Russian critic: Billions have been stolen from Russian Olympics

MOSCOW (AP) ? A prominent Russian opposition figure claims billions of dollars have been stolen during preparations for the 2014 Winter Games in the southern city of Sochi.

Boris Nemtsov, a former Russian deputy prime minister, and an associate released a report Thursday claiming that up to $30 billion was stolen by Russian officials and businessmen in the run-up to the Sochi Olympics.

Nemtsov arrived at that figure by comparing the initial cost estimate with the final price tag of about $51 billion and with cost overruns at previous Olympics. He also compared the per-seat cost of Sochi's Olympic stadium and stadiums at previous games.

The Sochi games in Russia will be the most expensive Olympics in history, winter or summer. In contrast, the 2012 London Summer Olympics cost $14.3 billion.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/russian-critic-wide-corruption-sochi-games-131742967.html

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Sixth night of violence in Sweden, but police say capital calmer

By Mia Shanley

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Community patrols and a beefed-up police presence helped to calm violence around Stockholm overnight on Saturday but 20 to 30 cars were still torched in poor immigrant suburbs and serious incidents were reported outside the capital for the first time.

The rioting in Stockholm abated after a week of masked youths vandalizing schools and police stations, setting cars alight and hurling stones at firefighters, police said.

"It was much calmer - rocks weren't being thrown at police or firefighters - and that's a sign that it's calmer. We haven't had any riots or anything similar," said police spokesman Kjell Lindgren.

Community leaders were taking to the streets, dressed in fluorescent jackets, to try to calm things down.

"We have been present in many places, we've been talking to people, and many residents have been out in the city, keeping their eyes open, being engaged," Lindgren said.

But serious incidents were reported outside the Stockholm area, for the first time.

In Orebro, a town in central Sweden, some 25 masked youths set fire to three cars and a school and tried to torch a police station, police said. Some 200 km to the southwest in Linkoping, several vehicles were set on fire and youths tried to torch a school and a kindergarten, they said.

The rioting was sparked by the police shooting on May 13 of a 69-year-old man, who media reported was killed when police stormed his apartment because they feared he was threatening his wife with a large knife. Media said he was a Portuguese immigrant, which police would not confirm.

In a country famed for its model welfare state, the rioting has exposed a fault-line between a well-off majority and a minority - often young people with immigrant backgrounds - who are poorly educated, cannot find work and feel pushed to the edge of society.

Underscoring Sweden's ambivalence toward its open immigration policies, an anti-immigrant party has risen to third in polls this year and some analysts say the riots could swell its ranks.

Dozens of far-right activists were seen driving around some southern suburbs of Stockholm on Friday, closely watched by police.

MASKED YOUTHS

The violence has echoes of rioting in recent years in Paris and London but has been relatively mild in comparison. There has been no looting, hardly any injuries and few arrests.

Much of the capital has gone about business as normal and even affected suburbs look normal by day.

Still, it has shocked a nation that has long taken pride in its generous social safety net, though some seven years of centre-right rule have chipped away at benefits.

One recent government study showed that up to a third of young people aged 16 to 29 in some of the most deprived areas of Sweden's big cities neither study nor have a job.

Youth unemployment is especially high in neighborhoods such as the ones where the riots have taken place, home to asylum seekers from Iraq to Somalia, Afghanistan and Latin America.

About 15 percent of Sweden's population is foreign-born. While many are from neighboring Nordic countries, others are drawn by the country's policy of welcoming asylum seekers from war-torn countries.

The gap between rich and poor in Sweden is growing faster than in any other major nation, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.

(Writing by Alistair Scrutton; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/violence-spreads-outside-swedish-capital-violence-abates-001206028.html

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London attacker British, of Nigerian origin: source

By Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Holden

LONDON (Reuters) - British authorities have established that one and possibly both of the men who hacked a soldier to death on a London street was born in Britain of Nigerian descent, a source with knowledge of the investigation said on Thursday.

