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Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Researchers from Georgia Tech recently revealed that they are developing a tool that allows adults to test themselves for dementia in the comfort of their own home.

The computer software was inspired by the paper-and-pencil Clock Drawing Test, a common exam used by medical professional to test cognitive impairment. The new ClockMe dementia test system includes a ClockReader Application and a ClockAnalyzer Application.

The findings of the study were recently published in the September edition of the Journal of Ambient Intelligence and Smart Environment.

“Technology allows us to check our weight, blood-sugar levels and blood pressure, but not our own cognitive abilities,” explained project leader Ellen Yi-Luen Do, a professor at the College of Architecture and Computing at Georgia Tech, in a prepared statement.

“Our ClockMe System helps older adults identify early signs of impairment, while allowing clinicians to quickly analyze the test results and gain valuable insight into the patient´s thought processes.”

During a timed trial, test takers draw a clock with the correct time on a tablet or a computer with a stylus. Once the patient finishes the drawing, the sketch will be sent to a technician who will look at the image for different criteria. The 13 traits that the examiner looks at include the numbers on the clock, the position of the numbers and the placement of the long and short hands. Typically, people who draw the clocks with extra or missing numbers are displaying signs of cognitive impairment. Some individuals suffering from dementia also draw the digits outside of the clock or give the incorrect time.

After the drawings are submitted, the ClockAnalyzer is used to score the test and record time, including the time that it took the individual to draw each stroke. The clinician can then replay the test in real-time to look for any erratic or unusual behavior during the drawing.
The drawings are then saved electronically and can be accessed by clinicians who may want to compare the progress or regression of an individual patient.

“The traditional paper-and-pencil test is usually overseen by a technician and later scored by a clinician, who scores the test based only on the finished drawing,” explained Do.

“By looking at the sketch, the scorer is not able to decipher whether the person struggled to remember certain numbers while drawing the clock. The ClockMe system´s timing software highlights those delays.”

ClockMe was tested at the Emory Alzheimer´s Disease Center, and the elderly patients who participated in the study did not seem to have any difficulties working with the program.

“For this reason, as well as the ability to send the drawings directly to clinicians for convenient scoring, we envision ClockMe as a viable tool for home-based screening,” continued Do.

“America´s health care costs are expected to soar as baby boomers become senior citizens. If a screening tool can be used at home, unnecessary trips to clinics can be eliminated and medical expenses can be saved.”

In the future, the researchers say they hope to commercialize the project.

“If we can make this available at shopping malls, community centers, or even every clinic, we may be able to screen and detect more people who never get diagnosed until very late in the stage,” explained Do in a video clip. “And so we think it will be possible to detect early symptoms with Alzheimer´s disease and we´re excited about that.”

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

A new study from scientists at the University of Southern California shows that a new drug could be used to help ovarian cancer patients who have not been receptive to drugs that are currently available and possibly reduce the drug dosage needed to be taken.

In particular, the drug has been tested in a lab with ovarian cancer cells and on mice tumors. It is part of a group of cytotoxic agents, known as PACMA, that was discovered after experimentation on 10,000 different chemical compounds on cancer cells.

“We need a new generation of drugs,” explained the PNAS study´s lead author Shili Xu, a USC graduate student, in a prepared statement. “We need to overcome the drug-resistance issue.”

Last year, researchers started a study that looked at the anticancer traits of PACMA by synthesizing over 80 newly created compounds. One of the compounds, PACMA31, was discovered to be toxic to ovarian cancer cells. Subsequently, it was found to be a possible effective drug as it is a selective inhibitor of Protein Disulfide Isomerase (PDI) that has been found in ovarian cancer.

Taken orally, PACMA31 can gather in cancer cells and is less likely to have negative side effects on normal tissues. It is an “irreversible” drug that focuses on PDI and doesn´t stop working until the protein is completely degraded. The researchers believe that the prolonged strength of PACMA in fighting the PDI can translate to a reduction in the dosage of drugs given to cancer patients.

“We are exploring combination studies in order to find synergy between our drug and first-line therapy for ovarian cancer,” noted Nouri Neamati, a professor of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences at the USC School of Pharmacy who initiated the study on the 10,000 chemical compounds on cancer cells, in the statement.

The researchers believe that PACMA31 targets cancer cells by targeting PDI and prohibiting the folding process of proteins in taking on the shapes needed to function correctly. The drug differs from the two drugs currently used to treat ovarian cancer. While the drug paclitaxel works on preventing cancer cell division by stopping the disassembly of microtubules, the drug cisplatin created crosslinking of DNA to eliminate cancer cells.

