n high-risk postmenopausal women, at one year
Newly published data show that treatment with 5 mg Actonel® (risedronate sodium tablets) daily reduced the risk of spinal fracture in postmenopausal osteoporotic patients at higher risk of fracture because of age or low bone mineral density (BMD) at the hip. In these patients, fracture risk was reduced by 62 percent and 60 percent, respectively, at one year with Actonel compared with placebo. The analysis of combined data from two studies
French authors of a research letter in this week’s issue of THE LANCET describe the preliminary success of transplanting muscle stem-cells from the thigh to the heart to restore damaged cardiac tissue after heart attack.
The procedure was done in a 72-year-old man and resulted in improved left-ventricular and overall heart function. After the man’s death 18 months later, the grafted post-infarction scar showed that the undifferentiated stem cells transplanted from his leg had evolved into we
Amphidinolides, a family of natural compounds that have shown promise as powerful antitumor agents, pose problems for cancer researchers because they are found in only minute amounts, and only in microscopic marine flatworms that live off the coasts of Japan and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Nature keeps a tight lock on its supply of amphidinolide.
Work by University of Illinois at Chicago chemistry professor Arun Ghosh may solve this problem. He’s successfully developed a way to synthesize
US fertility experts today (Thursday 6 February) published the first conclusive evidence that lead is linked to male infertility.
A report in Europe’s leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction[1] concludes that exposure to lead damages sperm function and may be a contributory cause of unexplained male infertility.[2]
The findings have led principal investigator Dr Susan Benoff to urge doctors to measure lead in seminal plasma when evaluating men from couples with unex
Dr. Tyler Jacks of MIT and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Karen Cichowski of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and their colleagues have discovered how neurofibromin, a key regulator of the ras oncogene, is, itself, regulated. This discovery has promising therapeutic implications for the treatment of neurofibromatosis type I (NF1), a common hereditary disease that results from mutations in the neurofibromin gene, as well as the ~30% of human tumors that have altered Ras a
The experiences of millions of people have proved that antidepressants work, but only with the advent of sophisticated imaging technology have scientists begun to learn exactly how the medications affect brain structures and circuits to bring relief from depression.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW Medical School recently added important new information to the growing body of knowledge. For the first time, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)–tech
When developing a treatment plan for cervical cancer, it is important to be able to determine a patient’s prognosis, ideally at the time of diagnosis. Existing methods to arrive at a prognosis can be time consuming, inaccurate and may require specialized software. Therefore, doctors from the Washington University School of Medicine developed – and validated – an accurate, reproducible and quick prognostic system.
The researchers created a grading scale to use in conjunction with a simp
Fatal, electrical chaos can develop in the hearts of otherwise healthy people who produce a defective accessory protein called ankyrin-B, reports W. Jonathan Lederer of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) and collaborators, in the February 6 issue of the scientific journal Nature.
By discovering the molecular and cellular causes of the electrical chaos-known as Long QT Syndrome Type 4, or LQT4-Lederer and collaborators open the door to possible therapies and diagnostics
According to an article in the February 5 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, coronary artery disease in young women appears to be related to estrogen deficiency, and there may be a link to psychosocial stress. The findings are based on an analysis of statistics compiled from a major ongoing investigation of heart disease in women that is led by cardiac researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “Although coronary artery disease is the leading killer of prem
A major computer project has been launched today to analyse millions of different chemicals in the search for drugs to combat the bioterrorist threat of smallpox.
The smallpox research project will use the ‘screensaver downtime’ donated by up to two million computer users worldwide to screen 35 million compounds and identify those most likely to be suitable for drug development.
Currently no drugs are available to combat the smallpox virus after infection, and the only prevention i
Researchers in the Baxter Laboratory at Stanford University Medical Center have published new evidence showing that cells from the bone marrow might help repair or maintain cells in other tissues. In a paper in this week’s online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers describe finding chromosomes from a bone marrow transplant in the brain cells of transplant recipients.
When people receive a bone marrow transplant after high-dose chemotherapy, s
Use of a vitamin A derivative in former smokers restored production of a crucial protein believed to protect against lung cancer development, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have found.
Use of a Vitamin A derivative in former smokers restored production of a crucial protein believed to protect against lung cancer development, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have found.
Although they don’t have clear
Diabetes is a widespread illness affecting 5 per cent of the population. In diabetics the metabolism produces an excess of glucose in the blood and, as a result, a number of sufferers need doses of insulin which allows them to regulate their glucose levels.
Currently, the method of administering insulin to diabetic patients making use of emergency services for insulin dosage depends on the experience of the qualified personnel. That is, the same patient can receive different insulin doses,
The use of combinations of antiretroviral drugs including nucleoside analogs, protease inhibitors (PIs) and reverse transcriptase inhibitors – collectively termed highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) – has resulted in a dramatic improvement in health status for a large number of HIV-infected individuals.
Side effects in many users, however, cause non-adherence to treatment regimes and concern over their long-term use in the management of chronic HIV infection. The adverse effects o
In a new study in mice, a modified form of an innocuous chimpanzee virus has shown marked potency as a protective vaccine against HIV, itself believed to have crossed into the human population from chimpanzees sometime in the 1930s. The study, led by researchers at The Wistar Institute, appears in the February issue of the Journal of Immunology.
“Our results show this new vaccine is capable of inducing the kind of powerful immune response that we and others believe will be critical for cont
Scientists from The University of Manchester are playing a key role in a major Europe-wide study – believed to be the largest of its kind – of cancers of the mouth, pharynx and larynx (throat) and oesophagus (gullet). Incidences of these cancers are increasing faster in the UK than almost anywhere else in western Europe.
Every year, cancers of the upper aero-digestive tract kill approximately 10,000 in the UK alone. Alarmingly, these cancers are affecting younger people and are on the increa
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