Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Drinking a pint of beer each day can double a man’s odds of fathering children, while vegetarians and vegans have lower sperm counts than meat-eaters, according to new research presented recently at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine annual conference in Hawaii.

According to Sarah Knapton, Science Editor with The Telegraph, Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston looked at 105 men with an average age of 37 and found that those who consumed at least 22 grams of alcohol per day were more than twice as likely to sire children through in-vitro fertilization (IVF) than those who abstained.

Each of the men was married to or in a relationship with a partner who was undergoing IVF procedures at the hospital between 2007 and 2013. Health experts claim that drinking a moderate amount of alcohol could reduce a man’s stress levels and help them conceive, Knapton added, though UK health officials currently suggest that men should not drink more than four units a day, roughly equivalent to around two pints of beer.

That same study found that that men who consumed at least two cups of strong coffee each day had just a 20 percent chance of becoming fathers through IVF, The Telegraph reported. However, the odds of conceiving increased to nearly 52 percent among men who drank less than one cup of the caffeinated beverage each day. At the conference, the study authors explained that they believe caffeine could damage sperm at a molecular level.

“High male caffeine consumption appears to reduce couples’ chance of achieving a clinical pregnancy, while male alcohol consumption appears to enhance their chances,” explained Dr. Anatte Karmon, lead author of the study and an obstetrician at Massachusetts General Hospital. The research also revealed that neither caffeine nor alcohol appeared to have an effect on the number of sperm, their shape or how well they could swim.

“I see no reason to advise couples attempting IVF to become teetotal, but they clearly need to drink alcohol sensibly and be advised that if the female partner falls pregnant she needs to stop at that point to ensure the development of the baby is not harmed,” added Dr. Allan Pacey of the University of Sheffield. “The fact that caffeine consumption in the male partner may reduce IVF outcome is intriguing and needs further exploration.”

A second study, also presented at the conference, concluded that adopting a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle could damage a man’s fertility, and the researchers found that they tended to have lower sperm counts and poorer quality sperm than other men, according to Fiona Macrae of the Daily Mail.

Dr. Eliza Orzylowska of the Loma Linda University Medical Centre in California told those in attendance that soy products eaten as a meat and dairy substitute could be the cause of the issue. She and her colleagues found that diet “significantly affects sperm quality” and that “vegetarian and vegan diets were associated with much lower sperm counts. It’s hard to tell people not to be vegetarians if they are trying to conceive, but I would caution against soy.”

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Provided by Darcy Spitz, American Heart Association

Good news, bad news: The amount of trans fats we eat has declined over the last 30 years, but we’re still consuming more than recommended.

In a study reported in the Journal of the American Heart Association, researchers reviewed results from a series of six surveys as part of the Minnesota Heart Survey in 1980-2009.

More than 12,000 adults 25-74 years old in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area revealed that:

– Trans fat intake dropped by about one-third in men (32 percent) and women (35 percent).

– Average intake of the omega-3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA) was steady, but current intake is still very low.

– Intake of saturated fats dropped, but still account for about 11.4 percent of daily calories for men and women. The American Heart Association recommends limiting saturated fat to 5-6 percent of total calories.

“There’s a downward trend in trans and saturated fat intake levels, but it’s clear that we still have room for improvement,” said Mary Ann Honors, Ph.D., lead study author and an epidemiology researcher at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in Minneapolis.

Saturated fats and trans fats can increase the risk of heart disease because they can raise bad cholesterol levels and lower good cholesterol levels. Saturated fats are found in products derived from animals, such as meat and full-fat dairy products, as well as some tropical oils such as coconut or palm oil. Trans fats are mainly found in processed, fried and commercially baked foods such as pastries, pizza, pies, cookies and crackers.

The study found that men consumed about 1.9 percent of their daily calories from trans fats and women about 1.7 percent. The American Heart Association recommends limiting trans fats to no more than 1 percent of total calories consumed.

“To make your diet more in line with the recommendations, use the nutritional panel on food labels to choose foods with little or no trans fats,” Honors said.

Researchers also analyzed the participants’ intake of omega-3 fatty acids, which has not changed significantly in the last thirty years. Omega-3 fatty acids may improve cardiovascular disease risk by lowering risk of abnormal heartbeat, cutting triglyceride levels and improving blood pressure.

The American Heart Association recommends that people without documented coronary heart disease (CHD) eat a variety of fish at least twice a week, with an emphasis on fatty fish such as salmon, mackerel and herring, which are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. The recommendations differ slightly for patients with documented CHD or those who may need to lower their triyglycerides.

Co-authors are Lisa Harnack, Dr.P.H., R.D.; Xia Zhou, M.S.; and Lyn Steffen, Ph.D. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.

The National Institutes of Health and the National Cancer Institute funded the study.

