Health blog

September 1, 2010, 7:02 AM CT

Before sharing genetic data

People want to be informed and asked for consent before deciding whether to let scientists share their genetic information in a federal database. This is as per a team of researchers at Group Health Research Institute and the University of Washington (UW). The team's report, called "Glad You Asked," is in the September 2010 Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics

To the team's knowledge, it is the first to ask research participants' opinions about the need for informed consent for sharing their own information. The team explored participants' preferences while collaborating on the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics (eMERGE) Network. The Network involves volunteers enrolled in the joint Group Health-UW Adult Changes in Thought (ACT) study. ACT is a longitudinal cohort study that tracks aging-related changes in thousands of older Group Health patients over time.

When the team asked Group Health patients who participate in ACT whether their "de-identified" (anonymous) genetic and medical record information could be shared in the database, 86 percent said yes. Then the team surveyed 365 ACT study participants who had agreed to let their genetic information be shared, mostly because of a "desire to help others." In the survey, 90 percent of participants said they thought it was important to have been asked for this reconsent......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

September 1, 2010, 7:01 AM CT

Risk of surgery for Crohn's disease

A new multi-center study of 854 children with Crohn's disease shows a 5-year cumulative risk of bowel surgery is significantly lower than reported in recent studies. The findings of the study, led by Hasbro Children's Hospital, also indicate that children diagnosed between ages 13 and 16 had an increased risk of bowel surgery, and that a common therapy that begins at diagnosis, immunomodulator treatment, did not alter the risk of surgery. The study is reported in the September 2010 edition of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology

Crohn's disease (CD) is a condition that involves chronic inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. While the exact cause is unknown, the condition is often associated with an immune response problem. Treatments include medications that are directed at controlling the inflammation by targeting the immune system. A common therapy is immunomodulator treatment, an agent that balances and improves the immune response of the body in fighting disease-causing agents, Immunomodulators can help reduce the need for corticosteroids while helping to heal fistulas (an abnormal correlation between two organs).

Senior author Neal LeLeiko, MD, director of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at Hasbro Children's Hospital, led a multi-center observational study of patients under 16 years of age with newly diagnosed inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). All of the patients were enrolled in the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Research Group (PIBDRG) Registry from 26 sites across the country. The goal of the study was to examine the occurence rate of CD-related surgery in pediatric patients and to examine the effect of starting immunomodulator treatment within 30 days of diagnosis......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 31, 2010, 7:03 AM CT

Lower-dose heparin use during coronary procedure

Patients with acute coronary syndromes initially treated with the anticoagulant fondaparinux who underwent a coronary procedure (such as balloon angioplasty) and received a lower dose of the anticoagulant heparin during the procedure did not have a reduced rate of major bleeding and vascular access site complications, as per a research studythat will appear in the September 22 issue of JAMA The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Cardiology meeting in Stockholm.

Prior study results suggested the use of unfractionated heparin as supplemental treatment at the time of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI; procedures such as balloon angioplasty or stent placement used to open narrowed coronary arteries) for patients with non-ST segment elevation (a certain pattern on an electrocardiogram) acute coronary syndromes (such as heart attack or unstable angina) who were treated with fondaparinux and undergoing PCI. But there is disagreement on the appropriate range of dosing of heparin during PCI for these patients, as per background information in the article. "The optimal dosing of unfractionated heparin should maintain the safety profile of fondaparinux but achieve adequate antithrombin effect to prevent catheter thrombus [blood clots]," the authors write......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 27, 2010, 7:33 AM CT

Bacteria make thrift a habit

In these lean times, smart consumers refuse to pay a lot for throwaway items, but will shell out a little more for products that can be used again and again. The same is true of bacteria and other microbes, scientists at the University of Michigan have learned.

These organisms "spend" more on proteins that will be used and recycled internally than on proteins that are secreted from the cell and lost to the environment, said graduate student Daniel Smith, main author of a paper published online in the open access journal mBio.

Proteins are made up of building blocks called amino acids, which vary in size, complexity and chemical characteristics. These differences make some amino acids cheaper for cells to produce than others. Proteins made of mostly cheap amino acids are therefore less costly to the organism than are proteins composed of more energetically expensive amino acids. This much is obvious, but the correlation between a protein's location and its expense has not been appreciated until now.

Smith got interested in protein economics while studying a bacterial protein called CsgA, a major component of curli (fibers that decorate the surfaces of E. coli and certain other bacteria and are believed to be involved in causing illness). CsgA is rich in glycine, a cheaply produced amino acid, so CsgA also should be inexpensive for bacteria to produce. But exactly how cheap?........ Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 27, 2010, 7:31 AM CT

Secondhand smoke may provoke inflammatory response

Westminster, Colo. (August 26, 2010) Second-hand smoke is linked to many diseases and conditions, including cancer, heart disease, and emphysema. It is an irritant to lung tissue and blood vessels, but the processes through which the body reacts to second-hand smoke comprise a mystery researchers are only beginning to unravel. Scientists at the University of ColoradoDenver are currently studying how second-hand smoke affects the lungs of rats, and so far it appears that second-hand smoke triggers a complex inflammatory response.

Adelheid Kratzer, an investigator in the Department of Medicine's Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care under principal investigator Laima Taraseviciene-Stewart, will present the team's research at the 2010 American Physiological Society (APS) conference, Inflammation, Immunity, and Cardiovascular Disease, in Westminster Colorado, August 25-28. The full conference program can be found at http://the-aps.org/meetings/aps/inflammation/.



Exposure .

To determine how lung tissue may respond to second-hand smoke, the team exposed male Sprague Dawley rats to second-hand smoke in a special chamber 5 times per week for two months or four months. The exposure was a mixture of 89% sidestream smoke, which comes from the end of a lit cigarette and is exposed to the whole body, and 11% mainstream smoke, which is smoke directly inhaled by the rats. The rats were exposed for two three-hour shifts twice a day, separated by a two-hour break......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 26, 2010, 7:26 AM CT

Where the fat's at

n real estate, location is everything. The same might be said of lipids those crucial cellular fats and oils that serve as building blocks for cells and as key energy sources for the body.

In a paper reported in the recent issue of the Journal of Lipid Research, a team of scientists, led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has mapped for the first time the actual locations of specific lipids within a single cell.

"This is groundbreaking analysis," said Edward A. Dennis, PhD, distinguished professor of pharmacology, chemistry and biochemistry at UC San Diego and principal investigator of LIPID MAPS, a national consortium studying the structure and function of lipids. "We've defined not only which lipids are within a particular cell, but also where these lipids are located. That's important because lipids do different things in a cell. They're vital components of membranes. They're involved in communications and signaling, both within cells and between cells. Where they are located in a cell's nucleus, its mitochondria, membrane or other organelle is relevant to their function".

