Feature Channels: Bone Health

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Cincinnati Children’s researchers report in Nature Immunology a new mechanism that controls blood cell function and several possible molecular targets for treating myelodysplasia syndromes (MDS) – a group of pre-malignant disorders in which bone marrow does not produce enough healthy blood cells. MDS can lead to acute myeloid leukemia (AML), a fast-spreading blood cancer that can be deadly if not treated promptly.

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Human papillomavirus-positive oropharynx cancers (cancers of the tonsils and back of the throat) are on rise. After radiation treatment, patients often experience severe, lifelong swallowing, eating, and nutritional issues. However, new clinical trial research shows reducing radiation for some patients with HPV-associated oropharyngeal squamous cell carcinomas can maintain high cure rates while sparing some of these late toxicities.

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After all the lifting, hauling and wrapping, worn out gift givers may blame the season’s physical strain for any shoulder soreness they are feeling. It turns out there could be another reason. A new study led by investigators at the University of Utah School of Medicine finds that individuals with symptoms that put them at increased risk for heart disease could be more likely to have shoulder problems, including joint pain and rotator cuff injury.

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University of Michigan researchers find it’s not only risk factors like lower limb strength and precise perception of the limb’s position that determine if a geriatric patient will recover from a perturbation, but also complex and simple reaction times.

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The Fred Hutch Bone Marrow Transplant Program at Seattle Cancer Care Alliance has earned recognition by the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research for outperforming its expected one-year survival rates for allogeneic transplant patients – those who receive donated adult blood-forming stem cells.

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Researchers funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) have developed a way to automatically label images of individual vertebrae during spine surgery, preventing mistakes and saving surgeons both time and stress in the operating room. New work recently published by a Johns Hopkins University team demonstrates the accuracy, feasibility, and advantages of having the technology in the operating room.

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Denis Evseenko, MD, PhD, of Keck Medicine of USC receives a $2.5 million grant from CIRM to develop an off-the-shelf therapy for osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis affects tens of millions of Americans, with that number expected to grow exponentially due to obesity and longer lifespans.

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Researchers have found that a Chinese herbal regimen called TSY-1 (Tianshengyuan-1) TSY-1 increased Telomerase activity in normal blood cells but decreased it in cancer cells. Telomerase is an enzyme responsible for the production of telomeres, which play an important role in the regulation of normal cell division. These results indicate that Telomerase-based treatments may be of significance in treatments for both blood cell deficiency and cancer.

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In an important step in the battle against osteoporosis, a serious brittle bone disease that affects millions, researchers have identified more than a dozen genes amid the vast human genome likely responsible for bone density and strength. The crafty approach the researchers used to find these genes – essentially identifying needles in a haystack – could speed the development of new and better treatments for osteoporosis and many other diseases.

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A team of scientists at the Children’s Medical Center Research Institute at UT Southwestern (CRI) discovered a new bone-forming growth factor, Osteolectin (Clec11a), which reverses osteoporosis in mice and has implications for regenerative medicine.

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Patients who undergo surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome can regain their typing ability within two or three weeks after the operation. That is the conclusion of a serendipitous research project that came about because a psychologist who studies the automatic response patterns involved in typing broke his shoulder. In 2009, Gordon Logan, Centennial Professor of Psychology at Vanderbilt University, put a stool on top of a chair to change a light bulb.

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A new study explores why humans walk with a heel-to-toe stride, while many other animals -- such as dogs and cats -- get around on the balls of their feet.

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Using the Ithaca College 3D Printing Lab, a physics student adapted open source plans for a prosthetic hand to build a highly functional, affordable prosthetic.

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World travel is an important part of David's job, but knee pain was slowing him down. After consulting with a number of doctors, he decided to travel to Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, where he learned he was a candidate for a partial joint replacement.

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The number of shoulder replacement surgeries has skyrocketed nationally and at Loyola University Medical Center as technology improves and aging Baby Boomers seek to relieve pain and restore function to arthritic shoulders.

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Since the discovery of the fossil dubbed Lucy 42 years ago this month, paleontologists have debated whether the 3 million-year-old human ancestor spent all of her time walking on the ground or instead combined walking with frequent tree climbing.

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Tips from the American Chiropractic Association (ACA) on how to avoid pain and injury while raking and mulching leaves and using blowers and other yard equipment this fall.

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Hospital for Special Surgery (HSS) will host surgeons from Greece for an annual symposium dedicated to teaching the latest techniques and innovations in complex hip and knee reconstruction.

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U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert A. McDonald has appointed Thomas A. Cavalieri, DO, Dean and Professor of Medicine at the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine, to serve on the VA National Academic Affiliations Council.

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Osteoporosis is preventable and treatable, but only a small proportion of people at risk for fractures are evaluated and treated, according to new osteoporosis guidelines written by an expert panel headed by Loyola Medicine endocrinologist Pauline M. Camacho, MD, FACE.

