Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) lower the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease, claim researchers in this week’s BMJ.
The authors identified 15 studies published between 1996 and October 2002 that examined the role of NSAID use in preventing Alzheimer’’s disease. They carried out three separate analyses to quantify the risk of Alzheimer’’s disease in NSAID users and in aspirin users and to determine any influence on duration of use.
Their results show that N
Changes in the brain’s white matter, a common occurrence among the elderly, increase a person’s risk of having multiple strokes, according to a report in today’s rapid access issue of Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.
White matter is the inner part of the brain, through which most of the brain’s nerve connections pass. Leukoaraiosis – the scattered loss of white matter in the brain – is particularly associated with strokes caused by blockages in small arteries deep i
Gene more than doubles risk of depression following life stresses
Among people who suffered multiple stressful life events over 5 years, 43 percent with one version of a gene developed depression, compared to only 17 percent with another version of the gene, say researchers funded, in part, by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Those with the “short,” or stress-sensitive version of the serotonin transporter gene were also at higher risk for depression if they had been ab
Adding to the long list of the benefits of aspirin, researchers have found that it is responsible for reducing toxic bacteria associated with serious infections. A study led by Dartmouth Medical School describes how salicylic acid-produced when the body breaks down aspirin-disrupts the bacteria´s ability to adhere to host tissue, reducing the threat of deadly infections.
The investigation, which appears in the July 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, focused on the bact
In their quest for a vaccine that may one day routinely protect against heart attacks and strokes, cardiologists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and their colleagues in Sweden have isolated a key step in the mechanism that leads to vascular plaque buildup and blood clot formation.
In mice genetically predisposed to quickly develop atherosclerosis, the researchers were able to trigger a protective immune response, significantly increasing the level of immunoglobulin gamma G (IgG), an antibody
Discovery may lead to targeted therapies to interrupt cancer development
(Philadelphia, PA) – Researchers at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute at the University of Pennsylvania have determined that a key enzyme, Pim-2, is responsible for the survival of cancer cells. The finding – which will appear in the August 1 edition of the journal Genes & Development – represents an important advance in understanding why cancer cells survive in the body (working against the body’
New insight is important step forward in personalized cancer care
A new Canadian-led study in the latest issue of the New England Journal of Medicine shows that a simple genetic test can determine if chemotherapy will be effective in treating a patient’s colon cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in North America.
The study, led by doctors and researchers from Toronto’s Princess Margaret Hospital and Mount Sinai Hospital, examined 570 tissue samples from colon cance
A UCSF-led team has demonstrated that the cerebral cortex, the site of higher cognitive functions, not only perceives pain, but plays a role in regulating pain, and that it does so in part through the inhibitory neurotransmitter GABA, suggesting a possible target for therapy.
The finding, published in the July 17 issue of Nature, provides some of the first neuroanatomical evidence that the cerebral cortex not only receives pain signals from nerve cells in lower regions of the brain,
Microscopes are not the only tools available to study disease. A new ESA project employs satellites to predict and help combat epidemic outbreaks, as well as join the hunt for the origin of the deadly Ebola virus.
Ebola haemorrhagic fever kills many people in Central Africa each year. It can cause runaway internal and external bleeding in humans and also apes. What remains unidentified is the jungle-based organism serving as the virus’s host.
To assist search efforts, from next y
Oxford scientists have found the first sign that many patients with type 2 diabetes have something wrong with their hearts which has previously been undetected.
More than 90 per cent of all diabetics have type 2 diabetes, and researchers studying a group of type 2 diabetics with no apparent heart problems discovered that their hearts were actually working significantly less efficiently than non-diabetic individuals.
Professor Kieran Clarke led the study at Oxford. “We used
Small head circumference at birth, followed by a sudden and excessive increase in head circumference during the first year of life, has been linked to development of autism by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital and Health Center, San Diego. Autism spectrum disorder occurs in one out of every 160 children and is among the more common and serious of neurological disorders of early childhood.
Published in the July
Human papillomavirus 16 (HPV16), the virus responsible for approximately half of all cervical cancers, appears to be better at dodging the immune system than other HPV types, according to a large study of HIV-positive women in the July 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The findings may help explain why HPV16 plays such a major role in causing cervical cancer in the general population.
Whereas other HPV types have a lower prevalence and incidence among women wi
Genetics causes some men to test higher on the blood test for prostate cancer – even when they don’t have the disease – report researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and colleagues in the July 16 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The discovery could lead to more accurate testing and fewer unnecessary biopsies, said Scott D. Cramer, Ph.D., lead researcher, from Wake Forest.
“Up to 20 percent of men may have genetic variants that ca
In the July 15 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Ambrose Cheung and colleagues at Dartmouth School of Medicine in New Hampshire, USA, report that salicylic acid (SAL), the major metabolite of aspirin, downregulates two Staphylococcus aureus genes key to this organism’s pathogenesis.
Over 100 years have passed since S. aureus was first described as the organism responsible for causing sepsis and abscesses. Today it remains a leading cause of serious infections such a
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease characterized by joint destruction. It has been suggested that the extracellular matrix protein osteopontin (OPN), which is expressed by a number of different mediators of the immune response, may facilitate this destruction.
In the July 15 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Nobuchika Yamamoto and colleagues from the Fujisawa Pharmaceutical Company in Japan, provide important new evidence indicating a role for OPN in
Routine blood tests given to people suspected of having a heart attack can also reliably measure the risk of heart disease in people on dialysis awaiting a kidney transplant, even though they have no symptoms of heart disease. That’s according to a team of researchers led by a University of Maryland cardiologist. Their study is published in the July 16, 2003 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The tests, which measure troponin T and C-reactive protein, appea
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