Inserting catheters without X-rays

X-ray imaging to locate catheter can be avoided by using MRI but the guide wire must be plastic. The technique to prepare such wire is available now and may be available shortly for use.

K.S.Parthasarathy


Public release date: 9-Mar-2009
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Contact: Adrian Schütte
adrian.schuette@ipt.fraunhofer.de
49-241-890-4251
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft
Inserting catheters without X-rays

This release is available in German.



Have the patient's coronary vessels, heart valves or myocardial muscle changed abnormally? Doctors can verify this and administer the necessary therapy with the help of a catheter, which is inserted into the body through a small incision in the groin area and pushed to the heart through the vascular system. A metal guide wire inside the catheter serves as a navigational aid. It is pulled and turned by the physician to steer and guide the catheter. At the same time the catheter's position in the vascular system has to be monitored. This task is performed by X-rays, which penetrate the patient and show exactly where the catheter is. The problem with this computer tomography method is that it exposes the patient to quite a high dose of radiation. In addition, a contrast medium has to be injected into the patient's body in order to make the vascular system and the soft tissue visible on the X-ray images.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT in Aachen have now found a way of avoiding both the radiation and the contrast medium. In collaboration with colleagues at Philips and University Hospital Aachen, they have developed a guide wire made of glass-fiber-reinforced plastic. "Because the guide wire is made of plastic the imaging can be performed by magnetic resonance tomography instead of computer tomography," says IPT scientist Adrian Schütte. "This is not possible with metal guide wires as the metal wire acts as an antenna and heats up too much – this would damage the vessels, and could cause proteins to clot." Magnetic resonance tomography has many advantages for doctors and patients. It does not produce ionizing radiation like computer tomography, and soft tissue is clearly visible, so there is no need for a contrast medium.

For the manufacture of the two-meter guide wires the researchers use the pultrusion method, which is the standard procedure for making continuous profiles from glass-fiber-reinforced plastic. "Diameters of half a millimeter or less are required for the guide wires – that's the absolute minimum," explains Schütte. The new guide wires will be presented at the JEC trade fair in Paris (Hall 1, Stand T18) from March 24 to 26 and will be used in hospitals for the first time in the next few months.

###Public release date: 9-Mar-2009
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'Fish technology' draws renewable energy from slow water currents

A very interesting concept illustrating a new method of generating power from slow-moving ocean and river currents. The estimated cost of this power source is 5.5 cents per kwh. Wind energy costs 6.9 cents a kilowatt hour. Nuclear costs 4.6, and solar power costs between 16 and 48 cents per kilowatt hour depending on the location.

"If we could harness 0.1 percent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people.", Michael Bernitsas, a professor in the University of Michigan, Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, who developed the concept claimed.

K.S.Parthasarathy



Public release date: 21-Nov-2008

Contact: Nicole Casal Moore
ncmoore@umich.edu
734-647-1838
University of Michigan
'Fish technology' draws renewable energy from slow water currents

IMAGE: An artist's illustration of an array of VIVACE converters on the ocean floor.
Click here for more information.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Slow-moving ocean and river currents could be a new, reliable and affordable alternative energy source. A University of Michigan engineer has made a machine that works like a fish to turn potentially destructive vibrations in fluid flows into clean, renewable power.

The machine is called VIVACE. A paper on it is published in the current issue of the quarterly Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering.

VIVACE is the first known device that could harness energy from most of the water currents around the globe because it works in flows moving slower than 2 knots (about 2 miles per hour.) Most of the Earth's currents are slower than 3 knots. Turbines and water mills need an average of 5 or 6 knots to operate efficiently.

VIVACE stands for Vortex Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy. It doesn't depend on waves, tides, turbines or dams. It's a unique hydrokinetic energy system that relies on "vortex induced vibrations."

Vortex induced vibrations are undulations that a rounded or cylinder-shaped object makes in a flow of fluid, which can be air or water. The presence of the object puts kinks in the current's speed as it skims by. This causes eddies, or vortices, to form in a pattern on opposite sides of the object. The vortices push and pull the object up and down or left and right, perpendicular to the current.

These vibrations in wind toppled the Tacoma Narrows bridge in Washington in 1940 and the Ferrybridge power station cooling towers in England in 1965. In water, the vibrations regularly damage docks, oil rigs and coastal buildings.

