Daily non-political popular news in brief.

Pulmonary hypertension discriminates by race, gender

10-24-2006 · EurekAlert!

African-American women have the highest mortality rate for idiopathic pulmonary arterial hypertension, according to new research presented at CHEST 2006, the 72nd annual international scientific assembly of the American College of Chest Physicians.

Keywords: pulmonary, hypertension, discriminates, race, gender, discriminate

« Previous | Next »

Similar news on "Pulmonary hypertension discriminates by race, gender":

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.
Similar news · Read more »
When disease discriminates: Women and COPD
12-14-2007 · EurekAlert!
Women have made a good deal of welcome progress in the last several decades, but at least one advance is unwanted: chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is on the rise in women in prevalence, morbidity and mortality. By 2000, the number of women dying from COPD surpassed the number of men. But the rising number of cases in women has not been matched by medical understanding of the disease's apparent gender bias.
Similar news · Read more »
Emergency departments test chest pain patients differently, based on race, gender and insurance
02-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
A new study by researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and Johns Hopkins University has found that race, gender and insurance differences factor strongly in the evaluation of patients with chest pain seen in emergency departments.
Similar news · Read more »
Autistic children could learn through stereotypes
06-18-2007 · EurekAlert!
Autistic children have a capacity to understand other people through stereotypes, say scientists at UCL. The research shows that autistic children are just as able as others to predict people's behavior when stereotypes, such as gender and race, are the only available guide.
Similar news · Read more »
Pulmonary hypertension patients improve from combination therapy
12-01-2006 · EurekAlert!
For patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), adding inhaled iloprost to treatment with bosentan -- two different classes of drugs often used individually to treat PAH -- increases exercise capability, reduces clinical deterioration and, in some cases, improves diagnostic functional class by one stage.
Similar news · Read more »
Stroke risk nearly doubles for siblings of people who have had a stroke
05-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
People with a brother or sister who have had a stroke are almost twice as likely as the average American to suffer a stroke themselves, according to research that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 59th Annual Meeting in Boston, April 28-May 5, 2007. That risk can be even higher depending on the race and gender of the person who had the stroke.
Similar news · Read more »
'Segregated' schools hinder reading skills
06-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
Children in families with low incomes, who attend schools where the minority population exceeds 75 percent of the student enrollment, under-perform in reading, even after accounting for the quality of the literacy instruction, literary experiences at home, gender, race and other variables, according to a new study.
Similar news · Read more »
Sexual orientation affects how we navigate and recall lost objects, but age just targets gender
05-23-2007 · EurekAlert!
Researchers at the University of Warwick have found that sexual orientation has a real effect on how we perform mental tasks such as navigating with a map in a car but that old age does not discriminate on grounds of sexual orientation and withers all men’s minds alike just ahead of women’s.
Similar news · Read more »
Elderly more likely to deny smoking when asked, says Case Western Reserve University researcher
02-07-2008 · EurekAlert!
More elderly adults are lighting up cigarettes and not reporting their nicotine habits to doctors and others, according to findings from one of the first studies to examine the accuracy of self-reported smoking habits by age, race and gender of adults 18 years and older. Researchers at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine and other collaborators found a combined total of 8 percent of people from all age and race groups studied were true smokers but had denied it.
Similar news · Read more »
New approach to pulmonary hypertension shows promise
07-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
Researchers at the University of Alberta have identified a "central command system" for pulmonary hypertension, a disease that currently has no cure and kills thousands each year.
Similar news · Read more »