redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

The infant mortality rate in the US fell 12 percent from 2005 to 2011, with improvements reported in all major racial and ethnic groups, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a report issued on Wednesday.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), the country´s infant mortality rate fell from 6.87 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2005 to 6.05 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 2011.

From 2005 through 2011 the neonatal mortality rate (deaths under age 28 days per 1,000 live births) fell 11 percent, while the postneonatal mortality rate (deaths at ages 28 days to under one year per 1,000 live births) dropped 14 percent, the CDC report added. The mortality rate decreased most for non-Hispanic black women (16 percent) during that time period, while the lowest rate of decline was observed in Hispanic women (nine percent).

In addition, deaths related to four out of the five primary causes of infant death — congenital malformations, short gestation/low birth weight, Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and maternal complications — decreased from 2005 through 2011. There was no significant change in the fifth, unintentional injuries, between 2005 and 2011.

“Some of the biggest gains were seen in Southern states, though the region still has the highest infant mortality rates overall. The highest rates are in Mississippi and Alabama,” Anna Gorman of the Los Angeles Times said.

Study leader Marian MacDorman, a senior statistician with the NCHS, told Gorman that the gains in those states and in African-American women are good news. She added that efforts to limit elective deliveries, increased awareness of the dangers associated with preterm birth, and improved medical care were all factors in the recent trends.

The goal now, according to Michael Fraser, chief executive of the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, is to maintain efforts to reduce infant mortality. He told Gorman that it was “a critical time to celebrate success” but that it was also essential to “figure out how we are going to keep this going.”

“It would be horrible to see in five years for the rates to go back up because we are not able to sustain this level of intervention,” he added. While in the past medical experts have focused on providing quality prenatal care for mothers, Fraser said that it is important to begin addressing the health of young females earlier. “For us to improve birth outcomes, we really need to move beyond the nine months of pregnancy,” he said.

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

As veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars return to their lives away from the battlefield, many are having difficulty coping with the additional strain brought on by post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

A new study in the journal“¯Depression and Anxiety points to promising results for veterans suffering from PTSD. Researchers found that veterans who engaged in mindfulness exercises, such as meditation, stretching, and acceptance of uncomfortable thoughts and emotions, experienced a reduction in PTSD symptoms compared to their colleagues who did not engage in the same activities.

“The results of our trial are encouraging for veterans trying to find help for PTSD,” said lead author Anthony P. King, an assistant professor in the University of Michigan´s Department of Psychiatry. “Mindfulness techniques seemed to lead to a reduction in symptoms and might be a potentially effective novel therapeutic approach to PTSD and trauma-related conditions.”

Along with a team of fellow Michigan scientists, King tracked the progress of a group of veterans with PTSD in the“¯VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System who completed an eight-week mindfulness-based group treatment plan. The therapy program combines cognitive therapy techniques with a type of mindfulness meditation that is designed to increase a person´s self awareness.

Previous studies have revealed the benefits of these techniques for individuals with PTSD, but the new study is the first to focus on a PTSD-specific clinic.

In the treatment group, veterans participated in exercises such as mindful eating, in which they ate very slowly and focused on the sensations cause by that activity. They also performed “body scanning,” an exercise where patients mentally examine individual parts of the body with respect to pain and tension. The veterans in the treatment group were also instructed to perform mindful movement and stretching and “mindfulness meditation,” which included centering the attention on breath and personal emotions.

The participants were taught these techniques and instructed to practice them at home through audio-recorded exercises and during the day while walking, eating or showering.

After the eight-week treatment course, 73 percent of patients in the study group displayed marked improvement compared to 33 percent in the conventional treatment groups.

According to King, the mindfulness techniques allowed patients to significantly reduce their avoidance symptoms, as the entire process is oriented around dealing with uncomfortable thoughts, feelings and memories.

“Part of the psychological process of PTSD often includes avoidance and suppression of painful emotions and memories, which allows symptoms of the disorder to continue,” King explained. “Through the mindfulness intervention, however, we found that many of our patients were able to stop this pattern of avoidance and see an improvement in their symptoms.”

He emphasized that the study only provided the first steps toward dealing with PTSD in veterans and further studies with a larger sample size are necessary for a more detailed examination of mindfulness intervention benefits.

“Further studies will help us understand whether mindfulness training is more aptly considered an adjunct option to gold-standard trauma-focused treatments such as prolonged exposure or EMDR, or whether it can function as an intervention in its own right for treating avoidance and other symptoms,” King said.

“Either way, mindfulness-based therapies provide a strategy that encourages active engagement for participants, are easy to learn and appear to have significant benefits for veterans with PTSD.”

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

While colic in newborn babies has long been considered to be a gastrointestinal condition, new research suggests that migraine headaches might actually be to blame.

The study claims that children who were diagnosed with migraines were more likely (72.6 percent) to experience colic — a condition in which an otherwise healthy infant cries or displays symptoms of distress for long periods of time and for no apparent reason — than those who did not experience the debilitating headaches (26.5 percent).

