Injecting a therapeutic molecule into muscle appears to jump-start the production of a crucial protein that's missing in patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, British researchers report.

The treatment so far is only applicable to about 13 percent of people with the debilitating and ultimately fatal disease, but scientists are hopeful that similar molecules might expand the treatment to a wider range of patients.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy affects about one in 3,500 males, and involves a progressive wasting of muscle due to a genetic inability to produce the protein dystrophin, a key component of muscle structure.

Recently, molecules called antisense oligonucleotides have shown some promise. These molecules work by "skipping over" portions of the defective gene that would otherwise block dystrophin production.

In their study, published online Aug. 25 in The Lancet Neurology, researchers at the University College London Institute of Child Health selected seven patients for whom a particular oligonucleotide molecule, called AVI-4658, appeared suitable. In these patients, the molecule "skipped" exon 51 -- the portion of the dystrophin-blocking gene that appeared to get in the way of effective dystrophin production.

Injecting the molecule into the muscles of these seven patients resulted in increased dystrophin production in all treated muscles, according to a journal news release.

"Intramuscular AVI-4658 was safe and induced the expression of dystrophin locally within treated muscles," the team wrote. "On the basis of these observations, we have initiated a dose-ranging study to assess the safety and efficacy of repeated doses of systemic intravenous AVI-4658."

In a commentary, Annemieke Aartsma-Rus and Gert-Jan van Ommen, from Leiden, the Netherlands, noted that while only about 13 percent of Duchenne muscular dystrophy patients can be expected to be helped by AVI-4658, molecules that skip other exons on the gene could be used, potentially spreading the benefit to more than 70 percent of patients.

What is Muscular Dystrophy?

The muscular dystrophies (MD) are a group of more than 30 genetic diseases characterized by progressive weakness and degeneration of the skeletal muscles that control movement. Some forms of MD are seen in infancy or childhood, while others may not appear until middle age or later. The disorders differ in terms of the distribution and extent of muscle weakness (some forms of MD also affect cardiac muscle), age of onset, rate of progression, and pattern of inheritance.

Duchenne MD is the most common form of MD and primarily affects boys. It is caused by the absence of dystrophin, a protein involved in maintaining the integrity of muscle. Onset is between 3 and 5 years and the disorder progresses rapidly. Most boys are unable to walk by age 12, and later need a respirator to breathe. Girls in these families have a 50 percent chance of inheriting and passing the defective gene to their children. Boys with Becker MD (very similar to but less severe than Duchenne MD) have faulty or not enough dystrophin.

Facioscapulohumeral MD usually begins in the teenage years. It causes progressive weakness in muscles of the face, arms, legs, and around the shoulders and chest. It progresses slowly and can vary in symptoms from mild to disabling.

Myotonic MD is the disorder's most common adult form and is typified by prolonged muscle spasms, cataracts, cardiac abnormalities, and endocrine disturbances. Individuals with myotonic MD have long, thin faces, drooping eyelids, and a swan-like neck.
Is there any treatment?

There is no specific treatment to stop or reverse any form of MD. Treatment may include physical therapy, respiratory therapy, speech therapy, orthopedic appliances used for support, and corrective orthopedic surgery.

Drug therapy includes corticosteroids to slow muscle degeneration, anticonvulsants to control seizures and some muscle activity, immunosuppressants to delay some damage to dying muscle cells, and antibiotics to fight respiratory infections. Some individuals may benefit from occupational therapy and assistive technology. Some patients may need assisted ventilation to treat respiratory muscle weakness and a pacemaker for cardiac abnormalities.

What is the prognosis?

The prognosis for people with MD varies according to the type and progression of the disorder. Some cases may be mild and progress very slowly over a normal lifespan, while others produce severe muscle weakness, functional disability, and loss of the ability to walk.

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a progressive muscle degenerative disease caused by dystrophin mutations.

There are two emerging therapies designed to repair the primary genetic defect, called 'exon skipping' and 'nonsense codon suppression'.

RECENT FINDINGS: A drug, PTC124, was identified that suppresses nonsense codon translation termination. PTC124 can lead to restoration of some dystrophin expression in human Duchenne muscular dystrophy muscles with mutations resulting in premature stops.

Two drugs developed for exon skipping, PRO051 and AVI-4658, result in the exclusion of exon 51 from mature mRNA. They can restore the translational reading frame to dystrophin transcripts from patients with a particular subset of dystrophin gene deletions and lead to some restoration of dystrophin expression in affected boys' muscle in vivo.

Both approaches have concluded phase I trials with no serious adverse events.

