Editors: Natalia Gavrilova and Stacy Tessler Lindau
The proceedings for
the 4th Annual Biomeasures Workshop (2006) are now published.
Please visit CCBAR website at http://biomarkers.uchicago.edu/workshopproceedings.htm
to download the online version.
The registration for the 5th Annual Interdisciplinary Biomeasures Workshop (and first-ever international gathering) continues. For Workshop agenda please visit CCBAR website at: http://biomarkers.uchicago.edu/Agenda-2007.html. Please contact Karl Mendoza: kmendoza@babies.bsd.uchicago.edu or 773-834-4832 for more information.
[REPORTS]
The Evolutionary Demography of Ecological Change: Linking Trait Var...
The number of sheep in a population with larger individuals increases
more rapidly in years with low survival, showing how ecological
variation influences selection pressure.
• New
Genetic Biomarkers Could Predict Coronary Heart Disease
New genetic markers may be able to predict whether a person is likely
to have coronary heart disease in the future. Research shows that
people who are pre-diabetic or who have Type 2 diabetes have much
shorter telomeres (ends of the chromosome) and, since these people are
prone to CAD, an early test could indicate their susceptibility and
help them to alter their lifestyle to avoid or delay the onset of the
disease.
• Supplements:
No scientific evidence that they work
Every morning, Dr. Frank Pinto pops not one or two vitamins, not just a
handful, but more than two dozen dietary supplements, in hopes of
gaining energy, warding off disease and slowing down the aging process.
Americans spend billions of dollars a year on dietary supplements. Yet
for all the money spent, and growing interest from mainstream
physicians, virtually no evidence exists that supplements can improve
your health
• 100-Year
Olds' Secret To Longevity
The key to long life is a vivid interest in the world around you, a
survey of 100-year-olds suggests.
• Less
Sleep May Lower Testosterone
Less sleep may be linked to lower testosterone levels among older men,
say researchers who studied declining testosterone in adults.
• Criteria
for Depression Are Too Broad, Researchers Say
Up to 25 percent of people in whom psychiatrists would currently
diagnose depression may only be reacting normally to stressful events
such as a divorce or losing a job, according to a new analysis that
reexamined how the standard diagnostic criteria are used.
• Hormone
therapy risk for older women seen
While additional research is needed, the unexpected findings should
prompt cautious use of estrogen and progestins, even by women in their
50s, doctors said.
• Hispanic
Women At Higher Risk For Breast Cancer - May Be Biological
A new study provides evidence that racial differences in the clinical
presentation of breast cancer may be due more to biological factors
rather than differences in access to health care alone.
• Effect
Of Hormone Therapy On Risk Of Heart Disease May Vary By Age And Years
...
Secondary analyses of findings from the Women's Health Initiative
suggest that women who begin hormone therapy within 10 years of
menopause may have less risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) due to
hormone therapy than women farther from menopause. Overall, hormone
therapy did not reduce the risk of CHD.
• Gene
Linked To Increased Risk Of Stroke
One of the most common genetic defects passed on through families
significantly increases a person's chance of having a stroke, according
to a study published in the March 27, 2007, issue of Neurology, the
scientific journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
• Mom-to-be's
weight gain may lead to fat toddler
Study could bring guidelines change. The standard advice for how much
weight a woman should gain during
pregnancy might need to be changed, concludes a rigorous and
provocative study suggesting that even accepted weight gains might
raise the risk of having an overweight toddler.
• Aspirin
'aids women's hearts'
Healthy women who take a low dose of aspirin could cut their risk of
dying early, a study suggests.
• Trans
fats linked to greater heart disease risk
A study published today supports recent
efforts to rid the American diet of trans fats. In the study, women
with the highest levels of trans fat in their blood had triple the risk
of heart disease as those with the lowest levels.
• Study
Links Child Care to Problem Behavior
The more time that children spent in child care, the
more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report problem
behavior....
• Hopkins
study finds racial differences in heart function
Race might help determine a person's risk of heart failure, according
to a study by Johns Hopkins researchers, who found that blacks had the
weakest heart muscle among racial groups studied.
• Common
Fungicide Causes Long-term Changes In Rats' Mating Behavior
Female rats avoid males whose great-grandfathers were exposed to a
common fruit crop fungicide, preferring instead males whose ancestors
were uncontaminated, researchers from The University of Texas at Austin
have discovered.
• Meningitis
'reduces exam success'
Battling meningitis as a baby has a damaging effect on later academic
achievement, a study suggests.
• Blood
sugar 'boosts cancer risk'
Women with high blood sugar levels are at an increased risk of
developing cancer, a major European study finds.
• New
DNA Clue For Schizophrenia?
Scientists say they have discovered a tiny chunk of DNA that may affect
schizophrenia risk.
• Diet,
Exercise May Lower Colon Cancer Risk
Some studies have shown exercise can reduce the risk of colon cancer by
half. More research is needed to prove a direct link, but some
vegetables may trigger a chemical process turning on a gene that
suppresses tumors, Kelly Wallace reports.
• Scarred
for Life: Rat Nerve Cells Damaged by Stress
One socially crushing moment -- think schoolyard
bullies -- can challenge the survival of new nerve cells in the brain
and may even lead to depression, U.S. researchers said Tuesday.
• Longevity
gap lessens for blacks
Gains credited mainly to decline in homicides, better HIV treatment.
Whites still live longer than blacks, but the gap is shrinking, mainly
because death rates are dropping for causes that have historically hit
African-American communities particularly hard, HIV and homicide,
researchers announced yesterday.
• Biologist
sees human morality evolving from the sociality of primates
In "Primates and Philosophers," the primatologist Frans de Waal defends
against philosopher critics of his view that the roots of morality can
be seen in the social behavior of monkeys and apes, while Marc Hauser,
an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, proposed in his book "Moral
Minds" that the brain has a genetically shaped mechanism for acquiring
moral rules.
• Younger
baby boomers report poorer overall health
Researchers wonder if those nearing retirement are expecting too much
in the way of good health.
NIH
Press Releases
Effect
of Hormone Therapy on Risk of Heart Disease May Vary by Age and Years
...
Secondary analyses of findings from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI)
suggest that women who begin hormone therapy within 10 years of
menopause may have less risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) due to
hormone therapy than women farther from menopause. Overall, hormone
therapy did not reduce the risk of CHD. However, the farther a woman
was from the onset of menopause when she began hormone therapy, the
greater her risk of CHD due to hormone therapy appeared to be. Although
these findings did not meet statistical significance, they suggest that
the health consequences of hormone therapy may vary by time from
menopause.
Calcium
Plaque Build-up in the Arteries Leads to Coronary Heart Disease in Mu...
Having a build-up of calcium plaque in the arteries means increased
risk of heart attacks and death from heart disease in multiple ethnic
groups, according to new findings from the Multi-Ethnic Study of
Atherosclerosis (MESA) funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood
Institute of the National Institutes of Health.
Early
Child Care Linked to Increases in Vocabulary, Some Problem Behaviors
in...
The most recent analysis of a long-term NIH-funded study found that
children who received higher quality child care before entering
kindergarten had better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than did
children who received lower quality care.
Researchers
Discover a Common Variation in a Gene Segment that Increases the ...
Researchers report that a variation in a portion of DNA strongly
predicts prostate cancer risk and that this common variation may be
responsible for up to 20 percent of prostate cancer cases in white men
in the United States. The research was conducted by investigators from
the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of
Health, and their partners in the Cancer Genetic Markers of
Susceptibility (CGEMS) initiative.
NIDA
Study Identifies Genes That Might Help Some People Abstain From Smoking
...
Scientists supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA),
part of the National Institutes of Health, have for the first time
identified genes that might increase a person's ability to abstain from
smoking. The breakthrough research was conducted by Dr. George Uhl at
NIDA's Intramural Research Program and a team led by Dr. Jed Rose at
the Center for Nicotine and Smoking Cessation Research at Duke
University Medical Center.
NIH
Announces Phase III Clinical Trial of Creatine for Parkinson's Disease
- ...
The NIH National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS)
today is launching a large-scale clinical trial to learn if the
nutritional supplement creatine can slow the progression of Parkinson's
disease (PD). While creatine is not an approved therapy for PD or any
other condition, it is widely thought to improve exercise performance.
The potential benefit of creatine for PD was identified by Parkinson's
researchers through a new rapid method for screening potential
compounds.
Tiny,
Spontaneous Gene Mutations May Boost Autism Risk - March 15, 2007
Tiny gene mutations, each individually rare, pose more risk for autism
than had been previously thought, suggests a study funded in part by
the National Institute of Mental Health, a component of the National
Institutes of Health.
Framingham
Study Shows Parents Who Live Long Pass On Lower Risk of Cardiovasc...
New evidence suggests that if you could choose your parents, you could
reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease. Researchers from the
long-standing Framingham Heart Study (FHS), a program of the National
Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of
Health, report that people whose parents live longer were more likely
to avoid developing high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other
risk factors for cardiovascular disease in middle age than their peers
whose parents died younger. They also found that the risk factor
advantages persisted over time.
Events
2007
NICHD-NCES Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B)
First Release Conference to be held May 8th-10th in Bethesda, MD.
Alzheimer's
Disease Biomarkers:
How Can Specific Population Groups Help Us Identify/Validate Biomarkers
for Presymptomatic Diagnosis and Drug Development?
June 7th - 8th, 2007, Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington D.C.
6th European Congress of
Gerontology, 5 to 8 July 2007, St Petersburg, Russia
60th Annual Scientific Meeting
of The Gerontological Society of America, November 16-20, San
Francisco, United States
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This Newsletter is
supported by a grant from the National Institute on Aging, National
Institutes of Health (Grant No. 5 P30 AG012857)