Scientists have discovered that a protein that controls weight and appetite may also help prevent Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Patients with higher leptin levels had a significantly lower risk of developing the debilitating disorder, according to a study found in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Researchers from the Boston University School of Medicine indicated that there is growing evidence to suggest that leptin has beneficial effects on brain development and function, which is what inspired them to conduct their own study.

The scientists measured participants’ leptin levels over a 12-year period. They discovered that patients with higher levels of the protein had a significantly lower risk of developing the brain disease.

“Over a 12-year follow-up, this corresponds to an absolute AD risk of 25 percent for persons with the lowest levels of leptin compared to a six percent risk for persons with the highest levels,” said senior author Dr. Sudha Seshadri.

Some health officials recommend taking nutritional supplements such as fish oils or antioxidants to improve cell membranes that may curb Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Tumors can not only spread through the body by sending out tiny cells called seeds, but they can re-seed themselves, researchers said in a report on Thursday that may help explain why tumors grow back even after they are removed.

They said their findings, published in the journal Cell, may also help lead to the development of new drugs to stop the process of cancer spread, or metastasis.

“Circulating tumor cells can also colonize their tumors of origin, in a process that we call ‘tumor self-seeding’,” Joan Massague of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York and colleagues wrote.

“Now we have found that tumors can recapture some of their most delinquent children, enriching themselves with the most aggressive metastatic cells, enabling them to grow faster and more robustly,” Massague, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher, said in a statement.

“Now we have found that tumors can recapture some of their most delinquent children, enriching themselves with the most aggressive metastatic cells, enabling them to grow faster and more robustly,” Massague, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute researcher, said in a statement.

“Now we are thinking that in some cases, maybe treatment left inflamed tissue that had been a home for those cells that escaped and were residing somewhere temporarily, perhaps in the bone marrow,” he added.

“They may have re-entered the circulation in the weeks and months after surgery, and now, through the self-seeding process, have homed in on this tissue and reproduced the tumor.”

Massague’s team used mice, injecting them with human breast cancer cells that had been genetically engineered with a jellyfish protein to make them glow green under ultraviolet light.

They tracked these cells as they spread through the bodies of the mice.

Immune system signaling chemicals, including interleukin 6 and interleukin 8, appear to “call” the tumor cells home, Massague’s team found.

Researchers are working on cancer vaccines that could harness the immune system to attack cancer cells more effectively. This study suggests it might also be necessary to tone down some aspects of the immune system.

While an alkaline diet may help lower blood pressure, a new protein has been discovered that can help prevent hypertension.

Researchers from the University of Iowa indicated that the protein channel ASIC2 helps trigger sensors in blood vessels to keep blood pressure in check. When ASIC2 is not present in the body, the brain never receives the message that hypertension is occurring.

Study head Dr. Frank Abboud indicates that blood pressure can rise in an instant when something is making an individual frustrated or angry, and the sensors alert the brain to calm the nerve system down immediately.

It is when ASIC2 is missing from the body that blood pressure stays high all the time, which could lead to various health risks.

Abboud is hopeful that the discovery of this protein channel’s function will lead to new treatments for hypertension.

“By knowing more about what makes these sensors — known as baroreceptors — malfunction, we may be able to find ways to make them work properly and prevent high blood pressure,” Abboud said.

The study, carried out by the US Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, features in the journal Nature. The protein is one of the body’s transcription factors, which turn genes on or off and set in motion genetic cascades that control how cells grow and develop. They also help fuel the growth of tumours. The transcription factor targeted in the latest study is a protein called Notch.

The gene responsible for manufacturing the protein is often damaged or mutated in patients with a form of blood cancer known as T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL).

As a result the gene is switched on all the time, driving the uncontrolled cell growth characteristic of cancer.

Similar abnormalities in Notch also underlie other cancers, including lung, ovarian, pancreatic and gastrointestinal tumours.

Examining the structure of Notch closely, the researchers isolated a potential weak spot in its structure.

They employed a state-of-the-art technique using chemical braces to mould protein snippets called peptides into specific three dimensional shapes.

These “stapled” peptides are readily absorbed by cells, and are so tiny they can be deployed to alter gene regulation at specific sites.

After designing and testing several synthetic stapled peptides, the researchers identified one that was able to disrupt Notch’s function.

When tested in mice it was found to limit the growth of cancer cells.

Analysis showed that activity was depressed in genes both directly and indirectly controlled by Notch.

The researchers hope the technique could also be used to target other transcription factors with a similar structure.

Researcher Professor Greg Verdine said: “Stapled peptides promise to significantly expand the range of what’s considered ‘druggable’.

“With our discovery, we’ve declared open season on transcription factors and other intractable drug targets.”

Dr David Ish-Horowicz, head of developmental genetics at Cancer Research UK’s London Research Institute, described the research as “very interesting”.

He said: “There is already considerable work by scientists into ways to block Notch to try and reverse the effects of ALL, but the current drugs have some serious side-effects.

“This study describes the design of a new chemical that blocks the mechanism in a different way.

“The new chemical has only been tested in mice so far, and so we don’t know how it will behave in humans.

“But, long term, it may lead to alternative drugs and better treatments for this kind of leukaemia and maybe other cancers.”

The compound in question is glutamic acid, and according to the work conducted at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, boosting its intake may contribute to better health of the circulatory system.

