Body

Philadelphia, PA, September 19, 2012 – The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet, which promotes consumption of more fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy products, and whole grain, and less meats and sweets, is a proven effective treatment for hypertension. For some individuals, adherence to the diet can be just as effective in lowering blood pressure as taking antihypertensive medication.

Despite previous studies suggesting the contrary, statins (cholesterol-lowering drugs) may not prevent blood clots (venous thrombo-embolism) in adults, according to a large analysis by international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine.

A once-promising discovery linking prostate cancer to an obscure retrovirus derived from mice was the result of an inadvertent laboratory contamination, a forensic analysis of tissue samples and lab experiments – some dating back nearly a decade – has confirmed.

The connection, which scientists have questioned repeatedly over the last couple years, was first proposed more than six years ago, when the telltale signature of the virus, known as XMRV, was detected in genetic material derived from tissue samples taken from men with prostate cancer.

BETHESDA, Md. (Sept. 18, 2012)—Diabetic nephropathy is one of the most serious complications related to diabetes, often leading to end-stage kidney disease. Purple corn grown in Peru and Chile is a relative of blue corn, which is readily available in the U.S. The maize is rich in anthocyanins (also known as flavonoids), which are reported to have anti-diabetic properties.

Extreme temperatures during heat waves and cold spells may increase the risk of premature cardiovascular disease (CVD) death, according to new research in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.

The study in Brisbane, Australia, is the first in which researchers examined the association between daily average temperature and "years of life lost" due to CVD. Years of life lost measures premature death by estimating years of life lost according to average life expectancy.

Although depression and prejudice traditionally fall into different areas of study and treatment, a new article suggests that many cases of depression may be caused by prejudice from the self or from another person. In an article published in the September 2012 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, William Cox of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues argue that prejudice and depression are fundamentally connected.

Inflammation is the hallmark of many human diseases, from infection to neurodegeneration. The chemical balance within a tissue is disturbed, resulting in the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) such as hydrogen peroxide, which can cause oxidative stress and associated toxic effects.

Researchers Patricia A. Champion and Matthew Champion from the University of Notre Dame's Eck Institute for Global Health have developed a method to directly detect bacterial protein secretion, which could provide new insights into a variety of diseases including tuberculosis.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Not all head and neck cancers are created equal. Those started by infection with the human papillomavirus are less often fatal than those with other causes, such as smoking. Detection of a reliable fingerprint for HPV could help patients avoid unnecessarily harsh treatment. A new study finds that while one popular biomarker for HPV is not a reliable predictor of mortality from the cancers alone, combinations of some biomarkers showed much more promise.

PHILADELPHIA — Human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA positivity alone, particularly when assessed using polymerase chain reaction methods, is a poor biomarker for HPV-driven head and neck cancers, according to two studies published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. These studies identified alternative potential markers including viral load, viral gene expression and the evaluation of HPV DNA in combination with certain HPV assays.

PASADENA, Calif., September 18, 2012 – Women with the most common and least aggressive subtype of breast cancer were still at risk of death from the disease more than 10 years after diagnosis, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

MADISON – At first glance, the northern muriqui monkey is a prime conservation success story.

These Brazilian primates are critically endangered, but in the past 30 years a population on a private reserve has grown from just 60 individuals to some 300, now comprising almost a third of the total remaining animals.

CHICAGO (September 18, 2012) – The Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have each released new tools and information to help track deadly healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) in nursing homes and other long-term care settings. Potentially deadly HAIs strike volumes of nursing home residents each year, with best estimates suggesting that up to 2.8 million infections can occur in this population annually.

Proteins accelerate certain chemical reactions in cells by several orders of magnitude. The molecular mechanism by which the Ras protein accelerates the cleavage of the molecule GTP and thus slows cell growth is described by biophysicists at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum led by Prof. Dr. Klaus Gerwert in the Online Early Edition of the journal PNAS. Using a combination of infrared spectroscopy and computer simulations, they showed that Ras puts a phosphate chain under tension to such an extent that a phosphate group can very easily detach - the brake for cell growth.

SHREWSBURY, MA – A new article published today in International Journal of Obesity found there is no evidence to suggest the current obesity epidemic in the United States can be specifically blamed on consumption of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS).