Standard Days Method Of Contraception Reaches Women With Unmet Needs
A be eager appearing in the March 2008 issue of the journal Contraception reports that the Standard Days Method®, a natural family planning method developed by researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center’s Institute for Reproductive Health, brings new women to family planning. further than half the women who selected the Standard Days Method had not at all previously used family planning and on average, contraceptive use increased by 8 percent in communities where the method was introduced.
“This is the first study that looks at provision of a simple, modern method of natural family planning in regular service delivery rather than in a clinical trial. This distinction is important because clinical trials usually provide more training and provider-user contact than in typical family planning services,” said study co-author Rebecka I. Lundgren, MPH, Deputy Director of the Institute for Reproductive Health. “We found that the Standard Days Method reached a group of women whose needs were not being met by existing services. Programs embraced the rule as an additional choice because it is easy to use and to teach, it actually works in the real world,” she said.
In a 2002 study, the Georgetown researchers found the Standard Days Method to be more than 95 percent effective and easy to use. To facilitate the use of the method, the researchers developed a color-coded string of beads called CycleBeads®. As a visual tool, CycleBeads helps a woman track her cycle, know if she is on a day when pregnancy is likely or not, and ensure her period length is in the range to use the method effectively.
In the new study, the most common reason study participants gave for choosing the Standard Days Method was that it “does not have side affects nor affect women’s health”. Participants also noted the low costs of CycleBeads. Although natural parents and children planning methods are frequently associated with religious beliefs, relatively few women gave this reason for selecting the method.
Education level, number of children, previous use of modern family planning methods, and whether living in an urban or rural area did not appear to affect a woman’s decision to use the Standard Days Method. While the new study reported that the general characteristics of Standard Days Method users varied widely, it did find that 55 percent had never before used a single one family planning rule and few were switching from another effective method.
“One of the most interesting things we found in this study is how interested in and supportive of this method men are,” said Victoria Jennings, Ph.D., Institute Director and professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Georgetown University Medical Center.
“These studies were conducted in a wide variety of cultural settings, but in all of them, men found the method easy to use and mostly stated that they planned to continue using the Standard Days Method and would recommend it to others.”
The study, which was funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, followed 1,646 women who elected to use the Standard Days Method at 14 sites in 6 countries. Women who chose the method were interviewed at several points during the study and their partners were interviewed at the end of the study. Service delivery settings ranged from maternity hospitals to community health services and included non-traditional healthcare providers as an agricultural cooperative and a program involved in water and sanitation.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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In addition to Ms. Lundgren, co-authors of the study are James N. Gribble, ScD, of the Population Reference Bureau; Claudia Velasquez, MPH, of Georgetown University Medical Center’s Institute for Reproductive Health; and Erin E. Anastasi, MPH, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Both Dr. Gribble and Ms. Anastasi were formerly with the Institute for Reproductive Health.
About the Institute for Reproductive Health
The Institute for Reproductive Health is dedicated to helping women and men make informed choices about family planning and providing them with unaffected and effective natural options. As part of Georgetown University’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Institute conducts research to develop natural methods of family planning and tests them in service delivery settings.
About Georgetown University Medical Center
Georgetown University Medical Center is an internationally recognized academic medical center with a three-part mission of research, teaching and patient care (through our partnership with MedStar Health). Our mission is carried out with a strong emphasis on public service and a dedication to the Catholic, Jesuit principle of cura personalis - or “care of the whole individual.” The Medical Center includes the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing and Health Studies, both nationally ranked, the world-renowned Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Biomedical Graduate Research Organization.
Source: Cindy Fox Aisen
Georgetown University Medical Center
Virginia Assembly Passes State Budget That Restores Funding To Planned Parenthood
The Virginia Assembly on Thursday adopted a $77 billion fiscal year 2008-2009 state budget that restores funding to the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports. A budget reformation, introduced by Sen. Ken Cuccinelli (R), would have eliminated about $200,000 in state funding on the side of Virginia Planned Parenthood. The amendment had been included in the House version of the budget but was rejected in the Senate and therefore not included in the final budget.
Abortion-rights opponents “denounced” lawmakers for eliminating the amendment, the Times-Dispatch reports. The General Assembly had “multiple options,” Jeff Caruso, executive monitor of the Virginia Catholic Conference, and Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation, said in a joint statement. The Virginia Society in spite of Human Life also voiced opposition to the budget.
Planned Parenthood applauded the state Assembly for restoring the $200,000 in funding. “I’m proud that we were expert to do the right thing for the women and families of Virginia,” Sen. Janet Howell (D) said (Whitley, Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3/15).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a unreserved service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by the agency of The Advisory Board Company.
© 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
Watson Files For FDA Approval Of Generic Form Of Period-Free Contraceptive
Watson Pharmaceuticals said Thursday that it has filed an FDA application to market its generic form of the period-free oral contraceptive Lybrel, Reuters reports. However, the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, which produces Lybrel, filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block the application, according to Watson (Reuters, 3/13). Watson is seeking to sell a generic version of Lybrel in the U.S. before Wyeth’s patent expires (Clark, Dow Jones, 3/13).
Lybrel, which contains a lower dose of synthetic hormones in a daily dose than orally transmitted oral contraceptives, is taken 365 days a year through no placebo pills. The most common regimen for oral contraceptives is 21 active pills taken consecutively, followed by seven placebo pills (Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, 8/1/07).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.nationalpartnership.org. You can view the entire Daily Women’s Health Policy Report, search the records, or sign up for email delivery here. The Daily Women’s Health Policy Report is a free service of the National Partnership for Women & Families, published by The Advisory Board Company.
© 2007 The Advisory Board Company. All rights reserved.
AP/San Francisco Chronicle Examines Debate Over Role Of Tuskegee Syphilis Study In Blacks’ Clinical Trial Participation
The AP/San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday examined a debate among researchers over whether the Tuskegee Syphilis Study “remains a significant factor in turning black people away from clinical trials at a greater rate than white people.”
The government-backed Tuskegee Syphilis Study, which ended in 1972, tracked the effects of untreated syphilis in mostly poorly off and uneducated black men through the whole extent of 40 years. The study enlisted 600 black men, 399 of whom had syphilis, in barter for free medical exams, meals and burial insurance. The men were denied treatment and were not informed they had the infection. By the time the study was exposed to the public, 28 participants had died from the infection, 100 others had died of related complications, and at least 40 spouses and 19 children were also infected.
Studies measuring how the Tuskegee study affects clinical temptation participation among blacks show conflicting results. A Johns Hopkins University study released in January indicates that blacks were more unwilling than whites to participate in clinical trials “because they fear being improperly used as guinea pigs,” according to the AP/Chronicle. The study concluded that the lack of partaking by dint of. blacks inhibits the development of treatments for diseases that disproportionately affect the black population. A 2005 study by the literary institution found that few blacks knew about the Tuskegee study at all and that even fewer knew accurate details. An NIH prospect, also released in 2005, found that blacks are as willing as whites to volunteer for clinical studies but are less likely to be asked to participate.