With PACMA31, the accumulation of misfolded proteins can lead to cellular stress and cancer cell death. The scientists note that different process of PACMA31 could become an alternative to patients who have not responded to paclitaxel and cisplatin. The study´s results will benefit a percentage of the population that suffers from ovarian cancer. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2008, 21,204 women in the U.S. were diagnosed with ovarian cancer. As well, 14,362 women were reported to die due to ovarian cancer in the same year.

“When the patient has no other choice, we could potentially treat them with our drug,” continued Neamati in the statement.

In moving forward, the researchers plan to complete further testing and believe that the drug could be developed to treat other forms of cancer.

“Obviously, we think that it will go beyond ovarian cancer,” concluded Neamati in the statement.

The USC researchers detailed the study´s findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS).

Alan McStravick for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

So You Think You Can Dance. Cosmo. America´s Next Top Model. Maxim. Barbie Dolls. These are but a few examples of what many social scientists have decried as being at the root of a culture obsessed with an elusive and often impossible ideal of thinness.

This study, published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders has found that genetics may make some women more vulnerable to the pressures associated with being thin. Researchers wanted to pay particular attention to the potential psychological impact of women who obsess over this ideal of thinness. They contend that changes in self-perception and behavior can lead to dissatisfaction of one´s body, a preoccupation with weight and other symptoms of eating disorders.

“We’re all bombarded daily with messages extolling the virtues of being thin, yet intriguingly only some women develop what we term thin ideal internalization,” said Jessica Suisman, lead author on the study and a researcher at MSU.

“This suggests that genetic factors may make some women more susceptible to this pressure than others.”

In an attempt to isolate the role of genetic factors in the pressure to be thin, the study worked with more than 300 sets of female twins aged 12-22. They initially measured the participants´ desire to look like people they see in movies, magazines and on television. Once determined, the base-line level of thin idealization was used to measure and compare identical twins, who shared 100 percent of their genes, with fraternal twins, who share only half of their siblings´ genetic code.

What the team found was that identical twins very often share closer levels of thin idealization than fraternal twins do. An in-depth analysis showed that the heritability thin idealization appears to be around 43 percent. This indicates that almost half the reason that women differ in their idealization of thinness can be explained by differences in their genetic make-up.

The environmental factors mentioned above were also found to have a significant influence on the participants of the study. Observing differences between twins´ environments, the researchers hypothesized that the development of thin idealization had to do with more than just the cultural attitudes and exaggerated ideals of beauty that women throughout Western societies are exposed to.

“We were surprised to find that shared environmental factors, such as exposure to the same media, did not have as big an impact as expected,” Suisman said. “Instead, non-shared factors that make co-twins different from each other had the greatest impact.”

Non-shared environmental influences typically include experiences that twins do not share with one another. Examples of this include: involvement by one twin in a weight-focused sport like dance or gymnastics; one twin being exposed to more media that promotes thinness than the other; one of the twins having a friendship group that places importance on weight. Specific environmental triggers were not considered in this study.

“The broad cultural risk factors that we thought were most influential in the development of thin-ideal internalization are not as important as genetic risk and environmental risk factors that are specific and unique to each twin,” said Suisman. Kelly Klump, MSU professor of psychology and co-author on the study, also noted that it is well established that a broad range of factors can contribute to the development of eating disorders.

“This study reveals the need to take a similar approach to the ways in which women buy in to pressure to be thin, by considering how both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the development of thin-ideal internalization,” Klump concluded.

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Researchers from the University of Leicester and Imperial College London recently revealed that, with a simple blood test, they could identify DNA in blood that possibly relates to early signs of cancer.

The team of investigators believe that, if further developed, the test could be used to accurately predict early diagnosis of cancer and be used in place of mammograms. With the blood test, researchers will also have a better understanding of how to treat patients as the test will display which drugs are working for patients and whether the patient will have a relapse. The exam will be part of a new clinical study that studies patients at the breast screening clinic at Charing Cross Hospital in London.

“This exciting research means we could one day have a blood test that detects the very early signs of cancer meaning women could have an annual blood test rather than breast screening. This would remove any worry and anxiety for women who are called for further investigations after a mammogram only to find they don’t have cancer,” explained Dr. Jacqui Shaw, the principal investigator from the University of Leicester, in a prepared statement. “As things stand we aren’t able to monitor breast cancer patients after they’ve had surgery and treatment – which is like treating diabetes but not measuring blood sugar levels. The new blood test could change that.”

