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I can smell it in the air tonight
September 2009
TEL AVIV - Medical News Today revealed that a carbon nanosensor "electronic nose" developed by Technion-Israel Institute of Technology scientists to detect cancer from breath samples was modified to identify chronic renal failure.
The findings in ACS Nano could lead to a non-invasive and fairly inexpensive way to detect kidney diseases in their earliest and most treatable stages.
That could delay significantly disease progression to end-stage renal disease, and greatly reduce the costs tied to treatment and resulting complications.
The National Kidney Foundation figures 26 million U.S. adults have chronic kidney disease, and millions of others are at high risk.
Rising incidence and subsequent effects on healthcare could make the technology a source of great savings in private and public health sectors.
"This technology will enable diagnosis even before the disease begins to progress," said lead scientist Dr. Hossam Haick, of Technion's Faculty of Chemical Engineering and the Russell Berrie Nanotechnology Institute at the Technion.
LOS ANGELES - LiveScience.com reports a study found obese people have 8% less brain tissue than normal weight people. Their brains look 16 years older than brains of lean people, scientists say. Those overweight have 4% less brain tissue and their brains seem to have aged prematurely eight years. The results from, brain scans of 94 people in their 70s, represent "severe brain degeneration," said Paul Thompson, senior author of the study and a UCLA professor of neurology. "That's a big loss of tissue and depletes your cognitive reserves, putting you at much greater risk of Alzheimer's and other diseases that attack the brain," he said. "You can greatly reduce your risk for Alzheimer's if you can eat healthily and keep your weight under control." The findings were online at Human Brain Mapping. Obesity packs negative health effects, including higher risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and some cancers. It's been shown to reduce sexual activity. More than 300 million worldwide are obese, asserts the World Health Organization. Another billion are overweight. The main cause, experts say: bad diet, including greater reliance on highly processed foods.
BOSTON - A simple checklist that ensures everyone in the operating room is on the same page cuts errors and saves lives, scientists noted to HealthDay News. The need to improve surgery safety is vital since there are 230 million major operations globally yearly, 60 million in the U.S. The average American undergoes nine surgeries over a lifetime. "Using a surgery checklist designed for safety cuts the complication and death rate by more than a third," said lead scientist Dr. Atul Gawande, associate professor of health policy/management at the Harvard School of Public Health and a Brigham and Woman's Hospital surgeon. Dr. Gawande's team developed a one-page checklist designed to make sure all those in the O.R. share vital patient data during "timeouts": before anesthesia is started; before the first incision is made; and before the patient is removed from the O.R. While each surgery is different, there are common safety points for all of them, Dr. Gawande said. "If we miss them, people are harmed," he said. One item on the list is making sure an antibiotic is given before the first incision; this alone can reduce the risk of complications by half.
ANN ARBOR, MI - A diagnosis of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (PF) is like a death sentence: there’s no treatment; the survival rate is under three years. University of Michigan Health System scientists found that targeting a gene using genetic/pharmacologic strategies was successful in treating PF in mice and will be applied for testing in humans. Treatments attack an oxidant-generating enzyme, NOX4, scientists found is involved in the fibrotic process - which involves scar-like tissue formation in an organ such as the lung. The findings are in Nature Medicine. "We’ve identified the target. We know the enemy now," said Dr. Subramaniam Pennathur, assistant professor of internal medicine/nephrology. "This is the first study that shows (PF) is driven by this NOX4 enzyme. What’s really significant is this discovery may have relevance to fibrosis in other organ systems, not just the lung." Those suffering from common cardiac or kidney diseases, which often involve fibrosis, also may benefit from treatments stemming from this research, he said, and continued support from the National Institutes of Health will allow scientists to take the treatment to human studies.