“It is already known that migraine can show with intestinal pain in childhood,” senior author Dr. Luigi Titomanlio, head of the pediatric migraine and neurovascular diseases clinic at APHP Hospital Robert Debre in Paris, told HealthDay reporter Serena Gordon on Tuesday. “Our results suggest that infantile colic could represent a form of migraine with age-specific expression.”

According to Michelle Healy of USA Today, Titomanlio and his colleagues reviewed the health records of 208 youngsters between the ages of six and 18 who had been diagnosed as having migraines, as well as questionnaires completed by their parents. That information was then compared with 471 children and teenagers who had no headaches, as well as 120 children who suffered from tension headaches.

The investigators discovered no association between infantile colic and tension-type headaches, said MedPage Today staff writer Nancy Walsh. Of the children with migraine, 66 had accompanying auras while 142 did not.

Those who experienced aura — which include symptoms such as blind spots or flashes of light — had a 69.7 percent association with colic, while those without aura had a 73.9 percent association with the condition. The link between migraine and colic was seen for children between the ages of six and 12, as well as those ages 12 to 18.

“There is scientific evidence that casein hydrolysate formula is useful for infants with colic because of the potential role of allergies to cow’s milk proteins in such infants,” the authors explained, according to Walsh. “The increased exposure to cow’s milk proteins among formula-fed infants could partly explain our finding of a significant association between formula feeding and migraine.”

“An accompanying editorial notes that the prevalence of migraine headache by age groups is 1% to 3% from ages 3 to 7; 4% to 11% from ages 7 to 11; and 8% to 23% from ages 11 to 15 years old. Colic occurs in about 16% to 20% of infants,” Healy added. The findings of the study are detailed in their entirety in the latest edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Feeling like you need to burn one down after a traffic jam or your boss chewing you out? Well, a new study suggests a little brain stimulation may help you stay away from those cancer sticks.

The research shows a single, 15-minute session of high frequency transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) over the prefrontal cortex temporarily reduces those trigger cravings.

Nicotine activates the dopamine system and reward-related regions in the brain. Many methods to try and quit smoking, including medications, behavioral therapies, hypnosis and even acupuncture, all try and alter brain function. Nicotine withdrawal naturally results in decreased activity in certain brain regions which have been associated with craving, relapse and continued nicotine consumption.

One of the reward-related regions of the brain is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex which can be targeted using a brain stimulation technology known as transcranial magnetic stimulation. Stimulating this region involves using magnetic fields, and it does not require sedation or anesthesia to do so.

The researchers examined cravings triggered by smoking cues in 16 smokers in the study who received one session each of high frequency or sham repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation. This allowed the team to ferret out the effects of the real versus the sham stimulation.

They found craving induced smoking triggers were reduced after participants received real stimulation. They also said the reduction in triggers was positively correlated with levels of nicotine dependence, meaning the reductions were greater in people who smoked more often.

“One of the elegant aspects of this study is that it suggests that specific manipulations of particular brain circuits may help to protect smokers and possibly people with other addictions from relapsing,” said Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry. “While this was only a temporary effect, it raises the possibility that repeated TMS sessions might ultimately be used to help smokers quit smoking. TMS as used in this study is safe and is already FDA approved for treating depression. This finding opens the way for further exploration of the use of brain stimulation techniques in smoking cessation treatment.”

A study reported in 2010 claimed it is the habit, not addiction, which drives cigarette cravings. Researchers from this study wrote in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology that the intensity of cravings for cigarettes has more to do with psychosocial element of smoking, and less to do with physiological effects of nicotine as an addictive chemical.

“These findings might not be popular with advocates of the nicotine addiction theory, because they undermine the physiological role of nicotine and emphasize mind over matter when it comes to smoking,” said Dr. Reuven Dar of Tel Aviv University´s Department of Psychology.

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

New research from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) indicates our eyes are bigger than our stomachs when it comes to determining appetite.

The researchers wrote in the Journal of Health Psychology people given large servings of food eat more than those given smaller servings, despite being knowledgeable about the impact of portion size. They say the study highlights the need to find new ways to reduce the effect of portion size on overeating.

“If no effective approaches are found, it may be necessary to develop policy-related changes to provide a healthier food environment for people,” said Dr Lenny Vartanian, a senior lecturer in the UNSW School of Psychology and an author of the paper.

Many studies and documentaries have highlighted how portion sizes in restaurants and at home have increased dramatically since the 1970s, which could be playing a crucial role in the growing obesity epidemic.

“Studies have consistently shown that increases in portion sizes for a wide range of foods and beverages result in increased energy intake. And the impact is not affected by factors such as hunger or the taste of the food,” Dr Vartanian said.

Researchers from the current study examined the effectiveness of educating people about portion size and seeing whether it had an effect. Participants in the study were served either a 350 gram portion of macaroni pasta with tomato sauce for lunch, or a 600 gram portion. Those who were educated beforehand were given information about how external factors, like mood, advertising, portion size and social influences can contribute to overeating. Afterwards, they were asked to write about how these factors influenced their food intake.

