Body

DALLAS – March 24, 2011 – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered a hormone pathway that potentially could lead to new ways of treating type 1 diabetes independent of insulin, long thought to be the sole regulator of carbohydrates in the liver. Results of this new study will be published March 25 in Science.

Bar Harbor, Maine -- A Jackson Laboratory research team, working in collaboration with researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, show that RNA granules--key players in messenger RNA (mRNA) processing--can affect eye development, leading to juvenile cataracts in humans and mice.

The research, published in the March 25 issue of Science, also demonstrates the first connection between RNA granules and glaucoma, as the humans and mice in the study developed glaucoma.

Conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and other conservation and research groups have discovered that groups of dolphins in the western Indian Ocean do not mix freely with one another. In fact, dolphin populations are kept separate by currents and other unseen factors.

SEATTLE – A study of Yup'ik Eskimos in Alaska, who on average consume 20 times more omega-3 fats from fish than people in the lower 48 states, suggests that a high intake of these fats helps prevent obesity-related chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

The study, led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and conducted in collaboration with the Center for Alaska Native Health Research at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, was published online March 23 in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Most school text books contain messages about health, but 24.6% of these are not based on any scientific evidence, according to a study by the Knowledge Management Unit at Baza Hospital (Granada), published in the journal BMC Public Health.

After reviewing existing research regarding the common practices of health care providers who see adolescent patients across the country, Rebecca Allen, MD, MPH, a clinician and researcher at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, and her colleague, Michelle Forcier, MD, MPH, an adolescent medicine specialist at Hasbro Children's Hospital, asserted that the nation needs to offer more confidential care for teenagers who are sexually active.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Temperature increases resulting from climate change in the Southwest will likely eliminate Joshua trees from 90 percent of their current range in 60 to 90 years, according to a new study led by U.S. Geological Survey ecologist Ken Cole.

Researchers from China, Leicester and Oxford have discovered a remarkable fossil which sheds new light on an important group of primitive sea creatures.

The 525-million-year-old fossil belongs to a group of tentacle-bearing creatures which lived inside hard tubes. Previously only the tubes have been seen in detail but this new specimen clearly shows the soft parts of the body including tentacles for feeding.

Research presented today at the European Congress on Osteoporosis & Osteoarthritis by investigators from the UK and Sweden estimates that the economic burden of fragility fractures in five major European countries totals 31 billion Euro, with Germany bearing the highest costs. A majority of the economic burden is shown to be related to the costs incurred during the 1st year after the fracture, while pharmacological prevention and treatment management constitutes only a marginal share of the total economic cost.

A study presented today at the European Congress on Osteoporosis and Osteoarthritis currently taking place in Valencia, Spain has found that the initial quality of life loss following an osteoporotic fracture is substantial, especially with regard to hip and vertebral fractures. The study found differences in quality of life loss between countries after correcting for other explanatory variables.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- After age 21, problem gambling is considerably more common among U.S. adults than alcohol dependence, even though alcohol dependence has received much more attention, according to researchers at the University at Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions.

Simulated acupuncture - sometimes referred to as placebo - is just as beneficial as real acupuncture for treating nausea in cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy, according to a study from Karolinska Institutet and Linköping University in Sweden. Patients, who received only standard care including medications for nausea, felt significant more nausea than patients in both the acupuncture groups.

The use of different resources by males and females exacerbates the estimation of population sizes. However, the monitoring of population sizes, particularly for rare and threatened species, is pivotal to quick and effective conservation action. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Radolfzell investigated the ecological niches of male and female parti-colored bats (Vespertilio murinus) and found out that the sexes use entirely different foraging grounds.

Diabetes type 2 is caused by insufficient levels of insulin to keep blood glucose under control. Excessive levels of another hormone, glucagon, can also contribute to diabetes type 2 by causing the liver to flood the body with stored glucose. Diabetes type 2 does not arise overnight, but slowly progresses for many years as a condition known as prediabetes. In prediabetes, blood sugar rises to excessive levels after a meal, but is normal or nearly normal after an overnight fast. Researchers are seeking ways to prevent prediabetes from progressing to diabetes.

New evidence has emerged from studies in mice that short telomeres or "caps" at the ends of chromosomes may predispose people to age-related diabetes, according to Johns Hopkins scientists.