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The 4-month-old's public premiere "went very well," Zoo spokesman Andrew Circo said. "We weren't sure how much interest there'd be, since we have four pandas," he said. "But a lot of people came out to see her."

Since her birth on Aug. 3, Zhen Zhen, whose name means "precious" in Chinese, has been living in a den out of the public view. Zhen Zhen, however, has been visible to the world via camera on the zoo's Web site.

Zhen Zhen will have two hours of public playtime daily during her first week, Circo said.

The cub will spend more time outside as her stamina increases, said Kathy Hawk, the zoo's senior panda keeper. As she gets older, she'll start spending nights outside if zookeepers can't lure her down from her tree perches when it gets dark.

On Friday, as Zhen Zhen was introduced to the media, the cub appeared unperturbed by visitors oohing and aahing. But Hawk said the amount of time Zhen Zhen spends in the public eye will depend on her mother's response.

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"She takes her cues from her mother," Hawk said, "so as long as Bai Yun is fine, she'll be fine."

Zhen Zhen could be spotted Saturday afternoon via Web cam doing what any 4-month-old would do after an exciting morning — taking a nap.

TUESDAY, Nov. 13 (HealthDay News) -- In mice, a low-carbohydrate diet slowed prostate tumor growth, possibly because fewer carbohydrates leads to a drop in insulin production, U.S. researchers say.

Previous studies linked insulin and a related substance called insulin-like growth factor (IGF) with the growth of prostate tumors in mice. Freedland and his colleagues theorized that reducing levels of these substances might slow prostate tumor growth.

They compared tumor growth in mice eating either a low-carbohydrate diet; a low-fat but high-carbohydrate diet; or a Western diet high in fat and carbohydrates.

Mice fed the low-carbohydrate diet had the smallest tumor size and longest survival, the team found.

""Low-fat mice had shorter soccer guide software guide spinning guidesurvival and large tumors , while mice on the Western diet had the worst survival and biggest tumors. In addition, though both the low-carb and low-fat mice had lower levels of insulin, only the low-carb mice had lower levels of the form of IGF capable of stimulating tumor growth," Freedland said.

The study is published in the Nov. 13 online edition of the journal Prostate.

Freedland is currently organizing a clinical trial to examine the impact of a low-carbohydrate diet on prostate tumor growth in men.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Mothers who breast feed and have high levels of a protein secreted by lipids in their milk may be increasing the risk that their child will be overweight, German researchers report.

The significance of these findings remain unclear, Dr. Matthew W. Gillman and Dr. Christos S. Mantzoros, Harvard Medical School, Boston, point out in an editorial accompanying the study, because infants may not be able to absorb the adiponectin contained in breast milk.

Also, they add, high levels of adiponectin in adults actually reduce heart disease and diabetes risk, making it "counterintuitive" that high levels would contribute to excess weight in children.

The jury silver guide skateboarding guide skin care is still out on whether nursing does protect children from becoming overweight, Weyermann and her team add.

The researchers investigated how breast-feeding might influence obesity risk by looking at adiponectin and another protein secreted by fat cells, leptin, which regulates appetite as well as the body's use of energy from food.

Adiponectin is involved in metabolism of fats and sugars. The fetus and placenta produce both proteins at high levels, the researchers point out, raising the possibility that they play a role in fetal development.

The levels of both proteins were measured in the breast milk of the mothers of 674 children when the infants were six weeks old. Among the children who were breast-fed for at least six months, obesity risk rose in tandem with breast milk adiponectin levels. However, leptin levels showed no association with whether or not a child would be overweight.

"Our data provide evidence that the possible protective effect of breast-feeding against childhood obesity might depend, at least in part, on low levels of breast milk adiponectin," Weyermann and her team write.

More research is needed before it's possible to determine the health implications of the research, if any, Gillman and Mantzoros add. "The best advice remains that all women should strive to breast-feed their children for at least 12 months, with the first 4- to 6- months consisting of exclusive breast-feeding."

SOURCE: Epidemiology, November 2007.

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 14 (HealthDay News) -- U.S. scientists say they have uncovered a biological "switch" for key genes in cancer cells.

"The study shows for the first time exactly how genes get shut down in cancer cells. It identifies what the target looks like, so that new therapies can be designed to turn them back on," study lead author Peter A. Jones, director of the USC/Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Distinguished Professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, said in a prepared statement.

