A study published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine shows that 10 percent of youth who become hooked on cigarettes are addicted within two days of first smoking a cigarette, and 25 percent are addicted within a month. The study from researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School found that adolescents who smoke even just a few cigarettes per month suffer withdrawal symptoms when deprived of nicotine, a finding that is contrary to long-held beliefs that only people with established smoking habits of at least five cigarettes per day experience such symptoms. The researchers said laboratory experiments confirm that nicotine alters the structure and function of the brain within a day of the very first dose. In humans, nicotine-induced alterations in the brain can trigger addiction with the first cigarette. As many as 6.4 million children who are living today will die prematurely as adults because they began to smoke cigarettes during adolescence.
OBESITY: STRESS MOLECULE OFFERS TARGET TO FIGHT FAT
A molecule the body releases when stressed can unlock receptors in the body's fat cells and stimulate them to grow in size and number, researchers at Australia's Garvan Institute of Medical Research reported along with colleagues in the United States and Slovakia. The researchers said by blocking those fat cell receptors it may be possible to prevent fat growth, or make fat cells die. Though researchers have long known that there is a connection between chronic stress and obesity, this work identified the exact pathway, or chain of molecular events, that links chronic stress with obesity.
HEART ATTACK: PROTEIN HINTS AT WHY "HEALTHY" ARE STRICKEN
Researchers have identified a protein secreted by white blood cells that signals inflammation and releases a bleach-like substance which damages the cardiovascular system. The protein's activity may explain why seemingly healthy people suffer heart attacks. Although the protein myeloperoxidase, or MPO, is intended to kill harmful bacteria, it may instead inflame the body's arteries and cripple protective substances in the blood, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. As a result, long before conventional risk factors set off alarms, elevated MPO levels signal that harmful plaque has been building up.
DIABETES: EARLY INDICATOR OF KIDNEY DISEASE MAY PREDICT RISK
A blood component called cystatin C, used to test for early-stage kidney impairment, also may be a very early marker for those at risk of developing a condition known as pre-diabetes, according to researchers at the University at Buffalo. Pre-diabetes is diagnosed when the amount of glucose in the bloodstream begins to rise and remains above normal, an indication that glucose is not being absorbed properly by cells. An estimated 54 million people Americans have been diagnosed with pre-diabetes, which, if not arrested, often develops into full-blown Type 2 diabetes, a serious chronic disease linked to heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and nerve damage. The researchers reported in the journal Diabetes Care that high levels of cystatin C were associated with a three-fold risk of progression to pre-diabetes in their study population.
SARS: ANTIBODIES FOUND THAT BLOCK THE HUMAN AN ANIMAL VIRUS
An international team of investigators has identified the first human antibodies that can neutralize different strains of the virus responsible for outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. The researchers used a mouse model and in vitro assays to test the neutralizing activity of the antibodies. The research team was led by scientists from the National Cancer Institute and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and included collaborators from the U.S. Army and academic institutions in the United States, Switzerland, and Australia. The research findings, published in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrate potential antibody-based therapeutics against SARS that could be used alone or in combination. The antibodies could be also used for diagnosis and as research reagents in the development of vaccines and inhibitors, the researchers said.
ASTHMA: IDENTIFIED GENE COULD LEAD TO NEW THERAPIES
An international team of scientists have identified a gene that is strongly associated with a risk of developing childhood-onset asthma, according to an article published in the journal Nature. Researchers from the University of Michigan and colleagues from London, France and Germany found genetic markers that dramatically increase a child's risk for asthma. These markers are located on chromosome 17, and children with this marker had higher levels of a newly discovered gene called ORMDL3 in their blood, which occurs in higher amounts in children with asthma. The presence of the disease-associated version of ORMDL3 increases the risk of asthma by 60 percent to 70 percent, the study suggests. The discovery of a so-called "asthma gene" would provide a new set of mechanisms to try for modifying and managing childhood asthma, the researchers said.
