'I hated seeing my face in the mirror'

By Vanessa Barford BBC News

Jono Lancaster often thinks about his birth parents who gave him up for adoption

Like many 26-year-olds, Jono Lancaster has a job he loves, a beautiful girlfriend and takes pride in his appearance.

But unlike most young men, Jono has Treacher Collins syndrome, a genetic disorder that affected the way his facial bones developed while he was in his mother's womb.

The condition, which is thought to affect up to one in 10,000 babies in the UK, means he has no cheekbones - so his eyes droop downwards - and he has problems with his hearing, so has a bone-anchored hearing aid.

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I ended up doing stupid things so that people would talk about me for a different reason to the way I looked”

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It has resulted in several operations, numerous hospital visits and his parents giving him up for adoption 36 hours after he was born.

But although Jono is now happy with how he looks, he says he struggled with depression during his teenage years.

"I was desperate to have friends, I'd do anything. I had no confidence. I'd buy lots of sweets and give them to the other kids so that they'd like me.

"I ended up doing stupid things so that people would talk about me for a different reason to the way I looked.

"I set a firework off in class, I got up to no good. It was quite often alcohol related, I got quite a bad reputation amongst other mums and teachers."

But he says deep down he was getting lonelier and lonelier.

"I used to hide how unhappy I was from my mum. She had already done so much for me.

Jono says he wants people to be more aware of what Treacher Collins is - and how to deal with it

"But I didn't like to go out unless I had to. I'd do things like cut my own hair so I didn't have to look at myself in a mirror."

He says a pivotal moment came when his friend became the manager of a bar and offered him a job.

"It was something I really wanted to do - at 19 or 20 working in a bar is the norm - I thought why shouldn't I do it?

"I'd be dripping with sweat before every shift, I was so nervous and scared about people's reactions. Drunk people can be so horrible, so obvious.

"It wasn't easy, but at the same time I met so many nice people who were genuinely interested in me and my face."

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As a teenager I'd been angry and wanted to meet them for the wrong reason - to ask them why they'd abandoned me - but as I matured I realised they obviously felt they couldn't cope”

End Quote

It gave him enough confidence to start dating - "rather than spend evenings at clubs hiding in the toilets" - and even get a job in a gym.

"I'd done a diploma in sports science at college and a fitness instructors course but it is such an image-based industry - gyms are full of mirrors - I used to e-mail people asking for jobs rather than drop my CV off.

"Then one day I went in to a Fitness First gym and met my boss Shaun. We had a chat, I gave him a workout and we really hit it off."

Jono says being thrown in at the deep end boosted his confidence levels.

Which worked out better than he imagined, because it was at the gym that he met his long-term girlfriend, 20-year-old Laura Richardson.

"I was testing her resting heart rate and it was beating over a hundred beats a minute, so I thought she must have liked me!

"She says when she first met me, she noticed my face, but now she no longer sees it. It was the first time I was able to be completely myself with a girl.

Jono says he hit it off with his girlfriend Laura straight away

"And look at us four years later, we have just bought a house together in Normanton in West Yorkshire. We are completely in love."

But last year Jono faced his toughest test yet. He decided to try and track down his biological parents.

"It was something I'd always wanted to do. As a teenager I'd been angry and upset and wanted to meet them for the wrong reason - to ask them why they'd abandoned me - but as I matured I realised they obviously felt they couldn't cope.

"I thought things might have changed. That they might want to know I was happy."

Jono says he was "heartbroken" when he was rejected all over again.

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I wish they could come and talk to me so that I could tell them about it - so that is seems more normal”

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"It was awful. Awful. I cried and cried. But I have come to terms with it. It must have been one of the hardest decisions they ever had to make.

"I found out they've gone on to have two more children. I'm glad they have got a family. I'm happy, I hope they are happy too."

Jono, who now works as a team leader with adults with autism, says he is a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, but wants people to be more aware of what Treacher Collins is - and how to deal with it.

"What really frustrates me and upsets me is when a child in a supermarket stares and his or her mother tells them off.

"I wish they could come and talk to me so that I could tell them about it - so that is seems more normal."

He says he also wants to help families in similar situations to him.