SUMMARY: These therapies act to correct the primary genetic defect of dystrophin deficiency are among the first generation of therapies tailored to correct specific mutations in humans.

Thus, they represent paradigm forming approaches to personalized medicine with the potential to lead to life changing treatment for those affected by Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

People want to get in shape fast.

There are no shortcuts to fitness, but high intensity fitness programs will give your body a rapid transformation. That's where boot camp fitness comes in.

Have you watched "The Biggest Loser" before? The trainers are merciless to the participants in an effort to turn their bodies into fat burning machines. Some people actually like that.

Boot camp fitness is a popular way to exercise. The coach won't yell at you unless you've paid for that type of class. In a gyms, health clubs and other types of programs, many people are turning to more aggressive measures looking for better and speedy fitness results.

Your body can handle a lot. The larger muscle groups of the legs, back, and abs will be challenged through a variety of exercises with and without weights. That is exactly what boot campers thrive on.

Basically the class combines some military PT training with squats, lunges, pushups, crunches, and cardio intervals. You could be running in place or jogging a half mile one minute and doing weight work the next. Those who are looking for a higher intensity workout thrive in  such classes.

Who is a good candidate for boot camp training? All fitness levels can participate, but check with your doctor first. On "The Biggest Loser" the contestants are constantly supervised by a physician. Before beginning any exercise program, especially one as intense as boot camp, it is a good idea to get a clean bill of health.

A good boot camp program will teach something about supportive nutrition so that all of the work done in camp is not in vain. Eating nutritionally supportive meals goes hand in hand with burning fat and reshaping your body.

We've seen the results on shows like "The Biggest Loser." Participants who were hundreds of pounds overweight have lost that weight with kick butt trainers. What about the rest of us? Does boot camp fitness really work?

Burning fat requires commitment, consistency and a burning desire to reshape the body. Boot camp programs deliver quick results, high intensity and a fast total body transformation.

Bootcamp can work for you, too!

It's time for all of the fitness entrepreneurs to get their latest and greatest ideas out to the public. From the totally tame to the hilariously zany, we still fall into the trap of trying the newest thing on the market. Have you tried the Wii Fit?

Those who have one of the Wii consoles swear that it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. It is what we have all been waiting for - a true virtual reality for the entire family. As we move, so do the characters on the television. Parents and children alike are bowling, racing, playing guitar, and other games using the Wii controllers and a lot of body movement.

Well, the company went one step further and designed a Wii fitness program. Since everyone was up and moving, they decided to capitalize on it. The Wii Fit is another attachment for the Wii console that looks like a flat board. Using this board, Wii owners can perform a variety of exercises and get in shape.

Let's first examine the cost. With any exercise program, there is always a cost and if the cost seems unreasonable you'll lose people right there. The Wii Fit board costs a whopping $90 but people are willing to pay for the chance to see if it is as much fun as the other Wii games they've tried.

Good news for new exercisers: The Wii Fit board can hold up to 330 pounds. That's not saying that you weigh 330 pounds, but if you are a bigger person, you can use the Wii Fit board. Many new gadgets don't allow for weights in all ranges and that is a problem for people. If we were already slim we wouldn't need to worry about it.

The Wii Fit uses several exercises to get people in shape. One of the exercises is the Wii Fit Ski Jump. You know how the people jump on the Olympic ski runs? That is what you are doing. The board is sensitive enough to pick up your movements and track your fitness workout. With the ski jump, you are squatting in position for the jump and standing to jump.

The Wii Fit board teaches balance and that works the abs and strengthens the other core muscles. Wii Fit is not a total workout program. It does offer a workout but you will need more cardiovascular work than what is provided with the Wii. It functions as a supplement to an exercise program but not as the whole thing. How long will it last? Who knows but as long as people are playing the other Wii games, they are getting at least some activity in each day, which is never a bad thing.

In this short video Jorge Cruise and Andrew Weil talk about the "calorie myth".

In this short video from the Tavis Smalley show Will Smith talks about success.

WASHINGTON -- A high-fat diet, at least for a few days, could enhance mental performance, according to a study unveiled Tuesday.

"Nutritional Effects on Cognitive Performance" examined how various diets affected 45 pilots. After four days, pilots on both high-fat and high-carbohydrate diets performed significantly better than those on a high-protein diet.

Results of the study were briefed this week at the Military Health Research Forum in Kansas City, a scientific gathering hosted by the Department of Defense Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs. A number of the 500 researchers in attendance from the military, industry and academia were surprised at the results.

"We were surprised too," said Dr. Glenda Lindseth, the study's lead researcher, during an interview Wednesday. "It wasn't what we anticipated."

