Archive for the 'Medicine' Category

Major collaboration uncovers surprising new genetic clues to diabetes

Analysis identifies potential new therapeutic targets

An international team that included scientists from the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today reported it has identified six more genetic variants involved in type 2 diabetes, boosting to 16 the total number of genetic risk factors associated with increased risk of the disease. None of the genetic variants uncovered by the new study had previously been suspected of playing a role in type 2 diabetes. Intriguingly, the new variant most strongly associated with type 2 diabetes also was recently implicated in a very different condition: prostate cancer.

The unprecedented analysis, published today in the advance online edition of Nature Genetics, combined genetic data from more than 70,000 people. The work was carried out through the collaborative efforts of more than 90 researchers at more than 40 centers in Europe and North America.

“None of the genes we have found was previously on the radar screen of diabetes researchers,” said one of the paper’s senior authors, Mark McCarthy, M.D., of the University of Oxford in England. “Each of these genes, therefore, provides new clues to the processes that go wrong when diabetes develops, and each provides an opportunity for the generation of new approaches for treating or preventing this condition.” Continue reading ‘Major collaboration uncovers surprising new genetic clues to diabetes’

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Women, Arthritis Sufferers have Poorer Short-Term Recovery from Arthroscopic Knee Surgery

New research by Yale medical student identifies different factors for optimal short- versus long-term recovery.

The factors associated with poor short-term recovery from knee surgery appear to be different than those found to mar long-term outcome from the same surgery, according to new research released today at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine at the Telus Convention Center (July 12-15).

“We found that women showed poorer short-term recovery than men in the first year following arthroscopic meniscal tear removal surgery, and people with osteoarthritis also did not do as well as others,” says principal investigator Peter Fabricant, BS, a medical student at Yale University School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn. “The factors associated with a poorer long-term outcome, such as larger tear size, greater amount of tissue removed, advanced patient age, and higher Body Mass Index, are not the same as those we can associate with short-term surgical recovery.” Continue reading ‘Women, Arthritis Sufferers have Poorer Short-Term Recovery from Arthroscopic Knee Surgery’

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