Friday 28 February 2014

Improve The Treatment Of PTSD Can Be Through The Amygdala

Improve The Treatment Of PTSD Can Be Through The Amygdala.
Researchers who have deliberate a piece with a missing amygdala - the part of the brain believed to form fear - report that their findings may help improve treatment for post-traumatic ictus disorder (PTSD) and other anxiety disorders. In perhaps the first human study confirming that the almond-shaped build is crucial for triggering fear, researchers at the University of Iowa monitored a 44-year-old woman's comeback to typically frightening stimuli such as snakes, spiders, horror films and a haunted house, and asked about upsetting experiences in her past. The woman, identified as SM, does not seem to anxiety a wide range of stimuli that would normally frighten most people.

Scientists have been studying her for the past 20 years, and their previous research had already determined that the woman cannot recognize fear in others' facial expressions. SM suffers from an hellishly rare disease that destroyed her amygdala. Future observations will determine if her adapt affects anxiety levels for everyday stressors such as finance or health issues, said scrutiny author Justin Feinstein, a University of Iowa doctoral student studying clinical neuropsychology. "Certainly, when it comes to fear, she's missing it," Feinstein said. "She's so single in her presentation".

Researchers said the study, reported in the Dec 16, 2010 outflow of the journal Current Biology, could advanced position to new treatment strategies for PTSD and anxiety disorders. According to the US National Institute of Mental Health, more than 7,7 million Americans are mannered by the condition, and a 2008 division predicted that 300000 soldiers returning from combat in the Middle East would experience PTSD. "Because of her cognition damage, the patient appears to be immune to PTSD," Feinstein said, noting that she is otherwise cognitively normal and experiences other emotions such as happiness and sadness.

In addition to recording her responses to spiders, snakes and other unnerving stimuli, the researchers measured her experience of fear using many standardized questionnaires that probed various aspects of the emotion, such as respect of death or fear of public speaking. She also carried a computerized sensation diary for three months that randomly asked her to rate her fear level throughout the day.

Thursday 27 February 2014

Surgeons Found The Role Of Obesity In Cancer

Surgeons Found The Role Of Obesity In Cancer.
Obesity and smoking growth the imperil of implant failure in women who undergo breast reconstruction soon after chest removal, according to a new study. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 15000 women, aged 40 to 60, who had reflex reconstruction after breast removal (mastectomy). They found that the risk of implant failure was three times higher in smokers and two to three times higher in obese women. The more heavy a woman, the greater her risk of early implant failure, according to the study, which was published in the December spring of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

Other factors associated with a higher peril of implant loss included being older than 55, receiving implants in both breasts, and undergoing both boob removal and reconstruction with implants in a single operation. "Less than 1 percent of all patients in our chew over experienced implant failure ," study lead author Dr John Fischer, a inexperienced surgery resident at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a dossier news release.

Development Of Tablets To Reduce The Desire For High-Calorie Food

Development Of Tablets To Reduce The Desire For High-Calorie Food.
You're dieting, and you positive you should retard away from high-calorie snacks. Yet, your eyes muzzle straying toward that box of chocolates, and you wish there was a pill to restrain your impulse to inhale them. Such a capsule might one day be a real possibility, according to findings presented Tuesday at the Endocrine Society's annual assignation in San Diego. It would block the activity of ghrelin, the "hunger hormone" that stimulates the passion centers of the brain.

The study, reported by Dr Tony Goldstone, a consultant endocrinologist at the British Medical Research Council Clinical Sciences Center at Imperial College London, showed that ghrelin does mother the hanker after for high-calorie foods in humans. "It's been known from animal and beneficent work that ghrelin makes people hungrier," Goldstone said. "There has been a suspicion from mammal work that it can also stimulate the rewards pathways of the brain and may be involved in the response to more rewarding foods, but we didn't have indication of that in people".

The study that provided such evidence had 18 healthy adults look at pictures of unlike foods on three mornings, once after skipping breakfast and twice about 90 minutes after having breakfast. On one of the breakfast-eating mornings, all the participants got injections - some of soused water, some of ghrelin. Then they looked at pictures of high-calorie foods such as chocolate, bar and pizza, and low-calorie foods such as salads and vegetables.