Other Factors
According to the AP/Chronicle, “Despite the unlike findings, researchers involved in the studies, along with others who work on minority medical issues,” maintain that “more needs to be done to make sure black people have proper access to clinical trials as conveniently as medical care.”
Thomas LaVeist, co-author of the 2005 Johns Hopkins study and director of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Health Disparities Solutions, said that while the Tuskegee try hard likely plays a small role in blacks’ lack of participation in clinical trials, other factors — such as poorer description of care, longer wait times, failure to secure appointments with doctors and an overall unequal management of care — are more probable causes. “Of course, we cannot undo a historical event,” he said, adding that “to place so much stress on Tuskegee is to divert attention away from likely causes and solutions that could possibly be efficacious today.”
However, Neil Powe, a professor at Johns Hopkins’ School of Medicine and lead author of the most recent Hopkins study, said, “So long as the gift by will of Tuskegee persists, African-Americans will be left out of important findings with reference to the latest treatments in the place of diseases,” adding, “There is enormous irony that without African-American subject participation in clinical trials, we are not going to have tested the best therapies we need to treat African-Americans.”
Mona Fouad, director of the University of Alabama-Birmingham Minority Health and Research Center, said there are multiple reasons for blacks’ low participation in clinical trials, including economic barriers, lack of time to participate in trials, negative personal experiences in the medical arrangement, and complex paperwork and consent forms. Fouad said researchers need to develop more culturally convenient recruitment strategies to reach out to blacks (Thomas, AP/San Francisco Chronicle, 3/16).
Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the stout Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.
NIH To Study Genomics, Health Disparities
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the establishment of the NIH Intramural Center for Genomics and Health Disparities (NICGHD), a new venue for research about the way populations are impacted by diseases, including obesity, diabetes and hypertension. NICGHD will engross a genomics approach, collecting and analyzing genetic, clinical, lifestyle and socio-economic data to study a range of clinical conditions that have puzzled and troubled public health experts for decades. The trans-NIH center will be directed by internationally renowned genetic epidemiologist Charles N. Rotimi, Ph.D., former director of the National Human Genome Center at Howard University.
"This new center will be an NIH resource to help move research related to the complex factors underlying health disparities into the 21st century," said NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. "Synergy among the center’s genetic and genomic researchers and disease experts in existing NIH research programs will advance our understanding of health disparities for the benefit of minority groups and all Americans."
"The priority of our center self-reliance be to understand how we can use the tools of genomics to address some of the issues we see with health disparities," Rotimi said. "The availability of tremendous expertise and the remarkable research infrastructure at NIH will make our exploration activities more robust and will allow us to tackle questions in ways that were not feasible in the past."
Genomic research has established that the genomes of any two individuals are very similar. However, the subtle genomic differences that remain contribute to unmatched biological traits, such as hair and eye color, as well as to the susceptibility to diseases and individual responses to drugs. Additional factors contribute to health and disease, including diet, exercise routines and access to medical care. Genetic epidemiologists study genetic differences in combination with environmental factors to assess disease susceptibility and resistance among individuals and population groups.
NICGHD will be established within the NIH Office of Intramural Research and administered by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). Additional support for the center will come from the NIH Office of the Director, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and the Center for Information Technology. The research activities of NICGHD will be necessary place on the NIH Bethesda campus.
Building upon his previous research, Rotimi will continue efforts to develop genetic epidemiology models and population-genetics research projects that provide insights in regard to the interrelationships of civilization, lifestyle, genetics, genomics and health. His research explores patterns and determinants of common complex diseases that affect populations both living in Africa today and those that are part of the African diaspora.
Rotimi, who also has been appointed senior investigator in the Inherited Disease Research Branch in NHGRI’s Division of Intramural Research, has been extensively involved in a number of genetic epidemiology projects that are being conducted in several African countries, China and in the United States. These projects have included the Africa America Diabetes Mellitus study; the Howard University Family studious mood; the Genetics of Obesity in Blacks Study; the Black Women Health Study; Consent in Genetic Research: An International Trial; the Engagement of African Communities instead of the International HapMap Project; and the Genetic Basis of Podoconiosis, a foot-disfiguring disease impacting some who work barefoot in volcanic soils. These efforts have provided him the necessary expertise for self-sufficient. the directorship of NICGHD.
No commentsNew Ozone Regulations A Missed Opportunity To Protect Public’s Health
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced more protective National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) for ozone air pollution. While we recognize the new standards as a much needed bettering and a step in the right direction, the American Public Health Association (APHA) is concerned that the allowed levels of ozone pollution still fall remoter short of the requirements of the Clean Air Act.
Today’s ruling acknowledges the very real dangers that ozone poses to the health of the public. By lowering the allowed level of ozone air pollutedness, the EPA strengthens the protection for millions of Americans from the air pollutant often known as smog. However, by failing to lower the standard to the levels recommended unanimously by the EPA’s own expert scientific advisors, the EPA ignored an opportunity to set a truly protective standard that would better safeguard the the community from respiratory illness and increased symptoms from allergies, asthma, emphysema and other lung diseases. Today’s ruling also ignores the advice of APHA and fifteen other major medical and public health organizations that repeatedly urged the EPA to come the overwhelming evidence in quest of a truly protective standard.
As an organization representing over 50,000 open health professionals, APHA remains concerned that, even through today’s revision to the NAAQS for ozone, our nation is not doing enough to adequately protect the health of the American public. Ozone pollution is a danger to all Americans and is a particular threat to the most vulnerable among us. It threatens the health of infants, children, seniors, and people who have asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis and other lung diseases. For these people, breathing smog-polluted air can greatly diminish their quality of life and even cause death. It is unacceptable that the EPA’s ozone regulations do not go as far as they can to protect the health of Americans.
According to the nation’s landmark air pollution law, the Clean Air Act, the EPA must set our air quality standards at levels that protect the health of the public. Today the EPA moved person step closer to that goal. However, the new regulations do not go far enough. We entitle in succession EPA to adhere to the science and to lower the allowed levels of ozone to the recommended level in order to safeguard our nation’s health. In addition, we strongly reject any legislative proposals that would enervate the public health protections of the Clean Air Act.
No commentsInterventional Radiology: Hope For People With Complications From Bone Marrow
The standard treatment to treat graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) afterward bone marrow or cord blood transplant is intravenous (IV) steroids that alter the immune response; however, it is not always effective and failure results in very high subjection to death. In a study released today, 15 patients who failed standard treatment were given a high-reaching dose of steroids directly to the affected organ. By delivering the steroids via catheter to the arteries that are supplying the organs affected by GVHD, a much higher, more effective dose can be given for the rest of the body is spared from the steroid’s side effects.
