August 14, 2006, 10:15 PM CT

Kids with OCD bullied

Children with obsessive-compulsive disorder are three times more likely to be bullied than other children, and the name-slinging could cause symptoms of OCD to worsen, University of Florida scientists have found.

"One of the things we have noticed working with a number of kids with OCD is that peer relations are extremely impaired," said Eric Storch, Ph.D, a UF assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics and lead author of the study. "Kids target kids who are different. Kids with OCD sometimes exhibit behaviors that peers simply don't understand".

More than one-quarter of the children with OCD who scientists studied reported chronic bullying as a problem, as per findings described in the recent issue of the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology.

By comparison, only 9 percent of kids in the two other groups scientists studied - healthy kids without medical or mental conditions and children with type 1 diabetes - reported serious problems with bullies.

Nearly all children are bullied at least once in their lives. But chronic bullying equates to about one taunt per day, ranging from kicking or hitting to name-calling or excluding children from activities in school.

"The kids with OCD are really experiencing higher rates of peer problems than other kids," Storch said. "We're not saying one causes the other, but there is a positive relationship between (OCD and bullying)".........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source

August 14, 2006, 10:12 PM CT

Hearing loss and high-speed dental tools

After 36 years in private dental practice, Fred Kreutzer, D.M.D., began struggling to hear. It's been five years since he retired from his practice and Kreutzer now wears hearing aids in both ears. Eventhough he has a family history of hearing loss, he believes the high-speed tools he worked with eight hours a day for so a number of years may have played a role in his hearing troubles. "I think if you listen to any high-pitched noise for any length of time, it will get to you eventually," said Kreutzer, an assistant professor in operative dentistry at the OHSU School of Dentistry (www.ohsu.edu/sod). "But in my case, with a family history of hearing loss, it may be hereditary, as well".

Whether high-speed dental tools contribute to long-term hearing loss is the subject of a study currently under way in the OHSU Tinnitus Clinic and the School of Dentistry. As per Robert Folmer, Ph.D., one of the study leaders, published research is mixed about whether high-speed dental tools contribute to noise-induced hearing loss over time.

"Over the years, we have seen dentists in the OHSU Tinnitus Clinic who were convinced that long-term exposure to sound from high-speed hand pieces contributed to their high-frequency hearing loss and tinnitus," said Folmer. "These anecdotes, in combination with the research being divided about high-speed hand pieces playing a role in hearing loss, prompted our study. We hope the study is a good first step toward scientific evidence behind the anecdotes we've been hearing." Fulmer is associate professor of otolaryngology/head and neck surgery, School of Medicine, and chief of clinical services at the OHSU Tinnitus Clinic, Oregon Hearing Research Center.........

Posted by: Sue      Permalink         Source

August 14, 2006, 9:56 PM CT

Insights To High-maintenance Dynamics

Do you have a co-worker with whom you have trouble working? If you have a co-worker with whom you always seem to be somewhat out of sync so much of your psychic energy is consumed trying to get on the same page with him that by the time you get home you are too drained to do much of anything, never mind read any of those books you were compelled to buy on office politics.

Or imagine Bob, an experienced cook, who shows up at a soup kitchen for the first time enthusiastic about sharing responsibilities with another accomplished cook. The problem is that the styles of Bob and his fellow cook clash so much that later that evening, when Bob is at home, both his concentration and manuscript writing suffer greatly.

Confirming what many of us have suspected anecdotally, new research from Northwestern University shows that high-maintenance or difficult interactions indeed drain us. Most importantly, the study demonstrates how those draining social dynamics, in which an individual is trying so hard to regulate his or her behavior, can impair success on subsequent unrelated tasks.

"Luckily, humans are exceptionally social beings equipped with remarkable behavioral repertoires for engaging in effective interpersonal relationships," said Eli Finkel, assistant professor of psychology at Northwestern and the study's main investigator. "But there are plenty of inefficient interpersonal interactions that we engage in every day, and those draining dynamics have significant consequences".........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source

August 13, 2006, 6:38 PM CT

Almost Half Of Kids With ADHD Not Treated

In contrast to claims that children are being overmedicated for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a team of scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has observed that a high percentage of kids with ADHD are not receiving therapy. In fact, almost half of the children who might benefit from ADHD drugs were not getting them.

"What we found was somewhat surprising," says Richard D. Todd, M.D., Ph.D., the Blanche F. Ittleson Professor of Psychiatry and professor of genetics. "Only about 58 percent of boys and about 45 percent of girls who had a diagnosis of full-scale ADHD got any medicine at all."

