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Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have discovered that the brain can respond to the calorie content of food, even in the absence of taste.

Their findings about the brain’s dopamine-reward system may help shed light on why many people who drink diet sodas still gain weight. A mismatch between artificially sweet taste and zero calorie content may lead to some kind of rebound eating that may in part be explained by these results: the brain is wired to respond to both calorie content and sweetness.

For years, scientists have known that when mammals, including humans, taste sweet foods, dopamine levels increase in the ventral striatum, a brain region related to reward and reinforcement. The neural pathways have been well established for palatability (the power of a food to make one eat it spontaneously and with gusto) as food is being eaten. With this set of experiments, the Duke team studied the brain’s response to food after it was ingested.

Mice that were unable to taste sweetness, either in real sugar (sucrose) or artificial sweeteners (sucralose), developed preferences for real sugar but not non-caloric sweetener. Mice with normal taste receptors also developed the same type of preferences.

"The fact that sweet-blind animals are conditioned by sucrose only, demonstrates that they can detect this sugar because of its caloric content and adequately modify their behavior to obtain this reward, independent of taste input," said researcher Albino Oliveira-Maia, of the Duke Department of Neurobiology and the University of Porto in Portugal.

To reach this conclusion, the researchers first confirmed that one set of mice did not exhibit a taste motivated-preference for sucrose. Normal mice naturally preferred various concentrations of sugar solutions to water, but mice without functional sweet taste pathways did not show any preference.

The scientists then explored preference in mice that were both hungry and thirsty. During conditioning sessions with two bottles, both the normal mice and the taste-impaired mice consumed more sucrose than water. When conditioning was complete, preference tests with two bottles of water was conducted. Both groups of mice preferred the sipper that had been filled with sucrose during conditioning sessions.

Substituting an artificial sweetener, sucralose, for the sucrose solution, the scientists ran the conditioning experiment again and found that while the normal animals consumed much more of the sucralose solution than water, the sweet-blind mice consumed about the same amount of both. Neither group showed a preference for the sucralose sipper during the test session.

The conclusion: both groups of mice were conditioned by sucrose, which must have depended on the calories obtained from this solution.

The researchers also found significant differences in dopamine levels during eating, regardless of the ability to taste food. Normal mice showed a rise in dopamine when they gobbled the artificial sweetener solution, indicating palatability even without calories present. Mice without sweet taste released dopamine only during sucrose intake, even though they could not distinguish between the taste of water and sucrose. This confirmed that dopamine can be released in the ventral striatum by either sweet taste or caloric content.

It may mean that the role of dopamine transmission (the pleasure principle) in overeating and obesity might not be restricted to taste alone – dopamine signaling also can influence behavior by indicating a food’s caloric value.

The authors also demonstrated that neurons in the same area of the brain had significantly higher responses when taste-impaired mice were consuming sucrose in comparison to sucralose.

"This suggests that the calorie-dependent release of dopamine in the ventral striatum has an impact on the response properties of populations of neurons in the same area," said Miguel Nicolelis, professor in the Duke Departments of Neurobiology and Biomedical Engineering and the Center for Neuroengineering. "Thus, the brain dopamine pathways might also perform an action we had not previously identified, by detecting gastrointestinal and metabolic signals."

"The metabolic effect we see may also feed into the same neuronal pathway that we associate with pleasure," said Marc Caron, professor in the Duke Department of Cell Biology.

Low doses of the toxic gas responsible for the unpleasant odor of rotten eggs can safely and reversibly depress both metabolism and aspects of cardiovascular function in mice, producing a suspended-animation-like state. In the April 2008 issue of the journal Anesthesiology, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reseachers report that effects seen in earlier studies of hydrogen sulfide do not depend on a reduction in body temperature and include a substantial decrease in heart rate without a drop in blood pressure.

"Hydrogen sulfide is the stinky gas that can kill workers who encounter it in sewers; but when adminstered to mice in small, controlled doses, within minutes it produces what appears to be totally reversible metabolic suppression," says Warren Zapol, MD, chief of Anesthesia and Critical Care at MGH and senior author of the Anesthesiology study. "This is as close to instant suspended animation as you can get, and the preservation of cardiac contraction, blood pressure and organ perfusion is remarkable."

Previous investigations into the effects of low-dose hydrogen sulfide showed that the gas could lower body temperature and metabolic rate and also improved survival of mice whose oxygen supply had been restricted. But since hypothermia itself cuts metabolic needs, it was unclear whether the reduced body temperature was responsible for the other observed effects. The current study was designed to investigate both that question and the effects of hydrogen sulfide inhalation on the cardiovascular system.

The researchers measured factors such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, respiration and physical activity in normal mice exposed to low-dose (80 ppm) hydrogen sulfide for several hours. They analyzed cardiac function with electrocardiograms and echocardiography and measured blood gas levels. While some mice were studied at room temperature, others were kept in a warm environment - about 98? F - to prevent their body temperatures from dropping.

In all the mice, metabolic measurements such as consumption of oxygen and production of carbon dioxide dropped in as little as 10 minutes after they began inhaling hydrogen sulfide, remained low as long as the gas was administered, and returned to normal within 30 minutes of the resumption of a normal air supply. The animals’ heart rate dropped nearly 50 percent during hydrogen sulfide adminstration, but there was no significant change in blood pressure or the strength of the heart beat. While respiration rate also decreased, there were no changes in blood oxygen levels, suggesting that vital organs were not at risk of oxygen starvation.

