Prostate Cancer Symptoms Tips What is prostate cancer symptoms? We have tips about prostate cancer symptoms

Thank you for using rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial, please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!

Main Category: Neurology / Neuroscience
Also Included In: Depression;  Sports Medicine / Fitness
Article Date: 06 Mar 2013 - 0:00 PST
A marathon runner approaches the finishing line, but suddenly the sweaty athlete collapses to the ground. Everyone probably assumes that this is because he has expended all energy in his muscles. What few people know is that it might also be a braking mechanism in the brain which swings into effect and makes us too tired to continue. What may be occurring is what is referred to as 'central fatigue'.

"Our discovery is helping to shed light on the paradox which has long been the subject of discussion by researchers. We have always known that the neurotransmitter serotonin is released when you exercise, and indeed, it helps us to keep going. However, the answer to what role the substance plays in relation to the fact that we also feel so exhausted we have to stop has been eluding us for years. We can now see it is actually a surplus of serotonin that triggers a braking mechanism in the brain. In other words, serotonin functions as an accelerator but also as a brake when the strain becomes excessive," says Associate Professor Jean-François Perrier from the Department of Neuroscience and Pharmacology, who has spearheaded the new research.

Help in the battle against doping

Jean-François Perrier hopes that mapping the mechanism that prompts central fatigue will be useful in several ways. Central fatigue is a phenomenon which has been known for about 80 years; it is a sort of tiredness which, instead of affecting the muscles, hits the brain and nervous system. By conducting scientific experiments, it is possible to observe and measure that the brain sends insufficient signals to the muscles to keep going, which in turn means that we are unable to keep performing. This makes the mechanism behind central fatigue an interesting area in the battle against doping, and it is for this reason that Anti Doping Danmark has also helped fund the group's research.

"In combating the use of doping, it is crucial to identify which methods athletes can use to prevent central fatigue and thereby continue to perform beyond what is naturally possible. And the best way of doing so is to understand the underlying mechanism," says Jean-François Perrier.

Developing better drugs

The brain communicates with our muscles using so-called motoneurons. In several diseases, motoneurons are hyperactive. This is true, for example, of people suffering from spasticity and cerebral palsy, who are unable to control their movements. Jean-François Perrier therefore hopes that, in the long term, this new knowledge can also be used to help develop drugs against these symptoms and to find out more about the effects of antidepressants.

"This new discovery brings us a step closer to finding ways of controlling serotonin. In other words, whether it will have an activating effect or trigger central fatigue. It is all about selectively activating the receptors which serotonin attaches to," explains Jean-François Perrier.

"For selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) drugs which are used as antidepressants, we can possibly help explain why those who take the drugs often feel more tired and also become slightly clumsier than other people. What we now know can help us develop better drugs," concludes Jean-François Perrier.

• Additional
• References
• Citations

Thank you for using rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial, please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!

Main Category: Anxiety / Stress
Also Included In: Women's Health / Gynecology;  Psychology / Psychiatry;  Depression
Article Date: 06 Mar 2013 - 0:00 PST

Thank you for using rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial, please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!

Main Category: Immune System / Vaccines
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 06 Mar 2013 - 0:00 PST
The underdeveloped immune systems of newborns don't respond to most vaccines, leaving them at high risk for infections like rotavirus, pertussis (whooping cough) and pneumococcus. Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital have identified a potent compound that activates immune responses in newborns' white blood cells substantially better than anything previously tested, and that could potentially make vaccines effective right at birth.

The ability to immunize babies at birth - rather than two months of age, when most current vaccination series begin - would be a triumph for global health. Worldwide, each year, infections kill more than 2 million infants under 6 months old. In resource-poor countries, birth may be the only time a child has contact with a health care provider.

While newborns lack most aspects of the immune response, researchers led by Ofer Levy, MD, PhD, of the Division of Infectious Disease at Boston Children's have shown that their white blood cells do have one receptor that responds strongly to stimulation, known as Toll-like receptor 8 (TLR 8). In their new work, published March 4 by the online open-access journal PLoS ONE, they tested a panel of synthetic small-molecule compounds that specifically target TLR8, known chemically as benzazepines.

