news 2012

Cutting down on fat, without dieting, will result in a slimmer figure - according to new research co-authored by Durham University Findings published today in the British Medical Journal show that exchanging fatty foods for lower fat alternatives will help people shift around three-and-a-half pounds - without dieting.

This research provides critical insight which will hopefully lead to new medical interventions for this disease." —Dr Andrew Grant Findings of Cambridge scientists, published today in the journal PLoS Pathogens , show a new mechanism used by bacteria to spread in the body with the potential to identify targets to prevent the dissemination of the infection process.

Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) provided alongside drug treatment can help reduce the symptoms of depression and improve patients' quality of life, according to new research. Depression is a very common illness which has a major impact on a patient's life. In the UK between five and ten per cent of the population has the illness at any one time.

Antidepressants are the most widely used treatment for people with moderate to severe depression. However, up to two thirds of people with depression don't respond fully to this type of treatment. New findings, published in The Lancet , have shown cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)*, provided in addition to usual care, can reduce symptoms of depression and help improve patients' quality of life.

Stem cells are to be used in a £45m effort to look at providing new treatments for a host of complex conditions affecting large numbers of people, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, autism and diabetes. However, it's not the stem cells themselves that would form the new treatments. Instead, the stem cells would provide a platform to transform the process of discovering new drugs.

Scientists have identified the key molecular pathway leading to depression, revealing potential new targets for drug discovery, according to research led by King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry. The study, published today , reveals for the first time that the 'Hedgehog pathway' regulates how stress hormones, usually elevated during depression, reduce the number of brain cells.

Researchers from UCL have found that cycling is safer than driving for young males, with 17 to 20 year old drivers facing almost five times greater risk per hour than cyclists of the same age. The researchers looked at hospital admissions and deaths in England between 2007 and 2009 for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.

Asthma is more common among children born after IVF and other treatments than among children who have been planned and conceived naturally, suggests a study led by Oxford University researchers. However, the researchers say that their findings should not worry parents of children born after assisted reproduction technology (ART).

Taking the drug tamoxifen for ten years after breast cancer surgery, rather than the usual five, further reduces the chances of dying from breast cancer. The findings - for women with oestrogen receptor positive (ER-positive) breast cancer - come from the long-running ATLAS trial led by Oxford University's Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU).

People who have low-level malaria infections that are not detected by standard tests may be a source of up to 20-50 per cent of onward transmissions, a new study has found. These carriers have a low number of parasites in their blood and are usually unaware that they have malaria, but mosquitoes taking a bite on these people can still become infected and then go on to transmit the parasite to other people.

Humans may be endowed with the ability to perform complex forms of learning, attention and function but the evolutionary process that led to this has put us at risk of mental illness. Data from new research, published today , was analysed by Richard Emes, a bioinformatics expert from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science at The University of Nottingham.

Scientists have found that low-level exposure to organophosphates (OPs) produces lasting decrements in neurological and cognitive function. Memory and information processing speed are affected to a greater degree than other cognitive functions such as language. The systematic review of the literature was carried out by researchers at UCL and the Open University.

Based on a news release from the Wellcome Trust Researchers have identified four new genetic regions that influence birth weight, providing further evidence that genes as well as maternal nutrition are important for growth in the womb. Three of the regions are also linked to adult metabolism, helping to explain why smaller babies have higher rates of chronic diseases later in life.

Four new genetic regions that influence babies' birth weight have been identified by an international research team involving the University of Oxford. The findings provide further evidence that genes are important for growth in the womb, as well as the mother's nutrition. Together, the newly identified genetic regions have a surprisingly large effect on birth weight when compared with other known influences.

A team of researchers from the University of Warwick, working with the University of Manchester, have been awarded £5.2 million to investigate our immune response and how it is affected by ageing. The grant is part of BBSRC 's Strategic Longer and Larger Awards scheme, which give world-leading teams the time and resources to address areas of key strategic importance.

Researchers have identified four new genetic regions that influence birth weight, providing further evidence that genes as well as maternal nutrition are important for growth in the womb. Three of the regions are also linked to adult metabolism, helping to explain why smaller babies have higher rates of chronic diseases later in life.

The grant is part of BBSRC's Strategic Longer and Larger Awards scheme, which gives world-leading teams the time and resources to address areas of key strategic importance. The research focuses on a signalling system called 'NF-kappaB' which plays a key role in regulating how our immune system responds to diseases.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow and the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Northern Ireland have established the first direct evidence that tuberculosis epidemics in badgers and cattle are related at a local scale. Using next-generation genome sequencing technology (NGS), the team from the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine were able to trace mutations in the bovine TB bacteria - Mycobacterium bovis - as it passed from animal to animal.

We are excited to have developed a practical and efficient method to create stem cells from a cell type found in blood." —Dr Amer Rana, of the University of Cambridge's Department of Medicine Scientists have discovered a patient-friendly and efficient way to make stem cells out of blood, increasing the hope that scientists could one day use stem cells made from patients' own cells to treat cardiovascular disease.

" Scientists have discovered a cognitive biomarker - a biological indicator of a disease - for young adolescents who are at high risk of developing depression and anxiety. Their The test for the unique cognitive biomarker, which can be done on a computer, could be used as an inexpensive tool to screen adolescents for common emotional mental illnesses.