February 26, 2007, 7:46 PM CT

Early Sex May Lead Teens To Delinquency

Teens who start having sex significantly earlier than their peers also show higher rates of delinquency in later years, new research shows.

A national study of more than 7,000 youth observed that adolescents who had sex early showed a 20 percent increase in delinquent acts one year later in comparison to those whose first sexual experience occurred at the average age for their school.

In contrast, those teens who waited longer than average to have sex had delinquency rates 50 percent lower a year later in comparison to average teens. And those trends continued up to six years.

"We're not finding that sex itself leads to delinquency, but instead, that beginning sexual relationships long before your friends is cause for concern," said Stacy Armour, co-author of the study and a doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State University.

Armour conducted the study with Dana Haynie, associate professor of sociology at Ohio State. Their results appear in the February 2007 issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

"The findings point out the importance of acting within normal bounds for your age group," Haynie said. "Those who start having sex too young may not be prepared to deal with the potential emotional, social and behavioral consequences of their actions."........ Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 26, 2007, 6:50 PM CT

Fruit Flies And Age-related Heart Disease

La Jolla, CA, February 26, 2007 -- The tiny Drosophila fruit fly may pave the way to new methods for studying and finding treatments for heart disease, the leading cause of death in industrialized countries, according to a collaborative study by the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, UC San Diego (UCSD) and the University of Michigan.

The study reports that mutations in a molecular channel found in heart muscle cell membranes caused arrhythmias similar to those that are found in humans, suggesting that understanding how this channels activity is controlled in the cell could lead to new heart disease treatments. Led by Burnhams Professor Rolf Bodmer, Ph.D., and Staff Scientist Karen Ocorr, Ph.D., these new results, to be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will be made available by priority publication at the journals website during the week of February 26, 2007.

"This study shows that the Drosophila heart can be a model for the human heart," said Burnham researcher Bodmer. "Fly hearts have many ion channels that also are present in human hearts, making it suitable to extend mechanistic insight found in the fly hearts to human heart function".

The researchers focused on a membrane channel in the tiny Drosophila heart called KCNQ. This membrane channel, found in flies and humans, regulates the hearts ability to return to a relaxed state after beating. This ability is crucial to healthy cardiac functions, and the inability to return to a relaxed state results in arrhythmias, which can lead to more serious heart disease and sudden death. In both flies and humans, cardiac arrhythmia and dysfunctions become more common with age......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 26, 2007, 6:31 PM CT

Gene Therapy for Diseased Limbs

New research suggests that gene treatment is a safe therapy method to explore in patients whose lower limbs are at risk for amputation because of poor circulation caused by blocked blood vessels.

In a Phase I clinical trial, almost half the patients receiving gene treatment reported complete resolution of chronic pain one year after therapy and more than a quarter of patients with chronic wounds experienced complete healing of those ulcers in the same time frame. The results appear online and are scheduled for publication in the March 13 issue of the journal Circulation.

The scientists are the first to report on testing of the effects of the hypoxia-inducible factor-1 alpha (HIF-1a) gene as the basis of therapy for limbs damaged by compromised blood flow. Though the trial largely focused on the treatment's safety, "the bottom line is that 34 patients improved to varying degrees with this therapy," said Dr. Sanjay Rajagopalan, section director of vascular medicine at Ohio State University Medical Center and first author of the Circulation article.

The therapy is currently being tested in a major Phase II clinical trial in the United States and Europe.

"If this gene treatment approach were to prove safe and effective after exhaustive testing in Phase III studies, it would provide clinicians with an alternative approach to treating patients with serious blood flow problems in their lower limbs," Rajagopalan said......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 23, 2007, 5:05 AM CT

Amputations Worse Than Cancer

The Spanish National Symposium on the Diabetic Foot last week was the scene for a keynote address that delivered a strong message proposing "a marriage of technology with common sense for the next decade." The address was delivered by David G. Armstrong, DPM, PhD, Professor of Surgery and Associate Dean at Scholl College at Rosalind Franklin University. More than 500 specialist physicians, surgeons, and healthcare providers packed a standing-room-only lecture hall in historic Toledo, Spain, to hear Dr. Armstrong's keynote address. "I believe that the outpouring of interest in this area is emblematic of the importance of the problem," noted Dr. Armstrong.

