RxPG News : Latest Medical, Healthcare and Research News

Bone mineral density loss faster in those with kidney disease

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:20:08 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Even slight kidney impairment can speed up the loss of bone mineral density (BMD) among older people, putting them at risk of potentially disabling fractures, new research shows. “Our findings highlight the importance of estimating kidney function when evaluating patients for fracture risk,” Sophie A. Jamal, MD, PhD, of the University of Toronto and her colleagues say in the February issue of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases, the official journal of the National Kidney Foundation. Most people who have chronic kidney disease (CKD), or who are at risk for this condition, don’t know it, points out Dr. Kerry Willis, senior vice president for scientific activities at the National Kidney Foundation. “The new findings show the potential impact of early identification of kidney disease in preventing complications that can cause disability and premature death,” Dr. Willis said. When a person’s kidney function is completely lost—a condition known as end-stage renal disease—he or she is at much greater risk of sustaining a hip fracture, Dr. Jamal and her colleagues explain in their report. To better understand the relationship between more modest kidney impairment and bone loss, the researchers followed 191 men and 444 women age 50 and older for five years. They used two different techniques—estimated creatinine clearance and estimated glomerular filtration rate—to gauge patients’ kidney function at the beginning of the study. The first test measures how quickly the kidneys clear creatinine (a waste product), from the blood, and the second gauges the speed at which fluid flows through the kidney. Study participants also had their BMD measured at the beginning of the study and five years later. Dr. Jamal and her team found that the people with impaired kidney function lost BMD faster than those whose kidneys were working normally. For example, the study participants with the worst kidney function showed a 9.3 percent greater...

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New regulatory pathway for cell division found

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:15:48 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Using an elaborate sleuthing system they developed to probe how cells manage their own division, Johns Hopkins scientists have discovered that common but hard-to-see sugar switches are partly in control. Because these previously unrecognized sugar switches are so abundant and potential targets of manipulation by drugs, the discovery of their role has implications for new treatments for a number of diseases, including cancer, the scientists say. In the January 12 edition of Science Signaling, the team reported that it focused efforts on the apparatus that enables a human cell to split into two, a complicated biochemical machine involving hundreds of proteins. Conventional wisdom was that the job of turning these proteins on and off — thus determining if, how and when a cell divides — fell to phosphates, chemical compounds containing the element phosphorus, which fasten to and unfasten from proteins in a process called phosphorylation. Instead, the Johns Hopkins scientists say, there is another layer of regulation by a process of sugar-based protein modification called O-GlcNAcylation (pronounced O-glick-NAC-alation). "This sugar-based system seems as influential and ubiquitous a cell-division signaling pathway as its phosphate counterpart and, indeed, even plays a role in regulating phosphorylation itself," says Chad Slawson, Ph.D., an author of the paper and research associate in the Department of Biological Chemistry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Because the sugar molecule has some novel qualities — it is small, easily altered, and without an electrical charge — it is virtually imperceptible to researchers using standard physical techniques of detection such as mass spectrometry. Suspecting that the sugar known as O-GlcNAc might play a role in cell division, the Hopkins team devised a protein-mapping scheme using new mass spectrometric methods. Essentially, they applied a combination of chemical...

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progesterone can prevent apoptosis in fetal membranes and therefore prevent pre-term birth

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 13:07:46 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers at Yale School of Medicine believe they may have discovered how the hormone progesterone acts to prevent preterm birth. The findings will be presented at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine (SMFM) in Chicago by Errol Norwitz, M.D., professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale. Preterm birth—delivery prior to 37 weeks gestation—has become increasingly common over the past 40 years. Currently, one in eight pregnancies in the U.S. are delivered prematurely. These premature infants are at least seven times more likely to die or have long-term neurologic injury compared with infants delivered at term. Efforts to date to prevent preterm birth have been largely unsuccessful. Several recent studies have suggested that progesterone supplementation from weeks 16-20 of gestation through 36 weeks may prevent preterm birth in about one-third of high-risk women, but the molecular mechanism by which progesterone acts was not known until now. One-third of preterm birth is linked to premature rupture of the fetal membranes. Prior studies have suggested that rupture results from weakening of the membranes by apoptosis (programmed cell death). Norwitz and his Yale colleagues have shown for the first time that progesterone can prevent apoptosis in fetal membranes. "We were able to demonstrate that progesterone prevents apoptosis in an artificial environment in the laboratory in which we stimulated healthy fetal membranes with pro-inflammatory mediators," said Norwitz. "Interestingly, and somewhat unexpectedly, we also saw an inhibition of apoptosis under basal conditions without the presence of pro-inflammatory mediators. This suggests that the same mechanism may also be important for the normal onset of labor at term."

