September 22, 2006, 4:34 PM CT

Obese Adults At Increased Risk Of Diverticulitis

This used to be a disease of older people who are more than 50 years old. Now this this is appearing in younger adults, who are obese. A research study from the University of Maryland Medical Center showed that diverticulitis is now occurring in younger adults who are obese.

"Over the last ten years, I noted that many patients coming into the emergency room with CT findings of acute diverticulitis seemed younger than traditional teaching suggested, and often were obese," said Barry Daly, MD, an author of the study partner in research. "We were seeing patients as young as their early twenties, though textbooks typically describe this condition as a disease of the over-fifty age group," he said.

Older adults often develop acute diverticulitis, and this is considered to be one of the most frequent acute diseases of the colon. This disease is thoughtful occur because of inadequate amount of fiber in the diet. A diet which is deficient in fiber causes numerous thin-walled out-pouches called diverticula to develop in the bowel wall. This is actually a chronic condition known as diverticulosis. With passage of time bacterial infection of these diverticula can occur and this would cause inflammation that may lead to a perforation in the wall of the intestine and other serious complications.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

September 20, 2006, 9:48 PM CT

Gi Complications Due To NSAIDs

Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) provide a broad range of benefits for patients who require their use, but health care providers need to carefully consider the associated risks before prescribing these drugs for their patients, according to a multi-disciplinary panel of experts convened by the AGA Institute. Gastrointestinal (GI) morbidities are the most common adverse events associated with NSAID use, including complications in both the upper- and lower-GI tracts; serious GI complications, such as potentially fatal bleeding ulcers, occur in one to four percent of NSAID users annually.

The findings of the panel, "Consensus Development Conference on the Use of Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Including Cyclooxygenase-2 Enzyme Inhibitors and Aspirin," were published in the recent issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, published by the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.

"NSAIDs are the most widely used medications in the world, and the broad use of these drugs confirms their effectiveness and relative safety," according to C. Mel Wilcox, MD, professor of medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and lead author of the paper. "However, well-recognized GI complications and previously unrecognized cardiac risks have caused great concern about the use of these drugs among healthcare professionals. The AGA Institute convened the consensus conference to increase awareness about the benefits and the risks of GI and cardiovascular toxicities associated with these medications and to improve their use".........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

September 20, 2006, 5:04 AM CT

Increased suicide trend among breast implant recipients

Women who have breast implants might not have a higher mortality rate, but they have a higher risk of dying from suicide according to new research findings. In this by the Canadian Public Health Agency and Cancer Care Ontario which reviewed 24,600 women observed that having breast implants is not a cause of increased mortality. Nevertheless they observed that suicide rate among women with breast implants is 73% higher than in the general population. These study findings are published these findings in a recent issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Reserchers Universit Laval's Jacques Brisson and Louis Latulippe and their colleagues collected data on 17,400 women from the province of Quebec and 7,200 from Ontario who had received breast implants for cosmetic purposes between 1974 and 1989. These women, who had undergone the surgery at an average age of 32, were followed regularly during a 15-year period. The researchers found that a total of 480 women with breast implants died during that period, comparable to the mortality rate of the general population.

Researchers found mortality rate in women with breast implant to be 26% lower than in the control group. Fewer deaths occurred from breast cancer and heart occurred in this group. The researchers say that this lower mortality rate is not the result of the breast augmentation procedure itself, but rather of a double selection bias. "First, a woman must be in relatively good health to undergo breast implant surgery," points out Dr. Brisson. "Also, women who receive breast implants tend to be of higher-than-average socioeconomic status. Thus, women who undergo breast augmentation surgery are more likely to be in better health than the general population".........

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September 18, 2006, 9:55 PM CT

Cellular Traffic Backups Implicated

A defective link in the intracellular protein "transit system" may lie at the heart of some craniofacial defects, new research in zebrafish suggests.

In the Sept. 17 online issue of Nature Genetics, Vanderbilt University Medical Center scientists report the identification of a mutation that causes severe skeletal deformities in zebrafish by shutting down a critical protein transport pathway.

