Nuevo premio para la campaña publicitaria 'Pastillas contra el dolor ajeno'

'Pastillas contra el dolor ajeno', el trabajo de la agencia murciana Germinal Comunicación para Médicos Sin Fronteras, se ha alzado con The Grand Cup 2011 en Estambul. Se trata del máximo galardón de la Intercontinental Advertising Cup (The Cup), celebrado en Estambul del 24 al 27 de enero.
Esta misma campaña ha conseguido otras dos copas en las categorías 'Product & Services' (Best of Social Engagements) y 'Admaking' (Best of Strategy), según fuentes de la organización.
Con su éxito en la quinta edición de The Cup, esta campaña, una de las más premiadas de los últimos tiempos, cierra un año en el que ha conseguido más de 15 premios en festivales nacionales e internacionales, entre los que se cuentan una Copa de Iberoamérica, un Sol de Platino y dos Oros en el pasado FIAP.
En The Cup, el único certamen de carácter intercontinental, se premian las ideas creativas por encima de cualquier otro criterio, compitiendo entre sí piezas y campañas con independencia del medio o la categoría específicos para los que fueron desarrollados.
Germinal se convierte en la segunda agencia española que consigue The Grand Cup, tras JWT, ganadora en 2008 con su campaña para Freixenet 'The Key to Reserva'. De las cinco ediciones celebradas hasta la fecha, tres han sido ganadas por países integrantes del FIAP, ya que a las dos victorias españolas, hay que añadir la de BBDO Argentina en 2007.
Jorge Martínez, máximo responsable creativo de la campaña, y socio fundador de Germinal, ha destacado que "el triunfo de esta campaña es el triunfo de la creatividad y de las ideas, así como la prueba evidente de que la publicidad, cuando se vuelcan en ella energía y talento, se convierte en una poderosa herramienta para transformar y mejorar nuestro entorno".
Para Francisco José González, director del Festival Iberoamericano de la Publicidad y The Cup en España, "el hecho de que una pequeña agencia de Murcia se haya colado en los rankings entre las grandes multinacionales, obteniendo el máximo galardón del festival más internacional de nuestro sector, es un hito extraordinario que demuestra que el talento es, y seguirá siendo, la base fundamental de industria publicitaria".

**AGENCIAS

Early intervention may curb dangerous college drinking

The first few weeks of college are a critical time in shaping students' drinking habits. Now Penn State researchers have a tailored approach that may help prevent students from becoming heavy drinkers. "Research shows there is a spike in alcohol-related consequences that occur in the first few weeks of the semester, especially with college freshmen," said Michael J. Cleveland, research associate at the Prevention Research Center and the Methodology Center. "If you can buffer that and get beyond that point and safely navigate through that passage, you reduce the risk of later problems occurring."
The researchers tested two different methods of intervention on incoming freshmen -- parent-based intervention and peer-based intervention. Cleveland and his colleagues found that students who were non-drinkers before starting college, and who received the parent-based intervention, were unlikely to escalate to heavy drinking when surveyed again during the fall semester of their first year.
Students who were heavy drinkers during the summer before college were more likely to transition out of that group if they received either parent-based intervention or peer-based intervention. However, if a heavy-drinker received both interventions, there was no enhanced effect. Cleveland reported online in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors that 8 percent of the incoming freshmen were heavy drinkers the summer before starting college. The researchers surveyed the students again during the fall semester and found 28 percent of the freshmen now drank heavily. The results of the study were based on a study of 1,275 high-risk matriculating college students originally conducted in 2006 by Rob Turrisi, professor of biobehavioral health. Turrisi and his colleagues randomly assigned students to one of four intervention groups -- parent-based intervention only, peer-based intervention only, both parent- and peer-based intervention or no intervention -- and then surveyed the students on their drinking behaviors the summer before they entered college and then again during their first fall semester.
The parent-based intervention involved parents receiving a 35-page handbook outlining how to discuss the issue of alcohol and how to relate to their college student. Parents were asked to fill out an evaluation of the booklet, which also served as a measure to determine how many parents read the material. All parents completed the evaluations.
For peer-based intervention, subjects met one-on-one with a trained peer facilitator once within the first two weeks on campus. The meetings were 45 to 60 minutes long and included "perceived and actual descriptive norms for drinking, drinking consequences, alcoholic caloric consumption and hours of exercise required to burn those calories," the researchers report.
All students included in the survey were former high school athletes, chosen because this group is considered at high risk for heavy alcohol use and its consequences, which include risky sex, driving drunk and personal injury or death.
In the new investigation, Cleveland and his colleagues approached the study differently. Rather than focusing on average levels of drinking -- peak blood alcohol content, drinks per weekend and drinks per week -- Cleveland reanalyzed the data using a person-centered approach to determine students' patterns of drinking as well as how the students responded to intervention. This allowed the researchers to examine how drinking patterns varied throughout the week as well as how the interventions could be linked to students' transitions from one sub-group to another.
"We found four sub-groups of drinkers, which is an important advance to understanding different types of drinking that were present in this college sample," said Cleveland.
The sub-groups included non-drinkers, who did not report drinking alcohol at all; weekend non-bingers, who tended to only consume alcohol socially on Fridays and Saturdays; weekend bingers, who were likely to report binge drinking and getting drunk in the past month on Fridays and Saturdays; and heavy drinkers, who reported drinking every day of the week, most notably Thursdays.
Although neither intervention strategy appeared to influence the weekend drinkers, whether bingers or non-bingers, the intervention effects on the nondrinkers and heavy drinkers were promising, said Cleveland.
"From here we may be able to tailor the intervention to different types of students, identifying those students who are at different types of risk," said Cleveland. "By figuring out a way to match the intervention to the individual you can also maximize your resources for intervention."

