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Energy Department Has a New Commitment to Solar (and a New Blog)

July 26, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

The Department of Energy launched a new blog last week, the aptly named (yet uninspiring) Energy Blog. Among other announcements and musings (OK, really more statements than deep thoughts) is a call to develop three Energy Innovation Hubs, one of which will drive research to turn sunlight into fuels.

This is not the first time the Obama Administration has shelled out for sunlight fuels. Last October, ARPA-E, the advanced projects research group at the Department of Energy, gave out $23.7 million in grants to startups and universities experimenting in the relatively new field of direct solar fuels. The current award will give out up to $122 million over the next five years to one Hub for developing this one technology.

The Energy Innovation Hubs will be modeled after the Manhattan Project, the AT&T Bell Laboratories and on the three $25 million-per-year DOE Bioenergy Research Centers. The other two Hubs will research energy efficiency in buildings systems and modeling and simulation for nuclear reactors.

For the sunlight fuels, there are already various universities that are working on direct solar fuels, including the University of Minnesota, MIT, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Penn State. BioCee and the University of Minnesota wants to take sunlight, carbon dioxide and two organisms (cyanobacteria for sunlight capture and shewanella for metabolic transformation) to produce a liquid hydrocarbon, while MIT-spinoff Sun Catayltix uses sunlight to spilt water to produce hydrogen.

The DOE is hoping that these Hubs will be able to lay the groundwork with critical research to the point where the technology can be handed off to the private sector.

Among the other chatter from Scott Blake Harris, DOE blogger and General Counsel for the Department of Energy, is a call for public written comments on how to meet smart grid goals. The blog has a link to check out what’s already been gathered and also to submit additional feedback via email by August 9, 2010 to help shape a report due out this fall about modernizing the grid.

The Energy Blog feels a lot like the DOE News page, although you don’t find a lot of calls to tweet the DOE on the news page. The information, like updates on the Global Energy Efficiency Challenge (super-efficient appliances, energy efficiency for large commercial buildings, smart grid action, getting 20 million EVs on the road by 2020 — all lofty ideals with vague roadmaps and funding), is presented in the nearly same format as it would be in other sections of the DOE website.

Also, as this is not Twitter, and certainly not Gawker, there is not likely to be any real additional breaking information, insider views or gaffes that come across this blog. Not unless you count the fact that their RSS feed tab was broken today.

Co-ordination between home, preschool, school key to child’s progress

May 14, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 14 (ANI): Co-ordination between home, preschool, and school is fundamental to child’s progress, a new study claims.

Robert Crosnoe, associate professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, analysed more than 1,300 children living in 10 locations in the United States to reach the conclusion.

The kids were followed from birth in the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development.

It was carried out under the auspices of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, Tufts University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of California, Irvine, the University of Virginia, and the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network.

Crosnoe said: ” The study has implications for policy as Congress reauthorizes the No Child Left Behind Act. Our findings point to the importance of improving coordination among parents, preschool classrooms, and elementary schools to boost children”s achievement.”

The experts evaluated children”s homes and child care/preschool settings when the children were 4-1/2 years old, studied their first grade classrooms, and evaluated reading and math test scores through fifth grade.

In doing so, they gauged whether the links between various combinations of cognitive stimulation and children”s achievement were simply due to the socioeconomic circumstances of the children”s families, or whether children from different socioeconomic backgrounds got more or less, academically, from each combination.

Crosnoe added: “The ultimate payoff of attempts to improve one context of early childhood depends in part on whether related contexts are improved, too.”

Moreover, even though children from advantaged families are more likely to experience this convergence of support for learning across the contexts of their lives, the study found that low-income children may benefit more from it.

Crosnoe further briefed: “Helping children, especially those from poor families, get off to a good start in elementary school has become a major focus of education policy. These policy interventions typically target one setting—the home, preschool, or elementary school—but rarely the intersection of all three.”

