120 million people worldwide suffer from depression. An EU-funded research project launched recently will help to uncover the genetic factors linked to depression to develop new drug treatments. The Integrated Project, named NEWMOOD, has received €7.2 million in funding from the EU’s Sixth Research Framework Programme (FP6) and aims to identify genes involved in triggering depression. This will help researchers to develop new drugs over the next five years to treat it and improve understanding of
Alzheimer’s isn’t always the cause of a progressive loss of memory and other mental skills.
According to the July issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter, one cause is vascular dementia, a common form of dementia often mistaken for Alzheimer’s disease. Vascular dementia, which accounts for 10 percent to 20 percent of all dementias, occurs when small blood vessels in the brain become narrowed or blocked, causing brain damage.
You may be at risk of vascular dementia if you have certain
Genetically engineered mice, created at the University of Michigan Medical School, are living every dieter’s dream. They eat unlimited amounts of high-fat mouse chow, but have about 50 percent less body fat than normal mice on a low-fat diet. And they show no signs of diabetes or other metabolic disorders, which are common in animals with too little fat.
But don’t stock up on potato chips and ice cream just yet. The genetically altered mice are leaner than normal mice, but they also have so
If you have heart failure — a common and life-threatening condition for survivors of heart attacks – a newer hormone-blocking therapy could help you live longer and better, according to the July issue of Mayo Clinic Health Letter.
Heart failure occurs when the heart’s ability to pump blood to the rest of the body is damaged or weakened. It’s usually the end result of other cardiovascular conditions.
Heart failure is influenced by the many hormones that are produced as a result of
Individuals who took a dietary supplement containing extracts of Opuntia ficus indica, a type of prickly pear cactus, before consuming alcohol, had reduced symptoms of alcohol hangover compared to individuals who drank but took placebo, according to an article in the June 28 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Alcohol hangovers cause substantial economic and health consequences, the article states. The severity of alcohol hangovers may be related to
Physicians may be able to make early decisions on the best treatment for breast cancer, thanks to research published in Breast Cancer Research today. A gene involved in the adhesion of cells is less active in breast tumors with a poor prognosis than those that are less aggressive, researchers found.Measuring the activity of the ALCAM gene in primary breast tumors could give physicians advanced warning about the likely clinical outcome of the disease. This should help them decide whether to prescribe
Type 2 diabetics who take two drugs in combination with insulin can effectively regulate their blood-sugar levels without the common side effect of weight gain, according to a new study by researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Their findings appear in the July issue of Diabetes Care. It’s the first study to analyze the safety and effectiveness of triple therapy using insulin, metformin and a drug in the thiazolidinedione family.
“We’ve shown spectacular control of bloo
While walking is one of the healthiest and most popular exercises, it also results in more trips to the emergency room for women than any other non-equipment exercise, a University of Arkansas study revealed.
The study, conducted by associate health science professors Ches Jones and Lori Turner, has been accepted for publication in the summer 2005 issue of the “Journal of Women and Aging.” Jones presented the results at the 7th World Conference on Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion held
A chemical that occurs naturally in the leaves of an African plant could boost men’s fertility, researchers told the 20th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology on Monday 28 June.
Khat (Catha edulis) is a plant that has been cultivated for centuries in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula. Chewing the leaves of the plant releases cathinone, a stimulant that produces feelings of euphoria. Cathinone is not very stable and is broken down into cat
Footballers could benefit from a new hi-tech shirt that alerts managers to players’ heart rate and hydration levels.
The shirt, which has in-built pulse and sweat monitors was designed by Northumbria University student David Evans.It uses ECG sensors to record the electrical activity of the heart and send signals to a computer on the team bench, alerting managers, coaches and physios to the player’s heart rate and highlighting any abnormal rhythms.
Silicon gel based strips a
A new generation of gamma cameras is on the horizon, thanks to a collaboration between the BioImaging Unit of the Space Research Centre at the University of Leicester, the Institute for Cancer Research at the Royal Marsden Hospital (Surrey) and medical physicists at the Leicester Royal Infirmary.
Dr John Lees, who leads the BioImaging Unit, is developing the new camera using funding from the University’s seedcorn fund, Lachesis. It will be a small, affordable hand-held device, producing hi
Three-dimensional ecography is a novel advance in the application of ultrasounds in the diagnosis of a number of pathologies. It involves a system of probes that register images in multiple layers. Then the information is transferred to a computer within the ecograph itself, where the three-dimensional reconstruction is carried out automatically. Advances in information technology have so perfected the data processing that this reconstruction can be obtained in real time.
This new diagnostic
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a non-invasive diagnostic method has been evolving into an attractive alternative to methods which are associated with radiation exposure. This development now also starts to manifest itself in lung perfusion imaging. This was reported by Dr. Christian Fink and colleagues of the Radiology Division of the Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (German Cancer Research Center) in a recent issue of the journal Radiology*.
Diagnosis of numerous diseases of the lung
Even a minor accident or fall could result in a potentially disabling fracture for as many as 60 percent of Canadian women over age 50. That’s just one of the disturbing findings of the Canadian Multicentre Osteoporosis Study (CAMOS), a major, ongoing study of osteoporosis involving more than 9,000 people across Canada. This study is made possible by a recently renewed grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).
Although common in older people, osteoporosis is often not
Discovery aims to protect hospitalized patients
A team of international researchers has shown that coating implanted medical devices with a key peptide known as RIP can prevent the occurrence of bacterial colonization, biofilm formation and consequent drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection – a leading cause of illness and death among hospitalized patients. RIP acts by preventing bacterial cell-to-cell communication, a process known as ’quorum sensing’. This is the first direc
A team of researchers has discovered a genetic variation that doubles the risk for rheumatoid arthritis (RA). The variation, referred to as a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP, pronounced “snip”), is present in about 28 percent of individuals with rheumatoid arthritis and 17 percent of the general population. This discovery resulted from a collaboration between scientists from the North American Rheumatoid Arthritis Consortium (NARAC), led by Peter K. Gregersen, MD, of the North Shore-Long Island J
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