At the breast screening clinic, scientists will take blood samples and analyze the DNA in the blood of female patients who have cancer along with the blood of female patients who do not have cancer.

“This type of translational science is extremely promising and the international scientific community is collaborating on its development. When a woman has breast cancer we can tell by the DNA in their blood. But what we’re trying to find out in our study is how early the signs of breast cancer show up in a blood test. So by looking at blood samples of women who have breast cancer diagnosed through screening we can see if the cancer is already showing in their blood,” commented co-investigator Charles Coombes, a cancer expert from Imperial College London, in the statement. “Our research team is only looking at breast cancer but there are a number of other projects that are looking at using a blood test to detect other cancers such as bowel and lung.”

The project was supported through £1.4 million in funding from Cancer Research UK. Cancer Research UK focuses on the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Other research projects from the organization have included contributions from over 4,000 doctors, scientists and nurses.

“We really do hope that in the not too distant future a simple blood test for breast cancer, which could not only detect cancer but help with treatment options, will become standard practice on the NHS,” noted Kate Law, director of clinical research at Cancer Research UK, in the statement. “Cancer Research UK has invested over a million pounds into this project as this fascinating area of science could prove to be a huge step forward in the way certain types of cancer are diagnosed and treated.”

Michael Harper for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

America has often been teased about our expanding waistlines and bulging bellies. Our affinity for cheap food fast, and lots of it, has brought us to a point where more than one-third of American adults are obese. This includes having Body Mass Indexes of 30 or more, according to the CDC.

Though we may be getting fat on cheaper food, we´re paying more in medical costs to keep us upright. According to a recent survey, obese Americans spent $1,429 more in medical costs than a normal, healthy person. That obesity is an epidemic is a well-known fact these days. Today, a new study by the RAND Corporation reveals that not only is America getting fatter, the majority of us are pushing our way into the severely obese category rather than becoming moderately overweight.

The RAND Corporation, a not-for-profit research group, analyzed data from 2000 to 2010 to complete their study and found that the number of severely obese Americans increased by an alarming 70%, from 3.9% of the population to 6.6%. According to RAND, there are now more than 15 million American adults who are considered morbidly obese with a BMI of 40 or more. If there was a silver lining, the RAND corporation says that this extreme growth began to slow in 2005 and has since leveled out.

“The proportion of people at the high end of the weight scale continues to increase faster than any other group of obese people, despite increased public attention on the risks of obesity,” said lead author Roland Sturm in a statement. Sturm is a senior economist at RAND.

“But for the first time in the past 20 years there is evidence the trend is slowing.”

This study also suggests that clinical, severe obesity is not a special condition which only special, “genetically vulnerable” people are capable of contracting. Instead, obesity affects us all as a nation, and as we ever quickly tip the scales, it´s the most extreme cases which are tipping us over the edge the fastest.

Obesity was up among all genders and races, though the amount varied from group to group. According to their research, RAND found that women were 50% more likely to be severely obese than their male counterparts. Furthermore, blacks were also more likely to be severely obese than hispanics or whites. No matter the sex or race, people over 40 were the fastest growing group of the severely obese.

A BMI score of 40 or more classifies a person as severely obese. In an adult man, this means they are roughly 100 pounds overweight for their height. In their research, the RAND corporation found that the average morbidly obese man weighed 300 pounds and stood 5 feet and 10 inches tall. The typical morbidly obese woman was 5 feet and 4 inches tall and weighed in at 250 pounds.

Those with a BMI score of 25 to 29 are considered overweight, while a score of 30 or more places that person in the obese category.

For the same, 5 foot 10 inch male, a BMI of 30 means they are 35 pounds overweight.

Reducing BMI is relatively easy by eating smaller portions of healthier food and becoming more active, as often as possible.

April Flowers for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Columbia University ophthalmologists and stem cell researchers have developed an experimental treatment for blindness using the patient’s skin cells, which has improved the vision of blind mice in testing.

The findings of this research, published online in the journal Molecular Medicine, suggest that induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) could soon be used to improve vision in people with macular degeneration and other eye retina diseases. iPS cells are derived from adult human skin cells but have embryonic qualities.

“With eye diseases, I think we´re getting close to a scenario where a patient´s own skin cells are used to replace retina cells destroyed by disease or degeneration,” says Stephen Tsang, MD, PhD, associate professor of ophthalmology and pathology & cell biology. “It´s often said that iPS transplantation will be important in the practice of medicine in some distant future, but our paper suggests the future is almost here.”

Scientists were very excited by the advent of human iPS cells when they were discovered in 2007, as they provide a way to avoid the ethical complications of embryonic stem cells. Another advantage is that the iPS cells are created from the patient’s own skin, eliminating the need for anti-rejection medications. Like the ethically challenged embryonic cells, iPS cells can develop into any type of cell. To-date, no iPS cells have been implanted into people, but many ophthalmologists say that the eye would prove to be ideal testing ground for iPS therapies.

“The eye is a transparent and accessible part of the central nervous system, and that´s a big advantage. We can put cells into the eye and monitor them every day with routine non-invasive clinical exams,” Tsang said. “And in the event of serious complications, removing the eye is not a life-threatening event.”

Professor Tsang is running a new preclinical iPS study using human iPS cells derived from the skin cells of a 53-year-old donor. The cells were first transformed with a cocktail of growth factors into cells in the retina that lie underneath the eye’s light-sensing cells.

Retina cells nourish the light-sensing cells and protect the fragile cells from excess light, heat and cellular debris. In macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa, retina cells die, which allows the photoreceptor cells to degenerate causing the patient to lose their vision. It is estimated that 30 percent of people will have some form of macular degeneration by the time they are 75 years old, as it is the leading cause of vision loss in the elderly. Currently, it affects 7 million Americans and that is expected to double by 2020.

The Columbia research team injected the iPS-derived retina cells into the right eyes of 34 mice that had a genetic mutation that caused their retina cells to degenerate. In many of the mice, the iPS cells assimilated into the retina without disruption and functioned as normal retina cells well into the animal’s old age.  Mice in the control group, who received injections of saline or inactive cells, showed no improvement in retina tests.

“Our findings provide the first evidence of life-long neuronal recovery in a preclinical model of retinal degeneration, using stem cell transplant, with vision improvement persisting through the lifespan,” Tsang says. “And importantly, we saw no tumors in any of the mice, which should allay one of the biggest fears people have about stem cell transplants: that they will generate tumors.”

They hope to begin a clinical trial for macular degeneration patients in the next three years, but first need to complete more preclinical testing in animal models.

A similar trial testing retina cells derived from embryonic cells rather than iPS has seen encouraging results. A paper published earlier this year reported that the stem cells are safe and have the potential to improve the vision of two patients with macular degeneration.

“These results are encouraging, but iPS cells could be a more attractive option than embryonic stem cells,” Tsang says, “because patients may not need drugs to prevent rejection of the transplanted cells.”

Whichever type of stem cell works better, the prospect to reverse and prevent macular degeneration is encouraging.

“We have a good idea which patients will eventually lose their vision. In the early stages of macular degeneration we can tell by looking in the eye, and new genetic tests can now predict vision loss with 70 percent accuracy even before those signs emerge,” Tsang says. “If the therapy is safe, we could intervene very early to prevent much vision loss.”

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online
Whether it be hand gestures, written words, or verbal phrases, communication is an important link between people. From one person to the next, communication passes on necessary messages. However, for children with autism, communication is much more difficult and autistic patients tend to have less interactions with those around them. With this in mind, researchers from the University of Miami (UM) decided to look more closely at communication issues for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in order to further investigate methods of predicting those who might have higher risk to develop the disorder.
To begin, the researchers looked at a group of children, some as young as eight months of age, and discovered that non-verbal communication can display signs of autism as early as three years of age. With the findings, the team of investigators believes that doctors can identify children who are at risk for autism by looking at the non-verbal cues they give. They urge for early interventions and these findings were recently featured in the journal Infancy.
“For children at risk of developing an ASD, specific communication-oriented interventions during the first years of life can lessen the severity of autism’s impact,” explained the study´s principal investigator Daniel Messinger, a professor of psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at UM, in a prepared statement.
Many of the non-verbal communication related to eye contact and hand gestures, known as referential communication, and were found to be developed early on.
“Impairments in non-verbal referential communication are characteristic of older children with ASD,” remarked the study´s co-author Caroline Grantz, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology at UM, in the statement.
The study consisted of two groups of children, one of which had high risk for ASD and another group that was at low risk for ASD. The scientists evaluated the participants at 8, 19, 12, 15, and 18 months of age during sessions that were about 15 to 20 minutes each. In the sessions, the scientists looked at initiating joint attention (IJA), initiating behavioral requests (IBR), and responding to joint attention (RJA). In IJA, an infant shows interest in an object or a person by making eye contact with it. As for IBR, an infant may ask for help from another person by asking for a toy, pointing to it, reaching for it, or offering the toy to the person who requests it. Lastly, with RJA, infants respond to the behavior of another person.
The findings demonstrated that children between eight and 18 months of age who had a sibling with ASD as well as lower levels of IJA and IBR growth had a greater chance of developing autism as well.
“Overall, infants with the lowest rates of IJA at eight months showed lower social engagement with an examiner at 30 months of age,” commented the paper´s first author Lisa Ibañez, a research scientist at the University of Washington Autism Center who worked with UM in the project, in the statement.
In moving forward with the study, the researchers plan to collaborate with Wendy Stone, a professor of psychology and director of the University of Washington Autism Center.

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

A new study indicates that leptin, or the “fat hormone,” may play a role in hearing and vision loss, on top of weight gain.

Researchers wrote in the journal General and Comparative Endocrinology that leptin could ultimately help doctors better understand sensory loss in humans.

During the study, the scientists were able to develop zebrafish that were able to produce low leptin.

While studying the zebrafish, scientists assumed the leptin-deficient fish would be unable to metabolize fat. However, they did not expect to find that it affects the development of sensory systems.

“We discovered that leptin influences the development of eyes and ears in fish,” Richard Londraville, University of Akron professor of biology, said in a press release.

Previous studies in mice found that leptin controls body temperature, immune functions and bone density. These studies also revealed that leptin loss also affects eye and ear development in mice.

Now, the team has determined a drop in leptin dramatically alters zebrafish development, which could have similar effects on humans.

“There is some evidence that leptin deficiencies in fish likely have the same effect on humans, so this may be pointing toward something more widespread than we thought,” Londraville said in the release. “Perhaps more research should be spent on the sensory effects of leptin, which hasn’t received much attention.”

The team received an additional $435,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to further their research. The scientists will be using the funds over the next three years to study how leptin is controlled differently in mammals and fish and the resulting consequences.

They received a $250,000 grant from the same organization initially to kick start this research. The research was led by University of Akron Professor of Biology Dr. Qin Liu.

Liu is a leading expert on the technology that allowed leptin manipulation of the zebrafish.

Leptin has been the subject of about 30,000 reports since its discovery back in 1994. The hormone achieved notoriety as it signals to the brain when it is time to eat.

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Researchers from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) recently discovered that an individual´s internal struggle to choose between healthy and unhealthy food items is based off of neural processes in the brain.

The findings of the study were recently published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

“We seem to have independent systems capable of guiding our decisions, and in situations like this one, these systems may compete for control of what we do,” explained the study´s lead author Cendri Hutcherson, a Caltech postdoctoral scholar, in the prepared statement.

The researchers believe that this self-regulation can make or break a person´s choice to eat something that is fattening.

“In many cases, these systems guide behavior in the same direction, so there’s no conflict between them,” continued Hutcherson in the statement. “But in other cases, like the all-too-common inner fight to resist the temptation of eating the chocolate cake, they can guide behavior toward different outcomes. Furthermore, the outcome of the decision seems to depend on which of the two systems takes control of behavior.”

The scientists believe that there is much evidence that highlights how the decision making process of individuals is affected by different values placed on a group of provided options. In effect, people make a decision based on whichever choice has the highest value. With a “single-value hypothesis,” someone could make the choice between something that is tasty and unhealthy versus something that has so-so taste but is not as fattening. On the other hand, the “multiple-value hypothesis” states that there are multiple systems with various values and so the brain will choose the healthy option when the brain turns on the system that measures healthiness.

“An important and controversial open question–which this study was designed to address–is whether there is a single value signal in the brain, or if there are instead multiple value signals with different properties that compete for the control of behavior,” remarked Antonio Rangel, a professor of economics and neuroscience at Caltech, in the statement.

The study included 26 volunteers who were required to not consume any food for four hours before the test was conducted. The scientists used a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine during the exam to determine the brain activity of participants when they were asked how much they were willing to pay for a particular snack. The volunteers had to choose the snack when they were acting normally, when they were focused on limiting their desire of eating, and when they were intent on increasing their desire to feast on the snack. The researchers allowed the participants to do whatever necessary to keep a semblance of self-control, be it by thinking about the taste of the snack or by focusing on the healthiness of the food. The individuals then placed real bids to buy the food after waiting for four seconds.

Based on the results, the researchers discovered that there were two areas in the brain that focused on when the individuals wanted a particular item. The dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex were found to have different roles when the participants were trying to control their hunger. The dlPFC was the area that focused on not wanting the food, while the vmPFC was the area that focused on desiring the snack.

Furthermore, the team of investigators found that the change between the two different parts of the brain did not happen instantaneously. The brain had to take a few seconds before being able to change from the dlPFC to the vmPFC. Researchers in the past have observed dieters, but the results have shown that only the vmPFC controls the decision making process. Connecting in the new findings to the results of the old study, the scientists suggest that dieters are more used to self-control and that people who practice dieting may gain more ability in self-regulation.

“This research suggests a reason why it feels so difficult to control your behavior,” concluded Hutcherson in the statement. “You’ve got these really fast signals that say, go for the tempting food. But only after you start to go for it are you able to catch yourself and say, no, I don’t want this.”

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Researchers recently found that knee replacement surgeries have doubled in 20 years, especially for aging individuals in the U.S.

According to CBS News, the number of knee-replacement surgeries increased to almost 224,000 in 2010. While knee surgeries surged by 162 percent, surgeries to mend artificial knee joints increased by 106 percent during the same time. The study noted that the rise in obesity, as well as current financial practices, could increase the number of surgeries and costs related to operations in the future. The findings were recently featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

“There’s a huge percentage of older adults who are living longer and want to be active,” lead author Dr. Peter Cram, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Iowa, told CBS News.

The study focused on trends on total knee arthroplasty from 1991 to 2010 in the United States. Many seek knee surgeries as they can lead to improvements in quality of life and mobility. The researchers also found that the patients were a bit older than 70 years of age. Med Page Today reported that many of the patients were recipients of Medicare benefits. In 1991, there were approximately 3 procedures for every 10,000 Medicare beneficiaries. In 2010, that increased to 5 procedures for every 10,000 Medicare patients.

In general, operations can keep patients in the hospital for a certain amount of time. The researchers found that the average amount of time in the hospital due to knee surgeries decreased from around eight days to 3.5 days. Many patients ended up being discharged to inpatient rehabilitation centers and skilled care. Even though there was a decline in the length of the stay at the hospital, the researchers found that there was an uptick in the number of patients who had to be readmitted to the hospital due to infection and issues related to their past knee procedure.

“This growth is likely driven by a combination of factors including an expansion in the types of patients considered likely to benefit from TKA, an aging population, and an increasing prevalence of certain conditions that predispose patients to osteoarthritis, most notably obesity,” the authors wrote in the article.

However, recently, the rate for the knee replacement surgery has slowed a bit. The scientists believe that the decrease may be due to young adults who opt to have artificial knees instead of knee replacement. The weak economy has also led to less demand for the surgery.

Lastly, the financial costs of knee surgeries were highlighted in the study. The researchers reported that $9 billion had accrued from the 600,000 knee surgeries completed in a year. In particular, one surgery can cost approximately $15,000. An editorial accompanying the article in JAMA also noted that there should be more regulation on the operations. The author of the editorial estimated by 2030 there would be an annual demand of 4 million knee surgeries.

“When you multiply $15,000 by that volume of procedures you’re talking about major money even by federal Medicare standards and this is a real challenge for the federal government,” Cram commented in a video clip provided by the journal.

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Promising research indicates that a little physical exercise in addition to some melatonin might work to help out Alzheimer’s patients.

A study carried out on mice with three different mutations of Alzheimer’s disease found that the combination of physical exercise and the daily intake of melatonin had a synergistic effect against brain deterioration.

“For years we have known that the combination of different anti-aging therapies such as physical exercise, a Mediterranean diet, and not smoking adds years to one’s life,” Coral Sanfeliu, from the Barcelona Biomedical Research Institute, said in a statement. “Now it seems that melatonin, the sleep hormone, also has important anti-aging effects”.

During the study, the scientists analyzed the combined effects of sport and melatonin in 3xTg-AD mice that were experiencing an initial phase of Alzheimer’s and presented learning difficulties and changes in behavior like anxiety and apathy.