"Overall, fewer than 30 percent of patients with steroid-resistant GVHD respond completely or partially to the standard IV treatment, and their betide of living one year is 15 percent or less. This interventional radiology treatment have power to be life-saving for these people," said Joshua L. Weintraub, M.D., chief of the Division of Vascular and Interventional Radiology at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City.
According to Weintraub, there were nay immediate drug or procedure-related complications, and the treatment appears to have being safe and effective in combating GVHD — with about 40 percent of the patients showing complete response to the intra-arterial treatment at less than a year follow-up. The study was presented during the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting in Washington, D.C.
GVHD is a common complication of an allogeneic bone marrow transplant (one using blood-forming cells donated by a family member or unrelated donor) or cord blood transplant. With GVHD, the immune cells from the donated marrow or cord blood (the graft) attack the body of the transplant patient (the host). GVHD, which can be mollifying to life-threatening, can affect many different parts of the body, particularly the hide, liver and intestines. In this inquiry the affected organs were the liver and petty and large bowels.
Studies from the 1990s show that steroid resistance is common – 80 percent of people fail to have a sustained, complete response rate or only have a partial response, which means the immune cells are still attacking the organ to varying degrees. "Until now, there has been no good therapy for steroid-resistant patients with GVHD. This small study — the first of its kind in the United States–shows a new, viable option; however, larger studies with longer follow-up results are needed," added Weintraub.
No commentsResearchers Control Growth Rate Of Replacement Blood Vessels
Researchers have discovered a way to control the growth rate of replacement tissue and the formation of new blood vessels, that solves one of the vexing problems of growing replacement tissue to treat injuries and trauma in humans.
The performance could be used in bone grafts, tissue replacement, dental procedures or for diabetics or elderly patients who experience wound healing problems, said William Giannobile, professor at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry and College of Engineering, and corresponding author of the paper. Peter Ma, U-M professor with appointments in engineering and dentistry, is co-author and principal investigator on the National Institutes of Health project.
"If you have such a immense defect that your body can’t completely heal, this is a way to augment and dose a natural injury healing protein," Giannobile said.
Researchers put platelet-derived growth factor into nanoparticles and at that time attached them to a lattice-like, biodegradable scaffold. In experiments, the growth factor recruited cells that stimulate the body’s own machinery responsible for healing, said Ma, whose lab developed the scaffolding and the nanoparticles.
As the tissue grows, it crawls into the scaffold, which eventually dissolves.
"Growth factor is typically dumped in and releases over a period of hours," said Giannobile, who also directs the Michigan Center for Oral Health Research. "through certain wounds you might want a lot (of growth factor) in the beginning, and with others you might want a little released over a longer period of time. We’ve basically found a way to dial up or dial down the release rate of these growth factors."
Platelet derived growth factor is FDA-approved for treatment of anti-diabetic ulcers and to elevate bone repair in tooth-associated defects, but time-release delivery has been a big point to be solved. Ma said the one of the keys was finding a way to preserve the biological properties of the growth factor in the nanoparticle for controlled release.
The next step is to evaluate a broader scope of wounds, followed by early halting-place like a human being studies, Giannobile said.
No commentsSyphilis Makes A Comeback
"Doctors were warned of an alarming rise in syphilis in the UK", The Sun reports today.
The Independent also covered the story, saying that specialists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US have said that cases of the disease are soaring in high-income countries. It adds that the number of cases in the UK jumped from 307 in 1997 to 3,702 in 2006, "an grow of 1,200 per cent".
The Times reports that, despite being nearly wiped out in the developed world a decade gone, the disease has had a resurgence, "in part driven by increases in cases among men who have sex with men [and] more recent increases among heterosexual people". Most of the newspapers account that the specialists have warned that doctors now lack experience of syphilis and need training to deal with the disease.
The stories are based on a review in that the authors carried out a comprehensive overview of the published literature on the transmission and rates of syphilis in Western Europe and the USA between 2000 and 2007. The authors discuss various explanations for changing rates of the disease and give an expert opinion on the current standards in diagnosis and treatment.
The journal that this paper was published in is prestigious and the experience and knowledge and of the authors is clear; this suggests that this is a reliable review and that cases of infectious syphilis are increasing.
No commentsImaging Quality For Barrett’s Esophagus Improved By New Techniques But No Improvement In Diagnosis
Novel techniques to improve the quality of imaging are helping doctors get a better look at esophageal conditions such as Barrett’s esophagus (BE), but they do not necessarily improve the diagnosis or healer agreement on images, according to a study published this month in Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.
Researchers from the study found that the image quality of magnified images of BE that are obtained with new imaging techniques was preferred both by expert and by the agency of non-expert endoscopists. However, this higher preference did not lead to more agreement on features of interest and did not improve their ability to diagnose esophageal abnormalities.
“We know that novel technologies are dramatically improving image quality, which in turn has improved the diagnostic potential of minimally invasive techniques. But we need to review these techniques to fully understand if they deliver a clinical benefit rather than just a clearer image,” said Jacques Bergman, MD, PhD, from the Academic Medical Center in the Netherlands and lead author of the study. “In our opinion, the subjective improvement of image condition with enhancement techniques may have limited clinical relevance in this particular setting.”
In this study, the research team compared images obtained with magnifying high-resolution white light endoscopy (WLE, a standard endoscopic process), narrow band imaging (NBI), indigo carmine chromoendoscopy (ICC) and acetic acid chromoendoscopy (AAC) to determine the best techniques for detailed evaluation of BE characteristics. The team evaluated the improved quality of the images and sought to determine if the addition of these enhancement techniques would turn to account the agreement between observers for distinct features of disease viewed like well as their ability to correctly identify abnormal areas. Because dysplastic and non-dysplastic BE features are associated with different visual characteristics (mucosal and vascular patterns and/or the presence of abnormal royal lineage vessels), the type of imaging may offer improved visual diagnosis of abnormalities in the esophageal mucosal tissue.
at what time the enhancement techniques were compared through regular WLE images, the observers clearly preferred the enhancement techniques, which scored higher in articles of agreement of overall image quality, the quality of mucosal imaging, and the nobility of vascular imaging. NBI and AAC were the principally often preferred techniques and were rated best for overall statue quality (43 and 40 percent of comparisons, respectively). WLE and ICC were ranked most often as the worst techniques (38 and 39 percent of comparisons, respectively). All three enhancement techniques (NBI, ICC or AAC) scored better than WLE for most image quality characteristics, but AAC rated the highest for mucosal image quality (80 percent of evaluations scored better than WLE), while NBI rated the highest for vascular image quality (60 percent of evaluations scored better than WLE).
