July 2, 2009, 10:01 PM CT

How tamoxifen stimulates uterine cell growth and cancer

UCSF scientists have identified a new "feed-forward" pathway linking estrogen receptors in the membrane of the uterus to a process that increases local estrogen levels and promotes cell growth.

The research is significant in helping determine why tamoxifen and other synthetic estrogens are associated with increased rates of endometriosis and uterine cancer, and identifies a pathway that could be targeted in drug therapies for those diseases, scientists say.

Findings are reported in the July 1, 2009 issue of "Cancer Research," the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. The paper also can be found online at http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/current.shtml.

The research observed that when activated by estrogens, endometrial cells obtained from patients suffering from endometriosis or human uterine cancer cells initiate a previously unknown cascade of signals that leads to cellular replication and further estrogen production, the paper says.

The ensuing cycle leads to abnormal growth of the cells lining the uterus, or endometrium, which occurs in endometriosis and uterine cancer, as per senior author Holly A. Ingraham, PhD, a professor in the UCSF School of Medicine's Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 25, 2009, 7:26 PM CT

Remembering what to remember and what to forget

People in very early stages of Alzheimer's disease already have trouble focusing on what is important to remember, a UCLA psychology expert and his colleagues report.

"One of the first telltale signs of Alzheimer's disease appears to be not memory problems, but failure to control attention," said Alan Castel, UCLA assistant professor of psychology and main author of the study.

The study consisted of three groups: 109 healthy elderly adults (68 of them female), with an average age of just under 75; 54 elderly adults (22 of them female) with very mild Alzheimer's disease, who were functioning fine in their daily lives, with an average age of just under 76; and 35 young adults, with an average age of 19.

They were presented with eight lists of 12 words, one word at a time, each paired with a point value from 1 to 12. A new word with its value was presented on a screen every second. The words were common, like "table," "wallet" and "apple." They were given 30 seconds to recall the words, and were told to maximize their scores, by focusing on remembering the high-value words.

The young adults were selective, remembering more of the high-value words than the low-value words. They recalled an average of 5.7 words out of 12. The healthy elderly adults remembered fewer words, an average of 3.5, but were equally selective in recalling the high-value words......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

June 25, 2009, 6:49 PM CT

Big Tobacco dead by 2047

President Barack Obama's signature on a bill this week to grant the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulatory authority over tobacco was historic, and represents a step in the march to eliminate tobacco use in this country by 2047, two national tobacco experts said today (June 25).

The pair published "Stealing a March in the 21st Century: Accelerating Progress in the 100-Year War Against Tobacco Addiction in the United States" in the recent issue of the American Journal of Public Health Michael Fiore and Timothy Baker, director and associate director of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention (UW-CTRI), respectively, chart milestones in beating tobacco addiction and map a battle plan to eradicate tobacco use in the next few decades. The scientists analyzed data from the 1960s, when the first systemic tracking of smoking rates began, until the present.

"Numerous observers have claimed over time that tobacco use has plateaued and progress against its use has stalled," the authors write. "However, the remarkable decline in rates of tobacco use since the 1960s belies this claim and underscores the remarkable success of tobacco control efforts to date."

Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show adults smoking between 1965 and 2007 dropped by an average of one half of one percentage point per year, from 42 percent to the current rate of about 20 percent rate. While this rate of decline hasn't occurred each year, the overall decrease has been quite steady......... Posted by: Scott      Read more         Source

June 25, 2009, 6:06 PM CT

Selenium intake may worsen prostate cancer

Higher selenium levels in the blood may worsen prostate cancer in some men who already have the disease, as per a research studyby scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute the University of California, San Francisco.

A higher risk of more-aggressive prostate cancer was seen in men with a certain genetic variant found in about 75 percent of the patients with prostate cancer in the study. In those subjects, having a high level of selenium in the blood was linked to a two hundred percent greater risk of poorer outcomes than men with the lowest amounts of selenium. By contrast, the 25 percent of men with a different variant of the same gene and who had high selenium levels were at 40 percent lower risk of aggressive disease. The variants are slightly different forms of a gene that instructs cells to make manganese superoxide dismutase (SOD2), an enzyme that protects the body against harmful oxygen compounds.

The research findings suggest that "if you already have prostate cancer, it appears to be a bad thing to take selenium," says Philip Kantoff, MD, director of Dana-Farber's Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology and senior author of the study that is published by the Journal of Clinical Oncology on its website now and later will be in a print journal. The main author is June Chan, ScD, of the University of California, San Francisco......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 25, 2009, 6:01 PM CT

More gene mutations linked to autism risk

More pieces in the complex autism inheritance puzzle are emerging in the latest study from a research team including geneticists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and several collaborating institutions. This study identified 27 different genetic regions where rare copy number variations missing or extra copies of DNA segments were found in the genes of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), but not in the healthy controls. The complex combination of multiple genetic duplications and deletions is thought to interfere with gene function, which can disrupt the production of proteins necessary for normal neurological development.

"We focused on changes in the exons of DNAprotein-coding areas in which deletions or duplications are more likely to directly disrupt biological functions," said study leader Hakon Hakonarson, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Applied Genomics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. "We identified additional autism susceptibility genes, a number of of which, as we previously found, belong to the neuronal cell adhesion molecule family involved in the development of brain circuitry in early childhood." He added that the team discovered a number of "private" gene mutations, those found only in one or a few individuals or familiesan indication of genetic complexity, in which a number of different gene changes may contribute to an autism spectrum disorder......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 25, 2009, 5:54 PM CT

MRI for imaging breast cancer?

