The men's 100 meters: How fast could they go?

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New Seal Flu Could Pose Threat to Humans

HealthDay – 1 hr 50 mins ago TUESDAY, July 31 (HealthDay News) -- A new influenza strain found in New England harbor seals could potentially threaten people as well as wildlife, new research suggests.

Scientists cautioned that viruses like the newly discovered seal flu must be monitored in order to predict new strains and prevent a pandemic flu emerging from animals.

The report was published online July 31 in mBio.

"There is a concern that we have a new mammalian-transmissible virus to which humans haven't been exposed yet. It's a combination we haven't seen in disease before," report editor Dr. Anne Moscona, professor of pediatrics and of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City, said in a journal news release.

Another expert agreed that the flu strain could someday pose a threat to people.

"Infections that threaten wildlife and human lives remind us how our health is intermingled on this dynamic planet," said Dr. Bruce Hirsch, attending physician in infectious diseases at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y. He said that while transmission via direct contact between humans and harbor seals is unlikely, the virus could find other ways to get to people.

"A dangerous virus infecting mammals increases the risk to us -- not by direct infection -- but by evolutionary development of even more riskier strains," Hirsch explained. For example, he said, the strain might pass from seals to birds, expand its presence in the environment and mutate in ways that make it easily passed to or between humans.

Scientists from several organizations, including Columbia University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, co-wrote the new report. They said that flu viruses found in mammals, such as the H1N1 "swine flu" that emerged in 2009, can put people's health at risk. The new seal flu, they warned, presents a similar threat to humans.

The researchers analyzed the DNA of a virus linked to the death of 162 harbor seals in 2011 off the coasts of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine. Five autopsies revealed that the seals died from infection with a type of flu known as H3N8.

The report pointed out that the seal flu is very similar to a flu strain found in North American birds since 2002. The virus, the researchers noted, adapted to living in mammals. It also has mutations that are known to make viruses easier to spread and more dangerous. They added the seal flu, which is able to target a protein found in the human respiratory tract, may have the potential to move between species.

The researchers warned that pandemic flu can originate in unexpected ways, so preparation is essential.

"Flu could emerge from anywhere and our readiness has to be much better than we previously realized. We need to be very nimble in our ability to identify and understand the potential risks posed by new viruses emerging from unexpected sources," said Moscona. "It's important to realize that viruses can emerge through routes that we haven't considered. We need to be alert to those risks and ready to act on them."

Still, viral strains typically must undergo several key mutations to become the source of a human pandemic, Hirsch said.

"Each time the flu virus infects a cell, it is a roll of the dice," he said. "There are eight separate segments of genes inside the virus -- simple viral versions of chromosomes -- which recombine at random, producing unique viruses. Cells can be infected with multiple viruses, so a dangerous gene from a bird can get mixed in with a gene that makes it easy to infect humans."

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on the spread of flu viruses from animals to people.

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Depression Could Shorten Cancer Survival, Study Suggests

HealthDay – 2 hrs 57 mins ago WEDNESDAY, Aug. 1 (HealthDay News) -- Symptoms of depression are linked to shorter survival times among cancer patients, according to a new study.

The link may be attributed to abnormal stress hormone regulation and inflammatory gene expression, researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center reported in the Aug. 1 edition of PLoS ONE.

"Our findings, and those of others, suggest that mental health and social well-being can affect biological processes, which influence cancer-related outcomes," Lorenzo Cohen, a professor in the center's departments of general oncology and behavioral science, and director of the Integrative Medicine Program, said in a university news release.

The findings "also suggest that screening for mental health should be part of standard care because there are well-accepted ways of helping people manage distress, even in the face of a life-threatening illness," Cohen added.

In conducting the study, the researchers analyzed surveys completed over a five-year period by 217 patients newly diagnosed with kidney cancer that had spread. The participants answered questions about how religious and spiritual they were. They were also asked about their symptoms of depression, social support, quality of life and coping skills.