"For the past 25 years, engineers---myself included---have been trying to suppress vortex induced vibrations. But now at Michigan we're doing the opposite. We enhance the vibrations and harness this powerful and destructive force in nature," said VIVACE developer Michael Bernitsas, a professor in the U-M Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.

Fish have long known how to put the vortices that cause these vibrations to good use. "VIVACE copies aspects of fish technology," Bernitsas said. "Fish curve their bodies to glide between the vortices shed by the bodies of the fish in front of them. Their muscle power alone could not propel them through the water at the speed they go, so they ride in each other's wake."

This generation of Bernitsas' machine looks nothing like a fish, though he says future versions will have the equivalent of a tail and surface roughness a kin to scales. The working prototype in his lab is just one sleek cylinder attached to springs. The cylinder hangs horizontally across the flow of water in a tractor-trailer-sized tank in his marine renewable energy laboratory. The water in the tank flows at 1.5 knots.

Here's how VIVACE works: The very presence of the cylinder in the current causes alternating vortices to form above and below the cylinder. The vortices push and pull the passive cylinder up and down on its springs, creating mechanical energy. Then, the machine converts the mechanical energy into electricity.

Just a few cylinders might be enough to power an anchored ship, or a lighthouse, Bernitsas says. These cylinders could be stacked in a short ladder. The professor estimates that array of VIVACE converters the size of a running track and about two stories high could power about 100,000 houses. Such an array could rest on a river bed or it could dangle, suspended in the water. But it would all be under the surface.

Because the oscillations of VIVACE would be slow, it is theorized that the system would not harm marine life like dams and water turbines can.

Bernitsas says VIVACE energy would cost about 5.5 cents per kilowatt hour. Wind energy costs 6.9 cents a kilowatt hour. Nuclear costs 4.6, and solar power costs between 16 and 48 cents per kilowatt hour depending on the location.

"There won't be one solution for the world's energy needs," Bernitsas said. "But if we could harness 0.1 percent of the energy in the ocean, we could support the energy needs of 15 billion people."

The researchers recently completed a feasibility study that found the device could draw power from the Detroit River. They are working to deploy one for a pilot project there within the 18 months.

###

This work has been supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Office of Naval Research, the National Science Foundation, the Detroit/Wayne County Port Autrhority, the DTE Energy Foundation, Michigan Universities Commercialization Initiative, and the Link Foundation. The technology is being commercialized through Bernitsas' company, Vortex Hydro Energy.

The paper is called "VIVACE (Vortex Induced Vibration for Aquatic Clean Energy): A New Concept in Generation of Clean and Renewable Energy from Fluid Flow." Other authors are Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering graduate students Kamaldev Raghavan, Yaron Ben-Simon and Elizabeth M.H. Garcia.

For more information:
Michael Bernitsas: http://www.engin.umich.edu/dept/name/faculty_staff/bernitsas/Main.htm
Vortex Hydro Energy: http://www.vortexhydroenergy.com/

Michigan Engineering: The University of Michigan College of Engineering is ranked among the top engineering schools in the country. At more than $130 million annually, its engineering research budget is one of largest of any public university. Michigan Engineering is home to 11 academic departments and a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center. The college plays a leading role in the Michigan Memorial Phoenix Energy Institute and hosts the world class Lurie Nanofabrication Facility. Find out more at http://www.engin.umich.edu/.

EDITORS: Watch and link to a video at: http://www.ns.umich.edu/podcast/video.php?id=499
Photos are available at http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=6841

Magic solar milestone reached

Solar voltaic cell has achieved the highest efficiency of 25 %. Credit for this goes to the researchers at the University of South Wales (UNSW)'s ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence.


K.S.Parthasarathy


Contact: Peter Trute
p.trute@unsw.edu.au
61-293-851-933
University of New South Wales
Magic solar milestone reached
UNSW claims 25 percent solar cell efficiency title

UNSW's ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence has again asserted its leadership in solar cell technology by reporting the first silicon solar cell to achieve the milestone of 25 per cent effiency.

The UNSW ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence already held the world record of 24.7 per cent for silicon solar cell efficiency. Now a revision of the international standard by which solar cells are measured, has delivered the significant 25 per cent record to the team led by Professors Martin Green and Stuart Wenham and widened their lead on the rest of the world.

Centre Executive Research Director, Scientia Professor Martin Green, said the new world mark in converting incident sunlight into electricity was one of six new world records claimed by UNSW for its silicon solar technologies.

