Insulin reduces obesity-related inflammation

May 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 11 (ANI): Scientists have found that one of the most common side effects of obesity – inflammation – can be fought by administering insulin.

As an added benefit, the team behind the work says, this also reduces a person”s risk of developing diabetes.

The remarkable finding was recently presented in a new thesis, written by experts at the Sahlgrenska Academy of the University of Gothenburg, in Sweden.

When you put on weight, your fat tissue grows and begins to produce a wealth of inflammatory molecules.

The increase in these inflammatory molecules leaves the fat tissue in a state of chronic inflammation.

This plays an important role in the development of insulin resistance, an early stage of type 2 diabetes, where the body is unable to regulate blood sugar levels using its own insulin.

“It”s still not entirely clear why obesity causes insulin resistance. Inflammation could be part of the reason why obesity leads to type 2 diabetes,” said Emelie Wallerstedt from the Institute of Medicine at the University of Gothenburg.

Research has shown that both obesity and insulin resistance are affected by inflammatory conditions in the body.

Previously it was believed that fat tissue served merely as a depository for fat, but now scientists know that it is also an important organ for the release of a wide range of different substances, including inflammatory molecules.

In the new study, the researchers managed to identify the properties of the inflammatory molecule IL-6.

“IL-6 impairs insulin signalling, but the insulin signalling itself can also inhibit and ”turn off” the IL-6 signal and inflammation. The protein PKCdelta also plays an important role in the regulation of the IL-6 signal, and we have shown that if we disable the function of this molecule, the inflammation decreases,” Wallerstedt said.

A greater understanding of these signalling mechanisms could make it possible in the future to develop medicines that can “turn off” the inflammation and so reduce the risk of insulin resistance and other obesity-related disorders. (ANI)

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Why female water fleas change their fashion trends every season

May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 4 (ANI): While studying fashion trends for water fleas, Swedish researchers have uncovered the mystery behind why do females change the way they look each season while males look the same all year round.

Touted as one of the world”s trendiest crustaceans, water fleas have the ability to change their appearance to suit their surroundings and the season.

This may involve, for example, donning new accessories: water fleas can grow long antennae, a larger back hump or a new “cap” of varying sizes.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, who studied water fleas in the Orekilsalven river basin believe these accessories to be the water fleas” way of reducing the risk of being caught and eaten.

And remarkably water fleas in different lakes follow different trends.

For example, high up in the Orekilsalven water system, the females have been wearing small round caps teamed with fairly large bodies, while their counterparts further down in the system have gone the other way – larger caps but smaller bodies.

Hans Lord has offered an explanation in his thesis—a large cap protects the water fleas from small invertebrate predators, as it makes it harder for these predators to catch and hang on to them.

Smaller bodies, in turn, are the water fleas” way of adapting to predatory fish, which rely on their sight to locate their prey.

The combination of a small body and a large cap is a compromise— the smaller body reduces the risk of being spotted by a fish, while the large cap (which is transparent and therefore invisible to the fish) offers protection from invertebrate predators.

On the contrary, males don”t seem at all bothered by current trends.

And the researchers attributed this with reproduction— given that the females carry the offspring, a dead female is a greater loss than a dead male.

Thus, it is more worthwhile for the females to invest in a look that will protect them against predators.

Another explanation is that the males are driven by their need to find females to mate with as quickly as possible – and that swimming up to a female whilst wearing a large cap and long antennae requires too much energy, takes too long and entails a risk that other males will get there first.

This also explains why the fashions are more extravagant in the summer than the winter.

“When the water”s cold, it”s more difficult to move through, which makes it extra-hard to swim with accessories,” said Lord.

“This is one of the explanations for why we find water fleas with extreme looks during the summer only, when the water is warm, but not during the rest of the year. Another explanation is that the summer brings more invertebrate predators,” he added. (ANI)

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Exercise in youth to make old age bones stronger

May 4, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, May 4 (ANI): Physical activity when young increases bone density and size, which may mean a reduced risk of osteoporosis later in life, concludes a new study.

