Fake clear

March 10, 2010

Limiting fructose may boost weight loss

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 4:58 pm

Joke of the reasons people on poor-carbohydrate diets may suffer the loss of bias is that
they reduce their intake of fructose, a type of sugar that can be made into body
fat quickly, according to a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Dr. Elizabeth Parks, associate professor of clinical nutrition
and lead author of a study appearing in a current issue of the Journal of
Nutrition, said her team’s findings suggest that the right type of
carbohydrates a person eats may be just as important in weight control as the
number of calories a person eats.


Current health guidelines suggest that limiting processed carbohydrates, many
of which contain high-fructose corn syrup, may help prevent weight gain, and the
new data on fructose clearly support this recommendation.


“Our study shows for the first time the surprising speed with which humans
make body fat from fructose,” Dr. Parks said. Fructose, glucose and sucrose,
which is a mixture of fructose and glucose, are all forms of sugar but are
metabolized differently.


“All three can be made into triglycerides, a form of body fat; however, once
you start the process of fat synthesis from fructose, it’s hard to slow it
down,” she said.


In humans, triglycerides are predominantly formed in the liver, which acts
like a traffic cop to coordinate the use of dietary sugars. It is the liver’s
job, when it encounters glucose, to decide whether the body needs to store the
glucose as glycogen, burn it for energy or turn the glucose into triglycerides.
When there’s a lot of glucose to process, it is put aside to process later.


Fructose, on the other hand, enters this metabolic pathway downstream,
bypassing the traffic cop and flooding the metabolic pathway.


“It’s basically sneaking into the rock concert through the fence,” Dr. Parks
said. “It’s a less-controlled movement of fructose through these pathways that
causes it to contribute to greater triglyceride synthesis. The bottom line of
this study is that fructose very quickly gets made into fat in the body.”


Though fructose, a monosaccharide, or simple sugar, is naturally found in
high levels in fruit, it is also added to many processed foods. Fructose is
perhaps best known for its presence in the sweetener called high-fructose corn
syrup or HFCS, which is typically 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose,
similar to the mix that can be found in fruits. It has become the preferred
sweetener for many food manufacturers because it is generally cheaper, sweeter
and easier to blend into beverages than table sugar.


For the study, six healthy individuals performed three different tests in
which they had to consume a fruit drink formulation. In one test, the breakfast
drink was 100 percent glucose, similar to the liquid doctors give patients to
test for diabetes - the oral glucose tolerance test. In the second test, they
drank half glucose and half fructose, and in the third, they drank 25 percent
glucose and 75 percent fructose. The tests were random and blinded, and the
subjects ate a regular lunch about four hours later.


The researchers found that lipogenesis, the process by which sugars are
turned into body fat, increased significantly when as little as half the glucose
was replaced with fructose. Fructose given at breakfast also changed the way the
body handled the food eaten at lunch. After fructose consumption, the liver
increased the storage of lunch fats that might have been used for other
purposes.


“The message from this study is powerful because body fat synthesis was
measured immediately after the sweet drinks were consumed,” Dr. Parks said. “The
carbohydrates came into the body as sugars, the liver took the molecules apart
like tinker toys, and put them back together to build fats. All this happened
within four hours after the fructose drink. As a result, when the next meal was
eaten, the lunch fat was more likely to be stored than burned.


“This is an underestimate of the effect of fructose because these individuals
consumed the drinks while fasting and because the subjects were healthy, lean
and could presumably process the fructose pretty quickly. Fat synthesis from
sugars may be worse in people who are overweight or obese because this process
may be already revved up.”


Dr. Parks said that people trying to lose weight shouldn’t eliminate fruit
from their diets but that limiting processed foods containing the sugar may
help.


“There are lots of people out there who want to demonize fructose as the
cause of the obesity epidemic,” she said. “I think it may be a contributor, but
it’s not the only problem. Americans are eating too many calories for their
activity level. We’re overeating fat, we’re overeating protein; and we’re
overeating all sugars.”


Some data were collected at the University of Minnesota, where Dr. Parks
worked before joining the UT Southwestern faculty in 2006.


The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Cargill
Higher Education Fund and the Sugar Association.


Visit http://www.utsouthwestern.org/nutrition
to learn more about clinical services in nutrition at UT Southwestern.

http://www.utsouthwestern.org/nutrition

March 8, 2010

New Medicare rules include steps for permanent drug coverage to replace prescription cards

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 6:18 am

American officials say new Medicare rules settle upon discover into force which will protect the elderly and save companies loads of gelt, in the course of time permanent downer coverage will put in place of prescription cards in the year 2006.

In the rules, which were partly laid out mould year, employers commitment get help to strike for the benefits of their staff after they retire.

Thommy Thompson, American Condition and Human Services Secretary said that the cost of drugs when one pleases befit more predictable.

The up card system has been the center of a lot of contradictory criticism. People say they are confusing and that the discounts they collar are trifling.

When the coverage becomes permanent, indemnification companies commitment stilly have to negotiate drug prices on behalf of their members. The idea is that the members will forward from lower deaden prices.

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Included in the new medical cover will be a $35 monthly stipend and $250 deductible. All prescription costs up to a highest of $2,250 would be 75% paid for by the state. Then seniors suffer the consequences for costs up to $3,600, after that the process would fork out for 95% of the patient’s remedy costs.

Everyone who is the Medicare scheme would be enduring cover. Seniors would prepare extra help. Some would end up paying very mean.

You can make up one’s mind the lay out at:
http://www.cms.hhs.gov/medicarereform

March 6, 2010

Technique for analyzing the function of microRNAs wins Barenholz Prize for Hebrew University student

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 2:13 am

A unique modus operandi suited for analyzing the go of microRNAs developed by a Hebrew University of Jerusalem doctoral student has led to the discovery of a new approach by which viruses fence the somebody immune system. This discovery has top-level implications for human intervention in the battle between viruses and humans.

For her work in this field, Naama Elefant, a student of Prof. Hanah Margalit of the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University and an Azrieli fellow, was named one of this year’s winners of the Barenholz Prizes for Creativity and Originality in Applied Computer Science and Computational Biology. The prizes were awarded on June 4 during the 71st meeting of the Hebrew University Board of Governors. This discovery also was declared by the magazine Nature Medicine as “one of the ten notable advances of the year 2007.”

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MicroRNA genes are a class of very tiny genes found in a variety of organisms. First discovered in 1993 and at the time considered relatively unimportant, they are now recognized as major players in diverse biological processes.


MicroRNAs are important regulators of protein production. Proteins, the building blocks of the cell, must be produced precisely at the right time and place. MicroRNAs specifically latch on to other genes (their targets) and inhibit the production of the protein products of these genes. Hundreds of microRNAs have already been discovered, but the identity of their target genes remains mostly unknown and presents a great challenge in the field.


Elefant developed a computer algorithm that predicts the targets of microRNAs. Her algorithm, named RepTar, searches the thousands of genes in the human genome and through sequence, structural and physical considerations detects matches to hundreds of microRNAs.


The uniqueness of this technique allowed her to research an interesting group of microRNAs originating in viruses. The presence of microRNAs in viruses raised the intriguing possibility that upon viral infection of a host cell, the virus may use microRNAs as weapons in its battle against the host, inhibiting the production of important host proteins.


Indeed, Elefant’s algorithm predicted that an immune system protein, essential for the immune system’s response against viruses, is inhibited by a viral microRNA. This prediction was confirmed in collaboration with the laboratory of Prof. Ofer Mandelboim of the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine, who demonstrated experimentally that the microRNA aids the virus in evading the immune system. This study showed for the first time that a viral microRNA inhibits the activity of a gene of the human immune system, placing microRNAs as important players in the battle between viruses and humans.


The discovery holds promising therapeutic implications. It opens a new direction for anti-viral therapy aimed at inhibiting the viral microRNA, and it introduces a possible means to suppress the immune system in autoimmune diseases and transplantations by developing synthetic microRNAs that will mimic the action of natural microRNAs.


The Barenholz Prize is named for its donor, Yehezkel Barenholz, the Dr. Daniel G. Miller Professor of Cancer Research at the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School.

http://www.huji.ac.il/huji/eng/

March 4, 2010

Three Nursing Unions Announce Merger

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 6:48 am

Three of the largest nursing unions in the U.S. — the Massachusetts Nurses Association, the California Nurses Association and Of one mind American Nurses — on Wednesday announced that they will merge into a single confederacy that will be more acting in the national debate remaining haleness carefulness emend, the Dallas Morning News reports (Roberson, Dallas Morning News, 2/18). The redone 150,000-associate group will be called the United American Nurses-Nationalistic Nurses Organizing Committee (AP/Boston Herald, 2/18). The group last wishes as be affiliated with AFL-CIO (Raine, San Francisco Register, 2/19).

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In a joint statement, the groups said that “RNs should be represented by an RN union.” The new group said it seeks to “provide a substantial public voice for RN rights” and last wishes as pursue minimum foster-to-dogged ratios (Calvan, Sacramento Bee, 2/18). In counting up, the heap will seek to “organize all nonunion direct take charge of RNs” and provide a patriotic voice for nurses’ rights, permissible nursing practices and nurses’ healthfulness plans. Rose Ann DeMoro, executive boss of CNA, said the grouping purpose support congressional efforts to support a single-payer robustness care pattern in the U.S. Debra Berger, president of CNA, said that the three unions when one pleases bottle up their person identities.

CNA represents 75,000 registered nurses in five states, while Maryland-based UAN represents members in 12 states and MNA represents members in Massachusetts and has organizing campaigns in New Hampshire and Connecticut.

Michelle Ringuette — a spokesperson for the Ritual Employees International Union, which also represents nurses and other health care workers — said of the merger, “We haven’t seen the details and are looking forward to learning more beside it,” adding, “We’re encouraged by the organization’s stated end to organize nonunion direct care RNs, and by its accent of solidarity with other nurse and allied unions.” Ringuette said, “We’re hopeful that this will move away us closer to our ultimate objective — which is to have all nurse unions working together to organize the 85% of RNs who don’t yet drink a union voice” (San Francisco Chronicle, 2/19).

Reprinted with compassionate permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can approach the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Check into, search the archives, or sacrifice up for email transport at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Everyday Health Game plan Check into is published for kaisernetwork.org, a disenthrall service of The Henry J. Kaiser Bloodline Cellar.

© 2009 Advisory Board Companionship and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

March 2, 2010

MicroRNA Helps Prevent Tumors

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 12:58 pm

A microRNA directly regulates a gene implicated in soul cancers, researchers from Whitehead Begin and Massachusetts Institute of Technology detonation in Science.

MicroRNAs are tiny snippets of RNA that can repress undertaking of a gene by targeting the gene’s messenger RNA (which copies DNA tidings and starts the change of protein production).

The first microRNA was discovered in 1993, in worms. It took seven years in spite of the girl Friday undivided to be found, also in worms, but then the floodgates blow up. Many microRNAs now have been found in diverse plants and animals, including hundreds in humans. Moreover, microRNAs found in mammals conduct over a third of the human genome, as shown in a 2005 study by the lab of Whitehead Member and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator David Bartel and colleagues.

But given the wealth of microRNAs, and the ability of unique microRNAs to target hundreds of genes, researchers have struggled to show the biological impact of a individual microRNA on a particular target in mammals (although such connections have been shown in plants, worms and flies). Several groups have demonstrated that on the other side of-expression or under-expression of a microRNA can monkeyshines a position in indubitable cancers, but have not clarified the genes important.

Looking to find a promising target for an singular microRNA, Christine Mayr, a postdoctoral researcher in the Bartel lab, picked Hmga2, a gene that is defective in a widespread off the mark range of tumors.

In these tumors, the protein-producing hint at of the Hmga2 gene is epitomize short and replaced with DNA from another chromosome. Biologists have mostly focused on the shortened protein as the possible think that the cells with this DNA swap became tumors. But this DNA swap removes not but the gene’s protein-producing regions but also those areas that don’t protocol suitable protein. And these non-protein-producing regions bear the elements that microRNAs recognize.

It turns out that in the non-protein-producing territory, Hmga2 has seven sites that are complementary to the let-7 microRNA, a microRNA expressed in the later stages of animal maturation. Mayr wondered whether loss of these let-7 binding sites, and consequence downfall of regulation by let-7 of Hmga2, capability cause concluded-expression of Hmga2 that in change to would result in tumor formation.

To find out of the closet, Mayr created a series of Hmga2 in which various numbers of let-7 sites were destroyed. She found sheer evidence that when exposed to let-7, the fewer sites that were intact, the more protein was produced.

Next, she tested whether disrupting set free-7’s know-how to put down Hmga2 would lead toward tumor birth. In a standard in vitro try out of cancer-causing genes, colonies of mouse cells that expressed normal or shortened Hmga2 did not grow significantly, while cells in which Hmga2 contained disrupted let-7 sites did. In fact, the more that dissimulate b let loose-7 sites were damaged, the greater the few of colonies.

