Clinical Research

A team of researchers said this week that they may have identified the genes responsible for bipolar disorder in children. Their study, published in BMC Psychiatry, implicates malfunctioning circadian clock genes, four alterations of the RORB gene to be specific, in the development of the disorder. Scientists studied the RORA and RORB genes of 152 children with Bipolar and 140 control children. They found four alterations to the RORB gene that were positively associated with being bipolar. "Our findings suggest that clock genes in general and RORB in particular may be important candidates…

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) had been used to treat menopausal estrogen deficiency  for decades but the 2002 publication of a major study, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI), indicated increased risk for certain outcomes in older women, without increasing longevity. This sparked debate regarding potential benefits and harm of HRT. A new article published in The American Journal of Medicine conducted a meta-analysis of the available data using Bayesian methods and concluded that HRT almost certainly decreases mortality in younger postmenopausal women.  Their Bayesian analysis…

Exercise makes cigarettes less attractive, says a new study from the University of Exeter. Exercise can lessen the power of cigarettes and smoking-related images to grab the attention of smokers, the authors write in the journal Addiction.   They did a study involving 20 moderately heavy smokers who had abstained from cigarettes for 15 hours before the trial. During two visits to the laboratory participants began by being shown smoking-related and neutral images, and then spent either 15 minutes sitting or exercising on a stationary bike at a moderate intensity. Afterwards, they were…

There are myriad reasons why pharmaceutical treatments are ineffective in certain people, but the first suspect is typically not the patient him- or herself. An article published in the November 1 issue of the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine suggests that difficult-to-treat asthma often may have more to do with patients who do not take their medication as instructed than ineffective medication. "[A] significant proportion of patients with difficult asthma are poorly adherent to inhaled and oral corticosteroid therapy," said PI Dr. Liam Heaney. Why is this important…

Everyone's heard of open heart surgery but closed heart surgery could one day be just as ubiquitous, according to research from the Universities of Michigan and Minnesota in the FASEB Journal. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, heart failure is a condition where the heart cannot pump enough blood and oxygen to meet the needs of other body organs. Approximately 5 million people in the United States have heart failure, about 550,000 new cases are diagnosed each year, and more than 287,000 people in the United States die each year of heart failure. The most common…

Can air pollution trigger appendicitis?  Yes, says a study conducted by researchers at the University of Calgary, University of Toronto and Health Canada who looked at 5191 adults admitted to hospitals in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Fifty-two per cent of admissions occurred between April and September, the warmest months of the year in Canada during which people are more likely to be outside. Therefore, air pollution must be the culprit if your correlation-causation arrow is more like a Scud missile. Why do they reach for pollution?   The dominant hypothesis of appendicitis has…

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley say they have identified critical biochemical pathways linked to the aging of human muscle and, by manipulating these pathways, they were able to 'turn back the clock' on old human muscle, restoring its ability to repair and rebuild itself. Previous research in animal models led by professor Irina Conboy, head of the research team conducting the study and also an investigator at the Berkeley Stem Cell Center and at the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), revealed that the ability of adult stem cells to do their job of…

In scoliosis treatment for babies, doctors often try bracing first and if that fails, they escalate to surgery; placing metal rods in their backs with spinal fusion. These children face the risk of complications from the surgery and their backs and chests may be stiff for life.    New research from the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) may lead doctors to choose to optimize an old technology – casting – instead of using high-tech implantable devices. Casting has fewer, and less serious potential complications and it requires no surgery. In fact, with the right training…

Dr P.K. Tewari  made observation that AN  un noticed dehydration in Rajasthan especially in Jaipur even when one sits under roof at home with fan running . The sign of dehydration is dry skin , face, and arms and legs, drying of tounge are some of the common symptoms of dehydration. Skin and tounge are the most sensitive index of dehydration Please take upto 5 to 7 litres of water if you are in Rajsthan or travelling in semi arid or arid regions to survive. The air in Haridwar has natural moisture while in Rajsthan the dry air due to excessive deforestation and lcak of plants (…

5.1   Pharmacognostical characterization of some selected medicinal plants   The word "Pharmacognosy" derives from the Greek words pharmakon (drug), and gnosis or knowledge. The term pharmacognosy was used for the first time by the Austrian physician Schmidt in 1811. Originally - during the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century - pharmacognosy was used to define the branch of medicine or of commodity sciences ("Warenkunde" in German), which dealt with drugs in their crude, or unprepared, form. A "crude drug" means a dried unprepared natural material of plant,…