Reviewing the records of 577 patients with breast cancer, Fox Chase Cancer Center scientists observed that women with newly diagnosed breast cancer who receive a breast MRI are more likely to receive a mastectomy after their diagnosis and may face delays in starting therapy. The study demonstrates that, despite the lack of evidence of their benefit, routine use of MRI scans in women newly diagnosed with breast cancer increased significantly between 2004 and 2005, and again in 2006.

The study is online now and will be appearing in the August edition of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons

"We have yet to see any evidence that MRI improves outcomes when used routinely to evaluate breast cancer, and yet more and more women are getting these scans with almost no discernable pattern," said Richard J. Bleicher, M.D., F.A.C.S., a specialist in breast cancer surgery at Fox Chase. "For most women, a breast MRI previous to therapy is unnecessary. MRI can be of benefit because it's more sensitive, but with the high number of false positives and costs linked to the test, more research is needed to determine whether MRI can improve outcomes in women who have already been diagnosed with breast cancer".

Bleicher and colleagues evaluated the records of 577 patients with breast cancer seen in a multidisciplinary breast clinic where they were reviewed by a radiologist, pathologist, and a surgical, radiation, and medical oncologist. Of these patients, 130 had MRIs previous to therapy......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 23, 2009, 5:13 PM CT

Underweight and extremely obese die earlier

Underweight people and those who are extremely obese die earlier than people of normal weightbut those who are overweight actually live longer than people of normal weight. Those are the findings of a newly released study published online in Obesity by scientists at Statistics Canada, Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, Portland State University, Oregon Health & Science University, and McGill University.

"It's not surprising that extreme underweight and extreme obesity increase the risk of dying, but it is surprising that carrying a little extra weight may give people a longevity advantage," said David Feeny, PhD, coauthor of the study and senior investigator for the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research.

"It appears to be that a few extra pounds actually protect older people as their health declines, but that doesn't mean that people in the normal weight range should try to put on a few pounds," said Mark Kaplan, DrPH, coauthor and Professor of Community Health at Portland State University. "Our study only looked at mortality, not at quality of life, and there are a number of negative health consequences linked to obesity, including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes".

"Good health is more than a BMI or a number on a scale. We know that people who choose a healthy lifestyle enjoy better health: good food choices, being physically active everyday, managing stress, and keeping blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar levels in check," said Keith Bachman MD, a weight management specialist with Kaiser Permanente's Care Management Institute......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 23, 2009, 5:11 PM CT

New therapy to prevent heart failure

A landmark study has successfully demonstrated a 29 percent reduction in heart failure or death in patients with heart disease who received an implanted cardiac resynchronization treatment device with defibrillator (CRT-D) versus patients who received only an implanted cardiac defibrillator (ICD-only).

MADIT-CRT (Multicenter Automatic Defibrillator Implantation Trial with Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy) is a clinical trial that enrolled more than 1,800 patients in the United States, Canada and Europe and followed the patients for up to 4 years. The results of the trial were released recently by the University of Rochester Medical Center and Boston Scientific, the study's sponsor. The MADIT-CRT Executive Committee stopped the trial on June 22, 2009, when the trial achieved its primary end point significant reduction in heart failure or death with CRT-D versus ICD-only. Heart specialist Arthur Moss, M.D., professor of Medicine at the University of Rochester Medical Center, led the MADIT-CRT trial.

A previous study (MADIT-II) by Moss and associates in 2002 showed the ICD was effective in reducing mortality. The current MADIT-CRT study sought to determine if CRT-D could reduce the risk of mortality and heart failure, which affects 5.7 million Americans, and the results are very positive......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

June 23, 2009, 5:09 PM CT

Morning people and night owls

Are you a "morning person" or a "night owl?".

Researchers at the University of Alberta have observed that there are significant differences in the way our brains function depending on whether we're early risers or night owls.

Neuroresearchers in the Faculty of Physical Education and Recreation looked at two groups of people: those who wake up early and feel most productive in the morning, and those who were identified as evening people, those who typically felt livelier at night. Study participants were initially grouped after completing a standardized questionnaire about their habits.

Using magnetic resonance imaging-guided brain stimulation, researchers tested muscle torque and the excitability of pathways through the spinal cord and brain. They observed that morning people's brains were most excitable at 9 a.m. This slowly decreased through the day. It was the polar opposite for evening people, whose brains were most excitable at 9 p.m.

Other major findings:

• Evening people became physically stronger throughout the day, but the maximum amount of force morning people could produce remained the same.
• The excitability of reflex pathways that travel through the spinal cord increased over the day for each of these two groups.

........ Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

June 21, 2009, 9:28 PM CT

Dramatic outcomes in prostate cancer study

Two Mayo Clinic patients whose prostate cancer had been considered inoperable are now cancer free thanks in part to an experimental drug treatment that was used in combination with standardized hormone therapy and radiation treatment. The men were participating in a clinical trial of an immunotherapeutic agent called MDX-010 or ipilimumab. In these two cases, physicians say the approach initiated the death of a majority of cancer cells and caused the tumors to shrink dramatically, allowing surgery. In both cases, the aggressive tumors had grown well beyond the prostate into the abdominal areas.