Continue reading the main story

What is Treacher Collins syndrome?

• A genetic disorder also known as Treacher Collins-Franceschetti syndrome or mandibulofacial dysostosis
• Facial bones do not develop as they should in the womb and babies are born with characteristic facial features
• Sufferers often have problems with hearing, breathing and eating
• Most children pass developmental milestones, such as starting to walk and talk, at the usual time and are of normal intelligence
• Many need specialised hearing aids or speech therapy
• About one in every 10,000 babies in the UK is born with Treacher Collins syndrome

Source: BBC Health

• Treacher Collins syndrome

"If someone had said 'this is me, my wife, my job' to me when I was younger it would have helped massively."

But Jono says he still has one big question he has to face.

Although Treacher Collins is a rare genetic condition that can affect anyone, the chances of him passing it on to his children are thought to be about 50%.

"I've met families with babies with various disabilities and seen how well they cope.

"I really want to do the school run, take my child to dance, gymnastics or football, but how can I knowingly put my child through operations, hospital appointments and bullying?

"I play around with it in my head - it drives me mad. We're still young, there is plenty of time, but it is something Laura and I are going to have to think about somewhere down the line."

But Jono says he would not change the fact he was born with Treacher Collins syndrome.

"Doctors always asked if I wanted corrective surgery... to get my cheek bones built up, my teeth straightened or my jaw broken and realigned, but despite how depressed I got I thought 'God made me like this'.

"I'm glad I didn't choose anything. I'm proud of who I am. And Treacher Collins made me who I am today."

Love Me, Love My Face will be broadcast on Thursday 18 November on BBC Three at 2100 GMT. Or watch it again on the BBC iPlayer.

