A team of researchers has discovered a genetic function that helps one of the most important "tumour suppressor" genes to do its job and prevent cancer.

According to scientists from OSU and Oregon Health and Science University, finding ways to maintain or increase the effectiveness of this gene - called Grp1-associated scaffold protein, or Grasp - could offer an important new avenue for human cancer therapies.

The Grasp gene was studied in the skin of mice in this research, but is actually expressed at the highest levels in the brain, heart and lung, studies have shown. It appears to play a fundamental role in the operation of the p53 tumour suppressor gene, which is a focus of much modern cancer research.

The new study has found that the Grasp gene is significantly involved in maintaining the proper function of p53. When "Grasp" is not being adequately expressed, the p53 protein that has entered the cell nucleus to either repair or destroy the cell comes back out of the nucleus before its work is finished.

"It appears that a primary function of Grasp is to form sort of a halo around the nucleus of a damaged skin cell, and act as kind of a plug to keep the p53 cell inside the nucleus until its work is done," one of the lead authors of this study Mark Leid said.

"A drug that could enhance Grasp function might also help enhance the p53 function, and give us a different way to keep this important tumour suppressor working the way that it is supposed to," the researcher added.

The study was published in the journal Photochemical and Photobiological Sciences.

A new study has found that being overweight appears to be related to reduced levels of a molecule that reflects brain cell health in the hippocampus, a part of the brain involved in memory, learning, and emotions, and likely also involved in appetite control.

Jeremy D. Coplan, MD, professor of psychiatry at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, led a multicenter team that visualized the molecule, N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA), using magnetic resonance spectroscopy, a non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) application.

NAA is associated with brain cell health. Overweight study participants exhibited lower levels of NAA in the hippocampus than normal weight subjects. The effect was independent of age, sex, and psychiatric diagnoses.

The importance of the hippocampus - a seahorse-shaped organ deep within the brain - to the formation and preservation of memory and to emotional control is well known, Dr. Coplan said, but its role in appetite control is less established.

"The relevance of the finding is that being overweight is associated with specific changes in a part of the brain that is crucial to memory formation and emotions, and probably to appetite," Dr. Coplan said.

The study is believed to be the first human research documenting the association of NAA with body weight.

"Whether low NAA is a consequence of being overweight, causes being overweight, or a combination of both remains to be determined," he added.

The findings are published in the journal Neuroimage: Clinical.

According to a report by leading experts, it has been revealed that about 78,000 infants born with congenital heart disease in India die every year because of inadequate health care facilities.

In a medical camp,Dr Murtaza Chisti, Chief Cardiac Surgeon of the Mahatma Gandhi Cardiac and Critical Care Centre told that "Every year 1.5 lakh infants were born in India with congenital heart disease."

The acute lack of awareness and ignorance in people coupled with insufficient medical facilities have further pushed up the cases of congenital heart disease. And most of these children with such cases don't survive.

"Work-related tension coupled with changed lifestyle of young people that caused them to hurry and scurry for work had resulted in even people in the age group of 30 to 40 years get heart attacks or suffer from heart-related problems," he said.

"Controlled diet with less fatty and oily, and non-vegetarian food, non-consumption of sweets, coupled with adequate rest could reduce the incidence of heart problems.He enumerated diabetes, high blood pressure, mental tension, increase in cholesterol as the contributory causes for heart attacks.

Dr ML Swarankar, chairman of the India Education Trust, said that India had the dubious distinction of having the largest number of deaths in Asia owing to heart attack. More and well-equipped cardiac centres were needed to bring down the number, he added.

Adolescents consuming more than twice the recommended daily allowance of salt increases their high sodium intake that correlates with fatness and inflammation regardless of how many calories they consume, a new study has found.

In the study of 766 healthy teens, 97 percent self-reported exceeding the American Heart Association's recommendation of consuming less than 1,500 milligrams of sodium daily.

"The majority of studies in humans show the more food you eat, the more salt you consume, the fatter you are," Dr. Haidong Zhu, molecular geneticist at the Medical College of Georgia and Institute of Public and Preventive Health at Georgia Regents University, said.

"Our study adjusted for what these young people ate and drank and there was still a correlation between salt intake and obesity," Zhu said.



These high-sodium consumers also had high levels of tumour necrosis factor alpha, which is secreted by immune cells and contributes to chronic inflammation as well as autoimmune diseases like lupus and arthritis.

Additionally, the adolescents had high levels of leptin, a hormone produced by fat cells that normally suppresses appetite and burns fat, but at chronically high levels can have the opposite effects.

"Losing weight is difficult, but hopefully more people can be successful at reducing their sodium intake," Zhu, the study's corresponding author, said.

Reductions would result from not automatically adding salt to food and choosing fresh fruits and vegetables over French fries and processed meats and snacks.

The study is published in the journal Pediatrics.

It is important for governments and aid agencies to quickly understand the risks related to high blood pressure (hypertension) as the lifestyle disease is fast spreading across the globe like HIV/AIDS once spread, says research.

The response of most governments and international aid agencies to high blood pressure (hypertension) is little better than the reaction to HIV/AIDS 20 years ago - too little too late.

"Valuable lessons for hypertension could be taken from HIV/AIDS policies. Yet there is little indication that these are being taken on board. Can we not wake up earlier this time before millions have died?" said an alarming paper jointly written by professors Peter Lloyd-Sherlock of University of East Anglia's school of international development and Shah Ebrahim and Heiner Grosskurth of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

HIV is a major global health priority and is recognised as a serious threat to public health and development in many poorer countries.

Hypertension is seen as a disease of the West, of prosperity and, therefore, of little relevance to poorer countries.

"This is despite the growing body of evidence that prevalences in poorer countries are quickly catching up," said Lloyd-Sherlock.

While hypertension is not an infectious disease, the risky behaviours associated with it are spreading fast and seem to be as effectively transmitted as infectious agents, the researchers cautioned.

HIV was faced with political denial and public misunderstanding in the early years of the pandemic, especially in some poorer countries. There is a similar pattern of denial with hypertension.

This denial is based on the misguided view that hypertension does not affect poorer social groups.

"Yet there is substantial evidence that hypertension is highly prevalent among poorer groups and that they are less likely to have access to effective treatment. As with HIV, hypertension can be both a cause and a consequence of poverty," explained the authors.

"Rather than framing policy as a choice between competing priorities, the key challenge is to roll out services and interventions which address both," added Ebrahim in the paper that appeared in the International Journal of Epidemiology.

It is estimated that the number of deaths attributable to hypertension globally over the next 20 years may substantially exceed the number resulting from HIV/AIDS.

Yet the researchers say there is 'denial' and misunderstanding about the impact of hypertension, despite the two conditions having a number of things in common.

Both diseases can also be treated and managed as chronic conditions through a combination of drug treatment and lifestyle changes.