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Press releases Saturday 21 January 2006
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(1) MOBILE PHONE USE NOT LINKED TO INCREASED RISK OF GLIOMA BRAIN TUMOURS
(2) WORK STRESS LEADS TO HEART DISEASE AND DIABETES
(3) WINE DRINKERS HAVE HEALTHIER DIETS THAN BEER DRINKERS
(4) CURRENT INTERPRETATION
OF DATA PROTECTION LAW HAMPERS MEDICAL RESEARCH
(1) MOBILE PHONE USE NOT LINKED TO INCREASED RISK OF GLIOMA BRAIN TUMOURS
Online First
(Mobile phone use and risk of glioma in adults: case-control study)
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/rapidpdf/bmj.38720.687975.55
Mobile phones are not associated with an increased risk of the most common type of brain tumour, finds the first UK study of the relationship between mobile phone use and risk of glioma. The results are published online by the BMJ today.
The four year study by the Universities of Leeds, Nottingham and Manchester and the Institute of Cancer Research, London found those who had regularly used a mobile phone were not at a greater overall risk of developing this type of tumour.
There was no relationship for risk of glioma and time since first use of a mobile phone, lifetime years of use and cumulative number of calls and hours of use. Risk was not associated with phone use in rural areas which was found to be associated with an increased risk in an earlier Swedish study.
A significantly increased risk was found for tumours which developed on the same side of the head as the phone was reported to have been held but this was mirrored by a decrease in the risk on the opposite side of the head making it difficult to interpret as a real effect.
This finding may be due to people with glioma brain tumours linking mobile phone use to the side of the tumour and therefore over reporting the use of a phone on the same side as their tumour. This results in under reporting use on the opposite side of the head, say the authors.
Mobile phones have been available in the UK since 1985, but widespread use did not begin until the late 1990s making the number of long term users (over 10 years) quite small. This study had limited numbers for estimating the risk of using a phone over a long period.
Early mobile phones were designed to use analogue signals and emitted higher power than current digital phones but the study showed no increased risk of glioma brain tumours with the use of analogue phones.
Notes to Editors:
There are over 4,000 new cases of brain tumours per year of which glioma is the most common type. Early symptoms include headaches and feelings of nausea. The causes of these tumours are currently unknown.
The study was conducted between 1 December 2000 and 29 February 2004 and included people living in the Thames region, southern Scotland, Trent, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire.
966 people with glioma brain tumours (cases) and 1716 healthy volunteers (controls) were interviewed about their previous mobile phone use history including how long they had used mobile phones, the number and duration of the calls they made and what make and model of phone they had used.
Contact:
Patricia McKinney, Professor of
Paediatric Epidemiology, Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Leeds
Institute of Genetics, Health, and Therapeutics (LIGHT), University of Leeds,
UK
Email: p.a.mckinney@leeds.ac.uk
(2) WORK STRESS LEADS TO HEART DISEASE AND DIABETES
Online First
(Chronic stress at work and the metabolic syndrome: prospective study)
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/rapidpdf/10.1136/bmj.38693.435301.80
Stress at work is an important risk factor for the development of heart disease and diabetes, finds a study published online by the BMJ today.
Stress at work has been linked with heart disease, but the biological processes were unclear. This study provides new evidence for the biological plausibility of the link between work stress and heart disease.
Researchers examined the association between work stress and the metabolic syndrome (a cluster of factors that increases the risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes) in 10,308 British civil servants aged between 35 and 55, over a 14 year period.
Work stress was measured on four occasions between 1985 and 1999. Components of the metabolic syndrome, such as obesity, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol levels, were measured between 1997 and 1999. Social position and health damaging behaviours, such as smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, and lack of exercise, were also recorded.
A dose-response relation was found between exposure to job stress and the metabolic syndrome, even after adjusting for other risk factors. For example, men with chronic work stress were nearly twice as likely to develop the syndrome than those with no exposure to work stress. Women with chronic work stress were also more likely to have the syndrome, but they formed a small group.
Both men and women from lower employment grades were more likely to have the syndrome, confirming previous reports that the syndrome has a social gradient.
The association between the metabolic syndrome and exposure to health damaging behaviours was stronger among men than women. Poor diet (no fruit and vegetable consumption), smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, and physical inactivity were all associated with higher odds of the syndrome.
Despite some study limitations, a dose-response relation exists between exposure to work stress and the metabolic syndrome, even after other risk factors are taken into account, say the authors.
One possible explanation is that prolonged exposure to work stress may affect the nervous system. Alternatively, chronic stress may reduce biological resilience and thus disturb the body’s physiological balance (homoeostasis).
This study provides evidence for the biological plausibility of psychosocial stress mechanisms linking stressors from everyday life with heart disease, they conclude.
