D-cycloserine may improve behavioral therapy treatment for anxiety
Anxiety is a normal human response to stress, but in some, it can develop into a disabling disorder of excessive and irrational fears, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, or posttraumatic stress disorder. Effective treatments are available and can involve either behavioral therapy or medications. Although “it makes intuitive sense that combining these two treatments would result in even better results,” David Tolin, Ph.D. notes that has unfortunately not yet been the case and the majority of the evidence suggests that combined therapy is no more effective than behavior therapy alone, and in some cases can even be less effective. However, Dr. Tolin is one of the three authors on a meta-analysis scheduled for publication on June 15th in Biological Psychiatry, in which they evaluated a potentially important new treatment paradigm for anxiety.
Dr. Tolin explains the impetus behind their analysis: “Recently, several researchers have tried a radically different approach: instead of just throwing two effective monotherapies at the problem, they have instead looked at medications that specifically target the biological mechanisms that make psychotherapy work in the first place.” John H. Krystal, M.D., Editor of Biological Psychiatry and another of the study’s authors, adds that “there has now been a sufficient amount of research in this area to take a step back to look at the basic research conducted in animals and the initial clinical trials.”
Computer Predicts Anti-Cancer Molecules
A new computer-based method of analyzing cellular activity has correctly predicted the anti-tumour activity of several molecules. Research published today in BioMed Central’s open access journal, Molecular Cancer, describes ‘CoMet’ – a tool that studies the integrated machinery of the cell and predicts those components that will have an effect on cancer.
Jeffery Skolnick, professor in the School of Biology and director of the Center for the Study of Systems Biology, in collaboration with John McDonald, chair of the School of Biology, led a team from the Georgia Institute of Technology who have developed this new strategy.
“This opens up the possibility of novel therapeutics for cancer and develops our understanding of why such metabolites work. CoMet provides a deeper understanding of the molecular mechanisms of cancer,” said Skolnick.
Genetic Variation Raises HIV Risk in People of African Descent
A genetic variation that may have protected people of African descent against a pandemic of malaria long ago now appears to increase their susceptibility to HIV infection, a report published this week shows.
The variation, described in the journal Cell Host & Microbe, is one of the first genetic risk factors for HIV to be identified only in those of African descent, and puts a spotlight on the differences in our genetic makeup that play a critical role in susceptibility to HIV-AIDS.
In a population of 1,266 HIV-positive U.S. military personnel and 2,000 non-infected healthy personnel, researchers studied the gene that expresses Duffy antigen receptor. This molecule on the surface of red blood cells serves as the docking site for the malaria species Plasmodium vivax.
Teen smokers struggle to kick the habit; most want to quit and can’t
Most teenagers who smoke cigarettes make repeated attempts to quit but most are unsuccessful, according to new research from the Université de Montréal and funded by the Canadian Cancer Society.
“The study found that teen smokers make their first serious attempt to quit after only two and a half months of smoking, and by the time they have smoked for 21 months they have lost confidence in their ability to quit,” says Dr. Jennifer O’Loughlin, the study’s lead author and a researcher from the Université de Montréal’s department of social and preventive medicine.
Dr. O’Loughlin analyzed data from 319 Montreal teens who completed reports on their smoking habits every three months for five years. The study, published online (today) in the American Journal of Public Health, found that teen smokers progress through stages or milestones in their attempts to stop smoking. These stages are:
Obesity ups a woman’s pancreatic cancer risk: study
Obese women who carry most of their extra weight around the stomach are 70 percent more likely to develop pancreatic cancer, an international team of researchers reported on Tuesday.
The findings suggest are some of the first evidence that the link between obesity and pancreatic cancer is as strong in women as in men, Juhua Luo of Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and colleagues reported in the British Journal of Cancer.
“We found that the risk of developing pancreatic cancer was significantly raised in obese postmenopausal women who carry most of their excess weight around the stomach,” she said in a statement.
Gene variant common in Africa increase HIV risk
A gene variant that emerged thousands of years ago to protect Africans from malaria may raise their vulnerability to HIV infection but help them live longer once infected, researchers said on Wednesday.
The findings could help explain why AIDS has hit Africa harder than all other parts of the world.
