Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Fat cells located beneath a person’s skin could help protect them from bacterial infections, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Science.

In the study, Dr. Richard Gallo, a professor and chief of dermatology at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, and his colleagues report that they had discovered a previously unknown function of these dermal fat cells, also known as adipocytes: they produce antimicrobial peptides that help combat bacteria and other types of pathogens.

“It was thought that once the skin barrier was broken, it was entirely the responsibility of circulating (white) blood cells like neutrophils and macrophages to protect us from getting sepsis,” explained Gallo. “But it takes time to recruit these cells (to the wound site).”

“We now show that the fat stem cells are responsible for protecting us. That was totally unexpected,” he added. “It was not known that adipocytes could produce antimicrobials, let alone that they make almost as much as a neutrophil.”

A person’s body launches a complex, multi-tiered defense against microbial infection, the authors said. Several different types of cells are involved, and the process ends with the arrival of specialized cells known as neutrophils and monocytes that target and destroy pathogens.

Before any of that can happen, a more immediate response is required – one that can counter the ability of pathogens to rapidly increase their numbers, however. That task is typically performed by epithelial cells, mast cells and leukocytes residing in the area of infection.

Previous research conducted in Gallo’s lab detected Staphylococcus aureus, a common type of bacteria and a major source of skin infection on humans, in the fat layer of the skin. Antibiotic-resistant forms of this bacterial have become a significant health issue throughout the world, so the study authors looked to see what role adipocytes played in preventing skin infections.

First author Dr. Ling Zhang exposed mice to S. aureus, and just a few hours later, she detected a significant increase in both the number and size of fat cells present at the infection sites. The cells were also found to be producing high levels of cathelicidin antimicrobial peptide (CAMP), a substance used by a creature’s immune system to directly kill harmful pathogens.

Gallo called antimicrobial peptides such as CAMP “our natural first line defense against infection. They are… used by all living organisms to protect themselves.” He noted that too little CAMP caused people to “experience frequent infections,” but too much of the substance “Can drive autoimmune and other inflammatory diseases like lupus, psoriasis and rosacea.”

He and his colleagues confirmed their findings by analyzing S. aureus infections in rodents that were either unable to effectively produce adipocytes, or whose fat cells did not have express an adequate amount of antimicrobial peptides. In every case, they said, the mice suffered more frequent and severe skin infections.

Their research also revealed that human adipocytes also produce cathelicidin, suggesting that their immune response is similar to that of the mice, and that obese people were found to have more CAMP in their blood than their normal weight counterparts. Gallo said that the potential clinical applications of these findings will require additional research.

“We now know this part of the immune response puzzle. It opens fantastic new options for study,” he said. “Current drugs designed for use in diabetics might be beneficial to other people who need to boost this aspect of immunity. Conversely, these findings may help researchers understand disease associations with obesity and develop new strategies to optimize care.”

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Two-thirds of all adult cancer cases are primarily the result of “bad luck,” according to the authors of a new study appearing in Friday’s edition of the journal Science.

Dr. Bert Vogelstein, the Clayton Professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and Dr. Cristian Tomasetti, an assistant professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health, developed a statistical model that measured the proportion of cancer incidence across many different tissue types.

They found that two-thirds of adult cancer incidence across tissues occur when the random mutations that take place during stem cell division drive cancer through, while the remaining one-third of cases are the result of environmental factors and inherited genes.

“All cancers are caused by a combination of bad luck, the environment and heredity, and we’ve created a model that may help quantify how much of these three factors contribute to cancer development,” explained Dr. Vogelstein, who is also co-director of the Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

“Cancer-free longevity in people exposed to cancer-causing agents, such as tobacco, is often attributed to their ‘good genes,’ but the truth is that most of them simply had good luck,” he said, adding that that poor lifestyle choices can also contribute to this so-called bad luck factor.

The authors said that the implications of their model could alter the public perception about cancer risk factors, as well as impact the funding of research related to the disease.

If most cancer cases can be explained by random DNA mutations that occur as stem cells divide, explained Dr. Tomasetti, it means that lifestyle changes will be a tremendous help when it comes to preventing some forms of the disease, but will be less effective against other types.

As a result, the medical community should “should focus more resources on finding ways to detect such cancers at early, curable stages,” he added. He and Vogelstein said that they reached their conclusion by searching scientific literature for data on the cumulative number of total stem cell divisions among 31 tissue types that take place during a person’s lifetime.

Stem cells renew themselves, repopulating cells that die off in specific organs, the researchers said. Cancer arises when tissue-specific stem cells experience mutations in which one chemical letter in DNA is erroneously swapped for another during the replication process.

As more of these mutations accumulate, the risk that cells will grow unchecked (a hallmark of cancer) increases. However, the actual amount that these random mistakes contribute to cancer incidence in comparison to hereditary or environmental factors was previous unknown.

To figure out what role these mutations play, the researchers charted the number of stem cell division in 31 tissues and compared those rates to the lifetime risks of cancer in the same tissues in American adults. They determined that there was a 0.804 correlation between the number of the total number of stem cell divisions and cancer risk, meaning they are linked.

“Our study shows, in general, that a change in the number of stem cell divisions in a tissue type is highly correlated with a change in the incidence of cancer in that same tissue,” Vogelstein said. For instance, colon tissue undergoes four times more stem cell divisions than small intestine tissue in humans, and as a result, colon cancer is far more prevalent than small intestinal cancer.

While Tomasetti said that a person “could argue that the colon is exposed to more environmental factors than the small intestine, which increases the potential rate of acquired mutations,” he and his colleague found that the opposite was actually true in mice.

They had a lower number of stem cell divisions in their colons than in their small intestines, and cancer incidence is lower in the colon than it is in the small intestine. This discovery, the authors said, supports the role of the total number of stem cell divisions in cancer development.