Mayr also worked with MIT assistant professor Michael Hemann to intromit these cells in mice with a compromised immune system. The scientists found that the mice with cells that expressed the version of Hmga2 with the disrupted let-7 sites developed tumors.

Overall, the results highlight a new mechanism for cancer formation. Hmga2, and perhaps certain other genes that are normally regulated by microRNAs, can help utter rise to tumors if a mutation in the gene disrupts the microRNA’s ability to supervise it. In extension, the results show that the interaction of a person microRNA with inseparable of its target genes can produce a certain trait in mammals. This is important because scientists are only beginning to learn the functions of microRNAs in animals.

“Because hundreds of human genes surface to be regulated by the let-7 microRNA, we were jumpy we wouldn’t see any difference when we changed only single of these target genes,” says David Bartel, who is also an MIT biology professor. “Seeing the idiosyncrasy encourages us to observe the biological importance of other examples of microRNA regulation.”

—————————-
Article adapted by Medical News Today from primary newswomen release.

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—————————-

Phone: David Cameron

Whitehead Institute notwithstanding Biomedical Research

February 27, 2010

Variant of CDC2 gene may be potential risk marker for Alzheimer’s

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 3:18 pm

A variant of the gene CDC2 could possibly be used as a gamble marker for the sake Alzheimer’s disease.

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The gene variant is considerably more common among Alzheimer’s patients. This is shown in a dissertation from the Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University in Sweden.


Alzheimer’s disease has several different causes. Since many patients have a close relative who also developed the disease, heredity is believed to be one of the most important factors.

“There is a previously identified Alzheimer’s gene that indicates an elevated risk of developing the disease, but we want to find more genes with a strong connection to Alzheimer’s. The earlier we can predict that a patient risks developing the disease, the better health-care providers can prevent and treat it,� says the research Annica Sjölander.

In her dissertation, Annica Sjölander studied different variants of a gene called CDC2. DNA analyses of blood samples from both patients and healthy individuals showed that one gene variant was considerably more common among patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

“This is the first discovery of a connection between this specific gene and Alzheimer’s. The findings must be confirmed in several other studies before we can be absolutely certain that it is a new Alzheimer’s gene that we have found,� explains Annica Sjölander.

In the study this gene variant was found in roughly half of all patients with Alzheimer’s, compared with 35 percent of the healthy control group.

The dissertation shows that patients with Alzheimer’s disease who were carriers of the gene variant also had higher levels of the protein tau, which is associated with the disease. In patients with the disease the mean level of tau in the spinal marrow fluid is about three times higher than the level in healthy individuals of the same age.

The gene CDC2 is responsible for one of the phases when a cell divides and is only active when cell division is in progress. Other research has shown that CDC2 in Alzheimer’s patients is turned on inside nerve cells where cell division does not normally take place.

“No one knows why the gene is activated, but it may be the result of a defect in the gene. It is also possible to speculate that the body is perhaps trying to compensate for lost nerve cells by having nerve cells divide,� says Annica Sjölander.

Alzheimer’s disease is one of our major public health disorders, with more than 100,000 people afflicted in Sweden. Pathological changes in the nerve cells of the brain cause the disease, which primarily affects the memory. The disorder often leads to premature death. Alzheimer’s entails not only immense suffering among patients and their loved ones, but also tremendous costs to society.

Title of dissertation: Alzheimer’s Disease: effect of tau-related genes on the pathology, neurochemistry and risk of disease.


http://www.sahlgrenska.gu.se

February 25, 2010

NeoStem To Present At Third Annual Stem Cell Summit In New York City

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 4:38 pm

NeoStem, Inc. (Amex: NBS),
which is pioneering the pre-disease collection, processing and long-term
storage of adult stem cells for subsequent medical need, announced that
the Company is scheduled to present at the 3rd Annual Stem Cell Summit in
New York City on Tuesday, February 26, 2008.

The Annual Stem Room Summit is organized and produced by RRY
Publications and Robin Young Consulting. This year’s Summit will present
more than 50 speakers, including a panel of stem room patients. The ideal of
the Summit is to bring in together investors, effort executives,
practitioners and analysts to learn about investment opportunities in the
stem cubicle marketplace, groundbreaking stem stall products physicians are
using today, and the growing market potential in terms of revenues. On account of
additional information or to mark, please affect http://www.stemcellsummit.com.

Wayne A. Marasco, MD, Ph.D., NeoStem Inc. Cofounder and Chairman of the
Scientific Monitory Board will give a coach presentation on the Company’s
proprietary Very Small Embryonic Like Stem Cells (VSELs) technology. VSELs
have been identified in grown up bone marrow and resemble embryonic stem cells
both morphologically and transcriptionally. Although antique stage
technology, the Friends expects VSELS to be advantageous as the basis for its entrance
into the medicinal market place.

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VSELs have the ability to grow in the laboratory and multiply into
clusters of cells that then can alter into specialized cells found
in different types of combination including cardiac, neural, endothelial,
muscle, pancreatic and hematopoietic cells. However, unlike controversial
embryonic stem cells, VSELs can be harvested from adult peripheral blood.
These innately occurring regenerative cells may bring into the world the potential to be
tempered to for time to come salutary renew of degenerative, diseased or damaged
tissue.

About NeoStem, Inc.

NeoStem is managing a growing nationwide network of grown up bows cell
collection centers, enabling people to grant and collection their own
(autologous) stem cells when they are young and well during their physical
use in times of future medical stress. The Company has also recently entered
the into and occurrence and therapeutic arenas, from one end to the other the
acquisition of a worldwide limited license to an early-stage technology
to relate and isolate rare result cells from full-grown considerate bone marrow,
called VSELs (very small embryonic- like stem cells), which have been shown
to have individual physical characteristics that are in general found in
embryonic stem cells.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this subject to publicity release constitute “forward-looking
statements” within the sense of the Private Securities Litigation Reorganization
Act of 1995, including statements concerning the ability of NeoStem, Inc.
(”the Company”) to come out the adult stem cell business, to blossom the
VSEL technology, the days of regenerative medicine and the role of adult
stem cells and VSELs in that coming, the future use of grown up stem cells and
VSELs as a treatment option and the passive gross income growth of the
Company’s point. Such forward-looking statements suggest known and
unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the verified
results, completion or achievements of the Company, or industry results,
to be much different from any to be to come results, doing, or
achievements expressed or implied by such nourish-looking statements. The
Company’s ability to infiltrate the mature stem stall arena, its sensation in such
arena and approaching operating results are dependent upon many factors,
including but not limited to (i) the Company’s ability to obtain sufficient
capital or a strategic profession arrangements to capital its expansion plans;
(ii) the Company’s gifts to build the control and sympathetic resources and
infrastructure exigent to support the growth of its business; (iii)
competitive factors and developments beyond the Company’s control; (iv)
scientific and medical developments beyond the Company’s control; (v) the
Company’s ineptitude to obtain appropriate grandeur licenses or any other
adverse effect or limitations caused by government regulation of the
business; (vi) whether any of the Company’s modish or future patent
applications result in issued patents; and (vii) other danger factors
discussed in the Company’s recurrent filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission.

NeoStem, Inc.
http://www.neostem.com

February 23, 2010

Anti-tumor Immune Responses Bring About Their Own Demise

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 12:18 am

In the early stages of cancer an individual’s immune system mounts an anti-tumor effect to try and rid the body of the tumor. Manner, this exempt response becomes blunted with time and the tumor is proficient to grow unrestrained. Understanding why the immune rejoinder becomes insufficient is a major goal of uncountable researchers looking for ways to treat individuals with cancer. Now, in a mouse study appearing in the October big problem of the Register of Clinical Quest, researchers from the Instituto Oncologico Veneto, Italy, have identified one pathway by which tumors subdue the anti-tumor response, providing modern avenues of research for the advancement of anti-cancer drugs.

Previous studies have shown that tumors set free soluble factors that recruit a population of cells known as myeloid suppressor cells (MSCs) because of their ability to suppress an immune response. Vincenzo Bronte and colleagues have now shown that MSCs marked by their expression of a protein known as IL-4R-alpha prompt two soluble factors (IFN-gamma and IL-13) that are required for MSC concealment of the immune rejoinder. Ironically, IL-4R-alpha-expressing MSCs were activated to produce these soluble factors by the anti-tumor inoculated return prospering on at their time of recruitment to the tumor. This go into describes one pathway by which the anti-tumor immune response can be blunted with time and provides researchers with different covert therapeutic strategies to prevent this occurring.

In an accompanying commentary, Alan Frey from the New York University School of Remedy discusses how this pathway force intersect with other immunosuppressive mechanisms and the aptitude healing targets that this study has brought to light.