And because most serious diseases are associated with specific organelle dysfunction, understanding what lipids do at the subcellular level is essential to elucidating how diseases ranging from atherosclerosis and arthritis to cancer and diabetes work and how they might be better treated or prevented......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 26, 2010, 7:04 AM CT

Structural basis for autism disorders

There is still much that is unknown about autism spectrum disorders, but a University of Nevada, Reno psychology expert has added to the body of knowledge that scientists around the world are compiling to try to demystify, prevent and treat the mysterious condition.

"Autism is a unique developmental disability," states Jeffrey Hutsler, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno, who recently completed a six-year study of brain tissue that, for the first time, provided physical evidence of short-range over-connectivity in the outer layer of the brain's cortex in those with autism disorders.

"It creates a lot of noise in the brain, so to speak," he explained. "There was a higher density of synaptic connections, about 20 percent".

Eventhough this short-range over-connectivity had been hypothesized, Hutsler is the first to examine postmortem tissue samples and provide physical evidence of the condition. His research was published recently in the journal, Brain Research. He says his study supports the types of therapys the University is providing at its Early Childhood Autism Program, with early intervention behavioral therapies.

"This is in the layer of the cortex that is one of the last to develop, and a lot of these connections are refined after birth up to about age 4," Hutsler explained. "As you interact with the environment, you sculpt them out"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 25, 2010, 6:42 AM CT

Low doses of BPA alters gene expression

A study posted today (Wednesday, August 25) at the online site of the journal Biology of Reproduction reports that exposure of pregnant female mice to the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A may produce adverse reproductive consequences on gene expression in fetal ovaries as early as 12 hours after the mother has first been exposed to the chemical.

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a chemical used in plastics for making some baby and water bottles, linings of food and beverage cans, and other human consumer products.

The mice in this study were given BPA at doses thought to be equivalent to levels currently being experienced by humans.

The research, conducted in the laboratory of Dr. Patricia A. Hunt at Washington State University (WSU) in Pullman, showed that BPA exposure affects the earliest stages of egg production in the ovaries of the developing mouse fetuses, thus suggesting that the next generation (the grandchildren of the females given BPA) may suffer genetic defects in such biological processes as mitosis and DNA replication.

In addition, the WSU research team noted that their study "revealed a striking down-regulation of mitotic/cell cycle genes, raising the possibility that BPA exposure immediately before meiotic entry might act to shorten the reproductive lifespan of the female" by reducing the total pool of fetal oocytes......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 23, 2010, 7:26 AM CT

A better way to grow stem cells

Human pluripotent stem cells, which can become any other kind of body cell, hold great potential to treat a wide range of ailments, including Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and spinal cord injuries. However, researchers who work with such cells have had trouble growing large enough quantities to perform experiments in particular, to be used in human studies. Furthermore, most materials now used to grow human stem cells include cells or proteins that come from mice embryos, which help stimulate stem-cell growth but would likely cause an immune reaction if injected into a human patient.

To overcome those issues, MIT chemical engineers, materials researchers and biologists have devised a synthetic surface that includes no foreign animal material and allows stem cells to stay alive and continue reproducing themselves for at least three months. It's also the first synthetic material that allows single cells to form colonies of identical cells, which is necessary to identify cells with desired traits and has been difficult to achieve with existing materials.

The research team, led by Professors Robert Langer, Rudolf Jaenisch and Daniel G. Anderson, describes the new material in the Aug. 22 issue of Nature Materials First authors of the paper are postdoctoral associates Ying Mei and Krishanu Saha......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 23, 2010, 7:24 AM CT

Rheumatoid arthritis signaling protein

A signaling protein released during rheumatoid arthritis dramatically reduced Alzheimer's disease pathology and reversed the memory impairment of mice bred to develop symptoms of the neurodegenerative disease, a newly released study by the University of South Florida reports. Scientists observed that the protein, GM-CSF, likely stimulates the body's natural scavenger cells to attack and remove Alzheimer's amyloid deposits in the brain.

The study appears online today in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease

People with rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic disease leading to inflammation of joints and surrounding tissue, are less likely than those without arthritis to develop Alzheimer's. While it was usually assumed that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may help prevent onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease, recent NSAID clinical trials proved unsuccessful for patients with Alzheimer's.

The USF scientists are among the first to look at what effect innate immunity gone awry in rheumatoid arthritis may play in protecting against Alzheimer's disease.

"Our findings provide a compelling explanation for why rheumatoid arthritis is a negative risk factor for Alzheimer's disease," said principal investigator Huntington Potter, PhD, professor of molecular medicine at the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Institute and director of the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 11, 2010, 7:32 PM CT

Cosmetic surgery for body dysmorphic disorder?

A newly released study finds that while a number of who suffer from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) seek cosmetic procedures, only two percent of procedures actually reduced the severity of BDD. Despite this poor long-term outcome, physicians continue to provide requested surgeries to people suffering from BDD. The study was recently published in Annals of Plastic Surgery

Katharine A. Phillips, MD, is the director of the body image program at Rhode Island Hospital and a co-author of the paper. Phillips says, "BDD is a psychiatric disorder characterized by preoccupation with an imagined or slight defect in appearance which causes clinically significant distress or functional impairment. A majority of these individuals believe they have an actual deformity that can be corrected by cosmetic therapys to fix these perceived defects rather than seeking psychiatric intervention".

Phillips and her co-author, Canice Crerand, PhD, of The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, reported in prior studies that BDD appears relatively common among individuals who receive cosmetic surgery, with reported rates of 7 to 8 percent in cosmetic surgery patients in the United States. Even with the high frequency of those with BDD seeking and receiving cosmetic procedures, few studies have more specifically investigated the clinical outcomes of surgical and minimally invasive cosmetic therapys, such as chemical peels, microdermabrasion, and injectable fillers)......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 11, 2010, 7:26 PM CT

People Who Are Angry Pay More Attention to Rewards

Anger is a negative emotion. But, like being happy or excited, feeling angry makes people want to seek rewards, as per a newly released study of emotion and visual attention. The scientists observed that people who are angry pay more attention to rewards than to threats-the opposite of people feeling other negative emotions like fear.

Prior research has shown that emotion affects what someone pays attention to. If a fearful or anxious person is given a choice of a rewarding picture, like a sexy couple, or a threatening picture, like a person waving a knife threateningly, they'll spend more time looking at the threat than at the rewarding picture. People feeling excitement, however, are the other way-they'll go for the reward.

But nobody knows whether those reactions occur because the emotions are positive or negative, or because of something else, says Brett Q. Ford of Boston College, who wrote the study with Maya Tamir, also of Boston College, and four other authors. For example, she says, "emotions can vary in what they make you want to do. Fear is linked to a motivation to avoid, whereas excitement is linked to a motivation to approach. It can make you want to seek out certain things, like rewards." The research is published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 11, 2010, 7:16 PM CT

Stroke patients stop taking prevention medication

At least a quarter of patients who have suffered a stroke stop taking one or more of their prescribed stroke prevention medications within the first three months after being hospitalized when the chance of having another stroke is highest as per a newly released study by scientists at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and his colleagues.