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Thermal paper, which is sometimes used to print out cash register receipts, could potentially be a significant source of exposure to the hormone disruptor bisphenol-A (BPA), a substance which has been linked to diseases such as obesity and diabetes, researchers from the University of Missouri (MU) report in a new study.
Researchers from the Columbia, Missouri-based university and their colleagues report in Wednesday’s edition of the journal PLOS ONE that when men and women handled a thermal receipt after using a hand sanitizer, a large amount of BPA transferred from the paper to the person’s hand, thus resulting in a rapid increase in blood levels of the synthetic compound.
“BPA first was developed by a biochemist and tested as an artificial estrogen supplement,” Frederick vom Saal, Curators Professor of Biological Sciences in the College of Arts and Science at MU and one of the paper’s authors, explained in a statement. “As an endocrine disrupting chemical, BPA has been demonstrated to alter signaling mechanisms involving estrogen and other hormones.”
“Store and fast food receipts, airline tickets, ATM receipts and other thermal papers all use massive amounts of BPA on the surface of the paper as a print developer,” he added. “The problem is, we as consumers have hand sanitizers, hand creams, soaps and sunscreens on our hands that drastically alter the absorption rate of the BPA found on these receipts.”
BPA, the researchers explain, is used in a wide variety of products, including water bottles, sports equipment and even CDs and DVDs. It is also typically found in most people’s urine, which suggests that the average individual experiences widespread exposure to the substance from multiple sources during an average day.
During their study, vom Saal and his fellow investigators tested people who cleaned their hands using hand sanitizer, held thermal paper receipts, and then consumed French fries with their hands. They discovered that the BPA was rapidly absorbed into the blood stream, and that the compound was absorbed more quickly by women than men.
According to the study authors, the outer layer of thermal receipt paper is covered with either BPA or another estrogen-mimicking chemical known as bisphenol S (BPS), which acts as a print developer. Thermal paper is typically used in airline tickets, store receipts, ATM receipts and fast food receipts – meaning that BPA contamination of food from fingers and hands is likely, and that cashiers could also be exposed to the substance continually.
“Our research found that large amounts of BPA can be transferred to your hands and then to the food you hold and eat as well as be absorbed through your skin,” vom Saal said. “BPA exhibits hormone-like properties and has been proven to cause reproductive defects in fetuses, infants, children and adults as well as cancer, metabolic and immune problems in rodents.”
“BPA from thermal papers will be absorbed into your blood rapidly; at those levels, many diseases such as diabetes and disorders such as obesity increase as well. Use of BPA or other similar chemicals that are being used to replace BPA in thermal paper pose a threat to human health,” he added.
This isn’t the first time that BPA has been linked to cash register receipts made from thermal paper, as a 2010 study from the non-profit organizations Chemicals, Safer Families and the Washington Toxics Coalition tested both receipts and paper money and found high levels of the chemical, which has been linked to cancer, obesity and early puberty.
That study found that holding register receipts for just 10 seconds caused up to 2.5 micrograms of BPA to transfer from the paper onto a person’s fingers, and that rubbing the receipts increased the amount of BPA transferred from receipts onto fingers by around 15-fold. As for the dollar bills, BPA was found on 21 of the 22 those analyzed, but the researchers said that the levels were far lower than those discovered on the receipts.
An October 2012 study showed that BPA can also cause pregnant women and their newborn boys to suffer from reduced levels of thyroid hormones, and that an imbalance in thyroid hormone levels has been linked to negative changes in cognitive abilities, behavior and growth.
The following year, new research revealed that products laced with the compound could increase a pregnant woman’s risk of having a miscarriage by as much as 80 percent.
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Provided by the University of Cambridge

An experimental drug currently being trialed for influenza and Ebola viruses could have a new target: norovirus, often known as the winter vomiting virus. A team of researchers at the University of Cambridge has shown that the drug, favipiravir, is effective at reducing – and in some cases eliminating – norovirus infection in mice.

Norovirus is the most common cause of gastroenteritis in the UK. For most people, infection causes an unpleasant but relatively short-lived case of vomiting and diarrhea, but chronic infection can cause major health problems for people with compromised immune systems. In many cases, patients who have weaker immune systems suffer from norovirus infection for months to years, with some patients experiencing gastroenteritis for as many as eight years. Outbreaks can cause significant economic losses – in UK hospitals alone, the cost of treating outbreaks is estimated at over £100 million a year, and foodborne outbreaks in the US lead to economic losses of around $2 billion per year.

The virus is notoriously difficult to study because it will not grow efficiently in the laboratory, therefore scientists often use a mouse norovirus to identify drugs that can inhibit infection. It is one of a class of viruses known as RNA viruses, which have ribonucleic acid (RNA) as their genetic material. Most of the major viruses that have the potential to become epidemics are of this class. RNA viruses replicate and mutate rapidly, making them challenging to develop vaccines or immunity against.

In a study published September 21 in the journal eLife and funded by the Wellcome Trust, a team of researchers led by Professor Ian Goodfellow has shown in mice with a long-term norovirus infection that the experimental drug favipiravir is effective at lowering levels of norovirus in the body, including in both tissue and feces, which may help in reducing the severity of the disease and onward transmission.

Favipiravir is an experiment antiviral drug which is thought to be effective against a number of RNA viruses such as influenza, West Nile virus, yellow fever virus, and foot-and-mouth disease virus. It is currently also been tested as a potential drug to treat Ebola virus. The University of Cambridge team has shown that the drug works by causing the virus to self-destruct in a process known as ‘lethal mutagenesis’, which causes errors in the virus’s genetic information; because RNA viruses replicate and mutate rapidly, the errors take hold quickly, neutralizing the virus and preventing further spread. This is one of the first demonstrations of lethal mutagenesis as a method of fighting viruses in their natural hosts and suggests that it may be possible to tackle other RNA viruses in the same way.

“Norovirus is an unpleasant bug that spreads quickly,” says Professor Goodfellow, a Wellcome Trust Senior Fellow, who led the study. “Most of us will have experienced it at some point and will know that the only option is to ride out an infection, drinking plenty of fluids. But some patients get infections that can last months or years, and this has a real impact on their quality of life. The ease with which infections spread, particularly in places such as hospitals, schools and cruise ships, and the potentially serious health problems norovirus can cause people with weakened immune systems means that we desperately need a way to treat infection.”

Dr. Armando Arias, first author, adds: “Our work in mice is very promising and shows that favipiravir can make the virus mutate itself to death. It suggests that as well as treating infected individuals, the drug may also be useful in preventing infection during an outbreak. The next steps will be to test whether this drug is safe and effective at treating patients, too.”

Reference: Arias, A et al. Favipiravir elicits antiviral mutagenesis during virus replication in vivo. eLife; 21 Sept 2014.

Rayshell Clapper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Many individuals rely on pharmacology for different physical or mental health issues. However, some conditions require certain pharmacology which can be described as used for something entirely different.

For instance, there are many people who have quit smoking by temporarily taking antidepressants. Some people take aspirin for headaches, while others take it to prevent heart disease. There are many other medications which are prescribed for a myriad of diseases, disorders and illnesses. When it comes to mental health, however, people wonder why they have to take an antipsychotic for anxiety or an antidepressant for bulimia.

The truth is antipsychotics help anxiety just as well as the antidepressant provides benefits to those who suffer from bulimia, but the nomenclature is just dated, misleading and frustrating.

Recently, representatives from the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP), International College of Neuropsychopharmacology, American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, Asian College of Neuropsychopharmacology, and the International Union of Basic and Clinical Pharmacology gathered in Berlin to discuss the issue of the confusing and misleading names of certain medications.

During the conference of the five major institutes, the professionals agreed that the names of drugs greatly influenced whether patients will take them as well as leaving some doctors confused as to their uses.

The names of these drugs date back to the 1960s, which means that for 50 years nothing has been updated. Those diagnosed with anxiety are often prescribed what was previously called an antipsychotic, but many would not take it due to a fear of the perception of taking such a medication. Despite the fact that the antipsychotic helps in anxiety, the fear of being labeled kept people from getting the help they needed. This precise situation led the world’s major psychiatry organizations to completely change the terminology.

This change will classify and name pharmacological drugs based on four components or axes:

Axis 1 – describes pharmacological target and mode of action

Axis 2 – describes approved indications, or what they drug is used for

Axis 3 – describes efficacy and major side effects

Axis 4 – describes the neurobiological description

An example was also provided of the new naming for fluoxetine (more commonly known as Prozac):

1. Class/mechanism: Serotonin, reuptake inhibitor

2. Indications: Major depressive disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, bulimia nervosa, panic disorder (and others)

3. Efficacy: Improves symptoms of depression and anxiety and reduces compulsive behavior and obsessional thoughts

4. Side effects: GI symptoms, anxiety, changes in sleep early in treatment, sexual dysfunction

5. Neurobiological description: Neurotransmitter actions / Physiological / Brain Circuits are all listed in the new classification

Clearly, this new classification and description model is wordier, but it provides a much clearer understanding of the purposes of the medicine and its varied uses. The hope is that the change will help doctors understand the pharmacology better and provide patients with less negative associations.

As Professor David Kupfer, representative from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, states, “This change in terminology represents a major shift in the way which clinicians, and their patients, will think about the drugs they use. This new system is being launched at the ECNP in Berlin, so there is a long period of negotiation and discussion to come before we get complete agreement. Nevertheless, this will mean a real change in the way we talk about the drugs used in psychiatry and neuroscience.”

Ideally, all of this will lead to a healthier population. If patients do not have to stumble on the stigma of a certain medications, perhaps their ailments can be better addressed. The change in terminology may be verbose, but the change in health will likely be worth it.

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Provided by Queensland University of Technology

Even though they are not hungry, children as young as three will find high-energy treats too tempting to refuse, new QUT research has found.

In a study of three and four year olds, 100 per cent of children opted for a sweet or savory snack despite eating a filling healthy lunch only 15 minutes prior.

Nutrition researcher Holly Harris, from QUT’s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, said the results highlighted the health risks for children frequently confronted with an abundance of energy-dense, high-calorie foods.

Ms Harris’s study, published in the journal Eating Behaviors, looked at young children’s eating habits in the absence of being hungry and how parental feeding control impacted those behaviors in both girls and boys.

“Of the 37 children who took part in the study, all children displayed eating in the absence of hunger, even though more than 80 per cent reported being full or very full just 15 minutes earlier,” Ms Harris said.

“An impaired ability to respond to signs of feeling full and being unable to self-control food intake in an environment where children are frequently faced with high-energy foods is likely to have undesirable ramifications on a child’s energy balance and weight status.”

Ms Harris said pressure by mothers to eat was also positively linked to higher levels of snack food intake in the absence of being hungry, but this was a result found only with boys.

“Mothers who reported that they typically pressured their boys to eat during meal times, had boys who also ate more snacks when they were no longer hungry,” she said.

“This adds weight to the argument that boys’ and girls’ eating behaviours may be influenced or expressed in different ways.

“For example, in boys it may be that controlled feeding practices such as encouraging boys to finish everything on their plate may compromise their ability to determine their own hunger.

“Therefore they may be more likely to eat and overeat in the presences of highly palatable snacks.

“So forcing boys to eat their breakfast, lunch of dinner may impact their ability to self-regulate their snack food intake as well.”

She said when mothers pressured their girls to eat it did not have the same impact on their child’s snack consumption.

Ms Harris said people were born with a capacity to self-regulate their food intake.