BALTIMORE - Reuters noted severe sleep apnea raises the risk of dying early by 46%, scientists reported, but said people with milder sleep-breathing problems don’t share that risk. They said people with severe breathing disorders during sleep were more likely to die from various causes than similar people without such woes. The risks are most obvious in men 40-70, Naresh Punjabi, of Johns Hopkins University, and his team found. Sleep apnea is caused by upper airway collapse during sleep. Strong snoring can be a symptom, but what makes apnea different are numerous brief breathing interruptions. Sleep apnea is linked closely with obesity, high blood pressure, heart failure, and stroke, but scientists haven’t been able to quantify clearly how much more likely it makes a person to die. The team studied 6,400 men and women for an average of eight years. Those who started with major sleep apnea were 46% more likely to die from any cause, regardless of age, sex, race, weight, or smoking, they stated in the journal PLoS Medicine. Men 40-70 with severe sleep disordered breathing were twice as likely to die from any cause as healthy men the same age, they stated.
BOSTON - Eating whole grain breakfast cereals at least seven times a week is really good for the heart, claims HeartFailureClinicalStudy.com. An observational Physicians' Health Study revealed this eating habit is related to lower risk of heart failure. Scientists showed their findings at the American Heart Association's 47th annual conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. The cereals must have at least 25% oat or bran in them. The study noted people who usually ate a whole-grain breakfast cereal every day for breakfast were 28% less likely to have heart failure than people who never ate cereal for breakfast or at any other time of the day. The risk of heart failure fell 22% in those who ate a whole grain breakfast cereal several weekdays and 14% in people who only ate it once a week.
PITTSBURGH - The developing brain and aging brain can suffer from lead exposure. For older people, a buildup from earlier exposure may be enough to yield greater cognitive woes after 55, states a follow-up study of adults exposed to lead at work. A full report was in the journal Neuropsychology. At the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and School of Medicine, authors wrote cognitive woes were linked to cumulative exposure. They followed up on the 1982 Lead Occupational Study, which assessed cognitive abilities of 288 lead-exposed and 181 non-exposed male workers in eastern Pennsylvania. The lead-exposed workers came from three lead battery plants; the unexposed control workers made truck chassis. At both times, all workers were given the Pittsburgh Occupational Exposures Test, with measures of five primary cognitive domains: psychomotor speed, spatial function, executive function, general intelligence, and learning and memory. In 2004, this study followed up with 83 original lead-exposed workers and 51 original non-exposed workers. Among the lead-exposed workers, men with higher cumulative lead had significantly lower cognitive scores.
HOUSTON - MedPage Today noted tanning beds are in the highest-risk cancer section of radiation sources, stated the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Citing data from studies and analysis, an IARC group "raised the classification of the use of UV-emitting tanning devices to Group 1, 'carcinogenic to humans’," authors wrote in The Lancet Oncology. In a 2006 analysis, the group found people who begin using such devices before 30 have a 75% greater risk of cutaneous melanoma than the general population. The group cited studies showing "consistent evidence of (a relation) between UV-emitting tanning devices and ocular melanoma." IARC reclassified all forms of UV radiation as a single carcinogenic entity. Historically, mutations caused by exposure to solar radiation had been attributed to UVB.
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - HealthDay News noted scientists found data on how sugar "feeds" tumors. This may have results for diseases such as diabetes. "It's been known that tumor cells use a lot more glucose than normal cells. Our (study) helps show how this process takes place, and how it might be stopped to control tumor growth," Don Ayer, a researcher at the Huntsman Cancer Institute/professor in the Dept. of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah. Ayer and his team found that restricting an amino acid called glutamine halts a cell's ability to use glucose. "If you don't have glutamine, the cell is short-circuited due to a lack of glucose, which halts the growth of the tumor cell," Ayer explained. The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences relates the next step is developing animal models to test theories about how a protein called MondoA and a gene called TXNIP control glucose uptake by cells. "If we can understand that, we can break the cycle of glucose utilization, which could be beneficial in the treatment of cancer," Ayer said.
BALTIMORE - ScienceDaily disclosed scientists suggest a very close relationship with caregivers may give people with Alzheimer's disease a marked edge over those without one in retaining mind and brain function. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging, in the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and led by Johns Hopkins University and Utah State University. The beneficial effect of emotional intimacy scientists saw among participants was on par with some drugs used to treat the disease. The study - believed to be the first to show the patient-caregiver relationship may directly influence progression of Alzheimer's - was in the Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences. "We've shown the benefits of having a close caregiver, especially a spouse, may mean the difference between someone with AD staying at home or going to a nursing facility," says Dr. Constantine Lyketsos, professor in Alzheimer's Disease Research and director of the Johns Hopkins Memory and Alzheimer's Treatment Center. He cautions it remains unclear how or why this benefit was evident in the study, since the results may be due to milder forms of Alzheimer's among those who reported close relationships.
