PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Therapeutic exercise lessens lung injury and muscle wasting in critically ill patients

2015-03-11
(Press-News.org) WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - March 11, 2015 - Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is a life-threatening lung condition that affects approximately 200,000 people a year in the United States and has a higher mortality rate than breast and prostate cancer combined. The condition most often occurs in people who are critically ill or who have significant injuries; those who do survive it often experience profound skeletal muscle weakness. Over the past 30 years, efforts to fight ARDS with various drug therapies aimed at the lungs have failed. However, doctors at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center have tried a different approach - exercise. "Based on some earlier work done here, we've known that getting critically ill patients up and moving around as soon as it's medically feasible helps them get off of ventilators sooner, increases their strength when they get out of intensive care and improves overall outcomes," said D. Clark Files, M.D., assistant professor of pulmonary, critical care, allergy and immunologic medicine at Wake Forest Baptist. "What we haven't understood is why it helps." Using an animal model that mimics what happens in people with ARDS, Files and a team of researchers worked to understand how the mechanisms underlying early mobility therapy improve the outcomes of patients with this illness. The study is published in the March 11 edition of Science Translational Medicine. In the study, mice with acute lung injury and the resulting muscle weakness were exercised for two days. The researchers found that a short duration of moderate- intensity exercise led to marked improvements in lung, limb and respiratory muscle function. "We looked at specific pathways involved in muscle wasting and found that early exercise turns these pathways off," Files said. "There is a complex immune response to injury and it appears that exercise is acting on multiple different proteins that involve the innate immune system and dampen this over-exuberant immune response." The researchers then confirmed their findings from the animal model by comparing them to banked plasma from patients who were enrolled in an earlier clinical trial at Wake Forest Baptist in which patients were randomized to early mobility versus usual control. They confirmed that at least one of the markers most significantly changed in the regulation of the immune response in mice also occurs in humans. "This study gives a lot of biological relevance to how and why early mobility tends to work," Files said. "We've identified some mechanisms that we think are very important." Files said the next step will be to duplicate this study in older animals (instead of young mice used in the current study) because most people with ARDS are older with higher mortality. "We want to know if therapies that work for younger ICU patients should be the same or different for older patients," he said.

INFORMATION:

Funding for the study was provided by Wake Forest School of Medicine, the Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, the Parker B. Francis Foundation, the American Thoracic Society Foundation Recognition Outstanding Early Career Investigator Award, the American Heart Association and the National Institute on Aging. Co-authors are Chun Liu, Sydney Philpott, (degree), Stephanie Lussier, Lina Purcell, Michael Seeds, Ph.D., Peter E. Morris, M.D., and Osvaldo Delbono, M.D., Ph.D., of Wake Forest Baptist; Andrea Pereyra, M.D., of National Scientific and Technical Research Council and School of Medicine, National University of La Plata, Argentina; Neil R. Aggarwal, M.D., Franco R. D'Alessio, M.D., Brian T. Garibaldi, M.D., Jason R. Mock, M.D., Benjamin D. Singer, M.D., and Landon S. King, M.D., of Johns Hopkins Asthma and Allergy Center.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Is US immigration policy 'STEMming' innovation?

2015-03-11
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) - Foreign born graduate students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines who wish to pursue a career in industry or NGOs are much more likely to stay in the U.S. than those who wish to pursue a career in academia or government concludes a study by researchers at UC Santa Barbara's Center for Nanotechnology in Society. Published on March 11, 2015 in the open access journal PLOS ONE, the study provides new insight into why foreign-born graduate students in STEM fields choose to remain in the United States or return to their ...

Prescription for living longer: Spend less time alone

2015-03-11
Ask people what it takes to live a long life, and they'll say things like exercise, take Omega-3s, and see your doctor regularly. Now research from Brigham Young University shows that loneliness and social isolation are just as much a threat to longevity as obesity. "The effect of this is comparable to obesity, something that public health takes very seriously," said Julianne Holt-Lunstad, the lead study author. "We need to start taking our social relationships more seriously." Loneliness and social isolation can look very different. For example, someone may be surrounded ...

Rat brains point to lead's role in schizophrenia

2015-03-11
A study of the brains of rats exposed to lead has uncovered striking similarities with what is known about the brains of human schizophrenia patients, adding compelling evidence that lead is a factor in the onset of schizophrenia. Results of the study by scientists at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health appear in the journal Translational Psychiatry. The researchers found that lead had a detrimental effect on cells in three brain areas implicated in schizophrenia: the medial prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus, and the striatum of rats exposed to lead ...

Georgia State study: Ebola-infected sewage may require longer holding period

2015-03-11
Storing Ebola-infected sewage for a week at 86° Fahrenheit or higher should allow enough time for more than 99.99 percent of the virus to die, though lower ambient temperatures may require a longer holding period, according to a new study by researchers at Georgia State University's School of Public Health. The study co-authored by Lisa M. Casanova, assistant professor of environmental health, and Scott R. Weaver, research assistant professor in Epidemiology and Biostatistics, used bacteriophage Φ6, a type of virus, as a stand-in to study how long Ebola and similar ...

