YOUR ALLY AGAINST OSTEOPOROSIS: UCLA HEALTH NEWSLETTER

Check out this UCLA Health Newsletter article about the benefits of OSTEOBALL®.

http://www.bonefitness.com/consumer/press/ucla_healthyyears.html

CSC will be offering a unique exercise program using the OSTEOBALL® 
 
Beginning with an introductory talk on Wednesday, March 19, 2014 at noon, and the opportunity to sign up for 6 subsequent, weekly classes, Terese Miller, ACE, ACSM, IDEA, Audrey Chernofsky, BS, PT, and Karen Hunt, BS, DT of The Swezey Institute will provide you with knowledge about how to "Get Back to Activity the Gentle Way."  Call 310-314-2555 for more info.

Terese Miller is a Gold Certified group exercise leader, Audrey Chernofsky is a licensed physical therapist who specializes in Post Rehab Exercise and Breast Cancer Rehab and Karen Hunt is an Osteoporosis and Bone Fitness Educator at The Swezey Institute and an expert in the field of bone densitometry technology.

UCLA STUDY ON FRIENDSHIP AMONG WOMEN

 

 

March 8 is International Women's Day!

 

CSC has a free-of-charge program for those affected by cancer of support, counseling, education, mind-body classes and social activities.  Photo is by Krista Kennell and is of CSC Celebration Circle led by Carol Kurland & Abby Brown.  Check calendar for dates and times. http://bit.ly/CSCSocial

 

 

 

 

 

Melissa Kaplan's
Chronic Neuroimmune Diseases
Information on CFS, FM, MCS, Lyme Disease, Thyroid, and more... Last updated January 1, 2014         

An alternative to fight or flight

©2002 Gale Berkowitz

A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are. By the way, they may do even more.       Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside down. Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers. Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just fight or flight; In fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is release as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect. This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone---which men produce in high levels when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen, she adds, seems to enhance it. The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic "aha" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something. The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health. It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the "tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol. There's no doubt, says Dr. Klein, that friends are helping us live longer. In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no friends increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60%. Friends are also helping us live better. The famed Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidants was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight. And that's not all. When the researchers looked at how well the women functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend and confidante were more likely to survive the experience without any new physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those without friends were not always so fortunate. Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life, why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a question that also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998). The following paragraph is, in my opinion, very, very true and something all women should be aware of and NOT put our female friends on the back burners. Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do is let go of friendships with other women, explains Dr. Josselson. We push the m right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience.   Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R., & Updegraff, J. A. Behaviorial Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight" Psychol Rev, 107(3):41-429. (Full text of article in PDF format) Geary DC, Flinn MV. Sex differences in behavioral and hormonal response to social threat: commentary on Taylor et al. Psychol Rev 2002 Oct;109(4):745-50; discussion 751-3 Cousino Klein L, Corwin EJ. Seeing the unexpected: how sex differences in stress responses may provide a new perspective on the manifestation of psychiatric disorders. Curr Psychiatry Rep. 2002 Dec;4(6):441-8. A Note from Melissa Kaplan: I have been unable to locate Gail Berkowitz, the author of this above article, so please don't write me to ask me how to contact her - you can Google or Yahoo her as well as I can. I also have no information on the studies referred to in the article; to find information on them, you can get reprints of the above referenced journal articles (Taylor, et al., Geary and Finn, Cousino Klein and Corwin) and ask the authors any questions you may have regarding study participants, methodology, etc. In the case of Taylor, et al., , read the abstract online and download the full text PDF of the journal article). To view article in original, visit http://www.anapsid.org/cnd/gender/tendfend.html

THE BREAST CANCER RACIAL GAP

 The Well Column March 3, 2014, 5:23 pm     By TARA PARKER-POPE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Debrah Reid, who has breast cancer, at home in Memphis, where mortality risk is greater for blacks.

 

A troubling racial divide in breast cancer mortality continues to widen in most major cities around the country, suggesting that advances in diagnosis and treatment continue to bypass African-American women, according to new research.

 

An analysis of breast cancer mortality trends in 41 of the largest cities in the United States shows that the chance of surviving breast cancer correlates strongly with the color of a woman’s skin. Black women with breast cancer — whether they hail from Phoenix or Denver, Boston or Wichita, Kan. — are on average about 40 percent more likely to die of the disease than white women with breast cancer.

 

In some cities, the risk is even greater. In Los Angeles, a black woman with breast cancer is about 70 percent more likely to die from the disease than a white woman is. In Memphis, black women face more than double the risk, according to the research, published on Tuesday in Cancer Epidemiology.

