November 5, 2006, 8:47 PM CT

Six Months Of Hormone Therapy Enough For Prostate Cancer

Prostate cancer patients treated with either radiation or surgery who use hormone therapy for longer than six months do not survive any longer than patients who use the treatment for a shorter amount of time, according to a study presented November 5, 2006, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology's 48th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.

"Many patients with high risk prostate cancer are treated with two or more years of hormone therapy based on studies performed over a decade ago," said Cliff Robinson, M.D., lead author of the study and a radiation oncologist at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio. "Our study's findings suggest that treating current patients with shorter-term hormone therapy may not only be equally effective, but also improve their quality of life, due to a lesser degree of treatment side effects".

The authors also found that patients receiving longer than six months of hormone therapy were twice as likely to die as patients who use the treatment for a shorter amount of time. "The reasons why patients receiving longer term hormone therapy may do worse are unclear," said Dr. Robinson, who also cautions, "A number of factors could complicate the issue, and this area needs further investigation before any conclusions can be drawn".........

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November 2, 2006, 8:58 PM CT

Common Antacids To Fight Gingivitis

Chemicals usually used to treat heartburn also display fighting power against the oral bacteria linked with gum disease, as per scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center and Gteborg University in Sweden.

A study published in November's Archives of Oral Biology explores how the active ingredients in popular antacids could help fend off gingivitis. If the work holds up in subsequent studies in people, the compounds could one day find themselves widely available in oral care products like toothpaste and mouthwashes.

"The American diet and the constant drip of sugar allows little time for the natural repair of teeth. All day, it's a cycle of acidic erosion and repair or at least, it should be but our constant sucking on hard candy and guzzling sodas with high fructose syrups leaves little time for repair," said Robert Marquis, Ph.D., of the University of Rochester Medical Center. Marquis, an internationally recognized expert on the bacteria that inhabit our mouths, is the study's lead author.

The team studied a compound known as lansoprazole, part of a family of compounds known as benzimidazoles that already have a range of uses, primarily controlling stomach hyperacidity and killing Helicobacter pylori (the bacteria responsible for stomach ulcers). Now, the compounds are brandishing potent antimicrobial actions that interfere with the dirty work of other types of bacteria that cause plaque buildup and gingivitis.........

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November 2, 2006, 8:47 PM CT

Alzheimer's Drug Shows Promise

The only drugs currently available for Alzheimer's patients are those that alleviate symptoms, but a team of scientists led by Paul Aisen, MD, director of the Memory Disorders program at Georgetown University Medical Center, is testing a new class of drugs that actually target the molecule believed to cause the disease. Aisen and his colleagues report that a compound called tramiprosate reduced levels of a marker for the progression of Alzheimer's disease in a Phase II clinical trial in the November 1 electronic version of Neurology.

"Everyone wants to figure out how to create an Alzheimer's treatment that attacks the amyloid peptide, which is considered to be the molecular cause of the disease," said Aisen. "This is the most advanced anti-amyloid treatment that exists-it has the potential for slowing down progression of the disease".

Aisen and his team are currently in the midst of Phase III clinical trials on tramiprosate (manufactured by Neurochem, for which Aisen is a scientific advisor, as ALZHEMED-) and hope to have results by early next summer. Media should call 202-687-5100 to schedule an interview with Aisen or to be connected with another Georgetown expert on the topic.........

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November 2, 2006, 5:23 AM CT

MRI Study To Prevent Brain Damage

A stroke victim arrives in the emergency room and, within minutes, the doctor must make a decision: Should drugs be administered to open up the blocked blood vessel and prevent further brain damage? Or is this patient at high risk for suffering a brain hemorrhage if the blocked vessel is opened?

Greg Albers, MD, director of the Stanford Stroke Center, and his team report in the recent issue of Annals of Neurology that new magnetic resonance imaging techniques can discriminate between stroke patients who are likely to benefit from a stroke medicine - even when administered beyond the currently approved three-hour time window - and those for whom therapy is unlikely to be beneficial and may cause harm.

