10,000 People in World-first Cerebral Palsy Study
|
|
Researchers from the University of Adelaide, Australia, have launched the largest study of its kind in the world in a bid to better understand the possible genetic causes of cerebral palsy.
The study – requiring cheek swabs of mothers and their children – aims to gather genetic samples from 10,000 people right across Australia.
One of the world’s most serious complications during pregnancy and birth, cerebral palsy is a disability that affects one in every 500 children worldwide, and the consequences are life long.
New study points to agriculture in frog sexual abnormalities
|
|
A farm irrigation canal would seem a healthier place for toads than a ditch by a supermarket parking lot.
But University of Florida scientists have found the opposite is true. In a study with wide implications for a longstanding debate over whether agricultural chemicals pose a threat to amphibians, UF zoologists have found that toads in suburban areas are less likely to suffer from reproductive system abnormalities than toads near farms – where some had both testes and ovaries.
“As you increase agriculture,” said Lou Guillette, a distinguished professor of zoology, “you have an increasing number of abnormalities.”
‘Mind’s eye’ influences visual perception
|
|
Letting your imagination run away with you may actually influence how you see the world. New research from Vanderbilt University has found that mental imagery - what we see with the “mind’s eye” - directly impacts our visual perception.
The research was published online June 26 by the journal Current Biology in a paper titled, “The Functional Impact of Mental Imagery on Conscious Perception.”
“We found that imagery leads to a short-term memory trace that can bias future perception,” says Joel Pearson, research associate in the Vanderbilt Department of Psychology. and lead author of the study. “This is the first research to definitively show that imagining something changes vision both while you are imagining it and later on.”
Malaria on the increase in the UK
|
|
A huge rise in the numbers of UK residents travelling to malaria endemic areas, combined with a failure to use prevention measures, has significantly increased cases of imported falciparum malaria in the UK over the past 20 years, according to a study published on BMJ.com.
Between 1987 there were 5120 reported cases of the potentially fatal faliciparum malaria, increasing to 6753 in 2002ǰԃ. These findings highlight the urgent need for health messages and services targeted at travellers from migrant groups visiting friends and family abroad, say the authors.
Malaria acquired in one of the 150 countries where it is endemic and then imported into non-endemic countries accounts for a significant proportion of largely preventable disease and death in Europe every year.
A Full Life Is Still Possible with Multiple Sclerosis
|
|
There are approximately 400,000 people with multiple sclerosis (MS) in the United States today with 200 new patients diagnosed every week.
“No one knows what causes MS,” said Phyllis Greenberger, M.S.W, president and CEO of the Society for Women’s Health Research, a Washington, D.C. based advocacy organization. “We do know that it is at least 2-3 times more common in women than in men.”
Greenberger addressed congressional staff members on Capitol Hill at an educational briefing sponsored by the Society and the National Multiple Sclerosis Society on June 24.
Looking for the Fountain of Youth? Cut Your Calories, Research Suggests
|
|
Want to slow the signs of aging and live longer? New Saint Louis University research suggests cutting back on calories could be a promising strategy.
Calorie restriction has long been shown to slow the aging process in rats and mice. While scientists do not know how calorie restriction affects the aging process in rodents, one popular hypothesis is that it slows aging by decreasing a thyroid hormone, triiodothyronine (T3), which then slows metabolism and tissue aging.
A new study in the June 2008 issue of Rejuvenation Research, found that calorie restriction – cutting approximately 300 to 500 calories per day – had a similar biological effect in humans and, therefore, may slow the aging process.
Even modest weight gain raises kidney disease risk
|
|
In healthy men of normal weight, relatively small increases in weight raise the risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a report by Korean researchers that will appear in the September issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
The study, researchers say, suggests that CKD should be added to the list of conditions that are associated with weight gain, including diabetes and high blood pressure.
Obesity is a known risk factor for CKD, but the impact of weight gain in normal-weight individuals without high blood pressure or diabetes is unknown, Dr. Seungho Ryu, at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital in Seoul, and associates note in their report.
Cells in blood may help cancers spread: US study
|
|
Normal cells in the blood that play a role in healing wounds may also be creating the right conditions for cancer cells to spread, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
They said fibrocytes, blood cells derived from bone marrow, could explain how healthy cells become habitats for cancer.
“Cancer cells do not enter healthy tissue easily. We know that,” Dr. Hendrik van Deventer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose research appears in the American Journal of Pathology, said in a telephone interview.
Population-wide approach needed to curb obesity
|
|
A broad range of policy and environmental initiatives at the local, state and federal levels aimed at increasing physical activity and healthful eating is needed to reduce rates of obesity in the United States, according to an American Heart Association (AHA) scientific statement in the Association’s journal Circulation, published Monday.
In an AHA-issued press release, Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika, chair of the working group that wrote the scientific statement “Population-Based Prevention of Obesity,” noted that “almost all of our current eating or activity patterns are those that promote weight gain—using the least possible amount of energy or maximizing quantity rather than quality in terms of food.”
Kumanyika added, “People haven’t just made the decision to eat more and move less; the social structure has played into people’s tendencies to go for convenience foods and labor-saving devices.”
Caregivers often expose asthmatic kids to smoke
|
|
Secondhand exposure to cigarette smoke is an asthma trigger in children and a new study shows that smoking by the primary caregiver and daycare provider are important sources of smoke exposure in children with asthma.
In the study, children with asthma who were exposed to secondhand smoke “had as much smoke exposure as if their mother smoked,” Dr. Harold J. Farber told Reuters Health.
Children with a double hit of smoke exposure - from both their daycare provider and primary caregiver - had the highest levels of nicotine metabolites in their urine, said Farber, of Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.
Invasive Treatment Beneficial for Men, High-Risk Women With Unstable Heart Disease
|
|
An analysis of previous studies indicates that among men and high-risk women with a certain type of heart attack or angina an invasive treatment strategy (such as cardiac catheterization) is associated with reduced risk of rehospitalization, heart attack or death, whereas low-risk women may have an increased risk of heart attack or death with this treatment, according to an article in the July 2 issue of JAMA.
Although an invasive strategy is frequently used in patients with unstable angina and non–ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI; a type of heart attack with certain findings on an electrocardiogram), data from some trials suggest that this strategy may not benefit women, with a possible higher risk of death or heart attack, according to background information in the article. “Thus, the benefit of an invasive strategy in women remains unclear. However, individual trials have not been large enough to explore outcomes reliably within subgroups,” the authors write.
For this study, an invasive strategy was defined as the referral of all patients with heart attacks and unstable angina for cardiac catheterization (a procedure that allows physicians to find and open potential blockages in the coronary arteries to help prevent heart attacks and death) prior to hospital discharge. A conservative treatment strategy was defined as a primary strategy of medical management and subsequent catheterization only for those patients with ongoing chest pain or a positive stress test.
Gene Directs Stem Cells to Build the Heart
|
|
Researchers have shown that they can put mouse embryonic stem cells to work building the heart, potentially moving medical science a significant step closer to a new generation of heart disease treatments that use human stem cells.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report in Cell Stem Cell that the Mesp1 gene locks mouse embryonic stem cells into becoming heart parts and gets them moving to the area where the heart forms. Researchers are now testing if stem cells exposed to Mesp1 can help fix damaged mouse hearts.
“This isn’t the only gene we’ll need to get stem cells to repair damaged hearts, but it’s a key piece of the puzzle,” says senior author Kenneth Murphy, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology and immunology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “This gene is like the first domino in a chain: the Mesp1 protein activates genes that make other important proteins, and these in turn activate other genes and so on. The end result of these falling genetic dominoes is your whole cardiovascular system.”
