Novel Link Between Excessive Nutrient Levels And Insulin Resistance Uncovered

February 24, 2008 — For quite some time now, scientists suspected the so-called hexosamine pathway -- a small side business of the main sugar processing enterprise inside a cell -- to be involved in the development of ... > full story

• Antidepressant Effects Of Ketamine Explored
  February 24, 2008 — Drug treatments for depression can take many weeks for the beneficial effects to emerge. The excruciating and disabling nature of depression highlights the urgency of developing treatments that act ... > full story
• 
  
• Molecular Pathway, Previously Unknown, Spurs Growth Of New Blood Vessels
  February 24, 2008 — Researchers have found a previously unknown molecular pathway in mice that spurs the growth of new blood vessels when body parts are jeopardized by poor circulation. At present, their observation ... > full story
• 
  
• Moderate Level Of Aerobic Fitness May Lower Stroke Risk
  February 24, 2008 — A moderate level of aerobic fitness can significantly reduce stroke risk for men and women, according to a large, long-running study. About 780,000 U.S. adults suffer a stroke each year, and stroke ... > full story
• 
  
• Effects Of Vitamin D And Skin's Physiology Examined
  February 24, 2008 — Previtamin D3 production varies depending on several factors including skin type and weather conditions. Excessive exposure to sunlight does not result in Vitamin D intoxification because previtamin ... > full story
• New Laser Technique Promises Better Process Control In Pharmaceutical Industry
• February 24, 2008 — Scientists have developed an effective laser based method for the characterization of the bulk chemical content of pharmaceutical capsules -- without opening the capsules. The technique holds great ... > full story
• 
  
• Single MicroRNA Fine-tunes Innate Immune Response
  February 24, 2008 — A single microRNA, microRNA-223, in mice controls the production and activation of granulocytes, white blood cells essential for host defense against invading pathogens. Now, scientists have ... > full story
• 
  
• Calls To Doctor's Office May Delay Stroke Treatment
  February 24, 2008 — Calling a primary care doctor instead of 9-1-1 at the first sign of a stroke can delay patients from reaching an emergency room during the most critical period -- the first three hours after onset of ... > full story
• 
  
• Smoking During Pregnancy Can Put Mothers And Babies At Risk
  February 23, 2008 — Pregnant women who suffer from the high risk condition pre-eclampsia -- which leads to the death of hundreds of babies every year -- are putting the lives of their unborn children at significantly ... > full story
• 
  
• Memory Loss And Other Cognitive Impairment Becoming Less Common In Older Americans
  February 23, 2008 — Although it's too soon to sound the death knell for the "senior moment," it appears that memory loss and thinking problems are becoming less common among older Americans. A new nationally ... > full story

Study Of 'Ouzo Effect' May Lead To Design Of Improved Drugs, Cosmetics

February 20, 2008 — Scientists studying the cloudy emulsions produced by anise-flavored liquors such as Ouzo have discovered new molecular insights into their formation, findings that could lead to the design of better ... > full story

• Probiotic Cuts Respiratory Illness Rates In Endurance Athletes, Study Suggests
• February 20, 2008 — The probiotic Lactobacillus substantially cuts the rate and length of respiratory illness in professional long distance runners, reveals a small study. Intensive exercise can subdue the normal immune ... > full story
• 
  
• Insurance Status Linked To Advanced Stage In Multiple Cancers
  February 20, 2008 — A new American Cancer Society study of 12 types of cancer among more than 3.5 million cancer patients finds uninsured patients were significantly more likely to present with advanced stage cancer ... > full story
• 
  
• Antibiotics Do Not Appear Helpful In Preventing Fluid Buildup In Children With Ear Infections
  February 20, 2008 — When prescribed to children with middle ear infections, antibiotics are not associated with a significant reduction in fluid buildup in the ear, according to a meta-analysis of previously published ... > full story
• 
  
• Stress May Increase A Woman's Risk Of Developing Cervical Cancer
  February 20, 2008 — A woman's daily stress can reduce her ability to fight off a common sexually transmitted disease and increase her risk of developing the cancer it can cause, according to a new study. No such ... > full story
• 
  
• How To Minimize CT Radiation Doses: Report By American Association Of Physicists In Medicine
  February 20, 2008 — Aiming to promote the best medical imaging practices nationwide and help ensure the health and safety of the millions of people who undergo computed tomography scans each year in the United States, ... > full story
• 
  
