Diabetes case tied to growth hormone ‘doping’
|
|
Athletes who take growth hormone in an effort to enhance their performance risk developing diabetes, two doctors from the UK warn in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
In the paper, Dr. James Young and Aresh Anwar from University Hospital Coventry and Warwick, Warwickshire, describe what they believe is the first reported case of diabetes associated with taking high doses of growth hormone.
Innovative Treatment for Migraines Combines Botox and Surgery
|
|
Five years ago, Sharon Schafer Bennett suffered from migraines so severe that the headaches disrupted her life, kept her from seeking a job and interfered with participation in her children’s daily activities.
Now, thanks to an innovative surgical technique performed by a UT Southwestern Medical Center plastic surgeon who helped pioneer the procedure, the frequency and intensity of Mrs. Bennett’s migraines have diminished dramatically - from two to three per week to an occasional one every few months.
Fruit Flies May Pave Way to New Treatments for Age-related Heart Disease
|
|
The tiny Drosophila fruit fly may pave the way to new methods for studying and finding treatments for heart disease, the leading cause of death in industrialized countries, according to a collaborative study by the Burnham Institute for Medical Research, UC San Diego (UCSD) and the University of Michigan.
The study reports that mutations in a molecular channel found in heart muscle cell membranes caused arrhythmias similar to those that are found in humans, suggesting that understanding how this channel’s activity is controlled in the cell could lead to new heart disease treatments. Led by Burnham’s Professor Rolf Bodmer, Ph.D., and Staff Scientist Karen Ocorr, Ph.D., these new results, to be published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will be made available by priority publication at the journal’s website during the week of February 26, 2007.
Strep linked to movement disorder in children
|
|
Group A streptococcal infection appears to be associated with changes in behavior and the development of a movement disorder in elementary school children, according to a report in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry.
There is renewed interest in the relationship between strep infections and behavioral and movement disorders, the authors explain, but the extent of strep’s role in these disorders has not been defined. Symptoms that characterized the movement disorder observed in these children include involuntary, rapid, jerking movements that can be subtle or pronounced, also referred to as chorea.
Mammography results poorly communicated to blacks
|
|
African American women are less likely than whites to receive adequate communication of their mammography results, a new study conducted in Connecticut shows.
When a black woman’s results were abnormal, they were more likely to be poorly communicated to her than when the results were normal. But the reverse was true for whites.
Surgery linked to breast cancer racial disparity
|
|
Racial disparity in death rates between African American and other women with breast cancer may be due in part to surgery which may encourage the growth of the tumour, an international team of researchers said.
African American women are often diagnosed with breast cancer at an earlier age and have a higher risk of dying from the illness. The average age when their disease is detected is 46, compared to 57 years old for white women.
Experimental vaccine given during pregnancy reduces stillbirths from common virus
|
|
Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have developed an experimental vaccine that reduces stillbirths among rodents born to mothers infected with cytomegalovirus (CMV) - a common virus that can also cause mental retardation and hearing loss in newborn children who were infected in early fetal life.
Estimates place the number of U.S. children born with CMV each year at about 40,000, and there is no vaccine or treatment for pregnant women who have the infection. In a 2000 report, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences listed as a top priority the development of a vaccine to prevent cytomegalovirus during pregnancy.
Distress may persist after waking during surgery
|
|
Patients who wake up from general anesthesia during surgery and have a clear memory of the event may develop acute distress and emotional reactions, investigators in Sweden report, and in some patients, long-term psychological symptoms may persist.
Dr. Peter Samuelsson and his associates, from County Hospital in Kalmar, interviewed 2,681 consecutive surgical patients between 2001 and 2002 who underwent general anesthesia 1 to 3 days earlier.
Smoking changes brain the same way as drugs do
|
|
Smoking causes long-lasting changes in the brain similar to changes seen in animals when they are given cocaine, heroin and other addictive drugs, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
A study of the brain tissue of smokers and nonsmokers who died showed that smokers had these changes, even if they had quit years before, the team at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) reported.
Italian doctors transplant HIV-infected organs
|
|
Italian doctors mistakenly transplanted organs from an HIV-positive donor into three recipients, the head of a Florence hospital said on Tuesday.
Doctors at Careggi hospital told reporters that an infected woman’s liver and kidneys were transplanted after a laboratory biologist incorrectly wrote on her medical records that she had tested negative for HIV.
Older Adults May be Unreliable Eyewitness, Study Shows
|
|
A University of Virginia study suggests that older adults are not only more inclined than younger adults to make errors in recollecting details that have been suggested to them, but are also more likely than younger people to have a very high level of confidence in their recollections, even when wrong. The finding has implications regarding the reliability of older persons’ eyewitness testimonies in courtrooms.
The study, “I misremember it well: Why older adults are unreliable eyewitnesses,” is published in a recent issue of the Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.
A black and white look at breast cancer mortality
|
|
African and African American women are more likely to die of breast cancer than their white counterparts because they tend to get the disease before the menopause, suggests new research from the University of East Anglia and the Children’s Hospital Boston in collaboration with researchers in the US and Italy.
A racial disparity in mortality rates from breast cancer in the US first appeared in the 1970s coinciding with the introduction of mammography. The new research, published in The International Journal of Surgery, posits that the reason for this is not reduced access to medical care, but because surgery in pre-menopausal women could encourage growth of the cancer.
Pregnancy hormone increases nerve cells’ insulation, restores damage
|
|
A hormone produced during pregnancy spontaneously increases myelin, which enhances signaling within the nervous system, and helps repair damage in the brain and spinal cord, according to new animal research.
The findings, published in the February 21 Journal of Neuroscience, indicate that the hormone prolactin promotes an increase in myelin production and may have a use in treating multiple sclerosis (MS).
Newborns with respiratory distress potentially have rare genetic disease
|
|
Newborns with respiratory distress should be evaluated for primary ciliary dyskinesia, a rare genetic disease that has features similar to cystic fibrosis, says Thomas Ferkol, M.D., from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. He reports finding that about 80 percent of patients with primary ciliary dyskinesia (PCD) have a history of newborn respiratory distress.
“The diagnosis of PCD requires a high index of suspicion, but PCD must be considered in any term newborn who develops respiratory distress or persistent hypoxemia (low oxygen in the blood), especially those who have reversed internal organs or an affected sibling,” says Ferkol, director of the Division of Pediatric Allergy and Pulmonary Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine and St. Louis Children’s Hospital.
Spearmint tea—A possible treatment for mild hirsutism
|
|
Women with hirsutism grow hair on their faces, breasts and stomachs. This can cause great distress. The hair grows because they have abnormally high levels of the ‘masculinising’ androgen hormones. Androgens travel around the body in the blood stream, and a key way of treating hirsutism is to reduce the level of these androgens.
Data just published in Phytotherapy Research shows that drinking two cups of spearmint tea a day for five days could reduce the level of androgens in women with hirsutism.
