Thursday, January 24, 2013
According to findings from Washington University School of Medicine.
Estrogen levels drop dramatically in menopause, a time when the risk of urinary tract infections increases significantly. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found new evidence in mice that the two phenomena are connected by more than just timing. If further research confirms these links, boosting estrogen levels may get a second look as an approach for reducing urinary infections in menopausal women. “Scientists tested estrogen as a treatment for post-menopausal women with urinary tract infections in the 1990s, but the results were either ambiguous or negative,” said senior author Indira Mysorekar, PhD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and of pathology and immunology. “With the mouse …
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
According to a study from Washington University in St. Louis.
It’s a popularly held belief that individuals with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) gravitate toward STEM majors in college (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). A new study, co-authored by Paul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, confirms that view yet finds that young adults with an ASD also have one of the lowest overall college enrollment rates. The study, “STEM Participation Among College Students with an Autism Spectrum Disorder,” was published online in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. “STEM careers are touted as being important for increasing both national economic competitiveness and individual career earning power,” Shattuck said. “If …
Friday, November 30, 2012
According to new study from Washington University School of Medicine.
Gastric bypass surgery has been thought to offer advantages, independent of weight loss, for improving insulin sensitivity and blood glucose levels in obese patients. But new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that those improvements are related to weight loss alone and not to the surgical procedure itself. Gastric bypass reduces the size of the stomach and re-routes food to lower in the intestine. Gastric banding places a ring around the upper portion of the stomach to make it smaller. In a study comparing gastric bypass to laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding, the researchers report that although both procedures help patients lose weight, gastric bypass does not provide additional advantages for …
Monday, November 26, 2012
According to a new study from Washington University School of Medicine.
Respiratory conditions that restrict breathing such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are common killers worldwide. But no effective treatments exist to address the major cause of death in these conditions – excess mucus production. “There is good evidence that what kills people with severe COPD or asthma is mucus obstructing the airway,” said Michael J. Holtzman, MD, the Selma and Herman Seldin Professor of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. “It’s a huge unmet medical problem and is only increasing in this country and throughout the world.” Now, Holtzman and his colleagues have described the molecular pathway responsible for excess mucus in airway cells and have used that …
Thursday, October 25, 2012
According to a study from the Washington University School of Medicine.
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a key difference in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease and those who are cognitively normal but still have brain plaques that characterize this type of dementia. “There is a very interesting group of people whose thinking and memory are normal, even late in life, yet their brains are full of amyloid beta plaques that appear to be identical to what’s seen in Alzheimer’s disease,” said David L. Brody, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology. “How this can occur is a tantalizing clinical question. It makes it clear that we don’t understand exactly what causes dementia.” Hard plaques made of a protein called amyloid beta are always present in the brain…
Thursday, October 18, 2012
According to a new study designed by the head of the Department of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine.
A major study in hospital intensive care units (ICUs) shows that bathing patients daily with an antimicrobial soap and applying antibiotic ointment in the nose reduced by 44 percent the bloodstream infections caused by dangerous pathogens, including the drug-resistant bacteria MRSA. The effort to remove potentially harmful bacteria from ICUs also lowered by 37 percent the number of patients who harbored MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) on their bodies. These patients were not sick from the bacteria but at risk for later illness and for spreading the germ to others. The study’s findings will be presented Wednesday, Oct. 17, in San Diego at IDWeek, a meeting of specialists involved in treating or studying infectious …
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Dacey will present to the group at its meeting Oct. 6-10.
Ralph G. Dacey Jr., MD, the Henry G. and Edith R. Schwartz Professor and head of the Department of Neurosurgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, will be the honored guest at the annual meeting of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS). Dacey will present four lectures during the meeting in Chicago from Oct. 6-10, which is expected to draw approximately 3,000 neurosurgeons and associated healthcare professionals. Three of the talks will be focused on neurosurgical research he has led, while the fourth talk will cover the challenges facing the profession of neurosurgery. Previous recipients of the annual honor include Henry Schwartz, MD, who led the Department of Neurosurgery at the School of Medicine from 1946…
Sunday, September 30, 2012
According to a new study from the Washington University School of Medicine.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have taken one of the first detailed looks into how Alzheimer’s disease disrupts coordination among several of the brain’s networks. The results, reported in The Journal of Neuroscience, include some of the earliest assessments of Alzheimer’s effects on networks that are active when the brain is at rest. “Until now, most research into Alzheimer’s effects on brain networks has either focused on the networks that become active during a mental task, or the default mode network, the primary network that activates when a person is daydreaming or letting the mind wander,” said senior author Beau Ances, MD, assistant professor of neurology. “There are, however, a number of …
Thursday, September 20, 2012
According to a study from the Washington University School of Medicine.
For some women facing fertility issues, a faster way of freezing and storing eggs is expanding their reproductive options. “Being able to deliver healthy babies from frozen eggs is an important development that is very exciting,” said Sarah Keller, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology and head of the egg donor program at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Until recently, the only method for freezing eggs caused ice crystals to form in the egg. These crystals sometimes destroyed the egg’s structure, making it impossible to create an embryo. With the new method, eggs are frozen so quickly that ice crystals don’t have time to form. The result is a solid cell that resembles glass. “It’s always been easier to…
Monday, September 10, 2012
According to new study from Washington University.
Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a protein essential to repairing the intestine’s inner lining. That lining is among the body’s busiest highways, trod not only by the food we ingest but also by trillions of microorganisms that aid digestion. Because the intestine plays key roles in absorbing nutrients and containing the microbes, any damage must be fixed promptly. The researchers report Sept. 6 in Science Express that a protein called Wnt5a is essential for reconstructing glands in the intestinal lining. The glands, called crypts of Lieberkühn, contain stem cells that continually pump out other cells that renew the gut lining, which is replaced every two to four weeks. The crypts look …
