History of chicken pox may reduce risk of brain cancer later in life

https://www.bcm.edu/news/cancer/chicken-pox-may-reduce-risk-of-brain-cancer

Graciela Gutierrez
(713) 798-4710

Houston, TX - Mar 30, 2016

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The chicken pox is one of those pesky illness that affects kids and pains their parents, but it may offer some positive health benefits later in life, experts believe – a reduced risk for developing glioma.

In one of the largest studies to date, an international consortium led by researchers in the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center at Baylor College of Medicine reported an inverse relationship between a history of chicken pox and glioma, a type of brain cancer, meaning that children who have had the chicken pox may be less likely to develop brain cancer.

The Baylor team led by Dr. Melissa Bondy, a McNair Scholar and associate director for cancer prevention and population sciences at Baylor, and Dr. E. Susan Amirian, assistant professor in the Duncan Cancer Center at Baylor, reported their results in the journal Cancer Medicine.

In the study, the team reviewed information from the Glioma International Case-Control Study is a large, multi-site consortium with data on 4533 cases and 4171 controls collected across five countries.

They found a 21 percent reduced risk of developing glioma with a positive history of chicken pox.  Furthermore, they identified the protective effective was greater in higher grade gliomas.

The large study validates earlier studies showing this link, Bondy said. “It provides more of an indication that there is some protective benefit from having the chicken pox,” she said. “The link is unlikely to be coincidental.”

In the future, scientists may be able to apply the chicken pox vaccine to brain cancer research.

Others who contributed to the work include Michael E. Scheurer, Renke Zhou, Georgina N. Armstrong, Ching C. Lau all with Baylor College of Medicine; Margaret R. Wrensch with the University of California; Daniel Lachance and Robert B. Jenkins with the Mayo Clinic Comprehensive Cancer Center; Sara H. Olson and Jonine L. Bernstein with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center; Elizabeth B. Claus with Yale University School of Medicine and Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Jill S. Barnholtz-Sloan with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine; Dora Il’yasova and Joellen Schildkraut with Duke University Medical Center; Francis Ali-Osman with Duke University Medical Center; Siegal Sadetzki with Gertner Institute and Tel-Aviv University; Ryan T. Merrell with NorthShore University HealthSystem, Faith G. Davis with the University of Alberta; Rose Lai with The University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine; Sanjay Shete with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center; Christopher I. Amos Norris Cotton Cancer Center; and Beatrice S. Melin with Umeå University.

Funding for this work was provided by the National Cancer Institute (Grant/Award Number: ‘P30CA125123_, ’P50097257_, ’R01CA139020_, ’R01CA52689_).

Aluminium in Brain Tissue in Non‑neurodegenerative/Non‑neurodevelopmental Disease: A Comparison with Multiple Sclerosis

The data reinforce a previous conclusion that the aluminium content of brain tissue in multiple sclerosis is elevated and support the suggestion that human exposure to aluminium may have a role to play in the aetiology of multiple sclerosis. 

Exposure and Health https://doi.org/10.1007/s12403-020-00346-9
ORIGINAL PAPER
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Aluminium in Brain Tissue in Non‑neurodegenerative/Non‑neurodevelopmental Disease: A Comparison with Multiple Sclerosis

C. Linhart1 · D. Davidson2 · S. Pathmanathan2 · T. Kamaladas2 · C. Exley3Received: 5 October 2019 / Revised: 7 February 2020 / Accepted: 15 February 2020 © The Author(s) 2020

Abstract

Human exposure to aluminium is a burgeoning issue. The brain is a sink for systemically available aluminium and a putative target of neurotoxicity. An increasing number of studies continue to confirm the presence of aluminium in human brain tissue though primarily in relation to donors who have died of a neurodegenerative or neurodevelopmental disorder. Herein, we have measured aluminium in brain tissue in donors who died of a specific disease or condition though without showing any neurodegeneration. The donors were diagnosed as not suffering from multiple sclerosis. Herein, these novel data are compared with recent data on aluminium in brain tissue in multiple sclerosis. Brain tissues from all four lobes were obtained from the Multiple Sclerosis Society Tissue Bank. Tissues were digested using microwave-assisted acid digestion and their aluminium content was measured by transversely heated graphite furnace atomic absorption spectrometry. Both are established methods in our laboratory. Detailed statistical analyses were used to compare new data with recent data for multiple sclerosis. Aluminium was found in brain tissue in each donor with a high proportion of measurements (189/291) being below 1.00 μg/g dry weight. The data for all cases (median and IQR) were 0.74 (0.48–1.28), 1.23 (0.62–1.63), 0.84 (0.45–1.14) and 1.01 (0.62–1.65) μg/g dry weight for occipital, parietal, temporal and frontal lobes, respectively. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between aluminium content of brain tissue and the age of donor. Comparison of data for this non-multiple sclerosis group with brain aluminium data for donors dying with a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis showed that the latter had a statistically significant higher content of brain aluminium. The data reinforce a previous conclusion that the aluminium content of brain tissue in multiple sclerosis is elevated and support the suggestion that human exposure to aluminium may have a role to play in the aetiology of multiple sclerosis. Keywords Human exposure to aluminium · Aluminium in brain tissue · Aluminium in multiple sclerosis · Aluminium and neurodegenerative disease · Aluminium and neurodevelopmental disease  Read the paper here.

Stealth vaccinations

Excerpt:

Since the Affordable Care Act came out, we are now — as nurses — required to ask every single patient when they come to the hospital if you’ve had your flu vaccine or your pneumococcal vaccine. If you say no to either one of those, in the computer, an order will generate that says we need to give you this vaccine. We don’t need to speak to a doctor…it’s hospital policy. It’s now health department policy that we now have to give you the vaccine.

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