Men who married when they were younger than 25 had lower bone strength than men who married for the first time at a later age. Men in stable marriages or marriage-like relationships who had never previously divorced or separated had greater bone strength than men whose previous marriages had fractured.
A new study finds that ear infections account for approximately $2.88 billion in added health care expenses annually and is a significant health-care utilization concern.
UCLA researchers have found that minority patients and those of lower socioeconomic status are far more likely to have advanced thyroid cancer when they are diagnosed with the disease than white patients and those in higher economic brackets. In one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, the UCLA team looked at nearly 26,000 patients with well-differentiated thyroid cancer and analyzed the impact of race and socioeconomic factors on the stage of presentation, as well as patient survival rates. The study appears in the January issue of the Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism.
CLA researchers have developed a novel approach to study how these differences between individuals affect how strongly genes are expressed, or translated into the proteins that do the actual work in cells.
• Tissue-specific hair follicle stem cells initiate squamous cell skin cancer. • The stem cells cycle between an active and dormant state, and do not develop into cancer while dormant. • Understanding stem cell cancer suppression could help create prevention strategies for patients susceptible to squamous skin cancer.
A UCLA research team has found no evidence of an association between iron levels in the body and the risk of atherosclerosis, the hardening and narrowing of the arteries that leads to cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 killer in the U.S. The discovery, based on a comprehensive study in a mouse model of atherosclerosis, contradicts a long-held hypothesis about the role of iron in the disease and carries important implications for patients with chronic kidney disease or anemia related to inflammatory disorders, many of whom receive high-dose iron supplementation therapy.
A new study by UCLA and McGill Universities reveals that the United States health care system ranks 22nd out of 27 high-income nations when analyzed for its efficiency of turning dollars spent into extending lives. The researchers also discovered significant gender disparities within countries.
• Two prominent UCLA stem cell scientists receive CIRM Disease Team III awards for clinical trials scheduled to begin in 2014. • Binational Phase I clinical trial to test a targeted anti-cancer drug approved to enroll patients in US and Canada. • First-in-human testing of stem cell gene therapy for sickle cell disease that allows patients to be their own bone marrow donors.
• UCLA stem cell scientists identify and characterize articular cartilage stem/progenitor cells at different stages of human growth, from 5th week development to 60 years of age. • Biological “road map” created for tracking proper development of cartilage stem/progenitor cells. • Novel stem cell based therapy for cartilage damage and osteoarthritis possible within three years.
A pilot program offering telehealth technology to pediatric obesity patients found that a great majority of pediatric patients were satisfied with their telehealth appointment.
• Glioblastoma is the most common and deadly form of brain cancer. • Drugs target specific mutations on the surface of glioblastoma cells. • Glioblastoma cells are able to eliminate the gene mutation to avoid detection when the targeted drug is present. • When the drug is stopped, tumor cells are able to reacquire the gene mutation, which resensitizes them to the drug.
How malleable are we? Youths who experienced early maternal deprivation — specifically, time in an institution such as an orphanage — show similar responses to their adoptive mother and to strangers in a brain structure called the amygdala; for children never raised in an institutional setting, the amygdala is far more active in response to the adoptive mother alone.
People who have diverticulosis, or pouches in the lining of the colon, often worry that they will eventually develop a painful and sometimes serious condition called diverticulitis, as previous research has shown that one in four, or up to 25 percent, of those with the condition will.
• Prostate cancer stem cells evolve into different cells as prostate cancer progresses becoming a moving target for therapy. • Scientists must be prepared for the continual evolution of the stem cell as tumors adapt and become resistant to new and more potent therapies. • With this knowledge, researchers can now design therapies that target the elements of the cancer stem cells that remain unchanged.
Dr. Hanna Mikkola and researchers at UCLA’s Eli and Edythe Broad Center of Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research have identified a novel progenitor cell and a related cell communication pathway key to growth of a healthy placenta.The team’s discovery gives scientists a “tool box” for understanding the developmental hierarchy of progenitor cells that initiate growth of the placenta, and greatly increases the knowledge of what might cause pregnancy complications.
Thanks to a $4 million gift from Lockheed Martin, UCLA Health System's Operation Mend now has a state-of-the-art telehealth suite, which will enable improved communication between the program's personnel, patients and partners, and a renovated recovery area for the wounded warriors who undergo surgery at the Westwood facility.
