Body

GAINESVILLE, Fla. —Chemical concoctions can smooth over wrinkles and hide those pesky grays, but what about the signs of aging that aren't so easy to fix, such as losing muscle mass? Cutting calories early could help, say University of Florida researchers who studied the phenomenon in rats.

A restricted-calorie diet, when started in early adulthood, seems to stymie a mitochondrial mishap that may contribute to muscle loss in aging adults, the researchers reported recently in the journal PLoS One.

HOUGHTON, Mich.--A team of researchers at Michigan Technological University is harnessing the computing muscle behind the leading video games to understand the most intricate of real-life systems.

Led by Roshan D'Souza, the group has supercharged agent-based modeling, a powerful but computationally massive forecasting technique, by using graphic processing units (GPUs), which drive the spectacular imagery beloved of video gamers. In particular, the team aims to model complex biological systems, such as the human immune response to a tuberculosis bacterium.

WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J., Sept. 16, 2008 – Two-year data from a Phase IIB study of odanacatib (formerly MK-0822), an investigational, selective cathepsin-K inhibitor in development for the treatment of osteoporosis by Merck & Co., Inc., demonstrated dose- dependent increases in bone mineral density (BMD) at the total hip, lumbar spine and femoral neck fracture sites and decreased indices of bone resorption compared to placebo in postmenopausal women with low BMD. The results were reported today at the 30th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR).

LIVERMORE -- It's not easy to see a single molecule inside a living cell.

Nevertheless, researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are helping to develop a new technique that will enable them to create detailed high-resolution images, giving scientists an unprecedented look at the atomic structure of cellular molecules.

The LLNL team is collaborating with scientists across the country and in Germany and Sweden to utilize high-energy X-ray beams, combined with complex algorithms, to overcome difficulties in current technology.

Researchers at McGill University and the affiliated Lady Davis Research Institute of the Jewish General Hospital – along with colleagues at the University of Ottawa and the Ottawa Health Research Institute (OHRI) –report a significant breakthrough in the use of viruses to target and destroy cancer cells, a field known as oncolytic virotherapy. Their results were published in the September early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The answer to why an early pregnancy seems to protect against breast cancer could rest with a decrease in stem cells found after animals have given birth, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Stem Cell.

New research from the John Innes Centre and the Central Science Laboratory could help breeders to develop pea varieties able to withstand drought stress and climate change. The research also shows that the composition of crops is likely to change with the climate.

"While many compounds have been reported to change in laboratory based drought stress experiments, few have identified how such compounds change in crops under field conditions," says Dr Claire Domoney of the John Innes Centre.

Higher levels of urinary Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical compound commonly used in plastic packaging for food and beverages, is associated with cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and liver-enzyme abnormalities, according to a study in the September 17 issue of JAMA. This study is being released early to coincide with a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hearing on BPA.

Thousands of patients with high blood pressure could benefit from changing their drug treatment regimen to reduce their risk of cardiac death.

The current U.S. hypertension treatment guidelines recommend using a thiazide diuretic – a drug that increases the volume of urine – alone as the initial drug therapy for high blood pressure. But a failure of diuretic drugs to decrease deaths from heart attacks, an important consequence of hypertension, prompted Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers to analyze data from existing clinical trials of diuretic drugs.

When it comes to deciding whether paying people to make healthier lifestyle changes is a good thing, it seems patient opinion is split right down the middle. Unsurprisingly perhaps, those who smoke and are overweight are its greatest advocates. This is the finding of a study (1) by Judith Long and her colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine to be published in the October issue of the Springer publication, Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Recent advances in genetic screening will lead to safer pharmaceutical drugs, with reduced adverse side effects, if the methods are incorporated in clinical development. A rallying call to bring key scientists into this growing field of pharmacogenics, the application of genetics to drug development and safety, was made recently at a major conference organized by the European Science Foundation (ESF) in collaboration with the University of Barcelona.

Pazopanib, a new oral angiogenesis inhibitor, has demonstrated interesting activity in difficult to treat non-small-cell lung cancer, US researchers report.

In a phase II trial, 30 out of 35 patients treated with preoperative pazopanib for a minimum of two weeks saw their tumor size shrink by up to 85%.

"This is a positive result that will be explored further," said Prof. Nasser Altorki from Weil Medical College of Cornell University in New York.

A new form of chemotherapy that destroys new blood vessels that grow around tumors has produced excellent results in a phase II trial of patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer, researchers report at the 33rd Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Stockholm.

Genetic testing can identify a group of patients with advanced colorectal cancer who are likely to survive on average twice as long if treated with the drug cetuximab, late breaking results show.

At the 33rd Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Stockholm, Dr. Christos Karapetis from Flinders University in Australia reports on a genetic analysis of 394 patients who took part in a phase III study comparing the monoclonal antibody cetuximab with best supportive care.