News-Medic

International Medical Insurance can provide you Coverage Without Boundaries

2012-02-16T00:18:00.001-08:00

Traveling outside your home country can be an exciting adventure. But too often adventures can be spoiled by unexpected medical events. Will you be prepared? Travel medical insurance is an ideal way to provide you with the travel insurance protection you need.
Golden Rule offers international health insurance in affiliation with a worldwide leading international medical insurance broker, International Medical Group® (IMG®). IMG's global insurance programs go beyond "standard" health insurance services by providing:
International Service Centers - to ensure service is available in the U.S. and overseas.
Multilingual Services - global health care benefit questions and claims can be submitted and answered without language barriers.
Medical Management Services - on-site Chief Medical Officer and registered nurses are available 24/7 to coordinate emergency services and international treatment.
International Travel Insurance International Currency Conversions - helps eliminate costly conversion fees and expedites the receipt of funds.

How do I know if I need travel health insurance?If you answer "Yes" to anyone of these categories:

Vacationing outside of the U.S.
Travel Industry Employee
Business Executive
Expatriate
Missionary
Student traveling abroad
Traveling outside your home country for any reason

Protein May Help Diagnose and Treat Lymphoma in People and Dogs

2012-02-09T01:50:00.000-08:00

A protein that appears to play a key role in the formation of lymphoma and other tumors by inhibiting a tumor-suppressing gene has been identified by a team of veterinary and human medicine researchers at the University of California, Davis.
The researchers suggest that the newly identified protein may be a potential target for diagnosing and treating lymphoma in humans and animals. They report their findings July 15 in the journal Genes & Development.
"Results from this study suggest that a gene known as RNPC1 may play a key role in the development of lymphoma," said Xinbin Chen, a veterinary oncologist with appointments in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine and the UC Davis School of Medicine. Chen led the study.

About lymphoma

Lymphoma refers to a group of blood cancers that start in the lymphatic system, a network of lymph vessels and lymph nodes that play a vital role in the body's immune system.
Lymphoma occurs when a type of white cell, known as a lymphocyte, undergoes a malignant change and begins to multiply out of control. As the lymphocytes multiply rapidly, they eventually crowd out normal, healthy cells. In time, the cancerous lymphocytes accumulate in the lymph nodes, liver, spleen and other locations in the body.
Lymphoma occurs spontaneously in dogs, representing 6 percent of all canine cancers. It is remarkably similar to lymphoma in humans.
Cancer and the P53 gene
For three decades, researchers have known that a gene referred to as p53 plays an important role in suppressing cancer. This tumor suppressor gene checks cells' DNA for mutations that might cause cancer and then stops cell growth until the mutations can be repaired. If the mutations can't be repaired, p53 triggers cell death to prevent cancer from developing.
But if something goes awry, p53 itself can mutate and produce undesirable proteins. Earlier studies have shown that mutated proteins produced by p53 are present in 60 percent of all cancerous human tumors. More recent studies have also shown that p53 can be inactivated in human cancers by means other than mutation. In short, when p53 and the process it controls are damaged, cancer often occurs.
In recent years, scientists, including Chen and his colleagues at UC Davis, have found that p53 mutations also are active in the formation or cancerous tumors in other mammals, including dogs, cats and horses.

About the RNPC1 gene

Because defects in p53 are so common in human and animal cancers, researchers have been extremely interested in how the activity of the gene is regulated. This led the UC Davis team to examine the RNPC1 gene.
RNPC1 is known to be an RNA-binding protein, regulating how other genes produce proteins. The UC Davis researchers suspected that RNPC1 might play a role in causing lymphomas by inactivating the p53 gene.
Findings from the UC Davis study
In their new study, the researchers examined several types of human cancer cells as well as cells isolated from a mouse embryo, known as embryonic mouse fibroblasts.
The team showed that the RNPC1 gene inhibited the activity of the p53 gene and reduced levels of the p53 protein in these cells. Conversely, p53 protein levels increased when RNPC1 was out of the picture.
Because the RNPC1 gene is located at a chromosome that is frequently overexpressed in human cancers, including lymphomas, the researchers
examined the expression of RNPC1 in spontaneously occurring dog lymphomas and in noncancerous canine lymph node tissue. (The dog lymph node samples were provided with the permission of the owners; all of the dogs in the study were patients at the UC Davis Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.)
Data from the dog lymphoma tests showed that the RNPC1 gene is frequently overactive in dog lymphomas and may, as suspected, play a role in the formation of lymphomas by inactivating the p53 gene.

Implications for human medicine

"Our findings are consistent with data from other cancer studies, which showed that RNPC1 is highly expressed in human cancers," Chen said. "This suggests that further studies are needed to analyze the expression of patterns of both RNPC1 and p53 in human tumor tissues."
He noted that because dogs and humans alike are vulnerable to lymphoma, and similar gene processes may be at work in each species, the dog may serve both as a valuable sentinel for environmental causes of the disease and as a model for exploring its causes and treatments.
UC Davis is at the forefront of efforts to coordinate animal and human cancer research to improve cancer treatment for people as well as pets. The UC Davis Cancer Center's Integrated Cancer Research Program, a collaboration of more than 200 investigators from more than a dozen scientific disciplines, includes 19 veterinary oncologists and basic scientists at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

A New Way To Stimulate The Immune System And Fight Infection

2012-02-09T01:34:00.000-08:00

These new data are an essential step towards understanding the operation of these key cells in the immune system, and they could provide a new therapeutic approach to fighting infection. They also suggest that the operation of NK cells must be precisely regulated to guarantee an optimum immune reaction. Details of this work are published in the journal Science.

