Estrogen regulates the brain’s energy metabolism in the same way as the hormone leptin, leading the way to a viable approach to tackling obesity in people resistant to leptin, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the December 31 online issue of Nature Medicine.”We found that estrogen suppresses appetite using the same pathways in the brain as the adipose hormone leptin,” said lead author Tamas L. [click link for full article]

TV Watching, Family Meals and Neighborhood Effects on Children⬔s WeightWatching television, eating family meals and the safety of the neighborhood all play a role in children⬔s weight, according to researchers at the University of Missouri.The study surveyed more than 8,000 children between kindergarten and third grade to identify eating and activity factors associated with school-age children⬔s weight. [click link for full article]

Background: Bulimia is a mental disorder frequently associated with menstrual disturbances and low estradiol levels although most bulimic women are of normal weight. Low bone mass has also been reported in these women. Furthermore, increased androgen levels and polycystic ovaries (PCO) have been described in bulimic women. Little is known about the mechanisms of these hormonal disturbances and the role of sex hormones in the etiology of the disease has not been fully explored. [click link for full article]

Data on the long-term effects of antiobesity drugs is needed so doctors can be confident that their benefits outweigh their risks, state the authors of a New Drug Classarticle in this week⬔s issue of The Lancet. The International Obesity Task Force estimates that more than 300 million individuals worldwide are obese and an additional 800 million are overweight. Antiobesity treatment is recommended for selected patients if lifestyle modification has been unsuccessful. [click link for full article]

More than 200 million children under 5 years fail to reach their potential in cognitive development because of poverty, poor health and nutrition, and deficient care, reveals the first paper in a three part Serieson child development, which begins in this week⬔s issue of The Lancet. [click link for full article]

Giving women with a certain type of breast cancer Herceptin for one year following standard chemotherapy may improve their survival, according to an Article in this week⬔s issue of The Lancet. Around 15 - 25% of women with early breast cancer have a type called HER2-receptor positive disease. Herceptin has been shown to reduce the risk of disease recurrence in women with HER2-positive early breast cancer. [click link for full article]

Persons with chronic hepatitis C being treated with Interferon (IFN) are at risk of developing retinopathy as early as two weeks into treatment according to the results of a new study published in the January 2007 issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (IOVS). [click link for full article]

The sleep problems of older people are often not addressed by their primary care physicians, even though treatment of those sleep disorders could improve their physical and mental health and enhance their quality of life.That’s the finding of new research from the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University. When patients 60 years and older visited their primary care doctors, physicians did not note sleep problems in the patients’ charts. [click link for full article]

UroToday.com- Most patients with a rising PSA following relapse after primary therapy are treated with early androgen deprivation therapy (ADT). The natural history of these men therefore is not well defined. In the online version of European Urology, Dr. Yossepowitch and colleagues from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center report that the median disease-specific survival from diagnosis of noncastrate metastases is 6.6 years. [click link for full article]

UroToday.com- In addition to prostate cancer (CaP) patients with metastatic disease, androgen-deprivation therapy (ADT) is increasingly used for patients with non-metastatic recurrent disease. This means that the long-term consequences of ADT to include bone loss are more likely. Patients on ADT may also have other risk factors for bone loss to include alcohol abuse, smoking, prior fracture or a propensity for bone trauma secondary to falling. [click link for full article]