Health News

Prescribing antipsychotics for children and adolescents

Date: Feb-03-2014
Increasing numbers of children and adolescents are being given antipsychotic drugs in Germany, as Christian Bachmann and colleagues found out in a study published in the current issue of Deutsches Arzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2014; 111(3): 25 - 40). The authors used routine insurance data of the Barmer GEK statutory health insurance company to analyze antipsychotic prescriptions for this age group from 2005 to 2012.The percentage of children and adolescents receiving a prescription for an antipsychotic drug over the course of one calendar year rose from 0.23% to 0.32%.

UHRF1 identified as oncogene driving liver cancer

Date: Feb-03-2014
Patients with advanced hepatocellular (or liver) cancer have high mortality rates, with existing drugs demonstrating only a small, but significant survival advantage. By combining a zebrafish model of liver cancer with data from human tumors, researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai hope to identify potential genes of interest that can be targeted for new treatments for hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common form of liver cancer to develop from liver cells.

NIST cell membrane model studied as future diagnostic tool for bacterial vaginosis

Date: Feb-03-2014
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and in Lithuania have used a NIST-developed laboratory model of a simplified cell membrane to accurately detect and measure a protein associated with a serious gynecological disease, bacterial vaginosis (BV), at extraordinarily low concentrations. The work illustrates how the artificial membrane could be used to improve disease diagnosis.

Bone regrowth may be enhanced by manipulating activities of opposing molecular pathways

Date: Feb-03-2014
University of Oregon biologists say they have opened the window on the natural process of bone regeneration in zebra fish, and that the insights they gained could be used to advance therapies for bone fractures and disease.In a paper placed online in advance of print in the journal Cell Reports, the UO team shows that two molecular pathways work in concert to allow adult zebra fish to perfectly replace bones lost upon fin amputation.One pathway resets existing bone cells to a developmental stem cell-like state and then supports their growth to replace lost cells.

Study reveals women with mental health disability may face 4-fold risk of abusive relationship

Date: Feb-03-2014
Women with a severe mental health-related disability are nearly four times more likely to have been a victim of intimate partner violence than those without a disability, according to a new study by Women's College Hospital researcher Janice Du Mont and co-author Tonia Forte.The study, published in the journal BioMed Central Public Health, is the first Canadian population-based study to examine the prevalence of intimate partner violence among women with activity limitations - or disability - with a specific focus on those due to mental health-related problems.

Treating autoimmune and transplant patients with the vitamin a used in acne medicines

Date: Feb-03-2014
The same form of Vitamin A used by teenagers to combat acne might offer benefits that are more than skin deep. That's because an international team of researchers have found that it may also help keep the immune system under control for people with autoimmune disorders or those who have received transplants. This finding was published in the February 2014 issue of the Journal of Leukocyte Biology."The results will help us to use the different protocol of Treg induction for clinical therapy in autoimmune diseases and organ transplantation protection,'" said Song Guo Zheng, M.D., Ph.D.

New genetic forms of neurodegeneration discovered

Date: Feb-03-2014
In a study published in the journal Science, an international team led by scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report doubling the number of known causes for the neurodegenerative disorder known as hereditary spastic paraplegia. HSP is characterized by progressive stiffness and contraction of the lower limbs and is associated with epilepsy, cognitive impairment, blindness and other neurological features.

Patients with frequently relapsing kidney disease benefit from immune drug

Date: Feb-03-2014
In patients with a frequently-relapsing form of kidney disease, relapses decreased approximately five-fold for at least one year after patients took a single dose of rituximab, an antibody that targets the immune system and is often used to treat immune disorders such as lymphoma and arthritis. The findings, which will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN), suggest that this drug may provide considerable benefits for patients.

Precise gene editing in monkeys paves the way for valuable human disease models

Date: Feb-03-2014
Monkeys are important for modeling diseases because of their close similarities to humans, but past efforts to precisely modify genes in primates have failed. In a study published by Cell Press in the journal Cell, researchers achieved precise gene modification in monkeys for the first time using an efficient and reliable approach known as the CRISPR/Cas9 system. The study opens promising new avenues for the development of more effective treatments for a range of human diseases.

How DNA damage affects Golgi - the cell's shipping department

Date: Feb-03-2014
In studying the impact of DNA damage on the Golgi, a research team from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research have discovered a novel pathway activated by DNA damage, with important consequences for the body's cellular response to chemotherapy.Standard cancer treatments, including many chemotherapy drugs and radiation therapy, act on cells by causing DNA damage. In many cancer cells, DNA damage turns on signaling pathways that lead to cell death - the basis of the use of these treatments for cancer.