Blood Vessels

First-baseman Greg Walker of the Chicago White Sox, who suffered a seizure during batting practice July 30, was released from the hospital and is expected to return to action in 10 to 15 days. Doctors determined that Walker's problem was caused by an inflammation of blood vessels in the brain.

Scientists Thursday reported progress in cutting off blood supply to a wide variety of tumors in laboratory animals, a finding that could lead to new ways of making human cancers shrink and disappear. "We don't want to oversell this--we're not saying we have the magic bullet, there's a lot more research to be done. But so far, we have green lights," said Dr. David A. Cheresh, one of the lead scientists on the project at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla.

Scientists said Thursday that they have isolated a gene that instructs the body to build tiny new blood vessels, a crucial step in cancer growth, and they say this could open new strategies to defeat malignancies. The researchers who purified and analyzed the protein, named angiogenin, which this gene controls, say it is the first time that an organ-forming protein has been understood in detail. The discovery is the culmination of 10 years of work by Dr. Bert L.

British actress Judi Dench is seeking to downplay fears over the revelation that she is suffering from a degenerative eye condition. The Oscar-winning Dench, perhaps best known as James Bond's mysterious boss M, has been dealing with two different forms of macular generation -- one in each eye. According to Reuters, she can no longer read scripts and has to have someone read them out loud to her, "like reading me a story. " According to the National Eye Institute, macular degeneration occurs in an area known as the macula, which sits at the center of the light-sensitive tissue known as the retina, located at the back of the eye socket.

Scientists are harnessing light beams to fight one of the most insidious problems of aging, providing a ray of hope against a creeping blindness that steals vision from the center out. Age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, is the leading cause of blindness in people over 50. First, fine detail fades. Your crossword puzzle seems OK at a glance, until you try focusing on just one word. People's faces start to blur. You can't read or drive. Eventually, the worst form of AMD causes blindness.

Eating vegetables with your meat may take the edge off the damage the fat can do, at least in the short run. An Italian study of healthy young men and women found that adding tomatoes, carrots and peppers, which are good sources of antioxidants, to a high-fat meal lessened its negative effect on the cells lining the blood vessels.

* A typical square inch of body skin includes about 19 million cells, including an average of 625 sweat glands, 90 sebum or oil glands, 65 hair follicles, 19,000 sensory cells and about 12 to 13 feet of microscopic blood vessels. * Goose bumps are caused by smooth muscles that are concentrated around hair follicles. Under stimulation these muscles contract. This can be a reaction to cold or an evolutionary "flight or fight" response.

A heart blood vessel that was largely blocked caused the chest pains that put Gov. Jim Edgar in the hospital over the weekend, doctors said. The injury to the tiny blood vessel was characterized as a bruise to the heart that left no major or long-term damage. Dr. James Dove, president of the Prairie Heart Institute at St. John's Hospital, said the problem would be treated with medicine rather than surgery.

Researchers at UCI Medical Center are looking for 25 volunteers to participate in a study of a drug that may relieve a potentially debilitating leg condition. People with the condition, called intermittent claudication, experience aching, cramping and sometimes severe pain when they walk, but feel fine while at rest, research coordinator Judith Hopkins said. The symptoms are caused by atherosclerosis, a narrowing in the blood vessels due to plaque or fatty deposits.