The mice kept at room temperature had the same drop in body temperature seen in earlier studies, but those in the warm environment maintained normal body temperatures. The same metabolic and cardiovascular changes were seen in both groups, indicating that they did not depend on the reduced body temperature, and analyzing the timing of those changes showed that metabolic reduction actually began before body temperature dropped.

"Producing a reversible hypometabolic state could allow organ function to be preserved when oxygen supply is limited, such as after a traumatic injury," says Gian Paolo Volpato, MD, MGH Anesthesiology research fellow and lead author of the study. "We don’t know yet if these results will be transferable to humans, so our next step will be to study the use of hydrogen sulfide in larger mammals."

Zapol adds, "It could be that inhaled hydrogen sulfide will only be useful in small animals and we’ll need to use intravenous drugs that can deliver hydrogen sulfide to vital organs to prevent lung toxicity in larger animals." Zapol is the Reginald Jenney Professor of Anaesthesia at Harvard Medical School.?

More that 1.2 million deaths could be prevented in South Africa over the next five years by accelerating efforts to provide access to antiretroviral therapy (ART), according to a study released>AIDS-related deaths by 2012. Rapid scale-up, whereby everyone in need would have access by 2011, would reduce the projected number of deaths to 1.2 million during that time period, and immediate full access for all eligible patients would drop deaths to 800,000.

The researchers note that efforts to scale up treatment have resulted in a fivefold increase in access to ART in low and moderate-income countries. "Continued investments in antiretroviral treatment programs worldwide are a public health imperative; the potential loss of life without such support is simply unacceptable," says Walensky, who is an associate professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Gamma secretase modulators have shown promise in Alzheimer’s disease animal model efficacy studies, according to research conducted by TorreyPines Therapeutics, Inc..

Presented by Steven Wagner, Ph.D., the company’s Chief Scientific Officer, at the recent Keystone Symposium>Alzheimer’s disease make a greater proportion of the longer Ab peptides, especially Ab42, relative to unaffected individuals. All of these Ab peptides, including the pathogenic Ab42 peptide, are derived via proteolysis from a much larger precursor molecule known as the amyloid b precursor protein (APP).

During normal catabolism, two crucial enzymes, or proteases, are responsible for generating these Ab peptides from APP. The first enzyme, beta secretase (b-secretase), cuts the APP molecule into two major pieces comprised of a soluble extracellular fragment and a membrane-associated fragment. The second enzyme, gamma secretase (g-secretase), then cleaves the membrane- associated fragment into one of several different Ab peptides that vary in length from 34 to 42 amino acids.

Approximately 28 million Americans suffer from chronic migraines. These very severe, throbbing headaches can prohibit someone from enjoying a trip to the park>migraine sufferers," Mohammad said.?

Adding the relaxation response, a stress-management approach, to other lifestyle interventions may significantly improve treatment of the type of hypertension most common in the elderly. Among participants in a study conducted at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Hypertension Program and the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind-Body Medicine at MGH, those who received relaxation response training in addition to advice>hypertension, improving their cardiovascular health, reducing dependence on medications and potentially reducing overall health care costs." Zusman is an associate professor of Medicine, and Benson is the Mind/Body Medical Institute Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

Yale-New Haven Hospital is participating in a phase III research study in which a drug derived from the venom of the Malayan pit viper is being tested for the treatment of stroke. This new investigative drug is known as ancrod, and is being tested in eligible patients who come to the hospital within six hours of the start of stroke symptoms.

Ancrod is an enzyme that is a potent, natural anticoagulant that helps restore blood flow. It accomplishes this by acting directly>Stroke Center is to raise the awareness of both providers and the public so that effective treatment can be delivered promptly," added Karin Nystrom, MSN, APRN, clinical coordinator of the stroke program at Yale-New Haven Hospital. "What people need to know, above all else, is that getting to the emergency room at once is the only way we can provide effective stroke treatment. As with a heart attack, time is of the essence. The more time goes by, the more damage occurs."

Middle aged people with excess belly fat are more likely to develop dementia later in life.

A study by Kaiser Permanente examined medical records of 6583 people at ages of 40 and 50 in 1960s and 1970s. By 2007 15.9% of these people were dementia diagnosed.

Figures show that 324.3 overweight patients out of 10000 have developed dementia, 214.6 patients with normal weight out of 10000 have developed mental disorders. This means that the lower belly size is, the lower risk for developing dementia is.

The study indicates that those even with average weight, but excess belly fat have increased risk for developing dementia. People with pear-shaped bodies have fatty mass in part below the waist like hips and buttocks. People with apple-shaped bodies have fatty mass located mainly in waist area. These people have much visceral fat surrounding internal organs. This is why apple-shaped people are more likely to develop dementia than pear-shaped people.

Researchers are not 100% sure of how visceral fat leads to dementia, but there is a hypothesis that these fats are metabolically active, they may accelerate toxins leading to atherosclerosis in brain. This condition of brain is often seen in patients with Alzheimer’s disease.

It is already well known that obesity leads to numerous health conditions, like heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer. This is the first of its kind study showing the link between obesity and mental health. Thus, obese and overweigh people are one more time urged to exercise a lot and have a healthy diet.

Results of a Cleveland Clinic study suggest that more cancers have a hereditary link than previously thought and that lack of genetic diversity can predispose individuals to certain cancers.

The findings challenge current scientific data that>cancers, Dr. Eng said. This would provide for more comprehensive genetic testing beyond the traditional gene testing currently offered.?