-linguistic," according to Bergelson. But there have been few attempts to determine just when infants begin understanding what is meant by specific words. The belief that infants do not comprehend language for most of the first year is easy to understand, given that infants do not often speak in words, or even gesture meaningfully, before 10 or 11 months.

To test this belief, the researchers recruited caregivers to bring their children to a lab to complete two different kinds of test. In the first, a child sat on the caregiver's lap facing a screen on which there were images of one food item and one body part.

The caregiver wore headphones and heard a statement such as, "Look at the apple," or, "Where's the apple?" and then repeated it to the child. The caregiver also wore a visor to avoid seeing the screen. An eye-tracking device, which can distinguish precisely where a child is looking and when, then followed the child's gaze.

The second kind of test had the same set-up, except that, instead of the screen displaying a food item and a body part, it displayed objects in natural contexts, such as a few foods laid out on a table, or a human figure. For both kinds of test, the question was whether hearing a word for something on the screen would lead children to look at that object more, indicating that they understood the word. In total, 33 6-to-9-month olds were tested. The researchers also had 50 children from 10 to 20 months complete the same tests to see how their abilities compared with the younger group. As part of their analysis, the researchers corrected for eye movements not related to caregivers' speech.

"So if you have a boring cup and a really colourful cup, they're going to look at the more interesting thing, all else being equal."

To eliminate this potential source of error, the researchers subtracted the amount of time that the babies gazed at a given object when it was not being named from the time they looked when it was named.

In both the two-picture and scene tests, the researchers found that the 6- to 9-month-old babies fixed their gaze more on the picture that was named than on the other image or images, indicating that they understood that the word was associated with the appropriate object.

This is the first demonstration that children of this age can understand such words.

"There had been a few demonstrations of understanding before, involving words such as mommy and daddy," Swingley said. "Our study is different in looking at more generic words, words that refer to categories."

"We're testing things that look different every time you see them," Bergelson said. "There's some variety in apples and noses, and 'nose' doesn't just mean your nose; it could mean anybody's nose. This is one of the things that makes word learning complicated: words often refer to categories, not just individuals."The researchers were also curious to know whether they could observe a pattern of learning during the months from 6 to 9.

But, when they compared the performance of 6 and 7-month-old babies with that of 8- and 9-month olds, they found no improvements. Factoring in the results of the older babies, the researchers found little improvement until the children reached roughly 14 months, at which point word recognition jumped markedly.

The study's novel results contribute to an ongoing debate about infant language acquisition and cognitive development.

- psychone.net

Motivation to exercise affects behaviour

For many people, the motivation to exercise fluctuates from week to week, and these fluctuations predict whether they will be physically active, according to researchers at Penn State. In an effort to understand how the motivation to exercise is linked to behavior, the researchers examined college students' intentions to be physically active as well as their actual activity levels.

"Many of us set New Year's resolutions to be more physically active, and we expect these resolutions to be stable throughout the year," said David Conroy, professor of kinesiology. "One of the things we see in this study is that from week to week our motivation can change a lot, and these weekly changes in motivation can be destructive to our resolutions."

Conroy and colleagues recruited 33 college students and assessed over a ten-week period both the students' weekly intentions to be physically active and their activity levels. During each of the 10 weeks, participants were instructed to log on to a website and to rate their intentions to perform physical activity for the week ahead. To assess physical activity, participants were instructed to wear pedometers each day for the first four weeks.

The team found that for many of the participants, the motivation to exercise fluctuated on a weekly basis, and these fluctuations were linked to their behavior. The results appear in the current issue of the Journal of Sport ; Exercise Psychology.

"Our motivation to be physically active changes on a weekly basis because we have so many demands on our time," said Conroy. "Maybe one week we're sick or we have a work deadline - or, in the case of students, an upcoming examination. But these lapses in motivation really seem to be destructive. Our results suggest that people with consistently strong intentions to exercise have the best chance of actually following through on their intentions, while people with the greatest fluctuations in their motivation have the hardest time using that motivation to regulate their behaviour."

