UPMC research study on postpartum depression seeking local participantss

Hermitage, PA  – 3/4 Mercer County area women interested in participating in a postpartum depression research study now have the option to do so without going far from home.
        Womens Behavioral HealthCare of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, locally based at the Womancare Center of UPMC Horizon in Hermitage, is currently recruiting participants for a research study on treatment of depression after childbirth.
        The study, which has screened more than 8,000 women since 2005, is conducted by Katherine L. Wisner, MD, MS, professor of psychiatry, obstetrics, and gynecology and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and director of Womens Behavioral HealthCare.
        Postpartum depression affects one out of eight new mothers within a year of giving birth. Symptoms include loss of interest and energy, sleeping too much or too little, irritability, anxiety, feeling guilty or worthless, withdrawal from friends and family, eating too much or too little, crying, and thinking about hurting yourself or your baby.
        Women between the ages of 18 and 40 who have given birth during the past three months and have had an episode of depression qualify for the study. Participation includes contact with a staff member, either over the telephone or in person at the Womancare Center, for up to eight weeks. After the first visit, participants will be randomly assigned to receive estrogen, and antidepressant, or a placebo. Compensation is available.
        For more information about the research study, call 1-800-436-2461 or visit www.womensbehavioralhealth.org. Questions may also be directed to Laurie Joanow, research coordinator, at 724-699-2870.  Information on research studies available through UPMC Horizon can be found on the hospital web site at www.horizon.upmc.com.

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Female Reproductive Cancer Patients at West Penn Hospital Gain Local Access to National Clinical Trials

PITTSBURGH - The West Penn Allegheny Health System, Division of Gynecologic Oncology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology has established an affiliation with The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, a Parent institution in the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG).
The affiliation gives female reproductive cancer patients at West Penn Hospital local access to some of the national clinical trials sponsored by the GOG.
  The GOG receives support from the National Cancer Institute to promote excellence in research in the field of gynecologic malignancies by maintaining the highest standards in clinical trial development and execution. 
  “We are pleased to be able to offer these cutting edge clinical trials to our patients,” said Dr John Comerci, Director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, West Penn Allegheny Health System, and principal investigator for the GOG.  “Our selection as an affiliate of The Cleveland Clinic speaks to the quality of care delivered to patients treated within the West Penn Allegheny Health System (WPAHS),” added Dr Comerci. 
  The first trials at WPAHS are expected to begin this fall and involve Avastin, an antiangiogenic agent active in ovarian cancer, as well as a trial investigating intraperitoneal carboplatin and Taxol in the treatment of ovarian carcinoma.  
  The West Penn Allegheny Health System, Division of Gynecologic Oncology is dedicated to bringing gynecologic oncology services and access to state of the art clinical trials to the community with offices in Sharon, Johnstown, Upper St Clair, Canonsburg and Monroeville.   
  For additional information, contact the West Penn Hospital Division of Gynecological Oncology at 412-578-5534.

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Aging and Alzheimer’s Both Target Brain’s Key Memory Center, Pitt Study Finds

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 22 – While aging and Alzheimer’s disease for the most part shrink different areas of the brain, both cause volume reductions in one critical region: the hippocampus – the brain’s key memory and learning center. These findings by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers, published in the online issue of Neurology indicate why old age is a significant risk factor for developing dementia.
Researchers found that as healthy people and those with Alzheimer’s disease grew older, there was shrinkage in the hippocampus. But grey matter volume reduction was more pronounced among the Alzheimer’s disease group and due to more than the normal aging process.
  “Brain shrinkage of the hippocampus occurs both in normal aging and in Alzheimer’s, but this shrinkage is more dramatic in Alzheimer’s and is not a part of normal aging,” said lead investigator Cyrus A. Raji, Ph.D., who is in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program at Pitt’s School of Medicine. “With older age, shrinkage was shown in our study to affect many parts of the brain including the frontal lobes that control attention and planning. However, hippocampus volume is most reduced with aging and this may create a special vulnerability of that region to Alzheimer’s disease.” 
Using high resolution 3-D volumetric scans from more than 200 elderly subjects enrolled in the Cardiovascular Health Study-Cognition Study, the Pitt researchers studied the effects of both normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease on the brain. Researchers used advanced 2mapping methods to study what parts of the brain are affected by both normal aging and Alzheimer’s in 169 cognitively normal people who stayed normal five years after their scan and 33 people with a clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. The researchers accounted for gender, race and education.
  “This study is a first step. We now need to understand why the unique factors with older age are causing brain shrinkage,” added study co-author Oscar L. Lopez, M.D., professor of neurology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “If we can identify those factors, we may be able to reduce the risk for Alzheimer’s disease in the future.”
Co-authors of the study include Lewis H. Kuller, M.D., Dr.P.H., distinguished professor, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and James T. Becker, Ph.D., professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; and Owen Carmichael, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Neurology, University of California Davis.
  Funding for this research is provided by the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
This study, “Age, Alzheimer Disease, and Brain Structure” will appear in the Dec. 1 print issue of Neurology.
 

