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.
The 2012 Science of Eliminating Health Disparities Summit is the leading scientific gathering on health disparities. Thousands of participants will attend approximately 100 sessions to exchange new knowledge, and learn about progress, successes, challenges, and opportunities in implementing innovative research. Sessions will also feature practice and policy interventions to inform health disparities science, and highlight the power and impact of multi-sector partnerships in tackling the social, behavioral, environmental, economic, and biological factors that cause health disparities. The theme is Building a Healthier Society: Integrating Science, Practice, and Policy. https://www.nimhd.nih.gov/summit_site/
Actions would aim to strengthen the biomedical research workforce and manage deluge of data
The National Institutes of Health is seeking to launch multiple initiatives designed to help strengthen the biomedical research enterprise and sustain the global competitiveness of the U.S. scientific community well into the future. Faced with significant challenges affecting the biomedical research workforce and the storage and use of large biomedical datasets, the NIH Director charged the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) to develop recommendations. The ACD used three specialized committee working groups, each of which included additional outside experts on the relevant topics.
NIH network study confirms more detailed information from microarray analysis
A more precise method for examining a fetus’ genetic material may help detect abnormalities in 40 percent more cases of stillbirth than does the traditional method, according to a National Institutes of Health network study.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently approved a new oral medication for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis that represents a new class of drugs for the disease... Tofacitinib is from a new class of drugs developed to target Janus kinases. One member of this family, JAK3, was discovered in the early 1990s by a National Institutes of Health laboratory in the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS).
Mice with a condition that serves as a laboratory model for Down syndrome perform better on memory and learning tasks as adults if they were treated before birth with neuroprotective peptides, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health.
Changes in how genes in the immune system function may result in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the leading cause of visual impairment in older adults, based on preliminary research conducted by National Institutes of Health (NIH) investigators.
...The findings, published online in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Scientific Reports, reveal that this form of vocal improvisation is associated with a unique functional reallocation of brain activity in the prefrontal cortex and proposes a novel neural network that appears to be intimately involved in improvisatory and creative endeavors.
Couples with high levels of PCBs and similar environmental pollutants take longer to achieve pregnancy in comparison to other couples with lower levels of the pollutants, according to a preliminary study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions.
An international group of scientists has identified three genetic regions that predispose Asian women who have never smoked to lung cancer. The finding provides further evidence that risk of lung cancer among never-smokers, especially Asian women, may be associated with certain unique inherited genetic characteristics that distinguishes it from lung cancer in smokers.
Leisure-time physical activity is associated with longer life expectancy, even at relatively low levels of activity and regardless of body weight, according to a study by a team of researchers led by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health.