The patients also provided blood samples as well as five saliva samples daily for three days. The researchers used the saliva samples to track changes in the patients' levels of cortisol, a stress hormone that is usually high in the morning before dropping throughout the day.

At the time of the analysis, 64 percent of the patients had died. The average amount of time these patients survived after being diagnosed was 1.8 years.

Overall, the study revealed that 23 percent of patients were clinically depressed. Even after taking other disease-related risk factors into account, the investigators noted that depression was associated with shorter survival time. Moreover, the study showed that higher than usual cortisol levels throughout the day were also linked to shorter survival among the cancer patients.

Using tissue samples from 15 of the patients with the most significant symptoms of depression and 15 samples from the patients with the mildest forms of depression, the researchers then conducted whole-genome profiling to determine if the depression is linked to increased risk of death for cancer patients.

They found specific signaling pathways, which play a key role in regulating cell inflammation, were expressed at increased levels in patients with depression. The study authors concluded the link between patients' mental health and survival time is associated with inflammatory gene regulation.

"Our findings indicate that we're now able to understand some of the possible biological pathways that explain the association between depression and survival," Cohen noted.

The researchers noted that the study was limited by the fact that it's difficult to determine if patients' stress or symptoms of depression are influenced by other factors or were present before their cancer diagnosis. While the study uncovered an association between depression and cancer survival, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

More research is needed to investigate if the treatment of depression can improve survival time among cancer patients with mild, moderate or severe mood disorders, the authors added.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about cancer and depression.

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Abandoning PSA Screening Could Cost Lives: Study

HealthDay – 1 hr 7 mins ago MONDAY, July 30 (HealthDay News) -- In the wake of a widely publicized report advising against prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing for prostate cancer, a new study finds not screening would triple the number of U.S. men developing advanced cancer.

Testing, on the other hand, might keep some 17,000 men each year from receiving a diagnosis of late-stage prostate cancer -- cancer that has spread and is far less curable -- the study finds.

"PSA testing, for all its pluses and minuses and all that . . . permits you to catch the disease earlier," said lead researcher Dr. Edward Messing, chair of urology at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, N.Y.

"These people are all going to die, they are going to die incredibly expensively and die miserably," he said, referring to the many men whose diagnoses would be delayed by not testing. "I don't know that all these people could be saved with PSA testing," but many could, he added.

The report was published online July 30 in the journal Cancer.

Messing said the annual number of prostate cancer deaths dropped from about 42,000 in the 1990s to 28,000 now. "The only thing that can explain that is PSA early detection and treatment," he said.

Many cases of prostate cancer are not life-threatening, which is why testing is controversial. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) in May recommended against routine PSA screening, saying too many non-lethal cancers were being treated aggressively, exposing men who didn't need treatment to serious side effects such as impotence and urinary incontinence.

But Messing disagreed with that advice. Condemning PSA testing "wasn't a brilliant conclusion," he said.

For the new study, Messing's team compared information from the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database for the years 1983 to 1985 -- immediately before widespread PSA testing started --- to data from 2006 through 2008.

In the 2008 data, 8,000 cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed after the malignancy had spread to other parts of the body.

Using these cases as a base, the researchers constructed a model that used data of advanced cancer diagnosed in the 1980s and predicted how many cases of advanced cancer would have been diagnosed in 2008 if PSA testing was not done.

Their model showed instead of 8,000 actual cases in 2008, about 25,000 cases would have been diagnosed.

But the USPSTF maintains the benefits of testing are overrated. "The task force recommends against prostate cancer screening using the PSA test, as the potential benefit does not outweigh the harms," said Dr. Michael LeFevre, co-vice chair of the task force and professor in the department of family and community medicine at the University of Missouri School of Medicine.

As a result of treatments for PSA-detected prostate cancer, one out of 1,000 men screened in the United States develops a blood clot in his legs or lungs, two will have a heart attack or stroke, and up to 40 are left impotent or with urinary incontinence, LeFevre said.