**Source: Penn State

Alcohol and your heart: Friend or foe?

A meta-analysis done by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) into the relationship between alcohol consumption and heart disease provides new insight into the long-held belief that drinking a glass of red wine a day can help protect against heart disease. "It's complicated," says Dr. Juergen Rehm, director of social and epidemiological research at CAMH. Dr. Rehm's paper, co-authored by Michael Roerecke, was recently published in the journal Addiction. "While a cardioprotective association between alcohol use and ischaemic heart disease exists, it cannot be assumed for all drinkers, even at low levels of intake," says Dr. Rehm.
Ischaemic heart disease is a common cause of illness and death in the Western world. Symptoms are angina, heart pain, and heart failure. Based on 44 studies, the analyses used 38,627 ischaemic heart disease events (including deaths) among 957,684 people.
"We see substantial variation across studies, in particular for an average consumption of one to two drinks a day," says Dr. Rehm. The protective association may vary by gender, drinking patterns, and the specific health effects of interest. Differential risk curves were found by sex, with higher risk for morbidity and mortality in women.
Moreover, for any particular individual, the relationship between alcohol consumption and ischemic heart disease should not be isolated from other disease outcomes. Even at low levels, alcohol intake can have a detrimental effect on many other disease outcomes, including on several cancers.
"Even one drink a day increases risk of breast cancer, for example," says Dr. Rehm. "However, with as little as one drink a day, the net effect on mortality is still beneficial. After this, the net risk increases with every drink."
"If someone binge drinks even once a month, any health benefits from light to moderate drinking disappear." Binge drinking is defined more than four drinks on one occasion for women, and more than five for men.
Given the complex, potentially beneficial or detrimental effects of alcohol on ischaemic heart disease in addition to the detrimental effects on other disease categories, any advice by physicians on individual drinking has to take the individual risk constellation (such as familial predisposition for certain diseases and behavior with respect to other risk factors) into consideration.
"More evidence on the overall benefit-risk ratio of average alcohol consumption in relation to ischaemic heart disease and other diseases is needed in order to inform the general public or physicians about safe or low-risk drinking levels," the study concludes. "Findings from this study support current low-risk drinking guidelines, if these recognize lower drinking limits for women."