“Infants will not consume energy in excess of what their body requires. Internal hunger and satiety signals are relayed to the brain and tell infants when to stop and start eating,” she said.

“But as we grow older, we become increasingly aware of the abundance and rewarding value of food and in turn our ability to respond appropriately to our appetite may diminish.

“In a society which constantly promotes over-consumption from convenient, energy-dense foods a susceptibility to respond to environmental food cues over appetite cues may lead to an imbalance in energy and food intake and undesirable weight gain.

“Preserving this ability to self-regulate energy intake early in life may be the key to resisting environmental stimuli to eat, later in life.”

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Provided by Maggie Francis, American Heart Association

People who visited their doctor at least twice a year were 3.2 times more likely to keep their blood pressure under control than those who saw their doctor once a year or less, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation.

Having healthcare insurance and getting treated for high cholesterol also increased the likelihood of keeping blood pressure under control.

Ideal blood pressure, measured in millimeters of mercury (mm Hg), is less than 120/80 mm Hg. Blood pressure 140 mm Hg or greater on the top (systolic) or 90 mm Hg or greater on the bottom (diastolic) is considered high.

Obese people in the study were also more likely to keep their blood pressure under control, “probably because doctors recognize the need to control risk factors and may be quicker to give them blood pressure medications,” said Brent M. Egan, M.D., study author and professor of medicine at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine in Greenville and senior medical director of the Care Coordination Institute.

Egan’s data included reports on 37,000 adults in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey who had their blood pressure checked in 1999-2012.

After controlling for diabetes, health insurance, body mass index, smoking and other factors, Egan found that doctor visits were the strongest predictor of blood pressure control.

Uncontrolled blood pressure is a leading cause of heart attack and stroke. About 69 percent of people who have a first heart attack, 77 percent who have a first stroke and 74 percent who have congestive heart failure have blood pressure higher than 140/90 mm Hg.

As many as 80 percent of the 78 million adults with high blood pressure know they have the condition. But only 75 percent are treated and only about half have it controlled below 140/90 mm Hg, according to American Heart Association statistics.

The American Heart Association recommends that people with blood pressure readings of 140/90 mm Hg or higher make lifestyle changes such as losing weight, eating healthy and engaging in physical activity, and if necessary, take medicine.

The National Institutes of Health, U.S. Army, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the state of South Carolina funded the study.

> Continue reading…

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John Hopton for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Depression is an extremely complex and serious condition, but simple steps and changes have been found to be of benefit, and one newly identified possibility is a change in the way we walk. It is well known that our state of mind can affect our body language, including how we walk, but research has now shown that the reverse is also true. Changing our walking style could result in changes to our mood.

The study, which was published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry and conducted by Queen’s University along with clinical psychologists from the University of Hildesheim, Germany, had participants walk in different styles on treadmills. They were then assessed on how they were feeling. Some walked in a depressed manner, with shoulders dropped and rolled forward and arms moving little, while others would walk more happily, in a bouncing gait with an open and upright posture.

The people being observed did not know what the walking styles they were adopting were supposed to signify, they were simply asked to influence a gauge to move more to the left or more to the right, and quickly learned what kind of walking would make the gauge move in the required way. They were not aware that the direction of the gauge depended on whether their walking style was more depressed or happier.

In order to assess their mood, the subjects were given a list of positive and negative words, such as “pretty,” “afraid” and “anxious,” before they went on the treadmill. After they had finished on the treadmill, they were asked to list as many of the words as they could remember. People who had walked in a depressed manner remembered more negative words, while people who had a happier walk remembered more of the positive words.

This is consistent with what we already know about the nature of thought cycles in depression, according to Nikolaus Troje (Queen’s University), a Senior Fellow at the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research (CIFAR) and a co-author on the paper. People suffering from depression tend to recall more negative events from their past, which in itself perpetuates the depression.

“If we can break that self-perpetuating cycle, we might have a strong therapeutic tool to work with depressive patients,” Dr. Troje explained in a statement.

The study also contributes to the questions asked in CIFAR’s Neural Computation & Adaptive Perception program, which, according to the CIFAR website, “aims to unlock the mystery of how our brains convert sensory stimuli into information and to recreate human-style learning in computers.”

Dr. Troje says that, “As social animals we spend so much time watching other people, and we are experts at retrieving information about other people from all sorts of different sources.”

Those sources include facial expression, posture and body movement. It is hoped that by developing a better understanding of the biological algorithms in our brains that process stimuli, including information from our own movements, researchers can develop more effective artificial intelligence at the same time as learning more about ourselves.