Source

~~~~~~~~~

Commentary

Jono gives hope to us all. He also helps to stem our popular shallow perceptions of society.

He gives us the confidence we all want, when we look at ourselves in the mirror.

Thanks for going through all that, to teach us your message Jono.

President Obama: Math Isn't There To Give Tax Cuts To The Rich

7 Tricks to a Speedier Metabolism

Some people are lucky: They seem to be born with a naturally high metabolism and slender physique that requires little exercise and calorie counting to maintain. My mother, God bless her, is one such person. I am not! So it’s a good thing I love to run, bike and swim. But when SELF asked experts about the habits that slow metabolism, I was surprised by some of their answers—and guilty of a few no-no’s myself (see number 1...and 2...and...). Fortunately, these habits are also totally fixable. Start paying attention to them today, and you’ll become one of the lucky ones—or at least look like one—in no time!

1. Scrimping on shut-eye

Catching zzz’s may help you stay slim, reveals research presented at the annual American Thoracic Society meeting in San Diego. In the study of more than 68,000 women, those who slept seven hours weighed 5.5 pounds less than women who slept five hours or less. Pulling frequent all-nighters may slow your metabolism, impairing your body’s ability to utilize food and nutrients as energy so they get stored as fat instead, scientists say.

2. Stressing out

When you’re on edge, you’re likely to sleep less and eat more, which can affect your thyroid, a gland that produces hormones which regulate metabolism, body temperature, heart rate and more. If your thyroid’s not producing enough of those hormones, it can slow your metabolism and other body functions, leading to weight gain, depression and fatigue. Take time for yourself daily to keep both your thyroid and metabolism humming at optimal levels.

3. Skipping breakfast

People often tell me they hate breakfast foods; I tell them, find something you can eat within an hour of waking up! Missing a morning meal is the worst thing you can do. It slows metabolism and depletes your body of the fuel it needs to function optimally, explains celebrity nutritionist Joy Bauer, R.D. But what you eat matters as much as the fact that you eat something. Simple, unrefined carbohydrates—as in a breakfast muffin or pastry—signal the brain to release serotonin, a neurotransmitter that brings on calm when you most want to be up and at ’em. Also, your body digests simple carbs quickly, sending blood sugar soaring and then plummeting, resulting in an energy crash. Try to start each day with a breakfast that contains at least 5 grams of protein, which activates the production of norepinephrine, a neurochemical that increase heart rate and alertness. The nutrient also digests slowly, so blood sugar and energy levels stay stable. Try an omelet made with 4 egg whites, 1/2 cup chopped broccoli, 1/4 cup chopped onion and 1 oz lowfat shredded cheese; it delivers an impressive 22 g protein per serving.

4. Staying seated

Get out of that chair! Staying on your feet revs metabolism and doubles your calorie burn during workdays, a study in Diabetes reports. Sitting for a few hours switches off enzymes that capture fat in the bloodstream, but standing up and getting active reignites them. Surrender your seat when possible (e.g., during phone calls) to start reaping benefits.

5. Eating junk food

I love a French cruller as much as the next gal, but it turns out doughnuts can be double diet trouble. Not only do sugary, fatty treats add calories and fat to your daily tally (a Dunkin’ Donuts cruller packs 250 calories and 20 g fat), but they can also encourage your body to store more fat. Junk food might stimulate a gene that encourages your body to store excess fat, causing you to gain weight over time, a study in The FASEB Journal reveals. (In the study, mice without the troublemaking gene had 45 percent lower body fat after eating a high-fat and high-sugar diet for 16 weeks compared to critters with the gene who ate the same diet.) Quell a sweet craving with berries or an orange: They’re high in vitamin C, a nutrient that can help you sizzle up to 30 percent more fat during exercise, suggests research from Arizona State University at Mesa.

6. Falling into a workout rut

I hear it all the time: “I’ve almost reached my goal weight, but those last 5 (stubborn!) pounds just won’t come off.” Sound familiar? Weight loss can stall along the way partly because you get smaller. As you shrink, there is less of you to provide energy for, so you actually start to need fewer calories. These plateaus can last weeks, so rather than get frustrated, try new workouts or ways to eat healthy to keep your metabolism going strong and your body burning even more calories than before.

7. Dodging the weight room

Although cardio sessions turn up the heat and burn big-time calories (which is why I run, bike or swim most mornings and still enjoy dessert!), lifting weights helps you build calorie-burning lean muscle, says Jeffrey Garber, M.D., author of The Harvard Medical School Guide to Overcoming Thyroid Problems (McGraw-Hill). And with more lean muscle, you extend the burn to when you’re just sitting at your desk or in the car. Add weight-bearing exercises like planks, lunges, squats and tricep dips to your workouts three times a week, and you’ll see toning results like you’ve never experienced before!

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'Its not a Zero-Sum game Palestinians play in negotiations'

Restaurant dishcloths 'full of bacteria'

Experts analysed dishcloths from takeaways and restaurants

Dishcloths used in restaurants and takeaways harbour unsavoury and possibly dangerous bacteria, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) has said.

