Findings highlight 12 potential ’susceptibility’ genes

Mayo Clinic researchers in collaboration with scientists at Perlegen Sciences, Inc. and funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research have produced the first large-scale whole genome map of genetic variability associated with Parkinson’s disease. Their results highlight changes in 12 genes that may increase the risk for Parkinson’s disease in some people. Parkinson’s disease is a disabling and currently in

In the wake of Katrina, the public health threats from infectious diseases in hurricane-devastated areas are more likely to come from milder, more common infections rather than exotic diseases. These common infections can often be prevented using simple hygiene measures and a little common sense.

“Deadly diseases, such as typhoid or cholera, are unlikely to break out after hurricanes and floods in areas where these diseases do not already naturally occur,” says Ruth Berkelman,

Electroconvulsive therapy, previously known as “electric shock treatment” is a method that can help patients combat severe depressions that no other treatment can alleviate. Lund University researcher Johan Hellsten has now shown in animal experiments that electroconvulsive therapy leads to new generation of nerve cells and blood vessels in precisely those parts of the brain that are affected in patients with depression. This may explain how electroconvulsive therapy makes the disease recede.

The European Commission has selected the EBI to coordinate a project that will stimulate and explore synergies between bioinformatics (the science of storing, retrieving and analysing large amounts of biological information) and medical informatics (the science of processing, sharing and using large amounts of medical information). The SYMBiomatics project will culminate in a White Paper that will inform the Commission’s funding policy on the synergy between these two rapidly growing areas. The aim i

Using a blood test to measure the level of the hormone prolactin can help determine, in certain clinical settings, whether an epileptic seizure has occurred, according to a guideline developed by the American Academy of Neurology and published in the September 13, 2005 issue of Neurology. The guideline authors reviewed all of the scientific evidence available on use of the prolactin blood test to diagnose seizures and developed evidence-based recommendations.

The blood test, which

Women with atrial fibrillation who are not on anticoagulant therapy have a higher rate of ischemic stroke and face a higher absolute risk for stroke than do men with the condition, according to a joint study by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, Massachusetts General Hospital, the Division of Research at Kaiser Permanente and Boston University School of Medicine.

Using a sample of 13,559 patients with atrial fibrillation, or rapid irregular contraction

Despite recent claims by some urologists that measuring the blood protein prostate-specific antigen (PSA) may not be effective in predicting risk of prostate cancer, a Johns Hopkins study of more than 2,000 men confirms that PSA remains the best measure of the likelihood of cancer recurrence after surgery.

Results of the study, published in the October issue of The Journal of Urology, demonstrated that men with high PSA levels prior to prostate removal surgery were significantly

Mayo Clinic Proceedings says treatment can be safe, but exercise and diet should be first option

Mayo Clinic researchers report in the September edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings that bariatric surgery is a safe option for treating obese patients who have coronary artery disease.

The findings are important because coronary artery disease patients can see a significant benefit with a successful procedure. The resulting weight loss is also followed by an improvement in b

In a study from Johns Hopkins, a pocket-size device giving electronic-voice reminders to “take your medicine” proves to be a success for people living with HIV whose memory is slightly impaired by the virus.

The investigators report that the device, dubbed “Jerry” by most users, is a portable gadget programmed to ease the task of taking medicines in multiple doses every day on time. HIV-infected patients, particularly those suffering from mild memory loss from the disease, benefit h

Diabetics and Non-Diabetics at Increased Risk

Lowering blood sugar levels could reduce the risk of coronary heart disease in both diabetics and non-diabetics, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and other institutions. The researchers found that Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c)—a measure of long-term blood glucose level—predicts heart disease risk in both diabetics and non-diabetics. An elevated blood glucose level is the defining feature of d

Testing for exercise capacity and heart rate recovery improves on traditional risk-factor scoring

Performing cardiac stress tests that measure exercise capacity and heart rate recovery can improve dramatically on existing techniques that predict who is most likely to suffer a heart attack or die from coronary heart disease (CHD), the leading cause of death in the United States, a team of cardiologists at Johns Hopkins reports.

In the Sept. 13 edition of the journal C

Success of hypertension treatment depends on how well the chosen treatment mode matches the patient’s genotype. Specialists of the Chair of Balneology and Physical Therapy (Kirov Army Medical College) have determined how the hypertensive patient’s genotype impacts the efficiency of magnetic-laser therapy.

Primary hypertension is one of the most frequent diseases, the treatment of which is still a problem to contemporary medicine. The disease is determined by some genes, each of t

A world-class research facility investigating diseases such as osteoarthritis, cardiovascular disease and cancer has been awarded a further £3 million to continue its groundbreaking work.

The University of Manchester’s Wellcome Trust Centre for Cell-Matrix Research has had its core grant renewed – securing infrastructure funding for the next five years.

The Centre, one of only five such Wellcome Trust-funded facilities in the UK and the only one in its field, is home to

Who works together with whom? This is the question scientists at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch have investigated with regard to human proteins. The answer can be found within a map – the first one in international research – showing 3,186 interactions between 1,705 human proteins. Among them: 531 previously unknown interactions involving 195 disease proteins, highly relevant for medical research.

“We have laid the foundation for a comprehensive connect

By turning-off 80 genes, one after the other, a Dutch research group has located the gene that is a precursor to a rare skin cancer. In addition, the research revealed that a medicine to treat this special disease already exists: Acetylsalisylsyre. A cream was developed, and it works.

This was explained to a full auditorium by professor René Bernards of the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam during the functional genomics conference, attended by more than 500 researchers, now ta

Why do estrogen-dependent breast-cancer cells grow and spread rapidly? Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say it may be because estrogen virtually eliminates levels of a vitally important regulatory protein.

In a paper that will appear in the Sept. 13 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists report that human breast-cancer cells exposed to estrogen in their laboratory showed a dramatic reduction in numbers of a crucial