February 6, 2007, 9:56 PM CT

Prevalence Of Overactive Bladder

As per the International Continence Society, overactive bladder is a symptom-defined condition characterized by urinary urgency, with or without urgency incontinence, commonly with urinary frequency and nocturia (night-time urination). The term overactive bladder is appropriate if there is no proven urinary tract infection or other obvious pathology.

Overactive bladder was identified in 6.5% of Finnish men and 9.3% of women. In younger age groups the condition was more common among women, but among those over 60 years old it was more common among men. Urinary frequency and nocturia were generally more common than usual among those with an overactive bladder. However, most reported urinary frequency and nocturia was not overactive bladder.

The research is based on a questionnaire conducted 2003-2004 among 3,000 Finnish women and 3,000 Finnish men. Their ages ranged from 18 to 79. The subjects were taken from the population register.

Professor Teuvo Tammela and Professor Anssi Auvinen are in charge of the research group, whose members are from the University of Tampere, Tampere University Hospital, Helsinki University Central Hospital and the South Karelian Central Hospital in Lappeenranta.........

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February 5, 2007, 5:10 PM CT

Severe Form Of Enlarged Prostate

Millions of middle-aged and older men experience the symptoms of an enlarged prostate multiple times during the day and night. What they may not know is that the disease known as BPH (non-malignant prostatic hyperplasia), marked by urgency and frequent urination, is not one but at least a pair of disorders, and that one of the pair tied to a newly identified gene has far more serious implications.

As per a research findings reported in the recent issue of the Journal of Urology, scientists at Johns Hopkins reported finding substantially higher levels of a protein made by a gene known as JM-27 in men whose BPH is more severe and more likely to lead to bladder-related complications if left untreated.

Eventhough BPH affects the prostate, the resulting symptoms are often called "lower urinary tract symptoms," or LUTS. These symptoms reflect not only the direct effects of the prostate on urinary flow and urgency, but functional changes in the bladder that result from the increased pressure.

The Hopkins team, lead by Robert Getzenberg, Ph.D., also developed a blood test that detects the JM-27 protein in men with severe symptoms. The JM-27 diagnostic test, if eventually approved by the FDA, could be used to identify men with this highly symptomatic form of the disease early, before there is any damage to the bladder or urinary tract.........

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February 2, 2007, 4:28 AM CT

Nano-Magnets to Enhance Medical Imaging

Nanoscale magnets in the form of iron-containing molecules might be used to improve the contrast between healthy and diseased tissue in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)-as long as the concentration of nanomagnets is carefully managed-as per a new report* by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and collaborators. Molecular nanomagnets are a new class of MRI contrast agents that may offer significant advantages, such as versatility in design, over the compounds used today.

Contrast agents are used to highlight different tissues in the body or to help distinguish between healthy and diseased tissue. NIST is working with two universities and a hospital to design, produce and test nanomolecules that might make MRI imaging more powerful and easier to perform. The new paper resolves a debate in the literature by showing that iron-containing magnets just two nanometers wide, dissolved in water, do provide reasonable contrast in non-clinical MRI images-as long as the nanomagnet concentration is below a certain threshold. (A nanometer is one billionth of a meter.) Prior studies by other research groups had reached conflicting conclusions on the utility of molecular nanomagnets for MRI, but without accounting for concentration. NIST scientists, making novel magnetic measurements, were able to monitor the molecules' decomposition and magnetic properties as the composition was varied.........

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February 1, 2007, 8:52 PM CT

Moderate Alcohol Can Protect You from Arthritis

Yes, I'm on a high now, especially, with these new studies luring me to be more tipsy. This time a new study has come out showing the positive effect of alcohol consumption. As per this new study, moderate alcohol consumption can protect you against some types of arthritis. However, still this fact cannot be claimed with full confidence because this fact has been exhibited from a preliminary that studied the effect of alcohol on mice.

During this study, it was observed that mice that drank diluted ethanol, their chances of developing autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis reduced to 40% when in comparison to the mice provided with just water.

However, scientists are finding it difficult to come out with firm statement over these findings because they are not very confident about their findings and that is the reason why they still want to confirm these results with the help of further studies. Still, it is very difficult to give an opinion on it but one thing can certainly be said that results that have come out by now are quite interesting. Moreover, these results have raised a new hope that alcohol that we merely drink for intoxication would also help us staving off arthritis. However, this possibility can also not be ignored because people who are fond of alcohol consumption may increase their alcohol intake just by using the results of this study and if this happens then result would really be bad.........

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January 31, 2007, 8:28 PM CT

Monitoring Patients Heart Daily at their Home

An easy-to-use in home monitoring device for patients is changing the way doctors monitor the health of patients with implanted defibrillators. Rush University Medical Center is participating in a pilot study of the LATITUDE® Patient Management system to determine if the wireless home monitoring system can decrease hospitalizations for heart failure.

A mini-antenna built into the implanted defibrillator sends data to a wireless system placed in the patient's home. The data is automatically transmitted to a secure Internet server where the doctor can access this medical information anytime, from anywhere.

Unlike other remote devices which only transmit data if certain parameters are out of range, the LATITUDE system uploads health information that can help physicians monitor the day-to-day changes in patients. In addition to the data stored before, during and after an arrhythmia, the system employs a wireless weight scale and blood pressure monitor to record vital statistics crucial for the management of cardiac failure patients. An abrupt change in weight could indicate worsening heart failure.

"This sophisticated system allows physicians to manage the patient much more closely. The same information that would normally require a visit to the office every few months can now be downloaded to the doctor at anytime without the patient ever leaving home," said Dr. Kousik Krishnan, a cardiac electrophysiologist at Rush.........