The HPA visited 120 kitchens in north-east England.

The researchers found 56% of cloths tested were unacceptable, carrying faecal bacteria or in some cases dangerous bugs such as Listeria.

An environmental health expert said it was "pure luck" that spared more customers from illness.

Dishcloths may be a good way to remove food from surfaces, but they tend to hang on to some of it, even when rinsed out afterwards, making them the ideal breeding ground for all sorts of bacteria.

These are then dispersed onto whatever surface is wiped next.

How Clean is Your House? presenter Aggie MacKenzie; "It's a real wake up call"

'Unacceptable'

The recommended advice for restaurants is to use disposable cloths and change them regularly, as well as using separate cloths for areas where raw meat is processed.

The HPA team took a total of 133 cloths, and found that 86 carried faecal bacteria, 21 carried E. coli, six were host to Staphylococcus aureus, and five carried Listeria.

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Exposure to these harmful bacteria can cause food poisoning which is unpleasant for most people but for some - particularly the very young, very old, and pregnant women - it can have serious consequences.”

End Quote Dr Paul Cosford Health Protection Agency

Although it is not clear whether the E.coli strains found would make a diner ill, the S. aureus and Listeria definitely fell into the "potentially harmful" category, with the strain of Listeria found on three of the cloths considered particularly dangerous in vulnerable groups such as the elderly and very young.

Many of the restaurants surveyed also fell down on basic good hygiene practice, with 24 of the cloths used on both raw meat and ready-to-eat food preparation areas.

Only a third of the premises used disposable cloths - the remainder had "reusable cloths" and 15% were unsure how often they were changed.

Problems

Dr John Piggott, from the HPA laboratory in Leeds which led the survey, which is being presented to the HPA's annual conference, said that all the premises visited had been issued with advice and would be revisited to see if things had improved.

He said: "Although many disinfected their cloths with bleach or other disinfectants, soaking does not remove the food on which the bacteria grow."

Dr Paul Cosford, also from the HPA, added: "The findings indicate problems with poor hygiene practices.

"Exposure to these harmful bacteria can cause food poisoning which is unpleasant for most people but for some - particularly the very young, very old, and pregnant women - it can have serious consequences."

Jenny Morris, the principal policy officer at the Chartered Institute for Environmental Health, said that many restaurants and takeaways were good at following "more complicated" requirements for good hygiene, but fell down on simple things such as dishcloths.

She said: "The problem is, that if you fail on the basics, you are relying on good luck to prevent something bad happening to the people eating at your establishment."

Source

Can you trick your ageing body into feeling younger?

Liz Smith - Nana in The Royle Family - found she could walk all but unaided

If elderly people dress, live and talk as they did in their heyday, does this help them feel younger and fitter? Michael Mosley explains how he tested this theory on six faces from the past.

Continue reading the main story

What's your brain age?

• The Young Ones is on BBC One Tuesday to Thursday, 14-16 Sept at 2100 BST
• And test your mental agility with games such as Ugly Mugs (pictured)

• Find out your mental agility with our tests
• Watch The Young Ones with iPlayer

Is slowing down with age all in the mind?

To find out, I recruited six celebrities aged between 76 and 88 to live in my science lab - a country house decked out like a 1970s time capsule. The project was designed as a follow-up to an experiment first done by Professor Ellen Langer of Harvard University.

In 1979, Ellen was investigating the extent to which ageing is a product of our state of mind. To find out, she and her students devised a study they called the "counter-clockwise study".

It involved taking a group of elderly men and putting them into the world of 1959. The question she wanted to answer was, if we took their minds back 20 years, would their bodies reflect this change?

Our experiment had similar ambitions; to take a group of people and make them feel younger by recreating the world they had left behind 35 years ago.

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There were shag pile carpets to trip over, door ridges to step over and lots of slippery linoleum”

End Quote Michael Mosley on the physical challenges

Our volunteers were actors Liz Smith (88), Sylvia Syms (76) and Lionel Blair (78), cricket umpire Dickie Bird (77), newsreader Kenneth Kendall (86) and former Daily Mirror editor Derek Jameson (80).

They agreed to live in our time capsule house for a week, during which they dressed in 1970s clothes, slept in replicas of their very own 70s bedrooms, watched television from that era, and talked about 1975 in the present tense.

It proved to be a fascinating but draining experience - for both experimenters and experimentees.

From the beginning we made it clear to our volunteers that they would be expected to look after themselves. Research in nursing homes shows clearly that giving residents control over their own lives and their own choices has a hugely beneficial impact on health and happiness.

In one study, residents who were allowed to choose a plant to care for, and when and where to receive visitors, were found 18 months later to be significantly more cheerful, active and alert. They were also far more likely to be still alive.

Continue reading the main story

In today's Magazine

• Should children be expected to work?
• How to say 'Louis Vuitton'
• A trail of two popes
• Subbuteo finals

Another thing about our 1970s house was that it was full of physical challenges. There were shag pile carpets to trip over, door ridges to step over and lots of slippery linoleum. Research on mice has shown that those who live in a challenging environment live nearly 30% longer than those who in a secure but boring environment.

In this spirit, on their arrival, our volunteers were asked to carry their bags up a flight of stairs to their bedrooms. It was the first time they'd been forced into such physical activity in many years, and they were not happy.

But they rose to the challenge. When they started at the bottom of the stairs, a couple were adamant it would be impossible to make it to the top. Watching from a laboratory close by, it was hard to resist going to their aid.

Slowly, step by step, they succeeded. We had made them question whether, perhaps, they were more physically capable than they had given themselves credit for.

Dickie Bird's memory and stamina improved

It was a tough initiation, but a core element of Ellen's original experiment was the idea that our prior beliefs play a huge part in how we perceive the world, and how we perceive ourselves. By immersing our volunteers in a 1970s world, we were hoping to make them think of themselves as younger, fitter and healthier.

For many of them, the 70s had been a golden decade, a highlight of their careers.

We took Dickie Bird back to Lords to relive the atmosphere. As he walked through the tunnel, onto the grounds, he blossomed before our eyes. Dickie had had a stroke, suffered 18 months of illness, lost confidence and come to think of himself as old. By the end of the week, his confidence was back and he showed remarkable improvement across a range of tests, including memory and stamina.

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

It's too easy to have everybody take care of us. But you can be helped to death”

End Quote Professor Ellen Langer Harvard University

• Tips for carers

Over the week we gave all the celebrities tasks to do, but we also left them to fend for themselves. For up to 12 hours a day, we observed them through our surveillance cameras and, just as Ellen had discovered all those years before, we saw great changes.

Half way through the week, Liz Smith took 148 steps with the aid of just one stick. For someone who had not walked without both sticks since her stroke - and who often relied on a wheelchair - it was a real breakthrough. She was no longer willing to be limited by the physical constraints she had imposed on herself.

At the end of the week we put our guinea pigs through the same rigorous battery of physical and psychological tests we had at the beginning. Memory, mood, flexibility, stamina and even eye sight had improved in almost all of them.

The results were not uniform, but in some cases they shed up to 20 years in their apparent biological age.

It made a compelling case for Ellen Langer's argument that opening our minds to what's possible can lead to better health, whatever our age.

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Are dying languages worth saving?

Why should endangered languages be saved? Delegates at the Trinity College Carmarthen conference explain - using nine different languages

Language experts are gathering at a university in the UK to discuss saving the world's endangered languages. But is it worth keeping alive dialects that are sometimes only spoken by a handful of people, asks Tom de Castella?

"Language is the dress of thought," Samuel Johnson once said.

Continue reading the main story

In today's Magazine

• Should children be expected to work?
• How to say 'Louis Vuitton'
• A trail of two popes
• Subbuteo finals

About 6,000 different languages are spoken around the world. But the Foundation for Endangered Languages estimates that between 500 and 1,000 of those are spoken by only a handful of people. And every year the world loses around 25 mother tongues. That equates to losing 250 languages over a decade - a sad prospect for some.

This week a conference in Carmarthen, west Wales, organised by the foundation, is being attended by about 100 academics. They are discussing indigenous languages in Ireland, China, Australia and Spain.

"Different languages will have their quirks which tell us something about being human," says Nicholas Ostler, the foundation's chairman.

"And when languages are lost most of the knowledge that went with them gets lost. People do care about identity as they want to be different. Nowadays we want access to everything but we don't want to be thought of as no more than people on the other side of the world."

Apart from English, the United Kingdom has a number of other languages. Mr Ostler estimates that half a million people speak Welsh, a few thousand Scots are fluent in Gaelic, about 400 people speak Cornish, while the number of Manx speakers - the language of the Isle of Man - is perhaps as small as 100. But is there any point in learning the really minor languages?

Last speaker dies

"I do think it's a good thing for a child on the Isle of Man to learn Manx. I value continuity in a community."

Continue reading the main story

“Start Quote

I speak one of the endangered languages in the world - Chabakano - of which there are several dialects Zamboanga , Cotabato , Ternate, Davao and Ermita”

End Quote Toots Contributor to BBC's Your Say discussion on language and identity

• BBC Your Say - language and identity

In Europe, Mr Ostler's view seems to command official support. There is a European Charter for Regional Languages, which every European Union member has signed, and the EU has a European Language Diversity For All programme, designed to protect the most threatened native tongues. At the end of last year the project received 2.7m euros to identify those languages most at risk.

