Exercise and Life-Satisfactory-Fitness: Complementary Strategies in the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Illnesses

Moderate training of an endurance nature, but also other exercise activities, not only has a preventive effect on various illnesses and pre-illness states such as the metabolic syndrome and cancer, but is also effective in treating patients in the rehabilitation phase after illness, e.g. cardiovascular or cancer. Our investigation demonstrates that even low level physical activity has a very good preventive effect too, which is enhanced when it is accompanied by mental activity and psychological well-being. In total, we investigated 13 000 people on the basis of socio-economic panel polls with respect to life contentment, health status and leisure-time activities. Life contentment is positively linked to contentment with labor, which seems to be an essential aspect with regard to the increasing number of unemployed people in Europe. The second important factor is health-promoting activities during leisure time. Exercise, especially, has a significant influence on life satisfaction as a feeling of physical fitness feeling is regarded as synonymous with good health. The results underline the psycho-neuroimmunological network, which stabilizes our health and shows that different activities in older adults have a significant effect on the aging process and age-related illnesses. Besides the various activities that are important in this arena, namely muscle and mental mobility (‘brawn and brain’), a third component must be taken into consideration: life contentment in the form of a successful retrospective view and a positive outlook, embedded in a psychosocial family environment (‘brood’) and integrated in a stress-free biotope, where life does make sense. Alternative and complementary strategies should be considered in light of these three aspects when we think about additional anti-inflammatory strategies in preventing diseases or treating them and their relapses. Sport has made a few healthy people ill, but sport has also made a good few of ill people healthy! (Gerhard Uhlenbruck, Aphorisms

Large-scale Survey of the Impact of Complementary Medicine on Side-effects of Adjuvant Hormone Therapy in Patients with Breast Cancer

Background/Aim: The present clinical investigation was performed to confirm the benefit of complementary medicine in patients with breast cancer undergoing adjuvant hormone therapy (HT). Patients and Methods: The patients (n=1561) were treated according to international guidelines. All patients suffered from arthralgia and mucosal dryness induced by the adjuvant HT. In order to reduce the side-effects, the patients were complementarily treated with a combination of sodium selenite, proteolytic plant enzymes (bromelaine and papain) and Lens culinaris lectin. On case report formulas, self assessment arthralgia and mucosal dryness were documented before and four weeks after complementary treatment. Validation was carried-out by scoring from 1 (no side-effects/optimal tolerability) to 6 (extreme side-effects/extremely poor tolerability). A total of 1,165 patients suffering from severe side-effects (symptom scores >3) were enrolled in this investigation. Results: Overall, 62.6% of patients (729 out of 1,165) suffering from severe arthralgia and 71.7% of patients (520 out of 725) with severe mucosal dryness significantly benefited from complementary medicine. Mean scores of symptoms declined from 4.83 before treatment to 3.23 after four weeks of treatment for arthralgia and from 4.72 before treatment to 2.99 after four weeks of treatment for mucosal dryness, the primary aims of the present investigation. The reduction of side-effects of HT was statistically significant (p<0.001) after four weeks. Conclusion: This investigation confirms studies suggesting a benefit of complementary treatment with the combination of sodium selenite, proteolytic enzymes and L. culinaris lectin in patients with breast cancer

THE EXPRESSION OF ONCOFETAL ANTIGENS ON MUCINS OF HUMAN AMNIOTIC FLUID

The relative high abundance of O-linked oligosaccharides on the mucin-type glycoproteins has opened a favorable perspective for detailed studies of carbohydrate epitope structures, which may be involved in processes relevant for cellular differentiation in development and oncogenesis. Immunological experiments, in particular those with monoclonal antibodies raised against the cell surfaces, have been sucessfully performed in order to monitor qualitatively oncofetal carbohydrate antigens and the changes in their patterns during such processes (1). On the other hand the biosynthetic studies on glycosyltransferases responsible for assembly of complex carbohydrates bound to proteins and their substrates lead to the conclusion, that several enzymes compete for a common substrate of specific structure available in the respective cellular compartment at the certain phase of biosynthesis (2). Therefore some carbohydrate microheterogeneity arising from the presence of different terminal epitope structures as well as the different branch length and different branching patterns on the single glycan attachment site should be expected. The structures of the O-linked glycans, liberated from the mucin-type glycoproteins by reductive elimination can be determined by spectroscopic methods, using different techniques of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) (3) and mass spectrometry (4). By combining the immunological and spectroscopic approach numerous oncofetal carbohydrate antigen structures have been found not only on mucins of developing systems (5), but on mucins of human body fluids of normal individuals like in seminal plasma (6) and milk (7) as well. Oncofetal antigens, recognized by a number of monoclonal antibodies like C-50, NS 19-9, OC 125, Leu Ml, 49 H 8 and 115 C 2, are strongly expressed also in the mucine fraction of human amniotic fluid (8). These were analysed by fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry (FAB-MS) (9), in particular Suitable for the determination of carbohydrate sequences, their branching patterns and their molecular size in native and derivatized samples, even in complex mixtures