Professor Green said the jump in performance leading to the milestone resulted from new knowledge about the composition of sunlight.

"Since the weights of the colours in sunlight change during the day, solar cells are measured under a standard colour spectrum defined under typical operational meteorological conditions," he said.

"Improvements in understanding atmospheric effects upon the colour content of sunlight led to a revision of the standard spectrum in April. The new spectrum has a higher energy content both down the blue end of the spectrum and at the opposite red end with, dare I say it, relatively less green."

The recalibration of the international standard, done by the International Electrochemical Commission in April, gave the biggest boost to UNSW technology while the measured efficiency of others made lesser gains. UNSW's world-leading silicon cell is now six per cent more efficient than the next-best technology, Professor Green said. The new record also inches the UNSW team closer to the 29 per cent theoretical maximum efficiency possible for first-generation silicon photovoltaic cells.

Dr Anita Ho-Baillie, who heads the Centre's high efficiency cell research effort, said the UNSW technology benefited greatly from the new spectrum "because our cells push the boundaries of response into the extremities of the spectrum".

"Blue light is absorbed strongly, very close to the cell surface where we go to great pains to make sure it is not wasted. Just the opposite, the red light is only weakly absorbed and we have to use special design features to trap it into the cell," she said.

Professor Green said: "These light-trapping features make our cells act as if they were much thicker than they are. This already has had an important spin-off in allowing us to work with CSG Solar to develop commercial 'thin-film' silicon-on-glass solar cells that are over 100 times thinner than conventional silicon cells."

ARC Centre Director, Professor Stuart Wenham said the focus of the Centre is now improving mainstream production. "Our main efforts now are focussed on getting these efficiency improvements into commercial production," he said. "Production compatible versions of our high efficiency technology are being introduced into production as we speak."

The world-record holding cell was fabricated by former Centre researchers, Dr Jianhua Zhao and Dr Aihua Wang, who have since left the Centre to establish China Sunergy, one of the world's largest photovoltaic manufacturers. "China was the largest manufacturer of solar cells internationally in 2007 with 70 per cent of the output from companies with our former UNSW students either Chief Executive Officers or Chief Technical Officers", said Professor Green.

###

Media Contact: Professor Martin Green | 9385 4018 | 0411 492 416 | m.green@unsw.edu.au

UNSW Media Office: Peter Trute | 02 9385 1933 | 0410 271 826 | p.trute@unsw.edu.au

Hydrogen sulfide discovered to be a major player in the regulation of blood pressure

This news item reveals how intricate and complicated are the biochemical mechanisms which control and keep in harmony various processes in our body.

K.S.Parthasarathy


The heart.org

http://www.theheart.org/viewArticle.do?primaryKey=913773&nl_id=tho23oct08

HEARTWIRE

Hydrogen sulfide discovered to be a major player in the regulation of blood pressure
October 23, 2008 | Michael O'Riordan
Baltimore, MD - Twenty years after US scientists won the Nobel Prize for discovering that nitric oxide (NO) is an important signaling molecule in the cardiovascular system, findings that helped identify the determinants of blood pressure, new research has uncovered yet another gas, hydrogen sulfide (H2S), that acts as a major physiologic vasodilator and regulator of blood pressure.
"Nitric oxide is unique in that it's a gas, and since mediators in the body come in chemical classes, others have wondered whether other gases could do the same sort of thing," said Dr Solomon Snyder (Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD), one of the investigators from the study published in the October 24, 2008 issue of Science.
Made by bacteria in the intestine, H2S has been known for some time to lower blood pressures in animals injected with the gas. Investigators, however, wanted to determine the exact role of H2S as a physiologic vasorelaxant and determinant of blood-pressure levels. Speaking with heartwire, Snyder explained that researchers, including senior investigator Dr Rui Wang (Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, ON), speculated H2S might be made by cystathionine -lyase (CSE), leading to the development of a mouse model in which the gene for CSE was knocked out.
Once the gene for CSE was depleted, the researchers discovered that H2S levels in the serum, heart, aorta, and other tissues were markedly reduced.
"We discovered that in most of the body, except for the brain, hydrogen-sulfide production vanished in the knockout mice," said Solomon. "So we said, 'Aha!' We were then able to characterize these mice to see what changed about them, and of course, the first big question was: Does anything happen to the blood pressure? Sure enough, their blood pressure is markedly elevated, at least as much, if not more so, in mice in which we knock out the gene for making nitric oxide."
Compared with normal mice, blood pressure in the mutant mice peaked at 135 mm Hg when the mice were 12 weeks of age, almost 18 mm Hg higher than in the control mice.
Next steps involved testing how the mesenteric arteries of the mutant mice responded to methacholine, a neurotransmitter that is part of the relaxation pathway. When methacholine was added to the vessels of normal mice, the arteries relaxed. When it was added to the vessels of CSE-knockout mice, however, there was no relaxation of the mesenteric arteries.
"We're going to have to do a lot of work, in lots of blood vessels, and in lots of species of animals, to pin down the relative importance of nitric oxide and hydrogen sulfide, but from our work it is very clear that hydrogen sulfide is a pretty major determinant of how your blood vessels function and your blood pressure," said Snyder.
Although the two gases appear to perform similar functions, Snyder said they are unsure if nitric oxide and H2S work together or are mutually exclusive, a question that will require continued research. In terms of potential long-term clinical implications, H2S could be chemically linked with another molecule, put into a pill, and then released to regulate blood pressure, he added.
Snyder told heartwire the discovery was fascinating and that he could hardly believed the results worked out. "It was just a theory, and we kept doing lots of different experiments, with Rui Wang's lab and with my own lab, and every experiment kept coming out positive. In good science, you do all sorts of experiments to disprove your hypothesis, but nothing disproved this one."
Source
1. Yang G, Wu L, Jiang B, et al. H2S as a physiologic vasorelaxant: hypertension in mice with deletion of cystathionine -lyase. Science 2008; 322:587-590.