But for some this is not just a waste of resources but a misunderstanding of how language works. The writer and broadcaster Kenan Malik says it is "irrational" to try to preserve all the world's languages.

Earlier this year, the Bo language died out when an 85-year-old member of the Bo tribe in the India-owned Andaman islands died.

While it may seem sad that the language expired, says Mr Malik, cultural change is driving the process.

"In one sense you could call it a cultural loss. But that makes no sense because cultural forms are lost all the time. To say every cultural form should exist forever is ridiculous." And when governments try to prop languages up, it shows a desire to cling to the past rather than move forwards, he says.

If people want to learn minority languages like Manx, that is up to them - it shouldn't be backed by government subsidy, he argues.

"To have a public policy that a certain culture or language should be preserved shows a fundamental misunderstanding. I don't see why it's in the public good to preserve Manx or Cornish or any other language for that matter." In the end, whether or not a language is viable is very simple. "If a language is one that people don't participate in, it's not a language anymore."

Wicked words

The veteran word-watcher and Times columnist Philip Howard agrees that languages are in the hands of people, not politicians. "Language is the only absolutely true democracy. It's not what professors of linguistics or academics or journalists say, but what people do. If children in the playground start using 'wicked' to mean terrific then that has a big effect."

Minority language translators at work at the National People's Congress

The former Spanish dictator Franco spent decades trying to stamp out the nation's regional languages but today Catalan is stronger than ever and Basque is also popular.

And Mr Howard says politicians make a "category mistake" when they try to interfere with language, citing an experiment in Glasgow schools that he says is doomed to fail. "Offering Gaelic to children of people who don't speak it seems like a conservation of lost glories. It's very romantic to try and save a language but nonsense."

But neither is he saying that everyone should speak English. "Some people take a destructivist view and argue that everyone will soon be speaking English. But Mandarin is the most populous language in the world and Spanish the fastest growing."

There are competing forces at work that decide whether smaller languages survive, Howard argues. On the one hand globalisation will mean that many languages disappear. But some communities will always live apart, separated by sea, distance or other barriers and will therefore keep their own language. With modern communications and popular culture "you find that if enough people want to speak a language they can".

In short, there is no need for handwringing.

"Language is not a plant that rises and falls, lives and decays. It's a tool that's perfectly adapted by the people using it. Get on with living and talking."

Source

Egyptian newspaper under fire over altered photo

President Mubarak leads the way in the altered al-Ahram image

Egypt's state-run newspaper has come under fire for altering a photograph to suggest President Hosni Mubarak was leading the Middle East peace talks.

Al-Ahram showed Mr Mubarak walking on a red carpet ahead of US President Barack Obama as well as the Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders.

The original image, taken at the White House when talks were formally re-launched, shows Mr Obama leading the way and Mr Mubarak trailing behind.

The original image from the White House, taken on 1 September

Talks resumed in Egypt on Tuesday.

The manipulated photograph ran above an article on page six of al-Ahram's Tuesday edition, entitled The Way to Sharm el-Sheikh.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US peace envoy George Mitchell travelled to the Egyptian Red Sea resort to mediate the discussions, which were hosted by President Mubarak.

'Crossed the line'

The opposition 6 April Youth Movement has accused al-Ahram, Egypt's biggest newspaper in terms of circulation, of being "unprofessional" for publishing the doctored image without mentioning the alteration.

"This is what the corrupt regime's media has been reduced to," it said in a statement on its website, adding that the paper had "crossed the line from being balanced and honest".

The independent daily, al-Masry al-Youm, reported that the state-run daily had "carried out surgery" on the photo "to show Mubarak leading and the rest behind".

Al-Ahram has since replaced the image on its website with a picture of the assembled leaders seated on chairs in the Red Sea resort.

Officials at the paper could not be reached for comment.

Israeli officials said Sharm el-Sheikh was chosen for Tuesday's meeting in recognition of Egypt's key role in regional peace efforts.

The negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas are the first direct talks between the two sides in almost two years.

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Falling in love costs you friends

By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News

Passionate relationships can leave you little time for anything else

Falling in love comes at the cost of losing two close friends, a study says.

We probably all know that a passionate new relationship can leave you little time for others, but now science has put some numbers on the observation.

Oxford University researchers asked people about their inner core of friendships and how this number changed when romance entered the equation.

They found the core, which numbers about five people, dropped by two as a new lover came to dominate daily life.

