Daily non-political popular news in brief.

Geoscience converges under pressure

05-21-2007 · EurekAlert!

Only recently have researchers been able to produce the extreme temperatures and pressures found inside our planet to understand how it is forming and evolving. A special online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), released May 21-25, explores the exotic world of high pressures as a window to understand a broad range of problems in Earth and planetary science.

Keywords: geoscience, converges, pressure, converge

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Audio Spot: First Oak Ridge deer hunt of '06 occurs this weekend
11-08-2006 · Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL)
Deer hunters converge on the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge Reservation this weekend for the first of three deer hunts between now and the end of the year.
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Black patients have poorer outcomes on quality of care measurements in Medicare health plans
10-24-2006 · EurekAlert!
Black patients in Medicare managed care health plans often have poorer outcomes for treatment of common and important conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes or high cholesterol, compared to white patients, according to a study in the Oct. 25 issue of JAMA.
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Prescribing information for kidney disease far too vague
12-06-2006 · EurekAlert!
Prescribing information for healthcare professionals treating patients with kidney disease is too vague, concludes the latest issue of Drug and Therapeutics Bulletin (DTB). Many of the 4-5 percent of the UK population with serious chronic kidney disease are elderly people, who are often taking several different drugs. Other risk factors for the disease include diabetes and high blood pressure.
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Health providers could save billions without compromising healthcare says drug study
01-17-2007 · EurekAlert!
Switching patients to more cost-effective drugs for cholesterol and blood pressure problems could reduce health budgets by billions without compromising clinical care, according to a study in the January issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice. No adverse events were reported after patients were switched -- the new cholesterol drugs delivered the same results as the previous drug and the new blood pressure drugs delivered improved performance.
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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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Use of common pain relievers associated with increased risk of blood pressure in men
02-26-2007 · EurekAlert!
Men who regularly take commonly available and widely used pain relievers may have an increased risk of high blood pressure compared with those who do not use these medications, according to a report in the Feb. 26 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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Lowering blood pressure improves diastolic dysfunction in hypertensive patients
03-25-2007 · EurekAlert!
Many patients with hypertension experience stiffening of the heart muscle resulting in difficulty of the heart filling, known as diastolic dysfunction. According to study results presented today at the American College of Cardiology’s 56th Annual Scientific Session, diastolic dysfunction improved in patients with mild hypertension when treated with the blood pressure-lowering agent valsartan, as well as with other approaches to lowering blood pressure.
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New credential for co-occurring disorders will pressure addiction professionals
04-23-2007 · EurekAlert!
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly reports on the new credentials needed by addicition professionals to help co-occurring patients.
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Soy nuts may improve blood pressure in postmenopausal women
05-28-2007 · EurekAlert!
Substituting soy nuts for other protein sources in a healthy diet appears to lower blood pressure in postmenopausal women, and also may reduce cholesterol levels in women with high blood pressure, according to a report in the May 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
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Friendly young people in particular drink under pressure
07-12-2007 · EurekAlert!
Men, extrovert people and those with positive expectations regarding alcohol use drink more than others, says Dutch psychologist Sander Bot. The amount a young person drinks is largely determined by how much others in the group drink. Friendly young people in particular, people who score high on the personality dimension friendliness, are sensitive to the influence of others on their alcohol use.
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