For the thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, around 3,200 men had their bones examined and their exercise habits mapped. Of these, just over 2,300 18-year-olds were selected at random to have their heel bone examined by the researchers. The heel bone is particularly useful to study as it is directly impacted by exercise, being loaded with the full weight of the body.

“In this group, we found that those who actively did sports, and also those who used to do sports, had greater bone density than those who had never done sports,” explains Martin Nilsson, physiotherapist and doctoral student at the Institute of Medicine.

The researchers also looked at bone density and structure in the lower leg in around 360 19-year-old men who had previously done sports but had now stopped training. They found that men who had stopped training more than six years ago still had larger and thicker bones in the lower leg than those who had never done sports.

“This result is particularly important, because we know that a bone with a large circumference is more durable and resistant to fractures than a narrower bone,” says Nilsson.

The researchers also studied bone density throughout the body in around 500 randomly selected 75-year-old men. Those who had done competitive sports three or more times a week at some point between the ages of 10 and 30 had higher bone density in several parts of the body than those who had not.

The researchers have therefore established that there is a positive link between exercise while young and bone density and size. (ANI)

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Possible new cause of cardiac arrest discovered

April 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

London, April 20 (ANI): A new disorder associated with heart problems that stems from a genetic defect in the protein glycogenin has been discovered by scientists.

In a worst case scenario, disruption of this protein”s function can lead to cardiac arrest, which is precisely what happened with the young man whose case triggered the investigation at Sahlgrenska University Hospital at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, that led to a brand new diagnosis.

The new study mentions how a young man suffered a cardiac arrest but survived thanks to the work of the ambulance paramedics. A study at Sahlgrenska University Hospital led to the discovery of not only a new disorder but also how a defect in the protein glycogenin can lead to an energy crisis in the muscle cells.

This protein”s job is to initiate the build-up of glycogen that constitutes the muscle cells” carbohydrate reserves. The glycogenin starts the actual process by building up a short chain of around ten sugar molecules, which can then be turned into glycogen with the help of other enzymes. During strong muscular work the sugar molecules in the glycogen are used to create energy.

“The disorder is characterised by an inability to form the initial chain of sugar molecules. This leads to a shortage of glycogen and an energy crisis in the muscle cells that can result in cardiac arrest,” says Anders Oldfors, who headed up the research team and is a professor at the Sahlgrenska Academy and consultant at Sahlgrenska University Hospital.

The study also reveals how muscle cells that have a severe congenital defect can adjust and find other ways of sourcing energy, though it may not be sufficient in all situations.

“We”re hoping that our continued research in the field will provide answers to how the change in the glycogenin causes an inability to start accumulating carbohydrates in the muscle cells,” Oldfors says.

Clinically, the discovery means that this disorder must be considered as a diagnosis when investigating heart problems.

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

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“Chemical cocktails” affecting humans and the environment

March 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 30 (ANI): Researchers at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, have looked at the risk of “chemical cocktails” to humans and the environment and have proposed a number of measures that need to be implemented in the current practice of chemical risk assessment.

In 2005, an American study showed that newborn babies have an average of 200 non-natural chemicals in their blood, including pesticides, dioxins, industrial chemicals and flame retardants.

In a Swedish study, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences found 57 different pesticides in Swedish rivers and streams, many of them occurring simultaneously.

However, the effects of chemicals on humans and the environment are traditionally evaluated on the basis of single substances, chemical by chemical.

Research has shown that this type of approach is inadequate as the chemicals that we use form a complex cocktail.

The European Union’s (EU’s) environment ministers have therefore urged the European Commission to step up its risk assessments and amend the legislation on the combination effects of chemicals.

In concrete terms, the Commission has been tasked with producing recommendations in 2010 on how combinations of hormone-disrupting substances should be dealt with on the basis of existing legislation, and with assessing suitable legislative changes in 2011.

In order to map out the current situation, researchers from the University of Gothenburg and the University of London carried out a review of the state of the art of mixture toxicology and ecotoxicology.

The study showed that all the relevant research is unambiguous: the combined “cocktail effect” of environmental chemicals is greater and more toxic than the effect of the chemicals individually.

