Category: San Francisco VA Medical Center
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 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).
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.