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Scientists at the Baylor College of Medicine Medical Genetics Laboratories and the UCLA Clinical Genomics Center are at the forefront of a new technique that could be a powerful tool for diagnosing rare genetic conditions.
The technique is known as whole-exome sequencing and involves using cutting edge sequencing techniques to analyze the coding regions or exomes of thousands of genes at the same time, Baylor researchers Dr. Yaping Yang, Dr. Christine M. Eng and their colleagues explained in a recent edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Sequencing a patient’s exome and comparing it to a normal reference sequence allows researchers to identify variations in that individual’s DNA sequence. Those variations can then be related back to the patient’s health issues in an attempt to locate the specific genetic cause of that medical condition, the authors added.
The researchers studied a group of 2,000 patients that had been referred for evaluation of suspected genetic conditions, and found that the use of whole-exome sequencing led to the discovery of a molecular diagnosis (meaning that a genetic mutation or variation associated with a specific disease) in roughly 25 percent of them.
“The findings in this report, I believe, will forever change the future practice of pediatrics and medicine as a whole,” study co-author Dr. James R. Lupski, a professor of molecular and human genetics and pediatrics at Baylor, said in a statement. “It is just a matter of time before genomics moves up on the physician’s list of things to do and is ordered before formulating a differential diagnosis. It will be the new ‘family history’ that, better yet, gets you both the important variants inherited from each parent and the new mutations that contribute to disease susceptibility.”
In the study, the use of whole-exome sequencing identified ways in which medical professionals could clinically intervene in order to alleviate or eliminate symptoms and give patients’ families more information about the disease and treatment. Furthermore, many of the diagnoses made using the technique involved patients inheriting a new mutation previously undetected in their parents, the researchers will report Tuesday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) in San Diego.
The clinical whole-exome sequencing analyzed as part of the study took place between June 2012 and August 2014, and the tests had been ordered by the patient’s physician for suspected genetic conditions. The process involved the collection of peripheral blood, tissue, or extracted DNA samples which were collected from patients or their parents, and the majority (87.8 percent) of those analyzed were found to have neurological disorders or developmental delay.
A molecular diagnosis was reported for 504 patients (25.2 percent), with 58 percent of the diagnostic mutations not previously reported, the researchers said. Molecular diagnosis rates for the physical manifestation or phenotypic category was 27.2 percent for the neurological group, 24.6 percent for the neurological plus other organ systems group, 36.1 percent for the specific neurological group, and 20.1 percent for the nonneurological group.
“Clinical exome sequencing can assist diagnosis in a wide range of disorders that are diagnostic dilemmas,” said Lupski. “Rare variants and Mendelian disease are important contributors to disease populations… We find ‘rare variants’ in aggregate actually contribute to disease susceptibility in a big way. The individual diseases may be rare, but there are thousands of such diseases and many more being defined through genomics.”
“I expect that in a few years, we will learn of the importance of whole exome sequencing in adult medicine and in fields of pediatrics outside of development,” added Dr. Sharon Plon, professor of pediatrics and molecular and human genetics at Baylor and director of the Baylor Cancer Genetics Clinic. “We are currently performing an NIH-supported clinical trial of whole exome sequencing in childhood cancer patients to learn of its potential utility for these patients.”
Like the Baylor College of Medicine Medical Genetics Laboratories, the UCLA Clinical Genomics Center is working to put DNA sequencing to clinical use, and in research also published in JAMA, they revealed that exome sequencing was able to provide a definitive diagnosis in 40 percent of the university’s most complex cases involving children with rare genetic disorders.
“Our study is the first to show that sequencing a child’s genome together with his or her parents’ dramatically improves geneticists’ ability to reach a firm diagnosis in rare disorders,” said corresponding author Dr. Stan Nelson, a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. “We discovered a genetic cause for the conditions affecting 40 percent of the hundreds of young children who come to UCLA for exome sequencing due to developmental delays or intellectual disabilities.”
Nelson and his colleagues worked on their research for two-years, sequencing and analyzing the exomes of 814 children whose symptoms had previously defied diagnosis despite exhaustive genetic, biochemical and imaging tests by clinical workers. They took the raw data from the sequencing of those youngsters’ genomes and their parents and set out to identify variants from the standard human genome, then applied a series of filters based on family history and other key factors and looked for genes and mutations that matched the patient’s symptoms.
“Finally UCLA’s Genomics Data Board, a multidisciplinary team of experts, reviewed the findings to reach a diagnosis,” the university said in a statement. “The typical turnaround time is under eight weeks, though test results have been returned to physicians within 10 days in medically urgent situations. With preauthorization, many insurance providers cover the cost to sequence a child and both parents. If not, the out-of-pocket fee runs $6,650.”
“All families deserve a clear diagnosis of their child’s condition,” added Dr. Wayne Grody, director of the UCLA Clinical Genomics Center and a professor of pathology, human genetics and pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine and Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA. “Exome sequencing plays an important role in identifying the precise cause of a child’s illness. This is immediately useful to families and physicians in understanding how the disease occurred, preventing unnecessary testing, and developing the best strategies to treat it.”
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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

A new implantable eye device could soon spell the end of reading glasses, as the invention reportedly helps cure the condition that causes near-vision blurriness experienced by men and women over the age of 40.

The KAMRA inlay, a thin and flexible doughnut-shaped ring that is placed in a small pocket in the cornea, improved vision well enough for 80 percent of patients participating in a trial to read a newspaper without disturbing distance vision enough to disrupt activities such as driving, the researchers reported Saturday at the 118th annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO).

The condition, known as presbyopia, affects more than one billion people worldwide and causes the cornea to become less flexible. As a result, it bends in such a way that it becomes difficult for those affected to see up close, often resulting in the need to use reading glasses in order to help alleviate the problem.

More recently, however, several new corneal inlay products (including KAMRA) are being developed to offer an alternative solution – one that eliminates the need to constantly put on or remove glasses, based on whether a person needs to see up close or far away.

The KAMRA inlay is currently available in Asia, Europe and South America, measures 3.8 millimeters in diameter and has with a 1.6 millimeter hole in the middle. When the device is placed in the front of the patient’s eye, it acts like a camera aperture, adjusting the depth of field so that the user can alternately see near and far objects.

