Casting for the Cure

An international team of scientists studying genetic causes of autism spectrum disorders by focusing on families where both parents shared a recent ancestor, found that seemingly diverse genes linked to autism had something in common in that many were triggered by by brain development that is regulated by early childhood experience.

The findings support the emerging and rather exciting notion that autism is caused by disruptions in the formation of new connections in a baby’s brain during early learning experiences, which coincides with autism’s onset during a child’s first twelve months of life. The findings add to the excitement in that they introduce the element of hope: perhaps it is possible to develop therapies to reactivate the disabled genes.

The study is the work of US scientists Dr Christopher Walsh, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and who also works at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and at Children’s Hospital Boston, and geneticist Dr Eric Morrow of Massachusetts General Hospital, and colleagues in the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Kuwait. It is published in the 11th July issue of the journal Science.

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Cholesterol has long been cited as bad for our health, known to increase risk for heart disease. New evidence suggests that one of the components of cholesterol HDL (the good cholesterol) may also play a role in how well older individuals retain their mental acuity.

A study of 3,673 civil servants found that participants with low levels of HDL were likely to suffer a decline in memory by the age of 60. The long-term investigation began in London in 1985. Blood samples were taken from the participants on two occasions, five years apart, and their short term verbal memory was assessed. Doctors recited a list of 20 words and the subjects were asked to write down as many as they remembered. The test was conducted at age 55 and again at age 60. Those with low HDL levels performed 27 percent worse at age 55, and at age 60 the gap was 63 percent worse compared to individuals with high levels of HDL.

The definition of low HDL was less than 40 milligrams per deciliter of blood, and high HDL was 60 mg or more. According to Archana Singh-Manoux, the lead author and a senior research fellow at University College London, and the French National Institute for Health and Medical Research, “A low level of HDL may be a risk factor for memory loss in late midlife, low HDL cholesterol might also be a risk factor for dementia.”

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Did you know that it is very possible to have a stroke and not immediately notice it? Not a myth, this can and does actually happen, making it very important for you to know the signs of a stroke, so that you can stay safe. A stroke is brain damage that is cause by a blood vessel that is being blocked or bleeding that is in the brain, and while these “silent strokes” may not catch your attention, they can cause damage.

A new study conducted found that 11 percent of people who thought they were healthy and in good condition actually had some brain damage from a silent stroke. This kind of stroke is a true stroke, but they don’t result in any symptoms that are noticeable. People that have had a silent stroke are at higher risk for subsequent strokes and for a loss of mental skills that is accelerated.

A research team led by Rohit Das, an M.D. from Boston University’s School of Medicine, reviewed MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scans of 2,040 patients that are participating in the Framingham Study, an ongoing study examining the relationship between the risk factors and subsequent cardiovascular events. The MRI scans were reviewed to find evidence of stroke. The average age of the participants was 62 and most were of European ancestry. None of the participants had a history of stroke or had any symptoms of a stroke.

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A study by an international team of researchers found that an experimental drug that stops blood vessels that feed tumors from forming was able, in a small number of patients, to slow down the progression of advanced thyroid cancer that has spread to other sites.

The study was the work of researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues in 10 other countries, and is published in today’s online issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

There are few treatment options for patients who have advanced metastatic thyroid cancer (where it has started to spread to other parts of the body) and the prognosis is generally poor. However, thyroid cancer is supported by a protein called VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) which helps blood vessels that feed the cancer tumour to grow, so the researchers were keen to find out if a new drug that blocks VEGF might help to slow tumors in thyroid cancer.

Lead author Dr Steven I Sherman, chair and professor of MD Anderson’s Department of Endocrine Neoplasia and Hormonal Disorders, explained the need to find effective treatments for advanced thyroid cancer:

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A new test that can detect multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis in two days instead of the standard two to three months promises to help significantly improve treatment and prevent the spread of the airborne infection, the World Health Organization said on Monday.

Experts discussed multiple-drug-resistant tuberculosis at a news conference Monday in Geneva. Dr. Mario C. Raviglione, second from right, of the W.H.O., said a new test was “revolutionary.”
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Multiple-drug-resistant TB, or MDR-TB, is a growing public health problem in the world. Five percent of new TB cases are resistant to first-line drugs. That is 450,000 of the nine million new TB cases that are detected each year, the W.H.O. says.

In the United States, the prevalence of drug-resistant tuberculosis among foreign-born TB patients has been about 1.5 percent, roughly three times the percentage among American-born patients with TB.

“The new test is revolutionary,” said Dr. Mario C. Raviglione, W.H.O.’s director of tuberculosis control, because “it changes completely the way we will be dealing with MDR-TB.”

The difficulty in detecting cases rapidly and accurately is a major obstacle in tuberculosis control. In most developing countries, cases cannot be detected easily or at all, leading to lags in starting proper treatment that can lead to a patient’s death and the further spread of resistant strains.

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High levels of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), the “bad” cholesterol, have long been associated with memory problems experienced by the elderly but new research on the effects of the high-density lipoproteins (HDL), shows that high levels of the “good” cholesterol in middle age are beneficial in maintaining good memory well into the twilight years and may reduce the chances of developing age-related dementia.

HDL and memory lossThe British Whitehall II study, a long-term study of the health of more than 10,000 British civil servants, isolated 3,673 study participants, of whom 26.8% were women, during phases 5 and 7 of the study, which began in 1985, to analyze the effect of HDL on memory function as the study participants reached middle age.

The presence of memory impairment in middle age is a strong indicator of dementia developing later in life. People who are 65 years and older are the fastest growing age group in the world’s industrialized countries and are at the most risk of developing dementia.

For the sake of the study, a low level of HDL was considered to be 40 mg/dL while 60 mg/dL or higher was considered high. Performance on memory tests and blood-fat content were compared from phase 5 of the study, conducted in 1995, when study participants were of the average age of 55, to the same study participants when their average age was 61, during phase 7 of the study in 2002.

The memory tests involved a participant’s ability to recall 20 short words read to them one word at a time at an interval of two seconds per word. After hearing all 20 words, consisting of only one or two syllables, the participant was given two minutes to write down as many words as he or she could remember.

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clinical trial will examine whether a new cancer treatment is as effective in humans as it’s proven to be in mice, say researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The treatment involves transfusing white blood cells called granulocytes from healthy young donors — whose immune systems produce cells with high levels of cancer-fighting activity — into patients with advanced cancer.

A similar treatment using white blood cells from cancer-resistant mice cured 100 percent of lab mice with advanced cancer.

“In mice, we’ve been able to eradicate even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors. Hopefully, we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans,” lead researcher Zheng Cui, associate professor of pathology, said in a prepare statement.

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