Perhaps among the most confusing of nutrition and wellness decisions that the average consumer must make is whether to take dietary supplements. The available information is deeply contradictory; while some supplements — like folic acid for pregnant women and vitamin D for babies — are considered nearly essential in medical care, research suggests that other supplements may be ineffective or even deleterious to health. A recent research summary published in The Medical Letter On Drugs and Therapeutics may help consumers and practitioners to wade through the conflicting information on supplements, as many supplements have both risks and benefits associated with their use [1].

New research published in this month’s Archives of Internal Medicine has caused quite a stir amongst vitamin- and mineral-popping Americans [1]. Researchers report that over the course of a decades-long study, older women who regularly took vitamin and mineral supplements were more likely to die than those who did not.

This news may surprise those who look to vitamin and mineral supplements as a mechanism for maintaining — and even improving — health. However, while it would be easy to sensationalize the research findings, the reality is that there are many limitations that prevent drawing meaningful conclusions — ones that could be used to inform behavior — from the study.

Biomarker Bulletin is an occasionally recurring update of news focused on biomarkers aggregated at BiomarkerCommons.org. Biomarkers are physical, functional or biochemical indicators of normal physiological or disease processes. The individualization of disease management — personalized medicine — is dependent on developing biomarkers that promote specific clinical domains, including early detection, risk, diagnosis, prognosis and predicted response to therapy.

• Recent Advances in Biomarker Discovery for Parkinson’s disease, a Satellite Symposium at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting

  A satellite symposium, Recent Advances in Biomarker Discovery for Parkinson’s Disease, is being sponsored by Covance on November 13th, 2011 at the Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

• NYAS Symposium: Biomarkers and Brain Imaging of Presymptomatic Alzheimer’s Disease

  The New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) will be holding an afternoon event in January 2012 that focuses on biomarkers and brain imaging of presymptomatic Alzheimer’s disease.

• NIH to Support Clinical Trial Implementation or Biomarker Clinical Evaluation Studies

  Earlier this month, the National Institutes of Health announced that the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) Institute will support mission-relevant investigator-initiated Phase I, II, III or IV clinical trial cooperative agreement applications or biomarker evaluation studies that require prospective collection of clinical outcomes and clinical specimens.

• NIH to Fund Studies that Adapt Adult Biomarkers to Children

  The National Institutes of Health announced Thursday that the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) will support studies that propose adapting adult biomarkers to children.

• CLC bio to Develop Bioinformatics Tools for Prostate Cancer Biomarker Project

  CLC bio is participating in a $4 million Danish collaboration focused on the identification and validation of biomarkers of prostate cancer risk and aggressiveness.

Biomarker Bulletin is an occasionally recurring update of news focused on biomarkers aggregated at BiomarkerCommons.org. Biomarkers are physical, functional or biochemical indicators of normal physiological or disease processes. The individualization of disease management — personalized medicine — is dependent on developing biomarkers that promote specific clinical domains, including early detection, risk, diagnosis, prognosis and predicted response to therapy.

• MedTrust Online, Avantra Biosciences Collaborate to Involve Clinicians in Assay Development

  MedTrust Online and Avantra Biosciences recently announced that they will collaborate on involving clinicians in early-stage development of molecular diagnostic assays to run on Avantra Biosciences’ QPDx multiplex immunoassay system.

• Biomarker May Prove Useful for Diagnosing Knee Injury

  Researchers from Stanford University School of Medicine recently discovered a biomarker that may enable doctors to diagnose a common form of knee injury. The study, published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, has identified a specific protein complex in the knee fluid of patients with painful meniscal tears.

• OncoTrack Launches Search for Novel Genomic Cancer Diagnostics

  A new European consortium called OncoTrack has just launched one of Europe’s largest collaborative academic-industry research projects to develop and assess novel approaches for the identification of new biomarkers for colon cancer. The five year project, Methods for systematic next generation oncology biomarker development, brings together top European academic researchers with a wide range of expertise and partners them with pharmaceutical companies.

• Discovery of Diagnostic and Prognostic Prostate Cancer Serum Biomarkers Guided by Cancer Genetics

  An interdisciplinary team of researchers from ETH Zurich, University Hospital Zurich and the Cantonal Hospital of St. Gallenhas has defined biomarkers in patients’ blood serum that indicates the presence of prostate cancer. The method used has the potential to be applied to other types of tumors.

• SciClips Launches Diagnostic and Prognostic Biomarker Database

  In the era of personalized medicine, drugs will be targeted to patients based upon his or her unique genetic profile. Biomarkers are a critical component for tailoring treatments to individual patients. Biomarkers will be used as tools for target discovery, noninvasive early stage diagnosis of diseases, for evaluation of mode of action of a drug, dose determination and prediction of the drug effect. They will accelerate not only the development of effective and non-toxic drugs but also help in monitoring patient health and response to treatment.

It is old news that aspirin is good for your heart. But a recent report published in The Lancet, the premiere medical journal in the United Kingdom, claims that at least 75mg of aspirin every day can also reduce the risk of developing many different types of cancers.

There is already evidence that taking aspirin every day for five years can reduce the risk of colorectal cancer. Moreover, aspirin has been shown to reduce the incidence and/or growth rate of a number of cancers in animal models. To determine if aspirin can reduce the risk of other cancers in humans, Peter Rothwell and colleagues at the University of Oxford undertook a meta-analysis of eight randomized trials originally performed to study aspirin’s role in preventing vascular events. This study was independent of any commercial interests.