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Although cholesterol is essential for life, high levels in circulation are associated with atherosclerosis. Cholesterol can be ingested in the diet, recycled within the body through reabsorption of bile in the digestive tract, and produced de novo. For a person of about 150 pounds (68 kg), typical total body cholesterol content is about 35 g, typical daily dietary intake is 200–300 mg in the United States and societies with similar dietary patterns and 1 g per day is synthesized de novo.

The name cholesterol originates from the Greek chole- (bile) and stereos (solid), and the chemical suffix -ol for an alcohol, as François Poulletier de la Salle first identified cholesterol in solid form in gallstones, in 1769. However, it was only in 1815 that chemist Eugène Chevreul named the compound "cholesterine".

WASHINGTON (AFP) –
A powerful US senator on Friday warned against sending more American troops to Afghanistan, signaling growing skepticism over the war within President Barack Obama's own party.

Carl Levin, the influential chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, was the latest top Democrat in Congress to voice opposition to a fresh military build-up in Afghanistan, as the White House weighs deploying yet more troop combat troops.

Levin called for redoubling efforts to bolster Afghan security forces before any further expansion in US troops, which are set to reach 68,000 by the end of the year.

"We should increase and accelerate our efforts to support the Afghan security forces in their efforts to become self-sufficient in delivering security to their nation -- before we consider whether to increase US combat forces above the levels already planned for the next few months," said Levin, who returned last week from a trip to Afghanistan.

Levin's comments came a day after a blunt warning from Obama's top Democratic ally in the House of Representatives, speaker Nancy Pelosi, who suggested lawmakers and American voters are growing weary of a war that has dragged on for eight years.

"I don't think there's a great deal of support for sending more troops to Afghanistan in the country or in the Congress," Pelosi told reporters.

The White House meanwhile said there would be no decision on the sensitive issue of more troops for "many, many weeks," avoiding a confrontation with fellow Democrats for the moment.

"I will reiterate again that there hasn't been a plan for and there isn't an imminent decision on increased resources to Afghanistan," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters.

"I don't expect anything to happen for many many weeks. We want to fully assess and get the strategy right."

General Stanley McChrystal, the commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, recently delivered a classified assessment of war strategy and is widely expected to request more US forces to try to turn the tide against the insurgents.

While military commanders appear to be preparing the ground for a troop request, recent polls show US public opinion turning against the war and opposed to injecting more troops.

Disputes over alleged vote-rigging in Afghanistan's election have raised fresh questions about the legitimacy of the corruption-plagued Kabul government and the course of the war in Congress and among NATO allies.

Obama faces less resistance on Afghanistan from his customary opponents in the Republican party, who are generally more hawkish on the war and more willing to commit more troops.

Some Republicans such as Senator Lindsey Graham have called on Obama to publicly defend the US mission in a more aggressive way.

Levin meanwhile argued for first increasing the size of the Afghan army and police "much faster than presently planned" and providing them with more trainers and equipment at an accelerated pace.

And he called for wooing elements of the insurgency to side with the central government "as we did in Iraq."

The Afghan army currently has some 90,000 soldiers, and the US plans to increase the force to 134,000 by October of 2010.

Levin proposed raising that number to 240,000 by 2012, one year earlier than planned by McChrystal. He also proposed increasing the number of Afghan soldiers to 160,000 by 2012.

"We need to obtain on an urgent basis a list of the basic equipment needs of the Afghan forces and a list of how those needs could be met in a major program to transfer equipment leaving Iraq," Levin said.

US officials have said dramatically expanding the Afghan security forces will require more troops to train soldiers and police and a bigger financial commitment from NATO states.

LONDON (Reuters) –
Scientists have found three new major genetic links to Alzheimer's, affecting up to 20 percent of people with the brain-wasting disease, and said on Sunday it was the most significant such discovery in 15 years.

Two large studies found that the three new genes join the better-known APOE4 gene as significant risk factors for the most common cause of dementia.

