Researchers from the Universities of Southampton and Edinburgh have begun a new study into the effects of a mother’s diet in pregnancy upon unborn babies and their future health. The research team will seek answers to the links between diet and health by carrying out further studies in a group of almost 1,000 men and women born in Motherwell, Scotland, in the late 1960s.

This latest research will look at the effects of an Atkins-type’ high meat, low carbohydrate diet in late pregna

CeNeS Pharmaceuticals notes the recent publication of additional clinical data on its lead product morphine-6-glucuronide (M6G) by an academic group at King’s College, London. The data, which was published in the international journal ‘Anesthesiology’ (1), provides further support for the potential of M6G as a treatment for post-operative pain, focusing on its potential for administration under patient-controlled analgesia (PCA). Part of this data has been presented previously at the 4th Inte

Launch of the new British Nutrition Foundation Task Force report

Despite improvements in death rates from cardiovascular disease (CVD) around the world, CVD remains a leading cause of death and ill health in the UK, where death rates are amongst the highest in the world. Reducing death rates from this disease remains high on the Government’s agenda, yet attention to the classical risk factors may not provide all the answers.

CVD is a multi-factorial disease, which ar

Dangers of tobacco products transcend generations

A child whose grandmother smoked while pregnant may have double the risk of developing childhood asthma, according to new research. A study published in the April issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians, suggests that the harmful effects of tobacco products can be passed through the generations, even if the damage is not visibly apparent in the second generation.

“This is th

Omega-3 fatty acids improve cardiac function faster than expected

Taking daily supplements of fish or soy oil may improve cardiac function and protect against heart attacks in the short-term. Study results published in the April issue of CHEST, the peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Chest Physicians, are the first to show that soy oil increases heart rate variability (HRV), a measure of cardiac autonomic function.

“Our findings contradict the current beli

Deep brain stimulation of two different areas of the brain appears to improve problems with uncontrolled movements (dyskinesia) in patients with Parkinson disease (PD), according to an article in the April issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Deep brain stimulation with electrical impulses delivered to structures deep within the brain is being intensively investigated for the management of advanced Parkinson disease, according to background informati

It is well known that a tiny number of cyanobacteria, previously known as blue-green algae, produce substances that can be toxic to both humans and animals. Now a research team from Sweden, Scotland, and the U.S. has found that a further toxin (BMAA, -methyl amino-alanine) with a possible connection to degenerative nerve diseases like ALS, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s is produced by cyanobacteria that are widespread around the world.

The findings are reported in the new issue of t

Millions of painted lady butterflies that fluttered into California’s Central Valley in the last week of March could be just the advance guard of one of the largest migrations of the species on record, said Arthur Shapiro, a professor and expert on butterflies at UC Davis.

“This may be the biggest migration of modern times,” Shapiro said.

Shapiro said he is getting reports of “billions” of butterflies around Trona, near Death Valley, and in the San Fernando Valley. M

Traditionally if scientists wanted to look at something small they would put a sample under a microscope but now researchers have managed to shrink the microscope itself to the size of a single human cell. An interdisciplinary research team, funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Science Research Council (BBSRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have developed optical biochips no larger than a single cell that could lead to faster development of new drugs and

Common factor behind myocardial infarction, rheumatism and MS

A common gene variant has been identified as the risk factor behind a number of common diseases by research scientists at Karolinska Institutet and the Centre for Molecular Medicine (CMM), Stockholm, Sweden. Up to a quarter of the population could be affected.
Researchers in the fields of cardiovascular disease, rheumatism and MS have together shown that there is a common risk factor for these conditions. It is

Microarrays provide a method of quantifying the expression and order of genes in a particular genome — acting as a surrogate measure of cell physiology, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears online today in the journal Nature Genetics.

“Microarray data are good phenotypes to determine the order of genes and are a good surrogate measure of cell status,” said Dr. Gad Shaulsky, associate professor of molecular and human genetics at BCM.

M

Ephrins may influence learning

A Burnham Institute study has found that one of the cell’s largest families of signaling molecules, called ephrins, which are known to regulate the development of nerve cells, also controls nerve cells’ ability to engulf critical chemicals and proteins for learning and memory. These findings, the first to link these molecular semaphores to this important nerve cell function, appear in the May issue of Nature Cell Biology, published in adva

Today sees the launch of BioModels, the world’s first database of annotated biological models. BioModels is the result of a collaboration led by the European Bioinformatics Institute (UK) and the SBML Team, an international group that develops open-source standards to describe biological systems. Other contributors include the Keck Graduate Institute (USA), the Systems Biology Institute (Japan) and Stellenbosch University (South Africa).

Even the simplest living organisms

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine and the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven identified a novel human kidney protein called renalase that regulates both heart contraction and blood pressure; it is a strong candidate for easily administered treatment of advanced kidney and cardiovascular disease.

Over eight million people in the U.S. have kidney impairment and 500,000 have end-stage kidney disease (ESRD), for which treatment is often limited to dialysis. Elevate

Inhaled therapy addresses most common cause of death among lung-transplant recipients

Data presented for the first time today at the 25th Annual Meeting and Scientific Session of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) show that cyclosporine inhalation solution (CyIS) significantly improves long-term survival in lung-transplant patients compared to placebo. The data, which include 10-month follow-up statistics on patients originally enrolled in the pivo

Research in mice suggests that the liver may produce most of the body’s “good” cholesterol, an unexpected finding that might one day help scientists develop new treatments to raise levels of this heart-protecting molecule in humans.

In the May issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues will report on a project that used gene-targeting in mice to simulate a rare disease in people – Tangier disease