July 17, 2007, 10:35 PM CT

Sleep Improves Huntington's disease sufferings

Mice carrying the genetic mutation that causes Huntington's Disease (HD) showed marked improvements in alertness and their ability to learn after they were given drugs that put them to sleep.

Scientists at the University of Cambridge observed that daily therapys of Alprazolam or chloral hydrate, two different sedative drugs, enabled them to develop a regular sleep pattern and improved their cognitive function their ability to understand and act on information.

As per the Cambridge neuroresearchers conducting the research, HD mice have abnormal circadian rhythms; their daily sleeping and waking cycles are disrupted and irregular. Since sleep disruption contributes to problems with perception and learning in healthy people, the team wondered whether the circadian disruption and cognitive disturbances in HD mice were linked.

To test this, drugs were administered to regulate sleep patterns in the mice. The results, published recently in the Journal of Neuroscience, show that both drugs caused a noticeable improvement in learning and Alprazolam also improved arousal. The study shows for the first time that therapys aimed at restoring normal sleep-wake activity could slow the cognitive decline that is such a devastating feature of the disease.

Dr. Jenny Morton, lead author of the study, said: In the future, more attention should be paid to understanding sleep and circadian disturbance in HD. Management of these patterns may not only improve patients ability to think, learn and perform, but would also improve quality of life for both them and their carers......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source

July 16, 2007, 10:11 PM CT

Clues to future evolution of HIV

Monkey viruses correlation to HIV may have swept across Africa more recently than previously thought, as per new research from The University of Arizona in Tucson.

A new family tree for African green monkeys shows that an HIV-like virus, simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, first infected those monkeys after the lineage split into four species. The new research reveals the split happened about 3 million years ago.

Previously, researchers thought SIV infected an ancestor of green monkeys before the lineage split, much longer ago.

"Studying SIV helps us learn more about HIV," said the paper's first author Joel Wertheim, a doctoral candidate in the UA department of ecology and evolutionary biology. "This finding sheds light on the future direction of HIV evolution".

All SIVs and HIVs have a common ancestor, added senior author Michael Worobey, a UA assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.

The new work suggests African green monkeys' SIVs, or SIVagm, may have lost their virulence more recently than the millions of years previously thought. Green monkeys almost never get sick from SIVagm. If SIVagm was once a monkey killer, the change in its virulence may shed light on the future course and timing of the evolution of HIV......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source

July 12, 2007, 10:31 PM CT

Bak Protein Sets Stressed Cells On Suicide Path

When a cell is seriously stressed, say by a heart attack, stroke or cancer, a protein called Bak just may set it up for suicide, scientists have found.

In a deadly double whammy, Bak helps chop the finger-like filament shape of the cell's powerhouse, or mitochondrion, into vulnerable little spheres. Another protein Bax then pokes countless holes in those spheres, spilling their pro-death contents into the cell.

"We found out Bak has a distinct function in regulation of the mitochondrial morphology," says Dr. Zheng Dong, cell biologist at the Medical College of Georgia and the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta and corresponding author on a paper published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "Bax, on the other hand, is not involved in morphological regulation but needs to be there to puncture holes."

"One has to break up, kind of soften, the mitochondria for injury, and the other one actually punches the holes to kill it," says Craig Brooks, MCG graduate student and the paper's first author.

Bak and Bax have similar structures and researchers have long suspected they play major, similar roles in programmed cell death, or apoptosis. "These two proteins are very important for mitochondrial injury and subsequent apoptosis," says Dr. Dong......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source

July 8, 2007, 10:35 PM CT

Chronic fatigue: clues in the blood

Scientists at UNSW think that blood may hold vital insights into what is happening in the brain of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

In a study unparalleled in its scope, a team led by UNSW Professor Andrew Lloyd of the Centre for Infection and Inflammation Research, has studied the differences in gene expression patterns in the blood of people who either recover promptly after acute glandular fever or develop the prolonged illness called post-infective syndrome.

