San Francisco
researchers have found that some HIV patients treated with antiretroviral therapy early after infection do test negative, at some point, for the virus. Study findings showed this result in six of 87 patients. ''First, these patients are not cured. When these patients went off therapy, HIV virus levels rebounded. These results do show that with effective early treatment that reduces the virus to very low levels, the immune system may have less antibody response to HIV.''
Organisms ranging from bacteria to humans navigate environments that can contain dangerously too little or too much oxygen. Yet, scientists know little about how animals sense oxygen levels around them. Researchers from the Berkeley and San Francisco campuses of the University of California have now discovered how the nematode C. elegans senses oxygen levels in order to steer clear of surrounding areas that are too low or too high in oxygen.
A team of California scientists made headlines four years ago when it reported finding one of the largest insect colonies in the world - a 600-mile-long subterranean network of Argentine ants stretching from Northern California to the Mexican border. According to the researchers, this ''supercolony'' is made up of billions of closely related workers - all direct descendants of a small group of Argentine ants that were accidentally introduced into California more than a century ago. But new studies by Stanford University scientists are raising serious doubts about the existence of a single supercolony running through the Golden State. The Stanford team questions the notion that Los Angeles ants are descended from the same founding population as San Francisco ants, which live 400 miles away.
Two Santa Barbara researchers have discovered that calcium channel blockers may prove to be an inexpensive alternative for controlling schistosome infection, a serious global health problem that afflicts more than 200 million people annually in developing nations. An estimated 200,000 people, many of them older children, die every year from schistosomiasis. Many more suffer chronic damage to vital organs, including the liver and bladder. A San Francisco company will use the drugs to treat schistosomiasis in Africa and elsewhere.
Researchers have found that use of black tar heroin by injection drug users in West Coast cities accounts for a dramatically lower percentage of intravenous drug users in these locations who are infected with HIV. The finding is based on comparison to East Coast cities, where powder heroin is commonly used. Possible reasons: First, before injecting black tar heroin, it must be heated to about 165 degrees F, according to research done elsewhere. This temperature is sufficient for killing the HIV virus, which limits the likelihood of HIV transmission through sharing of drug preparation paraphernalia, according to the UCSF researchers. In addition, black tar heroin clogs syringes, they note. Frequent rinsing and flushing is required, reducing the amount of residual blood and HIV virus present.
Researchers have found significant damage in the brains of HIV-positive patients whose viral load is effectively suppressed by anti-retroviral therapy. In one of the first studies of its kind, researchers from the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center (SFVAMC) used a combination of MRI brain imaging, recording of electrical brain activity, and behavioral tests to compare the size and function of brains of HIV-positive patients on antiretroviral therapy with those of healthy subjects.
A study led by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC) has found that the lower the level of vitamin C in the blood the more likely a person will become infected by Helicobacter pylori, the bacteria that can cause peptic ulcers and stomach cancer. "This is the largest study to look at the relationship between vitamin C levels and infection by H. pylori," said Joel A. Simon, MD, MPH, SFVAMC staff physician and UCSF associate professor of medicine and epidemiology and biostatistics.
A study by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center indicates that people with bipolar disorder may suffer progressive brain damage. ?For the first time, our study supports the idea that there may be on-going damage to certain regions of the brain as the illness progresses,? said the study?s lead author Raymond Deicken, MD. Deicken is the medical director of the Psychiatric Partial Hospital Program at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and UCSF associate professor of psychiatry.
The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Energy have formally transferred a shipment of refurbished radiological detection equipment to the Los Angeles Fire Department Hazardous Waste Unit, the Los Angeles Port Authority and the San Francisco Health Department. The equipment, with a replacement value of approximately $60,000, is being provided to these emergency responder agencies under a DHS/DOE pilot project called the Homeland Defense Equipment Reuse (HDER) Program.
Injections of a progesterone-type hormone may be able to prevent more than a third of pre-term births in women with a history of giving birth early, reported Paul J. Meis, M.D., of Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, today (Feb. 6) at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine in San Francisco. "The evidence of this treatment's effectiveness was so dramatic, the research was stopped early," said Meis, the national principal investigator and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Wake Forest. "This drug is readily available and can be used by doctors to improve outcomes for mothers and babies."
The first comparative study to examine the risk of taking ephedra with that of taking other commonly used herbs calls into question the herbal stimulant's current standing as an unrestricted dietary supplement. Researchers found that products containing ephedra accounted for less than 1 percent of the herbal supplement sales in the United States in 2001. These products, however, were responsible for 62 percent of all herbal-related reports made to poison control centers nationwide that year, according to the study by researchers at the San Francisco VA Medical Center (SFVAMC).
Diabetes management may improve when physicians use an interactive communication technique with patients. Unfortunately, physicians underuse this simple strategy, according to a new study, which appears in the January 13, 2003 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine.
Prior research has shown that patients fail to recall or comprehend as much as half of what they are told by their physicians, according to UCSF researchers. "In this study, we tried to identify simple communication techniques that make physicians more effective teachers," said Dean Schillinger, MD, UCSF assistant professor of medicine at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center (SFGHMC) and lead author of the study.
Researchers in Santa Cruz, CA have found that industrial emissions in Asia are a major source of mercury in rainwater that falls along the California coast. Their findings are reported in a paper published online today by the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres. The mercury in rainwater is not in itself a health threat, but mercury pollution is a significant problem in San Francisco Bay and other California waters because the toxic element builds up in the food chain. State regulatory agencies are looking for ways to reduce the amount of mercury entering the state's waters from various sources.
Researchers have discovered that molecules in aging bones are unable to remain in step with one another during the complex molecular dance that results in healthy bones. The missteps by aging cells responsible for bone formation trigger cells that tear down bone. The result is the thinning of the bones characteristic of osteoporosis, according to preliminary research by Bernard Halloran, PhD, of the Laboratory for Human Aging and Bone Research at the San Francisco VA Medical Center.
Worldwide efforts to protect plant and animal species may not be enough to avoid a mass extinction in the face of unexpected climate changes and global warming, says an international team of researchers. While the Earth's climate is never stable, natural records of the past -- such as fossils, ice cores, corals, and lake sediments -- reveal that the species and ecosystems of today evolved within a specific range of climate conditions. The scientists are concerned that human activities, such as increased carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere, may push the climate outside of its current range, with devastating impacts on species around the globe.
