How you respond to high-fat diet is linked to genes

Maybe people who eat fatty foods without negative health consequences really haven’t sold their souls to the devil. They may just have good genes. The link between dietary fat intake and heart disease is hardwired into our genes, according to research reported today. “This genetic mutation helps explain why some people are able to adapt to a Western high-fat diet, while others are not able to,” says lead author Jose M. Ordovas. The fat risk is greatest for people who have a specific genetic mutation in the hepatic lipase (LIPC) gene that is involved in the way high-density lipoprotein (HDL) ? “good cholesterol” ? is metabolized. The mutation is called ?514 (C/T) LIPC, and occurs in the promoter (or expression) region of the LIPC gene encoding the ?514 T allele.

Findings Reconfirm Toxicity of Pfiesteria

Well, it's not exactly helping...You’d think everyone could agree that something as grimly named as Pfiesteria would be toxic. It sure sounds toxic. But a researcher in North Carolina has been at the center of controversy for the last several years because of her claim that the organism does in fact harm fish and is responsible for periodic massive kills. A team at her own school, in fact, refuted her claims, saying when they repeated the experiments they were unable to observe the dinoflagellate microbe forming some of its previously reported toxic life-stages. The ball’s back in Dr. JoAnn Burkholder’s court today, with a new study that her team says refutes the findings published last summer stating that Pfiesteria is not toxic to fish or humans.

Prototype Developed for Ultrasonic Patch to Deliver Insulin

MiniMed has made its fortune with an insulin pump that diabetics wear around their waist and that automatically delivers controlled doses of the sugar-regulating substance to the wearer’s bloodstream. It’s a terrific product because it eliminates the need for regular syringe-based injections (though a catheter remains stuck in the patient’s belly all day long.) Combined with the company’s glucose monitor, the product works like a sort of artificial pancreas. As cool as the system is, it still involves a needle breaking skin, which can on occasion lead to infections, not to mention being a real pain. Engineers at Penn State say they’re on the road to a needle-free insulin delivery method that uses a small, ultrasonic patch to get the drug into the wearer’s blood.

Hyperbaric treatment on the cheap

Hand me a cheap plastic bag, an oxygen tank and some low-tech sensors and I’ll give you … well … I’ll give you them back. But a team from Sandia National Laboratory and a California company has combined the three into an inexpensive wound-healing device that the U.S. military says it plans to license for active and retired personnel. Think of it as a low-rent — but effective — hyperbaric chamber. But instead of costing $1 million to build and $1,500 per treatment, the whole shebang can be had for about $185.

Geneticists Find Location of Major Gene in ADHD; Also Linked to Autism

Researchers in Los Angeles have localized a region on chromosome 16 that is likely to contain a risk gene for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, the most prevalent childhood-onset psychiatric disorder. The scientists say their finding suggest that the suspected risk gene may contribute as much as 30 percent of the underlying genetic cause of ADHD and may also be involved in a separate childhood onset disorder, autism.

New strategy may protect brain against stroke, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s

Federal researchers say they’ve developed several drug candidates that show promise in protecting the brain against damage from stroke, with the potential to fight chronic neurodegenerative conditions like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease as well.. The drugs, called p53 inhibitors, attack a key protein involved in nerve cell death and represent a new strategy for preserving brain function following sudden injury or chronic disease.

Monkey see: MRI technique finds big differences in human, primate sight

Don't look at me, I'm hideous.Researchers in Ohio say they’ve developed a way to use a decade-old imaging technology to directly compare the brains of monkeys and humans. Specifically, they used MRIs to compare parts of the monkey and human brains — the visual cortex — concerned with processing visual information. “Implicit in the neuroscience community was that the monkey cortex is a good model for the human cortex,” said one of the researchers. “Scientists didn’t have any choice but to make that assumption, as the monkey brain was the only model we had to work with.” But with the MRI they’ve found that there are in fact big differences.

Sandia, Cray, AMD team for Opteron-based supercomputer

Intel-rival Advanced Micro Devices got a nice science win Monday when Sandia National Laboratory and Cray Inc. said they would build a supercomputer capable 40 trillion calculations per second using AMD’s forthcoming Opteron processor. Ten thousand of them, to be precise. Total cost: $90 million. Sandia says it will use the computing heavyweight for “modeling and simulation of complex problems that were only recently thought impractical, if not impossible.”

Cancer Researchers Develop New Anti-Leukemia Strategy

Cancer researchers in San Diego have developed a 3-step process in which human leukemia cells and neighboring immune-system T cells are manipulated together in the laboratory to create a powerful and specific cancer-killing cocktail. “For reasons that are not yet entirely clear, leukemia cells fail to trigger immune responses,” said the study’s senior author, Edward D. Ball, M.D., of the Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center. “We have developed a method in which we induce the leukemia cell to change its behavior and stimulate the immune system. At the same time, we persuade the immune system to wake up and attack only the leukemia cells.” The details of this approach, known as adoptive immunotherapy or cellular therapy, are reported in the October issue of the journal Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.

Study shows weight loss decreases ACE enzyme that controls blood pressure

People who find it hard to lose all the weight they want or that their doctors recommend should take heart, a North Carolina scientist says. New research suggests that losing even modest amounts of weight can pay off in better health. The study showed for the first time that shedding excess pounds decreases activity of a key enzyme known to play a central role in high blood pressure. Less body weight translates into lower blood pressure, the study found, and hence lower risks for cardiovascular disease, stroke, kidney disease and other health problems.

Screening technique may speed hunt for genes

The hunt to find a gene that causes a disease typically costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and requires years of research – and it still may fail to turn up the sought-after culprit, driving the research back to square one. The result is that while the genes involved in a few inherited diseases such as cystic fibrosis have been identified, many have not. Now, two scientists say they may have found a way to make the search more economical and speed it up. In an article to appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences next week, scientists from the University of Florida and Purdue University report merging two established genetic-screening techniques to create one that’s better. The new technique narrows the pool of “candidate” genes in a study from thousands of possibilities to fewer than 100 – perhaps as few as 20.

PC group-think reports first success

For the first time, a distributed computing experiment has produced significant results that have been published in a scientific journal. Writing in the online edition of Nature magazine, Stanford University scientists describe how they — with the help of 30,000 personal computers — successfully simulated part of the complex folding process that a typical protein molecule undergoes to achieve its unique, three-dimensional shape.

A Smile Really Is Contagious

Scientists in Sweden have figured out why it’s so difficult to keep a straight face if others around you are grinning away. It’s your unconscious mind taking control. The researchers at Uppsala University had volunteers look at pictures of expressionless, happy, and angry faces. In return they were told to adopt blank, happy, or angry expressions. When they had to meet a smile with a frown, or a frown with a smile, they had trouble. Twitching in the subjects’ faces — measured with electronic equipment — indicated they simply didn’t have control of their muscles. It’s believed that there’s a shortcut to the part of the brain that recognizes faces and expressions that bypasses the area responsible for conscious processing.