Skip sunbathing, use tanning lotion, doctors say...

Reuters By Frederik Joelving

Tue Sep 21, 2010. NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Armed with a fake tan, government-funded researchers have found they can get women to cut back on sunbathing.

The message is an old one, despite the new looks: too much of the sun's ultraviolet radiation will turn your skin into a crinkly patch of leather and up your cancer risk.

And there is room for improvement. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of the skin cancers diagnosed every year in the U.S. -- more than one million -- are sun-related. The deadliest kind, melanoma, kills about 8,700 people each year.

So U.S. researchers tested whether offering sunbathing women free samples of tanning lotion and sunscreen could heighten awareness of the harms.

They set up a tent on a beach and invited 250 women in. Half of them got free cosmetics samples unrelated to skin health, while research assistants -- self-tanned, but without financial ties to manufacturers -- handed out sunless tanners along with a bit of skin cancer education to the others.

"Many people find a tanned appearance to be physically attractive and combating that with a health message is difficult," Sherry Pagoto, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worchester, told Reuters Health by e-mail.

"Instead of trying to talk people out of wanting to be tan, we decided to encourage them to use sunless tanning as a healthier alternative."

And the ruse worked -- at least to some degree. After two months, the women given sunless tanners reported a 33 percent decrease in sunbathing, compared to 10 percent in the control group.

They also got fewer sun burns and wore more protective clothing, although those effects had vanished when they were contacted one year later.

Pagoto's findings appear in the Archives of Dermatology. She said the active ingredient in tanning lotions -- called dihydroxyacetone -- has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration since 1973, with no harms reported.

While prices vary widely, some tanning lotions cost less than $10.

However, the FDA has not green-lighted the ingredients in tanning pills, which may in fact be harmful, according to the American Cancer Society.

Dr. June Robinson, a dermatologist who wrote an editorial on the findings, told Reuters Health tanning lotions had improved considerably over in recent years.

"I feel comfortable recommending them," said Robinson, who added she has no industry ties. "What many people do at this time of year is think about indoor tanning. Instead try to pick up a sunless tanner."

Robinson, of Northwestern University in Chicago, said she was more reluctant to recommend the sprays, which might be inhaled.

Using sunless tanners is not a foolproof recipe for fewer sunburns, however.

According to a new survey, also published in the Archives of Dermatology, about one in 10 U.S. adolescents say they use tanning products. But that doesn't mean they use more sunscreen or limit their UV exposure. In fact, teens who use sunless tanners also spend more time in tanning beds and tend to get more sunburns.

"People who really want to be tan should strongly consider using sunless tanning instead of tanning booths or sunbathing," said Pagoto. "Melanoma, the deadly form of skin cancer, is the #2 cancer diagnosed in young women, and it is highly associated with (ultraviolet radiation) exposure via the sun or tanning booths."

SOURCE: link.reuters.com/hag64p and link.reuters.com/jag64p Archives of Dermatology, online September 20, 2010.

German restaurant in hot water over giant schnitzels | Reuters

Reuters

BERLIN Wed Sep 22, 2010. (Reuters) - A German restaurant operator has run into trouble with local tax authorities because he makes larger-than-average schnitzels -- or veal cutlets -- for his customers in a working class section of Saxony.

Gerhard Kaltscheuer said his giant schnitzels are popular in the town of Hammerbruecke and he sells about 70 dishes per day. He said tax officials told him they believe he sells 200 portions daily based on the amount of raw material he purchases.

"If I served the customers smaller portions at the normal price like that, I wouldn't have any customers because that wouldn't fill them up," Kaltscheuer told Reuters. He said he makes his portions large because his customers are laborers.

Kaltscheuer said he is protesting a demand from the tax authorities to pay more tax based on a higher number of food sales. His story has been reported widely in the German media and there was a rally on his behalf on Monday.

A spokesman for the tax office, asked about Kaltscheuer's case, said that he was not able to discuss it

(Writing by Michelle Martin; editing by Paul Casciato)

Robbers nabbed trying to drill into bank from above...

