Health News

Swedish Study Suggests Bipolar Disorder Associated With Premature Mortality

Date: Jul-17-2013
Bipolar disorder was associated with premature mortality in a large study of Swedish adults by Casey Crump, M.D., Ph.D., of Stanford University, California, and colleagues.  The study used outpatient and inpatient data from more than 6.5 million Swedish adults, including 6,618 with bipolar disorder, to examine the physical health effects associated with bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder is a chronic mental illness and a leading cause of disability worldwide.  According to the results, women and men with bipolar disorder died nine and 8...

Psychotic Symptoms In Adolescents With Psychopathology Associated With Increased Suicide Risk

Date: Jul-17-2013
Psychotic symptoms in adolescents with psychopathology were associated with a higher risk for suicide attempts in a study published by Ian Kelleher, M.D., Ph.D., of the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, Ireland, colleagues.  The researchers studied 1,112 school-based adolescents (ages 13 to 16 years) to assess psychotic symptoms as a clinical marker of risk for suicide attempt. Of the adolescents, 7 percent (n=77 study participants) reported psychotic symptoms at baseline...

Protein Responsible For 'Bad' Blood Vessel Growth Discovered

Date: Jul-17-2013
The discovery of a protein that encourages blood vessel growth, and especially 'bad' blood vessels - the kind that characterise diseases as diverse as cancer, age-related macular degeneration and rheumatoid arthritis - has been reported in the journal Nature. The team at the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology discovered the new protein, called LRG1, by screening for mouse genes that are over-expressed in abnormal retinal blood vessels in diseased eyes. In these diseased retinas the LRG1 protein is expressed by blood vessel endothelial cells, which line blood vessel walls...

Switching Off The Extra Chromosome That Causes Down's Syndrome

Date: Jul-17-2013
The third copy of chromosome 21 that causes Down's syndrome has been silenced in a cell culture model of the disorder, a Nature paper reports this week. The research marks a step towards 'whole chromosome therapy' for disorders such as Down's, and should aid research into the basic biology underlying these disorders. Jeanne Lawrence and colleagues used an enzyme to introduce an RNA gene, called XIST, into cultured stem cells derived from Down's syndrome patients. XIST RNA coated the extra third copy of chromosome 21, silencing the genes on it...

Hope for injection of cells to regenerate spine discs

Date: Jul-17-2013
Scientists have developed a new method of stopping or reversing disability and pain caused by degenerative disc disease in the spine using cell therapies, according to a proof-of-concept study published in the journal Biomaterials. Researchers from the Duke Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, have developed new biomaterials capable of delivering a booster shot of reparative cells to the nucleus pulposus (NP), effectively stopping pain caused by degenerative disc disease. The NP is the "jelly-like" cushioning found between the spinal discs...

Engineered Liver Tissue Could Help Scientists Test New Drugs And Vaccines For Malaria

Date: Jul-17-2013
Although malaria has been eradicated in many countries, including the United States, it still infects more than 200 million people worldwide, killing nearly a million every year. In regions where malaria is endemic, people rely on preventive measures such as mosquito netting and insecticides. Existing drugs can help, but the malaria parasite is becoming resistant to many of them.  Scientists working to develop new drugs and vaccines hope to target the parasite in the earliest stages of an infection, when it quietly reproduces itself in the human liver...

Gut bacteria linked to immune system cancer, lymphoma

Date: Jul-17-2013
Scientists say they have discovered that specific bacteria found in the intestines are major contributors to lymphoma, a cancer of the white blood cells in the immune system. The researchers, from the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center (JCCC) at the University of California in LA (UCLA), studied mice with ataxia-telangiectasia (A-T), a genetic disease that is associated with a high rate of B-cell lymphoma in humans and mice. Their study is published in The Journal of Cancer Research...

New mosquito patch in fight against malaria and west nile virus

Date: Jul-17-2013
A new mosquito-beating patch is being developed in California that, if successfully rolled out in Africa, could help prevent illnesses such as malaria, West Nile virus and dengue fever. The Kite patch adheres to clothing, much like a sticker, and uses FDA-approved, non-toxic compounds that block a mosquito's ability to track humans for 48 hours. The sticker was created by a team based in Riverside, CA, after 7 years of research and development by Olfactor Laboratories, Inc. and the University of California, Riverside...

Premenopausal Women With Low Sex Drives Have "Different Brain Flows"

Date: Jul-17-2013
Versus women with a normal sex drive, premenopausal women who have a lack of interest in sex show distinctive blood flow patterns that activate different parts of the brain. Researchers at Georgia Regents University recruited 16 female participants to their study. Of these, 6 had a normal sex function and a mean age of 29, while 10 of the women with a mean age of 37 had clear symptoms of "hypoactive sexual desire" - a lack of sexual desire and low sexual arousal...

Outsourcing In Clinical Trials New England, October 1-2, 2013, Boston, MA

Date: Jul-17-2013
Arena International are proud to welcome you to the 5th Annual Outsourcing in Clinical Trials New England, convening in Boston on the 1st and 2nd of October 2013. This exciting flagship event of the successful outsourcing series will provide an in-depth overview for companies of all sizes in the New England region to develop strategies within clinical outsourcing; from vendor selection to relationship management and budget and deadline adherence. This conference will include presentations and panels from key industry experts as well as excellent networking opportunities...