LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Disease: Diseases
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According to an article recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, contamination of wheat with aristolochic acid - a plant toxin - may be the cause of the mysterious and deadly kidney disease called Balkan nephopathy. Despite the strong similarities between Balkan nephopathy and Chinese herb nephropathy, researchers could never prove they had the same cause - aristolochic acid - because most of the victims denied using herb supplements. Fifty years later, the mystery may have been solved by the brilliant detective work by Arthur Grollman of the University of Stony Brook. Dr. Grollan has found strong evidence suggesting that the local wheat supply is contaminated by a weed called birthwort or Aristolochia clematis, which produces the famed toxin. Assuming this is true, weeding out this plant should cure the disease.
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In the study, treatment with a second-generation antisense inhibitor of ApoB-100 for 6 weeks in mouse models of dylipidemia caused a dose-dependent reduction in all components of cholesterol commonly measured in monitoring heart disease. These animals were obese and had high cholesterol. Total cholesterol, very low density lipoprotein (VLDL), high density lipid (HDL) and low density lipid (LDL) levels were measured before, during and after treatment with ISIS 147764. As a result of treatment, a 50% reduction of total cholesterol was observed in addition to a 15% reduction in VLDL and an 88% decrease in LDL. Significant reductions in triglyceride levels were ... observed. Further, the decrease in cholesterol correlated with a decrease in both ApoB-100 protein and RNA levels in the liver, demonstrating an antisense mechanism of action.
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Etiology is the study of the cause or causes of a disease process. Although a disease may have one principal etiologic agent, it is becoming increasingly apparent that there are several factors involved in the initiation of a disease process. Susceptibility of the individual is an ever present variable. The etiologic factors can conveniently be divided into two categories (see table). One group consists of endogenous (internal; within the body) factors, and may originate from errors in the genetic material. The other category of etiologic factors is exogenous (environmental).
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Lyme disease is a bacterial illness caused by a bacterium called a "spirochete." In the United States, the actual name of the bacterium is Borrelia burgdorferi. In Europe, another bacterium, Borrelia afzelii... causes Lyme disease. Certain ticks found on deer harbor the bacterium in their stomachs. Lyme disease is spread by these ticks when they bite the skin, which permits the bacterium to infect the body. Lyme disease is not contagious from an affected person to someone else.
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White-band disease (WBD) was first identified in 1977 on reefs surrounding St. Croix. It is now known to occur throughout the Caribbean where it is believed to only affect staghorn and elkhorn corals (Green and Bruckner, 2000). This disease is characterized by tissue that peels or sloughs off the coral skeleton in a uniform band, generally beginning at the base of the colony and working its way up to branch tips (Peters, 1997). The band ranges from a few millimeters up to 10 cm wide, and tissue is lost at a rate of about 5 mm per day (Gladfelter, 1991).
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Coronary heart disease... known as coronary artery disease, is the most common form of heart disease. A condition termed arteriosclerosis, in which there is a thickening of the artery walls, or a variety of arteriosclerosis known as atherosclerosis results when fatty material, such as cholesterol, accumulates on an artery wall. This forms plaque, which obstructs blood flow. When the obstruction occurs in one of the main arteries leading to the heart, the heart does not receive enough blood and oxygen, and its muscle cells begin to die.
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