Broken for you

How can you mend a broken heart?.

Broken heart: Broken mind.

The increased frequency of sudden cardiac death after earthquakes and bombings has long proposed that emotional distress plays a role in acute coronary syndromes and arrhythmias. Since the 1960s, several controlled, prospective, epidemiological studies have reported emotional distress as a major risk factor for the onset and worsening of coronary heart disease (CHD) [1]. The Interheart study, a...

How can you mend a broken brain? Neurorestorative approaches to stroke recovery.

BACKGROUND Stroke is a devastating disorder that strikes approximately 15 million people worldwide. While most patients survive stroke, many are left with lifelong impairments, thereby making stroke the leading cause of permanent neurological disability. Despite this, there are a few options for treatment of acute stroke. Restoration of blood flow using clot-dissolving drugs has produced impres...

Mercury: Cleanup for Broken CFLs

Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) are about 75% more energy efficient than incandescent light bulbs and last 10 times longer, and thus have quickly become a modern-day environmental icon. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that about 290 million CFLs were sold in 2007. But CFLs do have one dim spot on their otherwise bright green image: the mercury that makes the bulbs’ inn...

Sugar glues for broken neurons.

Proteoglycans (PGs) regulate diverse functions in the central nervous system (CNS) by interacting with a number of growth factors, matrix proteins, and cell surface molecules. Heparan sulfate (HS) and chondroitin sulfate (CS) are two major glycosaminoglycans present in the PGs of the CNS. The functionality of these PGs is to a large extent dictated by the fine sulfation patterns present on thei...