The findings are surprising, said Ela Knapik, M.D., lead investigator on the study, because this pathway is believed to be so universal that a defect would prove fatal just hours after fertilization. But the mutant fish, named crusher, hatched and survived to nine days, albeit with striking skeletal abnormalities craniofacial defects, kinked fins and shortened body.

The pathway affected by the crusher mutation is key to transporting proteins outside of the cell. All proteins are made in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), a labyrinthine compartment just outside the cell's nucleus. Proteins are then "packaged" into transport containers called vesicles, which traverse the gelatinous cytoplasm of the cell's interior. The vesicles eventually dock with the Golgi, a structure that resembles a pancake stack and is the last major "transit station" of the cell. In the Golgi, proteins are modified into their active, final form before being shipped out to the surface of the cell in another type of vesicle. Once they reach their destination, the proteins either empty out into the extracellular space or take up residence in the cell membrane.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

September 18, 2006, 7:11 PM CT

Chronic Hepatitis C

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is one of the most important causes of chronic liver disease in the United States. It accounts for about 15 percent of acute viral hepatitis, 60 to 70 percent of chronic hepatitis, and up to 50 percent of cirrhosis, end-stage liver disease, and liver cancer. Almost 4 million Americans, or 1.8 percent of the U.S. population, have antibody to HCV (anti-HCV), indicating ongoing or prior infection with the virus. Hepatitis C causes an estimated 10,000 to 12,000 deaths annually in the United States.

A distinct and major characteristic of hepatitis C is its tendency to cause chronic liver disease. At least 75 percent of patients with acute hepatitis C ultimately develop chronic infection, and most of these patients have accompanying chronic liver disease.

Chronic hepatitis C varies greatly in its course and outcome. At one end of the spectrum are patients who have no signs or symptoms of liver disease and completely normal levels of serum liver enzymes. Liver biopsy commonly shows some degree of chronic hepatitis, but the degree of injury is commonly mild, and the overall prognosis may be good. At the other end of the spectrum are patients with severe hepatitis C who have symptoms, HCV RNA in serum, and elevated serum liver enzymes, and who ultimately develop cirrhosis and end-stage liver disease. In the middle of the spectrum are a number of patients who have few or no symptoms, mild to moderate elevations in liver enzymes, and an uncertain prognosis.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink         Source

September 18, 2006, 5:05 AM CT

Why do statistics differ on obesity issues?

The definitions or measurement strategies obesity and overweight have changed over time, from one study to another study, and from one country to another. The varied definitions affect statistics related prevalence of overweight and make it very difficult to take for comparison data from various studies. Prevalence refers to the total number of existing persons of an illness or problem in the study population at a given time. Some correlation to prevalence rates of obesity and overweight are expressed as very crude or unadjusted estimates, while others are age-adjusted estimates of the problem. Unadjusted prevalence estimates are used to express a meaningful cross-sectional data for the study population groups at a given point or time period being studied. For age-adjusted rates, statistical procedures are utilized to eliminate the effect caused from age differences in populations that are compared over different time periods. Unadjusted estimates and age-adjusted estimates will provide slightly different set of values.

Prior studies in U.S. have utilized the desirable weight-for-height tables developed by Metropolitan Life Insurance as the reference for overweight. More recently, a number of Governmental agencies and organizations and scientific health groups have estimated overweight and obesity using data from a series of cross-sectional surveys, which are known as the National Health Examination Surveys and the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.........

Posted by: Emily      Permalink

September 17, 2006, 10:01 PM CT

Poor Countries And Childhood Vaccine

Boston, MA -- The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) was created in 1999 with the goal of enabling even the poorest countries to provide vaccines to all children. A study by scientists linked to the Harvard Initiative for Global Health set out to measure the extent to which GAVI funding had succeeded in raising the percentage of children who received the combined diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis vaccine (DTP3) and whether the cost had been close to GAVI's original estimates of $20 per additional child immunized.

Their analysis appears in advance online in the September 21, 2006 issue of the Lancet www.thelancet.com.