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January 30, 2007, 9:25 PM CT

Antipsychotic Drugs And Autism

Risperidone, a drug used to control schizophrenia symptoms, may also help treat behaviors found in autism spectrum disorder, according to a new review of studies.

The reviewers looked at three randomized, placebo-controlled studies of risperidone (Risperdal) involving 211 participants, including 31 adults.

"[We found] that risperidone may be beneficial for various aspects of autism including irritability, repetition and hyperactivity," said researchers led by Dr. Ora Jesner of the University of Bristol, in England. But the drug's benefits may be offset by its side effects, with weight gain the most prominent.

Often diagnosed within the first three years of life, autism spectrum disorder leads to difficulties with social relationships, language and communication skills. Symptoms include withdrawal from social interactions, irritability, problems communicating and repetitive behaviors.

It is known as a "spectrum" disorder because there is a wide variation in how it affects individuals. Figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that as many as 1.5 million Americans may have some form of the disorder.

"Autism spectrum disorder affects many families worldwide," Jesner said. "At present many of the interventions available are not evidence-based." He said he and co-author Dr. Mehrnoosh Aref-Adib "wanted to analyze the evidence for one important antipsychotic [drug] used for the condition".........

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January 30, 2007, 6:30 PM CT

Multiple Copies Of Genes And Disease Risk

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the biotech firm Nimblegen Systems Inc. have successfully tested a technique for identifying newly recognized DNA variations that may influence disease risk.

Rather than focus on errors and alterations in DNA sequence, the new technique highlights variations in the number of copies of a particular gene. Additional copies of a gene may lead to overproduction of that gene's protein, and this may affect both easily identifiable traits such as body size or more difficult-to-discern traits such as cancer risk.

Researchers report in Public Library of Science Genetics that they refined an analysis technique to assess variations in gene copy number in 20 different mouse strains. As per the paper's lead author, this budding area of study is likely to have wide-ranging implications for scientists' understanding of how DNA variations contribute to human health and illness.

"Right now, our results and other early assessments of human and other mammalian genomes are suggesting that about 10 percent of the genome features copy number variations," says Timothy Graubert, M.D., assistant professor of pathology and immunology and of medicine. "That's a huge number. As a percentage of the genome, variations in gene copy number could explain more person-to-person variability than the single-letter changes in the genetic code known as SNPs [single nucleotide polymorphisms]."........

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January 30, 2007, 4:53 AM CT

MR Angiography Highly Accurate

A novel type of contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) angiography is highly accurate in identifying blockages in the arteries that carry blood to the brain, as per a research studyin the recent issue of Radiology.

"Contrast-enhanced MR angiography provided highly accurate information about the supra-aortic arteries," said Kambiz Nael, M.D., research fellow and radiology resident at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA in Los Angeles. "MR angiography produced results comparable to the gold standard of digital subtraction angiography (DSA) and multidetector computed tomography (CT) angiography. In addition, this technology produced images with higher resolution over a larger field of view in a shorter amount of time than prior contrast-enhanced MR angiography techniques," he said.

Arterial occlusive disease consists of narrowed or blocked arteries. It usually affects the supra-aortic arteries, which supply blood to the brain, and is a leading cause of stroke. Currently DSA is the reference standard for evaluating these arteries. However, in 2.5 percent of cases DSA can cause a mini-stroke, and, in rare instances, permanent neurological damage. Therefore, CT and MR angiography are increasingly being used to diagnose arterial occlusive disease. As technology has improved, MR angiography offers advantages over CT, especially because it delivers no ionizing radiation to the patient.........

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January 28, 2007, 9:40 PM CT

Nudging Genes Into Activity

A new technique that employs RNA, a tiny chemical cousin of DNA, to turn on genes could lead to therapeutics for conditions in which nudging a gene awake would help alleviate disease, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center say.

The gene-activating method, which is being developed by UT Southwestern scientists, also is providing researchers with a novel research tool to investigate the role that genes play in human health.

In a paper appearing online at Nature Chemical Biology and in an upcoming edition of the journal, lead author Dr. Bethany Janowski, assistant professor of pharmacology at UT Southwestern, and her colleagues describe how they activated certain genes in cultured cells using strands of RNA to perturb the delicately balanced mixture of proteins that surround chromosomal DNA, proteins that control whether genes are turned on or off.

Dr. David Corey, professor of pharmacology and the paper's senior author, said the results are significant because they demonstrate the most effective and consistent method to date for coaxing genes into making the proteins that carry out all of life's functions - a process formally called gene expression.

In any medical specialty, Dr. Janowski said, there are conditions where increased gene expression would prove beneficial.........

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January 28, 2007, 9:36 PM CT

Lowering Antibiotic Requirements By 50 Times

Antibiotic doses could be reduced by up to 50 times using a new approach based on bacteriophages.

Steven Hagens, previously at the University of Vienna, told Chemistry & Industry, the magazine of the SCI, that certain bacteriophages, a type of virus that infects bacteria, can boost the effectiveness of antibiotics gentamicin, gramacidin or tetracycline.

It is the phages' ability to channel through bacterial cell membranes that boosts antibiotic effectiveness. 'Pseudomonas bacteria for example are especially multi-resistant to antibiotics because they have efflux pump mechanisms that enable them to throw out antibiotics. A pore in the cell wall would obviously cancel the efflux effect,' Hagens explains.

Pseudomonas bacteria cause pneumonia and are a common cause of hospital-acquired infections.

Experiments in mice revealed that 75% of those infected with a lethal dose of Pseudomonas survived if the antibiotic gentamicin was administered in the presence of bacteriophages. None survived without the phages (Microb. Drug Resist., 2006, 12 (3), 164).

The bacteriophage approach would also be especially useful for treating cases of food poisoning, because the lower doses of antibiotic needed would not disrupt the friendly bacteria in the gut - a big problem with conventional antibiotic therapys.........

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