Hundreds of proteins crucial to brain health have been identified, unlocking a new frontier in the treatment of conditions from Alzheimer's to autism.
Experts have discovered that faults in these 'repeat offender' brain proteins are responsible for 130 conditions.

The breakthrough could greatly speed the development of new drugs for degenerative and psychiatric illnesses, as well as allowing better diagnosis.

It also means that a magic bullet-type drug could be created to treat several illnesses.
Professor Seth Grant, a neuroscientist at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, near Cambridge, said: 'There is a potential gold-rush, a whole new frontier for drug discovery.'

The excitement centres around synapses, the 'junction boxes' that connect nerve cells in the brain and are key to transmitting and processing information.

With each of the brain's 100billion cells capable of connecting to more than 1,000 others, faults in the synapses can have devastating effects. Until now, little was known about the proteins that lie at their heart.

By studying tiny slivers of tissue taken from the brain, Professor Grant and colleagues at Edinburgh University identified 1,461 synapse proteins, and then linked them to conditions ranging from Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, to autism, learning difficulties and addictions.

The synapse proteins were 'at centre stage of a large range of human diseases affecting many millions of people', Professor Grant said.

He said: 'In some cases, the proteins acting at the synapse are absolutely vital to the whole nature of the disease.

'In the case of Alzheimer's, it is well recorded that the brain shrinks because of the loss of nerve cells. But what has become apparent is that the synapses rot away before the nerve cells.'

The finding that the same proteins are involved in many diseases could lead to multi-condition treatments. Finding a new use for an existing drug would be much quicker than developing one from scratch. 'We also can see ways to develop new genetic diagnostic tests and ways to help doctors classify the brain diseases,' said Professor Grant.

The study also showed synapse proteins have changed little over evolution - perhaps because they are so vital to health.

Jeffrey Noebels, professor of neurology, neuroscience and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in the U.S., said: 'We now have a comprehensive molecular list of more than 1,000 suspects.

'Every seventh protein in this line-up is involved in a known clinical disorder and over half of them are repeat offenders.'

The data gives 'a front row seat to witness neuroscience unravel the complexity of human brain disorders,' he added.

Professor Jonathan Seckl, of the Queen's Medical Research Institute in Edinburgh, said: 'This splendid collaborative study is a major step forward which will illuminate the causes of many of the major mental health and neurological disorders as well as indicating new ways to develop treatments.'

It now seems that patients suffering from celiac disease benefit from gluten-free diet. A recent study suggests that patients with symptoms of celiac disease can continue with a gluten-free diet. It was mentioned that those diagnosed with 'potential' celiac disease
and not advised to follow a gluten-free diet may not be 'potential' patients at all.

While conducting the study, experts observed that celiac disease patients have the same distinctive metabolic fingerprint as patients with full-blown disease who do benefit from gluten-free diets. Known to be an autoimmune digestive disorder, celiac disease is allegedly characterized by the inability to digest the gliadin protein. This protein seems to be a component of gluten found in wheat, rye, and barley. In definitive diagnosis, patients are supposedly subjected to biopsy of the small intestine, showing tissue damage.

Those who revealed a positive blood test for the condition but not in biopsy are diagnosed as 'potential' celiac patients and may or may not be advised to follow a gluten-free diet. During the investigation, experts employed magnetic resonance metabolic profiling to scrutinize the biochemical markers in the blood and urine of 61 patients with celiac disease, 29 with potential celiac disease, and 51 healthy people. Patients with potential disease largely reported the same profile as those with the confirmed disease. The biochemical markers in both groups possibly differed from those of the healthy individuals. Ivano Bertini and colleagues patients with potential celiac disease can adopt a gluten-free diet.

The study was published in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research.

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disease that affects a number of organs in the body - especially the lungs and pancreas - by clogging them with thick, sticky mucus.

The new medication is called denufosol and acts to help prevent the formation of the mucus.

Doctors say the drug can be given early in the progression of the condition and may delay the disease getting worse.

The medication works by normalising the surface of the airways.

In patients with cystic fibrosis, mucus builds up in the patient's airways causing obstruction and respiratory infections.

Dr Frank Accurso, professor of paediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver, says the new drug helps enhance the hydration of the airways and can aid in clearing mucus.

"The drug is different from other cystic fibrosis medications which primarily treat the symptoms rather than the underlying causes," he said.

Researchers enrolled 352 cystic fibrosis patients and they were given either the new drug three times daily for 24 weeks or a placebo.

At the start of the study most patients had mild impairment of their lung function.

Patients' lung functions were measured and they found those who received the active drug had better exhalation rates than the placebo group.

Both groups had a similar number of adverse events and the active drug group had fewer headaches and sinus problems.

Global medical equipment maker GE Healthcare Friday announced that it would soon distribute low-cost infant warmers in rural India in partnership with social enterprise Embrace to help improve rural infant care.

The warmer, in the form of a small sleeping bag, not only keeps infants warm for hours, but also helps protect them from hypothermia, a reduction in core body temperature below 95 degree Fahrenheit (35 degree Celsius).

'As a sleeping bag, the warmer swaddles the baby with a wax pouch in an adjacent compartment that is heated via an electrical heater,' GE Healthcare vice-president Mike Barber said in a statement here.

The $16-billion company, a subsidiary of General Electric Company (GE), will distribute the product in India from March 2011 .

Founded by a team of engineers and business graduates from Stanford and Harvard Universities, the US-based Embrace aims to give every child an equal chance for a healthy life through an innovative low-cost infant warmer.

The Embrace infant warmer is priced about $200 or one percent of conventional incubators that cost up to $20,000. It also works on batteries.

'As we are focused on the healthy-imagination tenets of reducing cost while improving quality and access through local solutions, the partnership with Embrace offers us an opportunity to provide maternal-infant care to check infant mortality,' Barber said.

About 20 million low birth weight babies are born each year, mostly in the developing world, and are prone to hypothermia due to insufficient fat beneath the skin.

'The infant warmer is one potential solution to help keep babies warm and address the risks of hypothermia,' Embrace chief executive Jane Chen said in the statement.

In alignment with the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals, GE is focusing its efforts on MDG 4, reducing by two-thirds the under-five mortality rate by 2015.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), about 50 percent of global births occur in underserved urban settings where access to affordable technology remains limited.

A new study by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has found people who have a good night's sleep, eight hours of shut-eye daily, look more beautiful and healthy than those who don't, the 'British Medical Journal' reported.

For the study, the researchers recruited 23 healthy adults aged 18 to 31 -- all young enough to get away with the odd bad night. The subjects were photographed after some eight hours of sleep and again after being kept awake for 31 hours after a few hours' sleep.

The pictures were shown to 65 untrained observers, who ranked them on a scale of how healthy, attractive or sleep -deprived the subjects looked. Those who went short of sleep were rated as less healthy and scored an average of 63 points, compared to 68 points after a full night's sleep.

They were also seen as more tired and less attractive, leading the researchers to conclude that there really is such a thing as beauty sleep.

"The concept of beauty sleep has lacked scientific support, but the biological importance of sleep may have favoured a sensitivity to perceive sleep-related cues in others.

"Sleep disorders are increasingly common in today's 24-hour society and often co-exist with some common health problems, such as hypertension and inflammatory conditions," the researchers were quoted by the 'Daily Express' as saying.