In the lecture, Dr. Armstrong editorialized about the scope of the problem: ".my friend and colleague, Dr. Jeff Robbins, often equates a diabetes-related amputation with a high-grade cancer, like breast or colon or lung. But 5-year survival is generally worse with amputation. We would never withhold high-quality therapy from a cancer patient but we do so all the time with people at high risk for amputation or re-amputation. This must stop".

Workshops with Armstrong also included other members of Scholl's Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR), including Dr. Lee C. Rogers and Dr. Nicholas Bevilacqua, who joined via video conference to help highlight many technologies being used at Scholl's North Chicago-based foot and ankle center......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 23, 2007, 5:03 AM CT

Aspirin For Conception And Healthy Pregnancy

Researchers at the University at Buffalo and the University of Utah are beginning a clinical trial to test whether aspirin can improve a woman's chances of becoming pregnant and of maintaining a pregnancy to term.

UB's portion of the study is funded by a $2.8 million grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Development.

The trial is aimed at women who have miscarried a pregnancy in the past year.

"In women who have had their first miscarriage, the reasons for losing that pregnancy are in many instances unknown," said Jean Wactawski-Wende, Ph.D., UB associate professor of social and preventive medicine and principal investigator of the UB clinical center.

"These women generally are advised to try to get pregnant again, but health-care providers can offer limited assistance on any specific actions to take to improve their next pregnancy outcome," she noted. "If aspirin can help some women become pregnant or maintain a health pregnancy, it will be a critically important finding.

"Aspirin is available, inexpensive and has very few side effects," she added. "We're hopeful that this trial could produce an important finding".

Statistics show that in the United States, 10-15 percent of couples trying to become pregnant are not able to conceive, 15-31 percent of pregnancies that do occur end in miscarriage, and 8-15 percent of pregnancies that continue beyond 20 weeks end in premature birth, putting these infants at risk for increased health problems......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 20, 2007, 9:08 PM CT

predictor of mortality in cardiac patients

Researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn have determined that low levels of a protein in the blood is a predictor of cardiac death in patients with coronary artery disease.

In a group of men undergoing coronary angiography, low baseline levels of RANTES (Regulated upon Activation, Normal T-cell Expressed, and Secreted), also known as CCL5, were shown to be an independent predictor of cardiac mortality.

RANTES is a chemokine produced by a variety of cell types including blood platelets that has been implicated in atherosclerosis. Chemokines are naturally occuring human proteins that signal white blood cells to move in a specific direction, such as to an infection site.

Erdal Cavusoglu, MD, assistant professor of medicine at SUNY Downstate, and colleagues measured baseline RANTES levels in 389 male patients at a Veterans Affairs medical center. The patients were followed prospectively for the occurrence of cardiac mortality and myocardial infarction (heart attack). Results showed that patients with the lowest level of RANTES had the lowest survival rate, and those with the highest levels had the highest survival rates. This was also true for the diabetic subset of patients in the study.

The authors propose several potential explanations for this somewhat paradoxical observation, including potential upregulation of the RANTES receptor, the CCR5 receptor, which is known for its proatherosclerotic properties. Alternatively, lower levels of RANTES may simply reflect greater deposition of RANTES on atherosclerotic arteries with less circulating levels available for measurement by routine ELISA testing......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 20, 2007, 7:34 PM CT

Treatment For Advanced Ald Patients

ontinuing with more than a decade of research, doctors at the University of Minnesota have discovered a therapy to help patients with advanced cases of adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), a rare disorder affecting the nerves. The results are reported in the late recent issue of Bone Marrow Transplantation.

ALD is a progressive degenerative myelin disorder that affects young boys. Myelin is the insulation around the nerves and with ALD it breaks down over time and causes loss of hearing, sight, mobility, and general nerve function.

Left untreated, patients with ALD will die, commonly within three to five years of diagnosis. There is no cure, but the progression of the disease can be halted with a bone marrow transplant. However, in very advanced cases, transplant is not recommended because patients die within a year despite transplantation.

