Inside this issueCover storiesGiving back$23 million grant enables fresh look at stress and addictionThe many sides of stress and addictionLightening the load for the physicians of the futurePartnershipsTransatlantic team probes kidney’s role in hypertensionGrants & contractsPeopleLifelines: James DuncanLyme disease expert is new section chief and Hughes investigatorDean for education is appointed Jockers ProfessorStudent-run clinic wins Ivy Award for community serviceOut & aboutAwards & honorsScienceA joint effort to tackle obesity and diabetesGrowing spare parts for sick children’s heartsAdvances: Breaking away from child abuse? | For cardiac surgery, your brain on ice | Mom was right: eat your vegetables! | “Touch-me-not” tubes kill bacteria  
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AdvancesHealth and science news from YaleMom was right: eat your vegetables!
Kids aren’t the only ones who should be nagged to pile more vegetables on their dinner plate. A new study shows that men who regularly ate broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and turnips were 40 percent less likely to develop aggressive prostate cancer that spread outside the prostate than those who consumed few of these veggies. Lead author Victoria Kirsh, Ph.D., a former doctoral student under the advisorship of Susan T. Mayne, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology, says that chemicals found in these and other “cruciferous” plants (named for their cross-shaped flowers) help prevent cancer. “All these vegetables have compounds called glucosinolates that have been shown to protect cells from DNA damage in the lab, and thus may be anti-carcinogenic” explains Kirsh, now at Cancer Care Ontario in Toronto, Canada. Kirsh says she would like to see the findings, published in the August 1 issue of JNCI: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, replicated in additional studies. In the meantime, though, it can’t hurt to eat your broccoli. “Touch-me-not” tubes kill bacteriaCarbon nanotubes, infinitesimally tiny “pipes” thousands of times smaller that a human hair, show great promise for medical applications. However, there has been concern that the tubes might damage human cells. A Yale research group led by Menachem Elimelech, Ph.D., chair and Roberto C. Goizueta Professor of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, wanted to find out how nanotubes affect E. coli bacteria. Because metallic impurities might lie behind the tubes’ supposed toxicity to human cells, the team thoroughly purified their nanotubes in the laboratory of Lisa D. Pfefferle, Ph.D., professor of chemical engineering. In the August 28 issue of Langmuir, the scientists report that just one hour of contact with purified nanotubes proved deadly to about 80 percent of E. coli. The authors believe that the tubes killed bacteria by piercing cell walls: the cells looked flattened, and genetic material was seen floating freely in solution. Thinner nanotubes killed bacteria more efficiently, much as sharper objects pierce balloons more easily. Even antibiotic-resistant pathogens may succumb to nanotubes, which may make new antimicrobial surfaces possible. Health and science news from YaleBreaking away from child abuse?
When an infant breaks a bone, it’s often not an accident. In fact, doctors cite abuse in more than a third of bone fractures in babies under a year old. But according to a new Yale study, that number may be on the decline. John M. Leventhal, M.D., professor of pediatrics, and colleagues analyzed 24 years of data on fractures in children under 3 years old at Yale-New Haven Hospital. As reported in the March issue of Child Abuse & Neglect: The International Journal, the likelihood of a fracture being rated by the hospital as abuse fell substantially from 1979 to 2002, to just over 10 percent. “We’re encouraged by this,” says Leventhal, even though his team’s results seem to be at odds with an increased number of calls to child protective services seen over the past decades, both in Connecticut and nationally. Leventhal proposes that these calls may bring lower-risk families and mild abusive injuries to the attention of authorities, leading to early intervention and a decrease in serious injuries like fractures and burns. For cardiac surgery, your brain on iceWe need blood to live, but blood makes life difficult for heart surgeons by obscuring the operating field. At a certain point in surgery on the aorta, the body’s largest artery, surgeons must shut down the cardiopulmonary bypass machine, stopping blood flow entirely and cutting the oxygen supply to the fuel-hungry brain. To prevent brain damage, the patient’s head is carefully packed in ice and the body cooled until its core temperature reaches about 19°C (66°F), which slows metabolism to a standstill. For added brain protection, some surgeons use perfusion, pumping blood into the cerebral arteries, but this clutters the workspace and creates possible complications. In the September issue of Annals of Thoracic Surgery, a Yale team led by John A. Elefteriades, M.D., chief and William W.L. Glenn Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery, shows that perfusion is unnecessary. The researchers studied the outcomes of 394 aortic arch operations performed at Yale without perfusion and found a stroke rate of only 4.8 percent, on par with the best results seen with perfusion. But speed is key. Strokes occur more often during aortic operations lasting over 40 minutes, and the average patient at Yale spent only 31 minutes in suspended animation.  |
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