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 Back to Eurekalert Medical and Health News Archives
Eurekalert Medical and Health News: 09-30-2004
Intense traumatic events, such as maternal separation, occurring early in the life of an infant may weaken its immune system, making it more susceptible to viral infections later in life that could trigger multiple sclerosis, reveals research at Texas A&M University.
Parents play an important role in their children's underage drinking, according to a recent study by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. The study, published this month in the Journal of Adolescent Health, shows that teens are more likely to binge drink if their parents or friends' parents provide alcohol at their home for a party.
Scientists have discovered a record number of proteins for one of the largest and most complex viruses, the highly infectious and stealthy human cytomegalovirus, a team from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Oregon Health & Science University reported today in the October Journal of Virology.
About 40 percent of adults ages 40 to 74 - or 41 million people -have pre-diabetes, a condition that raises a person's risk for developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. Studies show that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who are overweight are at increased risk for type 2 diabetes, and some groups, including Native Hawaiians, Filipinos, and Japanese Americans living in Hawaii, are twice as likely to have diabetes as white residents of similar age.
Researchers have discovered a new mechanism responsible for the growth of blood vessel tumors that can cause facial deformities in infants and young children, paving the way for an antibody-based treatment to remove cells that fuel the tumors' growth. Blood vessel tumors require macrophages, a type of white blood cells, to develop. In studying these cells' role in tumor development, researchers determined that a protein called MCP-1 "recruits" macrophages to the vascular tumor site.
A new study in mice suggests that survivors of severe heart attacks may have a difficult time with some learning tasks. Cardiac arrest can take a particularly harsh toll on the hippocampus, the area of the brain that plays a role in memory and navigation. A lack of oxygen during a severe attack - one where the victim stops breathing - can either kill or seriously damage neurons, the primary cells of the nervous system.
A pair of new epidemiology studies confirms that chronic kidney disease independently increases the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, even among people with early kidney disease and after considering other risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol. The studies appear in the September 23 New England Journal of Medicine.
If you missed your morning coffee and now you have a headache and difficulty concentrating, you might be able to blame it on caffeine withdrawal. In general, the more caffeine consumed, the more severe withdrawal symptoms are likely to be, but as little as one standard cup of coffee a day can produce caffeine addiction, according to a Johns Hopkins study that reviewed over 170 years of caffeine withdrawal research.
Certain brain changes that are common in normal aging are not the beginnings of Alzheimer's disease. Recent research by cognitive aging experts suggests that changes related to Alzheimer's disease appear in distinct regions of the brain and reflect unique pathology compared with changes that occur in older adults without dementia.
This week's issue of the Journal of Neuroscience includes: Septal GABAergic neurons and hippocampal theta; and A shift in tonic inhibition with chronic seizures.
Of 400 research presentations Oct. 6-9 at the APS "Integrative Biology of Exercise" meeting in Austin, summaries of 16 are highlighted. They demonstrate the full range of the topics - from exercise affecting diseases from diabetes to COPD, and promoting health -- and geographic origin, from Flagstaff to Leipzig. Keynote speaker international exercise physiologist Bengt Saltin uniquely combines lessons from Nobel winners, historic high-altitude expeditions and current research into the intersection of physiology and exercise.
"Nanotechnology" is a newly fashionable field but in the world of drug development it is already bringing benefits to thousands of patients, Professor Ruth Duncan of the Welsh School of Pharmacy, Cardiff University (UK) has told the British harmaceutical Conference (September 27-29).
Few studies have examined the interactive effects of calcium intake and activity, especially ones that differentiate between the types of activity that most positively affect bone density. But a new study does just that. Researchers suggest that the combination of calcium intake and vigorous activity is key to optimal increases in bone density in children.
A specially adapted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner can help physicians remove brain tumors and all of the residual cancer during one surgical procedure, according to a study published in the October issue of the journal Radiology. Using intraoperative MR-guidance, surgical strategy was changed in one out of four cases.
Dartmouth Medical School educators offer models of support structures for educational research and address some future challenges medical schools will face in the October issue of Academic Medicine. The authors describe the school's approach to successful medical research, that include methods used for educational grant development, financial support for pilot projects and techniques to enhance collaborative projects.
In the US today, the risk of acquiring HIV through a blood transfusion has been reduced to almost 1 in 900,000 (1). However, the safety and quantity of our blood supply remains a constant concern. Research, discussed in a recent study published in Artificial Organs, has helped to create Hemoglobin-based oxygen carriers (HBOCs), an alternative to donor blood that is potentially safer and can help to solve the shortages in donor blood supply.
Patients needing second-time or "re-do" heart surgery have a new safer alternative. New findings show that an "off-pump" surgical procedure is performed safely and has improved outcomes for patients than traditional methods.
Chronic use of opiate drugs may alter brain neurons to make animal brains more sensitive to stress, according to a new study. If the research proves applicable to humans, the findings may help explain how hospital patients who have received morphine may be susceptible to stress disorder, attention problems and sleep disturbances.
Among men without heart disease but who have significant cardiac risk factors, a poor performance on an exercise treadmill test is associated with more than doubling of the risk for a heart attack or other coronary heart disease event, according to a report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
London civil servants at the lower end of the employment scale and with lower social position were more likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those at higher employment levels, according to an article in the September 27 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Vietnam veterans had higher death rates in the first five years after discharge than veterans who did not serve in Vietnam, according to a 30-year follow-up study published in the September 27 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
A survey conducted in primary care practices showed that a small proportion of women are eligible for discussions about use of tamoxifen to prevent cancer, and of those women, the proportion of breast cancers that would be prevented is also small, according to an article in the September 27 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Elderly African American men are less likely to get tested for prostate cancer than elderly white men, according to an article in the September 27 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Research has shown that the drug tamoxifen citrate not only helps prevent recurrence of breast cancer, but it also can keep the deadly disease from occurring in the first place in some women.
Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have developed a pair of rapid-fire tests for botulinum toxin, a feat that could underpin new technologies to thwart bioterrorism and spur the development of agents to blunt the toxic action of the world's most poisonous substance.
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