Losing a loved one really can cause someone to die from a broken heart, scientists claim.

They say that intense grief weakens the body's immune system leaving it more vulnerable to infections.

Academics from the University of Birmingham have found that increased stress levels and depression brought on by bereavement interferes with a type of white blood cell called neutrophils.

These are key to fighting certain bacterial infections such as pneumonia.

The researchers say the effects worsen with age as adults lose the ability to produce another hormone that can counteract the damage.

They believe this could in part explain why couples who have been married for years die months, weeks or even days apart.

Professor Janet Lord, who led the research, said: 'There are a lot of anecdotes about couples who were married for 40 years when one of them passes away and then the other dies a few days later. It seems there is a biological basis for this.

'Rather than dying of a broken heart, however, they are dying of a broken immune system. They usually get infections.

'We think that what is going on is that even in previously healthy people are becoming very depressed and this has a powerful effect on the immune system.'

Professor Lord and her colleagues looked at the immune systems and hormone levels of 48 healthy adults aged 65 and over.

Half of the group had suffered a major bereavement in the past 12 months.

They found that the ability of neutrophils to fight bacteria was lower in people who had suffered a bereavement.

They also had raised levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which is known to suppress the activity of neutrophils making them less active.

In 1995 former Prime Minister James Callaghan died of pneumonia aged 92, just ten days after his wife of 67 years Audrey.

And in 2003 musician Johnny Cash died of complications related to diabetes aged 71.

His 73-year-old wife June had died just four months earlier.

Often feel light-headed and woozy when you get out of your seat? Beware, you may have a higher risk of developing heart failure, scientists say.

According to researchers, dizzy spells experienced after standing up suddenly are caused by a rapid drop in blood pressure known as orthostatic hypotension.


Now a team at the University of North Carolina found that people who experienced the condition frequently were about 54% more likely to develop heart failure than those who didn`t , the Daily Mail reported. The risk still stood at 34% when researchers took account of those who also suffered from high blood pressure. And it was most pronounced in those aged between 44 and 55 years.

To reach their results, published in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension , the team measured the blood pressure of 12,000 patients when they were lying down and shortly after they stood up.

About 11% of patients who developed heart failure had at the start of the study compared to only 4% of those who did not develop heart failure.

The dreaded H1N1 virus is back with 129 cases and 12 deaths reported in the last 20 days from four states - with the maximum of 69 cases and six deaths in Maharashtra, followed by 28 cases and five deaths from Rajasthan.

The government, however, said there was no cause for panic and these states have been asked to strengthen their surveillance to check the further spread of the virus.

"The Health Ministry is monitoring the situation and there is no cause for worry. The states where cases had been reported have been advised to step up surveillance to control the further spread of the virus," Health Secretary PK Pradhan said.

As per data released by the Health Ministry today, in the first 21 days of March, a total of 129 positive Influenza-H1N1 cases have been reported, with a total of 12 deaths. Of these, 69 cases are from Maharashtra, 27 from Andhra Pradesh, 28 from Rajasthan and five from Karnataka.

Out of 12 deaths, six have so far been reported from Maharashtra, five from Rajasthan and one from Andhra Pradesh. No death has so far been reported from Karnataka.

The Emergency Medical Relief Division of Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare is following the developments in the states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka for H1N1 cases.

Health Ministry officials, however, ruled out any cause for alarm saying strict public health vigil is being maintained.

The virus which had spread across the world in 2009 claimed around 20,000 lives. Since then, the H1N1 cases have been on the decline across the world, including in India.

Swine flu tests are available at all government facilities and the medicine Tamiflu is available indigenously on prescription

Marijuana-like chemicals set off receptors on human immune cells that can directly inhibit a type of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) found in late-stage AIDS, a new study has revealed.

Medical marijuana is prescribed to treat pain, debilitating weight loss and appetite suppression, side effects that are common in advanced AIDS.


This is the first study to reveal how the marijuana receptors found on immune cells-called cannabinoid receptors CB1 and CB2-can influence the spread of the virus.

Understanding the effect of these receptors on the virus could help scientists develop new drugs to slow the progression of AIDS.

