Post heart attack recovery may not be aided by stem cell injections, but trial demonstrates promise
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University Hospitals Case Medical Center researchers could still be close to giving heart attack patients a second chance…just not as they originally thought.
LateTIME was a study of adult stem cells (autologous) harnessed from bone marrow that were believed to have the ability to improve heart function after an attack if injected into the heart within two weeks of the attack. Results are being released today at American Heart Association Scientific Sessions and published this week in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The results have shown the injections within that timeframe were not favorable, but the concept showed great promise, according to an accompanying JAMA editorial that assessed the trial.
The therapy still shows promise for recovering lost or damaged heart tissue resulting from a heart attack. Both UH Case Medical Center’s Drs. Dan Simon and Marco Costa, co-investigators in the LateTIME study, are currently participating in a similar trial, “TIME” that already has reduced the time between attack and stem cell injection.
Newly identified gene mutation adds to melanoma risk
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A major international study has identified a novel gene mutation that appears to increase the risk of both inherited and sporadic cases of malignant melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer. The identified mutation occurs in the gene encoding MITF, a transcription factor that induces the production of several important proteins in melanocytes, the cells in which melanoma originates. While previous research has suggested that MITF may act as a melanoma oncogene, the current study identifies a mechanism by which MITF mutation could increase melanoma risk.
The report from researchers from the U.S., the U.K. and Australia is receiving advance online publication in Nature. It is expected to appear in a print issue along with a study from French researchers finding that the same mutation increased the risk for the most common form of kidney cancer, for melanoma or for both tumors.
“We previously knew that MITF is a master regulator for production of the pigment melanin; and several years ago we identified a chemical modification, called sumoylation, that represses MITF activity,” says David Fisher, MD, PhD, chief of Dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), director of the MGH Cutaneous Biology Research Center and co-senior author of the Nature paper. “The currently discovered mutation appears to block sumoylation of MITF, and the resulting overactivity of MITF significantly increases melanoma risk.”
Early sexual abuse increases heart risks
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Women who were repeatedly sexually abused as girls have a 62 percent higher risk of heart problems later in life compared with women who were not abused, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.
The findings, presented at the American Heart Association meeting in Orlando, Florida, underscored the lasting physical effects of early sexual abuse.
Much of the increased risk was related to coping strategies among abuse survivors such as overeating, alcohol use and smoking.
Study finds shifting disease burden following universal Hib vaccination
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Vaccination against Haemophilus influenzae type b, or Hib, once the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in children, has dramatically reduced the incidence of Hib disease in young children over the past 20 years, according to a study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases and available online. However, other strains of the bacteria continue to cause substantial disease among the nation’s youngest and oldest age groups.
“The Hib vaccine was successful in reducing disease among children 5 years and younger, and now the epidemiology has changed,” said lead author Jessica MacNeil, MPH, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who, with colleagues, analyzed data for the current epidemiology and past trends in the invasive disease over the past two decades following the introduction of the Hib vaccine in the mid-1980s. Most H. influenzae disease in the United States is now caused by other, non-type b strains of the bacteria.
The study authors warn that the highest rates of disease from non-b type strains are in the oldest and youngest age groups, those 65 and older and infants less than a year old. Among children younger than 5 years old, young infants are the most likely to be diagnosed with the disease. Many of these cases occur during the first month of life, and among those, premature and low-birthweight babies are the most vulnerable.
Dr. John F. Burke, Dies at 89; Created Synthetic Skin
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Artificial skin had been the holy grail in treating burn victims for a century when Dr. John F. Burke began wrestling with some of the perennial obstacles to making it: finding a flexible material that would protect against infection and dehydration, that could be made from ordinary substances, that would not be rejected by a patient’s immune system and that would look like normal skin.
In 1969, Dr. Burke, a Harvard Medical School professor and a surgeon at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, took those specifications to Dr. Ioannis V. Yannas, a professor of fibers and polymers in M.I.T.’s department of mechanical engineering.
Eleven years later, a team led by the two men developed a material — an amalgam of plastics, cow tissue and shark cartilage — that became the first commercially reproducible, synthetic human skin. It would save the lives of innumerable severely burned people worldwide.
Military retirees fret about healthcare fees
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When Wayne Johnson flew missions in Vietnam in the 1960s, one of the allures of a military career was the pledge that those who risked their lives for the United States would be repaid with healthcare in old age.
Now, as the 65-year-old retired Air Force major nears an age when he may need to bank on that promise, support is building in Washington for changes that could make it more costly for military retirees and their dependents to receive healthcare. It is a move Johnson finds worrying.
“It’s something that was an unwritten contract when we joined the military back in the ‘60s,” said Johnson, who flew an OV-10 Bronco light strike aircraft as a forward air controller in Vietnam. “And now to change the rules when it’s time to use it, certainly it’s a violation of trust.”
Republican Cain says ad not promoting smoking
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Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain on Sunday said he was not promoting smoking in an ad that showed his chief of staff puffing on a cigarette.