“The number of chemical combinations that the Earth’s living organisms are exposed to is enormous,” said Thomas Backhaus, researcher at the Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences and co-author of the report.

“Assessing every conceivable combination is not therefore realistic, and predictive approaches must be implemented in risk assessment. We need guidelines on how to manage the chemical cocktail effect so that we can assess the risks to both humans and the environment,” he added. (ANI)

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Offensive military technology does not lead to shorter wars

March 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, March 30 (ANI): A new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, has shown that military technology that is offensive rather than defensive in nature does not lead to shorter wars.

For long, researchers have thought that offensive military technology, such as armoured cars and attack jets, makes it easier to shorten the duration of a war.

It is also generally perceived that when the offensive technology is more effective than the defensive technology, it is more advantageous to start a war.

“While this may be seen in some wars where the attacker is clearly superior, it is not true on average. This means that the improved military technology has not resulted in any advantages for the attacking force, at least not in terms of war duration,” said Marco Nilsson, who recently earned his PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg.

To investigate the effect of offensive technology on war duration, Nilsson statistically analysed all wars in the state system from 1817 to 1992.

Interestingly, he did not find any effect at all.

“I found that, in reality, the potential advantages of attack-oriented technology is limited by for example terrain, technological development, training of military personnel, climate, weather and norms,” said Nilsson.

“Due to these limitations, attack-oriented technology normally does not allow a state to run over an enemy as easily as expected. Unless the attacked country collapses right away, the duration of most wars is decided at the negotiation table,” he added.

Nilsson’s study of four different wars (the Winter War 1939, the Continuation War 1941-1943, the Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988 and the war between India and Pakistan 1965) shows that states do not always base their demands at the negotiation table on military capacity.

“A major problem arises when a state has offensive expectations that do not match what is actually seen on the battlefield. These seemingly unrealistic expectations can for example be a result of a conviction that God will step in and influence the outcome of a war,” said Nilsson.

“Another reason may be that a country for some reason expects its offensive ability to soon improve,” he added.

Unfortunately, some states start wars expecting their attack-oriented technology to warrant quick success.

Therefore, too much confidence in offensive technology may increase the likelihood of new wars and speed up arms racing, all due to a misunderstanding among decision makers. (ANI)

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Stomach pacemaker can help treat stomach disorders, chronic vomiting

March 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 30 (ANI): Individuals suffering from acute stomach disorders can occasionally suffer from chronic vomiting. According to a study from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, this symptom can be treated with electrical impulses from a pacemaker in the stomach.

A new method enables patients who could benefit from this treatment to be identified, and electrical stimulation leads to reduced nausea and fewer days in hospital, shows the study.

Gastric electrical stimulation has previously been shown to be effective in most diabetics who suffer from severe vomiting due to the disease. New research shows that people with other severe stomach disorders could also benefit from this treatment.

27 patients were included in a study testing electrical stimulation of the stomach. 22 had fewer symptoms as a result of initial temporary stimulation, and 20 of these then had a permanent pacemaker surgically inserted into the stomach. Of the patients who responded well to temporary stimulation, 90 percent also had good results in a long-term follow-up of the surgically inserted pacemaker.

The treatment led to reduced nausea and vomiting. In another study of 16 patients, electrical stimulation led to fewer days in hospital in the year following treatment. Simple temporary stimulation through the skin can be used to identify the patients who could benefit from the treatment.

“We insert gastric electrodes into the patient under local anaesthesia through a small incision in the skin, and these are then connected to an external pacemaker,” explains junior doctor Stina Andersson, a doctoral student at the Department of Internal Medicine. “If the results are positive, we can be relatively certain that treatment with a surgically inserted pacemaker will work for that patient. The next step is to insert a pacemaker using keyhole surgery.” (ANI)

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Bacterial nasal spray can help kids with glue ear

March 30, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 30 (ANI): A bacterial nasal spray can prove effective for children having long-term problems with fluid in the middle ear, reveals a thesis from the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The study covered 60 children with glue ear, or secretory otitis media (SOM), who were split into three groups.