The mice were divided into one control group and three other groups, which would undergo different treatments.

“After six months, the state of the mice undergoing treatment was closer to that of the mice with no mutations than to their own initial pathological state. From this we can say that the disease has significantly regressed,” Sanfeliu said in the statement.

The scientists reported in the journal Neurobiology of Aging a general improvement in behavior, learning and memory with the three treatments.

The experts pointed out that transferring treatments from animals to humans is not always consistent, because “in humans the disease develops over several years, so that when memory loss begins to surface, the brain is already very deteriorated.”

However, clinical studies found signs of physical and mental benefits in sufferers of Alzheimer’s resulting from both treatments.  The authors said adopting healthy living habits is essential for reducing the risk of the disease appearing as well as reducing the severity of its effects.

Using melatonin has positive effects, which can be used for treating humans, according to the study. With the approval of melatonin as a medication in the European Union, clinical testing on this molecule has been increasing.

The Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database said that melatonin is probably effective in sleeping disorders in children with autism and mental retardation, and in blind people.

“However, other studies which use melatonin as medication show its high level of effectiveness,” Darío Acuña-Castroviejo, who has been studying melatonin for several years at the Health Sciences Technology Park of the University of Granada, said in a statement.

The scientists said that international consensus already exists, showing how melatonin is the first choice treatment for insomnia in patients above the age of 55.

“Even though many more studies and clinical tests are still required to assess the doses of melatonin which will be effective for a wide range of diseases, the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties of melatonin mean that its use is highly recommended for diseases which feature oxidative stress and inflammation,” Acuña-Castroviejo said in the statement.

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

People who are suffering from an appendicitis may not have to undergo a scalpel and sutures in the future but could instead just resort to taking some antibiotics.

Typically, people suffering from an appendicitis will have to undergo surgery in order to remove their appendix. However, scientists at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden are trying to find a way around that with antibiotics.

Two major clinical studies of adult patients with acute appendicitis focus on treating patients with antibiotic therapy compared to surgery. One of the studies compared surgery with the antibiotic therapy, while the other went to antibiotics as the first-line of treatment.

The studies showed that treatment with antibiotics was just as effective as removing the appendix in the majority of patients.

“Some patients are so ill that the operation is absolutely necessary, but 80% of those who can be treated with antibiotics recover and return to full health,” Jeanette Hansson wrote in her thesis.

Hansson’s thesis shows that patients who are treated with antibiotics are at risk of fewer complications than those who undergo surgery.

The risk of recurrence within 12 months of treatment with antibiotics is about 10 to 15%, according to the studies.

The team hopes to be able to document the risk of recurrence over the long term and also to study whether recurrences can also be treated with antibiotics.

Although increased resistance to antibiotics could affect the treatment, the conclusion is that antibiotics are a viable alternative to undergoing a scalpel and sutures, provided the patient accepts the risk of recurrence.

“It’s important to note that our studies show that patients who need surgery because of recurrences, or because the antibiotics haven’t worked, are not at risk of any additional complications relative to those operated on in the first place,” Hansson said in a statement.

John Neumann for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Kaitlin Hunter of Marietta GA, after a near-fatal auto accident, found herself fighting for her life against a clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection in her colon due to the June 2011 car crash.

Emergency crews had to cut Hunter from her dad´s car and then she was flown to a hospital, where she found herself recovering for weeks afterwards from a fractured spine, lacerated liver and colon, and 10 broken toes.

In the hospital after her accident, doctors followed standard care and put Hunter on antibiotics to prevent an infection, reports William Hudson for CNN. And it was in spite of the antibiotics — or possibly because of them — when C. diff infected her colon, causing severe stomach pain, diarrhea and vomiting.

C. diff infections kill about 14,000 people in the United States every year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the number and severity of total cases have increased dramatically over the past decade.

Antibiotics are designed to kill harmful, infection-causing bacteria, but can also weaken the beneficial bacteria percolating in the colon. With the colon´s defenses down, C. diff grows rampant, releasing a toxin and inflaming the colon.

Hunter´s colon infection proved difficult to treat, even after 9 rounds of antibiotic treatments for her, but was finally beaten through a little-known technique involving the transplant of fecal matter, which put healthy bacteria back into her colon.

More and more doctors are looking for treatments that decrease the amount of antibiotics introduced into a patient, knowing that the risk increases for the infections to become immune to them. Fecal matter transplants are becoming more accepted and successful all the time, as they recolonize the colon with new bacteria from a healthy donor.

