A potential chemotherapeutic drug to treat hepatocellular carcinoma
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Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common cancers worldwide, particularly in China. However, HCC remains one of the more difficult cancers to treat. It is important to screen for new anti-cancer drugs. A number of dietary compounds possess anti-cancer properties. These dietary compounds may modify the activity of specific targets that control cell proliferation and apoptosis. Galangin could inhibit the methoxyresorufin O-demethylase activity of CYP1A2, CYP1A1 and P-form phenolsulfotransferase. Galangin induced apoptosis in several cancer cell lines and arrested the cell cycle, modulated the expression of cycline/cdk, and decreased Bcl-2. It was suggested that galangin may be a potential anti-tumor agent. However, the mechanism by which galangin exerts its anti-tumor activity is unknown.
A research article to be published on July 21, 2010 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. This is the first study to report that galangin mediates apoptosis through a mitochondrial pathway.
Their data demonstrated that (1) galangin induces HCC cell apoptosis by triggering Bax translocation to the mitochondria; (2) galangin-treated HCC cells causes the release of AIF and cytochrome c into the cytosol from the mitochondria; and (3) overexpression of Bcl-2 attenuated galangin-induced HepG2 cells apoptosis, while down-regulated Bcl-2 expression enhanced galangin to induce cell apoptosis.
Calcium supplements may raise risk of heart attack
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Calcium supplements, which many people consume hoping to ward off osteoporosis, may increase the risk of heart attack by as much as 30 percent, researchers reported on Friday.
These tiny tablets which carry concentrated doses of calcium were also associated with higher incidences of stroke and death, but they were not statistically significant.
The researchers advised people consuming calcium supplements to seek advice from their doctors, take more calcium-rich foods and try other interventions like exercise, not smoking and keeping a healthy weight to prevent osteoporosis.
Little harm seen from painkiller shots for pro athletes
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When professional athletes in sports like football and rugby are injured, they commonly get injections of pain-numbing anesthetics to help them stay in the game. Now a new study suggests that, while safety concerns remain, most athletes may not suffer any long-term harm from the practice.
Injections of local anesthetics, like bupivacaine and lidocaine, temporarily block sensation in a limited area around the injection site.
While the injections have long been used in some pro sports to keep athletes in the game, the practice has only been “presumed” to be generally safe—with few studies having actually looked at the question, according to the researchers on the new work.
Gender-bending fish on the rise in southern Alberta
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Chemicals present in two rivers in southern Alberta are likely the cause of the feminization of fish say researchers at the University of Calgary who have published results of their study in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.
“What is unique about our study is the huge geographical area we covered. We found that chemicals – man-made and naturally occurring – that have the potential to harm fish were present along approximately 600 km of river,” says paper co-author Lee Jackson, executive director of Advancing Canadian Wastewater Assets, a research facility that develops and tests new approaches for treating wastewater which will be located at the City of Calgary’s new Pine Creek Wastewater Treatment Centre. “The situation for native fish will likely get worse as the concentration of organic contaminants will become more concentrated as a response to climate change and the increase in human and animal populations,” adds Jackson.
The study focused on two rivers in the South Saskatchewan River Basin: The Red Deer and Oldman rivers, located in southern Alberta, Canada.
Weight issues move up need for walkers, canes, other devices
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Obese older adults are more likely to use walkers, canes and other mobility devices at a younger age, and may run the risk of using them incorrectly, according to new research from Purdue University.
“Baby Boomers are coming of age and obesity is an epidemic for this population as well,” said Karis Pressler, a doctoral student in sociology and gerontology and the project’s lead author. “This research shows that if obesity continues at this rate, we are going to see an increase in the use of assistive devices, which can be costly to individuals and the health-care system. Reliance on assistive devices can affect everyday life in multiple ways, from how you bathe, to how you dress, to how you move.
“If people don’t want to be reliant on these devices in the future, they need to realize how obesity heightens one’s risk of becoming disabled and affects how a person will compensate for that disability.”
New mathematical model could aid studies of cardiac muscle
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Researchers have developed a new mathematical model that may provide a simpler and better way of predicting ventricular function during the cardiac cycle. The new model could help researchers improve treatment options for patients with heart disease. The article appears in the August issue of the Journal of General Physiology (http://www.jgp.org).