About the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
As one of the nation’s leading academic centers for biomedical research, the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine integrates advanced technology with basic science across a broad range of disciplines in a continuous quest to harness the power of new knowledge and improve the human condition. Driven mainly by the School of Medicine and its affiliates, Pitt has ranked among the top 10 recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health since 1997 and now ranks fifth in the nation, according to preliminary data for fiscal year 2008. Likewise, the School of Medicine is equally committed to advancing the quality and strength of its medical and graduate education programs, for which it is recognized as an innovative leader, and to training highly skilled, compassionate clinicians and creative scientists well-equipped to engage in world-class research. The School of Medicine is the academic partner of UPMC, which has collaborated with the University to raise the standard of medical excellence in Pittsburgh and to position health care as a driving force behind the region’s economy. For more information about the School of Medicine, see www.medschool.pitt.edu.

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Moms Who Breastfeed Less Likely to Develop Heart Attacks or Strokes

The longer women breastfeed, the lower their risk of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular disease, report University of Pittsburgh researchers in a study published in the May issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
“Heart disease is the leading cause of death for women, so it’s vitally important for us to know what we can do to protect20ourselves,” said Eleanor Bimla Schwarz, M.D., M.S., assistant professor of medicine, epidemiology, and obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh. “We have known for years that breastfeeding is important for babies’ health; we now know that it is important for mothers’ health as well.”
According to the study, postmenopausal women who breastfed for at least one month had lower rates of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, all known to cause heart disease. Women who had breastfed their babies for more than a year were 10 percent less likely to have had a heart attack, stroke, or developed heart disease than women who had never breastfed.
Dr. Schwarz and colleagues found that the benefits f rom breastfeeding were long-term? an average of 35 years had passed since women enrolled in the study had last breastfed an infant.
“The longer a mother nurses her baby, the better for both of them,” Dr. Schwarz pointed out. “Our study provides another good reason for workplace policies to encourage women to breastfeed their infants.”
The findings are based on 139,681 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative study of chronic disease, initiated in 1994.
Co-authors of the study include Roberta Ray, M.S., Fred Hutchinson Research Center; Alison Stuebe, M.D., University of North Carolina School of Medicine; Matthew Allison, M.D., University of California, San Diego; Roberta Ness, M.D., M.P.H., University of Texas; Matthew Freiberg, M.D., University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; and Jane Cauley, Dr.P.H., University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health.
The research was funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health’s National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Institute of Child Health and Development.

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Glass Half Full? Optimists Live Longer, According to University of Pittsburgh Study

In a large study of post-menopausal women, optimists had decreased rates of death and were less likely to be hypertensive, diabetic and smokers than pessimists, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. In addition, women identified as highly mistrustful of other people had increased rates of death when compared to their less “cynically hostile” counterparts.
The study, led by Hilary Tindle, M.D., M.P.H., assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Internal Medicine, analyzed data from nearly 100,000 women in the Women’s Health Initiative, a National Institutes of Health-funded study that has followed women ages 50 and over since1994, with follow-up ongoing.
Optimism was defined as the expectation that good, rather than bad, things will happen. Female optimists in the group surveyed had a decreased rate of death and were 30 percent less likely to die from coronary heart disease than pessimists. Those identified as being more cynically hostile had a higher rate of death and were 23 percent more likely to die from a cancer-related condition.
For the study, optimism and cynical hostility were not directly compared. Rather, optimists were compared to pessimists, while women with a high degree of cynical hostility were compared to those with a low degree of cynical hostility.

