November 19, 2006, 9:22 PM CT

Women At Higher Risk Of PTSD

Males experience more traumatic events on average than do females, yet females are more likely to meet diagnostic criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), according to a review of 25 years of research reported in the recent issue of Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

The authors reviewed 290 studies conducted between 1980 and 2005 to determine who is more at risk for potentially traumatic events (PTE) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) males or females? The results of the meta-analysis found that while males have a higher risk for traumatic events, women suffer from higher PTSD rates. PTSD is defined as an anxiety disorder precipitated by a traumatic event and characterized by symptoms of re-experiencing the trauma, avoidance and numbing and hyperarousal.

From the review, researchers David F. Tolin, PhD of the Institute of Living and Edna B. Foa, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine found that female study participants were more likely than male study participants to have experienced sexual assault and child sexual abuse, but less likely to have experienced accidents, nonsexual assaults, witness death or injury, disaster or fire and combat or war. Sexual trauma, the authors conclude, may cause more emotional suffering and are more likely to contribute to a PTSD diagnosis than other types of trauma.........

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November 16, 2006, 9:18 PM CT

Personality Traits And Heart Disease

Frequent bouts of depression, anxiety, hostility and anger are known to increase a person's risk for developing coronary heart disease, but a combination of these "negative" personality traits may put people at especially serious risk, according to a study by researchers at Duke University Medical Center.

"The risk of developing coronary heart disease due to a combination of negative personality traits in people has never before been explored," said the study's senior investigator, Edward C. Suarez, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychiatry. "Although each of the negative traits significantly predicted heart disease, having the combination of these traits was the most powerful predictor of heart disease".

Similar patterns have been reported with three traditional risk factors of heart disease -- high blood pressure, elevated cholesterol levels and excessive weight -- where each factor independently increases risk but their presence together predicts a greater risk of future heart disease, Suarez said.

The findings appear in an early online edition of the November/December 2006 issue of the journal Psychosomatic Medicine.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The team analyzed data on 2,105 military veterans who served in the Vietnam War and took part in the U.S. Air Force Health Study, in which researchers tracked the health of participants for 20 years. None of the men enrolled had heart disease when the study began.........

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November 16, 2006, 7:12 PM CT

Dieting Or Exercise

Those in their 50s and 60s who want to lose weight might consider heading to the cardio workout room instead of counting calories, suggests new research out this month.

Both those who dieted and those who exercised lost a significant amount of weight, as per findings from an NIH-funded study on whether a calorie-restriction diet can extend lifespan. However, while exercisers maintained their strength and muscle mass and increased aerobic capacity, those who dieted lost muscle mass, strength and aerobic capacity.

"Exercise-induced weight loss provides the additional benefit of improving physical performance capacity," says Edward Weiss, Ph.D., lead author and assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at Saint Louis University's Doisy College of Health Sciences.

"If push comes to shove and somebody wants to know if they should diet or exercise to lose weight, I would suggest exercise, provided they are willing to put in the extra time and effort and not offset the gains they make by eating more".

Weiss is a part of a Washington University team of researchers who studied healthy 50- to 60-year olds whose body mass index was between 23 and 30, placing them at the high end of normal weight or overweight.

Of the 34 study participants, 18 dieted and 16 exercised to lose weight.........

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November 16, 2006, 4:30 AM CT

Implantable Device System For Blood Pressure Control

A device first implanted in the United States at the University of Rochester Medical Center as part of a clinical trial is showing a significant reduction in blood pressure in patients who suffer from severe high blood pressure and cannot control their condition with medications or changes in lifestyle.

Early findings were shared this week by University of Rochester Medical Center heart specialist John Bisognano, M.D., Ph.D., and Minneapolis-based device-maker CVRx at the American Heart Association 2006 Scientific Sessions in Chicago.