**Source: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Desde ahora .las comunidades autónomas decidirán los precios de los fármacos

Por primera vez, las comunidades autónomas tendrán voz y voto en la financiación de un nuevo medicamento. La nueva estructura del Ministerio de Sanidad y Asuntos Sociales prevé la participación de dos representantes de comunidades autónomas en la comisión interministerial de precios de los fármacos. Hasta la fecha, el Ministerio de Sanidad tenía la potestad exclusiva para decidir qué medicamentos debían tener financiación y fijar su precio. El Gobierno central siempre decidía, pero eran las comunidades autónomas las que pagaban la factura.
Esta situación, considerada injusta para la mayoría de los Gobiernos regionales, es la que ha querido corregir el nuevo equipo de Sanidad. Los dos representantes autonómicos serán elegidos a propuesta del Consejo Interterritorial del Sistema Nacional de Salud, el organismo que coordina a las comunidades autónomas con el Ministerio y donde participan todos los consejeros de Sanidad. Aún no hay orden del día para la celebración del próximo consejo interterritorial pero podría ser a mediados del próximo mes de febrero. Será entonces cuando se elija a los dos consejeros de Sanidad que tendrán voz en la comisión. Su participación será rotatoria.
La Comisión estará presidida por Pilar Farjas, secretaria general del Ministerio de Sanidad. Su vicepresidenta será la directora de Farmacia, Sagrario Pérez Castellanos, también del Ministerio. En las vocalías, además de los consejeros, habrá representantes de los ministerios de Hacienda e Industria.

-El nuevo «sintrom»
Al final de la legislatura, el anterior equipo de Sanidad dio luz verde a la financiación pública de cinco nuevos medicamentos de alto coste, como el sustituto del popular «sintrom», que no gustó a las comunidades. El nuevo «sintrom», que toman los enfermos cardiovasculares para la prevención del ictus y evitar la formación de coágulos, cuesta 63 euros mensuales frente a los 3 del fármaco tradicional. En España lo toman 650.000 pacientes.

**Publicado en "ABC"

Cutting off the oxygen supply to serious diseases

A new family of proteins which regulate the human body’s ‘hypoxic response’ to low levels of oxygen has been discovered by scientists at Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary, University of London and The University of Nottingham. The discovery has been published in the international journal Nature Cell Biology. It marks a significant step towards understanding the complex processes involved in the hypoxic response which, when it malfunctions, can cause and affect the progress of many types of serious disease, including cancer.
The researchers have uncovered a previously unknown level of hypoxic regulation at a molecular level in human cells which could provide a novel pathway for the development of new drug therapeutics to fight disease. The cutting-edge work was funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
Proteins are biochemical compounds which carry out specific duties within the living cell. Every cell in our body has the ability to recognise and respond to changes in the availability of oxygen. The best example of this is when we climb to high altitudes where the air contains less oxygen. The cells recognise the decrease in oxygen via the bloodstream and are able to react, using the ‘hypoxic response’, to produce a protein called EPO. This protein in turn stimulates the body to produce more red blood cells to absorb as much of the reduced levels of oxygen as possible.
This response is essential for a normal healthy physiology but when the hypoxic response in cells malfunctions, diseases like cancer can develop and spread. Cancer cells have a faulty hypoxic response which means that as the cells multiply they highjack the response to create their own rogue blood supply. In this way the cells can form large tumours. The new blood supply also helps the cancer cells spread to other parts of the body, called ‘metastasis’, which is how ultimately cancer kills patients.
The scientists have identified a new family of hypoxic regulator proteins called ‘LIM domain containing proteins’ which function as molecular scaffolds or ‘adapters’ bringing together or bridging two key enzymes in the hypoxic response pathway, namely PHD2 and VHL. Both of these are involved in down-regulating the master regulator protein called Hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF1). The research has shown that loss of LIMD1 breaks down the bridge it creates between PHD2 and VHL and this then enables the master regulator to function out of control and thus contribute to cancer formation.
Molecular Oncologist, Dr Tyson Sharp, who carried out research for the project at The University of Nottingham’s School of Biomedical Sciences, said: “The results from this research represent a significant advancement in our understanding of precisely how the hypoxic response works. It will help researchers develop better drugs to fight cancer and also other human diseases that are caused by low levels of oxygen within our body such as anaemia, myocardial infarction (heart attack), stroke and peripheral arterial disease. Further work in this fascinating area is now continuing at Barts Cancer Institute at Queen Mary University of London and will form the basis of a whole new additional research theme for my group.”

