Scientists have identified yet another risk from a high-salt diet. High concentrations of salt in the stomach appear to induce gene activity in the ulcer-causing bacterium Helicobacter pylori, making it more virulent and increasing the likelihood of an infected person developing a severe gastric disease.

"Apparently the stomach pathogen H. pylori closely monitors the diets of those people whom it infects. Epidemiological evidence has long implied that there is a connection between H. pylori and the composition of the human diet. This is especially true for diets rich in salt," says Hanan Gancz, of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland.

In adults with major depressive disorder, adding aripiprazole to antidepressant therapy (ADT) resulted in significant improvement in the primary endpoint, the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) Total Score.

In this six-week, randomized, placebo-controlled study atypical antipsychotic aripiprazole was added to antidepressants in patients who did not have an adequate response to ADT alone. (1)(Berman, 2007, APA Poster) These findings are from one of two completed studies evaluating adjunctive aripiprazole with ADT.

A new study presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference finds that obese people are significantly more likely to have persistent or severe persistent asthma than their thinner counterparts.

The study presented on May 23 looked at 3,059 adults with asthma, who were divided into three groups: non-overweight, overweight and obese, based on their body mass index (BMI). Compared with non-overweight asthma patients, obese patients (BMI=30) were more likely to report having continuous symptoms, have more ER visits, miss more days of work, use more rescue inhaler medications and use inhaled steroids to control asthma.

Ugandan children who received the combination therapy of artemether-lumefantrine experienced a lower rate of treatment failure compared to other combination therapies, according to a study in the May 23/30 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on malaria.

Malaria is one of the leading causes of death in children in Africa. One of the reasons the control of malaria has been difficult is because of increasing resistance to some drugs, leading to changes in antimalarial treatment recommendations, according to background information in the article. Combination therapies have replaced monotherapies as the recommended treatments for uncomplicated malaria. However, it is not clear which treatment regimens are most effective.

Pancreatic cancer is among the deadliest of today's cancers due to limited tools for early diagnosis and few effective treatments. Research presented today takes a closer look at pancreatic cancer and the conditions that may lead to it, such as chronic pancreatitis, to evaluate the progress made to date, as well as the promising new applications of technology that will improve survival rates in the coming years. DDW is the largest international gathering of physicians and researchers in the fields of gastroenterology, hepatology, endoscopy and gastrointestinal surgery.

Scientists have made a breakthrough in understanding how cancers spread in what could lead to new ways of beating the disease.

The University of Manchester study used embryonic stem (ES) cells to investigate how some tumours are able to migrate to other parts of the body, which makes the treatment of cancer much more difficult.

Dr Chris Ward, in the University’s Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences, studied a crucial change that makes cancer cells able to start moving and spread into other tissues.

Normal cells, as well as early cancer cells, are called epithelial cells because they bind tightly to each other forming stable layers of tissue. However, as a tumour becomes more advanced, some of the cells change to become ‘mesenchymal’.