Body

A mechanism in the body which typically helps a person heal from an injury, may actually be causing patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) to get worse, researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and their collaborators have found.

Hanoi, Vietnam – The world's biggest rice-exporting and -importing nations have collectively endorsed a new Rice Action Plan targeting many of the problems that triggered this year's rice price crisis.

At a meeting of the ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi this week, ministers of agriculture unanimously endorsed a seven-point action plan presented by the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). ASEAN includes two of the world's largest rice exporters, Thailand and Vietnam, and several importing nations as well.

What:

Under current treatment guidelines, highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) should be considered for HIV-infected patients when their CD4+ T-cell counts fall below 350 cells per cubic millimeter (mm3). However, new epidemiological research suggests that patients with HIV may have less risk of dying if they begin HAART sooner.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Researchers at Rhode Island Hospital have created the first animal model that can reveal the side effects of anesthetic agents (the substances used to block pain during surgery) in individuals genetically predisposed to sudden cardiac death. The researchers also found that some anesthetic agents may trigger arrhythmias. The study appears in an upcoming issue of the American Journal of Physiology – Heart Circulation Physiology and is currently available online.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Imagine you are a police detective trying to identify a suspect wearing a trench coat, baggy pants and a baseball cap pulled low. Or imagine you are a fashion industry executive who wants to market virtual clothing that customers of all shapes and sizes can try online before they purchase. Perhaps you want to create the next generation of "Guitar Hero" in which the user, not some character, is pumping out the licks.

Physicians and other health-care providers may advise their patients to quit smoking, but few providers have the adequate training to follow their patients through the cessation process.

Researchers from the John Innes Centre in Norwich, Great Britain, in collaboration with other European centres participating to the FLORA project, have obtained genetically modified tomatoes rich in anthocyanins, a category of antioxidants belonging to the class of flavonoids. These tomatoes, added to the diet of cancer-prone mice, showed a significant protective effect by extending the mice lifespan. The research has been published in the 26 October issue of Nature Biotechnology.

A University of Iowa study suggests that the prolonged fatigue after mild exercise that occurs in people with many forms of muscular dystrophy is distinct from the inherent muscle weakness caused by the disease.

Scientists have expressed genes from snapdragon in tomatoes to grow purple tomatoes high in health-protecting anthocyanins.

Anthocyanins are naturally occurring pigments found at particularly high levels in berries such as blackberry, cranberry and chokeberry. Scientists are investigating ways to increase the levels of health-promoting compounds in more commonly eaten fruits and vegetables.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Viruses -- long regarded solely as disease agents -- now are being used in therapies for cancer. Concerns over the safety of these so-called oncolytic viruses stem from their potential to damage healthy tissues. Now Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered a way of controlling the viruses behind potential cancer therapeutics. They are engineering the virus's genetic sequence, using microRNAs to restrict them to specific tissues. The microRNAs destabilize the virus's genome, making it impossible for the virus to run amok.

Durham, N.C. -- Vaccinating new mothers and other family members against influenza before their newborns leave the hospital creates a "cocooning effect" that may shelter unprotected children from the flu, a virus that can be life-threatening to infants, according to researchers at Duke Children's Hospital.

The hospital-based outreach tested in this study proved effective at boosting immunization rates in parents – especially new fathers – and siblings who otherwise may not be vaccinated.

Giving people age 65 and older a dose four times larger than the standard flu vaccine boosts the amount of antibodies in their blood to levels considered protective against the flu, more so than the standard flu vaccine does. The findings from a study of nearly 4,000 people were presented Oct. 26 at a national meeting on infectious diseases.

The higher dose of vaccine generally resulted in approximately 30 percent to 80 percent more antibodies against flu, long considered a good measure of protection.

Rheumatologists, dermatologists, and patient advocates have come together to publish the first-ever international guidelines for the treatment of psoriatic arthritis, a disease that mainly affects people who have psoriasis but also some people without it.

In the not so distant past, women with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disease, were advised not to have children, and if they became pregnant, to have therapeutic abortions to prevent severe flares of their lupus. Research by rheumatologists at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, in patients with lupus who have had successful pregnancies is yielding insights that support a reversal of that thinking.