Minnesota - May 2012 Archives

The following Mayo Clinic obesity experts are available to comment on Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ban on super-sized soft drinks in New York: ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 31, 2012.  Special echocardiograms show promise for early detection of a potentially deadly complication in rheumatoid arthritis: heart disease, Mayo Clinic research shows. The findings were being presented at The European League Against Rheumatism annual meeting in Berlin. Rheumatoid arthritis patients are at higher risk of cardiovascular disease and it is important to take steps to intervene, but the risk assessment tools physicians commonly use often underestimate the danger. VIDEO ALERT: A video interview with Sherine Gabriel, M.D., is available for journalists to download on the Mayo Clinic News Network. Myocardial strain imaging using a special type of ultrasound called speckle-tracking echocardiography can detect early abnormalities in heart function unique to rheumatoid arthritis patients, and may be an effective way to screen them for cardiovascular disease, the Mayo study found. "The challenge that we've had in our studies, and other people have had as well, is identifying patients with rheumatoid arthritis early enough so that we can intervene, before the symptoms become clinically apparent," says senior researcher Sherine Gabriel, M.D., a Mayo Clinic rheumatologist and epidemiologist. "So before they have a heart attack, before they have heart failure, so that we can identify those high-risk patients early, at a time when we can make a difference." In rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system attacks tissue, inflaming joints and sometimes affecting other organs. A recently published Mayo Clinic study found that two commonly used heart disease risk assessment tools — the Framingham and Reynolds risk scores — often underestimate the danger faced by rheumatoid arthritis patients. They are in greater danger not only of the kind of heart disease that causes heart attacks, but the type that causes heart failure, Dr. Gabriel says. Mayo Clinic is working to develop a more effective risk assessment tool, but in the meantime, the echocardiogram findings are an important step forward, she says. Researchers studied 100 rheumatoid arthritis patients with no known cardiovascular disease and 50 people without rheumatoid arthritis or heart disease, matched by age and gender. The arthritis patients' strain echocardiograms showed cardiac impairment the healthy patients didn't have. The impairment had a unique pattern that could be used to indicate heart disease before patients have clinical signs, Dr. Gabriel says. "It's potentially part of the answer," she says. "Our research team here at Mayo is working to identify better ways to predict heart disease in persons with rheumatoid arthritis, including developing better risk scores, imaging tests and perhaps better blood tests. We're also evaluating a number of immunological blood tests that could help us identify patients early, and exploring better imaging approaches like myocardial strain that can help us identify patients with RA who have heart problems as early as possible."

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 31, 2012.  High doses of the herb American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) over two months reduced cancer-related fatigue in patients more effectively than a placebo, a Mayo Clinic-led study found. Sixty percent of patients studied had breast cancer. The findings are being presented at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting. VIDEO ALERT: Audio and video resources available on Mayo Clinic News Network. Researchers studied 340 patients who had completed cancer treatment or were being treated for cancer at one of 40 community medical centers. Each day, participants received a placebo or 2,000 milligrams of ginseng administered in capsules containing pure, ground American ginseng root. "Off-the-shelf ginseng is sometimes processed using ethanol, which can give it estrogen-like properties that may be harmful to breast cancer patients," says researcher Debra Barton, Ph.D., of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center. At four weeks, the pure ginseng provided only a slight improvement in fatigue symptoms. However, at eight weeks, ginseng offered cancer patients significant improvement in general exhaustion — feelings of being "pooped," "worn out," "fatigued," "sluggish," "run-down," or "tired" — compared to the placebo group. "After eight weeks, we saw a 20-point improvement in fatigue in cancer patients, measured on a 100-point, standardized fatigue scale," Dr. Barton says. The herb had no apparent side effects, she says. Ginseng has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine as a natural energy booster. Until this study, its effects had not been tested extensively against the debilitating fatigue that occurs in up to 90 percent of cancer patients. Fatigue in cancer patients has been linked to an increase in the immune system's inflammatory cytokines as well as poorly regulated levels of the stress-hormone cortisol. Ginseng's active ingredients, called ginsenosides, have been shown in animal studies to reduce cytokines related to inflammation and help regulate cortisol levels. Dr. Barton's next study will look closely at ginseng's effects on the specific biomarkers for fatigue. "Cancer is a prolonged chronic stress experience and the effects can last 10 years beyond diagnosis and treatment," she says. "If we can help the body be better modulated throughout treatment with the use of ginseng, we may be able to prevent severe long-term fatigue."

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 30, 2012.  Mayo Clinic researchers, in collaboration with other research institutions and youth mental health experts, are publishing new guidelines for primary care providers and mental health specialists to manage the common but often complex problem of childhood aggression. The goals include improving diagnosis and care and avoiding inappropriate use of medication. The guidelines, titled "Treatment of Maladaptive Aggression in Youth," are published online this week in the journal Pediatrics. The guidelines — intended for primary care and mental health specialists — are free and publicly available via a downloadable, user-friendly toolkit. Treating and managing aggression is generally difficult, says Peter Jensen, M.D., a Mayo Clinic psychiatrist who led the development of the new guidelines. More troubling, he says, are that antipsychotics and mood-stabilizing drugs are increasingly prescribed to children on an outpatient basis to treat overt aggression, a symptom that may have multiple causes, Dr. Jensen says. "These large-scale shifts in treatment practices have occurred despite potentially troubling side effects and a lack of supportive empirical evidence," Dr. Jensen says. "With the increase in the prescription of psychotropic agents outside of FDA-approved indications, concerns have been raised over treatment decision-making, appropriate use of alternative therapies, long-term management, safety of multiple drug regimens and successful parental engagement and education." To better address this clinical need and improve outcomes for children and adolescents with maladaptive aggression, a group — including Mayo Clinic, The REACH Institute, the Center for Education and Research on Mental Health Therapeutics at Rutgers University, and 60 national experts in the fields of policy, research, advocacy and child and adolescent psychiatry — joined to achieve consensus on improving the diagnosis and treatment of aggressive children and adolescents. "The guidelines were developed to help mental health specialists and primary care clinicians work closely together in the optimal management of the all-too-common, but very difficult problem of aggression in children and youth," Dr. Jensen says.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 30, 2012.  With severe weather season now in full swing, people with disabilities must ensure they can quickly escape their homes ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 30, 2012.  Mayo Clinic researchers have identified an immune system deficiency whose presence shows someone is up to four times likelier to die than a person without it. The glitch involves an antibody molecule called a free light chain; people whose immune systems produce too much of the molecule are far more likely to die of a life-threatening illness such as cancer, diabetes and cardiac and respiratory disease than those whose bodies make normal levels. The study is published in the June issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Researchers studied blood samples from nearly 16,000 people 50 and older enrolled in a population-based study of plasma cell disorders in Olmsted County, Minn. They found that those who had the highest level of free light chains — the top 10 percent — were about four times more at risk of dying than those with lower levels. Even after accounting for differences in age, gender and kidney function, the risk of death was roughly twice as high. The study suggests that high levels of free light chains are markers of increased immune system response to infection, inflammation or some other serious disorders, says lead researcher Vincent Rajkumar, M.D., a Mayo Clinic hematologist. Researchers have known that high levels of free light chains are associated with increased risk of death among patients with plasma disorders, such as lymphomas and other blood cancers, but this is the first study to find that high levels of light chains are associated with increased mortality in the general population. Free light chain levels can be measured by using a serum free light chain assay, a simple blood test. This test is often used to monitor light chain levels in patients with plasma disorders such as myeloma to gauge how well they are responding to treatment. However, Dr. Rajkumar cautions against administering this test with the intent of gauging one's risk of death. "We do not recommend this test as a screening test, because it will only cause alarm," Dr. Rajkumar says. "We do not know why this marker is associated with higher rates of death. We do not have a way of turning things around. Therefore, I would urge caution in using this test until we figure out what to do about it and what these results mean."

Here are highlights from the online issue of Discovery's Edge, Mayo Clinic's research magazine. You may cite and link to this publication as often as ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 23, 2012.  At Mayo Clinic, the name Clifford Jack Jr., M.D., means cutting-edge imaging and Alzheimer's research. This month, he was ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 23, 2012.   Mayo Clinic today announced Heartland Health, based in St. Joseph, MO., is joining the Mayo Clinic Care Network. The ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 23, 2012.  The public is invited to enjoy four Rosemary and Meredith Willson Harmony for Mayo Program concerts in June. The ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 21, 2012.  Heart disease risk assessment tools commonly used by physicians often underestimate the cardiovascular disease danger faced by rheumatoid arthritis patients, a Mayo Clinic study has found. Inflammation plays a key role in putting those with rheumatoid arthritis in greater jeopardy for heart disease, yet many cardiovascular disease risk assessment methods do not factor it in, the researchers note. More work is needed to figure out what drives heart disease in rheumatoid arthritis patients, and more accurate tools to assess that risk should be developed, the authors say. The study is published online in The American Journal of Cardiology. In rheumatoid arthritis, the immune system attacks tissues, inflaming joints. It can also affect other parts of the body. Rheumatoid arthritis patients have a higher risk of early death than the general population, and previous research suggests cardiovascular disease is the main reason. The Mayo study gauged the accuracy of two commonly used tools for assessing heart disease danger — the Framingham and Reynolds risk scores — and found they substantially underrated cardiovascular disease danger in women and men with rheumatoid arthritis, particularly in older patients and people who test positive for rheumatoid factors, proteins produced by the immune system and often associated with rheumatoid arthritis. "This study emphasizes that patients with rheumatoid arthritis are at higher risk for heart disease, and that conventional predictors of risk are not adequate for estimating this risk. Physicians caring for patients with rheumatoid arthritis should be aware of this heightened risk even when conventional risk factors seem to indicate no increased risk, and consider measures to assess and lower CV risk in these patients," says co-author Eric Matteson, M.D., chairman of Mayo Clinic's rheumatology division. Among those studied were 525 patients over 30 who were diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis between 1988 and 2007 and had no previous history of cardiovascular disease. The study used medical records from the National Institutes of Health-funded Rochester Epidemiology Project, whose resources make Olmsted County, Minn., one of the few places in the world where researchers can examine medical data on virtually everyone in a defined geographic population to find the true frequency of certain conditions and the success of treatments. The patients' 10-year risk of developing cardiovascular disease was measured using the Framingham and Reynolds risk scores. The mean follow-up period was 8.4 years; 84 patients developed cardiovascular disease during that time. The observed heart disease risk turned out to be twice as high among women and 65 percent higher in men than the Framingham risk score predicted, and the Reynolds tool had similar shortcomings, researchers found. Patients 75 and older proved to be three times more at risk than the Framingham score indicated. Patients with positive rheumatoid factor also had more heart disease events than the risk scores predicted.

ROCHESTER, Minn. — May 21, 2012.  For the eighth year in a row, Mayo Clinic has been named an "Ideal Employer" by U.S. college students, ...