Health blog

March 17, 2010, 7:44 PM CT

Reducing tobacco smoke damage

Scientists in Australia have demonstrated that blocking a certain protein can reduce or prevent cigarette smoke-induced lung inflammation in mice. Inflammation underlies the disease process of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and a number of other smoking-related ailments.

The findings have been published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine

Cigarette smoking causes lung inflammation, which can lead to oxidative stress, emphysema, small airway fibrosis, mucus hypersecretion and progressive airflow limitation. Since the inflammatory reaction to cigarette smoke responds poorly to current anti-inflammatory therapys, there is intense research to identify more effective therapies for cigarette smoke-induce lung damage.

Granulocyte macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is of special interest because it governs the growth, activation and survival of leukocytes directly implicated in the pathogenesis of COPD.

Cigarette smoke triggers the release of GM-CSF and other cytokines and chemokines which cause activation and recruitment of more inflammatory cells into the lung,thereby perpetuating the inflammatory response and exacerbating ongoing inflammation. These activated and recruited inflammatory cells also release proteases such as matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)-12, which destroy the lung tissue, resulting in emphysema......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 15, 2010, 8:03 PM CT

New teaching tools aid visually impaired

Mastering mathematics can be daunting for a number of children, but scientists have observed that children with visual impairments face disproportionate challenges learning math, and by the time they reach the college level, they are significantly under-represented in science, technology, mathematics and engineering disciplines.

Scientists at the University of Illinois are helping shape the futures of children with visual disabilities by creating innovative teaching tools that are expected to help the children learn mathematics more easily - and perhaps multiply their career opportunities when they reach adulthood.

Nearly 5 million - or one in 20 - preschool-aged children and about 12.1 million children ages 6-17 have visual impairments, as per the Braille Institute.

Sheila Schneider, who is a senior and the first student who is legally blind to major in sculpture in the School of Art+Design within the College of Fine and Applied Arts at Illinois, is creating a series of small sculptures with mathematical equations imprinted on them in Braille that will be used to help children with visual impairments learn mathematics. The equations will be written in Nemeth Code, a form of Braille used for mathematical and scientific symbols.

"The sculptures are organic forms that are designed to be hand-held by children around the ages of 7-10," said Deana McDonagh, a professor of industrial design and the lead investigator on the project. "They're designed from the viewpoint of a younger child"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 15, 2010, 7:54 PM CT

Solving a molecular mystery

The muscle-building abilities of hormones known as insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) are legendary. Just do an online search and you'll find not only scientific papers discussing the effects of IGFs on the cells that give rise to muscle tissue, but also scores of ads touting the purported benefits of IGF supplements for bodybuilding.

But in spite of widespread interest in these potent molecules, key details about how IGFs work on muscle cells have been lacking.

A research by a team led by University of Michigan molecular biologist Cunming Duan has cleared up a longstanding mystery about the workings of IGFs. The team's findings, scheduled to be published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could lead to new therapys for muscle-wasting diseases and new ways of preventing the muscle loss that accompanies aging.

And because IGFs also are implicated in the growth and spread of cancerous tumors, the new insights may have implications in cancer biology.

Like other peptide and protein hormones, IGFs work by binding to receptors on the cells they target. The binding then sets off a cascade of reactions that ultimately direct the cell to do something. You might believe that a given hormone, binding to a particular receptor, would always elicit the same response from the cell, but that's not what happens in the case of IGF and myoblasts (immature cells that develop into muscle tissue)......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 15, 2010, 7:51 PM CT

Steps enhance adolescents' health

imple, low-cost measures such as wearing a pedometer to inspire walking and spending a few minutes a day meditating can put adolescents on the track toward better health, scientists report.

These types of side-effect-free steps can quickly help lower important numbers like blood pressure, heart rate and even weight, counteracting today's unhealthy, upward trends among young people, said Dr. Vernon Barnes, physiologist at the Medical College of Georgia's Georgia Prevention Institute.

A positive attitude and family environment increases the effectiveness of the interventions, Dr. Barnes reported in one of three studies presented at the American Psychosomatic Society Annual Meeting in Portland, Ore. The study comparing breathing awareness meditation to health education and life-skills training observed that all methods improved blood pressure.

Dr. Barnes, who has studied the impact of mediation on cardiovascular health for more than a decade at MCG, has documented the improved stress reactivity in black adolescents with high normal blood pressures as well as lower blood pressures in black, inner-city adolescents who meditate twice daily.

Meditation also sharpens the mind for education. "When you come to school with a stressed mind, you can't do as well," Dr. Barnes said. "The benefit of calming your mind is preparing it to learn." A review of school records showed meditating adolescents miss fewer days and generally behave better, he added......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 11, 2010, 11:05 PM CT

Stem cell function

The promise of stem cells lies in their unique ability to differentiate into a multitude of different types of cells. But in order to determine how to use stem cells for new therapeutics, researchers and engineers need to answer a fundamental question: if a stem cell changes to look like a certain type of cell, how do we know if it will behave like a certain type of cell?

Scientists at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering are the first to fully characterize a special type of stem cell, endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) that exist in circulating blood, to see if they can behave as endothelial cells in the body when cultured on a bioengineered surface.

The results, published online in the journal Stem Cells show promise for a new generation of tissue-engineered vascular grafts which could improve the success rate of surgery for peripheral arterial disease. Peripheral arterial disease is estimated to affect one in every 20 Americans over the age of 50, a total of 8 to 12 million people.

"Normally, stem cells are not studied in the context of improving vascular grafts for bypass surgery. Therefore, we had to develop new tests to assess their use in this application," says Guillermo Ameer, senior author of the paper and associate professor of biomedical engineering and surgery. "We looked at the function of the cells on a citric acid-based polymer, which will be the basis for a new generation of bioengineered vascular grafts"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 10, 2010, 8:16 AM CT

Long-term use of bone-building osteoporosis drugs

isphosphonate therapys, proven to enhance bone density and reduce fracture incidence in post-menopausal women, may adversely affect bone quality and increase risk of atypical fractures of the femur when used for four or more years, as per preliminary research presented today at the 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS).

Bisphosphonates are designed to slow or stop the bone loss that occurs during the body's bone remodeling cycle, or the natural process that involves removal and replacement of bone tissue.

Two separate studies by scientists from Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) and Columbia University Medical Center revealed data suggesting that long-term suppression of bone remodeling by bisphosphonate therapys may alter the material properties of bone, potentially affecting the bone's mechanical integrity and potentially contributing to the risk of atypical fractures.

"Eventhough bisphosphonates have demonstrated an improvement in bone quantity, little if anything is known about the effects of these drugs on bone quality," said Brian Gladnick, BS, representing a team of researchers at HSS in New York.

Scientists at Columbia reviewed the bone structure of 111 postmenopausal women with primary osteoporosis, 61 of whom had been taking bisphosphonates for a minimum of four years and 50 controls taking calcium and vitamin D supplements......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 8, 2010, 9:35 AM CT

Two-faced testosterone

Is aggression always the best response to a challenge? Testosterone may not necessarily cause aggression but behavior can drive testosterone secretion.

In an assessment for Faculty of 1000, Robert Sapolsky highlights a study published in Nature which assessed how testosterone affects human behavior in a 'pro-social' situation an environment where it is beneficial for a person to help someone else.

In an 'Ultimatum Game', a 'proposer' is given power to decide how a sum of money is divided between him/herself and another player, 'the decider'. The decider can either accept the offer, and possibly receive less than a fair share, or reject it,in which case both players get nothing. The participants in the game were all women.

Women who were given testosterone unknowingly made fairer offers (a pro-social decision) than women who received a placebo. Interestingly, women who believed that testosterone has anti-social, aggression-causing effects and who thought they'd received testosterone made offers that were less fair, even when they had received a placebo.

