OHSU Cancer Institute researchers pinpoint how smoking causes cancer
Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute researchers have pinpointed the protein that can lead to genetic changes that cause lung cancer.
The research will be published Tuesday, May 12, in the British Journal of Cancer.
Researchers discovered that the production of a protein called FANCD2 is slowed when lung cells are exposed to cigarette smoke. Low levels of FANCD2 leads to DNA damage, triggering cancer. Cigarette smoke curbs the production of ‘caretaker’ proteins, like FANCD2, which normally prevent cancer by fixing damages in DNA and causing faulty cells to commit suicide.
MS can affect children’s IQ, thinking skills
Multiple sclerosis (MS) typically starts in young adulthood, but about five percent of cases start in childhood or the teen years. Children with MS are at risk to exhibit low IQ scores and problems with memory, attention and other thinking skills, according to a study published in the May 13, 2008, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Children who developed the disease at a younger age were more likely to have low IQ scores than children who were older when the disease started.
“It’s possible that MS can show an even more dramatic effect on the thinking skills and intelligence in children than in adults, since the disease might affect the brain at a time when it is still developing,” said study author Maria Pia Amato, MD, of the University of Florence in Italy.
Novel mechanisms controlling insulin release and fat deposition discovered
Scientists at the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet have in two recent studies shown that a receptor called ALK7 plays important roles in the regulation of body fat deposition as well as the release of insulin from beta-cells in the pancreas. These findings have implications for the development of treatments against diabetes and obesity.
“We have shown in animal studies that removing the ALK7 receptor improves insulin release by beta-cells in the pancreas, and at the same time decreases fat deposition in situations of high caloric intake”, says Professor Carlos Ibáñez, who lead the two studies that are now published as back-to-back papers in the PNAS. “The well-known connections between diabetes and obesity make our combined findings quite exciting.”
Up to 6 per cent of the world population is estimated to suffer from some form of diabetes, either due to a reduced ability to produce insulin, or to insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone required by cells in the body to absorb glucose from the blood, thereby providing them with energy. Obesity has been shown to increase the risk of developing diabetes, and as overweight becomes more prevalent in the human population, so do the cases of diabetes.
Genetic links to impaired social behavior in autism
Individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) show profound deficits in social interactions and communications, and display repetitive behaviors and abnormal responses to sensory experiences. One aspect of an autistic child’s impaired social abilities is their lack of affiliative behaviors, i.e., behaviors such as touching and hugging that strengthen social bonds. On May 15th, Biological Psychiatry is publishing an article that reports new findings on genetic bases of these behaviors.
In this study, Yale University researchers recruited, genotyped, and clinically assessed a large sample of autistic children and their families. They specifically examined the genetic variants in six genes known to be involved in maternal and affiliative behaviors. Dr. Elena Grigorenko, the senior author, discusses their study, “Animal studies have taught us that genetic factors can play a crucial role in the development of close affiliative ties. With the help of Yale’s Autism Center of Excellence, led by Drs. Ami Klin and Fred Volkmar, and many families of individuals with ASD, we have registered a possible association between some of the genes identified in animal studies as controlling affiliative behaviors in ASD.” The strongest statistical findings of the study implicate the prolactin gene, the prolactin receptor gene, and the oxytocin receptor gene in these affiliative behavior deficits.
Depression and anger can plague recent university graduates: Study
The post-university years can start out tough. The good news: it gets better.
A new University of Alberta study of almost 600 of its graduates (ages 20-29 years old) tracked mental health symptoms in participants for seven years post-graduation and looked at how key events like leaving home and becoming a parent were related to depression and anger. Graduates showed a significant decrease in depressive symptoms over the seven years. Expressed anger also declined over time after graduation, suggesting improved mental health.
The researchers also found that while home may be a haven for young people in the early years of adulthood, the longer they stay at home, or if they return home, the more likely they are to experience symptoms of depression. Previous research has found that more than half of students under 25 in four-year university programs lived with their parents.
Human touch helps stroke survivors regain mobility
Six months after a stroke, survivors who are able to walk but still have moderate-to-severe difficulty in doing so, make better progress in their walking ability through physical therapist-assisted training than training provided by a robotic device, according to report published in the medical journal Stroke.
“We wanted to know whether using a robotic device that guides the limb in a symmetrical walking pattern would facilitate greater improvements in walking speed and symmetry than more traditional walking interventions with a physical therapist,” lead author Dr. T. George Hornby said in an American Heart Association news release.
Hornby and colleagues at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago evaluated 48 stroke patients who had been partially paralyzed on one side of the body for more than 6 months. All of the patients participated in 12 sessions of 30-minute therapy on a treadmill while wearing a harness to support their body weight.
28 million women at risk of unwanted pregnancy
Each year, half of American women who would rather not get pregnant will have an unplanned pregnancy, often because they failed to use their contraceptive properly or forgot to use it at all, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
As a result, 28 million women in the United States are at risk for an unintended pregnancy, according to the study conducted by the Guttmacher Institute in New York.
They found one in four women is very likely to become pregnant because of inconsistent contraception use.
Poor quality of life linked to death from diabetes
For older adults with diabetes, longevity may depend not only on factors such as blood sugar control, but on quality of life as well, a new study suggests.
In a study of more than 1,100 Dutch adults with type 2 diabetes, researchers found that those who reported physical limitations that impaired their quality of life were more likely to die over the next 6 years.
Quality of life was linked to death risk, independently of a range of well-known factors in diabetic adults’ health—including blood sugar control, weight, blood pressure and kidney function.
