Reductive stress linked to heart disease
Antioxidants are widely considered an important defense against heart disease, but University of Utah researchers have found excessive levels of one antioxidant—reduced glutathione—actually may contribute to the disease.
The findings, published in the Aug. 10 issue of Cell, indicate a new class of drugs can be developed to treat or even prevent heart disease caused by “reductive stress,” according to Ivor J. Benjamin, M.D., Christi T. Smith Chair of Cardiovascular Research, division chief of cardiology at the U School of Medicine and the study’s principal author.
Genetic Variation Helps to Understand Predisposition to Schizophrenia
Scientists have provided new insight into how a gene is related to schizophrenia. In a study to be published in the August 17 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Amanda J. Law, Medical Research Council Fellow and Associate Professor at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, and Visiting Scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), along with colleagues at NIH describe for the first time a genetic variation that causes a gene to be overexpressed in the human brain. These results may provide a new way to design better drugs to treat schizophrenia.
“Although the exact causes of schizophrenia are yet to be determined, scientists agree that the disease is in part due to genetic variations,” Law says. “These variations are not simple to understand because they don’t directly disturb the function of proteins. In our study, we identified some clues as to what goes wrong with one of these DNA variations.”
Allergies not linked to asthma in urban adults
Asthmatic adults living in inner-city areas are often allergic to many triggers, such as dust mites or pets, but this sensitization does not appear to increase the severity of their asthma.
“We were expecting that sensitization would be related to worse asthma outcomes, as in children,” lead investigator Dr. Juan P. Wisnivesky told Reuters Health.
Drinking coffee seems to protect the liver
Data from 10 studies conducted in Europe and Japan suggest that people who drink coffee may be reducing their risk of liver cancer, although the reasons for the apparent protective effect of coffee remain to be determined.
The 10 studies reviewed by Dr. Francesca Bravi from Milan’s Istituto di Ricerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri” and colleagues included 2,260 cases of HCC. Collectively, the results showed a 41 percent reduction in the risk of liver cancer (or hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC) among coffee drinkers compared to those who never drank coffee.
Diet foods for children may lead to obesity
Diet foods and drinks for children may inadvertently lead to overeating and obesity, says a new report from the University of Alberta.
A team of researchers contends that animals learn to connect the taste of food with the amount of caloric energy it provides, and children who consume low-calorie versions of foods that are normally high in calories may develop distorted connections between taste and calorie content, leading them to overeat as they grow up.
