Patients with diabetic foot ulcers experience a high level of depression and a lower quality of life according to a study presented at the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society’s (AOFAS) annual summer meeting here today.
Diabetic foot ulcers (DFU) are sores on the feet that often occur in people with diabetes. The abnormally high levels of blood sugar in these people damage blood vessels, causing them to thicken and leak. Over time, this makes the vessels less able to supply the body,
A simple blood test can now predict the probability of success for a procedure that can save the lower leg of diabetic patients facing amputation according to a study presented at the American Orthopaedic Foot and Ankle Society’s (AOFAS) annual meeting today.
The study, conducted by Alastair Younger, M.D. and Colin Meakin, M.D. at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia, examined 21 patients with diabetes who received successful partial foot amputations and 21 diabetic pa
Scientists at the University of Sheffield and Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Lab have solved a 127-year-old problem about the origin of supersonic plasma jets (spicules) which continuously shoot up from the Sun. Their findings are published in today’s edition of Nature.
Spicules, are jets of gas or plasma that are propelled upwards from the surface of the Sun at speeds of about 90,000 kilometres per hour. They are fairly short lived, with each jet lasting only about 5 minutes, but r
The Internet as we know it may soon be out of date but Europe will be playing a vital role in setting the standards for future communication, thanks to a €1.45 million project funded by the Information Society Technology (IST) Programme of the European Union’s Framework Programme.
The GRID is widely seen as a step beyond the Internet, incorporating pervasive high bandwidth, high-speed computing, intelligent sensors and large-scale databases into a seamless pool of managed and brokere
BU team shows so-called urban heat island effect influences onset of ’greenup,’ dormancy
Summer can sometimes be a miserably hot time for city dwellers, but new research shows that an urban setting allows plants to bask in a hot-house environment that keeps them greener longer.
Recent NASA-sponsored research from a team of geographers in Boston University’s Center for Remote Sensing shows that the growing season for vegetation in about 70 urban areas in Nort
Characterize intermediates at atomic level
University of Toronto scientists are helping to answer one of the most important questions in biochemistry, one that has implications for treating neurodegenerative diseases: how do proteins fold into their three-dimensional structures?
In research published in the July 29 issue of Nature, U of T post-doctoral fellow Dmitry Korzhnev and his supervisor, Professor Lewis Kay of the Department of Biochemistry, become the first researchers
The preferred treatment for hepatitis C, peg-interferon and ribavirin, is safe for people who are also infected with HIV, according to a new study in the July 29 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine. Moreover, this treatment proved superior for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV) in HIV-coinfected persons when compared with the previously accepted treatment, standard interferon and ribavirin.
The study compared the effectiveness of two forms of interferon: a once-weekly dose of
Finding identifies how estrogen-blocking ability of gene inhibits tumor growth
A UC Irvine researcher has found a novel tumor- suppressor function for a gene that, when mutated, often triggers breast cancer in women. The work also provides further evidence about how estrogen helps activate a disease that afflicts thousands of American women each year.
Dr. Ellis Levin, a professor of medicine, biochemistry and pharmacology at UCI, and colleagues at the Long Beach Veterans Ad
Fewer absorbent ion channels / new morbidity mechanism
To date epilepsy research has mainly concentrated on the transmission of the nerve cell signals to what are known as the synapses. However, recent observations by medical researchers from the US, France and the University of Bonn support the idea that in ’falling sickness’ the signal processing in the nerve cells (neurons) is altered: normally specific ion channels absorb the neuronal activity. In rats suffering fr
Many couples who move in together don’t do it with marriage in mind, a small study of New York City residents suggests.
Nearly all of the people interviewed who lived with a boyfriend or girlfriend said the major impetus was finances, convenience or housing needs. “The common wisdom seems to be that people live together because they’re testing the water before marriage. But we didn’t have a single person in this study who said that was the reason they moved in together,” said S
ATP, the vital energy source that keeps our body’s cells alive, runs amok at the site of a spinal cord injury, pouring into the area around the wound and killing the cells that normally allow us to move, scientists report in the cover story of the August issue of Nature Medicine.
The finding that ATP is a culprit in causing the devastating damage of spinal cord injury is unexpected. Doctors have known that initial trauma to the spinal cord is exacerbated by a cascade of molecular e
When a male fruit fly encounters a prospective mate, he initiates courtship by following her around and gently tapping her with his leg. If she seems interested, he serenades her with a love song. Singing is followed by more intimate acts that sometimes lead to successful mating.
Now Stanford University scientists have discovered that this elaborate courtship behavior is actually choreographed by a cluster of nerve cells embedded in the central nervous system of the male fly. When t
The genetic machinery for proper cell division
Researchers at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine have solved one of genetics’ mysteries – how a segment of protein on each of the body’s DNA-carrying chromosomes is able to form a rigid structure called a centromere, leading to proper cell division and the faithful inheritance of genes.
Published in the July 29, 2004 issue of the journal Natur
An international study with nearly 900 patients co-infected with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) has shown that HCV can be treated effectively and safely, without compromising the patient’s HIV therapy.
Currently, HCV and resulting end-stage liver disease is the major cause of hospitalization and death in the more than one-third of HIV patients who are co-infected with HCV. While potent anti-viral therapies have prolonged the lives of HIV patients, HCV
Having been a victim of stuttering, only able to relieve the pressure of the inability to enunciate my thoughts at a young age through concentration and replacement of words, this topic has special meaning. After quite a long time spent in a career in broadcasting where speaking was what I was paid for, the hope of conquering stuttering is not only strong but it is mandatory. It’s causes are few while it’s consequences are vast. It is time for research to concentrate on causes and not on w
U.S. adults spent an average of three days a month feeling “sad, blue, or depressed”, during 1995-2000, according to a study published today in Health and Quality of Life Outcomes.
“People who reported a higher number of sad, blue or depressed days also reported engaging in unhealthy behaviours such as cigarette smoking and physical inactivity,” write the authors of the study. “Although most people who report depressive symptoms several days each month probably do not have a diagno
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