"The goal of the study was to see if we could modestly improve upon current therapys for advanced prostate cancer," says Eugene Kwon, M.D., Mayo Clinic urologist and leader of the clinical trial. "The candidates for this study were people who didn't have a lot of other options. However, we were startled to see responses that far exceeded any of our expectations".

The patients first received a type of hormone treatment called androgen ablation, which removes testosterone and commonly causes some initial reduction in tumor size. Scientists then introduced a single dose of ipilimumab, an antibody, which builds on the anti-tumor action of the hormone and causes a much larger immune response, resulting in massive death of the tumor cells. Both men experienced consistent drops in their prostate specific antigen (PSA) counts over the following weeks until both were deemed eligible for surgery. Then, during surgery, came a greater surprise......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 21, 2009, 8:44 PM CT

Combined antiviral and targeted chemotherapy

A discovery by a team of Canadian and American scientists could provide new ways to fight HIV-AIDS. As per a newly released study published in Nature Medicine, HIV-AIDS could be treated through a combination of targeted chemotherapy and current Highly Active Retroviral (HAART) therapys. This radical new treatment would make it possible to destroy both the viruses circulating in the body as well as those playing hide-and-seek in immune system cells.

The study was led by Dr. Rafick-Pierre Skaly, of the Universit de Montral. Dr. Jean-Pierre Routy of the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) and researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the University of Minnesota in the United States also collaborated on the investigation.

To date, anti-AIDS therapys have been stymied by "HIV reservoirs" immune system cells where the virus hides and where existing HAART therapys cannot reach. The scientists successfully identified the cells where HIV hides and the "stealth" mechanisms that allow the virus to escape existing therapys. This breakthrough opens the way towards innovative therapies that are completely different from current approaches.

"Our results argue in favour of a strategy similar to the one used against leukemia, which is targeted chemotherapy, linked to a targeted immune therapy. This would make it possible to destroy the cells containing a virus, while giving the immune system time to regenerate with healthy cells," says Dr. Rafick-Pierre Skaly, a professor at the Universit de Montral, researcher at the Centre Hospitalier de Universit de Montral (CHUM), director of INSERM 743 and scientific director of the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute of Florida......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 21, 2009, 8:42 PM CT

How obesity increases the risk for diabetes

Obesity is probably the most important factor in the development of insulin resistance, but science's understanding of the chain of events is still spotty. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have filled in the gap and identified the missing link between the two. Their findings, to be reported in the June 21, 2009 advance online edition of the journal Nature, explain how obesity sets the stage for diabetes and why thin people can become insulin-resistant.

The Salk team, led by Marc Montminy, Ph.D., a professor in the Clayton Foundation Laboratories for Peptide Biology, discovered how a condition known as ER (endoplasmic reticulum) stress, which is induced by a high fat diet and is overly activated in obese people, triggers aberrant glucose production in the liver, an important step on the path to insulin resistance.

In healthy people, a "fasting switch" only flips on glucose production when blood glucose levels run low during fasting. "The existence of a second cellular signaling cascadelike an alternate route from A to Bthat can modulate glucose production, presents the potential to identify new classes of drugs that might help to lower blood sugar by disrupting this alternative pathway," says Montminy.

It had been well established that obesity promotes insulin resistance through the inappropriate inactivation of a process called gluconeogenesis, where the liver creates glucose for fuel and which ordinarily occurs only in times of fasting. Yet, not all obese people become insulin resistant, and insulin resistance occurs in non-obese individuals, leading Montminy and colleagues to suspect that fasting-induced glucose production was only half the story......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 16, 2009, 9:38 PM CT

Statins don't lower risk of pneumonia

Taking popular cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, such as Lipitor (atorvastatin), does not lower the risk of pneumonia. That's the new finding from a study of more than 3,000 Group Health patients published online on June 16 in advance of the British Medical Journal's June 20 print issue.

"Previous research based on automated claims data had raised some hopeand maybe some hypefor statins as a way to prevent and treat infections including pneumonia," said Sascha Dublin, MD, PhD, a doctor at Group Health and assistant investigator at Group Health Center for Health Studies. "But when we used medical records to get more detailed information about patients, our findings didn't support that approach".

In fact, Dublin's population-based case-control study observed that pneumonia risk was, if anything, slightly higher (26%) in people using a statin than in those not using any; and this extra risk was even higher (61%) for pneumonia severe enough to require being hospitalized.

"As a doctor, I'm a fan of statins for what they've been proven to do: lowering cholesterol and risk of heart disease and stroke in people who've had either disease or are at risk for them," said Dublin. Statins are HMG coenzyme A reductase inhibitors, which also include Zocor (simvastatin) and Mevacor (lovastatin). This class of medications lessens inflammation, which plays a role in infections......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 16, 2009, 5:06 AM CT

Predicting Fatal Fungal Infections

As per a research findings published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases, scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have identified cells in blood that predict which HIV-positive individuals are most likely to develop deadly fungal meningitis, a major cause of HIV-related death. This form of meningitis affects more than 900,000 HIV-infected people globally-most of them in sub-Saharan Africa and other areas of the world where antiretroviral treatment for HIV is not available.

