Health

No cases of HIV transmission through unprotected receptive oral sex were found by researchers at UCSF’s Center for AIDS Prevention Studies in a new study. The study looked at men who have sex with men and who exclusively practice oral sex as the receptive partner. “HIV infection through receptive oral sex is a very rare event?statistically our study showed a probability of zero?and is rarer than HIV infection through receptive anal intercourse using a condom,” said the study’s lead author Kimberly Page Shafer, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at UCSF’s CAPS. The findings are being published in the November 22, 2002 issue of AIDS.

Scientists have discovered that infants possessing a cell protein called Rhesus (Rh) factor that their mothers lack are twice as likely to develop schizophrenia in young adulthood. Reported in the December issue of the peer-reviewed American Journal of Human Genetics, the study suggests that the gene that codes for Rh factor is to blame for the higher risk. “Previous studies reported a link between mothers and infants who are Rh-incompatible and a higher rate of schizophrenia in the children later in life,” said Dr. Christina Palmer, a research scientist at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. “Our research is the first to take a genetic approach to examining this increased risk.”

Women who engage in vigorous leisure activity during their first and second trimesters of pregnancy may experience a decreased risk of preterm birth, a new study suggests. Vigorous leisure activity includes exercise programs such as swimming laps, jogging at a moderate to fast pace, aerobics or aerobic dance, other fast dancing and moderate to fast bicycling. Preterm birth is defined as delivery before completion of 37 weeks gestation.

Scientists have discovered superconductivity in a most unlikely place: the highly radioactive element used to make nuclear weapons. In an article set to appear Thursday in the journal Nature, a group of researchers, including a University of Florida physicist, report discovering a plutonium-based electrical superconductor. The finding is significant because plutonium, the active ingredient in atomic bombs, has physical properties that should prevent it from behaving as a superconductor – suggesting current theories about this phenomenon may not apply to this element.

Previously secret documents show that tobacco companies provided money, cultivated social and political ties, and aggressively offered free cigarettes to African American leadership groups ?even as the evidence grew that African Americans bear a disproportionate share of the tobacco-related disease burden, researchers at the University of California say.

In a sub-analysis of data from an earlier trial comparing the ability of three agents used to restore blood flow to patients soon after heart attacks, researchers have found that drugs used to prevent blood coagulation appear to have different effects in heart patients with diabetes. These findings, coupled with an assessment of ease of administration and cost compared to other drugs, has lead researchers to recommend the drug enoxaparin, which is a low-molecular weight heparin, for acute heart attack patients with diabetes.

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.

A study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health has found that postmenopausal women with heart disease who took hormone therapy and high dose antioxidant vitamins ? either alone or in combination with hormones ? did not have fewer heart attacks, deaths, or progression of coronary disease. In fact, both treatments showed a potential for harm. Although the actual numbers of deaths in the study were small, participants taking both active hormones and vitamins had the highest death rate while participants on placebo versions of both treatments had the lowest death rate.

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.

Researchers have shown that an age-related loss of specific stem cells that continually repair damage to blood vessels is critical to determining the onset and progression of atherosclerosis. Stem cells are immature cells that have the potential to mature into a variety of different cells. This novel view of the disease, based on experiments in mice, constitutes a potential new avenue in the treatment of one of the leading causes of death and illness in the U.S., the researchers said.

The American Heart Association has issued a statement on a recent study announcing positive results from an Atkins-like, low-carbohydrate diet. “Media reports about a small study funded by the Robert C. Atkins Foundation may have created the erroneous impression that the American Heart Association has revised its dietary guidelines. This is not the case. This study was released as one of over 3,600 abstracts presented at the American Heart Association’s annual Scientific Sessions, a forum for the presentation of research pertaining to heart disease and stroke for scientists and physicians. These scientific abstracts do not represent official positions or statements of the American Heart Association….

The rate of life-threatening heart rhythms more than doubled among New York heart patients the month after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, researchers have reported. The study evaluated patients with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). An ICD is an electrical generator the size of a pocket watch that is inserted into the heart to monitor heart rhythm. It detects life-threatening abnormal rhythms, called arrhythmias, and delivers an electrical shock to restore normal rhythm.

The National Human Genome Research Institute said today it has made several key personnel changes, including the appointment of a new scientific director to run its intramural research program, a new director for the extramural program that oversaw the Human Genome Project and new advisors in the Office of the Director.