Local media named the man who was definitely born in the country as 28-year-old Michael Adebolajo and said police raided the home of his Nigerian family in a village near the eastern English city of Lincoln. Both men appeared to have converted to Islam from Christian immigrant backgrounds, British media said.

Both suspects in the attack, conducted in broad daylight on Wednesday afternoon, are in custody after being shot by police.

As security experts highlighted the risk to Western cities of "lone wolf" attacks by local people radicalised over the Internet, Prime Minister David Cameron held an emergency meeting of his intelligence chiefs to assess the response to what he called a "terrorist" attack, the first deadly strike in mainland Britain since local Islamists killed dozens in London in 2005.

"We will never give in to terror or terrorism in any of its forms," Cameron said outside his Downing Street office.

"This was not just an attack on Britain and on the British way of life, it was also a betrayal of Islam and of the Muslim communities who give so much to our country. There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act."

The two men used a car to run down the still formally unidentified soldier near Woolwich Barracks in southeast London on Wednesday afternoon and attempted to behead him with a meat cleaver and knives, witnesses said, before telling bystanders they acted in revenge for British wars in Muslim countries.

A dramatic clip filmed by an onlooker showed one of the men, in his 20s and casually dressed, his hands covered in blood and speaking in a local accent apologising for taking his action in front of women but justifying it on religious grounds:

"We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you. The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day," he said. "This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

The attack, just a month after the bomb attacks on the Boston Marathon, revived fears of "lone wolves". These may have had no direct contact with al Qaeda but are inspired by radical preachers and by Islamist militant Web sites, some of which urge people to attack Western targets with whatever means they have.

Chilling images of the blood-soaked suspect - who urged Britons to overthrow their government or risk having their children face a fate similar to a dead soldier lying just yards away - were splashed across the front pages of newspapers.

"I apologise that women had to witness that, but in our lands our women have to see the same thing. You people will never be safe. Remove your government. They don't care about you," the man said in the video before crossing the street and speaking casually to the other attacker.

Police said they searched a house in eastern England believed to be the home of the father one of the attackers.

IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN

The grisly attack took place on the edge of London's sprawling Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich, a south London working class district which has long-standing historic links to the military.

The victim was wearing a T-shirt saying "Help for Heroes", the name of a charity formed to help wounded British veterans. Britain has had troops deployed in Afghanistan since 2001 and had troops in Iraq from 2003-2009.

Before he was stabbed to death, the victim was knocked over by a blue car which then rammed into a lamp-post. The attackers pounced on him in broad daylight in a busy residential street.

Witnesses said they shouted "Allahu akbar" - Arabic for God is greatest - while stabbing the victim and trying to behead him. A handgun was found at the scene.

Some onlookers rushed to help the victim and one woman tried to engage one of the attackers in conversation to calm him.

"He had what looked like butcher's tools - a little axe, to cut the bones, and two large knives. He said: 'Move off the body,'" Ingrid Loyau-Kennett was quoted by local media as saying.

"He said: 'I killed him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan.'"

'HELP FOR HEROES'

London was last hit by a serious militant attack on July 7, 2005, when four young Islamists set off suicide bombs on the public transport network, killing 52 innocent people and wounding hundreds. A similar attempted attack two weeks later was thwarted.

In 2007, two days after police defused two car bombs outside London nightclubs, two men suspected of involvement, a British-born doctor of Iraqi descent and an Indian-born engineer, rammed a car laden with gas into the Glasgow Airport terminal, setting it ablaze. One of the attackers died and the other was jailed.

Britain has long known political violence on the streets. In 2009, two British soldiers were shot dead outside a barracks in Northern Ireland in an attack claimed by Irish republicans.

Since the 2007 bombings, known as 7/7, security chiefs say they have faced at least one plan to carry out an attack on the level of the 2005 attacks and have warned that radicalised individuals posed a grave risk to national security.

