Sickle cell disease ‘affects brain function in adults’

May 12, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 12 (ANI): In a new study, adults with sickle cell disease scored worse on memory function tests than healthy adults, suggesting that the blood disorder may affect brain function.

As pert of the research, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), part of the National Institutes of Health, scientists tested cognitive functioning of 149 adult sickle cell disease patients (between the ages of 19 and 55) and compared them to 47 healthy study participants of similar age and education levels from the same communities. All of the participants were African-American.

More sickle cell disease patients scored lower on measures such as intellectual ability, short-term memory, processing speed, and attention, than participants in the healthy group.

The sickle cell disease participants did not have a history of end-organ failure, stroke, high blood pressure, or other conditions that might otherwise affect brain function.

Researchers at 12 sites within the NHLBI-supported Comprehensive Sickle Cell Centers conducted the study.

“This study suggests that some adult patients who have sickle cell disease may develop cognitive problems, such as having difficulty organizing their thoughts, making decisions, or learning, even if they do not have severe complications such as stroke related to sickle cell disease,” said NHLBI Acting Director Susan B. Shurin.

“Such challenges can tremendously affect a patient”s quality of life, and we need to address these concerns as part of an overall approach to effectively managing sickle cell disease,” she added.

The results of the study are published in the May 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. (ANI)

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World’s First: Stem cells from own organ used to treat damaged heart

July 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, July 1 (ANI): Doctors at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have for the first time repaired a heart damaged by a heart attack by growing specialised stem cells using tissue obtained from a patient’s own organ.

The minimally-invasive procedure was completed on the first patient on June 26, as part of a Phase I investigative study approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and supported by the Specialized Centers for Cell-based Therapies at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

“This procedure signals a new and exciting era in the understanding and treatment of heart disease,” said Dr. Eduardo Marban, director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, who developed the technique and is leading the clinical trial.

“Five years ago, we didn’t even know the heart had its own distinct type of stem cells. Now we are exploring how to harness such stem cells to help patients heal their own damaged hearts,” Dr. Marban added.

Kenneth Milles, a 39-year-old controller for a small construction company in the San Fernando Valley, is the first patient on whom this procedure has been completed. He had experienced a heart attack on May 10 due to a 99 percent blockage in the left anterior descending artery, a major artery of the heart.

The patients will be monitored for six months, and complete results are scheduled to be available in late-2010.

There are 24 patients participating in the study, being conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Johns Hopkins University, where Dr. Marban worked prior to joining Cedars-Sinai in 2007.

All of them have hearts that were damaged and scarred by heart attacks. Once enrolled in the study, patients go through a three-step procedure.

The doctors first conduct extensive imaging to pinpoint the exact location and severity of the scars wrought by the heart attack, and then the patient undergoes a minimally-invasive biopsy, with local anaesthesia.

Using a catheter inserted through a vein in the patient’s neck, doctors remove a small piece of heart tissue, about half the size of a raisin. The heart tissue is then taken to a specialized lab at Cedars-Sinai, where heart stem cells are cultured using methods invented by Marban’s team.

Marban has revealed that it takes about four weeks for the cells to multiply to numbers sufficient for therapeutic use, approximately 10 to 25 million.

According to the researcher, the final step involves the re-introduction of the multiplied stem cells into the patient’s coronary arteries during a second catheter procedure.

Marban points out that unlike bone marrow cells, heart stem cells are naturally programmed to regrow heart tissue, so they could prove more effective in healing the injury caused by heart attacks.

“If successful, we hope the procedure could be widely available in a few years and could be more broadly applied to cardiac patients,” says the researcher. (ANI)

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Why American Indians have higher rates of cardiovascular and chronic kidney diseases

April 16, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 16 (ANI): Scientists at the University of North Carolina Kidney Center have come up with an explanation as to why American Indians at a greater risk of developing proteinuria – a condition that increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease (CKD) – than other groups.

Dr. Amy Mottl and her colleagues say that these differences exist as genetic variation likely accounts for part of their increased risks.

During a study, Amy and her colleagues tried to find out whether they could identify the genetic causes of American Indians’ increased risk for proteinuria.

Studying about 3,500 individuals from 13 American Indian tribes enrolled in the Strong Heart Family Study funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the researchers found multiple chromosomal regions that may possess genes that influence variation in proteinuria, especially in the setting of diabetes or hypertension.

Amy said that the findings of her team were preliminary, and that further research was required to detect which genes influence one’s proteinuria risk.

“Further exploration of the candidate genes underlying the chromosomes implicated in our study is warranted,” the authors wrote.

The researchers believe that their work may be helpful in advancing scientists’ understanding as to how proteinuria arises, and, thereby, enable the development of new strategies for prevention and treatment.

While this study focused on American Indians, its findings likely apply to the general population as well, where the prevalence of proteinuria is rising.

The study has been published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). (ANI)

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Exercise safely improves quality of life in heart failure patients

April 8, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, April 8 (ANI): Heart failure patients may slightly reduce their likelihood of death or hospitalisation by exercising regularly, without any safety risk.