They went on to statistically calculate which cancer types had an incidence predicted by the number of stem cell divisions and which had higher incidence, and found that there were 22 types that could be primarily explained by random DNA mutations during cell divisions, while the other nine were believed to be due to a combination of all three factors.

“We found that the types of cancer that had higher risk than predicted by the number of stem cell divisions were precisely the ones you’d expect, including lung cancer, which is linked to smoking; skin cancer, linked to sun exposure; and forms of cancers associated with hereditary syndromes,” Vogelstein said.

“This study shows that you can add to your risk of getting cancers by smoking or other poor lifestyle factors,” he added. “However, many forms of cancer are due largely to the bad luck of acquiring a mutation in a cancer driver gene regardless of lifestyle and heredity factors. The best way to eradicate these cancers will be through early detection, when they are still curable by surgery.”

The authors also noted that some types of cancers, including breast and prostate cancer, were not included in the report because they were unable to find reliable stem cell division rates for those diseases in scientific literature. They hope that other researchers will help refine their statistical model by locating more precise stem cell division rates.

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

As people all over the world bid farewell to 2014 and ring in the new year, many of them have vowed to improve their lives in the months ahead – and most will fail to do so.

According to the US government, many of the most popular New Year’s resolutions are health-related. They include losing weight, getting fit, eating healthier foods, reducing stress, kicking the smoking habit or drinking less alcohol. Taking trips, getting a better education, volunteering more frequently, managing debt, consuming less and recycling more are also high on the list.

Unfortunately, very few people will be able to successfully keep their New Year’s resolutions. In fact, according to a 2013 article by Forbes, research indicates that as many as 92 percent of those striving to make such positive changes will actually achieve their intended goals.

So what is the key to success? Meg Baker, the director of employee wellness at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, said that for someone to achieve self-improvement and to be successful in their health-related resolution, he or she must be prepared to make the necessary changes.

“Readiness to change is a big factor,” she explained. “Based on the stages of change model: precontemplation (unwilling to make a change), contemplation (considering lifestyle change) and action, you have to want to change your lifestyle to successfully improve your health.”

In order to help prepare for a major lifestyle change, Baker suggests starting out by developing small, realistic, short-term goals that will fit into his or her schedule. The individual should consider the reasons for and benefits of the change, and should talk things over with a friend, family member or co-worker for support and accountability purposes.

Starting small increases the odds of success, she said. Finding a form of exercise that is enjoyable, making slight nutritional changes like cooking dinner at home or packing a healthy lunch, and getting technological reinforcement from tracking systems and apps will help. Signing up for workplace wellness programs could also help those who spend a lot of time on the job.

“Many companies want to see their employees thrive, so they will offer incentives to help them improve their health, like the My Health Rewards program we are starting at UAB. Talk to your supervisor or human resources representative to find out if a program is available to you,” Baker said.

The best way to keep old habits from returning is to think about why you wanted to change things in the first place, she added. Baker also advises making changes to the new plan if things become too dull or difficult.

“Whether it is to boost your energy level, improve mood, combat health conditions and disease, or to be there for your kids’ future, there’s always a reason that a resolution was made,” she explained. “So when the going gets tough, remind yourself of why you’re making a lifestyle change, and this will keep you motivated.”

“If the new behavior has lost its luster, switch things up,” Baker added. “Variety is the key to life and can keep you from getting burned out. Spice things up by changing your normal exercise routine, finding new healthy recipes online or joining a new class.”

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A doctor who lost several family members to sepsis, a complication of infection that is one of the leading causes of death around the world, is fighting back by investigating the usefulness of natural, oceanic materials in combatting the condition.

Dr Felix Ikuomola, a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Hawaii (UH) Cancer Center, has received funding for research into whether the contents of Hawaii’s oceans can be used to improve treatment of the deadly complication. Currently the only treatment for sepsis is supportive in nature, such as giving fluids and antibiotics.

It is believed that some natural marine products which have evolved to withstand the extreme conditions of the ocean may also hold the key to boosting the integrity and functioning of human cells, the concern at the core of sepsis and many other serious health problems.

“We are very hopeful that these Hawaiian marine natural products will work in sepsis because the marine natural products are able to survive the harsh and salty conditions of the ocean and able to control and regulate their internal conditions,” said Dr Ikuomola.

The materials in question have the ability to regulate their cells so as not to suffer from a hyper-permeability condition which could result in unwanted entities entering them. Dr Ikuomola adds that: “…this property that maintains the cell integrity of the natural products is encouraging.”

The University of Hawaii Cancer Center tells us that more than one million people are diagnosed with sepsis each year in the United States, 28 percent to 50 percent of whom die. It is the tenth leading cause of death among elderly people, and it kills 30 percent of cancer patients.

Dr Ikuomola is working closely with his mentor, UH Cancer Center Assistant Professor Michelle Matter, who has an NIH R01 funding (the “gold standard” of research grants according to UH). “My work in Dr Matter’s lab involves screening small molecules, Fungi and Hawaiian marine natural products for potential inhibitory function in endothelial cell permeability,” Ikuomola explains.

An endothelial cell is a thin layer of structural and functional cells that cover the innermost part of blood and lymphatic vessels, and they are responsible for many essential tissue responses. A breach in the barrier allows cancer to spread, as well as causing sepsis and other life-threatening conditions. Sepsis shock itself deprives the organs of blood, triggering widespread organ failure and eventually death.

Originally from Nigeria, Dr Ikuomola remembers the impact that these kinds of conditions have had on his family.

“While in Africa, I felt frustrated to see my patients – especially the surgical patients with sepsis -without any treatment options. If there had been a pro-endothelial cell barrier enhancing therapeutics, my patient’s lives could have been prolonged,” he explained.

The molecular endothelial permeability mechanism in question has also been implicated in Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension, the two major leading causes of disease and death in Africans, African-Americans, and Afro-Caribbeans.

