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 Back to Eurekalert Medical and Health News Archives
Eurekalert Medical and Health News: 10-20-2004
Receptors in the brain that are highly sensitive to alcohol may function differently in a person with a family history of alcoholism.
Sinusitis and bronchitis take a significant toll on a person's ability to participate in everyday life and have a sizable economic impact, accounting for more than 30 million missed workdays each year, according to survey results released by University of Pittsburgh otolaryngologist Berrylin Ferguson, M.D. Both of these bacterial infections occur most frequently during the cold and flu season, and incidence of the infections may rise as a result of the shortage of flu vaccine.
The Research Training Groups of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) are attracting increasing numbers of applicants. At its meeting on 8 October 2004 the Grants Committee on Research Training Groups selected 23 projects out of 66 new funding proposals. This is the highest number of funding proposals received over the past eight years.
The Endocrine Society and its patient education affiliate, The Hormone Foundation, today called for more research into osteoporosis and low bone mass. The increase in research, note the two organizations, could lead to enhanced understanding of the causes of and treatments for these debilitating conditions. These announcements follow the release of a report from the US Surgeon General.
Researchers at the Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) in New York City have identified a potentially valuable therapeutic pathway for preventing miscarriages in certain lupus patients. In a study involving pregnant mice treated with antiphospholipid antibodies from lupus patients, they found that heparin works not by blocking activation of the complement pathway, a series of inflammatory proteins that the investigative team previously found to play an essential role in pregnancy loss and placental injury.
UCLA Medical Center nurse Lance Patak cared for too many critically ill patients who couldn't communicate their needs due to the endotracheal tubes that went through their vocal cords, making speech impossible. So he developed the E-Z Board, an easy-to-use augmentative communication board that intubated patients could use to make their needs known to their caregivers and family members with a simple mark of a felt-tipped pen. Now the board is in high demand..
Results from a Mayo Clinic study that analyzed medical records of epilepsy patients suggest a ketogenic diet, which mimics the effects of starvation, can be successfully implemented with children on an outpatient basis.
The discovery that the Lag-3 gene acts as a brake to prevent immune system responses from running out of control solves a mystery that has puzzled researchers since the gene was discovered 14 years ago. A report on this discovery, from investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and The Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, is published in the October issue of the journal Immunity.
Increasing mammography screening rates and investing in research to improve breast cancer detection technologies should be top priorities, according to authors of a study published in the October 20, 2004, Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Dr. Kristen M. Harris, chief of the Synapses and Cell Signaling Program at the Medical College of Georgia, has received the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke's Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award for her studies of anatomical changes that occur at synapses, the sites of communication between brain cells.
In a letter sent today to the Chairperson of the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) urged opposition to Measure M on the local ballot November 2. Measure M would ban the growing of genetically modified crops in Humboldt County.
Two different agents that have little individual effect on lung cancer when tested in low doses in the lab and in animals have a synergistic impact when combined together, say researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer. They say this new therapeutic recipe might show potential in disarming the nation's leading cancer killer.
Ineffective communication among members of operating room teams can lead to medical error, so identifying the reasons for poor communication are vital, says a University of Toronto researcher.
A $2.8 million National Institutes of Health grant awarded to the University of Houston is both expanding research and preparing the first generation of nanobiologists among Houston universities and medical schools. The T90R90 grant, earmarked specifically for bionano training and research, was awarded to UH through the school's Institute for Molecular Design for the Keck Center for Computational and Structural Biology, seeking to develop a new type of interdisciplinary scientist melding nanoscience and biology.
New studies by an international team of scientists led by Joslin Diabetes Center have found variations in a gene that help explain why people with type 2 diabetes are at much greater risk for coronary artery disease, the leading cause of death for this group.
The human-to-human threat of TSEs, specifically "mad cow" disease and vCJD, its human form, may increase with recent evidence of at least two recipients of prion-infected blood transfusions from asymptomatic donors who later died of vCJD and new analyses of the disease's probable amplification around the world. New data on technology to prevent transfusion-transmitted prions will be presented at the annual AABB blood conference in Baltimore.
The International Council for Science (ICSU) and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF) have today signed an agreement establishing an ICSU Regional Office for Africa. The agreement was signed during the First ICSU Regional Meeting for Africa, which was hosted by the Research Council of Zimbabwe in Harare on 9 to 11 October 2004.
Breakthroughs in the treatment of pain and traumatic brain injury, pioneering techniques in brain stimulation for epilepsy and stroke patients and the latest information about the use of robots in neurosurgery are among the highlights of the 54th annual meeting of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.
The health benefits of exercise across the lifespan are well documented. Scientists have demonstrated that exercise may improve cognitive functioning in older adults. But what about children? Are physically fit kids better suited to compete not only on the ball field, but in the classroom as well? University of Illinois researchers are finding a correlation.
An expert team of marine mammal veterinarians, medical researchers, cosmetic surgeons and dolphin trainers recently joined forces to apply the latest advances in human regenerative medicine to restore a bottlenose dolphin's damaged dorsal fin. The procedure on a 3-year-old male dolphin at Dolphin Quest Hawaii, involved using a 3-dimensional scaffold derived from pig urinary bladder designed by University of Pittsburgh researchers and marked the first-ever marine mammal application of extracellular matrix tissue repair.
Diabetics face a higher risk of contracting pancreatic and liver cancer, according to a new study by Universit. de Montr.al epidemiologist Dr. Marie-Claude Rousseau. Looking at 12 of the most common cancers among 4,000 subjects, she observed that diabetics were three times more likely to develop liver cancer and twice as likely to develop pancreatic cancer. Rousseau has likely made the most accurate association ever found between diabetes and the incidence of liver cancer.
Commonly known as whooping cough, pertussis is a highly contagious bacterial infection that causes severe coughing and often masquerades as common ailments such as a cold or the flu. Recent outbreaks have prompted a growing concern in the public health community that parents and teens are not aware of these trends and may assume this highly contagious disease, which can be serious in infants, is just a cough.
By knocking out a single gene in mice, immunologists at Duke University Medical Center have mimicked a little-understood autoimmune disorder in humans. In the puzzling disorder, called Sj.gren's syndrome, the person's tear and salivary glands are affected, causing dry eyes and mouth, as they are damaged by an attack of the person's own immune cells.
New research shows that the plant estrogens in soy don't impair fertility in monkeys. The study was designed to test a theory that high-soy diets can compromise fertility in women.
A leading stroke researcher says the aging of the American population means that more people are at risk for stroke, and that unless new approaches are developed to reduce stroke incidence, it will surpass heart attacks and cancer as the major cause of long-term disability and premature death.
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