“To test the inlay’s efficacy, clinicians conducted a prospective non-randomized study of 507 patients between 45 and 60 years of age across the United States, Europe and Asia with presbyopia who were not nearsighted,” the AAO said in a statement. “The researchers implanted the ring in the patients and followed up with them over the course of three years.”

“In 83 percent of eyes with the implant, the KAMRA corneal inlay allowed presbyopic patients to see with 20/40 vision or better over the three years,” the organization added. “This is considered the standard for being able to read a newspaper or drive a vehicle without corrective lenses. On average, patients gained 2.9 lines on a reading chart. The researchers report that the results remained steady over a three-year period.”

It takes approximately 10 minutes to implant the device, the researchers said, and typically only topical anesthesia is required. Complications associated with corneal inlays have included haziness – a condition that is treatable with steroids and has become less common due to recent improvements in inlay design, the AAO said. They can also be removed if needed, giving the procedure the advantage of being reversible (unlike LASIK surgery).

“This is a solution that truly delivers near vision that transitions smoothly to far distance vision,” said Dr. John Vukich, author of the study and a clinical adjunct professor in ophthalmology and vision sciences at the University of Wisconsin. “Corneal inlays represent a great opportunity to improve vision with a safety net of removability.”

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Provided by Michael Bishop, Institute of Physics

The daily trimming of fingernails and toenails to make them more aesthetically pleasing could be detrimental and potentially lead to serious nail conditions.

This is according to researchers at the University of Nottingham who have devised equations to identify the physical laws that govern nail growth, and used them to throw light on the causes of some of the most common nail problems, such as ingrown toe nails, spoon-shaped nails and pincer nails.

According to the research, which was published October 17 in IOP Publishing’s journal Physical Biology, regular poor trimming can tip the fine balance of nails, causing residual stress to occur across the entire nail.

This residual stress can promote a change in shape or curvature of the nail over time which, in turn, can lead to serious nail conditions.

Lead author of the study Cyril Rauch said: “It is remarkable what some people are willing to do to make their nails look good, and it is in this context that I decided to look at what we really know about nails. Reading the scientific literature on nails I quickly realized that very little physics or maths had been applied to nails and their conditions.”

“Looking at our results, we suggest that nail beauty fanatics who trim their nails on a daily basis opt for straight or parabolic edges, as otherwise they may amplify the imbalance of stresses which could lead to a number of serious conditions.”

In their study, the researchers focused specifically on ingrown toe nails which, though recognized for a long time, still lack a satisfactory treatment as the causes remain largely unknown.

When devising their equations, the researchers accounted for the strong adhesion of nails to their bed through tiny, microscopic structures, which allow the nail to slide forwards and grow in a “ratchet-like” fashion by continuously binding and unbinding to the nail.

By also taking into account the mechanical stresses and energies associated with the nail, the researchers came up with an overall nail shape equation.

The equation showed that when the balance between the growth stress and adhesive stress is broken – if a nail grows too quickly or slowly, or the number of adhesive structures changes – a residual stress across the entire nail can occur, causing it to change shape over time.

The equations showed that residual stress can occur in any fingernail or toenail; however, the stress is greater for nails that are larger in size and have a flatter edge, which explains why ingrown toe nails predominantly occur in the big toe.

Although a residual stress can be brought about by age or a change in metabolic activity – ingrown toenails are often diagnosed in children and pregnant women – the equations also showed that bad trimming of the nails can amplify the residual stress.

Moving forward, Rauch believes this research can be applied to farm animals and conditions associated with their hooves, which can be life threatening.

“Animals such as sheep, cattle, horses and ponies all suffer hugely from hoof conditions, which can have direct effects on the human population. At a time when securing food across the world is important, understanding the physics of hooves has never been so essential to sustain agriculture and food production,” Rauch continued.

“I believe that physics can make a difference by promoting a new type of evidence-based veterinary medicine and help the veterinary and farrier communities by devising trimming methods to alleviate pain and potentially remove the cause of serious conditions.”

> Continue reading…

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
Teenagers who were exposed to signs informing them of the distance they would need to walk to burn off the calories in a sugary drink are less likely to purchase those beverages, according to research published online Thursday in the American Journal of Public Health.
Instead, those adolescents were more likely to leave the store with a lower calorie product or a smaller-sized drink, and those healthier choices persisted for weeks after the warning signs were removed, Dr. Sara N. Bleich of the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and her colleagues report in the new study.
According to BBC News, Dr. Bleich’s team posted four different types of brightly-colored signs on beverage cases at six shops in Baltimore, Maryland. Two of the signs detailed the amount of exercise that would be required to work off the 250 calories contained in those types of drinks, including one that drinking a 20 ounce bottle of sugary soda, sports drink or fruit juice would require 50 minutes of running.
The other signs, which Washington Post reporter Gail Sullivan explained were placed primarily in “black, low-income Baltimore neighborhoods,” revealed the calorie content, the sugar content and the amount of distance a person would need to walk in order to burn off those calories. The signs were displayed for six-week periods between August 2012 and June 2013.
The researchers said that they observed a total of 3,098 drink purchases by black adolescents ranging in age from 12 to 18, and of the 35 percent of teens who told the authors that they had seen the signs, 59 percent said that they believed what they said and 40 percent said that their content led them to change their behavior.
Prior to the signs going up, shopkeepers reported that 98 percent of all drink purchases in their stores were sugary beverages, but after the signs were posted, that dropped to 89 percent, the researchers said. When compared to purchasing behaviors during periods when no signs were posted, the most effective sign was the one which informed shoppers that they would have to walk five miles in order to burn off the calories contained in the drink.
The number of sugary beverage calories purchased went from 203 calories prior to the “miles of walking” sign to just 179 afterwards, according to a Johns Hopkins statement. The percentage of people buying 16 ounce or larger drinks also decreased from 54 percent to 37 percent, and regardless of which sign was posted, the percentage of teens who decided against buying any beverage increased from 27 percent to 33 percent over the study period.
“People don’t really understand what it means to say a typical soda has 250 calories,” explained Dr. Bleich, an associate professor in the Bloomberg School’s Department of Health Policy and Management. “If you’re going to give people calorie information, there’s probably a better way to do it.”
“What our research found is that when you explain calories in an easily understandable way such as how many miles of walking needed to burn them off, you can encourage behavior change,” the Johns Hopkins researcher continued. “This is a very low-cost way to get children old enough to make their own purchases to drink fewer sugar-sweetened beverages and they appear to be effective even after they are removed.”
“Black adolescents are one of the groups at highest risk for obesity and one of the largest consumers of sugary beverages. And there is a strong scientific link between consumption of sugary beverages and obesity,” she added. “Using these easy-to-understand and easy-to-install signs may help promote obesity prevention or weight loss.”
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Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Physical exercise has long been known to improve or support emotional well-being and a new study from Canadian and British researchers has found that being active three times a week can significantly lower the odds of being depressed.