For years, Albers, professor of neurology and neurological sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, has been using new MRI techniques to visualize the damage from stroke while it is actually happening. His goal is to differentiate brain tissue that is potentially salvageable from tissue that is already irreversibly injured by a stroke. As his group accumulated MRI scans of stroke patients, they noticed patterns that seemed to identify which patients were most likely to benefit from opening up blocked blood vessels.

"One of the criticisms was that these detailed brain images looked beautiful and interesting, but there was no proof that they should be used to influence therapy or that they would result in improved outcomes," said Albers. "How do you know that these MRI patterns can predict whether the treatment is likely to be beneficial?".........

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November 2, 2006, 5:04 AM CT

Serotonin Child Abuse Link

A research team found that when baby rhesus monkeys endured high rates of maternal rejection and mild abuse in their first month of life, their brains often produced less serotonin, a chemical that transmits impulses in the brain. Low levels of serotonin are associated with anxiety and depression and impulsive aggression in both humans and monkeys.

Abused females who became abusive mothers in adulthood had lower serotonin in their brains than abused females who did not become abusive parents, the research showed.

Because the biological make up of humans and monkeys is quite similar, the findings from the monkey research could be valuable in understanding human child abuse, said Dario Maestripieri, Associate Professor in Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago.

"This research could have important implications for humans because we do not fully understand why some abused children become abusive parents and others don't," Maestripieri said. The research suggests that treatments with drugs that increase brain serotonin early in an abused child's life could reduce the likelihood that the child will grow up to become abusive, Maestripieri said.

Maestripieri is lead author of a paper reporting the research, "Early Maternal Rejection Affects the Development of Monoaminergic Systems and Adult Abusive Parenting in Rhesus Macaques" published in the current issue of Behavioral Neuroscience.........

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November 1, 2006, 4:59 AM CT

Poor Readers Have Higher Risk Of Suicide

Teenagers with reading problems are at significantly higher risk for suicide and for dropping out of school than typical readers, as per a research studyby Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center researchers.

"In our study, poor readers were three times more likely than typical readers to consider or attempt suicide and six times more likely to drop out of school," said lead author Stephanie Sergent Daniel, Ph.D. "Educators and parents should be aware of the risk of suicidal thoughts and behavior among adolescents with reading problems".

The results, reported today in the recent issue of the Journal of Learning Disabilities, are from a study of 188 students recruited from six public high schools at age 15. They were followed for a mean of 3.3 years.

Scientists initially screened 1,074 students and identified a sub-group willing to participate in the long-term study. From this group, they recruited a group of poor readers and a group of typical readers that were matched for gender and race.

Standard educational tests were used to measure single-word reading ability, one of several skills involved in reading. Students scoring in the lowest 18 percent were considered poor readers - a cutoff usually used to diagnose dyslexia. In addition, each student and his primary caretaker were interviewed by master's level trained research clinicians to assess psychiatric disorders and suicidal behaviors. The median length between interviews for students and parents was twelve months.........

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November 1, 2006, 4:22 AM CT

Amniocentesis Safe For Pregnant Women

Amniocentesis is the most usually prescribed invasive test performed during pregnancies in the United States. Most women fear them while doctors recommend them based on guidelines from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. These guidelines stem from past research studies and recommendations by the CDC that were based only on maternal age. Studies that are decades old have suggested that amniocentesis increases the rate of miscarriage by 0.5% or 1 in 200 pregnancies. However, scientists at Mount School of Medicine in conjunction with other institutions involved in the First and Second Trimester Evaluation of Risk for Aneuploidy trial (FASTER trial) have just published in the recent issue of the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, that pregnancy miscarriage rates after routine midtrimester amniocentesis are significantly lower than rates previously published years ago in the 1970s and 1980s. This study reports that the amniocentesis procedure- related loss risk is approximately 1 in 1,600 pregnancies.

Lead author of the study, "Pregnancy Loss Rates After Midtrimester Amniocentis", Dr. Keith E. Eddleman, MD, Associate Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences at Mount Sinai School of Medicine has observed that this new study now refutes the typically quoted 0.5% pregnancy loss rate and suggests it may be even lower than 0.1%."Women should be counseled that this older loss rate is archaic and their decision about whether or not to have an amniocentesis should be based on contemporary information about miscarriage rates with newer screening techniques, rather than just relying on general age based risks," said Eddleman. "This new research breakthrough will have a significant effect on how women are counseled about amniocentesis by their doctors and the information they have when deciding about screening for their unborn child".........