HUDDERSFIELD, ENGLAND - MedPage Today noted postpartum depression (PD) can be treated and prevented sans antidepressants, two studies showed. In the first, women who received cognitive behavioral therapy or nondirective counseling from a trained nurse or midwife after delivery were significantly less likely to have PD at six months, Dr. Jane Morrell, of the University of Huddersfield, and colleagues reported online at BMJ. In the second study, also at BMJ, mothers who received phone calls from women who had had PD were 54% less likely to develop depressive symptoms by three months than women who received normal care, said Dr. Cindy-Lee Dennis, of the University of Toronto, and her team. Both techniques may be used for treating or preventing PD in women who are wary of using antidepressants, especially during breast feeding, Dr. Dennis said. "Only by overcoming the barriers to treatment, providing comprehensive screening programs, and ensuring the delivery of appropriate and timely care will we effectively prevent and treat (PD)," she stated in an editorial. About 13% of women develop PD in the year after giving birth, but PD is undertreated because of a failure to recognize symptoms and a lack of knowledge about treatments, stated Dr. Dennis.
STOCKHOLM - Close relatives of patients with schizophrenia are at greater risk of bipolar disorder, and vice-versa, scientists told MedPage Today. The findings may help resolve ongoing debate among psychiatrists about the relationship between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. In The Lancet, Dr. Paul Lichtenstein, of the Karolinska Institute, and colleagues noted that for bipolar disorder patients, their children, and siblings there were higher relative risks for developing schizophrenia. In a study of nine million Swedes, Dr. Lichtenstein et al. found similar results among adopted-away children and siblings of schizophrenic and bipolar patients. Among paternal half-siblings of patients - but not maternal half-siblings - there were significantly higher risks, but magnitudes were attenuated. "Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder share common genetic causes," scientists said. The heritable underpinnings of the two disorders aren’t identical, they emphasized. "A considerable proportion of genetic variance isn’t in common with the other disorder, both for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder," Dr. Lichtenstein and colleagues wrote. "Thus, some genes are probably (tied to) the risk for both disorders and some with the risk for only one disorder."
NEW HAVEN, CT - Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) cuts blood flow to the brain, raises brain blood pressure, and eventually harms the brain’s ability to modulate these changes and prevent damage to itself, contends a study issued by the American Physiological Society. Findings may help explain why OSA people are more likely to suffer strokes and die asleep. OSA is the most commonly diagnosed ill amongst sleep-related breathing disorders and can lead to debilitating, sometimes fatal consequences for 18 million Americans who have it. This study, Impaired cerebral auto-regulation in obstructive sleep apnea, was done by Fred Urbano, Joseph Schindler, Francoise Roux, and Vahid Mohsenin, of the Yale University School of Medicine. It was in the Journal of Applied Physiology. During OSA episodes, the upper airway becomes blocked, hindering or stopping breathing and causing blood oxygen levels to drop and blood pressure to rise. The person eventually awakens and begins breathing, restoring normal blood oxygen and blood flow to the brain. This study found repeated surges/drops in blood pressure and blood flow during numerous OSA episodes each night reduces the brain’s ability to regulate these functions.
BALTIMORE - Johns Hopkins University and other scientists report what is said to be the first direct evidence in lab animals that the erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil boosts effects of a heart-protective protein. The findings online at the Journal of Clinical Investigation helps explain why sildenafil, known as Viagra, has shown to aid heart function and may have value in treating or preventing heart damage due to chronic high blood pressure. The key, scientists say, is sildenafil’s effects on protein RGS2, found in this study to be an essential link in reactions that initially protect the body’s main blood-pumping organ from spiraling into heart failure. Testing with mice, heart experts first noted that after a week of induced high blood pressure, the hearts of animals engineered to lack RGS2 quickly expanded in weight by 90%. Almost half the mice died of heart failure. In mice with RGS2, the dangerous muscle expansion – hypertrophy - was delayed, grew only 3%, and no mice died. Tests treating hypertensive mice with RGS2 and sildenafil showed enhanced buffering, with less hypertrophy, stronger heart muscle contraction and relaxation, and up to 10 times lower stress-related enzyme activity versus untreated counterparts. "Sildenafil clearly prolongs the protective effects of RGS2 in mouse hearts," says study senior investigator and cardiologist Dr. David Kass.