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It may be possible to safely prevent one of the most common – and costly to treat – infections contracted by hospitalized patients undergoing bone marrow transplantation for the treatment of blood cancers, according to a study from the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The researchers will present their findings at this week’s 58th Annual American Society of Hematology Meeting and Exposition in San Diego.

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“Not only is the current older population more active, they’re not as willing as people once were to live in pain and tolerate it,” said Mark Shields, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. “And the current technology for hip and knee replacements is simply better than it was.”

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Following hip fracture increases after a reduction in reimbursement rates for DXA scans led to fewer scans, a UAB physician joined other advocates and successfully lobbied to increase DXA scan reimbursements to better identify and reduce hip fractures.

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The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai was one of only 14 national institutions awarded a Spinal Cord Injury Model System (SCIMS) grant valued at $2,280,000 over five years from the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR).

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The federally funded grant will support bench research aimed at understanding how the protein hormone, parathyroid hormone-a related protein-and a drug analog that mimics the protein called abaloparatide, interact in the surface of a cell in bone and affect bone formation and breakdown.

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Women who undergo hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes can not only increase bone mass, but also can improve bone structure, according to a new study published in the Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

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Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have shown that ustekinumab, a human antibody used to treat arthritis, significantly induces response and remission in patients with moderate to severe Crohn’s disease. Results of the clinical trial will appear in the November 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

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A presentation at the American College of Rheumatology annual meeting, by social workers from Hospital for Special Surgery, focused on the impact of living with a rheumatic illness, how patients' culture and socioeconomic conditions come into play, and the psychological effect on clinicians who treat chronic conditions on a daily basis.

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Three gene expression signatures can help rheumatologists predict which patients are more likely to respond to tumor necrosis factor inhibitors (TNFi) or B-cell depletion therapies in patients with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis.

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Rheumatology practices in the United States aren’t always meeting key quality measures for patient care that may affect them as new physician reimbursement laws go into effect in the next year, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Injection of a Wnt inhibitor drug showed promise to ease pain, improve joint function, and even slow or reverse cartilage loss in patients with knee osteoarthritis, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Allopurinol, a widely used treatment for lowering serum urate levels, does not appear to increase risk of kidney deterioration in gout patients with normal or near-normal kidney function, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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While patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases such as RA or spondyloarthritis are at increased risk for CVD, too few are prescribed preventive medications or meeting target goals to prevent heart-related events, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Patients with ankylosing spondylitis or psoriatic arthritis who take statins may have as much as a 33 percent lower mortality risk, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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According to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington, most people with knee OA actually already have the physical function necessary to walk at least 6,000 steps a day, the minimum amount needed to improve their arthritis and prevent disability.

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Over a 15-year period, people with RA may have double the risk of CV events as those in the general population, rates that are similar to people with type-2 diabetes, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Patients with RA whose rheumatologists and primary-care physicians coordinate their care have a higher likelihood of being screened for hyperlipidemia, a key risk factor for coronary heart disease, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Distinct gene expression signatures in rheumatoid arthritis patients could help rheumatologists predict how these individuals will respond to tumor necrosis factor inhibitors, and may one day enable a more personalized approach to RA therapy.

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The gut microbiomes of patients with antiphospholipid syndrome show higher levels of phospholipid-producing bacteria, and this findings point to microbes being a trigger for this life-threatening disease, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Lupus patients who are African-American or Asian, or those who have attained only a high school education or less, had longer delays in seeing a rheumatologist or nephrologist for a confirmed diagnosis than other groups, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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A combination of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and TNF-inhibitors may help slow down spine damage in ankylosing spondylitis, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Outcomes such as pain, function, range of motion, and strength after total hip arthroplasty, or joint replacement surgery, are different for men & women, which could lead to the development of sex-specific rehabilitation programs, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Rheumatoid arthritis patients who keep using their disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs prior to surgery do not face an increased risk of infection after their procedures, according to new research findings presented this week at the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Gender and disease duration can help predict which axial spondyloarthritis patients will develop extra-articular manifestations such as uveitis, or inflammation of the eye, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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The U.S. adult rheumatology workforce is in jeopardy of a serious decline, and incentives to pursue rheumatology training, including help with graduate medical education funding, could provide critical relief, according to new research findings presented this week at the 2016 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Tumor necrosis factor inhibitors, a group of biologic drugs used to treat children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis, are not associated with a significantly increased risk of cancer, according to new research findings presented this week at the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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Two new studies measure the prevalence of myocardial inflammation in RA patients without known cardiovascular disease, assess how it is associated with high disease activity and show how disease-modifying therapy may decrease this type of inflammation, according to new research findings presented this week at the ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting in Washington.

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MINNEAPOLIS – A new study suggests probable scientific misconduct in at least some of 33 bone health trials published in various medical journals. The study used statistical methods to detect scientific misconduct or research fraud and calls into question the validity of a body of research work led mainly by one researcher in Japan. The study is published in the November 9, 2016, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

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The latest research and features on obesity in the Obesity News Source.