Treatment | Page 307 of 465

Gene :: Genetic mutation alters response to heart failure drugs

Drugs known as beta blockers help reduce the heart’s workload during heart failure via their action on beta-adrenergic receptors in cardiac cells. However, doctors remain puzzled by the variable responses to beta blockers among patients. Researchers now show that the key to this variation lies in a single amino acid change in the beta1-adrenergic receptor, that may differ from person to person, which alters the receptor’s conformation and the receptor’s response to certain beta blockers.

Homesickness :: Homesickness – Helping kids avoid or cope with homesickness

A new report urges parents and children’s doctors to change their thinking about homesickness among children, to see it as a nearly universal, but highly preventable and treatable phenomenon — rather than an unavoidable part of childhood.

Parkinson’s Disease :: Epilepsy drug levodopa improves tremors, involuntary movements in Parkinson patients

A drug used to treat epilepsy has been found to significantly improve tremors, motor fluctuations and other involuntary movements, or dyskinesias, in patients with Parkinson disease, according to a study published in the Jan. 2, 2007, issue of Neurology, the scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Sleep :: Depression in children linked to insomnia and hypersomnia

According to a study published in the Jan. 1 issue of the journal Sleep, sleep-disturbed children are more severely depressed and have more depressive symptoms and comorbid anxiety disorders compared with children without sleep disturbance.

Pregnancy :: Spanish woman oldest mother of twins

A 67-year-old Spanish woman gave birth to twins according to hospital officials in Barcelona, becoming the world’s oldest mother. The woman became pregnant after fertility treatment in Latin America.

Fertility :: New IVF treatment IVM safe, cheaper

A new method of assisting couples to bear children known as “in vitro maturation” (IVM) has been introduced by Dr. S. Lindenberg, Fertility Unit, Herlev University, Copenhagen. An alternative to the standard approach is to collect immature oocytes from medium sized follicles during midcycle and to then mature the ova in the laboratory (IVM).

Diabetes :: Japan’s Otsuka to develop saxagliptin for type 2 diabetes

Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. announced Otsuka has been granted exclusive rights in Japan to develop and commercialize the investigational compound saxagliptin, being studied for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. Saxagliptin, discovered by Bristol-Myers Squibb, is a dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitor currently in Phase III development in the United States and Europe.

Stroke :: New treatments prevent brain injury hours after stroke

Two novel treatments — a basic compound found in every cell in the body and an extract of green tea — may prevent brain damage caused from stroke, according to two studies in rats led by a researcher at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.

Breast Cancer :: Glaxo’s Tykerb drug delays spread of breast cancer

GlaxoSmithKline’s new drug Tykerb dramatically slows the spread of aggressive late-stage breast cancer. Data from a Phase III study reporting that Tykerb? (lapatinib) plus Xeloda? (capecitabine) is superior to capecitabine alone in women with HER2 (ErbB2) positive advanced breast cancer who had progressed following prior therapy, including Herceptin? (trastuzumab), was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Sex :: Sex ends as seasons shift and kisspeptin levels plummet

A hormone implicated in the onset of human puberty also appears to control reproductive activity in seasonally breeding rodents, report Indiana University Bloomington and University of California at Berkeley scientists in the March 2007 issue of Endocrinology. The paper is now accessible online via the journal’s rapid electronic publication service.