Much has been written about the increasing number of children taking drugs for ADHD. One study observed that the percentage of elementary school children taking medicine for ADHD more than tripled, rising from 0.6 percent in 1975 to 3 percent by 1987. Another study reported that the number of adolescents taking ADHD drugs increased 2.5 fold between 1990 and 1995. And a number of reports have noted a rapid increase in the U.S. manufacture of the stimulant drug methylphenidate - commonly sold under the brand names Ritalin or Concerta.

The scientists studied 1,610 twins between the ages of 7 and 17. Of those, 359 met full criteria for ADHD: 302 boys and 57 girls. The total number of boys in the sample was 1,006, and 604 girls were included.........

Posted by: JoAnn      Permalink         Source

August 13, 2006, 6:33 PM CT

Depressed People Benefit More From Marriage

Depressed singles receive greater psychological benefits from getting married than those who are not depressed, new research shows.

While a number of studies have shown that marriage helps boost well-being, most studies have looked at a general, average population and don't examine whether some people were helped more by marriage than others.

"Our findings question the common assumption that marriage is always a good choice for all individuals," said Adrianne Frech, co-author of the study and a doctoral student in sociology at Ohio State University.

Frech conducted the study with Kristi Williams, assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State. Williams said the study was the first to compare how depressed and non-depressed people benefit from marriage.

"Those 'average' benefits of marriage may be largely limited to people who are depressed before they entered marriage," Williams said. "There may not be strong benefits for everyone."

Frech will present their findings Aug. 13 in Montreal at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

The scientists used data collected by the National Survey of Families and Households, which interviewed a representative sample of Americans in 1987-88 and then re-interviewed them in 1992-94. They used data from 3,066 people who were unmarried at the time of the first interview.........

Posted by: Janet      Permalink         Source

August 13, 2006, 6:26 PM CT

Life and death in the hippocampus

Whether newborn nerve cells in adult brains live or die depends on whether they can muscle their way into networks occupied by mature neurons. Neuroresearchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies pin-pointed the molecular survival gear mandatory for a young neuron to successfully jump into the fray and hook up with other cells.

As per a research findings published in a forthcoming issue of Nature, scientists in the lab of Fred H. Gage, Ph.D., a professor in the Gene Expression Laboratory and the Vi and John Adler Chair for Research on Age-Related Neurodegenerative Diseases, identify a subunit of the NMDA receptor, a protein complex that transduces signals sent by neighboring cells, as the cells' life-saving equipment that allows them to integrate into the existing brain circuitry.

The NMDA receptor is activated by the neurotransmitter glutamate, a chemical released by neurons in order to transmit information to neighboring cells. Whenever the receptor picks up a glutamate signal it is stimulated and relays the signal. But for newborn neurons that signal means something else entirely -- survival.

"When we removed the NMDA receptor, that is when cells make connections in response to glutamate in the environment, the newborn neurons withered and died at a specific stage of their maturation," explains Gage. " The NMDA receptor modulates synapse formation and determines what pattern of input activity new neurons receive, which in turn determines survival or death".........

Posted by: Daniel      Permalink         Source

August 13, 2006, 6:00 PM CT

Simplified Treatment Of HIV Infection

A preliminary study indicates that using a single boosted protease inhibitor instead of the standard regimen of 3 drugs for maintenance treatment may be an effective therapy for select patients with HIV infection, as per a research studyin the August 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on HIV/AIDS.

Susan Swindells, M.B.B.S., of the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, presented the findings of the study today at a JAMA media briefing at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

The long-term adverse effects, expense, and difficulty of sustained adherence to multidrug antiretroviral regimens have prompted studies of simpler therapies for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection. Treatment cessation, intermittent treatment, and induction-maintenance (a few months of triple treatment followed by simplified treatment) regimens have been reviewed with mostly inferior results, as per background information in the article.

Dr. Swindells and his colleagues conducted a study to determine whether a simplified maintenance treatment with the antiretroviral medicine "boosted" atazanavir alone after virologic suppression (cessation of detectable HIV virus replication) would not markedly increase the risk of virologic failure. Protease inhibitors, such as atazanavir, are often combined with a small dose of ritonavir to increase blood levels a phenomenon known as "boosting." This regimen was selected because of low pill burden, once-daily dosing, safety, and unique resistance profile. The 24-week pilot study, conducted between Sept. 2004 and April 2006, included 36 HIV-infected adults with virologic suppression for 48 weeks or longer receiving their first protease inhibitor (PI)based regimen. Participants switched PIs to atazanavir-ritonavir at entry and discontinued nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs) after 6 weeks. Virologic failure was defined as two consecutive HIV-1 RNA measurements of 200 copies/mL or more. The final analysis included 34 patients.........

