E-Newsletter

June 2007 Issue

• Forest fires bringing smog to rural areas
• Weighing the risks of saving "extreme preemies"
• How old are you? Biologically speaking, that is

Mark Your Calendar

June is Seniors Month
Did you know?
Ninety per cent of seniors take at least one prescription drug daily, yet only 12% of seniors have sufficient health literacy to understand directions such as "take two tablets twice daily for seven days."

Protecting seniors from dangerous drug combinations
Adverse drug reactions are the sixth leading cause of death in the world and a major concern for seniors who often have multiple prescriptions. To help lessen the risk, CIHR-supported Dr. Robyn Tamblyn of McGill University is leading the Medical Office of the 21st Century (MOXXI) - a new electronic system that will centralize health records and provide pharmacists with electronic requests for prescriptions, eliminating guesswork caused by poor handwriting.

June is Stroke Awareness Month
Tackling depression in older persons with stroke
Recovering from a stroke is difficult enough. Add in depression and a patient's recovery becomes even more difficult. Because depression is so common among stroke victims, Dr. Sydney Miller, a CIHR-funded researcher at Concordia University, is tracking older adults for one year following their stroke to determine how quickly depression develops and progresses, and its relationship to the physical and cognitive consequences of the stroke. In a related CIHR study, Dr. François Lespérance at the University of Montreal has found that antidepressants are more effective than psychotherapy in treating depression in cardiac patients.

June 11-17: International Men's Health Week
Lack of programs prompts prostate cancer patients to use support groups
More men with prostate cancer are turning to community support groups for help, in the absence of other health promotion programs. But little is known about who these groups serve, what services are offered and how they function. Dr. John Oliffe in the School of Nursing and Nexus Research Unit at the University of British Columbia is leading a CIHR-funded project to answer these questions, which could result in better health promotion programs for men. Another CIHR-funded researcher in the School of Nursing and Nexus Research Unit, Dr. Lynda Balneaves, is studying the information needs and choice behaviour related to complementary and alternative medicine of men living with early-stage prostate cancer.

June 17: Father's Day
What makes a father a parent?
Poor parenting can result in incalculable costs to families and society as a whole, yet the role of the male parent in nurturing has been largely ignored within the research community. Dr. Katherine Wynne-Edwards, a biologist at Queen's University, previously observed increases in estrogen and decreases in testosterone in Canadian men attending prenatal classes. She's now in the midst of a five-year CIHR-funded study examining the role of hormones in the brain as it forms a lasting parent-child attachment.

New WHO online registry for clinical trials 
Doctors, patients and journalists can now go online to search easily and quickly for information on clinical trials from around the world. The World Health Organization has launched the world's first centralized online registry for clinical trials, including unpublished ones. CIHR contributed to the development and through its continued leadership, accelerated the move toward greater transparency of information about clinical trials. In addition, CIHR took the decision back in 2004 that all randomized controlled trials it funds be publicly registered.

CIHR-supported Research...

Weighing the risks of saving "extreme preemies"
New British guidelines are recommending that premature babies born before 22 weeks' gestation not be given intensive care treatment to keep them alive. A CIHR-funded study led by Dr. Kevin Coughlin, a neonatologist at the University of Western Ontario, could provide direction for future guidelines and health-care policies for preemies born in Canada. Dr. Coughlin is examining the various social and economic factors that influence decisions made by parents, the public and health-care providers on this difficult issue. Premature babies born before 22 weeks' gestation who do survive often develop severe disabilities.

How old are you? Biologically speaking, that is
Your birth certificate may say you're 68 years old, but biologically speaking, you may be much younger, or perhaps older. In a new project funded by CIHR, Dr. Arnold Mitnitski, an expert in the field of aging at Dalhousie University, is plugging various characteristics of health and social-demographics into a mathematical model to come up with a single number (a frailty index) that represents a person's biological age. The higher the number, the greater the person's likelihood of entering a nursing home or dying. Even though the number is related to a simple count of things that people have wrong with them, it has fascinating properties that are inspiring scientists around the world to understand how aging works.

