People with bipolar disorder experience dramatic shifts in mood, oscillating between often debilitating periods of mania and depression. While a third of people with bipolar disorder can be successfully treated with the drug lithium, the majority of patients struggle to find treatment options that work.
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A healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables is known to benefit the human body in so many ways. Now a new study suggests that it may also play a role in lessening various menopause symptoms. Study results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).
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Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital have made a potentially exciting discovery by jumping into the abyss of the dark side of the genome. Once dismissed as “junk DNA,” roughly 75 percent of the human genome do not code for proteins. But these dark regions of the genome are far from junk—instead, they may hold tantalizing clues about disease states. A team of Brigham investigators led by Mark Feinberg, MD, of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, recently plunged into these regions in search of clues about atherosclerosis—a disease in which the arteries become increasingly hardened and narrow, obstructing blood flow and leading to heart disease. Using a preclinical model of atherosclerosis, Feinberg and colleagues have uncovered a long, noncoding RNA (lncRNA) that may point the way toward new therapies for atherosclerosis and shed light on why the likelihood of the disease increases with age. Results are published in Science Translational Medicine.
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Current prosthetic heart valves for children with congenital heart disease are fixed in size, requiring repeated open-heart surgeries during childhood to replace the valve with a larger version. But a surprising new design created at Boston Children’s Hospital could allow children to keep the same prosthetic valve until adulthood, and could also benefit adults with heart valve defects. The new device is described in Science Translational Medicine, published online February 19.
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Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a control system that could make CAR T-cell therapy safer and more powerful when treating cancer. By programming CAR T cells to switch on when exposed to blue light, the researchers controlled the cells to destroy skin tumors in mice without harming healthy tissue.
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A study of teenage girls’ selfie-taking behaviors found that taking and sharing selfies on social media is not linked to poor body image or appearance concerns.
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Using mindfulness training as a cognitive enhancement tool, two new studies from University of Miami researchers show that firefighters and soldiers who participated in short-form mindfulness training programs tailored for their respective professional contexts, benefited from improved attention and resilience. These benefits, the researchers argue, better equip these professionals to manage stressors on the frontlines of their high-demand occupations.
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DEAR MAYO CLINIC: After going to the emergency department for what I thought was a heart attack, the doctor told me there were no issues with my heart and that my symptoms were likely from a panic attack. How can I tell the difference, and how can I prevent future panic attacks?
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Pregnancy is a great time to talk about heart health. Dr. Sharonne N. Hayes, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist, says that women should know that they are at risk for heart disease and that pregnancy is a time of increased risk.
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For women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, long-term endocrine therapy can greatly reduce the risk of recurrence. Many women, especially those in underserved populations, do not continue treatment, however. A new Psycho-Oncology study uncovers some of the factors that may be involved.
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