“This is brand-new for most gastroenterologists,” said Dr. Suku George, Hunter´s treating physician. “We are very excited about this.”

George had never deposited fecal matter by colonoscopy into a patient until Hunter wanted to try it. Hunter´s mother “donated” one of her stools for the procedure. Next, the hospital lab carefully diluted it and George pumped the foreign fecal matter right into Hunter´s colon, resulting in a successful ending of Hunter´s struggle with the bacteria.

A study published in March of this year reported a 91% cure rate after just one fecal matter transplant and a 98% cure rate when combined with an additional round of antibiotics.

Remarkably, that study only included the sickest of patients with 77 of the study participants suffering a recurring C. diff infection after having tried and failed five rounds of antibiotic-only treatments over 11 months, on average.

The study used the colonoscopy method with its relatively large amounts of fecal matter placed deep inside the colon. This is believed to be the most effective method.

Other methods use either an enema or a nasogastric tube, which sends fecal matter through the nasal passage, down the throat and into the stomach.

After attempting the nasogastric tube procedure on Hunter, using fecal material from her father, the C. diff infection returned. George asked for and received permission to perform the hospital´s first colonoscopic fecal transplant.

Gastroenterologists pioneering the practice would like to see a cleaner, commercially developed suppository to replace the crude feces and water mixtures currently in use. “It´ll become a little more acceptable to hospitals and patients and more widely performed,” said Dr. Lawrence Brandt, a professor of medicine and surgery at New York´s Albert Einstein College of Medicine who was the lead author of the March study.

“But for people that have recurring C. diff, it doesn´t really much matter, because these patients are so ill and so much want to get better. The fact that it´s stool, it doesn´t matter to them.”

Connie K. Ho for redOrbit.com — Your Universe Online

Scientists from the La Jolla, California-based Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute recently discovered kinase inhibitors, which could help facilitate the production of stem cells in the laboratory as well as increase the amount of cells for projects related to disease research and drug development.

Researchers were initially interested in quickening the process utilized in the production of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), a special group of stem cells that can be derived from any kind of an adult cell in the laboratory. iPSCs have been used to produce cells of all types, including cells from the brain, heart and muscles.

The team of investigators found that kinase inhibitors could limit the activity of kinase, enzymes that assist in cellular communication, growth and survival. When they combined starter cells along with kinase inhibitors, they discovered that they could produce more iPSCs than the method that has been used in the past by scientists.

“Generating iPSCs depends on the regulation of communication networks within cells,” remarked the study´s senior author Tariq Rana, program director in Sanford-Burnham’s Children’s Health Research Center, in a prepared statement. “So, when you start manipulating which genes are turned on or off in cells to create pluripotent stem cells, you are probably activating a large number of kinases. Since many of these active kinases are likely inhibiting the conversion to iPSCs, it made sense to us that adding inhibitors might lower the barrier.”

The scientists focused on identifying kinase inhibitors with a group of over 240 chemical compounds that limited kinase. The compounds were each added to the cell and many of the kinase inhibitors generated more iPSCs than the untreated cells. They found that the more powerful inhibitors focused on kinases AurkA, P38, and PI3K. Team members from Rana´s laboratory collaborated with staff members from Stanford-Burnham´s bioinformatics, animal modeling, genomics and histology core facilities to confirm the findings of the study.

“We found that manipulating the activity of these kinases can substantially increase cellular reprogramming efficiency,” continued Rana in the statement. “But what’s more, we’ve also provided new insights into the molecular mechanism of reprogramming and revealed new functions for these kinases. We hope these findings will encourage further efforts to screen for small molecules that might prove useful in iPSC-based therapies.”

With this new finding, researchers will be able to create new treatments and examine human disease. For example, researchers can use stem cells in Alzheimer´s disease studies in reproducing malfunctioning brain cells from an individual. These cells can then be observed in therapeutic drug testing.

“The identification of small molecules that improve the efficiency of generating iPSCs is an important step forward in being able to use these cells therapeutically. Tariq Rana’s exciting new work has uncovered a class of protein kinase inhibitors that override the normal barriers to efficient iPSC formation, and these inhibitors should prove useful in generating iPSCs from new sources for experimental and ultimately therapeutic purposes,” Tony Hunter, a professor in the Molecular and Cell Biology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and director of the Salk Institute Cancer Center, and unaffiliated with the study, said in the statement.