Contact:
Tarani Chandola, Senior Lecturer,
UCL Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, University College London,
UK
Email: t.chandola@ucl.ac.uk
(3) WINE DRINKERS HAVE HEALTHIER DIETS THAN BEER DRINKERS
Online First
(Food buying habits of people who buy wine or beer: cross sectional
study)
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/rapidpdf/bmj.38694.568981.80
People who buy wine also buy healthier food and therefore have healthier diets than people who buy beer, finds a study published online by the BMJ today.
Studies have shown that drinking wine is associated with lower mortality than drinking beer or spirits. Some studies have also suggested that wine drinkers have healthier diets than beer or spirits drinkers, and this may explain wine’s beneficial effect on health.
To study this theory, researchers in Denmark investigated the link between the purchase of beer and wine and various food items from supermarkets.
They analysed 3.5 million transactions chosen at random from 98 outlets of two large Danish supermarket chains over a six month period (September 2002 to February 2003).
Customers were categorised as “wine only,” “beer only,” “mixed,” or “non-alcohol” buyers. Details of items bought, the number and price of the items, and the total charge for each customer’s transaction were recorded.
They found that wine buyers bought more olives, fruit and vegetables, poultry, cooking oil, and low fat cheese, milk, and meat than beer buyers. Beer buyers bought more ready cooked dishes, sugar, cold cuts, chips, pork, butter or margarine, sausages, lamb, and soft drinks than wine buyers.
These results indicate that people who buy (and presumably drink) wine purchase a greater number of healthy food items than those who buy beer, say the authors. They also support findings from the United States, Denmark, and France showing that wine drinkers tend to eat fruit, vegetables, and fish and use cooking oil more often and saturated fat less often than those who prefer other alcoholic drinks.
The health benefits of drinking wine may be due to specific substances in wine or to different characteristics of people who drink other types of alcohol, they add. Thus, it is crucial that studies on the relation between alcohol intake and mortality adjust for other lifestyle factors such as drinking patterns, smoking, physical activity, education, or income.
Contact:
Professor Morten Grønbæk,
Research Director, National Institute of Public Health, Copenhagen, Denmark
Email: mg@niph.dk
(4) CURRENT INTERPRETATION OF DATA PROTECTION LAW HAMPERS MEDICAL RESEARCH
(Consent, confidentiality,
and the Data Protection Act)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7534/165
(Commentary: Evidence will
help achieve consensus)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7534/169
(Editorial: Using personal
health information in medical research)
http://bmj.com/cgi/content/full/332/7534/130
Overly strict interpretation of the data protection law is hampering epidemiological research (the study of the causes, distribution, and control of disease in populations), argue researchers in this week's BMJ.
The UK Data Protection Act 1998 is intended to accommodate medical research. The law allows personal information to be used and disclosed without explicit consent, subject to certain safeguards, when it is impractical to obtain consent and an important public interest is at stake.
Despite this, some data controllers continue to interpret the law in a restrictive way, write the authors.
They describe how such interpretation of the law currently threatens a planned study of UK military personnel who served in Bosnia so much that if it were to proceed, the results are likely to be too small and biased to reach useful conclusions.
They argue that adverse events or detriment from participation in epidemiological research are extremely rare and they call for a less rigid policy towards data sharing in this type of research.
“We are not arguing that epidemiological research should always proceed without consent. But it should be allowed to do so when the privacy interference is proportionate,” they write. “Regulators and researchers need to improve their ability to recognise these situations and adjust their approach.”
“With over 250 studies granted access to information without consent, the real issue is not that few studies have been given support to do this, but the stringency of the criteria for support,” argues Peter Goldblatt of the Office for National Statistics. “What is needed to achieve a consensus on this issue is further evidence on when the effort and impact of seeking consent undermines the public interest in good quality research.”
“We have an ethical responsibility to facilitate and not hinder research for the ultimate benefit of our patients,” adds a senior doctor in an accompanying editorial. “We have to strike a balance between rights of the individual to privacy and needs of the community to answer important medical questions, and existing legislation allows that.”
A new Academy of Medical Science report, which argues strongly for a clearer framework to deal with the use of personal health data in research, should be essential reading for data controllers and researchers, and will surely prompt more debate, he concludes.
Contacts:
Paper: Matthew Hotopf, Professor
of General Hospital Psychiatry, King’s Centre for Military Health Research,
King’s College London, UK
Email: m.hotopf@iop.kcl.ac.uk
Commentary: Peter Goldblatt, Chief
Medical Statistician, Office for National Statistics, London, UK
Email: Peter.Goldblatt@ons.gsi.gov.uk
Editorial: Professor Tom Walley,
Chair, Research Governance Group, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University
Hospitals, Liverpool, UK
Email: twalley@liv.ac.uk
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