LOS ANGELES - LiveScience.com reports a study found obese people have 8% less brain tissue than normal weight people. Their brains look 16 years older than brains of lean people, scientists say. Those overweight have 4% less brain tissue and their brains seem to have aged prematurely eight years. The results from, brain scans of 94 people in their 70s, represent "severe brain degeneration," said Paul Thompson, senior author of the study and a UCLA professor of neurology. "That's a big loss of tissue and depletes your cognitive reserves, putting you at much greater risk of Alzheimer's and other diseases that attack the brain," he said. "You can greatly reduce your risk for Alzheimer's if you can eat healthily and keep your weight under control." The findings were online at Human Brain Mapping. Obesity packs negative health effects, including higher risk of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, and some cancers. It's been shown to reduce sexual activity. More than 300 million worldwide are obese, asserts the World Health Organization. Another billion are overweight. The main cause, experts say: bad diet, including greater reliance on highly processed foods.
BOSTON - A simple checklist that ensures everyone in the operating room is on the same page cuts errors and saves lives, scientists noted to HealthDay News. The need to improve surgery safety is vital since there are 230 million major operations globally yearly, 60 million in the U.S. The average American undergoes nine surgeries over a lifetime. "Using a surgery checklist designed for safety cuts the complication and death rate by more than a third," said lead scientist Dr. Atul Gawande, associate professor of health policy/management at the Harvard School of Public Health and a Brigham and Woman's Hospital surgeon. Dr. Gawande's team developed a one-page checklist designed to make sure all those in the O.R. share vital patient data during "timeouts": before anesthesia is started; before the first incision is made; and before the patient is removed from the O.R. While each surgery is different, there are common safety points for all of them, Dr. Gawande said. "If we miss them, people are harmed," he said. One item on the list is making sure an antibiotic is given before the first incision; this alone can reduce the risk of complications by half.
ANN ARBOR, MI - A diagnosis of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (PF) is like a death sentence: there’s no treatment; the survival rate is under three years. University of Michigan Health System scientists found that targeting a gene using genetic/pharmacologic strategies was successful in treating PF in mice and will be applied for testing in humans. Treatments attack an oxidant-generating enzyme, NOX4, scientists found is involved in the fibrotic process - which involves scar-like tissue formation in an organ such as the lung. The findings are in Nature Medicine. "We’ve identified the target. We know the enemy now," said Dr. Subramaniam Pennathur, assistant professor of internal medicine/nephrology. "This is the first study that shows (PF) is driven by this NOX4 enzyme. What’s really significant is this discovery may have relevance to fibrosis in other organ systems, not just the lung." Those suffering from common cardiac or kidney diseases, which often involve fibrosis, also may benefit from treatments stemming from this research, he said, and continued support from the National Institutes of Health will allow scientists to take the treatment to human studies.
BALTIMORE - Reuters noted severe sleep apnea raises the risk of dying early by 46%, scientists reported, but said people with milder sleep-breathing problems don’t share that risk. They said people with severe breathing disorders during sleep were more likely to die from various causes than similar people without such woes. The risks are most obvious in men 40-70, Naresh Punjabi, of Johns Hopkins University, and his team found. Sleep apnea is caused by upper airway collapse during sleep. Strong snoring can be a symptom, but what makes apnea different are numerous brief breathing interruptions. Sleep apnea is linked closely with obesity, high blood pressure, heart failure, and stroke, but scientists haven’t been able to quantify clearly how much more likely it makes a person to die. The team studied 6,400 men and women for an average of eight years. Those who started with major sleep apnea were 46% more likely to die from any cause, regardless of age, sex, race, weight, or smoking, they stated in the journal PLoS Medicine. Men 40-70 with severe sleep disordered breathing were twice as likely to die from any cause as healthy men the same age, they stated.