Reuters

Wed TIRANA (Reuters)Sep 22, 2010. Two would-be Albanian bank robbers were arrested Wednesday as they tried to drill a passageway into a bank vault from a shop they had rented above it, police officials said.

In an aborted heist echoing the plot of the Woody Allen film "Small Time Crooks," the two men were caught after the noise from their drilling between the upper floor shop and the bank vault alerted the authorities.

"We moved in when they were in the last stages of finishing the tunnel," Tirana police chief Tonin Vocaj told reporters.

Armed robberies at small, lightly protected branches of 16 commercial banks have risen over the last few years in Albania, a small and impoverished Adriatic nation of 3.2 million.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Father of 55 children arrested in suspected benefits scam...

Reuters

PARIS (Reuters)Fri Sep 10, 2010. A Paris man who registered 55 children by 55 different mothers faces up to 10 years in jail and fines for suspected paternity fraud and for helping to obtain residency under false pretences, police said on Friday.

The 54 year-old of African origin, who authorities did not identify, was arrested in his two-room flat in Paris during a police raid which yielded documents showing more than 50 people were registered as living at that address.

Police suspect the man was involved in a social benefits scam which could have been costing the state over 1 million euros ($1.27 million) annually in claims by the mothers.

"At the moment 42 women have been identified and each claim that the man is the biological father of their child," Paris police said in a statement.

Authorities said the man claimed he met the women at bars, night spots and occasionally during visits to their home countries, including Senegal, Cameroon and Mali.

For a fee of 150 to 200 euros, he registered the children and their mothers with French authorities, enabling them to obtain residency permits and claim social benefits.

Some of the mothers told authorities they had received up to about 7,500 euros on various monthly allowances.

"Investigations are on-going and an investigating magistrate will decide whether DNA tests have to be administered to determine the children's paternity," a police spokesman said.

(Reporting by Bate Felix, editing by Paul Casciato)

Study backs prostate screening for high risk men...

Reuters By Kate Kelland

LONDON Thu Sep 9, 2010.(Reuters) - Men who have a certain genetic variations that put them at higher risk of prostate cancer may benefit from regular screening for the disease, a study by British scientists found Friday.

The findings suggest that by narrowing the focus of prostate cancer screening to those whose genes put them at most risk, doctors would catch more cancers early as well as reducing the potential for costly and damaging overdiagnosis.

"Although these are early results, it appears that (prostate cancer) screening is reasonably accurate at predicting potentially aggressive prostate cancer among men at higher risk of the disease due to a genetic predisposition," said Ros Eeles, who led a research team from Britain's Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and Royal Marsden hospital.

The study found that the predictive value of screening these men -- expressed as the number of cancers detected relative to the number of tissue samples taken -- was 48 percent, far higher than the 24 percent achieved in population-wide screening.

Screening for prostate cancer is controversial because the prostate-specific antigen (PSA) tests used cannot differentiate between men with aggressive cancer and men who would never have symptoms or need treatment, and this can lead to overdiagnosis.

A study in the United States last year found that routine prostate cancer screening had resulted in more than a million being diagnosed with tumors who might otherwise have suffered no ill effects from them.

The ICR-led study is aiming to find out whether screening men who have genetic variants that increase their prostate cancer risk could lead to earlier diagnosis. It aims to screen 1,700 men for five years, but results from the first 300 men were published in the British Journal of Urology International.

Genetic factors that increase prostate cancer risk include inheritable variations in genes known as BRCA1 and BRCA2.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men worldwide and kills 254,000 men a year. U.S. doctors routinely recommend PSA screening in men over 50 on the assumption that early diagnosis and treatment is better than doing nothing.

But fears about overdiagnosis, which can lead to treatments such as surgery, radiation or hormone therapy that can cause serious side-effects such as impotence and incontinence, have so far dissuaded many European countries from nationwide screening.

The men in this study -- 205 with confirmed BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations and 95 who had tested negative for the mutations -- were all offered annual PSA blood testing, and 24 who had raised PSA levels were given a follow-up biopsy.

Eeles said the findings added to the increasing evidence that BRCA gene variation carriers develop more aggressive disease and supported the idea that men with genetic risks should be routinely screened for prostate cancer.

(Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

B vitamins found to slow progression of dementia...

Reuters By Kate Kelland

LONDON Thu Sep 9, 2010. (Reuters) - Daily tablets of large doses of B vitamins can halve the rate of brain shrinkage in elderly people with memory problems and may slow their progression toward dementia, data from a British trial showed on Wednesday,

Scientists from Oxford University said their two-year clinical trial was the largest to date into the effect of B vitamins on so-called "mild cognitive impairment" -- a major risk factor for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.

Experts commenting on the findings said they were important and called for larger, longer full-scale clinical trials to see if the safety and effectiveness of B vitamins in the prevention of neurodegenerative conditions could be confirmed.

"This is a very dramatic and striking result. It's much more than we could have predicted," said David Smith of Oxford's department of pharmacology, who co-led the trial.

"It is our hope that this simple and safe treatment will delay development of Alzheimer's in many people who suffer from mild memory problems."

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) affects around 16 percent of people aged over 70 worldwide and is characterized by slight problems with memory loss, language or other mental functions.

MCI does not usually interfere with daily life, but around 50 percent of people diagnosed with it go on to develop the far more severe Alzheimer's disease within five years. Alzheimer's is a mind-wasting disease for which there are few treatments and no cure, and which affects 26 million people around the world.

Smith and colleagues conducted a two-year trial with 168 volunteers with MCI who were given either a vitamin pill containing very high doses of folic acid, vitamin B6 and vitamin B12, or a placebo dummy pill.

These B vitamins are known to control levels of an amino acid called homocysteine in the blood, and high blood levels of homocysteine are linked to an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.

Helga Refsum, who also worked on the trial, stressed that vitamins were given in extremely high doses.

"This is a drug, not a vitamin intervention," she said.

The pills, called "TrioBe Plus" contained around 300 times the recommended daily intake of B12, four times daily advised folate levels and 15 times the recommended amount of B6.

Brain scans were taken at the beginning and the end of the trial to monitor the rate of brain shrinkage, or atrophy.

The results, published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) One journal, showed that on average the brains of those taking the vitamin treatment shrank at a rate of 0.76 percent a year, while those taking the dummy pill had an average brain shrinkage of 1.08 percent.

People who had the highest levels of homocysteine at the start of the trial benefited the most from the treatment, with their brains shrinking at half the rate of those on the placebo.

Although the trial was not designed to measure cognitive ability, the researchers found those people who had lowest rates of shrinkage had the highest scores in mental tests.

Commenting on the study, Paul Matthews, a professor of clinical neurology at Imperial College London said that although the vitamins used are generally safe and inexpensive, the study "should not drive an immediate change in clinical practice"

"Instead, it sets out important questions for further study and gives new confidence that effective treatments modifying the course of some dementias may be in sight," he said.

(Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Mystery eye problem at dairy show caused by cow urine...

Reuters

SYDNEY Wed Sep 8, 2010. (Reuters) - The cause of a mystery eye ailment that struck about 50 visitors to a dairy pavilion at an agricultural show in Australia has been traced -- to cow urine.

The Royal Adelaide Show had to close its dairy cattle pavilion after an rising number of people reported sore eyes when visiting the judging marquee.

Officials from the South Australia (SA) Health Department were called in to investigate and found the cause of the outbreak was stagnant cow urine.

Show spokeswoman Michelle Hocking told local reporters that a recent spell of wet weather may have created conditions within the pavilion where ammonia from cow urine was released.

About 30 people were treated on site by volunteers from the first aid group St. John Ambulance but about 20 went to the emergency department of the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

"From our institutional memory we can't recall an incident of this nature before," Peter Jackson from the St. John Ambulance told Reuters.

(Reporting by Pauline Askin, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

Circus forced to stop live fish regurgitation act....

Reuters

SYDNEY Wed Sep 8, 2010.(Reuters) - A Russian circus has been forced to cancel an act in which a woman swallows a live fish and regurgitates it after Australian officials deemed it cruel.

The New South Wales (NSW) Department of Industry and Investment put a stop to the act by the Great Moscow Circus which is performing in Sydney after receiving complaints from the public.

Officials said the trick was in breach of the Animals Protection Act.

"Circuses operating in NSW must comply with prescribed standards for the welfare of animals," said a statement from the department.

The decision was welcomed by animal rights campaigners.

"Scientific research shows fish are capable of suffering and are therefore protected under the NSW Prevention of Cruelty to Animals act," Animals Australia executive director Glenys Oogjes said in a statement.

"Far from educational, this was an inhumane and foolish act which reflected badly on the Moscow Circus."

Greg Hall, general manager of the Great Moscow Circus, said the ban came as a surprise.

"The act has been only going for four or five weeks and we haven't had any complaints until today," Hall told Reuters.

But he said live fish would not longer be used in the act.

"The other fish are now living in showbiz retirement, off site!"

(Reporting by Pauline Askin, Editing by Belinda Goldsmith)

Dutch colleges angry over sex job ads for freshmen...

Reuters

AMSTERDAM Wed Sep 1, 2010. (Reuters) - A number of Dutch colleges are considering legal action against the publisher of a move-in guide for new freshmen, after the company included an ad recruiting students for jobs as online sex workers.

The "Student Information Guide 2010-2011," which was handed out in recent weeks, included an ad offering the chance to earn money by engaging in sexual activities in front of webcams.

Leiden University said in a statement on its website that it had nothing to do with the guide, produced by Mediadam BV, and that it had filed a complaint with the company and was considering further action.

Dutch news agency ANP reported on Tuesday that at least two other colleges have made complaints with Mediadam and are considering their options.

A Mediadam director told ANP the company acknowledged it had made an error and that it had never stopped to think the guide could potentially be distributed to minors.

(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz, editing by Paul Casciato)

Long-lived Dutch might be bad news for insurers...

Reuters By Ben Berkowitz

AMSTERDAM Tue Aug 31, 2010. (Reuters) - The Dutch are set to live longer -- good news for them but bad news for insurers that are expected to suffer from higher capital requirements and tighter profit margins as a result.

The Dutch Actuarial Society's latest table of prognoses estimate average lifespans will be three years longer in coming decades. Men will live to an average age of 85.9 years, while women will live to 87.6, the society said.

That was 3.4 years and 3.3 years longer, respectively, than it forecast in its 2005 model. The society's tables are used by Dutch insurers when designing insurance contracts.

SNS Securities said the changes would increase risks for insurers on annuities, term life insurance and health insurance contracts. It would also force insurers to hold more capital to cover future obligations.

"Due to the upward adjustments of the life expectancy table we believe that the margins as well as operational result of the insurance companies are affected," analyst Maarten Altena said.

He said the new estimate would extend insurers' liabilities by 5-7 percent, depending on their customer profiles.

Concerns about the impact of greater longevity are not exclusive to the Netherlands. Britain's Pension Protection Fund, which backstops failed corporate pensions, said last week it would build its funding buffer up to deal with concerns about the impact of longer lives.

IMPLICATIONS NEXT YEAR

SNS's Altena forecast the largest implications for the main listed insurers -- Aegon, ING and Delta Lloyd -- but said he did not expect detailed reactions from them until early next year once they had analyzed the impact.

Shares in all three fell on Tuesday, although their declines were mostly in line with the European insurance sector.

Aegon declined to comment. A Delta Lloyd spokesman referred to a cautionary statement the company made in its half-year results on the prospect of mortality assumption changes:

"Delta Lloyd Group considers the probability that the effect of updated mortality assumptions having a negative effect on the results to be higher than the probability of a positive effect. This effect could potentially be material."

An ING spokesman said the company had already noted a trend of increasing life expectancy as well.

"ING uses mortality rates for its calculations and therefore we obviously pay close attention to developments in this area, like the recently published mortality rates by the (actuarial society), he said.

The government office Statistics Netherlands currently estimates the life expectancy for Dutch men at 78 years and women at 82 years. That is an improvement of seven years for men and eight years for women from half a century ago.

(Editing by Michael Shields)