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Local Food Environments Can Lead To Obesity
Living in an area with more fast food outlets and convenience stores than supermarkets and grocers has been associated with obesity in a Canadian study. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Public Health have shown that your local food environment can affect your weight.
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Heart Attack Damage May Be Reduced By New Drug
A new drug that targets a master disease-causing gene can dramatically reduce heart muscle damage after a heart attack and may lead to significantly improved patient outcomes, UNSW researchers have shown.
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California Primary Care Physician Shortage Affecting Clinics That Serve Minority Populations
A shortage of primary care physicians in California "is driving community clinics to find innovate ways" to provide care to an increasingly linguistically and culturally diverse patient population, New America Media reports. According to New America Media, primary care physicians are in short supply nationwide because many medical students are pursuing more lucrative specialty fields that have higher reimbursement rates. Marty Lynch -- executive director of LifeLong Medical Care, a not-for-profit primary health care facility that operates nine health centers in Berkeley, Oakland and Marin County -- said he has tried unsuccessfully to hire minority primary care physicians and nurses. Lynch said it is "very difficult to find primary care providers" to provide care for minorities. Meanwhile, the demand for health services is on the rise, Jane Garcia, CEO of La Clinica de la Raza, said. The clinic has provided health services in the Bay Area at 27 satellite clinics for 38 years.The clinic for the last two years has partnered with neighboring community colleges to train medical assistants to work at their clinics to meet demand for diverse staff. "We"re training our own community members," Garcia said. She added that in the current economy, the "silver lining" is that "health care is one of the few sectors that more people will be choosing careers in" (Sundaram, New America Media, 5/18).
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Repeated Stress Signals Made In Cells With Metabolism-Associated Disease Encourage The Growth Of Invading Bacteria

Mitochondrial diseases disrupt the power generating machinery within cells and increase a person"s susceptibility to bacterial infection, particularly in the lungs or respiratory tract. A new study published in Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), shows that infection with the pneumonia causing bacteria Legionella, is facilitated by an increased amount of a signaling protein that is associated with mitochondrial disease. Patients with mitochondrial disease exhibit a wide range of symptoms including diabetes, blindness, deafness, stroke-like episodes, epilepsy, ataxia, muscle weakness and kidney disease. The metabolic abnormalities that cause these effects also induce a stress signal intended to help the body overcome its energy deficit. The stress-signal induces the production of more mitochondria, the energy generating "powerplants" of the body, in the hopes that more mitochondria will result in a better power supply. Researchers now show that the stress-signal associated with mitochondrial disease facilitates the growth and reproduction of the lung-infecting bacteria, Legionella. Cells with mitochondrial disease increase their production of a signaling protein called AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), to promote the generation of more energy producing mitochondria. Infectious bacteria, like Legionella, target the mitochondria and might use them to supplement their own needs and survival requirements. By manipulating AMPK levels, scientists were able to directly influence the ability of bacteria to replicate inside of the single-celled organism, Dictyostelium. Striking similarities that exist between simple organisms like Dictyostelium and humans allow scientists to use them to understand human disease. Dictyostelium is a free-living amoeba whose rapid movements make it useful to study motility and energy regulation, and in this case, the association between energy regulation and susceptibility to infection. Like humans, Dictyostelium can be infected by Legionella and quickly responds by producing a host of metabolism-associated proteins. Another similarity between humans and Dictyostelium is that both use AMPK as an internal sensor to coordinate energy synthesis with energy needs. However, unlike humans, researchers can infect Dictyostelium with germs like Legionella in a controlled environment and determine the influence of various parameters on the course of infection. The report titled "Legionella pneumophila multiplication is enhanced by chronic AMPK signalling in mitochondrially diseased cells" was written by Lisa Francione, Paige K. Smith, Sandra L. Accari, Paul B. Bokko and Paul Fisher at La Trobe Univeristy in Australia, Salvatore Bozzaro at University of Turin in Italy and Phillip E Taylor and Peter L. Beech at Deakin University in Australia. The study is published in the September/October 2009 issue of the new research journal, Disease Models & Mechanisms (DMM), published by The Company of Biologists, a non-profit based in Cambridge, UK. Kristy Kain The Company of Biologists


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