Body

MINNEAPOLIS – Eating tomatoes and tomato-based foods is associated with a lower risk of stroke, according to new research published in the October 9, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Tomatoes are high in the antioxidant lycopene.

The study found that people with the highest amounts of lycopene in their blood were 55 percent less likely to have a stroke than people with the lowest amounts of lycopene in their blood.

TORONTO, October 4, 2012 – Drugs streamed into Health Canada's accelerated review process are more likely to be withdrawn from the market or earn a serious safety warning than those that undergo the standard review, according to a recent paper out of York University.

CHICAGO – Overall death rates due to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection declined over time between 1993 and 2007 for most men and women by race/ethnicity and educational levels, with the largest absolute decreases for nonwhites, but rates remain high among blacks, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Maternal depression and a common class of antidepressants can alter a crucial period of language development in babies, according to a new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia, Harvard University and the Child & Family Research Institute (CFRI) at BC Children's Hospital.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA—October 8, 2012—Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have mapped the precise frequency by which genes get turned on across the human genome, providing new insight into the most fundamental of cellular processes—and revealing new clues as to what happens when this process goes awry.

The button mushroom occupies a prominent place in our diet and in the grocery store where it boasts a tasty multibillion-dollar niche, while in nature, Agaricus bisporus is known to decay leaf matter on the forest floor. Now, owing to an international collaboration of two dozen institutions led by the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), the full repertoire of A. bisporus genes has been determined.

Of course a nice glass of wine goes well with a hearty steak, and now researchers who study the way food feels in our mouths think they may understand why that is: The astringent wine and fatty meat are like the yin and yang of the food world, sitting on opposite ends of a sensory spectrum.

The findings, reported in the October 9th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, offer a whole new definition of the balanced meal. They also offer a new way of thinking about our eating habits, both good and bad.

The immune system protects the upper respiratory tract from bacterial infections, but the cues that alert the immune system to the presence of bacteria are not known. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers led by Noam Cohen at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrated that the bitter taste receptor T2R38 regulates the immune defense of the human upper airway. Cohen and colleagues found that T2R38 was expressed in the cells that line the upper respiratory tract and could be activated by molecules secreted by Pseudomonas aeruginosa and other bacteria.

Fat cells (adipocytes) surround breast tumors and contribute to tumor growth by expressing factors that aid oncogenesis. Col6 is a protein that is highly expressed in adipocytes and its expression is further increased in both obesity and in breast cancer cells. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Phillip Scherer and Jiyoung Park of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center report that a portion of the Col6 protein, known as endotrophin, alters the tumor environment to promote tumor growth and metastasis in mice.

PHILADELPHIA – A new study from a team of researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the Monell Chemical Senses Center, and the Philadelphia VA Medical Center, reveals that a person's ability to taste certain bitter flavors is directly related to their ability to fight off upper respiratory tract infections, specifically chronic sinus infections. The new research is published in the latest edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

A new study published in the Journal of Economic Entomology reports that live insects were found in 47% of firewood bundles purchased from big box stores, gas stations and grocery stores in Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

CHICAGO – Among premature, very low-birth-weight infants requiring a transfusion, use of fresh red blood cells (RBCs) compared with standard RBC transfusion practice did not improve clinical outcomes that included rates of complications or death, according to a study in the October 10 issue of JAMA. The study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at the AABB (formerly the American Association of Blood Banks) Annual Meeting.

October 8, 2012, Ottawa — In a finding that runs counter to commonly held beliefs about fresh being better, a clinical trial published today by the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that acutely ill premature babies who received fresher blood did not fare better than those who received the current standard of care. There was no difference between the two approaches with respect to major organ injury, mortality and infection.

A variant in a gene involved with inflammation and the immune response is linked with a decreased risk of lung cancer. That is the finding of an analysis published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The results add to the growing body of literature implicating these processes in the development of lung cancer.

WASHINGTON, D.C. –Today researchers from The George Washington University published a study showing that breast cancer patients can reduce potentially dangerous delays in the identification of breast cancer with the assistance of patient navigation services. Patient navigation—a service that helps patients overcome barriers to getting health care, including setting up appointments, dealing with health insurance, and helping with fears about cancer—led to a nearly four-fold reduction in the time it took to diagnose a suspicious breast lump, the new study found.