BOSTON - Eating whole grain breakfast cereals at least seven times a week is really good for the heart, claims HeartFailureClinicalStudy.com. An observational Physicians' Health Study revealed this eating habit is related to lower risk of heart failure. Scientists showed their findings at the American Heart Association's 47th annual conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention. The cereals must have at least 25% oat or bran in them. The study noted people who usually ate a whole-grain breakfast cereal every day for breakfast were 28% less likely to have heart failure than people who never ate cereal for breakfast or at any other time of the day. The risk of heart failure fell 22% in those who ate a whole grain breakfast cereal several weekdays and 14% in people who only ate it once a week.
PITTSBURGH - The developing brain and aging brain can suffer from lead exposure. For older people, a buildup from earlier exposure may be enough to yield greater cognitive woes after 55, states a follow-up study of adults exposed to lead at work. A full report was in the journal Neuropsychology. At the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health and School of Medicine, authors wrote cognitive woes were linked to cumulative exposure. They followed up on the 1982 Lead Occupational Study, which assessed cognitive abilities of 288 lead-exposed and 181 non-exposed male workers in eastern Pennsylvania. The lead-exposed workers came from three lead battery plants; the unexposed control workers made truck chassis. At both times, all workers were given the Pittsburgh Occupational Exposures Test, with measures of five primary cognitive domains: psychomotor speed, spatial function, executive function, general intelligence, and learning and memory. In 2004, this study followed up with 83 original lead-exposed workers and 51 original non-exposed workers. Among the lead-exposed workers, men with higher cumulative lead had significantly lower cognitive scores.
HOUSTON - MedPage Today noted tanning beds are in the highest-risk cancer section of radiation sources, stated the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). Citing data from studies and analysis, an IARC group "raised the classification of the use of UV-emitting tanning devices to Group 1, 'carcinogenic to humans’," authors wrote in The Lancet Oncology. In a 2006 analysis, the group found people who begin using such devices before 30 have a 75% greater risk of cutaneous melanoma than the general population. The group cited studies showing "consistent evidence of (a relation) between UV-emitting tanning devices and ocular melanoma." IARC reclassified all forms of UV radiation as a single carcinogenic entity. Historically, mutations caused by exposure to solar radiation had been attributed to UVB.
SALT LAKE CITY, UT - HealthDay News noted scientists found data on how sugar "feeds" tumors. This may have results for diseases such as diabetes. "It's been known that tumor cells use a lot more glucose than normal cells. Our (study) helps show how this process takes place, and how it might be stopped to control tumor growth," Don Ayer, a researcher at the Huntsman Cancer Institute/professor in the Dept. of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah. Ayer and his team found that restricting an amino acid called glutamine halts a cell's ability to use glucose. "If you don't have glutamine, the cell is short-circuited due to a lack of glucose, which halts the growth of the tumor cell," Ayer explained. The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences relates the next step is developing animal models to test theories about how a protein called MondoA and a gene called TXNIP control glucose uptake by cells. "If we can understand that, we can break the cycle of glucose utilization, which could be beneficial in the treatment of cancer," Ayer said.
BALTIMORE - ScienceDaily disclosed scientists suggest a very close relationship with caregivers may give people with Alzheimer's disease a marked edge over those without one in retaining mind and brain function. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging, in the U.S. National Institutes of Health, and led by Johns Hopkins University and Utah State University. The beneficial effect of emotional intimacy scientists saw among participants was on par with some drugs used to treat the disease. The study - believed to be the first to show the patient-caregiver relationship may directly influence progression of Alzheimer's - was in the Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences. "We've shown the benefits of having a close caregiver, especially a spouse, may mean the difference between someone with AD staying at home or going to a nursing facility," says Dr. Constantine Lyketsos, professor in Alzheimer's Disease Research and director of the Johns Hopkins Memory and Alzheimer's Treatment Center. He cautions it remains unclear how or why this benefit was evident in the study, since the results may be due to milder forms of Alzheimer's among those who reported close relationships.