• Sleep Apnea Doubles Car Crash Risk, Study Shows
  February 20, 2008 — People with sleep apnea -- a breathing disorder that disrupts sleep -- are at double the risk of being in a car crash, a new study finds. The study also found that patients with sleep apnea are three ... > full story
• 
  
• Protein Maintains Cross Talk Between Cells That Control Hair Growth
  February 20, 2008 — Researchers have identified a signaling molecule that is critical for a type of skin cell, called dermal papilla, to ratchet up or clamp down the activity of genes that give them their molecular ... > full story
• 
  
• Defining Cancer's Genetic 'Support Network'
  February 20, 2008 — Researchers have developed a new method that essentially does for the genetic pathways underlying cancer what social networking web sites can do for people: It finds the connections among them. The ... > full story
• 
  
• Mental Illness Is Subject To Biological And Sociocultural Factors, Bioethicist Says
  February 20, 2008 — Biology is crucial to understanding psychosis, "but there is more to psychosis than mere biology," says one bioethicist and philosopher of science. While he acknowledges that it's certainly the case ... > full story

Sex, Drugs And Alcohol: Parents Still Influence College Kids' Risky Behavior, Study Shows

ScienceDaily (Feb. 11, 2008) — New research shows that parents influence their child’s likelihood of involvement with drugs, alcohol and risky sexual activity even after their child leaves for college.

In an upcoming issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Brigham Young University family scientist Laura Walker’s study found that parents’ knowledge or awareness of what’s going on in their child’s life at college is associated with fewer risky behaviors.

Specifically, students who said their fathers were in the loop had a lower likelihood of doing drugs or engaging in risky sexual behaviors. When mothers were in the know, students were less likely to drink alcohol.

The protective effect of mothers’ awareness was more pronounced when the students also felt close to their mom. Under those circumstances, the researchers found that students were less likely to be involved in any of the three risk behavior categories studied: drugs, alcohol and risky sexual activity.

“For parents, the fact that closeness plays a strong role is a message to not be overbearing,” Walker said. “Having a close relationship promotes the child wanting to open up and share what’s going on rather than the parent having to intrusively solicit the information from the child.”

Walker and her colleagues agree that delaying adulthood results in an extension of parents’ period of service to their children. The study’s findings show that the relationships between parents and children continue to be important during the transition to adulthood.

The study involved 200 undergraduate students ages 18 to 25 from two mid-Atlantic colleges, a Midwestern university and a West Coast university. The title of the paper is “The Role of Perceived Parental Knowledge on Emerging Adults’ Risk Behaviors.” Professor Larry Nelson, also from BYU’s School of Family Life, is a co-author on the study.

Delaying adulthood to find identity has bright side

Similar research by Walker and her colleagues finds that delaying the transition to adulthood involves experimentation of a positive nature, indicating this life stage is not simply a period of risk-taking and delinquency.

In an upcoming issue of the Journal of Adolescence, Walker compared the altruism and positive values of two types of emerging adults: those who were already committed to an identity and those still in the process of exploring their identity.

The research found the two groups had few differences when it came to outward behaviors like helping other people and inward personal values such as honesty, kindness and fairness.

“The assumption too often is that delaying adulthood is automatically a negative thing, dominated by exploration with risky drinking, drug use, and sex,” Walker said. “However, these findings suggest that young people are also exploring positive behaviors and participate in society to the same degree as those who have already established their identity.”

The study involved 491 students ages 18 to 25 from two private colleges in the mid-Atlantic, two public universities in the Midwest, and a public university on the West Coast. Each student took a questionnaire about exploration and commitment to an identity. Forty-three percent scored high on commitment to an identity. Another 23 percent scored low on commitment but high on identity exploration. The researchers compared these two groups and found few differences when it came to helping other people, ideas of fairness and honesty and the role of faith in their lives.

The title of the paper is “Looking on the Bright Side: The Role of Identity Status and Gender on Positive Orientations during Emerging Adulthood.” Nelson is also a co-author on this study along with Professor Jason Carroll of BYU’s School of Family Life.

Adapted from materials provided by Brigham Young University.

