November 29, 2006, 4:58 AM CT

Health Inequalities Are A Growing Problem

Global health inequalities are substantial, growing, and influenced by economic, social and health-sector variables as well as geography, a study concludes in the recent issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Especially disturbing findings from this study are that countries with high mortality in young children are making slow progress, gaps in adult mortality are becoming wider, and countries with the highest adult mortality have reversed their trend from mortality reduction, said lead author Jennifer Prah Ruger, assistant professor of public health in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale School of Medicine.

This is the first systematic study of global inequalities in adult and child mortality to identify three distinct mortality groupsbetter off, worse-off and mid-levelusing cluster analysis methods to reveal new associations and structure in data, and examine the underlying risk factors linked to inequality in mortality. Unlike prior studies, this research focuses on gaps in health inequalities between countries, Ruger said.

The probability that a child will die before age five and an adult will die at an early age are disproportionately higher throughout sub-Saharan Africa and Afghanistan than in countries in any other geographic region, as per the study. The authors report that these countries have lower average incomes, more extreme poverty, higher inflation and less trade. They also have lower levels of investment in human and physical resources, more health risk factors and less effective disease prevention, and worse educational outcomes.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

November 29, 2006, 4:57 AM CT

Painkillers May Weaken The Power Of Vaccines

With flu-shot season in full swing and widespread anticipation of the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer, a new University of Rochester study suggests that using common painkillers around the time of vaccination might not be a good idea.

Scientists showed that certain nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), also known as cyclooxygenase inhibitors, react with the immune system in such a way that might reduce the effectiveness of vaccines.

The research has widespread implications: study authors report that an estimated 50 to 70 percent of Americans use NSAIDs for relief from pain and inflammation, even though NSAIDs blunt the bodys natural response to infection and may prolong it.

For years we have known that elderly people are poor responders to the influenza vaccine and vaccines in general, said principal investigator Richard P. Phipps, Ph.D., a professor of Environmental Medicine, and of Microbiology and Immunology, Oncology and Pediatrics. And we also know that elderly people tend to be heavy users of inhibitors of cyclooxygenase such as Advil, aspirin, or Celebrex. This study could help explain the immune response problem.

The study is available online in the Dec. 1, 2006, Journal of Immunology, and was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health. (See full study at: http://www.jimmunol.org/cgi/content/full/177/11/7811).........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

November 29, 2006, 4:42 AM CT

Night Of The Living Enzyme

Inactive enzymes entombed in tiny honeycomb-shaped holes in silica can spring to life, researchers at the Department of Energys Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found.

The discovery came after salvaging enzymes that had been in a refrigerator long past their expiration date. Enzymes are proteins that are not actually alive but come from living cells and perform chemical conversions.

To the research teams surprise, enzymes that should have fizzled months before perked right up when entrapped in a nanomaterial called functionalized mesoporous silica, or FMS. The result points the way for exploiting these enzyme traps in food processing, decontamination, biosensor design and any other pursuit that requires controlling catalysts and sustaining their activity.

Theres a school of thought that the reason enzymes work better in cells than in solution is because the concentration of enzymes surrounded by other biomolecules in cells is about 1,000 to 10,000 time more than in standard biochemistry lab conditions, said Eric Ackerman, PNNL chief scientist and senior author of a related study that appears today in the journal Nanotechnology. This crowding is thought to stabilize and keep enzymes active.

The silica-spun FMS pores, hexagons about 30 nanometers in diameter spread across a sliver of material, mimic the crowding of cells. Ackerman, lead author Chenghong Lei and his colleagues said crowding induces an unfolded, free-floating protein to refold; upon refolding, it reactivates and becomes capable of catalyzing thousands of reactions a second.........

Posted by: Rose      Permalink         Source

November 29, 2006, 4:39 AM CT

Scientists Working In A 'Boundary-less' Environment

A cadre of world-renowned researchers working in the most promising areas of cancer research have come together to work as a team at one institution Memorial Health to accelerate findings for the prevention and therapy of cancer.

The new approach to making advances in cancer research is focused on a "boundary-less" environment which the researchers expect will stimulate faster, cross-disciplinary results and increased collaboration between researchers and physicians. The "boundary-less" approach applies to all aspects of the research and even extends to the physical facility which features a laboratory that literally has no internal walls.