HUDDERSFIELD, ENGLAND - MedPage Today noted postpartum depression (PD) can be treated and prevented sans antidepressants, two studies showed. In the first, women who received cognitive behavioral therapy or nondirective counseling from a trained nurse or midwife after delivery were significantly less likely to have PD at six months, Dr. Jane Morrell, of the University of Huddersfield, and colleagues reported online at BMJ. In the second study, also at BMJ, mothers who received phone calls from women who had had PD were 54% less likely to develop depressive symptoms by three months than women who received normal care, said Dr. Cindy-Lee Dennis, of the University of Toronto, and her team. Both techniques may be used for treating or preventing PD in women who are wary of using antidepressants, especially during breast feeding, Dr. Dennis said. "Only by overcoming the barriers to treatment, providing comprehensive screening programs, and ensuring the delivery of appropriate and timely care will we effectively prevent and treat (PD)," she stated in an editorial. About 13% of women develop PD in the year after giving birth, but PD is undertreated because of a failure to recognize symptoms and a lack of knowledge about treatments, stated Dr. Dennis.
STOCKHOLM - Close relatives of patients with schizophrenia are at greater risk of bipolar disorder, and vice-versa, scientists told MedPage Today. The findings may help resolve ongoing debate among psychiatrists about the relationship between bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. In The Lancet, Dr. Paul Lichtenstein, of the Karolinska Institute, and colleagues noted that for bipolar disorder patients, their children, and siblings there were higher relative risks for developing schizophrenia. In a study of nine million Swedes, Dr. Lichtenstein et al. found similar results among adopted-away children and siblings of schizophrenic and bipolar patients. Among paternal half-siblings of patients - but not maternal half-siblings - there were significantly higher risks, but magnitudes were attenuated. "Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder share common genetic causes," scientists said. The heritable underpinnings of the two disorders aren’t identical, they emphasized. "A considerable proportion of genetic variance isn’t in common with the other disorder, both for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder," Dr. Lichtenstein and colleagues wrote. "Thus, some genes are probably (tied to) the risk for both disorders and some with the risk for only one disorder."
NEW HAVEN, CT - Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) cuts blood flow to the brain, raises brain blood pressure, and eventually harms the brain’s ability to modulate these changes and prevent damage to itself, contends a study issued by the American Physiological Society. Findings may help explain why OSA people are more likely to suffer strokes and die asleep. OSA is the most commonly diagnosed ill amongst sleep-related breathing disorders and can lead to debilitating, sometimes fatal consequences for 18 million Americans who have it. This study, Impaired cerebral auto-regulation in obstructive sleep apnea, was done by Fred Urbano, Joseph Schindler, Francoise Roux, and Vahid Mohsenin, of the Yale University School of Medicine. It was in the Journal of Applied Physiology. During OSA episodes, the upper airway becomes blocked, hindering or stopping breathing and causing blood oxygen levels to drop and blood pressure to rise. The person eventually awakens and begins breathing, restoring normal blood oxygen and blood flow to the brain. This study found repeated surges/drops in blood pressure and blood flow during numerous OSA episodes each night reduces the brain’s ability to regulate these functions.
BALTIMORE - Johns Hopkins University and other scientists report what is said to be the first direct evidence in lab animals that the erectile dysfunction drug sildenafil boosts effects of a heart-protective protein. The findings online at the Journal of Clinical Investigation helps explain why sildenafil, known as Viagra, has shown to aid heart function and may have value in treating or preventing heart damage due to chronic high blood pressure. The key, scientists say, is sildenafil’s effects on protein RGS2, found in this study to be an essential link in reactions that initially protect the body’s main blood-pumping organ from spiraling into heart failure. Testing with mice, heart experts first noted that after a week of induced high blood pressure, the hearts of animals engineered to lack RGS2 quickly expanded in weight by 90%. Almost half the mice died of heart failure. In mice with RGS2, the dangerous muscle expansion – hypertrophy - was delayed, grew only 3%, and no mice died. Tests treating hypertensive mice with RGS2 and sildenafil showed enhanced buffering, with less hypertrophy, stronger heart muscle contraction and relaxation, and up to 10 times lower stress-related enzyme activity versus untreated counterparts. "Sildenafil clearly prolongs the protective effects of RGS2 in mouse hearts," says study senior investigator and cardiologist Dr. David Kass.