The findings were compiled and analyzed by the Sinai Urban Health Institute in Chicago and the Avon Foundation for Women, which also funded the research. The analysis builds on a series of studies that have identified a startling racial gap in breast cancer mortality.

 

In 2012, a widely publicized study of the 24 largest cities examined the racial gap in breast cancer from 2005 through 2007. The new study takes a longer view and includes breast cancer deaths from 1990 through 2009 in 41 cities.

 

The more comprehensive analysis shows that in most cities 20 years ago, black and white women faced about the same mortality risk from breast cancer. But starting in 1990, the death rate among white women began to drop rapidly in many cities while death rates among black women fell only a little.

 

“It’s absolutely startling and very dismal, because there is hardly any health measure in the United States that hasn’t improved in the last 20 years,” said Steve Whitman, director of Sinai Urban Health Institute and the study’s senior author.

 

Notably, death rates for black and white women with breast cancer declined over all during the two-decade study period; however, the death rates among white women decreased twice as much as those among black women.

 

The researchers said the difference is explained by lower access to screening, lower-quality screening, less access to treatment and lower-quality treatment among black women.

Dr. Whitman said the larger question is why the health system appears to discriminate against black women with breast cancer.

 

“It’s undeniable that this is systemic racism,” he said. “I don’t mean that a bad person is at the door personally keeping women out, but the system is arranged in such a way that it’s allowing white women access to the important gains we’ve made since 1990 in terms of breast health, and black women have not been able to gain access to these advances.”

 

The research also dispels the notion that black women face a higher risk of breast cancer because of genetic differences. While they are at greater risk for some types of breast cancers, that doesn’t explain the widening mortality gap developing in a relatively short period of just two decades.

“Mathematically, it can’t be anything genetic,” Dr. Whitman said. “How could genes change in 20 years?”

 

The next step is to begin to study differences in the racial gap across cities in hopes of identifying the factors that contribute to the problem. The cities with the largest disparities are Memphis, Los Angeles, Wichita, Houston, Boston, Denver, Chicago, Phoenix, Dallas and Indianapolis.

In New York, the gap is far smaller. While black women are still 19 percent more likely to die of breast cancer than white women, over all both white and black women with breast cancer fare better in New York than in many other cities.

 

“New York is the largest city in the country, yet it only has a nominal disparity compared to Los Angeles or Chicago or Houston,” said Marc Hurlbert, executive director of the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade and one of the study authors. “No disparity is acceptable, but New York is doing something better than other cities.”

 

Dr. Hurlbert said factors like the city’s public hospital system and an extensive public transportation system probably play a role, increasing access to breast cancer care regardless of income level. However, more research is needed to home in on the factors that are contributing to the racial divide.

“Can we help cities with a wide gap learn from the cities that are doing better?” Dr. Hurlbert said. “Now that we have the data and understand what is going on, we’re going to move to trying to solve the problem.“

A version of this article appears in print on 03/04/2014, on page D6 of the NewYork edition with the headline: The Breast Cancer Racial Gap.

To see in original go to:

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/03/the-breast-cancer-racial-gap/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=health&_r=1

FELDENKRAIS METHOD® IMPROVES BALANCE

CSC has a weekly Feldenkrais Method® class free of charge for all those affected by cancer.  Thursdays, 1:30 - 2:30pm with Marci Spiegler, MS, GCFP. Call 310-314-2555 or visit www.cancersupportcommunitybenjamincente.org

There is growing research evidence that the Feldenkrais Method is effective for improving balance.

The ability to balance is a fundamental requirement for safe mobility. People suffer from difficulties with balance due to a variety of causes. The results of this can be falls, injuries from falls and a loss of confidence.

The Feldenkrais Method helps improve balance with gentle movements which:

• Improve coordination
• Improve body awareness
• Improve flexibility
• Improve confidence
•  Improve dynamic stability

Research studies indicate that the Feldenkrais Method uses the neurological plasticity of the brain to teach clients how to move more easily and more efficiently.

Three research studies investigating the Feldenkrais Method and balance have been published recently in international peer.reviewed journals. These studies were all concerned with balance in older people. Each study found that people attending Feldenkrais balance classes improved in balance and mobility when compared with Control groups who did not attend the classes. These studies are summarised over the page.