He ended: “To do so, policymakers must put renewed focus on the home-preschool partnerships often advocated by early intervention programs and the family-school partnerships advocated by No Child Left Behind, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.” (ANI)

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Cholesterol testing can be performed without fasting in kids: Study

May 3, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, May 3 (ANI): Usually children are asked to fast overnight before a cholesterol test. Now, a new study has suggested that this may not always be necessary.

“Cholesterol testing can be very difficult for families. When having to fast, this almost always means the child has to return on another morning for the test, which can be very problematic for busy families,” said Asheley C. Skinner, lead author of the study.

Studies in adults have shown that some parts of cholesterol testing can be performed without fasting.

To see if the same holds true for youngsters, Dr. Skinner, Eliana Perrin, and Michael J. Steiner, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, studied a nationally representative sample of about 17,000 children and adolescents.

They used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2006), which include results of cholesterol testing on children ages 3 and older and whether they had fasted for eight hours or more.

Researchers looked at whether total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoproteins (HDL), low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and triglycerides were related to whether the child had fasted.

Results showed that those who fasted for at least eight hours and those who did not fast had similar levels of TC and HDL (good) cholesterol, and that LDL (bad) cholesterol was only slightly higher when fasting. Triglycerides did vary depending on whether the child had fasted.

“These results suggest it might be acceptable to simply test children immediately during whatever clinical visit prompted the recommendation to test,” Dr. Skinner said.

The study has been presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. (ANI)

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Motivation crucial for successful weight loss

April 27, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, April 27 (ANI): When it comes to losing weight, a lot of factors matter: How much and what types of food you eat, the amount and intensity of exercise to burn calories, and biological factors such as metabolism. Psychological factors also play a significant role, including motivation to stick with weight loss program, says a new study.

Researchers from the University of Kentucky and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill examined motivation and its relationship to adherence and weight loss in a 16-week intervention program.

A “Treatment Self-Regulation Questionnaire” was given five separate times over the course of the study to 66 participants, which was used to identify the source of motivation for losing weight.

In addition, the volunteers recorded their food intake, exercise, and body weight weekly.

There are two types of motivation – autonomous and controlled. Autonomous motivation is the choice to make changes for personal reasons without outside influences.

Controlled motivation, or extrinsic motivation, is the feeling of pressure from others to make changes.

Thirty-seven of the 66 participants lost 5 percent of their initial body weight during the study.

Those who had autonomous motivation were most successful in adhering to the program and in sustaining the weight loss.

They were better at self-monitoring behaviours, particularly between weeks 4 and 8, when dieting motivation most typically begins to wane.

The study has been published in the May/June 2010 issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior. (ANI)

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Smoking may be in your genes

April 26, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

London, April 26 (ANI): For some smokers, quitting the habit could be especially difficult because their dependence may be explained in part by genetics, says a new study.

Scientists have identified genetic variants associated with key smoking behaviors that have a significant impact on health.

Helena Furberg, and Patrick Sullivan, from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, led the largest genetic study of smoking, called the Tobacco and Genetics Consortium (TAG), collaborating with scientists from 16 large genetic studies worldwide.

They compared the DNA marker profiles between smokers and non-smokers to examine whether genetic variants affect whether people start to smoke.

They also compared the DNA among smokers to see if genetic variants affected the number of cigarettes smoked per day, the age when people began to smoke and whether smokers were able to quit.

The team found that three genetic regions were associated with the number of cigarettes smoked per day, one region was associated with smoking initiation and one variant was associated with smoking cessation.

The variants on chromosome 15 that were associated with heavy smoking lie within a region that contains nicotinic receptor genes, which other scientists have previously associated with nicotine dependence and lung cancer.

“We hope that this work will allow researchers from multiple disciplines to develop a better understanding of the genetics of addiction and evaluate how drug-gene interactions could be used to create and tailor therapies to improve the rates of smoking cessation,” said Furberg.

