Autism & Zinc Deficiency, Insecticides ban, Why obesity can cause cancer, Coronary calcium levels help predict risks, Unnecessary tonsillectomy

Advanced Medicine with Dr. Rashid A. Buttar!!

If you missed any of the Advanced Medicine radio shows with Dr. Rashid A. Buttar and Robert Scott Bell, be sure to go to www.MedicalRewind.com to listen to the show replays.
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Get ready to learn things not traditionally taught to medical doctors!
Some of the things you will hear Dr. Buttar and Robert talk about in this week’s show are:

Autism is associated with zinc deficiency in early development—now a study links the two – The emergence of autism in children has not only been linked to genes encoding synaptic proteins—among others—but also environmental insults such as zinc deficiency. Although it is unclear whether zinc deficiency contributes to autism, scientists have now defined in detail a possible mechanistic link. Their research shows how zinc shapes the connections or ‘synapses’ between brain cells that form during early development, via a complex molecular machinery encoded by autism risk genes. Published in Frontiers in Molecular Neuroscience, the findings do not directly support zinc supplementation for the prevention of autism—but extend our understanding of its underlying developmental abnormalities, towards an eventual treatment.

Leading researchers call for a ban on widely used insecticides: Use of organophosphates has lessened, but risks to early brain development still too high – Public health experts have found there is sufficient evidence that prenatal exposure to widely used insecticides known as organophosphates puts children at risk for neurodevelopmental disorders. In a scientific review and call to action published in PLOS Medicine, the researchers call for immediate government intervention to phase out all organophosphates. “There is compelling evidence that exposure of pregnant women to very low levels of organophosphate pesticides is associated with lower IQs and difficulties with learning, memory or attention in their children,” said lead author Irva Hertz-Picciotto, professor of public health sciences, director of the UC Davis Environmental Health Sciences Center and researcher with the UC Davis MIND Institute.

Fat-clogged cells explain why obesity can cause cancer – A type of cell the body uses to destroy cancerous tissue gets clogged by fat and stops working, the team, from Trinity College Dublin, found. Obesity is the biggest preventable cause of cancer in the UK after smoking, Cancer Research UK says. And more than one in 20 cancer cases – about 22,800 cases each year in the UK – are caused by excess body weight. Experts already suspected fat sent signals to the body that could both damage cells, leading to cancer, and increase the number of them. Now, the Trinity scientists have been able to show, in Nature Immunology journal, how the body’s cancer-fighting cells get clogged by fat. And they hope to be able to find drug treatments that could restore these “natural killer” cells’ fighting abilities.

Coronary calcium levels a better predictor of patients at risk for coronary heart disease – A new study presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Session conference found that testing a patient’s coronary calcium levels is a better predictor of blocked coronary arteries at risk for a heart attack and the need for revascularization than standard risk-assessment equations used in medical practice today. “With coronary calcium, we’re looking at a marker indicating the actual presence of anatomic disease—we’re not just looking at probabilities of disease based on a patient’s standard risk factors,” said Jeffrey L. Anderson, MD, a cardiologist and cardiovascular researcher at the Intermountain Medical Center Heart Institute in Salt Lake City. “The risk factors are worth knowing, but they don’t tell whether or not you actually have the disease.” Cardiovascular disease remains the greatest cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States, and determining who’s most at risk continues to be suboptimal, said Dr. Anderson.

Most Child Tonsillectomies Unnecessary, Study Finds – Seven out of 8 children in the United Kingdom who have their tonsils removed are unlikely to benefit from the surgery, a study found. But many children who could benefit from a tonsillectomy are not having the surgery, say researchers from the University of Birmingham. Recurrent or chronic sore throat is the most common reason for getting a tonsillectomy. Evidence shows that the surgery results in modest, short-term reductions in recurring, severe sore throats in children aged 3 to 15, but not in those with milder symptoms. U.K. guidelines say a child should have a tonsillectomy if he or she has had seven or more sore throats in a year, five or more in each of the previous 2 years, or three or more in each of the last 3 years. Plus, the children with sore throats should also have swollen lymph nodes, an abscess behind the tonsil, fevers, or strep throat.