Daily Mirror - 03.03.2020

mirror.co.uk TUESDAY 03.03.2020 DAILY MIRROR^31

DM1ST

GOOD NEWS A new era

of cancer treatment

A 100,000-piece jigsaw with 99%

missing, that’s cancer. Or it was until

more than a thousand scientists

built the most detailed and almost

complete picture of all cancers.

The Pan-Cancer Analysis of

Whole Genomes Consortium has

analysed the genetic code of 2,658

cancers showing thousands of

combinations of mutations that can

cause cancer. The project found

cancers contain, on average,

between four and five basic

mutations that drive the cancer’s

growth.

So complex was the research that

it took 22 scientific journal papers

to describe it. This study shows

new ways of detecting cancer

earlier and it could allow future

treatments to be tailored to each

patient’s unique tumour.

Herd

immunity

Here’s a dramatic

example of herd

immunity. Finland

introduced a

multivalent

pneumococcal

vaccination programme for

infants in 2010.

Vaccine uptake was high and

there was an immediate

reduction in rates of pneumonia

in young children and among

older, unvaccinated

children. After a brief

lag, adults began to

benefit too.

Before 2010,

pneumonia

hospitalisations in

adults had been

increasing, but by

2014-2015 rates had

declined by 15%. The benefit was

greatest in the elderly, with an

annual saving of about 1,500

hospitalisations for people 65

years and older.

DID YOU KNOW?

Our bodies are

getting cooler

A team at Stanford University, US,

says our bodies are getting colder

after looking at three sets of body

temperature records.

The first were for veterans from

the American Civil War, whose

temperatures were measured

between 1860 and 1940. The

second came from the early 1970s

and the third from 2007 to 2017.

They suggested men born in the

early 19th century had body

temperatures 0.59C higher than

men today. Why is the team

confident that the fall is real?

Younger people were found to

have lower temperatures than

older people.

A decline was also clear between

the two later set of records.

“I don’t think there’s much

difference in the thermometers

between the 1960s and today,” said

senior author Dr Julie Parsonnet.

She and her colleagues suspect

that a variety of factors – including

a decline in infectious diseases and

increasingly controlled indoor

climates – have caused our bodies

to cool down.

H E ALTH

NEWS

Symptoms:

6

You’re in the throes of

a passionate love affair

and you’re having an awful

lot of sex. After a recent

weekend away with your

partner you found that your

semen had dried up.

6

You’ve had your

prostate gland

removed as treatment for

prostate cancer and while

you can still have an

orgasm there’s little

semen.

6

You have diabetes

and you’ve noticed for

the past few months that

you ejaculate very little or

no semen when you have

an orgasm. You’ve also

noted that your urine is

cloudy after an orgasm.

It could be:

6

Repeated orgasms, as

can happen in a sexual

marathon which uses up all

the body’s fresh semen and

sperm so an orgasm might

be dry.

6

A side effect of the

prostatectomy. Dry

orgasm can occur after

some surgeries for prostate

cancer and for testicular

cancer, particularly if the

nerves that control orgasm

have been affected.

6

Retrograde

ejaculation when

semen goes into the

bladder instead of through

the penis during orgasm.

This is because the bladder

neck muscle doesn’t

tighten properly preventing

semen from being directed

down the penis.

Stop it:

6

This is not a cause

for alarm and

generally improves

after a few hours of rest

and abstinence.

6

Speak to your

doctor, explain

what’s happened and

seek reassurance. Dry

orgasm isn’t harmful

and doesn’t affect

sexual pleasure.

6

Retrograde

ejaculation isn’t

harmful and only

requires a treatment if

you want to father a

child. However, see

your doctor to make

sure your diabetes,

which could cause it,

is properly controlled.

4 REASONS TO eat tuna

1

It is a fatty fish so it’s rich in omega-3 fatty acids,

good for the heart and lowering cholesterol.

2

Tuna is pure animal protein, essential for building

lean muscle mass and providing bodily energy.

3

Tuna is rich in vitamin D which helps the body

absorb calcium.

4

It also contains selenium, a powerful antioxidant that

can help boost the immune system.

[email protected] @MiriamStoppard Sorry, but I can’t answer letters personally

Dr MiriaM StopparD

Why am

I having

dry

orgasms?

Speaking another language

can boost your brain health

W

hen you next you go on

holiday try to think about

learning a few words of the

local lingo. It could keep

your brain ticking over.

Indeed it could do more than that,

it could make your brain resistant to

ageing, even improve your mental

capacity, whatever your age.

This is a fertile area of research,

examining the benefits of speaking

more than one language.

One surprising study showed in

people speaking only one language,

the average age for developing the first

signs of dementia was 71.4, whereas it

was 75.5 for people who speak two or

more languages.

Would you believe bilingual people

remember shopping lists, names

and directions better than people who

speak only one language?

Bilingual people are also more alert

to their surroundings. They can focus

on important details and ignore the

less important ones.

And now researchers at the

University of Reading claim to be the

first to “test the idea that speaking

multiple languages protects against

decline in brain function”.

To do this they firstly compared the

brain activity of bilingual people with

and without multiple sclerosis. Then

they compared the thinking abilities

of people with and without MS who

spoke only one language.

They found that MS patients who

spoke more than one language

attained similar scores to bilingual

people without MS. In the other

group, however, “patients [with MS]

who only had fluency in one language

performed worse than the mono-

lingual control” group. This is a

pretty spectacular result according to

any criteria.

What makes this study special is

that it examined two cognitive

functions in detail. The first is known

as “monitoring”, which is your ability

to analyse a problem

and change your way

of thinking to come up

with new solutions for

solving problems and

making decisions. It’s

described as “thinking

outside the box”.

The second is

“inhibitory control”, which is your

ability to control natural impulses.

The study found that MS patients

who spoke only one language had

similar inhibitory control to people

without MS but showed “significantly

worse monitoring abilities”, suggesting

that speaking a second language could

help creative thinking when having to

face a thorny problem.

Christos Pliatsikas, an associate

professor from Reading, said: “Previous

studies have provided clues as to the

potential effect of speaking multiple

languages on the brain and its power

to protect against disease, including

increasing the volume of several brain

areas connected to language learning

and processing. This study shows how

this idea is taking place in practice.”

‘‘Bilingual people

are more alert

and can focus on

important details