Public Health
Molecular pathway may contribute to age related diseases
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“A common molecular denominator in aging and many age-related diseases is oxidative stress,” says the study’s lead author Azad Bonni, MD, PhD, Harvard Medical School associate professor of pathology.
The skin of a bitten apple will brown because of its exposure to air, and in some ways that is a good metaphor for the damage that oxidative stress is causing to neurons and other types of cells over time.
Humans and other organisms depend on oxygen to produce the energy required for cells to carry out their normal functions. A cell’s engine, the mitochondria, converts oxygen into energy. But this process also leaves a kind of exhaust product known as free radicals. When free radicals are not destroyed by antioxidants, they create oxidative stress. As the body ages, it produces more and more free radicals and its own antioxidants are unable to fight this process, which results in the generation of highly reactive oxygen molecules that inflict cellular damage by reacting with biomolecules including DNA, proteins, and lipids. A lifetime of oxidative stress leads to general cellular deterioration associated with aging and degenerative diseases.
UK drug addicts fuel jail overcrowding - top judge
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Drug addicts are deliberately committing crime to receive treatment in prison, fuelling chronic overcrowding, the top judge in England and Wales said.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips said short sentences were pointless and that drug users convicted of less serious offences should receive treatment outside prison.
Overcrowding was “absolutely fatal” for the treatment of inmates, he added.
Abortion pill a big hit in Britain
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Records in Britain show that as many as 10,000 women had an abortion at home last year, using abortion drugs.
The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) says that of the 32,000 terminations it provided in the first nine weeks of pregnancy, almost one-third were “medical” and involved the abortion pill.
As far as the BPAS is concerned this represents some measure of success in terms of sexual health.
Pioneering the Three-Year Osteopathic Family Physician Degree
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The Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) is taking a lead position in the future of medical education by introducing a new program to attract more physicians to family practice. LECOM is continuing its mission to help grow the osteopathic medical profession by starting a Primary Care Scholars Pathway (PCSP) that will reduce the time it takes to become a family physician.
The LECOM PCSP has received approval from the American Osteopathic Association Committee on Osteopathic College Accreditation and backing of the American College of Osteopathic Family Practice. The PCSP will condense four years of medical education into three years in order to graduate more family doctors sooner and to save these students one year of expenses that adds to the mounting debt held by medical college graduates.
The AOA COCA approved the substantive change requested by LECOM to initiate the Primary Care Scholars Pathway in the 2007-2008 academic year. The program will begin with six students in the first year, eight in 2008-2009, 10 in 2010-2011, and 12 students in 2011-2012. The new program will not affect the approved class size, which the AOA has set at 250 students in 2007.
Global health gains offset by AIDS, malaria
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Although child mortality has dropped in many regions of the world over the past decade, these gains were offset by increasing number of deaths due to HIV/AIDS and malaria, as well as setbacks in adult mortality in countries of the former Soviet Union, according to results of the 2001 Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study.
Dr. Alan D. Lopez, from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, and his associates analyzed mortality, incidence, and prevalence for 136 diseases and injuries in seven geographical areas. Their findings appear in the The Lancet this week.
Roughly 56 million people died in 2001. Ischemic heart disease—the type that involves restricted blood flow to the heart—and stroke were the leading causes in all regions, accounting for more than one fifth of all deaths worldwide.
Research Reveals Control of Potent Immune Regulator
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A new study reveals how the production of a potent immune regulator called interferon gamma (IFNg) is controlled in natural killer (NK) cells, immune cells that typically defend the body against cancer and infections.
IFNg, produced by NK cells and other cell types, plays a critical role in killing pathogen-infected cells and in defending against tumor cells. However, overproduction of IFNg is also dangerous to the body and can cause autoimmune diseases. But exactly how the body tightly controls IFNg production - and, therefore, NK-cell activity - is not known.
The study, published in the May issue of the journal Immunity, looked at substances called pro-inflammatory cytokines, which cause NK cells to make IFNg and stimulate their activity. It also looked at transforming growth factor beta (TGFb), a substance also made by NK cells that lowers IFNg production.
Internet searches: Librarians do it better
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Cancer patients seeking timely, accurate, unbiased information on the Internet about a disease and its treatment might do well to enlist the help of a professional librarian.
According to a study reported today at the Medical Library Association’s annual meeting in Phoenix, cancer patients are more likely to find what they are looking for with a librarian-mediated search instead of “going it alone.”
Over the last five years, Ruti Volk, a professional librarian and manager of the Patient Education Resource Center (PERC) at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, and colleagues have done about 2,100 searches for cancer patients. After each mediated-search, patients are asked to complete an evaluation on the information provided to them.
Hungary govt plans healthcare tax hike - paper
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Hungary’s new government plans to raise employees’ healthcare payments and is considering a basic health fee which together could generate at least 280 billion forints ($1.38 billion) in revenue, daily Nepszabadsag said.
The government intends to raise employees’ healthcare contributions to 7 percent from 3, and to charge a basic health fee of minimum 5,000 forints per month for everybody, the paper reported on Thursday, without disclosing its sources.
Other tax hike ideas considered include the raising of the lower value added tax (VAT) rate to 20 percent from 15, the introduction of a 3 percentage point extra “solidarity tax” on companies, and a tax on real estates, the paper said.
