World AIDS Day
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The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) joins organizations across the globe in recognizing December 1 as World AIDS Day, with its international theme of “Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise.” VA is keeping the promise by caring for veterans with HIV/AIDS and those at risk for the disease, carrying out research, and sharing its collective expertise with veterans, health care providers, and the public at large via a new VA HIV Web site, at http://www.hiv.va.gov.
VA is the nation’s largest single provider of health care to those infected with HIV, providing medical services to about 20,000 veteran HIV patients each year. VA investigators are involved in more than 300 HIV/AIDS-related research projects, from basic studies on how HIV affects the body to clinical trials and assessments of health services delivery. The new Web site http://www.hiv.va.gov, launched in collaboration with the Center for HIV Information at the University of California, San Francisco, provides comprehensive information on HIV/AIDS.
Critical role of p53 gene
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Fruit flies can live significantly longer, and remain healthy, when activity of the fly version of the tumor-suppressing protein p53 is reduced in nerve cells.
Published in Current Biology, the results shed important new light on the role this “protector of the genome” plays in aging and point to p53 as a viable target for anti-aging drugs.
Heart patients, do you tell your doctor you’re using alternative medicines?
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Doctors, do you ask your patients if they’re using alternative medicines?
According to the Medical Dictionary Online, alternative therapies are practices which are not currently considered an integral part of conventional medical practice and are used instead of conventional treatment.
Dietary restriction helps Parkinson’s disease patients
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A new Oregon Health & Science University and Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center study suggests that early-stage Parkinson’s disease patients who lower their calorie intake may boost levels of an essential brain chemical lost from the neurodegenerative disorder.
The study by Charles Meshul, Ph.D., associate professor of behavioral neuroscience in the OHSU School of Medicine and the VAMC’s Neurocytology Lab, shows that dietary restriction reverses a Parkinson’s-induced drop in glutamate, a brain neurotransmitter important for motor control, function and learning, in a mouse model for the disease’s early stages.
Newly identified protein may help improve treatment for lung cancer
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Researchers hope that a newly identified protein can one day help improve treatment for lung cancer. The findings are reported by researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
“Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women in the United States and more effective treatment strategies are desperately needed,” said William J. Petty, M.D., from Wake Forest. “We believe we’ve uncovered why lung cancer is currently resistant to treatment with natural and synthetic derivatives of vitamin A, drugs that are highly effective for preventing and treating other types of cancer.”
Significant association between gingivitis and preterm birth
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Pregnant women will want to include a periodontal evaluation as part of their prenatal care. That’s because researchers found that periodontal treatment significantly reduced the risk of having a preterm birth or a low birthweight infant, according to a study published in the Journal of Periodontology.
“We found a significant association between gingivitis and preterm birth after adjusting for the major risk factors for preterm delivery, suggesting that gingivitis, the earliest form of periodontal disease, is an independent risk factor for preterm birth and low birthweight,” said Dr. Ne’stor J. L?, Professor of the University of Chile. “Periodontal therapy reduced preterm birth and low birthweight infant rates by 68 percent in women with pregnancy-associated gingivitis.”
Music training may change the brain
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New research shows that the special training of music conductors seems to enhance the way their senses work together - enabling them to quickly tell who played a wrong note, for example. Scientists hope the research will lead to new discoveries about how music training may change the brain.
“Studies have shown that while students who get music training may sometimes do better academically, no research has explored whether this training actually causes changes in the brain,” said Jonathan Burdette, M.D., associate professor of radiology at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Exercise capacity is a powerful predictor of death in patients with coronary artery disease
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Exercise capacity, as measured in terms of VO2max, is a powerful predictor of death in patients with coronary artery disease, not just patients with heart failure. That is the finding of a Mayo Clinic study presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2005 in Dallas.
VO2max is the maximum amount of oxygen a person can take in during exercise. In a VO2max study, a patient walks on a treadmill for about 5 to 15 minutes and breathes through a valve; the oxygen and carbon dioxide in the expired air are measured. Results are given in milliliters of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute (ml/kg/min).
