Body

Barcelona, Spain – Sunday 31 August 2014: Obese youths have a nearly six fold risk of hypertension, according to research in more than22 000 young people from the PEP Family Heart Study presented at ESC Congress today by Professor Peter Schwandt from Germany.

Barcelona, Spain – Sunday 31 August 2014: Drinking tea reduces non-cardiovascular mortality by 24%, reveals a study in 131 000 people presented at ESC Congress today by Professor Nicolas Danchin from France.

Administration of colchicine, a plant-based medication commonly used to treat gout, before and after cardiac surgery showed mixed results in reducing potential complications from this type of surgery, but it did increase the risk of gastrointestinal adverse effects, according to a study published by JAMA. The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the European Society of Cardiology Congress.

Barcelona, Spain – Saturday 30 August 2014: Transvenous lead extraction (TLE) is clinically successful in more than 98% of cases according to data from the European Lead Extraction ConTRolled (ELECTRa) registry presented for the first time today at ESC Congress 2014 by Dr Maria Grazia Bongiorni, chair of the registry's executive committee.

Barcelona, Spain – Saturday 30 August 2014: A new sudden death predictor for patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) identifies candidates for implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) in ESC Guidelines published today. They are presented at ESC Congress by Task Force Chairperson Professor Perry Elliott (UK).

The "2014 ESC Guidelines on Diagnosis and Management of Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy" are published today on-line in the European Heart Journal (1) and on the ESC Website. Previous ESC Guidelines on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy were published in 2003 (2).

AURORA, Colo. (Sept. 2, 2014) – A team of scientists from the University of Colorado School of Medicine has reported the breakthrough discovery of a process to expand production of stem cells used to treat cancer patients. These findings could have implications that extend beyond cancer, including treatments for inborn immunodeficiency and metabolic conditions and autoimmune diseases.

MISSOULA – Until recently, little has been known about what genetic changes transform wild animals into domesticated ones. An international team of scientists, one of whom is a University of Montana assistant professor, has made a breakthrough by showing that genes controlling the development of the brain and the nervous system were particularly important for rabbit domestication.

Researchers at UC Davis have made some surprising discoveries about the body's initial responses to HIV infection. Studying simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), the team found that specialized cells in the intestine called Paneth cells are early responders to viral invasion and are the source of gut inflammation by producing a cytokine called interleukin-1 beta (IL-1β).

SAN ANTONIO (Aug. 29, 2014) — Scientists at the Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies, part of the School of Medicine at the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, have found another secret of longevity in the tissues of the longest-lived rodent, the naked mole rat.

They reported that a factor in the cells of naked mole rats protects and alters the activity of the proteasome, a garbage disposer for damaged and obsolete proteins.

NORTH GRAFTON, Mass. (August 29, 2014, 2 PM US Eastern Time)—The current method to treat acute toxin poisoning is to inject antibodies, commonly produced in animals, to neutralize the toxin. But this method has challenges ranging from safety to difficulties in developing, producing and maintaining the anti-serums in large quantities.

A leading U.S. Ebola researcher from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston has gone on record stating that a blend of three monoclonal antibodies can completely protect monkeys against a lethal dose of Ebola virus up to 5 days after infection, at a time when the disease is severe.

Thomas Geisbert, professor of microbiology and immunology, has written an editorial for Nature discussing advances in Ebola treatment research. The filoviruses known as Ebola virus and Marburg virus are among the most deadly of pathogens, with fatality rates of up to 90 percent.

To understand how the repeated climatic shifts over the last 120,000 years may have influenced today's patterns of genetic diversity, a team of researchers led by City College of New York biologist Dr. Ana Carnaval developed a new biodiversity metric called "phylogeographic endemism."

It quantifies the degree to which the genetic variation within species is restricted in geographical space.

Dartmouth researchers explored the type and number of connections in transcription factor networks (TFNs) to evaluate the role assortativity plays on robustness in a study published in PLOS Computational Biology in August. The study found that the assortativity signature contributes to a network's resilience against mutations.

After a systematic review of clinical trials based on administering antidepressants for acute and chronic postsurgical pain, researchers have concluded that more trials are needed to determine whether these drugs should be prescribed for postsurgical pain on a regular basis.

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine have identified one way the Ebola virus dodges the body's antiviral defenses, providing important insight that could lead to new therapies, in research results published in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.