The real superstars

Last updated: Friday, October 31, 2008 Print This week we heard that vaccination programmes against meningitis and hepatitis in poor countries will have saved 3.4 million lives from 2000 to the end of this year.

The estimates are the latest affirmation of just how massive an impact vaccines are having on public health. Whereas vaccines may not grab the headlines as much as the latest diet or drug discoveries, in terms of impact, they really are the public health superstars of the last 50 odd years.

In related news, we heard this week of a possible new tuberculosis vaccine for people with HIV. The research still needs to be replicated, but if the vaccine lives up to its promise, it could have a major impact on health care in South Africa.

HIV-positive people are at a particularly high risk of contracting TB because of the devastating impact of Aids on the immune system. It is estimated that 60% of South African TB patients are also HIV-positive.

Start ARVs earlier
And in more HIV/Aids news out this week, we heard that Aids patients might benefit from starting on antiretroviral drugs earlier than what is suggested under current guidelines.

In the new study researchers found that survival was 70% higher for patients who started on ARVs at T-cell levels between 350 and 500 per cubic millimetre, as opposed to patients who only started taking the drugs at T-cell levels below 350. Current international guidelines recommend commencing treatment at levels under 350.

Of course, as a legacy of previous health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang's wayward views on Aids, treatment in the South African public health system only starts at levels below 200.

It is not all doom and gloom though. Word is that these levels are soon to be reassessed under the leadership of new health minister Barbara Hogan.

Prostate supplements fail test
In the latest blow for the supplement industry, the US government this week stopped a massive trial into the use of vitamin E and selenium for the prevention of prostate cancer.

The study of 35 000 men was stopped after it emerged that neither supplement, alone or in combination, reduces the risk of developing prostate cancer. If anything, the supplements may in fact increase the risk – although this increased risk was not statistically significant.

Earlier, smaller studies had suggested that the supplements might help. The new study offers much more reliable information though, due to its size and the fact that it was a double-blinded, placebo-controlled study.

Red may make men amorous
And finally, in a rather odd piece of research from the UK, we heard this week that red apparently makes men more amorous than say, blue. And what's more, men are not aware of this unchosen subjugation to the colour of love – and war for that matter.

The researchers suggest that their study may point to a built-in preference for red – something which they say indicates that men act like animals in the sexual realm. Where they get this interpretation from is a bit unclear though.

Considering that the study was merely based on how men rated some photographs, it is much more feasible to take the findings as indicative of a socially constructed preference for red. In short, the findings simply aren't as interesting as the researchers tried to make them seem.

But then again, the story probably wouldn't have made the papers without all the woolly speculation and cherry-picked nonsense about similarities with non-human primates who turn red before ovulating.

(Marcus Low, Health24)

Sources include HealthDay, Sapa, EurekAlert and Reuters Health

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October 31, 2008

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