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October 30, 2006, 8:42 PM CT

How Blood Clots Are Formed?

Good science requires great patience. In many fields, ideas and theories surge ahead while the tools to test them can take decades to catch up. When Peter Richardson began talking with colleagues who were modeling blood flow through the vessels on the heart's surface, he hardly suspected that the collaboration would lead to a test of ideas he had proposed more than 30 years before.

The resulting model, described in the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences appearing the week of Oct. 30 to Nov. 3, could help evaluate candidate drugs aimed at preventing blood clots - a major cause of strokes, heart attacks and organ transplant rejection.

In 1970, Richardson, who had been working on the clotting problems associated with artificial organs, saw a paper describing the time course of clot formation in uninjured blood vessels. Gustav Born and his co-author, Nicola Begent, had found an odd relationship - shaped like a playground slide - between the rate of blood flow and the rate of blood clot, or thrombus, formation. As blood flow increased, the rate at which the clot grew increased rapidly, up to a point. After that point, the rate of growth declined suddenly and then gradually flattened out.

Richardson recognized that there must be two groups of processes at work - probably one chemical and one physical. The increase in clotting with flow made sense. Faster blood flow meant more platelets encountered the clot each second, so more had a chance to be captured by it. But the decrease was puzzling.........

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October 30, 2006, 8:23 PM CT

Speaking In Tongues

Glossolalia, otherwise referred to as "speaking in tongues," has been around for thousands of years, and references to it can be found in the Old and New Testament. Speaking in tongues is an unusual mental state linked to specific religious traditions. The individual appears to be speaking in an incomprehensible language, yet perceives it to have great personal meaning. Now, in a first of its kind study, researchers are shining the light on this mysterious practice -- attempting to explain what actually happens physiologically to the brain of someone while speaking in tongues.

Scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have discovered decreased activity in the frontal lobes, an area of the brain linked to being in control of one's self. This pioneering study, involving functional imaging of the brain while subjects were speaking in tongues, is in the recent issue of Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, the official publication of the International Society for Neuroimaging in Psychiatry.

Radiology researchers observed increased or decreased brain activity - by measuring regional cerebral blood flow with SPECT (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography) imaging - while the subjects were speaking in tongues. They then compared the imaging to what happened to the brain while the subjects sang gospel music.........

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October 27, 2006, 4:44 AM CT

Gene Target Against Crohn's Disease And Ulcerative Colitis

The discovery by a six-member Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) Genetics Consortium of a genetic risk factor for IBD has been reported in Science Express, the online publication of the journal Science. According to one of the Canadian principal investigators, director of the Laboratory in Genetics and Genomic Medicine of Inflammation at the Montreal Heart Institute, Dr. John D. Rioux, "This discovery may lead to a paradigm shift in our thinking from 'genetics of diseases to genetics of health', particularly as concerns Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis." This discovery was, in part, due to the contributions of the gastroenterologists of the Quebec IBD Genetics Consortium led by Dr. Rioux and Dr. Alain Bitton of the McGill University Health Centre.

Inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD, describes two similar yet distinct conditions called Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. These diseases affect the digestive system and cause the intestinal tissue to become inflamed, form sores and bleed easily. Symptoms include abdominal pain, cramping, fatigue and diarrhea.

Crohn's disease may affect the gastrointestinal tract, from the mouth to the anus, and while Crohn's disease can not be cured by drugs or surgery, either may relieve symptoms.

In Canada, an estimated 170,000 Canadian men and women suffer from IBD, most frequently between the ages of 15-25, or 45-55. It is particularly difficult for children and young adults since it often affects a person's self-concept. IBD is found throughout the world. However, it appears to be most common in North America and northern Europe; Canada having one of the highest incidence rates of IBD in the world. (1) In the U.S., more than 1 million Americans have Crohn's or colitis.........

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