Peter Clarke, the former head of London's Counter Terrorism Command who led the investigation into the 7/7 bombings, said that if the Woolwich attackers did turn out to be acting alone, it showed the difficulty the security services faced in trying to stop them.

"An attack like this doesn't need sophisticated fund raising and sophisticated communications or planning," he told Reuters. "It can be organised and then actually delivered in a moment."

The bombing attacks on the Boston Marathon last month, which U.S. authorities blame on two brothers, have raised the profile of the "lone wolf" threat in the West. A French-Algerian gunman killed three off-duty French soldiers and four Jewish civilians on a rampage in southern France last year.

Britain's involvement in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the past decade has often stirred anger among British Muslims and occasionally made soldiers a target at home. British police have foiled at least two major plots in which Islamist suspects were accused of planning to kill members of the military.

Cameron's office officials had welcomed the condemnation from most mainstream British Muslim groups but that the national security committee had discussed community cohesion.

In signs of a backlash after the attack, more than 100 angry supporters of the English Defence League, a far-right street protest group, took to the streets on Wednesday, some wearing balaclavas and carrying England's red and white flag. They were contained by riot police.

Separately, two men were arrested in connection with separate attacks on mosques outside London. No one was hurt.

Fred Oyat, a 44-year-old local resident, said he witnessed the attack on the soldier from the window of his high-rise apartment overlooking the scene.

"The victim was white," he told Reuters. "I was in my house when four shots rung out. I went to the window I saw a man lying on the ground with a lot of blood."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/london-attacker-british-born-nigerian-descent-source-103255576.html

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Soldier says she faced harassment over Muslim name

Sgt. 1st Class Naida Nova is shown in this undated U.S. Army photo provided by Sgt. Nova. With her family name emblazoned on her uniform, Sgt. Nadia Hosan says she was routinely the target of derogatory remarks from other soldiers who mistakenly assumed she is a Muslim. So before deploying for her second war tour, the life-long Catholic legally changed her name to Nadia Christian Nova. The 82nd Airborne, who in a federal lawsuit she claims branded her a ?Muslim sympathizer,? revoked her security clearance and tried to force her out of the Army with a less than honorable discharge. (AP Photo/US Army)

Sgt. 1st Class Naida Nova is shown in this undated U.S. Army photo provided by Sgt. Nova. With her family name emblazoned on her uniform, Sgt. Nadia Hosan says she was routinely the target of derogatory remarks from other soldiers who mistakenly assumed she is a Muslim. So before deploying for her second war tour, the life-long Catholic legally changed her name to Nadia Christian Nova. The 82nd Airborne, who in a federal lawsuit she claims branded her a ?Muslim sympathizer,? revoked her security clearance and tried to force her out of the Army with a less than honorable discharge. (AP Photo/US Army)

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) ? Sgt. 1st Class Naida Hosan is not a Muslim ? she's a Catholic. But her name sounded Islamic to fellow U.S. soldiers in Iraq, and they would taunt her, calling her "Sgt. Hussein" and asking what God she prayed to.

So before deploying to Afghanistan last year for her second war tour, she legally changed her name ? to Nadia Christian Nova.

This did not solve her problems.

Instead, matters escalated. Nova complained to her superiors about constant anti-Muslim slurs and jokes. She says they responded with a series of reprisals intended to drive her out of the Army, leading her to consider suicide.

"My complaints fell on deaf ears every time," said Nova, 41, a member of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, N.C. "Any time I would say something about it I was treated like I didn't know what I was talking about or that I'm an idiot or that I was a Muslim sympathizer. It was just a very lonely feeling."

Determined to remain in the service for at least eight years, until she is eligible for retirement, Nova recently re-enlisted. But she agreed to tell her story to The Associated Press because "I don't want this to happen to anyone else if I can help it. It's a horrible to feel like people are against you when you are supposed to be on the same team."