The ad stirred much debate over what message it was trying to convey. Cain, a non-smoker, appeared on CBS’s “Face the Nation” and said there was no subliminal signal intended.
“One of the themes within this campaign is let Herman be Herman. Mark Block is a smoker and we say let Mark be Mark,” Cain said, referring to his chief of staff. “That’s all we’re trying to say because we believe let people be people. He doesn’t deny that he’s a smoker.”
Scientists prove regular aspirin intake halves cancer risk
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Scientists including those from Queen’s University have discovered that taking regular aspirin halves the risk of developing hereditary cancers.
Hereditary cancers are those which develop as a result of a gene fault inherited from a parent. Bowel and womb cancers are the most common forms of hereditary cancers. Fifty thousand people in the UK are diagnosed with bowel and womb cancers every year; 10 per cent of these cancers are thought to be hereditary.
The decade-long study, which involved scientists and clinicians from 43 centres in 16 countries and was funded by Cancer Research UK, followed nearly 1,000 patients, in some cases for over 10 years. The study found that those who had been taking a regular dose of aspirin had 50 per cent fewer incidences of hereditary cancer compared with those who were not taking aspirin.
The research focused on people with Lynch syndrome which is an inherited genetic disorder that causes cancer by affecting genes responsible for detecting and repairing damage in the DNA. Around 50 per cent of those with Lynch syndrome develop cancer, mainly in the bowel and womb. The study looked at all cancers related to the syndrome, and found that almost 30 per cent of the patients not taking aspirin had developed a cancer compared to around 15 per cent of those taking the aspirin.
China arrests 18 in illegal transplant crackdown
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Police in eastern China have arrested 18 people after a raid on two clinics offering illegal organ transplants, state news agency Xinhua reported on Wednesday.
The clinics in Jinan, Shandong’s provincial capital, were raided on Sunday as doctors were preparing a kidney transplant, Xinhua cited local police as saying.
“Police were tipped off earlier this month, and then launched a probe with the city’s health bureau against the two clinics. They found that vehicles and people regularly shuttled between the two clinics, which were not far away from each other,” the report said.
Preventing cancer development inside the cell cycle
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Researchers from the NYU Cancer Institute, an NCI-designated cancer center at NYU Langone Medical Center, have identified a cell cycle-regulated mechanism behind the transformation of normal cells into cancerous cells. The study shows the significant role that protein networks can play in a cell leading to the development of cancer. The study results, published in the October 21 issue of the journal Molecular Cell, suggest that inhibition of the CK1 enzyme may be a new therapeutic target for the treatment of cancer cells formed as a result of a malfunction in the cell’s mTOR signaling pathway.
In the study, NYU Cancer Institute researchers examined certain multi-protein complexes and protein regulators in cancer cells. Researchers identified a major role for the multi-protein complex called SCFβTrCP . It assists in the removal from cancer cells the recently discovered protein DEPTOR, an inhibitor of the mTOR pathway. SCF (Skp1, Cullin1, F-box protein) ubiquitin ligase complexes are responsible for the removal of unnecessary proteins from a cell. This degradation of proteins by the cell’s ubiquitin system controls cell growth and prevents malignant cell transformation. Researchers show that inhibiting the ability of SCFβTrCP to degrade DEPTOR in cells can result in blocking the proliferation of cancer cells. In addition, researchers discovered that the activity of CK1 (Casein Kinase 1), a protein that regulates signaling pathways in most cells, is needed for SCFβTrCP to successfully promote the degradation of DEPTOR.
“Low levels of DEPTOR and high levels of mTOR activity are found in many cancers, including cancers of the breast, prostate, and lung,” said senior study author Michele Pagano, MD, the May Ellen and Gerald Jay Ritter Professor of Oncology and Professor of Pathology at NYU Langone Medical Center and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. “It is critical for researchers to better understand how the protein DEPTOR is regulated. Our study shows it would be advantageous to increase the levels of DEPTOR in many types of cancer cells to inhibit mTOR and prevent cell proliferation.”
What you want versus how you get it
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New research reveals how we make decisions. Birds choosing between berry bushes and investors trading stocks are faced with the same fundamental challenge - making optimal choices in an environment featuring varying costs and benefits. A neuroeconomics study from the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital – The Neuro, McGill University, shows that the brain employs two separate regions and two distinct processes in valuing ‘stimuli’ i.e. ‘goods’ (for example, berry bushes), as opposed to valuing the ‘actions,’ needed to obtain the desired option (for example flight paths to the berry bushes). The findings, published in the most recent issue of the Journal of Neuroscience and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, are vital not only for improving knowledge of brain function, but also for treating and understanding the effects of frontal lobe damage, which can be a feature of common neurological conditions ranging from stroke to traumatic brain injury to dementia.
