Subtle alterations of a hormonal stress response system called the HPA axis may play a role in chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a study in the November/December issue of Psychosomatic Medicine.

A smoothly functioning hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal, or HPA, axis helps the body remain stable under physiological and psychological stress through the actions of three hormones. First, the brain portion called the hypothalamus secretes a hormone that stimulates the pituitary gland to secrete

Phospholipid bilayers that mimic cell membranes in living organisms are of interest as substrates for biosensors and for the controlled release of pharmaceuticals. To better understand how these materials behave with embedded proteins, a necessary first step is to understand how the bilayers respond by themselves.

As will be reported in the Dec. 9 issue of Physical Review Letters (published online Nov. 21), scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have studied the phase t

Reducing the sulphur content of pollutants can have a substantial impact in reducing death from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, conclude authors of a study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET which describes the effect of a public-health initiative in Hong Kong.

A change in law to restrict sulphur emissions was introduced in Hong Kong in July 1990; all power plants and road vehicles had to use fuel oil with a sulphur content restricted to not more than 0·5% by weight. This intervent

Faced with a patient who is ‘tired all the time’ and reports ‘pain in my body every day’, many General Practitioners may struggle to identify fibromyalgia, a little-known but debilitating condition as the cause of their patient’s suffering.

Fibromyalgia is a widespread and yet little-recognised and little-understood pain and fatigue disorder that is thought to affect millions world-wide. Symptoms include persistent pain – the body interprets touch or movement as pain although there is no t

A new radiation approach being tested at Stanford University Medical Center could shorten the overall treatment time for women with breast cancer. Participants will receive a single dose of radiation at the time of surgery rather than the usual six-week course of radiation therapy. The clinical trial is now recruiting patients.

“The trial should tell us whether this accelerated form of radiotherapy is safe, feasible and effective in controlling cancer recurrence in the breast for certain wo

By taking continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) readings for 24 hours after treating heart attack patients, Duke University Medical Center researches have shown that giving a combination of a new drug that prevents platelets from clumping together, as well as a clot-busting drug, opens up clogged arteries faster and keeps them open longer.

The researchers found that giving the anti-clotting drug eptifibatide along with a half-dose tenecteplase (TNK) — a genetically altered version of the comm

New research carried out by scientists at partner institutions UWIC (University of Wales Institute, Cardiff), University of Wales College of Medicine (UWCM) in Cardiff and the University of Waikato, New Zealand, has found sensitivity to honey of wound infecting bacteria.

In a report published in the November 2002 issue of Journal of Applied Microbiology, Dr Rose Cooper (UWIC), Professor Peter Molan MBE (University of Waikato) and Professor Keith Harding (UWCM) explain: “In laboratory tests,

Flavonoids that are found in fruit, vegetables, chocolate, tea, wine, and grape juice reduce cellular oxidative stress and are associated with a reduced risk of heart disease and cancer. Concord grape juice is a rich source of flavonoids, but it has not been compared to antioxidant supplements in terms of its efficacy in reducing oxidative stress. In an article in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, O’Byrne et al. compared the effects of Concord grape juice (CGJ) and antioxidant suppleme

A new form of nanotechnology developed at Stanford University may lead to a better understanding of the life and death of human cells.

Writing in the Nov. 18 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Stanford researchers described how newly created circles of synthetic DNA – called “nanocircles” – could help researchers learn more about the aging process in cells.

“In the long run, we have this dream of making laboratory cells live longer,” said Eric Kool, a pr

University of Minnesota researchers, with collaborators at the U. S. Department of Agriculture’s National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa, have completed sequencing the genome of the bacteria that causes Johne’s disease, a major chronic wasting disease found in dairy cattle. The bacterium, Mycobacterium paratuberculosis, is considered one of the most important threats to the health of dairy cattle worldwide and may represent a potential risk to the safety of the milk supply. The gene se

Research by US scientists has produced a novel finding about the effect on cancer of an important DNA repair gene and, as a result, identified the first clinically useful independent prognostic marker for early stage resected patients with non-small cell lung cancer.

Their results should help doctors in the future to determine which of their patients with non small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC)[1] who have undergone surgery with curative intent are likeliest to suffer from recurrences or relapse

A new imaging method successfully identifies miniscule, young blood vessels that form during the development of plaques, according to a study in rabbits led by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. These plaques are akin to atherosclerosis in humans, the primary cause of heart attack and stroke.

“We’ve developed a way to take non-invasive images of very early plaques, before they’re detectable by any other means,” says Samuel A. Wickline, M.D., professor of medici

Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have found that selective COX-2 inhibitors – a class of medications widely prescribed for painful inflammatory conditions such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis – interfere with the healing process after a bone fracture or cementless joint implant surgery.Their findings, published in the November issue of the Journal of Orthopaedic Research, suggest that patients who regularly take COX-2 inhibitors should switch to a different medication, suc

A group of Italian investigators led by Drs Francesco Fallo (Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences, University of Padova) and Dr Nicoletta Sonino (Department of Mental Health, Padova) explores a neglected issue: the relationship between daytime stress and the physiological lowering of blood pressure which should occur during sleep (dipping).

Scarce data are available on the influence of psychological aspects on 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure patterns either in normotensive or hyper

’Surprisingly effective’ says French research team

A new drug that targets tumour blood vessels has produced a surprisingly effective response in its first patient study – shrinking the tumours in a number of patients treated so far, according to researchers carrying out the study at the Institut Gustave Roussy in Villejuif, France.

The drug, SU011248[1], which is given in capsule form, is a signal transduction inhibitor designed to act against several abnormally b

On 14 November ECSITE has launched BIONET (www.bionetonline.org), a European collaborative project to present for public debate controversial ethical, legal and social issues in contemporary Life Sciences.

Based on a multi-lingual website and a programme of linked events, BIONET has been developed by 8 European science centres and museums with funding from the European Commission.

The website introduces 6 current Life Science issues that raise profound ethical, legal and social dile