Body

CHICAGO – In the evolutionary blink of an eye, a bacterium that causes mild stomach irritation evolved into a deadly assassin responsible for the most devastating pandemics in human history. How did the mild-mannered Yersinia pseudotuberculosis become Yersinia pestis, more commonly known as the Plague?

LA JOLLA, CA – August 29, 2011 — Collaborating researchers at Stanford University and The Scripps Research Institute have identified chemical compounds that show promise as potential therapeutics for a set of medical conditions caused by the abnormal clumping together of a protein known as transthyretin (TTR).

"A multidisciplinary educational programme in cardiovascular prevention directed to children of school age can reduce their parents' cardiovascular risk. Cardiovascular prevention could have more success focusing on children first, inducing healthier lifestyle habits in the whole family, "said investigator Luciana Fornari, from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Health Canada is not prevented by law from publicly disclosing safety and efficacy data from clinical trials, pharmaceuticals, biologics and medical devices and should be more transparent, states an analysis in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/site/embargo/cmaj110721.pdf.

A new series examines the mechanisms of visual, aural, olfactory, and tactile processes that inform us about the environment.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The most common breast cancer uses the most efficient, powerful food delivery system known in human cells and blocking that system kills it, researchers report.

This method of starving cancer cells could provide new options for patients, particularly those resistant to standard therapies such as tamoxifen, Georgia Health Sciences University researchers said.

Spanish investigators led by Drs. Eduardo Barge-Caballero and Marisa Crespo-Leiro from the Hospital Universitario A Coruña conducted a multi-institutional retrospective study of 704 patients with critical heart failure, who underwent urgent, high-priority heart transplantation in 15 Spanish hospitals from January, 2000 to December, 2009.

The study presented by Dr. Katrin Streckfuss-Boemeke from Germany, won the ESC Basic Science Young Investigators Award.

"Data gathered in this study demonstrates an easy and fast possibility to generate iPSCs from hair follicles of patients with genetic cardiac diseases and their further differentiation into functional cardiomyocytes. These cells will allow us to model the heart disease of these patients, to investigate the mechanisms of the disease, to perform drug screenings and to develop patient-specific therapeutic strategies," explained Dr Streckfuss-Boemeke.

Results of the phase IIb dal-VESSEL study show that dalcetrapib, an investigational molecule which acts on cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP), did not impair endothelial function (as indicated by flow-mediated dilatation) or increase blood pressure, and was generally well tolerated in patients with or at risk of coronary heart disease.

This is the result of a recent experimental study carried out at the University Hospital Freiburg in Germany and funded by the German Research Foundation. In an animal model of peripheral artery disease, blood flow to the lower leg was significantly improved after treatment with the so-called "antagomir"-inhibitor.

New research suggests a higher-protein, lower-carbohydrate energy-restricted diet has a major positive impact on body composition, trimming belly fat and increasing lean muscle, particularly when the proteins come from dairy products.

The study, published in the September issue of the Journal of Nutrition, compared three groups of overweight and obese, but otherwise healthy, premenopausal women. Each consumed either low, medium or high amounts of dairy foods coupled with higher or lower amounts of protein and carbohydrates.

Researchers from Yale University are looking to a virus from the same family as the rabies virus to fight a form of cancer primarily found in children and young adults. They report their findings in the September 2011 issue of the Journal of Virology.

A common antibiotic can help reduce the severe wheezing and other acute symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to a large, multicenter clinical trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and conducted at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

The study appears in the August 25 New England Journal of Medicine.

Preserving just 4 percent of the ocean could protect crucial habitat for the vast majority of marine mammal species, from sea otters to blue whales, according to researchers at Stanford University and the National Autonomous University of Mexico. Their findings were published in the Aug. 16 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Of the 129 species of marine mammals on Earth, including seals, dolphins and polar bears, approximately one-quarter are facing extinction, the study said.

Pre-existing heart disease is rarely a contraindication to pregnancy - indeed, many women with heart disorders tolerate pregnancy well - but it remains a "major concern" that complications are frequent and in some cases may be life-threatening for both the mother and her child. In Europe maternal heart disease has now become the major cause of maternal death during pregnancy.