Prostate cancer cause found
The cause of prostate cancer progression to the incurable stage has likely been uncovered in a recent study. Researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland have discovered novel genes and mechanisms that can explain how a genomic variant in a single nucleotide polymorphism influences prostate cancer aggressiveness. Their findings also suggest ways to improve risk stratification and clinical treatment for advanced prostate cancer. Three billion base pairs in the human genome are nearly identical between any two individuals. Nevertheless, genome sequence variation such as single nucleotide polymorphism does occur in the population and may have profound effects on an individual’s risk of developing various diseases, including prostate cancer. Academy Research Fellow Gong-Hong Wei said, “How human genomic variants cause disease and its progression is in general one of the most compelling puzzles and questions in medicine.”
Ultrasound for dementia patients
Patients suffering from dementia can now be treated with the ultrasound applied to the brain. Ultrasound waves, applied to the whole brain, improve cognitive dysfunction in mice with conditions simulating vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.
The research, conducted by scientists at Tohoku University in Japan, suggested that this type of therapy may also benefit humans. led by cardiologist Hiroaki Shimokawa, the team found that applying low-intensity pulsed ultrasound (lIPUS) to the whole brain of the mice improved blood vessel formation and nerve cell regeneration without having obvious side-effects.
Calculator to predict heart risk
Scientists have created a novel online health calculator which they say could help people predict the risk of heart disease, and estimate their heart age. The calculator, described in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, accounts for socio-demographic factors such as ethnicity, sense of belonging and education, as well as health status and lifestyle behaviours. “What sets this cardiovascular risk calculator apart is that it looks at healthy living,” said Doug Manuel, a senior scientist at
The Ottawa Hospital in Canada. Using a “big data” approach, researchers used routinely collected data on 104,219 Ontario residents from the Canadian Community Health Surveys (2001 to 2007) to develop and validate the Cardiovascular Disease Population Risk Tool.