Did you know?
Forest fire smoke is composed of tiny particles that can irritate the lungs and place stress on the entire cardiorespiratory system. Most forest fires in Canada occur between April and October, with June being the worst month.

Forest fires bringing smog to rural areas
With forest fires becoming more frequent as a result of climate change, rural residents now have something in common with their urban cousins - smog. A CIHR-funded researcher at the University of British Columbia has found that forest fires can increase particle concentrations in the air by more than 10 times - a particular concern for young children and people with heart and lung conditions. To help lessen the risk, Dr. Michael Brauer is developing a system that can map where smoke travels. "I want to make sure people who are at risk from smoke exposure know they are, and know what they can do to lessen the risk," he says. Dr. Brauer and his colleague are also using the system to measure the impact of forest fires in the summer of 2003 on population health in southern British Columbia. Visit the Firesmoke site for more information on the project.

Did you know?
Canadians are exposed to mercury by consumption of fish, amalgam fillings in teeth, and the organomercury medicinal preservative thimerosal. At some level, exposure and potential toxicity is a concern for all Canadians.

Rationing vaccine during a pandemic may work - with the right vaccine
Utilizing standard vaccine technology, the need for large quantities and booster shots could significantly lengthen the time it takes to produce enough vaccine to protect everyone in the event of a pandemic. But what if you could use 500 times less vaccine to get the same protection? Dr.Mavanur Suresh from the University of Alberta and Dr. Darwyn Kobasa from the Public Health Agency of Canada's National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg are working on exactly that in a CIHR study that is using dendritic cells which help mobilize the body's immune response. Visit the Highlighted Projects Backgrounder for more pandemic preparedness initiatives projects.

Finding new ways to help people salivate
There is new hope for the more than 170,000 Canadians who have difficulty swallowing, suffer severe tooth decay and infections as a result of a permanently dry mouth. Dr. Simon Tran, a CIHR-funded periodontist at McGill University, is using electro-stimulation devices and adult bone marrow in two separate projects to repair salivary glands that are damaged as a result of the autoimmune disease Sjögren's syndrome or radiotherapy for head and neck cancer.

Did you know?
Seasonal allergic rhinitis ("hay fever") is a global health problem that has become significantly more prevalent in the last two decades.

What research should you believe?
Vaccine therapy best approach for treating severe hay fever
If antihistamine tablets and nasal sprays aren't helping your hay fever, you may want to consider injections. A systematic review of published scientific studies has concluded that allergy vaccine therapy (called injection immunotherapy) is not only highly effective for severe allergy sufferers, but has a low risk of side effects or long-term health problems. The Cochrane Collaboration reviewed 51 published studies involving 2,871 participants. CIHR is a partner in the Canadian Cochrane Network and Centre.

Upcoming Events

June 7-9, 2007: Meeting of the World Health Commission of Social Determinants of Health
Vancouver, British Columbia

June 10-15, 2007: 19th IUHPE World Conference on Health Promotion and Health Education
Vancouver, British Columbia

June 12-14, 2007: Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR) Conference 2007 
Leading, Linking and Listening: Knowledge Exchange at the Frontiers of Health Services and Policy Research. Speakers and participants include a number of CIHR-funded researchers including Drs. Tom Noseworthy, Charlyn Black and Pat Martens.
Toronto, Ontario

June 14-15, 2007: Intergovernmental Conference on the Human Frontier Science Program
Ottawa, Ontario

June 20-21, 2007: 5th Annual Nanomedicine Meeting: Nanostructures and their Biomedical Applications
Topics include: targeted nano-delivery systems for drugs and gene therapy, diagnostic and imaging applications of nanotechnology, and nanotoxicology and potential health effects.
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ontario

For more information on any of the above story leads, please contact:
David Coulombe
Media Specialist
Canadian Institutes of Health Research
Phone: 613-941-4563
Cell: 613-808-7526
mediarelations@cihr-irsc.gc.ca