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Pitt Researchers Identify Protein That Plays Key Role in Pulmonary Emphysema Development

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine are blazing a trail down a molecular pathway that could lead to new treatments, and perhaps even prevention strategies, for the lung disease emphysema.
Their new study indicates that blocking the activity of a structural protein called caveolin-1 stops free radical-induced aging and damage of fibroblasts, a kind of lung cell, in an animal model of emphysema.
Emphysema typically occurs after long periods of cigarette smoking. Toxins in the smoke destroy the walls of the alveoli, the tiny air-filled sacs in lung tissue where oxygen exchange happens, impairing lung function and ultimately leading to death due to respiratory failure.
“It was thought that smoking-induced lung inflammation was the main reason for destruction of alveoli,” said senior investigator Ferruccio Galbiati, Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacology and chemical biology at the Pitt School of Medicine. “Our findings in dicate that the free radicals or oxidants produced by smoking accelerate the aging of lung fibroblasts, which may contribute to the pathogenesis of emphysema.”
Cells cannot replicate forever, he explained. After a certain number of divisions, the cycle stops due to a cellular aging process called senescence. Oxidative stress, meaning increased production of free radicals, can induce that process prematurely.

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Immune Cells From Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis Have Prematurely Aged Chromosomes

Telomeres, structures that cap the ends of cells’ chromosomes, grow shorter with each round of cell division unless a specialized enzyme replenishes them. Maintaining telomeres is thought to be important for healthy aging and cancer prevention.
By this measure, T cells, or white blood cells, from patients with the autoimmune disease rheumatoid arthritis are worn out and prematurely aged, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered.
Compared with cells from healthy people, T cells from patients with rheumatoid arthritis have trouble turning on the enzyme that replenishes telomeres, they found. Reversing this defect could possibly help people prone to the disease maintain a balanced immune system.
The results are published online in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Pitt Study of Pregnant Women Shows Antidepressants, Depression May Raise Risk of Premature Birth

Pregnant women who had untreated major depression in all three trimesters of pregnancy, as well as those who took certain antidepressants, had preterm birth rates exceeding 20 percent, according to a study by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers published in the March issue of American Journal of Psychiatry.
Approximately 10-to-20 percent of women struggle with symptoms of major depression during their pregnancies, but treating it can be complicated. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants are usually the first line of depression treatment, but can lead to unwanted outcomes such as preterm births if used continuously throughout pregnancy, the findings suggest.
“It is well-known that the prevalence of depression in women is highest during the childbearing years, and treating the symptoms with SSRIs is a common medical therapy,” said Katherine L. Wisner, M.D., M.S., director of the Women’s Behavioral HealthCARE program at Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic of UPMC, associate investigator at Magee-Womens Research Institute, and professor of psychiatry, obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences and epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “However, given the similarity in outcomes we found for continuous SSRI treatment and continuous depression, it is possible that underlying depressive disorder is a factor in preterm birth among women taking SSRIs.”

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Prostate Cancer Screenings Don’t Cut Death Rates, Nationwide Study Finds

Annual screenings for prostate cancer led to more diagnoses of the disease, but no fewer prostate cancer deaths, according to a major new report from the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial. The University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) is one of 10 sites that enrolled participants into the PLCO, which was designed to assess the effectiveness of prostate cancer screening.
“Prostate cancer screening in the trial increased detection of early prostate cancer,” said Joel L. Weissfeld, M.D., M.P.H., principal investigator for the UPCI PLCO Cancer Screening Center. “However, over the first seven to 10 years of follow-up, we have not yet seen a corresponding decrease in deaths from prostate cancer.”
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, whose recommendations are considered the gold standard for clinical preventive services, recently concluded that there is insufficient evidence to assess the balance of benefits and harms of prostate cancer screening in men younger than 75 and recommended against prostate cancer screening in men ages 75 and older.

