Approximately 500,000 Americans require dialysis to treat kidney disease; of that population nearly half of the deaths that occur are caused by cardiovascular disease. Dialysis patients are at elevated risk for sudden cardiac death, but physicians …
The Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute of Northwestern Memorial Hospital recently implanted a patient with two of the smallest experimental ventricular assist devices (VADs) currently available for study in humans. VADs are designed to assist either the…
CHICAGO — We all know that living a stressful lifestyle can take its toll, making us age faster and making us more susceptible to the cold going around the office.
The same appears to be true of neurons in the brain. According to a new Northwest…
CHICAGO — Northwestern Medicine researchers at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University have found that a new, nontoxic drug made from a chemical in soy could prevent the movement of cancer cells from the prostate…
St. Louis, MO, October 26, 2010 — In an insightful Commentary in the November issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Linda Van Horn, PhD, RD, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal, Chair of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, a…
CHICAGO — For nearly 40 years a class of drugs known as beta blockers have been proven to increase patients’ survival prospects following a heart attack by decreasing the cardiac workload and oxygen demand on the heart. In a breakthrough study rel…
CHICAGO — The millions of middle-aged and older adults who suffer from insomnia have a new drug-free prescription for a more restful night’s sleep. Regular aerobic exercise improves the quality of sleep, mood and vitality, according to a small but…
CHICAGO — While most frequently associated with women’s health, age-related hormone changes, often dubbed menopause, can occur in men as well, causing symptoms of fatigue, mood swings, decreased desire for sex, hair loss, lack of concentration and…
Scientists from Northwestern University and Argonne National Laboratory have created a hybrid “nanodevice” composed of a “scaffolding” of titanium oxide nanocrystals attached with snippets of DNA that may one day be used to target defective genes that play a role in cancer, neurological disease and other conditions.
The titanium oxide nanocrystals, which are less than a few billionths of a meter in diameter and are the same material used in artificial hips and knees, may provide the ideal means of overcoming current limitations of gene therapy, such as adverse reactions to genetically modified viruses used as vehicles to deliver genes into cells.
Blocking or eliminating a specific potassium channel in a small group of brain cells may improve or prevent the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a debilitating and progressive neurodegenerative disease that afflicts over 1 million people in the United States. In Parkinson’s disease, neurons that release dopamine die. The loss of dopamine causes an array of debilitating symptoms that include resting tremor, muscle rigidity and slowed movement. Although the cause of the disease remains uncertain, James Surmeier and colleagues at Northwestern University have discovered a way of potentially lessening the symptoms and progression of the disease. The investigators describe their findings in the March issue of Nature Neuroscience.<
Blocking or eliminating a specific potassium channel in a small group of brain cells may improve or prevent the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a debilitating and progressive neurodegenerative disease that afflicts over 1 million people in the United States. In Parkinson’s disease, neurons that release dopamine die. The loss of dopamine causes an array of debilitating symptoms that include resting tremor, muscle rigidity and slowed movement.
Employing high-tech, digital X-ray microtomography (microCT), Northwestern University scientists have discovered the way in which newts form new bone and cartilage during limb regeneration. Newts are a type of salamander, the only vertebrates capable of rebuilding lost structures such as limbs throughout their lifetimes. Reporting in the January issue of Developmental Dynamics, Northwestern researchers Hans-Georg Simon and Stuart Stock showed that bone formation in a regenerated forelimb combines elements of embryonic development and of adult wound healing.