Monthly Archive for March, 2011

From Roni Caryn Rabin at The New York Times…

People at high risk of developing diabetes may be able to ward off the disease by taking the drug pioglitazone, a new study suggests, but critics say the potential side effects of the medication may outweigh the benefits for those who are still disease-free.

Pioglitazone, sold under the brand name Actos, belongs to the same class of drugs as the diabetes medication rosiglitazone, sold as Avandia, which was found to increase the risk of heart attack in patients taking it. Rosiglitazone was taken off the market in Europe, and its use is greatly restricted in the United States.

Pioglitazone is believed to be safer than rosiglitazone, but it has been linked to an increased risk of congestive heart failure, and the Food and Drug Administration is investigating a possible link to bladder cancer.

In the new study, a team led by researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio followed patients who had elevated blood sugar levels but had not yet progressed to diabetes, tracking them for just over two years on average. Those who took pioglitazone daily were significantly less likely to develop the disease than a similar group given a placebo, the team found. More…

From Gisela Telis at ScienceNOW…

A would-be mom worried about Down syndrome faces an unpleasant choice: undergo an invasive test that can kill her fetus, or forgo a definitive answer until after birth. But a new method that involves tracing differences between a mother’s DNA and her baby’s could provide doctors with a safe and inexpensive way to diagnose the condition, one practical enough to become a part of routine prenatal care.

Down syndrome is the world’s most common genetic condition, affecting about one in every 700 live births. Babies with the disorder carry an extra copy of chromosome 21, which causes cognitive disabilities, heart defects, and other problems. Although certain markers in a mother’s blood can tip off doctors that a fetus is at higher risk of Down syndrome, only invasive and expensive procedures such as amniocentesis—which requires poking a needle into the uterus to obtain a fluid sample—can give a 99% accurate answer. But these invasive tests are risky: They can cause miscarriage in 1% to 2% of cases.

In an attempt to find a safer alternative, researchers have turned to the mother’s blood. In a recent study, scientists ferreted out the fragments of fetal DNA that leak into a mother’s bloodstream and then sequenced both genomes to check for extra copies of chromosome 21. Those attempts were successful, but they were time-consuming and required specialized and expensive DNA-sequencing equipment that would put the process out of reach for most people. More…