Snoring found to lead to bronchitis

People who snore are more likely to develop chronic bronchitis, the hacking cough most often associated with cigarette smoking or breathing polluted air, Korean researchers reported on Monday.

Why snoring might lead to bronchitis is not clear, said a team led by Inkyung Baik of Korea University Ansan Hospital in South Korea.

The report, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, covered 4,270 men and women between 2001 and 2006. Of the group, 314 came down with chronic bronchitis.

"We collected information on snoring at baseline and identified incident cases of chronic bronchitis during a four-year follow-up period," Baik's team wrote.

After taking into account whether those in the study smoked or were otherwise at risk for bronchitis, the investigators concluded that people who snored five nights a week or less were 25 percent more likely to develop bronchitis than those who never snored.

The risk was 68 percent higher for those who snored six to seven times a week.

"Our findings provide support for the hypothesis that snoring is associated with chronic bronchitis," the researchers wrote.

It could be that snoring vibrates the upper airways, stressing them and leading to inflammation, the researchers said.

Scientists say they have identified a key reason why bird flu has so far not posed a widespread menace to humans.

So far, the H5N1 strain has mainly infected birds and poultry workers, but experts fear the virus could mutate to pass easily from human to human.

However, Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that to enter human respiratory cells the virus must first pick a very specific type of lock.

The study appears in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

The researchers say their discovery may help scientists better monitor changes in H5N1 - and find better ways to fight it.

Flu viruses attack by binding sugar chains, called glycans, that line the airways and lungs.

Latching on

The chemical linkages between the sugar molecules in these chains differ between humans and birds.

Until now it has been assumed that bird flu viruses would be adapt to humans simply by acquiring mutations that enable them to attach to the human types.

But Dr Ram Sasisekharan and colleagues found this step depends on the shape assumed by the flexible sugar chains rather than the type of linkage.

Bird flu viruses currently require cone-shaped glycans to infect birds, so the umbrella shape found in humans has protected most of us from avian flu.

This suggests that for the H5N1 bird flu virus to become pandemic it must adapt so that it can latch onto the umbrella-shaped glycans of the human upper respiratory tract.

Jeremy Berg of the National Institutes of Health which funded the work said: "Sasisekharan's team has changed our view of flu viruses and how they must adapt to infect us.

"The work may also improve our ability to monitor the evolution of the H5N1 virus and thwart potential outbreaks."

Professor Ian Jones, professor of virology at the University of Reading, said: "This new work shows that there are sublevels of sugar that the virus prefers to use to get into cells and the authors suggest this is a significant factor in why H5N1 has not yet spread to humans.

"It provides a finer level of analysis than has been done so far but it is likely that other factors, like the reduced temperate of the human upper airway, also are involved."

Alcohol-related deaths 'rising'

The number of people in the UK dying from alcohol-related problems is continuing to rise.

Office for National Statistics figures show there were 13.4 alcohol-related deaths per 100,000 population in 2006 - up from 12.9 in 2005.

The mortality rate in men (18.3/100,000) was more than twice the rate for females (8.8/100,000).

The overall death rate has almost doubled from 6.9 deaths per 100,000 people in 1991.

In total 8,758 deaths were linked to alcohol in 2006, compared to 4,144 deaths in 1991.

For men, the death rates in all age groups increased between 1991 and 2006.

The biggest increase was for men aged 35-54. Rates in this age group more than doubled over the period, from 13.4 to 31.1 deaths per 100,000.

However, the highest rates in each year were for men aged 55-74.

Similar pattern in women

Death rates by age group for females were consistently lower than rates for males.

However, the death rate for women aged 35­54 doubled between 1991 and 2006, from 7.2 to 14.8 per 100,000 population.

Again, the highest rates in each year were for the 55-74 age group.

Frank Soodeen, of the charity Alcohol Concern, said: "The link between alcohol misuse and ill health is well established.

"However these figures reveal some disturbing trends. For the second year in a row, the biggest rise in deaths has been among men aged 35-54.

"It appears that for certain younger people who've been drinking heavily for most of their lives, the consequences are beginning to show themselves at ever earlier stages.

"It is vital that the government finally starts investing more in alcohol treatment to help problem drinkers address these issues before the situation becomes irretrievable."

Dr Christopher Record, a liver disease consultant based in Newcastle, said: "There is terrific pressure in society for people to drink. Those that don't drink are considered to be freaks and abnormal.

"But the main reason why, we are drinking more is alcohol is too cheap. Alcohol now is 50% less expensive that it was 25 years ago and, needless to say, consumption has gone up by 50% pro rata."

Professor Ian Gilmore, President of the Royal College of Physicians, was particularly concerned by the rise in deaths among women.

"My colleagues and I are certainly seeing more women with serious liver damage than ever before in our clinics," he said.

Tougher line call

Sarah Matthews, of the British Liver Trust, said that a major part of the problem was that alcohol was cheap, readily available and glamorised by celebrities.

"The government desperately needs to take a tougher approach with the alcohol and retail industry, clamping down on cheap promotions and irresponsible advertising - particularly before the 9pm watershed.

"Clear and effective health warnings on alcohol like 'alcohol kills' would also help in raising awareness of the damage that alcohol can have."

Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo said the government was launching a £10m education campaign to raise awareness of alcohol, and reviewing alcohol pricing and promotion.

It had also toughened enforcement of underage sales by retailers, and planned more help for people who wanted to drink less.

She said: "We know we're not going to change people's attitudes to alcohol overnight - it's going to take time, but it's reassuring to see that figures, published earlier this week, suggest alcohol consumption is no longer on the rise."

MISCONCEPTIONS AND COMPENSATIONS

Color blindness is not the swapping of colors in the observer's eyes, just the resolution. It is analogous to myopia: is that fuzzy blob one long bus or two short ones parked end to end? Grass is never red, and stop signs are never green. The color impaired do not learn to call red "green" and vice versa. However, dichromats often confuse red and green items. For example, they may find it difficult to distinguish a Braeburn from a Granny Smith and in some cases, the red and green of a traffic light without other clues (e.g., shape or location). This is demonstrated in this simulation of the two types of apple as viewed by a trichromat or by a dichroma.
Anomalous Trichromats are often able to readily spot camouflage clothing, netting, and paint that has been designed for individuals with color-normal vision. For the same reasons a color-blind painter might use too much blue to paint a green foliage landscape, a similarly color-blind artillery spotter would perceive too little blue dye used in camouflage created to match the same landscape.
Traffic light colors are confusing to some dichromats: there is insufficient apparent difference between the red and amber and sodium street lamps and the green can be confused with a grubby white lamp. This is a risk factor on a high-speed undulating road where angular cues can't be used. British Rail color lamp signals use more easily identifiable colors: the red is really blood red, the amber is quite yellow and the green is a bluish color.

However dichromats tend to learn to see texture and shape. This lets them see through some camouflage patterns.[1] In the apple example, above, they will see the clear difference because the surface pattern is different.

Color blindness almost never means complete monochromatism. In almost all cases, color blind people retain blue-yellow discrimination, and most color blind individuals are anomalous trichromats rather than complete dichromats. In practice this means that they often retain a limited discrimination along the red-green axis of color space although their ability to separate colors in this dimension is severely reduced.

It should also be noted that even though some people are unable to see some or maybe even any of the numbers in (e.g. red-green) color blindness test, the person might still be able to tell the difference between the colors in his or her everyday life.