GAVI is a public-private global health partnership that was created when vaccine coverage in a number of countries was dropping. Countries with a gross national income of less than US$1000 per capita per year and with coverage under 80% were eligible to receive financial support from GAVI to develop immunization services, including personnel, infrastructure and supplies, as part of their national health system. Decisions on how resources are spent are left to the individual countries, but continued authorization of funding is tied to meeting yearly immunization coverage targets set by the countries.

Research Associate Chunling Lu and his colleagues from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) analyzed the relationship between DTP3 coverage for GAVI recipient countries from 1995 to 2004 and immunization services spending (ISS) per surviving child in 53 countries. The analysis revealed that in countries with DTP3 coverage of 65% or less at the start of the program, ISS spending had a significant positive effect on DTP3 coverage, raising coverage from under 50% in a number of countries to close to 65%.........

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September 15, 2006, 2:00 PM CT

Guidelines For Heart Transplant Candidates

The International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) announces the release of the first international guidelines for heart failure patient management, especially previous to heart transplantation, published in this month's edition of the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation (September 2006). For the first time, comprehensive international guidelines will help bridge the gap where current principles fall short and provide guidance to practicing physicians and heart specialists around the world.

Heart failure is a serious condition in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood through the body. Based on statistical data from the National Heart Lung Blood Institute and other sources, it is estimated that at least 100 million people around the world suffer with heart failure with about 12 million new cases each year.

Over the past decade, advancements in patient care with ventricular assist and other implantable devices, stem cell implants, biomedical developments and improved pharmaceutical management, have had a dramatic impact on care for heart failure patients. Taking these and other advancements into consideration, the new guidelines underscore the optimal process for managing heart failure patients previous to considering transplantation.........

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September 15, 2006, 1:40 PM CT

Genome Compaction In Spores And Sperm

In higher order animals, genetic information is passed from parents to offspring via sperm or eggs, also known as gametes. In some single-celled organisms, such as yeast, the genes can be passed to the next generation in spores. In both reproductive strategies, major physical changes occur in the genetic material after it has been duplicated and then halved on the way to the production of mature gametes or spores. Near the end of the process, the material called chromatin, the substructure of chromosomes becomes dramatically compacted, reduced in volume to as little as five percent of its original volume.

Scientists at The Wistar Institute, studying the mechanisms that control how the genetic material is managed during gamete production, have now identified a single molecule whose presence is mandatory for genome compaction. Their experiments showed that the molecule "marks" the chromatin just previous to compaction and that its presence is required for successful compaction. Additionally, after first noting the molecule's activity during the production of yeast spores, the researchers saw the same activity during the creation of sperm in fruit flies and mice, suggesting that the mechanisms governing genome compaction are evolutionarily ancient, highly conserved in species whose lineages diverged long ago. A report on the new study appears in the September 15 issue of Genes & Development. A "Perspectives" review in the same issue expands on the significance of the findings.........

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September 14, 2006, 8:17 PM CT

Molecule helps cells plug leaks following lung injury

Scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine have identified a molecule that plays a critical role in the recovery of lung tissue following severe injury.

The study appeared in the Sept. 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

In acute lung injury -- commonly resulting from infection, inflammation or surgical trauma -- cells that line the blood vessels in the lung lose their ability to form a barrier, allowing fluid to seep into the lung's air spaces and resulting in respiratory failure. Such damage is a significant cause of death in critically ill patients.

Very little is known about how the lung repairs this lining layer, called the endothelium, said You-Yang Zhao, research assistant professor of pharmacology.

"We thought it likely that the ability of cells to repair and restore the endothelium might depend on their ability to proliferate and fill in gaps in the endothelial monolayer barrier that allow leaking," said Zhao, who is lead author of the study.

Earlier studies had shown that FoxM1, a protein that controls the expression of genes, plays a critical role in cell proliferation. Working with the late Robert Costa, professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at UIC, whose research focused on FoxM1, the scientists developed a mouse model that lacked the FoxM1 gene only in endothelial cells.........

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