The ongoing study is assessing the safety and clinical efficacy of the RheosTM Baroreflex High blood pressure TherapyTM System, an implantable device for the therapy of high blood pressure in patients with drug-resistant hypertension, who have a systolic blood pressure of 160 mmHg or greater. The University of Rochester implanted the first device in the U.S. in March 2005, and performed a total of three of the initial 10 implantations.

High blood pressure affects about 65 million people in the U.S. It is estimated to cause one in every eight deaths worldwide. Each increase of 20 mmHg in systolic blood pressure or 10 mmHg in diastolic blood pressure above normal level is linked to a two hundred percent increase in death rates from stroke, coronary heart disease and other vascular causes. Approximately 25 percent of people with high blood pressure cannot control their high blood pressure, despite the use of multiple medications.........

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November 15, 2006, 9:40 PM CT

ADHD And Smoking

Are you easily forgetful, distracted, impulsive or fidgety? Do you find that smoking helps you alleviate these symptoms?

Columbia University Medical Center researchers are investigating whether these most common symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) could be causing people to smoke. If that is the case, will treatment for ADHD combined with the standard treatment to help people quit smoking - the patch with counseling - increase the quit rates for smokers trying to quit?

Lirio S. Covey, Ph.D., director of the Smoking Cessation Program at Columbia University Medical Center, is trying to find out.

Covey and her colleagues are recruiting smokers who have been diagnosed with ADHD or who may have symptoms of ADHD but have not yet been diagnosed, to be part of a study that will help them quit smoking. Approximately 7-8 million adults in the U.S. have ADHD. Smoking is twice as common in this population as in the general population.

Research has shown that most smoking in the U.S. occurs among people who have psychiatric conditions, such as alcohol or drug abuse, major depression, anxiety and ADHD. One line of research has shown that smokers with these conditions "self-medicate" their symptoms with nicotine, the primary addictive substance in tobacco.........

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November 15, 2006, 5:12 AM CT

No Link Found Between Viagra and HIV Infection

Erectile dysfunction (ED) medications known as Phosphodiesterase type 5 (PDE-5) inhibitors have been used by millions of men as safe and effective management options associated with high rates of patient and partner satisfaction. Recent reports have appeared, however, that some individuals have misused this class of drug, combining them with narcotics such as methamphetamines. These reports further note that such individuals may be, in particular, at an increased risk for HIV. If such claims of a large and expanding use of PDE-5 inhibitors are correct, this would signify an important public health concern.

A comprehensive, multi-disciplinary conference funded by the National Institutes of Health sought to determine whether the drug class of PDE-5 inhibitors was contributing to an overall increase in HIV infection. The results of this conference appear in the latest issue of The Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Convincing evidence was not found to support the conclusion that PDE-5 inhibitor use is a risk factor for HIV infection. For the large majority of men, PDE-5 inhibitor use is conducted in a stable, committed partner relationship. Under such circumstances, the risk of HIV infection is relatively small. Clinicians and educators did emphasize, however, the importance of safe sex practices for those engaging in risky sexual relations.........

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November 15, 2006, 4:32 AM CT

Vaccine And Colorectal Cancer

British researchers have developed a vaccine that stimulates colorectal cancer patients' immune systems to fight cancerous cells.

In a clinical trial of 67 patients, researchers at the University of Nottingham observed that when the vaccines were administered before and after surgery to remove cancerous tumors, they helped stimulated immune cell production in up to 70 percent of patients. These results are published in the November 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

"This is the first vaccine shown to stimulate TNF-alpha an immune-system protein that is very effective at killing cancer cells," said Lindy Durrant, senior author of the study and professor of cancer immunotherapy at the university.

The vaccine works by stimulating the patients' immune response to generate infection-fighting white blood cells called T cells, which in turn produce immune system proteins called cytokines that destroy cancer cells. The antibody contained in the vaccine, called 105AD7, was cloned from a patient who survived seven years with liver metastases from colorectal cancer, Durrant explained.

