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Study shows energy drink 'cocktails' lead to increased injury risk

11-04-2007 · EurekAlert!

College students who drink alcohol mixed with so-called "energy" drinks are at dramatically higher risk for injury and other alcohol-related consequences, compared to students who drink alcohol without energy drinks, according to new research from Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The findings were reported today at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in Washington, D.C.

Keywords: study, shows, energy, drink, cocktails, lead, increased, injury, risk, show, cocktail

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Home improvement warning -- Ladder-related injuries increasing in the US
05-08-2007 · EurekAlert!
Falls from ladders can result in serious injury and affect people of all ages. The general public is at risk for ladder injuries, yet receives little, if any instruction on ladder use and safety. A new study, the first to use national data to comprehensively examine nonfatal ladder-related injuries, show the number of injuries increased by more than 50 percent during the 16-year study period.
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Advance in understanding of blood pressure gene could lead to new treatments
02-04-2007 · EurekAlert!
Research by scientists at UCL (University College London) has clearly demonstrated for the first time the structure and function of a gene crucial to the regulation of blood pressure. The discovery could be important in the search for new treatments for illnesses such as heart disease, the UK's biggest killer. In a paper published online today in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Professor Patrick Vallance and Dr James Leiper, UCL Department of Medicine, reveal the role of the human gene dimethylarginine dimethylaminohydrolase (DDAH), showing that loss of DDAH activity disrupts nitric oxide (NO) production. NO is critical in the regulation of blood pressure, nervous system functions and the immune system. The role of DDAH is to break down modified amino acids (Asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) and monomethyl arginine (L-NMMA)) that are produced by the body and have been shown to inhibit NO synthase. These molecules accumulate in various disease states including diabetes, renal failure and pulmonary and systemic hypertension, and their concentration in plasma (the fluid component of blood) is strongly predicative of cardiovascular disease and death. In a healthy human body, the majority of ADMA is eliminated through active metabolism by DDAH. Scientists have hypothesised that if DDAH function is impaired, NO production is reduced, and that this could be an important feature of increased cardiovascular risk. To examine this pathway in more detail, the researchers deleted the DDAH gene in mice. These mice went on to develop hypertension, or high blood pressure. They also designed specific inhibitors (small molecules) which bind to the active site of human DDAH. These small molecule inhibitors also induced hypertension in mice, confirming the importance of DDAH in the regulation of blood pressure. Dr Leiper, UCL Medicine, said: “These genetic and chemical approaches to disrupt DDAH showed remarkably consistent results, and provide compelling evidence that loss of DDAH function increases the concentration of ADMA and thereby disrupts vascular NO signalling. “There has been considerable scientific interest in this pathway and the role of ADMA as a novel risk factor, but so far there's been little evidence to support the idea that it's a cause of disease, rather than just a marker. Genes and their pathways are crucial to our understanding of cardiovascular disease and a better understanding of DDAH-1 could lead to important new treatments. “It could help us to establish if genetic variation predisposes certain people to these diseases, or whether environmental factors exert some of their effects through modulation of DDAH activity. “Our research also shows that this pathway could be harnessed therapeutically to limit production of NO in certain situations where too much nitric oxide is a bad thing; for example, hypotension and septic shock. These are some of the biggest problems in intensive care medicine and there is a huge unmet need for drug treatments.” The study, which was carried out at UCL's Rayne Institute, was funded by grants from the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director of the British Heart Foundation, said: "The unexpected finding in the 1980s that a simple gas, nitric oxide (NO), is made by cells in the blood vessel wall and is a powerful control of blood vessel relaxation led to the award of the Nobel Prize in 1998 to its discoverers. "More recently, there has been increasing evidence that impairment of NO production is likely to be an important factor in the development of heart and circulatory disease, but the mechanisms responsible are not fully understood. "This study suggests for the first time that the loss of the activity of the enzyme DDAH-1 leads to reduced NO production and may cause heart and circulatory disease. These findings are likely to be important in the search for new ways to optimise the health of our blood vessels." ### Notes for Editors 1. For more information, please contact Ruth Metcalfe in the UCL Media Relations Office on tel: +44 (0)20 7679 9739, mobile: +44 (0)7990 675 947, out of hours: +44 (0)7917 271 364, e-mail: r.metcalfe@ucl.ac.uk2. 