Link Between Sleep Apnea, Body Position in Children
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Researchers at The University of Texas Medical School at Houston have discovered that toddlers with sleep apnea experience more respiratory disturbances when they sleep on their backs than in other positions. Their findings, which contradict earlier studies on the subject, were published in this month’s issue of Archives of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery.
Obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS) is a serious medical problem affecting 500,000 children every year in the United States. Pediatric OSAS is commonly caused by enlarged tonsils and adenoids and is characterized by episodes of partial or complete upper airway obstruction that occur during sleep, including snoring, cyanosis (a bluish color of the skin and mucous membranes), and poor sleep quality. Daytime symptoms can include mouth breathing, behavior problems, hyperactivity and excessive daytime sleepiness.
In Autism, Related Disorders, Recognizing Emotion Is Different Than Identity
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In contrast to previous reports, for those with autism or Asperger’s syndrome, recognizing facial expressions is separate from identifying familiar faces, according to a study published in the November 22, 2005, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Those who had an impaired ability to process facial identity were no different than those with normal facial identity ability, when it came to processing facial expression.
Led by researchers in the U.S. and Canada, the study examined 26 adults diagnosed with either autism, Asperger’s syndrome, social-emotional processing disorder, or both Asperger’s and social-emotional processing disorder. The shared trait of these disorders is social dysfunction. The individuals took a variety of tests to measure famous face recognition, recognition of non-facial emotional cues (from voices or bodies), recognition of basic emotions (happy, sad, angry, fearful), and recognition of a complex mental state (reflective, aghast, irritated, impatient) presented by a pair of eyes.
Heavy Drinking Falls with Age; Men and Smokers Slower
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BACKGROUND: Previous studies have suggested that people reduce their average alcohol consumption as they age. In the new study the researchers sought to determine whether the percentage of heavy drinkers—that is, men who have at least five drinks in one sitting and women who have at least four drinks — also reduced as they aged. This latest study was based on data from 14,127 participants, aged 25 to 74, in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Study, first administered between 1971 and 1974, with three follow-ups through 1992.
FINDINGS: While the researchers noted that heavy drinking declined with age, they found it fell more slowly among men compared with women and among smokers compared with non-smokers. A higher probability of heavy drinking was associated with being unmarried, having less than a high school education, an annual income below the median, and not living in the Southeastern United States. Heavy drinking also declined faster among those who got married or quit smoking between follow ups.
Spouse Caregivers of Alzheimer’s Patients Show Higher Risk of Gingivitis
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Caregiver spouses of patients with Alzheimer’s disease develop gum disease at twice the rate of their non-caregiver counterparts, researchers report in the latest issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.
Because there was little difference in oral hygiene between the two groups in the study, the researchers say the difference may be related to stress.
Hunger kills 6 mln children a year: UN
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The United Nations’ food and farming body on Tuesday renewed its plea for more effort to improve agriculture in poor countries to ease hunger and malnutrition, which kill nearly 6 million children a year.
In its annual report, “The State of Food Insecurity in the World”, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the world is way behind on hunger reduction goals for 2015 set at political summits over the last 10 years.
Breast cancer vaccine may prevent recurrence
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A vaccine using a protein that is a biological “marker” for breast cancer, called HER2/neu, prompts a specific immune response and may prevent recurrence of the disease in certain patients who have become disease-free after treatment for breast cancer, according to researchers.
“While our results are preliminary,” lead investigator Dr. George E. Peoples told Reuters Health, “we are encouraged that this type of trial, evaluating cancer prevention as opposed to cancer treatment, will ultimately reveal the power, and appropriate future use, of cancer vaccines.”
Cervical cancer vaccine wins some conservative favor
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Conservatives who fought against wider access to a “morning-after” pill are speaking favorably about vaccines against a sexually transmitted cause of cervical cancer, but some groups may still call for limited use.
The makers of the still-experimental vaccines, Merck & Co. Inc. and GlaxoSmithKline Plc, have been meeting with advocacy groups to dispel any concerns that giving the shots might promote sexual activity by young girls.
