Posted: 20 October 2011
WASHINGTON: US researchers have uncovered the genetic mechanism that bed bugs use to resist powerful insecticides, according to a study published Wednesday, leading to the hope of more effective ways to combat the pests.
Bed bugs, which have been largely absent from the United States since the 1950s, have returned in force in the last decade in the US, and notably other Western countries in Europe.
They have, in this time, developed unique resistance to the insecticides that are mainly used against them -- deltamethrin and beta-cyfluthrin, both leading pyrethroids.
The genetic research released Wednesday in the journal PLoS One, published by the Public Library, offers new hope to understand their resistance and find new ways to eradicate the blood-sucking bugs.
"Different bed bug populations within the US and throughout the world may differ in their levels of resistance and resistance strategies, so there is the need for continuous surveillance," said lead author Zach Adelman, associate professor of entomology at Virginia Tech.
Adelman and the other researchers in the study assessed two populations of bed bugs -- "a robust, resistant population" found in 2008, and a "non-resistant population" that has been raised in a lab since 1973.
The study determined how each strain succumbed to the pyrethroids, if at all, and determined that over a 24 hour period it required "5,200 times more deltamethrin or 111 times more beta-cyfulthrin" to kill the modern bed bugs compared to the older specimens.
The bed bug's bite is a little painful rather than dangerous, but many people are scared because the creature mainly attacks when people are asleep.
-AFP/pn
Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
US researchers study bed bugs' resistance
Your genes, once again, benefitting, or destroying, you...
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Posted: 29 July 2011
WASHINGTON - Weight gain can be more dangerous for South Asians than for Caucasians because the fat clings to organs like the liver instead of the skin, said a study published Thursday.
The main difference between Caucasians and South Asians comes down to how much space there is to store fat in the body and where it holes up, said Sonia Anand, lead author of the study in the public access journal PLoS One.
"South Asians have less space to store fat below the skin than white Caucasians," said Anand, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at McMaster University.
"Their excess fat, therefore, overflows to ectopic compartments, in the abdomen and liver where it may affect function."
When extra fats cling to the organs, it can cause high glucose and lipid levels, which are risk factors for heart disease.
That means South Asians with a weight and height ratio, or body mass index (BMI), that would be considered in the healthy range for Caucasians may merit screening for conditions like diabetes and coronary artery disease.
The Canada-based study recruited 108 people in all, some first- or second-generation immigrants from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, or Bangladesh and the rest Caucasian subjects whose ancestry could be traced to Europe.
They underwent a series of measurements and tests to assess body fat, cholesterol and sugar levels.
"Young, apparently healthy South Asians have greater metabolic impairment compared to white Caucasians who tend to develop metabolic changes at higher levels of obesity and at a more advanced age," said the study.
South Asians tended to have lower HDL (or good) cholesterol, higher total body fat but lower levels of abdominal fat, fattier livers and less lean muscle mass than Caucasians of similar age, height and weight.
"This study helps explain why South Asians experience weight-related health problems at lower BMI levels than Caucasians," said Arya Sharma, director of the Canadian Obesity Network and a co-author of the study.
"For the clinician, this also means that individuals of South Asian heritage need to be screened for the presence of heart disease and diabetes at lower BMIs."
-AFP/rt
Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
Fat is more dangerous depending on ethnicity
A good sign, we are making progress in our fight against illnesses. Hopefully we don't contract the mad cow disease before the cure is out...
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Posted: 10 March 2011
WASHINGTON - US researchers have identified the first biomarker for the human form of mad cow disease, a rare and fatal brain condition that typically kills people within one year of onset.
At present the only way to diagnose Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is by studying brain tissue after a person dies. There is no cure.
If the biomarker can be used to develop a common test for the disease, it could help prevent its spread among healthy people and reduce misdiagnosis of potentially treatable dementia cases, the researchers said.
Scientists believe the disease can transfer from infected cattle to humans when people eat tainted meat.
"Levels of the iron-transport protein transferrin (Tf) are significantly decreased in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with sCJD well before the end stage of the disease, potentially allowing for earlier diagnosis," said the study in the online scientific journal "PLoS ONE".
The biomarker was 80 per cent accurate at distinguishing between mad cow and dementia, said the study led by Neena Singh and colleagues at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio.
- AFP/rl
Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:
First biomarker for human form of mad cow disease
