DVDs help caregivers of eating disorder patients
Caregivers of eating disorder patients who used a skills training DVD along with telephone coaching to help them cope with their loved one’s illness were highly satisfied with the program, saying it helped reduce their stress levels, UK researchers report.
With just 14 participants, the study was too small to show a significant effect of the training program on caregivers’ psychological distress or depression, but there was a trend toward users having less distress after completing the program, Dr. Ana R. Sepulveda of Guy’s Hospital, London and colleagues found.
“The high acceptance rate of this pilot study also shows that the carers of people with eating disorders seem highly motivated to receive support and take an active part in helping their relatives to recover,” the researchers say.
US obesity rates alarmingly high; hard on the heart
New research shows “alarming levels” of obesity in most ethnic groups in the United States, principal investigator Dr. Gregory L. Burke, of Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina told Reuters Health. The study also confirms the potentially deadly toll obesity exacts on the heart and blood vessels.
“The obesity epidemic has the potential to reduce further gains in U.S. life expectancy, largely through an effect on cardiovascular disease mortality (death),” Burke and colleagues warn in the latest issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
Among 6,814 middle-age or older adults participating in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, or “MESA” study, researchers found that more than two thirds of white, African American and Hispanic participants were overweight and one third to one half were obese.
Mental impairment common in children with MS
Low IQ scores and cognitive problems (problems related to thinking and reasoning) are common in children and adolescents with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to an Italian study reported in the journal Neurology.
Approximately 5 percent of MS cases begin before age 18, note Dr. Maria Pia Amato, at the University of Florence, and her associates.
“The initial diagnosis of MS is more difficult in children than in adults,” Amato told Reuters Health. Particularly before age 10, “symptoms may resemble those of acute encephalitis,” with symptoms such as fever, alterations in mental state and level of consciousness. Breathing assistance with a mechanical respirator may be required and seizures and signs of brain involvement, which are rare in adults, may often occur in children.
Human ageing gene found in flies
Scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have found a fast and effective way to investigate important aspects of human ageing. Working at the University of Oxford and The Open University, Dr Lynne Cox and Dr Robert Saunders have discovered a gene in fruit flies that means flies can now be used to study the effects ageing has on DNA. In new work published today in the journal Aging Cell, the researchers demonstrate the value of this model in helping us to understand the ageing process. This exciting study demonstrates that fruit flies can be used to study critical aspects of human ageing at cellular, genetic and biochemical levels.
Dr Lynne Cox from the University of Oxford said: “We study a premature human ageing disease called Werner syndrome to help us understand normal ageing. The key to this disease is that changes in a single gene (called WRN) mean that patients age very quickly. Scientists have made great progress in working out what this gene does in the test tube, but until now we haven’t been able to investigate the gene to look at its effect on development and the whole body. By working on this gene in fruit flies, we can model human ageing in a powerful experimental system.”
