Pathophysiology News and Research

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High levels of antibodies - low levels of cancer!

Active immunisation can stimulate the body to produce highly efficient IgE antibodies that attack tumours.

17 Apr 2007

Efficacy of Guanilib confirmed for inflammatory bowel disease

Callisto Pharmaceuticals has announced additional data confirming efficacy of Guanilib, a first-in-class compound currently being developed for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), in two different standard animal models of experimental colitis.

7 Apr 2007

Tilarginine does not reduce risk of death after heart attack

The medication tilarginine, a drug that was believed could be beneficial for patients who develop cardiogenic shock (low blood pressure due to impaired cardiac function) after a heart attack, did not reduce the risk of death up to six months after a heart attack, according to a JAMA study published online March 26.

2 Apr 2007

Treating sleep apnea with continuous positive airway pressure reduces incidence of stroke

Patients with moderate to severe sleep apnea who have significantly higher serum levels of inflammatory markers that serve as precursors to coronary artery disease, as well as lesions associated with silent brain infarction, have an elevated risk of stroke, according to a group of Japanese medical researchers.

19 Mar 2007

Newborns with respiratory distress should be evaluated for primary ciliary dyskinesia

Reviewing published reports, Ferkol and Margaret Leigh, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), found that neonatal respiratory distress was a common clinical symptom of PCD, a chronic airway disease that affects about 1 in 15,000 children.

20 Feb 2007

Could quantum dots hold the cure to cancer?

Review of quantum dot technologies for cancer detection and treatment.

13 Sep 2006

Reduced levels of antiinflammatory cytokines in patients with chronic widespread pain

Chronic widespread pain, a common medical condition, can be difficult to treat and is often associated with fatigue, poor sleep and depression.

26 Jul 2006

An outsider's view of chronic fatigue syndrome may provide clues to how we perceive

Clinical methodology and its implications for the study of therapeutic interventions for chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

28 Jun 2006

Evidence is strong that green tea lowers the risk for a number of chronic diseases

There is a lower incidence of cardiovascular disease and cancer in Asia where people smoke heavily, which may be accounted for by high consumption of tea, particularly green tea, according to a review article published by a Yale School of Medicine researcher.

6 Jun 2006

Gene variation linked to more severe Crohn's disease

Building on previous evidence supporting the theory that the pathophysiology of Crohn's Disease is altered by genetic variation, recent studies have found that the combination of immune signals given by three variants of a single candidate gene affects the severity of the disease.

1 Jun 2006

New diagnostic approaches for early identification of patients at high risk of rapid loss of kidney function

Doctor Harry Holthvfer, M.D., Ph.D, at the University of Helsinki, Finland, coordinates a new EU-funded project, which aims to develop new diagnostic approaches for early identification of patients at high risk of rapid loss of kidney function.

31 May 2006

Endocannabinoid system shows promise in combating obesity

As the obesity epidemic grows in the United States, the medical community is faced with the significant challenge of properly treating patients before complications such as heart disease arise.

3 May 2006

Intensive statin therapy shows promise for inducing regression of coronary atherosclerosis

Patients treated with very intensive statin therapy lowered LDL-C levels on average by about 50 percent, increased HDL-C levels by 15 percent, and showed regression of coronary atherosclerosis

15 Mar 2006

Tomato juice keeps emphysema from developing in new animal model of degenerative disease

Feeding tomato juice to mice kept them from developing emphysema after cigarette smoke exposure that was long enough to induce emphysema in a control group, Japanese researchers report in February issue of the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology.

10 Jan 2006

Intravenous lidocaine and oral derivatives relieve pain from damage to the nervous system

Lidocaine and similar local anesthetics are effective for treating pain that emanates from damaged nerves, according to a systematic review of current evidence.

23 Oct 2005

Hundreds of identified genes involved in the pathophysiology of ulcerative colitis and Crohn disease

In a paper published in PLoS Medicine researchers from the German Genome Research Network have analysed the expression of thousands of genes from patients with inflammatory bowel disease (ulcerative colitis and Crohn disease) using a genome wide approach to produce a comprehensive picture of which genes are activated in these conditions.

24 Aug 2005

Current clinical practice guidelines are not written with older adults with multiple illnesses in mind

The aging of the population and the increasing prevalence of chronic diseases pose challenges to the development and application of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), according to background information in the article. In 1999, 48 percent of Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 years or older had at least 3 chronic medical conditions and 21 percent had 5 or more.

10 Aug 2005

Plaques in the brain more likely to be expressed as dementia in women than in men

Researchers from the Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center found that plaques and tangles in the brain, the changes seen in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), are more likely to be expressed as dementia in women than in men.

25 Jul 2005

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) occurs far more frequently than generally believed

Although estimates vary widely, when combined with the milder afflictions of Alcohol Related Birth Defects (ARBD) and several others, the Centers for Disease Control puts the frequency of FAS/ARBD as high as one in 100.

19 Jul 2005

Blood testing links common foods and irritable bowel syndrome

Researchers using comparison trials determined that irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) patients have elevated food-specific IgG4 antibodies to common foods such as wheat, beef, pork, lamb, and soya bean. These findings are published in the July issue of The American Journal of Gastroenterology.

13 Jul 2005