Changing Our Clocks: New Research Explores How Our Bodies Keep Time

February 11, 2008 — Our alarm clocks may spring forward on March 9, but our biological clocks may take longer to adjust. That's because our internal clocks are so tightly wound to many physiological and behavioral ... > full story

• HIV Drugs, Abacavir And Didanosine Increase The Risk Of Heart Attack, Study Suggests
• February 11, 2008 — A study to assess the adverse effects of anti-retroviral drugs shows that two widely-used HIV drugs are associated with an increased risk of heart attack/the formation of blood clots in the heart. ... > full story
• 
  
• New Therapy Possibilities For Lung Disease Patients
  February 11, 2008 — A new study may change current thinking about how best to treat patients in respiratory distress in hospital intensive care units. It has been commonly believed that high levels of carbon dioxide or ... > full story
• 
  
• How One Protein Binds To Genes And Regulates Human Genome
  February 11, 2008 — Out of chaos, control: Molecular biologists have discovered how a protein called PARP-1 binds to genes and regulates their expression across the human genome. Knowing where PARP-1 is located and how ... > full story
• 
  
• Discovery Of Good -- And Bad -- Liver Stem Cells Raises Possibility Of New Treatment
  February 11, 2008 — Many scientists believe up to 40 percent of liver cancer is caused by stem cells gone wild. Despite years spent looking, no one has ever found these liver "cancer stem cells." Now, researchers report ... > full story
• 
  
• Why Certain Ovarian Cancers Develop Resistance To Platinum-based Chemotherapy
  February 11, 2008 — Scientists have identified a new mechanism that explains why some recurrent ovarian tumors become resistant to treatment with commonly used platinum-based chemotherapy drugs such as cisplatin and ... > full story
• 
  
• Some 'Junk' DNA Is Important Guide For Nerve-cell Channel Production
  February 11, 2008 — Researchers have discovered that introns, or junk DNA to some, associated with RNA are an important molecular guide to making nerve-cell electrical channels. They hope to relate this knowledge to ... > full story
• 
  
• Drug-resistant E. Coli And Klebsiella Bacteria Found In Hospital Samples And Elsewhere In US
  February 11, 2008 — A research team examining bacterial isolates obtained in hospital and non-hospital clinical settings between 2000 and 2006, has identified drug-resistant strains of E. coli and Klebsiella bacteria in ... > full story
• 
  
• Artificial Sweeteners Linked To Weight Gain
  February 11, 2008 — Want to lose weight? It might help to pour that diet soda down the drain. Researchers have laboratory evidence that the widespread use of no-calorie sweeteners may actually make it harder for people ... > full story
• 
  
• New Virus Responsible For Deaths Of Transplant Recipients In Australia, Scientists Confirm
  February 11, 2008 — In the first application of high throughput DNA sequencing technology to investigate an infectious disease outbreak, scientists link the discovery of a new arenavirus to the deaths of three ... > full story

Diabetes Makes It Hard For Blood Vessels To Relax

ScienceDaily (Feb. 1, 2008) — One way diabetes is bad for your blood vessels is by creating too much competition for an amino acid that helps blood vessels relax, researchers say.

That amino acid, L-arginine, is broken down by the enzyme arginase to urea, which helps the body eliminate toxins resulting from the proteins we eat. Diabetics have a lot of arginase activity, which means they use a lot more L-arginine, says Dr. Maritza Romero, postdoctoral fellow at the Medical College of Georgia and lead author of the paper published in the current issue of Circulation Research.

It also means too little L-arginine is available to help nitric oxide synthase make nitric oxide, the powerful vasodilator that helps blood vessels relax, says Dr. Romero, who works in the lab of Dr. R. William Caldwell, chair of the MCG Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and the study's corresponding author.

Researchers also found the amino acid, L-citrulline, as well as statins, compounds known to lower cholesterol, prevent elevation of arginase activity, restoring normal dilation abilities in animal models of type 1 diabetes. In fact, L-citrulline can be recycled into L-arginine.

Now they want to know specific factors and pathways involved in arginase activation and develop pharmaceutical agents to combat excessive arginase activity in diabetes. They also suggest clinical trials of L-citrulline as a supplemental therapy for diabetics with vascular problems.

Their findings also help explain why L-arginine supplement, marketed to treat hypertension, chest pain, heart failure and more, may not work long term. In the January 4, 2006 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Johns Hopkins researchers reported that a clinical trial of patients taking an L-arginine supplement following a heart attack didn't improve in their vascular tone or their hearts' ability to pump. In fact, more patients died who were taking L-arginine than placebo and the study was closed with the recommendation the supplement not be used by heart attack patients. The supplement still is widely marketed.

"The findings of increased arginase I activity in diabetes may limit other therapeutic approaches proposed for early endothelial dysfunction such as oral L-arginine supplementation," Drs. Thomas L. Luscher and Jan Steffel, of the University of Zurich Cardiovascular Research Institute write in an accompanying editorial. "Although dietary L-arginine supplementation has been shown to exert vascular protective effects in certain clinical settings, this approach is unlikely to be effective in diabetes, if the results of this study can be confirmed by patients in vivo. In fact, the findings of Romera et al may provide a possible explanation for the unexpected neutral or even adverse effects of oral L-arginine in some clinical studies, in particular patients with coronary artery disease and infarction."

A short intravenous course of L-arginine may provide short-term improvement in blood vessel tone, Dr. Romero notes. However most of L-arginine ingested goes directly to the liver to be broken down, not the bloodstream where it can promote relaxation of blood vessels, Dr. Romero says.

Arginase also is associated with vascular problems related to aging, hypertension, sickle cell disease, atherosclerosis and erectile dysfunction, Dr. Romero says. L-citrulline already is taken by some sickle cell patients to reduce breath-taking fibrosis in their lungs. In addition to helping the body turn toxins into urea that can be safely eliminated from the body, arginase also helps in collagen formation and cell proliferation, but too much can be bad. In fact, Drs. Caldwell and Romero are pursuing studies of how increased arginase activity may harden blood vessel walls.

Adapted from materials provided by Medical College of Georgia.

Taking More Than One Anti-inflammatory Drug May Lead To Complications

February 2, 2008 — A new study found that taking two NSAIDs was associated with lower scores on a health-related quality of life assessment. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are used to treat arthritis, ... > full story

• Study Paves Way For Development Of Macular Degeneration Cures
• February 2, 2008 — A new study of age-related macular degeneration, the disease that affects more than nine million Americans, will pave the way for the biopharmaceutical industry to develop better treatments and ... > full story
• 
  
• Virtual Human In HIV Drug Simulation
  February 2, 2008 — The combined supercomputing power of the UK and US 'national grids' has enabled scientists to simulate the efficacy of an HIV drug in blocking a key protein used by the lethal virus. The method -- an ... > full story
• 
  
• People Had More Intense Dreams After Sept. 11, 2001, Sleep Research Shows
  February 2, 2008 — The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, changed our lives in a number of different ways, not only socially and politically, but also in the way in which we dream. According to the results, dreams ... > full story
• 
  
• Smoking Can Double Risk Of Colorectal Polyps
• February 2, 2008 — Smokers have a two-fold increased risk of developing colorectal polyps, the suspected underlying cause of most colorectal cancers, according to a new ... > full story
• 
  
• Anemia Treatment May Improve or Worsen Disease, Based on Timing
• February 2, 2008 — A treatment commonly given for anemia, promotes blood-vessel growth in the eye, an effect that could either improve/worsen disease for patients with cancer, diabetic retinopathy, or retinopathy of ... > full story
• 
  
• Chronic Insomnia Can Predict Future Functioning Of Adolescents
  February 2, 2008 — Youths with insomnia, particularly chronic insomnia, are at greater risk of future somatic and especially psychological problems, according to one of the largest epidemiologic studies of insomnia ... > full story
• 
  
• Protein Associated With Poor Breast Cancer Prognosis
  February 2, 2008 — High levels of the Ki-67 protein are associated with poor prognosis in early breast cancer patients, but it may not able to predict which patients will benefit from additional chemotherapy. The ... > full story
• 
  
• Expression Patterns Of MicroRNAs Appear Altered In Colon Cancer, And Associated With Poor Outcomes
  February 2, 2008 — Preliminary research has found an association between certain microRNA expression patterns and poor survival and treatment outcomes for colon cancer. Colon cancer is a major cause of cancer death ... > full story
• 
  
• New Gene Linked To Fragile X Syndrome -- Suggests Potential Targets For Autism And Other Neurological Disorders
  February 1, 2008 — Scientists have discovered a new gene involved in fragile X syndrome, a condition that often shares many symptoms of autism. The discovery may lead to new tests or treatments for several neurological ... > full story