8 • February 12-18, 2011
Filipino Press
www.filipinopress.com
HealthyLiving County unveils Healthy Works anti-obesity program Initiative engages residents, businesses and leaders to create ‘Paths to Healthy Living’ SAN DIEGO — Bicycles and Balboa Park go together in San Diego. The two elements served as perfect partners for students from Roosevelt Middle School to join County Supervisors Pam Slater-Price and Ron Roberts in a bicycle safety activity recently, when the San Diego County’s officially unveiled the comprehensive obesity-prevention initiative Healthy Works. Healthy Works engages San Diego County residents, businesses and community leaders in systems and environmental approaches such as farmers’ markets, community gardens, bike-to-school and work programs, school exercise and nutrition programs and changes involving land use and transportation. Healthy Works creates “Paths to Healthy Living.”
“Healthy Works continues the county’s aggressive efforts in obesity prevention,” said Supervisor Slater-Price, who chairs the Healthy Works Leadership Team. “We are determined to make the neces-
UCSD scientists discover clue to ending chronic itching side effect of certain drugs
cream used to treat a variety of skin diseases. One pathway produces the therapeutic benefit; the other induces severe itching as a side effect.
SAN DIEGO — Scratching deep beneath the surface, a team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and three South Korean institutions have identified two distinct neuronal signaling pathways activated by a topical
The findings, published recently in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, point to the possibility of designing future drugs that effectively treat targeted conditions while blocking the cellular signals that can
HEALTH NOTES
sary changes allowing County residents better access to healthy choices, including healthy activities.” Now that all the Healthy Works partners are in place and preliminary accomplish-
ments realized, the real momentum of this work can begin to take off. Healthy Works is a component of the San Diego County’s “Live Well, San Diego!, Building Better Health” initiative,
lead to problematic itching and scratching.
Itching — and the scratching response — are part of a complex and imperfectly understood somatosensory process that includes complex, confounding psychological factors. The mechanisms involved are so sophisticated, said Simon, that just reading or thinking about itching can provoke the sensation.
“This new pathway provides another avenue to block the scratching response that appears as a chronic side effect during treatments of cancer, renal failure or the use of some antibiotics,” said Melvin I. Simon, Ph.D., an adjunct professor in the UCSD Department of Pharmacology and a corresponding co-author of the study, headed by Sang-Kyou Han, an adjunct assistant professor at UCSD.
Improving understanding of itch biology isn’t just a matter of scratching an intellectual curiosity. It could lead to practical medical benefits, according to Simon. “Itching and scratching
a 10-year strategic vision for improving health and wellness and combating the toll of chronic diseases, including obesity, which is viewed as a nationwide public health emergency. “We are excited about the systems and environmental changes that people are already beginning to see in their communities,” said Ron Roberts, who currently serves as vice chairman of the Board of Supervisors and, together with Slater-Price, has been a champion of obesity awareness in this county. “Healthy Works is a turning-point initiative in San Diego County and will lay the groundwork for wellness efforts in the years ahead,” he said. This is an ambitious, $16 million initiative to create programs that encourage wellness. “In order to affect change, we must try to assure that all levels in our community support healthy choices. Government, businesses,
neighborhoods, families and individuals all play key roles in this effort,” said Nick Macchione, director of the county’s Health and Human Services Agency. Healthy Works is the San Diego County initiative of Communities Putting Prevention to Work, a federally funded grant program administered by San Diego County, and includes the University of California San Diego, San Diego Association of Governments, San Diego County Office of Education, Community Health Improvement Partners and San Diego State University, along with numerous community-based partners. The initiative is funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, as is part of a nationwide initiative involving more than 50 communities implementing environmental and systems approaches related to obesity and tobacco prevention. San Diego County received the largest grant in the nation for obesity prevention.
are side effects of a variety of therapeutic drugs and of specific illnesses. In many cases, these effects are severe and make it impossible to use otherwise effective therapies. Thus, the itch remains an unmet medical need,” he said.
sponse. One major side effect: Imiquimod produces intense itching and scratching.
In the PNAS study, the scientists focused on Imiquimod (marketed as Aldara), a prescription-based topical cream used to treat a number of skin diseases, including some forms of skin cancer, by activating the body’s innate immune re-
The researchers discovered that the skin sensory circuit activated by Imiquimod to causes itching is different from the signaling pathway involved in the drug’s therapeutic benefit. Indeed, the Imiquimod itch mechanism is distinct from other, well-defined itch mechanisms. “By breaking down the reSee notes on Page 9