When given to the subject in a blind trial, testosterone can encourage pro-social as well as anti-social behaviour. However, as the authors note, "biology seems to exert less control over human behavior [than in other animals]," since awareness of having received testosterone drastically altered behavior......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

March 8, 2010, 9:16 AM CT

Gene for children's food allergy

Pediatrics scientists have identified the first major gene location responsible for a severe, often painful type of food allergy called eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE). In this disease, which may cause weight loss, vomiting, heartburn and swallowing difficulties, a patient appears to be unable to eat a wide variety of foods.

After performing a genome-wide association study, the study team found EoE was associated with a region of chromosome 5 that includes two genes. The likely culprit is the gene TSLP, which has higher activity levels in children with EoE in comparison to healthy subjects. In addition, TSLP has been previously associated with allergic inflammatory diseases, such as asthma and the skin inflammation, atopic dermatitis.

"This gene is a plausible candidate because of its biological role in allergic inflammation," said study leader Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Hakonarson and his colleagues collaborated with Marc E. Rothenberg, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Eosinophilic Disorders at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

The study appears online today in Nature Genetics

Only recently recognized as a distinct condition, EoE, like other allergies, has been increasing over the past 20 years, and its reported occurence rate of one in 10,000 people appears to be an underestimate. The hallmark of EoE is swelling and inflammation in the esophagus, accompanied by high levels of immune cells called eosinophils. It can affect people of any age, but is more common among young men who have a history of other allergic diseases such as asthma and eczema. EoE is often first discovered in children with feeding difficulties and failure to thrive......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 18, 2010, 10:06 PM CT

Avoidable maternal deaths

More than 500,000 women die each year worldwide due to complications arising from pregnancy and childbirth. Half of these women live in sub-Saharan Africa. A research team from the King Juan Carlos University (URJC) in Madrid says these women are not dying as a result of any illness, but rather from a lack of basic healthcare measures.

"Maternal mortality is a good indicator of a country's healthcare situation and of the inequalities between men and women", Jos Luis lvarez, the main author of this study and a researcher at the URCJ in Madrid, tells SINC.

The objective of this research, reported in the journal BMC Public Health was to quantify the specific weight of maternal mortality in sub-Saharan African and to determine the healthcare, cultural and economic factors involved in this.

Data obtained from 45 African countries between 1997 and 2006 from the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Bank, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) were studied.

"Despite the significant differences between countries, the number of maternal deaths was high in all of them, at an average of 885 deaths for each 100,000 births, but these women are not dying as a result of any disease, but just from normal biological processes", says lvarez......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 18, 2010, 9:14 PM CT

Stem cell guidelines should be modified

A UCSF team, led by bioethicist Bernard Lo, MD, recommends that the National Institutes of Health ethics guidelines for embryonic stem cell research be modified to better protect the rights of individuals donating egg or sperm to patients undergoing in vitro fertilization.

The recommendation is published in the February 19, 2010 issue of Science

Third parties frequently donate sperm and egg, or "gametes," for patients attempting to create embryos in the in vitro fertilization clinic.

Under current practice in the United States, gamete donors sign a form giving the IVF patient unrestricted legal authority to determine how to dispose of any embryos that appears to be leftover following fertility therapys. Donor banks and IVF clinics are not mandatory to brief gamete donors about the various options for disposition, which include donating the embryos for stem cell research, thereby enabling researchers to derive new human embryonic stem cell lines; discarding the embryos, or donating them to other IVF patients.

