Gum disease and pancreatic cancer
Pancreatic cancer, a leading cause of cancer deaths, is elusive, with vague symptoms that often lead to late diagnosis. Because it is so lethal and hard to detect until its advanced stages, scientists have been looking for ways to spot it early. Now, some researchers, including a team at Brown University, think gum disease may one day help identify people at greater risk.
Some researchers speculate that poor gum health may give rise to chronic inflammation that promotes the growth of cancer cells.
In a recent study published in the journal Gut, the Brown researchers compared 405 people with pancreatic cancer and 416 who did not have the disease. The scientists found that higher levels of antibodies to P. gingivalis, a bacterium that plays a role in gum disease, were twice as common in people with pancreatic cancer.
To be sure, the research showed only an association, not a causal relationship.
Study looks at teens' risky behavior
When teenagers engage in dangerous behavior, adults usually chalk it up to some innate fondness for risk — the thrill of an unsafe situation.
But, in fact, adolescents may be more risk-averse than adults, a new study has found. Their willingness to engage in risky behavior may have less to do with thrill-seeking per se than with a higher tolerance for uncertain consequences, researchers reported.
"Teenagers enter unsafe situations not because they are drawn to dangerous or risky situations, but rather because they aren't informed enough about the odds of the consequences of their actions," said Agnieszka Tymula, a postdoctoral researcher at New York University and co-author of a report detailing the study.
In their research paper in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers cited some alarming statistics about teens and risk. The adolescent mortality rate is twice as high as that of younger children. Teenagers drive faster than adults. They also have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases and criminal behavior of any age group..
Obese children less sensitive to taste
A small study has found that obese children are more likely than others to have a weak sense of taste. German researchers tested tasting ability in 99 obese and 94 normal-weight children, whose average age was 13, by having them try to identify tastes on strips of filter paper and asking them to distinguish among sweet, sour, salty, savory and bitter.
Girls were better than boys at distinguishing tastes, and older children scored higher than younger; there were no differences by ethnicity. Obese children scored an average of 12.6 out of a possible 20, while the normal-weight children averaged 14.1, a statistically significant difference.
— New York Times