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New Astrocytes Play Unexpected Role In Healing After Brain Injury
Date: Apr-26-2013The production of a certain kind of brain cell that had been considered an impediment to healing may actually be needed to staunch bleeding and promote repair after a stroke or head trauma, researchers at Duke Medicine report. These cells, known as astrocytes, can be produced from stem cells in the brain after injury. They migrate to the site of damage where they are much more effective in promoting recovery than previously thought. This insight from studies in mice, reported online in the journal Nature, may help researchers develop treatments that foster brain repair...
Discovery Of A Potential Biomarker For Pregnancy-Related Heart Disease
Date: Apr-26-2013Peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM) is a deterioration in cardiac function that occurs in pregnant women during the last month or in the months following their pregnancy. This disorder can occur in women with no prior history of heart disease and the causes are not well understood. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Ingrid Struman and colleagues at the University of Liege in Liege, Belgium, identified a molecule, miR-146a, that can serve as a biomarker for peripartum cardiomyopathy...
No Rebirth For Insulin Secreting Pancreatic Beta Cells
Date: Apr-26-2013Pancreatic beta cells store and release insulin, the hormone responsible for stimulating cells to convert glucose to energy. The number of beta cells in the pancreas increases in response to greater demand for insulin or injury, but it is not clear if the new beta cells are the result of cell division or the differentiation of a precursor cell, a process known as neogenesis. Knowledge of how beta cells are created and maintained is critical to understanding diseases in which these cells are lost, such as diabetes...
Muscular Dystrophy Researchers Using Firefly Protein To Light Up Degenerating Muscles In Mice
Date: Apr-26-2013Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have created a mouse model of muscular dystrophy in which degenerating muscle tissue gives off visible light. The observed luminescence occurs only in damaged muscle tissue and in direct proportion to cumulative damage sustained in that tissue, permitting precise monitoring of the disease's progress in the mice, the researchers say. While this technique cannot be used in humans, it paves the way to quicker, cheaper and more accurate assessment of the efficacy of therapeutic drugs...
Most Children Who Undergo Stem Cell Transplant Readmitted To Hospital Within Six Months
Date: Apr-26-2013Nearly two-thirds of children receiving stem cell transplants returned to the hospital within six months for treatment of unexplained fevers, infections or other problems, according to a study performed at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center in Boston. Children who received donor cells were twice as likely to be readmitted as children who received their own stem cells. "No one had ever looked at these data in children," said Leslie E. Lehmann, MD, clinical director of pediatric stem cell transplantation at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC)...
Potential Health Benefits Of Mushroom Consumption
Date: Apr-26-2013New research published as abstracts in The FASEB Journal and presented at Experimental Biology 2013 (EB 2013) ties mushrooms to potential health outcomes - demonstrating that mushrooms provide more to a dish than just flavor. Nine mushroom research abstracts were presented at Experimental Biology this week, which found: Weight Loss and Maintenance: A one-year, randomized clinical trial found that substituting white button mushrooms for red meat can be a useful strategy for enhancing and maintaining weight loss.1 (Lawrence Cheskin, M.D., F.A.C.P...
Wound-Healing Genes Discovered In Drosophila
Date: Apr-26-2013Biologists at UC San Diego have identified eight genes never before suspected to play a role in wound healing that are called into action near the areas where wounds occur. Their discovery, detailed this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, was made in the laboratory fruit fly Drosophila. But the biologists say many of the same genes that regulate biological processes in the hard exoskeleton, or cuticle, of Drosophila also control processes in human skin...
Part Of Brain Involving Behavior Change Triggered By Anti-Smoking Ads With Strong Arguments
Date: Apr-26-2013Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have shown that an area of the brain that initiates behavioral changes had greater activation in smokers who watched anti-smoking ads with strong arguments versus those with weaker ones, and irrespective of flashy elements, like bright and rapidly changing scenes, loud sounds and unexpected scenario twists...
Outlook For Minority, Uninsured Pediatric Retinoblastoma Patients Worsened By Delays In Diagnosis
Date: Apr-26-2013When the eye cancer retinoblastoma is diagnosed in racial and ethnic minority children whose families don't have private health insurance, it often takes a more invasive, potentially life-threatening course than in other children, probably because of delays in diagnosis, Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center (DF/CHCC) researchers report at the 26th annual meeting of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology Oncology being held in Miami, April 24-27...
Achilles Tendon Injuries More Likely In Male Athletes
Date: Apr-26-2013Male athletes are the group most likely to tear their Achilles tendon, according to a new study published in the April 2013 issue of Foot & Ankle International (FAI), A SAGE journal. The activity most likely to cause the injury was basketball, and NBA players such as Kobe Bryant have been in the news lately for this exact injury. Drs. Steven Raikin, David Garras and Philip Krapchev reviewed 406 records from patients at one clinic diagnosed with Achilles tendon injuries from August 2000 and December 2010...
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