American College of Cardiology / American Heart Association guidelines
Early diagnosis and new treatments can help battle heart failure — a growing national problem that causes 1 million hospital admissions each year, according to new guidelines released today by the American College of Cardiology (ACC) and the American Heart Association (AHA).
The document is available today on the Web sites of the ACC and the AHA and will be published in the Sept. 20, 2005, issues
A new NASA-funded study finds that predicted increases in precipitation due to warmer air temperatures from greenhouse gas emissions may actually increase sea ice volume in the Antarctic’s Southern Ocean. This adds new evidence of potential asymmetry between the two poles, and may be an indication that climate change processes may have different impact on different areas of the globe.
“Most people have heard of climate change and how rising air temperatures are melting glaciers an
Scientists at the MUHC have discovered a gene that controls the speed at which patients develop tuberculosis–the first time such a gene has been discovered for this disease. The new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) this week provides a new view of the mechanisms underlying the development of tuberculosis and may contribute to public health efforts aimed at containing the disease.
“About one-third of the world’s population is infect
With the help of NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers have conducted the most comprehensive structural analysis of our galaxy and have found tantalizing new evidence that the Milky Way is much different from your ordinary spiral galaxy.
The survey using the orbiting infrared telescope provides the fine details of a long central bar feature that distinguishes the Milky Way from more pedestrian spiral galaxies.
“This is the best evidence ever for this long
Markers could help track response to new therapies, protective strategies
A survey of the genome of patients with Huntington’s Disease (HD) has identified potential markers of the progression of this devastating neurological disorder. Researchers from the MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disorders (MIND) found a set of genes that are expressed at higher levels in blood samples from people with HD than in samples from controls. The expression of these genes also ro
Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center scientists have found that interferon, used for 30 years to treat blood cancers, multiple sclerosis and hepatitis, selectively kills colon cancer cells when combined with another standard chemotherapy agent. New studies in cell lines suggest that the combination tactic, which targets a common gene pathway in colon cancer cells, could be more potent than either drug alone, and has fewer side effects.
“Instead of killing a tree by chopping it down,
Overweight children who can shed their puppy fat by age 14 can expect lower blood pressure, according to a University of Queensland study.
About 2794 children in Brisbane for the study had their blood pressure and body mass or fat index (weight in kilograms divided by height in metres square) recorded at age five then at 14.
Lead researcher, Dr Abdullah Al Mamun from UQ’s School of Population Health found children who were overweight at both ages or at age 14, had avera
Biologists testing a mathematical model of the mechanism birds use to control the growth of complex feathers found that plumed feather structures involve the coordination of at least two genes that activate and that inhibit barb growth.
“Understanding these mechanisms of feather growth gives a whole new perspective on the unique beauty of feathers,” said Richard Prum, senior author on the study. Prum is the William Robertson Coe Professor of Ornithology, and Curator of Ornitho
Using transgenic mice specifically lacking the PTEN gene in endothelial cells, Dr. Akira Suzuki and colleagues demonstrate that PTEN is required for normal cardiovascular development and that its loss enhanced tumor angiogenesis.
To be published in the September 1 issue of G&D, this new data suggests that PTEN regulates vascular growth factor (VGF) signaling to modulate cardiovascular development and post-natal neovascularization. Loss of PTEN in murine endothelial cells results i
Metastasis is the primary cause of deaths in cancers. Published in the September 1 issue of G&D, Dr. Tak Mak and colleagues have successfully generated a strain of RhoC-deficient mice, providing long-awaited in vivo confirmation of RhoC’s critical role in tumor metastasis.
They found that RhoC, a Ras-related GTPase, is dispensable for embryonic development and tumor initiation, but is essential for metastasis. RhoC-deficient mice do not display gross phenotypical abnormalit
When it comes to living together with a man, daughters often follow the lead of their mothers, according to a new study.
Research showed that young adult women whose mothers reported cohabitation were 57 percent more likely than other women to report cohabitation themselves. In addition, daughters of cohabiting mothers tended to cohabit at earlier ages than others.
“Women tend to model the behavior of their mothers when it comes to relationships,” said Leanna Mellot
In the September 1 issue of G&D, Dr. Michael Brunner and colleagues have uncovered the molecular mechanism whereby temperature affects circadian patterns in the fungus Neurospora. The scientists investigated thermosensitive splicing of the central clockwork protein, FREQUENCY (FRQ), into both long (l) and short (s) isoforms depending upon temperature.
They found that at low temperatures, intron 6 of frq mRNA is preferentially spliced, resulting in the exclusion of the l-FRQ translation ini
SH2-B enhances brain’s leptin sensitivity
What do laboratory mice at the University of Michigan Medical School have in common with millions of overweight Americans? Like many of us, these mice just can’t stop eating. They weigh twice as much as their littermates, consume nearly two times as much food, have elevated fatty acid and triglyceride levels, are resistant to insulin, and often develop type 2 diabetes.
Scientists at the University of Michigan Medical School ar
Researchers have discovered that the loss of a gene called p63 accelerates aging in mice. Similar versions of the gene are present in many organisms, including humans. Therefore, the p63 gene is likely to play a fundamental biological role in aging-related processes.
“To study how the p63 gene works, we devised a system for eliminating it from adult mouse tissues. What struck us right away was that these p63 deficient mice were aging prematurely,” says Alea Mills of Cold Spring Har
Heart attack patients treated with primary percutaneous intervention (PCI) at hospitals after hours and on weekends wait longer to receive clot busters and other treatments and have a higher risk of death than those treated during regular hospital hours, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the August 17 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The researchers found that while 67.9 percent of heart attack patients were treated during off-hours
Results of first large international study of acute renal failure in the ICU published in JAMA
In the first multinational study of acute renal failure (ARF) in ICU patients, an international group of researchers has found that a surprisingly high number of intensive care patients – one in 20 – develop a severe form of ARF, and an alarmingly high number of those patients will die in the hospital. The study is published in the August 17 issue of the Journal of the American Medical
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