The study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found a direct connection between exercise and mood – with more sedentary study volunteers exhibiting more depressive symptoms.

“Assuming the association is causal, leisure time physical activity has a protective effect against depression,” said study author Snehal Pinto Pereira, a medical researcher at the University College of London. “If an adult between their twenties and forties who isn’t physically active became active three times per week, they would reduce their risk of depression by approximately 16 percent.”

“Importantly, this effect was seen across the whole population and not just in those at high risk of clinical depression,” Pinto Pereira added. “The more physically active people were, the fewer depressive symptoms they reported. Just as someone might be a little overweight but not clinically overweight or obese, many people who are not clinically depressed could still experience some depressive symptoms.”

In the study, researchers tracked over 11,000 people born in 1958 up until the age of 50, documenting depressive symptoms and physical activity at frequent intervals in adulthood. To determine depressive symptoms, the scientists viewed volunteers’ reactions to the Malaise Inventory, a survey made to evaluate psychological stress at ages 23, 33, 42, and 50 years old.

The study team discovered that each added weekly activity session decreased odds of depression by 6 percent. They also saw that volunteers who reported more depressive symptoms at age 23 were more likely to be less physically active, but this effect was not as strong as participants aged.

“This finding is important for policies designed to get people more active, because it suggests that depressive symptoms could be considered a barrier to activity in young adulthood,” Pinto Pereira said.

In England, 19 percent of men and 26 percent of women are presently classed as ‘inactive’, the British researchers pointed out. They added that the new study implies activity could appreciably boost their mental and physical health.

“Previous studies investigating activity as a treatment for depression have produced mixed results, but this large longitudinal study suggests that exercise has an important role to play for mental health,” Pinto Pereira said.

“There is some evidence to suggest that activity can be used as a treatment for depression, but our study goes beyond examining the depressed group and suggests a benefit of activity to curb depressive symptoms in the general population,” said study author Chris Power, a professor of epidemiology and public health at UCL. “If everyone was physically active at least three times a week we would expect to see a drop in depression risk, not to mention the benefits for physical health, as pointed out by other research, including reduced obesity, heart disease and diabetes risk.”

“This latest research highlights just how important it is to ensure that people are working and living in environments that allow them to be both physically active and mentally healthy,” added Mark Petticrew of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, who was not directly involved in the study.

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Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
As American lawmakers met to discuss the federal response to the Ebola outbreak, officials from the World Health Organization (WHO) revealed that the international death toll from the disease is expected to surpass 4,500.
According to Wall Street Journal reporters Stephanie Armour and Siobhan Hughes, members of Congress met with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) director Anthony Fauci and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Dr. Tom Frieden regarding Ebola containment efforts in the US.
During the meeting, Fauci told legislators that 26-year-old Nina Pham, one of two nurses who contracted the disease after treating a Liberian patient in Dallas, would be transferred to a National Institutes of Health (NIH) facility in Maryland, Armour and Hughes said. The other nurse, 29-year-old Amber Joy Vinson, was flown to Emory University for treatment on October 15, according to NBC News.
Both Pham and Vinson work at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas and treated Thomas Eric Duncan, the first Ebola patient to be diagnosed in the US. Duncan, 42, died on October 8 after having been admitted to the hospital on September 28. Pham was diagnosed with Ebola on Sunday, and Vinson originally showed symptoms on Tuesday.
Vinson was in Cleveland, Ohio when she first reported having a fever of 99.5 degrees, according to the Wall Street Journal reporters. After receiving the go-ahead from the CDC, she flew on a commercial airliner from Cleveland back to Dallas where she was placed in isolation at the hospital where she worked.