"At best, only one of these 1,000 men who were screened avoids dying from prostate cancer for at least 10 years," LeFevre said. "In addition, about one in every 3,000 men screened dies as a result of surgery to treat cancer detected by the PSA test."

Still, the task force recognizes that "some men may continue requesting the PSA test and some physicians may continue offering it," LeFevre said.

Before getting this blood test -- which measures a protein in cells of the prostate gland -- men should learn about the pros and cons, he said. "The decision to start or continue screening should reflect an understanding of the possible benefits and known harms, and should respect each individual's preferences."

Messing advises men with a family history of prostate cancer or urinary symptoms to have a PSA test. Men with no family history or symptoms should discuss PSA testing with their doctor, he added.

Messing pointed out that screening-detected cancer doesn't mean surgery, chemotherapy or radiation treatment must follow. Most cases can be watched for some time, he said.

Dr. Otis Brawley, chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society, said over the past few years a number of studies have been published on the benefits and harms of PSA testing.

"None of these studies can be considered decisive other than in proving that there are some harms associated with treatment," he said. The American Cancer Society still supports screening for certain men in consultation with a physician.

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men in the United States. In 2012, more than 240,000 new cases are expected to be diagnosed, and 28,000 men will die from the disease, researchers say.

More information

For more information on prostate cancer, visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

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How Computers Could Reduce the Spread of HIV

Scientific American – Fri, Jul 27, 2012 Visualization of computer model showing HIV risk behaviors; red dots are injection drug users that engage in needle sharing or unprotected sex; courtesy of Brandon Marshall/Brown University

Condom use, earlier treatment and increased education have gone a long way to reducing HIV spread in the U.S. Nonetheless, some 4,000 inhabitants of New York City still became infected with HIV in 2009.

Injection drug users make up a small portion of the new infections (just over 4 percent in NYC, and about 9 percent nationally), but they represent a finite and targetable population that can benefit from low-cost and well-vetted programs, such as needle exchanges.

Establishing even better needle exchange programs or more widespread substance-abuse treatment opportunities might help to limit these new infections among drug users. But finding out how effective these prevention programs truly are with scientifically controlled studies can take years and lots of money. If only researchers could run computer simulations to come up with some answers, as they do to model other complex systems

Now they might just be able to, with the help of a high-power, automated version of what you could call Sims for the urban class. The goal of the computer model, conceived of in part by Brandon Marshall, an epidemiologist at Brown University, is to

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New drug could help maintain long-term weight loss

ScienceDaily (July 26, 2012) — A new drug could aid in losing weight and keeping it off. The drug, described in the journal Cell Metabolism on July 26, increases sensitivity to the hormone leptin, a natural appetite suppressant found in the body. Although so far the new drug has only been tested on mice, the findings have implications for the development of new treatments for obesity in humans.

See Also:Health & MedicineObesityDiet and Weight LossFitnessPharmacologyDiseases and ConditionsControlled SubstancesReferenceAppetiteAnti-obesity drugDetoxBlood sugar

"By sensitizing the body to naturally occurring leptin, the new drug could not only promote weight loss, but also help maintain it," says senior study author George Kunos of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. "This finding bodes well for the development of a new class of compounds for the treatment of obesity and its metabolic consequences."

Although leptin is an appetite suppressant, leptin supplements alone have not been effective at reducing body weight in humans. It's thought that this is because of desensitization to the hormone; leptin is still there, but our bodies can no longer respond to it. While it is not entirely clear how this desensitization occurs, cannabinoid receptors, which mediate the feelings of hunger produced by marijuana and naturally occurring cannabinoids in the body, are thought to be involved. So blocking these receptors, rather than providing excess leptin, could be more effective at long-term weight loss. Knowing that marijuana use causes the munchies, scientists had developed anti-obesity drugs that target cannabinoid receptor type 1 (CB1R). One CB1R-binding drug called rimonabant was sold in Europe beginning in 2006, but it was taken off the market a few years later due to serious psychiatric side effects, including anxiety, depression and thoughts of suicide.

