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A.
Using Statins to Treat Autoimmune Diseases
Narrator:
This is Science Today. New studies have found that
the inflammation reducing effects of a family of
drugs called statins could lead to a revolution
in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. Dr. Scott
Zamvil, an assistant professor of neurology at the
University of California, San Francisco, says statins
are commonly used to treat high cholesterol.
Zamvil:
There are 13 million Americans on statin drugs at
this time. It's estimated that many more fold should
actually be on these for hypercholesterolemia and
these drugs are in general very well tolerated with
risk reduction to stroke and to heart attack.
Narrator:
Zamvil recently completed a successful trial using
statins to reduce paralysis in mice infected with
a disease similar to Multiple Sclerosis.
Zamvil:
It's only the beginning of our understanding
of whether they may have some benefit in autoimmune
diseases, such as MS or insulin dependent diabetes
or rheumatoid arthritis.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Managed Care Systems Unraveling
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Researchers at the University
of California, San Francisco have determined that
the health care system of California, which led the
nation's charge into managed care, is unraveling as
private physicians abandon HMOs, IPAs and managed
care networks. Catherine Dower, a co-author of a recent
California Physicians Survey, says this trend will
negatively affect health care access.
Dower: Although over 90 percent
of the physicians in California say that they are
taking new patients, less than 60 percent said that
they are taking new HMO patients. So there's a serious
disconnect between the HMO patients and new patients
overall.
Narrator: Dower says that a major exception
is managed care group Kaiser Permanente, which has
maintained much greater allegiance among its physician
staff.
Dower:
The fact that Kaiser Permanente physicians are so
much more satisfied with their group model HMO. I
think that that's really a wake up call for some of
these managed care companies to start thinking about
how they are doing business.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
A Father's Role in Easing the Transition from Adolescence
to Adulthood
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Anyone who has a teenager living
at home knows all too well that the transition between
adolescence and adulthood is a challenging time for
both parents and teens. Child development expert Brenda
Bryant of the University of California, Davis, says
that's because teens are trying to assert their independence,
so they often ignore adults and feign rebellion.
Bryant:
But we find that at the same time that that's
going on, they also very much want the support and
backing of the parents.
Narrator:
Bryant says fathers especially can play a particular
role in their teen's development.
Bryant:
We find most professional and successful career women
have had fathers who were very important and very
involved in their life and valued what the girl was
doing from a work standpoint. So fathers play a particular
role in girl's development around achievement and
fathers play a particular role in boy's development
around their emotional life.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
Scientists Develop a Technique that Dissects the Book
of Life
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Our chromosomes are made up
of DNA and within that DNA are genes that encode the
proteins that become the working parts of the cell.
Matthew Coleman, a senior scientist at the Lawrence
Livermore National Laboratory, says trying to find
all the genes out there has been a very difficult
task.
Coleman:
Even though you hear that we've completed the
human genome, if we considered the human genome to
be a book, we've kind of found all the words in the
book but we don't exactly understand the chapters
and the paragraphs and the sentences that link it
all together that help us to understand and to read
the book.
Narrator:
So Coleman
and other scientists within the Lab's Biotechnology
Research Program have developed a sophisticated process
that identifies all the genes that belong to a specific
part of each chromosome.
Coleman:
It's
definitely a very nice technology because it overcomes
some of the slowness that was in some of the more
traditional approaches that are used.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
The Benefits of Eating Chocolate
Narrator:
This is Science Today. A recent University of California
study has found that people who ate one dark chocolate
bar a week experienced an increase in blood vessel
dilation, which is an important indicator of cardiovascular
health. Researcher Mary Engler says that's because
dark chocolate contains flavanols - a class of the
heart-healthy flavanoids found in back tea and red
wine.
Engler:There
is a difference between the dark chocolate and the
milk chocolate. Milk chocolate has milk in it and
it dilutes out the amount of flavanoids. Dark chocolate
has a higher percentage of flavanoids.
Narrator:And
surprisingly, study participants didn't raise their
cholesterol or weight by eating a dark chocolate bar,
two weeks straight.
Engler:
Chocolate has always had a bad rap because of the
high calories and the fat content, but forty percent
of the chocolate is represented as mono and saturate
fat - oleic acid - which can lower LDL, or the bad
cholesterol. The other sixty percent consists of thirty-five
percent of stearic acid, which is cholesterol neutral.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
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