The compounds, provided by VentiRx Pharmaceuticals (Seattle, WA), potently stimulate the human immune system and are in clinical trials in patients with certain cancers.

Tested in Levy's lab, one benzazepine, VTX-294, produced a strong immune response in white blood cells from newborns (taken from cord blood samples) as well as whole blood from adults. It induced robust production of cytokines - chemicals that rally the immune response - and proved at least 10 times more potent than the best activator of TLR8 known previously.

"The response was not only equal to that in adults, but VTX 294 was sometimes actually more effective in newborns than adults," notes Levy, the study's senior investigator.

The compound also triggered production of so-called co-stimulatory molecules that enhance immune responses. Moreover, even very low concentrations of VTX-294 strongly activated antigen-presenting cells, a type of white blood cell whose activation induces immune memory - key to effective responses to vaccines.

Toll-like receptors (TLRs), first identified in humans about two decades ago, are part of the innate (rapid) immune response that provides our first defense against infections. Ten types of TLRs are known, and TLR stimulators have begun to be added to vaccines as adjuvants. The main one, monophosphoryl lipid A (MPLA), stimulates TLR4 and is used in the human papillomavirus vaccine Cervarix. However, in a recent clinical trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine, a malaria vaccine with MPLA failed to elicit a sufficient immune response in infants.

With encouraging results in cells from human newborns, Levy and colleagues now hope to formulate VTX 294 or a similar TLR8 stimulator for testing as a vaccine adjuvant in newborn primates, a model in which the lab has expertise, and whose responses to TLR8 closely resemble humans'.

"This one receptor seems to lead to more adult-like responses - immediate, short-term responses that are more appropriate for fighting infections," says David Dowling, PhD, co-first author on the study. "We're excited about the benzazepines because they are already in the clinical pipeline. That advances the potential for using them in a clinical study in human newborns, once they have been proven safe in animal studies."

• Additional
• References
• Citations

Thank you for using rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial, please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!

Main Category: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Also Included In: Diabetes;  Public Health
Article Date: 06 Mar 2013 - 0:00 PST
The public is very supportive of government action aimed at changing lifestyle choices that can lead to obesity, diabetes, and other noncommunicable diseases - but they're less likely to support such interventions if they're viewed as intrusive or coercive, according to a new Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study. The study also found that support was higher for interventions that help people make more healthful choices, such as menu labeling requirements, than for interventions that penalize certain choices or health conditions, such as charging higher insurance premiums for obese individuals.

"Policymakers everywhere are looking for ways to use legal and policy levers to stem the rising tide of health care costs related to obesity and chronic disease," said Stephanie Morain, a doctoral candidate in health policy at Harvard University, who led the study. "They should be heartened by these findings - the public does see this as an appropriate role for government." That public support is important, the study authors wrote, because it may affect people's willingness to comply with the law.

The study appears in the March 2013 issue of Health Affairs.

In recent years, lifestyle choices such as overeating, physical inactivity, and alcohol and tobacco use have led to troubling increases in chronic ailments in the U.S. In response, health departments and legislative bodies have adopted policies aimed at combating the behavioral risk factors that lead to ill health, such as banning trans fats in restaurants, raising taxes on cigarettes, and screening schoolchildren for high body mass index.

But some have criticized such interventions, saying that they impinge on personal choice and exceed the scope of governmental authority. So the HSPH researchers decided to examine which factors play into public support for so-called "new-frontier" public health initiatives.

For the study, co-authors Morain and Michelle Mello, professor of law and public health in the HSPH Department of Health Policy and Management, analyzed the results of an online survey of 1,817 American adults conducted in October 2011 by Knowledge Networks (now part of GfK), a professional survey organization. In the survey, respondents were asked about their support for various types of public health policies, as well as the factors that influenced their support. There were questions about seven noncommunicable health conditions and 14 specific strategies to address them.