While a number of state, national, and international scientific committees and agencies have recommended that third-party gamete donors give formal "informed consent" for stem cell research with embryos remaining after infertility therapy, the NIH did not stipulate this requirement in its guidelines issued in March 2009. As these guidelines determine which human embryonic stem cell (hESC) lines appears to be studied under NIH research grants which are expected to play a growing role in funding stem cell research the ethical implications are significant, says Lo, chair of the UCSF Gamete, Embryonic Stem Cell Research Committee, members of which published the Science paper......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 11, 2010, 8:10 AM CT

Prevention is key research goal for premature babies

Family history, infection and stress all may play a role in raising a woman's risk of having a premature baby but they don't fully explain why some women give birth too soon and others don't, as per a review article published recently in the New England Journal (NEJM).

Only if researchers of all disciplines work together and share information databases, biological samples and new perspectives will the research community be able to determine how to prevent spontaneous preterm birth and spare babies from the serious consequences of an early birth, as per "The Enigma of Spontaneous Preterm Birth," by Louis Muglia, MD, PHD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Michael Katz, MD, senior vice president for Research and Global Program at the March Dimes.

Premature birth is a leading cause of infant death in the United States, and only about half of these deaths have a known cause, Drs. Muglia and Katz note.

More than 543,000 babies are born too soon each year in the United States. Worldwide, about 13 million babies are born prematurely each year. Babies who survive an early birth face serious risks of lifelong health problems, including learning disabilities, cerebral palsy, blindness, hearing loss and other chronic conditions.

Medical problems, such as preeclampsia, which is extremely hypertension in the mother, or fetal distress, do not fully explain the increase of induced deliveries, which often result in late preterm births, birth between 32 and 36 weeks gestation......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 11, 2010, 8:03 AM CT

Voluntary system works for swine Flu vaccination:

Social interaction between neighbours, work colleagues and other communities and social groups makes voluntary vaccination programs for epidemics such as Swine Flu, SARS or Bird Flu a surprisingly effective method of disease control.

New research published recently, Thursday 11 February, in New Journal of Physics (co-owned by the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society), shows that contact with others can positively influence individuals to choose voluntary vaccination when considering the pros and cons.

The group of Chinese scientists observed that in scale-free networks social networks with an uneven distribution of connectedness such as neighbourhoods, work places or gyms the so-called hub nodes, people with multiple social connections, tend to choose to vaccinate themselves as they are at higher risk of infection from others, thus containing the spread of epidemics.

Based on their studies, the scientists have found that at the beginning of an epidemic, when levels of infection are high, a large number of people will gradually take vaccination. As the effects of the temporary vaccination wear off, a second wave of outbreak will occur, however on a less severe level due to the number of individuals with still effective immunisation......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 10, 2010, 8:23 AM CT

what happens to nerve cells in Parkinson's disease

A newly released study from The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital - The Neuro - at McGill University is the first to discover a molecular link between Parkinson's disease and defects in the ability of nerve cells to communicate. The study, reported in the prestigious journal Molecular Cell and selected as Editor's Choice in the prominent journal Science, provides new insight into the mechanisms underlying Parkinson's disease, and could lead to innovative new therapeutic strategies.

Parkinson's, a neurodegenerative disease affecting approximately 100,000 Canadians and over 4 million people worldwide, a number expected to double by the year 2030, causes muscle stiffness and tremor and prevents people from controlling their movements in a normal manner. Typically the disease is characterized by the degeneration and death of dopamine neurons in specific regions of the brain, causing neurological impairment. It is not known exactly what causes the death of these neurons.

Mutations in the parkin gene are responsible for a common inherited form of Parkinson's disease. By studying defects in the genes and proteins of patients with inherited forms of Parkinson's, principal author of the study at The Neuro, Dr. Edward Fon, is learning about the molecular mechanisms involved in the death of dopamine neurons......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 10, 2010, 8:18 AM CT

Adapting to clogged airways

People with cystic fibrosis, an inherited disease that clogs airways with thick mucous, frequently have lung infections that defy therapy. While the life expectancy for children with cystic fibrosis has increased over the past few decades, a number of lives are still shortened in young adulthood by the ravages of lung infections.

