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Potential treatment for liver cancer
Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have found that a chemical compound called 3-bromopyruvate can kill cancer tumours in the liver without damaging healthy cells.

Professor Peter Pedersen and colleagues tested the compound on rabbits with liver tumours. They found that the compound killed a lot of the cancer cells without damaging any of the surrounding tissue or other organs. It was also more effective than a current treatment for the disease called chemoembolization. This treatment delivers a dose of chemotherapy to the tumour and blocks off the artery that feeds it.

The scientists said they were surprised by the results, published in the journal Cancer Research. Professor Pedersen said: "It's very exciting because we expected the compound to be pretty toxic, but somehow normal cells in the rabbit protect themselves against it. "We even injected it into a vein, so it was distributed throughout the rabbit, and we still didn't see any apparent toxicity. It's amazing."

The scientists are now planning further studies to see if the compound could be used in humans with liver cancer.

However, they first need to find out how healthy cells protect themselves from the compound and whether it can cause any long-term damage.

'Moderate' drinking not so harmless
Much research suggests that moderate drinking does no harm - and may even offer health benefits in some cases.However, the latest studies of Japanese men may mean that this may not be true for everyone. The researchers, from Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, looked at more than 1,000 men from a suburban town over a 10-year period. It found that, compared with non-drinkers, any man who drank alcohol, regardless of quantity or frequency, had an increased risk of high blood pressure.

Heart disease

Even moderate drinking had an adverse effect - men who averaged just one drink a day had a 20% to 30% increased incidence of high blood pressure.

No such added risk was noted in women in the study.

High blood pressure is a problem because, over time, it can increase the chance of developing heart disease, as well as raise the risk of stroke. There is no obvious explanation for the wide disparity between the results of these studies and previous results from other research.

The studies also did not look into the lifestyle or diet of the men in the study, so cannot rule out these as a factor.

The current safe limits are three to four units of alcohol a day for men, and two to three for women - with at least one day's abstinence a week. A unit of alcohol is approximately half a pint of beer, a glass of wine or a measure of spirits. The studies were published in the journal Alcohol: Clinical Experience and Research.

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