The researchers found a high level of support - between 70% and 90% - for government action on each of seven areas: preventing cancer, heart disease, childhood and adult obesity, and tobacco use; helping people control their diabetes; and reducing alcohol consumption.

Support was quite high for interventions that facilitate healthy choices, such as increasing the affordability of fruits and vegetables or requiring more instruction in public schools about the health risks of obesity. However, support waned when government actions were viewed as focusing on penalties or on limiting choices - such as adding insurance surcharges for obese individuals or making it illegal to smoke in private spaces.

The researchers also found that African-Americans and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics, are significantly more likely than whites to support government action to address noncommunicable diseases.

In addition, the survey indicated that people are much more supportive of government public health initiatives if they believe that "people like me" can influence public health priorities and if they think that public health officials understand the public's values.

"The message for public health officials and legislators is, if you want the public to buy into these legal interventions, you've got to engage them early on," said Mello. "You've also got to communicate about policies in a way that resonates with the public's values. For example, how does the intervention support healthy choices? Why is it fair?"

• Additional
• References
• Citations

Thank you for using rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial, please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!

Main Category: Parkinson's Disease
Also Included In: Neurology / Neuroscience;  Medical Devices / Diagnostics
Article Date: 06 Mar 2013 - 0:00 PST
A team of scientists and clinicians at UC San Francisco has discovered how to detect abnormal brain rhythms associated with Parkinson's by implanting electrodes within the brains of people with the disease.

The work may lead to developing the next generation of brain stimulation devices to alleviate symptoms for people with the disease.

Described this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the work sheds light on how Parkinson's disease affects the brain, and is the first time anyone has been able to measure a quantitative signal from the disease within the cerebral cortex - the outermost layers of the brain that helps govern memory, physical movement and consciousness.

"Normally the individual cells of the brain are functioning independently much of the time, working together only for specific tasks," said neurosurgeon Philip Starr, MD, PhD, a professor of neurological surgery at UCSF and senior author of the paper. But in Parkinson's disease, he said, many brain cells display "excessive synchronization," firing together inappropriately most of the time.

"They are locked into playing the same note as everyone else without exploring their own music," Starr explained. This excessive synchronization leads to movement problems and other symptoms characteristic of the disease.

The new work also shows how deep brain stimulation (DBS), which electrifies regions deeper in the brain, below the cortex, can affect the cortex, itself. This discovery may change how DBS is used to treat Parkinson's and other neurologically based movement disorders, and it may help refine the technique for other types of treatment.

Functions Like a Pacemaker for the Brain

Over the last decade, doctors at UCSF and elsewhere have turned to deep brain stimulation to help people with Parkinson's disease and movement disorders like essential tremor and primary dystonia, an extremely debilitating conditionthat causes painful, twisting muscle spasms.

In addition, deep brain stimulation is now being explored to treat psychiatric diseases like depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder.. Last year a team at UCLA showed that electrical stimulation of the temporal lobe in patients during learning activities helped them recall specific types of spatial information.

Similar to putting a pacemaker inside a heart patient's chest, deep brain stimulation requires a neurosurgeon to implant electrodes inside tiny parts of the brain, to deliver electrical current.

In Parkinson's these electrodes are generally implanted in people who have mid-stage disease and cannot obtain full benefit from commonly used drugs due to complications - about 10- to 15-percent of all patients with the disease. For them, deep brain stimulation can free them of severe mobility problems and other symptoms, helping them live with much improved motor function for many years. Eventually the progressive nature of Parkinson's disease overwhelms the ability of deep brain stimulation to alleviate symptoms.

However, while doctors have witnessed for years the sometimes miraculous recovery of function that can come with one of these surgeries, said Starr, the odd thing is that nobody understands exactly why deep brain stimulation works. The prevailing hypothesis is that it alleviates symptoms by overriding the abnormal, "bad" brain circuitry, much like turning down the noise can increase the fidelity of a musical recording.

The new work supports this hypothesis. Working with 16 patients with Parkinson's disease and nine with cervical dystonia undergoing neurosurgical treatment over the past three years, Starr and his colleagues showed clearly how to detect excessive brain synchronization at the surface of the brain in people with Parkinson's disease and how deep brain stimulation can return those surface cells to their independent state.

Patients in the study consented to have temporary, flexible electrodes placed on their brain surface for a few hours during surgery, in addition to having the permanent deep stimulating electrodes implanted for long-term therapy.

The first author on the study is Coralie de Hemptinne, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Starr's laboratory. Patients were managed before and after surgery by study co-authors Jill Ostrem, MD, and Nicholas Galifianakis, MD, neurologists in the UCSF Surgical Movement Disorders (SMD) Center.

For controls, they compared the surface brain recordings of those 25 patients with nine more people who were undergoing surgery for epilepsy and did not have abnormal brain patterns while they were not having seizures.

The ability to monitor excessive brain synchronization on the surface of the brain points the way to next-generation brain stimulators that would be more sophisticated, Starr said. Right now most devices implanted into patients deliver continuous electrical stimulation. But modern heart pacemakers deliver jolts only when needed.

If DBS implants could be made to detect an abnormal signal in the surface of the brain and deliver their electrical stimulation only when needed, they might function better, require much less work from clinicians to adjust stimulator settings, and be able to automatically adjust stimulation levels to match changes in patient's movement symptoms. Symptoms can often vary greatly throughout the day, but existing DBS devices have no way to adjust themselves for changing conditions in the patient's brain.

The next step, said Starr, will be to find ways to detect these signals automatically with an implanted DBS device so that the electrical brain stimulator would respond automatically and flexibly to a patient's needs.

UCSF, Starr, and co-investigators hold a provisional patent titled "Detection of a cortical biomarker in movement disorders using a non-penetrating electrode."

• Additional
• References
• Citations

Thank you for using rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial, please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!

Main Category: Pregnancy / Obstetrics
Also Included In: Anxiety / Stress;  Neurology / Neuroscience
Article Date: 06 Mar 2013 - 0:00 PST
The mammalian placenta is more than just a filter through which nutrition and oxygen are passed from a mother to her unborn child. According to a new study by a research group from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine, if a mother is exposed to stress during pregnancy, her placenta translates that experience to her fetus by altering levels of a protein that affects the developing brains of male and female offspring differently.

These findings suggest one way in which maternal-stress exposure may be linked to neurodevelopmental diseases such as autism and schizophrenia, which affect males more frequently or more severely than females.

"Most everything experienced by a woman during a pregnancy has to interact with the placenta in order to transmit to the fetus," said Tracy L. Bale, senior author on the paper and an associate professor in the Department of Animal Biology at Penn Vet. "Now we have a marker that appears to signal to the fetus that its mother has experienced stress."

Bale also holds an appointment in the Department of Psychiatry in Penn's Perelman School of Medicine. Her coauthors include lead author and postdoctoral researcher Christopher L. Howerton, graduate student Christopher Morgan and former technician David B. Fischer, all of Penn Vet.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study builds on previous work by Bale and her colleagues which found that female mice exposed to stress during pregnancy gave birth to males who had heightened reactions to stress. Further research showed that the effect extended to the second generation: The sons of those male mice also had abnormal stress reactions.

Meanwhile, human studies conducted by other researchers have shown that males born to women who experience stress in the first trimester of pregnancy are at an increased risk of developing schizophrenia.

The Penn team hoped to find a biomarker that could account for these changes and risk factors. To be an effective signal of maternal stress, the researchers reasoned, a biomarker would need to show differences in expression between male and female offspring and would need to be different between stressed and unstressed mothers. They also wanted to find a marker that behaved similarly in humans.

They went about their search by first exposing a group of female mice to mild stresses, such as fox odor or unfamiliar noises, during the first week of their pregnancies, a time period equivalent to the first trimester of a human pregnancy. Another group of pregnant mice was unexposed.

In a genome-wide screen of the female's placentas, one gene stood out as meeting the researchers' criteria: Ogt, an X-linked gene that codes for the enzyme O-linked-N-acetylglucosamine transferase (OGT). Placentas from male offspring had lower levels of OGT than those from female offspring, and all placentas from stressed mothers had lower levels than placentas from their unstressed counterparts.