GENETICS: SHARED MUTATION IN SEVERAL CANCERS FOUND
Researchers from Eli Lilly & Company and the Phoenix-based Translational Genomics Research Institute said they found a novel recurring mutation of the gene AKT1 in breast, colorectal and ovarian cancers. The altered form of AKT1 appears to cause tumor cell proliferation and may play a role in making cells resistant to certain types of therapies. The findings are reported in the online version of the journal Nature. The PI3-Kinase/AKT pathway is among the most commonly-activated cellular pathways in human cancers, and members of this pathway are among the most frequently targeted for new cancer drug discovery efforts. Although AKT1 is central to pathway activation, its role in cancer has been that of an intermediary between mutated upstream regulatory proteins and downstream survival-signaling proteins. This is the first evidence of direct mutation of AKT1 in human cancer tumors.
SLEEP: THERE'S NO MAKING UP FOR LOST Zs
Researchers at Northwestern University have discovered that when animals are partially sleep-deprived over consecutive days, they no longer attempt to catch up on sleep, despite an accumulating sleep deficit. The study is the first to show that repeated partial sleep loss negatively affects an animal's ability to compensate for lost sleep. The body responds differently to chronic sleep loss than it does to acute sleep loss. The results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shed light on a problem prevalent in industrialized nations with 24/7 societies such as the United States, where Americans get nearly an hour less sleep a night than they did 40 years ago.
ALCOHOLISM: SMOKING INTERFERES WITH THINKING IN RECOVERY
After six to nine months of abstinence from alcohol, recovering alcoholics who were also chronic smokers showed a significantly lower rate of improvement in tests of memory, reasoning, judgment and visual/spatial coordination than non-smoking recovering alcoholics, in a study conducted by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center. Not only did the smokers improve less, but their overall scores were lower than the non-smokers on most neurocognitive measures tested by the researchers. The study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research is significant in light of previous research indicating that 60 to 80 percent of people who seek treatment for alcoholism are chronic smokers.
MIGRAINE: POOR KIDS MORE LIKELY TO SUFFER FROM HEADACHES
Adolescents from low-income families are much more likely to suffer from migraine headaches than teens from wealthier households, according to researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University. The findings, published in the journal Neurology, suggest that factors associated with low socioeconomic status—stress, poor diet and limited access to medical care, for example—increase the prevalence of migraines in young people. The researchers focused on those teens without a strong family predisposition for migraines. They found that household income was strongly associated with migraine prevalence: in families with annual incomes of less than $22,500, the prevalence of migraines in teens was 4.4 percent; by contrast, the migraine prevalence among teens in households earning $90,000 or more was only 2.9 percent.
BREAST CANCER: RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN SEVERITY CONFIRMED
African-American women are diagnosed with more advanced breast cancer than Caucasians, according to a new, single-hospital study from researchers at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The study, which appears in the journal Cancer, confirmed that African-Americans are more likely to present with later-stage and higher-grade tumors compared to Caucasians. In addition, tumors from African-Americans contain more molecular characteristics responsible for poor prognosis. While Caucasians have the highest incidence of breast cancer, mortality is among the lowest. African-Americans, conversely, have one of the lowest incidence rates, but the highest mortality rate among women with breast cancer. It is unclear whether healthcare access, tumor genetics or other factors are responsible for these differences, the researchers said.
PROBIOTICS: BENEFICIAL BACTERIA CUTS DIARRHEA FROM ANTIBIOTICS
Drinks containing probiotic bacteria can help reduce diarrhea among older people, which may reduce length of stay in hospital and save money, according to researchers at Imperial College in London. In a study published online on bmj.com, the researchers reported that between 5 percent and 25 percent of patients treated with antibiotics experience diarrhea as a complication. The study found only 12 percent of the people in a group of patients given probiotic drinks developed antibiotic-associated diarrhea, compared to 34 percent for second group that did not. None of the probiotic-drinking group of patients developed C.difficile-associated diarrhea, a particularly severe form, compared to 17 percent of the people in the other group. In addition to health benefits, the researchers said providing $120 worth of probiotic drinks could save an average of $8,000 per patient in reduced length stay and use of drugs by C. difficile patients.
