Tag: Multiple Sclerosis Research

An international team of BHF-funded researchers may have discovered why some people experience muscle pain after taking statins. The research, published in JACC: Basic to Translational Science, could help doctors prevent a known side effect of statins and ensure people are able to reap the benefits of the life-saving drugs. According to the research, statins

The disability burden for people with multiple sclerosis (MS) can vary significantly depending on whether they have a relapsing/remitting form of the disease, where they experience periods of clinical remission, or a progressive form, where they have continued neurological deterioration without clinical remission. Effective therapies exist for managing relapsing/remitting MS, but treatment for progressive MS

A new study brings the connection between statin use and risk of glaucoma into sharper focus. Investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found that using statins for five or more years is associated with lower risk of primary open-angle glaucoma. Results of the study were published recently in JAMA Ophthalmology. Glaucoma, a leading cause

More than half of patients with relapsed multiple myeloma treated with carfilzomib experienced cardiac issues during treatment, according to a multi-institutional study published June 12 in Journal of Clinical Oncology. The study recommends that patients undergo a detailed cardiovascular history before being prescribed carfilzomib and then be monitored with natriuretic peptide testing, an indicator for

A scientific breakthrough provides new hope for millions of people living with multiple sclerosis. Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have developed a compound that stimulates repair of the protective sheath that covers nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. The discovery, involving mice genetically engineered to mimic multiple sclerosis, published in the

Delusions are one of the most common symptoms of psychosis, but little is known about what causes them. A new study from researchers at Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute offers insight into the development of delusions, which could lead to better treatments for people with psychosis. The findings were published in Brain.

A personal survey of patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), one of the most important causes of irregular heartbeats, has found that the majority of triggers for the condition are easily modifiable lifestyle choices, including alcohol, caffeine, exercise and lack of sleep. The findings, identified by researchers at UC San Francisco in collaboration with patients and

A study by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center has strengthened the link between thyroid function and atrial fibrillation (AF), an irregular heart rhythm that increases the risk of stroke and other heart-related complications. The phenome-wide association study scanned the medical records of more than 37,000 people for an association between genetically determined variation in

Two new studies published by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital illustrate that not all forms of amyloid-beta (Aβ) protein — the protein thought to initiate Alzheimer’s disease — play an equally menacing role in the progress of the disease. Using a new way of preparing and extracting the protein as well as a new

Patients don’t mind if their emergency care doctors sport tattoos or piercings, or both, suggests an observational study published online in Emergency Medicine Journal. Evidence of visible body art seems to have no discernible impact on what they think of their doctor’s professionalism or competence, the findings show. Previous research on patient attitudes towards doctors’

Increasingly, liver transplant centers are changing a long-standing practice of delaying potentially life-saving liver transplantation for patients with severe alcoholic hepatitis until after they stopped drinking alcohol for six months, according to a new study scheduled for presentation at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2018. Study implications “Liver transplant for severe alcoholic hepatitis is being increasingly

A large international study led by a Hamilton researcher has found a patient-centric treatment that works for people with mild asthma. People with mild asthma are often prescribed a daily treatment regimen, but up to 80 per cent do not follow the routine, using inhalers only when they have an asthma attack. Now the researchers

Kyoto University scientists are one step closer to designing porous materials that can change and retain their shapes — a function known as shape-memory effect. Shape-memory materials have applications in many fields. For example, they could be implanted in the body and then induced to change shape for a specific function, such as serving as

Although cannabis, also known as marijuana, has been shown to impair memory, reaction time and attention, it is difficult to assess this impairment in a natural setting. Researchers have developed a prototype app called ‘Am I Stoned’ that could help cannabis users understand how the drug is affecting them through a series of phone-based tasks.

The rate at which the protein beta-amyloid accumulates into the sticky plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is already slowing by the time a patient would be considered to have preclinical AD, according to a longitudinal study of healthy adults published in JNeurosci. The research suggests that anti-amyloid therapies would be most effective before individuals

Chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) can progress to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). A study published in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics describes a new HBV assay that offers advantages over currently used methods because it has the capability to detect closed circular DNA (cccDNA) in serum, single cells, and preserved tissue samples. This assay