For the first time, researchers have shown that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can predict the risk of heart attacks or cardiac deaths in coronary heart disease patients, according to a report in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

MRI can be used to locate tissue damage in a heart attack or pinpoint blockages, but it has not been used to predict heart attacks.

“This study is the first to determine that MRI is a strong prognos

Serious streptococcus infections is the theme of a major EU project to be coordinated and led by researchers from Lund University. Associate Professor Claes Schalen and researcher Aftab Jasir, both at the Department of Medical Microbiology, Dermatology, and Infections, Section for Bacteriology, are the coordinator and project leader, respectively. Group A streptococci (GAS) are also called killer bacteria since serious GAS infections can develop with dramatic rapidity.

“Since the late 1980s

Women who drink alcohol during pregnancy may put their daughters at a higher risk of breast cancer, according to researchers at Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center. Their findings were reported at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Cancer Prevention meeting in Boston.

“Previous studies have shown a strong link between alcohol consumption and increased breast cancer risk, and this may be caused by alcohol increasing levels of circulating estrogen,”

Mouse studies indicate successful pain relief, University of Pittsburgh researchers say

By “programming” a herpes simplex virus to deliver a gene-mediated pain-blocking protein at the cellular level, University of Pittsburgh researchers have been able to significantly reduce cancer-related pain in mice with tumors, the researchers report in the November issue of the journal Annals of Neurology. The paper, “Herpes vector-mediated expression of proenkephalin reduces bone cancer pain,” i

Researchers have discovered how a recently identified family of plant proteins assists in stopping gene function, a finding that may help produce plants resistant to environmental stresses such as saline soil, drought and cold.

The proteins, AtCPLs, apparently play a crucial role in triggering a gene that controls plants’ reactions to stressful conditions, said Purdue University researchers. They, along with collaborators at the University of Arizona, published their findings in two pap

Researchers have found that immediately treating people who have early stage glaucoma can delay progression of the disease. This finding supports the medical community’s emerging consensus that treatment to lower pressure inside the eye can slow glaucoma damage and subsequent vision loss. These results are reported in the October 2002 issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

Scientists found that immediate treatment of newly-discovered primary open-angle glaucoma, the most common form of g

Researchers at Stanford University Medical Center have devised a new gene therapy technique that appears to eliminate one of the major health risks linked to gene therapy. The technique, published in the Oct. 15 advanced online edition of the journal Nature Biotechnology, overcomes the need for viral vectors that have plagued gene therapy trials, while retaining the ability to insert therapeutic DNA into specific sites in the chromosomes.

“Our approach provides an alternative that didn&#146

Fatty acids from fish oils and fatty fish can destroy the power station – the mitochondria- in certain types of cancer cells, making the cells commit suicide.These are the conclusions in a new thesis that Hilde Heimli at the Institute for Nutrition Research at the University of Oslo, in Norway, presented in October 2002. The study was supported by the Norwegian Cancer Society.

Kreft.no: In her thesis, Hilde Heimli has examined how polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acid is ingested by diff

USDA Forest Service research confirms that chemicals in the leaves of the American chestnut suppress the growth of other trees and shrubs-and probably played a part in the species’ past dominance of the southern Appalachian forest.

Southern Research Station ecologist Barry Clinton (Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory)-with fellow researchers from Clemson University and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill-tested the effects of fallen chestnut leaves on five tree species that historica

Findings could lead to new understanding of diabetes, Crohn’s, and more

Researchers at Joslin Diabetes Center, Harvard Medical School, and other institutions have identified the function of a protein, dubbed aire, that is critical to helping immune cells learn to recognize–and avoid attacking–the far-flung organs and tissues of the body. The protein appears to work by turning on in the thymus, which lies beneath the breast bone, the production of a wide array of proteins from the bo

Genomes of multicellular organisms are one of the greatest mysteries of biology. The more is discovered about them, the more questions are to be answered. One of such questions is connected with the size of a genome. As is known since the middle of the 20th century, the level of organization of an organism does not depend on the genome size, i.e., on the amount of DNA in the nucleus of a cell. Sometimes, a primitive organism contains much more DNA than a mammal. For example, the genome of certain amo

Conventional estimates for life expectancy after cancer diagnosis have been too pessimistic, suggests a study in this week’s issue of THE LANCET.

There are two main ways of quantifying survival estimates after cancer diagnosis. The conventional method, known as the cohort method, is based on the survival experience of cancer patients whose diagnosis occurred many years ago. This method therefore fails to disclose recent improvements in cancer detection and treatment. A recently developed alt

Poor social circumstances in adulthood have been known for some time to increase heart disease risk but less attention has been paid to earlier life circumstances. A study in this week’s BMJ finds that adverse social circumstances in childhood, as well as adulthood, are strongly associated with increased risk of insulin resistance, and other heart disease risk factors.

Most people know that the hormone insulin is important for health. But the commonest type of diabetes (type 2 diabetes), whi

Atorvastatin shown to decrease heart disease and stroke in patients with hypertension and low cholesterol

A major European trial studying different blood pressure treatments and the effects of additional cholesterol lowering, announces today that it has stopped part of its trial earlier than expected because results collected already show a significant benefit to patients on one of its treatments.

It found that among 10,297 patients with hypertension and cholesterol levels lower t

Scientists at Jefferson Medical College have used gene therapy to reverse the progression of Parkinson’s disease in rats. They have found that by adding a gene for an enzyme, they were able to reprogram brain circuitry and halt the deterioration of dopamine producing brain cells, one of the key problems in the disease.

“It’s not just inserting a replacement for a missing or mutated gene as a treatment for a genetic disorder,” says Michael Oshinsky, Ph.D., research assistant professor of neu

Perhaps, bioterrorists will not be able to spread lethal bacteria of anthrax in envelopes all over the world. Siberian biologists and physics have thought up how to adapt electron accelerator that is usually used for sterilizing medical equipment for decontamination of letters. To optimize the power of the accelerator they calculated how many bacteria could get into a human body when touching the letter infected and how many bacteria should be destroyed to avoid the tragedy.

For their experi