A research team led by the University of Melbourne, Australia, has developed a novel technique that tracks diseased proteins behaving badly by forming clusters in brain diseases such as Huntington's and Alzheimer's. The technique published in Nature Methods today is the first of its kind to rapidly identify and track the location of diseased proteins inside cells and could provide insights into improved treatments for brain diseases and others such as cancer. Developed by Dr Danny Hatters and his team of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the ...

Statins may prevent pneumonia, according to a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Researchers from Israel and the United States analyzed data from the JUPITER trial, a randomized, double-blind trial with placebo control groups conducted at 1315 sites in 26 countries to look at the use of the statin rosuvastatin in disease prevention. The trial involved 17 802 men aged 50 years or older and women aged 60 years or older without a history of heart disease or diabetes. Patients were randomized to receive either a placebo or rosuvastatin, a statin used ...

Blood testing to determine a link between food and illness is increasingly common, but some tests are not considered diagnostic and can lead to confusion, according to a primer in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Both traditional physicians and holistic medicine practitioners may offer blood testing to diagnose adverse reactions to food. A food allergy is a specific immunologic reaction to a food that can be reproduced with exposure to the food in question. An intolerance is an adverse reaction without an immunologic response, such as lactose intolerance. However, ...

1. Dapagliflozin Effective Add-on for Patients with Inadequately Controlled Blood Glucose Experts caution that long-term safety data is still lacking Even on high doses of insulin, some patients with type 2 diabetes still have poorly controlled blood glucose levels. Increasing doses of insulin raises the risks for weight gain, hypoglycemia, fluid retention, and congestive heart failure, so physicians may choose to add additional medications rather than increase the insulin dose. Dapagliflozin, the first in the class of selective renal sodium glucose contransporter (SGLT) ...

Computer simulations have revealed a plausible explanation for a phenomenon that has puzzled astronomers: Rather than occupying orbits at regular distances from a star, giant gas planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn appear to prefer to occupy certain regions in mature solar systems while staying clear of others. "Our results show that the final distribution of planets does not vary smoothly with distance from the star, but instead has clear 'deserts' – deficits of planets – and 'pile-ups' of planets at particular locations," said Ilaria Pascucci, an assistant professor ...

SEATTLE – Pancreas cancer tumors spread quickly and are notoriously resistant to treatment, making them among the deadliest of malignancies. Their resistance to chemotherapy stems in part from a unique biological barrier the tumor builds around itself. Now scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center have found a way to break through that defense, and their research represents a potential breakthrough in the treatment of pancreas cancer. In a paper to be published in the March 20 issue of Cancer Cell, senior author Sunil Hingorani, M.D., Ph.D., an associate member ...

Putting the brakes on an abundant growth-promoting protein causes breast tumors to regress, according to a study published on March 19th in the Journal of Experimental Medicine. Triple-negative breast tumors lack all of the known growth receptors that serve as treatment targets in other types of breast cancer, making this the most clinically challenging subtype of the disease. Patients with these tumors tend to relapse earlier and have shorter disease-free survival. Andrei Goga and colleagues now show that triple-negative breast tumors express elevated levels of the ...

People whose blood pressure drops rapidly when they move from lying down to standing, known as orthostatic hypotension, may have a higher risk of developing heart failure, according to research published in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. The link between orthostatic hypotension and heart failure was stronger in people 45-55 years old compared to those 56-64, researchers said. High blood pressure, which was present in over half of people who developed heart failure, may be partially responsible for the association. Over an average 17.5 years of follow-up, ...

EDITOR'S PICK A clearer understanding of glaucoma | Back to top Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of vision loss and blindness worldwide. In glaucoma patients, the optic nerve, which relays information from the eye to the brain, is damaged, though the molecular cause of nerve damage is unclear. Dr. Simon John, from Tufts University in Boston, and colleagues specifically wanted to understand the earliest events that lead to optic nerve damage in glaucoma. Using a mouse model of the disease, the researchers showed that inflammatory immune cells called monocytes cross ...

Physical violence, sexual abuse and other forms of childhood and adult trauma are major factors fueling the epidemic of HIV/AIDS among American women. Scientists have known for years that traumatized women are at greater risk of becoming infected. Now, two new studies from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Harvard Medical School demonstrate that a high rate of trauma among women already infected with HIV also plays a role in the epidemic. Described in back-to-back papers in the journal AIDS and Behavior, the new work demonstrates that women with ...

Glaucoma is one of the leading causes of vision loss and blindness worldwide. In glaucoma patients, the optic nerve, which relays information from the eye to the brain, is damaged, though the molecular cause of nerve damage is unclear. Dr. Simon John, from Tufts University in Boston, and colleagues specifically wanted to understand the earliest events that lead to optic nerve damage in glaucoma. Using a mouse model of the disease, the researchers showed that inflammatory immune cells called monocytes cross blood vessels and invade the optic nerve. Remarkably, mice treated ...

CHICAGO – The minimally invasive hernia repair procedure known as total extraperitoneal inguinal hernioplasty (TEP) was associated with higher patient satisfaction, less chronic pain and less impairment of inguinal (groin) sensation compared to the open surgical Lichtenstein repair, according to a study published in the March issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Chronic pain and hypoesthesia (reduced sensitivity) are increasingly measured after inguinal hernia repair but few randomized clinical trials have compared TEP with Lichtenstein repair, ...