“More work needs to be done before these findings can be used to treat smokers who wish to quit. At this time, testing for these variants will not tell you anything meaningful about your risk of smoking or nicotine dependence. Of course, all smokers should be encouraged to quit regardless of their genetic make-up,” she added.

The study has been paper in the journal Nature Genetics. (ANI)

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Severe mood disorder often misdiagnosed

March 31, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 31 (ANI): A new study has found that premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is biologically different from major depression and a history of depression affects how women with PMDD respond to stress and pain.

PMDD is often misdiagnosed as major depression or other mood disorder.

However, the new findings are important because they give physicians more reason to search for a more specific diagnosis and could possibly lead to more precise treatments, of which there are currently few good choices, said Dr. Susan Girdler, professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine who led the study.

“PMDD is not garden-variety premenstrual symptoms. PMDD causes severe impairment in quality of life, equivalent to post-traumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder and panic disorder, which continually cycles on a monthly basis. Some women spend half their lives suffering from this disorder,” said Girdler.

In the study, the researchers measured biological responses to stress and pain.

Previous studies demonstrated that women with chronic major depression have a heightened biological response to stress and release more stress hormones, such as cortisol.

And, Girdler and her group have previously shown that women with PMDD respond conversely, with blunted stress responses.

The current study is the first known head-to-head comparison of the two groups and confirmed earlier findings.

“We found the greatest weight of evidence that PMDD and major depression are really two distinct entities in terms of biological response to stress and with respect to pain sensitivity and pain mechanisms,” said Girdler.

But, he said that more important was the finding that women with PMDD who also had experienced depression in the past looked different from PMDD women who had never been depressed.

Only the PMDD women with prior depression had lower cortisol and greater sensitivity to pain compared to non-PMDD women with prior depression.

These differences between PMDD and non-PMDD women were not seen in women who had no depression history.

“So while the study shows that PMDD is biologically different from major depression, a history of depression may have special relevance for women with PMDD with respect to stress hormones and pain response,” said Girdler.

Current treatments for PMDD are effective in only about half of women.

But, Girdler said that gathering more biological clues about PMDD could expand the treatment options.

The study has been published in the journal Biological Psychology. (ANI)

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Orthorexia, obsession with too much healthy food may be lethal

March 24, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

New York, March 24 (ANI): Experts are ringing warning bells for those dangerously obsessed with eating healthy, adding they may have a disorder called orthorexia.

Cynthia Bulik, director of the eating disorders program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, referred to the phobics run from “impure” foods, limit their intake and lose dangerous amounts of weight, according to ABC News.

“We do know what we””re seeing in the clinic. We are seeing more people really worrying about what””s in their food,” The New York Daily News quoted Bulik as saying.

Researchers experts believe that the eating disorder may be a part of anorexia nervosa, in which sufferers severely limit their food intake and body weight, according to E: The Environmental Magazine.

Kathleen MacDonald of the Eating Disorders Coalition told Jezebel.com, the treatment for orthorexia so far was “hit-or-miss”.

The paper went on to cite the case of a young woman who almost landed in her grave after becoming a vegetarian and then a vegan, she began eating only raw foods.

Richmond, Virginia resident Kristie Rutzel told Good Morning America: “I stayed away from restaurants. It took me maybe two or three hours . . . to figure out what my next meal was going to be.”

She told ABC about her near brush with death as she lost 60 of her 120 pounds because of her restricted diet.

Rutzel has now overcome her fears of certain foods.

She said: “It was just step by step. Just challenging myself, saying, ””I used to eat this; I used to love it. Why not do it again?”” ” (ANI)

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Obesity inhibits immune system’s ability to ‘remember’ how to fight flu

March 16, 2010 By vani Leave a Comment

Washington, March 16 (ANI): A new research has shown that obesity limits the body’s ability to develop immunity to influenza viruses, particularly secondary infections, by inhibiting the immune system’s ability to “remember” how it fought off previous similar bouts of illness.