The participants in use a keyboard to rate the appeal of those pictures. Low-calorie foods were rated about the same, no purport what was in the injections. But the high-calorie foods, especially sweets, rated higher in those who got ghrelin. "It seems to vary the desire for high-calorie foods more than low-calorie foods," Goldstone said of ghrelin.

Monday 24 February 2014

Controversial Guidelines Of Treatment Of Lyme Disease Is Left In Action

Controversial Guidelines Of Treatment Of Lyme Disease Is Left In Action.
After more than a year of study, a expressly appointed panel at the Infectious Diseases Society of America has unquestionable that argumentative guidelines for the treatment of Lyme disease are correct and have occasion for not be changed. The guidelines, first adopted in 2006, have long advocated for the short-term (less than a month) antibiotic curing of new infections of Lyme disease, which is caused by Borrelia burgdorferi, a bacteria transmitted to humans via tick bites.

However, the guidelines have also been the cynosure of fierce antipathy from certain patient advocate groups that believe there is a debilitating, "chronic" form of Lyme affliction requiring much longer therapy. The IDSA guidelines are important because doctors and insurance companies often follow them when making care (and treatment reimbursement) decisions.

The new review was sparked by an review launched by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, whose office had concerns about the process cast-off to draft the guidelines. "This was the first challenge to any of the infectious disease guidelines" the Society has issued over the years, IDSA president Dr Richard Whitley said during a host conference held Thursday.

Whitley eminent that the special panel was put together with an independent medical ethicist, Dr Howard Brody, from the University of Texas Medical Branch, who was approved by Blumenthal so that the body would be sure to have no conflicts of interest. The guidelines check 69 recommendations, Dr Carol J Baker, stool of the Review Panel, and pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Baylor College of Medicine, said during the cluster conference.

So "For each of these recommendations our review panel found that each was medically and scientifically justified in torch of all the evidence and information and required no revision," she said. For all but one of the votes the committee agreed unanimously, Baker added.

Particularly on the continued use of antibiotics, the panel had concerns that prolonged use of these drugs puts patients in threat of precarious infection while not improving their condition, Baker said. "In the case of Lyme disease, there has yet to be a unique high-quality clinical study that demonstrates comparable benefit to prolonging antibiotic treatment beyond one month," the panel members found.

Monday 17 February 2014

Sulfonylurea Drugs Increase The Risk Of Heart Disease

Sulfonylurea Drugs Increase The Risk Of Heart Disease.
New experiment with shows that older ladies and gentlemen with type 2 diabetes who take drugs known as sulfonylureas to humble their blood sugar levels may face a higher risk for heart problems than their counterparts who induce metformin. Of the more than 8500 people aged 65 or older with breed 2 diabetes who were enrolled in the trial, 12,4 percent of those given a sulfonylurea drug experienced a middle attack or other cardiovascular event, compared with 10,4 percent of those who were started on metformin. In addition, these heartlessness problems occurred earlier in the course of treatment among those people taking the sulfonylurea drugs, the lessons showed.

The head-to-head comparison trial is slated to be presented Saturday at the American Diabetes Association annual tryst in San Diego. Because the findings are being reported at a medical meeting, they should be considered preparation until published in a peer-reviewed journal. With type 2 diabetes, the body either does not spark enough of the hormone insulin or doesn't use the insulin it does produce properly.

In either case, the insulin can't do its job, which is to throw glucose (blood sugar) to the body's cells. As a result, glucose builds up in the blood and can impose havoc on the body. Metformin and sulfonylurea drugs - the latter a stock of diabetes drugs including glyburide, glipizide, chlorpropamide, tolbutamide and tolazamide - are often among the first medications prescribed to lower blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes.

The findings are important, the researchers noted, partly because sulfonylurea drugs are commonly prescribed middle the senile to lower blood glucose levels. In addition, cardiovascular sickness is the leading cause of death among people with type 2 diabetes. For several reasons, however, the strange study on these medications is far from the final word on the issue, experts said.

For one, men and women who are started on the sulfonylureas instead of metformin are often sicker to begin with, said Dr Spyros G Mezitis, an endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. Metformin cannot be prescribed to kinfolk with firm kidney and heart problems, he said. Both medications lower blood glucose levels, but go about it in clearly different ways, he explained.

Thursday 13 February 2014

A New Drug For The Treatment Of Skin Cancer Increases The Survival Of Patients

A New Drug For The Treatment Of Skin Cancer Increases The Survival Of Patients.
Scientists give the word that a imaginative drug to bonus melanoma, the first in its class, improved survival by 68 percent in patients whose disease had blanket from the skin to other parts of the body. This is big news in the field of melanoma research, where survival rates have refused to budge, in spite of numerous efforts to come up with an effective treatment for the increasingly common and harmful skin cancer over the past three decades. "The last time a drug was approved for metastatic melanoma was 12 years ago, and 85 percent of woman in the street who take that slip have no benefit, so finding another drug that is going to have an impact, and even a bigger impact than what's out there now, is a vital improvement for patients," said Timothy Turnham, executive director of the Melanoma Research Foundation in Washington, DC.

The findings on the drug, called ipilimumab, were reported simultaneously Saturday at the annual engagement of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago and in the June 5 online young of the New England Journal of Medicine. Ipilimumab is the principal in a new class of targeted T-cell antibodies, with possibility applications for other cancers as well.

Both the incidence of metastatic melanoma and the eradication rate have risen during the past 30 years, and patients with advanced disease typically have small treatment options. "Ipilimumab is a human monoclonal antibody directed against CTLA-4, which is on the surface of T-cells which fray infection ," explained lead study author Dr Steven O'Day, top dog of the melanoma program at the Angeles Clinic and Research Institute in Los Angeles. "CTL is a very notable break to the immune system, so by blocking this break with ipilimumab, it accelerates and potentiates the T-cells. And by doing that they become activated and can go out and use up the cancer.

Tuesday 11 February 2014

New Incidence Of STDs In The United States

New Incidence Of STDs In The United States.
The approximately 19 million redone sexually transmitted blight (STD) infections that occur each year in the United States sell for the health care system about $16,4 billion annually, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its annual STD news released Monday. The evidence for 2009 shows a continued high burden of STDs but there are some signs of progress, according to the report, which focuses on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis. The federal rate of reported gonorrhea cases stands at 99 cases per 100000 people, its lowest devastate since make a notation keeping started in 1941, and cases are declining among all racial/ethnic groups (down 17 percent since 2006).

Since 2006, chlamydia infections have increased 19 percent to about 409 per 100000 people. However, the announce suggests that this indicates more commonality than ever are being screened for chlamydia, which is one of the most undistinguished STDs in the United States.

Friday 7 February 2014

People With Diabetes May Have An Increased Risk Of Cancer

People With Diabetes May Have An Increased Risk Of Cancer.
People with diabetes may have something else to be vexed about - an increased gamble of cancer, according to a redone consensus report produced by experts recruited jointly by the American Cancer Society and the American Diabetes Association. Diabetes, pre-eminently type 2 diabetes, has been linked to certain cancers, though experts aren't established if the disease itself leads to the increased risk or if shared risk factors, such as obesity, may be to blame. Other delve into has suggested that some diabetes treatments, such as certain insulins, may also be associated with the maturity of some cancers.

But the evidence isn't conclusive, and it's difficult to tease out whether the insulin is directorial for the association or other risk factors associated with diabetes could be the root of the link. "There have been some epidemiological studies that suggest that individuals who are stout or who have high levels of insulin appear to have an increased prevalence of certain malignancies, but it's a complex go forth because the association is not true for all cancers," explained Dr David Harlan, pilot of the Diabetes Center of Excellence at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Medical Center in Worcester, and one of the authors of the consensus report. "So, there's some smoke to suggest an society - but no clear fire," he added.

As for the imaginable insulin-and-cancer link, Harlan said that because a weak association was found, it's plainly an area that needs to be pursued further. But, he said, that doesn't mean that anyone should change the velocity they're managing their diabetes. "Our greatest concern is that individuals with diabetes might choose not to care for their diabetes with insulin or a particular insulin out of concern for a malignancy.

The risk of diabetes complications is a far greater concern," prominent Harlan. "It's like when someone decides to drive across the mother country because they're afraid to fly. While there is a slight risk of dying in a plane crash, statistically it's far riskier to drive". The consensus despatch is published in the July/August issue of CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.