CHICAGO – An antioxidant combination of vitamin E, vitamin C and α-lipoic acid (E/C/ALA) was not associated with changes in some cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers related to Alzheimer disease in a randomized controlled trial, according to a study published Online First by Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Oxidative damage in the brain is associated with aging and is widespread in Alzheimer disease (AD) patients. Some observational studies have suggested that an antioxidant-rich diet may reduce the risk of AD, but antioxidant randomized clinical ...

CHICAGO – Patients with obstructive sleep apnea who undergo surgery for their condition should be closely monitored after their procedures are performed but may not need to be in an intensive care unit, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Surgical procedures in patients with sleep apnea (a sleep disorder characterized by pauses in breathing) have traditionally been considered dangerous and potentially life threatening if not monitored with caution because these patients are ...

A Harvard archaeologist has dramatically simplified the process of finding early human settlements by using computers to scour satellite images for the tell-tale clues of human habitation, and in the process uncovered thousands of new sites that might reveal clues to the earliest complex human societies. As described in a paper published March 19 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Jason Ur, the John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, worked with Bjoern Menze, a research affiliate in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence ...

LA JOLLA, Calif., March 19, 2012 – Drug resistance is a serious problem for cancer patients—over time, a therapy that was once providing some benefit simply stops working. Scientists at Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) recently discovered how cancer cells develop resistance to a drug called MLN4924. This experimental therapy is currently being tested in a number of Phase I and Phase I/II clinical trials to determine its efficacy against several different types of cancer, including multiple myeloma, leukemia, and lymphoma. Published online March ...

How and when our blood clots is one of those incredibly complex and important processes in our body that we rarely think about. If your blood doesn't clot and you cut yourself, you could bleed to death, if your blood clots too much, you could be in line for a heart attack or stroke. Dr. Hans Vogel, a professor at the University of Calgary, has thought a lot about blot clotting and recently published research in the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society that helps to better understand the clotting process. Vogel and his graduate student Hao Huang were able ...

Just like a road atlas faithfully maps real-word locations, our brain maps many aspects of our physical world: Sensory inputs from our fingers are mapped next to each other in the somatosensory cortex; the auditory system is organized by sound frequency; and the various tastes are signaled in different parts of the gustatory cortex. The olfactory system was believed to map similarly, where groups of chemically related odorants - amines, ketones, or esters, for example - register with clusters of cells that are laid out next to each other. When researchers at the Stowers ...

University of Granada researchers have developed a software tool that makes an accurate estimation of the risk that a person has to suffer a heart disease. In addition, this software tool allows the performance of massive risk estimations, i.e. it helps estimating the risk that a specific population group has of suffering a heart condition. The researchers employed a sample including 3 000 patients. Heart conditions increasingly affect working age population, which can make individuals loss potential years of work and productivity. Understanding the risk for ...

The new political appetite for 'localism' in town planning has triggered anxiety within local communities and amongst those charged with making it work, according to new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). A study led by Professor Nick Gallent of the Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, looked at how communities in Kent have sought to influence the policies of local authorities and service providers and how, in the recent past, they have engaged with planning professionals around the production of 'parish plans'. The ...

Researchers in Wales and the United States have collaborated to complete the first high-resolution, comprehensive genetic map of a promising energy crop called miscanthus. The results – published in the current edition of the peer-reviewed, online journal PLoS One – provide a significant breakthrough towards advancing the production of bioenergy. The breakthrough results from the long-term collaboration between energy crop company Ceres, Inc., based in Thousand Oaks, California, USA, and the Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth ...

Patients with relapsing onset Multiple Sclerosis (MS) who consumed alcohol, wine, coffee and fish on a regular basis took four to seven years longer to reach the point where they needed a walking aid than people who never consumed them. However the study, published in the April issue of the European Journal of Neurology, did not observe the same patterns in patients with progressive onset MS. The authors say that the findings suggest that different mechanisms might be involved in how disability progresses in relapsing and progressive onset MS. Researchers asked patients ...

Scientists are one step closer to making more complex microscopic biological machines, following improvements in the way that they can "re-wire" DNA in yeast, according to research published today in the journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, from Imperial College London, have demonstrated a way of creating a new type of biological "wire", using proteins that interact with DNA and behave like wires in electronic circuitry. The scientists say the advantage of their new biological wire is that it can be re-engineered over and over again to create potentially billions of connections ...

A clock accurate to within a tenth of a second over 14 billion years – the age of the universe – is the goal of research being reported this week by scientists from three different institutions. To be published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the research provides the blueprint for a nuclear clock that would get its extreme accuracy from the nucleus of a single thorium ion. Such a clock could be useful for certain forms of secure communication – and perhaps of greater interest – for studying the fundamental theories of physics. A nuclear clock could be as much ...

Washington, DC. (March 19, 2012) – A 12-week treatment of the fermented soy germ-based nutritional supplement containing S-equol significantly lowered hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c), LDL cholesterol and improved vascular stiffness, all factors that occur as part of metabolic syndrome, according to a first-of-its-kind peer-reviewed study reported in a poster at the Women's Health 2012 annual meeting. "This study is the first to provide evidence that a daily supplement of soy-based S-equol favorably change metabolic syndrome risk factors, particularly in women. Because not all ...