In the study, researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill showed that obese mice were not able to develop protective influenza-specific memory T cells.

These cells are generated by the body during an initial influenza infection. They help protect against a second infection by targeting internal proteins common among most strains of influenza viruses.

Leaner mice were able to develop the infection-fighting T cells and ward off a second bout of influenza.

“Our work suggests that obese people should be considered at high risk for infection,” said Erik Karlsson, doctoral candidate in nutrition and lead author of the study.

The researchers infected lean and obese mice with a mild influenza virus. The lean mice had been fed a low-fat diet, and obese mice had been fed a high-fat diet. When the mice recovered from the first bout of flu, they were infected a second time, with a larger dose of a more lethal influenza strain.

“We lost none of the lean mice, but 25 percent of obese mice died,” Karlsson said.

The study has been published in the March 15, 2010, issue of The Journal of Immunology. (ANI)

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New discovery may help treat drug-resistant colon cancer

August 18, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 18 (ANI): Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have identified potential therapeutic target for drug-resistant colon cancer.

The researchers aim at blocking a molecule found on the surface of cells.

Drugs that target the epidermal growth factor receptor, or EGFR, have been used for a number of cancers.

But these drugs called EGFR inhibitors, such as cetuximab, have not been very effective against colon cancer.

According to Dr David Threadgill, adjunct professor in the department of genetics at UNC and lead author of the study, drugs that target the closely related receptor ERBB3 would probably be much more effective than EGFR inhibitors at treating most colorectal cancers.

During the study, the researchers genetically blocked ERBB3 in a mouse model of colon cancer and in human colon cancer cell lines.

“If you genetically remove ERBB3, as you would if you were pharmacologically targeting it, then the mice rarely develop colon cancer,” said Threadgill.

In the human colon cancer cell lines that are resistant to EGFR inhibitors, cell death increased dramatically when ERBB3 was genetically removed.

“So ERBB3 is essential for preventing colon cancer cells from dying,” Threadgill said.

Threadgill is conducting further studies for testing a pharmacologic inhibitor to get the same anti-ERBB3 effect they achieved with genetics.

“If we can use an inhibitor to block ERBB3, then it should be a very potent anti-cancer therapeutic,” he added.

The study appears in Journal of Clinical Investigation. (ANI)

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Walking or biking to work boosts fitness

July 14, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 14 (ANI): Walking or biking to work can boost fitness, and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, say researchers.

“Active commuting was positively associated with fitness in men and women and inversely associated with body mass index, obesity, triglyceride levels, blood pressure and insulin level in men,” say Dr Penny Gordon-Larsen and colleagues at the School of Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

During the study, the researchers looked at 2,364 adults in the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study who worked outside the home.

The participants reported the length of their commute in minutes and miles, including details on the percentage of the trip taken by car, public transportation, walking or bicycling.

The researchers further assessed participants’ height, weight and other health variables, including blood pressure and fitness levels as assessed by a treadmill test.

A total of 16.7 percent of the participants used any means of active commuting to reach their workplace.

The study showed active commuters were less likely to be overweight or obese and have healthier triglyceride levels, blood pressure and insulin levels.

The results add to existing evidence that walking or biking to work is beneficial.

“Furthermore, increasing active commuting will have the dual benefits of increasing population health and in reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Environmental supports for commuting, such as physical environment and sociocultural factors, have been shown to promote active forms of commuting,” said the authors.

The study has been published in the Archives of Internal Medicine. (ANI)

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Positive emotions build resilience, boost life satisfaction

July 11, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 11 (ANI): People who make sure that their lives are filled with frequent moments of positive emotions, tend to have increased resilience against challenges, according to a new study by researchers at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Dr. Barbara Fredrickson and her colleagues have suggested that people should build on a daily diet of positive emotions to ensure increased levels of life satisfaction.

“This study shows that if happiness is something you want out of life, then focusing daily on the small moments and cultivating positive emotions is the way to go,” she said.

She added: “Those small moments let positive emotions blossom, and that helps us become more open. That openness then helps us build resources that can help us rebound better from adversity and stress, ward off depression and continue to grow.”

The month long study involved 86 participants, who were asked to submit daily “emotion reports”, rather than answering general questions like, “Over the last few months, how much joy did you feel?”

“Getting those daily reports helped us gather more accurate recollections of feelings and allowed us to capture emotional ups and downs,” said Fredrickson.

She said that building up a daily diet of positive emotions does not require banishing negative emotions, and the study helps to show that to be happy, people do not need to adopt a “Pollyanna-ish” approach and deny the upsetting aspects of life.

“The levels of positive emotions that produced good benefits weren’t extreme. Participants with average and stable levels of positive emotions still showed growth in resilience even when their days included negative emotions,” said Fredrickson.

She suggested that one should focus on the “micro-moments” that can help unlock one positive emotion here or there.

“A lot of times we get so wrapped up in thinking about the future and the past that we are blind to the goodness we are steeped in already, whether it’s the beauty outside the window or the kind things that people are doing for you,” she said.

She added: “The better approach is to be open and flexible, to be appreciative of whatever good you do find in your daily circumstances, rather than focusing on bigger questions, such as ‘Will I be happy if I move to California?’ or ‘Will I be happy if I get married?’”

The study, titled ‘Happiness Unpacked: Positive Emotions Increase Life Satisfaction by Building Resilience’, has been published in the journal Emotion. (ANI)

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Positive emotions increase resilience against challenges

July 10, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, July 9 (ANI): A new study by researchers from a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has revealed that people who seed their life with frequent moments of positive emotions increase their resilience against challenges.

“This study shows that if happiness is something you want out of life, then focusing daily on the small moments and cultivating positive emotions is the way to go,” said Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., Kenan Distinguished Professor of Psychology in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences and the principal investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory.

“Those small moments let positive emotions blossom, and that helps us become more open. That openness then helps us build resources that can help us rebound better from adversity and stress, ward off depression and continue to grow,” Fredrickson added.

In the month long study, 86 participants were asked to submit daily “emotion reports,” rather than answering general questions like, “Over the last few months, how much joy did you feel?”

“Getting those daily reports helped us gather more accurate recollections of feelings and allowed us to capture emotional ups and downs,” said Fredrickson.

She said that building up a daily diet of positive emotions does not require banishing negative emotions.

The study helps show that to be happy, people do not need to adopt a “Pollyanna-ish” approach and deny the upsetting aspects of life.

Fredrickson suggested focusing on the “micro-moments” that can help unlock one positive emotion here or there.

“The better approach is to be open and flexible, to be appreciative of whatever good you do find in your daily circumstances, rather than focusing on bigger questions, such as ‘Will I be happy if I move to California?’ or ‘Will I be happy if I get married?,” she said

The study appears in the June issue of the bimonthly journal Emotion. (ANI)

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Mum’s weight gain during pregnancy puts daughter at higher obesity risk

July 3, 2009 By admin 1 Comment

Washington, July 3 (ANI): A new study has revealed that mother’s weight and the amount she gains during pregnancy both impact her daughter’s risk of obesity decades later.

“The findings are especially important because of the growing epidemic of obesity in women,” said Alison Stuebe, M.D., assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

“If we can help women reach a healthy weight before they start a family, we can make a difference for two generations,” Stuebe added.

For the study, Stuebe and colleagues analyzed data on mothers’ recalled weights and weight gain for more than 24,000 mother-daughter pairs.

The heavier a mother was before her pregnancy, the more likely her daughter was to be obese in later life.