A major cause of fungal meningitis is Cryptococcus neoformans, a yeast-like fungus usually found in soil and in bird droppings. Virtually everyone has been infected with Cryptococcus neoformans, but a healthy immune system keeps the infection from ever causing disease.

The risk of developing fungal meningitis from Cryptococcus neoformans rises dramatically when people have weakened immunity, due to HIV infection or other reasons including the use of immunosuppressive drugs after organ transplantation, or for treating autoimmune diseases or cancer. Knowing which patients are most likely to develop fungal meningitis would allow costly drugs for preventing fungal disease to be targeted to those most in need. (In the U.S., the widespread use of antiretroviral treatment by HIV-infected people, and their preventive use of anti-fungal drugs, has dramatically reduced their rate of fungal meningitis from Cryptococcus neoformans to about 2%.)......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 16, 2009, 5:03 AM CT

RNA snippet suppresses spread of aggressive breast cancer

A low cellular level of a tiny fragment of RNA appears to increase the spread of breast cancer in mouse models of the disease, as per scientists at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Measuring levels of this so-called microRNA, which is also linked to metastatic breast cancer in humans, may more accurately predict the likelihood of metastasis (which accounts for 90% of cancer-related deaths) and ultimately help determine patient prognoses.

In the study, whose results are published in the June 12 issue of Cell, Scott Valastyan, a graduate student in Whitehead Member Robert Weinberg's laboratory, screened patient breast cancer samples for microRNAs with potential roles in metastasis. MicroRNAs are single strands of RNA about 21-23 nucleotides long. Within a cell, a single microRNA can fine-tune the expression of dozens of genes simultaneously. This capability could be especially important in metastasis, a multi-step process that could be influenced by a single microRNA at several points.

The screened samples were classified as either metastatic cancer or non-metastatic cancer. After analysis, the microRNA miR-31 stood out because of its inverse correlation with metastasis. In samples where a patient's original tumor had not metastasized, the cancer cells retained high levels of the microRNA. But where the tumor had metastasized, the cancer cells came to possess lower levels of miR-31......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 16, 2009, 4:56 AM CT

Why do we choose our mates?

Charles Darwin wrote about it 150 years ago: animals don't pick their mates by pure chance it's a process that is deliberate and involves numerous factors. After decades of examining his work, experts agree that he pretty much scored a scientific bullseye, but a very big question is, "What have we learned since then?" asks a Texas A&M University biologist who has studied Darwin's theories.

Adam Jones, an evolutional biologist who has studied Darwin's work for years, says that Darwin's beliefs about the choice of mates and sexual selection being beyond mere chance have been proven correct, as stated in Darwin's landmark book The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. His work has withstood decades of analysis and scrutiny, as Jones states in his paper, "Mate Choice and Sexual Selection: What Have We Learned Since Darwin?" in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Bottom line: It's no accident that certain peahens submit to gloriously-colored male peacocks, that lions get the females of their choice or that humans spend hours primping to catch the perfect spouses it's a condition that is ingrained into all creatures and a conscious "choice" is made between the two so the romantic fireworks can begin.

Jones says Darwin set the standard for original thinking about animal reproduction and was first scientist to propose plausible mechanisms of evolution, and from there he took it one step further he confirmed that animals' mating choices can drive evolutionary change......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 12, 2009, 5:24 AM CT

Why smoking increases the risk of heart disease and strokes?

Scientists at Charles Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles and Western University of Health Sciences in Pomona have discovered a reason why smoking increases the risk of heart disease and strokes.

The study, which will be presented Thursday, June 11 at The Endocrine Society's 91st annual meeting in Washington, D.C., observed that nicotine in cigarettes promotes insulin resistance, a pre-diabetic condition that raises blood sugar levels higher than normal. People with pre-diabetes are at greater risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

Theodore Friedman, MD, Ph.D., chief of the endocrinology division at Charles Drew University, said the findings help explain a "paradox" that links smoking to heart disease.

Smokers experience a high degree of cardiovascular deaths, Friedman said. "This is surprising considering both smoking and nicotine may cause weight loss and weight loss should protect against cardiovascular disease".

The scientists studied the effects of twice-daily injections of nicotine on 24 adult mice over two weeks. The nicotine-injected mice ate less food, lost weight and had less fat than control mice that received injections without nicotine.

"Our results in mice show that nicotine administration leads to both weight loss and decreased food intake," Friedman said. "Mice exposed to nicotine have less fat. In spite of this, mice have abnormal glucose tolerance and are insulin resistant (pre-diabetes)."........ Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

June 12, 2009, 5:22 AM CT

Gene therapy technique for cancer by cutting off blood supply

University of Florida scientists have come up with a new gene treatment method to disrupt cancer growth by using a synthetic protein to induce blood clotting that cuts off a tumor's blood and nutrient supply.

In mice implanted with human colorectal cancer cells, tumor volume decreased 53 percent and cancer cell growth slowed by 49 percent in those treated with a gene that encodes for the artificial protein, compared with those that were untreated.

The research team, led by Dr. Bradley S. Fletcher, an assistant professor of pharmacology and therapeutics in the College of Medicine, created the so-called fusion protein to target another protein called tumor endothelial marker 8, or TEM8, which was recently found to be preferentially expressed in the inner lining of tumor vessels. Such differences in protein expression enable delivery of drug molecules to the cells that harbor these proteins.

"The protein we created did a very good job of homing to the tumor and binding," said Stephen Fernando, who recently completed his doctoral studies. "By targeting TEM8, we can potentially create a treatment against cancer".

The Fletcher group is the first to target cancer cells through protein binding to TEM8. The findings, now available online, are featured on the cover of the June 15 edition of Cancer Research........ Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 12, 2009, 5:20 AM CT

Simple chemical system that mimics DNA

A team of Scripps Research researchers has created a new analog to DNA that assembles and disassembles itself without the need for enzymes. Because the new system comprises components that might reasonably be expected in a primordial world, the new chemical system could answer questions about how life could emerge.

The work, published in the June 11, 2009 issue of Science Express, an advance, online publication of the journal Science, might also be a starting point on the way to exotic new materials that repair themselves or transform in response to their environment.

Researchers are both bemused and fascinated by the question of how life could have arisen on Earth. One of the most prominent theories is that, before the emergence of DNA, the earliest forms of life used RNA to transmit their genetic codes. The late Leslie Orgel, a co-author of the new paper, first suggested this idea, known as the "RNA World".

One of the theory's challenges is that RNA is still so complex that a number of scientists believer something still simpler must have preceded it. "I have been working for years to learn what replicators and genetic systems might have come before the advent of the RNA World," says team leader of the new research Professor Reza Ghadiri, a Scripps Research chemist......... Posted by: Scott      Read more         Source

June 12, 2009, 5:19 AM CT

Fingerprints do not improve grip friction

Fingerprints mark us out as individuals and leave telltale signs of our presence on every object that we touch, but what are fingerprints really for? As per Roland Ennos, from the University of Manchester, other primates and tree-climbing koalas have fingerprints and some South American monkeys have ridged pads on their tree-gripping tails, so everyone presumed that fingerprints are there to help us hang onto objects that we grasp. This theory that fingerprints increase friction between the skin and whatever we grab onto has been around for over 100 years, but no one had directly tested the idea. Having already figured out why we have fingernails, Ennos was keen to find out whether fingerprints improve our grip, so he recruited Manchester undergraduate Peter Warman to test out fingerprint friction and publishes his results on June 12 2009 in the Journal of Experimental Biology at http://jeb.biologists.org.

Because the friction between two solid materials is commonly correlation to the force of one of the materials pressing against the other, Ennos and Warman had to find a way of pushing a piece of acrylic glass (Perspex) against Warman's finger before pulling the Perspex along the student's finger to measure the amount of friction between the two. Ennos designed a system that could produce forces ranging from a gentle touch to a tight grip, and then Warman strapped his index finger into the machine to begin measuring his fingerprint's friction......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 11, 2009, 5:15 AM CT

What causes multiple sclerosis?

Over 100,000 people suffer from multiple sclerosis in Gera number of alone. Despite intensive research, the factors that trigger the disease and influence its progress remain unclear. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology in Martinsried and an international research team have succeeded in attaining three important new insights into the disease. It would appear that B cells play an unexpected role in the spontaneous development of multiple sclerosis and that especially aggressive T cells are activated by different proteins. Furthermore, a new animal model is helping the researchers to understand the emergence of the most common form of the disease in Gera number of. (Nature Medicine, May 31, 2009 & Journal of Experimental Medicine, June 1, 2009).

Multiple Sclerosis (MS) poses enormous problems for both patients and doctors: it is the most common inflammatory disease of the central nervous system in our part of the world and often strikes patients at a relatively young age. In some patients it leads to severe disability. Moreover, despite decades of research on MS, the causes and course of the disease are still largely unclear.

There is much evidence to support the fact that MS is triggered by an autoimmune reaction: immune cells that should actually protect the body against threats like viruses, bacteria and tumours, attack the body's own brain tissue. New therapys now available can attenuate the harmful immune reaction and thus delay the progress of the disease. However, the more effective the therapy, the more serious its side effects. Therefore, it is a matter of extreme urgency that new forms of therapy be developed which can differentiate in a targeted way between the immune cells that cause the disease and those that should be protected. A better understanding of the disease is mandatory in order to achieve this......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

June 11, 2009, 5:11 AM CT

Depressed mood may lead to premature birth

Scientists trying to uncover why premature birth is a growing problem in the United States and one that disproportionately affects black women have observed that pre-pregnancy depressive mood may be a risk factor in preterm birth among both blacks and whites.

Black women, however, have nearly two times the odds of having a preterm birth in comparison to white women, as per Amelia Gavin, a University of Washington assistant professor of social work and main author of a newly released study that appears online in the recent issue of the Journal of Women's Health.

"Preterm births are one of the most significant health disparities in the United States and the overall number of these births increased from 10.6 percent in 2000 to 12.8 percent in 2005," she said.

While there may be some sort of link between giving birth prematurely and depressed mood, the study found no cause and effect, said Gavin, who studies health disparities. She believes the higher preterm birth rate among blacks appears to be the result of declining health over time among black women.