Other research studies have found improvements in balance in people with Multiple Sclerosis (Bateson and Deutsch 2005) and Stroke (Stephens et al 2001).
hod® improves balance
Feldenkrais Method balance classes are based on principles of motor learning and postural control retraining: a qualitative study. Physiotherapy Dec 2010, Connors K, Galea M, Said, C, Remdios L

Background: Feldenkrais Method® balance classes have been found to be effective in improving balance in recent studies, but there has been little research into possible mechanisms behind the effectiveness of these classes. Indeed there has been little research into the content of any balance training classes. Objectives: The purpose of this study was to analyse the content of a series of Feldenkrais Method balance classes to gain an understanding of how the results in these studies may have been achieved and the principles through which it may be effective. Design: A

qualitative research approach (content analysis) was used. Key findings were the extensive involvement of trunk flexibility and control in the balance activities and also the intensive attention to internal feedback, which was linked to body awareness training.

Conclusion: The Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons contained many elements consistent with current theories of motor skill acquisition and postural control, providing a sound theoretical basis for the effectiveness of the Feldenkrais approach in improving balance.

Effects of Feldenkrais Exercises on balance, mobility, balance confidence and gait performance in community-dwelling adults age 65 and older. Journal of Complementary and Alternative Therapies, 16: 97-105, 2010, Ullmann G, Williams H, Hussey J, Durstine J, McClenaghan B

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine effects of Feldenkrais exercises in improving balance, mobility, and balance confidence in older adults.Methods: Participants (N = 47, mean age 75.6) were randomly assigned to a Feldenkrais group (FG, n = 25) or to a control group (CG, n = 22). Results: After completion of the program, balance (p = 0.030) and mobility (p = 0.042) increased while fear of falling (p = 0.042) decreased significantly for the FG group. Participants of the FG group showed improvements in balance confidence (p = 0.054) and mobility while performing concurrently a cognitive task (p = 0.067).

Conclusions: These results indicate that Feldenkrais exercises are an effective way to improve balance and mobility, and thus offer an alternative method to help offset age-related declines in mobility and reduce the risk of falling among community-dwelling older adults.

Getting Grounded Gracefully: effectiveness and acceptability of Feldenkrais in improving
balance. Journal of Aging and Physical Activity 17(1): 57-76, 2009; Vrantsidis F, Hill K, Mooree K,Webb R, Hunt S, Dowson L

The Getting Grounded Gracefully program, based on the Awareness Through Movement lessons of the Feldenkrais Method, was designed to improve balance and function in older people. Fifty five participants (mean age 75, 85% female) were randomised to the intervention (twice weekly group classes over 8 weeks) or the control group (continued with their usual activity). Significant improvement was identified for the intervention group relative to the control group for the Modified Falls Efficacy Scale score (p = 0.003) and gait speed (p = 0.028), and a strong trend evident in the Timed Up and Go (p = 0.056). High class attendance (88%) and survey feedback indicate that the program was viewed positively by participants and may therefore be acceptable to other older people.

 
Feldenkrais Method balance classes improve balance in older adults: a controlled trial. Evidence Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine Advance access published online 24 June 2009. Connors K, Galea M, Said C

Objective: To investigate the effects of Feldenkrais Method balance classes on balance and mobility in older adults. Design: Prospective non-randomized controlled study with pre/post measures. Participants: Convenience sample of 26 community-dwelling older adults (median age 75 years) attending Feldenkrais Method balance classes formed the Intervention group. Thirty-seven volunteers were recruited for the Control group (median age 76.5 years. Results: At re-testing, the Intervention group showed significant improvement on all of the measures (ABC, p=0.016, 4SST, p=0.001, gait speed, p<0 .001="" 4sst="" a="" abc="" and="" compared="" control="" gait="" group="" improved="" improvement="" in="" intervention="" made="" measure="" o:p="" on="" one="" p="0.022)." score="" significant="" significantly="" speed="" the="" their="" time="" to="">

Conclusions: These findings suggest that Feldenkrais Method balance classes may improve mobility and balance in older adults.

Australian Feldenkrais Guild Inc
Freecall: 1800 001 550
E: database@feldenkrais.org.au
www.feldenkrais.org.au

To view article go to: http://feldenkraisfoundation.org/feldenkrais-method-improves-balance/


 

DOES MEDICAL MARIJUANA HELP WITH PAIN, MS AND APPETITE LOSS?

Los Angeles Times Health
By Chris Woolston
February 15, 2014

While recreational marijuana is legal in just two states (for now), 20 states plus the District of Columbia already allow marijuana for medicinal uses, and up to nine other states may soon follow suit. Many patients swear that cannabis helps ease their symptoms, but the drug has never gone through anything close to the testing required for prescription drugs. One reason: Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug (a federal classification of the most dangerous drugs, including heroin and LSD), so researchers have to jump through a lot of hoops to even get it into their labs.

