Health News

Celiac disease increases risk for hip-fracture

Date: Jan-20-2014
Celiac disease patients who experience chronic damage in the small intestine may be more likely to break a hip than those whose intestinal tissues have begun healing, according to new research accepted for publication in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition that affects about 1 percent of the U.S. population. When people with the condition eat gluten - a protein found in grains like wheat - it triggers an immune response in the small intestine.

Misfolded molecules unravelled using 'reprogrammed' yeast protein; implications for new brain disease therapies

Date: Jan-20-2014
At the heart of brain diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer's disease, and Parkinson's disease is protein misfolding, in which distorted proteins are unable to perform their normal functions. At present, there is no known way to reverse protein misfolding.But James Shorter, Ph.D., associate professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, has found a possible way to unravel misfolded proteins by "reprogramming" Hsp104, a common yeast protein. The work was published in Cell.

Progression of diabetes stalled by traditional Chinese medicines

Date: Jan-20-2014
Traditional Chinese herbal medicines hold promise for slowing the progression from prediabetes to an official diabetes diagnosis, according to new research accepted for publication in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).Prediabetes is diagnosed an individual has developed elevated blood sugar levels, but glucose levels have not yet risen to the point of developing type 2 diabetes. People who are prediabetic face a heightened risk of developing type 2 diabetes as well as heart disease and stroke.

Drug-induced paralysis is an effective way of clearing worm infections

Date: Jan-20-2014
Schistosoma mansoni and its close relatives are parasitic flatworms that affect millions worldwide and kill an estimated 250,000 people a year. A study published in PLOS Pathogens identifies a new part of the molecular pathway that controls parasite movement. And because coordinated movement is essential for the schistosome life cycle in its human host, this protein is a promising new drug target.

Popular blood type diet claims are 'not valid,' researchers find

Date: Jan-20-2014
People around the world are familiar with the blood type diet, a lifestyle plan instructing followers to eat and exercise in certain ways, depending on their blood type. But new research debunks the claims made by creator Peter D'Adamo, suggesting an individual's nutritional needs do not actually vary by blood type.The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Toronto in Canada, was recently published in the journal PLoS One.

Even very low blood alcohol content associated with causing car crashes

Date: Jan-20-2014
Even "minimally buzzed" drivers are more often to blame for fatal car crashes than the sober drivers they collide with, reports a University of California, San Diego study of accidents in the United States .Led by UC San Diego sociologist David Phillips and published in the British Medical Journal group's Injury Prevention, the study examined 570,731 fatal collisions, from 1994 to 2011.The researchers used the official U.S.

Under Washington, D.C. 5,900 natural gas leaks discovered, some potentially dangerous

Date: Jan-20-2014
More than 5,893 leaks from aging natural gas pipelines have been found under the streets of Washington, D.C. by a research team from Duke University and Boston University.A dozen of the leaks could have posed explosion risks, the researchers said. Some manholes had methane concentrations as high as 500,000 parts per million of natural gas - about 10 times greater than the threshold at which explosions can occur.Four months after phoning in the leaks to city authorities, the research team returned and found that nine were still emitting dangerous levels of methane.

Diabetes patients will likely benefit from the targeting of a cell cycle inhibitor to promote beta cell replication

Date: Jan-20-2014
One of the factors underlying the development of type 2 diabetes is loss of β cell mass, resulting in decreased insulin production. Once lost, β cell mass cannot be restored. In contrast, infants with focal hyperinsulinism of infancy exhibit rapid expansion of the β cell mass due to a silencing of a region of chromosome 11 that includes the gene encoding the cell cycle inhibitor p57Kip2.

Monoclonal antibody therapy enhances removal of circulating tumor cells

Date: Jan-20-2014
Monoclonal antibodies directed against tumor antigens have proven effective for treating some forms of cancer. Despite the increasing use of monoclonal antibody therapy, it is not clear how these antibodies drive tumor removal.In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Marjolein van Egmond and colleagues at the VU University Medical Center found that macrophage populations mediate tumor cell removal following monoclonal antibody treatment by actively phagocytosing tumor cells.

Improved understanding of cause of Giant Cell Arteritis

Date: Jan-20-2014
New research from Queen Mary University of London has revealed - for the first time - how the condition Giant Cell Arteritis (GCA) may be caused by a certain group of white blood cells called 'neutrophils'. GCA (also known as temporal arteritis) is a condition which causes severe inflammation in the blood vessels and primarily affects the elderly.GCA is initially treated with a six-month course of high-dose steroids.