Heart-blockage, heredity link seen
Milwaukee The left main coronary artery is one of the worst places to have a heart attack – so bad that it’s ominously nicknamed “the widowmaker.”
Now researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin and in Germany have found that heredity may play an important role in such “widowmakers” and other hazardous heart blockages.
Researchers say the finding is a big step in identifying genes for certain types of heart attacks and eventually may lead to targeted therapies to prevent them.
The 10-year study involved analyzing angiograms of 882 siblings with coronary heart disease from 401 families in Germany. Researchers from the Medical College of Wisconsin and the University of Regensburg and the University of Luebeck, both in Germany, worked on the project.
The research marks the first time doctors have identified specific areas of artery blockage associated with heredity, said a spokesman for the American Heart Association.
Air pollution linked to changes in fetuses
Washington Air pollution from traffic and power plants seems to cause genetic changes – the kind linked to cancer – in developing fetuses, a federally funded study released Tuesday has concluded.
A study of 60 pregnant women in poor areas of New York City used backpacks to monitor the women’s exposure to airborne carcinogens and tested their babies’ umbilical-cord blood after birth. Babies whose moms were exposed to higher pollution levels had 53 percent more aberrations in their chromosomes. Other studies have shown these types of chromosomal changes increase the risk of cancer.
The study, funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and published in this month’s journal Cancer Epidemiology Biomarkers and Prevention, links in-the-womb chromosome damage to elevated exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.
Study examines how diabetes may develop
St. Louis Burning fat is touted as the key to weight loss, but it may also link obesity and diabetes, research from Washington University suggests.
Researchers at the university’s Center for Cardiovascular Research were studying the heart when they made a discovery that could provide new understanding on how diabetes develops in overweight and obese people.
The researchers noted when fat gets into the heart, the organ stops burning sugar for energy. The results of their study appear today in the journal Cell Metabolism.
Normally, cells use a sugar called glucose for energy, but they may also use fatty acids as less efficient fuel sources. When cells stop burning sugar and switch to fat fuel, blood sugar levels rise and insulin stops working. Those are two hallmarks of diabetes.
Coffee might help prevent cancer type
Washington Coffee may do more than just provide a tasty energy boost: It also may help prevent the most common type of liver cancer.
A study of more than 90,000 Japanese found people who drank coffee daily or nearly every day had half the risk of liver cancer as those who never drank coffee.
The American Cancer Society estimates 18,920 new cases of liver cancer were diagnosed in the United States last year and 14,270 people died of the illness. Causes include hepatitis, cirrhosis, excess alcohol consumption and diseases causing inflammation of the liver.
Researchers at the National Cancer Center in Tokyo analyzed a 10-year public health study to determine coffee use by people diagnosed with liver cancer and people who did not have cancer.
They found the protective effect occurred in people who drank one to two cups of coffee a day and increased at three to four cups.