“For me, to be involved in vascular biology research is very personal, because when I was seven years old, I lost my beloved father to Hypertension-induced hemorrhagic stroke and cousins to diabetic coma,” Ikuomola concluded. “My patients and family have been the driving force for me to be involved in sepsis research.”

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Eric Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Riddled with stigma, tinged with shame, the dreaded hangover is a lonely and ugly place for the human soul. And the sufferer’s pain is compounded by the fact that he or she will get zero sympathy from the righteously sober and unafflicted. A hangover is a self-induced illness. But it still hurts. Your head feels like someone is trying to open it up with a hot ice-pick. A crazed “wall of death” motorcycle nut is driving round the inside of your cranium. Your mouth tastes like a discarded diaper. Waves of nausea overwhelm you. Your bowels are in spasm. It’s a mess.

Alcohol, if it had feelings, would probably show a distinct sense of irony and wickedness as its worst hangover effects are experienced when the booze has “left the building”. Hangover symptoms are usually at their cruellest when blood alcohol levels are near zero. HCOOH has gone but left behind a cruel calling card and the impact can go on for as long as 24 hours.

As New Year’s Heave approaches, redOrbit looks at the science behind hangovers. It won’t help that morning-after desolation–only abstinence can do that. But it may at least give you something else to think about.

First, the bad news and a warning – hangover science is poor and controversial but we will see what we can unravel.

The scientific name for a hangover is “veisalgia”. The name comes from the Norwegian word kveis, meaning “uneasiness after debauchery” and the Greek root algia, meaning “pain or grief.”

So, now you can tell those around you that you have a condition called veisalgia and need help. Good luck with that.

The main symptoms of the serious hangover include the following:

• You feel terrible and you want to die
• Severe headache
• Hypersensitivity to sound and light
• Nausea and Diarrhea
• Shaking/trembling
• Extreme fatigue
• Elevated heart rate and blood pressure
• Dehydration and unquenchable thirst

The more alcohol you drink, the worse these symptoms will be but some factors exacerbate the problem. Drinking on an empty stomach, for instance, is a no-no.

When you knock back those tinctures, libations and designer drinks, your poison of choice – alcohol – enters the bloodstream and one of its first effects is prevent the pituitary gland from creating vasopressin, an antidiuretic hormone. This ends up making your kidneys redirect water straight to the bladder – all those repeated trips to the toilet should give you a clue – the dehydration process is kicking in as you pass too much sodium, glycogen, magnesium and potassium which are all essential for good body function.

It gets worse. Next morning, your body’s desperately thirsty organs divert water from your brain – they don’t care that this will shrink the brain and give you the mother of all headaches. They just want to survive.

Alcohol also irritates and attacks the delicate cells in the lining of the stomach and creates excess acid leading to the classic vomiting reaction and the painful hangover stomach symptoms and loose bowels.

Alcohol itself is not your only enemy here. Booze contains “congeners”, chemical by-products and impurities that hit you like little bricks. These vary from drink to drink but many believe that there effect is worse in the “darker” drinks like red wine, dark rum, brandy, cognac, and whiskey. White wines and clear spirits like vodka and gin are thought to have less damaging congeners. Some chemicals in alcoholic drinks, such as methanol, are metabolized to become nasty toxic substances like formaldehyde and formic acid.

Your own body plays a big part in its own downfall. Your overloaded liver uses an enzyme – dehydrogenase – to attack the booze. This produces acetaldehyde which is actually more dangerous and poisonous than alcohol itself and helps produce those big headaches and nausea. Other oxidation processes are triggered too, including some which convert nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) to its reduced form NADH. The resulting imbalance of the NAD+/NADH “redox” system  impair normal bodily functions and cause triiglyceride production, increased amino acid catabolism, inhibition of the citric acid cycle, lactic acidosis, ketoacidosis, hyperuricemia, disturbance in cortisol and androgen metabolism and increased fibrogenesis.

In the worst cases, alcohol also induces an enzyme called CYP2E1, which metabolizes ethanol and other substances into some serious toxins. This process is even worse in binge drinking when the enzyme can cause a condition known as oxidative stress which can lead to cell death.

Apart from acetaldehyde accumulation, excess alcohol leads to changes in the immune system and glucose metabolism, metabolic acidosis, disturbed prostaglandin synthesis, increased cardiac output, hormonal alterations of the cytokine pathways, decrease of the availability of glucose vasodilation, sleep deprivation and malnutrition.

Are you sure you still want that big night out on New Year’s Heave?

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This year’s Ebola virus outbreak may have originated from contact between humans and infected bats, according to new research published in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine on Tuesday.

In the study, researchers from the Robert Koch-Institute in Berlin, Germany and their colleagues identify insectivorous free-tailed bats as a plausible reservoir of the infection, thus expanding the range of possible Ebola virus sources to include these flying mammals. They also noted that their findings indicate that larger forms of wildlife were not the original source of the infection

As the study authors explained in a statement, Ebola virus disease epidemics are of zoonotic origin, meaning that they are transmitted to humans through contact with their large animals or bats. While monitoring populations of large mammals around the index village of Meliandou in southeastern Guinea, they reportedly found no evidence for a concurrent outbreak.

Those observations, combined with the fact that direct contact with the bats is common in the affected region, indicate that they are likely the original source of the infection. However, while fruit bats are commonly suspected Ebola virus reservoirs, they would have transmitted the disease through food, but that would have affected adults prior to or along with the two-year-old boy who is the index patient. That was found not to be the case in this instance.

A large colony of free-tailed insectivorous bats living in a hollow tree near the home of that child presented another opportunity for infection, the researchers said. Villagers said that youngsters often played in and around the tree, and lead investigator Fabian H. Leendertz and his colleagues report that this resulted in a massive exposure to these bats.

