November 14, 2007, 9:38 PM CT

Risk Of Death In Dialysis Patients

Washington, DC (Tuesday, November 13, 2007) A new indicator of variations in hemoglobin level over time is a strong predictor of the risk of death among patients receiving dialysis for end-stage renal disease (ESRD), reports a study in the December Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

"Hemoglobin variabilitya measure of the stability of levels of hemoglobin among chronic hemodialysis patientsprovides a novel way of thinking about and understanding the relationship between anemia and outcomes in ESRD," comments Dr. Harold I. Feldman of University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, one of the study authors.

The scientists used data on nearly 35,000 dialysis patients to analyze the effects of hemoglobin variability on the risk of death. They focused on a newly developed metric, termed Hb-Var, that measures variability in hemoglobin levels independent of their absolute values and trends over time.

Hemoglobin is the oxygen-carrying compound in the blood. Anemia, or low hemoglobin levels, is one of the most frequent complications of kidney failure and a common cause of death in dialysis patients. Treatment including erythropoietin and intravenous iron has been a major advance in the management of kidney failure-related anemia, yet low blood counts and variation in hemoglobin levels continue to be a problem for a number of dialysis patients......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

November 14, 2007, 8:53 PM CT

FDA petition would protect public from dangerous drugs

In a petition filed today with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, an international coalition of researchers and doctors seeks to compel the agency to stem the flood of dangerous drugs reaching American consumers by mandating the use of scientifically superior non-animal testing methods when those alternatives exist.

Petition signatories include a plaintiff in a Vioxx lawsuit who refuses to accept the recently proposed settlement with Merck because she is concerned that misleading animal drug testing will continue to put consumers at risk. After taking Vioxx to cope with pain from a shoulder injury, Nancy Tufford was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Vioxx, a painkiller that appeared beneficial to the heart in mouse studies, was withdrawn from the market after it was shown to be the likely cause of thousands of fatal cardiac events in people.

Noting a series of similar tragedies in which pharmaceutical products that seemed safe in animal tests injured or killed consumers or participants in clinical trials, the coalition calls on the FDA to emulate a European Union regulation that requires the use of human-centered testing methods, when available. The Required Alternatives Petition, or MAP, lays the groundwork for legal action. If the FDA does not act within six months, the petitioners will consider further action......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

November 13, 2007, 8:48 PM CT

STEP HIV vaccine study to be unblinded

Merck & Co., Inc. and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN) today announced that study volunteers in the STEP study of Merck's HIV vaccine (V520) will be told whether they received vaccine or placebo, and all study volunteers will be encouraged to continue to return to their study sites on a regular basis for ongoing risk reduction counseling and study-related tests. Study researchers are being advised this week to provide this information to the volunteers; volunteers will receive additional information about the unblinding process directly from study sites.

The study was co-sponsored by Merck & Co., Inc.; the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health; and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), which is funded by NIAID. The STEP Study Oversight Committee, which is comprised of representatives from the three study co-sponsors, made the decision to unblind study volunteers following extensive discussion of the STEP results at last week's meeting of the HVTN by researchers, members of the community advisory boards of the study sites and other study site staff, including clinic coordinators and community educators......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

November 12, 2007, 10:25 PM CT

Emergency response

Disasters are getting worse it seems but the federal government's preparedness has been limited to helping after a disaster has occurred. Conversely, local organizations often do not have the resources or the training to effectively react. Federal and state support must now be given to programs that enable local governments to work effectively with communities to prepare for and respond to all disasters. That is the conclusion of a new analysis released recently in the Inderscience publication the International Journal of Emergency Management.

Colin Falato, Susan Smith, and Tyler Kress of the Health and Safety Programs at the University of Tennessee, have looked at the preparedness of local and federal governments in their response to natural and human-induced disasters and found them seriously lacking. They suggest that it should be the responsibility of local government officials as well as citizens to work together to adapt the disaster-response programs to suit communities' needs.

Historically, the belief that local knowledge and experience is best suited to dealing with common natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tornados and floods, has meant that responsibility for disaster preparedness and response has been devolved to local organizations and communities themselves. Federal government intervention has been limited to assistance after the disaster. The same is true for other natural, civil, technological, and ecological disasters, the scientists explain......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

November 12, 2007, 10:20 PM CT

Beta carotene supplementation and cognitive decline

Men who take beta carotene supplements for 15 years or longer may have less cognitive decline, as per a report in the November 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Decreases in cognitive abilitythinking, learning and memory skillsstrongly predict dementia, a growing public health issue, as per background information in the article. Long-term cellular damage from oxidative stress may be a major factor in cognitive decline. Some evidence suggests that antioxidant supplements may help preserve cognition, eventhough prior studies have been inconclusive, the authors note.

Francine Grodstein, Sc.D., of Brigham and Womens Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School, Boston, and his colleagues studied the antioxidant beta carotene and its effect on cognitive ability in two groups of men. The long-term group included 4,052 men who in 1982 had been randomly assigned to take placebo or 50 milligrams of beta carotene every other day. Between 1998 and 2001, an additional 1,904 men were randomly assigned to one of the two groups. Both groups were followed through 2003, completing yearly follow-up questionnaires with information about their health and their compliance with taking the pills. The men were assessed by telephone for cognitive function at least once between 1998 and 2002......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

November 12, 2007, 9:42 PM CT

N.J. nurses are overworked

New Jersey registered nurses are teetering on the brink of exhaustion due to heavier work loads, feeling that they are not able to provide proper patient care and receiving little support from management, as per a survey conducted by Rutgers College of Nursing faculty member Linda Flynn.

