Endocrinology News and Research

Latest Endocrinology News and Research

Obese, older and poorer Australians get more chronic diseases

According to researchers at the University of Adelaide, in the past 15 years chronic diseases among older, lower income and obese Australians have increased significantly.

15 May 2009

Swine flu preoccupies world health leaders

It is expected that the upcoming World Health Organisation's (WHO) annual assembly will be dominated this year by the emergence and spread of the new influenza virus H1N1 (swine flu).

14 May 2009

Discovery of two proteins essential for ovulation

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health and other institutions have identified in mice two proteins essential for ovulation to take place.

14 May 2009

Diuretic drug works best at reducing risk of heart failure in hypertension

New research supports the findings of a landmark drug comparison study published in 2002 in which a diuretic drug or "water pill" outperformed other medications for high blood pressure. A scientific team including investigators from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston reports the findings in the May 11 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.

13 May 2009

Support the key to maintaining that weight loss

Researchers at the University of Otago in New Zealand say support from nurses in a weight-loss program is as effective as a more expensive intensive programme involving dieticians and exercise specialists.

13 May 2009

Obama calls for additional taxes to offset budgeting mistakes that overstated revenue for health reform

The Obama administration on Monday proposed $58 billion worth of new taxes in response to findings that returns from the original funding mechanism for President Obama's health care plan were overstated, the AP/Boston Globe reports (Ohlemacher, AP/Boston Globe, 5/11).

12 May 2009

Participants in antidepressant drug trials are atypical patients

One reason antidepressant medication treatments do not work as well in real life as they do in clinical studies could be the limited type of study participants selected, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.

12 May 2009

In retinal disease, sight may depend on second sites

If two people have the same genetic disease, why would one person go blind in childhood but the other later in life or not at all? For a group of genetic diseases - so-called ciliary diseases that include Bardet-Biedl syndrome, Meckel-Gruber syndrome, and Joubert syndrome - the answer lies in one gene that is already linked to two of these diseases and also seems to increase the risk of progressive blindness in patients with other ciliary diseases. The findings are published online this week at Nature Genetics.

12 May 2009

Schering-Plough starts patient enrollment in phase 3 trial for Acadesine

Schering-Plough Corporation today announced the start of patient enrollment in RED-CABG, the Phase 3 Trial for acadesine, an investigational, potentially first-in-class adenosine regulating agent (ARA). Acadesine was licensed from PeriCor Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held specialty biopharmaceutical company.

12 May 2009

DHEA supplement combined with vitamin D and calcium significantly improves spinal bone density in older women

"The results of our study are very promising. Similar studies have demonstrated much smaller benefits for bone than we found. However, calcium and vitamin D deficiencies, which are present in half of older adults, may have prevented DHEA from improving bone density in the earlier studies," said Edward Weiss, Ph.D., associate professor of nutrition and dietetics at Saint Louis University's Doisy College of Health Sciences and lead author of the study.

12 May 2009

Job losses have negative effect on health, study finds

Workers who lost their job through no fault of their own were twice as likely as continuously employed workers to report over the next 18 months that they developed a new illness, such as high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease, according to a study released last week, the New York Times reports.

12 May 2009

New evidence of how high glucose damages blood vessels could lead to new diabetes treatments

New evidence of how the elevated glucose levels that occur in diabetes damage blood vessels may lead to novel strategies for blocking the destruction, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.

12 May 2009

New Centre to target health and well being of children and young people

Children and young people in the UK are set to benefit from a new centre of excellence focused on tackling health issues of most concern to them.

12 May 2009

High-caloric exercise reduces risks in heart patients the most

An exercise program that burns a lot of calories reduced cardiac risk factors better than standard cardiac rehabilitation in overweight coronary patients, researchers report in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

12 May 2009

Building a bridge from Alzheimer's disease to diabetes and vice versa

Modern societies face the increasing burden of age-related diseases, in particular Alzheimer's disease (AD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D).

12 May 2009

Seniors need more sun!

Spending more time in the sunshine could help older people to reduce their risk of developing heart disease and diabetes.

11 May 2009

Self-reported diagnosis of heart disease: Less than one in five heart problems are diagnosed before symptoms appear

Clinicians are missing golden opportunities to identify heart disease before patients start displaying symptoms, according to a study of 13,877 people published in the May issue of UK-based IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

11 May 2009

Two government reports show little progress in improving patient safety; reducing racial, ethnic health disparities

The U.S. has not made substantial improvement in narrowing health care disparities among racial and ethnic groups, nor has it improved quality of care, according to two Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reports released on Wednesday by HHS, Politico reports (Allen, Politico, 5/6).

7 May 2009

Hypoglycemia poses a serious health threat for patients with chronic kidney disease

Low blood sugar, or hypoglycemia, poses a serious health threat for patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN).

7 May 2009

Kidney disease patients reap rewards of prevention

Making sure you see your doctor and have tests run on a regular basis can prevent serious complications of chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN).

7 May 2009