Fort Bragg spokeswoman Sheri L. Crowe said the Army would not comment on the case, and referred questions to the U.S. Department of Justice. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina, assigned to defend the Army, also declined comment.

But her account is supported by an affidavit filed by an old friend, Sharon Deborah Sheetz, who said that Nova had confided in her about the harassment she had suffered, telling Sheetz that she was so unhappy that she no longer wanted to live.

A Farsi linguist who works in military intelligence, Nova's multicultural background exemplifies the kind of soldier Army recruiters prize ? U.S. citizens with ethnic ties to a part of the world many Americans can't find on a map.

Nova's father, Roy Hosein, was born into a Muslim family on the Caribbean island of Trinadad, where his parents had emigrated from India. He converted to Christianity after meeting Nova's mother, a Catholic from the Philippines, and became a U.S. citizen shortly after his daughter was born in New York. He changed the spelling of his family name to Hosan in the hope his children would avoid discrimination.

"He Americanized it," his daughter explained. "He got Hosan from Hosanna. He kept hearing it in church."

She reported for basic training two months after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

"Before 9-11, my last name never raised an eyebrow," she said. "But after 9-11, I felt compelled to tell people I am a Christian and felt I had to prove I was loyal to the United States."

Her first deployment was to Iraq in 2005. She said other soldiers, including her supervisors, mocked her family name and made crude jokes.

"I was called Sgt. Hussein, as in Saddam Hussein," she said. "Even when I would correct them on the pronunciation of my name, I was still called Sgt. Hussein. I was asked what God I pray to. And there were a lot of references to hajjis, used as a derogatory term."

Hajiis, in fact, are Muslims who have made the pilgrimage to the Saudi Arabian birthplace of the prophet Muhammad. But Nova said she regularly heard U.S. troops use the word as racist slang for enemy, terrorist or suicide bomber.

"My uncle is a hajji, because he made the pilgrimage to Mecca in 2005," Nova said. "I would stand up for what I thought was right and say, 'Not all terrorists are Muslims and not all Muslims are terrorists.' That just opened the door for more harassment."

Mikey Weinstein, a former U.S. Air Force officer who founded Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said Nova's experience is not uncommon. Military personnel who are Muslim or perceived to be of Middle Eastern descent are often targets for discrimination, he said.

"When a Muslim soldier, sailor or airman stands up for themselves, they are the subject of vicious reprisal and retribution," said Weinstein, who is Jewish. "What (Sgt. Nova) has gone through is horrible, but it is typical."

In 2007, while serving in Harrogate, England, Nova said co-worker told her and others a racist joke about Muslims. When she objected, Nova said, a supervisor warned her to stop making trouble. Instead, she filed a formal complaint with the Army's Equal Opportunity Branch, the program charged with ensuring the military provides an environment "free of unlawful discrimination and offensive behavior."

Within days, Nova said she was removed from her job and ordered to take a "command directed" mental health evaluation.

"In writing, the referral said my values were not in line with mission," she said. "The considered me a 'Muslim sympathizer,' that I was too loyal to Muslims."

Rather than address her complaint, Nova said, the Army transferred her to the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg. Though she hoped to make a fresh start with her new unit, word of her complaint followed her to North Carolina.

That treatment worsened after November 2009, when a Muslim Army officer shot and killed 13 fellow soldiers at Fort Hood in Texas. His name, Nidal Hasan, sounded a lot like hers.

Nova changed her name shortly before deploying to Afghanistan last year. She arrived just after worn copies of the Quran were found to have been burned with trash from a U.S.-run prison outside the capital of Kabul, a widely reported incident that triggered violent protests.

The Army responded by initiating a new training program on the proper handling and disposal of Islamic materials. But Nova said she discovered that her unit trashed and burned documents collected through intelligence gathering that contained what could be considered sacred writings.

Nova conferred with an on-base military chaplain, and suggested designating a special box for Islamic materials so they could be disposed of in a more appropriate manner.