The team found those in the mindfulness group were taught how to focus on the internal sensations like the taste of food and feelings of hunger and satiety, before they were offered pasta.

“Neither of these brief exercises reduced the effects of portion size. Overall, participants in the larger portion group consumed about a third more pasta — 69 grams — than those in the smaller portion group, ” Dr Vartanian said.

One way to try and keep your child from becoming obese would be to try and swap out those larger plates for smaller ones. Researchers reported in the journal Pediatrics last week first-grade students who used smaller plates consumed nearly 50 percent less extra calories than their peers who used adult-sized plates.

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Last week the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a public warning about the stimulant dimethylamylamine, or DMAA. This comes after several medical researchers have discovered that the stimulant could lead to heart attacks or, in the case of two American soldiers, even death.

DMAA is marketed by its manufacturers as a fat-burning, muscle-building stimulant that enhances performance in weight lifting and other sports. The FDA´s warning claims that the agency is doing all it can to ensure that supplements with DMAA are no longer distributed or sold within the US. Last week´s FDA warning places the United States behind eight other countries that have already banned the stimulant from their borders.

“As of April 11, 2013, FDA had received 86 reports of illnesses and death associated with supplements containing DMAA,” reads the FDA warning which was posted online.

“The majority are voluntary reports from consumers and healthcare practitioners. The illnesses reported include heart problems and nervous system or psychiatric disorders.”

The FDA makes a point to note, however, that these reports are not to be considered proof that DMAA was directly responsible for the illnesses or heart problems.

The warning claims DMAA has been found to increase blood pressure and even lead to heart attacks. Its effects on the cardiovascular system could make DMAA even more dangerous if taken in combination with caffeine.

This public announcement reads more like a proclamation than a warning; the FDA calls DMAA “illegal,” suggesting they may be forced to take appropriate actions once they complete the necessary tests to forcefully remove DMAA products from shelves.

Even though it´s been considered dangerous for a while, products containing DMAA, such as supplements called “Jack3d” or “OxyElite,” are still available in stores and online. The popular supplement franchise GNC.com, for instance, lists Jack3d by USPlabs as a “Hot Buy Item.” USPlabs also sells a DMAA-less version called “Jack3d Micro.” The label on a tub of Jack3d claims that the product has been “University Studied.” A disclaimer highlighted in yellow reads: “Due to its incredible potency, it´s mandatory to follow directions for use and warnings.”

The US Defense Department has already taken a stand against DMAA by removing all products containing the stimulant from military bases in December 2011. Earlier that year two soldiers died shortly after using the stimulant. The family of one of the soldiers is suing USPlabs and GNC for making and selling the product.

In a statement to the New York Times, a lawyer for USPlabs says they disagree with the FDA´s statements.

“USPlabs continues to believe that DMAA is legal, or otherwise they would not be selling it,” said Peter B Hutt with Covington & Burling in Washington. “This is the agency´s customary attempt to protect itself.”

“These reports rely on a plaintiff´s unsubstantiated allegations. There is no evidence that the soldier´s death was caused by DMAA.”

The FDA public warning names Jack3d and OxyElite specifically, though they also say they´ll begin looking for other products which contain DMAA. The FDA also says they´ll begin following up with companies who said they´d stop selling any DMAA products.

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Engineers from Purdue University have devised a new system that will facilitate a very specific type of physical and mental multi-tasking — helping treadmill runners to read text on a display screen.

The system, called ReadingMate, compensates for constantly bobbing eyes so runners can train for a marathon while reading their favorite novel.

“Not many people can run and read at the same time,” said Ji Soo Yi, an assistant professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University. “This is because the relative location of the eyes to the text is vigorously changing, and our eyes try to constantly adjust to such changes, which is burdensome.”

Instead of increasing the size of the displayed font, Yi and his colleagues decided to compensate for a runner´s head motion.

“You could increase the font size and have a large-screen monitor on the wall, but that’s impractical because you cannot have numerous big screen displays in an exercise room,” Yi said.

According to a report on the system published recently in Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, the engineers recruited 15 multitasking volunteers to perform a “letter-counting” test while jogging on a treadmill and using ReadingMate. The participants were asked to tally how many times the letter ℠F´ appeared in two lines of text nested in 10 lines of text that were displayed on a computer monitor.

While performing the test, the participants wore goggles equipped with infrared LEDs. An infrared camera tracked the motion of the LEDs, essentially recording the movement of the runner’s head. To compensate for the head motion, the displayed text was moved as the volunteers ran along the treadmill with their heads bobbing.

“Our eyes can accommodate vibration to a certain degree,” said Yi. “There are compensatory reflex mechanisms that tend to stabilize the head and eyes to maintain gaze and head position.”

To compensate for the eyes´ natural compensation, Yi´s colleague Bum chul Kwon devised an algorithm to move the text in the most readable manner.

“You can’t just move the text exactly in synch with the head because the eye is already doing what it can to compensate,” Kwon explained. “So you have to account for that compensation by moving the text slightly out of synch with the head motion.”

The researchers found those who used the ReadingMate system performed better at multi-tasking their physical and mental assignments, particularly when it came to reading smaller font sizes and smaller line-spaced text.

“We also measured whether participants gave up on counting the letters because the task was too difficult,” Kwon said. “We often saw people giving up without ReadingMate, especially with certain font sizes and smaller spaces between lines.”

Besides aiding people with the novel task of reading while running, the researchers said their system could be used to assist airline pilots or those working in heavy industry.

“Both may experience heavy shaking and turbulence while reading information from a display,” Kwon said. “ReadingMate could stabilize the content in such cases.”

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Transparency allows for consumers to make informed decisions on everything from fast food to automobiles.The same could be held true for physicians, allowing them to order considerably fewer tests or search for lower-priced alternatives when shown the costs of diagnostic procedures, if this transparency was available to them, according to a new study published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

In a study performed at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the researchers found making price information available decreased overall use of certain tests by about 9 percent. This level of transparency is different from typical hospital practices that attempt to shield both patients and physicians from the true cost of medical services.

“We generally don’t make decisions based on what is cost-effective or what is known to be absolutely necessary for our patients, but knowing the cost of things appears to make us more thoughtful about what we think might be best for their health,” said Dr. Leonard S. Feldman, a professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who worked on the study. “There’s a lot of waste in medicine because we don’t have a sense of the costs of much of what we do.”

For the study, the Johns Hopkins team focused on 62 diagnostic blood tests frequently ordered for patients at the hospital. The tests were divided into two groups, with prices attached to only one of the groups. From November 2009 to May 2010, the researchers tracked the rates at which each of the 62 tests was ordered.

The researchers found an approximate 9 percent reduction in the cost-attached tests and a 6 percent rise in the cost-hidden tests. The study found a savings of more than $400,000 over six months.

“Our study offers evidence that presenting providers with associated test fees as they order is a simple and unobtrusive way to alter behavior,” Feldman said in a statement. “In the end, we ordered fewer tests, saved money and saved patients from extra needle sticks without any negative outcomes.”

The researchers found some lower cost tests saved a few dollars compared to higher priced alternatives, but when those savings were compounded over six months — they added up to thousands of dollars.

“It’s like getting practitioners to switch from a $3.50-a-day latte habit to a cheaper $1-a-day cup of regular coffee,” said co-author Dr. Daniel J. Brotman, an associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The doctor added making medical decisions based on cost is considered by many to be taboo in the industry, potentially leading to rationing and compromising of care. However, Brotman said making these decisions without cost consideration has contributed to an astronomical rise in health care spending and waste.

“There’s no other area of our lives in which we don’t even think about costs,” Feldman said. “If one test costs three times what another does and provides basically the same information, that’s a pretty easy decision. We need to give that information to those who need it, and we really have done a disservice to society by having our head in the sand about costs.”

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

The taste of beer can trigger dopamine release in a person´s brain, even without any effect from the alcohol it contains, researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine have discovered.

The IU researchers recruited 49 men and used a pair of positron emission tomography (PET) scans to test for increased activity of the brain neurotransmitter which has been linked to drinking and other drugs of abuse.

The first scan was taken while the study participants were tasting beer, while the second was taken as they consumed a popular brand of sports drink. An analysis of both scans revealed “significantly more dopamine activity” following the tasting of beer than the other beverage, the researchers explained in a statement Monday.

Furthermore, the effect was said to be “significantly greater” among those men whose families had a history of alcoholism. Their findings have been published online in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

“We believe this is the first experiment in humans to show that the taste of an alcoholic drink alone, without any intoxicating effect from the alcohol, can elicit this dopamine activity in the brain’s reward centers,” said David A. Kareken, a professor of neurology at the IU School of Medicine and the deputy director of the Indiana Alcohol Research Center.

Kareken added that the stronger effect in participants who have alcoholic relatives leads them to believe that dopamine release in response to cues such as the taste of beer could be an inherited risk factor for the condition. Dopamine has long been linked to the consumption of addictive drugs, but experts have had difficulty determining the exact role that the neurotransmitter plays, they said.

“Sensory cues that are closely associated with drug intoxication (ranging from tastes and smells to the sight of a tavern) have long been known to spark cravings and induce treatment relapse in recovering alcoholics. Many neuroscientists believe dopamine plays a critical role in such cravings,” the university said.

Each study participant was given a minute amount (15 milliliters) of their favorite type of beer over a 15-minute period of time, which allowed them to taste the beverage without experiencing any intoxication or giving them a discernible blood alcohol level. Kareken´s team then used a PET scanning compound that targeted changes in the brain´s dopamine receptors after each man consumed the beverage.

In addition to the results of the scan, the participants said they experienced an increase craving for beer, Brandon G. Oberlin, a post-doctoral fellow and first author of the paper, explained. No such cravings were experienced after consuming the sports drink, even though many claimed it tasted better than the alcoholic beverage, Oberlin added.