This suggestion is based on a study supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), which was conducted at 82 centres in the U.S., Canada, and France.

It has shown that heart failure patients who add regular, moderate physical activity to standard medical therapy generally have a higher quality of life compared to patients who receive medical therapy only.

“Many patients and health care providers have continued to be concerned about the safety of aerobic exercise for heart failure,” said NHLBI Director Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel.

“With the results of this robust clinical trial, we can now reassure heart failure patients that, with appropriate medical supervision, regular aerobic exercise is not only safe but it can also improve their lives in really meaningful ways,” Elizabeth added.

During the study, the researchers followed 2,331 patients with moderate-to-severe systolic heart failure (average age 59) for up to four years (average of 2.5 years).

About one-half of the participants were randomly assigned to receive usual care alone, which included medical and device therapy as prescribed by their physicians and educational materials on disease management.

Such participants were also asked to engage in 30 minutes of moderate physical activity on most days of the week.

The other half of the subjects were in the exercise training group, and they received usual care plus 36 sessions of group-based, supervised aerobic exercise training (walking or stationary cycling) of up to 35 minutes three times per week.

They were asked to transition to home-based training at the same intensity five times per week for the remainder of the study, and received a treadmill or stationary bike for home use and a heart rate monitor.

The researchers observed that exercise training was linked to an 11 percent lower risk of death or hospitalisation from any cause, and a 15 percent lower risk from cardiovascular-related events, as compared to the usual care.

The researchers said that exercise training was found to be well tolerated and safe because there was no significant difference in serious adverse events between the two groups, such as an abnormal heart rhythm, hip fracture, or hospitalisation related to exercise.

They also found the exercise group to score significantly higher than those in the usual care group on a standard, self-administered quality-of-life questionnaire.

They revealed that the improvements persisted throughout the follow-up period, and were consistent regardless of sex, race, or age.

The findings have been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (ANI)

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Beverage consumption plays key role in weight loss plan

April 3, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 3 (ANI): Want to shed those extra pounds? Well, then focus more on what you drink than what you eat, suggest Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers.

The researchers studied the relationship between beverage consumption among adults and weight change and found that weight loss was positively linked to a reduction in liquid calorie consumption and liquid calorie intake had a stronger impact on weight than solid calorie intake.

“Both liquid and solid calories were associated with weight change, however, only a reduction in liquid calorie intake was shown to significantly affect weight loss during the 6-month follow up,” said Benjamin Caballero MD, PhD, senior author of the study and a professor with the Bloomberg School’s Department of International Health.

“A reduction in liquid calorie intake was associated with a weight loss of 0.25 kg at 6 months and 0.24 kg at 18 months. Among sugar-sweetened beverages, a reduction of 1 serving was associated with a weight loss of 0.5 kg at 6 months and 0.7 kg at 18 months. Of the seven types of beverages examined, sugar-sweetened beverages were the only beverages significantly associated with weight change,” Caballero added.

The researchers carried out a prospective study of 810 adults aged 25-79 years old participating in the PREMIER trial, an 18-month randomized, controlled, behavioral intervention. Caballero along with colleagues from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood institute; Duke University; the Pennington Biomedical Research Center; the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research; the University of Alabama; and Pennsylvania State University measured participant’s weight and height using a calibrated scale and a wall-mounted stadiometer at both 6 and 18 months.

Dietary intake was measured by conducting unannounced 24-hour dietary recall interviews by telephone.

Researchers divided beverages into several categories based on calorie content and nutritional composition. They found that at 37 percent sugar-sweetened beverages were the leading source of liquid calories.

The results are published in the April 1, 2009, issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. (ANI)

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Heart-healthy, low-cal diets promote weight loss

February 26, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, Feb 26 (ANI): A new study has suggested that heart-healthy diets that reduce calorie intake – regardless of differing proportions of fat, protein, or carbohydrate – can help overweight and obese adults achieve and maintain weight loss.

During the study, researchers found similar weight loss after six months and two years among participants assigned to four diets that differed in their proportions of these three major nutrients.

The diets were low or high in total fat (20 or 40 percent of calories) with average or high protein (15 or 25 percent of calories). Carbohydrate content ranged from 35 to 65 percent of calories.

The diets all used the same calorie reduction goals and were heart-healthy-low in saturated fat and cholesterol while high in dietary fiber.

Researchers found that on average, participants lost 13 pounds at six months and maintained a 9-pound loss at two years.

They also found that participants reduced their waistlines by 1 to 3 inches by the end of the study. Craving, fullness, hunger, and diet satisfaction were all similar across the four diets.

“These results show that, as long as people follow a heart-healthy, reduced-calorie diet, there is more than one nutritional approach to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight,” said Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D., director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“This provides people who need to lose weight with the flexibility to choose an approach that they’re most likely to sustain-one that is most suited to their personal preferences and health needs,” she added.

Research was conducted in Boston at Harvard University School of Public Health and at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La

The study has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine. (ANI)

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