These chronic infections are often caused by common, environmental microbes that mutate in ways that let them live and thrive in viscous lung secretions. The same adaptations also make the pathogens less likely to be killed off by powerful antibiotics, as per a recent study led by Dr. Lucas "Luke" Hoffman, University of Washington (UW) assistant professor of pediatrics.

Surprisingly, he added, the pathogens don't need any prior exposure to the antibiotics to resist their effects. The results were reported in the latest edition of PLoS Pathogens

The scientists looked at Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a microbe that can infect a cystic fibrosis patient early in life and then undergo various changes as it establishes a chronic lung infection. Pseudomonas aeruginosa with specific alterations tend to give patients a poor outcome. Some of those alterations diminish the chances of eradicating the infection with antibiotics......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 10, 2010, 7:43 AM CT

Intense sweets taste especially good to some kids

New research from the Monell Center reports that children's response to intense sweet taste is correlation to both a family history of alcoholism and the child's own self-reports of depression.

The findings illustrate how liking for sweets differs among children based on underlying familial and biological factors.

"We know that sweet taste is rewarding to all kids and makes them feel good," said study main author Julie A. Mennella, PhD, a developmental psychobiologist at Monell. "In addition, certain groups of children appears to be particularly attracted to intense sweetness due to their underlying biology."

Because sweet taste and alcohol activate a number of of the same reward circuits in the brain, the scientists examined the sweet preferences of children with a genetic predisposition to alcoholism. They also studied the influence of depression, hypothesizing that children with depressive symptoms might have a greater affinity for sweets because sweets make them feel better.

In the study, published online in the journal Addiction, 300 children between 5 and 12 years of age tasted five levels of sucrose (table sugar) in water to determine their most preferred level of sweetness. The children also were asked questions to assess the presence of depressive symptoms, while their mothers reported information on family alcohol use......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 9, 2010, 8:13 AM CT

Dangers of third-hand smoke

Nicotine in third-hand smoke, the residue from tobacco smoke that clings to virtually all surfaces long after a cigarette has been extinguished, reacts with the common indoor air pollutant nitrous acid to produce dangerous carcinogens. This new potential health hazard was revealed in a multi-institutional study led by scientists with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab).

"The burning of tobacco releases nicotine in the form of a vapor that adsorbs strongly onto indoor surfaces, such as walls, floors, carpeting, drapes and furniture. Nicotine can persist on those materials for days, weeks and even months. Our study shows that when this residual nicotine reacts with ambient nitrous acid it forms carcinogenic tobacco-specific nitrosamines or TSNAs," says Hugo Destaillats, a chemist with the Indoor Environment Department of Berkeley Lab's Environmental Energy Technologies Division. "TSNAs are among the most broadly acting and potent carcinogens present in unburned tobacco and tobacco smoke".

Destaillats is the corresponding author of a paper reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) titled "Formation of carcinogens indoors by surface-mediated reactions of nicotine with nitrous acid, leading to potential third-hand smoke hazards"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 9, 2010, 8:11 AM CT

Advances in Huntington's disease

An early stage clinical trial of the experimental drug dimebon (latrepirdine) in people with Huntington's disease may be safe and may improve cognition. That is the conclusion of a study published recently in the Archives of Neurology

"This is the first clinical trial that has focused on what is perhaps the most disabling aspect of the disease," said University of Rochester Medical Center neurologist Karl Kieburtz, M.D., the main author of the study. "While more investigation needs to be done, these results are encouraging and show, for the first time, a statistically significant benefit in terms of improved cognitive function in patients with Huntington's disease".

Huntington's disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that impacts movement, behavior, cognition, and generally results in death within 20 years of the disease's onset. The disease steadily erodes a person's memory and their ability to think and learn. Over time, this cognitive impairment contributes to the loss of the ability to work and perform the activities of daily life. There are no therapys current available that effectively alter the course of the disease or improve cognition.