The Human Brain Reacts Differently To The Use Of Fructose And Glucose

The Human Brain Reacts Differently To The Use Of Fructose And Glucose.
New fact-finding suggests that fructose, a righteous sugar found clearly in fruit and added to many other foods as part of high-fructose corn syrup, does not dampen appetite and may cause kinfolk to eat more compared to another simple sugar, glucose. Glucose and fructose are both simple sugars that are included in regular parts in table sugar. In the new study, brain scans suggest that distinct things happen in your brain, depending on which sugar you consume.

Yale University researchers looked for appetite-related changes in blood gurgle in the hypothalamic region of the brains of 20 healthy adults after they ate either glucose or fructose. When population consumed glucose, levels of hormones that play a role in identification full were high. In contrast, when participants consumed a fructose beverage, they showed smaller increases in hormones that are associated with overindulgence (feeling full).

The findings are published in the Jan 2, 2013 emerge of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr Jonathan Purnell, of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, co-authored an op-ed article that accompanied the new study. He said that the findings replicate those found in previous animal studies, but "this does not prove that fructose is the cause of the grossness epidemic, only that it is a possible contributor along with many other environmental and genetic factors".

That said, fructose has found its way into Americans' diets in the produce of sugars - typically in the form of high-fructose corn syrup - that are added to beverages and processed foods. "This increased intake of added sugar containing fructose over the existence several decades has coincided with the be created in obesity in the population, and there is strong evidence from coarse studies that this increased intake of fructose is playing a role in this phenomenon," said Purnell, who is buddy professor in the university's division of endocrinology, diabetes and clinical nutrition.

But he stressed that nutritionists do not "recommend avoiding bastard sources of fructose, such as fruit, or the occasional use of honey or syrup". And according to Purnell, "excess consumption of processed sugar can be minimized by preparing meals at severely using whole foods and high-fiber grains".

Tuesday 4 February 2014

Human Growth Hormone (HGH) Enhances Athletic Performance Like Testosterone

Human Growth Hormone (HGH) Enhances Athletic Performance Like Testosterone.
Human excrescence hormone, a corporeality frequently implicated in sports doping scandals, does seem to encourage athletic performance, a new study shows. Australian researchers gave 96 non-professional athletes venerable 18 to 40 injections of either HGH or a saline placebo. Participants included 63 men and 33 women. About half of the virile participants also received a second injection of testosterone or placebo.

After eight weeks, men and women given HGH injections sprinted faster on a bicycle and had reduced heaviness load and more lean body mass. Adding in testosterone boosted those crap - in men also given testosterone, the impact on sprinting ability was nearly doubled. HGH, however, had no consequence on jumping ability, aerobic capacity or strength, measured by the ability to dead-lift a weight, nor did HGH multiply muscle mass.

So "This paper adds to the scientific evidence that HGH can be play enhancing, and from our perspective at World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), lends support to bans on HGH," said Olivier Rabin, WADA's branch director. The study, which was funded in area by WADA, is in the May 4 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine. Human growth hormone is amongst the substances banned by the WADA for use by competitive athletes.

HGH is also banned by Major League Baseball, though the federation doesn't currently test for it. HGH has made headlines in the sports world. Recently, American tennis entertainer Wayne Odesnik accepted a voluntary suspension for importing the sum total into Australia, while Tiger Woods denied using it after the assistant to a prominent sports medicine adroit who had treated Woods was arrested at the US-Canada border with HGH.

However, based on anecdotal reports and athlete testimonies, HGH is to a large abused in professional sports, said Mark Frankel, manager of the scientific freedom, responsibility and law program for the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Prior into or has suggested HGH reduces fat mass, Rabin said, as well as help the body bring back more quickly from injury or "microtraumas" - small injuries to the muscles, bones or joints that befall as a result of intense training. That type of a boost could put athletes at a competitive advantage, Rabin said.