Previous mathematical models of striated muscle—including the Huxley scheme developed in 1957, as well as more recent models—have been quite complex and less suitable for routine analysis. Now, Steven Ford and co-workers (Washington State University) present a much simpler model comprising only five parameters, which they recommend for routine use in studies of cardiac muscle. According to Kenneth Campbell (University of Kentucky) in a Commentary accompanying the paper, Ford et al.‘s model may “be the best contractile system yet to integrate into multi-scale models of working hearts.”
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About The Journal of General Physiology
Frustration grows as AIDS science, politics clash
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An international AIDS conference has exposed a gulf between scientists and politicians on how to tackle the deadly HIV pandemic.
Despite promises from governments around the world to pursue evidence-based policies, AIDS experts are frustrated at a refusal to adapt to new ways of looking at HIV and the people most at risk of contracting it.
It is a stance that displays discrimination and criminal negligence, says Julio Montaner, president of the International AIDS Society, who has led a drive at the conference to get politicians to wake up to the evidence.
Relationships hold key to spiritual care
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Relationships hold the key to giving terminally ill patients the spiritual care they need. However, researchers have pinpointed a mismatch between patients’ expectations and understanding when it comes to spirituality, and what medical and family caregivers offer. New recommendations to improve this situation appear today, in the journal Palliative Medicine, published by SAGE.
The terms ‘spirituality’ and ‘spiritual care’ are becoming buzzwords in palliative care. But although most terminally ill patients rate care for their spiritual needs as very important, the professionals caring for them often have trouble defining what that means.
Using the definition of spirituality ‘a personal search for meaning and purpose in life, which may or may not be related to religion,’ Cardiff University’s Adrian Edwards together with Hong Kong based researchers Naomi Pang, Vicky Shiu and Cecelia Chan scoured the palliative care literature to create a systematic meta-study of spirituality. They incorporated qualitative data from 19 studies on 178 patients and 116 healthcare providers in their analysis.
Colorado man delivers pizza and saves a life
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A laid off paramedic who turned to delivering pizzas to make ends meet is credited with saving the life of a man who went into cardiac arrest just as a pizza was delivered to his door.
Christopher Wuebben, 22, was delivering a pizza late last week to the suburban Denver home of George Linn, when he heard the man’s wife screaming for help, according to Wuebben’s boss, John Keiley.
“Chris told the woman that he was trained in CPR and knew what to do,” Keiley, owner of Johnny’s New York Pizza, said on Tuesday. “He got him on the floor and brought him back to life before the fire department showed up.”
Benefit confirmed in “bubble boy” treatment
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A 10-year study of nine boys born without the ability to ward off germs has found that gene therapy is an effective long-term treatment, but it carries a price: four of them developed leukemia.
The technique is designed to help boys with X-linked severe combined immunodeficiency disease, or SCID, a rare mutation that prevents the body from making mature T cells or natural killer cells, which are vital tools for fighting infections.
Without a bone marrow transplant, which works best with a matching donor, such “bubble babies” have to live in germ-free environments and usually die within a year. Doctors hope gene therapy will work when no donor is available.
Students design early labor detector to prevent premature births
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The birth of a baby is usually a joyous event, but when a child is born too early, worrisome complications can occur, including serious health problems for the baby and steep medical bills for the family. To address this, Johns Hopkins graduate students and their faculty adviser have invented a new system to pick up very early signs that a woman is going into labor too soon.
The normal length of a pregnancy is 40 weeks, while babies born before 37 weeks gestation are considered to be preterm. By detecting preterm contractions with greater accuracy and sensitivity than existing tools, the new system could allow doctors to take steps at an earlier stage to prevent premature births, its inventors say.
The health concerns and costs associated with premature births have received increasing attention in recent years, due in part to a rise in the number of multiple births, to the use of fertility treatments, which can cause multiple births, and to an increase in women who are having babies later in life. These trends are all associated with a higher risk of preterm labor.