So just how medicinal is medical marijuana? Here's a look at the current evidence.

Pain: Marijuana is a proven pain reliever. Studies show that it works against pains of many sorts, including neuropathic pain, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia and cancer-related pain. However, the relief can be underwhelming compared with prescription medications, and many users report side effects such as dry mouth, dizziness and sleepiness.

Multiple sclerosis: Several studies over the years have shown that marijuana and its compounds can offer at least some relief for muscle spasticity in patients with multiple sclerosis. Sativex, a mouth spray that combines two compounds from marijuana, is already available for MS patients in Europe and Canada and is undergoing studies in the U.S.

Appetite: Marijuana's well-known tendency to induce the "munchies" could potentially be helpful for patients who have lost their appetite because of cancer, chemotherapy or infection with HIV. Few studies have looked at smoked marijuana to improve appetite, but Marinol, a synthetic drug that mimics one of the compounds in marijuana, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating weight loss in patients with HIV and relieving nausea and vomiting in cancer patients.
 

To see article in original source go to:http://lat.ms/1o1agkG

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CANCER

Los Angeles Times: L.A. AFFAIRS

By Jim Cox

February 14, 2014, 10:30 a.m.

 

Facing breast cancer with love and hope

A diagnosis of breast cancer led to a marriage, bonding during painful cancer treatments, support groups, walks filled with small wonders and hope in a hummingbird's arrival.

 

I have to make sure when I get hold of happiness to seize the moment and soar to heights with it. I am grateful that I can still be joyful at times with simple and new things that were not significant to me before.

— Bien Cox, journal entry

The "new normal" arrived April 9, 2008. The painful lump in Bien's left breast was malignant.

The phone, the unholy messenger, was put back in its cradle, and we sat on the couch for a few moments. Tears came and went. Disbelief remained. We hugged and hugged and hugged. Perhaps this would make the cancer go away?

Nine days later, Bien and I stood in a small chapel in downtown Los Angeles and repeated the words "In sickness and in health" through tear-filled eyes to a minister who must have thought we were the most emotional couple to ever participate in the sacrament of holy matrimony.

That May, I watched as my small, fragile Bien was wheeled back from the recovery room, drainage bags weighing down her small chest, which was now missing a breast but left room for an enormous heart. I embraced my brother Walter and cried tears that seemed to come from the depths of my soul. Thank God for family.

The mastectomy left a scar that has turned beautiful. It also revealed lymph nodes that were cancerous. The chemotherapy would be of the aggressive variety and last for six months. There was one three-to-four-hour treatment a week.

The poison was delivered weekly via IV. She would be OK for a couple of days, and then the side effects would kick in: exhaustion, intestinal pain, insomnia, hot flashes, joint and muscle pain.

I shared in my support group … last week that "learning to be friends" with your pain would maybe lessen the burden. I have to accept the fact that pain is part of who I am now, and maybe that will make living easier for me.
— Bien Cox

We were told to monitor blood pressure and temperature daily. The night was filled with restless, painful bouts of sleep, peppered with nightmares that are thankfully forgotten.
On one of these nights, as I held Bien close and massaged her painful joints and looked into her beautiful eyes, touching the now-bald head ever so lightly, the epiphany arrived. I realized that we were no longer a couple. We were one. Two bodies yet one soul. We had transcended what most beings have on this Earth. The cancer, in trying to destroy one body, had created, instead, one magnificent, glorious soul made out of pure love.

Bien and I started attending participant and caregiver support groups at the Cancer Support Community in Pasadena. We don't know where we would be without this wonderful organization.
Through workshops there she has discovered art. When we take walks we take the time to see things that have always been there but we never had "time" for before. A squirrel "speaking" to another squirrel. The peculiar yet beautiful color of the flowers along the way. In my group, we laugh and we cry, and when we leave each meeting we know we are alive and that every moment is precious and every day is but one at a time.

The other day the radio played Michael Jackson's "Rock With You." That song takes me back to my college days when I was young and carefree. I danced to it, careful with my leg and hand movements. There will be days where we despair, yet some days we can be happy too.
— Bien Cox

It was a few days before Valentine's Day when the hummingbird appeared. Bien was no longer on chemotherapy but was taking cancer drugs, which caused intense joint and muscle pain.
The drugs were doing their worst the night the hummingbird arrived. Before the journey with cancer, the small bird lying wounded in the stair alcove outside our apartment might have been mistaken for a leaf, it being so small and motionless. Bien noticed it, of course. The wing hurt. Crying at times but mainly silent, breathing lightly.