For this study, premature birth referred to any child born after less than 37 weeks of gestation. Normal gestation ranges from 38 to 42 weeks. Data for the study was drawn from a larger longitudinal investigation looking at the risks for cardiovascular disease among more than 5,000 young adults in four metropolitan areas. The Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study also collected information about mental health and pregnancy outcomes. Between 1990 and 1996, 555 women in the larger study gave birth. These women were the subjects in the depression-premature birth study......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 11, 2009, 5:06 AM CT

Abnormal sleep pattern linked to weight gain

Body Mass Index (BMI) varies as a function of habitual sleep duration, as per a research abstract that will be presented on Thursday, June 11, at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Results indicate that twins who slept between 7 and 8.9 hours each night had a lower mean BMI (25.0 kg/m2) in comparison to those who regularly slept either more (25.2 kg/m2) or less (26.4 kg/m2) per night. The relationship between sleep duration and BMI remained after controlling for genetics and shared environment.

As per the main author of the story, Nathaniel Watson, MD, co-director at the University of Washington Sleep Institute, in Seattle, sleep habits have a significant impact on weight and BMI.

"Findings of the study point towards an environmental cause of the relationship between sleep duration and BMI," said Watson. "Results were robust enough to be present when the sample was limited to identical twins."

The study included data from 1,797 twins, including 634 twin pairs (437 monozygotic, 150 dizygotic and 47 indeterminate pairs) and 529 individual twins with a mean age of 36.8. Habitual sleep duration was obtained by self-reported length of sleep per night and BMI was calculated by self-reported height and weight. Of the sample, 68.3 percent female, 88.2 percent were Caucasian. Results persisted in a co-twin control analysis of within twin pair differences in sleep duration and BMI......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 11, 2009, 5:03 AM CT

Snoring pregnant women

If you are pregnant and your mate complains your frequent snoring is rattling the bedroom windows, you may have bigger problems than an annoyed, sleep-deprived partner.

A newly released study from scientists at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has observed that women who reported frequent snoring during their pregnancy were more likely to develop gestational diabetes -- a condition than can cause health problems for the mother and baby. The study also found pregnancy increases the likelihood that a woman will snore.

This is the first study to report a link between snoring and gestational diabetes.

For the study, 189 healthy women completed a sleep survey at the time of enrollment (six to 20 weeks gestation) and in the third trimester.

Pregnant women who were frequent snorers had a 14.3 percent chance of developing gestational diabetes, while women who did not snore had a 3.3 percent chance. Even when scientists controlled for other factors that could contribute to gestational diabetes such as body mass index, age, race and ethnicity, frequent snoring was still.

linked to the disease.

Principal investigator Francesca Facco, M.D., a fellow at Northwestern's Feinberg School, will present her findings at the SLEEP 2009 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies June 11......... Posted by: Emily      Read more         Source

June 10, 2009, 9:46 PM CT

Four new targets for breast cancer

Four suspects often found at the scene of the crime in cancer are guilty of the initiation and progression of breast cancer in mice that are resistant to the disease, a team led by researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reports in the June edition of Cancer Cell

"We have a smoking gun" that shows it's no coincidence the three protein receptors and the enzyme that makes them are abnormally expressed in a number of types of cancer, said Gordon Mills, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of M. D. Anderson's Department of Systems Biology and senior author of the paper.

"We've compiled lots of evidence that they are linked to cancer, what's been missing is proof that they could cause cancer," Mills said. "There are no questions left, they should be targeted."

The four are three lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) receptors (LPA1, LPA2, and LPA3) and the LPA-producing enzyme, autotaxin. "Lysophosphatidic acid", Mills said, "is the single most potent known cellular survival factor." LPA binds to a series of G protein-coupled receptors to spark normal cell proliferation, viability, production of growth factors and survival. The Cancer Cell paper shows this powerful network is hijacked to initiate breast cancer and fuel tumor growth, invasion and metastasis......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 10, 2009, 9:32 PM CT

HIV-1's 'hijacking mechanism

Scientists at McGill University and the affiliated Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research at Montreal's Jewish General Hospital along with colleagues at the University of Manitoba and the University of British Columbia may have found a chink in the armour of the human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1), the microorganism which causes AIDS. They have pinpointed the key cellular machinery co-opted by HIV-1 to hijack the human cell for its own benefit. Their study was published in May in the Journal of Biological Chemistry

Once a cell is infected with HIV-1, activation of the virus's gene generates a large HIV-1 RNA molecule known as the RNA genome. This is then transported from the cell nucleus to the inner surface of the plasma membrane. The RNA genome can produce both structural proteins and enzymes, but once it arrives at the plasma membrane it can also assemble into new copies of the virus that actually bud out of the cell. Dr. Andrew J. Mouland and colleagues have discovered how the RNA genome gets transported or trafficked from the nucleus to the plasma membrane.

"There is a highway inside the human cell," explained Dr. Mouland, Associate Professor at McGill's Departments of Medicine and Microbiology and Immunology and head of the HIV-1 RNA Trafficking Laboratory at the Lady Davis Institute. "When you drive your car to Toronto you're 'trafficking' the items in your trunk. Similarly, what we have shown is that HIV-1 commandeers the host cell's endosomal machinery to traffic its structural proteins and RNA genome. Imagine that it's essentially jumping on board for the ride and directing it to where it needs to go. This trafficking can occur very fast in cells; so this is how these key components of HIV-1 so efficiently get to the plasma membrane, where the virus can begin to assemble......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 10, 2009, 9:02 PM CT

Now you can buy a kit to test for prostate cancer

An over-the-counter prostate cancer test kit could be coming to a pharmacy near you, thanks to the collaborative work of a University of Central Florida chemist and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Orlando researchers.