Exciting new avenues of research and policy drive expansion of HIV treatment access, use of antiretrovirals to prevent infections and pursuit of a cure
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The unwillingness of the global AIDS community to accept the status quo is fuelling a new era of scientific innovation to drive novel ways of treating and preventing HIV, organizers of the XVIII International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2010) taking place in Vienna, Austria said today. And, with millions of lives dependent on expanding access to antiretroviral treatment to all those clinically in need, researchers and clinicians are partnering in new ways to find the most effective and efficient methods to deliver treatment and strengthen health systems. A new Medicines Patent Pool described in today’s plenary session also offers the possibility of broader access to more effective and less toxic regimens.
“The inspiring element of the conference so far has been the marriage of cutting edge science and innovative policy and programming,” said Dr. Brigitte Schmied, AIDS 2010 Local Co-Chair and President of the Austrian AIDS Society. “We need that same energy and creativity to break through the HIV-related stigma and discrimination that prevents too many from benefitting from the knowledge we already have about how to save lives.”
Growing evidence of the power of antiretroviral drugs to prevent new infections offers the possibility of a major step toward universal access to HIV prevention while increasing access to lifesaving care. The use of treatment science to develop new prevention modalities, such as the antiretroviral-based vaginal microbicide used in the CAPRISA trial, whose results were released this week, is a further example of the drive to provide a variety of effective new prevention options.
Human rights protections essential in drive for universal access
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The call for human rights as a fundamental component of efforts to prevent new infections and provide treatment for people living with HIV pervaded the XVIII International AIDS Conference today as delegates and local residents prepared for the HIV and Human Rights March through the streets of Vienna this evening. Conference participants are giving voice to the conference theme of Rights Here, Right Now through a number of plenary presentations, sessions, and Global Village and Youth Programme activities.
The examination of the rights of women in the context of HIV took on a powerful new dimension with the release Monday evening of the CAPRISA 004 microbicide trial results. The study provides the first data demonstrating the effectiveness of an antiretroviral-based vaginal microbicide in reducing a woman’s risk of sexually transmitted infection with HIV and genital herpes. The trial tested the safety and effectiveness of a 1% tenofovir gel among nearly 900 women at two sites in South Africa. As today’s plenary speaker Everjoice Win noted, women have a greater likelihood of being on the receiving end of violent or coercive sexual intercourse and these results are a significant step toward a tool that puts the power of HIV prevention in women’s hands. The CAPRISA trial results will be presented at 13:00 in Session Room 7.
Where the wild veggies are
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Sites of origin and regions of domestication of many of our most important cultivated plants are still unknown. The botanical genus Cucumis, to which both the cucumber (Cucumis sativus) and the honeydew melon (C. melo) belong, was long thought to have originated and diversified in Africa, because many wild species of Cucumis are found there. “A molecular genetic analysis has now shown that the wild populations that gave rise to melons and cucumbers originated in Asia”, says LMU botanist Professor Susanne Renner. “In addition, we have found that 25 related species which have never been formally described are found in Asia, Australia and regions around the Indian Ocean.” Future genetic studies on The family Cucurbitaceae includes crop plants, such cucumbers, melons, loofah, and pumpkins. In terms of its economic importance, the cucumber is among the top ten crop plants cultivated worldwide, and the related honeydew melon is also of considerable agronomic significance.
Asthma and Eczema Sufferers Have a Lower Risk of Developing a Cancer
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Men who had a history of asthma or eczema generally had a lower risk of developing cancer, according to a study carried out by researchers at INRS–Institut Armand-Frappier, the Research Centre of the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal, and McGill University. The findings, published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, show that male eczema sufferers had a lower risk of lung cancer while those with a history of asthma had a similar effect in relation to stomach cancer.
“Asthma and eczema are allergies brought about by a hyper-reactive immune system – a state which might have enabled abnormal cells to have been eliminated more efficiently, thereby reducing the risk of cancer,” explained Professor Marie-Claude Rousseau of the INRS–Institut Armand-Frappier, one of the co-authors of the research.
The researchers analyzed information that was collected in a study on exposures in the workplace and the risk of developing cancer, undertaken between August 1979 and March 1986. It involved 3,300 men, between 35 and 70 years of age, who had been diagnosed with cancer in one of Montreal’s 18 hospitals, and a control group of 512 people from the general population who did not have cancer.