According to Amanda Hyde, graduate student in kinesiology, the latter group may still be successful at incorporating physical activity into their lives.

"Maybe the way to get these people to be more physical active isn't necessarily by increasing their motivation" she said, " but rather by changing the way they do things in their lives so exercise automatically fits within their schedule, like walking to work rather than driving or taking the stairs rather than the elevator."

Conroy added that consistency of intentions is not the only thing that matters in predicting whether or not a person will be active. It also matters if it is a weekday or the weekend.

"We saw that people who consistently reported stronger intentions to be active were more active during the week, but then on weekends the pattern flipped for them," said Conroy. "If a person was really motivated during the week, then he or she crashed on the weekend."

Conroy said that people seem to have different systems that motivate their behavior during the week and on the weekend. "We speculate that this reflects the fact that college students are in the midst of a transition that significantly increases their autonomy," said Conroy. -sciencedaily.com

Scientist works to detach protein that HIV uses as protective shield

One of the frustrations for scientists working on HIV/AIDS treatment has been the human immunodeficiency virus' ability to evade the body's immune system. Now an Indiana University researcher has discovered a compound that could help put the immune system back in the hunt.It's not that the human immune system doesn't recognise HIV.

Indeed, an infection causes the body to unleash antibodies that attack the virus, and initially some HIV is destroyed.

But HIV is able to quickly defend itself by co-opting a part of the innate human immune system - the immune system people are born with, called the complement. The complement includes a vital mechanism that prevents immune system cells from attacking the body's own cells. HIV is able to incorporate a key protein in that self-protection mechanism, CD59, and by doing so makes itself appear to be one of the body's normal cells, not an infective agent.

In laboratories at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Andy Qigui Yu, is testing a promising compound that may counteract HIV's ability to hijack the immune system's protection mechanism.

"HIV is very clever. As it replicates inside cells, it takes on the CD59. The virus is covered with CD59, so the immune system treats the virus like your own normal cells," Dr. Yu said.

The new grant will support not only Dr. Yu's research into compounds that may block the ability of HIV to hide behind the CD59 "cloak," but also his work to identify the mechanism the virus uses to incorporate CD59.

"If we find that mechanism, then we can develop something to block that incorporation, and HIV may lose that protection from the immune system," Dr. Yu said.

- sciencedaily.com

Tracking down cause of birth defect

A research team has pinpointed the source of a genetic disorder that causes life-threatening birth defects, which may allow doctors to quickly diagnose and better treat the disease.

Babies born with the disorder, known as Loeys-Dietz syndrome or Marfan syndrome type II, have cleft palates and other facial characteristics similar to babies born with other diseases - but also happen to suffer potentially fatal heart defects, making it critical for them to receive an accurate diagnosis right away.

Researchers from USC found an abnormally high amount of a protein known as Transforming Growth Factor Beta (TGF-â) outside of cells - which may be revealed by a blood or tissue test - in patients with characteristic facial defects is a key indicator of Loeys-Dietz. "If we can screen patients for this, it can identify Loeys-Dietz syndrome and inform clinical practice," said Yang Chai, director for the USC Center for Craniofacial Molecular Biology and corresponding author of the study.

"And perhaps, one day we can manipulate the amount [of TGF-â] and possibly rescue the cleft palate before a baby is born. The prospects of this are very promising."

Led by senior post-doctoral fellow Junichi Iwata of the Ostrow School of Dentistry at USC, researchers made their discovery by studying the foetal development of mice. They found that mutations that affect the way TGF-â communicates outside of a cell may cause Loeys-Dietz syndrome.

TGF-â controls many of the functions within a cell, and is known to be heavily involved in the palate's formation - or failure to form. Typically, it uses a receptor protein known as TGFBR2 to communicate outside of the cell. However, if a mutation causes a roadblock on that communication highway, TGF-â may rely on surface streets to get its signal out.

In clinical studies, the activation of this separate signalling pathway resulted in palate and facial defects akin to Loeys-Dietz syndrome. A telltale sign of the alternate pathway's activity is an abnormally high amount of TGF-â outside of the cell.

- MNT