(Press-News.org) Researchers have discovered a biomarker that may help prevent a devastating intestinal disease that occurs in one of every 10 early preterm infants.
The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study may help prevent necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a condition primarily seen in preemies in which bowel tissue dies. The death rate approaches 30 percent. Survivors are at risk for short-bowel syndrome (caused by surgical removal of the small intestine) and neurodevelopmental disability.
The study is published in the journal Microbiome.
The research, led by Ardythe Morrow, PhD, shows that NEC is preceded by two distinct microbial imbalances in the digestive tract, suggesting that these imbalances "may provide highly predictive biomarkers of NEC," she says.
"Using a combination of early microbial factors, we obtained a predictive value for NEC exceeding 80 percent," says Dr. Morrow. "This requires validation in larger studies, but the findings are striking."
Dr. Morrow's main analysis looked at stool and urine samples collected from 32 infants prior to the onset of disease. The infants were born at less than 29 weeks gestational age.
Eleven of the 32 went on to develop NEC. In all of these cases, NEC was preceded by a dominance of certain types of bacteria in the intestinal tract – either firmicutes in the first week of life or proteobacteria in the second week. Dominance of proteobacteria also occurred in half of those who did not develop NEC.
The team of investigators led by Dr. Morrow also identified a potential simple urine analysis that could help detect the bacterial dominance that occurs in advance of NEC. The research team will attempt to validate its findings in a national study and is studying approaches to prevent the occurrence of NEC in preterm infants.
###
The study was funded in whole or in part with awards from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health (grant numbers R01HD059140, P01HD13021, and HD27853); National Center for Research Resources, National Institutes of Health (grant numbers 5UL1RR026314-03, U54HG004969); National Human Genome Research Institute, National Institutes of Health (HG005969); Danone Research (PLF-5972-GD); and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, under contract number HHSN272200900018C.
About Cincinnati Children's
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center is third in the nation in U.S. News and World Report's 2012 Best Children's Hospitals ranking. It is ranked #1 for neonatology and in the top 10 for all pediatric specialties. Cincinnati Children's is one of the top two recipients of pediatric research grants from the National Institutes of Health. It is internationally recognized for improving child health and transforming delivery of care through fully integrated, globally recognized research, education and innovation. Additional information can be found at http://www.cincinnatichildrens.org. END
Researchers discover biomarker for devastating intestinal disease found in early preterm infants
2013-04-16
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Drinking cup of beetroot juice daily may help lower blood pressure
2013-04-16
A cup of beetroot juice a day may help reduce your blood pressure, according to a small study in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension.
People with high blood pressure who drank about 8 ounces of beetroot juice experienced a decrease in blood pressure of about 10 mm Hg. But the preliminary findings don't yet suggest that supplementing your diet with beetroot juice benefits your health, researchers said.
"Our hope is that increasing one's intake of vegetables with a high dietary nitrate content, such as green leafy vegetables or beetroot, might be a lifestyle ...
Patients go undercover to record encounters with doctors
2013-04-16
Patients' health outcomes improve when physicians individualize care and take their patients' life circumstances into account, according to a new study by the University of Illinois at Chicago and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The study is the largest ever to be conducted using real patients to collect data about their doctors' behavior using concealed audio recorders. It appears in the April 16 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine and was funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
"What our study really tells us is that the information that patients ...
'Comparison shopping' by doctors saves money
2013-04-16
Research at Johns Hopkins suggests that if hospitals would show physicians the price of some diagnostic laboratory tests at the time the tests are ordered, doctors would order substantially fewer of them or search for lower-priced alternatives.
In a study of up-front price transparency at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, the researchers found that the practice of offering price information decreased overall use of tests by roughly 9 percent. Currently, hospitals typically keep both patients and providers essentially blind to the cost of medical services, a system that wastefully ...
Concert cacophony: Short-term hearing loss protective, not damaging
2013-04-16
Contrary to conventional wisdom, short-term hearing loss after sustained exposure to loud noise does not reflect damage to our hearing: instead, it is the body's way to cope.
The landmark finding could lead to improved protection against noise-induced hearing loss in future.
The research, led by University of New South Wales Professor Gary Housley, has found that "reversible hearing loss" is a physiological adaptation mechanism, allowing the cochlea (the auditory portion of the inner ear) to perform normally when exposed to noise stress.
"This explains why we lose ...
Gene signature can predict who will survive chemotherapy
2013-04-16
An eight gene 'signature' can predict length of relapse-free survival after chemotherapy, finds new research in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine.
Researchers from Academia Sinica and the National Taiwan University College of Medicine first identified genes that were involved in cellular invasion, a property of many cancer cells, using the National Cancer Institute's 60 human cancer cell line panel (NCI-60). Comparing the pattern of activation of each of these genes in different cell lines with how these cell lines responded to 99 different anti-cancer ...
Cancer cell metabolism kills
2013-04-16
ATP is the main energy currency of cells and one might expect that not only contracting muscle, but also uncontrollably dividing cancer cells would have a high demand for ATP. However, for some reason cancer cells have re-programmed their metabolic engines to produce less ATP. The phenomenon, known as Warburg effect, is typical for cancer cells and the mechanism behind is believed to benefit cancer cells by switching biochemical engines from energy manufacturing reactions to anabolic reactions, which primarily support growth of the cell size and proliferation.
The triggers ...
Testing the water -- urine test identifies babies at most risk of necrotizing enterocolitis
2013-04-16
Abnormal gut bacteria in premature babies can be found days before the onset of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) finds new research in BioMed Central's open access journal Microbiome. Babies who later went on to develop NEC had a lower diversity of gut bacteria 4-9 days after birth, increased level of Firmicutes or Enterobacteriaceae, and lacked the Propionibacterium found in healthy babies.
NEC is a common but devastating problem of premature babies - affecting about 10% of infants born at under 29 weeks, about a third will die. To find out what the difference is between ...
Surprising findings on hydrogen production in green algae
2013-04-16
New research results from Uppsala University, Sweden, instil hope of efficient hydrogen production with green algae being possible in the future, despite the prevailing scepticism based on previous research. The study, which is published today in the esteemed journal PNAS, changes the view on the ability of green algae – which is good news.
The world must find a way of producing fuel from renewable energy sources to replace the fossil fuels. Hydrogen is today considered one of the most promising fuels for the future and if hydrogen can be produced directly from sunlight ...
Autism model in mice linked with genetics
2013-04-16
For the first time, researchers have linked autism in a mouse model of the disease with abnormalities in specific regions of the animals' chromosomes.
The regions contain genes associated with aberrant brain development and activity.
"These discoveries in mice may eventually pave the way towards understanding autism in human patients and devising new treatments," said co-senior author, Elliott H. Sherr, MD, PhD, a pediatric neurologist at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital and professor of neurology at UC San Francisco (UCSF).
The findings are reported in a study published ...
England's smoking ban linked to annual 5 percent drop in emergency admissions for asthma
2013-04-16
This adds up to around 1900 fewer such admissions every year, the authors calculate, and confirms the value of public health interventions, such as smoking bans, they say.
They base their findings on the number of emergency admissions for asthma among adults aged 16 and over in England between April 1997 and December 2010.
Smoking in all public places was banned in July 2007 in England, where the prevalence of asthma is one of the highest in the world, affecting almost 6% of the population.
During the study period, 502,000 adults with asthma were admitted as emergencies. ...