News in brief - July 28, 2003

Smallpox vaccine studies fill some information gaps - Little benefit from red clover - Gene abnormality found in colon cancer patients - Dementia delayed in those with more learning

Smallpox vaccine studies fill some information gaps

The nation's ongoing program to vaccinate health care workers now has some up-to-the-minute data that show the vaccine can be administered with very few side effects if the proper screening and education policies are followed.

Analyses of the large-scale smallpox vaccination program carried out by the U.S. military found few serious adverse events, according to articles in the June 25 JAMA. The military began its vaccination program in December 2002 and has since administered the vaccine to approximately 500,000 members of the armed forces.

In five and a half months of follow-up in two different settings, 0.5% and 3% of vaccine recipients were found to need short-term sick leave an average of one and a half days each. The information gathered from the military's vaccination campaign has relevance to the cadre of civilian health care workers expected to receive the vaccine under a government program that kicked off in January, said William Winkenwerder Jr., MD, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs. He spoke at a June 25 news conference.

The average age of a military vaccinee was 29 and the range of ages stretched from 17 to 76, according to the JAMA analyses. There were 50,000 military personnel older than 40 who received the vaccine.

The ages of the military recipients compare favorably to their civilian counterparts who were to receive the vaccine in the first phase of a vaccination campaign to prepare the nation in the event of a bioterror attack with smallpox -- namely young physicians and nurses, said Dr. Winkenwerder.

Despite the government's desire to inoculate many more civilian health care workers, only about 40,000 have received the vaccine so far.

Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, stressed that the data go a long way toward filling an information gap that stretched from the 1960s -- when information on smallpox vaccine was last gathered -- until now.

Little benefit from red clover

A recent study found red clover supplements, considered an alternative to hormone therapy by some physicians, to be no more effective than placebo at relieving menopause symptoms.

The study, published in the July 9 Journal of the American Medical Association, randomly assigned 252 women ages 45 to 60 to take either a placebo or one of two types of red clover supplements -- Promensil or Rimostil -- for 12 weeks. All three groups experienced a modest reduction in hot flashes, from about eight a day to five. Red clover contains estrogen-like compounds called isoflavones and has been touted as a possible means to control symptoms, since recent studies have shown hormone therapy to increase a woman's risk of cardiovascular disease or breast cancer.

Gene abnormality found in colon cancer patients

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals of Cleveland have discovered a new gene that is switched off by a biochemical process in the early stages of colon cancer, according to a study published in the July 8 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study found that the sodium transporter gene, called SLC5A8, was inactive in about 60% of patients with colon cancer. Normal versions of the gene suppress the growth of colon cancer tumors.

Identification of the abnormal gene makes it a possible candidate for a novel diagnostic test for early detection of colon cancer, which is the second leading cause of cancer deaths among adults.

Dementia delayed in those with more learning

People with higher education or larger brains may delay the onset of dementia, according to new findings by researchers at the University of Kentucky and the University of South Florida.

A study of 294 Catholic nuns revealed that those who completed 16 or more years of formal education or whose head circumference was in the upper two-thirds were four times less likely to show signs of dementia. The findings, published in the June Journal of Clinical and Experimental Neuropsychology, suggest that higher education and larger brain size allow the brain to function at a higher level despite possible brain abnormalities, such as Alzheimer's disease.

Research was drawn from the Nun Study, a longitudinal study on aging and Alzheimer's disease, funded by the National Institute on Aging.