UCLA scientists mapped groups of autism-risk genes by function, and identified how mutations in these genes disrupt fetal brain development. Their findings prioritize targets for future research and shed light on autism's molecular origins.
• Drugs called BRAF inhibitors shrink most melanoma tumors quickly. • Despite good responses, melanoma tumors do not shrink away completely. • Left-behind cancer cells allow tumors to grow back drug resistant. • Using Multiple drugs that simultaneously target the different tumor resistance mechanisms may prevent drug resistance and tumor regrowth.
UCLA researchers have shown that teenagers with anxiety disorders show increased activity in a specific part of the brain, the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), when they are interpreting a neutral situation negatively. Ultimately, the mPFC may serve as a biomarker for illness.
Men with prostate cancer who ate a low-fat diet and took fish oil supplements had lower levels of pro-inflammatory substances in their blood and a lower cell cycle progression score, a measure used to predict cancer recurrence, than men who ate a typical Western diet, UCLA researchers found.
Socially challenged teens and young adults, such as those with autism, often have trouble making and keeping friends and can become easy targets for bullying, a situation that challenges their coping skills.
UCLA researchers report that tiny amounts of a specific type of lipid in the small intestine may play a greater role than previously thought in generating the high cholesterol levels and inflammation that lead to clogged arteries. The team also found they could reduce the negative effects of these lipids in mice by feeding the animals a new genetically engineered tomato being developed at UCLA that is designed to mimic HDL (“good”) cholesterol. The study, in the December issue of the Journal of Lipid Research with an accompanying editorial, focused on a group of lipids found in the small intestine called unsaturated lysophosphatidic acids (LPAs).
A new nanotechnology for drug delivery that could greatly improve the treatment of deadly pancreatic cancer has been proven to work in mice at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center.
UCLA is participating in a multi-site clinical trial testing stem-cell therapy to improve blood flow in angina patients. The clinical trial evaluates treatment for patients who haven’t responded to other FDA-approved procedures for angina. The procedure uses the latest technology to map the heart in 3-D and guides the doctor to deliver injections of a patient’s own stem-cells or a placebo to targeted sites in the heart muscle.
Modulating the hormonal environment in which endometrial cancers grow could make tumors significantly more sensitive to a new class of drugs known as PARP inhibitors, UCLA researchers have shown for the first time.
UCLA has launched the first university-based military medicine center on the West Coast, thanks to a generous donation from two sons in honor their father, the inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Ronald A. Katz. The Ronald A. Katz Center for Collaborative Military Medicine at UCLA, established by an initial $2 million gift from Todd and Randy Katz and their families, will work with the U.S. military to address the unique challenges of healing and caring for the nation's most critically wounded warriors. By serving as a nexus for UCLA's many research projects and services designed to help America's servicemen and servicewomen, the center will help foster collaborations and partnerships both within the university and between UCLA and the military to increase our nation's ability to care for wounded veterans.
For the first time, UCLA researchers created a a virtual world that allowed them to manipulate a rodent's environment, and found that separate areas of a brain can work together, or be at odds.
MK-3475, an anti-PD1 immunotherapy drug with promising results in advanced trials in melanoma is also showing potential in lung cancer based on preliminary phase 1b data presented at the 15th World Conference on Lung Cancer in Sydney, Australia. By blocking the PD-1 protein, the drug alerts the immune system to attack the cancer. It is generally well tolerated and further trials in lung cancer are currently underway.
The same type of breast cancer commonly seen in women is also diagnosed in tigers, beluga whales, and llamas. Cognitive and memory impairment syndrome is on the rise among elderly dogs and shares many features with human Alzheimer’s disease. There is tremendous overlap between the diseases of human and non-human animals. The 2013 Zoobiquity Conference will bring together leaders in human and animal medicine treating the same diseases in different species.
UCLA has received a $7 million grant to investigate the links between substance abuse and HIV among Latino and African-American men who have sex with men. Researchers will examine how non-injected drugs and alcohol interacts with the virus and other infectious diseases, to damage health.
A UCLA study is the first to identify a biological clock able to gauge the age of most human tissues. Some parts of the anatomy, like a woman’s breasts, age faster than the rest of the body.
A study published online Oct. 16 in JAMA Dermatology found that lawsuits related to procedures when non-physicians are operating the laser are increasing, particularly outside of a traditional medical setting.