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Researchers from Beth Israel Medical Center (BIMC) in New York City led a study published in the journal Pediatrics that found premature babies find lullabies soothing.

The new study, which involved 11 hospitals, found that premature babies can benefit from live music, whether played or sung. The researchers found that live music helped to slow the infants’ heartbeats, calm their breathing, improve sucking behaviors, aid sleep and promote states of quiet alertness.

The team included 272 premature infants in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in the study. They reported that infants in the study faced issues such as breathing problems, bacterial bloodstream infections, or being small for their age. The infants received three interventions each week for a two week period. During these interventions, physiologic and developmental data was collected during, before and after.

“We were eager to test the influence of the applied womb, heart, and breath sounds entrained live to the infant´s vital signs and lullabies specifically identified by parents as important to their cultural heritage,” the authors wrote. They used the lullaby “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” as the default song when a parent did not specify what they wanted their child to hear.

The researchers said that instead of using high or low voices, they used a range that was ‘familiar” or “recognized,” where the mother or father is the source. The music therapists provided a survey for the parent, and also took note of the vocal range and recorded them singing a lullaby.

“From a decade of pilot trails that used live music and sound interventions, we hypothesized that the Remo ocean disc and the gato box, when played live and carefully entrained to the infant´s breath rate, would enhance vital signs and that the effects of these sounds would evoke an environment of strength and stability for premature infants who were (greater than) 32 weeks at study entry,” the authors wrote

They concluded that certified music therapists can use live sound and parent-preferred lullabies to help influence cardiac and respiratory function.

“Parent-preferred lullabies, sung live, can enhance bonding, thus decreasing the stress parents associate with premature infant care,” the team wrote in the journal.

A study published in the Journal of Clinical Nursing in 2008 found that music therapy can help reduce psychological stress among pregnant women. The team found that music helped pregnant women reduce stress, anxiety and depression after just two weeks, compared to a control group of pregnant women who did not utilize music therapy.

Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

The painful, debilitating symptoms associated with myelin disorders, such as multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy, may one day be avoided if new breakthroughs in medical science have anything to say about it. One such breakthrough by a team of scientists at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine (CaseMed) has discovered a technique that directly converts skin cells into a type of brain cells destroyed in patients with these myelin disorders.

The breakthrough, revealed in a paper published in today´s issue of the journal Nature Biotechnology, enables “on demand” production of myelinating cells, which insulate and protect neurons and also enables delivery of brain impulses to the body. In patients with multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy and other similar disorders, these myelinating cells are destroyed and cannot be replaced.

In the research lab, Paul Tesar, PhD, assistant professor of genetics and genome sciences at CaseMed, and his colleagues used a new technique involving converting fibroblasts — an abundant structural cell in the skin and most organs — into oligodendrocytes, the type of cell responsible for myelinating the neurons of the brain.

This is alchemy on the cellular level, Tesar noted. “We are taking a readily accessible and abundant cell and completely switching its identity to become a highly valuable cell for therapy.”

Using “cellular reprogramming,” the team manipulated the levels of three naturally occurring proteins to induce fibroblast cells to become precursors of oligodendrocytes (oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, or OPCs). With the new method, the team was able to rapidly generate billions of these induced OPCs, and then show that they could regenerate new myelin coatings around nerves after being transplanted in mice.

Tesar and his colleagues, co-first authors Fadi Najm and Angela Lager, report that this new technique, effectively conducted in mice, could hopefully be used someday to treat human myelin disorders. Currently, cures require the myelin coating to be regenerated by replacement oligodendrocytes. But previously, OPCs and oligodendrocytes could only be obtained from fetal tissue or pluripotent stem cells, which were costly procedures and only offered limited benefits.

“The myelin repair field has been hampered by an inability to rapidly generate safe and effective sources of functional oligodendrocytes,” explained study co-author and myelin expert Robert Miller, PhD, professor of neurosciences at CaseMed and the university’s vice president for research. “The new technique may overcome all of these issues by providing a rapid and streamlined way to directly generate functional myelin producing cells.”

The next critical step in the research will be to effectively demonstrate the efficacy and safety of using human cells in the lab setting for myelin research. If the technique can prove successful, it will undoubtedly have widespread consequences for those suffering from debilitating myelin disorders. Therapeutic applications could be far-reaching.

Tesar and colleagues´ research was supported by funding from the National Institute of Health (NIH), the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF), and the Mt. Sinai Health Care Foundation, as well as Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

The US Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Monday in a case that could determine whether or not human DNA can be patented, which could have a tremendous impact on genetic research, one way or the other.

According to Reuters reporter Sharon Begley, “The US Patent and Trademark Office has granted patents on at least 4,000 human genes to companies, universities and others that have discovered and decoded them.”

Those patents cover approximately 40 percent of the entire human genome, according to recent research conducted by Dr. Christopher E. Mason of Weill Cornell Medical College and Dr. Jeffrey Rosenfeld, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Medicine & Dentistry of New Jersey.