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Scientists identify gene that may contribute to improved rice yield

Public release date: 28-Sep-2008

Contact: Barbara K. Kennedy
science@psu.edu
814-863-4682
Penn State
Scientists identify gene that may contribute to improved rice yield
The researchers created transgenic lines of rice (G-2 and G-8) in which the GIF1 gene was overexpressed.

A team of scientists, including Penn State Distinguished Professor of Biology Hong Ma, has identified a gene in rice that controls the size and weight of rice grains. The gene may prove to be useful for breeding high-yield rice and, thus, may benefit the vast number of people who rely on this staple food for survival. "Our work shows that it is possible to increase rice's yield by enhancing the expression of a particular gene," said Ma. The team's results will be published on 28 September 2008 in an early online edition of the journal Nature Genetics, and in the November print issue of the journal.

The researchers first searched for and identified mutant strains of rice that exhibited underweight grains. "We found a particular mutant that is defective in its ability to produce normal-sized grains," said Zuhua He, a biology professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the leader of the team. The group then examined the mutant and found that it carried a mutation within the GIF1 gene. "The GIF1 gene is responsible for controlling the activity of the enzyme invertase, which is located in the cell wall and converts sucrose to substances that then are used to create starch," said He. "Invertase is important in the formation of starch within developing grains of rice. If invertase is not active, the rice plant cannot produce edible grains."

Next, to test the ability of the GIF1 gene to control the production of invertase, the team measured the activity of invertase within a normal strain of rice, in which the GIF1 gene lacked any mutations, and within a mutant strain of rice, in which the GIF1 gene contained a mutation that caused a defect in the invertase activity. The scientists found that invertase activity in the mutant strain was only 17 percent of the activity that was observed in the normal strain, suggesting that the GIF1 gene does, indeed, control invertase activity. The team then created transgenic lines of rice in which the GIF1 gene is overexpressed and found that, compared with normal strains, the transgenic rice had larger and heavier grains.

According to Ma, the team was surprised to find that the GIF1 gene was so specialized in controlling invertase activity in a particular part of the grain -- the vascular tissue, which transports nutrients, including sugars generated by invertase, to the developing grain. "The expression pattern was not expected, in part, because invertase is a general enzyme that is used by many cell types. In fact, the corresponding gene in wild rice is not expressed specifically."

The team also found that the GIF1 gene is one of the genes that were selected during the domestication of rice. "By selectively growing only those strains of rice with heavier grains, humans for thousands of years unknowingly have been increasing the frequency of rice populations that had modifications in the GIF1 gene," said Ma. "This process has caused GIF1 to be expressed specifically in the vascular tissue and, thus, to produce larger rice grains," said Ma.

The scientists hope that their findings will help others to create hybrid varieties of rice that produce even larger grains. In the meantime, they plan to perform additional analyses that will help them to understand how other genes might be involved in the process of improving rice yield. "The goal is to understand what controls grain weight and other factors, and to look for ways to increase yield," said Ma.