Analysis suggests a more virulent swine flu virus in the Indian subcontinent

2015-03-11
A flu outbreak in India that has claimed over 1200 lives may not be identical to the 2009 North American strain, as recently reported in India. A comparative analysis conducted by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) shows that the flu virus in India seems to have acquired mutations that could spread more readily and therefore requires deeper studies. As flu season in India winds down, the researchers call on officials to increase surveillance of this and future flu outbreaks and rethink vaccination strategies to account for potential new viruses. ...

A sea change for ocean resource management

2015-03-11
SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 11, 2015)-- Ocean ecosystems around the world are threatened by overfishing, extensive shipping routes, energy exploration, pollution and other consequences of ocean-based industry. Data exist that could help protect these vulnerable ecosystems, but current management strategies often can't react quickly enough to new information, said San Diego State University biologist Rebecca Lewison. She and colleagues from several other academic, governmental and non-governmental organizations endorse a new approach called "dynamic ocean management" in a ...

Study shows even injured kidneys can be used for transplants

2015-03-11
New Haven, Conn. -- Kidneys from deceased donors that have acute injuries are frequently discarded instead of being used for transplant. However, a Yale-led study finds that such kidneys may be more viable than previously thought, and should be considered to meet the growing demand for organ transplants. Donated kidneys with acute injury are often discarded for fear of poor outcomes such as delayed function and even premature kidney transplant failure. Given the growing need for transplant organs, the Yale-led team embarked on the largest multicenter observational study ...

Swine flu outbreak in India raises concern

2015-03-11
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Since December, an outbreak of swine flu in India has killed more than 1,200 people, and a new MIT study suggests that the strain has acquired mutations that make it more dangerous than previously circulating strains of H1N1 influenza. The findings, which appear in the March 11 issue of Cell Host & Microbe, contradict previous reports from Indian health officials that the strain has not changed from the version of H1N1 that emerged in 2009 and has been circulating around the world ever since. With very little scientific data available about the new ...

Repairing the cerebral cortex: It can be done

2015-03-11
This news release is available in French. A team led by Afsaneh Gaillard (Inserm Unit 1084, Experimental and Clinical Neurosciences Laboratory, University of Poitiers), in collaboration with the Institute of Interdisciplinary Research in Human and Molecular Biology (IRIBHM) in Brussels, has just taken an important step in the area of cell therapy: repairing the cerebral cortex of the adult mouse using a graft of cortical neurons derived from embryonic stem cells. These results have just been published in Neuron. The cerebral cortex is one of the most complex structures ...

UCLA study shows feasibility of blood-based test for diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease

2015-03-11
UCLA researchers have provided the first evidence that a simple blood test could be developed to confirm the presence of beta amyloid proteins in the brain, which is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. Although approximately 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's, no reliable blood-based test currently exists for the neurodegenerative disorder that is the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States. Using blood-based biomarkers -- a signature of proteins in the blood that indicate the presence of a disease -- to diagnose Alzheimer's could be a key advance. "Blood-based ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Pavlov’s dogs were conditioned to go to their treat. Why do some animals learn to interact with the bell instead?

Call for Young Editorial Board members at Current Molecular Pharmacology

MSU team develops scalable climate solutions for agricultural carbon markets

Playing an instrument may protect against cognitive aging

UNM study finds link between Grand Canyon landslide and Meteor Crater impact

Ultra-hot Jupiter’s death spiral could reveal stellar secrets

You only get one brain! The best helmet material for protecting your noggin

Neurodegeneration and stroke after GLP-1RAs in diabetes and obesity

Pediatric COVID-19 hospitalization trends by race and ethnicity, 2020-2023

Research spotlight: New genetic roadmap offers insights into obesity and diabetes

Fred Hutch leads new Vanguard Study for Cancer Screening Research Network

‘Mismatched’ transplants now safe, effective for blood cancer patients, study finds

New research helps narrow down uncertainties in near-term precipitation projections for the Asian Water Tower

AI tool accurately detects tumor location on breast MRI

Researchers use OCT imaging to uncover how the fallopian tube transports embryos

PolyU secures RGC theme-based research scheme funding to develop cost-effective and sustainable Co-GenAI model

Van Andel Institute scientists develop technique for high-resolution single cell epigenetic analysis

The Lundquist Institute wins multi-year NIH grant exceeding $11 million to transform diagnosis and treatment of deadly mucormycosis

Review suggests ending adult boosters for tetanus, diphtheria

ESMT Berlin welcomes Rebecca Schaumberg to faculty

Blocking a little-known protein may offer new hope for devastating lung disease

Medieval medicine was smarter than you think – and weirdly similar to TikTok trends

FAU receives NIH grant to investigate amphetamine addiction

Realizing on-site carbon nanotube photo-thermoelectric imaging

Most of us love memes. But are they a form of comics?

Novel biosensor allows real-time monitoring of sucrose uptake in plants

Korea University researchers reveal revealing how WEE1 drives cancer resistance to immunotherapy

Pusan National University researchers develop breakthrough deep learning model that enhances handheld 3D medical imaging

SLAS Discovery and SLAS Technology demonstrate research impact with 2024 impact factors

Disease-causing bacteria can deal with stink as long as they get a meal

[Press-News.org] Therapeutic exercise lessens lung injury and muscle wasting in critically ill patients