Copyright © 2002 AP Online By HOLLISTER H. HOVEY, The Associated Press NEW YORK (- French pharmaceutical company Sanofi-Synthelabo hopes scientific knowledge gained from marijuana will help the masses curb the "munchies." The company reasons that if smoking pot makes people hungry, a compound that blocks the hunger-inducing effects of marijuana - like its experimental drug Rimonabant - could make a great diet drug. Such a drug could contract waistlines while fattening Sanofi's sales. The National Institutes of Health estimates that a quarter of the country is officially obese and more than half is overweight. Prescription diet drugs brought in $417 million in the United States last year, a relatively small amount that underscores the lack of a serious blockbuster in the marketplace. Copyright © 2001 Nando Media

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 2479 - Posted: 06.24.2010

CHICAGO (AP) — A diet high in calories and fat may increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease in people who are genetically susceptible to the mind-robbing disorder, new research suggests. The study found that people who consumed the most calories and fat faced double the risk of developing Alzheimer's. The findings, which are reported in this month's Archives of Neurology, are the latest evidence that lifestyle factors including diet may play a role in Alzheimer's. Copyright 2002 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Obesity
Link ID: 2478 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Experts are warning a sleep disorder drug could be used to allow people ranging from soldiers to clubbers to keep going without a break. Modafinil is licensed in the UK to treat narcolepsy, a brain disorder characterised by sleep attacks and abnormal eye movement. Studies have also been carried out into its effectiveness in treating other illness related fatigue. But in the US, where it is easier to get hold of the medication, revising students and clubbers - who call the drug "zombies" - are looking to the drug to help them keep going. And the US Army is said to be looking to use it to create super soldiers who could go for days without rest. Rescue teams have even suggested it could help them cope in the event of a major disaster. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sleep
Link ID: 2477 - Posted: 08.14.2002

Scientists in the United States have found further evidence that genes may contribute to alcoholism. They say people with a family history of heavy drinking quickly develop a tolerance to alcohol. This means they have to drink more to feel the same effects. An underlying genetic susceptibility is the most likely explanation, say researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine. In a laboratory experiment, 116 social drinkers were given intravenous infusions of alcohol or a placebo at least a week apart. The 58 with a family history of alcoholism reported feeling more intoxicated that those without a family history. (C) BBC

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2476 - Posted: 08.14.2002

An upsurge in autism cases diagnosed in the Silicon Valley area of California may be due to genes more common in its high-tech workers, say experts. As many as one in 150 children in the region have some sort of autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), a rate which far outstrips other areas of the US. There has been a 273% increase in the number of autistic children attending 21 regional centers in California between 1987 and 1998. And there is some evidence that a similar situation is developing in the "Silicon Fen" of high-tech industry surrounding Cambridge in the UK. Scientists strongly believe that autism is greatly influenced by genes. While children affected by it may lack key social skills, they often have remarkable abilities in other areas. (C) BBC

Keyword: Autism; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2475 - Posted: 08.14.2002

British scientists have come up with an explanation for why most men are taller than women. They say taller men are more sexually attractive and are more likely to father children. Men, though, prefer shorter women, so the two sexes are unlikely ever to end up the same height over the course of evolution. "It seems that tall men and petite women are favoured in evolutionary terms, even in a modern population, so the height difference between men and women is unlikely to disappear," says Daniel Nettle of the Open University. The verdict that size matters is based on a study of 10,000 people born in the UK in a single week in March 1958. Their health and social development has been followed for the National Child Development Study. (C) BBC

Keyword: Sexual Behavior; Evolution
Link ID: 2474 - Posted: 08.14.2002

NewScientist.com news service A pill designed to prevent the hearing loss caused by deafening noise is to undergo clinical trials in the US. Animal tests suggest the pill might even work weeks after the earsplitting event. "The data suggest you could take it before going into battle - or into a rock concert," says David Karlman, chairman of American Biohealth. Scientists at the US Office of Naval Research conducted research on chinchilla's using a prototype of the antioxidant drug. Now American Biohealth has signed a licensing deal to develop the drug further. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Hearing; Apoptosis
Link ID: 2473 - Posted: 06.24.2010

