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Disease-impact models may rely on incorrect assumptions
April 13, 2006Even when we know how a disease affects individual animals, it is challenging to predict what impact it will have on the whole population, and yet predicting how disease affects a population is a primary concern for wildlife conservation and even public health. In a new study from the May issue of American Naturalist, Anna E. Jolles (Princeton University and University of Groningen), Rampal S. Etienne (University of Groningen), and Han Olff (University of Groningen), contest two assumptions commonly present in models that try to predict how individual disease will impact populations.
Many models assume that disease acts independently of other causes of death. However, the researchers point out that it is possible for disease to kill those that are already doing poorly and would have died of starvation or been killed by predators, for example. Second, disease models usually assume constant environments, free from changes in food availability or catastrophic disturbances, such as drought or wildfires.
The researchers tested the assumptions by gathering field data on a herd of African buffalo struck by tuberculosis and following them through different conditions, including a devastating drought. They found that tuberculosis does explain increased mortality and decreased fecundity in some prime-aged buffalo, but older buffalo reflect the competing risks, and the increased survival and greater fecundity of buffalo in the herd without tuberculosis may compensate for some disease-related losses to the herd.
"Pathogens and parasites can have drastic effects, reducing survival or reproduction in infected hosts," write the authors. But they warn against drawing potentially misleading conclusions that may incorrectly influence how we think about epidemics-particularly chronic infections of long-lived hosts.
University of Chicago Press Journals
"Pathogens and parasites can have drastic effects, reducing survival or reproduction in infected hosts," write the authors. But they warn against drawing potentially misleading conclusions that may incorrectly influence how we think about epidemics-particularly chronic infections of long-lived hosts.
University of Chicago Press Journals
Disease Affects Current Events and Disease Affects News RSSStudy provides insight on a common heart rhythm disorder
University of Iowa researchers and colleagues in France have identified a gene variant that causes a potentially fatal human heart rhythm disorder called sinus node disease.
'Deadly dozen' reports diseases worsened by climate change
Health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society today released a report that lists 12 pathogens that could spread into new regions as a result of climate change, with potential impacts to both human and wildlife health and global economies.
Rice lab finds molecular clues to Wilson disease
Using a combination of computer simulations and cutting-edge lab experiments, physical biochemists at Rice University have discovered how a small genetic mutation -- which is known to cause Wilson disease -- subtly changes the structure of a large, complex protein that the body uses to keep copper from building up to toxic levels.
Calcium may be the key to understanding Alzheimer's disease
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have shown that mutations in two proteins associated with familial Alzheimer's disease disrupt the flow of calcium ions within neurons. The two proteins, called PS1 and PS2 (presenilin 1 and 2), interact with a calcium release channel in an intracellular cell compartment.
Patients unaware of link between smoking and bladder cancer
Even though cigarette smoking accounts for up to half of all bladder cancer cases, few people are aware of the connection - including more than three-quarters of patients who have bladder cancer.
Complexity of Crohn's disease revealed as 'gene' count tops 30
New research has trebled the number of genetic regions known to be implicated in Crohn's disease, a form of inflammatory bowel disease, to over thirty.
Study suggests a little milk could go a long way for your heart
Grabbing as little as one glass of lowfat or fat free milk could help protect your heart, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Researchers found that adults who had at least one serving of lowfat milk or milk products each day had 37 percent lower odds of poor kidney function linked to heart disease compared to those who drank little or no lowfat milk.
Discovery will assist treatment and research into fatal brain disorder
Research using newly developed Magnetic Resonance Imaging technology could soon allow clinicians to confirm Huntington's disease before symptoms appear in people who have the gene for the fatal brain disease.
Discovery of new family of genetic mutations involved in inflammatory intestinal disease
The discovery of new genetic mutations involved in inflammatory intestinal disorders could lead to a better understanding of these common conditions.
Discovery to hasten new malaria treatments, vaccines for children
April 25 is World Malaria Day 2008 and despite the grim statistics out of Africa there's cause for celebration. Florida State University biologists have discovered an autoimmune-like response in blood drawn from malaria-infected African children that helps to explain why existing DNA-based anti-malaria vaccines have repeatedly failed to protect them.
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