According to a statement guide guide from the university, "The study showed that silencing of transcription start sites in some cancer cells involves distinct changes in nucleosomal occupancy -- or the density of nucleosomes -- in the cell."

A process called "DNA cytosine methylation -- the addition of a group of specific chemicals to a stretch of DNA that can lock or silence a gene -- may ultimately lead to [gene] silencing by enabling the stable presence of nucleosomes at the start sites of cancer-related genes," the release said.

The study was published in the Nov. 13 issue of the journal Cancer Cell.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The high-fat Atkins diet can cause long-term damage to blood vessels, as well as some of the inflammation linked with heart and artery disease, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

"It really is the Atkins diet that is the worst," Dr. Michael Miller, director of preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, said in a telephone interview.

"The Atkins diet caused the LDL levels to go up by about 7 percent, whereas in the Ornish and South Beach diets ... they went down 7 to 10 percent."

Low density lipoprotein or LDL is the "bad" cholesterol that clogs blood vessels.

Various researchers have tested the benefits of the popular diets and reached wildly differing conclusions. Miller designed what he said was a unique approach -- to see how people fared once they stopped losing weight on any of the diets.

Studies best fishing show that people usually lose weight rapidly on any diet if they follow it properly and the weight loss itself can cause cholesterol to plummet.

"When you lose weight everything looks good but after a while you plateau and you hit a maintenance stage," said Miller, who presented his findings to a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida.

His team studied 18 people, each of whom completed a full month on each of the three diets. They were carefully monitored to ensure that they did not lose weight.

The Atkins diet was set to deliver 50 percent of calories as fat, the South Beach was 30 percent fat and the Ornish diet, designed by nutritionist Dr. Dean Ornish, was 10 percent fat.

While on each diet the volunteers were tested for levels of blood fats, including cholesterol and markers for inflammation.

The researchers used ultrasound scans to measure the flexibility and dilation of blood vessels and measured proteins in the blood that can indicate inflammation.

"Some markersfossils best  of inflammation were increased by as much as 30 to 40 percent during the Atkins phase, whereas during the South Beach and Ornish phases, the markers either were stable or went down, some by as much as 15 to 20 percent," Miller said.

Most studies have shown that diets that stress vegetables, low-fat sources of protein such as beans and legumes, and whole grains provide the best long-term weight loss. Many low-fat diets allow processed carbohydrates such as white flour, which have also been shown to be unhealthy, experts agree.

"We don't recommend the Atkins diet," Miller said. "Why not start out with a diet that will be healthier for you in the long run after weight loss?"

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Children who are on the path toward obesity have some worrisome cardiovascular disease risk factors as young as age 7, according to researchers tracking early childhood weight fluctuations.

A key element of the study was the "BMI rebound." After babies are born, many have what is commonly known as baby fat and can appear pudgy. Heading into the toddler period, they become taller and leaner, with their body mass index dropping.

Usually between ages 4 and 7, children start putting on weight in a way that increases their body mass index. The point at which the BMI ceases to drop and starts to rise again is called the BMI rebound, the researchers said.

The study showed that children who reached this BMI rebound early -- starting to put on excess weight soonest -- experienced cardiovascular red flags by age 7.

Those with the earliest age of BMI rebound, starting at age 4, were more likely to have high blood pressure and elevated left ventricular mass, known to be a major risk factor for heart disease in adults, the researchers told a meeting of the American Heart Association in Orlando, Florida.

Girls registered a slightly earlier BMI rebound than boys, leaving them at a bit higher risk because they started gaining weight earlier, they said.

"We're seeing adverse cardiovascular risk factors developing in early childhood," cardiologist Dr. Thomas Kimball, who headed the study, told reporters.

"We sort stop have an obesity epidemic in children. One way to look at this is that the obesity epidemic of kids today is going to be the heart disease epidemic 20 years from now."

Kimball said previous research showed that the earlier children hit the BMI rebound, the more likely they were to become obese later in life.

Ways to address the problem are well known, Kimball said, including a more healthful diet, more exercise and less sedentary time watching TV or playing video games.

"It's the same old thing. But the frustrating thing about that is getting people to actually practice it," he said. "It's a family phenomenon. It's not just the child's problem. Most of the time, the parents have a weight problem as well. The whole family has to get on board."