By AMY WALDMAN BOMBAY, — Promoted by a slick and many-tentacled advertising campaign, gutka, an indigenous form of smokeless tobacco, has become a fixture in the mouths of millions of Indians over the last two decades. It has spread through the subcontinent, and even to South Asians in England. But what has prompted particular concern here is the way that in the last 10 years, gutka — as portable as chewing gum and sometimes as sweet as candy — has found its way into the mouths of Indian children. Young people have become gutka consumers in large numbers, and they have become an alarming avant-garde in what doctors say is an oral cancer epidemic. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2472 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Tobacco companies have used their financial ties with nicotine gum and nicotine patch manufacturers to pressure these firms into weakening their marketing of the nicotine-replacement products, according to a UCSF study of tobacco industry documents. The examination of financial ties and conflicts of interest revealed that the parent company of one tobacco manufacturer also owned a firm that made nicotine gum, so the company profited both from selling tobacco products and drugs to break the tobacco addiction. Such financial ties and conflicts of interest should be made public, researchers argue in the August 14 issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 2471 - Posted: 08.14.2002

A banana a day could prevent a deficiency which, scientists say, might increase the risk of stroke. The tropical fruit is rich in potassium, and a study of 5,600 people aged over 65 suggested that those with the lowest intake of the mineral were 50% more likely to suffer a stroke. The study also suggested that people who take diuretic drugs - which increase the amount of water excreted in the urine - may also increase the risk, perhaps because they stop potassium from the diet being absorbed by the body. Diuretics are frequently prescribed to older people - ironically, to control blood pressure and reduce the chance of one type of stroke. Patients with heart failure also take the drugs to relieve the strain on their heart and lungs. Patients taking diuretics with the lowest levels of potassium in their blood were two-and-a-half times more likely to have a stroke compared with diuretic takers who had the highest levels of potassium. (C) BBC

Keyword: Stroke
Link ID: 2470 - Posted: 08.13.2002

By SARA IVRY No one looks forward to spring more than people with seasonal affective disorder, who grow depressed in the waning light of winter. A smaller group of people, however, suffer on the opposite side of the calendar. Consider Violet Adair, a 39-year-old artist in Oakland, Calif., who gets ready for summer by filling plastic bottles with water. "I'll put them in my freezer and I'll sleep with them," she said. "I'll sleep hugging a two-liter Pepsi bottle filled with ice." These makeshift cooling devices help her cope with the distress that has come upon her each summer for roughly a decade. This year, she is going a step further. Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Biological Rhythms
Link ID: 2469 - Posted: 08.13.2002

Researchers have taken an important step closer to repairing broken neurons. A team has turned embryonic stem cells into nerve cells and transplanted them into the spinal cords of chicks, where they grew into motor neurons. The results show that given the right signals, stem cells can be turned into neurons of choice. When you wiggle your toes, or move any other muscles, motor nerve cells in your spinal cord send commands to your muscles via long tentacles. These tentacles, called axons, can break when injured or diseased. So far, efforts to cure the resulting paralysis by regrowing the extensions have been unsuccessful in humans and have reduced paralysis in, but not cured, injured rats. Adult neurons are less adaptable than young neurons, however, and researchers have turned to embryonic stem (ES) cells--blank slates that can turn into any cell type in the body. By manipulating the molecules bathing ES cells, they hope to create progenitors that will turn into motor neurons when transplanted. To do this, a team of researchers led by neuroscientist Thomas Jessell at Columbia University created a mouse strain that produced green fluorescent protein (GFP) only in certain motor neurons. They grew mouse embryos until they had 1000 cells. Then they doused them with retinoic acid, a compound that stimulates stem cells to become more like neuron progenitor cells. Next they added a dash of protein called sonic hedgehog, which steers them down the path to becoming spinal cord neurons. The team found that 20% to 30% of the embryonic cells transmogrified into glowing motor neuron progenitor cells, they report in the 9 August issue of Cell. (C) 2002 AAAS

Keyword: Regeneration; Stem Cells
Link ID: 2468 - Posted: 08.13.2002

MADISON - By subtracting a single gene from the genome of a mouse, scientists have created an animal that can eat a rich, high-fat diet without adding weight or risking the complications of diabetes, according to a new study published this week. Writing in the online editions of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), James M. Ntambi, a professor of biochemistry and of nutritional sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues report that mice lacking a gene known as SCD-1 can eat a rich high-fat diet and avoid the consequences of fat deposition and excess sugar in the blood, the hallmark of type II diabetes. The new finding, says Ntambi, provides insight into the central genetic mechanisms that underpin diet and metabolism, and suggests it may one day be possible to devise drugs to effectively protect against obesity and diabetes. The gene SCD-1 produces an enzyme known as SCD that is required for the body to make the major fatty acids that reside in fat tissue.