However, the study found that the higher image quality did not translate into a clinically relevant benefit. The observer agreement was moderate on the three factors assessed on the WLE images (mucosal irregularity, vascular irregularity or the presence of abnormal blood vessels), and when WLE was combined with NBI, ICC or AAC, observer agreement did not improve. More so, expert and non-expert endoscopists did not agree more on their interpretation even when they compared all images obtained with additive techniques to WLE images of the same area.
Adding enhancement techniques also did not improve the diagnosis of neoplasia in the study. The yield for identifying early neoplasia with white light images was 86 percent for all observers, 90 percent for experts and 84 percent for non-experts, and when comparing all images, yield ranged from 70 to 86 percent for all observers. The researchers speculated on the possibility that most of the essential information may even now have been present in the high-quality WLE images, or that the interpretation of the images may vary widely amongst endoscopists, which may explain the finding that expert endoscopists had a drop agreement for mucosal patterns compared to non-experts (ê = 0.43 vs. ê = 0.64).
Participants in the study were undergoing either surveillance endoscopies of known BE or work-ups of high-grade intraepithelial neoplasia (HGIN, a precancerous condition) or early cancer (EC). Conditions diagnosed in study patients included eight areas with HGIN/EC, one with low grade dysplasia, one with indefinite for dysplasia and 12 areas with non-dysplastic BE. After each patient received endoscopic imaging using WLE and each additive technique, the highest quality image from each technique was selected for analysis. The images were evaluated by seven endoscopists with no specific expertise in BE or advanced endoscopic imaging techniques and five endoscopists with experience in advanced imaging techniques and in BE to compare skilful versus non-expert opinions.
Chromoendoscopy is a technique in which staining agents are applied to the gastrointestinal tract to improve the images of the esophageal mucosa captured during endoscopies. The stains enable technicians to see surface patterns or functional characteristics that may suggest early neoplasia, lesions that are difficult to detect with standard endoscopy. Recently, a new optical technique, NBI, was developed that uses light that penetrates the tissue at varying levels depending on the chosen wavelength. Light of a short wavelength (e.g. blue light in the visible spectrum) penetrates very miniature, allowing for improved surface detail imaging. Two other additives were applied to chromoendoscopy for this study - ICC and AAC.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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About the AGA Institute
The American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) is dedicated to the mission of advancing the science and practice of gastroenterology. Founded in 1897, the AGA is one of the oldest medical-specialty societies in the U.S. Comprised of two non-profit organizations - the AGA and the AGA Institute - our more than 16,000 members include physicians and scientists who research, diagnose and treat disorders of the gastrointestinal tract and liver. The AGA, a 501(c6) organization, administers all membership and the community policy activities, while the AGA Institute, a 501(c3) organization, runs the constitution’s practice, research and educational programs. On a monthly basis, the AGA Institute publishes two highly respected journals, Gastroenterology and Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology. The organization’s yearly concourse is Digestive Disease Week®, which is held each May and is the largest international gathering of physicians, researchers and academics in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery. For more information, please visit http://www.gastro.org/.
About Gastroenterology
Gastroenterology, the official journal of the AGA Institute, is the most prominent scientific journal in the specialty and is in the top 1 percent of indexed medical journals internationally. The journal publishes clinical and basic science studies of all aspects of the digestive system, including the liver and pancreas, as well as nutrition. The journal is abstracted and indexed in Biological Abstracts, CABS, Chemical Abstracts, Current Contents, Excerpta Medica, Index Medicus, Nutrition Abstracts and Science Citation Index. For more information, visit http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-03/aga-nti031108.php?/www.gastrojournal.org.
Source: Aimee Frank
American Gastroenterological Association
Food For Life Baking Co., Inc. Recalls Spelt Bread , California - Product Contains Undeclared Wheat
Food For Life Baking Company of Corona, California is voluntarily recalling 2,241 cases of Spelt Bread (UPC# 07347200168) because they contain spelt grain which is known to exist a hybrid of wheat. People who have allergies to wheat or those with Celiac Disease may run the risk of a serious or life impendent allergic reaction grant that they consume spelt products.
The recalled products were sold nationwide through health food distributors and natural food retailers.
Food For Life Spelt Bread is sold frozen in a 24 oz. (680g) light sad package and bears either of the two following descriptions-
1. Food For LIfe, Wheat Alternative Spelt Bread
2. Food For Life, Fruit Juice Sweetened Spelt Bread
Affected lot numbers are: H1847, H2042, H2136, H2435, H2872, H2974, H3224, H3460, I0485.
No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this problem.
The recall was initiated as a precautionary measure following an FDA investigation concluding that the outcome contained undeclared wheat.
This recall is being made with the knowledge and in cooperation with the Food and Drug Administration.
Consumers who have purchased any of these products are urged to return them unopened to the place of purchase for a refund.
Consumers with questions may contact us toll free at: (800) 797-5090.
http://www.fda.gov
MicroRNAs Help Fins Regenerate In Zebrafish
Biologists have discovered a molecular circuit breaker that controls a zebrafish’s remarkable ability to regrow missing fins, according to a new study from Duke University Medical Center.
Tiny wonders of the aquarium world, zebrafish can renewed in spirit organs and tissues, including hearts, eye parts and fins. When a fin is lost, the fish regenerates a perfect duplicate in two weeks by orchestrating the growth of many tissue types, including bone, nerves, blood vessels, connective tissue and skin.
Scientists hope that understanding how zebrafish repair themselves will lead to new treatments for human conditions caused by damaged tissue, of that kind as heart failure, diabetes and spinal cord injuries.
The regeneration regulator is one of a group of recently discovered molecules called microRNAs: small pieces of ribonucleic acid (RNA) that each can potentially control the activity of dozens of different genes. In humans, microRNAs play important roles in cell development and death, among other functions. There are hundreds of kinds of microRNAs, and scientists are constantly discovering new roles they play.
In zebrafish, one or more microRNAs appear to be important to keep regeneration forward clinch until the fish needs new tissue, the Duke researchers say. In response to an injury, the fish then damp down levels of these microRNAs to aid regrowth. The team discovered that the adroitness of zebrafish to replace amputated fins is particularly sensitive to levels of a particular microRNA called miR-133.
The discovery makes sense for the cause that any animal that can quickly become greater new tissue needs to keep the system in check, said senior author Kenneth Poss, Ph.D., assistant professor of cell biology. "They probably need to have mechanisms to reduce the potential for ungrateful growth. The implication is that in order to make human tissue regenerate more effectively, we might want to look at some of these microRNAs as potential targets."
