An international team of scientists led by researchers at Mount Sinai School Medicine have discovered that a drug that had previously yielded conflicting results in clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease effectively stopped the progression of memory deterioration and brain pathology in mouse models of early stage Alzheimer's disease. The findings, published July 31, 2012 in Molecular Psychiatry, demonstrate renewed potential for this compound and could lead to clinical trials in patients with early stages of the disease. Latrepirdine, known commercially as Dimebon, was ...

A novel avian influenza virus has acquired the ability to infect aquatic mammals and was responsible for an outbreak of fatal pneumonia that recently struck harbor seals in New England, according to scientists at the Center for Infection & Immunity (CII) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, New England Aquarium, USGS National Wildlife Health Center, SeaWorld and EcoHealth Alliance. This research is published in mBio. Wildlife officials first became concerned in September 2011, when seals with severe ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Roughly 1.8 million Americans have celiac disease, but around 1.4 million of them are unaware that they have it, a Mayo Clinic-led analysis of the condition's prevalence has found. Meanwhile, 1.6 million people in the United States are on a gluten-free diet even though they haven't been diagnosed with celiac disease, according to the study published Tuesday in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. Researchers have estimated the rate of diagnosed and undiagnosed celiac disease at similar levels prior to this study, but this is the most definitive ...

A new UH experiment takes an unconventional look at the treatment for domestic violence, otherwise known as intimate partner violence (IPV), by focusing on changing the perpetrators' psychological abuse during arguments rather than addressing his sexist beliefs. "There is a lot of research that studies the victim of intimate partner violence, but not the perpetrator," said Julia Babcock, department of psychology and co-director of the Center for Couples Therapy, a clinical research center at UH that offers therapy for couples. "The predominant model for IPV intervention ...

Bochum, 31.7.2012 No. 256 Never again a flat battery RUB researchers develop an early warning system for vehicle batteries Battery management permanently checks the age, state of charge and operational reliability A flat battery can turn an unsuspecting car driver into an unintentional pedestrian. The fact that vehicle batteries go flat all of a sudden is a well-known problem, but one that can also be avoided in future. Scientists from the RUB working group for Energy Systems Technology and Power Mechatronics headed by Professor Dr. Constantinos Sourkounis and Philip ...

Long-term sick leave is a burden for individuals and society at large, yet very little is known about the underlying reasons for it. Researchers at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, in collaboration with Australian and British institutes, have identified anxiety as a more important risk factor than previously thought. Common mental disorders such as anxiety and depression will affect 1 of 3 of us at some point in our lives. The core symptoms of mental disorders affect a person's emotional, cognitive and social functioning, which can impact on working ability. ...

A new study by Tiina Tuovinen, from the University of Eastern Finland, and her colleagues casts doubt over the validity of models used to assess the impact of radiation on human health. Their work is published online in Springer's journal Hydrobiologia. The Chernobyl accident in 1986 led to a discharge of radioactive compounds into terrestrial, freshwater and marine environments. Over a period of time, these compounds have been taken up by organisms and have made their way into the food chain. Since the accident, the fall-out from the power plant accident has been ...

Washington D.C., July 31, 2012 – A study published in the July 2012 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that diverted medical marijuana use among adolescents receiving treatment for substance abuse is very common. Study participants from two adolescent substance abuse treatment programs in the Denver metropolitan area were asked questions about their medical marijuana use.121 of 164 adolescents (73.8%) reported using medical marijuana that had been recommended for someone else, also known as diverted medical marijuana, ...

Philadelphia, PA, July 31, 2012 – Mental disorders that emerge in childhood and adolescence, including attention-deficit disorder, depression, anxiety and substance abuse, constitute significant challenges to cognitive, emotional, and social development. As a result, it is perhaps not surprising that earnings and income are substantially reduced among people diagnosed with mental disorders. Is the association between mental disorders and earnings a correlation, or is low income a consequence of a disorder? Are mental disorders universally associated with reduced economic/social ...

Thanks to the "flightless" molecule, the spread of cancer from one tissue to another may one day be grounded. In a new report published in the August 2012 print issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), laboratory experiments show that "flightless" (named after its effects on fruit flies) increases the "stickiness" that causes cells, including cancer cells, to attach to underlying tissue, which in turn, slows their movement throughout the body. "The study of flightless and its role in the control of cell movement offers the promise of developing new drugs and ...

Who would have thought that our noses and Microsoft Windows' infamous blue screen of death could have something in common? But that's the case being made by a new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org). Specifically, scientists now know exactly why we sneeze, what sneezing should accomplish, and what happens when sneezing does not work properly. Much like a temperamental computer, our noses require a "reboot" when overwhelmed, and this biological reboot is triggered by the pressure force of a sneeze. When a sneeze works properly, it ...

If you're sick from stress, a new research report appearing in the August 2012 issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) suggests that what your mother ate—or didn't eat—may be part of the cause. The report shows that choline intake that is higher than what is generally recommended during pregnancy may improve how a child responds to stress. These improvements are the result of epigenetic changes that ultimately lead to lower cortisol levels. Epigenetic changes affect how a gene functions, even if the gene itself is not changed. Lowering cortisol is important as ...

The Social Security Trust Fund is off on its prediction by $730 billion for needed benefits in 2030. That is because its forecasting methods have hardly been updated since 1935 when the program first started, according to a study in the August issue of Demography. Two researchers, Samir Soneji of The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice and Gary King of Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science, in the article titled, "Statistical Security for Social Security," found that the financial viability of Social Security, the single largest U.S. ...