**Source: University of Nottingham

La Red Informática de Dependencia no funciona en cinco comunidades autónomas

Entre las patatas calientes que recibe el nuevo Ministerio de Sanidad, Servicios Sociales e Igualdad, el del servicio de atención a la Dependencia es una de las que más queman. La vicepresidenta del Gobierno, Soraya Sáez de Santamaría, ya anunció, dentro del paquete de medidas para reducir el déficit público, que no se incorporarían al sistema nuevas categorías de dependientes moderados hasta 2013.
Pero, para poder meter en cintura un servicio del que aspiran a beneficiarse más de dos millones de familias, una de las tareas más urgentes es dotarle de unidad real en el conjunto de España. Hoy, son las comunidades autónomas las encargadas de gestionarlo, lo que le ha restado homogeneidad. De hecho, los criterios de evaluación no son los mismos en cada territorio.
Más aún, varias comunidades siguen, cinco años después, sin compartir plenamente sus datos con el Ministerio, ya que ni siquiera se han sumado al sistema informático que se implantó en su día. El expresidente del Gobierno José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero anunció en noviembre de 2006 que el Instituto Nacional de las Tecnologías de la Comunicación (Inteco) que creó en su patria chica, León, albergaría el Sistema Informático y el Servicio de Información del futuro Sistema de Autonomía y Atención a la Dependencia (SAAD), al que entonces denominaba «cuarto pilar del Estado del Bienestar». Según explicó, para poner en marcha estos proyectos se destinarían 20 millones de euros y se crearían más de 200 puestos de trabajo.

-«Ciertas lagunas»
El secretario de Estado de Servicios Sociales e Igualdad, Juan Manuel Moreno, ha reconocido a ABC que el Ministerio y algunas comunidades tienen en la actualidad «un sistema informático que es incompatible», lo que impide que se puedan compartir datos y que existan «ciertas lagunas». Para solucionarlas se va a reunir una comisión técnica con representantes de las administraciones central y autonómica, indicó. «Sería razonable que los modelos de evalución de los recursos económicos fueran homogéneos y que los instrumentos que tuviéramos para catalogarlos fueran homólogos; eso facilitaría el trabajo y sería bueno para el conjunto de los ciudadanos», señaló el secretario de Estado.
Las comunidades con sistemas propios e incompatibles con el del Ministerio son al menos Cataluña, Madrid, Castilla y León, Galicia y Cantabria. Ello no significa que la Administración central carezca de datos de estas comunidades, pero supone que los tienen que enviar por otras vías, lo que resta unidad al servicio.
El director general del Imserso, César Antón, explicó que, cuando se lanzó el sistema informático en 2007, algunas comunidades lo asumieron desde el principio, pero «otras todavía tenían sus sistemas paralelos y siguen ahí». El hecho de que no todas las comunidades introduzcan los datos en el sistema «nos da unos pequeños desajustes». Según Antón, ahora se trata de que sea de verdad un «sistema único, nacional», en el que se comparta una información común. Los nuevos responsables del Ministerio están convencidos de que lo lograrán con «diálogo, consenso y participación».
En las últimas semanas, han estado realizando una ronda de encuentros con los distintos representantes autonómicos. «Queremos tener toda la información posible de los sectores implicados, no solo de la Adminstración, las comunidades autónomas y corporaciones locales, sino también de asociaciones y colectivos que están vinculados, que nos están diciendo las cosas que funcionan bien, las que serían deseables mejorar, y estamos entre todos evaluando cómo podemos mejorarla», señala el secretario de Estado de Servicios Sociales e Igualdad. A juicio de Juan Manuel Moreno, «la Dependencia es hoy por hoy un elemento vital para muchas familias».
Según el Imserso, a fecha 1 de enero hay 1.500.182 personas con derecho a prestación y el número de prestaciones se eleva a 1.252.164.