TITLE: Tumors induce a subset of inflammatory monocytes with immunosuppressive job on CD8+ T cells

AUTHOR CONTACT:

Vincenzo Bronte
Instituto Oncologico Veneto, Padua, Italy.

TITLE: Myeloid suppressor cells regulate the adaptive untouched response to cancer

AUTHOR FRIEND:

Alan B. Frey
New York University Equip of Medicament, New York, New York, USA.

—————————-
Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press turn loose.
—————————-

JCI tabular of contents: Oct. 2, 2006

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Contact: Karen Honey

Journal of Clinical Investigation

February 21, 2010

AEI Report On Effects Of Brazil’s Antiretroviral Treatment Program

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 12:08 am

Brazil’s AIDS Program: A Costly Success, American Enterprise Institute: The report, written by AEI Resident Fellow Roger Bate and… Africa Fighting Malaria Director Richard Tren, examines the “tactics favored by the Brazilian government” to reduce antiretroviral treatment costs as part of its “widely respected AIDS treatment program.” The report says that although the program “has recorded many notable successes, the aggressive point of view that the nation has taken in inauspicious drug patents and forcing down drug prices could weaken incentives for desire-time situation of new drugs” (Bate/Tren, “Brazil’s AIDS Program: A Costly Attainment,” 12/12).

“Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can deem the entire Kaiser Daily Health Approach Report, search the archives, or striking up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Robustness Policy Record is published in the course of kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Issue Substructure . © 2005 Bulletin Quarter Partnership and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights remote.

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February 18, 2010

Breakthrough in the understanding of the spread of cholera

Filed under: Uncategorized — fakeclear @ 2:28 am

Cholera is an excruciating intestinal infection caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholera and is spread by contaminated mollify and prog. Scientists from the University of Haifa and Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, have reported in Environmental Microbiology, an consequential breakthrough in our apprehension of the continental and intercontinental distribution of cholera.

Prof Meir Broza and Dr Yechezkel Kashi have found a biotic association between V.cholerae and the non-biting midges (chironomids), one of the most common invertebrate groups in freshwater; and also the potential of these airborne adult midges to serve as vectors of the disease.


The paper includes evidence and small scale experiments suggesting that adult non biting midges, a highly mobile flying insect group (Chironomidae), are the vectors that may support continental and intercontinental distribution of cholera. Until 1967, researchers believed that humans may be the reservoir of cholera disease in the inter-epidemic period. In 2001, the University of Haifa team, led by Prof Meir Broza suggested that egg masses of non biting midges serve as a natural reservoir of cholera. It was discovered quite ‘accidentally’.


Broza explains: “We were looking for a safe way to control nuisance midges in an Israeli drinking water system. One day hundreds of egg masses were brought to the lab and left overnight. The next morning they had apparently vanished. We discovered that V. cholerae serogroup O9 was the microbial agent responsible for digesting the egg masses and making them disappear.”


A cooperative study by both Israeli groups showed that the most abundant protein secreted by V. cholerae is a protease used by bacteria to utilize the gelatinous like matrix of the midge egg masses as a nutrition source for their growth.

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In the second phase of the research they asked; could these waterborne bacteria, which grow and multiply in egg masses within the water, be found and survive on airborne non-biting midge adults? To test this theory, first they used killed adults that had been caught in a huge swarm of non biting midges driven by a northeast wind onto the shore of Lake Victoria, Kenya. V.cholerae serogroup O2 was found flourishing on selective agar plates a few hours later.”


The next step was to isolate viable V. cholerae from adult midges caught by light traps all over Israel, close to bodies of water as well as above sand dunes and date plantations near a desert oasis. In laboratory simulation Dr Yechezkel Kashi confirmed that fluorescent, tagged pathogenic O139 V. cholerae could be transferred by adult midges from one water container to another. In all parameters associated with insects, the pathogenic strains were distinguished from the environmental serogroups. It seemed that air currents, marine transportation and human travel and pilgrimage could be considered as combined and prevailing modes of dissemination of cholera disease.


Kashi, leader of the Technion team, added, “It is surprising that we could have a new basic finding on V. cholera, one of the most studied bacteria in the last century. This finding gives us the first hint of a new way to try and follow the bacteria in nature, a mission we are about to undertake. This will enable us to monitor the insects, combined with meteorological analysis to predict outbreaks, timing and direction.”


http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/

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