Healing Connections

Sex after 70 is better than ever, according to a group of Swedish researchers. Contrary to popular belief, there are an increasing number of people age 70 and older that are having good quality sex more often, with senior women particularly satisfied with their sex lives.

Nils Beckman and colleagues from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden studied four groups of men and women totaling more than 1,500 people aged 70 and older about their attitude toward sex later in life. Study participants were surveyed in the periods of 1971-1972, 1975-1977, 1992-1993 and 2000-2001 regarding information about their sex lives such as sexual dysfunction, marital satisfaction, and sexual activity.

Participants who reported having sex within the past year were considered sexually active and more seniors interviewed in the latest survey were reporting being sexually active and having a happy relationship with a positive attitude toward sex compared those interviewed in earlier surveys. According to Beckman and his colleagues, “Most elderly people consider sexual activity and associated feelings a natural part of later life.”

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Could the silent killer in babies, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS), be caused by an imbalance of serotonin in the brain? New research in mice has pointed to this new clue, where imbalanced serotonin, a chemical mainly known to balance one’s mood, has lead to death in mice.

The new study, conducted by the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, has indicated that serotonin may lend clues to the cause of SIDS. During the study, Cornelius Gross, Ph.D., and others used engineered mice, with very low serotonin levels, and found that the changes in the brain could result in death. Over half of the mice used during the study, suddenly died before they were 3 months old. Before they died, many experienced erratic episodes of their heart rate dropping, and within 10 minutes their body temperature also dropped. Gross reported that the mice would either die during these episodes or afterward. While researchers caution that the exact defects in the mice are not the same as those in babies, the heart and temperature problems in the mice were similar to the problems found in the babies studied in the limited research, noted Dr. Marian Willinger, of Children’s Hospital Boston.

Serotonin plays an important role in depression, anger, the regulation of body temperature, breathing, a person’s disposition, arousal from sleep, sexuality, appetite, heart rate, and can cause vomiting. While the new study isn’t the first to point to serotonin as a link to the cause of SIDS, thus study helps to show that researchers are on the right track for possible causes, cures and treatments.

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A new report published in the open-access journal PLoS Biology examines the effect that light has on humans and animals. Most of us are familiar with how light affects the growth and development of plants (phototropism, for example, describes how plants grow towards light), but researcher Nathalie Hoang and colleagues set out to explore light’s impact on humans and mammals.

Plants have photoreceptor proteins called cryptochromes that take in blue light to help the plant grow and develop seedlings. Cryptochromes are also present in mammals, and the researchers studied those found in flies, mice, and humans. In humans, cryptochromes have been shown to have an effect on regulating the circadian clock (the 24 hour cycle of biochemical, physiological or behavioral processes), but we still do not know much about exactly how these cryptochromes operate.

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An international group of scientists found that a new gene called calcium homeostasis modulator 1 (CALHM1), with a previously unknown function, is linked to late-onset Alzheimer’s Disease making this the second discovery of a strong genetic risk factor for the disease.

The study was the work of researchers from the US, France, Italy, UK, and Australia, led by Dr Philippe Marambaud of The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Manhasset, New York, and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, and is published online in the June 27 issue of the journal Cell.

Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the build up of senile plaques made of amyloid-beta peptides and a massive loss of neurons or brain cells.

The early-onset form of Alzheimer’s is thought to be linked to a few dominant gene mutations, but the vast majority of late-onset cases are believed to stem from complex interactions of genes and environment factors.

The study reports that CALHM1 is active mostly in a calcium channel in part of the brain that is affected early in the development of Alzheimer’s. The researchers discovered that variants of CALHM1 influence levels of calcium, amyloid-beta peptides, and susceptibility to the disease.

This study coincides with the publication of another paper in the 26th June issue of a sister journal Neuron, where scientists report finding an imbalance of calcium in early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease that is linked to a calcium release ion channel.

Marambaud said in a statement that:

“We are very excited about the idea that CALHM1 could be an important target for anti-amyloid therapy in Alzheimer’s disease.”

He said because CALHM1 is restricted to the brain, drugs that target it would most likely have fewer side effects, which is a big question mark with drugs that are currently being trialled because these target enzymes involved in production of amyloid-beta peptides, and these enzymes are also present in other parts of the body.

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Sudden hearing loss could be a warning sign of increased stroke risk, Taiwanese research suggests.

People hospitalised for sudden hearing loss had more strokes in the following five years than otherwise healthy appendicitis patients.

The article, in the journal Stroke, suggested no reason why the hearing problem could be linked to strokes.

UK stroke specialist Dr Tony Rudd, of Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, described it as “an unusual” finding.

There are dozens of reasons, including some illnesses, such as mumps, measles, and meningitis, why someone might suffer sudden hearing loss.

The suggestion of the research, which looked at 1,423 patients taken to hospital after losing their hearing, is that it could be a sign that the person has a far higher chance of stroke even some years afterwards.

The hearing loss patients were compared with 5,692 patients taken into hospital for appendix removal - chosen because among hospitalised patients, they best represent the healthy population outside.

The researchers found that after hearing loss, they were one-and-a-half times more likely to have a stroke in the five subsequent years.

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The Forsyth Institute has launched a new one-of-a-kind service for the research community. The Forsyth Microbial Identification Microarray Service (MIM) enables the rapid identification of bacterial species in clinical samples. The first service offering, Human Oral Microbe Identification Microarray (HOMIM), will focus on detection of bacterial profiles from the oral cavity. Researchers can use this service to compare bacterial associations in health vs. disease, monitor the effects of therapy on the oral ecology and perform microbial perturbation studies.

The Forsyth research team led by Drs. Bruce Paster and Floyd Dewhirst has used molecular analyses based on 16S rRNA sequencing to identify 550 oral bacterial species. Using this information, they have developed HOMIM, which allows the simultaneous detection of about 300 of the most prevalent oral bacterial species, in a single hybridization. This high throughput technology will allow the evaluation of species that cannot yet be grown in vitro. Information about the service can be found online at www.forsyth.org/mim.

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