Research Offers Promise for Cirrhosis Treatment

New findings about the inner workings of cells may be bringing scientists one step closer to reversing the scarring of the liver known as cirrhosis.

Currently, the best treatment for advanced cirrhosis is a liver transplant, an option that's often not available. But newly released research with mice suggests that a drug-based strategy could reprogram cells and make it "feasible to treat it [cirrhosis] and prevent it without a transplant," said study lead author Martina Buck, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego.

There's no guarantee, however, that the treatment will work in humans. And Buck said it could take at least five to 10 years for a drug to reach the market if a pharmaceutical company became interested in pursuing it.

But the research might also lead to new treatments for other conditions that lead to excess tissue scarring, such as viral hepatitis, fatty liver disease, pulmonary fibrosis, scleroderma and burns, the study authors said.

At issue is scarring in the liver, an organ that filters out toxins and breaks down medications. The scarring is a "natural healing process," Buck said, but overuse of alcohol and diseases like hepatitis can make the scarring become chronic and lead to major health problems like cancer.

In the new study, Buck and her colleagues focused on liver cells that transform into scar tissue when activated. They used mice with severe liver fibrosis that was brought about by chronic exposure to a toxin known to cause liver damage. Next, they genetically engineered mice to activate a protein that provides protection against scarring.

The researchers found that the protein seemed to protect the mice from scarring, and "if you wait until [a mouse] has cirrhosis before you treat him, he will actually regress. It's not just a preventive thing. It's an actual treatment," Buck said.

The study was published Dec. 26 in the journalPublic Library of Science Online.

Research into the workings of liver cells in people suggests that the treatment might also work in humans, Buck said. Potentially, the treatment could be converted into a drug that could be given orally or intravenously, she said.

Dr. Scott Friedman, chief of the Division of Liver Diseases at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, said that while the study is useful, it's "not a major breakthrough" considering the many research projects in a similar stage of development.

Still, he said, it "builds on 20 years of very exciting research" that looks at how cells create scarring in the liver.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

University of Minnesota Developing Cyanide Antidote

University of Minnesota researchers are developing a fast-acting antidote to the deadly poison cyanide.

The scientists say their treatment is effective on mice. They hope to start human trials within three years.

The body already is able to detoxify the small amounts of cyanide that occur naturally in pitted fruits and other foods. Researcher Steven Patterson says the new antidote works with the body's natural protections.

Concerns over the potential use of cyanide as a chemical weapon by terrorists led to the federal funding of the research. But firefighters might benefit most of all from the antidote because building fires produce large amount of the poison.

Researchers hope their antidote becomes part of a standard kit given to first responders.

Source: http://wkbt.com/

7 Medical Myths That Might Have Your Doctor Duped

Medical myths abound. For Aaron Carroll, a pediatrician at the Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis, the last straw was hearing an ominous radio report that warned parents that strangers might try to poison their kids on Halloween. "There hasn't been one documented case of a stranger actually doing that," Carroll says. (He adds that the few Halloween candy poisoning cases that have occurred have involved the child's family, not strangers.) The radio story prompted Carroll and a fellow pediatrician, Rachel Vreeman of the Indiana University School of Medicine, to start looking for other common, unsubstantiated beliefs. They found numerous examples and have just published a report in the British Medical Journal naming seven common medical misconceptions and laying out the evidence for why they're not true.

1. We Use Only 10 Percent of Our Brain. People have been spouting this "fact" since 1907, but numerous brain-imaging studies have shown that no area of the brain is completely inactive.
2. Drink at Least Eight Glasses of Water a Day. We've all heard that we're supposed to drink before we're thirsty and that our pee should be as clear as mineral water, but most of us get plenty of water from food and other drinks. Drinking water when you're thirsty makes sense, but eight glasses is setting the bar too high for many people.
3. Hair and Fingernails Continue to Grow After Death. Makes for creepy fiction, yes, but actually it's the retraction of desiccating skin that makes the nails or hair of a cadaver appear to be growing. Real growth requires complex hormonal regulation, which stops at death.
4. Shaving Hair Causes It to Grow Back Faster, Darker, and Coarser. No, no, and no. Newly sprouted hair looks dark because it has had minimal exposure to sun or chemicals, and it seems coarse because shaved hair lacks the finer taper seen at the ends of unshaven hair.
5. Reading in Dim Light Ruins Your Eyesight. Dim light may force you to strain or squint your eyes, most ophthalmologists say, but it does not cause any eye damage.
6. Eating Turkey Makes You Drowsy. Tryptophan, an amino acid that's linked to mood control and can cause drowsiness, is found in turkey meat. But chicken and ground beef contain similar amounts, and pork and Swiss cheese contain even more tryptophan per gram. Any large meal can induce sleepiness by decreasing blood flow to the brain.
7. Mobile Phones Are Dangerous in Hospitals. Not one death caused by the use of a cellphone in a hospital has ever been reported, according to Carroll and Vreeman, though equipment malfunctions occasionally have been. Research actually suggests that allowing physicians to use cellphones inside hospitals reduces the risk of medical error and injury.

Source: health.usnews.com

Sex Education Found to Help Teenagers Delay Sex

Teenagers who have had formal sex education are far more likely to put off having sex, contradicting earlier studies on the effectiveness of such programs, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

They found teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71 percent less likely to have intercourse before age 15, and teen girls who had sex education were 59 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.

Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex, according to the study by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

"Sex education seems to be working," Trisha Mueller, an epidemiologist with the CDC who led the study, said in a statement. "It seems to be especially effective for populations that are usually at high risk."

Mueller's team looked at a 2002 national survey of 2,019 teens aged 15 to 19.

They found teen boys who had sex education in school were nearly three times more likely to use birth control the first time they had intercourse. But sex education appeared to have no effect on whether teen girls used birth control, the researchers found.

Black teenage girls who had sex education in school were 91 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.

The researchers did not evaluate the content of sex education programs, including whether students were taught about contraception or about abstinence only.

Earlier studies, which relied on data from the 1970s through the 1990s, suggested sex education did little to persuade teens to delay sex.

The researchers said they think the difference may be that sex education in the United States is now more widespread and is being taught at earlier ages.

"Unlike many previous studies, our results suggest that sex education before first sex protects youth from engaging in sexual intercourse at an early age," they wrote.

Source: www.reuters.com