Vitamin E can fight fatty liver disease in kids |  |
- Vitamin E can fight fatty liver disease in kids
- Young in India dieting, fasting to look good: Study
- Protests erupt in Agra as botched abortion victim dies
- Terry Strom, M.D., honored by International Society of Nephrology
- US Appeals Court opens federal funding for stem cell research
- Mayo Clinic finds robotic surgery effective for removing hard-to-reach throat cancer
- Cabinet approves Rs.417 crore for malaria control in northeast
- Spending wisely: ESF publishes first international peer review guide for funding research
- Alcohol, mood and me
- A tale of 2 lakes: One gives early warning signal for ecosystem collapse
| Vitamin E can fight fatty liver disease in kids Posted: 30 Apr 2011 03:17 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A specific form of Vitamin E can improve the most severe form of fatty liver disease in some children. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease - is the most common chronic liver disease among US children. It ranges in severity from steatosis - to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis or NASH -. The symptoms of NAFLD and NASH are identical. They are very bland and non-specific. They can occur at any adult age and, in children, usually appear after 10 years of age. Fatty liver increases a child's risk of developing heart disease and liver cirrhosis. The only way to distinguish NASH from other forms of fatty liver disease is with a liver biopsy. Using liver biopsies, researchers found that after 96 weeks of treatment, 58 percent of the children on Vitamin E no longer had NASH, compared to 41 percent of the children on metformin -, and 28 percent on placebo. Vitamin E was better than placebo because it significantly reduced enlargement and death of liver cells, reports the Journal of the American Medical Association. 'These results suggest that Vitamin E improves or resolves NASH in at least half of children, which we previously showed to be true in adults,' said Stephen P. James, director of the digestive diseases at National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases -, which funded the study. Weight loss may reverse the disease in some children, but other than dietary advice, there are no specific treatments. Excess fat in the liver is believed to cause injury by increasing levels of oxidants, compounds that damage cells, according to an NIDDK statement. The Treatment of Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Children - trial studied whether Vitamin E - or metformin could improve fatty liver disease. Most children with fatty liver disease are overweight and resistant to insulin, a critical hormone that regulates energy. Boys are more likely to be affected than girls. http://www.rxpgnews.com    |
| Young in India dieting, fasting to look good: Study Posted: 29 Apr 2011 06:53 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, April 29 - Children as young as 12 are using diet pills, fat burners and are resorting to fasting and self-induced vomiting in a bid to stay fit and look good, reveals a recent study conducted among youngsters in Indian cities. The survey, conducted by ASSOCHAM Social Development Foundation - interacted with around 2,500 youngsters aged between 12-25 years in 10 major cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore. 'Kids as young as 12 years are resorting to severe dieting, consuming fat burners and protein shakes, thereby developing serious eating disorders, especially females, as they suffer from eating disorder and psychological problems like distorted body image, insecurity and low self-esteem owing to fear of rejection,' said the study. While Mumbai topped the chart with around 55 percent of the youth admitting to dieting three days a week and 35 percent dieting daily, Delhi youth were second with 40 percent dieting thrice a week and 30 percent dieting daily, revealed the study. 'Youngsters in urban India feel the need to diet as they aspire to be thin and beautiful as cine stars, models, celebrities and feel that they will be popular if they are able to attain that 'ideal body image',' observed ASSOCHAM Secretary General D.S. Rawat. 'Parents tend to overlook the strange eating habits of their kids without realizing that this is robbing them off their childhood,' added Rawat. According to the survey, majority of respondents who admitted to dieting severely were ignorant of the harms. Besides, the study also revealed that some of those obsessed with dieting become anorexic and are prone to diseases like depression, anxiety, insomnia. The respondents admitted they felt worthless on being overweight, that's the reason they starve themselves to attain a lean look. Majority of them said they exercised compulsively, often to the point of exhaustion to compensate for the calorie intake, said the survey. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Protests erupt in Agra as botched abortion victim dies Posted: 29 Apr 2011 05:25 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Agra, April 29 - As activists continued protests against quacks and the administration kept up raids on illegally-running nursing homes with unqualified personnel, a 29-year-old woman died here Friday - a fortnight after a botched abortion led to complications and eventually removal of her intestines. Manisha died in the ICU of S.N. Medical College Friday morning. Her husband Bhoori Singh sold his land and all the valuables for her treatment but to no avail, as doctors could do nothing to save her. The woman was admitted to a local nursing home in the trans-Yamuna area for an abortion. After her case got complicated, family members took her to at least three other nursing homes and a private hospital before she ended up at the medical college, but without any hope of survival. As her condition deteriorated, Manisha was transferred to Shringar Nursing Home, where Dr K.P.Singh and nurse Reena carried out an operation for abortion and in the process, damaged her intestines and womb. To save her life, her intestines were taken out. When her blood loss could not be stopped, she was transferred to Vidhyawati Nursing Home and from there to Krishna Nursing Home and from there to Pushpanjali Hospital, before finally landing at the medical college. But even the doctors there had no idea how to treat a patient who had no intestines. 'How would she ever survive without intestines? Drip is a temporary solution,' the doctors told senior police and administrative officials. A police investigation in the sequence of events is on and the whole city has been fuming with anger against doctors. The doctor and nurse, who allegedly carried out the botched abortion, are on the run and untraced. Women's groups in the city have been holding demonstrations for the past one week. The state health department has carried out extensive checks and some nursing homes have been sealed, while a large number of quacks have locked their shops and... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Terry Strom, M.D., honored by International Society of Nephrology Posted: 29 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) BOSTON -- Terry Strom, MD, Co-director of the Transplant Institute at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and a leader in the field of immune tolerance research, was awarded the 2011 Alfred Newton Richards Award from the International Society of Nephrology during a program held earlier this month as part of the World Congress of Nephrology 2011 in Vancouver, Canada. The award, which recognizes outstanding basic research in fields relevant to nephrology, is named in honor of Alfred Newton Richards, a renowned physiologist known for the development of the micropuncture procedure. A Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Strom's career spans more than 30 years. To date, he has published more than 700 manuscripts in the fields of immunbiology and transplantation and has conducted pioneering investigations of the cellular and molecular bases of immune tolerance, the immune system's ability to recognize and tolerate the body's own cells and molecules in order to prevent organ rejection. Dr. Strom's groundbreaking work in understanding the basic mechanisms underlying immunosuppressive agents has evolved to include the design of new therapeutics and the development of immune-tolerance therapies for patient care, notes BIDMC Chief Academic Officer Vikas Sukhatme, MD, PhD. His contributions have provided the field of nephrology with a critically important foundation in the biology of immune cells and tolerance, and his work is a tremendous example of how translational science can successfully move basic laboratory discoveries into promising new patient therapies. Strom has elucidated the basic mechanisms of action of immunosuppressives and has designed new therapeutics, work leading to the development of anti-CD25 monoclonal antibodies. Two new therapies created in the Strom laboratory will soon enter human clinical trials, and his inquiries into the molecular signature of allograft rejection are under development for... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| US Appeals Court opens federal funding for stem cell research Posted: 29 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The U.S. Federal Court of Appeals has overturned an August 2010 ban on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, paving the way for broader exploration of how stem cells function and how they can be harnessed to treat a wide range of currently incurable diseases. The ruling has been welcomed by the Obama Administration, which attempted to lift the ban in 2009, and by the nation's top researchers in the field, including Arnold Kriegstein, MD, PhD, director of the Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regeneration Medicine and Stem Cell Research at UCSF. This is a victory not only for the scientists, but for the patients who are waiting for treatments and cures for terrible diseases, Kriegstein said. This ruling allows critical research to move forward, enabling scientists to compare human embryonic stem cells to other forms of stem cells, such as the cell lines which are derived from skin cells, and to pursue potentially life-saving therapies based on that research. Kriegstein said the ruling will make a significant difference for stem cell research in general, including at UCSF, where the majority of stem cell investigators receive some funding from the National Institutes of Health for their research, as well as from private sources and from the state. The ruling enables those scientists to integrate research from various funding sources, thereby more quickly addressing the causes and therapies for diseases. Kriegstein was one of two University of California scientists to file a Declaration in September 2010 in support of the UC Board of Regents' motion to intervene in the August lawsuit, Sherley v. Sebelius. Sherly v. Sebelius had argued that when the Obama Administration lifted a ban on federal funding for the research in March 2009, it had violated the 1996 Dickey-Wicker Amendment which barred using taxpayer funds in research that destroyed embryos. In response, a U.S. District Court judge temporarily ordered a ban on the... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Mayo Clinic finds robotic surgery effective for removing hard-to-reach throat cancer Posted: 29 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Robotic surgery has become a mainstream tool for removing an ever-increasing variety of head and neck tumors. Now, a team of head and neck surgeons from Mayo Clinic has found robotic surgery can treat cancer in the narrow, hard-to-reach area beyond the tongue at the top of the voice box. Some patients were able to avoid further treatment with chemotherapy or radiation, and most could resume normal eating and speaking. We've known it's useful for tongue base and tonsil cancers, but we wanted to assess its effectiveness in the larynx, says Kerry Olsen, M.D., Mayo Clinic otolaryngologist and senior author of the study that was presented April 29 at the Combined Otolaryngological Spring Meetings in Chicago. The investigation of transoral robotic surgery (TORS) followed nine patients for up to three years following removal of supraglottic squamous cell carcinoma, which affects the area of the larynx above the vocal cords. Most of the patients had advanced-stage disease. The results showed TORS effectively removed cancer, with clean, disease-free margins, and was easier to perform than the approach of transoral laser microsurgery via a laryngoscope. The patients also underwent the surgical removal of their adjacent neck nodes at the same operation. We were pleased with the cancer outcomes, Dr. Olsen says. We also found patients had minimal trouble after surgery, in most cases resuming normal eating, swallowing and speaking. With TORS, the robotic arms that enter the mouth include a thin camera, an arm with a cautery or laser, and an arm with a gripping tool to retract and grasp tissue. The surgeon sits at a console, controlling the instruments and viewing the three-dimensional surgical field on a screen. The camera improves visibility, Dr. Olsen says. We also gain the ability to maneuver and see around corners and into tight spaces, and we believe we'll now be able to take out more throat tumors than with... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Cabinet approves Rs.417 crore for malaria control in northeast Posted: 28 Apr 2011 03:17 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, April 28 - The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs - Thursday approved an intensified malaria control project at an estimated cost of Rs.417.22 crore - for seven northeast states in the country. The CCEA cleared the health ministry proposal for Intensified Malaria Control Project-II - for seven northeast states - under the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme - with support from Global Fund for AIDS, TB and malaria. The aim of the project is to reduce malaria-related mortality and morbidity in project states by at least 30 percent by 2015 as compared to 2008-levels, said an official statement. 'The approval envisages continuance of erstwhile Global Fund Supported Intensified Malaria Control Project - for the year 2005-10 with revised geographical focus in high endemic seven northeast states for accelerated control of malaria,' it said. The main components of the proposal are human resource development, procurement and distribution of commodities and drugs, Information, Education and Communication -/ Behaviour Change Communication - activities and planning, monitoring and evaluation. It also includes measures for improving behaviour change communication, vector and parasite surveillance, partnership development and capacity building. The project covers the period from Oct 1, 2010 to Sep 30, 2015. http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Spending wisely: ESF publishes first international peer review guide for funding research Posted: 28 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) The first international guidelines for peer reviewing research grants are published today by the European Science Foundation (ESF). The European Peer Review Guide outlines principles for the safeguarding of fairness and credibility in peer review as agreed by Europe's major research funders. Coordinated by the ESF, the guide is the product of a joint effort between more than 30 national funding and performing organisations from 23 countries, the European Research Council (ERC), European Commission and Research Executive Agency (REA). Each funding organisation works with their own individual context, programmes, and guidelines but they face the same challenge: assessing quality and potentialities of research proposals. The European Peer Review Guide identifies five pillars for supporting and sharing good practices of peer review: core principles, quality