Our bodies are subject to attack by many different infectious particles (bacteria, viruses, etc.), which surround us in our everyday environment. Various immune cells are activated to fight off these attacks: the first response is from the innate immune cells1, which gradually give way to the memory B and T lymphocytes of the adaptive immune system. The Natural Killer (NK) cells are a part of this first line of defence of the organism. They can selectively kill tumour cells or cells infected by microbes whilst secreting chemical messengers known as cytokines, which stimulate and direct the response of the B and T lymphocytes.

Following the launch of a major genetics programme a few years ago, scientists succeeded in revealing a gene whose deactivation causes heightened functioning of the NK cells. This gene, called Ncr1, contributes to the manufacture of the receptor NKp46, which is present on the surface of NK cells. Surprisingly, its role in activating the NK cells has been known for several years.
‘NK cells go through various stages of development before combating microorganisms or tumour cells,’ explains Sophie Ugolini, joint author of the paper. ‘Without this receptor, the NK cells are more reactive and therefore more effective when they encounter the attackers of the organism.”
To test the therapeutic potential of their discovery, the scientists blocked the NKp46 receptor using a drug (in this case, a monoclonal antibody). As in the genetics experiments, this treatment that blocks NKp46 makes the NK cells much more effective.
‘Our aim now is to further explore the underlying biological mechanisms and to work in collaboration with the biopharmaceutical industry and the hospital to evaluate the medical potential of this new type of treatment, particularly for patients whose immune system has already been weakened, such as patients with an immunodeficiency and those who have had a bone marrow transplant or chemotherapy,’ concludes Eric Vivier.
1 Innate immunity is a front-line defence system against tumours and microbes. It immediately acts against microbial agents that come into contact with an organism. Innate immunity is present in all living organisms, and plays an essential role in activating the adaptive response in vertebrates. This compartment of immunity hit the headlines recently when Jules Hoffman of France, Canadian Ralph Steinman, and Bruce Beutler from the USA (another co-author of this paper) received the Nobel Prize for their work on innate immunity and its close links with the adaptive immune system.

Anemia triples risk of dying within a year after having a stroke

2012-02-09T01:14:00.001-08:00

Being anemic could more than triple your risk of dying within a year after having astroke, according to research presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference 2012.

“Among stroke patients, severe anemia is a potent predictor of dying throughout the first year after a stroke,” said Jason Sico, M.D., lead researcher and an assistant professor of neurology at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn.

Anemia is a common condition in which the body does not have enough healthy red blood cells.
Without red blood cells to carry oxygen throughout the body, fatigue, shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat and other symptoms can occur.

Previous research has shown anemic people who have a heart attack, heart failure or kidney disease are more likely to die within a year. Only a few small studies have focused on the link between stroke and anemia-related death.
Researchers reviewed medical records of 3,750 men treated for a first ischemic stroke at 131 Veterans Health Administration facilities in 2007. Ischemic stroke, the most common type of stroke, occurs when a blood vessel to the brain is blocked.
Compared to stroke survivors who were not anemic:
Patients with severe anemia were 3.5 times more likely to die while still in the hospital and 2.5 times more likely to die within a year.
Stroke survivors with moderate anemia were twice as likely to die within six to 12 months after a stroke.
People with mild anemia were about 1.5 times more likely to die within six to 12 months after a stroke.
Anemia is measured by hematocrit, the percentage of red blood cells in the blood.
In the study, a healthy hematocrit ranged from 38 to 42 percent; 33 to 37 percent was considered mild anemia; 28 to 32 percent was moderate anemia; and 27 percent or below indicated severe anemia.
Researchers tracked whether stroke patients died in the hospital at 30 days, 60 days and at one year, based on how anemic they were in the hospital.
To establish an independent association between anemia and the risk of dying, researchers eliminated patient factors that could alter the results. These included age, stroke severity, stroke risk factors, vital signs, lab results and how healthy patients were before and after the stroke.
Based on the results, stroke patients with anemia and their doctors should be aware of the increased risk of death and treat any modifiable causes for anemia, Sico said.
Anemia may be related to nutritional problems or blood loss in the stomach or intestines. Severe anemia may be treated with blood transfusions; however, studies have not been performed to see how safe and effective a blood transfusions are for someone hospitalized with an ischemic stroke.
“Regularly seeing your primary care physician is important. If blood tests show someone has anemia, working with one’s doctors to figure out the cause is important,” Sico said.
The research is ongoing and Sico hopes to determine within the next year which types of anemia are associated with higher risks. Because this study looked only at men, future studies will need to determine the impact of anemia on women after a stroke, particularly since anemia may behave differently in women.
A possible explanation for the relationship between stroke and anemia in men is that during an ischemic stroke, anemia disables the brain’s blood vessels from responding properly to the blood pressure change, Sico said. Another possibility, he said, is that people with anemia often have other conditions associated with a higher stroke risk, such as heart disease and kidney disease.