Clinical Research

As many as 1 in 3 adults (up to 72 million people) in the United States has high blood pressure. Hypertension can lead to coronary heart disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure, and other health problems, and is attributed to 7 million deaths worldwide each year.  Blood pressure has a genetic component and hypertension runs in families.   Attempts to identify genes associated with blood pressure have met with limited success but now an international research team says they have identified a number of unsuspected genetic variants associated with systolic blood pressure (SBP),…

I don't qualify for the original exploratory study - I'm not 55+ or at high risk for heart disease - but I'm crossing my fingers that the initial results are promising so they go ahead with a planned larger study! Pharmaceutical companies have said that recruiting for clinical trials is difficult, but according to the Boston Globe, "there's no shortage of people interested in participating" in a study conducted by a researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center evaluating whether a daily dose of alcohol can help prevent heart disease. There have been studies conducted on this…

Following the positive outcomes of shorter studies done on Multiple Sclerosis (MS) drug Betaseron(R), continued testing also yields compelling results. Analysis from a 16 year follow up study examining long term effects of Betaseron(R) on MS patients showed that early and continued treatment with Betaseron were more likely to avoid negative clinical outcomes than MS patients on alternative treatment options. The study was presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s Annual Meeting and showed that early and sustained treatment reduced risk of onset and severe consequences of MS after 16…

Now I know what happened to Michael Jackson: he tried to self-treat his eczema at home with Clorox. A study in the May 5 issue of Pediatrics suggested a combination of "bleach baths" and intranasal mupirocin ointment led to statistically significant reductions in the extent and severity of ezcema, compared to children who received placebo ointment and took normal baths. 31 children (6 mos to 17 years) were randomized into "bleach bath" group (half a cup of 6 percent bleach per full standard tub) or normal bath. All patients also received oral cephalexin daily for two weeks. The children in…

Scientists of Helmholtz Zentrum München, led by Professor Martin Hrabé de Angelis, director of the Institute of Experimental Genetics, have developed a new mouse model with a genetic mutant in which a single base of a specific microRNA seed region has been altered. Mice carrying this miR-96 mutation suffer progressive hearing loss as they get older.    Moreover, if they carry two of these mutants, their sensory hair cells are impaired from birth on. A number of genes associated with hearing loss were already known. "However, we were very surprised when with our new mouse model we…

If your child has trouble with math, give her some gum and send her to school. Researchers at a Texas medical institution say gum-chewing improves math scores. Researchers at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, recruited more than 100 eighth grade charter school students (all 14 years old) to participate in a clinical trial of how gum chewing impacts student math scores. The students were divided into two groups: gum chewing (52) and non-gum chewing (54) and were nearly equally represented between boys and girls.   The researchers found that students who…

Every type of disease has a specific treatment program. We have drugs to treat symptoms of countless illnesses and maladies, but viral infections continue to elude treatment. While we have vaccines to prevent initial infection of some viruses and other medications to treat problematic symptoms, there is little one can do to prevent a virus from replicating and causing disease. Viral infections can be lethal and without treatment options, we are left with our own natural defenses to fight off viral invaders. This is about to change. Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center in…

For those of us who are savvy on health food, what I’m about to tell you will come as no surprise, if not, hold onto your hats. If you have heard about “good fats” such as poly-unsaturated fats and omega fatty acids, found in fish and olive oil, then you know that researchers and nutrition professionals agree that these fats should replace the “bad fats” including trans fats and saturated fats found in junk food. The body does need some fats, and the “good fats” in olive oil and fish are much more easily broken down and utilized by the body instead of the saturated fats, which instead of…

If you suffer from occasional or frequent heartburn, you know who you are. You may avoid eating certain foods, keep an arsenal of antacids beside your bed, and still suffer from pain caused by renegade stomach acid wrecking havoc on your esophagus. For the 1 in 10 Americans who suffer from “heartburn” or occasional acid reflux, options and medications are plentiful, but for the 19 million Americans who suffer from severe acid reflux symptoms or GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease), medicine simply isn’t enough. Acid reflux and GERD are caused by a few factors. Excess acid produced in the…

Women get more knee injuries than men and new research from the Faculty of Kinesiology at the University of Calgary say there may be a connection between the laxity of a woman's knee joint and her monthly hormone cycle. The research project — a collaboration between kinesiology, engineering and health sciences researchers — has found that not all woman experience knee laxity at the same time of their menst rual cycle. The researchers speculate that this is likely why previous research in the area has largely discounted a connection between the hormone cycle and knee injury. In a series of…