Each year, there are an estimated 180,000 recurrent strokes in the United States. The study identified several modifiable factors that are linked to stroke survivors' compliance in taking medicine that can help prevent recurrent stroke. Scientists hope those factors will prove effective targets for improving compliance.

The paper appears online this week in the Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, and is scheduled to appear in the journal's December print issue.

"There is very little known about how stroke patients feel about their medications and all of the complicated reasons that people may or may not stay on those medications," said Cheryl D. Bushnell, M.D., M.H.S., an associate professor of neurology at Wake Forest Baptist and main author on the study. "Physicians can prescribe all of the right medications, but if patients don't take them, they're not receiving the benefits of prevention"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 11, 2010, 6:59 AM CT

Proteins linked with Alzheimer's

In neurodegenerative diseases, clumps of insoluble proteins appear in patients' brains. These aggregates contain proteins that are unique to each disease, such as amyloid beta in Alzheimer's disease, but they are intertwined with small amounts of a number of other insoluble proteins that are normally present in a soluble form in healthy young individuals. For years, these other proteins were believed to be accidental inclusions in the aggregates, much as a sea turtle might be caught in a net of fish.

Now, in a surprising new finding, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, report that a number of of the proteins present as minor components of disease aggregates actually clump together as a normal part of aging in healthy individuals.

The discovery, in the C. elegans roundworm, refutes a widespread belief that the presence of insoluble proteins is unique to degenerative disease and that the main proteins traditionally linked to each disease (like amyloid beta in Alzheimer's disease) are the only ones that could have an impact.

The research showed that a variety of common soluble proteins, such as those responsible for growth, can become insoluble and form aggregates in animals as they age. Moreover, the research demonstrated that gene manipulations that extend C. elegans lifespan prevent these common proteins from clumping......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 10, 2010, 7:11 AM CT

What Makes a Good Embryo?

Researchers as well as fertility doctors have long tried to figure out what makes a good egg that will produce a healthy embryo. It's a especially critical question for fertility doctors deciding which eggs isolated from a woman will produce the best embryos and, ultimately, babies.

New research reveals healthy eggs need a tremendous amount of zinc to reach maturity and be ready for fertilization -- a finding that may ultimately help physicians assess the best eggs for fertility therapy, as per a research studyfrom Northwestern University.

"Understanding zinc's role may eventually help us measure the quality of an egg and lead to advances in fertility therapy," said Alison Kim, a postdoctoral fellow in obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. "Currently we can't predict which eggs isolated from a woman produce the best embryos and will result in a baby. Not all eggs are capable of becoming healthy embryos".

There's no link yet to zinc content in the egg and the nutritional status of women, but Kim plans to research that area.

Kim is the main author of a paper that would be reported in the recent issue of the journal Nature Chemical Biology. The article will be featured on the cover. Co-senior authors are Tom O'Halloran, director of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute at Northwestern and associate director of basic sciences at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, and Teresa Woodruff, the Thomas J. Watkins Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and executive director of the Institute for Women's Health Research at Feinberg. Woodruff also is a member of the Lurie Cancer Center......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 10, 2010, 7:08 AM CT

Mapping gene interactions

In one of the first efforts of its kind, UCLA scientists have taken mammalian genome maps, including human maps, one step further by showing not just the order in which genes fall in the genome but which genes actually interact.

The findings, reported in the recent issue of the journal Genome Research, will help scientists better understand which genes work together and shed light on how they collaborate to help cells thrive or die.

Mammals, including humans, have roughly 20,000 different genes. Genes hold instructions to create proteins that determine not only physical characteristics, like outward appearance, but all bodily processes, from moving blood through the veins to stimulating the immune system to attack a cold virus. They can also be pivotal in the development of diseases like cancer.

Each mammalian cell contains the full complement of genes, eventhough depending on the activity of the cell, not all the genes are active. The genes engage not only in one-on-one interactions but also create wide networks involving dozens of genes. Little had previously been known about which genes work together most often in mammals and the networks they form.

For this study, the UCLA researchers used human radiation hybrid genome maps developed several years ago for the worldwide Human Genome Project, as well as several other mammalian radiation hybrid maps, for dogs, cats and mice......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

August 2, 2010, 6:59 AM CT

Negative effects of sleep restriction

A study in the Aug. 1 issue of the journal Sleep suggests that a dose of extra sleep on the weekend appears to be good medicine for adults who repeatedly stay up too late or wake up too early during the workweek. However, even a night of 10 hours in bed may not be enough to cure the negative effects of chronic sleep restriction.

Results show that neurobehavioral impairments such as increased lapses of attention and delayed reaction times accumulated across a period of five days when sleep was restricted to less than four hours per night. Behavioral, subjective and physiological measures of alertness improved significantly after a night of recovery sleep, with larger doses of sleep producing greater gains. Yet some neurobehavioral deficits continued to linger after the maximum recovery dose of 10 hours in bed, during which participants slept for an average of about nine hours. The study suggests that complete recovery from sustained sleep restriction may require even more sleep during one night or multiple nights of extended sleep.

"Recovery of alertness dimensions was remarkably dependent on the duration of the recovery time in bed," said principal investigator David F. Dinges, PhD, director of the Unit for Experimental Psychiatry and chief of the Division of Sleep and Chronobiology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, Pa. "However, the sleep restriction was severe enough that recovery of alertness was not complete following a single night of extended sleep, indicating a residual sleep debt remained. Lifestyles that involve chronic sleep restriction during the workweek and during days off work may result in continuing buildup of sleep pressure and in an increased likelihood of loss of alertness and increased errors"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 23, 2010, 7:09 AM CT

Brain alterations in patients with irritable bowel syndrome

A large academic study has demonstrated structural changes in specific brain regions in female patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), a condition that causes pain and discomfort in the abdomen, along with diarrhea, constipation or both.

A collaborative effort between UCLA and Canada's McGill University, the study appears in the recent issue of the journal Gastroenterology

The findings show that IBS is linked to both decreases and increases in grey matter density in key areas of the brain involved in attention, emotion regulation, pain inhibition and the processing of visceral information.

IBS affects approximately 15 percent of the U.S. population, primarily women. Currently, the condition is considered by the medical field to be a "functional" syndrome of the digestive tract not working properly rather than an "organic" disorder with structural organ changes. Efforts to identify structural or biochemical alterations in the gut have largely been unsuccessful. Even though the pathophysiology is not completely understood, it is generally agreed that IBS represents an alteration in brain-gut interactions.

These study findings, however, show actual structural changes to the brain, which places IBS in the category of other pain disorders, such as lower back pain, temporomandibular joint disorder, migraines and hip pain conditions in which some of the same anatomical brain changes have been observed, as well as other changes. A recent, smaller study suggested structural brain changes in IBS, but a larger definitive study hadn't been completed until now......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 23, 2010, 6:47 AM CT

Mother-to-child HIV transmission rate falling

Transmission of HIV to children before or at birth has dropped dramatically around the country in the last decade since the advent of powerful new therapies. That certainly is true for Florida, where each year, fewer than 10 babies are born with the disease despite the fact that more than 600 HIV-positive women each year, on average, give birth.

Still, more can be done to even further reduce the number of babies born with the disease, say pediatric HIV experts at the University of Florida who this week presented their work during the 18th International AIDS conference in Vienna, Austria.

"This is one of those diseases for which we learned how to prevent transmission. We need to make full use of this method and our energies need to be focused on the effort," said lead researcher Dr. Mobeen Rathore, a professor and chief of pediatric infectious diseases and immunology at the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville, and director of the UF Center for HIV/AIDS Research, Education and Service.

Around the United States, the decreasing number of pediatric infections is a direct result of the advent of powerful anti-HIV therapies in the mid-1990s and the establishment of protocols by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to treat pregnant women who are infected, and their babies......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 14, 2010, 7:23 AM CT

Genes decide who wins against cancer

Scientists funded by the Medical Research Council (MRC) have discovered for the first time that two proteins called Mahjong and Lgl could be star players in helping to identify how the body's own cells fight back against cancer cells. This discovery, publishing today in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, could lead to future therapys to make our healthy cells better-equipped to attack cancer cells, an entirely new concept for cancer research.

The team, who undertook the research at the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology and Cell Biology Unit at University College London (UCL), have proven that normal cells and malignant cells compete in a game of 'do or die'. If non-malignant cells gain the advantage and entirely surround cancer cells, the cancer cells will die. If, however, the malignant cells manage to break free, they will continue to divide and grow undisturbed. The study shows that the Lgl and Mahjong proteins play a key role in the cells' competitiveness, influencing the outcome over which cells will die. This kind of cell competition had previously been shown to occur in flies, however this is the first time it has been seen in mammals.

This discovery could potentially lead to new kinds of therapys for carcinomas, tumours which make up more than 80 per cent of all cancers. Carcinomas originate from the epithelial cells that make up tissues such as our lungs, glands and digestive system......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 13, 2010, 6:56 AM CT

Teenage Binge Drinking And Osteoporosis

Binge-drinking teenagers appears to be putting themselves at risk for future osteoporosis and bone fractures, as per scientists at Loyola University Health System.

A new Loyola study has observed long-lasting disruptions in hundreds of genes involved in bone formation in rats. The study is reported in the July-recent issue of the journal Alcohol and Alcoholism.

"Lifestyle-related damage done to the skeleton during young adulthood may have repercussions lasting decades," bone biologist John Callaci, PhD, and his colleagues wrote.

Callaci cautioned that data from animals don't directly translate to people. "But the findings certainly suggest that this could be a problem with humans," he added.

Bone mass is lost throughout adult life as part of the aging process. Thus, anything that inhibits the build up of bone mass during the critical years of adolescence and young adulthood could increase the risk of osteoporosis and fractures in later life.

Binge drinking is defined as a woman having at least four drinks or a man having at least five drinks on one occasion. Heavy binge drinkers can consume 10 to 15 drinks. Binge drinking typically begins around age 13 and peaks between 18 and 22, before gradually decreasing. Thirty-six percent of youths ages 18 to 20 reported at least one binge-drinking episode during the past 30 days, as per the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 12, 2010, 7:17 AM CT

Computer algorithms to develop seasonal flu vaccines

Defeating the flu is challenging because the virus responsible for the disease undergoes frequent changes of its genetic code, making it difficult for researchers to manufacture effective vaccines for the seasonal flu in a timely manner. Now, a University of Miami (UM) computer scientist, Dimitris Papamichail, and a team of scientists from Stony Brook University have developed a rapid and effective approach to produce vaccines for new strains of influenza viruses. The scientists hope to develop the new technology and provide an efficient method to confront the threat of seasonal epidemics.

The novel approach uses computer algorithms created by Papamichail and researchers from Stony Brook University to design viruses that serve as live vaccines, which are then synthesized to specification. The new method is called Synthetic Attenuated Virus Engineering (SAVE). The findings are available in a study titled "Live attenuated influenza virus vaccines by computer-aided rational design," now available as an advance online publication by Nature Biotechnology

"We have been able to produce an entirely novel method to systematically design vaccines using computer algorithms," says Papamichail, assistant professor of Computer Science in the College of Arts and Sciences at UM and co-author of the study. "Our approach is not only useful for influenza; it is also applicable to a wide range of viruses"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 12, 2010, 7:12 AM CT

Universal HIV testing and immediate treatment

Implementing a program of universal HIV testing and immediate antiretroviral therapy (ART) for infected individuals could have a major impact on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Washington, DC, but a newly released study finds that it would not halt the epidemic, something that a prior report had projected. In a paper that will appear in the August 15 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases and has been released online, scientists find that the so-called "test-and-treat" strategy could reduce new HIV infections by 15 percent over the next five years while conferring large survival benefits to HIV-infected patients.

"Test-and-treat will save lives, but it won't stop the HIV epidemic in its tracks all by itself," says Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Division of Infectious Disease, who led the study." It is only a single new and important page in the HIV-prevention playbook." .

Test-and-treat has been the subject of widespread interest and controversy in the scientific community. In January 2009, WHO researchers published a report in The Lancet suggesting that a voluntary system of annual HIV testing of all adults, followed by immediate provision of ART for those testing positive, "could nearly stop transmission and drive HIV into an elimination phase." Inspired by these findings, scientists and public health officials have rushed to design and implement test-and-treat studies and interventions. The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) recently announced a two-year, $26.4 million partnership with the Washington, DC, Department of Health that includes a pilot study of the test-and-treat strategy. However, some experts have expressed concern that the assumptions underlying the WHO findings painted too optimistic a picture of the likely outcomes......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 9, 2010, 7:17 AM CT

A fateful pause

We take our blood for granted, but its creation requires a complicated series of steps, starting with the formation of blood stem cells during early embryonic development, followed by progressive differentiation into the progenitors of red cells, white cells and platelets, and ultimately the full set of blood cells. Now, in the July 9 issue of Cell, scientists at Children's Hospital Boston report a surprising twist in how mature red blood cells form which may explain the body's ability to rapidly replenish them in response to injury.

Previously, working with zebrafish whose transparent bodies make it easy to watch blood formation -- the laboratory of Leonard Zon, MD, director of the Stem Cell Program at Children's, found a gene which, when mutated, left the embryonic fish bereft of red blood cells (this profoundly anemic strain was dubbed moonshine). Though the fish did form progenitors for red blood cells (called erythroid progenitors), these cells failed to become mature red blood cells, and instead died.