For instance, an average-height mother who weighed 150 pounds before pregnancy was twice as likely to have a daughter who was obese at age 18 as a mother who weighed 125 pounds before pregnancy.

Weight gain during pregnancy mattered, too – both too little and too much weight gain increased a daughter’s risk of becoming obese, especially if a mother was overweight before she got pregnant.

“Women should aim for a healthy weight before they get pregnant, and then gain a moderate amount,” Stuebe said.

The study was published June 16, 2009, in the online version of the International Journal of Obesity. (ANI)

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Aerobic activity ‘helps keep brain young’

June 30, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, June 30 (ANI): Aerobic activity may help keep the brain young, says a new research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

In the study published July 9 in the American Journal of Neuroradiology, physically active elderly people showed healthier cerebral blood vessels.

Researchers led by Elizabeth Bullitt, M.D., Van L. Weatherspoon Distinguished Professor of neurosurgery, used non-invasive magnetic resonance (MR) angiography to examine the number and shape of blood vessels in the brains of physically active elderly people, 7 men and 7 women, ages 60 to 80.

The study subjects were equally divided into 2 groups. The high activity group reported participating in an aerobic activity for a minimum of 180 minutes per week for the past 10 consecutive years, and the low activity group told investigators they had no history of regular exercise and currently spent less than 90 minutes a week in any physical activity.

Aerobically active subjects exhibited more small-diameter vessels with less tortuosity, or twisting, than the less active group, exhibiting a vessel pattern similar to younger adults.

The authors, who were sponsored in part by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, identified significant differences in the left and right middle cerebral artery regions confirmed by more than one statistical analysis.

The brain’s blood vessels naturally narrow and become more tortuous with advancing age, but the study showed the cerebrovascular patterns of active patients appeared “younger” than those of relatively inactive subjects.

The brains of these less active patients had increased tortuosity produced by vessel elongation and wider expansion curves. (ANI)

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Cheerleading named most dangerous of all sports

June 27, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, Jun 27 (ANI): Cheerleading-which involves tumbling, dance, jumps, cheers, and stunting-has been named the most dangerous of all sports.

Even though through the years safety efforts have led to fewer mishaps, a new report suggests that the sport still continues to cause more serious and deadly injuries than other sports.

The researchers behind this study have found from records between 1982 and 2007, that there were 103 fatal, disabling or serious injuries recorded among female high school athletes, with the vast majority (67) occurring in cheerleading.

The next most dangerous sports: gymnastics (nine such injuries) and track (seven).

The National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill released its 26th annual report on the topic.

As per the latest figures from the 2007-2008 academic year for college and high school sports, male and female, catastrophic injuries have been defined as any severe or fatal injury incurred during participation in the sport.

Statistics for the 26-year period from the fall of 1982 through the spring of 2008 show that there were 1,116 direct catastrophic injuries in high school (905) and college sports (211).

They further reveal that high school sports were associated with 152 fatalities, 379 non-fatal injuries and 374 serious injuries.

The figures show that college sports accounted for 22 fatalities, 63 non-fatal injuries and 126 serious injuries.

According to them, cheerleading accounted for 65.2 percent of high school and 70.5 percent of college catastrophic injuries among all female sports.

The number of cheerleading injuries fell slightly in the 2007-08 academic year.

“Progress has been slow, but there has been an increased emphasis on cheerleading safety,” Live Science quoted the study’s author Frederick O. Mueller as saying.

“Continued data collection on all types of cheerleading injuries will hopefully show that these safety measures are working to reduce injuries,” he added. (ANI)

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Pregnant women should steer clear of ‘eat for two’ advice

May 24, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 24 (ANI): Pregnant women should steer clear of advice to ‘eat for two’, for a new study has found that such a practice may have a negative impact on the mother as well as the baby.

In the study, Alison Stuebe, M.D., assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, found that women who consumed extra calories, as well as fried foods and dairy, had excessive gestational weight gain.

