Researchers from the Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah, have devised a better way to determine an individual's risk for problems, such as heart attack and heart failure, according to a new study.
The research team has developed the Intermountain Risk Score, a measurement tool that looks at age and sex, but also adds the results of routine blood tests, which are not included in the assessment system commonly used by physicians today.
JUPITER, FL, March 10, 2010 –– Using a novel light activation technique, Scripps Research Institute scientists have been able to turn molecules with only a modest ability to fight specific proteins into virtual protein destroyers.
The new technique, which uses a "warhead" molecule capable of inactivating nearby proteins when triggered by light, could help to accelerate the development of new therapies by providing researchers with a new set of research tools and options.
The presence of plaque on an abdominal CT scan is a strong predictor of coronary artery disease and mortality, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study.
Researchers found that patients are nearly 60 percent at risk of having coronary artery disease when the CT scan showed very high levels of abdominal aortic calcium, commonly known as plaque. High levels of the abdominal aortic calcium also increased their risk of dying, researchers say.
The drug regadenoson is safe and poses fewer side effects than the conventional medication used during a cardiac nuclear stress test of heart transplant patients, according to a Henry Ford Hospital study.
Researchers say the 25 patients in the study did not experience adverse side effects such as abnormally low blood pressure or slow heart beat when regadenoson was used during the stress test.
Additionally, patients showed no signs of heart block, a condition in which the signal from the heart's upper chamber is impaired or doesn't transmit.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For patients with diabetes and heart disease, less isn't always more — at least when it comes to blood pressure.
New data show an increased risk of heart attack, stroke or death for patients having blood pressure deemed too high — or too low, according to Rhonda Cooper-DeHoff, Pharm.D., an associate professor of pharmacy and medicine at UF. She reported her findings today (Sunday, March 14) at the American College of Cardiology's 59th annual scientific session in Atlanta.
Lowering blood pressure to normal levels – below currently recommended levels – did not significantly reduce the combined risk of fatal or nonfatal cardiovascular disease events in adults with type 2 diabetes who were at especially high risk for cardiovascular disease events, according to new results from the landmark Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) clinical trial.
Doha, Qatar – WWF and TRAFFIC welcome a World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies (WFCMS) statement urging its members not to use tiger bone or any other parts from endangered wildlife.
The statement was made at a symposium Friday in Beijing and notes that some of the claimed medicinal benefits of tiger bone have no basis. The use of tiger bones was removed from the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) pharmacopeia in 1993, when China first introduced a domestic ban on tiger trade.
In a lecture he delivered in 1906, the German physician Paul Ehrlich coined the term Zuberkugel, or "magic bullet," as shorthand for a highly targeted medical treatment.
Magic bullets, also called silver bullets, because of the folkloric belief that only silver bullets can kill supernatural creatures, remain the goal of drug development efforts today.
New findings that shed light on how genetic damage to muscle cell proteins can lead to the development of the rare muscle-wasting disease, nemaline myopathy, are reported today (15 March) in the Biochemical Journal.
Professor Laura Machesky and colleagues from the CRUK Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow, tested cultures of muscle cells that displayed mutations of the ACTA1 gene to determine how the mutations affected the biochemical pathways leading to the muscle damage seen in nemaline myopathy.
The American Thoracic Society has released a new official clinical policy statement on congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS), a disorder of respiratory and autonomic nervous system (ANS) regulation. The ANS regulates reflexive acts, including heart rate and blood pressure, digestion, body temperature and pain perception.
The statement appears in the March 15, 2010 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– By studying the hydra, a member of an ancient group of sea creatures that is still flourishing, scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a discovery in understanding the origins of human vision. The finding is published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British journal of biology.
Hydra are simple animals that, along with jellyfish, belong to the phylum cnidaria. Cnidarians first emerged 600 million years ago.
HAMILTON, CANADA: MARCH 11, 2010 –If you're the type of person who invokes the "not enough time" clause when it comes to exercising, it's time to find a new excuse. Researchers who have been studying interval training have found that it not only takes less time than what is typically recommended, but the regimen does not have to be "all out" to be effective in helping reduce the risk of such diseases at Type 2 diabetes.
The study appears in the March issue of The Journal of Physiology.
Blind scorpions that live in the stygian depths of caves are throwing light on a long-held assumption that specialized adaptations are irreversible evolutionary dead-ends. According to a new phylogenetic analysis of the family Typhlochactidae, scorpions currently living closer to the surface (under stones and in leaf litter) evolved independently on more than one occasion from ancestors adapted to life further below the surface (in caves). The research, currently available in an early online edition, will be published in the April issue of Cladistics.
The reluctance of securities analysts to recommend investment in veteran companies using new techniques to grapple with radical technological change may be harming these companies as they struggle to compete, according to a new study in the current issue of Organization Science, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®).
Scientists headed by ICREA researcher Marco Milán, at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB Barcelona), reveal a surprising new function of Notch protein that contrasts with the one known to date. Found in the cell membrane, this protein activates a signalling pathway that regulates the expression of genes that make the cell divide, grow, migrate, specialise or die. Notch activity is required for the correct development of organisms and for the maintenance of tissues in adults.