Cancer drug holds promise as first treatment for common, inherited dementia

DALLAS – June 1, 2011 – A drug already approved for people with cancer shows early potential as a therapy for a common form of dementia, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report.

“Suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid (SAHA) holds promise as a first-generation drug for the prevention and treatment of familial frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a progressive, inherited neurodegenerative disease for which there is no treatment,” said Dr. Joachim Herz, director of the Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases and the study’s senior author.

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Therapeutic melanoma vaccine improves response rate, progression-free survival

First cancer vaccine to show improved response rate

HOUSTON ― A vaccine for one of the most lethal cancers, advanced melanoma, has improved response rate and progression-free survival for patients when combined with the immunotherapy drug Interleukin-2, according to research led by scientists from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Indiana University Health Goshen Center for Cancer Care.

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Veterans show a 50 percent reduction in PTSD symptoms after 8 weeks of Transcendental Meditation

Veterans of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars showed a 50 percent reduction in their symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after just eight weeks of practicing the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation technique, according to a pilot study published in the June 2011 issue of Military Medicine (Volume 176, Number 6).

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Patients with bowel disease eager to test ‘fecal’ therapy

The first study of the social and ethical issues associated with a provocative approach to treatment for ulcerative colitis has found that the majority of potential patients are eager for what is now called “fecal microbiota transplantation” to become available, although many have concerns about donor selection, screening, and methods of delivery.

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Blueberry’s effects on cholesterol examined in lab animal study

Laboratory hamsters that were fed rations spiked with blueberry peels and other blueberry-juice-processing leftovers had better cholesterol health than hamsters whose rations weren’t enhanced with blueberries. That’s according to a study led by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) chemist Wallace H. Yokoyama.

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Drug can reverse overgrown hearts to help prevent heart failure, UT Southwestern researchers find

DALLAS – May 31, 2011 – A promising cancer treatment drug can restore function of a heart en route to failure from high blood pressure, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.

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California scientists discover how vitamins and minerals may prevent age-related diseases

New research in the FASEB Journal demonstrates need for public health initiatives aimed at identifying, treating and taking seriously modest vitamin and mineral deficiencies

Bethesda, MD—Severe deficiency of the vitamins and minerals required for life is relatively uncommon in developed nations, but modest deficiency is very common and often not taken seriously. A new research published online in the FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), however, may change this thinking as it examines moderate selenium and vitamin K deficiency to show how damage accumulates over time as a result of vitamin and mineral loss, leading to age-related diseases.

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Vaccine increases disease-free survival for follicular lymphoma patients

Landmark study of personalized therapy may lead to a ‘flood of new agents’

HOUSTON — A lymphoma vaccine uniquely tailored for each patient extends disease-free survival by 14 months, with signs of an even better response for patients with a specific biological marker, a team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported today in the online version of Journal of Clinical Oncology.

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Potential new drug candidate found for Alzheimer’s disease

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, the Medical University of South Carolina and American Life Science Pharmaceuticals of San Diego have demonstrated that oral administration of a cysteine protease inhibitor, E64d, not only reduces the build-up of β-amyloid (Aβ) in the brains of animal models for Alzheimer’s disease, but also results in a substantial improvement in memory deficit.

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PGD can permit the birth of healthy children to women carrying mitochondrial DNA disease

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) can give women at risk of passing on a mitochondrial DNA disorder to their offspring a good chance of being able to give birth to an unaffected child, a researcher told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics today (Monday). Dr. Debby Hellebrekers, from Maastricht University Medical Centre, Maastricht, The Netherlands, said that the scientists’ findings could have a considerable effect on preventing the transmission of mitochondrial diseases.

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