Research gives new insights into rare disease of the inner ear

A new study has shed light on the factors likely to lead to the development of a rare condition affecting the inner ear

2014-04-16

(Press-News.org) A new study has shed light on the factors likely to lead to the development of a rare condition affecting the inner ear.

In the most comprehensive study of Ménière's Disease to date, researchers at the University of Exeter Medical School have been able to suggest what goes wrong in the body when people develop the disease, and provide an insight into factors that lead to its development.

Ménière's Disease can cause tinnitus, hearing loss, vertigo attacks and a feeling of pressure deep within the ear. Yet as a long term but non-fatal illness, it has received little attention from the scientific community – a disheartening fact for the 160,000 sufferers in the UK.

As such reasons for why people develop the condition and how symptoms occur have so far remained unclear, making diagnosis and treatment a difficult task.

With funding from the UK Ménière's Society and using data from the UK Biobank, the research team analysed records from 1,376 Ménière's sufferers. They found the disease is more prevalent in females, those from white backgrounds, and older people.

Individuals from poorer backgrounds were also found to be more likely to develop the disease, as well as those who are overweight.

By comparing and contrasting their data with nearly half a million people without the condition, the team also discovered that Ménière's Disease is linked to immune system disorders and diseases related to the autonomic nervous system, such as Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Crohn's Disease and arthritis.

Lead researcher on the project, Dr Jessica Tyrrell said

"This study has provided several advances in our understanding of Ménière's Disease. It seems likely that a dysfunctional immune system has some role in the development of the illness, and other factors, including the nervous system, are also playing a part."

The analysis also showed that Ménière's patients were more likely to suffer falls and mental health problems, such as depression, than people without the condition.

Natasha Harrington-Benton from the UK Ménière's Society welcomed the findings, saying

"Understanding the impact of Ménière's on people's physical and mental health is vital when providing information to people on how best to manage their symptoms. Ménière's is a condition that can be difficult to diagnose, particularly in the early stages. The more information that can be given to those affected, the better equipped they'll be to cope day-to-day."

INFORMATION: The study "Prevalence, Associated Factors, and Comorbid Conditions for Ménière's Disease" is published in the journal Ear and Hearing. It is authored by Jessica Tyrrell, David Whinney, Obioha Ukoumunne, Lora Fleming, and Nicholas Osborne.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Antibiotics improve growth in children in developing countries

2014-04-16

Antibiotics improve growth in children at risk of undernourishment in low and middle income countries, according to researchers at McGill University who have just conducted a research literature review on the subject. Their results, published in the British Medical Journal, suggest that the youngest children from the most vulnerable populations benefit most and show significant improvements toward expected growth for their age and sex, particularly for weight. Malnutrition in early childhood, reflected in poor growth, is the cause of nearly half of all mortality worldwide ...

Mouse model would have predicted toxicity of drug that killed 5 in 1993 clinical trial

2014-04-16

Over 20 years after the fatal fialuridine trial, a study published this week in PLOS Medicine demonstrates that mice with humanized livers recapitulate the drug's toxicity. The work suggests that this mouse model should be added to the repertoire of tools used in preclinical screening of drugs for liver toxicity before they are given to human participants in clinical trials. A retrospective analysis by the US National Academy of Sciences of all preclinical fialuridine toxicity tests, which included studies in mice, rats, dogs, and monkeys, concluded that the available ...

Teenagers who have had a concussion also have higher rates of suicide attempts

2014-04-16

TORONTO, April 15, 2014—Teenagers who have suffered a traumatic brain injury such as a concussion are at "significantly greater odds" of attempting suicide, being bullied and engaging in a variety of high risk behaviours, a new study has found. They are also more likely to become bullies themselves, to have sought counselling through a crisis help-line or to have been prescribed medication for anxiety, depression or both, said Dr. Gabriela Ilie, lead author of the study and a post-doctoral fellow at St. Michael's Hospital. They have higher odds of damaging property, breaking ...

Groundbreaking nationwide study finds that people of color live in neighborhoods with more air pollution than whites

2014-04-16

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (04/15/2014) — A first-of-its-kind study by researchers at the University of Minnesota found that on average nationally, people of color are exposed to 38 percent higher levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) outdoor air pollution compared to white people. Nitrogen dioxide comes from sources like vehicle exhaust and power plants. Breathing NO2 is linked to asthma symptoms and heart disease. The Environmental Protection Agency has listed it as one of the seven key air pollutants it monitors. The researchers studied NO2 levels in urban areas across the ...

Brain changes are associated with casual marijuana use in young adults

2014-04-16

Washington, DC — The size and shape of two brain regions involved in emotion and motivation may differ in young adults who smoke marijuana at least once a week, according to a study published April 16 in The Journal of Neuroscience. The findings suggest that recreational marijuana use may lead to previously unidentified brain changes, and highlight the importance of research aimed at understanding the long-term effects of low to moderate marijuana use on the brain. Marijuana is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, with an estimated 18.9 million people ...

Study finds new links between number of duplicated genes and adaptation

2014-04-16

Liken it to a case of where two genes are better than one. Scientists have found a class of genes, called small-scale duplication genes, or SSDs, that are important for adapting to novel environments and surviving environmental changes. Published in the advanced online edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution, authors Takashi Makino, Masakado Kawata, et al., were the first to examine more than 30 fully sequenced vertebrate genomes to look at SSDs as genetic signposts that correlated with habitat variability. SSDs have been generated continually during evolution, and ...

New tool advances investigations of disease outbreaks

2014-04-16

To combat disease outbreaks, public health officials often use painstaking fieldwork to try to stay one step ahead of the infectious bugs, linking patients' symptoms to a source of infection to quickly identify the common culprit in related cases. Now, a new field called genomic epidemiology is taking advantage of the rapidly reduced costs of next-generation DNA sequencing to better inform public health officials faced with ongoing outbreaks. In the advanced online edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution, authors Didelot et al. developed a versatile computational ...

Brain anatomy differences between deaf, hearing depend on first language learned

2014-04-16

WASHINGTON – In the first known study of its kind, researchers have shown that the language we learn as children affects brain structure, as does hearing status. The findings are reported in the Journal of Neuroscience. While research has shown that people who are deaf and hearing differ in brain anatomy, these studies have been limited to studies of individuals who are deaf and use American Sign Language (ASL) from birth. But 95 percent of the deaf population in America is born to hearing parents and use English or another spoken language as their first language, usually ...

Chrono, the last piece of the circadian clock puzzle?

2014-04-16

All organisms, from mammals to fungi, have daily cycles controlled by a tightly regulated internal clock, called the circadian clock. The whole-body circadian clock, influenced by the exposure to light, dictates the wake-sleep cycle. At the cellular level, the clock is controlled by a complex network of genes and proteins that switch each other on and off based on cues from their environment. Most genes involved in the regulation of the circadian clock have been characterized, but Akihiro Goriki, Toru Takumi and their colleagues from RIKEN and Hiroshima University in ...

Casual marijuana use linked to brain abnormalities in students

2014-04-16

CHICAGO --- Young adults who used marijuana only recreationally showed significant abnormalities in two key brain regions that are important in emotion and motivation, scientists report. The study was a collaboration between Northwestern Medicine® and Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. This is the first study to show casual use of marijuana is related to major brain changes. It showed the degree of brain abnormalities in these regions is directly related to the number of joints a person smoked per week. The more joints a person smoked, the more abnormal ...