But why? The new research, led by Xiaoying Bai, PhD, in Zon's lab, showed that when the gene, TIF1 gamma, is mutated, the machinery that allows red blood cells to form from their progenitors is left in suspended animation.

In order for an erythroid progenitor to make a red blood cell, certain genes must be activated, or transcribed, to create templates for building the necessary proteins. Transcription involves an orchestrated series of events: tightly coiled DNA is unwrapped, unwound and its strands separated, then a portion of one strand is "read" down its length and used to make the template, cued by signals from the cell. But this reading process has been recently discovered to have built-in pauses, requiring another signal to tell transcription to resume......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 9, 2010, 6:44 AM CT

Extreme obesity in children linked to reflux disease

Extremely obese children have a 40 percent higher risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) and children who are moderately obese have a 30 percent higher risk of GERD in comparison to normal weight children, as per a Kaiser Permanente study published online in the International Journal of Pediatric Obesity

This large population-based study establishes an association between obesity and GERD in children, an association that has been previously reported in adults. GERD can lead to decreased quality of life, chronic respiratory conditions, and increased risk for cancer of the esophagus (the tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach) if it persists through adulthood.

Scientists used electronic health records to conduct a cross-sectional study of 690,321 children aged 2 19 years who were members of the Kaiser Permanente Southern California integrated health plan in 2007 and 2008.

About 8 to 25 percent of children in the U.S. appears to be affected by frequent symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux, depending upon their age and body mass index. GERD is a chronic condition in which the liquid content of the stomach flows up in to the esophagus. This can inflame and damage the lining of the esophagus. GERD appears to be responsible for an increased occurrence of coughs, asthma, and inflammation of the larynx. Left untreated, GERD may result in chronic esophageal inflammation and lasting damage to the esophagus. Cancer of the esophagus is the nation's fastest growing cancer and is expected to double in frequency in the next 20 years -- unlike most other cancers, which are decreasing in frequency. Scientists suspect this rise is due in part to the nation's obesity epidemic......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

July 6, 2010, 7:20 AM CT

Depression and dementia

A newly released study shows that having depression may nearly double your risk of developing dementia during the later part of life. The research would be reported in the July 6, 2010, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

For the study, scientists examined research data on 949 people with an average age of 79 from the Framingham Heart Study. At the start of the study, participants were free of dementia and were tested for depressive symptoms based on questions about general depression, sleep complaints, social relationships and other factors. A total of 125 people, or 13 percent, were classified as having depression at the start of the study.

The participants were followed for up to 17 years.

At the end of the study, 164 people had developed dementia with 136 specifically diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Nearly 22 percent of people who were depressed at the start of the study developed dementia in comparison to about 17 percent of those who were not depressed, a 70 percent increased risk in those who were depressed. The 10-year absolute risk for dementia was 0.21 in people without depressive symptoms and 0.34 in people with depressive symptoms. The results were the same regardless of a person's age, sex, education and whether they had the APOE gene that increases a person's risk of Alzheimer's disease......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 29, 2010, 7:15 AM CT

Treatment for painful herniated discs

An immune cell known to cause chronic inflammation in autoimmune disorders has been identified as a possible culprit in low back pain linked to herniated discs, as per doctors at Duke University Medical Center.

The finding implicates the cytokine molecule interleukin-17, and supports the burgeoning theory that an immune response plays a significant role in disc disease, says William J. Richardson, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Duke. It may also open the door for new, therapeutic approaches that target a specific immune response in hopes of halting disc destruction, and possibly reversing the disease process.

"By identifying the specific subpopulation of lymphocytes (immune cells that are excited into action by the cytokine), it may soon be possible to arrest the body's inflammatory response to disc cells," says Richardson, senior author of the research published online this week in the recent issue of Arthritis and Rheumatism Doing so could reduce the painful inflammation linked to degenerative disc disease, and halt the evolution of arthritis. It may also reduce the need for back surgery.

"Mechanical forces may initiate the degenerative process, but biochemical inflammatory changes certainly play a role in disc pathology," says the study's first author, Mohammed Shamji, MD, PhD, senior neurosurgery resident at The Ottawa Hospital, Ontario, Canada, who participated in the research while at Duke. Decreasing the inflammation may arrest or reverse the patient's disease process and perhaps reduce the need for surgery. "Now we are learning which pathways we have to block"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 29, 2010, 7:10 AM CT

Ovarian transplantation restores fertility in mice

Researchers have discovered that when they transplant ovaries from young mice into aging female mice, not only does the procedure make the mice fertile again, but also it rejuvenates their behaviour and increases their lifespan. The question now is: could ovarian transplants in women have the same effect?

Dr Noriko Kagawa will tell the 26th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Rome today (Tuesday) that successful ovarian transplants increased the lifespan of the mice by more than 40%. "At present ovarian transplants are performed with the aim of preserving a woman's fertility after cancer therapy for instance, or of extending her reproductive lifespan. However, the completely unexpected extra benefit of fertility-preserving procedures in our mouse studies indicates that there is a possibility that carrying out similar procedures in women could lengthen their lifespans in general," she said.

A very small number of women in the world have had ovarian transplants, and some have been more successful than others. Dr Kagawa stressed that there was still a lot of research to be carried out before it would be known whether ovarian transplants had similar, rejuvenating effects in women, especially as it would involve waiting for a number of years until the patients became older......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 29, 2010, 7:09 AM CT

New data for Vimpat C-V

New long term data showed that Vimpat (lacosamide) C-V provided sustained reduction in seizure frequency for up to five years when used as an add-on treatment for uncontrolled partial onset seizures in adults with epilepsy. In addition post-hoc exploratory analyses showed that adjunctive lacosamide treatment reduced partial-onset seizure frequency and improved responder rates when added to a broad range of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) including both traditional sodium channel-blocking agents* and those that act on non-sodium channel-targets. These and other data were presented this week at the 9th European Congress on Epileptology (ECE), in Rhodes, Greece.

"The new data showed that lacosamide provided long-term additional partial-onset seizure control when added to a broad range of AEDs and when current therapy was not enough," said Dr. Jacqueline French, Professor in the department of Neurology, NYU Comprehensive Epilepsy Center.

In addition, laboratory results of the first direct in-vitro comparison of lacosamide with other AEDs were also presented at the Congress and provided additional evidence of lacosamide's novel mode of action.

Vimpat is approved in the U.S. as an add-on therapy for the treatment of partial-onset seizures in people with epilepsy who are 17 years and older, and is available as oral tablets, oral solution and as an intravenous (IV) injection. In the European Union, Vimpat (film-coated tablets, syrup and solution for infusion) is approved as adjunctive therapy for the treatment of partial-onset seizures with or without secondary generalization in patients with epilepsy, aged 16 years and older. The maximum recommended daily dose for Vimpat in the European Union and the U.S. is 400 mg/day. Vimpat solution for infusion may be used when oral administration is temporarily not feasible. Vimpat has a novel mechanism of action that is different from all currently available AEDs, although the precise mechanism by which Vimpat exerts its antiepileptic effect in humans is yet to be fully elucidated......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 24, 2010, 10:50 PM CT

Link between iron overload and macular degeneration

The most common and under-diagnosed genetic disease in humans just appears to be a cause of the worst form of macular degeneration, Medical College of Georgia scientists report.