INSOMNIA: SLEEP DIFFICULTIES RAISE RISK OF ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION
Chronic insomnia can increase one's chances for developing anxiety disorders and depression, according to a study published in the journal SLEEP. The study, conducted by researchers at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway, found chronic insomnia is an indicator of both anxiety disorder and depression. The researchers said their results imply that individuals reporting chronic insomnia, in addition to receiving adequate treatment for their sleep disturbance, should be carefully examined for the presence of anxiety disorder as well as depression. Focusing on chronic insomnia as a symptom of both anxiety and depression may facilitate the early detection of a mental disorder, as well as the detection of co-morbidity.
MALARIA: BED NETS COULD BE AN EFFECTIVE WAY TO COMBAT KILLER
Protecting older children and adults with insecticide-treated bed nets may be an effective way to combat malaria, a study has shown. The research, published in the journal PLoS Medicine, suggests that protecting half of all older children and adults would also protect the wider community from malaria, which kills over one million people each year. Researchers at the Ifakara Health Research and Development Centre in Tanzania, and Durham University, have shown that if use of the nets can be achieved by 35 percent to 65 percent of older children and adults, this would substantially enhance the protection of the more vulnerable groups, too.
DRUG DEVELOPMENT: RESEARCHERS DISCERN ENZYME FUNCTION FROM STRUCTURE
A team of researchers from the University of California at San Francisco described the first success in "decrypting" an enzyme's function from its structure. If their new strategy works with other enzymes, it could become a potent tool to determine how key enzymes work in the body. Because enzyme action is crucial to disease, the technique opens an efficient route to drug discovery, the researchers said. In the last 40 years, scientists have perfected ways to determine the knot-like structure of enzymes, but they've been stumped trying to translate the structure into an understanding what the enzyme actually does in the body. This puzzle has hurt drug discovery, since many of the most successful drugs work by blocking enzyme action. The researchers described their work in an article in the journal Nature.
GLOBAL WARMING: CLIMATE CHANGES WILL RAISE DEATH RATES
Global warming will cause more deaths in summer because of higher temperatures, but these will not be offset by fewer deaths in milder winters according to researchers at Harvard University. In a study published in the online version of Occupational and Environment Medicine, the researchers found that during two-day cold snaps there was a 1.59 percent increase in deaths because of the extreme temperatures. However, during similar periods of extremely hot weather, death rates went up by 5.74 percent. Deaths from all causes are known to increase when temperatures go up, and heart attacks and cardiac arrests are more likely when it is very cold. The researchers said making air conditioning universally available may reduce heat-related mortality but would, on the other hand, have a perverse effect by enhancing global warming through carbon dioxide emissions from electricity consumption.
FLU: NOVARTIS TO INCREASE U.S. SUPPLIES OF ITS VACCINE 30 PERCENT
Novartis Vaccines said it plans to produce about 40 million doses of its Fluvirin vaccine for distribution in the United States during the upcoming 2007-2008 influenza season—a 30 percent increase in supply compared to the previous influenza season. Based on accelerated production plans, approximately half of these doses are planned for delivery by the end of September, with all doses expected to be delivered by the end of October. The exact timing of deliveries will depend on the release of doses by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. As in the past, TK-based Novartis will ensure a continuous supply of vaccines for the upcoming influenza season. In an average year in the United States, influenza causes more than 200,000 hospitalizations and kills approximately 36,000 people, primarily in people over age 65.
CANCER: NIH FUNDS TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT FOR GENOME ATLAS
As part of The Cancer Genome Atlas pilot project, the National Institutes of Health awarded eight, two-year grants totaling $3.4 million to support the development of innovative technologies for exploring the genomic underpinnings of cancer. The National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute, both part of NIH, announced the pilot project in December 2005 to test the feasibility of a large-scale, systematic approach to identifying the changes that occur in the genomes of cancer cells. The goal is to generate genomic information that the research community can use to develop new and improved strategies for detecting, treating and, ultimately, preventing cancer.
FDA: CONSUMERS CONTINUE TO BUY DRUGS ONLINE DEPSITE RISKS
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it continues to warn the American public about the dangers of buying medications over the Internet. New data collected by the agency found that consumers who are trying to save money on prescription drugs don't need to take chances by buying prescription drugs from foreign Internet sites, because low-cost generic versions are available in the United States. The FDA said it may be an indication that some consumers are buying foreign drugs online to avoid getting a prescription from their doctor or healthcare professional, since many websites do not require a prescription.
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