Researchers found that sleeping-in when you don´t have to work the next day or not under the influence of sleeping pills is a genetic marker.

More than 10,000 people were studied and those with the ABCC9 gene needed around 30 minutes more sleep than those without the gene, reports BBC News.

The study participants reported how long they slept and gave a blood sample so their DNA could be analyzed. The study participants were from the Orkney Isles, Croatia, the Netherlands, Italy, Estonia and Germany.

The researchers then observed fruit flies and found that the flies without the ABCC9 gene also slept for three hours less than normal. ABCC9 helps control the body´s ability to sense energy levels of cells. This study may help open up a new line of research in sleep studies. Scientists may want to know how variants of the gene regulate how long people will sleep.

According to Dr. Jim Wilson from the University of Edinburgh, “A tendency to sleep for longer or shorter periods often runs in families despite the fact that the amount of sleep people need can be influenced by age, latitude, season and circadian rhythms. These insights into the biology of sleep will be important in unraveling the health effects of sleep behavior.”

The BBC notes that Margaret Thatcher required only 4 hours of sleep while Albert Einstein needed 11 hours of sleep daily.

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On the Net:

• University of Edinburgh

Britain´s Prime Minister has promoted the use of new medicines and has also allotted $280 million (180 million pounds) to bring modern technologies to market with the goal of luring in big pharmaceutical companies.

In a text slated to be given as a speech later today, Prime Minister David Cameron calls for the funds to be used to boost Britain´s $75-million life sciences industry. “The most crucial, fundamental thing we´re doing is opening up the National Health Society (NHS) to new ideas. The end-game is for the NHS to be working hand-in-glove with industry as the fastest adopter of new ideas in the world, acting as a huge magnet to pull new innovations through, right along the food-chain – from the labs to the boardrooms to the hospital bed,” he will say in his speech.

Drug companies have complained for years, saying Britain has been slow to adopt new medicines and use them in the state-funded NHS.

“Above all, there should be a very clear route from the idea in the publicly supported research lab, through to the application in the patient in the publicly-supported NHS. That is the way to get the businesses to grow for the future and, of course, it is the best thing for patients as well,” Science minister David Willetts told BBC radio.

Cameron will outline two areas where the funds will be implemented. The “Biomedical Catalyst fund” will be open to universities and small and medium-sized enterprises; while an “early access scheme” will be set up under which seriously ill patients could use new drugs up to a year before they are fully licensed.

“Patients are having to wait too long for new medicines because of the lengthy and extremely costly process for gaining full regulatory approval,” Richard Barker, director of the Center for Accelerating Medical Innovations, said in response to the government´s announcement. “Health systems ultimately have to pay for these costs in the price of new products. It makes sense for the UK, with its research strengths, respected regulators and major life science investments, to take a lead.”

Some concerns have arisen over at least one area of the new plan, which will be implemented to allow patient records and other NHS data to be shared with life sciences companies. Critics fear this could compromise patient confidentiality.

But Cameron will argue that giving researchers from private sector companies access to NHS data will make it easier for them to develop and test new drugs and treatments.

“The wealth of data collected by the NHS represents a vast and potentially very valuable resource that could be used to facilitate highly beneficial research. The concerns over privacy and confidentiality…are perhaps overblown,” said Sarah Chan, deputy director of Manchester University´s Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovations.

“As I understand it, the data that is to be released will be anonymized, and so cannot be used to target individual patients,” she added.

Britain has been particularly reliant on pharmaceutical firms for success in manufacturing. However, the industry has been under pressure in recent years and has been forced to make cuts.

Pfizer in February closed its research and development facility in southern England, resulting in more than 2,000 lost jobs. The move marked a sign of Britain´s vulnerability.

Willetts said while the Pfizer move was “certainly a wake-up call for us,” the government was now working hard to secure investment by contract research organizations who could continue to use the site and its facilities for scientific research.

A Deloitte and Thomson Reuters study, published last month, highlighted the productivity dilemma facing the pharmaceutical industry. The study found that investment returns from researching new drugs have fallen nearly 30 percent in the past year at the world´s 12 top pharmaceutical companies.

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On the Net:

• National Health Society (NHS)
• Manchester University´s Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovations
• Pfizer

Using behavioral therapy to teach children and adolescents how to cope with juvenile fibromyalgia (JFM) could make it easier to cope with the chronic musculoskeletal pain disorder, both mentally and physically, according to a new study.
A team of researchers from the University of Cincinnati, Vanderbilt University, the Medical University of South Carolina, the University of Louisville, the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, and The Cleveland Clinic Foundation studied 114 subjects between the ages of 11 and 18, all of whom had been diagnosed with JFM.
“The objective of this multi-site single-blind randomized clinical trial was to test whether cognitivebehavioral therapy (CBT) was superior to fibromyalgia education (FE) in reducing functional disability, pain and depressive symptoms in JFM,” the authors wrote in their study, which was published online the journal Arthritis & Rheumatism on November 22.
“After being stabilized on usual medical care for 8 weeks, patients were randomized to either CBT or FE and received 8 weekly individual sessions with a therapist and 2 booster sessions. Assessments were conducted at baseline, immediately following the 8-week treatment phase and at 6-months follow up,” they added, noting that “patients in both groups showed significant reduction in functional disability, pain and depressive symptoms at the end of the study” but that behavioral therapy had proven to be “significantly superior” to education alone when it came to overcoming those symptoms.
According to Linda Thrasybule of Reuters Health, sixth months later, the CBT teens achieved an average disability score of 13 out of 30, compared to 17 out of 30 for those who only received lessons.
“This is the first major breakthrough in understanding how best to treat fibromyalgia in teenagers,” co-author Dr. Susmita Kashikar-Zuck, a pediatric psychologist at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, told Thrasybule on Friday. “Because of their pain, these teens have trouble going to school, going out with friends, participating in social activities — things important to teenagers.”
Thrasybule says that individuals who have fibromyalgia tend to have intense feelings of pain throughout their bodies, as well as chronic fatigue, insomnia, anxiety and/or depression, and can also come down with other conditions, including arthritis or irritable bowel syndrome.
An estimated 850,000 American kids between the ages of 10 and 19 could have symptoms of the disorder, the cause of which is currently unknown but potentially linked to the way a person’s brain processes sensations of pain, Reuters Health reported.
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On the Net:

• Arthritis & Rheumatism
• Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center

50% more fat can be produced by sustained stretching, TAU researchers say

Conventional wisdom says that exercise is a key to weight loss – a no-brainer. But now, Tel Aviv University researchers are revealing that life as a couch potato, stretched out in front of the TV, can actually be “active inactivity” – and cause you to pack on the pounds.

Such inactivity actually encourages the body to create new fat in fat cells, says Prof. Amit Gefen of TAU’s Department of Biomedical Engineering. Along with his Ph.D. student Naama Shoham, Prof. Gefen has shown that preadipocyte cells – the precursors to fat cells – turn into fat cells faster and produce even more fat when subject to prolonged periods of “mechanical stretching loads” – the kind of weight we put on our body tissues when we sit or lie down.