"When I brought this up, I was told 'Sgt. Nova, you can't bring your religion to work ...,'" she recalled. "I changed my name, but that didn't change other people's ignorance."

After just two months in Afghanistan, she said her commanders removed her from her job and ordered her back to Fort Bragg.

With the help of a Fayetteville lawyer, Mark Waple, she filed a formal complaint with the Army's Inspector General in October seeking a voluntary discharge due to being subjected to "adverse treatment and negative, prejudicial remarks ... concerning the Muslim faith."

Nova said she grew so depressed that she considered suicide. She checked herself into an on-base hospital for treatment, staying for about a week before returning to duty.

After learning of her IG complaint and hospitalization, Nova's commanders at Fort Bragg responded by filing paperwork to involuntarily end her military career and bar her from reenlistment for "ineffective leadership."

Nova's Army performance review from a few months earlier, a copy of which she provided to AP, shows her as meeting expectations in all categories, with her senior commander rating her potential for promotion and increased responsibility as "superior."

The forced discharge could have imperiled Nova's ability to get a civilian job, denied her Veterans Affairs medical care and educational benefits.

After exhausting her administrative options for fighting her case, Waple helped Nova filed a complaint in federal court alleging discriminatory treatment and asking a judge to prevent her discharge.

Rather than fight the case in court, the Army retreated. Shortly before a key hearing before the judge, Waple says he got a call from Army lawyers informing him that the disciplinary action against Nova was "completely off the table." She, in turn, agreed to drop the lawsuit.

Nova re-enlisted in the Army on April 8. She recently married, and is preparing to ship out next month to attend a senior leadership course and then report to a new assignment in Germany.

"I want to put all this behind me. I want to move on to my next duty assignment ...," said Nova. "My beliefs aren't any different from what the Army states as its beliefs and values. I would like to be treated fairly."

___

Follow Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker at twitter.com/mbieseck

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-05-08-Soldier-Muslim%20Name%20Discrimination/id-e0f6b48ea3384ff5ab4b64776f3c882b

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A Great Pair Of Headphones For $102 Is Your Deal of the Day

Years ago?before marketing headphones to tweens became a billion dollar industry?Dr. Dre wore headphones that weren't Beats. He had to! He may be a Beats maker today, but back then he was a beat maker, and those guys practically live in their cans. What headphones did he use? Well, at least at one studio, he was rocking Audio-Technica's ATH-M50.

Read more...

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/B-5ZWhQorrE/a-great-pair-of-headphones-for-102-is-your-deal-of-the-498774495

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U.S. urban trees store carbon, provide billions in economic value, finds state-by-state analysis

May 7, 2013 ? From New York City's Central Park to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, America's urban forests store an estimated 708 million tons of carbon, an environmental service with an estimated value of $50 billion, according to a recent U.S. Forest Service study.

Annual net carbon uptake by these trees is estimated at 21 million tons and $1.5 billion in economic benefit.

In the study published recently in the journal Environmental Pollution, Dave Nowak, a research forester with the U.S. Forest Service's Northern Research Station, and his colleagues used urban tree field data from 28 cities and six states and national tree cover data to estimate total carbon storage in the nation's urban areas.

"With expanding urbanization, city trees and forests are becoming increasingly important to sustain the health and well-being of our environment and our communities," said U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell. "Carbon storage is just one of the many benefits provided by the hardest working trees in America. I hope this study will encourage people to look at their neighborhood trees a little differently, and start thinking about ways they can help care for their own urban forests."

Tens of thousands of people volunteered to plant and care for trees for Earth Day and Arbor Day this year, but there are opportunities all year long. To learn about volunteer opportunities near your home, visit the Arbor Day Foundation.

The Forest Service partners with organizations like the Arbor Day Foundation and participates in programs like Tree City USA to recognize and inspire cities in their efforts to improve their urban forests. Additionally the Forest Service is active in more than 7,000 communities across the U.S., helping them to better plan and manage their urban forests.

