Cincinnati
A new study opens the door to the possibility of new treatments for children who suffer from biliary atresia, a deadly disease of infancy and the most common reason for liver transplantation in children. The new treatments could dramatically reduce the number of liver transplants performed on children every year.
A team of scientists has discovered that a little-known molecule created in the intestine when soy is digested is a natural and powerful blocker of a potent male hormone involved in prostate cancer and male pattern baldness. In fact, the molecule, equol, completely stops in its tracks the male hormone dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which normally stimulates prostate growth and causes male pattern baldness.
For nine months before birth, infants soak in a watery, urine-filled environment. Just hours after birth, however, they have near-perfect skin. How is it that nature enables infants to develop ideal skin in such seemingly unsuitable surroundings? A new study by researchers at the Skin Sciences Institute of Cincinnati Children?s Hospital Medical Center shows that the answer may be vernix -- the white, cheesy substance that coats infants for weeks before they are born, then is wiped off and discarded immediately after birth. If they?re right, the healthcare implications for newborns and adults could be remarkable.
A new study suggests that lead may be harmful even at very low blood concentrations. The study, funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, will appear in the April 17 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. The five-year study found that children who have blood lead concentration lower than 10 micrograms per deciliter suffer intellectual impairment from the exposure.
Women with low milk intake during childhood and adolescence have lower bone mass in adulthood and greater risk of fracture ? independent of their current milk or calcium intake, according to a new Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study of milk intake during childhood and its effect on osteoporosis.
A discovery published in the current issue of The Lancet may lead to new treatments for a deadly liver disease of infancy -- dramatically reducing the number of liver transplants in children. A team of researchers at Cincinnati Children's Hospital have revealed a genetic underpinning to biliary atresia, the most common reason for liver transplant in children. Biliary atresia occurs in infants and usually becomes evident two to eight weeks after birth. Its cause has been unknown. Symptoms include unexplained jaundice, dark urine, clay-colored stools and weight loss. The disease destroys bile ducts in the liver, trapping bile, rapidly causing damage to liver cells and severe scarring.
