News tips from the American Heart Association
...d peptide derived from fat cells, improves insulin sensitivity and may curb inflammation and artery disease. High levels of adiponectin appear to be associated with lower risk of coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Now, Harvard scientists have clarified relationships between dietary factors and blood l...Metabolic 'footprint' may be new measure of obesity risk in kids
...ssure, triglyceride levels and measures of insulin sensitivity were not meaningful in differentiating between these two groups," she said. But the study showed that adiponectin may be part of a "footprint" for heart disease risk in children. "While obesity is a known risk factor for heart disease and diabetes, w...Off-label use of migraine drug gives children relief, study says
... accompany migraines, such as nausea, vomiting and sensitivity to light and sound, which are usually caused by blood vessel constriction. Sumatriptan and related drugs stop pain by restoring the nervous system's ability to block pain impulses and help constrict blood vessels. And the triptans also help dilate th...Study examines why new lung cancer treatment is effective for some patients but not others
... to analyze the features that were associated with sensitivity to the drug. They found that gefitinib worked best...er patients. "We saw a wide range of patient sensitivity and benefit with gefinitib during our trials and we wanted to understand why," said Vincent Miller, ...'Neutraceuticals'...coming soon to a dentist near you?
...y for total anti-oxidant capacity, with sufficient sensitivity to permit analysis of gingival crevicular fluid as well as plasma compartments. With collaborators, he has developed a regression model that allows for the prediction of total anti-oxidant capacity from individual anti-oxidant components in serum, th...Childhood abuse may predict social phobia, agoraphobia, and PTSD among adult alcoholics
...linical, that supports the notion of higher stress sensitivity in females under both acute and chronic conditions." In addition, said Van der Hart, "it may well be that many female patients with alcohol dependence or abuse seek treatment in, or are referred to, more general mental-health centers. Perhaps their ...More older women are retaining 'young' breasts causing potential screening problems
...in the interval between screening, to estimate the sensitivity of the mammograms i.e. the ability of the mammogra...ncer Screening in Nijmegen, said the difference in sensitivity between the two groups indicated the size of the potential problem. "I don't think the problem of wo...Detection at a distance for more sensitive MRI
... remarkable new way to improve the versatility and sensitivity of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the technology upon which it is based, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Pines, a pioneering NMR researcher, is Faculty Senior Scientist in the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laborat...Novelty-seeking teens may be more easily influenced by tobacco advertisements
...-seeking, impulsive, and risk-taking behavior; and sensitivity to reward. Scientific data indicate that teens' receptivity to tobacco marketing campaigns may play an important role in the choice to start smoking. Building on this research, scientists at the University of Pennsylvania and Georgetown University fo...Long-lasting medication shows promise for treatment of heroin addiction
...pioid hydromorphone Dilaudid to test whether their sensitivity to this class of opioids was reduced by the buprenorphine treatment. The researchers found that a single dose of the sustained-release form of buprenorphine provided relief of withdrawal symptoms and reduced the effects of the test opioid for 6 weeks...Niche and higher margin esters to counter price erosion and commoditization
...s. "Low-cost Asian products are intensifying price sensitivity due to liberalization policies implemented by the World Trade Organization, which has lowered tariff barriers and created a competitive global market," says Technical Insights Analyst Rajesh Kannan. In order to survive in such a market, manufacturers...Regardless of race, pain feels pretty much the same
...ports well-established findings of slightly higher sensitivity to pain among women compared to men, but revealed no differences between Whites and African-Americans." Campbell and his research colleagues tested 135 men and women aged 25-45, a group that included 72 African-Americans and 59 women. Researc...Single cocaine exposure boosts both drug craving and avoidance
... the first study to show that it can also increase sensitivity to an aversive drug. Although the two reactions were strong and opposite, they occurred at different times, with the increased morphine preference occurring between the first and fifth days after cocaine injection, while the KOR aversion spike took p...Jefferson scientists use zebrafish to show effects of ionizing, UV radiation differ in development
... doses of ionizing and UV radiation, comparing the sensitivity of the embryos. "We found that the zebrafish were very sensitive to the mid-blastula transition, the point in development in which the embryo goes from relying on the maternal mRNA in the yolk sac to the embryo itself controlling development," Dr. M...Better predictors are needed for posttraumatic stress disorder in children
...d future PTSD in adults, we set out to demonstrate sensitivity and specificity in predicting child PTSD among children with significant ASD symptoms," said lead author Nancy Kassam-Adams, Ph.D., associate director of behavioral research, TraumaLink at Children's Hospital. "Only when we used symptom subsets like ...Cultural sensitivity crucial when seeking organ donors
...ffering ethnicities, we should not assume cultural sensitivity is pervasive. "We are all most aware of our own cultures, so we all need cross-cultural training regardless of our backgrounds," he said. "In Canada, we talk a great deal about the need for cultural sensitivity, but we have been very slow to rise to ...'Virtual colonoscopy' techniques and training need to be improved before widespread clinical use
...ts were compared. The researchers found that the sensitivity of CTC for detecting participants with one or more lesions sized at least 6 mm was only 39 percent and for lesions sized at least 10 mm, it was only 55 percent. These results were significantly lower than those for conventional colonoscopy, with sen...DNA test shows promise for identifying patients with colorectal cancer
...in samples from people without the disease, with a sensitivity of 77-90% and specificity (a measure of reliability, relating to proportion of "false-positive" and "false-negative" results) of 77%. SFRP2 methylation could, therefore, be useful as a marker in screening for colorectal cancer. Martin Widschwendter, ...First biomarkers to diagnose Lou Gehrig's disease found in CNS
...in peaks a pattern that produced a high level of sensitivity (accurately identifying all the ALS patients) and specificity (avoiding false positives among the non-ALS patients). These protein peaks represent the first biomarkers for ALS and could be completed within a few hours instead of the months now deman...CNS cancers and other diseases: Using proteomics to identify unique protein 'fingerprints'
...The investigators then plan to test the diagnostic sensitivity of the protein profiles for larger scale clinical use....