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:
Whether you’re shedding pounds with the help of effective new medicines, slimming down after weight loss surgery or cutting calories and adding exercise, there will come a day when the numbers on the scale stop going down, and you hit the dreaded weight loss plateau.
In a recent study, Kevin Hall, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health who specializes in measuring metabolism and weight change, looked at when weight loss typically stops depending on the method people were using todrop pounds. He broke down the plateau into mathematical models using data from high-quality clinical trials of different ways to lose weight to understand why people stop losing when they do. The study published Monday in the journal Obesity.
A new drug developed by scientists at the National Institutes of Health limits the progression of liver fibrosis in mice, a hopeful advance against a condition for which there is no current treatment and that often leads to serious liver disease in people with chronic alcoholism and other common diseases.
A laboratory study has revealed an entirely unexpected process for acquiring drug resistance that bypasses the need to re-establish DNA damage repair in breast cancers that have mutant BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. The findings, reported by Andre Nussenzweig, Ph.D., and Shyam Sharan, Ph.D., at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues, appeared July 21, 2016, in Nature.
Couples in which the male partner had high levels of paracetamol in his urine took longer to achieve pregnancy than couples in which the male had lower levels of the compound, according to a preliminary study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health.
NIH scientists identify molecule that may impact serious neurological diseases
With assistance from a high tech robot, National Institutes of Health researchers have identified and tested a molecule that shows promise as a possible treatment for the rare Gaucher disease and the more common Parkinson’s disease. Ellen Sidransky, M.D., a senior investigator with NIH’s National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), and her collaborators at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), published their findings June 12, 2016 in the Journal of Neuroscience.
A subgroup of women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), a leading cause of infertility, may produce excess adrenal hormones, according to an early study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.
The National Institutes of Health has selected 52 innovative, research-oriented students for the 2016-2017 Medical Research Scholars Program (MRSP). A year-long residential program, the MRSP introduces medical, dental and veterinary students to cutting-edge research, and is part of NIH's goal of training the next generation of clinician-scientists and biomedical researchers. The program places students in NIH laboratories and patient care areas, including the NIH Clinical Center, to conduct basic, translational, or clinical research in areas that match their career interests and research goals.
Almost 10 million U.S. adults report misusing prescription opioids in 2012-2013.
Nonmedical use of prescription opioids more than doubled among adults in the United States from 2001-2002 to 2012-2013, based on a study from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health. Nearly 10 million Americans, or 4.1 percent of the adult population, used opioid medications in 2012-2013 a class of drugs that includes OxyContin and Vicodin, without a prescription or not as prescribed (in greater amounts, more often, or longer than prescribed) in the past year. This is up from 1.8 percent of the adult population in 2001-2002.
NIH scientists develop technique that provides new insight into stroke.
In a study of stroke patients, investigators confirmed through MRI brain scans that there was an association between the extent of disruption to the brain’s protective blood-brain barrier and the severity of bleeding following invasive stroke therapy. The results of the National Institutes of Health-funded study were published in Neurology.
Mouse study advances knowledge of habitual behavior pathophysiology.
Daily activities involve frequent transitions between habitual behaviors, such as driving home, and goal-directed behaviors, such as driving to a new destination on unfamiliar roads. An inability to shift between habitual and non-habitual behaviors has been implicated in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), addiction, and other disorders characterized by impaired decision-making. In a new study conducted with mice, scientists report that endocannabinoids, natural messengers in the body that are chemically similar to the active compound in marijuana, play an important role in how the brain controls this fundamental process. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the National Institutes of Health, funded the study.
NIH-funded study shows less diabetic retinopathy progression among those who underwent intensive glycemic control.
People with type 2 diabetes who intensively controlled their blood sugar level during the landmark Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) Trial Eye Study were found to have cut their risk of diabetic retinopathy in half in a follow-up analysis conducted four years after stopping intensive therapy. Investigators who led the ACCORD Follow-on Eye Study (ACCORDION) announced the results today in New Orleans at the American Diabetes Association annual meeting. The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health’s National Eye Institute (NEI).
