Health News

Joint symptoms in postmenopausal women not reduced by calcium plus vitamin D supplementation

Date: Aug-20-2013
A team of investigators systematically analyzed the effect of calcium and vitamin D supplementation on joint symptoms in a rigorous and controlled study of postmenopausal women. They found that supplementation did not reduce the severity of joint symptoms reported by the participants. Their results are published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The influence of low calcium and vitamin D deficiency on joint symptoms has been studied with mixed results...

Discovery of cell memory mechanism

Date: Aug-20-2013
The cells in our bodies can divide as often as once every 24 hours, creating a new, identical copy. DNA binding proteins called transcription factors are required for maintaining cell identity. They ensure that daughter cells have the same function as their mother cell, so that for example muscle cells can contract or pancreatic cells can produce insulin. However, each time a cell divides the specific binding pattern of the transcription factors is erased and has to be restored in both mother and daughter cells...

Different brain organization identified in autistic children who excel at math

Date: Aug-20-2013
Children with autism and average IQs consistently demonstrated superior math skills compared with nonautistic children in the same IQ range, according to a study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. "There appears to be a unique pattern of brain organization that underlies superior problem-solving abilities in children with autism," said Vinod Menon, PhD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a member of the Child Health Research Institute at Packard Children's...

Critical role discovered for the complement system in early macular degeneration

Date: Aug-20-2013
In a study published on line in the journal Human Molecular Genetics, Drs. Donita Garland, Rosario Fernandez-Godino, and Eric Pierce of the Ocular Genomics Institute at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear, Harvard Medical School, along with their colleagues, reported the unexpected finding that in mice genetically engineered to have an inherited form of macular degeneration, turning off the animals' complement system, a part of the immune system, prevented the disease. Macular degenerations, which occur in several forms, are important causes of vision loss...

Long-term side-effects in testicular cancer could be reduced by chemotherapy before radiotherapy

Date: Aug-20-2013
Giving men with testicular cancer a single dose of chemotherapy alongside radiotherapy could improve the effectiveness of treatment and reduce the risk of long-term side-effects, a new study reports. As many as 96% of men with testicular cancer now survive at least ten years from diagnosis (1), but more advanced forms need to be treated with combination chemotherapy - which can have serious long-term complications...

Cancer-fighting immune activity boosted by dialing back Treg cell function in animal model

Date: Aug-20-2013
By carefully adjusting the function of crucial immune cells, scientists may have developed a completely new type of cancer immunotherapy - harnessing the body's immune system to attack tumors. To accomplish this, they had to thread a needle in immune function, shrinking tumors without triggering unwanted autoimmune responses. The new research, performed in animals, is not ready for clinical use in humans. However, the approach, making use of a key protein to control immune function, lends itself to further study using candidate drugs that employ the same mechanisms...

Dementia risk score for people with diabetes

Date: Aug-20-2013
Scientists have created a simple scoring system that will allow clinicians to predict whether older people with type 2 diabetes are at risk of developing dementia, according to a study published in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology. Researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in California say the new system, called the "diabetes-specific dementia risk score" (DSDRS), will mean doctors can closely monitor patients with type 2 diabetes who are at highest risk of dementia and enable early treatment to be given...

Anti-wrinkle ingredient: 'preventive potential' in Parkinson's disease

Date: Aug-20-2013
Scientists say they have discovered that a chemical used in anti-wrinkle cream has potential to prevent early-onset Parkinson's disease. The findings could be used to develop drugs to prevent the cell death seen in the brains of people with Parkinson's disease, say the researchers from the University of California in San Francisco (UCSF). The study, published in the journal Cell, analyzes the use of kinetin triphosphate (KTP) - a plant hormone that promotes cell division - as a way of increasing mutant PINK1 enzyme activity in the nerve cells to levels that are nearly normal...

Risk of autism in further children - study findings

Date: Aug-20-2013
A large population-based study from Denmark has followed siblings for the risk for autism spectrum disorders, finding different likelihoods depending on birth year, and also whether brothers or sisters were half- or full-siblings. The study uses records of all children born in Denmark between 1980 and 2004. It is the first study of its kind, say the authors, to follow such a large number of children - around 1.5 million - and to consider the "recurrence risk" of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) for both full- and half-siblings...

Metal-catalyzed cross-couplings of carbon bonds could enable creation of libraries of drug candidates to accelerate drug discovery

Date: Aug-20-2013
James Bond had his reasons for ordering his martinis "shaken, not stirred." Similarly, drug manufacturers need to make sure the molecules in a new drug are arranged in an exact manner, lest there be dire consequences. Specifically, they need to be wary of enantiomers, mirror-image molecules composed of the same atoms, but arranged differently. "One mirror image could be therapeutic while another could be poisonous," said Dr. Mark R. Biscoe, assistant professor of chemistry at The City College of New York...