Researchers have discovered abnormalities in the chromosomes of several patients with sporadic, or non-hereditary, ALS, according to a study published in the April 22 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, is a progressive disease of the nervous system also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
The first observational study of whiplash injury to use a control group has shown that the intensity of whiplash pain is low, but its frequency is high, and compared to similar types of pain from ankle injury, it lasts longer and produces more disability. The study appears in the March 11 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Researchers have developed a strategy for making a safer anthrax vaccine: enlisting the help of spinach plants to manufacture a key component. They report their findings today at the American Society for Microbiology’s Biodefense Research Meeting. “Protective antigen (PA) of Bacillus anthracis is one of the three components of the anthrax toxin,” says Alexander Karasev, a lead researcher on the study. “Purified PA is currently used as a vaccine against anthrax. However, the licensed vaccine derived from apathogenic B. anthracis has side effects and a more efficacious and safer vaccine is needed.”
People suffering from major depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are more likely to attempt suicide, and women with both disorders are more likely to have attempted suicide than men with both disorders, according to a new report in the March 2003 American Journal of Psychiatry, the monthly scientific journal of the American Psychiatric Association.
Among teens in juvenile detention, nearly two thirds of boys and nearly three quarters of girls have at least one psychiatric disorder, a federally funded study has found. These rates dwarf the estimated 15 percent of youth in the general population thought to have psychiatric illness, placing detained teens on a par with those at highest risk, such as maltreated and runaway youth.
Biodiversity worldwide may be decreasing, but at smaller scales it is increasing or at least changing in composition, suggesting the need for a dramatic shift in the current focus of ecological research. These changes may undermine the functioning of local ecosystems, according to an article in December’s American Naturalist. The authors studied data collected on oceanic island land birds and plants. Records from islands are useful because they present discrete areas where additions and subtractions of species can be accurately determined. The article, “Species Invasions Exceed extinctions on Islands Worldwide: A Comparative Study of Plants and Birds,” documents the fact that “land birds have experienced massive extinctions on oceanic islands, with many islands losing more than half of their native species,” said Gaines. “On these same islands, however, many exotic bird species have become established, such that the total number of land bird species has remained relatively unchanged.”
An anti-epileptic drug may help treat symptoms of a condition that affects as many as 1 in 10 people in developing countries. In a clinical study the drug helped reduce the incidence of seizures in people whose central nervous systems have become infected with the pork tapeworm taenia solium. The condition is associated with seizures, headache, and other neurological symptoms, but of these, seizures are the most common, occurring in nearly 90 percent of all patients.
A person age 40 or older has a one-in-five chance of developing congestive heart failure, according to a study in today’s rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. The study authors also reported that lifetime risk of developing heart failure doubles for people who have high blood pressure.