The validity of these patents was challenged in a 2009 lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Public Patent Foundation, Begley said. The focus of that lawsuit was seven patents pertaining to a pair of genes linked to breast and ovarian cancer, BRCA1 and BRCA2.

Those patents are currently held by Myriad Genetics, but the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation argue that since DNA is a natural product, it cannot be patented under the US Patent Act.

Conversely, Myriad claims that the patents that they hold are for genes that have been “isolated,” thus making them the products of “human ingenuity” and thus patentable, Reuters said. While a federal judge sided with the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation, that ruling was overturned by a US appeals court.

“As scholars debate the legal questions, two parallel issues have emerged: whether patenting genes thwarts scientific research, and whether it harms patients,” Begley said. “A coalition of researchers, genetic counselors, cancer survivors, breast cancer support groups, and scientific associations representing 150,000 geneticists, pathologists and laboratory professionals argue that gene patents can be problematic on both counts.”

“The American Medical Association, the American Society of Human Genetics, the March of Dimes and even James Watson (co-discoverer, in 1953, of the double helix), among others, have filed briefs asking the court to invalidate Myriad’s patents on genes called BRCA1 and BRCA2,” she added. “On the other side are Myriad and industry groups such as the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) and the Animal Health Institute, which say that if gene patenting is ruled invalid, companies — with no guarantee they could profit from their discoveries — would stop investing in genetics research, to the detriment not only of patients but the economy.”

According to Karen McVeigh of The Guardian, the 4,000-plus genes currently covered by at least one patent constitute nearly one-fifth of the entire human genome. Some of the genes have been linked to diseases like Alzheimer’s disease and colon cancer, and they are held by a variety of institutions, including research laboratories, universities, and others looking to keep them widely available by blocking commercial companies from obtaining them.

“The overabundance of gene patents is a large and looming threat to personalized medicine,” Mason told Begley on Sunday. “How is it possible that my doctor cannot look at my DNA without being concerned about patent infringement? Individuals have an innate right to their own genome, or to allow their doctor to look at that genome, just like the lungs or kidneys.”

Mark Capone, president of Myriad’s laboratory division, countered by claiming that permitting DNA to be patented as intellectual property rewards research and thus helps patients. Capone told Reuters that research had not been hampered by his company´s patents, and that the 10,000 papers on the BRCA genes that had been published by an estimated 18,000 scientists worldwide served as proof of that.

Capone added that those statistics made those genes among the most studied genetic material in the world, and that they had been able to “to save thousands of patients’ lives” by telling them that they had cancer-causing BRCA mutations. Both arguments will be presented to the US Supreme Court starting on Monday.

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports — Your Universe Online
Women who participated in a six month, high-intensity aquatic workout plan became stronger and suffered fewer falls on average, researchers from the Universidade Federal de São Paulo claim in a new study.
According to Reuters Health reporter Trevor Stokes, lead author Linda Moreira and colleagues recruited more than 100 inactive women in their 50s and 60s.
Each participant was given 1,000 international units of vitamin D3 and 500 milligrams of calcium — two supplements which have been linked to bone and muscle health — and then asked to participate in a fitness plan specially designed to build strength and increase resistance.
“Half the women were also assigned to an aquatic exercise program, which Moreira’s group created to combat osteoporosis by preventing falls, and named HydrOS,” Stokes said. In place of the high-repetition, low-impact aquatic aerobic plans more commonly used, the HydrOS interval training plan “included bursts of intense activity between 10 to 30 seconds at up to 90 percent of maximum heart rate,” he added.
Essentially, the water provided the same resistance weights do on land, Moreira explained to the Reuters reporter. Seven months later, the number of women who suffered falls dropped 44 percent, but those who participated in the HydrOS program saw their fall rate decrease by 86 percent.
Furthermore, the investigators discovered the aquatic exercisers had gained increased hand, back, hip and knee strength, as well as increased flexibility. The full results of the study have been published in Menopause, the journal of the North American Menopause Society.
“What we did was to test the model for muscle training in the gyms and put it inside the pools,” Moreira told Stokes on Friday. She added that a second, forthcoming paper would demonstrate how, over the course of the six month study, the aquatic exercise group maintained bone mineral density in their femur leg bones, while those who did not participate in the HydrOS program saw their bone density decrease by 1.2 percent.
“There’s this bias in the osteoporosis community against doing any water-based exercise,” added Andrea LaCroix from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, who was not involved in the study. “This study goes in the face of that. If they show changes in bone density, that would be quite amazing and novel and will be a paradigm changer in terms of osteoporosis prevention.”

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

It has been said that people “eat with their eyes” before taking their first bite of any meal and a new study presented at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS) suggests that the eyes can be even more important than the tongue when it comes to perceiving the flavors of foods.

“There have been important new insights into how people perceive food flavors,” said Cornell University´s Terry E. Acree.