To minimize these side effects, Kunos and his team previously developed a CB1R-targeting drug that did not enter the brain as easily as rimonabant. However, the drug was not as effective at reducing weight and improving metabolic health, possibly because of its specific mode of action. In the new study, Kunos tested a new compound, JD5037, that targets CB1R without penetrating the brain. JD5037suppressed the appetite of obese mice, caused weight loss, and even improved metabolic health, in part by resensitizing mice to the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin. Importantly, the mice did not show signs of anxiety or other behavioral side effects.

"Obesity is a growing public health problem, and there is a strong need for new types of medications to treat obesity and its serous metabolic complications, including diabetes and fatty liver disease," says Kunos.

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Lower vitamin D could increase risk of dying, especially for frail, older adults

ScienceDaily (July 26, 2012) — A new study concludes that among older adults -- especially those who are frail -- low levels of vitamin D can mean a much greater risk of death.

See Also:Health & MedicineVitamin DVitaminCholesterolDietary SupplementVitamin CVitamin BReferenceB vitaminsEssential nutrientVitamin DNutrition and pregnancy

The randomized, nationally representative study found that older adults with low vitamin D levels had a 30 percent greater risk of death than people who had higher levels.

Overall, people who were frail had more than double the risk of death than those who were not frail. Frail adults with low levels of vitamin D tripled their risk of death over people who were not frail and who had higher levels of vitamin D.

"What this really means is that it is important to assess vitamin D levels in older adults, and especially among people who are frail," said lead author Ellen Smit of Oregon State University.

Smit said past studies have separately associated frailty and low vitamin D with a greater mortality risk, but this is the first to look at the combined effect. This study, published online in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, examined more than 4,300 adults older than 60 using data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

"Older adults need to be screened for vitamin D," said Smit, who is a nutritional epidemiologist at OSU's College of Public Health and Human Sciences. Her research is focused on diet, metabolism, and physical activity in relation to both chronic disease and HIV infection.

"As you age, there is an increased risk of melanoma, but older adults should try and get more activity in the sunshine," she said. "Our study suggests that there is an opportunity for intervention with those who are in the pre-frail group, but could live longer, more independent lives if they get proper nutrition and exercise."

Frailty is when a person experiences a decrease in physical functioning characterized by at least three of the following five criteria: muscle weakness, slow walking, exhaustion, low physical activity, and unintentional weight loss. People are considered "pre-frail" when they have one or two of the five criteria.

Because of the cross-sectional nature of the survey, researchers could not determine if low vitamin D contributed to frailty, or whether frail people became vitamin D deficient because of health problems. However, Smit said the longitudinal analysis on death showed it may not matter which came first.

"If you have both, it may not really matter which came first because you are worse off and at greater risk of dying than other older people who are frail and who don't have low vitamin D," she said. "This is an important finding because we already know there is a biological basis for this. Vitamin D impacts muscle function and bones, so it makes sense that it plays a big role in frailty."

The study divided people into four groups. The low group had levels less than 50 nanograms per milliliter; the highest group had vitamin D of 84 or higher. In general, those who had lower vitamin D levels were more likely to be frail.

About 70 percent of Americans, and up to a billion people worldwide, have insufficient levels of vitamin D. And during the winter months in northern climates, it can be difficult to get enough just from the sun. OSU's Linus Pauling Institute recommends adults take 2,000 IU of supplemental vitamin D daily. The current federal guidelines are 600 IU for most adults, and 800 for those older than 70.

"We want the older population to be able to live as independent for as long as possible, and those who are frail have a number of health problems as they age," Smit said. "A balanced diet including good sources of vitamin D like milk and fish, and being physically active outdoors, will go a long way in helping older adults to stay independent and healthy for longer."

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Could Germs on Your Skin Be Good for You?

HealthDay – 1 hr 11 mins ago THURSDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Colonies of bacteria that call your skin home may help direct your immune system to fend off pathogens and other threats, new research in mice suggests.

In the study, researchers introduced a parasite (Leishmania major) that causes skin infections to several groups of mice. One group was bred to have none of the normally present microbe colonies on their skin. A second group had typically present microbe communities, called "commensal bacteria," on their skin.

Mice with no skin microbes couldn't mount an effective defense against the parasite. In simple terms, they had far more bugs in their ears than mice with the normal skin microbial communities.

After the researchers introduced common bacteria found on the skin -- Staphylococcus epidermidis -- to the bacteria-free mice, their immune systems became much more effective in fending off the parasite.

The results suggest that skin bacteria, like bacteria found on other parts of the body, are important for a healthy immune system, the researchers said.

"The skin bacteria are really critical for controlling immune cells in the skin. They educate immune cells, tell them what to do," explained study author Shruti Naik, a doctoral candidate at University of Pennsylvania and research fellow at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The pathogen is stealthy, like a burglar. It doesn't want the immune system to detect it. The commensals stimulate the immune system, acting as an alarm saying, 'There is a bug here. You need to fight and ward off this bug.'"

The study is published in the July 26 issue of Science.

A growing body of research suggests that the microbes living in various places on human bodies -- nasal passages, mouth, gastrointestinal tract, urogenital tract and skin -- play an important, though not fully understood, role in human health. So far, microbes of the gut have been the best studied, Naik said.

"It's becoming more and more clear that bacteria that live with you are really important for human health. A lot of the focus of research is in understanding the importance of bacteria in the gut," Naik noted. "But there

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Could Gene Doping Be Part of Future Olympics?

HealthDay – 1 hr 11 mins ago THURSDAY, July 26 (HealthDay News) -- Despite all the training, sweat, dedication and sacrifice that goes into becoming an Olympic competitor, these elite athletes also tend to have an advantage that average sports lovers lack: superior DNA. Just like eye color or a keen intellect, a constellation of the "right" genes can grace certain athletes with world-class speed, strength and endurance.

But with the advent of gene therapy -- technology on the cusp of helping treat grave illnesses -- are the days of "natural selection" of super-athletes coming to an end?

Genetics and athletics experts fear that the 2012 Olympic Games, opening Friday in London, may be the last without competitors secretly hinging their gold medal hopes on "gene doping" -- modifying their DNA to make themselves bigger, stronger or faster -- and that such gene manipulation may one day match the use of illicit performance-enhancing substances.

"Gene doping has been sort of smoldering as a theoretical possibility for at least two or three sets of Olympic Games," said Dr. Ted Friedmann, chair of the genetics panel of the World Anti-Doping Agency. "If you ask me how many more years it'll be before it's done, well, I'd say a very long time. But how many more years before some idiot does something stupid? That could be tomorrow," he added.

"The technology is ripe for abuse by badly trained people," explained Friedmann, also director of the Center for Molecular Genetics at the University of California, San Diego. "The chance of effectiveness if done by current methods is almost nil."

According to an article published July 19 in the journal Nature, more than 200 gene variants have been associated with athletic prowess, including a variant of the ACE gene linked to endurance and an alternative copy of the ACTN3 gene -- dubbed the "speed gene" and found in nearly every male Olympic sprinter ever tested.

While therapeutic gene therapy -- injecting foreign DNA into muscle or bone to change a person's genetic makeup, creating proteins that infiltrate tissue or blood -- still carries too many side effects be widely used, cases already exist of doping where the protein (rather than the gene that encodes it) is taken to improve performance, said Dr. Kathryn North, an Australian researcher whose 2010 study on the ACTN3 gene helped establish its link to sprinters and power athletes.