People with the version of the gene have a 40 percent higher risk of becoming infected with the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, researchers in the United States and Britain wrote in the journal Cell Host & Microbe.
Firefighters threaten strike over weighty issue
British firefighters have threatened to go on strike after bosses fired a veteran Scottish colleague for being overweight.
Fire Brigades Union branch secretary Alan Paterson said that 22-year veteran Kevin Ogilvie should have been reassigned to other duties after he was found to be too heavy to fight fires. The union has decided to hold a ballot for strike action.
“Our members have taken action because they deem that sanction far too severe. The man hasn’t committed any crime,” Paterson told Reuters.
Diabetic foot ulcers often have poor outcomes
Although the majority of patients hospitalized because of diabetic foot ulcers initially do reasonably well, in the long-term the outcome is often poor, French researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care.
“Despite a satisfactory rate of healing,” investigator Dr. Antoine Avignon told Reuters Health, “the overall prognosis of patients with diabetic foot ulcers is not satisfactory.”
Avignon of Universite Montpellier 1 and colleagues came to this conclusion after following 89 patients with diabetic foot ulcers for an average of more than 6 years.
Men may need to work harder to cut diabetes risk
Losing weight through diet and exercise lowers diabetes risk in men and women, but men may have to work harder for the same benefit, new research suggests.
In a study of more than 1,100 adults at risk of type 2 diabetes, researchers found that those who went on an “intensive” regimen of calorie-cutting and exercise lowered their risk of developing diabetes over the next year.
However, despite the fact that men lost more weight and exercised more than women did, that did not translate into a greater reduction in diabetes risk, the researchers report in the journal Diabetes Care.
Laparoscopic gastric bypass provides better results
Performing gastric bypass surgery to reduce the weight of morbidly obese patients using a laparoscopic method, rather than the conventional more invasive “open” abdominal method, reduces postoperative complications, the need for a second operation, and shortens hospital stays, new research shows. Nevertheless, laparoscopic gastric bypass is more expensive.
Obesity surgery, also called bariatric surgery, is growing in popularity and more and more of these operations are being done using a laparoscope, note co-authors Dr. Wendy E. Weller, from the University at Albany in New York, and Dr. Carl Rosati, from Albany Medical Center.
This is done by placing one or more small incisions in the abdomen, through which a hollow tube is inserted. This allows very small instruments to be inserted to perform the gastric bypass. The entire procedure is visualized on a screen. In contrast, the more invasive “open” procedure involves making an incision to open the abdomen so the procedure can be performed.
Smoking linked to decrease in uterine cancer risk
Cigarette smoking appears to be associated with a decreased risk of cancer of the endometrium, the inner lining of the uterus, research from China suggests.
“The benefit of smoking was observed almost exclusively in postmenopausal women and not in premenopausal women,” principal investigator Dr. Bin Wang of Nanjing Medical University told Reuters Health.
However, in spite of this link, “cigarette smoking could dramatically increase the incidence of many other chronic diseases,” Wang pointed out.
Diabetes makes people more vulnerable to TB: study
Diabetes makes a person about three times as likely to develop tuberculosis, and it may be to blame for more than 10 percent of TB cases in India and China, researchers said on Monday.
To clarify the link between the diseases, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston examined data on 1.7 million people from 13 studies done in Canada, Mexico, the United States, Britain, Russia, Taiwan, India and South Korea.
Having diabetes raised a person’s chances of getting active TB disease regardless of geographic region, the researchers found, with the risk rising roughly three-fold compared to people without diabetes, the researchers wrote in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS Medicine.
Contests to Quit Smoking Don’t Work in Long Run
Face it: we all have our price. Still, despite prizes ranging from lottery tickets to cash payments, quit-smoking contests do not help people kick the habit in the end, according to a new systematic review of studies.
None of the 17 studies, which involved roughly 6,300 participants, demonstrated significantly higher long-term quit rates for smokers offered incentives, despite some creative approaches.
In one study, participants were encouraged to toss their cigarettes down the toilet and rewarded with one lottery ticket per day. Another offered payments of $10 per month and participation in a monthly worksite lottery. Yet another offered cash prizes ranging from $100 to $250, along with certificates of recognition.
