Body | Page 5016 | Science Codex

Getting help for depression and anxiety has significant long-term benefits

According to the Mood Disorder Society of Canada, about 1.3 million Canadians suffer from depression.

University of Alberta researcher Ian Colman says most people are not getting the type of treatment they need.

Colman, an assistant professor from the School of Public Health, and his research team decided to perform a study to see the long term effects of taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety medications.

The team studied a group of 200 people who were diagnosed with either depression or anxiety. Of that group, 45 were on medication.

Acupressure calms children before surgery

Irvine, Calif., Sept. 30, 2008 – An acupressure treatment applied to children undergoing anesthesia noticeably lowers their anxiety levels and makes the stress of surgery more calming for them and their families, UC Irvine anesthesiologists have learned.

Groundbreaking discovery may lead to stronger antibiotics

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Oct. 1, 2008 — The last decade has seen a dramatic decline in the effectiveness of antibiotics, resulting in a mounting public health crisis across the world. A new breakthrough by University of Virginia researchers provides physicians and patients a potential new approach toward the creation of less resistant and more effective antibiotics.

Research highlights of the October 2008 issue of Ophthalmology

SAN FRANCISCO, CA--- This month's Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, includes reports on the first large-scale visual acuity assessment of preschool children, the Baltimore Pediatric Eye Disease Study. Surprisingly, researchers found that one commonly-used vision test was so inaccurate that its usefulness is questionable. Also of note in this issue are two major, linked studies of infection risks associated with new and standard contact lens types.

Structures of important plant viruses determined

UPTON, NY - Flexible filamentous viruses make up a large fraction of known plant viruses and are responsible for more than half the viral damage to crop plants throughout the world. New details of their structures, which were poorly understood, have been revealed by scientists using a variety of sophisticated imaging techniques at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborating institutions.

Canada's shores saved animals from devastating climate change

The shorelines of ancient Alberta, British Columbia and the Canadian Arctic were an important refuge for some of the world's earliest animals, most of which were wiped out by a mysterious global extinction event some 252 million years ago.

Caltech scientists find cells coordinate gene activity with FM bursts

PASADENA, Calif.-- How a cell achieves the coordinated control of a number of genes at the same time, a process that's necessary for it to regulate its own behavior and development, has long puzzled scientists. Michael Elowitz, an assistant professor of biology and applied physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), along with Long Cai, a postdoctoral research scholar at Caltech, and graduate student Chiraj Dalal, have discovered a surprising answer.

MRI spots DCIS in mice

A new magnetic resonance imaging procedure can detect very early breast cancer in mice, including ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a precursor to invasive cancer. Some of the tumors detected were less than 300 microns in diameter, the smallest cancers ever detected by MRI.

Sirtris' review of sirtuin therapeutics for diseases of aging in Nature Reviews Drug Discovery

CAMBRIDGE, MA [October 1, 2008] – Sirtris, a GSK company focused on discovering and developing small molecule drugs to treat diseases of aging such as Type 2 Diabetes, announced today that it published a new review article on the growing body of sirtuin research and its potential to treat diseases of aging such as Type 2 Diabetes, mitochondrial disorders, inflammation, cancer, and heart disease. Entitled "SIRTUINS – Novel Therapeutic Targets to Treat Age-Associated Diseases," the review appears in today's issue of the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery.

Childhood wheezing with rhinovirus can increase asthma odds 10-fold

Infants who experience viral respiratory illnesses with wheezing are known to be at increased risk for developing asthma later during childhood. It is not known, however, whether every type of respiratory virus that produces wheezing presents similar risk. Using new molecular techniques to identify different viruses, researchers now believe they have pinpointed the biggest culprit: rhinovirus (RV).

Beta-blockers reduce mortality in patients with COPD after vascular surgery

In the first study to directly examine the effects of beta-blockers on surgical patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), researchers have found that, contrary to previous thought, beta-blockers significantly reduce mortality in COPD patients.

"Patients with COPD frequently have unrecognized, atherosclerotic disease. This is also a major cause for late morbidity and mortality," said principle investigator Don Poldermans, M.D., Ph.D., of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

Research suggests doctors should consider kidney-sparing surgery

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C – A study of almost 1,500 kidney cancer patients treated at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center suggests that surgery to spare as much kidney tissue as possible may improve overall survival in patients who also have reduced kidney function at the time their cancer is diagnosed. The finding is significant because both kidney cancer and decreased kidney function appear to be increasing.

Vitamin C supplements may reduce benefit from wide range of anti-cancer drugs

PHILADELPHIA – In pre-clinical studies, vitamin C appears to substantially reduce the effectiveness of anticancer drugs, say researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

These new findings, published in the October 1 issue of Cancer Research, a publication of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), came from studying laboratory cancer cells and mice, but the study's authors say the same mechanism may affect patient outcomes, although they add this premise needs to be tested.

Saliva proteins could help detection of oral cancer

PHILADELPHIA – Clinicians could detect oral squamous cell carcinoma, a form of oral cancer, using a simple test that detects proteins in saliva, according to a report in the October 1, 2008, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. This work was led by David T. Wong, D.M.D., D.M.Sc., professor and associate dean for research, at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Dentistry.

Shade trees can protect coffee crops

Sustainable farming that employs shade trees may improve crops' resistance to temperature and precipitation extremes that climate changes are expected to trigger, according to an article published in the October issue of BioScience. The article, by Brenda B. Lin, Ivette Perfecto, and John Vandermeer, of the University of Michigan, focuses on coffee production, although their conclusions could be applicable to other economically important crops, including cocoa and tea, which also were traditionally grown under shade trees.