Researchers from major universities in the U.S. have developed specific tests to identify cancer biomarkers in patients with dermatomyositis—a systemic inflammatory disease associated with increased risk of malignancy. According to study findings published in the American College of Rheumatology (ACR) journal, Arthritis & Rheumatism, the assays detect antibodies against anti-transcriptional intermediary factor-1 (TIF-1γ) and nuclear matrix protein NXP-2. Patients with dermatomyositis experience muscle weakness, skin inflammation, and sometimes inflammation of the ...

Consistently uniform, easily manufactured microcapsules containing a brain cancer drug may simplify treatment and provide more tightly controlled therapy, according to Penn State researchers. "Brain tumors are one of the world's deadliest diseases," said Mohammad Reza Abidian, assistant professor of bioengineering, chemical engineering and materials science and engineering. "Typically doctors resect the tumors, do radiation therapy and then chemotherapy." The majority of chemotherapy is done intravenously, but, because the drugs are very toxic and are not targeted, ...

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, ILL. -- Asthma is a disease that mostly affects young boys and adult women. And according to a new study, women in their 40s and 50s with asthma are hospitalized more than twice as often as men in the same age group. The 10-year study is published in the September issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI). "Until puberty, boys have higher rates of asthma than girls," said Robert Yao-wen Lin, MD, allergist and lead study author. "Then, during the menopausal ...

LOS ANGELES — Teenagers who see friends smoking and drinking alcohol in photographs posted on Facebook and Myspace are more likely to smoke and drink themselves, according to a new study from the University of Southern California (USC). "Our study shows that adolescents can be influenced by their friends' online pictures to smoke or drink alcohol," said Thomas W. Valente, Ph.D., professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the study's principal investigator. "To our knowledge, this is the first study to apply social network analysis methods ...

Amsterdam, The Netherlands – Tuesday 3 September 2013: Low BMI is a risk factor for CVD in hypertensive patients with diabetes, according to research presented at the ESC Congress today by Dr Takanori Nagahiro from Japan. The findings provide evidence for an obesity paradox in hypertensive patients with glucose intolerance. Dr Nagahiro said: "Obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) but several studies have reported that low body mass index (BMI, kg/m2) was associated with worse cardiovascular outcome compared to middle or higher BMI. This strange phenomenon ...

What do lotus flowers, soap bubbles, and aerated chocolate have in common? They may seem innocuous, even pleasant, but each of these items is a trigger for people who report suffering from trypophobia, or the fear of holes. For trypophobes, the sight of clusters of holes in various formations can cause intensely unpleasant visceral reactions. New research from psychological scientists Geoff Cole and Arnold Wilkins of the University of Essex suggests that trypophobia may occur as a result of a specific visual feature also found among various poisonous animals. The findings ...

Chevy Chase, MD—Researchers have developed the first animal model simulating the eye complications associated with the thyroid condition Graves' disease, a breakthrough that could pave the way for better treatments, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's journal Endocrinology. Graves' disease is an autoimmune disorder that causes the body to produce antibodies that attack the thyroid gland. The condition causes the thyroid gland to become overactive and produce too much thyroid hormone. If left untreated, it can lead to heart failure ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (September 3, 2013) – Unlike humans, planarian flatworms have the remarkable ability to regrow any missing body part, making them an ideal model with which to study the molecular basis of regeneration. Over the years scientists have learned that planarians mount recovery responses that differ depending on the severity of the injury they suffer. For example, a worm with a cut or a puncture wound reacts at the cellular and molecular levels quite differently from one that loses its head or tail. What has remained unclear, however, is just exactly how these ...

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – French participants in the Tour de France between 1947-2012 lived longer than their same-age French counterparts according to the results of a study marking the centenary of the race this year. "In the context of recent concerns regarding performance-enhancing techniques and the potential negative health effects of excessive high-level physical activity, data on the long-term outcomes and causes of death in elite endurance cyclists is of particular interest," said Xavier Jouven, MD, PhD, from the Sudden Death Expertise Center in Paris, France. "Although ...

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – An emergency department strategy that uses two biomarkers to triage patients with suspected acute coronary syndrome (ACS) can increase the rate of early, safe hospital discharge, according to results of the Biomarkers in Cardiology 8 (BIC-8) trial. "This biomarker strategy using a state-of-the-art quantitative troponin assay in combination with an ultrasensitive copeptin assay has the potential to change clinical practice with high patient safety," said lead investigator Martin Möckel, MD, PhD, from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, in ...

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – Omecamtiv mecarbil, a cardiac myosin-activator, did not achieve its primary efficacy endpoint in reducing dyspnoea (shortness of breath) in patients with acute heart failure, according to the results of the phase II ATOMIC-AHF (Acute Treatment with Omecamtiv Mecarbil to Increase Contractility in Acute Heart Failure) study. However, a cohort which received the highest dose of the drug showed greater dyspnoea relief compared with placebo, and there were also other favourable dose and concentration-related trends, noted lead investigator John ...

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – The blood pressure lowering drug aliskiren did not improve coronary artery disease when given to patients who had prehypertension, results of the Aliskiren Quantitative Atherosclerosis Regression Intravascular Ultrasound Study (AQUARIUS) reveal. The findings, reported at the European Society of Cardiology Congress with simultaneous publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association, offer new insight into the value of lowering blood pressure beyond prehypertensive goals, suggested lead investigator Stephen Nicholls MBBS, PhD, Deputy ...

Use of bioprosthetic heart valves has dramatically increased (from 18% in 1991 to 59% in 2003), mainly in older patients with comorbidities. This is due to the increased risk of bleeding complications associated with lifelong use of anticoagulation for mechanical prostheses. But structural valve deterioration is one the main complications associated with bioprosthetic heart valves. In large registries including more than 300 000 patients undergoing aortic valve replacement the reoperation rate for patients receiving a bioprosthesis was 3.1% at 11-13 years of follow-up ...

Dr Sherif said: "Earlier studies on the impact of gender on outcome after transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) have had conflicting results. A Canadian study reported in 641 consecutive patients that female sex is associated with a better long-term and short-term survival after TAVI.1 An Italian study of 305 high risk patients found no gender differences in composite safety and efficacy endpoints at 30 days and one year after TAVI."2 The current analysis examined gender differences in outcomes for 1432 consecutive patients from 27 centers who were enrolled in ...

Bicuspid aortic valve (BV) is the most common congenital valvular abnormality, occurring in 1-2% of the general population. Two of the aortic valvular leaflets fuse during development resulting in a valve that is bicuspid instead of the normal tricuspid configuration. BV is associated with increased mechanical stress which predisposes to calcification and development of aortic stenosis which narrows the opening of the aortic valve. Dr Bauer said: "TAVI is used to treat elderly high risk patients with severe aortic stenosis. Despite previous assumptions the frequency of ...

Measures taken in developed countries to reduce noncommunicable diseases – the leading causes of death globally – have improved the life expectancy of women aged 50 years and older over the last 20 to 30 years. But, according to a study that will be published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization on 2 September, the gap in life expectancy between such women in rich and poor countries is growing. The WHO study, one of a collection of articles in a special issue of the journal devoted to women's health beyond reproduction, found that the leading causes of death ...

Helicobacter pylori is a bacterium that establishes a life-long stomach infection in humans, which in some cases can lead to duodenal ulcers or stomach cancer. New research, presented at this week's Society for General Microbiology Autumn Conference, gives us a clearer understanding of how these bacteria can manipulate the human immune system to survive in the mucosal lining of the stomach. Researchers from the University of Nottingham have shown that H. pylori is able to supress the body's normal production of 'human beta defensin 1' (hβD1), an antimicrobial factor ...

OKLAHOMA CITY, September 1, 2013 — A new finding could lead to novel treatments to reduce bleeding in trauma and severe infections. The research, from Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientists Lijun Xia, M.D., Ph.D., Jianxin Fu, M.D., Ph.D., and Brett Herzog, Ph.D., appears in the most recent issue of the journal Nature. One way the immune system keeps a body healthy is through immune surveillance. Lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell, constantly exit the bloodstream and "check in" at the lymph nodes to learn about possible pathogens or abnormal cell growth. ...

A new study has revealed that global warming is resulting in the spread of crop pests towards the North and South Poles at a rate of nearly 3 km a year. The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change and carried out by researchers at the University of Exeter and the University of Oxford, shows a strong relationship between increased global temperatures over the past 50 years and expansion in the range of crop pests. Currently 10-16% of global crop production is lost to pests. Crop pests include fungi, bacteria, viruses, insects, nematodes, viroids and oomycetes. ...

For years, physicians around the world have watched as strain after strain of the deadly bacteria Mycobacterium tuberculosis evolves resistance to drugs. Over the last few decades researchers have used the tools of molecular biology to identify a handful of individual mutations that allow TB to withstand many of the key therapeutics that doctors use to treat it. These genetic markers serve as clues for new drug development and as tools for diagnosing drug-resistant strains of TB. But the pace of discovery has proven too slow in the face of the complex array of rapidly ...

Tuberculosis (TB) remains one of deadliest infectious diseases of humans, killing 50% of individuals when left untreated. Even today, TB causes 1-2 million deaths every year mainly in developing countries. Multidrug-resistance is a growing threat in the fight against the disease. An international group of researchers led by Sebastien Gagneux from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) has now identified the origin in time and space of the disease. Using whole-genome sequencing of 259 Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains collected from different parts ...

Nanoscale "cages" made from strands of DNA can encapsulate small-molecule drugs and release them in response to a specific stimulus, McGill University researchers report in a new study. The research, published online Sept. 1 in Nature Chemistry, marks a step toward the use of biological nanostructures to deliver drugs to diseased cells in patients. The findings could also open up new possibilities for designing DNA-based nanomaterials. "This research is important for drug delivery, but also for fundamental structural biology and nanotechnology," says McGill Chemistry ...

Researchers have made a breakthrough discovery in identifying the world's most sensitive nanoparticle and measuring it from a distance using light. These super-bright, photostable and background-free nanocrystals enable a new approach to highly advanced sensing technologies using optical fibres. This discovery, by a team of researchers from Macquarie University, the University of Adelaide, and Peking University, opens the way for rapid localisation and measurement of cells within a living environment at the nanoscale, such as the changes to a single living cell in the ...

Although greenhouse gases and aerosols have very distinct properties, their effects on spatial patterns of rainfall change are surprisingly similar, according to new research from the University of Hawaii at Manoa's International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) and Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The study is published in the September 1 online issue of Nature Geoscience. Manmade climate change comes mostly from the radiative forcing of greenhouse gases and air pollutants or aerosols. While greenhouse gases are well-mixed in the atmosphere and tend to be evenly distributed ...

The average height of European males increased by an unprecedented 11cm between the mid-nineteenth century and 1980, according to a new paper published online today in the journal Oxford Economic Papers. Contrary to expectations, the study also reveals that average height actually accelerated in the period spanning the two World Wars and the Great Depression. Timothy J. Hatton, Professor of Economics at the University of Essex and the Research School of Economics at Australian National University in Canberra, examined and analysed a new dataset for the average height ...