The scientists examined six million pieces of gene expression information for analysis in the project, known as the Dubbo Infection Outcomes Study. The study is named after the NSW town in which the work was conducted. The team studied the expression of 30,000 genes in the blood, testing each of the 15 individuals between four and five times over a 12-month period.

The team was able to narrow its findings to the expression of just 35 genes whose pattern of expression correlated closely with the key symptoms of the illness when examined from onset through to recovery. Gene expression is significant because it is the process by which a gene's DNA sequence is converted into the proteins which ultimately determine the manifestations of disease.

The research paper has been published and selected for editorial comment in the prestigious Journal of Infectious Diseases......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source

July 5, 2007, 9:03 PM CT

Young Adults And Antidepressants

Antidepressants lower the risk of suicide attempt in adults with depression, as per a research studyreported in the recent issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry. The scientists also observed that the lower risk held true for young adults ages 18 to 25.

"The risk of suicide attempt among depressed patients treated with SSRI drugs was about one-third that of patients who were not treated with an SSRI," said the lead author Robert Gibbons, director of the Center for Health Statistics and professor of biostatistics and psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "We would not expect a lower risk in this patient population because patients treated with SSRIs are generally more severely depressed and would have a higher risk of suicide attempt".

The scientists analyzed medical data of 226,866 patients newly diagnosed with depression in 2003 or 2004 at the Veterans Administration healthcare system. They compared risk of suicide in four age groups (ages 18 to 25; 26 to 45; 46 to 65; and older than 65) before and after therapy with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor medications, also known as SSRI drugs.

All age groups of depressed patients who received selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors -- the most usually prescribed antidepressant medicine -- showed a significantly lower risk of suicide attempt when in comparison to those who did not receive antidepressant therapy......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source

June 25, 2007, 8:36 PM CT

SARS survivors recover from physical illness

Most patients who survived severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) had good physical recovery, but they or their caregivers often reported a decline in mental health one year later, as per a research studyin the June 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Severe Acute Respiratory syndrome (SARS) became a global epidemic in 2003. Most cases were in Asia, and the largest concentration of North American cases occurred in Toronto, Ontario, as per background information in the article. The longer-term physical and psychological consequences of SARS were not reported until recently. Investigations of the disease have focused on lung function, distance walked in six minutes and health-related quality of life.

Catherine M. Tansey, M.Sc., University Health Network, Toronto, and his colleagues, reviewed 117 SARS survivors from Toronto who were discharged from the hospital in 2003. Patients were reviewed three, six and 12 months after leaving the hospital by undergoing a physical examination, a six-minute walk test, a lung function test, a chest X-ray and quality-of-life measures and reporting how often they saw a physician. Formal caregivers of survivors were given a survey on caregiver burden one year after patient discharge.

All but one patient had chest X-rays demonstrating normal or pre-SARS condition by one year. At three months, 31 percent of the survivors had a reduced six-minute walk distance and at one year, 18 percent did. For most, lung capacity measures and the lungs ability to exchange respiratory gases were within normal limits at three months and during the rest of the follow-up period......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source

June 22, 2007, 4:34 AM CT

Helps Working Parents Of Chronically Ill Children

Working parents are more able to care for their chronically ill children when given greater access to federal and employer-provided time off from their jobs, as per a RAND Corporation study issued today.

"We observed that having the time and financial flexibility to miss work is clearly important for parents who have children with serious chronic illnesses," said lead author Dr. Paul Chung, senior natural scientist at RAND and assistant professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

"Children in our study missed an average of four weeks of school or daycare a year," added Dr. Mark Schuster, senior author of the study and director of the health promotion and disease prevention program at RAND Health. "They also had 12 doctor or emergency department visits and one hospitalization".

"Unfortunately, a number of parents who don't have access to family leave are forced to choose between being with their child and keeping their job," said Schuster, who is also professor and vice-chair of pediatrics at UCLA.