They are pursuing a link between hemochromatosis, which results in iron overload, and the wet form of macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in people 60 and older. They suspect that too much iron, known to wreak cumulative havoc on the body's organs, hastens normal aging of the eyes.

If they are correct, avoiding the most severe consequences of a disease that robs the central vision could be as simple as donating blood a couple times annually to reduce iron levels, said Dr. Vadivel Ganapathy, chairman of the MCG School of Medicine Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

A $1.5 million grant from the National Eye Institute is enabling the MCG researchers to define the impact of hemochromatosis on the eye's form and function. Support from MCG's Vision Discovery Institute is enabling screening for its causative genetic mutation in the blood of healthy individuals and those with macular degeneration.

"If this is a predisposing risk for macular degeneration, we have a very useful tool for screening patients," said Dr. Julian Nussbaum, a retinal specialist who chairs the School of Medicine's Department of Ophthalmology and co-directs MCG's Vision Discovery Institute. "We can give patients information right off the bat that may help them"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 24, 2010, 10:13 PM CT

Language Recovery Following Stroke

A team of scientists led by NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center has developed a method to predict post-stroke recovery of language by measuring the initial severity of impairment. Being able to predict recovery has important implications for stroke survivors and their families, as they plan for short and long-term therapy needs. Findings are reported online in the journal Stroke.

"These results indicate that if we know the extent of the initial impairment following stroke, then we can predict with remarkable accuracy how patients will function 90 days later," said Ronald M. Lazar, Ph.D., professor of clinical neuropsychology in neurology and neurological surgery, Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, and a neuropsychology expert at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. "We have established the first reliable metric of the current standard care for post-stroke language therapy, and a standard against which future therapys can be compared".

For a number of years, it was thought that the size of the stroke, patient age and education, and specific characteristics of the type of language deficit were together predictive of recovery - but no reliable metric had been established.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health, the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia-led team used the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) test to assess language function at 24 - 72 hours after stroke onset and then again at 90 days. They observed that among patients with mild to moderate aphasia after acute stroke, recovery (defined as the change in WAB score between baseline and 90 days) improved to about 70 percent of their maximum potential recovery, as long as they received some aphasia treatment......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 24, 2010, 10:12 PM CT

Preventing neurological diseases

A number of diseases of brain function, such as epilepsy and schizophrenia, are caused by problems in how neurons communicate with each other. A University of Houston (UH) researcher and his team are analyzing these commands and connections in an attempt to prevent those diseases.

Dr. Jan-ke Gustafsson, Robert A. Welch Professor in UH's biology and biochemistry department, describes his team's findings in a paper titled "Liver X receptor β and thyroid hormone receptor α in brain cortical layering," appearing in the current online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, one of the world's most-cited multidisciplinary scientific serials.

"The brain works like a computer," said Gustafsson, who also is director of the Center for Nuclear Receptors and Cell Signaling at UH. "We know something about the hard wire, but so far we know nothing about 'wireless connections.' Our work is about how and when the components of the 'computer' are assembled and how the connections between the components are made." .

The brain is composed of brain cells, called neurons, which are placed in the correct position in the brain during fetal and infant development. The neurons move with military precision to their correct places just like soldiers in a military parade, except the ranks are referred to as layers. If any of the neurons fail to make the correct move then there will be gaps in the formation of the cortex, which is the outer brain layer. Any distractions that slow down or speed up the neurons will cause a problem with the formation of the cortex. Normally, the neurons obey several commands that come from the environment, hormones and other nearby neurons......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 24, 2010, 9:31 PM CT

Radiotracer for Alzheimer's disease patients

A trial of a novel radioactive compound readily and safely distinguished the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients from healthy volunteers on brain scans and opens the doors to making such imaging available beyond facilities that can manufacture their own radioactive compounds. The results, reported by a Johns Hopkins team in the June Journal of Nuclear Medicine, could lead to better ways to distinguish Alzheimer's from other types of dementia, track disease progression and develop new therapeutics to fight the memory-ravaging disease.

Previously, the only way to peer into the brains of Alzheimer's patients was through autopsy or the use of another radioactive compound used in scans, or radiotracer, known as Pittsburgh compound or PIB. PIB is drawn to a protein known as beta-amyloid, which accumulates abnormally in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. However, PIB has a half-life of only 20 minutes, meaning that half of the substance degenerates every 20 minutes after it is made. Consequently, PIB's use is possible only at a few hospitals or academic medical centers with facilities to manufacture it since this compound degenerates so rapidly.

To solve this conundrum, Dean F. Wong, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of radiology and psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and colleagues looked to a new radiotracer known as 18F-AV-45 (also known as florbetapir F18). This compound, based on the radioactive isotope fluorine-18, is drawn to beta-amyloid like PIB. However, unlike PIB, florbetapir has a half-life of about 110 minutes, greatly increasing its ability to be transported significant distances away from manufacturing facilities......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 22, 2010, 7:28 AM CT

Women with polycystic ovary syndrome

Women with the polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), the most common hormone imbalance in women of reproductive age, appears to be more vulnerable to exposure to the chemical bisphenol A (BPA), found in a number of plastic household items, as per a newly released study. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

The study observed that BPA, a known hormone disrupter, is elevated and linked to higher levels of male hormones in the blood of women with PCOS compared with healthy women. These findings held true for both lean and obese women with PCOS, said Evanthia Diamanti-Kandarakis, MD, PhD, co-author of study and professor at the University of Athens Medical School in Greece.

"Women with the polycystic ovary syndrome should be alert regarding this environmental contaminant's potential adverse effects on reproductive aspects of their health problem," she said.

Excessive secretion of androgensmasculinization-promoting hormonesoccurs in PCOS. The syndrome raises the risk of infertility, obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

Past studies show that BPA is elevated in women who have had recurrent miscarriages. This chemical can leach into the bloodstream from food and beverage containers that are made of polycarbonate hard plastic or lined with epoxy resins, or from some dental sealants and composites......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 22, 2010, 7:26 AM CT

Progesterone is effective for hot flash treatment

Postmenopausal women who experience bothersome hot flashes or night sweats may have an alternative therapy to estrogen. As per a newly released study, oral micronized progesterone relieves those symptoms. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 92nd Annual Meeting in San Diego.

