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In Animal Model Of Hepatitis B Infection, New Drug Stimulates Immune System To Kill Infected Cells
Date: Apr-30-2013A novel drug developed by Gilead Sciences and tested in an animal model at the Texas Biomedical Research Institute in San Antonio suppresses hepatitis B virus infection by stimulating the immune system and inducing loss of infected cells. In a study conducted at Texas Biomed's Southwest National Primate Research Center, researchers found that the immune modulator GS-9620, which targets a receptor on immune cells, reduced both the virus levels and the number of infected liver cells in chimpanzees chronically infected with hepatitis B virus (HBV)...
Concern About Health Effects Of Hydrofracking
Date: Apr-30-2013Residents living in areas near natural gas operations, also known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, are concerned their illnesses may be a result of nearby drilling operations. Twenty-two percent of the participants in a small pilot study surmise that hydrofracking may be the cause of such health concerns as sinus problems, sleeping difficulties, and gastrointestinal problems. The findings were presented at the American Occupational Health Conference in Orlando, Florida...
Not All Infant Reflux Is Disease, According To AAP
Date: Apr-30-2013Babies who regularly spit up after a meal do not necessarily have gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD), according to a new study in the journal Pediatrics. Reflux-related symptoms need to be effectively managed and treated, and in order to do so, pediatricians need to differentiate infants with physiologic gastroesophageal reflux (GER) from those with GERD. GER refers to the regular passage of gastric contents into the esophagus...
Mobile Phone Weight-Loss Application For Women Starting A Meal Replacement Programme
Date: Apr-30-2013Mobile phones using text messaging and monitoring have been shown to be useful additions to health programs. The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate a weight-loss intervention delivered by a smartphone app that supported individuals embarking on a diet and that was evidenced-based. Researchers developed and tested a mobile phone application (app) to support individuals embarking on a partial meal replacement program (MRP). Overweight or obese women were randomly allocated to one of two study groups an intervention group and a control group...
Merck And Pfizer Collaborate To Develop New Diabetes Drug
Date: Apr-30-2013Two pharmaceutical companies - Merck & Co Inc. and Pfizer Inc. - have just announced that they have partnered up for the development of the type 2 diabetes drug ertugliflozin (PF-04971729), an investigational oral sodium glucose cotransporter (SGLT2) inhibitor. There's been a huge rise in the number of treatment options for people suffering from diabetes over the past years, with close to 25 million Americans diagnosed with diabetes, the condition costs the U.S. over $245 billion a year...
Discovery Of New Way Protein Degradation Is Regulated Has Implications For Multiple Myeloma, Muscle Wasting, Neurodegeneration
Date: Apr-30-2013Proteins, unlike diamonds, aren't forever. And when they wear out, they need to be degraded in the cell back into amino acids, where they will be recycled into new proteins. Researchers at Rockefeller University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute have identified a new way that the cell's protein recycler, the proteasome, takes care of unwanted and potentially toxic proteins, a finding that has implications for treating muscle wasting, neurodegeneration and cancer...
Early Differentiation Of Higher Brain Structures Affected By Competing Pathways
Date: Apr-30-2013Sand-dwelling and rock-dwelling cichlids living in East Africa's Lake Malawi share a nearly identical genome, but have very different personalities. The territorial rock-dwellers live in communities where social interactions are important, while the sand-dwellers are itinerant and less aggressive. Those behavioral differences likely arise from a complex region of the brain known as the telencephalon, which governs communication, emotion, movement and memory in vertebrates - including humans, where a major portion of the telencephalon is known as the cerebral cortex...
New Oral Anticoagulant Drugs: A Guide From European Society Of Cardiology
Date: Apr-30-2013A practical guide on the use of the new oral anticoagulants (NOACs) has been produced by the European Heart Rhythm Association (EHRA) of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). A guide was needed to summarise existing information on different drugs, to answer clinical questions that fall outside what drug companies can legally answer, and to make distinctions between the different drugs. ESC guidelines on atrial fibrillation recommend the NOACs as preferable to vitamin K antagonists for stroke prevention in patients with non-valvular atrial fibrillation...
New Scoring System Defines Hepatocellular Carcinoma Patients Who Achieve Most Benefit From TACE
Date: Apr-30-2013Data from a number of clinical trials presented at the International Liver Congress™ 2013 shed new light on the use of TACE and SIRT in the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) is a technique in which small particles designed to block blood vessels mixed or coated with chemotherapeutic drugs are injected directly into an artery supplying the tumour; it has become a standard treatment in selected patients with HCC. New data has identified a scoring system which defines those HCC patients who achieve the most benefit from TACE...
Teen Pregnancy Linked To 50% Drop In Breast Cancer Risk
Date: Apr-30-2013A teen or early pregnancy have been linked to a drop in the risk of breast cancer by 50%, a new study published in BioMed Central's Breast Cancer Research finds. Researchers found that the Wnt/Notch signalling ratio was reduced in the breast tissue of mice that gave birth, compared to virgin mice among the same age group. Wnt and Notch are two separate pathways of a system which control cellular fate within an organism. This suggests that pathways are changed in women 20 years or younger who give birth - resulting in a 50% drop in breast cancer risk...
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