Nationally, carbon storage by trees in forestlands was estimated at 22.3 billion tons in a 2008 Forest Service study; additional carbon storage by urban trees bumps that to an estimated 22.7 billion tons. Carbon storage and sequestration rates vary among states based on the amount of urban tree cover and growing conditions. States in forested regions typically have the highest percentage of urban tree cover. States with the greatest amount of carbon stored by trees in urban areas are Texas (49.8 million tons), Florida (47.3 million tons), Georgia (42.4 million tons), Massachusetts (39.6 million tons) and North Carolina (37.5 million tons).

The total amount of carbon stored and sequestered in urban areas could increase in the future as urban land expands. Urban areas in the continental U.S. increased from 2.5 percent of land area in 1990 to 3.1 percent in 2000, an increase equivalent to the area of Vermont and New Hampshire combined. If that growth pattern continues, U.S. urban land could expand by an area greater than the state of Montana by 2050.

The study is not the first to estimate carbon storage and sequestration by U.S. urban forests, however it provides more refined statistical analyses for national carbon estimates that can be used to assess the actual and potential role of urban forests in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide.

More urbanization does not necessarily translate to more urban trees. Last year, Nowak and Eric Greenfield, a forester with the Northern Research Station and another study co-author, found that urban tree cover is declining nationwide at a rate of about 20,000 acres per year, or 4 million trees per year.

Carbon Storage by Urban Trees

State:? Carbon Stored (tons)

• Texas? 49,800,000
• Florida? 47,300,000
• Georgia? 42,400,000
• Massachusetts? 39,600,000
• North Carolina? 37,500,000
• New York? 35,400,000
• California? 34,600,000
• Pennsylvania? 31,700,000
• New Jersey? 30,900,000
• Connecticut? 25,700,000
• Ohio? 25,300,000
• Michigan? 25,200,000
• Tennessee? 20,800,000
• Alabama? 20,600,000
• Illinois? 20,600,000
• South Carolina? 19,100,000
• Virginia? 18,300,000
• Washington? 15,200,000
• Maryland? 13,100,000
• Missouri? 12,400,000
• Louisiana? 11,600,000
• Indiana? 10,700,000
• Wisconsin? 10,400,000
• Minnesota? 10,200,000
• Oregon? 8,900,000
• Arkansas? 8,500,000
• Mississippi? 8,200,000
• New Hampshire? 7,900,000
• Kentucky? 7,100,000
• Arizona? 6,000,000
• West Virginia? 5,700,000
• Kansas? 5,300,000
• Colorado? 4,800,000
• Oklahoma? 4,800,000
• Rhode Island? 4,600,000
• Maine? 4,200,000
• Iowa? 4,100,000
• Delaware? 2,500,000
• Hawaii? 2,400,000
• Utah? 2,300,000
• Alaska? 2,200,000
• New Mexico? 2,000,000
• Nebraska? 1,800,000
• Vermont? 1,700,000
• Nevada? 1,400,000
• Idaho? 1,200,000
• South Dakota? 800,000
• Montana? 500,000
• North Dakota? 500,000
• Wyoming? 300,000

Total?? 708,100,000

The mission of the U.S. Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The agency has either a direct or indirect role in stewardship of about 80 percent of our nation's forests; 850 million acres including 100 million acres of urban forests where most Americans live. The mission of the Forest Service's Northern Research Station is to improve people's lives and help sustain the natural resources in the Northeast and Midwest through leading-edge science and effective information delivery.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_science/~3/LcccAnaOymw/130507195815.htm

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Research studies show mango may help prevent breast cancer ...

COLLEGE STATION ? In addition to being one of the most important tropical fruits consumed worldwide, recent studies by researchers at the Institute for Obesity Research and Program Evaluation at Texas A&M University in College Station have shown that mangos also may help prevent breast cancer.

?We wanted to investigate the anti-inflammatory and cell-toxicity properties of mango polyphenols on breast cancer and non-cancer cells,? said Dr. Susanne Talcott, director for research at the institute and assistant professor, nutrition and food science department, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

A team of scientists from the Texas A&M University System recently completed two studies on how mango polyphenols may affect cancer and non-cancer breast cells. (Photo courtesy Institute for Obesity Research and Program Evaluation, Texas A&M )

?There was already some research done showing that polyphenolic compounds, such as those found in the mango, have cancer-fighting properties,? said Talcott, who also works in conjunction with Texas A&M AgriLife Research.? ?Those compounds appear to have antioxidant properties that may contribute to decrease oxidative stress, which can lead to the onset of chronic diseases such as cancer. In addition to that, polyphenolics have been shown to be anti-inflammatory.

?We recently completed one in vitro study and one using mice to see if the polyphenols found in mango did, in fact, exhibit inflammation- and cancer-fighting properties.?

Breast breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer death among women, and diet has been shown to have a preventive or protective role against several types of cancer, Talcott said.

?It has been estimated that around 30 percent of cancers may be prevented with a healthy lifestyle and diet,? she noted.

Talcott said interest in mango has been increasing in recent years and experimental data has already shown bioactive compounds present in mangoes exert anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic, antiviral and antibacterial properties.

?This is due to the presence of botanical compounds such as phenolic acids and flavonoids, and carotenoids,? she said.

Talcott said several dietary polyphenols already have been tested to determine their potential role in growth inhibition, proliferation and destruction of breast cancer cells.

?Based on this premise, we extracted mango polyphenols and tested their effects in vitro, or separate from their normal biological context, on commercially obtained non-cancer and cancer ?breast cells,? she said.

The mango used for the study, the Keitt variety of Mangifera indica, was provided by the National Mango Board, and polyphenolics were extracted from these.

Both non-cancer and cancer breast cells were treated with mango polyphenolics at different concentrations, and results were shown in Gallic acid equivalents per milliliter, or ug GAE/ml, of liquid sample.

Kimberley Krenek, Ph.D. student, left, and Dr. Hercia Stampini, visiting professor from Brazil, make cell cultures for mango research. (Photo courtesy Institute for Obesity Research and Program Evaluation, Texas A&M)

The study showed that at 5 ug GAE/ml mango Keitt polyphenols decreased sample breast cancer cell proliferation by approximately 90 percent, and at the same concentration, decreased the proliferation of sample non-cancer cells by approximately 20 percent.

?These results of the study indicate that the cell-killing effects of mango polyphenols are specific to cancer cells, where inflammation was reduced in both cancer and non-cancer cells, seemingly through the involvement of miRNA-21 ? short microRNA molecules associated with cancer,? Talcott said.

She said the research also showed mango polyphenols exerted anti-inflammatory activity and reduced the expression of miRNA-21, depending on the amount used.

A second study by this research group using hairless mice showed mango polyphenols also suppressed cell proliferation in the breast cancer BT474 cell line and tumor growth in mice with human breast carcinoma cells transplanted into them.

?The tumor-fighting potential of mango polyphenolics may at least in part be based on those same properties which reduced cancer cell proliferation and reduce inflammation that may be involved in carcinogenesis,? Talcott said.

She said the mango polyphenols in the mice study also reduced expression of a cell-regulating protein that affects cell oxygen absorption. And a preliminary microRNA profile screening showed the polyphenols also targeted several microRNA important to cancer-cell proliferation.

?The earlier in vitro study and the study using the mice have moved us closer to determining whether mango polyphenols will have cancer-fighting effects on human beings,? Talcott said. ?So far, the indications are positive, but a lot of work will have to be done to determine the actual concentration of mango metabolites in target tissues.?

-30-

?

Source: http://today.agrilife.org/2013/05/08/mango-breast-cancer-research/

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