The results appear in the March 15, 2008 issue of the journal Genes & Development. Postdoctoral scholar Viravuth Yin, Ph.D., a member of Poss’ lab, is first maker on the study. Funding was on these terms by the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, the Whitehead Foundation and Pew Charitable Trusts.
Poss and many other cell biologists believe that mammals may have the same tissue reproduction capability as zebrafish, salamanders and newts, but that it is locked away somewhere in our genome, silenced in the course of evolution. "The key is finding a way to turn on this regenerative ability in humans," Poss said.
The Duke researchers began their study by ferreting out any microRNAs present in fins at different stages of regrowth, then measuring whether there was a lot or a little of harvested land molecule.
Dr. Poss’ team eventually zeroed in on some of the most important microRNAs for regrowth by studying genetically modified zebrafish. The modification allows a critical signaling pathway to be shut down during reproduction. The pathway sends biochemical cues called advancement factors that stimulate cell division and organ growth.
Levels of one microRNA in particular, miR-133, dropped during normal regeneration. But when the scientists blocked the signaling pathway briefly during regeneration, the amount of miR-133 jumped back up to the level found in uninjured fins. Further experiments showed that tweaking the concentration of miR-133 affected fin growth. When levels were raised, fin regrowth slowed; then they were dropped, regeneration sped up.
"Our work shows microRNAs appear to have an important role in regenerating complex tissues. Further studies could help us discover potential ways to stimulate this ability in mammals," Poss said.
No commentsPossible Negative Effect Of Disadvantaged Neighborhoods On Breast Cancer In Black Women
Researchers at the University of Chicago are studying possible connections between living in disadvantaged neighborhoods and the development of early onset breast cancer in a path-breaking project led by Sarah Gehlert, Director of the Center concerning Interdisciplinary Health Disparities Research.
The initiative is funded with a $9.7 million grant from National Institutes of Health and is the first to use animal models to help determine what the biological factors might be behind the development of certain forms of breast cancer.
Gehlert is lead author of the paper discussing the findings, titled “Targeting Health Disparities: Linking Upstream Determinants to Downstream Interventions” published in the current issue of Health Affairs.
Joining Gehlert, who is the Helen Ross Professor in the School of Social Service Administration at the University, as an father in the paper is Olufunmilayo Olopade, the Walter L. Palmer Distinguished Service Professor in Medicine and Human Genetics at the University. for the reason that part of the work of the CIHDR, Olopade and other scholars studied early onset breast cases in Nigerian women, whose genetic heritage is similar to African-Americans because the ancestors of African Americans largely came from West Africa.
African-American, like Nigerian women, develop breast cancer earlier than white women, and it is often much deadlier. While white women usually develop the disease after menopause, it develops prior to menopause among women of African heritage.
Co-author Martha McClintock, the David Lee Shillinglaw Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology at the University, carried away the animal modeling by studying the development of spontaneous mammary tumors in socially solitary rats.
Researchers are studying 230 black women with newly diagnosed breast cancers course of life in predominantly ebon Chicago neighborhoods to learn about environmental factors, such asneighborhood features that might lead to social isolation.
“These women experience stress from dealing with situations they cannot control, from seeing crime in their neighborhood, from being afraid to go out, and not being able to form casual relationships with their neighbors that might make them be impressed safe,” Gehlert said.
By studying multiple pathways to the development of the disease, leading from environmental challenges to gene regulation, the team will help inform policy makers about making decisions in how to make cost-effective interventions, McClintock said.
The team said that the women’s vulnerability to stress and social solitude could have existence reduced if communities work with neighborhood and city leaders to reduce building vacancies and establish networks that would give women a greater feeling of control over their environments.
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Article adapted by dint of. Medical News Today from primeval press release.
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Other authors in the study are University researchers Dana Sohmer, Tina Sacks and Charles Mininger.
Source: William Harms
University of Chicago
New Way To Control Particle Motion Has Implications For Drug Delivery, Sensors
Chemical engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered a new way to control the motion of fluid particles through liliputian channels, potentially aiding the development of micro- and nano-scale technologies such as drug delivery devices, chemical and biological sensors, and components for miniaturized biological “lab-on-a-chip” applications.
The researchers learned that particle motion is strongly linked to how the particles arrange themselves in a channel.
“Particle arrangements are determined by the interactions of the particles with their boundaries. Thus, we were able to use these interactions as a means during the term of controlling in what plight readily the fluid will self-mix, rambling, and flow,” said Dr. Thomas Truskett, associate professor of chemical engineering at the university.
The research by Ph.D. students Gaurav Goel, William Krekelberg and Truskett at the university along with Dr. Jeffrey Errington of the State University of New York at Buffalo, appears in the March 14 issue of the journal Physical Review Letters.
Civic planners and schoolteachers have long appreciated that the motion of cars on highways or children through hallways proceeds smoothly if lanes of traffic are formed. Truskett’s research team institute that a similar principle applies for the motion of fluid particles in narrow channels. Specifically, their computer simulations reveal that fluid particles move past one another greater degree of easily if they first form “layers” aligned through the boundaries of the channels.
The team has also introduced a way to systematically determine which types of channel boundaries will promote or frustrate the formation of the layers necessary for faster particle bliss.
If layering leads to faster particle dynamics, it is natural to ask why bulk fluids adopt a again disordered structure with no layering, said Truskett.
“The reason: thermodynamics determines the structure of a fluid, not dynamics - and thermodynamics favors a disordered state in opposition to bulk fluids because it lowers the system’s free energy,” he said.
The Truskett team determined that confining a fluid to small length scales allowed them to tune the thermodynamically-favored state to coincide with one that has layering and fast ace dynamics.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original bear heavily release.
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Truskett’s latest research is funded by grants from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the National Science Foundation. The Texas Advanced Computing Center and the University at Buffalo Center for Computational Research provided computational resources for this study.
Source: Becky Rische
University of Texas at Austin
How much people exercise related to neighborhoods
When it comes to take exercise and fitness the neighborhoods race live in can help inspire - or discourage - their residents to exercise and donjon physically quick.
The neighborhoods people live in can help inspire - or dishearten - their residents to exercise and keep physically active, new research suggests.
Residents of neighborhoods with higher levels of poverty, lower education, and more female-headed families are less likely than others to exercise, according to the study.
It’s not simply that poorer people are less likely to exercise, researchers say. In fact, the study, which was done in Chicago, found that a person’s individual gains wasn’t as important as the neighborhood he or she lived in conducive to determining exercise levels.
“We can’t encourage people to exercise more without looking at the neighborhood environment in which they live,” uttered Christopher Browning, co-author of the study and associate professor of sociology at Ohio State University.
“Some people may have the personal resources and desire to exercise, but don’t live in a neighborhood in that they feel comfortable to go outside for activities.”
The study found that neighborhood context was more important for women than in favor of men in determining how much they exercised.
