Learning Another Language May Help the Aging Brain

Even doing so as an adult seemed to guard against mental decline, study found

WebMD News from HealthDay

By Robert Preidt

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, June 2, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Speaking two or more languages helps protect your brain as you age, even if you learn new languages as an adult, new research suggests.

The study included 835 people born in Scotland in 1936 whose first language was English. They were given mental skills tests at age 11 and again in their early 70s. Of the participants, 262 were able to speak at least two languages, with 195 of them learning a second language before age 18, and the rest after that age.

Those who spoke two or more languages did much better on the mental skills tests when they were older than what would be expected from the tests they took when they were younger, especially in the areas of general intelligence and reading, the study authors found.

The positive effects of bilingualism were seen whether people learned new languages when they were children or adults, the researchers noted in the report published online June 2 in the journal Annals of Neurology.

According to study author Dr. Thomas Bak, from the Centre for Cognitive Aging and Cognitive Epidemiology at the University of Edinburgh, this study is the first to take into account for childhood intelligence while examining whether learning a second language affects mental skills later in life.

"These findings are of considerable practical relevance. Millions of people around the world acquire their second language later in life. Our study shows that bilingualism, even when acquired in adulthood, may benefit the aging brain," Bak concluded in a journal news release.

Although the study showed an association between learning a second language and having a sharper mind later in life, it was not designed to determine a cause-and-effect link between the two.

The findings provide "an important first step in understanding the impact of learning a second language and the aging brain," Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, an associate editor for Annals of Neurology and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, wrote in an accompanying commentary.

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Melanoma Drug Trials Show Significant Promise

By targeting immune system, new treatments extend average survival

WebMD News from HealthDay

By Dennis Thompson

HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, June 2, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- A relatively new drug appears effective in boosting survival for patients battling advanced melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, according to a pair of preliminary studies.

The drug Yervoy (ipilimumab) "takes the brakes off the immune system," improving the body's ability to target and attack melanoma, said Dr. Philip Friedlander, assistant professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine in New York City.

The two trials report that Yervoy can dramatically extend survival for patients with stage 3 and stage 4 melanoma, adding months and years to their lives both on its own and in combination with another cancer drug.

"It's a major breakthrough," Friedlander said of the medication, which the Food and Drug Administration approved in 2011. "It's a novel immune approach that's harnessing one's own immune system to fight cancer."

The results of both trials are scheduled for presentation Monday at the American Society for Clinical Oncology's annual meeting in Chicago. As such, the data and conclusions should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

The five-year survival rate for someone with stage 4 melanoma -- cancer that has spread to other parts of the body -- now stands at 15 percent to 20 percent, according to the American Cancer Society.

Yervoy works by blocking a receptor called CTLA-4 that normally deactivates the body's lymphocytes, which are white blood cells that form the leading edge of an immune system response. By blocking CTLA-4, the drug unleashes the immune system to attack cancer cells.

In one of these trials, doctors extended the median survival of 53 patients with inoperable advanced melanoma by roughly three and a half years, said presenting study author Dr. Mario Sznol, a professor of medical oncology at Yale School of Medicine. They did this by combining Yervoy with another immune system drug called nivolumab.

The combination therapy nearly doubled the overall survival found in previous studies of either drug alone, the researchers reported.

Nivolumab, which is not yet approved by the FDA, works by disarming the tumor's defense against attacks from the immune system, said Sznol.

"You're really hitting two molecules that control immune activation at different locations," Sznol said. "There are multiple ways that lymphocytes are inhibited. Maybe if you hit two of those mechanisms you get better results than if you just hit one."

Sznol said he's "never seen anything quite like" the results from using the two drugs in combination.

"If you look at all 53 patients we've treated, the one-year survival is 85 percent and the two-year overall survival is 79 percent," he said. "It's hard to compare across studies, because it's a small study, but no matter how we select the patients, I've never seen a trial that had even close to a two-year survival of 79 percent."

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Natural Blondes May Have 1 Gene to Thank

Scientists discover the DNA behind flaxen tresses

WebMD News from HealthDay

By Randy Dotinga

HealthDay Reporter

SUNDAY, June 1, 2014 (HealthDay News) -- Blondes may or may not have more fun, but one thing's now clear: They do have something special in their genes.

New research reveals how a single genetic tweak is enough to create blond hair in people.

"This particular genetic variation in humans is associated with blond hair, but it isn't associated with eye color or other pigmentation traits," study leader David Kingsley, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at Stanford University, said in a university news release.

He said the research shows how a specific gene "switch" might control color changes in human characteristics.

Kingsley has spent much of his career studying a fish known as the three-spined stickleback in an effort to better understand evolution. His research uncovered a gene that affects the fishes' pigmentation, and scientists decided to see if it has a similar effect in other species, like humans.

Turns out it does.

"The very same gene that we found controlling skin color in fish showed one of the strongest signatures of [gene] selection in different human populations around the world," Kingsley said.

In the new study, researchers found that a single letter of genetic code separates people with different hair colors.

"The genetic mechanism that controls blond hair doesn't alter the biology of any other part of the body," Kingsley said. "It's a good example of a trait that's skin deep -- and only skin deep."

What's next?

"Despite the challenges, we now clearly have the methods to link traits to particular DNA alterations," Kingsley said. "I think you will see a lot more of this type of study in the future, leading to a much better understanding of both the molecular basis of human diversity and of the susceptibility or resistance to many common diseases."

The study appears in the June 1 issue of the journal Nature Genetics.

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