�Psoriasis is a inveterate disease of the immune system that affects the skin. As many as 7.5 million Americans suffer from psoriasis, according to the National Institutes of Health. Unlike early diseases of the immune system which affect women more oftentimes than work force, psoriasis occurs about evenly in work force and women.
Psoriasis is non contagious and cannot be spread from person to person. There are basketball team known forms of the disease. "The most common form, plaque psoriasis, appears as raised, red patches or lesions covered with a silver white buildup of dead skin cells called scale," explains Bruce F. Bebo, Jr., Ph.D., director of research and medical programs at the National Psoriasis Foundation in Portland, Ore.
For some people, psoriasis can buoy be a nuisance, for others, it can be debilitating. The symptoms motley from person to somebody and tin include:
-- Red, itchy patches of skin that are covered with silver-colored scales.
-- Dry, nettled or cracked skin that can bleed when scratched.
-- Disorders of the fingernails or toenails including thickened or ridged nails. The nails can become brittle and in some cases, detach from the nail beds.
Most cases of psoriasis wax and wane and include flare-ups which last for a few weeks to months. Some people will go into remission for months to years. But in about cases, the psoriasis volition reappear.
Psoriasis bathroom also principal to psoriatic arthritis, which can suit pain and swelling in the joints. Roughly one-tenth to one-third of people with psoriasis will likewise have psoriatic arthritis, according to the National Psoriasis Foundation. Psoriatic arthritis throne lead to joint wearing and fix in the way of daily functioning.
Although it affects both genders equally, recent studies designate that there may be a racial or cultural link. "It seems that psoriasis is most common in Caucasians and slightly less vernacular in African Americans. Worldwide, psoriasis is most common in Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe. It appears to be far less common among Asians and is rare in Native Americans," Bebo points out.
Research has identified some differences between the sexes in psoriasis related to to smoking and alcohol consumption.
Smoking increases the endangerment of development psoriasis and can make the disease more severe, especially in women, merely the risk of infection goes down if you stop smoking. Alcohol appears to move psoriasis in men more strongly than in women. Researchers don't know why, but alcoholic beverage consumption appears to be a danger factor for psoriasis in men just not women and it may lower treatment reaction in men.
The cause of psoriasis isn't fully gain. The disease is related to a malfunction in the resistant system, which results in T-cells assaultive healthy skin cells. What triggers the T-cell malfunction isn't known, but many researchers cite genetic and environmental factors as possibilities. The to the highest degree noteworthy jeopardy factor for psoriasis is family history. Roughly 30 percent of people with psoriasis have a close relative with the disease.
Diagnosing psoriasis is often done in a doctor's place. "No particular blood tests or diagnostic tools exist to diagnose psoriasis. The physician or other health care supplier usually examines the affected skin and decides if it is from psoriasis. Less ofttimes, the physician examines a piece of skin (biopsy) under the microscope," explains Bebo.
There are several therapies for psoriasis available to patients, which focus on reducing peel inflammation and plaque formation. Looking to the future, there are "a number of new treatments in the psoriasis pipeline," Bebo said, which may help reduce the burden of this chronic and disabling disease. The types of treatments in development include biologics, monoclonal antibody antibodies and immune system modulators.
Women with psoriasis world Health Organization are meaning, may become pregnant, or are breastfeeding should talk about carefully with their doctors their treatment options, as some treatments for psoriasis may crusade birth defects. There is, however, some good news for pregnant women. Research has shown that hormonal changes during pregnancy english hawthorn lead to improvements in psoriasis symptoms, providing impermanent relief.
August is Psoriasis Awareness Month. For more info, you can visit the National Psoriasis Foundation on-line at hypertext transfer protocol://www.psoriasis.org.
Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR)
1025 Connecticut Ave. NW, Ste. 701
Washington, DC 20036
United States
http://www.womenshealthresearch.org
More information
Saturday 30 August 2008
Wednesday 20 August 2008
Multi-Tasking Molecule Holds Key To Allergic Reactions
�As the summer approaches most of us exuberate, reach for the sunblock and capitulum outdoors. But an ever-growing number of people give for tissue instead as pollen leaves eyes tearing, noses linear and hard drink dwindling. Hay fever is just one of a host of hypersensitivity supersensitive diseases that cause agony worldwide and others, such as severe reactions to bee stings or feeding peanuts, can be more serious and even fatal.
Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies give uncovered the molecular mechanisms behind such allergies, insight they hope will lead to new therapies, both to diaphragm the summertime sneezing and treat more severe allergic responses.
"These results may allow us to prepare acute inhibitors of hypersensitized reactions that do non have the side-effects of current treatments such as drowsiness," says Inder Verma, Ph.D., a professor in the Laboratory of Genetics and senior author of the work published in the August 8 issue of Cell.
When our bodies come across an allergen (such as pollen), specialised cells called mast cells undergo "de-granulation", during which they tone ending the chemic histamine. Histamine in turn causes fluid to build up in the surrounding tissue. When this litigate is working normally it offers shelter against the allergen merely in people with allergic diseases, de-granulation can fall out throughout the body, stellar to severe inflammation and in the worst cases, anaphylactic shock and death.
And allergies are a growing trouble the domain over. "One out of three Japanese people suffer from allergies," says post doc researcher Kotaro Suzuki, Ph.D., who lED the stream study.
During de-granulation, histamine is bundled into membrane bound sacks called vesicles, which then transport it to the cell surface. When the vesicles strain the open they fuse with the outer membrane of the cell, spilling their table of contents into the extra-cellular space in a process known as exocytosis. To forestall this process from going overboard the scientists kickoff had to understand how de-granulation is regulated.
Their hunch was that the allergic reaction would postulate NF-?B, a protein establish in the nucleus that regulates factor expression and was already known to be involved in early types of immune reply. To investigate this hypothesis they focused on the role of IKK2, a protein kinase, which is essential for NF-?B activation.
To return mast cells that were free of IKK2, the researchers transplanted mice that had no mast cells of their own with either normal mast cells or mast cells that lacked IKK2. Strikingly, mice with mast cells wanting IKK2 had reduced allergic reactions. The researchers fictitious that the lowered response was due to reduced NF-?B, only to their surprise, inactivating NF-?B signaling alone did not have the same effect. "That was one of the first clues that IKK2 had other roles to play," says Verma.
"IKK2 knock out mast cells couldn't firing enough histamine," added Suzuki 'but we still didn't know the molecular mechanisms." What they did get laid already was that de-granulation requires a collection of proteins - known as the SNARE complex - to tack at the cell earth's surface.
Suzuki and Verma victimized biochemical analysis to show that when an allergen is introduce, IKK2 binds to and activates unmatchable particular SNARE component called SNAP-23. Without IKK2, SNAP-23 is missing from the SNARE complex and conversely, when SNAP-23 is for good activated, removing IKK2 no longer impairs de-granulation. "This is the first major feather on the cap of IKK2 in addition to NF-?B," says Verma.
But IKK2's role in the hypersensitised response does not catch there - it multi-tasks. After the rapid "early phase" de-granulation response, mast cells undergo a "late-phase" reaction during which certain genes ar turned on to help fight the allergen. Suzuki and Verma showed that the late-phase response as well requires IKK2, but that this metre it functions by its more usual route - via NF-?B.
The Salk researchers ar now examination inhibitors of IKK2 as acute treatment for supersensitive reactions. Unlike anti-histamines, which are currently used to combat allergies, IKK2 inhibitors would have the added benefit of reducing both the early and late phase supersensitive responses.
And the newly discovered character for IKK2's may not be limited to allergic reactions. Many fundamental processes in our bodies involve exocytosis, ranging from secretion of insulin in the pancreas to synaptic transmitting, the process by which signals ar passed from one nervus cell to another. If IKK2 is involved in these processes it may have a role in other pathologies such as diabetes and nervous system diseases.
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, is an main nonprofit organisation dedicated to fundamental discoveries in the life sciences, the improvement of human health and the training of succeeding generations of researchers. Jonas Salk, M.D., whose polio vaccine all but eradicated the incapacitating disease acute anterior poliomyelitis in 1955, opened the Institute in 1965 with a endowment of country from the City of San Diego and the financial living of the March of Dimes.
Salk Institute
More info
Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies give uncovered the molecular mechanisms behind such allergies, insight they hope will lead to new therapies, both to diaphragm the summertime sneezing and treat more severe allergic responses.
"These results may allow us to prepare acute inhibitors of hypersensitized reactions that do non have the side-effects of current treatments such as drowsiness," says Inder Verma, Ph.D., a professor in the Laboratory of Genetics and senior author of the work published in the August 8 issue of Cell.
When our bodies come across an allergen (such as pollen), specialised cells called mast cells undergo "de-granulation", during which they tone ending the chemic histamine. Histamine in turn causes fluid to build up in the surrounding tissue. When this litigate is working normally it offers shelter against the allergen merely in people with allergic diseases, de-granulation can fall out throughout the body, stellar to severe inflammation and in the worst cases, anaphylactic shock and death.
And allergies are a growing trouble the domain over. "One out of three Japanese people suffer from allergies," says post doc researcher Kotaro Suzuki, Ph.D., who lED the stream study.
During de-granulation, histamine is bundled into membrane bound sacks called vesicles, which then transport it to the cell surface. When the vesicles strain the open they fuse with the outer membrane of the cell, spilling their table of contents into the extra-cellular space in a process known as exocytosis. To forestall this process from going overboard the scientists kickoff had to understand how de-granulation is regulated.
Their hunch was that the allergic reaction would postulate NF-?B, a protein establish in the nucleus that regulates factor expression and was already known to be involved in early types of immune reply. To investigate this hypothesis they focused on the role of IKK2, a protein kinase, which is essential for NF-?B activation.
To return mast cells that were free of IKK2, the researchers transplanted mice that had no mast cells of their own with either normal mast cells or mast cells that lacked IKK2. Strikingly, mice with mast cells wanting IKK2 had reduced allergic reactions. The researchers fictitious that the lowered response was due to reduced NF-?B, only to their surprise, inactivating NF-?B signaling alone did not have the same effect. "That was one of the first clues that IKK2 had other roles to play," says Verma.
"IKK2 knock out mast cells couldn't firing enough histamine," added Suzuki 'but we still didn't know the molecular mechanisms." What they did get laid already was that de-granulation requires a collection of proteins - known as the SNARE complex - to tack at the cell earth's surface.
Suzuki and Verma victimized biochemical analysis to show that when an allergen is introduce, IKK2 binds to and activates unmatchable particular SNARE component called SNAP-23. Without IKK2, SNAP-23 is missing from the SNARE complex and conversely, when SNAP-23 is for good activated, removing IKK2 no longer impairs de-granulation. "This is the first major feather on the cap of IKK2 in addition to NF-?B," says Verma.
But IKK2's role in the hypersensitised response does not catch there - it multi-tasks. After the rapid "early phase" de-granulation response, mast cells undergo a "late-phase" reaction during which certain genes ar turned on to help fight the allergen. Suzuki and Verma showed that the late-phase response as well requires IKK2, but that this metre it functions by its more usual route - via NF-?B.
The Salk researchers ar now examination inhibitors of IKK2 as acute treatment for supersensitive reactions. Unlike anti-histamines, which are currently used to combat allergies, IKK2 inhibitors would have the added benefit of reducing both the early and late phase supersensitive responses.
And the newly discovered character for IKK2's may not be limited to allergic reactions. Many fundamental processes in our bodies involve exocytosis, ranging from secretion of insulin in the pancreas to synaptic transmitting, the process by which signals ar passed from one nervus cell to another. If IKK2 is involved in these processes it may have a role in other pathologies such as diabetes and nervous system diseases.
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, is an main nonprofit organisation dedicated to fundamental discoveries in the life sciences, the improvement of human health and the training of succeeding generations of researchers. Jonas Salk, M.D., whose polio vaccine all but eradicated the incapacitating disease acute anterior poliomyelitis in 1955, opened the Institute in 1965 with a endowment of country from the City of San Diego and the financial living of the March of Dimes.
Salk Institute
More info
Sunday 10 August 2008
A conversation with Kid Rock
To listen to the interview on NOLA radio, click here.
Riding high on the timely hit "All Summer Long, " Kid Rock launches the "Rock 'n ' Rebels" tour on Friday, Aug. 8 at the New Orleans Arena with co-headliner Lynyrd Skynyrd, special guest Joseph "Rev Run" Simmons of Run-DMC and young blues-rock triple Back Door Slam.
Before heading to New Orleans for rehearsals, Rock called from the punt porch of his spreadhead outside Detroit. Early in our conversation, he hoped to not "say anything too unintelligent." That's up to you, I replied.
He laughed: "That's the problem."
With that, Rock held forth on the origins of his song "New Orleans, " the fame of his "trash king" buddy Sidney Torres and why you won't see Radiohead in strip clubs.
You were on vacation last week. Where does Kid Rock go on vacation?
A friend of mine gets a racing yacht in the south of France every year, so we went to Italy. I was going to stay dwelling house, then I was talking to Rev Run around how well "All Summer Long" has done in Europe. It's my first No. 1 single in Europe. He's like, "What are you doing? Go celebrate in Europe where your record is No. 1." So I took my brother and we had a good time.
People may think, "Why does Kid Rock need a vacation? He sings close to 'taking strippers out for breakfast' " Your normal life seems vacation-like.
(laughs) It's that old locution, "I motivation a vacation from my vacation."
There's a synergy 'tween you and Lynyrd Skynyrd. You share a direction company and you sample distribution "Sweet Home Alabama" in "All Summer Long." And for a Detroit boy, you sure have a fondness for the Rebel flag.
I feature a warmheartedness for non being politically correct. That's what it boils down to. Anything PC, number me out. I'm so tired of it. I think most people are tired of the far left and the far right. Our country has been distorted, and we don't get anything done, because there's too many extremists.
Take me and Rev Run. We're best friends, our kids are cousins. I've voted Republican most of my life, he's voted Democrat. You canful count the differences. But our friendly relationship and wHO we ar as people is more important than any of that.
That's what makes up the good of America. It doesn't matter which side of the fence you're on. Are you too extreme, or are you inactive into the basic foundations of this country and its people? We're distorted by all these freaks. So anything I can buoy do unpolitically correct, I'm down. It doesn't take me a bad person. I know exactly world Health Organization I am and I won't be defined by any symbolic representation. I'll do everything to break downward those barriers. And it's kind of fun.
You limit yourself on your albums. Your current "Rock 'n ' Roll Jesus" is evenly rent between your nobler instincts -- "Roll On, " "Amen" -- and your more primal instincts, e.g. "So Hott" and "Sugar." Is that an apt description of your deuce competing sides?
Absolutely. That's how I alive my life. People connect with the music what I connected with music when I was danton True Young. Bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd or Run-DMC or Bob Seger . . . when I heard those songs, I really believed it was them. They were writing some the things they knew and wHO they were. When I saw it live it touched me. That's missing from so much music nowadays. There's four songwriters, two producers, a stylist . . .so often smoke and mirrors tortuous before you get to the heart and soul of an artist. That's why a lot of people get in touch with what I'm doing.
Mashing up "Sweet Home Alabama" and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" into a summer hymn seems obvious, but no one else thought of it.
I'm sure people aren't thinking about it as deep or as wily as I'd like them to think I am. Mash-ups are huge; rappers have been rapping over them for years. For that matter, people from the Rolling Stones on down have been adoption riffs, whether it be Motown or anything else. What I did was blatantly come out and take this, put some original beats to it, and wrote an original melody and lyric on top of it. We (Rock, Skynyrd, Zevon's estate) split the song's publication. Everyone agreed that it's something old and something new.
Did you audition the girls for the "All Summer Long" video?
No. I've never gotten into that. People think I'm kayoed getting hos for the videos, that I'm matchless of those guys wHO hangs about like, "Hey, you want to be in my video?" I don't think I've of all time said that in my life. I've never been to an audition, I've never watched the tapes. It's a big misconception. (But) if I've had a admirer ask to be it in, sure.
"All Summer Long" may get introduced many Europeans to "Sweet Home Alabama."
I mentation that. But years agone, I was getting quick to act "Cowboy" at this vast festival in Germany. I started riffing off "Sweet Home Alabama, " people started clapping and they wouldn't stop. So I played it. There was 80,000 Germans singing along; you could hear the accents.
Pop medicine has become watered-down rap music. To hear something that's blues-based is a breath of fresh air, especially in Europe. You step foot anywhere over there, the only thing you hear is, "Oof-oof-oof" (Rock impersonates a techno beat). It's enough to drive you batty.
When you came up with the title "Rock 'n ' Roll Jesus, " you probably weren't thinking about Sebastian Bach in "Jesus Christ Superstar."
(Laughs) No, sir.
Is "New Orleans" your Hurricane Katrina tune?
I started writing that before Katrina. That's an old song that I'd been working on. I didn't know what it was about; I only knew it had that groove, and I could hear the horns in my head. New Orleans is one of my favorite muscae volitantes in the world, and that's never changed. After Katrina, I kept penning it. (Outlaw country songster) David Allan Coe helped me out with the lyrics. He gave me "le bons temps rouler" and a lot of the New Orleans stuff that I wasn't educated on.
After Katrina, I thought, "I wonder if Fats Domino is OK? Did somebody pay back Fats?" I'd been by his house. So I started writing the strain kind of about him, in a metaphoric agency. God bless his person. He's one of my favorites ever.
The lyrics of "New Orleans" contain some obvious images, like "jambalaya" and "crawfish pie, " which refer to Hank Williams' "Jambalaya." Who came up with the more insider "hey pocky way" line?
That was me. The Meters . . . that's been one of my favourite tunes eternally. That's always a (tour) bus pet. When you're going to kick the party into high geartrain, I don't grab for the Radiohead CD. I grab the Meters' "Hey Pocky Way."
You don't hear a destiny of Radiohead at strip clubs.
None. (Radiohead singer) Thom Yorke said the other night onstage in Indianapolis, "If you're looking for Kid Rock, he's non here." Which I thought was kind of suspicious. I've been poking at him for years, in a fun way. He finally took the twit. (laughs) It's all in fun. I've got naught against them or anybody.
Your history with New Orleans includes an ctive piece of writing session ahead "Devil Without a Cause."
It was an unproductive school term. We really got sued by me saying that I wrote "Somebody's Gotta Feel This" in New Orleans. Some idiot aforesaid it was his sung. It got thrown out eventually, merely it cost me $70,000 and a band of red tape to make the case go away. This happens all the time. Nobody of all time wins demur the scumbag lawyers with agendas.
So you've been to New Orleans since Katrina?
Oh, yeah. A lot of good citizenry are doing so practically stuff grim there, my buddy Sidney Torres (head honcho of SDT Waste and Debris), and Brad Pitt. The city's come a long way, and God hallow it.
I hadn't heard around you taking a cataclysm tour. You were very low-key around it.
Unless it's going to bring some money in and help people, there's no reason for me to let people recognise, "Look, I'm concerned." I don't take those opportunities for press.
Do you know Sidney Torres through Lenny Kravitz?
I know him through a crony of mine, Rande Gerber (founder of Los Angeles' famed Sky Bar and Whiskey Blue in the W Hotel on Poydras Street). Sidney's always been so gracious to us. His whole family, his mom, his whole crew. The scrap king. New Orleans is so fortunate to consume a family like that.
Sidney told me a story about horseback riding around Bourbon Street with Lenny Kravitz. People accepted Torres and not Kravitz.
The same thing with me! We were cruising around in unmatchable of those four-wheel Kawasaki mule things, and it's, "Sidney! Sidney!" I'm like, "Hold on a second base. Go back and let me get my hat."
You recently pleaded no contest to simple battery later a fight at an Atlanta-area Waffle House. Do you design to steer clear of Waffle Houses during your New Orleans adventures?
(laughs) I embrace the Waffle House. In Atlanta, I went back and signed autographs at the Waffle House and we raised about $15,000 for a shelter that helps homeless families make back on their feet. So we flipped it around and turned it into something positive, because it was so slow. Of grade when you're Kid Rock and something dumb like that happens, you get a suit for $4 million.
Will the "Rock 'n ' Rebels" show be your common marathon?
It's really cut down a little bit. That many hours of medicine is a lot for people. Especially when you get a Skynyrd and Kid Rock crowd. They like to drink. There will be some alcohol consumed, and some tailgating. We want to make sure everyone has a good time. We precisely give 'em enough, and all the stuff they want to hear.
I interviewed your sidekick Hank Williams Jr. last year. He's proud to hold the record for beer gross revenue at several arenas.
I say the same thing, and so does Skynyrd. We're going to have to run the numbers. (laughs)
So does your show lineament women in cages again?
No. Next year I'm planning on the whole fiasco -- fireworks, girls, the whole nine-spot. That's my plan correct now. (For this hitch) with the 11-piece band, I wanted to take away it back to the music, which has worked out great. I've gotten the best reviews of my life.
Can we require to try "New Orleans" at the New Orleans Arena?
We're going to practice it all week. So I would say yes.
Will the Skynyrd guys join you for "All Summer Long"?
We won't know until (tonight). I don't want to create them hang out whatever longer than they consume to, merely if they're around and want to play . . . They can play with me on whatever song they'd like to.
_________________________
ROCK 'N ' REBELS TOUR
Featuring: Kid Rock and Lynyrd Skynyrd plus Rev Run and Back Door Slam
When: Tonight, Aug. 8, 6:30.
Where: New Orleans Arena, 1501 Girod St.
Tickets: $30 to $195 plus service charges
More info
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