Tag Archives: cancer

Popular diabetes drug does not improve survival rates after cancer

The study, published in the journal Diabetes Care, failed to show an improved survival rate in older breast cancer patients with diabetes taking the drug metformin, a first-line treatment for diabetes. However, the authors caution further research is necessary to validate the study’s findings. "Metformin is a drug commonly used by diabetic patients to control the amount of glucose in their blood," said the study’s lead author Dr. Iliana Lega, a research fellow at Women’s College Research Institute…

Research reveals cancer-suppressing protein ‘multitasks’

More than half of human cancers carry defects in the gene for p53, and almost all other cancers, with a normal p53 gene, carry other defects that somehow impair the function of the p53 protein. Inherited mutations in the p53 gene put people at a very high risk of developing a range of cancers. The p53 protein’s functions are normally stimulated by potentially cancer-causing events, such as DNA damage from ultraviolet radiation (a cause of skin cancer), or the over-activity of cancer-causing genes. Ms Liz Valente, Dr Ana Janic and Professor Andreas Strasser from the Molecular Genetics of Cancer division at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have been dissecting the processes that are controlled by p53, to discover how this protein can suppress cancer development…

Patients should have right to control genomic health information, experts say

"A lot of people in this field would agree that no one has a right to withhold your health information from you," said Megan Allyse from the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics. "But it’s problematic to suggest the inverse: that the medical system should give you information you didn’t ask for and don’t want. No one should be able to interfere with your ability to accept or decline access…

Mapping the embryonic epigenome: How genes are turned on and off during early human development

After an egg has been fertilized, it divides repeatedly to give rise to every cell in the human body — from the patrolling immune cell to the pulsing neuron. Each functionally distinct generation of cells subsequently differentiates itself from its predecessors in the developing embryo by expressing only a selection of its full complement of genes, while actively suppressing others…

Genetic variations associated with susceptibility to bacteria linked to stomach disorders

"[H pylori] is the major cause of gastritis (80 percent) and gastroduodenal ulcer disease (15 percent-20 percent) and the only bacterial pathogen believed to cause cancer," according to background information in the article. "H pylori prevalence is as high as 90 percent in some developing countries but 10 percent of a given population is never colonized, regardless of exposure. Genetic factors are hypothesized to confer H pylori susceptibility." Julia Mayerle, M.D., of University Medicine Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany, and colleagues conducted a study to identify genetic loci associated with H pylori seroprevalence…

Sunshine could benefit health and prolong life, study suggests

Researchers have shown that when our skin is exposed to the sun’s rays, a compound is released in our blood vessels that helps lower blood pressure. The findings suggest that exposure to sunlight improves health overall, because the benefits of reducing blood pressure far outweigh the risk of developing skin cancer. …

Review on aspirin to treat and prevent heart attacks and commentary on aspirin to prevent colorectal and other cancers

This update was published in the current issue of the American Journal of Medicine by Hennekens and James E. Dalen, M.D., M.P.H., dean emeritus, University of Arizona College of Medicine and executive director of the Weil Foundation. In a commentary published in Clinical Investigation, Hennekens and David J…

Gene offers clues to new treatments for a harmful blood clotting disorder

The research, which was led by Yanming Wang, a Penn State University associate professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, and Denisa Wagner, senior author with decades of research on thrombosis at the Boston Children’s Hospital and the Harvard University Medical School, will be published in in the Online Early Edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences during the week ending 10 May 2013. The team’s new findings are an extension of previous research by Wang and other scientists. In earlier studies, Wang and his colleagues had revealed that a gene in mice called Pad4 (peptidylarginine deiminase 4) produces an enzyme that plays an important role in protecting the body from infection. The researchers discovered that cells with a functioning PAD4 enzyme are able to build around themselves a protective, bacteria-killing web that is dubbed a NET (neutrophil extracellular trap)…