According to the Australian Government Bureau of Meterology, "In the warm, dry and sunny winter and spring, when grasses are dead and fuels have dried, northern Australia becomes most susceptible to bushfires. Intense high-pressure systems over South Australia producing strong southeast to northeast winds increase the risk of bushfires." Since Australia is heading into their winter as the northern climates head into summer, the north of Western Australia is ripe for bushfires. Many have already begun as evidenced from this satellite pass by NASA's Aqua satellite which ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- A high-fat diet in adolescence appears to have long-lasting effects on learning and memory during adulthood, a new study in mice finds. The results were presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Adolescent mice fed a normal-calorie but high-fat diet became moderately obese but not diabetic, and they displayed significantly impaired spatial memory, according to the study authors, from CEU-San Pablo University (Universidad CEU-San Pablo) in Madrid. Spatial memory allows recording of information needed to navigate ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- Impaired heart function among obese children and adolescents may be an indicator of future heart disease, a new clinical trial finds. The results were presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Obesity rates in developed countries worldwide are climbing among all age groups, including children. In the United States today, one-third of children are overweight or obese, which raises concerns about the effects of early weight gain on future health. Previous research showed that obesity in childhood can cause a type ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- The new weight loss drug lorcaserin (Belviq) appears to improve blood sugar control in nondiabetic, overweight individuals, independent of the amount of weight they lose, a new study finds. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Lorcaserin activates a serotonin receptor (5HT2C) in the brain believed to decrease appetite and promote a sense of fullness, thus encouraging decreased food consumption, said the study's principal investigator, Louis Aronne, MD, professor of clinical medicine at ...

SAN FRANCISCO-Researchers have discovered a molecular switch that explains, at least in part, how some fast-growing prostate cancers become resistant to hormone treatment, a new study conducted in human cell cultures and mice finds. The results were presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. A factor not normally found in the prostate, called Steroidogenic Factor 1, stimulates production of new steroid hormones and increases cell multiplication to fuel growth of the tumor, researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found. "This ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- A high-salt diet raises a woman's risk of breaking a bone after menopause, no matter what her bone density is, according to a new study that will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The Japanese study found that older women who consumed the highest amount of sodium had more than four times the risk of a nonvertebral fracture, or fracture at any site other than the spine. That finding held true even after the researchers made adjustments for many other characteristics that could affect fracture risk, said ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- A treatment known as whole body vibration therapy significantly increases bone strength among adolescents with cerebral palsy, a new clinical trial from New Zealand shows. The results were presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Cerebral palsy affects more than half a million people in the United States. Caused by brain damage around the time of birth, the disorder affects muscle tone and movement, which can severely decrease the quality of life by making walking and other daily activities difficult. As movement ...

A new osteoporosis drug hinders the growth of estrogen-sensitive cancer that has become resistant to treatment with tamoxifen, a study in mice shows. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The medication, bazedoxifene, which is approved in Europe under the brand name Conbriza for the treatment and prevention of postmenopausal osteoporosis, also reduced estrogen activity and estrogen receptor levels in cultured human breast cancer cells, the study authors reported. "Bazedoxifene, a known, safe drug approved ...

A new genetic test accurately and consistently diagnoses benign growths, or nodules, on the thyroid gland, according to a study from Chile. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. "We have developed a 'gene signature' that effectively identifies benign thyroid nodules," said Hernan Gonzalez, MD, PhD, associate professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago. "This test is potentially useful to identify patients who do not require surgery." The thyroid gland, located in the front of ...

During labor and delivery, infants preferentially secrete a different stress hormone than their mothers do, according to a new clinical study. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco and published in the open access journal, PLoS One. A primary component of good pregnancy care is the ability to quickly recognize and respond to fetal distress. Since the stress hormone cortisol is found in much higher concentrations than the hormone corticosterone, it has received greater attention as an indicator of stress ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- A supplemental beverage used to treat muscle-wasting may help boost muscle mass among the elderly, according to a new study. The results were presented today at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The supplemental beverage, called Juven®, contains three amino acids, including arginine. Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, and are required for cell growth and repair. The amino acid arginine is especially important because it increases growth-hormone production, which causes the body to produce a critical protein called ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- A type of drug normally used to treat heart failure and high blood pressure helped prevent weight gain and other complications related to a high-fat diet in an animal study. The results were presented today at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Weight gain, especially around the waist, and high blood pressure, combine with other abnormalities to form a cluster of diseases known as metabolic syndrome, which increases the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other serious illnesses. With obesity rates climbing in developed countries ...