The first group received a solution containing Streptococcus bacteria, the second a solution with Lactobacillus bacteria, and the third a bacteria-free solution (placebo). These solutions were then sprayed into the children”s noses for ten days.

“In the group given the Streptococcus spray, a third of the children got much better or were cured completely, while only one child given the bacteria-free spray recovered,” says Susann Skovbjerg, a doctoral student at the Department of Infectious Diseases and Clinical Bacteriology. “Treatment with Lactobacillus bacteria was less effective.”

A number of different types of bacteria come under the Streptococcus umbrella. The type used in the study is normally found in the mouth and belongs to the viridans group. The researchers have various theories as to why a spray with these bacteria can help children with glue ear.

“One explanation for the marked improvement may be that the spray stimulates the immune system to conquer the long-term inflammation,” says Skovbjerg. (ANI)

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Acupuncture, exercise may help women with polycystic ovary syndrome

August 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Aug 21 (ANI): Acupuncture and exercise can bring relief to women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), according to a new study.

Nearly 10pct of women of reproductive age suffer from PCOS. The syndrome expresses itself as a large number of small immature cysts on the ovaries that cause a disturbance in the production of hormones and an increase in the secretion of the male sex hormone.

Many women with the condition do not ovulate normally, and the syndrome may lead to infertility.

“We do not know for certain what causes the condition, despite it being so common. We have seen that women with the syndrome often have high activity in that part of the nervous system that we cannot consciously control, known as the ‘sympathetic nervous system,’” said lead researcher Elisabet Stener-Victorin, Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

“We believe that this may be an important underlying factor in the syndrome,” she added.

During the study, one group of women with polycystic ovary syndrome received a specific type of acupuncture called “electro-acupuncture” for four months.

In this type of acupuncture, the needles are stimulated with a weak low-frequency electric current, similar to that developed during muscular work.

A second group of women were provided with heart rate monitors and instructed to exercise at least three times a week.

The study showed that activity in the sympathetic nervous system was lower in the women who received acupuncture and in those who took regular exercise than it was in the control group.

The acupuncture treatment brought further benefits.

“Those who received acupuncture found that their menstruation became more normal,” she said.

“We could also see that their levels of testosterone became significantly lower, and this is an important observation, since elevated testosterone levels are closely connected with the increased activity in the sympathetic nervous system of women”, she added.

The study appears in American Journal of Physiology – Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. (ANI)

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A thirst for blood sparks toxic algal blooms

July 1, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, July 1 (ANI): Scientists at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden have suggested that toxic algal blooms are created when aggressive algae kill and injure their competitors in order to absorb the nutrients they contain.

“The behaviour of the algae can be compared to that of blood-sucking insects,” said Per Jonsson of the Department of Marine Ecology.

The blooming of toxic algae in the oceans and lakes is a familiar health risk and causes problems every summer, leading to increased costs for water cleaning, water consumption and the tourist industry.

Scientists still do not know why algal blooms arise, and what it is that causes certain species of microalgae to multiply and form dense blooms.

Scientists within the research platform MARICE (Marine Chemical Ecology) at the Faculty of Science, the University of Gothenburg, present a new possible explanation of why algal blooms arise in a study.

Current theory postulates that the algae produce toxins not only in order to inhibit the growth of competing species, but also to protect themselves from predators.

The strategy of inhibiting competitors, however, is difficult to explain from an evolutionary perspective.

The turbulent ocean surface means, quite simply, that it is difficult for one algal species to obtain exclusive rights on the effect of a toxin that inhibits competitors.

The production of the toxin must be explained by other factors.

Marine ecologist Per Jonsson and his colleagues suggest that the inhibition of competitors that previous research had found is only a side-effect of a considerably more aggressive behaviour: toxic algae injure or kill competing algae in order to gain access to the nutrients in their cells.

“The way the algae absorb food is similar to that of blood-sucking insects, such as mosquitoes. Our study shows that this theft of nutrients may be an important mechanism in the formation of blooms of toxic plankton,” said Per Jonsson.

“The results will lead to several further experimental studies, and we hope that these will eventually contribute to solving the mystery of how algal blooms arise,” he added. (ANI)

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Acupuncture, exercise may benefit women with PCOS

June 30, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, June 30 (ANI): Exercise and electro-acupuncture treatments could help women with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), according to a new study.

The study has found that exercise and electro-acupuncture treatments can reduce sympathetic nerve activity in women with PCOS.

Elevated sympathetic nerve activity plays a role in hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, obesity and cardiovascular disease.

Problems associated with PCOS include elevated levels of testosterone (the ‘male’ hormone found in both sexes), ovarian cysts, irregular menstrual cycles and infertility.

The study also found that the electro-acupuncture treatments led to more regular menstrual cycles, reduced testosterone levels and reduced waist circumference.

Exercise had no effect on the irregular or non-existent menstrual cycles that are common among women with PCOS, nor did it reduce waist circumference. However, exercise did lead to reductions in weight and body mass index.

“The findings that low-frequency electro-acupuncture and exercise decrease sympathetic nerve activity in women with PCOS indicates a possible alternative non-pharmacologic approach to reduce cardiovascular risk in these patients,” said one of the researchers, Dr. Elisabet Stener-Victorin of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

The study has been published in the online edition of the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology. (ANI)

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Special exercise programme could benefit migraine sufferers

April 17, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 17 (ANI): Researchers from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden have developed a special exercise programme for people suffering from migraine.

Migraine sufferers are often advised to take exercise, however, they avoid it amid fears that the physical activity may bring on a serious migraine attack.

“We know that everyone benefits from a little exercise, but if you’re convinced that a session at the gym will end up with you being confined to bed with a thumping headache and nausea then it’s hardly surprising that people give it a miss,” said Jane Carlsson, Professor in Physiotherapy at the Sahlgrenska Academy.

During the study, the researchers recruited twenty migraine sufferers who were asked to follow a special exercise programme three times a week for three months.

The programme involved using an exercise bike under the guidance of a physiotherapist.

“We could see that those who participated in the study were much fitter after the training period, since their ability to absorb oxygen increased considerably,” said physiotherapist Emma Varkey, one of the researchers behind the study.

Moreover, the researchers revealed that only one of the patients suffered a migraine attack that was directly linked to the training session.

“Now that we’ve been able to show that the risk of increased frequency of attacks in connection with this type of exercise is extremely small, we can study whether exercise can be used to prevent or alleviate migraine attacks,” said Mattias Linde, neurologist at Cephalea Headache Centre and researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy.

“We have already initiated a new study in which we plan to compare the results against a control group,” Linde added.

The study is published in journal Headache. (ANI)

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Why mother’s touch is so soothing for a child

April 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, April 13 (ANI): What makes a mother’s touch so comforting for her children? Well, scientists now have an answer to this question.

A team of experts from the Unilever company, the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and the University of North Carolina have identified a class of nerve fibres in the skin which specifically send pleasure messages.

The researchers have found that people have to be stroked at a certain speed, 4-5cm per second, to activate the pleasure sensation.

They say that their findings may prove helpful in understanding how touch sustains human relationships.

During the study, the research team recorded nerve responses in 20 people, and tested how people responded to having their forearm skin stroked at a range of different speeds.

The researchers identified “C-tactile” nerve fibres as those stimulated when people said a touch had been pleasant.

They observed that the touch was not pleasurable, and the nerve fibres were not activated, when the stroke was faster or slower than the optimum speed.

The C-tactile nerve fibres are only present on hairy skin, and are not found on the hand, according to the experts.

“We believe this could be Mother Nature’s way of ensuring that mixed messages are not sent to the brain when it is in use as a functional tool,” the BBC quoted lead researcher Professor Francis McGlone, now based at Unilever after an academic career where he carried out research into nerve response, as saying.

According to him, the speed at which people found arm-stroking pleasurable was the same as that which a mother uses to comfort a baby, or couples use to show affection.

He said that it was part of the evolutionary mechanism that sustained relationships between adults, or with children.

“Our primary impulse as humans is procreation, but there are some mechanisms in place that are associated with behaviour and reward which are there to ensure relationships continue,” he said.

A research article on this study has been published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. (ANI)

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Big men ‘at increased abnormal heart rhythm risk’

April 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Apr 4 (ANI): Older men who were big during their 20s are at an increased risk of suffering from atrial fibrillation, or abnormal heart rhythm, says a new study.

According to the new research from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, being big includes height and weight.

The study, which has been published in the latest issue of the European Heart Journal, was initiated in 1970.

Over 7,000 men living in Gothenburg aged between 45 and 55 were examined and asked questions about their lifestyle. The subjects were asked to state their weight at the age of 20. The research material has now been compared with the National Patient Register.

“Atrial fibrillation proved to be significantly more common both among those men who were big during their youth, as well as among those who gained a considerable amount of weight later on in life,” says Annika Rosengren, Professor of Medicine at the Sahlgrenska Academy.

The study reveals that the risk of atrial fibrillation increases linearly with both body size and weight gain. The larger the men were in their 20s and the more weight they gained during their life, the greater the risk.

The fact that the men were big in their youth does not mean that they were obese. Obesity in young men was extremely unusual during the 1930s and 40s, and these big men were quite simply tall and well-built.

“Since both weight and height are increasing among young people, it’s quite likely that atrial fibrillation will become more common when today’s young men reach their 60s and 70s, particularly if the tendency to put on several kilos later on in life continues,” says Rosengren. (ANI)

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Parental depression affects children adversely

March 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Mar 7 (ANI): A new study from University of Gothenburg, Sweden has found that parental depression has an adverse impact on children.

Lead researcher Britt Hedman Ahlstrom has revealed that children take on an enormous amount of responsibility for the ill parent and for other family members.

Depression changes the relationship between a parent and his/her children, since they no longer communicate with each other as they used to.

Moreover, family interplay and reciprocity also decrease. As the depressed parent withdraws from the family, children feel they have been left to themselves.

They take responsibility for both the depressed parent, siblings and themselves, when they notice that the parent cannot cope.

“The toughest burden of responsibility that children take on is ensuring that the depressed parent doesn’t commit suicide,” said Hedman Ahlstrom, a registered nurse at University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

“So children take on an extremely heavy responsibility by monitoring and keeping an eye on the depressed parent,” she added.

For children, the parent’s depression means both a sense of responsibility and a feeling of loneliness. The feelings of responsibility and loneliness include a striving and yearning for reciprocity with the parent, and for things to return to a state of normality.

“Even if the depression goes away for a time, the family is never entirely free from anxiety over it coming back. This means that there is a prolonged period of suffering associated with depression,” Hedman Ahlstrom said.

Hedman Ahlstrom suggested that health services must help the whole family

Involving the entire family when a parent becomes ill is important, both for the children and the parents. It is essential to have a well-defined level of guaranteed care on how, when and from whom the families will get support.

Psychiatric healthcare personnel meet people suffering from depression at an early stage, and therefore have the opportunity to focus the care on the family, in order to together identify ways of helping the family get through the depression.

“We need a new approach within the health services, in which the focus is on the family’s own perspective when a parent is suffering from depression,” said Hedman Ahlstrom.

“It’s vital to be aware of the whole family’s needs in terms of help and support, and not just those of the person who is ill.

“It’s particularly important to be aware of the children’s situation,” she added. (ANI)

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Yeasts are genetically more different than humans and chimps

February 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

London, February 15 (ANI): A collaborative study suggests that there can be greater genetic differences between individuals within a particular species of yeast than there are between humans and chimpanzees.

Professor Anders Blomberg, of the University of Gothenburg, has revealed that his team have succeeded in sequencing the DNA and characterising the genome properties of 70 different individual organisms from two different species of yeast – the common brewer’s yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae and its evolutionary cousin Saccharomyces paradoxus.

The study carried out in collaboration with researchers from the Sanger Institute in Cambridge and the University of Nottingham, presents several interesting conclusions, e.g. that human alcohol consumption has altered yeast DNA.

“As humans transported wine and beer yeasts around the world, different yeasts have mated and recombined, so that the strains of today carry gene variants from various parts of the world. This mosaic pattern is not at all visible in our studies of another yeast that has not been exploited by humans,” Nature magazine quoted Blomberg as saying.

The researchers say that the DNA of individual yeast organisms can vary by up to 4 per cent, compared to the 1 per cent difference between the DNA of humans and chimpanzees.

Another interesting observation made by them is that that individual organisms from the same species can have extra genetic material, most of which occur at the periphery of the chromosome, which lends support to the theory that these areas are very important in evolution. (ANI)

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Stress may trigger unexplained chest pain

February 11, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 10 (ANI): A new study from University of Gothenburg, Sweden has found that stress, depression and a sedentary lifestyle might contribute to unexplained chest pain.

Each year, many people seek emergency treatment for unexplained chest, which is not linked to biomedical factors such as heart disease, or some other illness.

“Many suffer from recurring bouts of pain over several years, while the healthcare services are unable to find out what’s causing it,” said lead researcher and a registered nurse Annika Janson Fagring.

In her thesis, Fagring described the symptoms among patients with unexplained chest pain.

“The main difference between women and men with unexplained chest pain is that men were more likely to perceive their lives and jobs as being stressful, while women tended more to suffer from symptoms of depressions and anxiety,” said Fagring.

Moreover, compared with the reference group, both the men and the women with unexplained chest pain led a more sedentary lifestyle.

She also looked at the development of symptoms and the prognosis for patients with unexplained chest pain over a period of time, compared with patients suffering from angina and patients who had suffered a heart attack.

A register study revealed that from 1987 up until 2000, the number of patients with diagnosed unexplained chest pain increased, and then levelled out. The number of patients with angina increased up until 1994 and has since fallen, while the number of patients who have suffered heart attacks has fallen throughout the whole period examined.

In addition, there were fewer deaths among patients with unexplained chest pain a year after they became ill, compared with patients that became ill with angina or suffered heart attacks. (ANI)

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Sweden causing serious environmental harm in India

February 7, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Washington, Feb 6 (ANI): In a new research, it has been found that Sweden is indirectly causing serious environmental harm in India, as the European country is a major consumer of pharmaceutical substances from Indian factories that fail to adequately treat their wastewater.

The research was carried out by scientists from the Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

“We used to think that pharmaceuticals that ended up in the environment mostly came from the use of the medicines and that the substances were dispersed through wastewater. We now know that certain factories that manufacture substances release very large quantities of active substances,” said associate professor Joakim Larsson of the Sahlgrenska Academy in Gothenburg,Sweden, one of the research scientists behind the studies.

The water from the pharmaceutical industries is highly toxic.

Larsson has visited the industrial zone near Hyderabad, India, an important centre for the manufacturing of pharmaceutical substances.

Here, his research team has taken samples of the water discharged from a treatment plant that treats wastewater from around 90 pharmaceutical factories before it is released.

“We have previously shown that the “treated” water contained exceptionally high levels of various pharmaceutical substances, including several broad-spectrum antibiotics,” said Larsson. “We estimated that the treatment plant released 45 kilograms of the antibiotic ciprofloxacin in one day, which is equivalent to five times the daily consumption of Sweden,” he added.

Such high levels of antibiotics in the water are a cause for alarm as there is an increased risk of spawning resistant bacteria, an issue of global concern. This can lead to hose antibiotics that are invaluable today becoming ineffective sooner and not killing the bacteria of tomorrow.

In addition, the environment is affected locally by the pollution.

The research proved that the substances manufactured in Hyderabad are sold in Sweden.

Where the active substance in a pharmaceutical product is manufactured is not public information, but the Swedish Medical Products Agency can grant exemptions for research purposes.

The researchers analyzed data from the Medical Products Agency for all 242 products on the Swedish market that contained any of nine specific substances.

They found that 123 products contained substances from India and for 74 of the products, 31 per cent, the active substance was manufactured by one of the factories that send their wastewater to the treatment plant outside Hyderabad that was studied.

“The analysis shows quite clearly that a large number of medicinal products on the Swedish market is made by manufacturers that send their effluent to a treatment plant that does not treat their water satisfactorily,” said Larsson. (ANI)

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