Body

New data published in the March 17, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggest that relatively healthy women with severe depression are at increased risk of cardiac events, including sudden cardiac death (SCD) and fatal coronary heart disease (CHD). Researchers found that much of the relationship between depressive symptoms and cardiac events was mediated by cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking.

Anger and hostility are significantly associated with both a higher risk for coronary heart disease (CHD) in healthy individuals and poorer outcomes in patients with existing heart disease, according to the first quantitative review and meta-analysis of related studies, which appears in the March 17, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. Management of anger and hostility may be an important adjuvant strategy in preventing CHD in the general public and treating CHD patients, according to authors.

DALLAS – March 9, 2009 – A newly discovered receptor in a strain of Escherichia coli might help explain why people often get sicker when they're stressed.

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center are the first to identify the receptor, known as QseE, which resides in a diarrhea-causing strain of E coli. The receptor senses stress cues from the bacterium's host and helps the pathogen make the host ill. A receptor is a molecule on the surface of a cell that docks with other molecules, often signaling the cell to carry out a specific function.

A new study led by University of Iowa researchers has found an unexpected new link between this inflammation in heart muscle following a heart attack and a previously known enzyme called calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II or CaM kinase II. The findings also reveal the involvement of an immune system gene -- complement factor B -- that has been implicated in other inflammatory diseases.

Even for those without a heart condition, it's a peculiar feeling when your heart "races" in response to stress. That pacing change happens in part because of how the enzyme calcium/calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaM kinase II) is called into action by the body's 'fight or flight' stress response, University of Iowa researchers have found.

BOZEMAN, Mont. -- Arsenic may be tough, but scientists have found a Yellowstone National Park alga that's tougher.

The alga -- a simple one-celled algae called Cyanidioschyzon -- thrives in extremely toxic conditions and chemically modifies arsenic that occurs naturally around hot springs, said Tim McDermott, professor in the Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences at Montana State University.

New data published in the March 17, 2009, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggest that relatively healthy women with severe depression are at increased risk of cardiac events, including sudden cardiac death (SCD) and fatal coronary heart disease (CHD). Researchers found that much of the relationship between depressive symptoms and cardiac events was mediated by cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking.

Today's executive order making federal money once again available for research on human embryonic stem cells will accelerate biomedical research and hopefully bring us closer to cures for some of our most devastating diseases, says Rockefeller University president Paul Nurse.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – A new study shows that higher temperatures and lower barometric air pressure may lead to a higher, short-term risk of headaches, but air pollution may not have a significant effect on headache. The research is published in the March 10, 2009, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

BOSTON – Although large numbers of headache sufferers, particularly individuals who struggle with migraines, attribute their pain to the weather, there has been little scientific evidence to back up their assertions. Now, a study of more than 7,000 patients, led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC), provides some of the first large-scale data on how environmental conditions -- weather, as well as air pollution -- influence headache pain.

SEATTLE - Terminally ill patients and their family caregivers often feel abandoned by their doctors and feel a sense of "unfinished business" with them, according to a new study by an oncologist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

The study results, published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine, identified two themes: before death, abandonment worries related to loss of continuity of communication between patient and physician; and at the time death or after, the patient's family's feelings of abandonment from a lack of closure with the physician.

BOSTON--Few physicians are eager to discuss end-of-life care with their patients. Yet such conversations may result in better quality of life for patients and could lower national healthcare expenditures for cancer care alone by tens of millions dollars each year, according to a study led by researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes appear to share risk factors with and may influence the development of Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia, according to several reports published in the March issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Patients with advanced cancer who discuss end-of-life care with their physicians appear to have lower health care costs in the final week of life than those who do not, according to a report in the March 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. A second report finds that black and Hispanic patients tend to have higher health care costs at the end of life than white patients, despite dying of similar causes.

About three-fourths of individuals with insomnia report experiencing the condition for at least one year and almost half experience it for three years, according to a report in the March 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.