Research advances from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Intramural Research Program (IRP) often make headlines. Read the news releases that describe our most recent findings:
BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — Sam Srisatta, a 20-year-old Florida college student, spent a month living inside a government hospital here last fall, playing video games and allowing scientists to document every morsel of food that went into his mouth.
From big bowls of salad to platters of meatballs and spaghetti sauce, Srisatta noshed his way through a nutrition study aimed at understanding the health effects of ultraprocessed foods, the controversial fare that now accounts for more than 70% of the U.S. food supply. He allowed The Associated Press to tag along for a day.
“Today my lunch was chicken nuggets, some chips, some ketchup,” said Srisatta, one of three dozen participants paid $5,000 each to devote 28 days of their lives to science. “It was pretty fulfilling.”
Examining exactly what made those nuggets so satisfying is the goal of the widely anticipated research led by National Institutes of Health nutrition researcher Kevin Hall.
“What we hope to do is figure out what those mechanisms are so that we can better understand that process,” Hall said.
Older adults who drank coffee — caffeinated or decaffeinated — had a lower risk of death overall than others who did not drink coffee, according a study by researchers from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and AARP.
The National Institutes of Health has selected a talented pool of 45 medical, dental, and veterinary students representing 34 different U.S.-accredited universities for its inaugural class of the Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP). The new NIH MRSP is a year-long enrichment program designed to provide mentored training to creative, research-oriented medical, dental, and veterinary students at the intramural campus of the NIH in Bethesda, Md.
Two new studies have found that large structural abnormalities in chromosomes, some of which have been associated with increased risk of cancer, can be detected in a small fraction of people without a prior history of cancer. The studies found that these alterations in chromosomes appear to increase with age, particularly after the age of 50, and may be associated with an increased risk for cancer... The results of the studies were published online May 6, 2012, in Nature Genetics.
NIH study indicates drug safe during pregnancy, but infants smaller at first birthday
Infants born to women who used the anti-HIV drug tenofovir as part of an anti-HIV drug regimen during pregnancy do not weigh less at birth and are not of shorter length than infants born to women who used anti-HIV drug regimens that do not include tenofovir during pregnancy, according to findings from a National Institutes of Health network study. However, at 1 year of age, children born to the tenofovir-treated mothers were slightly shorter and had slightly smaller head circumference — about 1 centimeter each, on average — than were infants whose mothers did not take tenofovir.
Boosts sociability, quells repetitiveness — NIH study
National Institutes of Health researchers have reversed behaviors in mice resembling two of the three core symptoms of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). An experimental compound, called GRN-529, increased social interactions and lessened repetitive self-grooming behavior in a strain of mice that normally display such autism-like behaviors, the researchers say. (Video at https://youtu.be/5EfoqT9kPmI)
NIH-supported research underscores value of screening for toxoplasmosis
Scientists have identified which strains of the Toxoplasma gondii parasite, the cause of toxoplasmosis, are most strongly associated with premature births and severe birth defects in the United States. The researchers used a new blood test developed by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, to pinpoint T. gondii strains that children acquire from their acutely infected mothers while in the womb.
Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered how exposure to arsenic can turn normal stem cells into cancer stem cells and spur tumor growth.
Preliminary results from clinical trials in a subtype of lymphoma show that for a number of patients whose disease was not cured by other treatments, the drug ibrutinib can provide significant anti-cancer responses with modest side effects. These results were presented as part of the opening plenary session at the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2012 on April 1 by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues.
A new technique for improving delivery of stem cells may lead to better and faster tissue repair, a breakthrough with promise for sports medicine and military populations. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health Clinical Center discovered a way to enhance delivery of transplant cells in rodents to a desired site by increasing presence of chemicals that attract the introduced cells.
Changes in delivery practices appear to be main contributing factor
Women take longer to give birth today than did women 50 years ago, according to an analysis of nearly 140,000 deliveries conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. The researchers could not identify all of the factors that accounted for the increase, but concluded that the change is likely due to changes in delivery room practice.
