March 22, 2007, 7:14 PM CT

Does TV contribute to autism?

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today about a Cornell economist, Michael Waldman, who has done some fancy math linking TV use to autism [orig. paper here]. Whether Waldman is on to something remains to be seen. His statistics don't come close to proving that early TV watching causes autism. He has only observed that rates of autism diagnosis tend to be higher when kids are raised in periods of heavy rain and snowy weather, and in places where cable-TV subscriptions are high. And his paper is unpublished. Still, it's good to see someone with a brain like his asking questions.

Unfortunately, a number of autism experts disagree. That they doubt the merit of Waldman's research is natural and fair; his work is as-of-yet untested. But they actually seem to resent the fact that Waldman is even raising the TV question.

"Whenever there is a fad in autism, what people unfortunately fail to see is how parents suffer," says [Ami] Klin [at the Yale Child Study Center]".

"This is junk science," says Alison Singer, parent of an autistic child and serior vice president of Autism Speaks. "Autism is a genetic disoder. The only thing the parents do wrong is they have bad genes".

And:

"I think this is irresponsible," says Klin. "We should not provide clinical advice unless there is scientific evidence to substantiate it"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 22, 2007, 4:57 AM CT

phase III clinical trial of creatine for Parkinson's disease

The NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) today is launching a large-scale clinical trial to learn if the nutritional supplement creatine can slow the progression of Parkinson's disease (PD). While creatine is not an approved treatment for PD or any other condition, it is widely thought to improve exercise performance. The potential benefit of creatine for PD was identified by Parkinsons scientists through a new rapid method for screening potential compounds.

The double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase III study is one of the largest PD clinical trials to date. It will enroll 1720 people with early-stage PD at 51 medical centers in the United States and Canada.

"This study is an important step toward developing a treatment that could change the course of this devastating disease," says Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., director of the NIH. "The goal is to improve the quality of life for people with Parkinson's for a longer period of time than is possible with existing therapies." Currently there is no therapy that has been shown to slow the progression of PD.

The trial is the first large study in a series of NINDS-sponsored clinical trials called NET-PD (NIH Exploratory Trials in Parkinson's Disease). NINDS has organized this large network of sites to allow scientists to work with PD patients over a long period of time, with a goal of finding effective and lasting therapys. NET-PD builds on a developmental research processfrom laboratory research to pilot studies in a select group of patients, to the definitive phase III trial of effectiveness in people with Parkinsons disease......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 20, 2007, 10:14 PM CT

Dental Visits Determinants Of Underserved

Children's dental insurance and caregivers' preventive dental care visits play a significant role as determinants of underserved African-American children seeing a dentist, as per a research studyin this month's Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).

The objective of the study, as per University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) researchers, was to investigate determinants of dental care visits among young, low-income African-American children. They observed that children with private dental insurance were five times more likely and children receiving Medicaid were about two times more likely to have visited a dentist than those without dental insurance.

Caregivers' preventive dental visits correlation to their children seeing dentist

The scientists also found an association between a caregiver's prevention-oriented dental visit and their child seeing a dentist.

Caregivers who had had preventive dental visits were five times more likely to have taken their children to a dentist than caregivers who sought dental care only for therapy or not at all.

As per the researchers, this provides an explanation of an earlier finding that free care is not sufficient to eliminate differences in dental care utilization and oral health among underserved children......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 20, 2007, 10:00 PM CT

Do feelings matter?

Providence, RI According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), adolescents and young adults currently account for fifty percent of new HIV infections on an annual basis. As a result, ongoing research and information on HIV prevention has become a high priority for this age group. Now a new study reveals that helping adolescents manage their emotions may be just as important as providing them with information on the practical side of safe sex in order to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted infections.

Researchers from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University studied 222 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 with psychiatric disorders and found that feelings do matter when it comes to making decisions about safe sex. Specifically, the findings suggest that lack of self-efficacy (the belief that one could effectively engage in a particular behavior) when confronted with the stress of using condoms is a powerful barrier to their use.

"We found that adolescents need help feeling more comfortable and less distressed about discussing and using condoms," says lead author Celia Lescano, PhD, with the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 15, 2007, 9:18 PM CT

Elevated autoantibodies and preeclampsia

Women who develop preeclampsia during pregnancy are more likely to develop certain dangerous autoantibodies than women with normal pregnancies, and these autoantibodies are still present two years after childbirth in about 20 percent of women who had the disorder, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh report in the recent issue of Hypertension, the journal of the American Heart Association.

Also known as toxemia, preeclampsia affects some 5 percent of pregnancies and is a leading cause of maternal and fetal illness and death, especially in developing nations. Signs include high blood pressure, swelling of the ankles and the presence of protein in the urine. The condition typically appears after the mid-point of pregnancy. The only effective therapy is immediate delivery, which can be dangerous for the baby if it is too early. Untreated, the condition can lead to organ failure, coma and death. Preeclampsia also has been associated with an increased lifetime risk for heart disease.

"Further study is mandatory to determine whether the presence of these autoantibodies could be an early marker for preeclampsia risk, but early data are promising," said Carl A. Hubel, Ph.D., the studys lead author and assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "Learning more about these autoantibodies also might enable us to identify a subset of women who are at greater risk for heart disease during the later part of life, and give us a closer understanding of what causes preeclampsia"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 15, 2007, 8:54 PM CT

Risk Factors for Spread of Respiratory Infections

The 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic in China has lessons to teach hospitals on how to prevent the spread of other respiratory diseases, as per new research appearing in the April 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, currently available online.