“Years ago, taste was a table with two legs – taste and odor,” Acree explained. “Now we are beginning to understand that flavor depends on parts of the brain that involve taste, odor, touch and vision.”

“The sum total of these signals, plus our emotions and past experiences, result in perception of flavors, and determine whether we like or dislike specific foods,” he added.

For example, the food scientist cited the popular white wine Sauvignon Blanc. The wine´s natural chemicals recall the flavors of banana, passion fruit, and bell pepper. However, when the wine is dyed to look like a merlot or cabernet, people taste the flavors of those red wines.

Acree also noted that scents can often overcome the tongue when it comes to detecting flavor. He cited a psychologists´ test that asked volunteers to smell sweet foods and then take a sip of plain water. The volunteers tended to report that the water tasted sweet. However, when the volunteers repeated the experiment with savory foods replacing the sweet foods, volunteers did not report sweet-tasting water.

One of the most important factors in detecting flavors, which can override all senses, is memory, according to Acree. He pointed out that chilies, stews, candy bars and cooked sausages can resemble vomit or feces. However, many people savor these dishes due to the memory of eating and enjoying them in the past and others may resist trying these foods first the first time because they lack fond memories of their taste.

With the proliferation of “nose to tail” eating and shows like Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern, trying different and unique foods appears to be enjoying unprecedented popularity. Acree said that the human desire for novelty is also a factor for ignoring what the eyes and brain may be saying and paying more attention to the senses of smell and taste.

The food scientist noted that understanding the interactions among the senses will allow for developing healthful foods that are more appealing to picky eaters.

Another trend appears to be a play on the idea of eating first with the eyes — dining in the dark. Many cafes and restaurants are offering patrons the chance to enjoy their menus in total darkness. The theory is that depriving diners of their vision will force them to pay attention to how the food tastes and smells.

Many non-profit organizations who advocate for individuals with visual impairments use “dining in the dark” charity events to raise both funds and awareness of the challenges faced by the blind and visually impaired.

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Physicians are often concerned about pain their patients may be experiencing, but without a way to quantify it, the experience of pain can be somewhat subjective and abstract.

According to a new report in The New England Journal of Medicine, a group of American researchers has set out to determine how much pain a person is experiencing by looking at the brain´s reaction to it.

Using Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the scientists were able to determine which individuals were experiencing pain and which were not simply by looking at their brain scans.

“Right now, there’s no clinically acceptable way to measure pain and other emotions other than to ask a person how they feel,” said co-author Tor Wager, an associate professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

“We found a pattern across multiple systems in the brain that is diagnostic of how much pain people feel in response to painful heat.”

Wagner and his colleagues said that prior to the study, they expected to see a unique pain signature, or neurological pattern, for each individual. Instead, what they found was a signature that was highly similar among different subjects. This provided a baseline which allowed them to calculate how much pain a person was experiencing from a heat stimulus, with between 90 and 100 percent accuracy, without referring to prior brain scans of the individual.

The team began by taking fMRI images of 20 volunteers to identify a signature that changed predictably as the participants felt varying amounts of heat, ranging from warm to scalding hot. After the scanned images were created, the research team used computer data-mining technology to identify a discrete neurologic pattern for experiencing pain. After settling on a pain signature, the team was able to predict pain responses in a different set of subjects.

The team tested subjects to see whether the heat pain signature also appeared in instances of psychological pain. However, when study participants were shown images of their recent former romantic partners, they did not produce the same neurologic response as that observed during physical pain.

The scientists also tested the neurologic effects of an analgesic that was used to dull the heat-induced pain. The results showed a dulling effect in the brain-pain response in subjects who were given either a painkiller or placebo.

The results of the study could have major implications for creating the first ever objective metric for assessing pain. According to Wager and his colleagues, they are already applying the neurologic signature to different types of pain stimuli.

“I think there are many ways to extend this study, and we’re looking to test the patterns that we’ve developed for predicting pain across different conditions,” Wager said. “Is the predictive signature different if you experience pressure pain or mechanical pain, or pain on different parts of the body?

“We’re also looking towards using these same techniques to develop measures for chronic pain. The pattern we have found is not a measure of chronic pain, but we think it may be an ‘ingredient’ of chronic pain under some circumstances. Understanding the different contributions of different systems to chronic pain and other forms of suffering is an important step towards understanding and alleviating human suffering.”

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online

The researchers behind a large study on the effects of oxygen levels on premature infants have been reprimanded by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for failing to inform the parents of those children of the risks involved with the study.

In a letter dated March 7, Lisa R. Buchanan of the HHS Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP) wrote that a portion of the University of Alabama-Birmingham (UAB) study “was in violation of the regulatory requirements for informed consent, stemming from the failure to describe the reasonably forseeable risks of blindness, neurological damage and death.”

As part of the study, over 1,300 severely premature infants were randomly chosen to receive one of two different levels of oxygen in order to determine which was better at preventing blindness without increasing the risk of brain damage or death, NPR´s Richard Knox reported on Wednesday.

