Children who receive laboratory-expanded sheets of their own skin to cover severe burns are saved from certain death, but their new skin can have the cellular age of an 80 year old, according to a study at Duke University Medical Center. The process of growing small patches of human skin into larger sheets, called tissue engineering, makes cells divide so many times that the skin becomes prematurely aged at a cellular level.
Inherited variations in proteins that produce energy for the body may provide protection from developing Parkinson’s disease, according to a new study by scientists at Duke University Medical Center. Furthermore, the inherited gene variations seem particularly to protect white women, which may help explain why Parkinson’s disease is seen more often in men.
Primary care physicians do not have the time to offer needed preventive health care to their patients, says a new Duke University Medical Center study. According to the study published in the April 2003 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, providing the recommended preventive maintenance for patients would take an estimated 7.4 hours out of a primary care physician’s day, leaving approximately 30 minutes for critical and chronic disease care.
A new clinical trial hopes to unravel the genetic and molecular basis for delirium, a common complication afflicting elderly patients after major surgery. Delirium, which can prolong the recovery of elderly surgical patients, is a mental state characterized by impaired cognitive function, fluctuating levels of consciousness, disturbed sleep-wake cycles and agitation. Although difficult to measure, the incidence of delirium has been reported to be as high as 60 percent, with the elderly at the highest risk, the researchers said.
Researchers have identified a gene that promotes metastases, the spread of cancer cells through the body. This new understanding of how cancer metastasizes, linking a gene product and migration of cancer cells, may lead to therapies to stop this spread. The results of the study are published in the May 2003 issue of the journal Molecular Biology of the Cell. Richard G. Pestell, M.D., Ph.D. and his research team have been studying the cyclin D1 gene and the protein it produces for the past decade. Now they have found that by “knocking out” this gene, the migration of cells can be halted. The migration of cancer cells through the body is a major reason why cancer is deadly.
Drug addicts may prefer some drugs over others, but their brains all have something in common. Whether it’s uppers or downers, addictive drugs tweak the same addiction-related neurons, causing them to become more sensitive, say researchers at Stanford University Medical Center. “What we have identified is a single change caused by drugs of abuse with different molecular mechanisms,” said researcher Robert Malenka.
At health spas, mall kiosks, and “oxygen bars” across the country, people are paying to breathe oxygen. For about a dollar a minute, enthusiasts inhale 95 percent oxygen ? air offers a paltry 21 percent O2 ? and report that it relieves a variety of maladies from hangovers to headaches. The practice may be a bad idea, according to scientists studying the damaging effects of free radicals ? highly reactive molecules derived from oxygen.
Researchers have developed a new statistical genetic “fishing net” that they have cast into a sea of complex genetic data on autistic children to harvest an elusive autism gene.
Moreover, the researchers said that the success of the approach will be broadly applicable to studying genetic risk factors for other complex genetic diseases, such as hypertension, diabetes and multiple sclerosis. In this case, the gene, which encodes part of a brain neurotransmitter docking station called the gamma-Aminobutyric Acid Receptor beta3-subunit (GABRB3), has been implicated in autism previously, but never positively linked to the disease. Their findings will be published in the March 2003 issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics.
In their ongoing research on turning adult stem cells isolated from fat into cartilage, researchers have demonstrated that the level of oxygen present during the transformation process is a key switch in stimulating the stem cells to change. Using a biochemical cocktail of steroids and growth factors, the researchers have “retrained” specific adult stem cells that would normally form the structure of fat into another type of cell known as a chondrocyte, or cartilage cell. During this process, if the cells were grown in the presence of “room air,” which is about 20 percent oxygen, the stem cells tended to proliferate; however, if the level of oxygen was reduced to 5 percent, the stem cells transformed into chondrocytes.
Researchers have shown that removing a portion, instead of all, of the spleen, can successfully treat children with a variety of congenital anemias while preserving important splenic immune function. In the largest study of its kind in the U.S., the researchers performed the surgery, known as a partial splenectomy, on 25 children with congenital forms of anemia caused by abnormal red blood cells. Typically, these children suffer from fatigue, jaundice and extreme vulnerability to infections that can require repeated hospital or physician visits. Many also need repeated blood transfusions.
A new study shows that one in five urban gay men is battered by his partner, showing that homosexual men are just as likely as heterosexual women to be victims of domestic violence. This study, the first of its kind, appears in the December issue of American Journal of Public Health. “While decades of research has yielded valuable information about violence among heterosexual partners, until now very little has been known about violence among same-sex partners,” said Michael Relf, assistant professor at Georgetown University’s School of Nursing and Health Studies and a lead author of the study. “This study shatters the myth that men are able to protect themselves from violence perpetuated by other men. We now know that domestic violence is an equal opportunity epidemic.”
Stanford University Medical Center researchers have found that it would be cost-effective to administer a vaccine to protect women against the virus that causes cervical cancer. Their projection, based on estimates of how effective and long-lasting a vaccine might be, was published in the January issue of Emerging Infectious Disease. The researchers found that even if a vaccine is only moderately effective, it could save 1,300 lives and prevent more than 3,300 cases of cervical cancer over the lifetime of an estimated 2 million study subjects.
Doctors have found that a positive-pressure method commonly used to treat obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) also alleviates symptoms of nocturnal gastroesophageal reflux (nGER) in many patients suffering from both disorders. The results of their study are published in the Jan. 13, 2002, issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine. The researchers believe that the treatment, called continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) likely alleviates nGER by preventing acid from regurgitating from the stomach.
A combination of chemicals given to protect Gulf War soldiers against deadly diseases and nerve gas may have inadvertently damaged their testes and sperm production, according to animal experiments at Duke University Medical Center. The new study could explain why some veterans have experienced infertility, sexual dysfunction, and other genitourinary symptoms, said Mohamed Abou Donia, Ph.D., a Duke pharmacologist.
Past studies have shown that various medications including beta blockers and aspirin can help manage heart disease. Yet a new study from Stanford University Medical Center indicates physicians continue to underprescribe these key treatments. The study appears in the Jan. 1 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. It focuses on the outpatient use of the drug warfarin for atrial fibrillation (or irregular heartbeat), beta blockers and aspirin for coronary artery disease, and ACE inhibitors for congestive heart failure – all medications that have been shown to benefit patients in past clinical trials and population studies.
For some, the holiday season brings an annual rite that may feel like “compulsive shopping,” but for others, compulsive shopping is a year-round illness that seriously interferes with daily life. People with a compulsive shopping disorder often are unable to think about anything other than shopping and can’t control the impulse to purchase even useless or unwanted items. Stanford University Medical Center is continuing a multi-year clinical trial on a medication that may curb this irresistible urge.
Researchers have found that selective COX-2 inhibitors ? a class of medications widely prescribed for painful inflammatory conditions such as osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis – interfere with the healing process after a bone fracture or cementless joint implant surgery. Their findings suggest that patients who regularly take COX-2 inhibitors should switch to a different medication, such as acetaminophen or codeine derivatives, following a bone fracture or cementless implant.
By taking continuous electrocardiogram (ECG) readings for 24 hours after treating heart attack patients, researches have shown that giving a combination of a new drug that prevents platelets from clumping together, as well as a clot-busting drug, opens up clogged arteries faster and keeps them open longer.
