ED Drug Improves Heart’s Pumping Action in Young Patients with Single-Ventricle Disease
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Heart function significantly improved in children and young adults with single-ventricle congenital heart disease who have had the Fontan operation following treatment with sildenafil, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension, say researchers from The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Single-ventricle defects are a collection of cardiac malformations that impair the heart’s ability to pump blood. Examples include tricuspid atresia, pulmonary atresia/intact ventricular septum and hypoplastic left heart syndrome.
The Fontan operation is a procedure that redirects systemic venous blood directly to the pulmonary arteries, bypassing the heart. It is the third surgery in a staged palliation for single-ventricle heart defects.
Canada sees spike in H1N1 flu-related deaths
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The H1N1 flu killed more people in Canada during the past week than in any other week this year, but health officials said on Tuesday the nation’s vaccination program was going so well that it may reach its peak earlier than expected.
Thirty-seven people died of the pandemic flu Nov. 12-17, bringing Canada’s death toll from H1N1 to 198, out of a population of 34 million. Comparable figures from other weeks were not available.
“Rather than seeing thousands of deaths we’ve been fortunate to have people doing what they need to do (to avoid the flu),” Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada’s chief public health officer, told reporters in Ottawa. “I think we’re in a relatively good position, but a pandemic is always full of surprises.”
Overexpression of Sodium/Calcium Exchanger Protein Alone did not Cause Heart Failure
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Researchers from the Center for Translational Medicine at Thomas Jefferson University have found that the overexpression of a sodium/calcium exchanger, without changes in other ion transport pathways commonly observed in heart failure, does not by itself lead to contraction abnormalities in the heart. They presented the data from the study at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Orlando, Fla.
Led by Joseph Cheung, M.D., Ph.D., Capizzi Professor of Medicine and director of the division of Nephrology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, the research team engineered a novel mouse model in which the expression of the sodium/calcium exchanger protein (NCX1) could be turned on and off, by withholding doxycycline from the mouse feed.
NCX1 normally removes calcium from the heart. Under some conditions, NCX1 can also add calcium to the heart. According to Dr. Cheung, calcium controls the strength of the heartbeat.
In binge-tolerant Japan, alcoholism not seen as disease
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When Japanese civil servant Yoshiyuki Takeuchi saw himself lagging behind his peers at work, alcohol was the only thing he felt he could turn to, becoming the latest victim of an addiction poorly understood in Japan.
“People who started after me would go further in their careers just because they finished college,” said Takeuchi, 50, who had to quit university as his family couldn’t afford it.
“I tried to stop that sense of ‘why always me?’ by drinking.”
Nintendo Wii may provide actual exercise-study
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The new active Wii video games from Nintendo Co Ltd may be creating a healthier generation of couch potato, according to a new study presented on Monday.
Some of the Nintendo Wii sports games and activities included in the Wii fit series, both of which require video- game enthusiasts to get up off the couch, may increase energy expenditure as much as moderate intensity exercise without ever leaving the TV room, researchers said at the American Heart Association (AHA) scientific meeting in Orlando.
“It’s a very easy and fun way to start exercising,” said Motohiko Miyachi, head of a physical activity program at the National Institute of Health and Nutrition in Tokyo, who led the study.
Potential for criminal behavior evident at age 3
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Children who don’t show normal fear responses to loud, unpleasant sounds at the age of 3 may be more likely to commit crimes as adults, according to a new study.
Yu Gao and colleagues in the United States and the United Kingdom compared results from a study of almost 1,800 children born in 1969 and 1970 on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius to criminal records of group members 20 years later.
At age 3, the children were tested to gauge their level of “fear conditioning,” or fear of consequences. The idea is that children who associate unpleasant sounds or other unpleasant experiences with fear will be less likely to commit antisocial acts because they will link such experiences with punishments for those acts.
Researchers to Test First Gene Therapy For Alzheimer’s Patients
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Mount Sinai School of Medicine is one of 12 sites nationwide participating in the first Phase 2 clinical trial to test gene therapy treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. The study is the first multicenter neurosurgical intervention in Alzheimer’s research in the U.S.
The experimental treatment utilizes a viral-based gene transfer system, CERE-110, that makes Nerve Growth Factor (NGF), a naturally occurring protein that helps maintain nerve cell survival in the brain. CERE-110 has been previously studied in animals, where it reversed brain degeneration in aged monkeys and rats. For this study, CERE-110, will be injected by a neurosurgeon directly into the nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) of the brain, an area where neuronal death occurs in Alzheimer’s patients.
In animal studies, NGF has been shown to support the survival and function of the neurons that deteriorate in Alzheimer’s patients.
Walking hazard: Cell-phone use—but not music—reduces pedestrian safety
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Two new studies of pedestrian safety found that using a cell phone while hoofing it can endanger one’s health. Older pedestrians, in particular, are impaired when crossing a busy (simulated) street while speaking on a mobile phone, the researchers found.
