Hormone

Female sex hormones play a vital role in defense against sexually transmitted diseases

Two McMaster University studies, to be published in the Journal of Virology, show that sex hormones have a profound effect on susceptibility of female mice to the herpes simplex virus, type 2 (HSV-2 ), one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases. Charu Kaushic, assistant professor and supervisor of the studies, says the implication of this work is quite significant. "The research...

Deficiency of growth hormone and IGF-1 reduces cancer and kidney disease, but creates other problems

Deficiencies of growth hormone and similar compounds may reduce cancer and kidney disease late in life, but also may lead to cartilage degeneration and impaired memory and learning ability, according to research at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and four other institutions. The researchers used a rat model to explore the effects of growth hormone and another compound, IGF-1...

Measuring hormone cuts antibiotic use in half in pneumonia patients

Measuring a hormone in the blood can help doctors greatly reduce the number of days pneumonia patients have to take antibiotics to cure their infection, according to a study to be presented at the American Thoracic Society International Conference on May 24. In the study, pneumonia patients whose level of the hormone procalcitonin was measured during the course of their illness took antibi...

Alcohol consumption disrupts breastfeeding hormones

Despite age-old claims advising breastfeeding moms that alcoholic beverages can improve their nursing performance, researchers at the Monell Chemical Senses Center report that even moderate doses of alcohol affect the hormones responsible for lactation in a counterproductive manner. "This information is important for women," comments lead author Julie Mennella, PhD, a biopsychologist. "If...

VCU study shows hormone-like molecule kills cells that cause inflammation in allergic disease

Virginia Commonwealth University immunologists studying mast cells, known to play a central role in asthma and allergic disease, have identified a hormone-like molecule that can kill these cells by programming them to die in studies with mice. The findings move researchers another step closer to understanding the life cycle of mast cells, and may help researchers develop new treatments fo...

University of Nevada, Reno research team discovers hormone that causes malaria mosquito to urinate

Discovery has implications for control of mosquitoes, malaria and West Nile Virus Methoprene, which has the same effect as an insect hormone called juvenile hormone, also sto...

Penguin chicks exposed to human visitors experience spike in stress hormone

Newly hatched magellanic penguin chicks in breeding grounds with a large number of human visitors show a significant spike in levels of a stress-related hormone compared to chicks hatched in areas not visited by humans, a University of Washington research team has found. It wasn't until chicks with limited human exposure reached 40 to 50 days old that they showed a stress response like the...

Hormones and growth: The control of body size and developmental growth rate in fruit flies

A pair of research papers published this week report findings that increase our understanding of how an organism's body size is determined and how the speed of its development is controlled. In particular, the work sheds light on the molecular and cellular pathways that act to convey information about a growing organism's size, as well as on pathways that use that information to correctly time cr...

Menopause Symptoms May Come Back After Stopping Menopausal Hormone Therapy

Women who take soy or herbal supplements, such as black cohosh, red clover and ginseng, should do so with care, says a Cornell University expert affiliated with the Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors (BCERF) at Cornell, the land-grant institution of New York state. "Although there is no direct evidence that any herbal medicines can increase or decrease breast cancer ri...

Suppressing growth hormone in early adulthood may prevent cancer

A modest suppression of growth hormone and related compounds beginning in early adulthood may delay the onset or progression of several types of cancer, researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and other centers reported today at ENDO 2005, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, in San Diego. Suppression of growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) also...

Growth hormone is made in the brain, report scientists

Scientists have found that growth hormone, a substance that is used for body growth, is produced in the brain, according to an article published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The researchers -- from three institutions –?found that growth hormone is produced within the hippocampus, a structure deep inside the brain that is involved in memory and emotion. </...

Learning and memory stimulated by gut hormone

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine have found evidence that a hormone produced in the stomach directly stimulates the higher brain functions of spatial learning and memory development, and further suggests that we may learn best on an empty stomach. Published in the February 19 online issue of Nature Neuroscience by investigators at Yale and other institutes, the study showed that the...

Hyena mothers give their cubs a helpful dose of hormones

Scientists have discovered that a dominant hyena puts her cubs on the road to success before they are born by passing on high levels of certain hormones that make her budding young leaders more aggressive and sexually advanced. The report, published in the April 27 issue of Nature, is the first study in mammals to demonstrate a relationship between a female's social rank and her ability to...

New brain hormone puts brakes on reproduction

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have discovered a new actor in the mammalian reproductive system, a hormone that fills a role long suspected, but until now undetected. The hormone, a small protein, or peptide, called gonadotropin-inhibitory hormone (GnIH), puts the brakes on reproduction by directly inhibiting the action of the central hormone of the reproductive system - g...

Macrophage signaling may affect hormone resistance in prostate tumors

Interaction between prostate cancer cells and immune cells called macrophages may be a source of inflammatory signals capable of impacting the effectiveness of androgen antagonists, the most common and effective treatment for prostate cancer, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine. Male hormones called androgens are es...

Worm hormone discovery may aid fight against parasitic disease

New research at UT Southwestern Medical Center shows that on a biochemical level, hormone-like molecules in tiny worms called nematodes work similarly to the way in which certain hormones work in humans ?findings that one day may help eradicate worm infections that afflict a third of the world's population. UT Southwestern researchers have discovered a molecule that activates genes involve...