"People who are in romantic relationships - instead of having the typical five [individuals] on average, they only have four in that circle," explained Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford.

"And bearing in mind that one of those is the new person that's come into your life, it means you've had to give up two others."

The research, which has only recently been submitted for publication, was presented to the British Science Festival at Aston University.

Professor Dunbar's group studies social networks and how we manage their size and composition.

He has previously shown that the maximum number of friends it is realistically possible to engage is about 150. On the social networking site Facebook, for example, people will typically have 120-130 friends.

This number can be divided into progressively smaller groups, with an inner clique numbering between four and six.

These are people who we see at least once a week; people we go to at moments of crisis. The next layer out are the people we see about once a month - the "sympathy group". They are all the people who, if they died tomorrow, we would miss and be upset about.

In the latest study, the team questioned 540 participants, aged 18 and over, about their relationships and the strain those relationships came under when a new romantic engagement was started.

The results confirmed the widely held view that love can lead to a smaller support network, with typically one family member and one friend being pushed out to accommodate the new lover.

"The intimacy of a relationship - your emotional engagement with it - correlates very tightly with the frequency of your interactions with those individuals," observed Professor Dunbar.

"If you don't see people, the emotional engagement starts to drop off, and quickly.

"What I suspect happens is that your attention is so wholly focussed on your romantic partner that you just don't get to see the other folks you have a lot to do with, and therefore some of those relationships just start to deteriorate and drop down into the layer below."

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

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Gene therapy for blood disorder a 'success'

By Helen Briggs Health reporter, BBC News

The patient suffers from an inherited disorder which affects his body's ability to create red blood cells

Gene therapy has been used for the first time to treat an inherited blood disorder in what doctors say is a major step forward.

A man given pioneering treatment to correct a faulty gene has made "remarkable" progress, a US and French team has revealed.

Gene therapy is an experimental technique that manipulates genes in order to treat disease.

It has seen some successes, but also setbacks, including a patient's death.

Continue reading the main story

Related stories

• Cancer gene therapy result hailed
• Gene therapy first for poor sight

Beta thalassaemia is an inherited blood disorder that affects the body's ability to create red blood cells.

The first gene therapy trial was in an 18-year-old man with a severe form of the condition, who had been receiving regular blood transfusions since the age of three.

Stem cells from his bone marrow were treated with a gene to correct for the faulty one.

They were then transfused back into his body, where they gradually gave rise to healthy red blood cells.

Three years after the treatment, which took place in 2007, the man remains mildly anaemic, but no longer needs blood transfusions, doctors said.

The team, led by Philippe Leboulch, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, said: "At present, approximately three years post-transplantation, the biological and clinical evolution is remarkable and the patient's quality of life is good."

Continue reading the main story

Beta Thalassaemia

• Around 1,000 people in the UK live with the severe form of the disorder, with most cases found in people of Mediterranean, Middle Eastern and South Asian ancestry
• It causes anaemia and other complications, including organ damage, liver disease and heart failure
• Can range from moderate to severe
• Some have only symptoms of mild anaemia while others require regular blood transfusions or a bone marrow transplant
• Source: NHS Choices

But, reporting in the science journal Nature, the doctors sounded a note of caution, saying there was a possibility that the patient could be at risk of developing leukaemia in the future due to side effects from the gene therapy.

Gene therapy has been used since the 1990s as a new approach to treating a number of incurable conditions, including inherited disorders, some cancers, and viral infections.

There have been some positive results, but in 1999 an 18-year-old US volunteer, Jesse Gelsinger, died after the treatment.

And some children given gene therapy for the immune disorder "bubble baby" syndrome have developed cancer.

Proof of principle

Prof Adrian Thrasher, of University College London, has carried out gene therapy on children with immune disorders.

He said the latest study was an encouraging proof of principle that gene therapy could have genuine therapeutic effects in other blood disorders.

"The good news is that technology is advancing rapidly, and it shouldn't be too long before diseases such as thalassaemia can be reliably and safely treated in this way," he said.

Dr Derek Persons, of St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, said the work was "a major step forward for the gene therapy of haemoglobin disorder".

He said further trials were planned at several centres in the US, including his own.

"This is very early days," he added. "The field will advance from people doing different trials."

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