The studies, in which participants crossed a virtual street while talking on the phone or listening to music, found that the music-listeners were able to navigate traffic as well as the average unencumbered pedestrian. Users of hands-free cell phones, however, took longer to cross the same street under the same conditions and were more likely to get run over.
Older cell-phone users, especially those unsteady on their feet to begin with, were even more likely to become traffic casualties.
‘Scaffolding’ Protein Changes in Heart Strengthen Link Between Alzheimer’s Disease
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A team of U.S., Canadian and Italian scientists led by researchers at Johns Hopkins report evidence from studies in animals and humans supporting a link between Alzheimer’s disease and chronic heart failure, two of the 10 leading causes of death in the United States.
The international team of biochemists and cardiologists say they have identified three changes in the chemical make-up of a key structural protein, called desmin, in heart muscle cells in dogs. The changes led to the formation of debris-like protein clusters, or amyloid-like oligomers containing desmin, in heart muscle, similar to the amyloid plaques seen in the brain tissue of Alzheimer’s patients. The protein alterations, which were reversed by surgically repairing the heart, occurred at the onset of heart failure. Further experiments by the Hopkins scientists found the same chemical modifications to desmin in the heart muscle in four people already diagnosed with the disease.
Survival up after funds flow into critical care
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Survival rates of patients in intensive care have jumped in England since the government boosted spending and reformed critical care services, a study showed on Friday.
Researchers writing in the British Medical Journal said spending on intensive care services had risen to 1.0 billion pounds in 2005/6 from 700 million in 1999/2000 when adjusted for inflation, producing “major improvements in care”.
Hospital deaths fell more than 13 percent, and 11 percent fewer patients needed to be transferred between intensive care units each year, the study found.
Welcome to the Clone Farm
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To the untrained eye, Pollard Farms looks much like any other cattle ranch. Similar looking cows are huddled in similar looking pens. But some of the cattle here don’t just resemble each other. They are literally identical—clear down to their genes.
Of the 400-some cattle in Barry Pollard’s herd of mostly Black Angus cattle there are 22 clones, genetic copies of some of the most productive livestock the world has ever known.
Pollard, a neurosurgeon and owner of Pollard Farms, says such breeding technology is at the forefront of a new era in animal agriculture. “We’re trying to stay on the very top of the heap of quality, genetically, with animals that will gain well and fatten well, produce well and reproduce well,” Pollard told a reporter during a recent visit to his farm.
Flow of H1N1 vaccines picking up in U.S., CDC says
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The flow of swine flu vaccines to the U.S. market is picking up, health and corporate officials said on Tuesday, and now the challenge will be to get the drugs to people.
Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 41.1 million doses of H1N1 vaccines are either available or have been delivered but that state and local health officials still face logistical problems.
“I can’t tell you how many times in our outreach to our counterparts that we got messages back saying ‘It’s Friday, we are furloughed’ or ‘We are out today’,” Schuchat told a Senate health subcommittee hearing.
U.S. stop-smoking efforts stalled, report shows
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Efforts to help smokers kick the habit have stalled in the United States, with hardly any recent change in smoking rates, federal researchers reported on Thursday.
Just over 20 percent of the adult population smoked in 2008, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and 1,000 people take up the habit every day.
“Overall smoking prevalence did not change significantly from 2007 to 2008,” CDC researchers wrote in the weekly report on death and disease.
“In 2008, an estimated 20.6 percent (46 million) of U.S. adults were current cigarette smokers; of these, 79.8 percent (36.7 million) smoked every day, and 20.2 percent (9.3 million) smoked some days.”
Men more apt than women to leave partner with cancer
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Women are six times more likely to end up separated or divorced if they are diagnosed with cancer or multiple sclerosis than if their male partners were facing the same illness, according to a U.S. study.
The study confirmed earlier research of a divorce or separation rate among cancer patients of 11.6 percent, similar to the general population, but found the rate jumped to 20.8 percent when the woman was sick versus 2.9 percent when the man was ill.
“Female gender was the strongest predictor of separation or divorce in each of the patient groups we studied,” said Marc Chamberlain, director of the neuro-oncology program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA).
Faithful mothers have healthier babies
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Faculty of 1000 reviewers examine a study from New Zealand on whether prolonged exposure to the father’s semen protects new mothers against pre-eclampsia and having an undersized baby
In this study by Kho and colleagues at the University of Auckland, published in the Journal of Reproductive Immunology, 2507 first-time pregnant women were interviewed about the length of their relationship with the baby’s biological father.
When the pregnancies came to term, pre-eclampsia (pregnancy-induced hypertension) was found to be less common in women who had long-term sexual relations exclusively with the biological father, than in those who had been with their partner only for a short time (i.e. less than six months).
