Body & Brain
Vaccine knocks down diarrhea cases, a flag for mortality risk and more in this week’s news
By Science News
Rotavirus vaccine’s bonus effect
The introduction of an antidiarrheal vaccine for babies in 2006 has also resulted in less illness in older kids, scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta report online August 29 in the Journal of Infectious Diseases. The vaccine for rotavirus is recommended for babies 3 months to 2 years old and has greatly reduced infection in that age group. The new study, using a nationwide sample, shows that hospitalizations for rotavirus infection among 5- to 24-year-olds also dropped, by roughly two-thirds in 2008 compared with prevaccine years. Infected babies can transmit the disease to older siblings, and infant vaccination indirectly prevents the illness in this older population, the researchers suggest. —Nathan Seppa
Marker protein may affect mortality
High levels of cathepsin S, a suspected inflammatory protein, may hurt a person’s long-term survival. Researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden teamed with scientists at other universities to track the progress of two groups of roughly 1,000 people each, following one group for eight years and the other for 13 years. The participants averaged age 70, and during follow-up 513 died. After accounting for differences such as smoking and weight, the researchers found that people with the highest blood concentrations of cathepsin S were slightly more likely to have died than those with lower levels. Specifically, those with more cathepsin S showed a higher risk of death from cancer and heart problems, the scientists report online August 29 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. —Nathan Seppa
Pregnancy smoking tied to child asthma
Among children with asthma, the severity of the condition may be linked to past exposure to tobacco smoke — in the womb. Researchers in Mexico, Puerto Rico and the United States analyzed data on 295 black and Latino children ages 8 to 16 who had asthma. Overall, nearly one-tenth had mothers who had smoked during pregnancy. Children with persistent asthma were 3.6 times as likely to be among that group as were kids with only intermittent asthma, the scientists report in the September Pediatrics. Current smoking in the household by parents had no effect on asthma severity, the researchers found. —Nathan Seppa