Examples include the manipulation of the EPO gene, which increases hemoglobin levels, boosting blood's oxygen-carrying capabilities, she said. Finnish athlete Eero Mantyranta, the winner of seven Olympic cross-country skiing medals, naturally carries such a mutation, elevating his oxygen-carrying capacity by 25 percent to 50 percent, according to the Nature article.

Tests to root out gene-doping are still being developed and aren't ready for prime time, but apparently these rogue proteins can already be detected.

"Gene-doping is not yet a reality, but the technology to detect doping will evolve along with the techniques to misuse the new genetic technologies," said North, head of the Institute for Neuroscience and Muscle Research at the Children's Hospital at Westmead in Australia.

Indeed, an air of inevitability about gene-doping permeates, though Olympics officials will concentrate for the moment on the 4,500 tests already available for banned substances in their efforts to keep the 2012 Games clean.

Robert Kersey, director of the Athletic Training Education Program at California State University in Fullerton, predicted that the pressure to win -- twinned with monetary pressure from corporate sponsors -- will combine to make gene-doping irresistible to some world-class athletes.

"Humans are greedy and if there's money to be made, people are willing to take those risks," said Kersey, also a professor of kinesiology. "Everyone involved has the potential to make money or fame or fortune out of it . . . you're never going to convince every person who wants to win a gold medal that they shouldn't bend the rules if they feel they have a real chance of winning."

But North and Friedmann pointed out that merely having a favorable gene -- whether for athleticism or any other trait -- doesn't guarantee that gene will express itself in the desired way. A specific combination of many gene variants, in addition to training, environment and attitude, "really make up the complex phenotype that is the elite athlete," North said.

Added Friedmann: "Genes work in an enormously complicated set of interactions, and no gene works by itself. If you have the gene for speed or endurance, all the other genes you carry that

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Diets high in salt could deplete calcium in the body

ScienceDaily (July 24, 2012) — When sodium leaves a body, it takes calcium along with it, creating risk for kidney stones and osteoporosis.

See Also:Health & MedicineOsteoporosisFood AdditivesWomen's HealthPlants & AnimalsBiologyMolecular BiologyBiotechnologyReferenceElectrolyteDietary mineralKidney stoneSaliva

The scientific community has always wanted to know why people who eat high-salt diets are prone to developing medical problems such as kidney stones and osteoporosis.

Medical researchers at the University of Alberta may have solved this puzzle through their work with animal lab models and cells.

Principal investigator Todd Alexander and his team recently discovered an important link between sodium and calcium. These both appear to be regulated by the same molecule in the body. When sodium intake becomes too high, the body gets rid of sodium via the urine, taking calcium with it, which depletes calcium stores in the body. High levels of calcium in the urine lead to the development of kidney stones, while inadequate levels of calcium in the body lead to thin bones and osteoporosis.

"When the body tries to get rid of sodium via the urine, our findings suggest the body also gets rid of calcium at the same time," says Alexander, a Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry researcher whose findings were recently published in the peer-reviewed journal American Journal of Physiology -- Renal Physiology.

"This is significant because we are eating more and more sodium in our diets, which means our bodies are getting rid of more and more calcium. Our findings reinforce why it is important to have a low-sodium diet and why it is important to have lower sodium levels in processed foods."

It's been known for a long time that this important molecule was responsible for sodium absorption in the body, but the discovery that it also plays a role in regulating calcium levels is new.

"We asked a simple question with our research -- could sodium and calcium absorption be linked? And we discovered they are," says Alexander.

"We found a molecule that seems to have two jobs -- regulating the levels of both calcium and sodium in the body. Our findings provide very real biological evidence that this relationship between sodium and calcium is real and linked."

In their research, the team worked with lab models that didn't have this important molecule, so the models' urine contained high levels of calcium. Because calcium was not absorbed and retained by the body, bones became thin.

A journal editorial written about this research discovery noted the molecule could be a drug target to one day "treat kidney stones and osteoporosis."