"This is very unusual as most patients die within one year of getting liver metastases," she said. "I thought if this antibody had helped this patient, if we could clone it, it might help others".........

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November 14, 2006, 4:47 AM CT

Helping Children Resolve Past Conflicts

When young children argue with their siblings, they are rarely counseled to address their conflicts after the fighting is over. Rather than encouraging children to forget past disagreements, it might be better for parents to use these quarrels to help their children develop useful skills in conflict resolution.

That's the conclusion of scientists at the Universities of Waterloo and Chicago, who asked 64 pairs of siblings ages 4 to 12 to try to solve an ongoing conflict between them. Their goals: to determine whether young children can negotiate with each other to resolve long-standing disagreements; to learn whether siblings can reach compromises that allow both children to meet at least some of their goals, and to identify strategies used when children agree and when they fail to resolve their differences.

The study, published in the November/December 2006 issue of Child Development, observed that at the time conflicts occur, it's difficult for siblings to negotiate constructively and compromise with one another. In contrast, when dealing with past disagreements, a number of children are able to productively discuss and resolve their differences.

Research shows that children don't readily forget past grievances. But siblings were able to resolve their past differences when they worked together, compromised, and made flexible plans for the future. When children failed to discuss the future or lobbed accusations at each other, they were unable to resolve these conflicts. Even when disagreements were expressed in a reasoned or toned-down manner, they often stood in the way of solutions.........

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November 13, 2006, 7:40 AM CT

Bariatric Surgery Complications In Some Hospitals

In-hospital bariatric surgery complication rates vary dramatically among the nation's hospitals, according to a study released recently by HealthGrades, the leading healthcare ratings company. The study of 86,520 bariatric-surgery procedures performed over the years 2002 through 2004 finds that a typical patient receiving the procedure in a five-star rated hospital would have, on average, a 66 percent lower chance of developing one or more major inhospital complications compared with a one-star rated hospital.

Based on the study, HealthGrades, for the first time, today posted quality ratings for hospitals in 17 states that perform bariatric surgery on its consumer Web site, HealthGrades.com. Hospitals received a five-, three- or one-star rating that reflected their complication rates for bariatric surgery, also known as weight-loss surgery, obesity surgery and gastric-bypass surgery.

The HealthGrades study comes on the heels of a study published in July by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which found that four of every ten patients undergoing bariatric surgery develop complications within six months.

The percentage of U.S. adults who are obese has doubled in the last thirty years, reaching 30 percent according to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. The number of bariatric surgeries in America are increasing dramatically as well, with the volume growing 34 percent from 2002 to 2004 in the 17 states studied. Experts attribute a growing proportion of the nation's healthcare bill to overweight and obesity, reaching 9.1 percent of U.S. medical costs, or $78 billion, in the most recent study.........

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November 10, 2006, 5:10 AM CT

Artificial Protein Shows Promise For Cancer Eye Injury

Potentially blinding blood vessel growth in the cornea resulting from eye injury or even surgery can be reduced by more than 50 percent with a new manmade protein, researchers say.

"We believe eventually we'll be able to use this protein to help patients in many situations where blood vessel formation is detrimental, including cancer, diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration," says Dr. Balamurali K. Ambati, corneal specialist at the Medical College of Georgia and Augusta Veterans Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Ambati is corresponding author of the study published in the recent issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.

The body can produce new blood vessels to promote healing after trauma, such as a corneal transplant, a significant corneal scratch from a contact lens or retinal oxygen deprivation caused by diabetes or aging. This natural response, called angiogenesis, becomes detrimental when new growth obstructs vision or when a tumor pirates the process to survive.

In an animal model, researchers used the protein they developed to reverse obstructive growth as long as one month after injury, says Dr. Ambati. That's a very long time after injury in a mouse's lifetime, indicating even well-established blood vessels are susceptible to intraceptor-mediated regression, he says.........

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