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Friday, January 15, 2009
Gene that controls heart beat discovered
LONDON - Discovery of a gene that regulates heart beat could
lead to new treatments for cardiac rhythm disturbances,
British researchers said. Researchers at Imperial College
London say the gene SCN10A controls electric signals to the
heart. Damage or mutations to the gene increase the risk of
heart disease and disturbances such as ventricular fibril-
lation, which can cause the heart to stop beating, The Tele-
graph reported Monday. Learning more about SCN10A and its
variations will help scientists understand how the body's
heartbeat is controlled and why some people are more suscept-
ible to heart problems than others, said John Chambers, the
study's lead author. Chambers likened genetic variation to
the two sides of a coin: "One side is associated with in-
creased risk, the other with decreased risk," he said. "We
have identified a gene that influences heart rhythm, and
people with different variants of the gene will have in-
creased or decreased risks of developing heart rhythm prob-
lems."
Some anti-cancer drugs could harm heart
HOUSTON - Several drugs that slow cancer growth also impair
the heart's ability to respond to stress, researchers in
Texas said. Researchers at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center
in Texas said the drugs inhibit a cancer growth receptor
called PDGFR, a protein that allows cancer cells to increase
uncontrollably. PDGFR also plays an important role in pro-
tecting the heart by allowing the growth of new blood vessels
when the heart is under stress, said Dr. Aarif Khakoo. "The
role of PDGFR signaling in the heart has been largely un-
explored until now," the cardiologist wrote this week in the
Journal of Clinical Investigation. Sutent, Nexavar and
Gleevec are some of the chemotherapy agents commonly used
in human cancer patients to target and inhibit PDGFR. "Re-
cently, some of these targeted anti-cancer drugs have been
associated with heart failure, Khakoo said, adding high blood
pressure may put patients who receive these drugs at even
greater risk.
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Bortezomib effective against stomach tumor
PITTSBURGH - A drug already approved for some cancers could
be an effective treatment for a rare tumor found in the
gastrointestinal tract, U.S. researchers said. The drug
Bortezomib, also known as Velcade, is used to treat multiple
myeloma and some lymphomas, said pathologist Anette Duensing
of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In tests,
Bortezomib showed promise against gastrointestinal stromal
tumor cells. The stromal tumor cells usually are treated with
imatinib, or Gleevec, which is effective initially but rarely
kills the cells completely, Duensing and her team wrote in a
recent issue of Cancer Research. Bortezomib suppressed the
cancer cells' production of an enzyme called KIT and was
active against imatinib-resistant cells. "This is intriguing
because resistance to imatinib seems to permit a small pool
of quiescent cancer cells to survive," Duensing said. "But
Bortezomib eradicates KIT production, so it might be able to
rid the body of the remaining tumor cells."
Cardiovascular risk linked to HIV
BOSTON - Relatively young men with longstanding HIV infec-
tion may be at greater risk for heart attack or stroke,
U.S. researchers say. Researchers at Boston's Massachusetts
General Hospital used angiography to find coronary athero-
sclerosis in 59 percent of the human immunodeficiency virus-
infected patients -- compared with only 34 percent of con-
trols. Five of the HIV-positive participants had critical
blockages -- something seen in none of the controls -- and
were referred to cardiologists for treatment. "It appears
that both traditional and non-traditional risk factors are
contributing to atherosclerotic disease in HIV-infected
patients," Dr. Janet Lo, the study's author, said in a state-
ment. In the study, published in the journal AIDS, Lo and
colleagues used both standard computed tomography scans,
which shows calcium deposits, and a CT angiography --
showing non-calcified arterial plaques -- to examine 110
men ranging in ages from 18-55 with no symptoms of cardio-
vascular disease. Seventy-eight of the participants were HIV
infected and 32 were uninfected controls. Both groups had
low-levels of traditional cardiovascular risk factors. The
HIV-positive participants had longstanding infection, were
generally healthy and receiving anti-retroviral therapy.
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New test for lung cancer described
CORONADO, Calif. - A study of a new blood test to detect
lung cancer in its earliest stages says results look hope-
ful, researchers meeting in California said. WebMD said
Wednesday the senior author of the study, Dr. Steven
Dubinett of UCLA presented his research at the American
Association for Cancer Research-International Association
for the Study of Lung Cancer's joint conference in Coronado,
Calif., Tuesday. Building on the research of others,
Dubinett found a collection of biomarkers made of proteins
if there is a cancer or cancerous progression of cells. The
researchers found lung cancer patients possessed 33 out of
40 biomarkers as opposed those not diagnosed with lung
cancer, WebMD reported. If the blood test is perfected, it
is expected to spare patients suspected of lung cancer the
need of invasive procedures such as biopsies. Dubinett said
although the test looks promising, it is going to take some
time before it can be used. "It will take a couple more
years of testing in an appropriate clinical setting," he
told WebMD. "It might take three or four more years before
these tests are clinically available."
You can't always catch up from sleep loss
BOSTON - A good night's sleep cannot make up for chronic
sleep deprivation, which has a snowball effect hurting a
person's ability to stay alert, Boston researchers say.
People may think they're OK because their body's daily
circadian rhythm hides the effects of chronic sleep loss,
the study in Science Translational Medicine journal says.
But after sleeping six hours a night for two to three weeks,
people's motor skills, reaction times, capacities to focus
and other abilities are 10 times worse than after staying
awake a single night, Harvard Medical School neurologist
and sleep medicine specialist Daniel Cohen said. The study
is "almost scary" because it shows that a large societal
segment, including doctors, paramedics, police officers and
truckers, "may be at high risk of committing catastrophic
errors, particularly in the middle of the night and the
early morning hours," University of Chicago sleep researcher
Eve Van Cauter tells USA Today. The study at Boston's
Brigham and Women's Hospital looked at the number of con-
secutive hours study participants were awake, their number
of days or weeks of chronic sleep deprivation and how they
reacted at different times of day -- three factors combined
that determine how well people perform, the researchers say.
The research suggests "it takes longer to recover from sleep
debts than has been believed," University of Pennsylvania
sleep studies Professor David Dinges tells the newspaper.
It also shows people's sleep regulation is actually at least
two separate processes acting on different time scales -- a
short-term process causing performance to decline with each
hour awake and a long-term component building over weeks of
too-little sleep. The short-term process can be rapidly
overcome with a good night's sleep. The researchers say they
don't know how many nights of good sleep it takes to recover
from the longer-term component.
--------------- Health Tip Video of the Week ---------------
Is it a Migraine Headache?
Rating: 3.31
Migraine. For the 28 million Americans who suffer from
migraine headaches, the word alone can make them wince.
But what exactly is a migraine headache? How do you know
if YOUR headache is a Migraine? Find out now?
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