The researchers analyzed data from the International Study on Macro/Micronutrients and Blood Pressure which involved 4,680 people aged between 40-59 in rural and urban populations in China, Japan, the UK and the U.S.

Increasing the consumption of protein-rich vegetables by 4.72 percent resulted in a 1.5 to 3 millimeters of mercury (mm Hg) decrease in systolic blood pressure and a 1 to 1.6 mm Hg reduction in diastolic pressure.

“It is estimated that reducing a population’s average systolic blood pressure by 2 mm Hg could cut stroke death rates by 6 percent and reduce mortality from coronary heart disease by 4 percent,” says Dr. Jeremiah Stamler, professor emeritus of the Department of Preventive Medicine in the Feinberg School.

In view of these results, the alkaline diet—which is rich in citrus fruits, vegetables, tubers, nuts and legumes—may also be beneficial for those at risk of high blood pressure.

A drug used to treat cancer can stop contractions and may prevent premature labour, researchers say.

The Newcastle University team tested the drug Trichostatin A on tissue taken from 36 women undergoing a caesarean.

The researchers said the therapy worked by increasing the levels of a protein that controls muscle relaxation.

One expert said with rates of premature births rising – there are 50,000 a year in the UK – a new treatment was badly needed.

Preterm labour and birth continue to be the single biggest cause of death in infants in the developed world and around 1,500 babies die in the UK every year.

A number of drugs are used to try to stop early labour, but most have serious side effects.

Trichostatin A (TSA) is known to promote the death of cancer cells.

The researchers got permission to take samples of the muscles of women undergoing caesarean sections at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, the Cellular and Molecular Medicine journal reported.

Contractions

They exposed the muscle to TSA and measured the effects on both spontaneous contractions and those induced by the labour drug, oxytocin.

They found an average 46% reduction in contractions for the spontaneously contracting tissue and an average 54% reduction in the oxytocin induced contractions.

It has been previously shown that a protein kinase A (PKA) is involved in controlling the relaxation of the uterus during pregnancy.

The researchers showed that TSA increased the levels of a protein sub-unit of PKA.

Professor Nick Europe-Finner, who led the research, said: “We will not give this drug to a patient because it can damage as many as 10% of the genes in a cell.

“But it does show us that other more specific agents that act on the same enzymes but only one at a time are worth investigating.”

New treatment

Dr Yolande Harley, deputy director of research at Action Medical Research which funded the study, said: “This project has uncovered some of the molecular pathways that regulate uterine contractions and so could be linked to premature birth.

“It could have a role in preventing premature birth – finding a new treatment for early labour would be a major step forward.”

Professor Jane Norman, a spokeswoman for the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (RCOG), said: “At the moment, it’s not possible to treat preterm labour effectively. We only have drugs that delay it by 24 hours or so – not enough to deliver the baby safely.

“One of the interesting things about this research is that they are using a new kind of drug – the drugs we are currently using have been around for a long time.

“And they are targeting pathways we have not known about before.

“When you consider that preterm birth rates are rising in all four countries of the UK a new more effective drug is badly needed.”

Additionally, many high protein diets are high in saturated fat and low in fiber, a combination that can increase cholesterol levels and raise the risk of heart disease and stroke.

High protein diets have also been shown to cause higher than normal calcium excretion through the urine, which over a prolonged period of time can increase the risk of osteoporosis and kidney stones. And a recent study suggests that a high protein diet may actually cause brain shrinkage and an increased “susceptibility to or progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”

The discovery was an unexpected one, found while studying the effects of different diets on mice bred to develop Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The mice were fed either a regular diet, high fat/low carb custom diet, high protein/low carb version or a high carb/low fat option. When the researchers looked at the brain and body weight of the mice, as well as plaque build-up and differences in the structure of several brain regions involved in the memory defect underlying AD, they were surprised to find that the brains of the mice fed a high protein/low carb diet were 5 percent lighter than all the others and the regions of their hippocampus were less developed.

The researchers theorize that the high protein diet may leave neurons more vulnerable to AD plaque. “High protein diets are used for weight control, and those diets sometimes combine high fat and high protein, which may be doubly damaging, if the high fat increases the accumulation of plaques and the high protein sensitizes nerve cells to the poison released by plaques,” said lead author Sam Gandy, a professor at The Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a neurologist at the James J. Peters Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New York. “Given the previously reported association of high-protein diet with aging-related neurotoxicity, one wonders whether particular diets, if ingested at particular ages, might increase susceptibility to incidence or progression of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Gandy believes the only way to know for sure if these findings have implications for the human brain is to perform prospective randomized double blind clinical diet trials. “This would be a challenging undertaking but potentially worthwhile. If there is a real chance that the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease might be slowed or avoided through healthy eating,” he said. “Such trials will be required if scientists are ever to make specific recommendations about dietary risks for Alzheimer’s disease.” Previous research has shown a Mediterranean-style low-calorie, low-fat diet rich in vegetables, fruits, and fish might delay the onset or slow the progression of AD.

AD is the most common type of dementia, affecting as many as 5.3 million Americans. Brain lesions, called amyloid plaques and tangles, accumulate, destroying brain cells, causing memory loss and problems with thinking and behavior severe enough to affect work, social life and even the ability to cope with everyday life. Over time, AD gets worse and is fatal. Currently, there is no cure for AD, but researchers around the world continue to search for better ways to treat the disease, delay its onset, or prevent it from developing.