Bush claims progress against AIDS in Africa
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President George W. Bush claimed progress on Thursday in the battle against AIDS in Africa, saying U.S. efforts were helping 400,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa get treatment. Bush said the U.S.-backed Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief was helping provide medical treatment in Uganda, Kenya, Botswana and Namibia.
“These countries, and many others, are fighting for the lives of their citizens, and America is now their strongest partner in that fight,” he said at an event marking World AIDS Day.
Pope says abstinence helping beat AIDS in Africa
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Pope Benedict on Thursday said programmes based on promoting abstinence and marital fidelity were seeing success in combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in several parts of Africa.
But for the second day running in comments about AIDS, the Pope avoided a specific mention of the Roman Catholic Church’s controversial ban on condoms.
In an address to the new ambassador from South Africa the Pope said the Catholic Church was well respected by African governments for its efforts to help address social problems.
Alzheimer’s May be Insulin-Dependent Disease
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Insulin and associated signaling molecules begin to disappear from the brain during early Alzheimer’s, suggesting the possibility of therapy to boost levels of insulin in the brain, researchers here reported. They call Alzheimer’s “type 3 diabetes.”
Mean levels of insulin, the signaling molecule insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I), and its receptor decline significantly in the brain during the early stages of Alzheimer’s, compared with normal controls, and decrease by 80% or more in late-stage disease, according to Suzanne M. de la Monte, M.D., and colleagues at Brown Medical School here.
Allergic Teen Dies After Kissing Boyfriend
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A 15-year-old girl exquisitely sensitive to peanuts died after kissing her boyfriend who had eaten a peanut butter snack hours earlier.
Christina Desforges died a week ago at Chicoutimi Hospital here 155 miles north of Quebec City, several days after a severe reaction to the kiss from her boyfriend. According to published reports, Desforges had been immediately treated with a shot of adrenaline. The hospital declined to offer any further details.
Alzheimer’s patients get less breast cancer therapy
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Women with Alzheimer’s disease receive less treatment for breast cancer than do comparable female Medicare beneficiaries, the results of a new study indicate. However, this pattern is not necessarily inappropriate, the authors note in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
Dr. Sherri Sheinfeld Gorin and colleagues from Columbia University, New York, examined the use of breast cancer treatment in patients with Alzheimer’s disease based on data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer registry and Medicare billing records.
AIDS expert reports progress toward HIV vaccine
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A scientist who helped to discover HIV said he has made progress toward producing an AIDS vaccine and hopes to launch a clinical trial in about a year.
Dr. Robert Gallo, the director of the University of Maryland’s Institute for Human Virology, said the results of animal studies are encouraging.
Anaphylaxis Requires Prompt and Appropriate Treatment
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Anaphylaxis is a multiple-organ hypersensitivity reaction that needs immediate and appropriate treatment. It is important for both patients at risk and clinicians to be aware of the symptoms, as well as appropriate protocols of treatment, according to research presented at the Annual Meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) in Anaheim.
“Anaphylaxis affects many areas of the body, and involves all systems,” said Phillip E. Korenblat, M.D., a professor of clinical medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Mo. It is generally characterized by the presence of significant skin, gastrointestinal, respiratory, or cardiovascular involvement.
Young women asking for the morning-after pill at UK pharmacies will be offered fast-tracked screenin
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Young women asking for the morning-after pill at pharmacies will be offered fast-tracked screening for Chlamydia, the UK’s most common sexually transmitted infection, in a University of Manchester study.
It is thought that up to one in ten young people under 25 have Chlamydia, a sexually transmitted infection that often has no symptoms and can lead to infertility, although it is very easily treated with just one dose of four tablets in the majority of cases.
Overproducing Leptin Receptors in Fat Cells Key to Halting Weight Gain
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A new study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center suggests that when fat cells increase in size – as they do during the development of obesity – the cells progressively lose receptors for the hormone leptin, a powerful stimulus for fat burning.
Leptin, a hormone produced by the body’s fat cells and involved in the regulation of body weight, was first discovered in 1994. It was thought leptin itself would be a key to curing obesity in humans, but the hypothesis did not readily translate into weight loss in obese people. Using mouse models, UT Southwestern researchers have now shown that if enough receptors are present on the fat cells, it is impossible for the cells to store fat and obesity would be blocked.
PCBs, Furans May Factor in Risk of Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
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Scientists have found some additional evidence that environmental exposure to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) may be associated with non-Hodgkin lymphoma, according to a study published in the December 1 issue of Cancer Research.
By comparing blood levels of PCBs in 100 pairs of healthy volunteers and non-Hodgkin lymphoma patients, Anneclaire De Roos, Ph.D., assistant professor of epidemiology, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and colleagues determined that high levels of three specific molecular forms of PCBs are linked to an increased risk of developing cancer that starts in patients’ lymph tissue.
Too much sugar raises diabetes risk in Latino kids
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Overweight Latino children who eat lots of sugar and drink sugary drinks may show signs of poor beta cell function, which is associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes, according to the results of a new study.
“The take-home message is something we know already—eating a lot of sugar is not good for you,” said Dr. Michael I. Goran, of the University of Southern California’s Institute for Prevention Research.
Women Who Smoke Prior to First Pregnancy Have a Higher Risk of Breast Cancer
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Researchers outline in the November issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings their study of postmenopausal women, which supports the hypothesis that women who smoke cigarettes before first full-term pregnancy have a 20 percent increased risk of breast cancer compared with women who began smoking after the birth of their first child or were never smokers.
The study is a strong indicator of the continued need for smoking prevention messages to all, but especially ones tailored to this group of young women.
Poor Health, Poverty, Minority Status Major Factors in Depression
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Preliminary results from the STAR-D project, one of the nation’s largest studies of depression, show that chronic depressive episodes are common and are associated with poorer physical health, lower quality of life, socioeconomic disadvantage and minority status.
Findings of this study highlight the common occurrence of chronic episodes of major depression and the range of factors that contribute to them in both psychiatric and primary care settings.
Perk up that memory with some caffeine
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It seems brain scans confirm what coffee drinkers already know - that caffeine gives the brain a boost.
Austrian researchers say the scans show that caffeine found in coffee, tea, soft drinks and chocolate stimulates areas of the brain governing short-term memory and attention.
Go-cart injuries in children - bad!
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Researchers have used diagnostic images to conduct a study of go-cart injuries in children and the results are concerning, according to findings presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
“We found skull and facial fractures, scalp detachment, brain injury, fractures to the upper and lower extremities and burns,” said study co-author Annemarie Relyea-Chew, J.D., M.S., research scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle.