It is believed that mitochondria the part of the cell that helps convert food to energy plays a role in the development of Huntington's disease. Lampridine stabilizes and enhances mitochondrial function, a result that has been shown to improve behavioral, cognitive, and functional outcomes in Alzheimer's disease. Researchers speculate that this may have the same effect in patients with Huntington's disease......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 8, 2010, 8:03 AM CT

Inhibiting serotonin in gut

An investigational drug that inhibits serotonin synthesis in the gut, administered orally once daily, effectively cured osteoporosis in mice and rats reports an international team led by scientists from Columbia University Medical Center, in the Feb. 7 issue of Nature Medicine Serotonin in the gut has been shown in recent research to stall bone formation. The finding could lead to new therapies that build new bone; most current drugs for osteoporosis can only prevent the breakdown of old bone.

"New therapies that inhibit the production of serotonin in the gut have the potential to become a novel class of drugs to be added to the therapeutic arsenal against osteoporosis," said Gerard Karsenty, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Genetics and Development at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, main author of the paper. "With tens of millions of people worldwide affected by this devastating and debilitating bone loss, there is an urgent need for new therapys that not only stop bone loss, but also build new bone. Using these findings, we are working hard to develop this type of therapy for human patients".

The Nature Medicine paper follows on a major discovery: http://www.cumc.columbia.edu/news/press_releases/Karsenty-cell-serotonin-lrp5.html, also made by Dr. Gerard Karsenty's group (reported in the Nov. 26, 2008 issue of Cell), that serotonin released by the gut inhibits bone formation, and that regulating the production of serotonin within the gut affects the formation of bone. Previous to this discovery, serotonin was primarily known as a neurotransmitter acting in the brain. Yet, 95 percent of the body's serotonin is found in the gut, where its major function is to inhibit bone formation (the remaining five percent is in the brain, where it regulates mood, among other critical functions). By turning off the intestine's release of serotonin, the team was able, in this newly released study, to cure osteoporosis in mice that had undergone menopause......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 8, 2010, 7:59 AM CT

Making stem cells pluripotent

Tiny circles of DNA are the key to a new and easier way to transform stem cells from human fat into induced pluripotent stem cells for use in regenerative medicine, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Unlike other usually used techniques, the method, which is based on standard molecular biology practices, does not use viruses to introduce genes into the cells or permanently alter a cell's genome.

It is the first example of reprogramming adult cells to pluripotency in this manner, and is hailed by the scientists as a major step toward the use of such cells in humans. They hope that the ease of the technique and its relative safety will smooth its way through the necessary FDA approval process.

"This technique is not only safer, it's relatively simple," said Stanford surgery professor Michael Longaker, MD, and co-author of the paper. "It will be a relatively straightforward process for labs around the world to begin using this technique. We are moving toward clinically applicable regenerative medicine".

The Stanford scientists used the so-called minicircles - rings of DNA about one-half the size of those commonly used to reprogram cell - to induce pluripotency in stem cells from human fat. Pluripotent cells can then be induced to become a number of different specialized cell types. Eventhough the scientists plan to first use these cells to better understand - and perhaps one day treat-human heart disease, induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPS cells, are a starting point for research on a number of human diseases......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 8, 2010, 7:42 AM CT

More smokers than non-smokers accept HPV

A parent's existing health habits or behaviors, like cigarette smoking, may influence the likelihood that they will have their daughters vaccinated against HPV.

As per survey results on correlates of HPV vaccine use, whether parents would choose to vaccinate their daughters was not linked to one's background or medical history, but was more closely linked to certain behavioral factors of the parents.

Results of this survey are reported in the recent issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

"Whether or not respondents indicated that they would vaccinate their daughters against this cancer-causing virus was linked to physical activity, non-use of complementary or alternative therapies and, more surprisingly, cigarette smoking," said lead researcher Carolyn Y. Fang, Ph.D., associate professor in the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia.

