Medical Breakthroughs

Top 5 medical breakthroughs for women 2008

1. Obesity
Controlling appetite with leptin

The hot world in obesity this year was leptin. When a connection between this hormone and weight loss was first discovered in 1994, researchers helped fat, overfed lab mice stay slim. And they believed they could do with people what they did with mice: Inject some leptin, and kiss pounds good-bye. Humans, it turned out, were more complicated. When they lost weight their bodies became stingier with calories consumed and more efficient in retaining existing weight. Not willing to give up on leptin, scientists at Colombia Univeristy Medical Center in New York City Started looking at the hormone as a possible weight-loss-maintenance drug. They discovered through scans that brain activity areas connected to restraint and control declines after weight loss.

2. Alzheimer’s
New research for brain diseases

Scientists in England this spring won permission from British medical authorities to create new embryos called cytoplasmic hybrids, eggs from rabbits or cows that have had their nuclei replaced with human genetic code. No Frankenstein’s at work here: The goal is to produce stem cells that will help determine the causes of an find treatments for incurable and debilitating conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

3. Smarter Sweets
More reasons to eat chocolate

We know that dark chocolate cocoa powder has up to three times the anti-oxidants found in green tea, plus twice the antioxidants in red wine; that’s good for your heart. And studies have shown that dark chocolate’s polyphenols affect serotonin levels in the brain; that’ll boost your mood. But this year dark chocolate has gained even more favor in medical circles. In one study, heart-transplant patients showed a decreased risk of clogged arteries two hours after consuming 40 grams of dark chocolate. In another, researchers found that subjects who ate a 22 gram CocoaVia dark chocolate bar daily for two months lowered their blood pressure and cholesterol levels. And investigation is underway o see if dark chocolate can be used to decrease PMS symptoms. Sweet news for us all.

4. Sleep
How too little hurts women’s hearts

Talk about alarm clocks: After studying both women and men who have trouble sleeping. Researchers this spring discovered new links between sleep deprivation and the risk of heart attack. In particular, they learned why sleep problems had more of an impact on female hearts that they had on the cardio systems of men. Turns our women may be more prone to long-term inflammation in their bloodstreams, which results in increased risks of both heart disease and diabetes. In fact, “women who reported taking a half-hour or longer to fall asleep showed the worst risk profile” lead researcher Edward Suarez, PhD, explains.
In the sleep trials, Suarez and his colleagues found higher levels of three important signals in the bloodstreams of poor sleepers: C-reactive protein and interleukin-6, both of which are associated with inflammation in numerous tissues, and fibrinogen, a protein that’s associated with heart disease. The study is preliminary but notable because it focused on sleep, disease triggers, and gender.

5. Liposuction
Using Fat to fight disease

Fat on your belly or thighs? Rarely considered a valuable thing…until now. The America Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS) announced this summer that, compared with fat in other areas the body, belly and inner-thigh fat contain tissue with higher concentrations of stem cells. Surgeons and researchers hope to use the tissue to build stem cell lines and drugs that might one day treat diabetes, spinal cord injuries, or severe brain diseases. “Adult stem cells, derived from our own tissues, hold strong promise for improved clinical therapies,” says J. Peter Rubin, MD, a member of the ASPS fat Grafting Task Force and co-director of the Adipose Stem Cell Center at the University of Pittsburgh.