Keyword: Obesity; Genes & Behavior
Link ID: 2467 - Posted: 08.13.2002

A long-term study of people over age 65 suggests that severity of depressive symptoms is related to risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. The study is published in the August 13 issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology. More than 650 elderly people took part in the seven-year study which included annual neurological evaluations and testing of cognitive function. Baseline testing showed about half of the participants had no depressive symptoms and the remainder had from one to eight. Only 1 percent had symptoms severe enough to warrant a diagnosis of major depression. During annual follow-ups, 108 of 651 participants developed Alzheimer's disease. Those with the greatest number of depressive symptoms at the start of the study were more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease and also showed more rapid cognitive decline.

Keyword: Alzheimers; Depression
Link ID: 2466 - Posted: 08.13.2002

"Healing music" customized to match patient's brain wave patterns by Jessica Whiteside -- Sleep scientists at the University of Toronto are pursuing research that's music to insomniacs' ears. Researchers in the sleep clinic of U of T's psychiatry department and the University Health Network's Toronto Western Hospital are studying the ability of "brain music" to help people relax and improve the quality of their sleep. To create this music, researchers study a person's brain waves to determine which rhythmic and tonal sound patterns create a meditative condition in that individual. A special computer program developed by the researchers or a music therapist who is a member of the research team then selects unique "healing" music that will create those same brain wave patterns when the individual is trying to sleep.

Keyword: Sleep; Hearing
Link ID: 2465 - Posted: 08.13.2002

WASHINGTON (AP) - Get a good night's sleep after piano practice: It may prove crucial to learning new skills such as tickling the ivories. Scientists have long known that adequate sleep is important for forming different types of memories. People can do better on a test with proper rest than by pulling an all-nighter, for example. But learning motor skills involves a different part of the brain, and often a lot more practice, than memorizing facts. Is sleep important for that, too? Very, German scientists report. © 2001 ledgerenquirer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.

Keyword: Sleep; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 2464 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service Part of the human brain is dedicated to detecting cheats, say evolutionary psychologists, after a study with a brain-damaged man. "We think it develops in all normal individuals, and that it develops in part because our brains were selected to develop this competence," says John Tooby at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Tooby and his colleagues studied a man who suffered accidental damage to the limbic system, a brain region involved in processing emotional and social information. RM, as he is referred to, performed as well as other people on one set of reasoning problems, did much worse on problems specifically designed to test reasoning about social exchanges. © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Emotions
Link ID: 2463 - Posted: 06.24.2010

NewScientist.com news service It is what every advertiser would have dreamed of - brand names have a unique impact on our brains. Brand names engage the "emotional", right-hand side of the brain more than other words, new experiments suggest. And they are more easily recognised when they are in capital letters. "It is surprising," says Eran Zaidel, head of the University of California in Los Angeles laboratory where the research was conducted. "The rules that apply to word recognition in general do not necessarily apply here." © Copyright Reed Business Information Ltd.

Keyword: Language; Emotions
Link ID: 2462 - Posted: 06.24.2010

Doctors are to study a radical treatment for pelvic pain. Under keyhole surgery, a nerve which sends pain messages to the brain is severed. But the procedure is controversial because doctors are divided over whether or not it works. Many women suffer pain in the lower abdomen and pelvis, caused by periods, endometriosis, internal scarring or infection. But in about half of cases, the cause of the pain can not be identified and how to treat the problem may not be obvious. One study has estimated pelvic pain affects as many women as migraine, back pain or asthma. (C) BBC

Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 2461 - Posted: 08.12.2002

A global report has failed to rule out risks to humans and wildlife from "endocrine disrupting" chemicals in the environment. Experts at the World Health Organisation's International Programme on Chemical Safety say that research linking this type of pollution to health problems is patchy. However, it says that the known effects on wildlife are "extensive", and that more studies are needed to pinpoint the danger to humans. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) often have the same properties as hormones that the body uses to control a wide variety of functions, including reproduction. People may be widely exposed to them through pesticide residues remaining on food, plastics, household products and industrial chemicals. Many experts are worried that exposure may be interfering with fertility - or even accelerating the growth of certain cancers. (C) BBC

Keyword: Hormones & Behavior; Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 2460 - Posted: 08.12.2002