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Demographic profile suggests environmental role in etiology of Crohn's Disease

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:58:24 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Although inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) [comprising mainly Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC)] is thought to affect about 150 000 people in the United Kingdom, the prevalence of severe IBD is not known. Mortality following hospitalization for IBD is significant but little has been reported on long-term follow-up. A research article to be published on January 28, 2010 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology addresses this question. The research team from United Kingdom determined the hospitalized prevalence of severe IBD and subsequent 5-year mortality in Wales, and investigated associations between severe IBD and social deprivation, distance travelled to hospital, and other socio-demographic characteristics. They found that hospitalization for severe CD was more common among women than men and it peaked among younger people aged 16󈞉 years. UC was similar among men and women and was more common among older people. There was no link between social deprivation and UC, but CD was more common among more deprived social groups. The differing demographic profiles between CD and UC, suggest that environmental factors play a more significant role in the etiology of CD. The findings of this large population-based study on the prevalence and mortality of IBD are also important for service planning and provision.

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First-generation artificial pancreas system used overnight can improve diabetes control

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 12:48:29 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) In a landmark study in children and teenagers with type 1 diabetes, JDRF-funded researchers at the University of Cambridge showed that using a first-generation artificial pancreas system overnight can lower the risk of low blood sugar emergencies while sleeping, and at the same time improve diabetes control. Results from the studies are published in the February 5, 2010 issue of The Lancet, available online at www.thelancet.com. The trials tested the safety and effectiveness of a first-generation artificial pancreas system used overnight in a hospital setting with participants between 5 and 18 years of age with type 1 diabetes. The system combined commercially available blood glucose sensors and insulin pumps, controlled by a sophisticated computer program that determined insulin dosage based on blood glucose levels while the participants slept. Maintaining recommended blood sugar levels overnight is a major issue for people with type 1 diabetes - and particularly for the families of children with diabetes - because of the possibility of blood glucose dropping dangerously low during sleep and going unnoticed, which can lead to seizures, coma, and in some cases be fatal. Notably, the Cambridge study showed that the children and teenagers spent twice as much time during the night within targeted blood glucose levels when their diabetes was regulated with the artificial pancreas system than when they followed conventional "manual" therapy. And low blood sugars were minimized. "These studies show that automated systems not only can help people manage diabetes by maintaining good control, they will also improve quality of life for the people with type 1 diabetes and their families by lowering the risk for hypoglycemia," said Roman Hovorka, Ph.D., from the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge, the principal investigator of the study and lead author of the paper. "These results suggest that...

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Seismology highlights from BSSA February issue

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:59:36 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Feb. 5, 2010 (San Francisco, CA) -- A new study identifies earthquakes through July 2007 that have produced 100 of the strongest peak accelerations (PGA) and 100 of the strongest peak velocities (PGV) ever recorded. The threshold for the first list is acceleration of the ground exceeding 7.31 m/s2 (74% of gravity), while the threshold for the second is velocity exceeding 0.65 m/s. Crustal earthquakes dominate the lists. Exceptionally strong ground motions exceeding these levels have been observed on sites with the softest soils and sites with the hardest rock. [A copy of the paper is attached below.] Acceleration measures how fast speed (velocity) increases. The size of these ground motions matter to the engineers as they design structures to resist earthquakes, said John Anderson of the Nevada Seismological Laboratory and Department of Geological and Engineering Sciences at the University of Nevada. But ground motions that have not yet been recorded also matter. There may be a limit that earthquake motions will never exceeded. Although we expect to eventually record earthquake shaking stronger than what I report in this paper, those higher motions appear to be quite rare, and a motivation for this study was to help to constrain upper limits. Small earthquakes can generate exceptional peak accelerations (over 5 m/s2). This compilation includes earthquakes with magnitudes as small as 4.1. The smallest earthquake causing one of the 100 largest PGA on the list had a magnitude 4.8, and the smallest earthquake causing one of the 100 largest PGV was a magnitude 5.7. Of the 255 time histories identified in this study, 40 records have PGV exceeding 1.0 m/s. The largest PGV is 3.18 m/s, recorded on the hanging wall of the thrust fault during the Chi-Chi, Taiwan earthquake on September 20, 1999 (Magnitude 7.6). Also, 35 records have PGA greater than gravity (9.8 m/s2, or 1 g). The largest acceleration in this data set is about 23.8...

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Understanding past and future climate

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:59:36 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The notion that scientists understand how changes in Earth's orbit affect climate well enough for estimating long-term natural climate trends that underlie any anthropogenic climate change is challenged by findings published this week. The new research was conducted by a team led by Professor Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton's School of Ocean and Earth Science hosted at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. Understanding how climate has responded to past change should help reveal how human activities may have affected, or will affect, Earth's climate. One approach for this is to study past interglacials, the warm periods between glacial periods within an ice age, said Rohling. He continued: Note that we have here focused on the long-term natural climate trends that are related to changes in Earth's orbit around the Sun. Our study is therefore relevant to the long-term climate future, and not so much for the next decades or century. The team, which included scientists from the Universities of Tuebingen (Germany) and Bristol, compared the current warm interglacial period with one 400,000 years ago (marine isotope stage 11, or MIS-11). Many aspects of the Earth-Sun orbital configuration during MIS-11 were similar to those of the current interglacial. For this reason, MIS-11 is often considered as a potential analogue for future climate development in the absence of human influence. Previous studies had used the analogy to suggest that the current interglacial should have ended 2-2.5 thousand years ago. So why has it remained so warm? According to the'anthropogenic hypothesis', long-term climate impacts of man's deforestation activities and early methane and carbon dioxide emissions have artificially held us in warm interglacial conditions, which have persisted since the end of the Pleistocene, about 11 400 years ago. To address this issue, the researchers used a new high-resolution record of sea...

