Even modest weight gain raises kidney disease risk
In healthy men of normal weight, relatively small increases in weight raise the risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a report by Korean researchers that will appear in the September issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
The study, researchers say, suggests that CKD should be added to the list of conditions that are associated with weight gain, including diabetes and high blood pressure.
Obesity is a known risk factor for CKD, but the impact of weight gain in normal-weight individuals without high blood pressure or diabetes is unknown, Dr. Seungho Ryu, at Kangbuk Samsung Hospital in Seoul, and associates note in their report.
Cells in blood may help cancers spread: US study
Normal cells in the blood that play a role in healing wounds may also be creating the right conditions for cancer cells to spread, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.
They said fibrocytes, blood cells derived from bone marrow, could explain how healthy cells become habitats for cancer.
“Cancer cells do not enter healthy tissue easily. We know that,” Dr. Hendrik van Deventer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, whose research appears in the American Journal of Pathology, said in a telephone interview.
Population-wide approach needed to curb obesity
A broad range of policy and environmental initiatives at the local, state and federal levels aimed at increasing physical activity and healthful eating is needed to reduce rates of obesity in the United States, according to an American Heart Association (AHA) scientific statement in the Association’s journal Circulation, published Monday.
In an AHA-issued press release, Dr. Shiriki Kumanyika, chair of the working group that wrote the scientific statement “Population-Based Prevention of Obesity,” noted that “almost all of our current eating or activity patterns are those that promote weight gain—using the least possible amount of energy or maximizing quantity rather than quality in terms of food.”
Kumanyika added, “People haven’t just made the decision to eat more and move less; the social structure has played into people’s tendencies to go for convenience foods and labor-saving devices.”
Caregivers often expose asthmatic kids to smoke
Secondhand exposure to cigarette smoke is an asthma trigger in children and a new study shows that smoking by the primary caregiver and daycare provider are important sources of smoke exposure in children with asthma.
In the study, children with asthma who were exposed to secondhand smoke “had as much smoke exposure as if their mother smoked,” Dr. Harold J. Farber told Reuters Health.
Children with a double hit of smoke exposure - from both their daycare provider and primary caregiver - had the highest levels of nicotine metabolites in their urine, said Farber, of Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston.
Invasive Treatment Beneficial for Men, High-Risk Women With Unstable Heart Disease
An analysis of previous studies indicates that among men and high-risk women with a certain type of heart attack or angina an invasive treatment strategy (such as cardiac catheterization) is associated with reduced risk of rehospitalization, heart attack or death, whereas low-risk women may have an increased risk of heart attack or death with this treatment, according to an article in the July 2 issue of JAMA.
Although an invasive strategy is frequently used in patients with unstable angina and non–ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI; a type of heart attack with certain findings on an electrocardiogram), data from some trials suggest that this strategy may not benefit women, with a possible higher risk of death or heart attack, according to background information in the article. “Thus, the benefit of an invasive strategy in women remains unclear. However, individual trials have not been large enough to explore outcomes reliably within subgroups,” the authors write.
For this study, an invasive strategy was defined as the referral of all patients with heart attacks and unstable angina for cardiac catheterization (a procedure that allows physicians to find and open potential blockages in the coronary arteries to help prevent heart attacks and death) prior to hospital discharge. A conservative treatment strategy was defined as a primary strategy of medical management and subsequent catheterization only for those patients with ongoing chest pain or a positive stress test.
Gene Directs Stem Cells to Build the Heart
Researchers have shown that they can put mouse embryonic stem cells to work building the heart, potentially moving medical science a significant step closer to a new generation of heart disease treatments that use human stem cells.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report in Cell Stem Cell that the Mesp1 gene locks mouse embryonic stem cells into becoming heart parts and gets them moving to the area where the heart forms. Researchers are now testing if stem cells exposed to Mesp1 can help fix damaged mouse hearts.
“This isn’t the only gene we’ll need to get stem cells to repair damaged hearts, but it’s a key piece of the puzzle,” says senior author Kenneth Murphy, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pathology and immunology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “This gene is like the first domino in a chain: the Mesp1 protein activates genes that make other important proteins, and these in turn activate other genes and so on. The end result of these falling genetic dominoes is your whole cardiovascular system.”
