Have diabetes? Leave the lights on at night

Oxygen deprivation seems to take place when the retinal cells adapt to the dark and increase their oxygen demand.

A report in New Scientist says the team measured a small electric current from cells within the retina—an indicator of how healthy the cells are. This current was reduced in diabetics when their retinas were darkness-adapted. Allowing the patients to breathe oxygen brought the activity back to a healthy level. A normal retina can just about cope with the extra oxygen demand, but it seems to be too much for diabetics, says Drasdo.

It is not clear why, he adds—but diabetics do have circulatory problems, and even slightly damaged blood vessels might not be able to deliver sufficient oxygen to the retina at times of high demand. This stress could trigger further changes in the blood vessels.

Gene therapy hope for bubble babies

Using a new method that partly destroys the bone marrow to make room for genetically engineered cells, researchers said on Thursday they had cured two children with fatal immune defects.

The teams in Israel and Italy are only the third in the world to claim success in curing anyone using gene therapy, and believe their method might also be used to cure cancer patients as well as to make organ transplants easier.

Both children had a rare disease— severe combined immunodeficiency due to a faulty gene controlling an enzyme called ADA (ADA-SCID). Such children are sometimes called ‘‘bubble babies’’ as they cannot fight disease and are kept isolated if they cannot be treated with the ADA enzyme.

The idea behind gene therapy is to replace faulty genes with normal versions, but it has proven extremely difficult to do.

Dr Shimon Slavin of the Hadassah-Hebrew University Medical Center in Jerusalem thinks he has the secret to making it work better—a process called non-myeloblative conditioning. It is a gentler version of the bone marrow transplant used to treat some cancers, in which the bone marrow is destroyed and replaced with a transplant from a donor.

Gene increasing heart attack risk found

A team of Australian scientists has discovered a new gene that could save lives by helping doctors identify patients vulnerable to heart attack or stroke. People who have high levels of a protein produced by the gene have as much risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke as those with high levels of cholesterol or high blood pressure.

Sam Breit, of the Centre for Immunology at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, told reporters the discovery of macrophage inhibitory cytokine-1, or mic-1, could pave the way for routine tests in about two years. A blood test for mic-1 levels, along with other tests, could form part of a predictive programme.

SIDS: bacteria in babies is the villain

Bacterial infections in babies have been pin-pointed by Australian researchers as the cause of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Monash University researchers found that mild bacterial infections can cause an increase in certain brain steroids that make babies drowsy and difficult to wake, the Daily Telegraph reports.

The findings are based on tests on slightly infected lambs, which were found to have increased levels of neurosteroids that are known to have sedative and anaesthetic properties. Research supervisor Dr David Walker said mothers of SIDS babies would often describe them as quiet, and this could be why. ‘‘He or she might have been a quiet baby because the brain produces this natural steroid that causes the baby to be sleepy and sedated,’’ he said.