Hospitals were epicenters of SARS transmission in Guangzhou province and Hong Kong in 2003. In hospitals with particularly severe outbreaks, the scientists looked at environmental and administrative factors that may have assisted in the transmission of the infection from one patient to another. This new study suggests that hospital beds placed too closely together, hospital staff working while having symptoms of SARS, and the use of oxygen treatment were the most significant risk factors linked to the spread of SARS in 26 hospitals in Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

These findings have implications for controlling other respiratory disease threats, including pandemic influenza, as per senior author Joseph Sung, MD, PhD, of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "The lesson we learned during the SARS epidemic," he said, "was that the hospital can be a breeding ground for infectious disease. Nosocomial infection can amplify an infectious disease outbreak. It is very important to provide adequate space in hospital wards and implement effective infection control measures in order to avoid cross-contamination in hospitals"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 14, 2007, 10:26 PM CT

Chemical cues for embryonic stem cells

In order to differentiate and specialize, stem cells require very specific environmental cues in a very specific order, and researchers have so far been unable to prod them to go through each of the necessary steps. But now, for the first time, a study in mice by Rockefeller University researchers shows that embryonic stem cells implanted in the brain appear to develop into fully differentiated granule neurons, the most plentiful neuron in the cerebellum. The findings were reported Feb. 20 in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Embryonic stem cells have shown a great deal of promise for alleviating heart disease and regenerating organs. But for some of the conditions for which people hold out the most hope -- Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, for example -- there's been little evidence to date that stem cells can work. Part of the problem is that neural stem cells, particularly those involved in brain development, specialize as they mature and lose their ability to diversify. They require very specific environmental cues in a very specific order, and researchers have so far been unable to prod them to go through each of the necessary steps. But now, for the first time, a new study in mice shows that embryonic stem cells implanted in the brain appear to develop into fully differentiated granule neurons, the most plentiful neurons in the cerebellum......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 13, 2007, 9:19 PM CT

Periodontal diseases may aggravate pre-diabetes

CHICAGO- Periodontal diseases may contribute to the progression to pre-diabetes, according to a new study that appears in the recent issue of the Journal of Periodontology.

Pre-diabetes is a condition in which blood glucose levels are higher than normal, but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes. The American Diabetes Association estimates 54 million people in the United States have pre-diabetes, and a significant portion of those people will develop Type 2 diabetes within 10 years.

Researchers from Denmark investigated if having periodontal diseases can influence pre-diabetes and contribute to the progression of diabetes. They found that having periodontal disease can cause someone to develop pre-diabetic characteristics, and probably disturb the glucose regulation of a non-diabetic who has pre-diabetic characteristics, contributing to the progression of Type 2 diabetes. The study, conducted with rat models known to exhibit pre-diabetes characteristics, is believed to be the first to evaluate the relationship between periodontitis and pre-diabetes.

"This study found that having periodontal diseases can alter the metabolic conditions which would probably lead to the progression to pre-diabetic characteristics and Type 2 diabetes," said Dr. Carla Pontes Andersen, Department of Periodontology at the University of Copenhagen......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 11, 2007, 8:29 PM CT

Stem cells act through multiple mechanisms

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) hold great promise for benefiting degenerative diseases, and do so by invoking multiple mechanisms. Such cells can be grown in a manner compatible with clinical use (i.e., without animal feeder layers) and even without the need for immunosuppression. These were a few of many conclusions arrived at by an international collaboration led by Evan Y. Snyder, M.D., Ph.D., and spearheaded by a member of his lab, Jean-Pyo Lee, Ph.D., of the Burnham Institute for Medical Research ("Burnham"). The study, would be published in Nature Medicine, will be made available by advanced publication at the journal's website on March 11, 2007.

To determine whether stem cell biology might play a role in benefiting degenerative diseases, the researchers first chose to approach, as proof-of-concept, a mouse model of a representative lethal neurodegenerative disease. Next, they used mouse neural stem cells (NSCs), a type of "adult" stem cell, to establish the parameters of what might or might not be achievable in this disease. Then, having demonstrated success with mouse cells, they extended those insights to stem cells of human origin, both human neural stem cells and human embryonic stem cells, and, in fact, had the opportunity, for the first time, to compare those two types of controversial stem cells head-to-head in the same model. The results, described in more detail below, in fact prove to be the first successful use of human embryonic stem cells in treating a degenerative disease, significantly preserving function and extending life......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 6, 2007, 3:54 PM CT

New Way to Fight Autoimmune Diseases

Multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and arthritis are among a variety of autoimmune diseases that are aggravated when one type of white blood cell, called the immune regulatory cell, malfunctions. In humans, one cause of this malfunction is when a mutation in a gene called FOXP3 disables the immune cells' ability to function. In a new study published online next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered how to modify enzymes that act on the FOXP3 protein, in turn making the regulatory immune cells work better. These findings have important implications for treating autoimmune-related diseases.

"We have uncovered a mechanism by which drugs could be developed to stabilize immune regulatory cells in order to fight autoimmune diseases," says senior author Mark Greene, MD, PhD, the John Eckman Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine. "There's been little understanding about how the FOXP3 protein actually works." First author Bin Li, PhD, a research associate in the Greene lab has been working on elucidating this process since FOXP3's discovery almost five years ago.

Li discovered that the FOXP3 protein works via a complex set of enzymes. One set of those enzymes are called histone deacetylases, or HDACs. These enzymes are associated with the FOXP3 protein in association with another set of enzymes called histone acetyl transferases that modify the FOXP3 proteins......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source