UCF's Qun "Treen" Huo and M.D. Anderson-Orlando's Dr. Cheryl Baker and Jimmie Colon teamed up about 18 months ago with a very ambitious plan. Huo wanted to develop an effective, inexpensive test to screen for prostate cancer that would be easy enough to use at home or a local pharmacy.

"Now cancer tests are so inconvenient and expensive, and a lot of people don't have insurance, so they are not likely to test if they have no symptoms," Huo said. "Cancer is really scary because there aren't a lot of symptoms in the early stages. So I said, 'Why not create a test that is easy and inexpensive? Then more people can test and catch cancer early so it can be treated early.'".

Prostate cancer affects one of every six men and is the second-most common cancer among men in the United States, as per the American Cancer Society. It is estimated that more than 2 million American men are currently living with prostate cancer and that one new case occurs every 2.7 minutes. More than 27,000 men die from the disease each year, as per the American Cancer Society......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 10, 2009, 8:44 PM CT

Tamoxifen resistance

Tamoxifen is a widely used and highly successful drug in the treatment of breast cancer, though resistance to tamoxifen is still a concern in recurrent disease (affecting 25-35% of patients), since therapy resistant metastatic tumor cells are a major cause of death. In a study in this month's Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, researchers have uncovered a protein profile that may accurately predict whether a cancer will be tamoxifen resistant.

Arzu Umar and colleagues in the Netherlands and Washington examined thousands of tumor cells taken from 51 tamoxifen therapy-sensitive and therapy-resistant tumors using a combination of proteomic and mass-spectrometry approaches. Their analysis revealed a set of 100 proteins that were expressed at different abundance levels in the two tumor groups, highlighting a potential profile for tamoxifen resistance.

In addition, they analyzed the most significantly altered protein, called extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer, or EMMPRIN, in a separate set 156 breast tumor tissue samples. EMMPRIN levels were higher in tamoxifen-resistant tumors and significantly associated with an earlier tumor progression following first line tamoxifen treatment and poor clinical outcome, suggesting EMMPRIN may be a reliable marker for highly aggressive breast cancer......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 9, 2009, 5:14 AM CT

Diabetes patients should have regular exercise

To reduce their cardiovascular risk, people with type 2 diabetes should do at least two-and-a-half hours per week of moderate-intensity or one-and-a-half hours per week of vigorous-intensity aerobic exercises, plus some weight training, as per an American Heart Association scientific statement published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

The global increase in overweight and obesity has led to an "unprecedented epidemic" in type 2 diabetes (when the body is unable to use insulin efficiently to help turn glucose, or blood sugar, into energy for the body's cells). In 2007, type 2 diabetes in the United States cost an estimated $174 billion in direct medical costs and indirect costs such as disability, lost productivity and premature death. That amount represents a 30 percent increase from the $132 billion estimated in 2002, as per the statement.

Furthermore, heart and blood vessel disease is responsible for nearly 70 percent of deaths in people with type 2 diabetes.

"Given the observed increases in type 2 diabetes in adults over the last few decades in developed countries, and the increasing numbers of overweight and obese individuals throughout the world, we must look at ways to reduce the cardiovascular complications of diabetes, and exercise is one of those ways," said Thomas H. Marwick, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the writing group and professor of medicine and director of the Centre of Clinical Research Excellence in Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disease at the University of Queensland School of Medicine in Brisbane, Australia......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

June 9, 2009, 5:02 AM CT

Computer-related injuries on the rise

While back pain, blurred vision and mouse-related injuries are now well-documented hazards of long-term computer use, the number of acute injuries connected to computers is rising rapidly. As per a research studyreported in the July 2009 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, scientists from the Center for Injury Research and Policy and The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital; and The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus have found a more-than-sevenfold increase in computer-related injuries due to tripping over computer equipment, head injuries due to computer monitor falls and other physical incidents.

As per data from the National Electronic Injury Surveillance System database, over 78,000 cases of acute computer-related injuries were treated in U.S. emergency departments from 1994 through 2006. Approximately 93% of injuries occurred at home. The number of acute computer-related injuries increased by 732% over the 13-year study period, which is more than double the increase in household computer ownership (309%).

Injury mechanisms included hitting against or catching on computer equipment; tripping or falling over computer equipment; computer equipment falling on top of the patient; and the straining of muscles or joints. The computer part most often linked to injuries was the monitor. The percentage of monitor-related cases increased significantly, from 11.6% in 1994 to a peak of 37.1% in 2003. By 2006, it had decreased to 25.1%. The decrease since 2003 corresponds to the replacement of heavier cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors with smaller and easier-to-lift liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 9, 2009, 5:00 AM CT

Dynamic stroma microenvironment in prostate cancer

As stroma the supportive framework of the prostate gland react to prostate cancer, changes in the expression of genes occur that induce the formation of new structures such as blood vessels, nerves and parts of nerves, said scientists at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research

In this study, using special techniques and gene chips that allowed them to sample the entire genome, the scientists found changes in 1,141 genes. They were either upregulated meaning that there was more of the protein with which they were associated than expected or downregulated, which meant the opposite, said Dr. Michael Ittmann, professor of pathology at BCM and a senior author of the report. These gene changes may explain why men with reactive stroma face a more aggressive disease, said Ittmann and Dr. Gustavo Ayala, professor in the departments of pathology and urology at BCM and another senior author.