Doctors began giving patients with very advanced ALD who would not otherwise be eligible for transplant, a medicine called N-acetyl L-cysteine (NAC), an anti-inflammatory drug used to help liver cells recover from Tylenol (acetaminophen) overdose. In these advanced cases, the combination of NAC and transplant halted the disease progression and allowed these patients to survive transplant. Post transplant brain scans showed a decrease in inflammation and preservation of myelin after administering NAC......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 20, 2007, 7:31 PM CT

Living In Densely Populated Areas Linked To Lower Body Mass

New York City dwellers who reside in densely populated, pedestrian-friendly areas have significantly lower body mass index levels compared to other New Yorkers, according to a new study by the Mailman School of Public Health. Placing shops, restaurants and public transit near residences may promote walking and independence from private automobiles.

"There are relatively strong associations between built environment and BMI, even in population-dense New York City," said Andrew Rundle, DrPH assistant professor of Epidemiology at the Mailman School and lead author.

The researchers looked at data from 13,102 adults from New York Citys five boroughs. Matching information on education, income, height, weight and home address with census data and geographic records, they determined respondents access to public transit, proximity to commercial goods and services and BMI, a measure of weight in relation to height.

The authors discovered that three characteristics of the city environment living in areas with mixed residential and commercial uses, living near bus and subway stops and living in population-dense areas were inversely associated with BMI levels. For example, city dwellers living in areas evenly balanced between residences and commercial use had significantly lower BMIs compared to New Yorkers who lived in mostly residential or commercial areas......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 19, 2007, 8:53 PM CT

Yeast Yields Secrets Of Cholesterol And Drug Metabolism

By first probing the way primitive yeast make cholesterol, a team of researchers has discovered a long-sought protein whose human counterpart controls cholesterol production and potentially drug metabolism.

The collaborative study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Vanderbilt University, Indiana University and Eli Lilly Co., was reported in the recent issue of Cell Metabolism.

"Dap1 controls the activity of a clinically important class of enzymes mandatory for cholesterol synthesis and drug metabolism," says Peter Espenshade, Ph.D., assistant professor of cell biology at Johns Hopkins. "We're excited because eventhough we originally identified this protein in yeast, humans not only have the same protein, but it works the same way".

The search for Dap1 began with the hunt for factors that influence the actions of a large family of enzymes called cytochrome P450. These enzymes control a number of life-sustaining chemical reactions in humans and other animals.

Happily, Espenshade says, yeast have only two P450 enzymes, and both play roles in making cholesterol, narrowing down the territory for their search and giving them a telltale marker (the cholesterol) to track.

Reasoning that whatever controls the P450s likely would be turned on and off at roughly the same time as the P450 enzymes themselves, the scientists observed that Dap1 does just that in the yeast cell......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 19, 2007, 8:41 PM CT

Diabetes Risk Factors Develop Earlier in Women

The "diabetes clock" may start ticking in women years in advance of a medical diagnosis of the disease, new research has shown.

Epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo have found that newly identified risk factors for diabetes found in the blood, such as markers of endothelial dysfunction, chronic sub-acute inflammation and blood clotting factors, are present early on in women who eventually progress from normal glucose status to the pre-diabetic condition.

Pre-diabetes is diagnosed when blood sugar levels are higher than normal (between 100-125 mg/deciliter of blood), but not high enough to indicate full-blown diabetes (over 125 mg/deciliter of blood). The markers weren't associated with progression from normal to pre-diabetic status in men.

Results of the study appear in the February 2007 issue of Diabetes Care.

"This is one of the first reports to show that otherwise healthy women are more likely than men to show elevated levels of endothelial factors and other markers of progression to pre-diabetes," said lead author Richard Donahue, Ph.D., professor of social and preventive medicine and associate dean for research in UB's School of Public Health and Health Professions.

"Because these pre-diabetic markers are not routinely assessed, and because diabetes is strongly linked with coronary heart disease, the study may help explain why the decline in death rates for heart disease in diabetic women lags behind that of diabetic men," he said......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source