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Issue 77

August 2008

Welcome to the 77th edition of Flash, our bi-weekly alert for science, health and medical journalists. Flash is a courtesy service with access to ScienceDirect, Elsevier’s online platform, providing full text access to some 2,000 scientific, technical and medical journals.

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ARTICLES

1. HAIR TODAY, GONE TOMORROW – A CLOSER LOOK AT MEN AND THEIR HAIR REMOVAL PRACTICES

As it turns out, women are no longer the only ones shaving, waxing and obsessing over hair removal. Traditionally, body hair has been viewed as symbolic of men’s masculinity and virility, but no more. Today, more men are hitting the salons or handling hair removal themselves to measure up to the new ideal male body portrayed as lean, muscular and yes, hairless.

To learn more about men’s hair-grooming habits, researchers recruited 106 gay and 228 heterosexual men to participate in an anonymous web-based survey. The questionnaire assessed whether or not they had ever removed their back, buttock or pubic hair, the frequency with which they did so, the methods they used and their reasons for hair removal. The results, reported in Elsevier’s Body Image, revealed that a large number of men are engaging in hair removal, with gay men more likely than heterosexual men to have removed their back, buttock or pubic hairs. Around half of the men had used wax, depilatory creams/gels and shaving to remove their back and buttock hairs. Over 80 percent of the men reported that the method of choice for removing pubic hair was shaving.

The data also demonstrated that both gay and heterosexual men largely participated in hair removal to improve their appearance and attractiveness. In fact, responses in the appearance-related category suggest that body hair removal is clearly perceived as an appearance-related behaviour. The study also illustrates that gay and heterosexual men are similar in their hair removal practices and share similar body image concerns.

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2. VITAMIN D INTERVENTION TRIALS IN PROSTATE CANCER – FROM THEORY TO THERAPY

Prostate cancer is the most common (non-skin) cancer among men in the Western world, and as a result, intense investigation has focused on its risk factors, interventions and treatments. Since it was hypothesised that vitamin D deficiency could be a risk factor, more than 20 vitamin D-based interventions have surfaced to help curb the disease.

A new paper in Elsevier’s Annals of Epidemiology highlights developments in vitamin D-based interventions in prostate cancer, focusing on the array of phases of the cancer and potential treatment options. As the authors state, there is some form of vitamin D-based therapy that could be a logical choice for investigational therapy, but to date most of the focus has been on those men with advanced androgen-independent disease.

As the paper notes, vitamin D might prevent prostate cancer, but many existing prostate tumours would likely require treatment with 1,25 (OH)2D and/or its analogs. The major obstacle to the use of 1,25 (OH)2D in patients is the risk of hypocalcaemia, but several steps can be taken to reduce the risks.

This paper concludes that it is possible that a high dose of vitamin D alone or in combination with other agents may be effective in primary prevention, and perhaps even the recurrent form of the disease. The subject of vitamin D in prostate cancer has evolved rapidly from theory to proof-of-principle and should continue to be assessed as a form of intervention.

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3. PROTECTING OUR KIDS ONLINE – ARE SAFEGAURDS AND PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT ENOUGH?

For most children, using the internet has become an everyday occurrence – like brushing your teeth. And while this evolving technology offers a number of positives, there is growing concern surrounding our children’s safety in an online environment. Over the years, safeguards have been put in place, but little research has been done to assess how effective these safeguards are, especially surrounding the topic of online disclosure.

To take a closer look at this theme, as well as how parenting involvement can impact a child’s use of the internet, Elsevier’s Journal of Retailing features a new article that details the findings of two studies involving preteen, young teen and older teen children. Both quasi-experiments focused on the adolescents’ online disclosure of personal information when presented with safeguard conditions. The factor of parental mediation also entered the scenarios, as the respondents were asked to rate their parents’ level of mediation in terms of being regulated and/or active. Regulated mediation is more or less defined as rule-making and setting limits. Active mediation is where a parent might actually sit with the child and discuss what is being experienced and the nature of the content. A parent utilising active mediation might also intervene if the content was undesirable.

Overall, results indicated that website safeguard effectiveness was dependent on the parental mediation strategy experienced by the children. While both studies provided support for the implementation of the safeguards for both preteen and younger teenage children, research revealed that unless the safeguards were paired with active parental mediation, their effectiveness was questionable. In fact, for all three age groups, the lowest level of personal information disclosure was consistently found for those participants with parents who actively mediate their online experiences.

This information should be a sign to parents that it is not enough to set rules around the amount of time spent on the internet. Children must be informed of the dangers of disclosing sensitive information. Educators can also serve as a source in informing kids about the internet, providing direct media education.

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4. GRAPE PRODUCT RICH IN ANTIOXIDANTS AND DIETARY FIBRE DECREASES RISK FACTORS FOR HEART DISEASE

With cardiovascular disease being the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the Western world, great focus is placed on behaviours and ways to decrease the risk of coronary heart disease.

In Elsevier’s latest issue of Nutrition, a new study evaluates the effects of a grape product rich in dietary fibre and natural antioxidants on cardiovascular disease risk factors. Since diets rich in plant food have been associated with a reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease, and dietary fibre intake has also been shown to do the same, researchers hypothesised the combination of the two would yield positive results. To test their theory, 34 non-smoking adults were supplemented for 16 weeks with 7.5 g/d of grape antioxidant dietary fibre. Nine non-supplemented non-smokers served as the control group. Fasting blood samples, blood pressure and anthropometric readings were obtained at baseline and week 16.

Results revealed the grape antioxidant concoction significantly reduced total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol and systolic and diastolic blood pressures. No changes were observed in the control group. These effects, the scientists say, appear to be higher than the ones caused by other dietary fibres, such as oat fibre or psyllium, probably due to the combined effect of the dietary fibre and antioxidants.
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The Scirus tool bar makes it easier than ever to find scientific, technical and medical information on the Web and is quick and easy to install. After installing, the Scirus toolbar conveniently appears below your Internet Explorer address bar, meaning you have scientific searches at your fingertips, wherever you are on the Web.

Link to Scirus: www.scirus.com/toolbar. If your browser does not support HTML, you may need to copy the links below and paste them into your browser to access the articles:

1. doi:10.1016/j.bodyim.2008.04.001
2. doi:10.1016/j.annepidem.2008.03.007
3. doi:10.1016/j.jretai.2008.04.004
4. doi:10.1016/j.nut.2008.03.012