The research, which has been published in the American Journal of Physiology – Cell Physiology, demonstrates another damaging effect of a modern, sedentary lifestyle, Prof. Gefen notes. “Obesity is more than just an imbalance of calories. Cells themselves are also responsive to their mechanical environment. Fat cells produce more triglycerides, and at a faster rate, when exposed to static stretching.”

Stretching the fat

Prof. Gefen, who investigates chronic wounds that plague bed-ridden or wheelchair-bound patients, notes that muscle atrophy is a common side effect of prolonged inactivity. Studying MRI images of the muscle tissue of patients paralyzed by spinal cord injuries, he noticed that, over time, lines of fat cells were invading major muscles in the body. This spurred an investigation into how mechanical load – the amount of force placed on a particular area occupied by cells – could be encouraging fat tissue to expand.

In the lab, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers stimulated preadipocytes with glucose or insulin to differentiate them into fat cells. Then they placed individual cells in a cell-stretching device, attaching them to a flexible, elastic substrate. The test group of cells were stretched consistently for long periods of time, representing extended periods of sitting or lying down, while a control group of cells was not.

Tracking the cultures over time, the researchers noted the development of lipid droplets in both the test and control groups of cells. However, after just two weeks of consistent stretching, the test group developed significantly more – and larger – lipid droplets. By the time the cells reached maturity, the cultures that received mechanical stretching had developed fifty percent more fat than the control culture.

They were, in effect, half-again fatter.

According to Prof. Gefen, this is the first study that looks at fat cells as they develop, taking into account the impact of sustained mechanical loading on cell differentiation. “There are various ways that cells can sense mechanical loading,” he explains, which helps them to measure their environment and triggers various chemical processes. “It appears that long periods of static mechanical loading and stretching, due to the weight of the body when sitting or lying, has an impact on increasing lipid production.”

Counting more than calories

These findings indicate that we need to take our cells’ mechanical environment into account as well as pay attention to calories consumed and burned, believes Prof. Gefen. Although there are extreme cases, such as people confined to wheelchairs or beds due to medical conditions, many of us live a too sedentary lifestyle, spending most of the day behind a desk. Even somebody with healthy diet and exercise habits will be negatively impacted by long periods of inactivity.

Next, Prof. Gefen and his fellow researchers will be investigating how long a period of time a person can sit or lie down without the mechanical load becoming a factor in fat production. But in the meantime, it certainly can’t hurt to get up and take an occasional stroll, he suggests.

This research was done in collaboration with TAU’s Ruth Gottlieb, Dr. Uri Zaretsky, and Dr. Orna Shaharabani-Yosef from the Department of Biomedical Engineering and Prof. Dafna Benayahu of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology.

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On the Net:

• Tel Aviv University
• American Journal of Physiology – Cell Physiology

Findings on coronary CT angiography (CTA), a noninvasive test to assess the coronary arteries for blockages, show different risk scenarios for men and women, according to a study presented Nov. 30 at the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is a narrowing of the blood vessels that supply blood and oxygen to the heart. It is caused by a build-up of fat and other substances that form plaque on vessel walls. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.S.
Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina analyzed the results of coronary CTA on 480 patients, mean age 55, with acute chest pain. Approximately 65 percent of the patients were women, and 35 percent were men. The possibility of acute coronary syndrome was ruled out for each of the patients.
Using coronary CTA, the researchers were able to determine the number of vessel segments with plaque, the severity of the blockage and the composition of the plaque.
“The latest CT scanners are able to produce images that allow us to determine whether the plaque is calcified, non-calcified or mixed,” said John W. Nance Jr., M.D., currently a radiology resident at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Md.
By comparing the coronary CTA results with outcome data over a 12.8-month follow-up period, the researchers were able to correlate the extent, severity and type of plaque build-up with the occurrence of major adverse cardiac events, such as a heart attack or coronary bypass surgery. The statistical analysis tested all plaques combined (calcified, non-calcified and mixed) and each individual plaque type separately.
“We found that the risks for cardiovascular events associated with plaque were significantly different between women and men,” Dr. Nance said.
Within the follow-up period, 70 of the patients experienced major adverse cardiac events, such as death, heart attack, unstable angina or revascularization. In total, 87 major adverse cardiac events occurred among the patients during the follow-up period.
When the outcome data were correlated with the CTA combined plaque findings, the results indicated that women with a large amount of plaque build-up and extensive atherosclerosis are at significantly greater cardiovascular risk than men.
Specifically, the risk for major adverse cardiac events was significantly higher in women than in men when extensive plaque of any kind was present or when more than four artery segments were narrowed.
“This research tells us that extensive coronary plaque is more worrisome in women than the equivalent amount in men,” Dr. Nance said.
However, when analyzing risk factors associated with the presence of individual types of plaque, the risk for major adverse cardiac events was greater in men, compared to women, when their artery segments contained non-calcified plaque.
Dr. Nance said the new data suggested that the atherosclerotic process, or hardening of the arteries, is not necessarily linear and that more research is needed to better understand the disease.
“Our research confirms that coronary CTA provides excellent prognostic information that helps identify risk, but there are gender differences that need to be considered,” Dr. Nance said.
Coauthors are U. Joseph Schoepf, M.D., Christopher Schlett, M.D., Garrett Rowe, B.S., J. Michael Barraza, B.S., and Fabian Bamberg, M.D., M.P.H.
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On the Net:

• Radiological Society of North America
• Medical University of South Carolina
• Johns Hopkins Hospital

Wi-Fi technology could be dangerous to a man´s sperm quality, suggests a new study published in the journal Fertility and Sterility.

Argentinean scientists, led by Conrado Avendano of the Nascentis Center for Reproductive Medicine in Cordoba, describe in their report how they got semen samples from 29 healthy men, placed a few drops from those samples under a laptop with a Wi-Fi connection, and then used the laptop to do various everyday tasks.

Within four hours of use, 25 percent of the sperm were no longer swimming around, compared to just 14 percent from semen samples stored at room temperature away from the computer. And nine percent of the semen showed DNA damage, three times more than the comparison group.

The scientists noted that placing the sperm under the laptop without an active Wi-Fi connection did not result in significant levels of sperm damage or death.

Avendano and his team say electromagnetic radiation emitted by wireless communication is the key culprit.

“Our data suggest that the use of a laptop computer wirelessly connected to the internet and positioned near the male reproductive organs may decrease human sperm quality,” Avendano and his team wrote.

“At present we do not know whether this effect is induced by all laptop computers connected by Wi-Fi to the internet or what use conditions heighten this effect,” they added.

Avendano´s study is not the first to study the risks mobile communications can have on sperm quality.

A Canadian study from last year suggested that radiation from wireless devices cause DNA damage in sperm.

Heat generated by some computers can also have damaging effects on semen. A 2004 American study found that placing a laptop on the user´s lap could boost temperatures around the scrotum by as much as three degrees.

But Dr. Robert Oates, of Boston Medical Center and the president of the Society for Male Reproduction and Urology, said the picture isn´t totally clear on the new findings.