SAN FRANCISCO--Insufficient sleep may contribute to weight gain and obesity by raising levels of a substance in the body that is a natural appetite stimulant, a new study finds. The results were presented today at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The researchers found that when healthy, lean, young adults received only 4.5 hours of sleep a night, they had higher daytime circulating, or blood, levels of a molecule that controls the pleasurable aspects of eating, compared with when they slept 8.5 hours. "Past experimental studies show that ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- Memory improves in older, overweight women after they lose weight by dieting, and their brain activity actually changes in the regions of the brain that are important for memory tasks, a new study finds. The results were presented today at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. "Our findings suggest that obesity-associated impairments in memory function are reversible, adding incentive for weight loss," said lead author Andreas Pettersson, MD, a PhD student at Umea University, Umea, Sweden. Previous research has shown that obese ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- Overweight and obese men secrete greater amounts of stress hormones after eating, which may make them more susceptible to disease, a new observational study finds. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Excess weight and obesity are a global health problem, and medical researchers are seeking different approaches to reduce the burden of disease. One way to do this is by identifying differences in hormonal regulation between overweight and lean people in response to various situations, including ...

Discovery of a mutant gene responsible for a disease is a milestone, but for most conditions, it may be only a first step towards a treatment or cure. Understanding Rett Syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder, is further complicated by the fact that the implicated gene controls a suite of other genes. Two papers, published in today's Nature Neuroscience and Nature, reveal key steps in how mutations in the gene for methyl CpG-binding protein (MECP2) cause the condition. The Rett Syndrome Research Trust (RSRT) funded this work with generous support from partners Rett Syndrome ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- A drug that mimics the activity of thyroid hormone significantly increases the amount of energy burned by fat tissue and promotes weight loss, an animal study of metabolism finds. The results were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Humans and other mammals have two kinds of fat, or adipose, tissue, which are referred to by color: white or brown. White adipose tissue, or WAT, has low energy-burning capacity. Because of this, WAT is associated with weight gain and obesity, as well as other conditions related ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- High doses of testosterone significantly improve sexual function among women who have had their uterus and ovaries surgically removed, a clinical study demonstrates. The results were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Surgical removal of the uterus, or hysterectomy, and the ovaries, which is called oophorectomy, is performed to treat various diseases, including cancer. Hysterectomy is also performed as an elective sterilization, usually among older women, and may be combined with oophorectomy if ovarian disease ...

SAN FRANCISCO-- Reduced effectiveness of the hormone insulin, or insulin resistance, is associated with weakened bones, a clinical study shows. The results were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. In the United States, the incidence of diabetes is quickly mounting. Between the years of 1980 and 2011, the number of cases diagnosed jumped from about 6 million to nearly 21 million, according to statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Type 2 diabetes is the result of insulin resistance, which causes cells ...

SAN FRANCISCO—- Overweight women who skip breakfast experience acute, or rapid-onset, insulin resistance, a condition that, when chronic, is a risk factor for diabetes, a new study finds. The results, which were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco, suggest that regularly skipping breakfast over time may lead to chronic insulin resistance and thus could increase an individual's risk for type 2 diabetes. "Our study found that acute insulin resistance developed after only one day of skipping breakfast," said the study's lead author, ...

SAN FRANCISCO—- Short-term use of antidepressants, combined with stress and a high-fat diet, is associated with long-term increases in body weight, a new animal study finds. The results were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. "Our study suggests that short-term exposure to stress and antidepressants, rather than a high-calorie, high-fat diet alone, leads to long-term body weight gain, accompanied with increased bone and spleen weights," said study lead author Suhyun Lee, a PhD candidate in the medical sciences at the John ...

SAN FRANCISCO—- When fathers eat a high-fat diet before conception of offspring, the male offspring have increased body weight after weaning and high body fat in midlife despite eating a low-fat diet, a new study in mice finds. The results were presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. "Many researchers have studied the effects of maternal diet on the risk of obesity in their children. We found that the father's diet also affects the offspring in ways that are inherited," said the study's principal investigator, Felicia V. Nowak, ...

Scouring the genome of adenoid cystic carcinoma Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a slow-growing and often fatal malignancy that can occur at multiple organ site, but is most frequently found in the salivary glands. The primary treatment is surgical removal; however, the majority of patients develop metastatic disease. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Andrew Futreal at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, MA, performed a type of genetic sequencing known as whole exome sequencing of 24 ACC cases. They identified a genetic ...

Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a slow-growing and often fatal malignancy that can occur at multiple organ site, but is most frequently found in the salivary glands. The primary treatment is surgical removal; however, the majority of patients develop metastatic disease. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Andrew Futreal at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, MA, performed a type of genetic sequencing known as whole exome sequencing of 24 ACC cases. They identified a genetic translocation that can precipitate disease ...

Although body weight is largely determined by lifestyle factors, increasingly research is revealing that genetics also play an important role in determining an individual's susceptibility to obesity. Identifying the mutations that underlie the fraction of obese patients with monogenic obesity can help us to understand complex processes like metabolic rate, eating behavior, growth, and fat storage. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, two groups identified obesity-linked mutations in the gene SIM1. Sadaf Farooqi and colleagues at Addenbrooke's Hospital ...