"This is the first evidence that oral micronized progesterone, which is molecularly identical to the natural hormone, is effective for women with symptomatic hot flashes," said the presenting author, Jerilynn Prior, MD, professor, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Available only by prescription and sold under the brand name Prometrium in the United States and Canada, this form of progesterone is manufactured from a steroid in yams.

"Vasomotor symptoms"hot flashes (sometimes called hot flushes) and night sweatsare experienced by most women during the years around the final menstrual period. In the most symptomatic women (at least 5-10%) these symptoms disturb sleep, energy and quality of life, Previous said.

The scientists recruited 114 healthy postmenopausal women seeking hormonal treatment for hot flashes and night sweats and randomly assigned them to take either oral micronized progesterone or an inactive substance (placebo), both as three round capsules at bedtime. Neither the women nor the study team members were aware which therapy the study participants received during the three months of treatment. The time since their last menstrual flow was one to 10 years, with an average of four years. To be eligible to participate in the study, women could not have taken ovarian hormone treatment within the past six months......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 18, 2010, 7:12 AM CT

Feared side effect of Alzheimer's drugs is unlikely

The first trial of a new model for testing Alzheimer's therapys has reassured scientists that a promising class of drugs does not exacerbate the disease if therapy is interrupted.

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Merck & Co. Inc studied the effects of a class of drugs known as gamma secretase inhibitors. Scientists had worried that these drugs might cause a build-up of proteins associated with Alzheimer's disease and that this build-up could be unleashed in a surge when patients went off the medications. But the newly released study suggests that they do not.

"This is important because it eases some concerns that have been raised about this potentially useful class of medications," says senior author Randall Bateman, MD, a Washington University neurologist who treats patients at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

The findings appeared recently in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Gamma secretase inhibitors block proteins involved in the creation of amyloid beta, the main ingredient of Alzheimer's plaques. Patients cannot continuously take these drugs because nonstop inhibition of the gamma secretase enzyme has harmful side effects. One study had revealed that when physicians temporarily halted used of the inhibitors in humans, amyloid beta levels in the blood surged. An animal study suggested cessation of therapy also led to an amyloid beta increase in the brain. Scientists have been watching for similar effects in current human clinical trials of gamma secretase inhibitors......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 18, 2010, 6:50 AM CT

Women who consume large amounts of tea

Women who drink tea have an increased risk of developing Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) compared with those who drink none (p=0.04), as per results presented today at EULAR 2010, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism in Rome, Italy. Further results from the same study showed no connection between the amount of coffee consumption and RA incidence (p=0.16).

The results of the US based longitudinal cohort study involving 76,643 women showed a positive association of incident RA in tea drinkers with an increasing Hazard Ratio (HR) observed alongside tea consumption (p=0.03). Consuming any amount of tea carried a significant risk of developing RA (HR 1.40 (95%CI 1.01-1.93) p=0.04) and women who drank ≥4 cups of tea per day had an increased risk of developing RA in comparison to those who drank none (HR 1.78 (95%CI 0.83-3.82)).

An analysis of the method of preparation of coffee (filtered vs unfiltered) and presence or lack of caffeine in the beverage did not show any significant associations with RA or Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE, an autoimmune disease in which the immune system harms the body's own healthy cells and tissues) (RA: filtered p=0.08, unfiltered p=0.38, SLE: filtered p=0.74, unfiltered p=0.97). No increase was shown in the risk of developing RA in participants who drank coffee in comparison to those that did not (RA: HR 1.09 (95%CI 0.77-1.54 p=0.63)......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 14, 2010, 10:06 PM CT

How bacteria boost the immune system

Researchers have long known that certain types of bacteria boost the immune system. Now, Loyola University Health System scientists have discovered how bacteria perform this essential task.

Senior author Katherine L. Knight, PhD. and his colleagues report their discovery in a featured article in the June 15, 2010, issue of the Journal of Immunology, now available online. Knight is professor and chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.

The human body is teeming with bacteria. In each person, there are about 10 times as a number of bacterial cells as human cells. Bacteria live on skin, in the respiratory tract and throughout the digestive tract. The digestive tract alone is home to between 500 and 1,000 bacterial species.

While some bacteria cause infections, most species are harmless or perform beneficial functions, such as aiding digestion. These beneficial bugs are called commensal bacteria. One of the most important functions of commensal bacteria is boosting the immune system. Studies by other scientists have observed that mice raised in sterile, germ-free environments have poorly developed immune systems. But until now, researchers have not known the mechanism by which bacteria help the immune system......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 13, 2010, 10:41 PM CT

How bacteria make syringes

For a successful infection, bacteria must outwit the immune system of the host. To this aim, they deliver so-called virulence factors through a transport channel located in the bacterial membrane. In some bacteria this transport channel is formed like a syringe, enabling them to inject virulence factors directly into the host cell. Researchers from the Max Planck Society and the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing have now succeeded for the first time in elucidating basic principles of the assembly of this transport channel. This is an important starting point for the development of new drugs that might interfere considerably earlier than antibiotics in the course of infection. (Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, 13 June 2010).

Every day the human organism is confronted with a huge variety of pathogens (fig. 1). Most of them are fended off by our immune system. To execute a successful infection, bacteria must therefore manipulate the host to ensure their survival. They secrete virulence factors through a transport channel located in the bacterial membrane. Some bacteria, such as the causative agents of dysentery, food poisoning, typhoid fever, and pest, have developed a specialized transport mechanism called the Type three secretion system. Electron microscopy reveals that this structure is formed like a syringe: the base of the syringe is imbedded in the bacterial membrane and the needle protrudes out of the bacteria (fig. 2). With this apparatus bacteria can inject virulence factors directly into the host cell......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 13, 2010, 10:38 PM CT

Results of individual genetic studies

Gothenburg, Sweden: Individual results of genetic research studies should not be disclosed to participants without careful consideration, a scientist will tell the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Monday). Dr. Robin Hayeems, from the Department of Health Policy, Management and Assessment at the University of Toronto, Canada, will say that she believes that the view held by a number of ethicists that individual genetic research findings should always be reported to participants involved in genetic research studies waccording tohaps misguided, and that to do so without careful consideration of evidentiary assumptions and clinical capacity could distort the responsibilities of scientists and lead to misunderstanding.

Dr. Hayeems leads the GE3LS (Genomics and its Ethical, Economic, Environmental, Legal and Social Aspects) component of a Genome Canada funded basic science project that is looking at identifying the genes that can modify the severity or clinical effects of cystic fibrosis (CF). Together with the study co-lead Professor Fiona Miller, in charge of the GE3LS component of the Genome Canada funded autism genome project, her team surveyed scientists from around the world who were involved in genetics research correlation to CF and autism. "We were interested in their perspectives about sharing genetic research results with individual study participants in order to be able to add their voices to the ongoing debate about whether and under what circumstances scientists are under an obligation to report these results to research participants", she said......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 9, 2010, 7:13 AM CT

A launchpad for stem cell research

Stem cell research holds promise for improving the quality of human life ― particularly embryonic stem cells, which can potentially develop into any tissue in the human body. However, basic scientific problems still remain unresolved but Tel Aviv University scientists are leading the way to inventive solutions.

"In order to use embryonic stem cells as a reliable and safe therapeutic tool, we have to find strategies to control their differentiation so we get exactly the type of cells we desire," says Dr. Yechiel Elkabetz of Tel Aviv University's Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine. To do that, Dr. Elkabetz is building tools based on genetic engineering of human embryonic stem cells, which will enable his research group to mark, isolate and track the growth of the very early nervous system stem cells (or neural stem cells) he recently identified. His current research is based on a series of articles he published in Genes & Development and Nature Biotechnology, while still at Sloan-Kettering Institute in the U.S.

Ideally, scientists would like to grow stem cells in order to replace those that are missing in patients, such as motor neurons in the spinal cord of victims of ALS, or dopamine neurons in the brains of Parkinson's disease sufferers. But because our understanding of how embryonic stem cells evolve in the Petri dish is only beginning to become clear, such cells may often "take on a life of their own" in the laboratory turning into tumors or cells they weren't expected to become......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 8, 2010, 6:44 AM CT

Sleep problems in US soldiers returning from wartime deployment

There is an extremely high prevalence of sleep disturbances in U.S. soldiers returning from wartime deployment, as per a research abstract that will be presented Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

Results indicate that 86 percent of participants had sleep disturbances upon return from deployment and 45 days later even though the majority of them had no signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression. Soldiers were more likely to have sleep disturbances if they had a personal history of sleep problems, symptoms of physical illness or mild traumatic brain injury.

"This is the first study to describe the prevalence of sleep disturbances at two different time points in soldiers returning from deployment without any apparent physical trauma from blasts or amputation," said principal investigator Major Betty Garner, PhD, a nurse scientist in the Nursing Research Office at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Gera number of. "The most surprising finding from this small preliminary sample was the extremely high percentage of sleep disturbances in soldiers even 45 days after they returned from wartime deployment back to the United States - the safe zone"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 8, 2010, 6:42 AM CT

Planes, trains and automobiles

Nighttime noise from nearby road traffic, passing trains and overhead planes disturbs sleep and impairs morning performance, as per a research abstract that will be presented Tuesday, June 8, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

Results indicate that mean reaction time on a morning psychomotor vigilance task slowed significantly by 3.6 ms after exposure to recorded traffic noise during sleep, and the slowing of reaction times was directly and significantly correlation to increases in both the frequency and sound-pressure level of the nightly noise events. The sound of passing trains caused the highest awakening and arousal probabilities followed by automobile traffic and airplane noise. However, this ranking was not reflected in the measures of morning neurobehavioral performance, as each mode of noise caused a similar level of impairment. Furthermore, exposure to more than one of the three modes of traffic noise did not lead to stronger performance impairments than exposure to only one noise source.

"The study demonstrated that traffic noise may disturb sleep and consequently impede recuperation, as was shown by deterioration of neurobehavioral performance," said main author Dr. Eva-Maria Elmenhorst, postdoctoral research fellow at the German Aerospace Center Institute of Aerospace Medicine in Cologne, Gera number of. "The study therefore stresses the importance of sleep hygiene in terms of a quiet environment for healthy, undisturbed sleep"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 7, 2010, 6:40 AM CT

Long Term Insomnia May Increase Mortality

Individuals with chronic insomnia have an elevated risk of death, as per a research abstract that will be presented Monday, June 7, 2010, in San Antonio, Texas, at SLEEP 2010, the 24th annual meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC.

Results indicate that the adjusted hazard ratio for all-cause mortality was three times higher in people with chronic insomnia (HR = 3.0) than in people without insomnia. When examining individual subtypes of insomnia, the risk of death was elevated, regardless of which subtype people reported. The risk of death in the four subtypes was two to three times higher in individuals with: chronic early-awakening insomnia (HR = 3.0), chronic sleep-maintenance insomnia who had difficulty getting back to sleep (HR = 3.0), chronic sleep-onset insomnia (HR = 2.4), and chronic sleep-maintenance insomnia who awakened repeatedly during the night (HR = 2.3).

"The most surprising result was the increased high risk for mortality among individuals with chronic insomnia versus those without insomnia, even after adjustment for all of the potential confounding variables" said main author Laurel Finn, biostatistician at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. "The other important finding was the non-differentiation between subtypes of insomnia with respect to mortality risk"......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

May 21, 2010, 7:15 AM CT

Americans Split on Speed of Drug Approval Process

Nearly three-quarters of Americans are confident in our system for reviewing the effectiveness and safety of new medicines and medical devices, yet 41% say it takes too long to approve a drug and allow it to be sold to consumers. These are among the findings in a new poll from Research!America (pdf).

Three-quarters of Americans accurately named the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as the government agency that regulates products such as new drugs and medical devices, and a majority (72%) says they see the FDA as a trustworthy source of medical research information.

When asked the most important role of the FDA, 59% say protecting the safety of Americans; 17% say providing accurate information about benefits and risks linked to medicines and medical products; and 7% say regulating companies that produce medicines and medical products.

"Public expectations for medical progress are very high-Americans want new drugs and medical devices delivered faster, and they rightly want safety to be a top priority," said Mary Woolley, president and CEO of Research!America."To meet these expectations, resources for FDA and our nation's health research agencies-the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-need to keep pace so they can fulfill their missions, and the public needs to let elected officials know how important these issues are."........ Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

May 15, 2010, 8:53 PM CT

Potent new hepatitis C drug

The first clinical trials have started on a new investigational drug, discovered by scientists at Cardiff University, which is being developed to treat infections caused by Hepatitis C virus.

Approximately 170 million people worldwide are affected with Hepatitis C, which can lead to liver cancer, cirrhosis and death. It is the leading cause of liver transplantation in western countries. The current therapy involves two drugs ribavirin and interferon, which has to be given as an injection. Side effects are often severe and lead to patients failing to complete the therapy.

The new drug, INX-189, is taken orally and was first prepared at the Welsh School of Pharmacy in November 2008. Laboratory tests showed it killed 90 per cent of the virus at very low (nanomolar) concentration, making it one of the most potent compounds of its kind developed to date.

US pharmaceutical company Inhibitex, which owns the licence to INX-189 and has been working with the Cardiff team, has now started trials in healthy volunteers to assess the compound's safety. A second trial, which would evaluate the compound's effectiveness on Hepatitis patients, may follow later this year.

Professor Chris McGuigan of the Welsh School of Pharmacy, academic lead on the project, said: "This is still a very early stage of the trials process. However, progress has been encouraging so far, going from the laboratory to human trials within 18 months. We think that INX-189 offers the possibility of more potency against Hepatitis, more rapid action in the liver, and fewer side effects than existing therapys."........ Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source