Dr. Frieden said that the CDC is currently attempting to contact all 132 passengers on her flight. Frontier Airlines, the company operating that flight, placed six crew members on paid leave for 21 days, while 13 nurses from Ohio hospitals that were also on Vinson’s flight were placed on paid leave Wednesday while their health is monitored.
Armour and Hughes also reported that seven other Ohio residents have been placed in voluntary quarantine and several schools in the area were closed, and officials at the Belton Independent School District in Texas cancelled classed through Friday and disinfected schools and buses after learning that two students were also on Vinson’s flight.
The Associated Press reported Wednesday that Dallas County commissioners were considering issuing a disaster declaration in the wake of the recent infections at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital. The commissioners had scheduled an emergency meeting for Thursday afternoon, during which they considered a proposal which states that the county “has the potential to suffer widespread or severe damage, injury, loss or threat of life” due to the virus.
Likewise, the New York Times reported that a Yale University graduate student who had recently returned from Liberia was being treated for “Ebola-like” symptoms, and The Times-Picayune reported that a Louisiana State University employee had been placed in quarantine after returning to Baton Rouge from an Ebola training mission in Africa.
On Tuesday, officials from National Nurses United, the largest nurses’ union in the country, told reporters that Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital failed to provide caretakers with adequate training or equipment after Duncan arrived at the facility. The hospital denied those accusations in a statement released Wednesday morning, claiming that they “followed” CDC guidelines “and sought additional guidance and clarity.”
In the wake of these types of reports, “both Democrats and Republicans grilled public health officials about their handling of the virus in the US, including the lack of a travel ban from affected countries,” said Armour and Hughes. Dr. Frieden said that banning travel would prevent the US to check people for symptoms if they arrived in the country through other means, and would hamper efforts to provide information to state and local health officials.
On the international front, Dr. Isabelle Nuttall, director of the World Health Organization’s global capacities, alert and response team, said during a Wednesday press conference that the Ebola outbreak was spreading out of control in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. She noted that WHO data indicates cases in those three nations are doubling every four weeks, the total death toll from the virus would top 4,500 by the end of the week.
“Nuttall said Ebola cases were growing in Guinea’s capital of Conakry but problems with data-gathering in Liberia, which has a significant under-reporting of Ebola cases in Monrovia, the capital, make it hard to draw any conclusions there,” AP reporter John Heilprin reported. “It will take months before the outbreak is stopped, she said, adding that WHO has identified 14 African countries where being prepared and containing Ebola is a top priority.”
Those 14 countries, Heilprin said, are Benin, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, South Sudan and Togo. According to Dr. Nuttall, those nations have been selected as targets because they border on countries that are currently being affected, or because they have a high rate of travel and/or frequently used trade routes.

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Related Reading:
> The Facts About Ebola: How The Disease Can (And Can’t) Be Spread
> Drexel Study Questions 21-Day Quarantine Period For Ebola
> WHO: “Drastic Action” Needed To Deal With West Africa Ebola Epidemic
> World Health Organization Ebola Website
> Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Ebola Website
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Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Late-night legend David Letterman has been joking about the size of New York City rats for years; however, a new study from Columbia University researchers has found that the disease threat posed by these hulking rodents is no laughing matter.

Published in the journal mBio, the study found the rats in New York City are hosting a number of deadly pathogens including E. Coli, Salmonella and the Seoul Hantavirus. The study represents the first time that Hantavirus has been documented in the city.

Study author Cadhla Firth, a researcher at Columbia’s Center for Infection and Immunity during the research, said humans in close proximity with rats could be infected in a number of ways – including rat saliva, feces and urine.

“New Yorkers are constantly exposed to rats and the pathogens they carry, perhaps more than any other animal,” Firth said. “Despite this, we know very little about the impact they have on human health.”

To attain their findings, researchers tested over 130 rats using screening methods developed by the Center for Infection and Immunity. The technique was used because it could detect both known and unknown pathogens.

In addition to finding the first evidence of Hantavirus in New York, the study also uncovered 18 previously-unknown viruses, including two rat hepatitis viruses: dubbed NrHV-1 and NrHV-2. While these viruses are somewhat distant from hepatitis C, which infects humans, they do replicate in the animal’s liver – like hepatitis C.

Image Above: This image shows rats eating takeout in a New York City park where scientists the Center for Infection and Immunity trapped the animals to test for the pathogens they carry. Credit: Center for Infection and Immunity, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University

Study author Dr. W. Ian Lipkin, a director at the Center for Infection and Immunity, noted that the discovery of these rat viruses is important for research purposes.

“It’s a lot of new viruses,” Lipkin told ABC News. “With the loss of the chimpanzee model for hepatitis C, the availability of an animal model that has fidelity to the human model is extremely important to efforts to develop drugs and vaccines.”

Lipkin said the study began as a series of conversations with his late colleague Joshua Lederberg, a molecular biologist and Nobel laureate. The two men talked about looking at New York City for a case study in how a pathogen might cross over from an animal population to a human population – unleashing a massive outbreak.

“It started as a biodefense initiative,” Lipkin said.

“Rats are sentinels for human disease,” he added. “They’re all over the city; uptown, downtown, underground. Everywhere they go, they collect microbes and amplify them. And because these animals live close to people, there is ample opportunity for exchange.”

Having discovered more than 600 viruses during his career, Lipkin regularly advocates for continual monitoring of the urban rat population, as well as research on humans to determine how an animal can pass disease into the general population.

Recently, Vice News reported on the resurgence of a rat-borne pathogen that decimated human populations throughout history: Yersinia pestis, the bacteria behind the bubonic plague. The pathogen and the disease its causes have recently ravaged parts of Madagascar, where unsanitary conditions attracts rats – and with them disease.

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Related Reading:

> Do Rats Have Emotions? New Study Shows They Can Experience Regret
> Oreos As Addictive As Morphine To Rats
> Chicago Holds Top Spot on Rattiest Cities List

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