The 11-page survey, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was mailed to the homes of 44,343 New Jersey registered nurses and more than 21,000 nurses responded to the survey. It was the largest and most comprehensive surveys of New Jersey nurses ever conducted.

Findings from the survey, The State of the Nursing Workforce in New Jersey: Findings from a Statewide Survey of Registered Nurses, also indicated that nurses face frequent and chronic exposure to verbal abuse, complaints and work-related injuries and one in three nurses reported that their work loads are so heavy that they actually miss important changes in their patients conditions. More than 50 percent said that there was not enough staff to get the work done.

The survey also reports that New Jersey will need to replace a third of its nursing workforce over the next 10 years just to maintain the current nurse supply and does not reflect the additional number of nurses needed to meet the demand of an increasing aging population......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

November 8, 2007, 9:40 PM CT

Vaccine Ready For Avian Flu Human Trials

Scientists from the National Institutes of Health and University of Maryland report that a new vaccine that protects monkeys against the avian influenza virus is now a candidate for clinical trial in humans. They report their findings in the November 2007 issue of the Journal of Virology.

The rate of transmission of the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAIV) from birds to humans is rapidly increasing. The H5N1 strain is responsible for 278 known human infections resulting in 168 deaths. The possibility of a pandemic outbreak emphasizes the need for an effective vaccine, however development has been impeded by factors such as poor immunogenicity, biosafety concerns, and risk of genetic exchange with circulating influenza virus strains.

In the study scientists developed a live vaccine incorporating the avian Newcastle disease virus (NDV), which expresses a common gene found in the H5N1 avian influenza virus, and tested it in African monkeys. The vaccine was administered both intranasally and through the respiratory tract in two doses with a 28-day interval in between. Response after one dose showed low amounts of virus shedding indicating protection. Following two doses, high levels of neutralizing antibodies were present in all immunized monkeys. A substantial response to either dosage was noted in the respiratory tract indicating a likely reduction in transmission in the event of an outbreak......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

November 7, 2007, 7:08 PM CT

Oregon team zeroes in on RNA-binding

University of Oregon scientists have shed new light on the function of an RNA-regulating protein known as muscleblind, which when it misbehaves and binds to rogue RNA can lead to disease affecting roughly one in 8,000 people.

The study, which used a combination of biochemical, biophysical and cell culture studies, was placed online ahead of regular publication in the recent issue of the journal RNA. When the findings were initially presented in September at the annual meeting of the Myotonic Dystrophy Foundation in Italy, the work garnered a $1,000 cash prize for outstanding research for lead author Bryan Warf, a UO doctoral student.

Misbehaving RNA can lead to myotonic dystrophy, an inherited condition that affects muscles and other body systems. It is the most usually occurring form of adult onset muscular dystrophy with progressive muscle wasting as well as a variety of symptoms. An early symptom is the inability of muscles to relax after a simple handshake or gripping of a doorknob. It also can lead to cataracts, cardiac arrhythmia, insulin resistance and male infertility. It can be life-threatening in cases of early onset, especially in children. Scientists think that the numbers of a specific type of nucleotide expansions in a person's DNA gives rise to myotonic dystrophy......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

November 7, 2007, 7:05 PM CT

When to have a child?

Women seeking to balance career, social life and family life in making the decision on when to have a child may benefit from applying formal decision-making science to this complex emotional choice.

This decision is too complex to logically consider all the relevant aspects intuitively in ones head, write Professor Ralph Keeney and doctoral student Dinah Vernik of Dukes Fuqua School of Business. Yet, for many, it is too important and consequential to simply go with ones feelings.

The pair have demonstrated that using a formalized approach to this very personal decision may help a woman evaluate her options regarding the optimal time for her to attempt to conceive a first child. Their analysis, which was published in the current issue of the journal Decision Analysis, also reveals that women may have more options than they realize.

Keeney and Vernik developed a sophisticated logical decision model to help women weigh their options. Variables are plugged into the model which then attempts to balance the benefits of motherhood against its effects on career and social interests and the age-related concerns of diminishing fertility or an increased likelihood of conceiving a child with a genetic abnormality.

In their analyses, Keeney and Vernik illustrate their model by considering the situations of a 25-year-old doctoral student who desires an academic career and a 20-year-old college student who plans to pursue a professional career......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

November 6, 2007, 10:32 PM CT

Research Reveals Critical Knowledge About the Nervous System

Uncover the neural communication links involved in myelination, the process of protecting a nerve's axon, and it may become possible to reverse the breakdown of the nervous system's electrical transmissions in such disorders as multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, diabetes and cancers of the nervous system.

With $697,065 in grants from the New Jersey Commission on Spinal Cord Injury and the New Jersey Commission on Brain Injury Research, Haesun Kim of Teaneck, NJ, assistant professor of biological sciences at Rutgers University in Newark, is working on gaining a better understanding of those links.

Specifically, her work focuses on Schwann cells within the peripheral nervous system and their communication links with the axons they myelinate by enwrapping them in myelin. Axons are the long fibrous part of neurons that carry the nerve's electrical signals. A fatty substance, myelin covers those axons both to protect them and to provide a conduit for the fast conduction of electrical signals within the nervous system. Once that myelin is lost,the electrical signal breaks down and eventually the neuron dies - like a cell phone that loses its signal.

Determining how Schwann cells and axons communicate with one another could lead to an understanding of how to promote remyelination, the rebuilding of myelin, and restoration of that signal. One unique aspect of the communication link between Schwann cells and axons is that they......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source