The findings also showed that levels of trust among neighbors, perceived fury in the community, and beliefs that neighbors help each other, all contributed to how much people exercised in a specific community.
Taken together, the results show that a wide variety of social and economic factors outside of any individual’s control can impact physical activity, Browning said.
Browning conducted the study with Ming Wen, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Utah, and Kathleen Cagney, associate professor of health studies at the University of Chicago. Their study appeared in a recent issue of the journal Urban Studies.
The study looked at levels of exercise among 8,782 residents of 373 neighborhoods in Chicago. The study combined statistics from three data sources from the 1990s: the Metropolitan Chicago Information Center Metro Survey, the 1990 U.S. Census, and the Project put on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Survey.
Results showed that the social and economic characteristics of a community – including the level of poverty – were the most important factors in determining levels of physical activity.
Browning said it was somewhat surprising and noteworthy that neighborhood characteristics were more important than an individual’s income in determining in what manner much he or she exercises.
“The result is surprising enough that it needs to be confirmed by other studies,” he said. “But if the finding is substantiated, it would show just for what cause important neighborhoods are, and would have important implications for any new initiatives aimed at enhancing health and well-being.”
Another important finding was that women’s exercise habits were affected by the neighborhood more than men.
“This could help us understand why African American women have much higher obesity rates than other groups,” Browning said.
Contrary to other exploration, this study build that once neighborhood factors were taken into account, African Americans in general exercised as much as white residents did. Browning said this discovery suggests African Americans will exercise more if they live in neighborhoods where they feel comfortable doing so.
While social and economic factors played the largest role in exercise, the findings also showed residents were affected by neighborhood safety, their levels of trust with neighbors, and the degree to what one. they said residents helped each other in their community.
“Neighborhoods where people do not errand each other or help each other and to which place violent crimes are prevalent may tend to push better-off people away – a process that leaves more people in poverty and deteriorating neighborhood conditions,” Browning said. “All of this leaves an environment that is not amenable to getting outside to exercise.”
Other studies have found that exercise levels can be increased by improving the physical components of a neighborhood – such as creating high-quality parks, sidewalks and recreation centers. But Browning reported this contemplation shows that the social environment in a neighborhood needs to be considered along with the physical environment.
“We don’t know the relative role of the physical and social environments of a neighborhood,” Browning said. “However, it seems likely that they are constantly reinforcing and reacting to any another. When in that place is high-pitched poverty and low levels of trust in a community, it is harder to mobilize people to achieve neighborhood goals, such as improving parks and cleaning up streets.”
No commentsDiscovery Of How HIV’s Stealth Protein Gets Into Cells
Scientists have known for more than a decade that a protein associated with the HIV virus is good at crossing cell membranes, but they didn’t know how it worked. A multidisciplinary team from the University of Illinois has solved the mystery, and their findings could improve the design of therapeutic agents that cross a difference of membrane types.
A bills of exchange describing their findings appears this month in Angewandte Chemie.
The TAT protein transduction domain of the HIV virus has some remarkable properties. First, it is a tiny part of the overall TAT protein, containing only 11 amino acids. Second, and more important, it has an uncanny knack for slipping across membranes, those lipid-rich bags that form the boundaries of cells and cellular components and are designed to keep things out.
“TAT is extremely good at getting through cell membranes,” related materials science and engineering professor Gerard Wong, who led the new study. “You can attach TAT to towards anything and it will drag it across the membrane. It can work for virtually all tissues, including the brain.”
The TAT protein’s versatility makes it enviable as a drug-delivery device. It is already being used for gene therapy. (TAT is not involved in transmitting the HIV virus; it only aids the passage of other materials from one side of to the other the membranes of infected cells.)
Because it has so many potential uses, scientists have long endeavored to understand the mechanism that allows the TAT protein to be. But their efforts have been stymied by dint of. some baffling observations.
Six of its 11 residues are arginine, a positively charged amino acid that gives the protein its activity.
Most membranes are composed of a double layer of neutral, water-repellent lipids on their interiors, with hydrophilic (water-loving) “head groups” on their internal and extrinsic surfaces. The head strong groups generally carry a mildly negative charge, Wong said. Since opposites attract, it made sense to the researchers that the positively charged TAT protein would charm the negatively charged head groups on the surface of the membranes. This attraction could deform the membrane in a way that opened up a pathway through it.
If a short, positively charged protein was everything that was needed for TAT to work, the researchers thought, then any positively charged amino acid should do the trick. But when they replaced the arginine in the protein through other positively charged amino acids, it lost its function. Clearly, a positive charge was not enough to have effect it work.
To get a better picture of the interaction of TAT with a variety of membranes, the researchers turned to confocal microscopy and synchrotron x-ray scattering (SAXS). Although sometimes used in biological studies, SAXS is more common to the fields of physics or materials knowledge, where the pattern of X-ray scattering can reveal how atomic and nano scale materials are structured.
The researchers found that adding the TAT protein to a membrane completely altered its SAXS spectrum, a sign that the membrane conformation had changed. After analyzing the spectrum, the researchers found that TAT had made the membranes porous.
“The TAT sequence has completely reconstructed (the membrane) and made it into something that looks a little bit like a sponge with lots of holes in it,” Wong said.
Something about the TAT protein had induced a “saddle splay curvature” in the membrane. This shape resembles a saddle (like that of a Pringles potato chip), giving the openings, or pores, a bi-directional arc like that seen inside a doughnut hole.
The newly formed pores in the membrane were 6 nanometers wide, large enough to allow fairly sizeable proteins or other molecules to slip through. The pores would also make it easier for other biological processes to fetch materials through the membrane.
Further analysis showed that the arginine was interacting with the head groups on the membrane lipids in a way that caused the membrane to buckle in two different directions, bringing on the saddle splay curvature that allowed the pores to form.
When another positively charged amino acid, lysine, was used instead of arginine, the protein bent the membrane in one direction only, forming a create more like a closed cylinder that would not allow materials to pass through.
These findings decree aid researchers hoping to enhance the properties of the TAT protein that make it a good vehicle for transporting therapeutic molecules into cells, Wong said.
Wong also is a professor of physics and of bioengineering.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Source: Diana Yates
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Survey Uncovered Negative Impact Of Allergy Symptoms On Children
Data from the largest survey of its kind suggested there’s a silent epidemic among our nation’s children. U.S. children are suffering with allergies and not getting the treatment they stand in want of, according to the Pediatric Allergies in America survey, which is the largest and most comprehensive national survey of parents of children under the age of 18 who suffer from allergic rhinitis. The survey results were presented today at the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology 2008 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. More than 500 parents who had a child with allergies were interviewed about severity and effects of allergies on their child’s life, and their responses were compared to more than 500 parents of children without allergies.
