Body

Women undergoing IVF or other assisted reproduction therapy can be reassured that emotional distress caused by their infertility or other life events will not prevent the treatment from working.

Infertility affects up to 15% of the childbearing population and over half of these individuals will seek medical advice in the hope of becoming a parent.

High radiation doses put a significant number of dialysis patients at increased risk of cancer, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The results suggest that clinicians should consider scaling back on radiation for purposes of diagnosis in this patient population.

Despite significant advances in kidney care over the past 20 years, efforts to improve therapy for type 1 diabetes patients with kidney dysfunction remain unsuccessful, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The results suggest that more effective therapies are needed for these patients.

Although untreated HIV infection eventually results in immunodeficiency (AIDS), a small group of people infected with the virus, called elite suppressors (0.5 percent of all HIV-infected individuals), are naturally able to control infection in the absence of antiretroviral therapy, or HAART. Elite suppressors and HIV- infected individuals treated with HAART have similar levels of virus in the blood stream.

A new finding from scientists at the National Institutes of Health could help efforts to design vaccines and other prevention tools to block HIV in the early stages of sexual transmission, before infection takes hold. Researchers at the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have helped explain genetic differences that can distinguish some early-transmitting HIVs—viruses found in an infected individual within the first month after infection—from forms of HIV isolated later in infection. These genetic features help HIV bind tightly to a molecule called integrin α4β7.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego say an evolutionary gene mutation that occurred in human millions of years ago and our subsequent inability to produce a specific kind of sugar molecule appears to make people more vulnerable to developing type 2 diabetes, especially if they're overweight.

The findings are published in the Feb. 24 online edition of The FASEB Journal, a publication of the Federation of American Societies of Experimental Biology.

PSA screening has declined in one large U.S. healthcare network since publication of two large screening trials and a set of guidelines, according to a study published online February 24 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Guidelines of several cancer organizations have recommended that men with a rapid rise in PSA have a biopsy for prostate cancer, even if there is no other indication and the PSA is within the "normal" range. But change in PSA – known as PSA velocity—is a poor predictor of prostate cancer, and may lead to many unnecessary biopsies, according to a study published online February 24 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Scientists have identified a protein that plays a key role in debilitating changes that occur in the heart after a heart attack, according to research reported in Circulation Research: Journal of the American Heart Association.

These changes, or "remodeling" of the heart, often lead to fatal heart failure, which kills nearly 60,000 Americans each year. The findings suggest a possible future therapy for preventing or reducing heart muscle damage after a heart attack.

NEW YORK, February 24, 2011 — Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center have found that change in PSA levels over time — known as PSA velocity — is a poor predictor of prostate cancer and may lead to many unnecessary biopsies. The new study of more than 5,000 men was published online February 24 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

CHICAGO – You are enjoying a night out with friends when it starts; first you feel flush, then a sensation of warmth crawls down your body. Soon you begin perspiring and you feel as if everyone around you can tell what is happening – another hot flash. An estimated three out of four women experience hot flashes associated with menopause and nearly all would agree they are a nuisance, but experts say there could be an upside to having hot flashes.

Montreal, February 24, 2011 – The interventional cardiology team at the Montreal Heart Institute (MHI) recently began patient enrolment for a new device, the Neovasc ReducerTM, designed to treat patients suffering from refractory angina. The treatment method is a first in North America and is being conducted as part of an international study, the COSIRA trial. This innovative treatment is promising for thousands of Canadians disabled by refractory angina and who lack alternatives for relieving their symptoms and improving their quality of life.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — There's more than one way to silence gene activity, according to a Michigan State University researcher.

Downregulating activity is how healthy genes should shift out of their development cycle. The results, published in this week's Current Biology, discuss how specific repressor proteins – which researchers have named Hairy and Knirps – slow genes during development and how the process is comparable to slowing down a car, says molecular biologist David Arnosti.

As if the recent prediction that half of all Americans will have diabetes or pre-diabetes by the year 2020 isn't alarming enough, a new genetic discovery published online in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org) provides a disturbing explanation as to why: we took an evolutionary "wrong turn." In the research report, scientists show that human evolution leading to the loss of function in a gene called "CMAH" may make humans more prone to obesity and diabetes than other mammals.

With the genetics of so many organisms that have different traits yet to study, and with the techniques for gathering full sets of genetic information from organisms rapidly evolving, the "forest" of evolution can be easily lost to the "trees" of each individual case and detail.