Social connections: Could heartwarming be heart-saving?
...wards. Men who are socially isolated have elevated levels of a blood marker for inflammation that's linked t...lowest level of social involvement had the highest levels of IL-6, the study showed. Specifically, the average concentration of IL-6 in the blood of men with...Excess oxygen worsens lung inflammation in mice
... shown that inflammation leads to a drop in oxygen levels in the inflamed tissues. This, in turn, triggers t...cuit" this protective pathway by preventing oxygen levels from dropping enough to trigger the inflammation stop signal. To explore this possibility in an anim...Treating children with chronic hepatitis C
...9 of the 61 patients (64 percent) had undetectable levels of HCV RNA. Three of these responders relapsed dur...chers found that patients with normal liver enzyme levels before treatment responded better than those with elevated levels. Most of the children experienced ...Simple questions may determine children's exposure to smoke
... growing hair. The researchers considered cotinine levels as a "gold standard" for measuring tobacco smoke exposure because it correlates well with nicotine levels in the blood, measures exposure over several months and is not influenced by short-term exposure. ...Response of New York City public school children to September 11
...t-traumatic stress disorder (10.6 percent). Higher levels of exposure corresponded to higher prevalence for all probable anxiety/depressive disorders. "This study had six main findings," the authors report. First, six months after the WTC attack, a high proportion of New York City public school children ha...American Thoracic Society journal news tips for May 2005 (first issue)
...elatives questioned 90 days after the event showed levels on a test that demonstrated moderate to major risk of post-traumatic stress reaction. Using the impact of events test, investigators saw even higher rates among family members who felt that they were getting incomplete information from ICU staff (48....Burden of cardiovascular disease will shift to the developing world
...with an aging population, this will result in high levels of cardiovascular disease. Traditionally, cardiov...d physical activity with city life. Blood pressure levels were independent of the economic development. The authors conclude that changes in patterns of l...All low-fat diets are not equal, Stanford study shows
...rate and cholesterol. So the two groups' different levels of blood cholesterol change are attributable to the different foods - dark green salads and bean burritos, for example, versus iceberg lettuce and frozen pizza - and not differences in saturated fat and cholesterol intake. The randomized clinical tri...Annals of Internal Medicine tip sheet for May 3, 2005
...hole grains was better at lowering LDL cholesterol levels ('bad' cholesterol) than a similar diet without the veggies, a new study finds (Article, p. 725). In the four-week outpatient study, the two diets were identical in total fat, saturated fat, protein, carbohydrate and cholesterol but one included many...FDA approves Boostrix a new US vaccine for adolescents against pertussis
...he use of Boostrix induced anti-pertussis antibody levels which were non inferior to those observed in infan... to Infanrix, the ratio of geometric mean antibody levels to pertussis antigens following the use of Boostrix ranged from 1.9 to 7.3. In this observer-blinded...Diabetes and pizza: Slow and steady insulin delivery wins the race
...ts of that common favorite food. "Keeping glucose levels from jumping too high or dipping too low may help ...sease, which has been connected to erratic glucose levels in those with diabetes," said Robert Gabbay, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor of medicine, Penn Stat...Babies show ripple effects of mothers stress from 9/11 trauma
...s led researchers to believe that reduced cortisol levels observed in the adult children of Holocaust surviv...ait. "In the current study, reduced stress hormone levels were observed in infants, suggesting a larger role for very early environmental, genetic, or genetic...Mayo Clinic first to use pharmacogenomics to treat inherited kidney disorder of children
...herapy can effectively lower the dangerous oxalate levels in urine of patients with type I primary hyperoxal... profiles and their response rates to various dose levels of vitamin B6, the researchers found that a specific gene mutation governs how a patient will respon...Internet program launched to prevent blindness in diabetic patients
...of blindness are partially attributable to the low levels of screening. Screening identifies changes in the eye that the patient may not recognize. If treated early, blindness can be prevented." But, he said, among Medicare patients who have diabetes, more that 30 percent do not get the recommended annual e...Autism conference reports advances in early diagnosis, role of immune system and more
...tes and the immune system. These included elevated levels of immune system B cells and natural killer cells ...a, with cells from the autistic group having lower levels of cytokines, which help mediate the body's overall immune response and can also affect mood and beh...The relationship between clinical depression and chronic pain
...e research team set out to evaluate whether higher levels of symptoms of depression are associated with increased sensitivity to pressure-induced pain, as well as to determine which regions of the brain are involved in processing acute pain, chronic pain, and depressive symptoms. 42 healthy controls, 20 wo...A candidate biomarker to improve treatment of lupus patients
.... Activation of this pathway is indicated by high levels of expression of interferon-inducible genes (IFIGs...ey analyzed and compared all the blood samples for levels of IFIG expression. Overall, SLE patients scored higher than the other disease patients, as wel...Children with autism have distinctly different immune system reactions compared to typical children
...In response to bacteria, the researchers saw lower levels of protein molecules called cytokines in the group...rast, produced more varied cytokine levels: Higher levels of certain cytokines and lower levels of others. According to Van de Water and Ashwood, these stud...Recombinant DNA technology may enable oral, rather than injectable, delivery of protein drugs
...p an individual's white blood cell count at normal levels during chemotherapy. After that, the researchers needed to bring transferrin and G-CSF together, a process that is detailed in the PNAS paper. "Through recombinant DNA technology, we combined the genetic codes for both human transferrin and G-CSF to ...Research suggests molecular approaches to brain tumor treatment
... treatment of glioblastoma cells by increasing the levels of IL-13 receptor in brain tumors and thus making them more accessible to drugs targeting the receptor. The third research study focused on the search for novel specific molecular markers or targets in brain tumors. EphA2, a cell membrane-anchored pr...