This team of scientists, all recruited from top institutions in the United States, is focused exclusively on translational or "bench to bedside" research of molecular genetics, allowing them to work closely with physicians to translate laboratory findings into individualized therapys, earlier diagnostics, and new cancer prevention methods for patients.

Tapped to lead Memorial Health's newly created Laboratory Research Program, Jeff Boyd, Ph.D., a distinguished scientist from Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, selected some of the nation's top research talent including Dominique Broccoli, Ph.D., Fox Chase Cancer Center; Nagendra Ningaraj, Ph.D., Vanderbilt University; Ranjan Perera, Ph.D., Burnham Institute, La Jolla, California; Apostolos Psychogios, M.D., Harvard University; John Risinger, Ph.D., National Cancer Institute; and, Cindy Yee, Ph.D., Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.........

Posted by: Jessica      Permalink         Source

November 29, 2006, 4:34 AM CT

The impact of immunosuppressive medications

Patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) have an increased risk of heart attack and stroke. According to extensive evidence, the key driver for this increased risk of cardiovascular disease is the increased systemic inflammation characteristic of RA. Studies are less clear on whether medications that work to reduce RA's inflammatory symptoms provide protective benefits against cardiovascular events. Some data have suggested that the most potential biologic therapies, such as the TNF blockers, might reduce the risk of ischemic cardiovascular events.

To investigate, researchers at Harvard Medical School's Brigham and Women's Hospital compared the effects of a variety of immunosuppressive agents on cardiovascular events in a large sample of RA patients. Based on their findings, featured in the December 2006 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/journal/arthritis), TNF blockers were not associated with either a reduction or an increase in the risk of heart attack or stroke compared with the most commonly used RA treatment, methotrexate. While certain anti-inflammatory drugs appeared to exacerbate the risk of heart attack and stroke for RA patients, particularly among older women.

Drawing on a database of Medicare patients receiving a drug benefit from the state of Pennsylvania, the researchers identified 946 individuals who had been diagnosed with RA, prescribed an immunosuppressive agent, and hospitalized for either heart attack or stroke within a six-year period. These patients were defined as case subjects for studying the role of anti-inflammatory RA therapies in the risk of cardiovascular disease. Each case subject was matched by age and gender to ten controls. The controls, a total of 9,460 RA patients, did not experience cardiovascular events during the delineated period. All the subjects were over age 65 and most were female and white.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

November 28, 2006, 4:42 AM CT

Flu Can Bide Time In Icy Limbo Before Re-emerging

It sounds like a campy '50s horror movie ("It Came from the Ice!"), but a Bowling Green State University biologist believes it's a very real possibility. Dr. Scott Rogers is talking about the potential for long-dormant strains of influenza, packed in ice in remote global outposts, to be unleashed by melting and migratory birds.

"We've found viral RNA in the ice in Siberia, and it's along the major flight paths of migrating waterfowl," whose pathways take them to North America, Asia and Australia, and interconnect with other migratory paths to Europe and Africa, explains Rogers.

Viruses, he says, can be preserved in ice over long periods of time, then released decades later when humans may no longer be immune to them. For instance, survivors of the worldwide flu pandemic of 1918 had immunity to the responsible strain-called H1N1-but that immunity has died with them, meaning a recurrence "could take hold as an epidemic".

H1, the first of 16 versions of the protein heamagglutinin, is what Rogers and his Russian and Israeli colleagues sought in their research, which is being published in the recent issue of the Journal of Virology. The BGSU professor and biological sciences department chair believes it to be the first time anyone has found--and maybe even looked for--the viral RNA in ice.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

November 27, 2006, 4:52 AM CT

Second Cancer Risk For Stem Cell Transplant Recipients

Hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients face a significant long-term risk for developing a second cancer, particularly if they were older at the time of transplant or received stem cells from a female donor, according to a new study. Reported in the January 1, 2007 issue of CANCER (http://www.interscience.wiley.com/cancer-newsroom), a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study reveals that within 10 years of an allogeneic HSCT, the relative risk of a second, solid cancer is almost twice that of the general population. In addition, cancer risk almost quadruples for patients who were over 40 years old at the time of transplant or for patients who received stem cells from a female donor.

