The timing of treatment may be a key factor in whether hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can slow heart vessel disease, report researchers from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and Tufts-New England Medical Center in the winter issue of Menopausal Medicine.
“Mounting evidence points to the conclusion that HRT can help prevent heart vessel disease – if the therapy begins around the time that the body stops making its own estrogen,” said Thomas B. Clarkson, D.V.M., of Wake Forest.
Infants accustomed to sleeping on their backs who are then placed to sleep on their stomachs or sides are at an increased risk for SIDS-greater than the increased SIDS risk of infants always placed on their stomachs or sides. The study, conducted by Kaiser Permanente in Northern and Southern California and supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders (NIDCD), appears in the current issue of
Dartmouth researchers report in the March 1 issue of Cancer Research they have discovered an effective combination therapy to treat tumors. In the journal, which is a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, the researchers report that administering light-activated, or photodynamic, therapy (PDT) immediately before radiation therapy appears to kill tumors more effectively than just the sum of the two treatments.
“Our study shows that the close combination of the two trea
Researchers who are now at Georgetown University’s Lombardi Cancer Center have identified a gene that promotes metastases, the spread of cancer cells through the body. This new understanding of how cancer metastasizes, linking a gene product and migration of cancer cells, may lead to therapies to stop this spread. The results of the study are published in the May 2003 issue of the journal Molecular Biology of the Cell. An advance copy of the paper can be viewed after the embargo is lifted at htt
It is common that babies are born with fetal fat and develop red spots on their skin. Pediatricians have always explained this as a passing and normal skin reaction in newborn children. Now Giovanna Marchini at the Karolinska Hospital, Sweden, together with her research team, has discovered that this is a sign of a powerful immune defense system.
Fully 2000 years ago in Mesopotamia, an area roughly corresponding to today’s Iraq, doctors described spots on the skin of newborn babies as benign
Exercise is an important part of staying healthy and reducing the societal cost of health care. We tend to stop exercising when our bodies signal that we are tired or fatigued. Previously, it was thought that fatigue happened when our energy store became depleted or when the waste products from producing energy accumulated in our muscles causing cramp.
However, research on patients suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome or “Yuppie Flu” has shown that fatigue occurs even though their abilit
There is a better way to determine risk of heart disease than measuring cholesterol, according to a new study by cardiologists from the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). This study shows that measuring the amount of a protein called apoprotein B or apoB, is a more accurate and efficient test than measuring cholesterol. These findings will be published in the March issue of the international journal, The Lancet. ôThe tradition in clinical practice is to look at
In studies using rats, researchers from Duke University Medical Center (USA) and Imperial College London, have found evidence that the chemically inert gas xenon can protect the brain from the neurological damage often associated with the use of the heart-lung machine during coronary artery bypass surgery.
The researchers say that xenon appears to block receptors on nerve cells in the brain that can be “overstimulated” in response to the surgery. This overstimulation can lead to ner
They may cause excruciating pain, auditory or visual disturbances, dizziness and many other problems that compromise or eventually threaten life. They often grow for years, causing ever-worsening symptoms but evading detection and diagnosis. In fact, many tumors situated beneath the brain are considered benign because they don’t spread to other organs or increase rapidly in size, but they gradually interrupt blood flow, hormone production, and normal sensations as they grow and press against organs,
DM2 more common than previously thought
Researchers at the University of Minnesota Medical School’s Muscular Dystrophy Center have developed the first reliable diagnostic test for myotonic muscular dystrophy type 2 (DM2), leading to the accurate determination of the disease’s clinical and molecular features. Initial results indicate that DM2 is much more common than previously thought, and may be one of the more common forms of muscular dystrophy. The findings will be reported in the
Parents concerned about use of oral steroids to treat their asthmatic children will be reassured by a new study conducted by a team of clinicians at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) and the Shriners Hospital (Montreal). This study, the first to evaluate the effects of short courses of oral steroids on bone density and hormone function, was published in the February issue of the international journal Pediatrics.
“Often parents will be hesitant to administer
Findings Support Hygiene Hypothesis
Researchers at National Jewish Medical and Research Center have gathered strong experimental support for the hygiene hypothesis, a proposed explanation for the worldwide rise in asthma and allergies. The research team, led by Richard Martin, M.D., found that early infection with the bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae reduced a mouse’s subsequent response to allergens. Alternatively, mice exposed to allergens prior to infection, developed a stronge
The drug ramipril significantly reduced the onset of debilitating and often-fatal heart failure in a large group of high-risk patients, researchers report in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Ramipril, trade-named Altace, is one of a family of high blood pressure medications known as ACE inhibitors. The drugs reduce the risk of death from heart failure – the inability of a weakened or damaged heart to pump enough blood through the body
Discovery could explain current treatment failures and lead to more effective therapies for many cancers
Of all the neoplastic cells in human breast cancers, only a small minority – perhaps as few as one in 100 – appear to be capable of forming new malignant tumors, according to just-published research by scientists in the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. The discovery could help researchers zero in on the most dangerous cancer cells to develop new, more effective t
Researchers devise new technique and measure the forces required to unzip DNA
Fifty years after James Watson and Francis Crick’s publication of the structure of DNA, research in the latest issue of the Journal of Biology shows how scientists can now measure the forces needed to tear the DNA double helix apart. The work was carried out using the first successful simultaneous combination of two important techniques for looking at single molecules – single molecule fluorescence and
A strong link exists between lifetime exposure to ultraviolet light, particularly lifetime sunburns, and the development of melanoma – the most lethal form of skin cancer.
Now, for the first time, scientists have identified a specific molecular pathway within cells that becomes mutated by ultraviolet light exposure, thereby speeding up melanoma development.
New findings published in the Feb. 4 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences may have implications fo
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