"We knew that cannabinoid drugs like marijuana can have a therapeutic effect in AIDS patients, but did not understand how they influence the spread of the virus itself," said study author Cristina Costantino, PhD, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

"We wanted to explore cannabinoid receptors as a target for pharmaceutical interventions that treat the symptoms of late-stage AIDS and prevent further progression of the disease without the undesirable side effects of medical marijuana."

HIV infects active immune cells that carry the viral receptor CD4, which makes these cells unable to fight off the infection. In order to spread, the virus requires that "resting" immune cells be activated.

In advanced AIDS, HIV mutates so it can infect these resting cells, gaining entry into the cell by using a signalling receptor called CXCR4.

By treating the cells with a cannabinoid agonist that triggers CB2, Dr. Costantino and the Mount Sinai team found that CB2 blocked the signalling process, and suppressed infection in resting immune cells.

Triggering CB1 causes the drug high associated with marijuana, making it undesirable for physicians to prescribe.

The researchers wanted to explore therapies that would target CB2 only. The Mount Sinai team infected healthy immune cells with HIV, then treated them with a chemical that triggers CB2 called an agonist. They found that the drug reduced the infection of the remaining cells.

"Developing a drug that triggers only CB2 as an adjunctive treatment to standard antiviral medication may help alleviate the symptoms of late-stage AIDS and prevent the virus from spreading," added Dr. Costantino.

Because HIV does not use CXCR4 to enhance immune cell infection in the early stages of infection, CB2 agonists appear to be an effective antiviral drug only in late-stage disease.

As a result of this discovery, the research team led by Benjamin Chen, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases, and Lakshmi Devi, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology and Systems Therapeutics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, plans to develop a mouse model of late-stage AIDS in order to test the efficacy of a drug that triggers CB2 in vivo.

Three new studies published on Wednesday added to growing scientific evidence suggesting that taking a daily dose of aspirin can help prevent, and possibly treat, cancer.


Previous studies have found that daily aspirin reduces the long-term risk of death due to cancer, but until now the shorter-term effects have been less certain - as has the medicine`s potential in patients already diagnosed with cancer.

The new studies, led by Peter Rothwell of Britain`s Oxford University, found that aspirin also has a short-term benefit in preventing cancer, and that it reduces the likelihood that cancers will spread to other organs by about 40 to 50 percent.

"These findings add to the case for use of aspirin to prevent cancer, particularly if people are at increased risk," Rothwell said.

"Perhaps more importantly, they also raise the distinct possibility that aspirin will be effective as an additional treatment for cancer - to prevent distant spread of the disease."

This was particularly important because it is the process of spread of cancer, or "metastasis", which most often kills people with the disease, he added.

Aspirin, originally developed by Bayer, is a cheap over-the-counter drug generally used to combat pain or reduce fever.

The drug reduces the risk of clots forming in blood vessels and can therefore protect against heart attacks and strokes, so it is often prescribed for people who already suffer with heart disease and have already had one or several attacks.

Aspirin also increases the risk of bleeding in the stomach to around one patient in every thousand per year, a factor which has fuelled an intense debate about whether doctors should advise patients to take it as regularly as every day.

Last year, a study by British researchers questioned the wisdom of daily aspirin for reducing the risk of early death from a heart attack or stroke because they said the increased risk of internal bleeding outweighed the potential benefit.

Other studies, including some by Rothwell in 2007, 2010 and 2011, found that an aspirin a day, even at a low dose of around 75 milligrams, reduces the long-term risk of developing some cancers, particularly bowel and oesophageal cancer, but the effects don`t show until eight to 10 years after the start of treatment.

Rothwell, whose new studies were published in The Lancet and The Lancet Oncology journals on Wednesday, said this delay was because aspirin was preventing the very early development of cancers and there was a long time lag between this stage and a patient having clinical signs or symptoms of cancer.

Rothwell and others said deeper research was now needed into aspirin as a potential treatment for cancer in patients whose disease has not yet spread.

"No drug has been shown before to prevent distant metastasis and so these findings should focus future research on this crucial aspect of treatment," he said.

Peter Johnson, chief clinician at the charity Cancer Research UK, said his group was already investigating the anti-cancer properties of aspirin. "These findings show we`re on the right track," he said.

In a written commentary on the research in The Lancet, Andrew Chan and Nancy Cook of Harvard Medical School in the United States said it was "impressive" and moved health experts "another step closer to broadening recommendations for aspirin use".