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Changes in Gene May Stunt Lung Development in Children

Mutations in a gene may cause poor lung development in children, making them more vulnerable to diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) later in life, say researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and the German Research Center for Environmental Health. Their study, published online in Physiological Genomics, measured expression levels of the gene and its variants in both mouse lungs and children ages 9 to 11.
Study authors, led by George Leikauf, Ph.D., professor of occupational and environmental health at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, and Holger Schulz, M.D., professor of medicine at the Institute of Lung Biology and Disease, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Munich, focused on a gene called superoxide dismutase 3 (SOD3), previously shown to protect the lungs from the effects of asbestos and oxidative stress.
“People lose lung function as they age, so it’s important to identify possible genetic targets that control healthy development of the lungs during childhood,” said Dr. Leikauf.
Drs. Leikauf, Schulz and colleagues compared SOD3 expression levels in strains of mice with poor lung function to one with more efficient airways and lungs two times the size. As with people, the lungs of mice fully form as they mature to adulthood. The better-functioning strain maintained higher levels of SOD3 – levels in these mice were four times higher at the final stage of lung development. They also found the presence of single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, variations in DNA sequences, in SOD3 that were linked to lung function in mice.

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Coronary Angiography May Improve Outcomes for Cardiac Arrest Patients, Pitt Study Finds

People who suffer cardiac arrests and then receive coronary angiography are twice as likely to survive without significant brain damage compared with those who don’t have the procedure, according to a study by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers. The study showed that patient outcomes improved with coronary angiography, an imaging procedure that shows how blood flows through the heart, regardless of certain clinical and demographic factors that influenced who received the procedure. “Given the low odds of survival – about 6 percent – for patients who suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests, it’s important to understand which treatments might make a difference in these dismal outcomes,” noted Jon C. Rittenberger, M.D., corresponding author of the study and an assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. The importance of prompt coronary angiography is well-established for cardiac arrest patients presenting with certain types of heart problems, Dr. Rittenberger noted. “But our study, which shows that angiography is independently associated with good neurologic outcomes, suggests that clinicians should consider the procedure for all post-cardiac arrest patients,” he added.

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Researchers Study for Signs
of Early Detection of Autism

By Kathleen Ganster-Sauers

Like many babies, the 11- month- old is closely watching Mr. Rogers on TV. But unlike many babies, this one is being studied while she watches.
The infant is part of a research study by two University of Pittsburgh professors. Drs. Jana Iverson and Mark Strauss are researching infants to detect early signs of autism. “We are trying to identify autism in infants under the age of 2,” said Dr. Iverson, “There is a gap between the times that parents notice things might be wrong to the time that autism can be reliably diagnosed. We are trying to tighten that gap.”
According to Dr. Iverson, early diagnosis is important for early intervention. Experts believe the earlier the intervention is offered to the children, the more progress can be made with the children.
While the two researchers share common goals and their studies overlap, they both also have their own studies. Dr. Strauss’ research focuses on the early development of perceptual and cognitive abilities including how children learn about faces and categories, while Dr. Iverson’s research focuses on early motor and vocal development in infants.
The baby mentioned above is taking part in Dr. Mark Strauss’ research. “We follow the eye movement as we watch how the babies react to different pictures and videos. They will watch video clips of Mr. Rogers and we watch as they move their eyes to look at him and how he interacts with the other people on the program,” he said.
According to Dr. Strauss, there is evidence that shows babies with autism react differently. “For example, they will look at one object, and focus just on that one object, while other babies will follow the interaction of the people.”
Dr. Strauss’ research takes place in the Infant and Toddler Development Center laboratory at Pitt, but Dr. Iverson takes her research studies on the road. “We go into the babies’ homes so that we can see them in their natural settings. We want to try to catch them in their everyday behavior,” she said.
In her research, Dr. Iverson watches differences in developmental issues including playing, movement such as crawling and walking, and interaction with family members beginning when infants are 5 months old. “There is very general delay in children with autism, delays in their motor skills, their social skills, big delays in their communication skills. These are all factors we look at,” she said.
Dr. Strauss begins his research as early as six months. “It is our hope to identify signs that the babies have symptoms of autism as early as possible.” he said.
Both researchers are currently researching younger siblings of children already diagnosed with autism. “These are infants who are known to have high-risk factors. It is the easiest method to identify children that may have autism,” explained Dr. Iverson.
The projects are both funded separately by NIH, but there is some collaboration between the two researchers and their studies. Dr. Iverson said, “We were originally funded by Autism Speaks but we had enough positive results that we are now funded by the National Institute of Health.
Due to the limited nature of identifying infants for the studies, both researchers are constantly looking for more infants to participate. “We would love to have more infants in our studies. We need to do more research,” said Dr. Iverson.
According to Dr. Strauss, the Pitt researchers are one of only five research sites funded by NIH as an “Autism Center of Excellence.”