Program helps disabled elderly stay independent
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Working collaboratively with older people who are having difficulties with bathing, dressing themselves and other activities of daily living can help them to remain independent, a new study shows.
Dr. Laura N. Gitlin of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, the study’s lead author and her colleagues tested a six-month intervention in which people received four 90-minute visits with an occupational therapist, as well as one 20-minute telephone contact, and one 90-minute physical therapy visit.
Of 319 men and women 70 and older, half were assigned to the intervention, and half received no training.
An Injury That Heals
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Louis Pasteur said that “chance favors the prepared mind.” For Prof. Nava Dekel of the Weizmann Institute’s Biological Regulation Department, some completely unexpected results of biopsies performed on women with fertility problems have led to a new path of scientific discovery that may hold hope for women trying to conceive.
Dekel and a research team that includes Drs. Yael Kalma and Yulia Gnainsky, working in collaboration with Drs. Amichai Barash and Irit Granot of the Kaplan Medical Center, had been investigating a protein they suspected plays a role in the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus - a crucial and sometimes failure-prone process. The team took biopsies at several stages in the menstrual cycles of 12 women with long histories of fertility problems and unsuccessful IVF treatments to see if levels of this protein changed over the course of the cycle.
Indeed, the team’s research went according to plan and they found evidence pointing to the protein’s role. The surprise came soon after: Of the 12 women participating in the study, 11 became pregnant during the next round of IVF. The idea of biopsy incisions, basically small wounds, leading to such a positive outcome was counterintuitive, and Dekel realized something interesting was happening. She and her team repeated the biopsies, this time on a group of 45 volunteers, and compared the results to a control group of 89 women who did not undergo biopsy. The results were clear: The procedure doubled a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant.
Health Leaders Discuss Importance of Calcium and Vitamin D, Affirm Value of Research
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The Society for Women’s Health Research convened experts on Capitol Hill yesterday to discuss recent results from a federal study to gauge the ability of calcium and vitamin D supplements to help prevent broken bones in women over 50. Initial news coverage said the study found no clear benefits, contradicting long held beliefs and confusing both patients and doctors. Health experts say the study results show benefits for some groups and guidelines for the nutrients remain unchanged.
“The Women’s Health Initiative’s calcium and vitamin D supplemental trial showed that women over the age of 60 had a 21 percent reduction in risk for hip fracture,” said Phyllis Greenberger, president and CEO of the Society. “Women who took a full dose of calcium, as directed by the study, had a 29 percent decrease in risk.”
Despite these findings, many headlines about this federally-funded research trial were negative and misleading.
Fifty more deaths in Angola from cholera
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According to the World Health Organization (WHO) another 50 people have died from cholera in Angola in the last week.
To date this latest outbreak has killed 1,156 people in the country since mid-February and the epidemic is showing no signs of abating and is in fact still spreading.
The WHO says Angola has reported 30,612 cases of cholera since February and half have been in the province of Luanda.
Sunscreen ads not targeting high-risk groups
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Magazines aimed at men and parents and families, as well as to fans of travel and outdoor recreation, rarely contain ads for sun protection products, a new study shows.
Researchers note that middle-aged and older men are the group least likely to use sunscreen, while they are at the greatest risk of dying from melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.
Alan C. Geller of Boston University School of Medicine and colleagues reviewed six years’ worth of issues of 24 popular magazines for groups at high risk of skin cancer, including men, women, teens, parents, travelers and people who enjoy outdoor pastimes such as tennis, running, golf and bicycling.
New method could predict individual patient responses to drug treatments
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Scientists from Imperial College London and Pfizer have developed a new method that could predict individual patient responses to drug treatments. The authors anticipate that the development will advance biomedical research further towards development of personalised medicines.
Research published today in Nature demonstrates the new ‘pharmaco-metabonomic’ approach that uses a combination of advanced chemical analysis and mathematical modelling to predict drug-induced responses in individual patients. The method is based on analysis of the body’s normal metabolic products, metabolites, and metabolite patterns that are characteristic of the individual. The authors hypothesize that these individual patterns can be used to diagnose diseases, predict an individual’s future illnesses, and their responses to treatments.
Not all drugs are effective in all patients and in rare cases adverse drug reactions can occur in susceptible individuals. To address this, researchers from Imperial College and Pfizer have been exploring new methods for profiling individuals prior to drug therapy. The new approach, if successful, requires the analysis of the metabolite profiles of an individual from a urine, or other biofluid, sample.
Beams of light used to move, select and trap protein molecules
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A paper that outlines a new method to use a beam of light to trap protein molecules and make them dance in space has earned a place in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
The technique, developed by a team from the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, California Institute of Technology and Protein Discovery, is more than just a novelty, however, as it is useful for separating, concentrating and analyzing proteins quickly with high sensitivity and selectivity.
“With this technique, we can steer DNA or other biomolecules for transport in three dimensions and also separate them according to size and their isoelectric point,” said Chuck Witkowski, a co-author and president and chief executive officer of Protein Discovery, a Knoxville startup company. The ability to perform these functions with high efficiency and precision has applications for medical diagnostics and as a discovery tool.