Myeloablative, allogeneic HSCT is an effective standard therapy for specific life-threatening diseases, such as leukemia or myelodysplastic syndrome, for which blood cell lineages (which originate principally in the bone marrow and circulate in the blood) are abnormal. Destroying the patient's own unhealthy stem cells in the bone marrow and replacing them with a compatible donor's stem cells offers the chance of cure for a disease that otherwise has a high mortality rate with non-transplant therapies. While the procedure can be lifesaving, it is associated with serious short-term adverse effects, such as mucostitis, infections, and liver vascular obstruction as well as the potential long-term complication of developing of a second, usually solid cancer.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

November 26, 2006, 7:14 AM CT

Reversing Type 1 Diabetes In Mice

New data published in the Nov. 24 issue of Science provide further support for a protocol to reverse type 1 diabetes in mice and new evidence that adult precursor cells from the spleen can contribute to the regeneration of beta cells. In 2001 and 2003, researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) demonstrated the efficacy of a protocol to reverse of type 1 diabetes in diabetic mice. Three studies from other institutions published in the March 24, 2006 issue of Science confirmed that the MGH-developed protocol can reverse the underlying disease but were inconclusive on the role of spleen cells in the recovery of insulin-producing pancreatic islets. The new data from a study performed at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), published as a technical comment, provides additional confirmation of the ability to reverse type 1 diabetes and on the role of the spleen cells in islet regeneration.

"This data from the NIH and the earlier studies have added significantly to the understanding of how diabetes may be reversed," says Denise Faustman, MD, PhD, director of the Immunobiology Laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital, primary author of the 2001 and 2003 studies and co-corresponding author of the current report. "It is still early, but it appears that there are multiple potential sources for regenerating islets. As a research community we should pursue all avenues. We're excited to see what will happen in humans".........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

November 22, 2006, 4:22 AM CT

New Year Without Putting On Pounds

Your leftover Halloween candy is almost gone from your cupboards, and the holiday season with all its sweet temptations has begun.

However, all those holiday parties and office gatherings laden with scrumptious food and drink don't have to mean the end of your weight loss plan. It's still possible to enjoy the bounty and not feel deprived of your favorite holiday dishes, says Connie Diekman, director of University Nutrition at Washington University in St. Louis.

"The first rule of thumb for eating at holiday gatherings," Diekman says, "is never go to the party hungry. Have a little something healthy before you go - a piece of fruit, half a sandwich or a glass of milk. Be sure when you arrive you aren't overly hungry".

Then when you arrive at the party, Diekman suggests doing a survey of the situation and figure out how you want to approach the buffet table, if there is one.

"Plan on getting your food off the buffet table and then moving away from the table to eat," she says. "Use a plate, and don't stand at the table and pick at the food. Seeing what is on the plate begins the process of realizing how much food is enough for you".

When you do fill your plate, keep in mind that two thirds of the food on it should come from whole grains, fruits and vegetables, Diekman points out. The remaining third can be meats, sauces, and high-fat and high-calorie foods. "Try to concentrate on loading up on those things that are going to fill you up as opposed to the high-calorie, empty foods".........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

November 19, 2006, 9:30 PM CT

Wnt Reactivates Dormant Limb Regeneration

Chop off a salamander's leg and a brand new one will sprout in no time. But most animals have lost the ability to replace missing limbs. Now, a research team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has been able to regenerate a wing in a chick embryo a species not known to be able to regrow limbs - suggesting that the potential for such regeneration exists innately in all vertebrates, including humans.

Their study, reported in the advance online edition of Genes and Development on Nov. 17, demonstrates that vertebrate regeneration is under the control of the powerful Wnt signaling system: Activating it overcomes the mysterious barrier to regeneration in animals like chicks that can't normally replace missing limbs while inactivating it in animals known to be able to regenerate their limbs (frogs, zebrafish, and salamanders) shuts down their ability to replace missing legs and tails.

"In this simple experiment, we removed part of the chick embryo's wing, activated Wnt signaling, and got the whole limb back - a beautiful and perfect wing," said the lead author, Juan Carlos Izpisa Belmonte, Ph.D., a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory. "By changing the expression of a few genes, you can change the ability of a vertebrate to regenerate their limbs, rebuilding blood vessels, bone, muscles, and skin - everything that is needed".........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source