Pittsburgh Early Autism Study
Dr. Iverson and Dr. Strauss are currently recruiting infants for the Pittsburgh Early Autism Study. According to Stacey Becker, project coordinator for the infant research program, the researchers are studying infants who have an older sibling diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to look for infant behaviors that may predict a later ASD diagnosis.
Infants may be part of the “How Babies Communicate” study directed by Dr. Jana Iverson, the “How Babies Develop Intellectually” study directed by Dr. Mark Strauss, or both.
For more information about Dr. Iverson and Dr. Strauss’ research or to participate in the studies, please contact the NIH Autism Center of Excellence at (412) 246-5485 or 1-866-647-3436 or by e-mail at autismrecruiter@upmc.edu or www.pitt.edu/~peas.

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Happily Married Women Have Less Trouble Sleeping, Pitt Study Finds

It is no secret that a good night’s sleep can lead to a well-balanced and healthy lifestyle, but the age-old question of how to get a decent eight hours still remains. However, a University of Pittsburgh study finds that a happy marriage can lead to a better night’s sleep for women. The findings are reported in the current issue of Behavioral Sleep Medicine.
The Pitt study finds that women who believe they have happy marriages reported less difficulty falling asleep, less likelihood of waking up during the night or too early in the morning and less restless sleep compared to women who report less happiness in their marriages.
The study examined the association between marital happiness and sleep disturbances in multiple ethnic groups of married or partnered women. Researchers found that Caucasian and African-American women had more sleep complaints than the Japanese, Hispanic and Chinese women. Caucasian and Japanese women reported the highest marital happiness.
In assessing the effects of marital happiness on sleep, the researchers took into account many other factors that might contribute to sleeplessness, such as a woman’s social support network, depressive symptoms, economic hardship and employment status, alcohol and caffeine consumption, presence of children in the home, sexual activity, age and hormonal status. The results showed that even after taking into account all of these factors that are known to influence sleep, the level of marital happiness emerged as an independent risk factor for the existence of sleep disturbances.

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Fruits and Vegetables in Cancer Prevention and Treatment

Relatively recently, researchers have become keenly interested in exploring which food compounds are beneficial in treating and preventing serious diseases such as cancer and osteoporosis.
Omer Kucuk, M.D., is one of those researchers. Kucuk, a professor of hematology and medical oncology at Emory Winship Cancer Institute, studies specific food compounds and their effect on cancer prevention and treatment. Evidence indicates that some food compounds, such as soy isoflavones and curcumin, can increase the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
Kucuk conducted the first clinical trials to show the benefits of soy and lycopene supplements in pros tate cancer treatment.
“In our preclinical studies we have observed that taking soy isoflavones during chemotherapy and radiation for advanced prostate cancer can improve the efficacy of the treatments," says Kucuk. “The compounds sensitize the cancer cells to chemotherapy and radiation while at the same time they protect the normal tissues from side effects.”
Most nutritional compounds used for therapy or disease prevention can be taken as part of a routine diet and have little if any side effects, Kucuk says. “People can get enough lycopene by eating tomato paste and tomato sauce, which is very rich in lycopene. So, if people ate a couple of ounces of tomato paste a day as part of a regular diet, they would eat enough to get all the benefits,” he says.
Kucuk and his colleagues are currently exploring how soy isoflavones make chemotherapy and radiation more effective. “These are pleiotropic agents. That means they affect multiple pathways in cancer cells as well as other cells,” Kucuk says. “This is actually good, because a lot of the drugs that are developed target one pathway, and they’re usually very toxic. But because nontoxic nutritional compounds work with multiple pathways they have mild side effects making them very attractive for treatment.”.