Sunday 2 February 2014

The Wounded Soldier Was Saved From The Acquisition Of Diabetes Through An Emergency Transplantation Of Cells

The Wounded Soldier Was Saved From The Acquisition Of Diabetes Through An Emergency Transplantation Of Cells.
In the word go control of its kind, a wounded Tommy whose damaged pancreas had to be removed was able to have his own insulin-producing islet cells transplanted back into him, prudent him from a life with the most severe form of type 1 diabetes. In November 2009, 21-year-old Senior Airman Tre Porfirio was serving in a implausible scope of Afghanistan when an insurgent who had been pretending to be a soldier in the Afghan army shot him three times at palsy-walsy range with a high-velocity rifle.

After undergoing two surgeries in the field to stop the bleeding, Porfirio was transferred to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC As area of the surgery in the field, a parcel of Porfirio's stomach, the gallbladder, the duodenum, and a section of his pancreas had been removed. At Walter Reed, surgeons expected that they would be reconstructing the structures in the abdomen that had been damaged.

However, they with dispatch discovered that the unused portion of the pancreas was leaking pancreatic enzymes that were dissolving parts of other organs and blood vessels, according to their blast in the April 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "When I went into surgery with Tre, my ambition was to reconnect everything, but I discovered a very dire, treacherous situation," said Dr Craig Shriver, Walter Reed's chief of run-of-the-mill surgery.

So "I knew I would now have to remove the remainder of his pancreas, but I also knew that leads to a life-threatening propriety of diabetes. The pancreas makes insulin and glucagon, which take out the extremes of very consequential and very low blood sugar," Shriver explained. Because he didn't want to leave this serve with this life-threatening condition, Shriver consulted with his Walter Reed colleague, transplant surgeon Dr Rahul Jindal.

Jindal said that Porfirio could greet a pancreas transplant from a matched donor at a later date, but that would ask lifelong use of immune-suppressing medications. Another option, Jindal said, was a relocate using Porfirio's own islet cells - cells within the pancreas that produce insulin and glucagon. The conduct is known as autologous islet cell transplantion.

Saturday 1 February 2014

New Ways Of Treating Prostate Cancer And Ovarian Cancer

New Ways Of Treating Prostate Cancer And Ovarian Cancer.
New investigate supports creative ways to treat ovarian and prostate cancer, while producing a mortification for those with a certain form of colon cancer. Both the ovarian and prostate cancer trials could interchange clinical practice, with more women taking the drug bevacizumab (Avastin) to combat the affliction in its advanced stages and more men getting radiation therapy for locally advanced prostate cancer, according to researchers who presented the findings Sunday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meet in Chicago. A third trial, looking at the effectiveness of cetuximab (Erbitux) in treating undoubted colon cancer patients, found the antidepressant made little difference to their survival.

The first swot found that adding Avastin to standard chemotherapy (carboplatin and paclitaxel) and continuing with "maintenance" Avastin after chemo as a matter of fact slowed the time-to-disease recurrence in women with advanced ovarian cancer. Avastin is an anti-angiogenic drug, gist it interferes with a tumor's blood supply. "This is the first molecular-targeted and opening anti-angiogenesis therapy to demonstrate benefit in this population and, combined with chemotherapy followed by Avastin maintenance, should be considered as one law option for women with this disease," said lead researcher Dr Robert A Burger, governor of the Women's Cancer Center at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

So "This is a unusual potential treatment paradigm for stage 3 and 4 ovarian cancer," added Dr Jennifer Obel, an attending medical doctor at Northshore University Health System and arbiter of a Sunday news conference at which these results were presented. The phase 3 think over involved almost 1,900 women with stage 3 and stage 4 ovarian cancer. Those who received canon chemotherapy plus Avastin, and then maintenance Avastin, for up to 10 months lived just over 14 months without their complaint progressing compared with about 10 months for those receiving example chemotherapy alone.

Those who received chemo plus Avastin but no maintenance drug lived without a recurrence for 11,3 months, a diversity not considered statistically significant. "I'm cautiously optimistic about this data. It utterly shows that those who had maintenance Avastin had improved profession-free survival," said Dr Robert Morgan, co-director of the gynecologic oncology program at City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. "I ruminate we have to heels for longer term outcomes before we make particular conclusions. It's too early for overall survival benefit data".

However, he pointed out, a four-month conversion for progression-free survival is "substantial". Doctors are already using Avastin off-label widely to treat ovarian cancer, he said, although it is not yet approved for this use. It has been shown to be more effective in this cancer than in many cancers for which it is approved, Morgan noted.