Scientists have discovered a causal link between the gene for a small protein involved in the formation of blood vessels and the development of some forms of Amyotrophoic Lateral Sclerosis, or ALS. In an article published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics, researchers at the University of Bath said the findings could provide a basis for developing methods for halting the progression of some forms of the disease. The work builds on the discovery in 2006 by a research group from Ireland that some patients have a mutated form of the gene which produces angiogenin—a protein involved in blood vessel formation. The researchers showed that as well as playing a key role in the formation of blood vessels, angiogenin is also involved in maintaining motor neurons. The researchers have also discovered that the mutant versions of the molecule are toxic to motor neurons and affect their ability to grow and extend.

CANCER: POLL FINDS WOMEN CAN DO MORE FOR PREVENTION

When it comes to preventing cancer, women are not doing as much as they can, according to a poll from the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and Prevention. Perhaps most surprising, women are more afraid of getting Alzheimer's disease than cancer, even though cancer causes nearly ten times more deaths per year. Less than one-third of respondents said they are putting wholly into practice what science has shown effective toward preventing cancer, including following daily recommended guidelines for healthy eating and exercise. More alarming, about 42 percent of women who responded said they felt little or no sense of control over cancer, and many aren't doing much to thwart the disease, when in fact, 63 percent of cancers are caused by changeable behaviors: smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity, and obesity. Cancer will prove fatal for an estimated 270,000 women in 2007, with the greatest number of cancer deaths attributed to lung cancer. Approximately 678,000 new cases of cancer in women will be diagnosed in the United States this year, including over 178,000 new cases of breast cancer.

 

Swedish researchers have discovered that the antiviral drug Tamiflu, which is used to prevent and mitigate influenza infections, is not removed or degraded during normal sewage treatment. Consequently, in countries where Tamiflu is used at a high frequency, there is a risk that its concentration in natural waters can reach levels where influenza viruses in nature will develop resistance to it. Widespread resistance of viruses in nature to Tamiflu increases the risk that influenza viruses infecting humans will become resistant to one of the few medicines currently available for treating influenza. The researchers said the biggest threat is that resistance will become common among low-pathogenic influenza viruses carried by wild ducks. These viruses could then recombine with viruses that make humans sick to create new viruses that are resistant to the antiviral drugs currently available.

 

Even relatively low doses of resveratrol—a chemical found in the skins of red grapes and in red wine—can improve the sensitivity of mice to the hormone insulin, according to a report in the journal Cell Metabolism. As insulin resistance is often characterized as the most critical factor contributing to the development of Type 2 diabetes, the findings provide a potential new therapeutic approach for preventing or treating both conditions, the researchers said. The research group also confirmed that increased levels of an enzyme called SIRT1, which earlier studies had linked to longevity, DNA repair, and insulin secretion, improve insulin sensitivity in mice. Resveratrol is known to activate the SIRT1 enzyme.

 

A new, easily ingested form of a compound that has already shown it can attack the roots of leukemia in laboratory studies is moving into human clinical trials, according to a new article by University of Rochester investigators in the journal, Blood. The Rochester team has been leading the investigation of this therapy on the blood cancer for nearly five years. Clinical trials are expected to begin in England by the end of 2007. Investigators expect to initially enroll about a dozen adult volunteers who’ve been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or other types of blood or lymph cancers. Under development is dimethylamino-parthenolide, a form of parthenolide that is derived from a daisy-like plant known as feverfew or bachelor’s button. Dimethylamino-parthenolide is a water-soluble agent that scientists believe will selectively target leukemia at the stem-cell level, where the malignancy is born.

 

In a series of mouse experiments, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have pinpointed a specific immune deficiency as the likely fundamental cause of ulcerative colitis, a chronic, sometimes severe, inflammatory disease of the colon or large intestine that afflicts half a million Americans. The researchers also found that once the disease was established in mice, it could be passed from mother to offspring and even between adult animals, with potential implications for public health and prevention.

The researchers have linked ulcerative colitis in mice to a deficiency of a molecular "peacekeeper" in the immune system, allowing harmful bacteria in the large intestine to breach the bowel's protective lining and trigger damaging inflammation. In an online paper in the journal Cell, the researchers explain a series of immunological events by which a shortage of a regulatory protein called T-bet opens the way to a bacterial attack on the intestinal wall. The resulting inflammation, in turn, causes the characteristic colitis marked by open sores, or ulcerations, throughout the colon.

 

Older women who experience at least one full-blown panic attack may have an increased risk of having a heart attack or stroke and an increased risk of death in the next five years, according to a report in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Panic attacks involve the sudden development of fear, anxiety, or extreme discomfort accompanied by four or more additional symptoms, according to background information in the article. They may occur sporadically or as part of an anxiety disorder, such as panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, or phobias. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and colleagues found that after adjusting for other cardiovascular risk factors, having one or more panic attacks was associated with four times the risk of heart attack, three times the risk of having a stroke, and nearly twice the risk of death from any cause. This suggests that panic attacks may be a separate, independent risk factor for cardiovascular events.