Those studies, which were funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and conducted at nearly two dozen medical facilities between 2004 and 2009, were “ethically flawed” because the consent form given to parents did not adequately warn them of the dangers involved in the research, he added.

The research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in 2010 and reported that infants who had received higher levels of oxygen were twice as likely to go blind, but those receiving the lower levels were slightly more likely to die. A total of 130 out of 654 babies in the low-oxygen group died, and 91 out of 509 babies in the high-oxygen group developed blindness, according to the study, as reported by Sabrina Tabernise of the New York Times.

The letter, which was made public by consumer rights group Public Citizen on Wednesday, also said that the consent form failed to address two other vital pieces of information — that the purpose of the research was to determine if those premature infants were more likely to die if given higher levels of oxygen rather than lower levels, and a description of how the children would be treated if they did not participate in the study versus how they would be treated if they chose to take part in the research.

“The word ℠unethical´ doesn´t even begin to describe the egregious and shocking deficiencies in the informed-consent process for this study,” Dr. Michael Carome, deputy director of the organization´s Health Research Group, said in a statement. “The failure to disclose such critically important information about the research undoubtedly directly affected parents´ decisions to enroll their extremely premature infants in this study. It is highly likely that had they been appropriately informed about the nature of the research and its risks, many, if not most, parents would not have allowed their babies to be in this study.”

UAB vice president for research Richard B. Marchase told Tabernise that a similar group of infants born around the same time — children which were neither participants in the study nor an official control group — actually died at higher rates than those who participated in the low-oxygen group (a 24 percent mortality rate versus a 20 percent mortality rate for the low-oxygen study group).

He added that the infants were kept within the standard band of treatment for oxygen levels (85 to 95 percent) and that the results of the study were to form the basis of a definition by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) as to what the standard of care should be. A university spokesman also told the Times that researchers from another participating academic institution had written the consent forms in question, and that all 23 universities that took part in the study had approved the documents.

“The research sought to determine the ideal balance between the survival benefit for premature babies who received high levels of oxygen and their risk of a form of blindness linked to premature birth,” reported Bloomberg‘s Anna Edney and Michelle Fay Cortez.

“The infants in the study were born from 24 weeks to 28 weeks of gestation. Newborns are considered to be full term after 40 weeks,” they added. “The amount of oxygen given was within the range commonly used to treat premature infants at the time. Doctors until then guessed the best level for each baby based on their understanding of earlier research and personal experience.”

Peter Suciu for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

The world´s largest social network has been the subject of a movie, as well as a nonstop source of news since its IPO last May. Facebook, which has nearly one billion users worldwide and has become a daily activity for hundreds of millions of people, could also allow individuals with high levels of anxiousness, who might be opposed to more social or public settings, to meet and connect with others.

This is the findings of a new study conducted by Russell Clayton, a first year doctoral student at the University Of Missouri School Of Journalism, which looked at how anxiety as well as alcohol use could possibly predict emotion connectedness with the social network.

This study, which Clayton conducted through the Psychological Research on Information and Media Effects (PRIME) Lab, was published in the Journal of Computers in Human Behavior.

Clayton´s master thesis looked at how emotionally involved Facebook users became with the site, as well as their connection with other people. His research, which was conducted under the supervision of Randall Osborne, Brian Miller and Crystal Oberle of Texas State University, surveyed more than 225 college freshmen students and focused on their respective perceived levels of loneliness, anxiousness, alcohol use, and marijuana use in the prediction of emotional connectedness to Facebook as well as their Facebook connections.

Participants in Clayton´s study reportedly had, on average, between 301-400 Facebook friends, and spent an average of one hour per day on Facebook.

The study found that those students who reported higher levels of anxiousness and alcohol use appeared to be more emotionally connected with Facebook.

“People who perceive themselves to be anxious are more likely to want to meet and connect with people online, as opposed to a more social, public setting,” Clayton said. “Also, when people who are emotionally connected to Facebook view pictures and statuses of their Facebook friends using alcohol, they are more motivated to engage in similar online behaviors in order to fit in socially.”

The research findings also suggest that students who reported higher levels of loneliness and anxiousness relied on the social network platform as a way to connect with others.

Clayton and his fellow researchers found that students who had reported high levels of perceived loneliness were not, in fact, emotionally connected to Facebook, but rather used Facebook as a tool to connect with others.

Clayton added that because alcohol use is generally viewed as a normal activity for college-aged students, and thus deemed socially acceptable, that increased use of it further caused an increase in the emotional connectedness to the social network. However, marijuana use predicted the opposite, with a lack of emotional connectedness to Facebook.

This could be that marijuana usage is less socially accepted, even among the college aged.

“Marijuana use is less normative, meaning fewer people post on Facebook about using it,” Clayton added. “In turn, people who engage in marijuana use are less likely to be emotionally attached to Facebook.”

Clayton´s research did not look at other social media platforms such as Twitter or MySpace, so there is no way to know whether anxious people tweet more or if people are “drunk posting” photos on Pinterest.