To determine how placental exposure to reduced levels of OGT might differentially affect the brains of male and female offspring, Bale's team developed a mouse in which they could genetically control OGT's expression. Comparing females with normal levels of placental OGT to females that had been manipulated to have half as much, the researchers observed changes in more than 370 genes in the offspring's developing hypothalamus. Many of these genes are known to be involved in energy use, protein regulation and synapse formation, functions that are critical to neurological development.

In addition, Bale and colleagues found promising signs that these results translate to humans. They analyzed human placentas that had been discarded after the birth of male babies. No identifying information was associated with the tissue, but the researchers discovered that the male (XY) side of the placenta had reduced OGT expression compared to the maternal (XX) side, similar to this genes regulation in mouse placenta.

Together, the results suggest that the OGT enzyme may be acting to protect the brain during gestation but that males have less of this protective enzyme to begin with, placing them at an increased risk of abnormal neurodevelopment if their mother is stressed during pregnancy.

If OGT's status as a biomarker for exposure to prenatal stress and heightened risk for neurodevelopmental problems is confirmed in humans, Bale said it could help detect vulnerable individuals earlier in life than is currently possible.

"We want to get to the point where we can predict the occurrence of neurodevelopmental disease," Bale said. "If we have a marker for exposure, we can meld that with what we know about the genetic profiles that predispose individuals to these conditions and keep a close eye on children who have increased risks."

• Additional
• References
• Citations

Thank you for using rssforward.com! This service has been made possible by all our customers. In order to provide a sustainable, best of the breed RSS to Email experience, we've chosen to keep this as a paid subscription service. If you are satisfied with your free trial, please sign-up today. Subscriptions without a plan would soon be removed. Thank you!

Are you aware that thousands of individuals each year are sucked into products that claim they could cure cancer? Be careful not to become a victim of a scam. The more knowledgeable you can become about the cancer you have, the better choices you can make about your care and recovery options. You can add to your knowledge with the solid advice provided below.

Have someone drive you to your doctors appointments when you're undergoing treatment for cancer. Dealing with cancer could be rather exhausting, and the effects of certain treatments could limit your mobility as well as your reaction times. Think of your safety first and allow others to take over the chore of driving.

Whether you have had cancer for a day or a year, it's never a bad idea to sign up for a support group devoted to cancer. You'll have the chance to talk to others who are going through the same things that you are. Family members should also attend as they too will be impacted by your cancer diagnosis.

If you are diagnosed with cancer, it is better to understand what you will be going through before you actually experience it. Prepare now to fight later.

The causes of cancer are diverse, and because of this, most cancers are classified as idiopathic. Due to this fact, there is no guarantee that you will be able to prevent cancer. However, there are several steps you can take to lower the odds that you will develop it. Avoid smoking and being sedentary to better your chances.

Know the warning signs of cancer and see your doctor right away for treatment, as this provides the best chance of cure/survival. Among the signs of cancer are things such as bodily discharge, lumps, unintended weight loss, pain, tiredness, bowel issues, coughs and more. Any of these can be signs of serious conditions, so it's important to seek a medical diagnosis from a physician.

Be aware of how your body is feeling. When your body tells you to get rest, lay down and rest. If you are feeling run down, change up your diet so it includes healthier foods. You need to listen to what your body is telling you, and follow through and do it.

When a loved one is diagnosed with cancer, it is very important for them to know that they have people around them that love them. Therefore, tell them that you love them often. Even if you work to show that you love them, sometimes, they need to hear it out loud. This is a good way to affirm them that everything will be alright.

If you get diagnosed with cancer early, you will have better chances of winning your battle. Regular screenings and testing should be done so that cancer can be found prior to any symptoms showing. Self examinations once a month can help you to detect any early signs of breast or testicular cancer.

You can easily be sucked into scams if you have cancer, and that's because people are desperate to help themselves or their loved ones beat the disease. Even so, make sure you're always informed and acting with the right knowledge as your guide. Use the tips in the article you've just read to aid in your battle.