Lindseth admitted that some of her colleagues were even "a little bit troubled" by the findings.

Researchers on her team at the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences - part of the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks -- at first had trouble believing the results, Lindseth said. "We reran our statistics many times," she said. "We kept analyzing our data as we went along."

But there was no mistaking the outcome.

Pilots on the high-fat diet scored about 50 percent better than those on the high-protein diet. They also scored about 20 percent better than pilots on the "control" or well-balanced diet.

After four days to a week on a particular diet, pilots were tested on a full-motion flight simulator. Their short-term memory was also tested by the Sternberg Item Recognition Test and their spatial orientation was evaluated by the Vandenberg Mental Rotation Test.

After the tests, participants were then randomly rotated into one of the other three diets. After four days to a week, they were tested again.

Pilots on the high-carbohydrate diet also scored more than 40 percent higher than those on the high-protein diet. They had better reaction times and improved memory.

In addition, pilots on the high-protein diet experienced irritability and high anxiety levels, Lindseth said. And they were not able to sleep as well as the other pilots.

Lindseth pointed out that all of the diets were actually balanced as far as the minimum daily required amount of nutrients and about the same amount of calories. However, the high-fat diet consisted of about 57 percent fatty foods, including whole milk, mashed potatoes and gravy, roast beef, and extra sausage patties.

The high-protein diet was comparable to the Atkins diet, Lindseth said, in that it consisted of more than 50 percent protein. Instead of roast beef and gravy, pilots on the high-protein diet might eat a spinach salad with chicken breast.

The latter kind of dinner has long been intuitively considered by many as healthy, and Lindseth cautioned that the long-term results of fatty or high-carbohydrate diets need to be studied further.

"One of the things you want to do with a study like this is take the results cautiously," Lindseth said.

She's not recommending that people take up a high-fat diet for the long run to improve their mental capacity. But she suggests that eating a candy bar or two before a test or a military operation "may not be as bad" as what nutritionists previously thought.

"Maybe people just need to eat (fatty) foods more when they're going to go into a situation when they're going to need to think more clearly or alertly," Lindseth said.

All of the participants in the study were fixed-wing pilots, and a few were military, Lindseth said, including a few pilots from the North Dakota National Guard.

Lindseth suggested that results of the study might be useful to the military far beyond just the field of aviation.

The last slide in her presentation on Tuesday read: "Since peak performance is critical to the warfighter, the effects of diet can have far-reaching consequences in the combat environment."

 

Has it been a long time since you have had fun when you exercised? The rule of thumb is that if it isn't fun you won't stick with it. That certainly holds true for the latest fads in the fitness world. Dancing has made its way from the nightclub to the gym.

 

Dancing classes are all the rage now. We do it for fun and boy do we work up a sweat. Let's see: sweating, fun, moving to a beat - that sounds like exercise to me. It has all the earmarks of a great way to shed some unwanted pounds. We've all seen Dancing with the Stars and those guys look great.

 

What are the options for dancing 'til you drop? Here are some of the dance crazes that are making their rounds.

 

1.     Zumba - This class is really gaining popularity. It is a mix of salsa, merengue, and other Latin styles put to stirring music that makes the workout more of an experience than an exercise. Several hundred calories can be burned in an hour from twirling, kicking, and twisting.

 

2.     Hip hop choreography - Who wouldn't want to dance like the girls on stage at a concert? Learning how to move your body takes practice. The majority of the steps depend on balance and a strong core. After you finish stomping, jumping, and turning, your body will be in great shape.

 

3.     Ballroom dancing - Who would have thought that such a high society form of dance would hit the mainstream? It's not the ballroom dancing of the 19^th century. With quick moves, spins, throws, and dips, the ballroom dancing of today is hotter than ever. It is all that balancing work that keeps the dancers in such good shape for competitions.

 

4.     Aerobic dance - These classes mix dance moves with some aerobics either on the floor or using an aerobic step. As you work the legs, buns, and heart performing step aerobics routines, the steps get more fluid when Latin dance moves like the cumbia are thrown in for good measure. While step aerobics is hard, the dancing component adds some choreography.

 

5.     Couples dance classes - More and more couples are finding that they can have a good time and work up a sweat in a dance class. These classes are held in small studios. Choose your style: Fox trot, salsa, ballroom, or freestyle. Get a few friends together and try a class. You'll learn some new moves and get in some physical activity three or more days a week.

 

Dancing is the next big thing in fitness trends. Does it work? Yes. Participants don't feel like they are working out but their bodies still reap the benefits. You'll work muscles you didn't even know you had.