The primary funder of the research was the Kidney Foundation of Canada.

"We are proud to support the research of Dr. Todd Alexander," said Wim Wolfs, National Director of Research of The Kidney Foundation of Canada. "Data in the United States shows that nearly 10% of adults will have a kidney stone at least once in their life. The prevalence of kidney stones also seems to be increasing in the U.S., which may be attributed to high rates of obesity and diabetes, along with possibly increased salt intake."

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European rabbis fear circumcision row could spread

A group of Orthodox rabbis warned Wednesday that the ancient Jewish practice of infant male circumcision could face further restrictions in Europe after some hospitals in Austria and Switzerland suspended the procedure by citing a German court ruling that it could amount to criminal bodily harm.

Last month's verdict by a regional court in Cologne didn't ban circumcision. But it prompted angry protests from Jewish and Muslims groups, especially after the German Medical Association advised doctors not to perform unnecessary circumcisions until the legal situation is clarified

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Wheels could wobble on Britain's outsourcing drive

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Mouse With Human-Like Immune System Could Advance AIDS Research

HealthDay – Thu, Jul 19, 2012 WEDNESDAY, July 18 (HealthDay News) -- Scientists who created mice with elements of the human immune system believe the rodents will further efforts to develop a vaccine against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

One of the challenges facing researchers striving to develop an HIV vaccine has been the lack of a laboratory animals that accurately reflect the human response to HIV and how the virus evolves to avoid that response.

The U.S. team of scientists transplanted human bone marrow cells and other human tissue into mice without a functioning immune system. This gave the mice aspects of the human immune system.

"Our study showed not only that these humanized mice mount human immune responses against HIV but also that the ability of HIV to evade these responses by mutating viral proteins targeted by CD8 'killer' T-cells is accurately reflected in these mice," study senior author Todd Allen, an associate professor medicine at the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard, explained in a MGH news release.

T-cells are immune cells that protect the body from infection.

The mice might significantly reduce the time and costs required to test experimental HIV vaccines, according to the researchers.

The study was published in the July 18 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine.

More information

The New Mexico AIDS Education and Training Center has more about HIV/AIDS vaccines.

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Many Medicaid Patients Skip Drugs That Could Prevent Heart Trouble

HealthDay – 1 hr 22 mins ago FRIDAY, July 20 (HealthDay News) -- Many Medicaid recipients with chronic health conditions that can lead to heart disease -- diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol -- do not take their prescribed medications, a new study has found.

The researchers said failure to take medications leads to higher costs of care and an increased risk of hospitalization and even death.

They looked at 2008 and 2009 data from more than 150,000 Medicaid patients in New York City, aged 20 to 64, and found that only 63 percent of those with the three chronic conditions took their prescribed medications. Older patients and white and Asian patients were most likely to take their medications, while black and Hispanic patients were least likely.

"The outcome of this study is concerning, as it shows a large number of people with chronic conditions that lead to cardiovascular disease aren't taking prescribed medications, which could prevent a potential stroke or heart attack," lead author Dr. Kelly Kyanko, an instructor in the department of population health at the NYU Langone Medical Center, said in a center news release.

"We hope these findings will help local health authorities in the New York City area address this problem by creating programs to increase adherence rates, specifically in patient populations most at risk," Kyanko added.

The study was published online recently in the Journal of Urban Health.

"We believe that patients and their doctors can work to improve medication adherence through simple measures such as switching to once-a-day or combination pills, keeping a pill box and obtaining 90-day refills instead of 30-day refills for medications they take on a regular basis," Kyanko said.

High-risk patients may require more intensive interventions, such as working with a nurse or pharmacist to ensure they take their prescribed medications, she added.

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death both in New York and in the United States, according to the release.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlines ways to prevent heart disease.