###

This research was supported by grants from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the National Science Foundation of China, and the Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences.

[ Sara LaJeunesse ]

CONTACTS
Hong Ma: (+1) 814-863-6414, hxm16@psu.edu
Zuhua He: zhhe@sibs.ac.cn
Barbara Kennedy (PIO): (+1) 814-863-4682, science@psu.edu

IMAGE
A high-resolution image related to this story is on the Web at: http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/Ma9-2008.htm
After the embargo lifts, image captions and the text of this press release will be posted there, as well. For your convenience in preparing your stories in advance of the embargo date, the image caption is provided below:

CAPTION AND CREDIT FOR IMAGE:
The researchers created transgenic lines of rice (G-2 and G-8) in which the GIF1 gene was overexpressed. Compared to normal strains (WT), they found that the transgenic rice had larger and heavier grains. In this figure, the grains on the top are from white rice and the grains on the bottom are from brown rice.
Credit: Zuhua He, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Idaho National Laboratory researchers meet major hydrogen milestone

Idaho National Laboratory reports this week a notable achievement in hydrogen producing technology.

K.S.Parthasarathy




Public release date: 18-Sep-2008

Contact: Teri Ehresman
Teri.Ehresman@inl.gov
208-520-6252
DOE/Idaho National Laboratory
Idaho National Laboratory researchers meet major hydrogen milestone

A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory earlier this month reached a major milestone with the successful production of hydrogen through High-Temperature Electrolysis (HTE).

The milestone was reached when the Integrated Laboratory Scale experiment started producing hydrogen at a rate of 5.6 cubic meters per hour.

The achievement was recognized at a media event in Idaho Falls Sept. 18.

"This is by far the biggest achievement we've had," said Carl Stoots, the experiment's principal investigator.

High-Temperature Electrolysis is a system of producing hydrogen very efficiently by using technology originally developed for solid oxide fuel cells. HTE is a significant improvement over the more conventional methods to produce hydrogen. HTE uses an electric current through water to separate it into hydrogen and oxygen. Combined with a clean power source such as a next-generation nuclear plant, HTE could produce hydrogen at 45 to 55 percent efficiency.

There are several potential applications of hydrogen from high-temperature electrolysis, all of which are closer to being actualized now that HTE has proven itself capable of producing hydrogen at such an advanced level. Hydrogen is commonly used to help produce liquid fuels. INL Laboratory Fellow Steve Herring, who heads the HTE project, said it could also prove helpful in upgrading fuel from the Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada, because producing gasoline and diesel fuel from such heavy oil deposits requires extensive amounts of hydrogen and steam.

September's achievement is a major scale-up from earlier INL experiments on a small scale. Herring said his team wanted it to match the final product closely.

With this milestone met, the HTE plant is on its way to opening many doors for innovation in energy production, contributing to the Department of Energy's overarching goal of a "hydrogen economy." Eventually, HTE could provide pure hydrogen for fuel cell-powered cars, Herring said – "but that's a long way off."

###

The HTE plant is located in the Bonneville County Technology Center, 101 Technology Drive in Idaho Falls, across the street from the INL Research Center.

Study shows pine bark naturally reduces knee osteoarthritis

Public release date: 3-Sep-2008

Contact: Melanie Nimrodi
mnimrodi@mww.com
312-546-3508



MWW Group
Study shows pine bark naturally reduces knee osteoarthritis
Third clinical trial reconfirms strong evidence pycnogenol lowers joint pain, symptoms; May now have lasting effect on joints following cessation of the extract

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, is on the rise. A new study published in the August journal of Phytotherapy Research, reveals Pycnogenol, bark extract from the French maritime pine tree, reduced overall knee osteoarthritis (OA) symptoms by 20.9 percent and lowered pain by 40.3 percent. To date, this is the third clinical trial on osteoarthritis treatment with Pycnogenol. This study investigated what happens to joint symptoms after treatment with Pycnogenol is terminated and the results show that no relapse occurred after two weeks. Pycnogenol acts as potent anti-inflammatory and the lasting effects found in this study suggest that Pycnogenol may help the joints to recover.

