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The Healing Heart | U Magazine | UCLA Health & David Geffen School of Medicine

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U Magazine

There has been debate over the question of whether or not heart muscle can regenerate itself. Now, UCLA scientists have provided an answer: yes. A study by Reza Ardehali, MD, PhD, assistant professor of cardiology, and colleagues has demonstrated the first direct measure of heart-muscle cells renewing themselves. The findings have important implications for future research that could lead to the regeneration of heart tissue to repair damage caused by disease or heart attack.

It was initially believed that heart-muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes, were unable to replicate themselves and that their total number was set at birth; however, research over the past two decades has indicated that these cardiac cells have limited proliferative activity, though there has been no clear agreement within the scientific community as to why and how much.

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Iron May Be at Core of Alzheimer’s Disease

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U Magazine

Most researchers believe Alzheimer’s disease is caused by one of two proteins, one called tau, the other beta-amyloid. As we age, most scientists say, these proteins either disrupt signaling between neurons or simply kill them. A new UCLA study suggests a third possible cause: iron accumulation.

George Bartzokis, MD (RES ’87, FEL ’90), professor of psychiatry at the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and his colleagues looked at two areas of the brain in patients with Alzheimer’s. They compared the hippocampus, which is known to be damaged early in the disease, and the thalamus, an area that is generally not affected until the late stages. Using sophisticated brain-imaging techniques, they found that iron is increased in the hippocampus and is associated with tissue damage in that area. But increased iron was not found in the thalamus.

Darker areas within hippocampus, as indicated by arrows and red border in MRI image, represent iron accumulations. Photo: Courtesy of Dr. George Bartzokis.

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David Geffen School of Medicine

U Magazine

A diabetic’s risk of premature death is about double that of someone of the same age without diabetes. In addition, diabetics are twice as likely to have depression, which further increases their mortality risk. A new UCLA-led study suggests that for diabetics age 65 and older, depression is linked with a far-greater chance for early death compared with people of the same age who do not have depression. This may perhaps be because those with depression are less-likely to adhere to a regimen of prescribed medications, diet, exercise and glucose self-monitoring.

While the link between depression and mortality among people with diabetes has been the subject of other studies, this one is the first to examine the phenomenon among those 65 and older versus younger people, says Lindsay B. Kimbro, MPP, project director in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research. Each participant was given a baseline survey and was contacted for a follow-up survey six-to-seven years later. “Although depression is an important clinical problem for people of all ages, when you split the different age groups, depression in the younger group doesn’t lead to increased mortality six-to-seven years later,” Kimbro says. Read more →

Autism Occurrence by MMR Vaccine Status Among US Children With Older Siblings With and Without Autism

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Importance  Despite research showing no link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism spectrum disorders (ASD), beliefs that the vaccine causes autism persist, leading to lower vaccination levels. Parents who already have a child with ASD may be especially wary of vaccinations.

Objective  To report ASD occurrence by MMR vaccine status in a large sample of US children who have older siblings with and without ASD.

Design, Setting, and Participants  A retrospective cohort study using an administrative claims database associated with a large commercial health plan. Participants included children continuously enrolled in the health plan from birth to at least 5 years of age during 2001-2012 who also had an older sibling continuously enrolled for at least 6 months between 1997 and 2012.

Exposures  MMR vaccine receipt (0, 1, 2 doses) between birth and 5 years of age.

Main Outcomes and Measures  ASD status defined as 2 claims with a diagnosis code in any position for autistic disorder or other specified pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) including Asperger syndrome, or unspecified PDD (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification 299.0x, 299.8x, 299.9x).

Results  Of 95 727 children with older siblings, 994 (1.04%) were diagnosed with ASD and 1929 (2.01%) had an older sibling with ASD. Of those with older siblings with ASD, 134 (6.9%) had ASD, vs 860 (0.9%) children with unaffected siblings (P < .001). MMR vaccination rates (≥1 dose) were 84% (n = 78 564) at age 2 years and 92% (n = 86 063) at age 5 years for children with unaffected older siblings, vs 73% (n = 1409) at age 2 years and 86% (n = 1660) at age 5 years for children with affected siblings. MMR vaccine receipt was not associated with an increased risk of ASD at any age. For children with older siblings with ASD, at age 2, the adjusted relative risk (RR) of ASD for 1 dose of MMR vaccine vs no vaccine was 0.76 (95% CI, 0.49-1.18; P = .22), and at age 5, the RR of ASD for 2 doses compared with no vaccine was 0.56 (95% CI, 0.31-1.01; P = .052). For children whose older siblings did not have ASD, at age 2, the adjusted RR of ASD for 1 dose was 0.91 (95% CI, 0.67-1.20; P = .50) and at age 5, the RR of ASD for 2 doses was 1.12 (95% CI, 0.78-1.59; P = .55).

Conclusions and Relevance  In this large sample of privately insured children with older siblings, receipt of the MMR vaccine was not associated with increased risk of ASD, regardless of whether older siblings had ASD. These findings indicate no harmful association between MMR vaccine receipt and ASD even among children already at higher risk for ASD.

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  • Scientists say cooking the rice this way can cut the calories by up to 60%
  • The method increases the amount of resistant starch (RS) in the rice
  • RS is indigestible to the human body and so is not turned into sugar or fat
  • However, doctors have warned reheating rice can cause food poisoning 

Do you love rice but are worried about your weight?

The good news is scientists have now discovered a way to reduce the calorie content by 60 per cent – simply by the way it is cooked.

Cooking the rice with coconut oil, and then cooling it for 12 hours in the fridge, more than halved the number of calories in the rice when it was eaten.

However, doctors have previously warned that eating reheated rice can cause food poisoning, and so advise making sure the rice is steaming hot all the way through before eating it.

They also advise leaving the rice in the fridge no more than a day before reheating. 

Scientists have discovered that adding coconut oil to rice and cooling it in the fridge for 12 hours cuts the calorie content in half Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3009374/Want-rice-HALF-calories-Just-cook-coconut-oil-refrigerate-overnight-eating.html#ixzz3e6HgYt9c Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

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10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.8081

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JAMA

Mindfulness meditation improved sleep quality for older adults with moderate sleep disturbance compared with a structured program focused on changing poor sleep habits and establishing a bedtime routine (Black DS et al. JAMA Intern Med. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.8081 [published online February 16, 2015]).

 

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a scientific report

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Huffpost Healthy Living

March 10, 2015

Posted: 03/02/2015 3:58 pm EST Updated: 03/02/2015 4:59 pm EST

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In mid-February, the government released a scientific report that will shape its 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Think of it as America’s basic nutrition policy. Most people who read the report would have viewed it as a snore; not much has changed.

Yes, the report lifted the longstanding advice to limit cholesterol in foods. That boils down to dropping advice to limit egg yolks. Liver is high in cholesterol, but rarely eaten. Shrimp is high in cholesterol, but so low in saturated fat — the prime driver of high blood cholesterol — that its cholesterol hardly matters.

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