"We have known anecdotally that children are affected by allergy symptoms similarly to adults, but Pediatric Allergies in America offers the first data quantifying the scope of to what degree allergies leave off a child’s productivity, sleep cycle, and quotidian functioning," said Jay M. Portnoy, MD, President of the American College of Allergy, asthma and Immunology.
Quality of Life Findings
More than three quarters of parents (76 percent) reported Spring to be the worst period of childbirth of year for their children’s nasal allergies. Allergy symptoms cause children to feel tired, miserable and irritable. Many children with allergies reported experiencing symptoms every day this time of year. Key findings included:
– Allergy symptoms are interfering through children’s sleep. Forty percent of parents indicated that their child’s allergies interfere a lot or somewhat with their sleep. Only eight percent of parents of children without allergies indicated their child’s health interferes with their sleep.
– Allergy symptoms are limiting children’s activities. Twice as many parents (21 percent) said allergies limit their children’s activities, compared with only 11 percent of parents whose child did not suffer from allergies.
– Allergy symptoms interfere with children’s education. Forty percent of parents of children with allergic rhinitis report their condition interferes with their performance at school compared to only 10 percent of parents of children without allergic rhinitis who attribute lower performance at school to health issues.
– Although the most bothersome symptom is a stuffed up nose (27 percent), almost half (46 percent) of parents of children with allergic rhinitis reported serious symptoms - such as headache and ear and facial pain.
Treatment Experience Findings
The survey found that there is room for improvement in the management of allergic rhinitis and that new therapies could help fill some of the current treatment needs. Healthcare professionals overestimate their patients’ satisfaction with allergy medicines.
"Similar to that which we have experienced about adults, many children with nasal allergies are not satisfied with current treatments. This dissatisfaction is one reason why nasal allergy sufferers sometimes discontinue or switch medications," said Michael Blaiss, MD, Clinical Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine at the University of Tennessee. "We have information that tells us how, in fact, children suffer with this condition, how it truly affects their quality of life and that there is a need out there for better treatments to control allergies in the pediatric population."
– Nearly half (48 percent) of the children in the study are currently using prescription medication to treat their nasal allergy symptoms; but of those, more than half (57 percent) have changed their medication, with parents citing the medication was not effective enough as the number one reason for the switch. Patients’ dissatisfaction by effectiveness of nasal allergy medicines caused them to ask their doctor to change medication (26 percent) or to simply stop taking them (15 percent).
– Bothersome side effects of prescription nasal allergy sprays were a clew reason reported when parents were asked wherefore their child is not satisfied with their medication. Cited most often are products dripping down the throat and bad taste, which were also seen as most bothersome when compared to other side effects including burning (15 percent), drying feeling (14 percent), and headaches (13 percent).
Allergic Rhinitis
Allergic rhinitis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the nasal mucosa causing sneezing, itching, nasal congestion and discharge. Some patients with allergic rhinitis have systemic symptoms, including malaise, snappishness, fatigue, difficulty concentrating and decreased appetite.
Allergic rhinitis is the most common allergic disease in the U.S. affecting about 40 million people, specifically 10 percent to 30 percent of adults and up to 40 percent of children. It is associated with direct costs of almost $4.5 billion annually and indirect costs that reflect approximately four million days of squandered time and productivity at work and school.
Seasonal allergic rhinitis is caused by substances typically outdoors (i.e., pollen) that set off allergies and is sometimes referred to as "hay fever." Symptoms may vary in occurrence and intensity during the day or from season to season. Symptoms are often worse in the morning even when the exposure occurred on the previous day.
Perennial allergic rhinitis is a chronic condition caused by means of triggers so as pet dander and dust. Symptoms of perennial allergic rhinitis are very resembling to those of seasonal allergic rhinitis, yet perennial is persistent and chronic.
About the Survey
A national probability sample of 500 adults, having lived 18 and older, who had at least one child who had been diagnosed with allergic rhinitis, nasal allergies or hay fever, and who had nasal allergy symptoms or had taken prescription medicine for allergies in the past 12 months, were interviewed by telephone about their predicament and treatment.
More than 35,000 households in the United States were screened to sameness nasal allergy sufferers between ages 4 and 17. Individual screening was conducted with a parent in the household to confirm that their child had been diagnosed by nasal allergies and suffered from them or been treated for them in the spent 12 months. Parents of children without allergies (N=504) were also interviewed as a comparison group. A third parallel survey was conducted among 501 healthcare practitioners, including a national illustration of 401 doctors in direct patient care in outpatient settings: 100 in family practice specialties, 101 allergists, 100 otolaryngologists, and 100 pediatricians. In addition, 50 nurse practitioners and 50 physician assistants were interviewed as part of the survey.
No commentsFirst ‘Rule’ Of Evolution Suggests That Life Is Destined To Become More Complex
Scientists have revealed which may well be the first pervasive ‘rule’ of evolution.
In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences researchers have found evidence which suggests that evolution drives animals to become increasingly more complex.
Looking rear through the last 550 million years of the petrifaction catalogue to the present day, the team investigated the different evolutionary branches of the crustacean family tree.
They were seeking examples along the tree to which place animals evolved that were simpler than their ancestors.
Instead they found organisms with increasingly more tangled skein structures and features, suggesting that there is some mechanism driving change in this direction.
“If you start with the simplest in posse animal body, then in that place’s only one direction to evolve in - you have to become other thing complex,” said Dr Matthew Wills from the Department of Biology & Biochemistry at the University of Bath who worked with colleagues Sarah Adamowicz from from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and Andy Purvis from Imperial College London.
“Sooner or later, however, you reach a level of complexity whither it’s possible to go backwards and become simpler again.
“What’s astonishing is that hardly any crustaceans have taken this backwards route.
“Instead, all but all branches have evolved in the same direction, becoming more complicated in parallel.
“This is the nearest thing to a pervasive evolutionary rule that’s been found.
“Of course, there are exceptions within the crustacean kindred tree, but most of these are parasites, or animals living in remote habitats such as isolated marine caves.
“For those free-living animals in the ‘rat-race’ of evolvement, it seems that competition may be the driving force behind the trend.
“What’s recent about our results is that they show us how this increase in complexity has occurred.
“Strikingly, it looks far more like a disciplined march than a milling crowd.”
Dr Adamowicz said: “Previous researchers noticed increasing morphological complexity in the fossil record, but this pattern can occur due to the chance origination of a few new types of animals.
“Our study uses information about the inter-relatedness of manifold animal groups - the ‘Tree of Life’ - to demonstrate that complexity has evolved numerous periods independently.”
Like all arthropods, crustaceans’ bodies are built up of repeating segments. In the simplest crustaceans, the segments are quite similar - one after the other. In the most complex, such as shrimps and lobsters, almost every segment is different, bearing antennae, jaws, claws, walking legs, paddles and gills.