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Drugs 'arsenal' could help end AIDS: WHO

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States saying no to 'Obamacare' could see downside

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Rapid HIV Test Could Reduce Stigma and Curtail Disease

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has launched an initiative to motivate people to get tested for HIV. A free rapid test is being offered in select pharmacies nationwide, within their small clinics, which involves a swab test that renders results in approximately 20 minutes, the Associated Press reports. If the result is positive, the patient is sent to a department of health or other clinic to have the result confirmed by blood test.

With an estimated 1.1 million Americans infected with the disease and an estimated 20 percent of them unaware, this is a wise move to help to curtail the spread of the disease. So many people are unaware of the facts about HIV and AIDS that perhaps being confronted by the testing center and the information offered there will prompt people to know more. In the back of so many minds is the fear the possibility of infection exists.

Too many people still believe HIV and AIDS are the disease of gay men and drug users. While statistics still confirm these groups are still at higher risk, the truth is the condition is increasing in women, particularly minority women. HIV is more easily spread from man to woman because the virus exists in a man's semen, which can live inside the vagina for several days. But the female bodily fluids from which a man can contract the virus through intercourse with a woman have more limited means to enter the penis and infect a man's body.

In order for this condition to be dealt with, the stigma must decrease. There have been tremendous strides made in regard to treating the disease, making it possible for those infected to live productive and happy lives, to enjoy careers and have families. In fact, with treatment, the chances of a woman passing along the virus to her unborn child are reduced to as low as 2 percent.

Symptoms of the illness often don't appear for nearly 10 years in many patients. It is important to be tested for this virus, regardless of whether any sexual partners "appear" to be ill and whether a person has had few or several partners. It's better to know early. Though there is no cure, treatment is possible to help to maintain a normal life.

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Could Fertility Drugs Make Kids Shorter?

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Could Psoriasis Increase Odds for Type 2 Diabetes?

HealthDay – 4 hrs ago MONDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) -- People suffering from the autoimmune skin disorder known as psoriasis may face an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests.

"People with psoriasis are at increased risk of developing diabetes that is independent of traditional risk factors like being obese," said lead researcher Dr. Joel Gelfand, associate professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

The risk is highest in those with the most severe psoriasis, and these patients should be screened for diabetes, he said. The reasons for this risk may be genetic, or psoriasis may cause increased insulin resistance, Gelfand said.

He also noted that obesity is a risk factor for psoriasis as well as diabetes. People who develop psoriasis should try to maintain a healthy weight to help prevent diabetes, he said.

The report was published in the June 18 online edition of the journal Archives of Dermatology.

For the study, Gelfand's team collected data on more than 108,000 people with psoriasis listed in the British Health Improvement Network, and compared it with data on more than 430,000 people without the skin disorder.

The researchers found that the risk of developing type 2 diabetes was 11 percent higher for those with mild psoriasis and 46 percent higher for those with severe psoriasis, compared to those who did not have the disorder.

In addition, the researchers found that people with severe psoriasis were more likely to be taking medications for diabetes.

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease of the skin characterized by scaling; it affects 2 percent to 4 percent of adults, the researchers said.

Since both psoriasis and diabetes are partially caused by inflammation in the body, this research may explain the link between them, the researchers speculated. Inflammation can increase insulin resistance, which is a cause of type 2 diabetes, they noted.

Dr. Michele Green, a dermatologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said many of her obese psoriasis patients also suffer from diabetes.

"I can tell you that I have seen patients who are obese and their psoriasis is worse and their diabetes is worse -- they go hand-in-hand," she said.

Green said it is not psoriasis that causes diabetes but obesity, which is the root cause of both conditions. Moreover, psoriasis is harder to treat in obese patients, she said. The only way to improve both conditions is to lose weight.

Although this research showed an association between psoriasis and type 2 diabetes, it did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.

More information

For more on diabetes, visit the American Diabetes Association.

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Mouse Study Suggests Certain Fats Could Trigger Crohn's, Colitis

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