Oates, who has fathered two children despite frequently using a laptop and an iPad, told Reuters Health he doesn´t believe laptops are a significant threat to male reproductive health.

“This is not real-life biology, this is a completely artificial setting,” he told Frederik Joelving of Reuters about Avendano’s study. “It is scientifically interesting, but to me it doesn’t have any human biological relevance.”

He noted that no study has yet looked at whether laptop use has any influence on fertility or pregnancy outcomes. “Suddenly all of this angst is created for real-life actual persons that doesn´t have to be,” Oates added.

Nearly one in six couples in the US have trouble conceiving a child, and nearly half the time the problem stems from the man℠s reproductive health, according to figures from the American Urological Association.

Researchers say that lifestyle does matter when it comes to reproductive health.

A report appearing Fertility and Sterility earlier this month showed that men who eat a diet rich in fruit and grains and low in red meat, alcohol and coffee have a better chance of getting their partner pregnant during fertility treatment.

“You should be keeping yourself healthy,” including staying lean, eating healthy foods, exercising, not taking drugs and not smoking, agreed Oates.

But as far as laptops go, I wouldn´t be too worried, Oates told Reuters. “I don’t know how many people use laptops on their laps anyway.”

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On the Net:

• Fertility and Sterility

Researchers from UCLA’s cancer and stem cell centers have demonstrated for the first time that blood stem cells can be engineered to create cancer-killing T-cells that seek out and attack a human melanoma. The researchers believe this approach could be useful in 40 percent of Caucasians with this malignancy.

Done in mouse models, the study serves as first proof-of-principle that blood stem cells, which make every cell type found in blood, can be genetically altered in a living organism to create an army of melanoma-fighting T-cells, said Jerome Zack, study senior author and a scientist with UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCLA.

“We knew from previous studies that we could generate engineered T-cells, but would they work to fight cancer in a relevant model of human disease, such as melanoma,” said Zack, a professor of medicine and microbiology, immunology, and molecular genetics in Life Sciences. “We found with this study that they do work in a human model to fight cancer, and it’s a pretty exciting finding.”

The study appears Nov. 28, 2011 in the early online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Researchers used a T-cell receptor from a cancer patient cloned by other scientists that seeks out an antigen expressed by this type of melanoma. They then genetically engineered the human blood stem cells by importing genes for the T-cell receptor into the stem cell nucleus using a viral vehicle. The genes integrate with the cell DNA and are permanently incorporated into the blood stem cells, theoretically enabling them to produce melanoma-fighting cells indefinitely and when needed, said Dimitrios N. Vatakis, study first author and an assistant researcher in Zack’s lab.

“The nice thing about this approach is a few engineered stem cells can turn into an army of T-cells that will respond to the presence of this melanoma antigen,” Vatakis said. “These cells can exist in the periphery of the blood and if they detect the melanoma antigen, they can replicate to fight the cancer.”

In the study, the engineered blood stem cells were placed into human thymus tissue that had been implanted in the mice, allowing Zack and his team to study the human immune system reaction to melanoma in a living organism. Over time, about six weeks, the engineered blood stem cells developed into a large population of mature, melanoma-specific T-cells that were able to target the right cancer cells.

The mice were then implanted with two types of melanoma, one that expressed the antigen complex that attracts the engineered T-cells and one tumor that did not. The engineered cells specifically went after the antigen-expressing melanoma, leaving the control tumor alone, Zack said.

The study included nine mice. In four animals, the antigen-expressing melanomas were completely eliminated. In the other five mice, the antigen-expressing melanomas decreased in size, Zack said, an impressive finding.

Response was assessed not only by measuring physical tumor size, but by monitoring the cancer’s metabolic activity using Positron Emission Tomography (PET), which measures how much energy the cancer is “eating” to drive its growth.

“We were very happy to see that four tumors were completely gone and the rest had regressed, both by measuring their size and actually seeing their metabolic activity through PET,” Zack said.

This approach to immune system engineering has intriguing implications, Zack said. T-cells can be engineered to fight disease, but their function is not long-lasting in most cases. More engineered T-cells ultimately are needed to sustain a response. This approach engineers the cells that give rise to the T-cells, so “fresh” cancer-killing cells could be generated when needed, perhaps protecting against cancer recurrence later.

Going forward, the team would like to test this approach in clinical trials. One possible approach would be to engineer both the peripheral T-cells and the blood stem cells that give rise to T-cells. The peripheral T-cells would serve as the front line cancer fighters, while the blood stem cells are creating a second wave of warriors to take up the battle as the front line T-cells are losing function.

Zack said he hopes this engineered immunity approach will translate to other cancers as well, including breast and prostate cancers.

The four-year study was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the Caltech-UCLA Joint Center for Translational Medicine, UCLA Center for AIDS Research and the UCLA AIDS Institute.

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On the Net:

• University of California – Los Angeles Health Sciences
• PNAS

Having an abusive boss not only causes problems at work but can lead to strained relationships at home, according to a Baylor University study published online in journal, Personnel Psychology. The study found that stress and tension caused by an abusive boss have an impact on the employee’s partner, which affects the marital relationship and subsequently the employee’s entire family.
The study also found that more children at home meant greater family satisfaction for the employee, and the longer the partner’s relationship, the less impact the abusive boss had on the family.
“These findings have important implications for organizations and their managers. The evidence highlights the need for organizations to send an unequivocal message to those in supervisory positions that these hostile and harmful behaviors will not be tolerated,” said Dawn Carlson, Ph.D., study author, professor of management and H. R. Gibson Chair of Organizational Development at the Hankamer School of Business at Baylor University, Waco.
A supervisor’s abuse may include tantrums, rudeness, public criticism and inconsiderate action.
“It may be that as supervisor abuse heightens tension in the relationship, the employee is less motivated or able to engage in positive interactions with the partner and other family members,” said Merideth Ferguson, PH.D., study co-author and assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at Baylor.
Organizations should encourage subordinates to seek support through their organization’s employee assistance program or other resources (e.g., counseling, stress management) so that the employee can identify tactics or mechanisms for buffering the effect of abuse on the family, according to the study.
The study included 280 full-time employees and their partners. Fifty-seven percent of the employees were male with an average of five years in their current job; 75 percent had children living with them. The average age for the employee and the partner was 36 years. The average length of their relationship was 10 years. Of the respondents, 46 percent supervised other employees in the workplace, 47 percent worked in a public organization, 40 percent worked in a private organization, nine percent worked for a non-profit organization and five percent were self-employed. Of the partner group, 43 percent were male with 78 percent of these individuals employed.
Workers filled out an online survey. When their portion of the survey was complete, their partner completed a separate survey that was linked back to the workers’. The partner entered a coordinating identification number to complete his/her portion of the survey. The combined responses from the initial contact and the partner constituted one complete response in the study database.
Questions in the employee survey included; “How often does your supervisor use the following behaviors with you?” with example items being “Tells me my thoughts or feelings are stupid,” “Expresses anger at me when he/she is mad for another reason,” “Puts me down in front of others,” and “Tells me I’m incompetent.”
Questions in the partner survey included; “During the past month, how often did you . . .” feel irritated or resentful about things your (husband/wife/partner) did or didn’t do” and “feel tense from fighting, arguing or disagreeing with your (husband/wife/partner).”
“Employers must take steps to prevent or stop the abuse and also to provide opportunities for subordinates to effectively manage the fallout of abuse and keep it from affecting their families. Abusive supervision is a workplace reality and this research expands our understanding of how this stressor plays out in the employee’s life beyond the workplace,” Carlson said.
The research was conducted with support from the Texas A & M Mays Business School Mini-Grant Program.
Other co-authors of the study are Pamela L. Perrewe of Florida State University and Dwayne Whitten of Texas A & M University.
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On the Net:

