HEALTH ISSUE: SHORT CUTS

SHORT CUTS


Scientists find new gene
links to breast cancer
  British scientists have found five common genetic factors linked to the risk of developing breast cancer, giving researchers a better understanding of its causes and clues for developing more treatments. Douglas Easton from Britian's University of Cambridge led the largest genome-wide analysis of breast cancer patients to date, scanning the gene maps of 16,536 patients, and found five new common gene variations. The findings add to 13 other common genetic variants for breast cancer and will help explain around 8% of the risk of getting the disease, Easton and colleagues wrote in a study published in the journal Nature Genetics on Sunday. A few, high risk gene variants that o0ccur much more rarely account for another 20% of breast cancer risk.

Mutant genes tied to arthritis:
   A large study of European populations has uncovered seven new clusters of defective genes which may be responsible for rheumatoid arthritis, a painful and disabling disease that affects mainly the joints. Eli Ayumi  Stahl of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston in the United States, who led the study, and her team repeated six previous studies involving 5,539 patients, analyzing their genes using the latest technology. They shortlisted 34 genetic variants most likely to cause RA, They then checked if those genetic defects were found in another batch of patients in North America and Europe. Ten of the 34 variants figured prominently.

Soy beans harm sperm production:
   Scientists in China have found that a naturally occurring ingredient of soy beans, increasingly sold as substitutes for dairy-based food, interferes with a part of the male reproductive system involved in sperm production. There is already evidence to suggest that soy beans contain natural chemicals that mimic the effect of female sex hormones, Soy contains genistein, known to interact with the 'receptor' molecules on cells designed to respond to oestrogens. A new study by Ren-Shan Ge of the Wenzhou Medical College in China found that genistein could interfere with the production of vital enzymes involved in producing sperm.