 

People treated with the antibiotic minocycline within six to 24 hours after a stroke had significantly fewer disabilities, according to a study published in the journal Neurology. Researchers say minocycline may be an alternative treatment for stroke because current treatments only work during the first few hours after the onset of symptoms, and many people don’t get to the hospital in time to be treated. The study found people treated with minocycline had significantly better outcomes than those treated with placebo. Researchers at Edith Wolfson Medical Center and Tel Aviv University in Israel said the improvement shown by patients taking minocycline is not due to the drug’s basic antibiotic effect, but rather its anti-inflammatory effect and ability to protect brain cells from destruction. Minocycline has already been shown in other studies to have a neuroprotective effect in animal models of multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, and Lou Gehrig’s disease, or ALS.

 

People who don’t finish high school are at a higher risk of developing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease compared to people with more education, regardless of lifestyle choices and characteristics such as income, occupation, physical activity, and smoking, according to a study published the journal Neurology. The study showed that compared with people with a low education level, those with a medium education level had a 40 percent lower risk of developing dementia and those with a high education level had an 80 percent lower risk. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and University of Kuopio, Finland said it may be that highly educated people have a greater cognitive reserve, which is the brain’s ability to maintain function in spite of damage, thus making it easier to postpone the negative effects of dementia.

 

HIV-positive employees face unemployment and workplace discrimination, according to a study published in Occupational and Environmental Medicine. Women and people who are less well-educated are the most vulnerable, the research shows. The authors base their findings on a nationally representative sample of 478 HIV-positive people in France. All of them had been diagnosed while in employment and in the era of anti-retroviral treatments, which slow progression to AIDS. Women with AIDS or severe immune deficiency were more than four times as likely to lose their job as those with less severe illness, but this was not true of men. Those with lower level education, who said they had been discriminated against at work, were more than five times as likely to find themselves out of a job as those who had not experienced discrimination. But this was not the case for employees who were better educated.

 

The importance of role disability, that is, inability to work or carry out usual activities, has become increasingly recognized as a major source of indirect costs of illness because of its high economic impact on ill workers, their employers, and society. New findings from researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health and Harvard Medical School in the Archives of General Psychiatry show that more than half of U.S. adults have a mental or physical condition that influences their functioning. In addition, more than 1.3 billion days of work or ability to conduct normal daily activities are lost each year in the U.S. due to mental disorders. Major depression is the mental disorder associated with the largest number of days out. The study also found that the number of days out due to mental disorders is roughly half as large as the number of days associated with all chronic physical conditions combined. The researchers suggest that, in light of these results, health care resource allocation decisions may need to be rethought.

 

A popular prostate cancer treatment called androgen deprivation therapy may encourage prostate cancer cells to produce a protein that makes them more likely to spread throughout the body, a new study by Johns Hopkins researchers suggests. Although the finding could eventually lead to changes in this standard treatment for a sometimes deadly disease, the Johns Hopkins researchers caution that their discovery is far too preliminary for prostate cancer patients or physicians to stop using it. The therapy is effective at slowing tumor growth, they emphasized. The researchers identified the unsuspected potential problem with treatments that suppress testosterone after discovering that the gene that codes for the protein, called nestin, was active in lab-grown human prostate cancer cells. The researchers subsequently found that the nestin gene was active in cancer cells isolated from patients who had died of prostate cancer.

 

President Bush yesterday vetoed a $35-billion expansion of a children's health insurance program, a move even Republican allies questioned, The Washington Post reported. Bush advisers said the White House wants to negotiate a ten-year expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, but Democratic leaders in the House are working to override the veto. They have delayed a vote until Oct. 18 in the hopes of building enough support to do so. The vetoed measure would expand the $5 billion-a-year program by an average of $7 billion a year over the next five years. Proponents estimate the funding could increase enrollment to 10 million from 6.6 million. Bush has criticized the bill as an effort to federalize healthcare.

 

Representatives Anna Eshoo, D-California., and Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, introduced legislation that would overturn a decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to limit the circumstances under which Medicare would pay for costly anemia drugs for cancer patients, The Hill reported. The legislation said the new policy covering erythropoiesis-stimulating agents, or EPO, put patients at risk. EPO makers Amgen and Johnson & Johnson have pushed for CMS to reverse its policy, as has The American Society for Clinical Oncology, the American Society of Hematology, and the cancer treatment center company US Oncology. In 2005, Medicare spent $2 billion on EPO drugs to treat anemia in patients with end-stage renal disease undergoing kidney dialysis, and almost $1 billion to treat cancer patients suffering from anemia resulting from chemotherapy. It represents the single largest expense for Medicare.