• Baylor University
• Personnel Psychology
• Florida State University
• Texas A & M University

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report yesterday highlighting the need for healthier school lunches. The report, based on data from the 2010 National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Study (NYPANS), shows that one-third of high school students do not eat vegetables each day and more than 25 percent do not always have a daily serving of fruit.
“Our basic findings are that fruit and vegetable consumption among high school students is low,” said Sonia A. Kim, a CDC epidemiologist and one of the authors of the study. “There´s more that schools and communities can do to encourage consumption.”
The least amount of vegetables were consumed by Black and Hispanic children, according to the report, and overall, only 16.8 percent of teens ate fruit more than four times a day and even fewer, 11.2 percent, ate vegetables that often, David Beasley reports for Reuters.
The CDC maintains that fruits and vegetables reduce chronic diseases and some cancers and can help manage proper weight. The CDC advises adolescents who exercise less than 30 minutes a day to eat 1.5 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of vegetables daily for females and for males to eat two cups of fruit and three cups of vegetables.
The lack of fruit and vegetable consumption by teens shows a need for effective strategies to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables. Policy and environmental approaches to provide greater access to and availability of fruits and vegetables are among the strategies that schools and communities might choose to achieve this goal.
The reasons why high school students do not eat enough fruits and vegetables was not explicitly examined, but it does recommend increasing the availability of healthier foods in schools. A CDC program called “Let´s Move Salad Bars to Schools,” has a goal of putting 6,000 salad bars in schools over the next three years.
“There is evidence that salad bars do increase fruit and vegetable consumption among children,” Kim told Reuters. School and community gardening programs and farmer´s markets also encourage healthier eating, Kim said.
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On the Net:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Study (NYPANS)

Urban legend warns shoveling snow causes heart attacks, and the legend seems all too accurate, especially for male wintery excavators with a family history of premature cardiovascular disease. However, until recently this warning was based on anecdotal reports.

Two of the most important cardiology associations in the US include snow -shoveling on their websites as a high risk physical activity, but all the citation references indicate that this warning was based one or two incidents.

“We thought that this evidence should not be enough to convince us that snow -shoveling is potentially dangerous, ” says Adrian Baranchuk, a professor in Queen´s School of Medicine and a cardiologist at Kingston General Hospital.

Dr. Baranchuk and his team retrospectively reviewed KGH patient records from the two previous winter seasons and discovered that of the 500 patients who came to the hospital with heart problems during this period, 7 percent (35 patients) had started experiencing symptoms while shoveling snow.

“That is a huge number,” says Dr. Baranchuk. “7 percent of anything in medicine is a significant proportion. Also, if we take into account that we may have missed some patients who did not mention that they were shoveling snow around the time that the episode occurred, that number could easily double.”

The team also identified three main factors that put individuals at a high risk when shoveling snow. The number one factor was gender (31 of the 35 patients were male), the second was a family history of premature coronary artery disease (20 of the 35 patients), and the third was smoking (16 out of 35 patients). The second two factors may carry much more weight than the first, however, since the team could not correct for high rate of snow shoveling among men in their sample.

A history of regularly taking four or more cardiac medications was found to be preventative.

Dr. Baranchuk collaborated on this study with Wilma Hopman (Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, KGH Clinical Research Centre), William McIntyre, (Queen´s medical resident), and Salina Chan and David Schogstad-Stubbs (Queen´s medical students).

These findings were recently published in Clinical Research in Cardiology.

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On the Net:

• Queen´s School of Medicine
• Clinical Research in Cardiology

Experienced meditators seem to be able switch off areas of the brain associated with daydreaming as well as psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia, according to a new brain imaging study by Yale researchers.

Meditation’s ability to help people stay focused on the moment has been associated with increased happiness levels, said Judson A. Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study published the week of Nov. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Understanding how meditation works will aid investigation into a host of diseases, he said.

“Meditation has been shown to help in variety of health problems, such as helping people quit smoking, cope with cancer, and even prevent psoriasis,” Brewer said.

The Yale team conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging scans on both experienced and novice meditators as they practiced three different meditation techniques.

They found that experienced meditators had decreased activity in areas of the brain called the default mode network, which has been implicated in lapses of attention and disorders such as anxiety, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and even the buildup of beta amyloid plaques in Alzheimer’s disease. The decrease in activity in this network, consisting of the medial prefrontal and posterior cingulate cortex, was seen in experienced meditators regardless of the type of meditation they were doing.

The scans also showed that when the default mode network was active, brain regions associated with self-monitoring and cognitive control were co-activated in experienced meditators but not novices. This may indicate that meditators are constantly monitoring and suppressing the emergence of “me” thoughts, or mind-wandering. In pathological forms, these states are associated with diseases such as autism and schizophrenia.

The meditators did this both during meditation, and also when just resting – not being told to do anything in particular. This may indicate that meditators have developed a “new” default mode in which there is more present-centered awareness, and less “self”-centered, say the researchers.

“Meditation’s ability to help people stay in the moment has been part of philosophical and contemplative practices for thousands of years,” Brewer said. “Conversely, the hallmarks of many forms of mental illness is a preoccupation with one’s own thoughts, a condition meditation seems to affect. This gives us some nice cues as to the neural mechanisms of how it might be working clinically.”

Other Yale researchers are Patrick D. Worhunsky, Jeremy R. Gray and Hedy Kober.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Veterans Affairs New England Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center. The work of one researcher in the above study was partially funded by the Yale Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) grant from the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health.

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Image 2: Experienced meditators seem to switch off areas of the brain associated with wandering thoughts, anxiety and some psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. Researchers used fMRI scans to determine how the brains of meditators differed from subjects who were not meditating. The areas shaded in blue highlight areas of decreased activity in the brains of meditators. Credit: Yale University

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On the Net:

• Yale University
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

New research presented in Boston at the Gerontological Society of America’s (GSA) 64th Annual Scientific Meeting on Sunday has drawn a direct link between the sex lives of those in their mid-to-late 60s and their level of happiness with their lives and their marriage.

According to a GSA press release announcing the findings, this conclusion is the result of a 2004 survey of 238 individuals over the age of 65. The data from that study was analyzed by Adrienne Jackson, an assistant professor at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU)

Following her analysis, Jackson “discovered that frequency of sexual activity was a significant predictor of both general and marital happiness. The association even remained after accounting for factors such as age, gender, health status, and satisfaction with financial situation.”