The American biologist Leigh Van Valen coined the phrase ‘Red Queen’ for the evolutionary arms race phenomenon. In Through the Looking-Glass Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen advises Alice that: “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same commit.”
“Those crustacean groups going extinct tended to be smaller complex than the others around at the time,” said Dr Wills.
“There’s even a link between average complexity within a assign places to and the number of species alive today.
“All organisms have a common ancestor, so that every living species is part of a giant family tree of life.”
Dr Adamowicz added: “through a few exceptions, once branches of the tree have separated they tarry to evolve independently.
“Looking at many independent branches is similar to viewing multiple repeated runs of the tape of evolution.
“Our results apply to a group of animals with bodies made of repeated units. We be obliged to not forget that bacteria - very simple organisms - are among the utmost successful living things. Therefore, the trend towards entanglement is compelling but does not describe the history of all life.”
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press set free.
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Source: Andrew McLaughlin
University of Bath
Breakthrough Treatment For Severe Frostbite Saves Limbs
Using imaging to visualize areas lacking blood flow and deliver drugs via catheter, interventional radiologists are reopening recently frozen, clotted arteries with clot-busting and anti-spasmodic drugs.
The people in a recent prospective trial had severely frostbitten hands and feet (with tissue frozen to the bone and harm occurring deep in muscles, tendons, nerves and blood vessels). Typically this leads to gangrene and loss of limbs. In severe frostbite, the blood vessels are affected and blood flow is blocked. After thawing and re-warming, small clots form. Spasm of the injured arteries further impedes flow to the smallest vessels of the limbs.
The standard treatment for frostbite — typically involving re-warming the affected area and, in severe cases, amputation — hasn’t changed for decades. Interventional radiologists used angiography, an X-ray exam of the arteries and veins, to confirm loss of blood flow to a patients hand or toes, then intra-arterial catheters to directly deliver drugs to dissolve the blood clots and relax the arteries’ muscular walls. This treatment was significantly successful in preventing amputation and saving limbs, according to a study released today at the Society of Interventional Radiology’s 33rd Annual Scientific Meeting.
"Previously severe frostbite was a one-way route to member loss. This treatment is a significant improvement. We’re opening arteries that are blocked so that tissues can heal and limbs can be salvaged. We were able to reopen even the smallest arteries, saving patients’ fingers and toes," said George R. Edmonson, M.D., interventional radiologist with St. Paul Radiology in St. Paul, Minn.
According to Edmonson, severe frostbite or "freezeburn" looks like a second degree heat burn with large blisters, still it’s actually body tissue that’s been frozen and — in severe cases — dead, he said. "For half our patients who received the clot-busting physic Tenectaplase, this technique worked beautifully, saving all fingers, hands, toes and feet that otherwise would have been lost," said Edmonson, who has been treating an average of 6-10 frostbite patients each year for the past 10 years. "Overall, in about 80 percent of the cases, it significantly improved patients’ outcomes. Within one to three days of treatment, we saw improvement," noted Edmonson, explaining that patients were followed for six weeks to assess their final outcomes.
In this base prospective trial, results from six frostbite patients, ages 18-65 years, who received Tenectaplase were compared with 11 individuals who had received Retaplase. The trial was designed to see if the greater plasma stability of Tenectaplase would lead to better results. "by both groups, approximately 80 percent of the patients’ affected limbs, fingers and toes responded through significant improvement. The treatment has been demonstrated to be safe and beneficial. We inclination continue research to improve and modify the protocols," noted Edmonson.
No commentsSweet Tooth? You’re More Like A Fruit Fly Than You Think…
According to researchers at the Monell Center, fruit flies are more like humans in their responses to many sweet tastes than are almost any other species.
The diverse range of molecules that humans experience as sweet do not necessarily taste sweet to other species. For model, aspartame, a sweetener used by humans, does not taste sweet to rats and mice.
However, fruit flies respond positively to most sweeteners preferred by humans, including sweeteners not perceived as sweet by the agency of some species of monkeys.
The findings, published in the current amount issued of the journal Chemical Senses, demonstrate the critical role of environment in shaping the genetic basis of taste preferences and feeding manner.
“Humans and flies have similar taste responses because they share similar environments and ecological niches, not for the cause that their sweet receptors are similar genetically,” notes senior author Paul A.S. Breslin, PhD, a Monell sensory geneticist. “Both are African sort, both are omnivorous, and both historically are primarily fruit eaters.”
To compare how molecular structure is related to sweet taste perception in humans and flies, the Monell researchers evaluated how fruit flies respond to 21 nutritive and nonnutritive compounds of varying corpuscular structure, all of which taste sweet to humans.
Breslin and lead author Beth Gordesky-Gold, PhD, used two behavioral tests to evaluate the flies’ responses to the various sweeteners.
The participate in reactivity test measures whether a fly extends its feeding tube, or ‘proboscis,’ to consume a given sweetener. In addition, a two-choice preference test evaluates the flies’ responses to a sweetener by measuring whether they consume it in preference to a control solution (usually water).
The Monell researchers found that fruit flies and humans both respond positively to the same broad range of sweet-tasting molecules.
“The similarity between human and fly responses to sweeteners is astounding, especially in light of the differences in their taste receptors,” notes Gordesky-Gold, a Drosophila (fruit fly) geneticist at Monell.
Sweet receptors belong to a large house of receptors known as G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are involved in biological processes throughout the body. Human and fly sweet taste GPCRs are presumed to have markedly different structures, an assumption that is based on differences in the genes that code for them.
Since substances will only taste sweet if they are able to bind to and activate a receptor, these two structurally different types of sweet receptors must have similar ‘binding regions’ that fit the same sail along of molecular shapes.
“That genes could be so divergent in sequence and so similar in physiology and function is truly striking,” says Breslin. “This is a wonderful example of convergent evolution in perceptual behavior, where evolution has taken two different routes to address pressures imposed by shared environment and nutrition.”
Future work will be directed towards modeling how these two structurally different sweet receptors could have highly overlapping sweetener affinities. Such knowledge will become greater understanding of how molecules bind to GPCRs, which are targets for many pharmaceutical drugs.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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The research was supported by the National Institute steady Deafness and Other passage Disorders.
The Monell Chemical Senses Center is a nonprofit basic research institute based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. For 40 years, Monell has been the nation’s leading academic research center focused on understanding the senses of smell and taste: how they function and affect lives from before birth through old age. Using a multidisciplinary approach, scientists collaborate in the areas of: sensation and perception, neuroscience and molecular biology, environmental and occupational health, nutrition and appetite, health and rightly being, and chemical ecology and communication. For more information about Monell, visit http://www.monell.org/.
Source: Leslie Stein
Monell Chemical Senses Center