"If we were able to remove the detrimental effects of these genes through treatments, we could reduce the proportion of people developing Alzheimer's by 20 percent," Julie Williams, a professor of Neuropsychological Genetics at Britain's Cardiff University, told a news conference in London.

Alzheimer's disease affects more than 26 million people globally, has no cure and no good treatment. The need for effective remedies is pressing, with the number of cases forecast to go beyond 100 million by 2050.

Current drugs can only delay the symptoms endured by patients, who lose their memories, the ability to find their way around and to care for themselves.

Williams, who led one of the two studies published in Nature Genetics, said that in Britain alone, eradicating the effects of the three new genes would mean almost 100,000 people could avoid the disease.

She said the findings were the most significant genetic discoveries for Alzheimer's in the 15 years since APOE4 was found to be linked, and said drug companies had shown a keen interest in their research.

MORE GENES OUT THERE TO CATCH

Williams and colleagues at Cardiff's Medical Research Council Center for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics carried out a genome-wide association study -- a scan of the entire genetic map -- involving more than 16,000 people from eight countries. They identified two new genes -- called Clusterin and PICALM -- that increase the risk of developing Alzheimer's.

A second genome-wide study conducted by Philippe Amouyel and colleagues at the Institut Pasteur de Lille in France, studied more than 6,000 people with Alzheimer's and nearly 9,000 healthy people in France, Belgium, Finland, Italy and Spain. They identified Clusterin and a third gene called CR1.

Amouyel said the disease risks associated with each gene were difficult to quantify, and said all three genes were relatively common. The scientists also stressed that an as yet unknown combination of many genetic and other environmental factors cause Alzheimer's.

The researchers said Clusterin may explain 10 percent of Alzheimer's cases, PICALM around 9 percent and CR1 4 percent. By comparison, 20 to 25 percent of Alzheimer's cases are linked to APOE.

Three gene variations have also been associated with rare, early-onset forms of Alzheimer's that run in families. Identifying the genes can help researchers understand the underlying causes of a disease and design drugs to fight them.

Michael Owen, director of the Cardiff center, said their study also found evidence that other genes could play a role in the risk of developing Alzheimer's.

"It's a bit like we have been fishing with a fishing net and we've pulled out some fish. We know there are more fish there, and with a finer mesh net we can catch them," he said.

The Cardiff team now plans a further study involving 60,000 participants to look deeper into genetic causes of Alzheimer's.

VENICE, Italy – Matt Damon plays a pathological liar in Steven Soderbergh's "The Informant!" — the true-life story of an agribusiness executive who blows the whistle on his company's price fixing schemes with international competitors.
Soderbergh said Monday at the Venice Film Festival, where his comedy is showing out of competition, that lying plays an important function in life — as long as the lies don't get out of hand.
"I think lying is very important and necessary. It does take a lot of energy. It is one of the ways I stay thin," Soderbergh told reporters.
Damon didn't have that luxury for the role of Mark Whitacre, an Archer Daniels Midland executive who exposed the price fixing-scandal while covering up his own million-dollar path of extortion. He had to both lie, a lot, and put on 30 pounds (14 kilograms) for the role.
"It was very, very easy to gain the weight. Very, very fun," Damon said. "I just basically ate everything I could see for a few months."
Soderbergh first talked to Damon about doing the role seven years ago. They did three other movies in the meantime.
In Soderbergh's words: "Seven years of foreplay and then a quickie."
"Steven's theory on comedy is you make sure the screenplay is perfect, and then you shoot the actual production really, really fast," Damon said. "So that is what we did. We stewed on the script for seven years, and then shot this film in 30-something days."
At up to eight pages a day, Damon said the pace was close to a television schedule.
Soderbergh said he purposely did not meet the real Mark Whitacre before filming — in contrast to "Erin Brockovich" and his two films about revolutionary Che Guevara, for which he tried to meet everyone involved in the real story that he could.
"The strange thing is, that Whitacre has seen the film and has said it was very accurate," Soderbergh said. "Maybe on 'Che' and 'Erin,' I was wasting my time."