A new database featuring hundreds of brain scans and other key clinical information will help researchers tease out similarities and differences between these and many other chronic-pain conditions, helping to accelerate research and treatment development.
A new collaboration between the New Frontier Science Group at Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited and UCLA will undertake studies to better understand how disruption of circadian rhythms globally and at the level of pancreatic beta-cells promotes development of type 2 diabetes.
The UCLA Health System and the Motion Picture and Television Fund have signed a letter of intent that would bring MPTF's six outpatient health centers under the UCLA umbrella. This partnership between two of Los Angeles' iconic institutions will mean that entertainment industry members and their families can continue to get health care at MPTF facilities, with the added advantage of being able to access UCLA's world-renowned specialty care and inpatient services. This partnership strengthens the relationship between the two organizations, which are already working together on a geriatric psychiatry unit at MPTF's Wasserman Campus in Woodland Hills.
Cocaine makes otherwise resistant immune cells susceptible to infection with HIV, causing both significant infection and new production of the virus.
For two decades, Dr. Shlomo Raz made it a top priority to help educate and better train urologists in Latin American and Mexico, a small undertaking with a few urologists that has since grown to include thousands of physicians. Now, the Confederation Americano de Urologia (CAU), an organization of 8,000 urologists from Central and South American, Mexico and Spain, is honoring Raz for his efforts by naming its highest accolade in his honor and bestowing the inaugural medal on him. The Shlomo Raz Medal, a bonze medallion bearing his likeness, will be awarded to Raz on Oct. 2 at a CAU meeting in Lima, Peru.
• Study shows first direct link between obesity and risk of pancreatic cancer • Mice are used to model human obesity and metabolism • Mice given high-calorie, high-fat diets developed high numbers of pre-cancer lesions • Results support a low-fat, low-calorie diet as preventative measure against cancer
A new study for the first time examines the effects of abuse and lack of parental affection across the body’s entire regulatory system, and finds a strong biological link for how negative early life experiences affect physical health.
A consortium of the five University of California medical campuses at Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco has been designated as one of three Centers for Accelerated Innovations by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
UCLA’s Dr. Dennis Slamon was selected as a Thomson Reuters Citation Laureate along with 2 other teams of laureates as possible winners of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology.
Patients suffering from early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease who were diagnosed sooner than usual using a brain imaging test received Alzheimer-specific medications earlier than those who did not have the brain imaging results available to their doctors or themselves. These patients also had significantly better clinical outcomes during the subsequent years they were clinically monitored, UCLA researchers have found for the first time.
Approximately 30 million pounds of fumigant pesticides are used each year on soil that yields valuable California crops. Determining whether these pesticides are as safe as possible falls to one state entity, the Department of Pesticide Regulation. But in 2010, a neurotoxic, carcinogenic pesticide called methyl iodide was approved for use with strawberries. The science was incomplete, the approval was rushed, and while it stayed on the market, lives were endangered. A case study has been conducted by UCLA's Sustainable Technology and Policy Program that details the flaws in the system, and makes recommendations to prevent this from happening again..
UCLA doctors sucked a 24-inch blood clot from a man's heart using a new device that spared him from open-heart surgery. It was the first time the procedure had been successfully performed in California.
A successful training program in bedside ultrasound is expanding from UC Irvine to UCLA, thanks to a $250,000 University of California grant to improve patient care. The two-year grant, “Impact on Quality and Safety of the Implementation of a Formal Curriculum for Bedside Ultrasound at UCLA,” will be led by Dr. Elizabeth Turner, UCLA director of bedside ultrasound in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.
Nanodiamond drug delivery system developed at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center allows chemotherapy to be delivered directly to brain tumors for better treatment efficacy with fewer harmful side effects.
In one of the first studies of its kind, a joint UCLA/RAND Corporation study addressed the prevalence and cost of critical care therapies provided in intensive care units (ICU) that were perceived by physicians as “futile.”
Nearly 30 of the nation’s leading experts in medicine - both physicians and veterinarians - are joining forces on Saturday, November 2 in New York City at the third Annual Zoobiquity Conference in a bid to help improve the health of both human and animal patients. The event will feature fascinating case studies in people and across various other animal species.
A multimillion-dollar gift from the Melvin and Bren Simon Charitable Foundation has allowed the UCLA Division of Digestive Diseases to provide patients with an innovative home health program; supported new, minimally invasive treatment procedures; and funded state-of-the-art gastroenterology research.
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