"Often in prostate cancer, you don't see much change in the stromal cells," said Ittmann. "However, in this subgroup of patients (in which the stroma become visibly reactive), you see a histologically recognizable change in the appearance of the stroma. Dr. Ayala has shown previously that this correlates with a bad prognosis. We know the stroma are doing something to promote bad behavior in cancer cells"......... Posted by: Mark      Read more         Source

June 8, 2009, 10:10 PM CT

Fatal brain disease at work

University of Florida researchers have discovered why a paralyzing brain disorder speeds along more rapidly in some patients than others a finding that may finally give scientists an entry point toward an effective therapy for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, often referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease.

Of more than 100 possible mutations of a single gene inherited by people with familial ALS, the mutations most inclined to produce clumps of problematic cellular debris known as "protein aggregates" appear to be linked to quicker progress of the disease, as per scientists with the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute writing online this week in Human Molecular Genetics

Meanwhile, in a separate study recently online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers describe how these protein clumps long considered a defining characteristic of ALS do not cause the disease, but appear later on, increasing in number between onset of weakness and paralysis in patients.

Together, these findings suggest that the deadly course of the disease is associated with the formation of these protein clumps, even though the sickness may have been well under way.

"Blocking aggregation of these proteins could be a therapeutic target for individuals with this genetic mutation," said David Borchelt, Ph.D., a professor of neuroscience and director of the SantaFe HealthCare Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at UF's McKnight Brain Institute. "Right now, there is little that can be done to help these patients"......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

June 5, 2009, 5:05 AM CT

Crowded Emergency Departments and Patients with Heart Attacks

Patients with heart attacks and other forms of chest pain are three to five times more likely to experience serious complications after hospital admission when they are treated in a crowded emergency department (ED), as per a newly released study reported in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine. The authors say that this dramatic difference in rates of serious complications underscores the need for action on the part of hospital administrators, policymakers and emergency physicians to find solutions to what has been termed "a national public health problem." More than six million patients per year come to U.S. emergency departments with chest pain.

"What shocked us is that these complications were not explained by what goes on in the ED, like getting aspirin or a rapid electrocardiogram," says main author Jesse M. Pines, M.D., MBA, an assistant professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. "The adverse events occurred after the patient had been admitted to the hospital. Emergency department crowding is really more of a marker of a dysfunctional hospital".

The study followed 4,574 patients who were admitted to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for symptoms of chest pain over an eight-year period. Ultimately, 802 were diagnosed with an acute coronary syndrome (chest pain of cardiac origin); of those, 273 had a true heart attack. There were 251 complications that occurred in the hospital after initial emergency department therapy. Complications included serious events, such as heart failure, delayed heart attacks, dangerously low blood pressure, heart arrhythmias and cardiac arrest......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

June 5, 2009, 5:03 AM CT

Pesticide Exposure and Parkinson's Disease

The cause of Parkinson's disease (PD), the second most frequent neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's disease, is unknown, but in most cases it is believed to involve a combination of environmental risk factors and genetic susceptibility. Laboratory studies in rats have shown that injecting the insecticide rotenone leads to an animal model of PD and several epidemiological studies have shown an association between pesticides and PD, but most have not identified specific pesticides or studied the amount of exposure relating to the association.

A new epidemiological study involving the exposure of French farm workers to pesticides observed that professional exposure is linked to PD, particularly for organochlorine insecticides. The study is published in Annals of Neurology, the official journal of the American Neurological Association.

Led by Alexis Elbaz M.D., Ph.D., of Inserm, the national French institute for health research in Paris, and University Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC, Paris 6), the study involved individuals affiliated with the French health insurance organization for agricultural workers who were frequently exposed to pesticides in the course of their work. Occupational health physicians constructed a detailed lifetime exposure history to pesticides by interviewing participants, visiting farms, and collecting a large amount of data on pesticide exposure. These included farm size, type of crops, animal breeding, which pesticides were used, time period of use, frequency and duration of exposure per year, and spraying method......... Posted by: Daniel      Read more         Source

June 5, 2009, 4:44 AM CT

Risks of sharing personal genetic information online

With just $399 and a bit of saliva in a cup, consumers can learn about their genetic risk for diseases from breast cancer to diabetes. Now, thanks to social networking sites set up by personal genomics companies, they can also share that information with family, friends and even strangers on the Internet.

Bonding over a similar genetic background sounds relatively harmless. But as per bioethicists from the Stanford University School of Medicine, sharing genetic information online raises a host of ethical questions.

"Genetic information is unique in that it's not only relevant for the individuals who receive the information, but also for their family members, their children and even their children's children," said Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, PhD, senior research scholar at the school's Center for Biomedical Ethics.

Because genetic information applies to more than one person, issues of privacy and consent become complicated. "For example," Lee said, "if you receive information on your breast cancer risk and share it with others, you might also be sharing information about your daughter's risk for breast cancer even though she never consented to have that information shared".

In cooperation with assistant professor of pediatrics and bioethicist LaVera Crawley, MD, MPH, Lee has been studying the potential implications of exchanging genetic information online. To fully understand the effects of sharing, the scientists say we need more data on who's giving out information and how it's being used. Their recommendations will be published in a special double-issue of the American Journal of Bioethics on June 5......... Posted by: Scott      Read more         Source