Posted by: Mark      Permalink         Source

August 13, 2006, 5:58 PM CT

Rapid expansion of HIV treatment

A massive scale-up of HIV/AIDS therapy programs at urban primary care sites in Zambia has produced favorable patient outcomes, demonstrating that expansion of such programs in sub-Saharan Africa is feasible, with good results, as per a research studyin the August 16 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on HIV/AIDS.

Jeffrey S.A. Stringer, M.D., of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia, Lusaka, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, presented the findings of the study today at a JAMA media briefing at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto.

Zambia's 11.5 million residents are among the world's poorest and most severely affected by acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), as per background information in the article. About 16 percent of the adult population is infected with human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV 1), including 22 percent in the capital city Lusaka. In 2003, more than 90,000 Zambians died of HIV disease. Historically, only the wealthiest citizens have had access to antiretroviral treatment (ART) for HIV through private medical practices.

The Zambian Ministry of Health, aiming to provide public access to therapy, in 2002 started pilot ART distribution programs at two of the country's largest hospitals. The program filled almost immediately and in May 2004 expanded to four clinics in the Lusaka Urban District, which were staffed primarily by clinical officers and nurses. In the following 18 months, all fees for patients seeking care were eliminated, ART and laboratory tests were offered for free and the program expanded to 14 additional urban sites. "At the time of program initiation, there was widespread uncertainty that complex, long-term HIV care could be delivered in a setting with so few physicians and so little physical and technical resources," the authors write.........

Posted by: Mark      Permalink         Source

August 13, 2006, 9:39 AM CT

Adult Cells To Embryonic Stem Cells

With the introduction of just four factors, scientists have successfully induced differentiated cells taken from mouse embryos or adult mice to behave like embryonic stem cells. The scientists reported their findings in an immediate early publication of the journal Cell.

The cells--which the scientists designate "induced pluripotent stem cells" (iPS)--exhibit the physical, growth, and genetic characteristics typical of embryonic stem cells, they reported. "Pluripotent" refers to the ability to differentiate into most other cell types.

"Human embryonic stem cells might be used to treat a host of diseases, such as Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury, and diabetes," said Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University in Japan. "However, there are ethical difficulties regarding the use of human embryos, as well as the problem of tissue rejection following transplantation into patients".

Those problems could be circumvented if pluripotent cells could be obtained directly from the patients' own cells.

"We have demonstrated that pluripotent stem cells can be directly generated from fibroblast cultures by the addition of only a few defined factors," Yamanaka said. Fibroblasts make up structural fibers found in connective tissue.

Embryonic stem cells are derived from inner cells of the mammalian blastocyst, a ball of cells that develops after fertilization and goes on to form a developing embryo. Cells from other parts of the body can also be "reprogrammed" by transferring their nuclear contents into egg cell precursors called oocytes or by fusion with embryonic stem cells, earlier studies showed.........

Posted by: Scott      Permalink         Source

August 13, 2006, 9:31 AM CT

RNA-Based Drug Kills Prostate Cancer Cells

Acting as a genetic Trojan horse, an experimental RNA-based drug -- the first of its kind -- tricks its way into prostate cancer cells and then springs into action to destroy them, while leaving normal cells unharmed.

The drug, developed at Duke University Medical Center, uses one type of genetic material, called targeting RNA, to enter cancer cells, and another type, called silencing RNA, to stop the expression of a protein that keeps the cells alive.

In tests in mice with prostate cancer, the drug shrank the size of their tumors by half, while the tumors in control mice that did not receive the drug continued to grow, said study co-author Bruce Sullenger, Ph.D., director of Duke's Translational Research Institute and chief of the Division of Experimental Surgery.

The mice showed no side effects from the treatment, Sullenger said.

"This study represents the first step in creating an RNA-based drug for cancer," said lead author James McNamara, Ph.D. a postdoctoral fellow in experimental surgery. "It provides a 'proof of principle' that an entirely RNA-based drug can work with minimal side effects, and it shows it is possible to overcome many of the obstacles that have hampered the development of RNA-based drugs".

The study is reported in the August 2006 issue of Nature Biotechnology, which is now available online. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health.........

Posted by: Mark      Permalink         Source