"Some previous research suggests that risky health behaviors tend to co-occur (i.e., smoking, alcohol use) and are linked to lower uptake of harm prevention strategies, such as vaccinations," noted Fang. "This was not the case in the current study. It appears to be that parents who are former or current smokers have a heightened awareness of cancer and its related risks, therefore, they appears to be more willing to vaccinate their daughters to prevent cancer"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 5, 2010, 7:49 AM CT

Early abuse tied to depression in children

Eventhough children can be depressed for a number of reasons, new evidence suggests that there are physiological differences among depressed children based on their experiences of abuse before age 5. Early abuse appears to be particularly damaging due to the very young age at which it occurs.

Those are the findings of a newly released study of low-income children that was conducted by scientists at the University of Minnesota and the University of Rochester, Mt. Hope Family Center. The study appears in the January/February 2010 issue of the journal Child Development

Children who experience maltreatment, including physical, sexual, and emotional abuse or neglect, grow up with a lot of stress. Cortisol, termed the "stress hormone," helps the body regulate stress. But when stress is chronic and overloads the system, cortisol can soar to very high levels or plummet to lows, which in turn can harm development and health.

The scientists studied more than 500 low-income children ages 7 to 13, about half of whom had been abused and/or neglected, to find out whether abuse early in life and feelings of depression affected their levels of cortisol. High levels of depression were more frequent among children who were abused in the first five years of their lives than among maltreated children who weren't abused early in life or children who weren't maltreated at all......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 4, 2010, 8:04 AM CT

Flu vaccination rate at BJC HealthCare rises dramatically

Making flu shots required in 2008 dramatically increased the vaccination rate among St. Louis-based BJC HealthCare's nearly 26,000 employees to more than 98 percent, as per a report now online in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The study's main author, infectious disease specialist Hilary Babcock, M.D., says the success of the required program demonstrates it is possible to implement a vaccination campaign on a large scale in a health-care setting.

"As a patient safety initiative, we knew the flu shot was safe and effective, and the best way to protect patients was to be sure that employees were vaccinated," she says.

For 10 years, BJC - affiliated with Washington University School of Medicine - offered the influenza vaccine free of charge to its employees, conducted extensive education campaigns about the benefits of the shot and provided incentives to employees. While vaccination rates were consistently above the national average, they remained below BJC's target of 80 percent. The nonprofit health care organization includes 13 hospitals in St. Louis, southern Illinois and mid-Missouri.

In 2006, 54 percent of BJC employees received the influenza vaccine, only slightly above average for health-care workers nationwide. In 2007, BJC employees who declined to get a flu shot were asked to sign a statement saying they understood the risk to themselves, their patients and their families. That year, the vaccination rose to 71 percent, still below BJC's target rate......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

February 4, 2010, 7:36 AM CT

Genes that increase preterm birth risk

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health have identified DNA variants in mothers and fetuses that appear to increase the risk for preterm labor and delivery. The DNA variants were in genes involved in the regulation of inflammation and of the extracellular matrix, the mesh-like material that holds cells within tissues.

"A substantial body of scientific evidence indicates that inflammatory hormones may play a significant role in the labor process," said Alan E. Guttmacher, M.D., acting director of the NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). "The current findings add evidence that individual genetic variation in that response may account for why preterm labor occurs in some pregnancies and not in others."

Like sensitivity to allergens such as house dust or pollen, the severity of the immune response appears to vary from individual to individual, accounting for why some pregnancies end in early labor and delivery. The findings may one day lead to new strategies to identify those at risk for preterm birth, and to ways to reduce the occurrence of preterm birth among those at risk.

The findings were presented today at the 30th Annual Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine meeting by Dr. Roberto Romero, M.D, chief of the perinatology research branch and program head for perinatal research and obstetrics at the NICHD. At the meeting, Dr. Romero and his team received the March of Dimes Excellence Award for innovative research on preterm birth for this study......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source