Health

Researchers confirmed that a daily, combined dose of estrogen and progestin increases breast cancer risk in post menopausal women, but added that this risk begins to return to normal about six months after women stop taking the hormones. “It is reassuring that breast cancer risk begins to return to normal six months after women stop combined dose estrogen-progestin therapy,” said Duane Alexander, M.D., Director of the NICHD. “Women, in consultation with their physicians, need to make the most informed decision possible. The study authors have provided them with one more piece of important information.”

Treating the underlying cause of asthma rather than its symptoms appears to be more effective at reducing severe asthma attacks, according to new research reported in The Lancet. Asthma is known to be associated with increased numbers of microscopic cells called eosinophils, in the airway. These can be detected by a simple sputum test and their numbers rise several weeks before an asthma attack. A study of 74 patients with moderate to severe asthma were randomly placed into two groups. One was treated conventionally, the other using the sputum test with their medication regulated in response to changes in eosinophil numbers. The results showed that the sputum test group had fewer severe attacks and hospitalisations than the conventional treatment group.

It’s a cruel irony that strikes many victims of spinal cord injury: In those who suffer only partial paralysis, limbs that should remain healthy become stiff and useless because of chronic spasticity, a painful condition that causes muscles to contract involuntarily. But Florida researchers charting the development of spasticity in rats with spinal cord injuries were surprised to find the process briefly reverses itself. This discovery raises the possibility that physicians could someday find a way to spare patients its debilitating effects by intervening at a critical time.

Rearrangements of the mixed lineage leukemia gene, MLL, are associated with aggressive leukemias in both children and adults. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have found that one portion of the MLL protein is an enzyme that “edits” the so-called histone code, a series of modifications to proteins associated with DNA that influence how and when certain genes are turned on and off. Their findings are presented in the November issue of Molecular Cell.

Inflammation is usually a normal and beneficial response by the body to tissue injury or infection. But sometimes it can spiral out of control and lead to serious complications and diseases including pulmonary fibrosis, asthma and inflammatory bowel disease. Researchers have uncovered a mechanism that regulates the inflammatory response during tissue repair, providing the first specific molecular targets for developing ways to prevent highly destructive and potentially fatal inflammatory reactions.

A report of an individual infected with a second strain of HIV despite effective drug treatment following the first infection has researchers concerned. “For the first time, we’ve shown it is possible for an individual to become infected with two closely related strains of HIV,” says Bruce D. Walker, M.D., a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. The findings underscore the challenges vaccine developers face in creating a broadly effective vaccine against HIV. The first HIV vaccines may not prevent infection altogether, but rather may prevent HIV from causing disease by limiting the virus’ ability to reproduce, explains Dr. Walker. This case shows that a hypothetical vaccine against one strain of HIV may not necessarily protect the vaccinee against other, closely related strains.

If the U.S. military needed to recruit substantial numbers of young men and women into their forces quickly, they would face a vexing obstacle: the chubby American. Moreover, military weight limits for women are stricter than for men in all of the forces, making it harder for women to get into the military and if they get in, to stay within weight limits without jeopardizing their health. At least 13 percent of young men and 17 percent of young women of prime recruitment age would fail the weight requirements of all four services, researchers at the University at Buffalo and The Johns Hopkins University have found. “This study shows that obesity is not just a public health issue, it’s a national security concern as well,” said Carlos Crespo, Dr. PH, study co-author and associate professor of social and preventive medicine at the University at Buffalo. “We’re not physically fit to defend ourselves.”

A substantially higher death rate and inability to recover from kidney failure was documented in a study of 552 critically ill, hospitalized patients who were given diuretics, the most commonly used therapy for kidney failure. Published in the November 27, 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the study suggests that physicians treating patients in acute kidney failure should reassess the use of diuretics, particularly when there is a limited response in terms of increased urine output.