assurance, process integrity, governance structure and methodology. By virtue of involving human judgement, even the same peer review procedures can have variable outcomes, said Dr Cristina Marras from the Italian National Research Council (CNR), co-author of the guide. Peer review is the most widely used method for distributing research funding. So the five pillars for good practice described in the guide can help us minimise this inherent variability as much as possible, furthermore, it fosters harmonisation in international peer review. Excellence in research depends on the quality of the procedures used to select the proposals for funding. We hope that this document can act as a central reference for all funding organisations, not just in Europe, added Dr Marc Heppener, Director of Science and Strategy Development at the European Science Foundation. It is a first step towards European level peer review, enabling the scientific community to operate in a global context. Each proposal is scientifically unique, and in international funding programmes, they originate from a... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| Posted: 28 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Thanks in part to studies that follow subjects for a long time, psychologists are learning more about differences between people. In a new article published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the author describes how psychologists can use their data to learn about the different ways that people's minds work. Most psychology research is done by asking a big group of people the same questions at the same time. So we might get a bunch of Psych 101 undergrads, administer a survey, ask about how much they use alcohol and what their mood is, and just look and see, is there a relationship between those two variables, says Daniel J. Bauer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the author of the article. But a one-time survey of a bunch of college students can only get you so far. For example, it might find that sad people drink more, but it can't tell us whether people drink more at times when they are unhappy, whether the consequences of drinking instead result in a depressed mood, or whether the relationship between mood and alcohol use is stronger for some people than others. One way psychologists have used to learn more about people is collecting data from people over a longer time period. For example, they might give each subject an electronic device to record blood pressure and stress several times a day, or ask them to log on to a website every night to answer a survey. In one case, Bauer's colleague, Andrea Hussong, asked adolescents to complete daily diaries with ratings of their mood and alcohol use over 21 days. The data showed that the relationship between mood and alcohol use is not the same for everyone. Adolescents with behavioral problems drink more in general, irrespective of mood, but only adolescents without behavioral problems drink more often when feeling depressed. Analyzing this kind of data requires tougher math than the simple... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
| A tale of 2 lakes: One gives early warning signal for ecosystem collapse Posted: 28 Apr 2011 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) Researchers eavesdropping on complex signals from a remote Wisconsin lake have detected what they say is an unmistakable warning--a death knell--of the impending collapse of the lake's aquatic ecosystem. The finding, reported today in the journal Science by a team of researchers led by Stephen Carpenter, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), is the first experimental evidence that radical change in an ecosystem can be detected in advance, possibly in time to prevent ecological catastrophe. For a long time, ecologists thought these changes couldn't be predicted, says Carpenter. But we've now shown that they can be foreseen. The early warning is clear. It is a strong signal. The implications of the National Science Foundation (NSF)-supported study are big, says Carpenter. This research shows that, with careful monitoring, we can foresee shifts in the structure of ecosystems despite their complexity, agrees Alan Tessier, program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology. The results point the way for ecosystem management to become a predictive science. The findings suggest that, with the right kind of monitoring, it may be possible to track the vital signs of any ecosystem and intervene in time to prevent what is often irreversible damage to the environment. With more work, this could revolutionize ecosystem management, Carpenter says. The concept has now been validated in a field experiment and the fact that it worked in this lake opens the door to testing it in rangelands, forests and marine ecosystems. Networks for long-term ecological observation, such as the [NSF] Long-Term Ecological Research network, increase the possibility of detecting early warnings through comparisons across sites and among regions, the scientists write in their paper. Ecosystems often change in radical ways. Lakes, forests, rangelands, coral reefs and many other ecosystems are often transformed by overfishing,... http://www.rxpgnews.com   |
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