The study found that only 40% of those who had not engaged in some form of sexual activity in the previous 12 months said that they were very happy with life in general, and 59% of them reported being very happy with the marriage. Conversely, 60% of those who had sex more than once again described themselves as very happy with their lives, and nearly 80% said they had very happy marriages.

“This study will help open the lines of communication and spark interest in developing ‘outside the box’ approaches to dealing with resolvable issues that limit or prevent older adults from participating in sexual activity,” Jackson said in a statement.

“Highlighting the relationship between sex and happiness will help us in developing and organizing specific sexual health interventions for this growing segment of our population,” she added.

The study comes after comments made by 73-year-old actress Jane Fonda, who according to Telegraph reporter Graeme Paton “attributed her youthful appearance to a continued healthy libido.”

It also follows previous research from the University of California San Diego (UCSD), which claimed that looked at women between the ages of 60 and 89 had a higher quality of life and were happier if they had an active sex life, Paton added.

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On the Net:

• Gerontological Society of America’s (GSA)
• Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University (FAMU)
• University of California San Diego (UCSD)

The number of Americans who are 90 years of age or older has nearly tripled over the past 30 years, the US Census Bureau announced on Friday.

According to AFP reports, the number of nonagenarians increased to 1.9 million as of 2010. They now represent 4.7% of the 65-and-old population in the US, an increase from just 2.8% in 1980.

Furthermore, by 2050, that number will more than quadruple (to 8.7 million), meaning they will account for roughly 10% of all older Americans, the Associated Press (AP) added.

As astonishing as those numbers are, some experts believe they may be underestimating the growth of the 90-plus portion of the U.S. population.

“I think it’s going to grow even faster than predicted in the report,” Richard Suzman, the director of behavioral and social research at the National Institute on Aging, the organization that commissioned the study, told Reuters reporter Lauren Keiper on Thursday.

“A key issue for this population will be whether disability rates can be reduced,” he added in comments made to the AP. “We´ve seen to some extent that disabilities can be reduced with lifestyle improvements, diet and exercise. But it becomes more important to find ways to delay, prevent or treat conditions such as Alzheimer´s disease.”

The study also reports that a vast majority (88.1%) of American nonagenarians are white. African-Americans made up 7.6% of the group, Hispanics approximately 4%, and Asians just 2.2%, according to the AFP. It also reports that women over 90 outnumber their male counterparts nearly three to one.

“More folks over the age of 90 means increased stress on pension and retirement funds, health care costs and caretaker relationships with younger generations,” Keiper said, adding that the report also discovered that “A person who makes it to 90 years old today is expected to live almost another five years“¦ and, a person who lives to celebrate a 100th birthday is likely to live another 2.3 years.”

Some of the reasons for the increase in the number of people reaching this advanced age are increases in education level and improvements in the areas of nutrition and public health, including a decline in smoking, fewer strokes, and better methods for controlling diabetes, Suzman told Reuters.

The report also notes that people between the ages of 90 and 94 are 13% more likely to have disabilities than 85 to 89 year olds; that the annual median personal income for people 90 and older during 2006-2008 was $14,760 (half of which originated from Social Security payments); that 14.5% of people 90 and older lived in poverty from 2006 through 2008; that 80% of all women over the age of 90 were widowed while 40% of men in the same age group were married; and that 99.5% of all nonagenarians were covered by some form of health insurance.

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On the Net:

• US Census Bureau
• National Institute on Aging

Researchers have found that women are about seven to nine times more likely to suffer from “broken heart syndrome” during sudden or prolonged stress.

The syndrome is caused during a stressful event like an emotional breakup or death, which then causes overwhelming heart failure or heart attack-like symptoms.

Japanese doctors first recognized the syndrome around 1990 and named it Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

Tests show dramatic changes in rhythm and blood substances typical of a heart attack, but no artery blockages.  Most victims can recover within weeks, but in some cases it is fatal.

“I was very curious why only women were having this,” Dr. Abhishek Deshmukh of the University of Arkansas, who has treated some of these cases said at an American Heart Association conference in Florida.

He used 6,229 cases in 2007 from a federal database with about 1,000 hospitals.  Only 671 of the cases involved men.

Deshmukh took into account factors like high blood pressure and smoking, but women still seemed 7.5 times more likely to suffer the syndrome than men.

It was three times more common for a woman over 55 to suffer from broken heart syndrome than a younger woman.  Women younger than 55 were 9.5 times more likely to suffer it than men of that age.

“It’s the only cardiac condition where there’s such a female preponderance,” Dr. Abhiram Prasad, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist who presented other research on this syndrome at the conference, said.

He said that one theory is that hormones play a role, while another is that men have more adrenaline receptors on cells in their hearts than women do.

The new study has found that about 1 percent of broken heart syndrome cases prove to be fatal.

About 10 percent of victims will have a second episode sometime in their lives, and the condition is more common in the summer.

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On the Net:

• University of Arkansas
• American Heart Association

According to new research, over one-in-four women take medication to treat a mental health condition.

The report by Medco Health Solutions found that women of all ages take more mental health medications than males, with antidepressants being the most commonly used.

Anxiety treatments are also widely used by women and at almost twice the rate of men, and the greatest age group who uses these drugs were women between 45 and 65 years of age.

The number of women on ADHD drugs was 2.5 times higher than in 2001, which was higher than what number of men use the drugs.

Women between the ages of 20 to 44 years used ADHD drugs 264 percent times more often than what they did ten years ago.

“Over the past decade, there has been a significant uptick in the use of medications to treat  a variety of mental health problems; what is not as clear is if more people – especially women, are actually developing psychological disorders that require treatment, or if they are more willing to seek out help and clinicians are better at diagnosing these conditions than they once were,” Dr. David Muzina, a psychiatrist and national practice leader of the Medco Neuroscience Therapeutic Resource Center, said in a press release.

“Women are generally more frequent users of healthcare, but they may also be bearing the emotional brunt of a decade that started with the horror of 9/11 and since has seen several wars and economic turmoil.”

The amount of children on mental drug treatments also jumped up over the past ten years.  However, the use of antidepressants in children 19 and younger declined since the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warnings in 2004 on risks of suicidal ideation linked to these drugs in children.

The number of children on atypical antipsychotics doubled from 2001 to 2010.

“The fact that more children are being treated with atypicals is concerning given that substantial weight gain is highly associated with the use of these drugs in this population, putting children at risk for diabetes and heart disease-related conditions,” Dr. Muzina said in a statement.  “When using these drugs, children need to be monitored on a frequent basis to prevent against these serious health risks.”

Older women are most apt to use an antidepressant, according to the research.  Nearly 24 percent of women over 64 take antidepressants.  This age category also saw a jump in use of antidepressants in 2001, posting a 40 percent increase in their numbers.

There was a steep decline in the number of elderly women taking anti-anxiety medications, which was down 47 percent from a decade ago.

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On the Net:

• Medco Health Solutions
• Report (pdf)

Geron Corp., the first company to conduct human embryonic stem cell trials, announced late Monday that it is halting development of its stem cell programs and laying off much of its staff as it shifts its focus towards developing cancer drugs.

The move carries bleak implications for a promising field that offers hope of future medicines for a variety of conditions that currently lack adequate treatments.

“This is a shock to the (stem cell research industry) system … because the unequivocal leader in the embryonic stem cell space is now getting out of the stem cell space,” said WBB Securities analyst Steve Brozak in an interview with Reuters.

The company said it would cut 66 full-time positions, or 38 percent of its workforce, and is actively seeking partners or buyers to takeover its stem cell programs.

The news sent shares of Geron´s stock down more than 17 percent during after-hours trading on Monday.  Shares continued plummeting on Tuesday, declining as much as 28 percent to a five-year low.

During a conference call on Tuesday, Geron executives said that getting out of the stem cell field was purely a business decision, and that investments in oncology pay off much faster than those in stem cells.

“We’re making these changes because in the current environment of economic scarcity and uncertain economic conditions, we need to focus our resources on advancing our Phase 2 trials … Both of these (cancer) drug candidates target major medical needs and have important clinical milestones that are occurring over the next 20 months,” said Geron Chief Executive Officer John Scarlett during a conference call with analysts.

The Menlo Park, California-based company said it saw potential in its two cancer programs — imetelstat and GRN1005.

Imetelstat is currently in mid-stage trials for breast cancer and non-small cell lung cancer, while GRN1005 is being tested in a mid-stage trial as a brain cancer treatment.

By focusing on oncology, Geron expects to have sufficient funds to complete its work without having to raise additional capital, said Scarlett, who took the helm a couple of months ago.

“These were business decisions we took on behalf of our shareholders … We still think the (stem cell) field has tremendous promise,” he said.

Geron officials said the decision was difficult since the company is widely seen as a leader in the field, but that it was in “a number of conversations” with potential partners to takeover its stem cell programs.

Brozak said investors’ focus will now be on which company will assume the stem cell leadership position, and how Geron shareholders might benefit from the transaction.

BioTime Inc., for instance, could be a potential partner since it is the closest in terms of its understanding the science and has sufficient resources, Brozak said.

Companies such as Athersys Inc., Pluristem Therapeutics Inc. and Australia’s Mesoblast Ltd are also working on stem cell therapies.

Geron was the first company to begin a government-approved clinical trial using human embryonic stem cells in patients with spinal cord injuries.  The company reported data in October from an early-stage trial that showed its therapy was safe in all four patients who received the treatment.

However, Geron said on Monday it would close further enrollment of patients for its GRNOPC1 trial for spinal cord injury, although any new partner would have the option to continue the trial.

Researchers see great potential in stem cells, which have the ability to differentiate into different type of cells and act as a repair system for the human body.  Experts believe these cells may one day be used to treat currently incurable diseases conditions such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

With the restructuring, Geron Chief Financial officer David Greenwood said he expects the company to end 2011 with cash in excess of $150 million.

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On the Net:

• Geron Corp.

Researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin have found a possible link between norovirus, a virus that causes “stomach flu” in humans, and food allergies. The findings are published in The Open Immunology Journal, Volume 4, 2011.

Mitchell H. Grayson, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics, medicine, microbiology and molecular genetics at the Medical College, and a pediatric allergist practicing at Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin, is the corresponding author of the paper.

The researchers took mice infected with norovirus and fed them egg protein. They then examined the mice for signs of an immunoglobulin E, or IgE, response against the food protein; an IgE response is what leads to an allergic reaction. The team of researchers has previously shown an IgE response to an inhaled protein during a respiratory infection in another a mouse model, which suggests early respiratory infections in children could lead to allergic diseases like asthma later in childhood. Likewise, an IgE response to a gastrointestinal virus could signify a likelihood of developing a food allergy after the viral infection.

Six million children in the United States have food allergies, and the Centers for Disease Control reports an 18 percent increase in the prevalence of food allergies from 1997 to 2007. Every three minutes, a food allergy sends a child to the emergency room.

“Food allergies are a dangerous, costly health issue not only in the United States, but worldwide,” said Dr. Grayson. “This study provides additional support for the idea that allergic disease may be related to an antiviral immune response, and further studies are planned to continue exploring the exact series of events that connect the antiviral response with allergic diseases.”

Other authors of the paper include Xiuxu Chen, Ph.D.; Daniel Leach, Desire A. Hunter, Daniel Sanfelippo, Erika J. Buell and Sarah J. Zemple, Division of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, Department of Pediatrics, Medical College of Wisconsin.

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On the Net:

• Medical College of Wisconsin
• Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin
• The Open Immunology Journal

Researchers are reporting that adult stem cells from heart-attack patients helped to improve blood-pumping ability and restore vitality in cardiac muscle.

They said that the results triple the 4 percent improvement average the researchers projected for the Phase I trial.

The team conducted the “Cardiac Stem Cells in Patients with Ischemic CardiOmyopathy” (SCIPO) trial with 16 patients who were diagnosed with heart failure after a myocardial infarction.

They harvested cardiac stem cells from the patents during coronary artery bypass surgery conducted at Jewish Hospital in Louisville.

The stem cells were purified in a Boston lab and reintroduced into the region of the patient’s heart that had been scarred by the infarction.

They found an 8.5 percent improvement just four months after the reintroduction of stem cells and 12 percent after a year.

The team also conducted MRI studies on the patients’ hearts and saw that the size of the scarred regions had decreased.

Dr. Roberto Bolli of the University of Louisville, who is the leader author of a paper published in the journal The Lancet, said the adult stem cell protocol could become one of the greatest advancements in cardiac treatment in a generation.

“The results are striking,” Bolli said in a statement. “While we do not yet know why the improvement occurs, we have no doubt now that ejection fraction increased and scarring decreased. If these results hold up in future studies, I believe this could be the biggest revolution in cardiovascular medicine in my lifetime.”

The researchers said these findings are preliminary and larger-scale studies must be undertaken before the therapy can be widely used.

Bolli said he is already looking forward to a larger study, and they “plan to apply for funding to conduct a Phase II multi-center trial.”

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On the Net:

• University of Louisville
• The Lancet

According to a U.S. study, older women who spend more time exercising and less time watching television were less likely to be diagnosed with depression.

Researchers found that women who reported exercising the most in recent years were about 20 percent less likely to get depression than those who rarely exercised.

The team found that the more hours they spent watching TV each week, the more their risk of depression crept up.

“Higher levels of physical activity were associated with lower depression risk,” study author Michel Lucas, from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, wrote in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

She said that more time spent being active might boost self-esteem and women’s sense of control, as well as the endorphins in their blood.

The report included about 50,000 women who filled out surveys every couple of years from 1992 to 2006 as part of the U.S. Nurses’ Health Study.

The participants recorded the amount of time they spent watching TV each week in 1992, and also answered questions about how often they walked, biked, ran and swam between 1992 and 2000.

Women also reported on the survey if they had any new diagnosis of clinical depression or medication taken to treat depression.

