Researchers at The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine have discovered the mechanism by which a low dose of the opioid antagonist naltrexone (LDN), an agent used clinically (off-label) to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases, exerts a profound inhibitory effect on cell proliferation. It has been postulated that opioid receptor blockade by LDN provokes a compensatory elevation in endogenous opioids and opioid receptors that can function after LDN is no longer available.
Body
PHILADELPHIA – "You are what you eat" is familiar enough, but how deep do the implications go? An interdisciplinary group of investigators from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have found an association between long-term dietary patterns and the bacteria of the human gut. In a study of 98 healthy volunteers, the gut bacteria separated into two distinct groups, called enterotypes, that were associated with long-term consumption of either a typical Western diet rich in meat and fat versus a more agrarian diet rich in plant material.
Every cell in the human body contains a complex system to transport essential cargoes such as proteins and membrane vesicles, from point A to point B. These tiny molecular motor proteins move at blistering speeds on miniature railways carrying components of the cell to their proper destinations.
WHAT: A new study reports that a drug already approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in patients undergoing a bone marrow transplant may also have promise for treating people who have a rare immune deficiency known as WHIM syndrome. People with the syndrome are more susceptible to potentially life-threatening bacterial and viral infections, particularly human papillomavirus infections, which cause skin and genital warts and can lead to cancer.
A total of 569.2 million board feet of softwood logs and 232.2 million board feet of softwood lumber were exported from the West coast in April, May, and June, according to the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest (PNW) Research Station.
"The volume of softwood log exports was up 37.8 percent from 413.1 million board feet in the first quarter of 2011, while the volume of softwood lumber exports was up 3.3 percent from 224.9 million board feet," said Debra Warren, a research economist with the station.
Joint injury can result in irreversible damage of cartilage which, despite treatment and surgery, often eventually leads to osteoarthritis (OA) in later life. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Arthritis Research & Therapy demonstrates that short term treatment of damaged cartilage with glucocorticoids can reduce long term degenerative changes and may provide hope for prevention of OA after injury.
Like snakes, tumour cells shed their skin. Cancer is not a static disease but during its development the disease accumulates changes to evade natural defences adapting to new environmental circumstances, protecting against chemotherapy and radiotherapy and invading neighbouring organs, eventually causing metastasis.
Loud noise, especially repeated loud noise, is known to cause irreversible damage to the hair cells inside the cochlea and eventually lead to deafness. In mammals this is irreversible, however both birds and fish are able to re-grow the damaged hair cells and restore hearing. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Neuroscience shows that growth hormone is involved in this regeneration in zebrafish.
Noninvasive sampling has been used in studies of endangered animals. It has the advantage of obtaining samples without affecting the target animals. However, the quality of DNA obtained by such methods is often poor and this can affect the reliability of the results. Therefore, how to obtain reliable results from samples obtained noninvasively is of widespread interest. Professor LI Baoguo and Guo Songtao at the Key Laboratory of Resource Biology and Biotechnology in Western China, Ministry of Education, College of Life Sciences, Northwest University, set out to tackle this problem.
In the first long-term study of the health impacts of the World Trade Center (WTC) collapse on September 11, 2001, researchers at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York have found substantial and persistent mental and physical health problems among 9/11 first responders and recovery workers. The data are published this week in a special 9/11 issue of the medical journal Lancet.
September 1, 2011 – (BRONX, NY) – In the largest cancer study of firefighters ever conducted, research published in this week's 9/11 Special Issue of The Lancet found that New York City firefighters exposed to the 9/11 World Trade Center (WTC) disaster site were at least 19 percent more likely to develop cancer in the seven years following the disaster as their non-exposed colleagues and up to 10 percent more likely to develop cancer than a similar sample from the general population.
Researchers at the University of Bath have combined genetic data with mathematical modelling to provide insights into cells and how they differentiate. The findings, to be published in open-access journal PLoS Genetics on September 1st, demonstrate the utility of a systems biology approach and could have implications for understanding and treating diseases, including cancers, caused when cells start to function incorrectly.
DURHAM, N.C. – Researchers at Duke University Medical Center, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School have demonstrated an approach to HIV vaccine design that uses an altered form of HIV's outer coating or envelope protein.
DURHAM, NC -- Most AIDS patients, when diagnosed with a fungal infection known simply as cryptococcosis, are assumed to have an infection with Cryptococcus neoformans, but a recent study from Duke University Medical Center suggests that a sibling species, Cryptococcus gattii, is a more common cause than was previously known.
The difference between these strains could make a difference in treatment, clinical course, and outcome, said Joseph Heitman, M.D., Ph.D., senior author of the study and chair of the Duke Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology.
DENVER, Sept. 1, 2011 — With citizens' groups seeking government regulation of foul-smelling ammonia emissions from large dairy farms, scientists today reported that adding natural plant extracts to cow feed can reduce levels of the gas by one-third while reducing the need to fortify cow feed with expensive protein supplements. They reported here at the 242nd National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS).