Body

A true obesity epidemic is gradually advancing throughout the developed world. A large new Danish-British study from the University of Copenhagen and University of Bristol documents for the first time a definite correlation between a high BMI and the risk of developing life-threatening cardiac disease.

To better understand the signaling pathways active in sarcomas, researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center used state-of-the-art mass spectrometry-based proteomics to characterize a family of protein enzymes that act as "on" or "off" switches important in the biology of cancer. The tyrosine kinases they identified, the researchers said, could act as "drivers" for the growth and survival of sarcomas.

Infants born to women who used the anti-HIV drug tenofovir as part of an anti-HIV drug regimen during pregnancy do not weigh less at birth and are not of shorter length than infants born to women who used anti-HIV drug regimens that do not include tenofovir during pregnancy, according to findings from a National Institutes of Health network study. However, at 1 year of age, children born to the tenofovir-treated mothers were slightly shorter and had slightly smaller head circumference—about 1 centimeter each, on average—than were infants whose mothers did not take tenofovir.

CHICAGO – Among patients with new synthetic arteriovenous grafts (a synthetic tube grafted between an artery and vein) for vascular access for hemodialysis, daily ingestion of fish oil did not decrease the proportion of grafts with loss of patency (remaining open) within 12 months, according to a study in the May 2 issue of JAMA. However, fish oil recipients had a longer time without thrombosis (formation of a blood clot), half the thrombosis rate, and a clinically meaningful reduction in frequency of radiological and surgical interventions.

Houston, TX - Accelerated partial breast irradiation (APBI) brachytherapy, the localized form of radiation therapy growing increasingly popular as a treatment choice for women with early-stage breast cancer, is associated with higher rate of later mastectomy, increased radiation-related toxicities and post-operative complications, compared to traditional whole breast irradiation (WBI), according to researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

The United States government would get a better bang for its health-care buck in managing the country's most prevalent childhood disabilities if it invested more in eliminating socio-environmental risk factors than in developing medicines.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – May 1, 2012 – With nearly one-third of American children being overweight or obese, doctors agree that there is an acute need for more effective treatments. In many weight management programs, the dropout rate can be as high as 73 percent, and even in successful programs, the benefits are usually short term.

Chicago (May 1, 2012): A patient education process may provide an antidote to the emotional and physical difficulties that lung cancer patients face before and after an operation, according to a new study published in the May issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Specifically, researchers report that lung procedure patients who watched a 30-minute preparation video reported less anxiety about the procedure, less physical pain after the operation, and higher rates of overall satisfaction with the operative experience.

In testing older patients' blood vitamin D levels, there's uncertainty about where the dividing line falls between enough and not enough. The threshold amount has become controversial as several scientific societies set different targets.

To help resolve this debate, University of Washington researchers conducted an observational study. They wanted to learn how much vitamin D must be circulating in the blood to lower the risk of a major medical event. This category included heart attack, hip fracture, diagnosis of cancer, or death.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A national study suggests that a significantly greater number of highly educated women in their late 30s and 40s are deciding to have children - a dramatic turnaround from recent history.

Among college-educated women, childlessness peaked in the late 1990s, when about 30 percent had no children, according to the new analysis of U.S. data. But childlessness declined about 5 percentage points between 1998 and 2008.

"We may be seeing the beginning of a new trend," said Bruce Weinberg, co-author of the study and professor of economics at Ohio State University.

PULLMAN, Wash.—Researchers at Washington State University have found that a compound in garlic is 100 times more effective than two popular antibiotics at fighting the Campylobacter bacterium, one of the most common causes of intestinal illness. Their work was recently published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.

The discovery opens the door to new treatments for raw and processed meats and food preparation surfaces.

BOSTON – May 1, 2012 – Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center have identified a key mechanism of action for the TOR (target of rapamycin) protein kinase, a critical regulator of cell growth which plays a major role in illness and aging. This finding not only illuminates the physiology of aging but could lead to new treatments to increase lifespan and control age-related conditions, such as cancer, type 2 diabetes, and neurodegeneration.

New research reinforces the claim that resveratrol—a compound found in plants and food groups, notably red wine—prolongs lifespan and health-span by boosting the activity of mitochondria, the cell's energy supplier.

"The results were surprisingly clear," said David Sinclair, a professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School and the study's senior author. "Without the mitochondria-boosting gene SIRT1, resveratrol does not work."

The findings are to be published May 1 in the journal Cell Metabolism.

A study in the May issue of the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism appears to offer vindication for an approach to anti-aging drugs that has been at the center of heated scientific debate in recent years. The new findings show for the first time that the metabolic benefits of the red wine ingredient known as resveratrol evaporate in mice that lack the famed longevity gene SIRT1.

"Resveratrol improves the health of mice on a high-fat diet and increases life span," said David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School. The question was how.

In the online May 2 issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine publish three distinct articles exploring: