Health News - Friday, March 16, 2007
Antidepressants don't help people with the compulsive stealing disorder kleptomania, a new study found. The findings, by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, came as no surprise to experts in the mental health field, where kleptomania is known as a particularly stubborn problem.
"Kleptomania doesn't respond very well to anything at all," said Dr. Norman Sussman, a professor of psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine. "Even therapy is often useless. People will steal things even after getting caught. It's truly a compulsion." The study authors, however, did not rule out the possibility that certain medications, even the one used in the trial, might still prove to be an effective treatment for some people. Continue reading
Finnish scientists have found a new method to treat virus-induced lymphomas, Finnish media reported Friday. Researchers at the University of Helsinki have discovered by activating a pathway present in a certain gene, TP53, they can turn cells against tumors.
This is a new treatment for lymphomas induced by Kaposi's sarcoma herpesvirus (KSHV) such as primary effusion lymphomas (PELs), which have a reported median survival time shorter than six months after diagnosis. The TP53 gene is crucial because it encodes a transcription factor that protects cells from tumor development by inducing cell-cycle arrest via a complex network of signals known as the p53 pathway. Continue reading
A growing number of studies suggest that the nighttime breathing disorder, sleep apnea, can contribute to a range of cardiovascular diseases, according to researchers from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Writing in the journal Sleep, they detail the evidence linking sleep apnea to high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, stroke, heart failure and heart-rhythm disorders.
The connection between the sleep disorder and heart health is increasingly being recognized, the authors say -- both because of recent research, and possibly because sleep apnea is becoming more common. People with sleep apnea have repeated stops and starts in their breathing as they sleep, sometimes hundreds of times per night. Of the two forms of sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is by far the more common; it occurs when the soft tissues at the back of the throat repeatedly collapse during sleep, temporarily cutting off breathing. When this happens, the brain briefly rouses the person from deep sleep to re-open the airways. Continue reading
Training the brain with a computer workout program may be better than classic computer games at staving off age-related mental decline, scientists reported on Friday. While the computer and video game store has long been the bastion of teenagers and hard-core gamers, a host of new games for older folk have made their way into the stores.
The games, from companies like Nintendo and Mattel Inc., are based on studies showing that with a little training, older people can improve their brain power. Researchers in Israel compared how one brain-training program, MindFit, fared versus a workout with a sampling of classic computer games, such as the puzzle game Tetris. The study, funded by a grant from game maker CogniFit Ltd., involved 121 volunteers over 50 who used the MindFit training program or a sampling of computer games for three months. Volunteers were divided into groups. They were not told whether they were playing the brain workout program or a dummy program. Continue reading
Findings from a study of Danish children suggest that hearing loss greatly increases the risk of meningitis. Therefore, parents of children with hearing loss should familiarize themselves with the signs and symptoms of meningitis. Researchers conducted a review of all children born in Denmark between 1995 and 2004. Out of 663,963 children, the researchers identified 39 who had both hearing loss and meningitis, including five cases in which the hearing loss preceded the meningitis.
Children with hearing loss were five times more likely to develop meningitis than those without hearing loss, lead author Dr. Erik T. Parner, from the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and colleagues note. "This is the first study to report on the risk of meningitis in children with hearing loss...and warrants further investigation in other populations and databases," the researchers conclude. Continue reading
Looking at various proteins in urine may help doctors predict the development of diabetic nephropathy in type 2 diabetes patients well before they develop the condition, according to a report in the March Diabetes Care.
"We have identified a set of urine proteins almost 10 years before the onset of diabetic nephropathy that identify those who will go on to get diabetic nephropathy, the most common cause of renal failure in the U.S. and the world," Dr. Ravi Thadhani, from Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, told Reuters Health. Diabetic nephropathy is a serious complication of diabetes in which the kidneys lose their ability to function over time. Continue reading