A new report involving mice suggests that a relationship exists between maternal metabolic or psychological stress and the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome in her offspring. What's more, the report shows that if the stress cannot be reduced or eliminated, manipulating the neuropeptide Y (NPY) system in visceral fat may prevent maternal stress-induced obesity from occurring in the next generation. This discovery is reported in the August 2012 issue of The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org). "Obesity is a worldwide disease. Here we found ...

Imagine eating all of the sugar and fat that you want without gaining a pound. Thanks to new research published in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), the day may come when this is not too far from reality. That's because researchers from the United States and Europe have found that blocking one of three opioid receptors in your body could turn your penchant for sweets and fried treats into a weight loss strategy that actually works. By blocking the delta opioid receptor, or DOR, mice reduced their body weight despite being fed a diet high in fat and sugar. The scientists ...

Based on data from the last five Olympic games, a study by the University of Western Australia has identified those athletes with asthma and airway hyper-responsiveness. With a prevalence of around 8% they are the most common chronic conditions among Olympic athletes, and could be related to intense training. In summer and winter sports there is widespread suffering from asthma and airway hyper-responsiveness (AHR) among athletes who take part in endurance sports. Its relatively late onset in many older athletes suggests to the experts that the years of intense training ...

Scientists have found that the anti-inflammatory molecule, IL-10, may improve success rates of skin autografts (skin moved from one site of the body to another). This information provides a valuable drug target that may benefit burn and accident victims. Specifically, researchers from Portugal and Brazil show that IL-10 plays an important role in whether or not an isogenic skin graft (skin from one individual grafted into another genetically identical) is successful and that the cells responsible for this effect are from the donor skin and not from any tissue of the recipient. ...

Men with large waists urinate more frequently than their slimmer counterparts, according to research in the August issue of the urology journal BJUI. Researchers from Weill Medical College, Cornell University, New York, found that men with waists measuring 100cm plus reported up to three times more urinary problems than men with waists of 90cm or less. They also found that larger waist measurements were associated with a greater prevalence of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and erection and ejaculation problems. "The global epidemic ...

The presence of specific autoantibodies of the immune system is associated with blood vessel damage in the brain. These findings were made by Marion Bimmler, a graduate engineer of medical laboratory diagnostics at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine Berlin-Buch and Dr. Peter Karczewski of the biotech company E.R.D.E.-AAK-Diagnostik GmbH in studies on a rat model. The researchers' results suggest that autoimmune mechanisms play a significant role in the pathogenesis and progression of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia (PloS ONE, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0041602)*. Antibodies ...

From how relationships affect our health to the psychology of an awkward party moment to why we often choose ignorance over information – a guide to some talks with new research in personality and social psychology at the APA Convention in Orlando, Aug. 2-5, 2012 ... Costs of forgiveness in marriage It is not always best to forgive and forget in marriage, according to new research that looks at the costs of forgiveness. Sometimes expressing anger might be necessary to resolve a relationship problem – with the short-term discomfort of anger benefiting the health of the ...

TORONTO, July 31, 2012 – Think you know what one serving of food looks like? You may want to think again, according to a new study from York University. Many people overestimate the size of one serving of food as defined in Canada's Food Guide, so they may be overeating even if they believe they are being careful, according to a study by Jennifer Kuk, a professor in the School of Kinesiology & Health Science in York's Faculty of Health, and lead author Sharona Abramovitch, a former graduate student at York. The study was published online today in the journal Applied ...

Brain-computer interfaces are at the cutting edge for treatment of neurological and psychological disorder, including Parkinson's, epilepsy, and depression. Among the most promising advance is deep brain stimulation (DBS) — a method in which a silicon chip implanted under the skin ejects high frequency currents that are transferred to the brain through implanted electrodes that transmit and receive the signals. These technologies require a seamless interaction between the brain and the hardware. But there's a catch. Identified as foreign bodies by the immune system, the ...

New Rochelle, NY, July 31, 2012—Recent research supports the ability of some herbal agents, taken orally or applied topically, to prevent sunburn and limit the damage caused by excessive exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light. Natural products with proven and promising photoprotective properties are highlighted in an article in Alternative and Complementary Therapies, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Alternative and Complementary Therapies website at http://www.liebertpub.com/act. The article "Herbal Sunscreens and Ultraviolet ...

HEIDELBERG, 31 July 2012 – Researchers have used computational analysis to identify a new Achilles heel for the treatment of drug-resistant breast cancer. The results, which are published in Molecular Systems Biology, reveal that the disruption of glucose metabolism is an effective therapeutic strategy for the treatment of tumours that have acquired resistance to front-line cancer drugs such as Lapatinib. "The growth and survival of cancer cells can often be impaired by treatment with drugs that interfere with the actions of one or more oncogenes," said Prahlad Ram, the ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. — The recent economic recession has caused many changes in the business landscape across the country, including high unemployment rates. Due to these high rates and the struggling economy, University of Missouri researchers have found that in recent years the number of Americans engaging in entrepreneurship has risen significantly. Maria Figueroa-Armijos, a doctoral candidate in the University of Missouri Truman School of Public Affairs, says that this trend could be positive for the future. "We've seen similar trends occur in past economically slow periods ...