Possible brain hormone may unlock mystery of hibernation

The discovery of a possible hibernation hormone in the brain may unlock the mystery behind the dormant state, researchers reported in the April 7, 2006 issue of Cell. Hibernation allows animals from bears to rodents to survive unscathed--in a state of suspended animation--under the harshest of winter conditions. If the findings in chipmunks are confirmed, the hormone would represent the fi...

UC San Diego biologists solve plant growth hormone enigma

Gardeners and farmers have used the plant hormone auxin for decades, but how plants produce and distribute auxin has been a long-standing mystery. Now researchers at the University of California, San Diego have found the solution, which has valuable applications in agriculture. The study, published in the July 1 issue of the journal Genes and Development, describes the discovery of a wh...

Computational analysis shows that plant hormones often go it alone

Unlike the Three Musketeers who lived by the motto "All for one, one for all," plant hormones prefer to do their own thing. For years, debate swirled around whether pathways activated by growth-regulating plant hormones converge on a central growth regulatory module. Now, the cooperation model is challenged by researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. They show that each hormone a...

Salk scientists untangle steroid hormone signaling in plants

When given extra shots of the plant steroid brassinolide, plants "pump up" like major league baseball players do on steroids. Tracing brassinolide's signal deep into the cell's nucleus, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have unraveled how the growth-boosting hormone accomplishes its job at the molecular level. The Salk researchers, led by Joanne Chory, a professor i...

Adults who go to bed lonely get stress hormone boost next morning

A new study that takes a rare look at the physiological, social and emotional dynamics of day-to-day experiences in real-life settings shows that when older adults go to bed lonely, sad or overwhelmed, they have elevated levels of cortisol shortly after waking the next morning. Elevated levels of cortisol -- a stress hormone linked to depression, obesity and other health problems when chro...

Hormone linked to brain's cravings for food and other energy sources

Ghrelin, a hormone produced in the stomach, induces food intake and operates through a brain region that controls cravings for food and other energy sources, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the October 19 online issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. Ghrelin was previously associated with growth hormone release, appetite, learning, and memory and has now been link...

Longer-lived rodents have lower levels of thyroid hormone

The thyroid may play an important role in longevity, with longer-lived rodents showing significantly lower levels of a thyroid hormone that speeds metabolism, a new study has found. The study further strengthens the theory that the faster an animal's metabolism, the shorter its life, and vice versa, said Mario Pinto, the study's lead author. The thyroid releases hormones that regulate meta...

Eating protein boosts hormone that staves off hunger

The amount of a hunger-fighting hormone can be increased by eating a higher protein diet, researchers report in the September issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. The hormone, known as peptide YY (PYY), was earlier found by the researchers to reduce food intake by a third in both normal-weight and obese people when given by injection. "We've now found that increa...

Stress hormones may play new role in speeding up cancer growth

New research here suggests that hormones produced as during periods of stress may increase the growth rate of a particularly nasty kind of cancer. The study showed that an increase in norepinephrine, a stress hormone, can stimulate tumor cells to produce two compounds. These compounds can break down of the tissue around the tumor cells and allow the cells to more easily move into the blood...

Growth hormone to boost athletic performance risks diabetes

Use of growth hormone to boost athletic performance can lead to diabetes, reports a study published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. He had lost 40 kg in 12 months, during which he had also experienced excessive urination, thirst, and appetite...

Pregnancy hormone key to repairing nerve cell damage

The mystery of why multiple sclerosis (MS) tends to go into remission while women are pregnant may be the secret to overcoming the devastating neurodegenerative disease, according to University of Calgary researchers who have shown that a pregnancy-related hormone is responsible for rebuilding the protective coating around nerve cells. In a paper to be published in the February 21 issue of...

Growth hormone is not the anti-aging bullet for healthy adults

A review of published data on use of human growth hormone (GH) by healthy elderly people found that the synthetic hormone was associated with small changes in body composition but not in body weight or other clinically important outcomes. Further, people who took GH had increased rates of unhealthy side effects such as soft tissue swelling, joint pain, carpal tunnel syndrome, and, in men,...

Natural gut hormone offers hope for new obesity drug

A hormone found naturally in the gut is the basis of a new drug to tackle obesity, one of three inaugural awards under the Wellcome Trust's Seeding Drug Discovery initiative. The drug is being developed by one of the world's leading obesity experts, Professor Steve Bloom at Imperial College London's Hammersmith Hospital campus. "Over 30,000 deaths a year are caused by obesity in England a...

Scientists find hormone activity explains adolescent mood swings

The "raging hormones" of puberty are known to produce mood swings and stress for most teenagers, making it difficult to cope with this period of life. Until now, the specific causes of pubertal anxiety have not been identified, making it harder to understand and treat adolescent angst. In the current edition of the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers led by Sheryl S. Smith, PhD, prof...

Hormone helps mice 'hibernate,' survive starvation

The starvation-fighting effects of the hormone, called fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21), are described for the first time in a study appea...