**Publicado en "ABC"

New probiotic bacteria shows promise for use in shellfish aquaculture

The use of probiotic bacteria, isolated from naturally-occurring bacterial communities, is gaining in popularity in the aquaculture industry as the preferred, environmentally-friendly management alternative to the use of antibiotics and other antimicrobials for disease prevention. Known to the public for their use in yogurt and other foods to improve human digestion and health, probiotic bacteria isolated from other sources can also be used to improve survival, nutrition and disease prevention in larvae grown in shellfish hatcheries. Researchers at NOAA's Milford Laboratory in Milford, Conn. have shown that naturally-occurring bacteria isolated from the digestive glands of adult eastern oysters (Crassostrea virginica) and northern bay scallops (Argopecten irradians irradians) may be used as potential probiotic candidates in oyster larviculture.
Two related research studies published in the Journal of Shellfish Research identify a new probiotic bacterium, designated OY15, which has been shown to significantly improve larval survival in pilot-scale trials during the first two weeks of life, the most critical stage for the organism when mortality rates are among the highest.
"We are cautiously optimistic that this probiotic candidate, OY15, will offer a number of significant benefits to the shellfish industry," said Gary Wikfors, co-author of both studies and head of the Milford Laboratory's Biotechnology Branch. "Commercial and public shellfish hatcheries can have low survival rates for shellfish seed during the first two weeks, so improving those survival rates and the health of the organisms beyond that point is a pretty significant step forward."
Hatcheries produce shellfish seed to supplement natural seed, which is often limited by loss of habitat, contamination from pollution, climate change and other factors. Bacterial diseases caused mainly by pathogenic bacteria such as Vibrio are a major cause of mortality in hatchery shellfish, particularly at the very early larval stage. The result: significant financial losses to commercial growers and to production of farmed shellfish, which accounts for 25 percent of the total world aquaculture product.
Antimicrobial drugs approved for use in aquaculture in some countries, but not the US, have traditionally been used to treat bacterial diseases, but overuse of antibiotics can result in the development of resistant strains of bacterial pathogens. The use of probiotic bacteria has become increasingly popular for improved nutrition, healthy digestion and disease prevention and is used in human foods like yogurt and in pet foods.
As demand for environmentally-friendly aquaculture grows, the use of probiotics for disease prevention and improved nutrition in shellfish aquaculture is also growing. While a number of research studies have shown promise, development of probiotics that can be used in aquaculture is a multistep process requiring fundamental research and full-scale trials.
"The objective of the first part of this study was to isolate and evaluate new probiotic bacteria which, when incorporated into foods used in shellfish hatcheries, might significantly improve larval survival," said co-author Diane Kapareiko, a microbiologist at the Milford Laboratory. The second part of the study was to test the new probiotic candidate on the survival of oyster larvae in pilot-scale trials during their first two weeks of life.
"We conducted a very cautious, step by step study, to identify the best candidates under a variety of scenarios," Wikfors said. "Our bench-scale challenge studies indicated that oyster larvae exposed to probiotic candidate OY15 had the highest survival rate, and that the survival of pathogen-challenged larvae was further improved by the presence of OY 15 compared to the pathogen alone. It is somewhat analogous to a human building up immunity to a certain organism by being exposed to it, but without the involvement of antibodies."
The Milford scientists isolated 26 candidate probiotic bacteria from oysters and scallops of which 16 had an inhibitory effect against a known shellfish-larval pathogen (B183) of the Vibrio species of bacteria. Further screening for safe use in culturing the oyster larvae and their microalgal feed indicated which probiotic candidates would inhibit growth of the pathogen most effectively and therefore could confer a protective effect upon oyster larval survival.
Lab studies indicated that survival of two-day old oyster larvae during two-week pilot scale trials improved when supplemented with the probiotic candidate OY15 strain. Four treatments were conducted: a larval control with no bacteria, a pathogen control with larvae and pathogen B183 only, a probiotic control with larvae and probiotic candidate OY15 only, and a combination treatment composed of larvae and both probiotic and pathogen.
"Our research focused on the critical first stage of larval growth, when mortality rates are among the highest," Kapareiko said. Positive effects of probiotic candidate OY15 were found on the survival of oyster larvae (short term), on growth of phytoplankton used as larval feed, and upon oyster survival during pilot-scale larviculture conditions.
"This two-part study confirms that use of naturally-occurring probiotic bacteria confers protection to oyster larvae against bacterial disease and improves their survival," Kapareiko said. "The results can be used as guidelines for isolating and screening other potential probiotic candidates for similar aquaculture applications, and provide the basis for developing functional foods for use in shellfish hatcheries that incorporate a naturally occurring, probiotic bacteria."

**Source: NOAA Fisheries Northeast Fisheries Science Center