With osteoarthritis cases on the rise, many are seeking non-traditional medication to help ease the pain and reduce the amount of traditional medication taken. The CDC estimates osteoarthritis affects 34 percent of all adults over the age of 65. In 2005, an estimated 26.9 million adults in the U.S. had osteoarthritis, which was up from 21 million in 1990. While there's no known cure for osteoarthritis, treatments such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) or analgesics can help reduce pain and also maintain joint movement, to help the quality of life for people living with the disease. In more severe cases, cortisone shots and joint replacement surgery are used to treat OA.

"The current study is in accordance with the two previous Pycnogenol studies for osteoarthritis," said Dr. Peter Rohdewald, one of the researchers of the study. "Again the pain is gradually decreasing during the course of three months treatment with Pycnogenol. An improvement is found after the first month and a further improvement is seen after two months, where values are significantly different to the placebo group. This study again showed that patients required significantly less analgesic medication while supplementing with Pycnogenol, whereas this was not the case with the placebo-treated control group."

The study was held at Slovakia's Comenius University School of Medicine. One hundred patients with stage I or II OA were included in the study and were randomly allocated to either a Pycnogenol or placebo group. Patients were supplemented with 150 mg Pycnogenol or placebo per day over a period of three months. They were allowed to continue taking their NSAID or analgesics prescribed before the study but had to record every pill taken. The established Western Ontario McMaster questionnaire for joint function was employed to rate the pain level, and obtain measures of joint stiffness and to what extent the arthritis affects participation in daily activities. Patients were investigated in two week intervals over the treatment period of three months and a final time two weeks after discontinuation of medication.

The overall score, summarizing pain, stiffness and daily activities, improved statistical significantly by 20.9 percent in the Pycnogenol group. Interestingly, the joint improvement achieved with Pycnogenol persisted after intake of Pycnogenol was discontinued for four weeks. The joint pain decreased by 40.3 percent after completion of the three months supplementation with Pycnogenol and two weeks later the pain was still 36.1 percent lower than at baseline. Furthermore, 38 percent of patients in the Pycnogenol group required less NSAID's or other analgesic medication for joint pain.

"The anti-inflammatory potency of Pycnogenol explains the success in lowering joint pain and stiffness for arthritic joints," said Rohdewald. "After three recent clinical studies on osteoarthritis, Pycnogenol continues to demonstrate its effectiveness for osteoarthritis symptoms making it a viable, natural and safe alternative for individuals. This is the first study that investigated whether a relapse of symptoms occurs after taking Pycnogenol is stopped. The results show a lasting effect after discontinuation which suggest the anti-inflammatory mechanisms of Pycnogenol has allowed the joints to recover."

In another study this year (also published in the journal of Phytotherapy Research), Pycnogenol was shown to reduce osteoarthritis symptoms by 56 percent. Moreover, patients required 58 percent less standard pain medication, which greatly improved the gastrointestinal complications resulting from the pain medication by 63 percent. Last year, a study on osteoarthritis carried out at the University of Arizona Tucson (published in Nutrition Research) discovered that Pycnogenol was effective for improving pain and joint function. After three months in the Pycnogenol group, there was a reduction of 43 percent in pain, 35 percent in stiffness and 52 percent in physical function subscales, respectively. The placebo group showed no significant scores throughout the entire study.

###

Horphag Research, the exclusive worldwide distributor of Pycnogenol has filed for several patents for Pycnogenol's application for COX-1 and COX-2 inhibition and treatment of osteoarthritis.

About Pycnogenol®

Pycnogenol® is a natural plant extract originating from the bark of the maritime pine that grows along the coast of southwest France and is found to contain a unique combination of procyanidins, bioflavonoids and organic acids, which offer extensive natural health benefits. The extract has been widely studied for the past 35 years and has more than 220 published studies and review articles ensuring safety and efficacy as an ingredient. Today, Pycnogenol® is available in more than 600 dietary supplements, multi-vitamins and health products worldwide. For more information, visit www.pycnogenol.com.

Natural Health Science Inc. (NHS), based in Hoboken, New Jersey, is the North American distributor for Pycnogenol® (pic-noj-en-all) brand French maritime pine bark extract on behalf of Horphag Research. Pycnogenol® is a registered trademark of Horphag Research Ltd., Guernsey, and its applications are protected by U.S. patents #5,720,956 / #6,372,266 and other international patents. NHS has the exclusive rights to market and sell Pycnogenol® in North America and benefits from more than 35 years of scientific research assuring the safety and efficacy of Pycnogenol® as a dietary supplement. For more information about Pycnogenol® visit our Web site at www.pycnogenol.com.