We put it in a box carefully, and I took it to the humane society. The attendant said they would do the best they could. I thanked her and got in my car and I cried. I cried because I realized that the fragile yet magnificent hummingbird with the damaged wing was my Bien.

Valentine's Day arrived, and after I gave Bien a card and flowers, she — with a mischievous look that I have come to love — presented me with a hand-drawn card. On its cover, she had drawn a beautiful likeness of a small hummingbird resting in two hands cupped together to form a nest.

Bien just passed the five-year mark free of cancer. She is now a breast cancer survivor. We also celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary.

From time to time, I still foray into those dark paths, but now when I do, I recognize myself getting entangled and I try to disconnect from it and be myself again. I am more at peace with who I am now, I acknowledge my limitations and am grateful for every new day.
— Bien Cox

Jim Cox is a Pasadena-based actor and writer.

L.A. Affairs chronicles romance and relationships. Past columns and submission guidelines are at latimes.com/laaffairs. If you have comments to share or a story to tell, write us at home@latimes.com.

To see article in its original source:
http://www.latimes.com/home/laaffairs/la-hm-affairs-20140215,0,5307202.story#ixzz2tnJmsAg9

INSIGHT INTO WHY CANCER INCIDENCE INCREASES WITH AGE

Thursday 6 February 2014 - 12am PST
The accumulation of age-associated changes in a biochemical process that helps control genes may be responsible for some of the increased risk of cancer seen in older people, according to a National Institutes of Health study.

Scientists have known for years that age is a leading risk factor for the development of many types of cancer, but why aging increases cancer risk remains unclear. Researchers suspect that DNA methylation, or the binding of chemical tags, called methyl groups, onto DNA, may be involved. Methyl groups activate or silence genes, by affecting interactions between DNA and the cell's protein-making machinery.

Zongli Xu, Ph.D., and Jack Taylor, M.D., Ph.D., researchers from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of NIH, identified DNA methylation sites across the human genome that changed with age. They demonstrated that a subset of those sites - the ones that become increasingly methylated with advancing age - are also disproportionately methylated in a variety of human cancers. Their findings were published online in the journal Carcinogenesis.

"You can think of methylation as dust settling on an unused switch, which then prevents the cell from turning on certain genes," Taylor said. "If a cell can no longer turn on critical developmental programs, it might be easier for it to become a cancer cell."

Xu and Taylor made the discovery using blood samples from participants in the Sister Study, a nationwide research effort to find the environmental and genetic causes of breast cancer and other diseases. More than 50,000 sisters of women who have had breast cancer are participating in the study.

The researchers analyzed blood samples from 1,000 women, using a microarray that contained 27,000 specific methylation sites. Nearly one-third of the sites showed increased DNA methylation in association with age. They then looked at three additional data sets from smaller studies that used the same microarray and found 749 methylation sites that behaved consistently across all four data sets. As an additional check, they consulted methylation data from normal tissues and seven different types of cancerous tumors in The The Cancer Genome Atlas, a database funded by the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Taylor said that DNA methylation appears to be part of the normal aging process and occurs in genes involved in cell development. Cancer cells often have altered DNA methylation, but the researchers were surprised to find that 70-90 percent of the sites associated with age showed significantly increased methylation in all seven cancer types. Taylor suggests that age-related methylation may disable the expression of certain genes, making it easier for cells to transition to cancer.

The research also determined how fast these methylation events accumulate in cells. They occur at a rate of one per year, according to Xu.

"On your 50th birthday, you would have 50 of these sites [from the subset of 749] that have acquired methyl groups in each cell," Xu said. "The longer you live, the more methylation you will have."

For future work, Xu and Taylor want to examine more samples, using a newer microarray that will explore methylation at 450,000 genomic methylation sites. The additional samples and larger microarray, which will provide 16 times more genomic coverage, will allow them to address whether environmental exposures during adulthood or infancy affect methylation profiles. These additional studies will help scientists better understand why methylation happens as people march toward their retirement years.

DNA methylation is one of several epigenetic mechanisms that can control gene expression without changes in DNA sequence. This study is part of a broader research effort, funded by NIEHS, to understand how environmental and other factors affect epigenetic mechanisms in relation to health.

To view in original source http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/272187.php