Scientists at RAND, a nonprofit research organization, surveyed 574 full-time employed parents of chronically ill children between November 2003 and January 2004. The study examined the availability of paid and unpaid leaves of absence from work, how often parents missed work to care for their ill children, and the length of absences from work......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source

June 18, 2007, 10:01 PM CT

Protein May Prevent Eye Damage In Premature Babies

A protein long believed to be one of the bodys supporting players has quietly been taking a lead role in healthy eyesight, a discovery that could rapidly lead to therapys for babies born before their eyes are finished growing, University of Florida and Harvard Medical School scientists have found.

The finding, described in separate, back-to-back papers would be published in Tuesdays (June 19) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers a new target for therapies for retinopathy of prematurity, a potentially blinding disease that annually affects about 15,000 babies.

In newborns with the disease, oxygen-starved areas of the retina compensate by quickly growing new blood vessels. But these new vessels are fragile and leaky.

Weve identified a protein that is part of the bodys natural defenses in oxygen-deprived conditions, said Maria B. Grant, M.D., a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics at UFs College of Medicine. When babies are born before levels of this protein are normal, blood vessels spread abnormally throughout the retina. But if we can increase the protein to more normal levels in premature babies, it should result in healthier blood vessel growth.

The protein insulin-like growth factor binding protein-3, or IGFBP-3 was thought to exist exclusively to regulate insulin-like growth factor-1, a molecular growth factor that is necessary for the development of nerve, muscle, bone, liver, kidney, lung, eye and other body tissues......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source

June 12, 2007, 5:11 AM CT

Night shift nurses more likely to have poor sleep habits

Nurses who work the night shift are more likely to have poor sleep habits, a practice that can increase the likelihood of committing serious errors that can put the safety of themselves as well as their patients at risk, as per a research abstract that will be presented Monday at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies (APSS).

Arlene Johnson, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, surveyed 289 licensed nurses while they were working on the night shift in the hospital setting, and classified the subjects as either sleep deprived or not sleep deprived. The results showed that 56 percent of the sample was sleep deprived.

"Reduction in the amount of sleep predisposes individuals to sleep deprivation, resulting in poor psychomotor performance," said Johnson. "Nurses who work the night shift may be especially subject to sleep deprivation because of irregularity of sleep hours and disruptions in the circadian cycle. Poor psychomotor performance has been linked to an increase in error, which can be translated into an unsafe work environment. The identification of sleep deprivation in nurses is essential for maintaining safe working conditions".

The amount of sleep a person gets affects his or her physical health, emotional well-being, mental abilities, productivity and performance. Recent studies associate lack of sleep with serious health problems such as an increased risk of depression, obesity, cardiovascular disease and diabetes......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source

June 10, 2007, 7:57 PM CT

Alcohol Injections For Common Foot Pain

Sonographically-guided alcohol injections has a high success rate and is well tolerated by patients with Mortons neuroma, a common cause of foot pain, as per a recent study conducted by scientists at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and Kingston Hospital NHS Trust in Middlesex, United Kingdom.

Mortons neuroma is a growth of nerve tissue that occurs in a nerve in your foot, often between your third and fourth toes and commonly causes a sharp, burning pain in the ball of your foot. For this study, scientists assessed the efficacy of a series of alcohol injections into the lesion.

I felt a number of patients with Mortons neuroma were undergoing an operation that was unnecessary and that the neuroma could be successfully treated in a less invasive manner, said David Connell, MD, lead author of the study.

The study consisted of 101 patients with Mortons neuroma. An average of 4.1 therapys per person were administered, and follow-up images were obtained at a mean of 21.1 months after the last therapy.

As per the study, there was a technical success rate of 100%. In 94% of the patients, partial or total symptom improvement was reported, with 84% becoming totally pain free. Thirty patients underwent sonography at six months after the last injection and showed a 30% decrease in the size of the neuroma......... Posted by: Rose      Read more         Source