Hodgkin disease survivors face higher risk for stroke later in life
...nked strokes later in life to cancer. Testing that hypothesis on all survivors of childhood cancer was too impractical, so the UT Southwestern research team narrowed the field to survivors of Hodgkin disease, a type of lymphoma that's the second-most common form of childhood cancer. "The goals are changing to m...Researchers find multiple proteins that stick to medical devices
...t said. "No one, including us, had ever posed the hypothesis that this protein might be important in the biocompatibility of materials. Our results show the importance of large-scale techniques that emphasize discovery of new knowledge, rather than just hypothesis-testing." The Washington University researche...Use of pulmonary artery catheterization does not show benefit for severe heart failure patients
...erization Effectiveness (ESCAPE) trial, tested the hypothesis that for patients with severe heart failure, therapy guided by PAC monitoring and clinical assessment would lead to more days alive and fewer days hospitalized during 6 months compared with therapy guided by clinical assessment alone. The randomized...Autoimmune overload may damage HIV-infected brain
...ohnson and UCSF, the results strengthen an earlier hypothesis by Kenneth Williams of Harvard University and William Hickey of Dartmouth Medical School. They had suggested that the continual build-up of white blood cells in the brain could lead to HIV-associated dementia. "In our work," says Lamers, "we conduc...Myelin suppresses plasticity in the mature brain
...port in Science this week genetic evidence for the hypothesis that myelination, or formation of a protective sheath around a nerve fiber, consolidates neural circuitry by suppressing plasticity in the mature brain. This finding has implications for research on restoring mobility to people who have lost motor f...Left handedness may be linked to increased risk of breast cancer
...mechanisms remain elusive, our results support the hypothesis that left handedness is related to increased risk of breast cancer," they conclude....Study to examine the effects of synthetic steroids
..., said, "This grant is designed to investigate the hypothesis that prenatal events can lead to alterations in kidney function and blood pressure control when these children reach their adolescent years." Sheep will be studied to learn how synthetic steroids given during pregnancy may act in the brain to alter ...Prenatal exposure to famine increases risk of schizophrenia
...hina, and colleagues conducted a study to test the hypothesis that prenatal exposure to famine would increase the rate of schizophrenia in adult life by examining people who lived through a massive famine in China from 1959-1961. The risk of schizophrenia was examined in the Wuhu region of Anhui, one of the mos...Depression linked to previously unknown dopamine regulator
...lthough the cause of depression is multifaceted, a hypothesis based on deficiency or imbalance of serotonin and/or noradrenaline as the root of depression has been a central topic of research. Drugs that currently treat depression (SSRIs and MAOIs, which acutely modify levels of serotonin or noradrenaline at th...Antiretroviral therapy may prevent HIV transmission from breastfeeding mothers to infants
Two new studies support the hypothesis that combination antiretroviral drug therapy may reduce the risk of mother-to-child HIV transmission through breastfeeding, findings that could have significant implications in the developing world. Researchers in the first study found mothers pass a...Inhaling large amounts of salt can cause hypertension
...s a new observation, though it is in line with the hypothesis that, after being inhaled, salt may be absorbed from respiratory tract or [] the gastrointestinal tract. Consequent increases in plasma sodium may be responsible for increases in the blood pressure", explain the authors. Their findings also suggest ...Other highlights in the July 20 JNCI
... The authors conclude that their data supports the hypothesis that higher melatonin levels are associated with a lower risk of breast cancer. Contact: Amy Dayton Smith, Public Affairs, Brigham and Women's Hospital, 617-534-1603, asmith28@partners.org Medicare Claims Data Accurately Reflect Chemotherapy Use ...Tulane pioneers novel ovarian cancer treatment
... in the United States. "This study will test the hypothesis that Ontak improves tumor immunity by killing regulatory T cells (Tregs) in patients with advanced-stage ovarian cancer," says principal investigator Tyler Curiel, professor of medicine and chief of hematology and medical oncology at Tulane. "When a ...Distant prayer does not improve clinical outcome for patients undergoing coronary procedures
...ment effects, secondary analyses can be useful for hypothesis generation to guide future trials." (Quote by e-mail; does not appear in published paper) In an accompanying editorial The Lancet comments: "Do the results of the MANTRA II study rule out the use of noetic therapies in modern scientific medicine? Suc...Discovery of T-cell 'traffic control' boosts new drug promise
... slow the autoimmune response that occurs in MS, a hypothesis recently confirmed in phase 2 clinical trials, he says. Such drugs do not interfere with essential protective immune function since bacterial proteins that normally trigger immune defense do so when they enter lymph nodes -- "where the T cells are es...Estrogen, estrogen-like drugs' ability to protect brain after stroke under study
...hem and we are trying to figure out that link. Our hypothesis is that free radicals are inducing several of the key death kinases." In a stroke animal model, he's analyzing the activity of known pro-death and pro-life kinases in the brain in the hours after stroke as well as the usual levels in a healthy brain....Snoring now, hyperactive later?
...U-M Medical School. "These findings strengthen the hypothesis that untreated sleep-breathing problems in childhood can contribute to the development of hyperactivity." Chervin and other sleep and breathing researchers have built up a large body of evidence on this issue in recent years. The sleep-behavior link...Harvard scientists report public health impact of 1990 Iraq invasion of Kuwait
...ta from HSPH's cohort of older adults supports the hypothesis that exposure to trauma may play a role in explaining the observed elevations in mortality among Kuwaitis who remained in country during the occupation. The State of Kuwait's initial public health claims had been based largely on a preliminary analy...Quality of care not necessarily better in hospitals that participate in quality improvement program
...s. The findings from this study do not support the hypothesis that the QIO program improves the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries in the inpatient setting," the authors write. "Additional efforts to assess and improve the QIOs effectiveness may be needed. The current IOM assessment of the QIO progra......febrile seizures. They have been able to test this hypothesis by creating brain malformations just after birth in rat pups. "In earlier studies, we showed that that atypical febrile seizures occur only in rat pups with an underlying subtle cortical malformation," said Carmant. In the current study, the research...