The analysis only included women who did not have depression in 1996.   They found that over the next decade, 6,500 new cases of depression popped up.

The team then accounted for aspects of health and lifestyle linked to depression, including weight, smoking and a range of diseases.

Afterwards, they found that women who spent 90 minutes or more each day exercising were 20 percent less likely to be diagnosed with depression than those who exercised 10 minutes or less a day.

Women who watched three hours or more of television a day were 13 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression than those who hardly watched TV.

Researchers said one explanation could be that women might have been experiencing symptoms of depression before they were diagnosed, which lead them to exercise less.

“Previous studies have suggested that physical activity is associated with a lower risk of depressive symptoms,” Gillian Mead, who studies geriatric medicine at Edinburgh’s Royal Infirmary but was not involved in the study, said in a statement.

“(The finding) adds to the growing body of evidence that physical activity is important to maintain brain health,” she added in an email to Reuters Health.

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On the Net:

• Harvard School of Public Health
• American Journal of Epidemiology
• U.S. Nurses’ Health Study

A multi-year study, presented at the American Heart Association scientific meeting in Orlando, claims that people who underwent regular, professional tooth cleaning enjoyed reduced bacterial growth that can lead to heart disease, reports Reuters´ Bill Berkrot.

Taiwan researchers showed a 24 percent lower risk of heart attack and 13 percent lower risk of stroke in more than 100,000 patients, compared to those who never had a dental cleaning. None of the study subjects had a history of prior heart attack or stroke, but the analysis did not adjust for risk factors such as smoking or obesity.

“Protection from heart disease and stroke was more pronounced in participants who got tooth scaling at least once a year,” said Dr. Zu-Yin Chen, a cardiology fellow at Veterans General Hospital in Taipei.

Scientists considered tooth scaling frequent if it occurred at least twice or more in two years; occasional tooth scaling was once or less in two years and the participants were followed for an average of seven years.

Chronic inflammation was most likely behind the association, reports Catherine Pearson for Huffington Post. Chen explained that prior research has suggested teeth scaling reduces inflammation-causing bacteria and improves blood vessel function, thus keeping blood flowing properly.

“They have identified an interesting association, but they haven´t explained why it is happening,” said Dr. Myerburg, a professor of medicine and physiology in the cardiovascular division at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

“It could be direct, in the sense that inflammation in the gums may trigger inflammation in the heart. Or it may be indirect in that the population that is compulsive about scaling is also compulsive about other health care. They´re doing good things for their heart at the same time that they´re doing good things for their gums.”

The next-step, research-wise, would be to look at how other modifiable factors like weight and smoking affect their results, Chen explained.

Researchers are also considering whether tooth scaling might lower susceptibility to other diseases, as well. Studies suggest that people suffering from gum disease were more likely to develop heart disease and deliver preterm babies.

According to National Institute of Health´s National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, it is unclear whether gum disease actually causes these issues and whether controlling it prevents them. As such research continues, experts agree it can´t hurt to play it safe.

“What I think is it´s a good idea to take care of your gums. And scaling can be an important part of that,” Myerburg said.

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On the Net:

• American Heart Association

Approximately one in five Americans are still active cigarette smokers, but nearly 70% of them want to quit, a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report has discovered.

However, while seven out of 10 would like to quit the habit, the CDC study shows that only half have attempted to do so and just 6% of them managed to succeed, according to a November 11 article by Reuters reporter Julie Steenhuysen.

Translating those statistics into real numbers, Steenhuysen reports that means approximately 45.3 million adults in the U.S. continue to light up on a regular basis. Doctors have advised 48.3% of those individuals to quit, the CDC claims, and while smoking rates have fallen, officials at the health agency are said to be concerned that the rate of decline has begun to slow down.

“We have seen over the past five years a flattening of the downward trend in youth initiation. We are very worried that there are a number of things that have been happening in terms of tobacco industry marketing techniques that affect youth,” Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the CDC, told reporters during a Thursday press conference, according to Steven Reinberg of USA Today’s HealthDay.

In spite of that, however, McAfee called the results of the study “reassuring,” admitting that the group had been concerned that many smokers would not be interested in quitting, regardless of the health risk. “In fact, what this study shows is quite the opposite,” he said. “There has been a decline in the last five years in the rate of smoking, and smokers are actually smoking less.”

The CDC report also discovered that only 32% of those who attempted to quit used smoking cessation aids, including patches or similar products; only 3.2% of those with just a high-school education were successful in their attempts to quit while 11.4% of college graduates were able to stop smoking; and that African-Americans were the demographic that was most interested in attempting to quit, as well as the least likely to use anti-smoking aids and the least likely to succeed.

“The CDC study also found that having health insurance was a big factor in a person’s ability to successfully quit smoking, as it meant they were more likely to be counseled by a doctor and to get reimbursed for nicotine patches or other aids,” Steenhuysen said. “According to the study, the uninsured had the lowest success rate of just 3.6 percent, while those with private insurance had a higher rate of 7.8 percent and people with military insurance had a success rate of over 9 percent.”

The research, which was published in the November 11 issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), was completed as part of the American Cancer Society-sponsored Great American Smokeout, which will take place on November 17, Reinberg said.

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On the Net:

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR)
• American Cancer Society

As a fetus grows, it´s constantly getting messages from its mother. It´s not just hearing her heartbeat and whatever music she might play to her belly; it also gets chemical signals through the placenta. A new study, which will be published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that this includes signals about the mother´s mental state. If the mother is depressed, that affects how the baby develops after it´s born.

In recent decades, researchers have found that the environment a fetus is growing up in–the mother´s womb–is very important. Some effects are obvious. Smoking and drinking, for example, can be devastating. But others are subtler; studies have found that people who were born during the Dutch famine of 1944, most of whom had starving mothers, were likely to have health problems like obesity and diabetes later.

Curt A. Sandman, Elysia P. Davis, and Laura M. Glynn of the University of California-Irvine study how the mother´s psychological state affects a developing fetus. For this study, they recruited pregnant women and checked them for depression before and after they gave birth. They also gave their babies tests after they were born to see how well they were developing.

They found something interesting: what mattered to the babies was if the environment was consistent before and after birth. That is, the babies who did best were those who either had mothers who were healthy both before and after birth, and those whose mothers were depressed before birth and stayed depressed afterward. What slowed the babies´ development was changing conditions–a mother who went from depressed before birth to healthy after or healthy before birth to depressed after. “We must admit, the strength of this finding surprised us,” Sandman says.

Now, the cynical interpretation of our results would be that if a mother is depressed before birth, you should leave her that way for the well-being of the infant. “A more reasonable approach would be, to treat women who present with prenatal depression.   Sandman says. “We know how to deal with depression.” The problem is, women are rarely screened for depression before birth.

In the long term, having a depressed mother could lead to neurological problems and psychiatric disorders, Sandman says. In another study, his team found that older children whose mothers were anxious during pregnancy, which often is co morbid with depression, have differences in certain brain structures. It will take studies lasting decades to figure out exactly what having a depressed mother means to a child´s long-term health.

“We believe that the human fetus is an active participant in its own development and is collecting information for life after birth,” Sandman says. “It´s preparing for life based on messages the mom is providing.”

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On the Net:

• Psychological Science
• University of California-Irvine

A research team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center said that obese rhesus monkeys lost 11 percent of their body weight after four weeks of treatment with an experimental drug that destroys the blood supply of fat tissue.

The researchers have designed the new drug to bind to a protein on the surface of fat-supporting blood vessels and a synthetic peptide that triggers cell death.

“Obesity is a major risk factor for developing cancer, roughly the equivalent of tobacco use, and both are potentially reversible” co-senior author Wadih Arap, M.D., Ph.D., also professor in the Koch Center, said in a press release. “Obese cancer patients do worse in surgery, with radiation or on chemotherapy — worse by any measure.”

The rhesus monkeys in the study were “spontaneously” obese, according to study author Kirstin Rarnhart.  She said the monkeys became overweight by overeating the same foods provided to other monkeys in the colony and avoiding physical activity.

The researchers used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to gauge abdominal body fat during the study, which dropped 27 percent.

“Development of this compound for human use would provide a non-surgical way to actually reduce accumulated white fat, in contrast to current weight-loss drugs that attempt to control appetite or prevent absorption of dietary fat,” co-senior author Renata Pasqualini, professor in MD Anderson’s David H. Koch Center for Applied Research of Genitourinary Cancers, said in a statement.

The team said they are preparing for a clinical trial in which prostate cancer patients would receive daily injections of Adipotide for 28 consecutive days.

“The question is, will their prostate cancer become better if we can reduce their body weight and the associated health risks,” Arap said in a press release.

Some prostate cancer treatments cause weight gain, and the greater weight on a patient can lead to arthritis.

The research was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

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On the Net:

• University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
• Science Translational Medicine

People who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) — a condition that comes with a shortage of daylight hours — may have a new weapon to fight off those winter blues, according to a study by Finnish researchers.

These researchers explain that the human brain is as sensitive to light as the eyes, making it possible to treat SAD with a new headset — much like headphones — that beams light, rather than music, into the ears.

SAD is caused by the brain not receiving enough daylight which is needed to trigger serotonin, a hormone that regulates mood. Symptoms of SAD range from mild lethargy to depression, insomnia and anxiety.

Valkee, the inventor of the world´s first bright light headset, and scientists from the University of Oulu, Finland presented two clinical trials at the 11th International Forum for Mood and Anxiety Disorders (IFMAD) in Budapest on November 9-11. Results of their trials are also published in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice.

In one of the clinical trials, 89 participants suffering from SAD were tested. The team found that between 74 and 79 percent were cured of seasonal depression after using the device for 8 to 12 minutes every day for four weeks.

“In our first study, 92 percent of the patients with seasonal affective disorder achieved full remission measured by the self-rated BDI-21 questionnaire, during the four week study period,” noted professor Markku Timonen, MD, PhD, the lead investigator for the two trials at the University of Oulu.

“We presented earlier that the human brain is sensitive to light. These two clinical trials demonstrate that channeling bright light via ear canal into brain´s photosensitive areas effectively prevents and treats seasonal affective disorder,” added Juuso Nissilä, Valkee´s co-founder and chief scientist.

The human brain contains about 18 sites with photoreceptor proteins, which are also found in the eyes, the researchers said.

“Bright light channeled into the brain via ear canal is an important future method to treat seasonal affective disorder,” Professor Timo Takala, chief physician at Oulu Deaconess Institute, told Fox News.

Finland has long, dark winters, and this results in a high rate of people suffering from SAD. The country also has one of the world´s highest suicide rates, many likely stemming from prolonged SAD symptoms.

Valkee launched its headset in August 2010, and has been classified as a CE-certified Class II medical device under EU regulations, based on cross-functional science in neurology, biology, psychiatry and physiology at University of Oulu. The device costs nearly $300 (US) and looks like an iPod.

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On the Net:

• Valkee
• University of Oulu
• International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice

Study co-authored by University of Leicester cardiovascular expert identifies key genetic mechanisms that help control blood pressure
A researcher from the University of Leicester’s Department of Cardiovascular Sciences has been involved in a ground-breaking study into the causes of high blood pressure.
The study, published in the academic journal Hypertension, analyzed genetic material in human kidneys in a search for genes that might contribute to high blood pressure. The findings open up new avenues for future investigation into the causes of high blood pressure in humans.
The study identified key genes, messenger RNAs and micro RNAs present in the kidneys that may contribute to human hypertension. It also uncovered two microRNAs that contribute to the regulation of renin — a hormone long thought to play to part in controlling blood pressure.
Although scientists have long known that the kidneys play a role in regulating blood pressure, this is the first time that key genes involved in the process have been identified through a large, comprehensive gene expression analysis of the human kidneys. It is also the first time that researchers have identified miRNAs that control the expression of the hormone renin.
The scientists studied tissue samples from the kidneys of 15 male hypertensive patients (patients with high blood pressure) and 7 male patients with normal blood pressure, and compared their messenger RNA (mRNA) and micro RNA (miRNA).
Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a single-stranded molecule that helps in the production of protein from DNA. Genetic information is copied from DNA to mRNA strands, which provide a template from which the cell can make new proteins. MicroRNA (miRNA) is a very small molecule that helps regulate the process of converting mRNA into proteins.
The study was co-authored by the University of Leicester’s Dr Maciej Tomaszewski, Senior Clinical Lecturer in Cardiovascular Medicine in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, and a Consultant Physician in Leicester Blood Pressure Clinic – European Centre of Excellence.
Dr Tomaszewski commented: “I am very excited about this publication. Renin is one of the most important contributors to blood pressure regulation. The novel insights into its expression within the human kidney from this study open up new avenues for the development of new antihypertensive medications. The collection of hypertensive and normotensive kidneys is available for our studies in Leicester thanks to a long-term international collaboration. We will continue using this unique research resource in our further studies to decipher the genetic background of human hypertension.”
Researchers described the discovery of these miRNAs as “the first real evidence to implicate renin” as a cause of high blood pressure. The findings also indicate which genes and miRNAs are involved in renin production. This increased understanding of the mechanisms underlying hypertension could lead to innovative new treatments for high blood pressure.
Researchers used samples of human kidneys stored in the Silesian Renal Tissue Bank (SRTB), all of which came from Polish males individuals of white European ancestry. The SRTB stores human kidney samples for use in genetic research into cardiovascular diseases. Samples were selected from 15 patients known to have high blood pressure, along with 7 patients with normal blood pressure who were used as a control group for the study. The scientists used a range of techniques to study the genes, mRNAs and miRNAs present in the medulla (the inner part of the kidney) and the cortex (the outer part).
The research was conducted jointly by scientists from the University of Sydney, the University of Ballarat (both in Australia) and the University of Leicester, along with the Silesian School of Medicine in Poland. Funding was provided by a University of Sydney Research Infrastructure grant, grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and an Australian Research Council grant.
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On the Net:

• University of Leicester
• Research Paper