Stuebe reviewed data for more than 1,300 women and found that those who consumed extra calories, as well as fried foods and dairy products, were more likely to gain more than is recommended during pregnancy – that’s 35 pounds or more for a woman with a normal body mass index, or BMI.

Stuebe found that eating an extra 500 calories a day increased the odds of gaining too much by 10 percent.

Gaining too much weight is linked with complications at birth, such as pre-eclampsia or requiring a C-section, as well as higher odds that both mom and child will be obese later in life.

However, the study also found that several eating habits reduced moms’ risk of gaining too much. Women with vegetarian diets in early pregnancy were half as likely to gain an unhealthy amount of weight, and those who exercised vigorously for a half hour a day reduced their risk by 20 percent.

The researchers also found that consuming more monounsaturated fat, found in olive oil and nuts, was linked with a lower risk of excessive weight gain.

The results were published May 19, 2009, in the online version of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. (ANI)

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Gene behind most common form of breast cancer identified

May 12, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 12 (ANI): Defects in a gene, called p18, have been found to be the cause of the most common form of breast cancer, say scientists.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, say that their discovery, if combined with new laboratory techniques, could help scientists identify and test new treatments for luminal-type tumours,

Luminal-type tumours account for between 70 and 80 percent of all breast cancers, but are generally slower growing than other types.

Defects in the p18 gene have been observed in different types of human cancer.

“When this gene is not expressed or is deleted, cells have no braking mechanism. They will continue to grow and divide until they turn into cancer,” said senior study author Dr. Yue Xiong.

For the research, the team specifically targeted the role that p18 plays in the development of luminal breast cancers.

By using genetically engineered mice with deletion of p18 genes, they created a highly reliable model of human breast cancers.

The researchers tested the model by analysing the gene in samples from approximately 300 human breast cancer patients.

They proved that the decreased expression of the p18 gene was highly correlated with the development of luminal tumours.

“The mechanism behind these tumours is quite different from that of other forms of breast cancer. Understanding this mechanism and having a good mouse model allows us to specifically test how treatments work against these tumours, which may then benefit human patients,” said Xiong.

The results of the research appear in the journal Cancer Cell. (ANI)

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Coaching can reduce hospitalizations of asthmatic kids

May 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 06 (ANI): A new study has shown that working with an asthma coach helps to significantly reduce hospitalizations of low-income, African-American children with asthma.

For the study, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill worked with nearly 200 parents of children between 2-8 years old on Medicaid who had been hospitalized for asthma at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Kids were randomly assigned to an asthma coach or to usual care following discharge from the hospital, which included asthma education, an asthma management plan and a suggested follow-up appointment with the child’s pediatrician within one week of discharge.

“Compliance with asthma care can often be a challenge,” said Robert C. Strunk, M.D., a Washington University asthma specialist at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

“The asthma coach provided support for parents dealing with the unrelenting demands of their child’s illness,” he added.

During two years, the coach was available to parents, 35 of the 96 patients (36.5 percent) in the coaching group were hospitalized at least once, compared with 55 of the 93 patients (59 percent) in the usual-care group.

Edwin B. Fisher, Ph.D., professor of health behavior and health education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, co-author of the paper and global director of Peers for Progress, a program to promote peer support in chronic disease, said: “Beyond the good news it provides for asthma care, the asthma coach sets an important model for treating a variety of chronic diseases in children and adults.”

“These kinds of programs help people put into practice in their daily lives the plans they agree to in the doctor’s office. That’s going to be an increasingly important part of health care as more people have problems like asthma and diabetes,” Fisher added.

The study was published in the March 2009 issue of Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. (ANI)

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Caribbean’s predatory fishes decline as human populations rise

May 6, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 6 (ANI): In a new study, scientists have found that sharks, barracuda and other large predatory fishes disappear on Caribbean coral reefs as human populations rise, endangering the region’s marine food web and ultimately its reefs and fisheries.