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Penn State partners with Volvo as academic partner

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 04:59:36 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The Volvo Group has chosen Penn State as its first academic preferred partnership in North America to explore and resolve some of the serious issues in commercial transportation markets around the world. We are very excited that our Academic Partner Program now covers Sweden, France and the U.S.A., said Jan-Eric Sundgren, head, public affairs and environmental issues, Volvo Group. This program shows our commitment to form a long-term strategic partnership that will strengthen the competitiveness of both the Volvo Group and our academic partners. Penn State already had ongoing activities in several areas such as student co-operative assignments, advanced engineering studies, biofuel research and vehicle system testing. The Volvo Group companies include Volvo Trucks, Volvo Buses, Volvo Construction Equipment, Renault Trucks, Nissan Diesel and Mack Trucks. In Pennsylvania, Mack has its Engineering Development and Research Center in Allentown, Remanufacturing Center in Middletown, Assembly Operations in Macungie and the Mack Museum in Allentown. The Volvo Preferred Academic Partner Program aims to build trust and facilitate cooperation between the Volvo Group and selected academic partners. When I was asked to recommend the first Volvo U.S. Preferred Academic Partner, Penn State was an easy choice, said Anthony Greszler, vice president, government and industry relations, Volvo Group. Through Mack Trucks, Volvo Group has had a long relationship with Penn State. We have a large number of Penn State alumni within Volvo Group in engineering and management. We have had numerous projects with Penn State in areas of combustion research and vehicle technology, and we continue to pursue new opportunities, especially in the areas of alternative fuels, waste heat energy recovery, hybrid vehicle design optimization, vehicle dynamics, intelligent transport systems, energy storage systems and safety. Penn State and Volvo Group will cooperate in...

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NHLBI funds preclinical tests on devices for infants and children with congenital heart defects

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:59:36 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded four contracts totaling $23.6 million to begin preclinical testing of devices to help children born with congenital heart defects or those who develop heart failure. The four-year program is called Pumps for Kids, Infants, and Neonates (PumpKIN). Each year in the United States, nearly 1,800 infants die as a result of congenital heart defects and another 350 develop heart disease, which leads to heart failure for many. Approximately 60 infants and children under 5 years old who are placed on the heart transplant waiting list die each year before receiving one. Mechanically assisted circulatory support could be used to sustain these young patients as they seek to recover or wait to receive a heart transplant. This research seeks to develop technologies to expand life-saving options for infants and children born with congenital heart defects or those who develop heart failure, said NHLBI Acting Director Susan B. Shurin, M.D., a pediatrician. The NHLBI is committed to saving the lives of our youngest patients. Well-designed circulatory support devices are expected to substantially improve the outcomes of the infants and young children who need them as they seek to recover or wait to receive a heart transplant. The options for chronic circulatory support devices for infants and young children are limited, and all have substantial risks for serious adverse events such as infection, stroke, and device failure. With this in mind, the NHLBI launched the Pediatric Circulatory Support Program in 2004 by funding the development of five novel circulatory support devices for infants and young children with congenital and acquired cardiovascular disease. The PumpKIN program is the next phase of NHLBI support for the development and clinical realization of these devices. The program's goal is to complete the needed animal studies...

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Democratic, republican presidents have had similar economic records, says political scientist

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 04:59:36 PST

( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) BUFFALO, N.Y. -- In his recent book Unequal Democracy, noted Princeton political scientist Larry Bartels reaches the controversial conclusion that Democratic presidents have generally done a better job in handling the economy. According to Bartels, economic growth has been greater, unemployment has been lower and income-inequality has been slightly reduced under Democratic presidents. As he sees it, Democrats have had a better record across the board. But James Campbell, a University at Buffalo professor of political science and widely published author on American politics, says Bartels is incorrect. In A Refutation of 'Unequal Democracy,' a paper he recently presented at the Northeastern Political Science Meeting, Campbell concludes, after reexamining the economic data, that there have been no significant differences in the economic records of the two presidential parties over the past 60 years. Both Campbell and Bartels obtained the data for their studies from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau. The problem with Bartels' analysis of the economic records of the two parties, says Campbell, is that it does not take into account the state of the economy inherited by the new president. Bartels' finding of a partisan difference depends entirely on the way in which he treats transition periods from one party to the other. In reviewing the economic history of the past six decades, Campbell says, I found that whenever the country was moving from a Democratic to a Republican presidency, the economy was weak and often slipping into recession. Truman left Eisenhower, Johnson left Nixon and Carter left Reagan with economies that were going into recession as they left office and, while the economy was not technically in recession when Bill Clinton turned the keys to the White House over to George W. Bush, Campbell says, the dot-com bubble was bursting and the economy was on...

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