Decision making - selecting the most valuable option, typically by taking an action - requires value comparisons, but there has been debate about how these comparisons occur in the brain: is value linked to the object itself , or to the action required to get that object. Are choices made between the things we want, or between the actions we take? The dominant model of decision making proposes that value comparisons occur in series, with stimulus value information feeding into actions (the body’s motor system). “So, in this study we wanted to understand how the brain uses value information to make decisions between different actions, and between different objects,” said the study’s lead investigator Dr. Lesley Fellows, neurologist and researcher at The Neuro. “The surprising and novel finding is that in fact these two mechanisms of choice are independent of one another. There are distinct processes in the brain by which value information guides decisions, depending on whether the choice is between objects or between actions.” Dr. Fellows often sees patients with damage to the frontal lobe, where decision making areas of the brain are located. “This finding gives me more insight into what is happening in the brain of my patients, and may lead to new treatments and new ways to care for them and manage their symptoms.”
“Despite the ubiquity and importance of decision making, we have had, until now, a limited understanding of its basis in the brain,” said Fellows. “Psychologists, economists, and ecologists have studied decision making for decades, but it has only recently become a focus for neuroscientists.
Can aromatherapy produce harmful indoor air pollutants?
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Spas that offer massage therapy using fragrant essential oils, called aromatherapy, may have elevated levels of potentially harmful indoor air pollutants such as volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and ultrafine particles, according to an article in Environmental Engineering Science, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.. The article is available free online at http://www.liebertpub.com/ees
Fragrant essential oils, derived from plants, may release various VOCs into the air. VOC degradation caused by the reaction of these compounds with ozone present in the air can produce small, ultrafine byproducts called secondary organic aerosols (SOAs), which may cause eye and airway irritation.
Taiwanese researchers Der-Jen Hsu (National Kaohsiung First University of Science and Technology), Hsiao-Lin Huang (Chia-Nan University of Pharmacy and Science, Tainan), and Shiann-Cherng Sheu (Chang-Jung Christian University, Tainan) tested both fragrant and Chinese herbal essential oils for SOA formation in a controlled-environment study chamber under different test conditions. They also performed air sampling and analysis in spa centers that offer massage therapy using essential oils.
Study links pollutants to a 450 percent increase in risk of birth defects
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Pesticides and pollutants are related to an alarming 450 percent increase in the risk of spina bifida and anencephaly in rural China, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and Peking University.
Two of the pesticides found in high concentrations in the placentas of affected newborns and stillborn fetuses were endosulfan and lindane. Endosulfan is only now being phased out in the United States for treatment of cotton, potatoes, tomatoes and apples. Lindane was only recently banned in the United States for treatment of barley, corn, oats, rye, sorghum and wheat seeds.
Strong associations were also found between spina bifida and anencephaly and high concentrations of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are byproducts of burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal. Spina bifida is a defect in which the backbone and spinal canal do not close before birth. Anencephaly is the absence of a large part of the brain and skull.
Fatal Crashes in the U.S.: Fewer Canadian Drivers Under The Influence
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A new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy and Columbia University finds alcohol-related fatal motor vehicle crashes in the U.S. are much lower among drivers with Canadian licenses than drivers with U.S. or Mexican licenses. The prevalence of alcohol involvement in fatal crashes was 27 percent for both U.S. and Mexican drivers, and 11 percent for Canadian drivers. Similarly, alcohol impairment was found in 23 percent of U.S. and Mexican drivers and 8 percent of Canadian drivers involved in a fatal crash. Research from other countries finds foreign drivers are at greater risk of crashes than native drivers. In contrast, this study shows that drivers licensed in Mexico and Canada who were involved in fatal crashes in the U.S. had the same or less alcohol impairment than U.S.-licensed drivers. The report is published in the October issue of Injury Prevention and is available on the journal’s website.
“Our findings were unexpected, partly because the substantial cultural differences between the U.S. and Mexico led us to anticipate differences in alcohol-related crashes,” said lead study author Susan P. Baker, a professor with the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “We also anticipated that Canadian drivers in U.S. crashes would be similar to U.S. drivers because the rate of alcohol-related fatal crashes is similar within the two countries.” Together, Mexican and Canadian drivers comprise more than 70 percent of all foreign-licensed drivers involved in fatal crashes in the U.S.
As a possible explanation, the researchers speculate that the less prominent role of alcohol in fatal crashes of Canadian-licensed drivers in the U.S. may suggest that a larger proportion of Canadians were traveling on vacation or business, situations that may be less likely to involve alcohol. Crashes at night (when alcohol is more likely to be involved) were also least common among Canadian-licensed drivers. And finally, it is also possible that Canadians are less likely to drive after drinking.
China vaccinates 4.5 million people in fight against polio
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China vaccinated 4.5 million children and young adults over the last five weeks in the western region of Xinjiang in a fight against polio after the disease paralyzed 17 people and killed one of them, the World Health Organization said.
Polio has broken out in China for the first time since 1999 and scientists say the strain originated from Pakistan. The outbreak marked the latest setback to a global campaign to eradicate polio, now endemic in only four countries—Afghanistan, India, Pakistan and Nigeria.
“Even if they don’t come down with any symptoms (carriers), by giving them polio vaccine we make that person less infectious,” said Oliver Rosenbauer, WHO spokesman for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in Geneva.
