Hope for muscle wasting disease

Common amino acid used by body builders could be the key to beating common form of muscular dystrophy

2011-11-23

(Press-News.org) A health supplement used by bodybuilders could be the key to treating a life-threatening muscular dystrophy affecting hundreds of Australian children, new research shows.

The amino acid L-tyrosine had a "rapid and dramatic impact" on Nemaline Myopathy (NM) in laboratory tests on mice, significantly improving symptoms of the muscle-wasting disease, medical researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) found.

Trials showed that consuming L-tyrosine could significantly improve muscle strength and mobility in NM, raising the possibility it also could be effective in a range of other muscle-wasting diseases. L-tyrosine is readily available in health food shops for less than $30 and is used as a body building supplement and as a memory booster.

There is currently no cure for NM (or Rod Myopathy) – the most common congenital muscle disease – which causes muscle weakness of varying severity in an estimated 500 Australian children.

Children with NM experience delayed motor development and weakness in the arms and legs, trunk, throat and face muscles. The condition can lead to difficulties breathing and moving and, in its severest form, can cause death.

A team of scientists led by Professor Edna Hardeman, from UNSW's Neuromuscular and Regenerative Medicine Unit, were able to test the efficacy of the supplement after creating – for the first time – a genetically modified mouse which display the same genetic changes found in children with NM.

"These mice and have a remarkably similar disease profile to the children, with many of the animals dying young," Professor Hardeman said.

After feeding the mice the L-tyrosine, the team observed improvements in muscle strength, increased mobility and a reduction in a range of muscle pathologies.

The findings will now be used as the basis for a clinical trial to test L-tyrosine's ability to alleviate symptoms in children.

"This is the first clear demonstration that L-tyrosine supplements can significantly reduce both the clinical and pathological features of NM," Professor Hardeman said.

"L-tyrosine is readily available, it is easy to administer and our data suggest that long-term use is relatively safe," Professor Hardeman said.

"What's more, the rapid and dramatic impact of L-tyrosine in NM mice also raises the possibility the supplement may be beneficial for dystrophy patients and other muscle degenerative conditions."

### Other team members included Dr Mai-Anh Nguyen and Josephine Joya from UNSW's School of Medical Sciences. The study was funded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council

The findings are published online in the journal Brain.

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

UGA discovery changes how scientists think about plant cell wall formation

2011-11-23

Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia researchers have discovered that two proteins come together in an unexpected way to make a carbohydrate, a chain of sugar molecules, in plant cell walls. This fundamental discovery changes the way scientists think about how plant cell walls are made and opens a new door to converting plants to biofuels and other carbon-based products. In 2006, the UGA research team, led by Debra Mohnen, a faculty member in the UGA Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, discovered GAUT1, the first protein shown to synthesize pectin, a major component ...

UCLA team develops highly efficient method for creating flexible, transparent electrodes

2011-11-23

As the market for liquid crystal displays and other electronics continues to drive up the price of indium -- the material used to make the indium tin oxide (ITO) transparent electrodes in these devices -- scientists have been searching for a less costly and more dynamic alternative, particularly for use in future flexible electronics. Besides its high price, ITO has several drawbacks. It's brittle, making it impractical for use in flexible displays and solar cells, and there is a lack of availability of indium, which is found primarily in Asia. Further, the production ...

Coffee may protect against endometrial cancer

2011-11-23

PHILADELPHIA — Long-term coffee consumption may be associated with a reduced risk for endometrial cancer, according to a recent study in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Edward Giovannucci, M.D., Sc.D., professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, said coffee is emerging as a protective agent in cancers that are linked to obesity, estrogen and insulin. "Coffee has already been shown to be protective against diabetes due to its effect on insulin," said Giovannucci, ...

Zinc supplementation does not protect young African children against malaria

2011-11-23

A study led by Hans Verhoef, a researcher at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and published in this week's PLoS Medicine shows that supplementing young Tanzanian children with zinc —either alone or in combination with other multi-nutrients — does not protect against malaria. Zinc helps to maintain a healthy immune system, and previous studies had shown a benefit of zinc in reducing diarrhea. Most African children are deficient in zinc, and in this study the authors wanted to investigate a possible role ...

Stigma among HIV-positive women complex and overlapping

2011-11-23

In this week's PLoS Medicine, Mona Loutfy of the University of Toronto, Canada and colleagues report their study examining experiences of stigma and coping strategies among HIV-positive women in Ontario, Canada. Using focus groups, the researchers found that women attributed their experiences of stigma and discrimination to HIV-related stigma, sexism and gender discrimination, racism, homophobia and transphobia, and involvement in sex work. The coping strategies they used included resilience (at a micro level), social networks and support groups (at a meso level), and challenging ...

Mental health research in LMICs needs good governance

2011-11-23

In this week's PLoS Medicine Taghi Yasamy from the WHO, Geneva, Switzerland and colleagues identify challenges facing good mental health research governance in low- and middle-income countries and provide suggestions for a way forward. The authors recognize the need to establish the general orientation of mental health research to deal with problems such as organizational structure, research prioritization and relatively limited capacity and resources, and to balance expensive research with assessment of services and resources using low-cost methods. The authors state: ...

Why has synesthesia survived evolution?

2011-11-23

In the 19th century, Francis Galton noted that certain people who were otherwise normal "saw" every number or letter tinged with a particular color, even though it was written in black ink. For the past two decades researchers have been studying this phenomenon, which is called synesthesia. In an "Unsolved Mystery" article and accompanying podcast to be published November 22 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology, David Brang and VS Ramachandran strive to bring synesthesia into the broader fold of biology and to the scientific study of the arts through understanding ...

Awareness biases information processing

2011-11-23

How does awareness influence information processing during decision making in the human brain? A new study led by Floris de Lange of the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University Nijmegen, offers new insight into this question, and is published November 22 in the online, open-access journal PLoS Biology. When making a decision, we gather evidence for the different options and ultimately choose on the basis of the accumulated evidence. A fundamental question is whether and how conscious awareness of the evidence changes this decision-making ...

Surgery improves endocarditis-induced heart failure survival rates

2011-11-23

DURHAM, N.C.— Surgery significantly improves short- and long-term outcomes in patients with heart failure caused by a bacterial infection known as endocarditis, according to Duke University Medical Center researchers. "About 60 percent of patients with heart failure in endocarditis undergo surgery during initial hospitalization," says Duke cardiologist Andrew Wang, M.D., senior author of the study which appears today in the Journal of the American Medical Association. He believes that percentage should be higher. American College of Cardiology guidelines strongly recommend ...

Study assesses association between urinary salt excretion and risk of cardiovascular events or death

2011-11-23

For persons with cardiovascular disease or diabetes, urinary sodium excretion (a surrogate for salt intake) at higher levels or at lower levels compared to mid-range values was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events (for higher levels) or cardiovascular death and hospitalization for congestive heart failure (for lower levels), according to a study in the November 23/30 issue of JAMA. Also, higher estimated urinary potassium excretion was associated with a reduced risk of stroke. There is uncertainty regarding the optimal daily intake of sodium. Findings ...

Hope for muscle wasting disease

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: