The long-standing connection between depression and heart problems might be traceable to the fact that depressed people are less physically active than others, a new study of heart patients shows. A greater tendency in depressed people to smoke and to fail to take medications regularly may also play a role, researchers report in the Nov. 26 Journal of the American Medical Association.http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us
Previous studies have suggested that depression seems to increase the risk of heart problems in people with no history of them, and that depression often coincides with worsening health in people who have an existing heart condition. Yet the medical reason for this association is unknown, and it’s not even clear whether depression leads to heart problems or vice versa.
Scientists have investigated possible side effects from antidepressant drugs, chemical imbalances in the brain, stress, diet, chronic inflammation, smoking and a lack of exercise as reasons for the link between depression and heart problems.
To sort out these possibilities, researchers began a study in 2000, identifying people visiting clinics in the San Francisco Bay area who had chronic but stable coronary heart disease. Of the 1,017 patients enrolled, tests showed that one-fifth, average age 63, had symptoms of depression at the start of the study. The other four-fifths were age 68 on average and weren’t depressed. Researchers monitored the health of all the volunteers using lab tests, checkups, interviews, death records. Follow-up averaged five years, and researchers logged the final data entries in early 2008.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
During the study, the scientists periodically asked volunteers whether they had had any episodes of “heart trouble” or stroke that had necessitated a visit to a hospital. In cases where a volunteer had died or couldn’t respond, relatives or other caregivers provided information.
By the end of the study, 341 incidents were reported. These included cases of heart failure, heart attacks, strokes or deaths. After accounting for past medical histories and other differences between the depressed and nondepressed groups, the researchers calculated that people with depression had a 31 percent increased risk of having at least one such incident during the study, says study coauthor Mary Whooley, an internist at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.
The depressed people were also slightly more likely to have high levels of inflammatory proteins in the blood, which may have explained some of these participants’ added coronary risk. http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us Inflammatory cells and proteins contribute to plaque formation and vessel damage.
But the clearest differences between groups were behavioral, Whooley says. When researchers accounted for differences between the groups in smoking habits, exercise habits and discipline in taking medications, the heart risk apparently imparted by depression evaporated.
Meanwhile, the depressed people were nearly twice as likely to smoke and were more likely than the nondepressed group to fail to take medications on schedule. The depressed group also exercised less.
“This particular finding is important,” says cardiovascular epidemiologist Viola Vaccarino of Emory University in Atlanta. “In this particular group, behavioral risk factors, especially low physical activity, seem to explain away the depression risk.”
But she cautions that this explanation might not hold for other groups. For example, it’s unclear whether these findings apply to people who are outwardly healthy with no signs or history of heart trouble, but may nonetheless be at risk of heart disease.
On the other end of the spectrum, these findings also might not apply to people with acute coronary ailments, such as recurring chest pain. “It doesn’t really make any sense to ask them to up their physical activity,” Vaccarino says.
Meanwhile, Whooley and her coauthors note that it’s also difficult to determine whether a relative lack of physical inactivity is the cause or the result of depression, since the effect probably goes both ways.
Whooley and Vaccarino agree that it can be very difficult to change the behavior of depressed patients, who often aren’t very motivated, even while on medication. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire “They’ll [exercise] for a few months, then stop,” Whooley says.
She hopes these new findings make doctors more aware of the risks that depressed patients with heart disease run in maintaining a sedentary lifestyle and other detrimental behaviors.
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* My observation is that when man have no true motive, no aim in his lfe he more drepress, and victim of many desease.Today in techological era more and more people lossing motive in life so we are experiences more drepression.
Ramesh Raghuvanshi Ramesh Raghuvanshi
Dec. 1, 2008 at 12:58am http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us
* Depression isn't just linked to lack of exercise, although that is a major factor. Depression makes people refrain from social contact. It makes them eat too much or too little. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire It makes them quit taking medicines they know they need to take, or take too much, or take them at the wrong times. Depression robs people of their motivation, all right, but it also robs them of their judgment, of their reason to do anything that anybody says is good for them. "Why should I take my medicine?" the depressed person wonders. "It won't do any good. Why should I keep doing these exercises? It's a lot of work and it isn't helping. I still don't feel good. My doctor doesn't care if I live or die. My family doesn't care if I live or die. I'm hurting, I'm tired, so very, very tired. You know, I don't care if I live or die either. I'm just going to give up." And then they do. You can't make a depressed person care again by writing prescriptions, either. It doesn't what's written on that little piece of paper or who writes it. That isn't the answer. They need TLC and that doesn't come in paper and ink or in a little bottle at the pharmacy.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
outlook 1.out.9987 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Women with rapidly lethal ovarian cancer are more likely to harbor tumors lacking a normal complement of two enzymes that facilitate the silencing of genes, a new study shows. Meanwhile, patients who survive significantly longer tend to have ample supplies of both compounds, scientists report in the Dec. 18 New England Journal of Medicine.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Data on patients with other cancers also linked better survival to adequate levels of one of these enzymes, the researchers find
If confirmed, the new finding might enable doctors to make more precise prognoses for patients with ovarian cancer and possibly other malignancies by testing for these enzymes in tumor tissue. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire The work may also contribute to a further understanding of RNA interference, in which microRNAs or another type of genetic fragment called small interfering RNAs stop biosynthesis of proteins in a cell.
Dicer and Drosha, the enzymes measured in the new study, facilitate the RNA interference process. Human cells make thousands of kinds of RNA fragments, which scientists believe serve as safeguards that keep abnormal proteins — or the wrong amount of them — from being manufactured from their gene blueprints.
Dicer and Drosha also appear in normal cells, where the enzymes perform their work unnoticed much of the time. “We are trying to understand why this machinery is altered in cancer cells,” says Anil Sood, a gynecologic oncologist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Earlier work suggested that in cancerous cells a lack of Dicer might contribute to the malignant nature of the cells.
Sood and his colleagues analyzed Dicer and Drosha concentrations in ovarian tumor tissue from 111 patients, dividing the samples into those that contained high or low levels of the enzymes. The team found that 39 percent of women had the lower amounts of both enzymes.
On average, women with higher levels of both enzymes survived more than11 years from the time of their diagnosis, whereas those with lower amounts of Dicer and Drosha lived 2.7 years on average, the team reports.
When the scientists accounted for differences between the groups that included age, stage of the cancer and initial response to chemotherapy, women with ample Dicer and Drosha still showed a median survival that was four times longer than those with a shortage of the enzymes.
The researchers then analyzed information obtained from other sets of patients with lung, breast and ovarian cancer. The team found that shortages of both enzymes led to bleaker survival prospects in the ovarian cancer group. http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us But only low Dicer levels worsened survival in people with the other two cancers.
Apparently, low amounts of these enzymes allow some genes to remain switched on and encode proteins when they would be better off shut down, Sood says.
The study “provides evidence for a simple mechanism, based on the biologic characteristics of microRNAs, for formulating a prognosis and potentially guiding therapy in ovarian cancer,” say Frank Slack and Joanne Weidhaas of Yale University, writing in the same issue of NEJM.
The researchers are still missing an explanation for the shortage of Dicer and Drosha in some of these cancer patients in the first place. “I wish we had the exact answer,” says Sood. He and his team found mutations in genes encoding the enzymes, but these defects didn’t seem related to Dicer or Drosha amounts, he says.http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us
The long-term hope is to harness these RNA fragments as drugs to fight cancer, but that research is still at a theoretical stage, he says.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Data on patients with other cancers also linked better survival to adequate levels of one of these enzymes, the researchers find
If confirmed, the new finding might enable doctors to make more precise prognoses for patients with ovarian cancer and possibly other malignancies by testing for these enzymes in tumor tissue. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire The work may also contribute to a further understanding of RNA interference, in which microRNAs or another type of genetic fragment called small interfering RNAs stop biosynthesis of proteins in a cell.
Dicer and Drosha, the enzymes measured in the new study, facilitate the RNA interference process. Human cells make thousands of kinds of RNA fragments, which scientists believe serve as safeguards that keep abnormal proteins — or the wrong amount of them — from being manufactured from their gene blueprints.
Dicer and Drosha also appear in normal cells, where the enzymes perform their work unnoticed much of the time. “We are trying to understand why this machinery is altered in cancer cells,” says Anil Sood, a gynecologic oncologist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
Earlier work suggested that in cancerous cells a lack of Dicer might contribute to the malignant nature of the cells.
Sood and his colleagues analyzed Dicer and Drosha concentrations in ovarian tumor tissue from 111 patients, dividing the samples into those that contained high or low levels of the enzymes. The team found that 39 percent of women had the lower amounts of both enzymes.
On average, women with higher levels of both enzymes survived more than11 years from the time of their diagnosis, whereas those with lower amounts of Dicer and Drosha lived 2.7 years on average, the team reports.
When the scientists accounted for differences between the groups that included age, stage of the cancer and initial response to chemotherapy, women with ample Dicer and Drosha still showed a median survival that was four times longer than those with a shortage of the enzymes.
The researchers then analyzed information obtained from other sets of patients with lung, breast and ovarian cancer. The team found that shortages of both enzymes led to bleaker survival prospects in the ovarian cancer group. http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us But only low Dicer levels worsened survival in people with the other two cancers.
Apparently, low amounts of these enzymes allow some genes to remain switched on and encode proteins when they would be better off shut down, Sood says.
The study “provides evidence for a simple mechanism, based on the biologic characteristics of microRNAs, for formulating a prognosis and potentially guiding therapy in ovarian cancer,” say Frank Slack and Joanne Weidhaas of Yale University, writing in the same issue of NEJM.
The researchers are still missing an explanation for the shortage of Dicer and Drosha in some of these cancer patients in the first place. “I wish we had the exact answer,” says Sood. He and his team found mutations in genes encoding the enzymes, but these defects didn’t seem related to Dicer or Drosha amounts, he says.http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us
The long-term hope is to harness these RNA fragments as drugs to fight cancer, but that research is still at a theoretical stage, he says.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Friday, April 10, 2009
budget 1.bud.0003 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
In his not-exactly-State-of-the-Union address to Congress Tuesday night, the President Obama promised that his administration would boost support for science. This morning, we got an inkling of what he was referring to. The official “outline” of the first Obama budget was released at 11 a.m. And this broad-brush blueprint asks Congress to fatten the National Science Foundation, for example, with an extra $7 billion — a hefty 16 percent increase over last year’s funding.
The new budget document argues that “investments in science and technology foster economic growth, create millions of high-tech, high-wage jobs that allow American workers to lead the global economy” and more. For that reason, the budget document says, the president’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2010 is aimed at beginning to move toward a doubling of federal funding for basic research over the next 10 years. The actual increase in the coming year would be $950 million, it says.
The Energy Department would see lots of boosts. Most of the dollar figures mentioned in today’s budget document reflect money already targeted to be spent from the stimulus. This includes $3.4 billion for low-carbon coal technologies, including the carbon sequestration. But in addition to the $1.6 billion in the recently passed economic stimulus package for basic energy research at DOE, the new budget would provide “substantially increased support for the [DOE] Office of Science.” What does that mean? We’ll have to wait a month or so for the actual line-item budget blueprint to see. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire But we already know that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has been a big booster for this, something he views as his agency’s crown jewel.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Words you wouldn’t have seen in George W. Bush’s budget documents: statements like the president’s intention to make “climate change research and education a priority.” Yep, that’s what it says in today’s document. Toward that end, there’s not only money in the NSF budget for climate science, but also the call for spending $1.3 billion for development and lofting of “vital weather satellites and climate sensors.” (I guess some of that will have to go toward replacing the carbon-monitoring satellite that crashed shortly after takeoff a couple days ago.) http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us
There is a curious and fairly long section of text under the Environmental Protection Agency heading that describes plans to begin “a comprehensive approach to transform our energy supply and slow global warming.” Global warming has never been a big EPA issue. Most efforts to limit our carbon footprint are managed through programs at Commerce and Energy. http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us But in today’s outline, the administration describes its hope to jump-start an ambitious cap-and-trade program for greenhouse-gas emissions. This program would look to cut greenhouse emissions 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and approximately 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. Talks of cap-and-trade proposals have been floating around for years. It looks like this president is committed to finally making something happen.
In his Tuesday night address, the president hinted at big boosts for biomedical research. Today’s outline calls for investing more than $6 billion in research at the National Institutes of Health “as part of the administration’s multi-year commitment to double cancer research funding.” Today’s budget outline explains that this influx of funds would “build upon the unprecedented $10 billion” for NIH research in the economic stimulus.
The president’s new budget also advocates expanding research that compares the effectiveness of competing medical treatments — something you can read more about in the upcoming March 14 print Science News, set to be available online Friday.
The EPA would get a boost in funding, but largely for infrastructure improvements and things like a new Great Lakes restoration program.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (once called the National Bureau of Standards) is a small but important Commerce Department agency charged with making sure new “yardsticks” exist for helping develop new technologies — ones that will keep the nation competitive with other economic powerhouses. In recent years, NIST has been marginalized, with large sections of it targeted for elimination (but usually rescued by Congress, sometimes at the 11th hour). In a turnabout, the Obama administration acknowledges that NIST’s health is important to the nation’s technology infrastructure — infrastructure being a priority in the stimulus. Under the president’s budget plan, NIST would get money to keep important programs alive and would be designated the headquarters for administering $4.7 billion in stimulus money “to expand broadband deployment, adoption, and data collection.”
Something you don’t see in today’s budget outline is any mention of beefing up research programs at the Department of Agriculture. USDA’s research service has been hurting in recent years. And a failure to boast about turning that around suggests that the president won’t be trying to turn that around — at least not in the coming year.
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Found in: Biomedicine, Body & Brain, Climate Change, Earth Science, Environment, Matter & Energy, Science & Society and Technology
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* How can a total of several billions (7 for NSF, 6 for NIH) come to only "$950 million" in all?
Merry Maisel
Merry Maisel Merry Maisel Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Mar. 3, 2009 at 7:27pm
* Boosting government spending in the name of science is not the same thing as boosting science. Some money that the private and voluntary sectors would otherwise spend on research will instead be spent on efforts to steer the grants, or consumed by taxes, with no guarantee that government-sponsored activities produce more science.
Anton Sherwood Anton Sherwood
Feb. 27, 2009 at 5:02pm
* I think Obama has a good sense of what to spend money on and a sincere desire for the greater good. I hope that greed and lack of integrity in our country don't ruin things. We should have the guillotines ready just in case.
Randell Grenier Randell Grenier
Feb. 27, 2009 at 3:21pm
* That's not good. USDA is one of the highest ROI programs in science.
The new budget document argues that “investments in science and technology foster economic growth, create millions of high-tech, high-wage jobs that allow American workers to lead the global economy” and more. For that reason, the budget document says, the president’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2010 is aimed at beginning to move toward a doubling of federal funding for basic research over the next 10 years. The actual increase in the coming year would be $950 million, it says.
The Energy Department would see lots of boosts. Most of the dollar figures mentioned in today’s budget document reflect money already targeted to be spent from the stimulus. This includes $3.4 billion for low-carbon coal technologies, including the carbon sequestration. But in addition to the $1.6 billion in the recently passed economic stimulus package for basic energy research at DOE, the new budget would provide “substantially increased support for the [DOE] Office of Science.” What does that mean? We’ll have to wait a month or so for the actual line-item budget blueprint to see. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire But we already know that Energy Secretary Steven Chu has been a big booster for this, something he views as his agency’s crown jewel.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Words you wouldn’t have seen in George W. Bush’s budget documents: statements like the president’s intention to make “climate change research and education a priority.” Yep, that’s what it says in today’s document. Toward that end, there’s not only money in the NSF budget for climate science, but also the call for spending $1.3 billion for development and lofting of “vital weather satellites and climate sensors.” (I guess some of that will have to go toward replacing the carbon-monitoring satellite that crashed shortly after takeoff a couple days ago.) http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us
There is a curious and fairly long section of text under the Environmental Protection Agency heading that describes plans to begin “a comprehensive approach to transform our energy supply and slow global warming.” Global warming has never been a big EPA issue. Most efforts to limit our carbon footprint are managed through programs at Commerce and Energy. http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us But in today’s outline, the administration describes its hope to jump-start an ambitious cap-and-trade program for greenhouse-gas emissions. This program would look to cut greenhouse emissions 14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and approximately 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. Talks of cap-and-trade proposals have been floating around for years. It looks like this president is committed to finally making something happen.
In his Tuesday night address, the president hinted at big boosts for biomedical research. Today’s outline calls for investing more than $6 billion in research at the National Institutes of Health “as part of the administration’s multi-year commitment to double cancer research funding.” Today’s budget outline explains that this influx of funds would “build upon the unprecedented $10 billion” for NIH research in the economic stimulus.
The president’s new budget also advocates expanding research that compares the effectiveness of competing medical treatments — something you can read more about in the upcoming March 14 print Science News, set to be available online Friday.
The EPA would get a boost in funding, but largely for infrastructure improvements and things like a new Great Lakes restoration program.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (once called the National Bureau of Standards) is a small but important Commerce Department agency charged with making sure new “yardsticks” exist for helping develop new technologies — ones that will keep the nation competitive with other economic powerhouses. In recent years, NIST has been marginalized, with large sections of it targeted for elimination (but usually rescued by Congress, sometimes at the 11th hour). In a turnabout, the Obama administration acknowledges that NIST’s health is important to the nation’s technology infrastructure — infrastructure being a priority in the stimulus. Under the president’s budget plan, NIST would get money to keep important programs alive and would be designated the headquarters for administering $4.7 billion in stimulus money “to expand broadband deployment, adoption, and data collection.”
Something you don’t see in today’s budget outline is any mention of beefing up research programs at the Department of Agriculture. USDA’s research service has been hurting in recent years. And a failure to boast about turning that around suggests that the president won’t be trying to turn that around — at least not in the coming year.
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Found in: Biomedicine, Body & Brain, Climate Change, Earth Science, Environment, Matter & Energy, Science & Society and Technology
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Comments 4
* How can a total of several billions (7 for NSF, 6 for NIH) come to only "$950 million" in all?
Merry Maisel
Merry Maisel Merry Maisel Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Mar. 3, 2009 at 7:27pm
* Boosting government spending in the name of science is not the same thing as boosting science. Some money that the private and voluntary sectors would otherwise spend on research will instead be spent on efforts to steer the grants, or consumed by taxes, with no guarantee that government-sponsored activities produce more science.
Anton Sherwood Anton Sherwood
Feb. 27, 2009 at 5:02pm
* I think Obama has a good sense of what to spend money on and a sincere desire for the greater good. I hope that greed and lack of integrity in our country don't ruin things. We should have the guillotines ready just in case.
Randell Grenier Randell Grenier
Feb. 27, 2009 at 3:21pm
* That's not good. USDA is one of the highest ROI programs in science.
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