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 Back to Eurekalert Medical and Health News Archives
Eurekalert Medical and Health News: 12-21-2004
Pharmacogenomics, the study of genetic variability in the way individuals respond to medicines, has the potential to spark a major, technology-driven restructuring of the health care and pharmaceuticals industries, according to a commentary published in the current issue of Nature Medicine by faculty of the Indiana University Program in Pharmacogenomics, Ethics, and Public Policy.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have discovered that specific cancer-causing genes associated with leukemias can transform mature white blood cells into leukemic cells that have all the properties of stem cells. The findings are noteworthy because they show that certain leukemia oncogenes can commandeer and switch on genetic programs that govern self-renewal, one of the unique characteristics of stem cells.
Essential oils usually used in aromatherapy have been found to kill the deadly MRSA bacteria according to research carried out at The University of Manchester.
The effects of natural radon gas escaping the earth's surface into our homes is causing 9% of all deaths from lung cancer across Europe, and smokers are most at risk, according to a paper on BMJ.com today (21 December 2004).
Don.t let the odd name fool you - FLUKA. is serious stuff. It.s a computer program used by physicists to simulate the effects of various forms of radiation as it passes through things. A course on FLUKA, a top radiation transport computer code in the world with applications in the aerospace and health industries, is coming to the University of Houston Jan. 10-14, 2005. This is only the second formal FLUKA course to ever be held.
Lives saved by reducing the mortality rate of African-Americans to the rate of whites are five times those that could be saved by improvements in medical technology. So said the authors of "The Health Impact of Resolving Racial Disparities: An Analysis of US Mortality Data," published in the December edition of the American Journal of Public Health.
In the paper, "Early motor activity drives spindle bursts in the developing somatosensory cortex," which was published in journal Nature, Rutgers-Newark researchers contend that critical information may be provided to the sensory areas of the developing brain through an individual's own movements rather than just sensory inputs, as was previously believed. In the article, the researchers describe how they examined the relationship between movement and electrical activity in the somatosensory area of the cerebral cortex in developing rats.
Scientists reported taking a major step forward in using saliva to detect oral cancer. As published in the December 15, 2004 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, the scientists found they could measure for elevated levels of four distinct cancer-associated molecules in saliva and distinguish with 91 percent accuracy between healthy people and those diagnosed with oral squamous cell carcinoma.
By more efficiently moving admitted emergency department patients into inpatient beds, emergency medical staff could care for more people, which could greatly increase hospital revenue and offset losses from the charity care it provides, according to a study to be published December 20 as an early online release by Annals of Emergency Medicine.
Emergency department patients with unmet substance abuse treatment need generate much higher hospital and emergency department charges than patients without such need, according to a new study to be published Dec.20 as an advance online publication of Annals of Emergency Medicine.
New guidelines established by national experts hold the promise of reducing illness and death among adult survivors of childhood cancers. These guidelines, published by a team co-led by a St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigator, are published in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO).
Food and Drug Administration policies prevent pharmaceutical manufacturers from informing patients about potentially fatal toxicities that occur with some cancer drugs -- policies that should be revised immediately, according to Northwestern University researchers.
Cardiovascular disease risk is extremely high in adults with diabetes. Yet women as well as people under 50 who have diabetes do not use aspirin, despite the fact that aspirin has been found an effective and inexpensive means to reduce risk of first and subsequent heart attack..
In homes where children are just visitors, residents are twice as likely to say they keep their medicines out in the open, stored in a purse or left unlocked, compared with homes where children live, according to a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
In a first-ever finding, physicists from Boston University and physiologists from Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital report that the body's biological clock affects the patterns of heart-rate control in healthy individuals independent of behavior influences. Their analysis of heartbeat dynamics in healthy individuals showed significant circadian rhythm, including a notable response at the circadian phase corresponding to 10 a.m., the time of day most often linked to adverse cardiac events in individuals with heart disease.
In animal studies, researchers at Johns Hopkins have effectively used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to measure with 94 percent accuracy the size and amount of heart muscle damaged by a heart attack, known in medical terms as a myocardial infarct, or m.i., for short.
Researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Children's Hospital Boston have discovered that malignant melanoma, the potentially lethal skin cancer, can't grow without a steady supply of a protein that normal cells can do without.
Blocking a key molecule protects breast implants, pacemakers, artificial joints and other biomaterials from rejection and damage by the body.
The latest IOM Gulf War report confirms the link between lung cancer and combustion products, while evidence on other health problems is inconclusive.
A panel of experts says doctors treating patients with schizophrenia should be targeting symptoms beyond hallucinations and delusions, and focus in on the common, but often overlooked, symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as the inability to think clearly.
Perhaps George Washington wouldn't have chopped down his father's cherry tree if he knew what chemists now know. They have identified a group of naturally occurring chemicals abundant in cherries that could help lower blood sugar levels in people with diabetes. In early laboratory studies using animal pancreatic cells, the chemicals, called anthocyanins, increased insulin production by 50 percent, the researchers say.
A research team led by Terumi Kohwi-Shigematsu of the Life Sciences Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has identified a gene, DLX5, that may play a role in the pathology of Rett Syndrome, a devastating neurological disorder diagnosed almost exclusively in girls. Their findings are reported in the January issue of Nature Genetics and currently available online. The team also found that Rett Syndrome is associated with impaired three-dimensional chromatin folding.
Patients with cystic fibrosis could potentially be treated with their own stem cells that have been manipulated by gene therapy, suggests a study reported in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research shows that human bone marrow-derived adult stem cells can differentiate into airway epithelial cells and that encoding these cells with the gene defective in CF restores an important cellular function essential for keeping airways clear of mucus and irritants.
In a preclinical efficacy trial, the cancer drug paclitaxel (Paxceed) reduced the adverse effects of Alzheimer's disease (AD)-like pathology in a mouse model. Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine showed that the microtubule-stabilizing drug Paxceed helps correct the problems caused by clumped tau proteins in the nerve cells of mice. This is the first study to confirm their potential as a new class of drug for neurodegenerative disorders.
Although early clinical trials of the cancer-fighting potential of antiangiogenesis drugs did not have dramatic results, subsequent trials showed that combining agents that suppress blood-vessel growth with therapies that destroy cancer cells can improve patient survival. In the December Cancer Cell, MGH researchers describe how timing may be crucial to successfully combining angiogenesis inhibitors with radiation treatment and reveal more about exactly how these drugs work to fight cancer.
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