Leendertz and his fellow researchers conducted a four-week field mission to Guinea in April of this year to examine human exposures to bats, as well as to survey local wildlife and to capture and analyze bats living in Meliandou and in neighboring forest areas. The index village itself is not located in the woods, but is a more modern, heavily-modified type of setting.

According to the researchers, the virus that spread from Meliandou into other areas of Guinea and Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal has become the largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded. As of December 17, approximately 7,800 people have died as a result of the disease.

Earlier this month, a team of US researchers revealed that it had successfully completed the first step toward the development of a vaccine for the Ebola virus. They reported that a Phase 1 clinical trial conducted in Uganda between 2009 and 2010 produced promising results towards a vaccine not just for Ebola, but also for its sister pathogen, the Marburg virus.

“The RV247 study represents the first Ebola vaccine trial conducted in Africa. Since immune responses to vaccines can differ around the world, these findings are encouraging for the development of an effective Ebola vaccine for Africa,” said study author Dr. Merlin Robb, the director for clinical research at the US Military HIV Research Program (MHRP). “Given separately and concurrently, both vaccines were safe, well-tolerated, and elicited antigen-specific humoral and cellular immune responses.”

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Text message reminders increased the number of children receiving the second dose of influenza vaccine as well as how quickly youngsters were brought in to be vaccinated, researchers from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health report in a new study.
Dr. Melissa Stockwell, an assistant professor of population and family health, and her colleagues also found that including educational information on the importance of the second dose increased the effectiveness compared to messages that only informed families where to go and when.
The randomized controlled trial, the results of which are currently available online in the journal Pediatrics, was conducted during the 2012-2013 flu season at three pediatric clinics in the New York area. Children in 660 families between the ages of six months and eight years, all of who were in need of a second dose of influenza vaccine, participated in the intervention.
According to the university, most of the families involved were Latino and publicly insured, and nearly 72 percent of them believed that their children were at least partially protected from the flu virus after the first dose. All of the families had a cell phone with texting capabilities, and all of them were given a written reminder following the child’s first dose of vaccine.
The families were randomly assigned into three groups: one receiving educational text messages, one receiving conventional text messages, and one receiving only the original written reminder. Children in the educational text message group were significantly more likely to receive a second dose (72.7 percent) than the conventional text (66.7 percent) and no-text (57.1 percent) groups.
“Text message programs like these allow for healthcare providers to care for their patients even when they are not in front of them in the office, somewhat like a modern day house call,” said Stockwell, who is also an assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center.
Parents reported liking the texts, telling the researchers that the messages were helpful as a reminder, provided important information quickly and without requiring direct communication with anyone, and indicated that someone at the medical facility “cared.”
Over 60 percent said that the reminder was at least part of the reason that they brought their child in for a second dose, and over 70 percent of them said that it encouraged them to bring their sons and/or daughters in sooner. They also said that they would recommend the program to other parents, the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute-funded study revealed.
“Influenza vaccine coverage overall is low among young children and those in need of two doses in a given season are at particular risk, with less than half of those who receive the first dose returning to receive the second needed doses,” the university explained.
Dr. Stockwell compared this to wearing half of a bicycle helmet, and stressed that the timing of the second vaccine was also important. Many youngsters who need two doses are not fully protected against the flu until two weeks after receiving the second, she said, and the interval between doses often goes beyond the recommended 28-day period.
Previous research has found that similar mail or telephone-based campaigns were not effective among urban, low-income families that are also at high risk for under-vaccination. Dr. Stockwell and her colleagues had previously found that text messaging reminders for first dose flu vaccine rates in pediatric and adolescent patients were effective.
“This randomized controlled trial provides valuable information for establishing best practices for influenza vaccine text message reminders. Important next steps will be to assess the impact of text message vaccine reminders in other populations as well as for other vaccines,” she added.
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Lung cancer cells can spread more easily than other types of cells because the protein ties that tether them together are severed, allowing them to break loose, a team of researchers from the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute report in a new study.
In research published Wednesday in the journal Cell Reports, the study authors explained that microscopic images revealed that the ties that keep cells held together, which are controlled by a protein known as TIAM1, are cut to pieces when cell maintenance goes wrong in cancer cells.
Typically, healthy cells routinely scrap older cell parts so that they can be broken down and reused. However, in lung cancer cells, the process spirals out of control and causes too many of the TIAM1 ties to be scrapped. Targeting this process could keep lung cancer cells from spreading by keeping them attached firmly to one another, the researchers said in their study.
“This important research shows for the first time how lung cancer cells sever ties with their neighbors and start to spread around the body, by hijacking the cells’ recycling process and sending it into overdrive,” said lead author Dr Angeliki Malliri from the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute at the University of Manchester.
“Targeting this flaw could help stop lung cancer from spreading,” she added.
According to the study authors, there are more than 43,000 new cases of lung cancer diagnosed in the UK each year. It is also that country’s most common cause of cancer deaths, killing more than 35,000 patients annually.
“Lung cancer causes more than one in five of all cancer deaths in the UK and it’s vital that we find effective new treatments to fight the disease and save more lives,” said Nell Barrie, Cancer Research UK’s senior science information manager.
In the US, the National Cancer Institute reports that the two main types of lung cancer (small cell lung cancer and non-small cell lung cancer) were responsible for a combined 159,260 deaths this year thus far. They also note that there have been nearly 225,000 new cases diagnosed in 2014.
“Early-stage research like this is essential to find treatments which could one day block cancer spread – which would be a game changer,” she added. “It’s also crucial that we find ways to diagnose the disease earlier, when treatment is more likely to be successful and the cancer is less likely to have spread.”
According to International Business Times, World Health Organization statistics indicate that approximately 70 percent of all global lung cancer deaths are associated with tobacco use. Lung cancers killed a reported 1.59 million people worldwide, and the condition is difficult to treat as it can lie dormant for nearly 20 years before becoming aggressive, the publication added.
In August, researchers analyzed data from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program and revealed that US lung cancer rates are declining as a whole. However, they also found that lung cancer rates vary by subtype, sex, race/ethnicity and age, and reported that an estimated 90 to 95 percent of lung cancers in the US could be attributed to smoking.
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Adult men and women who have contracted the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) could experience hearing issues as a result of the pathogen, according to new research published Friday in the online edition of JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.

Dr. Peter Torre III of San Diego State University and colleagues from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and Georgetown University Medical Center explained that HIV-positive adults had poorer lower- and higher-frequency hearing than those who did not have the infection.

They recruited a total of 262 men (117 of whom were HIV positive) from the greater Baltimore-Washington DC site of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, and 134 women (105 of whom were HIV positive) from the Washington DC, site of the Women’s Interagency HIV Study. The men were 57 years old on average, while the average age of the women was nearly 48.

“Pure-tone air conduction thresholds were collected in a sound-treated room for each ear at frequencies from 250 through 8000 Hz. Linear mixed regression models tested the effect of HIV on hearing after adjustment for age, sex, race, and noise exposure history,” the authors wrote.

They tested low-frequency pure-tone average (LPTA) at 250, 500, 1000, and 2000 hertz, and high-frequency PTA (HPTA) at 3000, 4000, 6000, and 8000 hertz. Differential HIV effects for both LPTA and HPTA were also examined. Overall they found that both the HPTA and LPTA were significantly higher for HIV positive adults, meaning that their hearing was worse.

Specifically, they found that HPTA and LPTA “were significantly higher” in the HIV-positive participants, and that the findings held true in both the better and worse ears in each individual. The researchers wrote that they found “no significant associations between HIV disease variables or treatment variables and LPTA or HPTA” during the course of their research.

High-frequency hearing loss is consistent with accelerated aging, Dr. Torre and his colleagues explained. Low-frequency hearing loss in this age group is unexpected, however, and since some vowels and consonants have predominantly low-frequency acoustic energy, hearing issues at this frequency could impair communication skills in HIV positive men and women.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to demonstrate” that people who have tested positive for the virus that causes AIDS “have poorer hearing across the frequency range after many other factors known to affect hearing have been controlled for,” the study authors concluded.

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Pregnant women who are obese or eating a diet high in fatty foods could unwittingly be harming their unborn child, according to new research published by the journal Molecular Metabolism.

In the study, researchers from the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) Doernbecher Children’s Hospital found that a high-fat diet and obesity during pregnancy could damage the hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells of the fetal liver that are responsible for creating and sustaining blood and immune system function throughout a person’s lifetime.

“The life-long burden of a western-style diet on the heart and circulatory system have long been appreciated,” the university explained in a statement. “However, prior to this study, no one had considered whether the developing blood stem cells might be similarly vulnerable to prenatal high-fat diet and/or maternal obesity.”

“Our results offer a model for testing whether the effects of a high-fat diet and obesity can be repaired through dietary intervention, a key question when extrapolating this data to human populations,” added study co-author Dr. Daniel L. Marks, a professor of pediatric endocrinology in the OHSU School of Medicine and Papé Family Pediatric Research Institute at the hospital.

Several years ago, the researchers developed a mouse model designed to mimic the type of diet consumed by many young women of childbearing age – high in fat and simple sugars. Their investigation revealed that maternal overnutrition in mice significantly reduced the size of the fetal liver.

Following that research, Marks joined forces with Dr. Peter Kurre, a stem cell expert and a professor of pediatric oncology in the OHSU School of Medicine and the Papé Family Pediatric Research Institute. Together, they found that the complex changes that occur as a result of this maternal diet and obesity constrains the grown and expansion of blood stem cells in the fetal liver. As a result, this ultimately compromises a child’s developing immune system.

“In light of the spreading western-style, high-fat diet and accompanying obesity epidemic, this study highlights the need to better understand the previous unrecognized susceptibility of the stem and progenitor cell system,” said Kurre. “These findings may provide broad context for the rise in immune disease and allergic disposition in children.”

In addition to Marks and Kurre, OHSU experts Ashley N. Kamimae-Lanning, Stephanie M. Krasnow, Natalya A. Goloviznina, Xinxia Zhu, Quinn R. Roth-Carter, Peter R. Levasseur, Sophia Jeng, Shannon K. McWeeney were involved in the study.

The study was funded by Friends of Doernbecher and by the Oregon Clinical Translational Research Institute at OHSU. In addition, the research was supported by grants from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

The paper is not the first to find a link between obesity and adverse health issues with the unborn child. In June, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers found that women who were obese before becoming pregnant faced an increased risk of delivering a very premature baby, and an October 2013 Harvard School of Public Health study found that weight gain during pregnancy had a direct impact on her child’s risk of obesity through age 12.

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Scientists from University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), J. Craig Venter Institute and the University of Washington have achieved a major breakthrough in the understanding of what they call “microbial dark matter.” These are the countless bacteria which inhabit our bodies and about which so little is known.

Amazingly, there are 10 times more bacterial cells in the body than other cells. But approximately half of those bacteria are almost impossible to replicate for scientific research. This has restricted our ability to understand their role in human biology and disease. This led to the term “microbial dark matter.” For a long time, biologists have thought that these “uncultivable bacteria” may be involved in the development of some serious and chronic diseases.

One particular bacteria group, Candidate Phylum TM7, has been an especially difficult challenge for researchers. Because it is so prevalent in people with periodontitis, an infection of the gums, TM7 has been implicated in causing inflammatory mucosal diseases. Decades of research into this connection proved fruitless. But now, in a major breakthrough, scientists at the UCLA School of Dentistry, the J. Craig Venter Institute and the University of Washington School of Dentistry believe they have cracked the problem.

Their work has revealed new information about the biological, ecological and medical importance of TM7 and its resistance to scientific study as well as its role in the progression of periodontitis and other diseases. The findings could lead to better understanding of other elusive bacteria.

The research results are published online in the December issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“I consider this the most exciting discovery in my 30-year career,” said Dr Wenyuan Shi, a UCLA professor of oral biology. “This study provides the roadmap for us to make every uncultivable bacterium cultivable.”

The researchers cultivated a specific type of TM7 called TM7x, a version of TM7 found in people’s mouths, and found the first known proof of a signalling interaction between the bacterium and an infectious agent called Actinomyces odontolyticus, or XH001, which causes mucosal inflammation.

“Once the team grew and sequenced TM7x, we could finally piece together how it makes a living in the human body,” said Dr. Jeff McLean, acting associate professor at the University of Washington School of Dentistry. “This may be the first example of a parasitic long-term attachment between two different bacteria — where one species lives on the surface of another species gaining essential nutrients and then decides to thank its host by attacking it.”

To prove that TM7x needs XH001 to grow and survive, the team attempted to mix isolated TM7x cells with other strains of bacteria. Only XH001 was able to establish a physical association with TM7x, which led researchers to believe that TM7x and XH001 might have evolved together during their establishment in the mouth.

The co-cultures collected in this study allowed researchers to examine, for the first time ever, the role which TM7x plays in chronic inflammation of the digestive tract, vaginal diseases and periodontitis.

“Uncultivable bacteria presents a fascinating ‘final frontier’ for dental microbiologists and are a high priority for the NIDCR research portfolio,” said Dr. R. Dwayne Lunsford, director of the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research’s microbiology program. “This study provides a near-perfect case of how co-cultivation strategies and a thorough appreciation for interspecies signaling can facilitate the recovery of these elusive organisms. Although culture-independent studies can give us a snapshot of microbial diversity at a particular site, in order to truly understand physiology and virulence of an isolate, we must ultimately be able to grow and manipulate these bacteria in the lab.”

Scientists already knew that XH001 induces inflammation. But by infecting bone marrow cells with XH001 alone and then with the TM7x/XH001 co-culture, the researchers also found that inflammation was greatly reduced when TM7x was physically attached to XH001. This is the only known study that has provided evidence of this relationship between TM7 and XH001.

The researchers plan to further study the unique relationship between TM7X and XH001 and how they jointly cause mucosal disease. Their findings could have implications for potential treatment and therapeutics.

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John Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

2014 has been a pretty positive year for stories about diabetes treatment, and it ends with the news that an important drug for patients with type 2 diabetes could be safe to use even after they are diagnosed with mild to moderate kidney disease. The current Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advice is to suspend use after diagnosis of kidney disease.

Metformin has been used in the United States to lower blood sugar in people with type 2 diabetes for 20 years, and is now the most widely used treatment for type 2. However, FDA guidelines have long stated that if a patient is diagnosed with mild to moderate kidney disease then metformin should be discontinued. A new study has called that advice into question, and if the FDA amends its guidance as a result then the drug could be made available to more than 2.5 million Americans living with type 2 diabetes.

According to a new, systematic review of the literature published by Yale investigators in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the risk of metformin resulting in the serious condition lactic acidosis in patients with mild to moderate kidney disease is extremely low–comparable to the risk in those who did not take metformin.

Yale professor of medicine Dr Silvio E. Inzucchi and colleagues at Yale, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and Aston University in the United Kingdom conducted a systematic review of published research to assess the risk of lactic acidosis with metformin in diabetes patients with mild to moderate kidney disease.

“What we found is that there is essentially zero evidence that this is risky,” said Inzucchi, who is also medical director of the Yale Diabetes Center. “The drug could be used safely, so long as kidney function is stable and not severely impaired.”

The researchers have recommended that the FDA implement a change, pointing out that patients who had previously received great benefit from using metformin were being denied it unnecessarily upon diagnosis of kidney disease of any severity.

“They hit a certain age, their kidney function starts to decline, and the first thing most doctors do is to stop metformin,” Inzucchi said. “What invariably happens next is their diabetes goes out of control. Other drugs may be substituted, but they are usually not generic products like metformin, and so are more expensive and may also have more side effects.”

Inzucchi noted that many health professionals are already aware that the risk of kidney problems due to metformin use is small in the face of the drug’s significant benefits, and are overlooking FDA advice presently. One hundred diabetes experts in the US have backed the group’s recommendation that FDA guidelines be updated.

“Many in the field know that metformin can be used cautiously in patients who have mild to moderate kidney problems,” Inzucchi explained. “Most specialists do this all the time.”

In the case of severe kidney disease, Inzucchi acknowledges that although reduced dosage and careful monitoring may allow limited use of metformin, the desired opening up of regulation that applies to mild to moderate patients is not applicable at this time.

The news comes in the same twelve months that saw Google announce that it is working on smart contact lenses to help diabetics monitor blood sugar levels, the proposal of a less problematic alternative to daily insulin injections for type 2 patients, and a potential cure for type 1 after a stem cell research breakthrough. The stem cell research was inspired by a Harvard professor who wanted to find a cure for his son and daughter who both have type 1 diabetes.

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Biomedical engineers from University of Tokyo have successfully developed a translucent gel patch that can be used to detect electrical signals and other biomarkers on either the interior or exterior of the body, according to a study published in Nature Communications.

“Just by applying to the body like a compress, our novel sheet sensor detects biometric information extremely accurately,” researchers said in a statement Friday.

The medical device is made of a sticky gel that inhibits a fine grid of interior detectors from sliding, even if the surface they are touching is moving. The sensors within the device are printed at 4-millimeter intervals on very slim plastic. This allows for as many as 144 individual detectors on a gel patch the size of a human palm. Their distance from organ or joint being monitored allows them to acquire highly exact readings. The sheets might be utilized in health care or sports science, the study researchers said.

“Although we are currently at the animal experimentation stage, this compress-like sensor has been successfully attached even to internal tissues such as a rat’s heart,” the team said. “In the future, this technology will be applied to internally implanted electrical systems and the scope of application for electrical devices will increase.”

Current standard sensor technology uses silicon, which is much less flexible and comfortable for the wearer. These sensors have also been found to disrupt the body’s natural functioning and movements. The study team speculated that their novel device could be used in sports, healthcare and public health arenas.

“Conventional wearable electronics have become increasingly smart through the introduction of electronic circuits into items worn on the body such as wristwatches and eyeglasses,” the researchers said. “On the other hand, this research has enabled smartness through introducing electrical components even into items directly applied to the body like a compress or plaster. As a result, there are expectations that this will be applied to 24-hour, stress free biometric measurement technology while going about one’s daily life.”

Earlier this month, engineers at UC Berkeley debuted another sensor prototype that substituted carbon-based polymers for silicon. The Band Aid-like device is designed to be a fitness tracker and preliminary tests show that it performs as well as conventional fitness trackers.

“There are various pulse oximeters already on the market that measure pulse rate and blood-oxygen saturation levels, but those devices use rigid conventional electronics, and they are usually fixed to the fingers or earlobe,” said Ana Arias, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at Berkeley.

The Berkeley device uses red and green LEDs to illuminate the body’s blood vessels. A sensor on another part of the device detects the blood flow pulsing through the arteries and determines a pulse based on that information.

“We showed that if you take measurements with different wavelengths, it works, and if you use unconventional semiconductors, it works,” Arias said. “Because organic electronics are flexible, they can easily conform to the body.”

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Sports-related brain injuries have become the cause of concern among parents, players and fans in recent years. The effects of multiple concussions can be devastating and long lasting, and include depression, cognitive issues and even an increased risk of Alzheimers disease.
Football players especially seem to be susceptible to these traumatic injuries. Former National Football League (NFL) players had filed a class-action lawsuit against the organization claiming that it didn’t do enough to protect player health and failed to let them know about the long-term dangers of suffering repeated injuries.
Earlier this year, Ohio State University player Kosta Karageorge, who had a history of concussions during his college football career, was found dead as the result of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Even yesterday, as West Virginia University quarterback Clint Trickett‘s teammates prepared for their AutoZone Liberty Bowl against Texas A&M,  he was forced to retire from the sport after suffering five concussions in 14 months.
In February, research presented during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology found that currently-available football helmets were virtually indistinguishable from one another and were largely ineffective when it comes to preventing concussions.
On average, they reduced the risk of traumatic brain injury (TBI) by just 20 percent when compared to not even wearing a helmet. The study also found that the Adams A2000 helmet offered the best protection against concussions, while the Schutt Air Advantage provided the worst.
According to TechCrunch, research has demonstrated that professional football players will receive an average of 900 to 1,500 blows to the head during a single season. Sixty percent of all football collisions are head-to-head, with 37 percent occurring in the front, 36 percent taking place in the back, and the remainder on the sides from a rotational force.
“A concussion occurs when the head is whiplashed or receives a blow that causes our three-pound brains, which normally float around in a cushion of fluid, to slam violently against the skull,” the website added. “On the field, many concussions occur at 100Gs of force when two players running at an average of 20 mph collide, and all motion stops within a short amount of time (10-15 milliseconds), except the brain, which keeps moving and absorbing that force.”
The NFL and the National Institutes for Health (NIH) have been teaming up to study traumatic brain injuries for more than a year now, and the Professional Football Athletic Trainers Society (PFATS) last December announced a partnership with USA Football to increase player safety by endorsing USA Football’s Heads Up Football program.
At the forefront of the battle against football-related brain injuries is new technological developments “such as sensors and magnets,” which TechCrunch explained “are being weaved into the designs of new personal equipment with the intent to detect, disperse, displace and absorb force and further reduce the risk of brain injury in impact sports.”
Obviously, helmets are one of the primary safety devices used to protect the heads of football players, and to that end, Riddell released a new high-tech “smart helmet” earlier this year called INSITE. The company said that the INSITE impact uses sensors contained in the helmet to monitor head impact exposure, then transmits that data to personnel on the sidelines, allowing them to keep a closer eye on each player’s condition and concussion history.
However, several new types of mouthguards are also becoming more technologically advanced in order to combat traumatic brain injuries. Several new types are being outfitted with sensors, accelerometers, gyroscopes and built-in sensors that collect real-time information about the force of an on-field collision, notifying coaches and medical staff about potential head injuries.
One type, the FITGuard by Force Impact Technologies, has an LED display on the front that will change colors based on the force of an impact, giving a visible warning of a possible concussion. Another, the Vector MouthGuard by i1 Biometrics, uses chips to measure the location and level of collisions absorbed by athletes and creates real-time assessments of an athlete’s welfare which are sent to the mobile devices of sideline personnel.
Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine professor Dr. Raymond Colello has come up with a unique way to address the issue, according to TechCrunch. Colello has come up with the idea to retrofit existing football helmets with thin, curved magnets, which he says can be used to disperse energy upon impact. Using magnets made from the rare-earth element neodymium could reduce the amount of G-forces by nearly half, he explained.
“Colello says the magnets weigh about one-third to a half pound each so, with the expectation of using one to three magnets per helmet, the retrofit would be within regulation for regular and smart helmets, with a little wiggle room if needed,” the website said. “But it’s an all or nothing deal. All players on the field need to use helmet magnets in order to benefit from the repulsion effect.”
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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Wearable technology to monitor a person’s health, the expanded use of minimally invasive heart repair procedures and eligibility recommendations for athletes with cardiovascular maladies top the American College of Cardiology’s (ACC) list of issues expected to be addressed in 2015.
The list, which was compiled by leaders from the organization and released on Friday, also includes possible changes to stenting practices, a decision from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on whether or not to improve a new novel coagulant, and legislation to address the use and abuse of energy drinks among children and scholastic athletes.
The ACC said that it expected wearable health-related technology such as the Apple Watch and the Fitbit to “play an increasing role in health care” as they become more sophisticated and more widely used. It noted that it expected data from these devices, which can measure pulse read and monitor exercise habits, to become increasing incorporated by doctors during appointments.
In addition, the group expects that the debate regarding the risks and benefits of complete revascularization after a heart attack, which could involve the practice of inserting stents in more than one artery, will continue during the new year. Recent clinical trials have indicated that patients perform better when a cardiologists inserted stents to open all blocked arteries found when treating patients for heart attacks. Current guidelines recommended treating only the blockage associated to the heart attack, but the new findings may cause those to be re-evaluated.
Another issue expected to be revisited is recommendations regarding sports participation for young athletes dealing with heart issues, and the ACC believes these suggestions could be updated during the first half of 2015. Likewise, the expanded use transcatheter aortic valve replacement, an alternative to open heart surgery that has been available in the US for some inoperable patients since 2011 and for high-risk patients since 2012, will likely be addressed.
“The procedure involves inserting a new valve into the heart using a catheter inserted into an artery to replace a heart valve that has narrowed – a life-threatening condition called aortic stenosis,” the organization explained. “A similar procedure was approved in 2013 for the MitraClip, a device designed to repair a leaky heart valve, a condition called mitral valve regurgitation. So far, these new heart repair options are only available for high risk patients, including those considered too frail for surgery.”
Patients receiving those treatments have been followed in a national data registry, and the information is being reviewed by regulators and physicians, which could lead the minimally-invasive procedures to be considered for use in a greater number of patients. Additional devices for repairing other heart conditions are expected to follow, the ACC said.
During the year ahead, the FDA will likely decide whether or not to approve the anticoagulant edoxaban. If it receives federal approval, it will become the fourth drug to hit the market as an alternative to warfarin, a medication that is effective for preventing strokes by comes with harsh side effects. An FDA advisory panel recommended in October that the drug be approved.
In addition, companies are expected to continue pushing the FDA for approval of their respective PCSK9 inhibitors, an experimental class of medications that have proven effective in lowering levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL). They have proven especially effective in patients with unusually high blood cholesterol levels that don’t respond to other treatments, the ACC said.
“Amgen filed for Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of its PCSK9 inhibitor, evolocumab, in August, and Sanofi/Regeneron announced plans to seek priority review of its drug, alirocumab,” the group said. “This means the first FDA decision on this new class could come as early as summer of 2015. Meanwhile, results of research related to PCSK9 inhibitors will continue to be released as drug makers vie to make their drug the first available to patients with a genetic disposition to extremely high ‘bad’ cholesterol.”
The ACC also expects state lawmakers to pursue new legislation designed to address the increasing number of emergency room visits from young people complaining of irregular and increased heart rate, acute anxiety and sleep deprivation believed to be linked to the consumption of energy drinks.
“Currently available research is inadequate to assess the long-term damage energy drinks may cause, but many in the medical community believe that the increased number of children who visit their offices and emergency rooms after consuming energy drinks merits changes in public policy aimed at reducing consumption by minors,” the ACC said. “Bills introduced in several states in recent years, especially addressing sales and marketing to children, are likely get attention as they move through the legislative process.”
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Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Somewhat by accident, researchers at Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have discovered a connection between the body’s immune system and hair loss – a discovery that could eventually lead to a molecular treatment for baldness.

According to a new study in the journal PLOS Biology, immune system cells called macrophages, which gobble up and destroy invading pathogens, have a stimulating effect on skin stem cells and hair growth.

The restorative capability of stem cells permits skin re-growth, but various factors can cut their restorative properties or activate the uncontrolled growth seen in cancerous tissues. The new study may have further ramifications beyond potential hair loss treatment, potentially in the field of cancer research.

The connection between macrophages and hair follicles began the research on anti-inflammatory drugs. CINO scientists found that an anti-inflammatory treatment also reactivated hair growth and this accidental discovery led them to examine interactions between stem cells and cells that cause inflammation as part of an immune response.

The CINO team eventually found that when stem cells are inactive, some macrophages die as a result of process known as apoptosis. The process stimulates the release a number of factors that activate stem cells, causing hair to grow again.

The study team investigated a particular class of proteins released by macrophages called Wnt by treating macrophages with a Wnt-inhibitor substance contained within liposomes. The team saw that after they used this drug, the triggering of hair growth was delayed. Even though this study was performed in mice, the scientists believe their discovery may help in the progression of novel care treatments for hair growth in humans.

The potential for attacking one kind of cell to affect a different one might have broader uses beyond simply growing hair, the researchers said. They added that the use of liposomes for drug delivery is also a promising method of experimentation, which may have ramifications for the study of other pathologies.

Fundamentally, this study is an effort to comprehend how adjusting the environs that surround skin stem cells can affect their regenerative abilities.

“One of the current challenges in the stem cell field is to regulate the activation of endogenous stem cell pools in adult tissues to promote regeneration without the need of transplantation,” said study author Mirna Perez-Moreno, a cell biologist at CINO.

In their report, the study team noted that macrophages have significant impacts on the systems surrounding them and these impacts should be investigated further. They added that their future study will involve looking into the role of macrophages under pathological conditions, such as those found in cancerous skin cells.

“Macrophages are a very diverse cell population,” Perez-Moreno said.  “It was only less that ten years ago that scientists discovered that besides from the bone marrow, macrophages originate from the yolk sac during pregnancy, and there are even other macrophages that proliferate within tissues.”

“The diversity of the sources from which skin resident macrophages originate is not fully understood,” she added.

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