'Disruption of methylarginine metabolism impairs vascular homeostasis' is published in the February issue of the journal Nature Medicine. Advance online publication is embargoed to 18.00 GMT (13.00 US Eastern) Sunday 4 February 2007. Journalists can obtain copies of the paper by contacting the UCL Media Relations Office.3. The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation, the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council. About UCL Founded in 1826, UCL was the first English university established after Oxford and Cambridge, the first to admit students regardless of race, class, religion or gender, and the first to provide systematic teaching of law, architecture and medicine. In the government's most recent Research Assessment Exercise, 59 UCL departments achieved top ratings of 5* and 5, indicating research quality of international excellence. UCL is the fourth-ranked UK university in the 2006 league table of the top 500 world universities produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. UCL alumni include Mahatma Gandhi (Laws 1889, Indian political and spiritual leader); Jonathan Dimbleby (Philosophy 1969, writer and television presenter); Junichiro Koizumi (Economics 1969, Prime Minister of Japan); Lord Woolf (Laws 1954, Lord Chief Justice of England & Wales); Alexander Graham Bell (Phonetics 1860s, inventor of the telephone), and members of the band Coldplay.
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First-ever study: lack of critical lubricant causes wear in joints
11-06-2007 · EurekAlert!
For the first time, researchers have linked increased friction with early wear in the joints of animals. Work led by Brown University physician and engineer Gregory Jay, MD, shows mice that do not produce the protein lubricin begin to show wear in their joints less than two weeks after birth. This finding not only points up the protective power of lubricin but also suggests that it could be used to prevent joint wear after an injury.
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Study shows immigrant children are at increased risk of lead poisoning
12-19-2007 · EurekAlert!
Immigrant children are five times as likely as US-born children to suffer from lead poisoning in New York City, according to a new Health Department study, and the risk is highest among the most recent immigrants.
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Gene variation affects pain sensitivity and risk of chronic pain
10-22-2006 · EurekAlert!
A new NIH-funded study shows that a specific gene variant in humans affects both sensitivity to short-term (acute) pain in healthy volunteers and the risk of developing chronic pain after one kind of back surgery. Blocking increased activity of this gene after nerve injury or inflammation in animals prevented development of chronic pain.
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Common parasitic infection leads to increased risk for HIV infection
01-25-2007 · EurekAlert!
A new study shows a significantly increased risk of HIV infection among women with a common sexually transmitted disease, trichomoniasis. Although studies have been undertaken in the past to show the link between sexually transmitted infections and susceptibility to HIV, the study published in the March 1 issue of the Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, is one of the first to demonstrate a statistically significant association between trichomoniasis and HIV infection.
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Columbia University Medical Center researchers show leaky muscle cells lead to fatigue
02-11-2008 · EurekAlert!
What do marathoners and heart failure patients have in common? More than you think according to new findings by physiologists at Columbia University Medical Center. The new study shows that the fatigue that marathoners and other extreme athletes feel at the end of a race is caused by a tiny leak inside their muscles that probably also saps the energy from patients with heart failure.
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Study shows poor sleep puts seniors at risk for falls
02-14-2007 · EurekAlert!
Sleep disturbances common in older people can lead to an increased risk of falling during waking hours, according to research published in the latest issue of The Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences (Vol. 62A, No. 1). In a special section devoted to sleep disorders, this edition of the journal features four separate reports on the topic.
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No increased risk of certain cancers from electromagnetic fields among energy workers
04-30-2007 · EurekAlert!
Electromagnetic fields do not pose a health hazard to workers in the electrical energy supply industry, suggests a large study of 28,000 people, published ahead of print in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
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Children's sleep problems can lead to school problems
02-07-2007 · EurekAlert!
Although it is known that children with sleep difficulties are likely to have school difficulties, new research reveals that this connection between sleep and school performance is related to a child's socioeconomic and ethnic/racial background. The study observed 166 8- and 9-year-old African-American and European-American children from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. The findings showed that African-American children were at increased risk of cognitive difficulties when sleep was disrupted.
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