The study was done by researcher Chris Stallings of The Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory.

While other scientists working in the Caribbean have observed the declines of large predators for decades, the comprehensive work by Stallings documents the ominous patterns in far more detail at a much greater geographic scale than any other research to date.

“Seeing evidence of this ecological and economic travesty played out across the entire Caribbean is truly sobering,” said Associate Professor John Bruno of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“I examined 20 species of predators, including sharks, groupers, snappers, jacks, trumpetfish and barracuda, from 22 Caribbean nations,” said Stallings. “I found that nations with more people have reefs with far fewer large fish because as the number of people increases, so does demand for seafood,” he added.

Fishermen typically go after the biggest fish first, but shift to smaller species once the bigger ones become depleted. In some areas with large human populations, my study revealed that only a few small predatory fish remain,” said Stallings.

Stallings said that although several factors, including loss of coral reef habitats, contributed to the general patterns, careful examination of the data suggests overfishing as the most likely reason for the disappearance of large predatory fishes across the region.

“Large predatory fish such as groupers and sharks are vitally important in marine food webs,” Stallings said.

“However, predicting the consequence of their loss is difficult because of the complexity of predator-prey interactions. You can’t replace a 10-foot shark with a one-foot grouper and expect there to be no effect on reef communities,” he added.

“Shifts in abundance to smaller predators could therefore have surprising and unanticipated effects. One such effect may be the ability of non-native species to invade Caribbean reefs,” he further added.

Given that about half the world’s populations live near coastlines and that the world population is growing, demands for ocean-derived protein will continue to increase, Stallings warned.

He said meeting such demands while retaining healthy coral reefs may require multiple strategies, including implementation of marine reserves, finding alternative sources of protein, and increased efforts to implement family-planning strategies in densely populated areas. (ANI)

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Imaging study reveals brain abnormalities in autistic tots

May 5, 2009 By admin Leave a Comment

Washington, May 5 (ANI): Scientists have found that autistic toddlers have an enlarged amygdala, a brain area known to be linked with functions like the processing of faces and emotion.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill also say that this brain abnormality appears to be associated with the ability to share attention with others, a fundamental ability thought to predict later social and language function in children with autism.

“Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental disorder likely involving multiple brain systems,” the authors write as background information in the article.

“Converging evidence from magnetic resonance imaging, head circumference and postmortem studies suggests that brain volume enlargement is a characteristic feature of autism, with its onset most likely occurring in the latter part of the first year of life,” write the authors.

Dr. Matthew W. Mosconi conducted a magnetic resonance imaging study involving 50 autistic children and 33 control children.

The children participating in the study underwent brain scans along with testing of certain behavioural features of autism at ages 2 and 4, including a measure of joint attention that involves following another person’s gaze to initiate a shared experience.

The researchers observed that compared to control children, those children with autism were more likely to have amygdala enlargement both at age 2 and age 4.

“These findings suggest that, consistent with a previous report of head circumference growth rates in autism and studies of amygdala volume in childhood, amygdala growth trajectories are accelerated before age 2 years in autism and remain enlarged during early childhood. Moreover, amygdala enlargement in 2-year-old children with autism is disproportionate to overall brain enlargement and remains disproportionate at age 4 years,” the authors write.

According to them, amygdala volume in autistic children was found to be associated with an increase in joint attention ability at age 4, which suggests that alterations to this brain structure may be associated with a core deficit of autism, the authors note.

“The amygdala plays a critical role in early-stage processing of facial expression and in alerting cortical areas to the emotional significance of an event. Amygdala disturbances early in development, therefore, disrupt the appropriate assignment of emotional significance to faces and social interaction,” the authors write.

The researchers are continuing with the follow-up of the research participants so as to determine whether amygdala growth rates continue at the same rate or undergo another period of accelerated growth or a period of decelerated growth in autistic children after age 4.

The study has been published in the Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. (ANI)

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