Body

DALLAS – Feb. 6, 2012 – An endocrine hormone used in clinical trials as an anti-obesity and anti-diabetes drug causes significant and rapid bone loss in mice, raising concerns about its safe use, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers have shown.

The hormone, fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), promotes bone loss by enhancing the activity of a protein that stimulates fat cells but inhibits bone cells, researchers report in a study available online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Montreal (Canada), February 6, 2012 – In a study published last week in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, a team led by Dr. Vincent Poitout of the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM)* has made an important step forward in understanding how insulin secretion is regulated in the body. This discovery has important implications for drugs currently in development to treat Type 2 diabetes, a disease which is diagnosed every 10 seconds somewhere throughout the world.

PHILADELPHIA – Rothman Institute at Jefferson joint researchers continue to seek better ways to diagnose and subsequently treat periprosthetic joint infection (PJI) in patients following total joint arthroplasty. Their latest research shows leukocyte esterase reagent (LE) strips, common in diagnosing urinary tract infections, can also have a role in rapid diagnosis of PJI.

Geneva, Switzerland: The first European Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) for the diagnosis and management of Wilson's disease are published today by the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) on the EASL website -- www.easl.eu.(1) Developed to assist physicians and healthcare providers in the clinical decision making process, the guidelines describe best practice for the diagnosis and treatment of patients with Wilson's disease -- a rare genetic(2) disorder that, if left untreated, is fatal.

While epilepsy surgery is a safe and effective intervention for seizure control, medical therapy remains the more prominent treatment option for those with epilepsy. However, a new 26-year study reveals that following epilepsy surgery, nearly half of participants were free of disabling seizures and 80% reported better quality of life than before surgery. Findings from this study—the largest long-term study to date—are now available in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE).

SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 7, 2012 – The famed "corpse flower" plant – known for its giant size, rotten-meat odor and phallic shape – has a new, smaller relative: A University of Utah botanist discovered a new species of Amorphophallus that is one-fourth as tall but just as stinky.

A new study provides compelling evidence that the arrival of the invasive non-native harlequin ladybird to mainland Europe and subsequent spread has led to a rapid decline in historically-widespread species of ladybird in Britain, Belgium and Switzerland.

A ladybird's colour indicates how well-fed and how toxic it is, according to an international team of scientists. Research led by the Universities of Exeter and Liverpool directly shows that differences between animals' warning signals reveal how poisonous individuals are to predators.

Infants allowed to feed themselves with finger foods from the start of weaning (baby led weaning) are likely to eat more healthily and be an appropriate weight as they get older than infants spoon-fed purees, indicates a small study published in BMJ Open.

The findings prompt the authors to suggest that baby led weaning could help ward off obesity in later childhood.

They base their findings on 155 children between the ages of 20 months and 6.5 years, whose parents completed a detailed questionnaire about their children's weaning style and food preferences.

Teen school drop-outs are almost three times as likely to be on benefits in later life as their peers who complete their schooling, indicates research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The authors analysed the self rated health of almost 9000 Norwegian 13 to 19 year olds, who were already taking part in the Young-HUNT 1 study between 1995 and 1997.

This information was linked to national databases, providing information on schooling and any subsequent need for sickness/disability/unemployment benefit between 1998 and 2007.

Frequent house moves during childhood seem to increase the risk of poor health in later life, suggests research published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The researchers assessed the health of 850 people, taking part in the West of Scotland Twenty-O7 Study. This has tracked the long term health, based on postcodes, of those aged 15, 35, and 55 in 1987/8 over a period of 20 years.

Hamilton, ON (Feb. 6, 2012) - Closing elementary and secondary schools can help slow the spread of infectious disease and should be considered as a control measure during pandemic outbreaks, according to a McMaster University led study.

Using high-quality data about the incidence of influenza infections in Alberta during the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, the researchers show that when schools closed for the summer, the transmission of infection from person to person was sharply reduced.

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have, for the first time, described the genetic basis of endometriosis, a condition affecting millions of women that is marked by chronic pelvic pain and infertility. The researchers' discovery of a new gene mutation provides hope for new screening methods.

CHICAGO – About half of all public and private elementary school students could buy food in one or more competitive venues on campus (vending machines, school stores, snack bars or a la carte lines) by the 2009-2010 school year and sugary foods were available to almost all students with access to these options, according to a report published in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

CHICAGO – A widely used universal behavioral prevention model in schools appears to be associated with lower rates of teacher-reported bullying and peer rejection, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.