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Teens Girls Smoke Now, Pay Later With Larger Waistlines As Adults

Girls who smoke 10 cigarettes per day or more are at greatest risk, particularly for abdominal obesity. Their waist sizes are 1.34 inches larger than nonsmokers' waists are as young adults, according to the study in the February 2009 issue of the American Journal of Public Health.
But smoking in adolescence did not necessarily predict weight problems for men, according to the study.
Scientists know a correlation exists between women's weight and smoking, said lead study author Suoma Saarni, a researcher with the Department of Public Health in Helsinki.
However, she added, "We do not know why smoking did not affect men's weight, as we do not know why smoking affected women's weight."
The study followed twins born between 1975 and 1979 with questionnaires mailed shortly after their 16th birthdays. Researchers collected more data on the 2,278 women and 2,018 men when the twins were in their 20s.
Scientists looked at twins to take into account familial or genetic factors affecting smoking and weight gain, Saarni said. Half of the participants had never smoked, and 12 percent were former smokers in adolescence. About 15.5 percent of men and 9.4 percent of women smoked at least 10 cigarettes daily.
By the time participants reached their 20s, weight problems became evident. By age 24, roughly 24 percent of men and 11 percent of women were overweight. However, male smokers were not necessarily more prone to become overweight than nonsmokers.
The young women who smoked more than 10 cigarettes per day were 2.32 times more likely to become overweight than nonsmokers, according to the study.
The difference could be either biological or cultural, Saarni said. Biologically, it might be that tobacco and gender specific hormones interact differently in girls and boys in ways that affect appetite and fat20distribution.

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New Genetic Markers for Ulcerative Colitis Identified

An international team led by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers has identified genetic markers associated with risk for ulcerative colitis. The findings, which appear as an advance online publication of the journal Nature Genetics, bring researchers closer to understanding the biological pathways involved in the disease and may lead to the development of new treatments that specifically target them.
“Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are chronic conditions that impact the day-to-day lives of patients,” said senior author of the study Richard H. Duerr, M.D., associate professor of medicine and human genetics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and Graduate School of Public Health. “IBD is most often diagnosed in the teenage years or early adulthood. While patients usually don’t die from IBD, affected individuals live with its debilitating symptoms during the most productive years of their lives.”

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Ginkgo Biloba Does Not Reduce Dementia Risk

The medicinal herb Ginkgo biloba does not reduce the risk of dementia or Alzheimer’s disease development in either the healthy elderly or those with mild cognitive impairment, according to a large multicenter trial led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
Findings from the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) Study, which is the first to have the necessary participant numbers and monitoring years to enable measurement of G. biloba’s effectiveness and safety profile in dementia prevention, were recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“Despite early indications that Ginkgo biloba has antioxidant and other properties that might preserve memory, this trial shows that, in fact, it has no impact on development of dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease,” said Steven T. DeKosky, M.D., principal investigator of the multi-center trial. Dr. DeKosky was director of the University of Pittsburgh Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center and Chair of the Department of Neurology at the time the study was conducted. He now is Vice President and Dean of the University of Virginia School of Medicine. G. biloba didn’t affect the rate of coronary heart disease or stroke, either, the researchers found.
It’s possible that an effect would have been observed, if the study had gone on longer, because it takes many years to progress from initial brain changes to clinical dementia, Dr. DeKosky noted. Therefore, the research team intends to conduct a follow-up analysis of brain function and structure in a subset of participants using magnetic resonance imaging.

Do you have asthma?

If so, you could help us improve the quality of life of other patients suffering from this condition. The Asthma Institute at the University of Pittsburgh needs people ages 18 and up to participate in various research studies on asthma. You may be eligible to participate in research studies and receive study related medications and/or medical evaluations specific to asthma. If you quality, you may be compensated for your time and travel.
For more information, call 1-866-804-5278. 

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