ScienceDaily Health Headlines
for Friday, March 11, 2011
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Coffee drinking linked to reduced stroke risk in women (March 11, 2011) -- Drinking more than a cup of coffee per day was associated with a significantly lower risk of stroke in a study of Swedish women. Low or no coffee consumption was associated with an increased risk of stroke in women. Researchers caution that it's too soon to change your coffee-drinking habits. ... > full story
New bowel cancer evidence calls for routine DNA repair test (March 11, 2011) -- Bowel cancer patients whose tumors contain defects in specific DNA repair systems are much less likely to experience tumor recurrence post surgery, results from a major clinical study have demonstrated. ... > full story
Laughter really is the best medicine (for leg ulcers) (March 11, 2011) -- Forget technology. The best prescription for patients with venous leg ulcers is good quality nursing care -- and the occasional belly laugh! ... > full story
Engineered protein has potential for new anti-inflamatory treatment (March 11, 2011) -- Researchers have created a new protein molecule derived from the growth factor progranulin may provide the basis for new therapies in inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, according to a new study. ... > full story
Sildenafil reduces Raynaud's frequency in patients with systemic sclerosis, study finds (March 11, 2011) -- Researchers in Europe report that treatment with modified-release sildenafil significantly reduced the frequency of attacks of Raynaud’s phenomenon in patients with limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis (lcSSc), also known as scleroderma. The double-blind, placebo-controlled trial found that sildenafil was well tolerated with only some subjects experiencing minor or moderate side effects. ... > full story
Boy toddlers need extra help dealing with negative emotions, experts urge (March 11, 2011) -- The way you react to your two-year-old's temper tantrums or clinginess may lead to anxiety, withdrawal and behavior problems down the road, and the effect is more pronounced if the child is a boy who often displays such negative emotions as anger and social fearfulness, reports a new study. ... > full story
Synthetic compound may lead to drugs to fight pancreatic, lung cancer (March 10, 2011) -- Researchers have identified a chemical compound that may eventually lead to a drug that fights cancers that are dependent on a particular anti-viral enzyme for growth. ... > full story
New genetic deafness syndrome identified (March 10, 2011) -- Ten years ago, scientists seeking to understand how a certain type of feature on a cell called an L-type calcium channel worked created a knockout mouse missing both copies of the CACNA1D gene. The CACNA1D gene makes a protein that lets calcium flow into a cell, transmitting important instructions from other cells. The knockout mice lived a normal life span, but their hearts beat slowly and arrhythmically. They were also completely deaf. Researchers have now identified a mutation on the CACNA1D gene affecting two families in Pakistan. ... > full story
Abnormal neural activity recorded from the deep brain of Parkinson's disease and dystonia patients (March 10, 2011) -- Scientists have succeeded, for the first time, in recording cortically induced neural activity of the basal ganglia in patients with Parkinson's disease and dystonia during stereotaxic neurosurgery for the deep brain stimulation. ... > full story
Erectile dysfunction drug improves exercise tolerance in young people with congenital heart disease (March 10, 2011) -- Sildenafil, a drug used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary hypertension, has another possible use -- helping children and young adults with congenital heart disease to better tolerate exercise. Sildenafil significantly improved measures of exercise performance during stress testing in patients with single-ventricle heart disease, according to researchers. ... > full story
Vascular brain disorder often misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis, study finds (March 10, 2011) -- A devastating vascular disorder of the brain called CADASIL, which strikes young adults and leads to early dementia, often is misdiagnosed as multiple sclerosis, researchers report. ... > full story
Work climate the main reason women leave engineering, survey suggests (March 10, 2011) -- After years of investing in strategies to encourage more women to pursue a rigorous engineering degree -- and succeeding -- US engineering firms are now facing a problem in retaining qualified women engineers. Why are so many women leaving the field -- or getting their degrees but never entering the field? The top reason isn't family, according to a new study, but an unfavorable work climate. ... > full story
Scientists discover cause of rare skin cancer that heals itself (March 10, 2011) -- Scientists have discovered the gene behind a rare skin cancer which grows rapidly for a few weeks before healing spontaneously. ... > full story
Alcohol has stronger impact on gastric bypass patients, study finds (March 10, 2011) -- Patients who have had a gastric bypass operation take longer to process alcohol, potentially leading some of them to overindulge when drinking, according to the results of a new study. ... > full story
How do we combine faces and voices? (March 10, 2011) -- Faces and voices are known to be some of the key features that enable us to identify individual people, and they are rich in information such as gender, age, and body size, that lead to a unique identity for a person. A large body of neuropsychological and neuroimaging research has already determined the various brain regions responsible for face recognition and voice recognition separately, but exactly how our brain goes about combining the two different types of information (visual and auditory) is still unknown. Now a new study has revealed the brain networks involved in this "cross-modal" person recognition. ... > full story
As we sleep, speedy brain waves boost our ability to learn (March 10, 2011) -- Scientists have long puzzled over the many hours we spend in light, dreamless slumber. But a new study suggests we're busy recharging our brain's learning capacity during this traditionally undervalued phase of sleep, which can take up half the night. ... > full story
Passive smoking increases risk of stillbirth and birth defects, study suggests (March 10, 2011) -- Pregnant non-smokers who breathe in the second-hand smoke of other people are at an increased risk of delivering stillborn babies or babies with defects, a new study has found. ... > full story
An advance toward blood transfusions that require no typing (March 10, 2011) -- Scientists are reporting an "important step" toward development of a universal blood product that would eliminate the need to "type" blood to match donor and recipient before transfusions. The "immunocamouflage" technique hides blood cells from antibodies that could trigger a potentially fatal immune reaction that occurs when blood types do not match. ... > full story
Drug use increasingly associated with microbial infections (March 10, 2011) -- Illicit drug users are at increased risk of being exposed to microbial pathogens and are more susceptible to serious infections, say physicians in a new report. The review, which aims to improve the microbiological diagnosis of drug use-related infections, assesses the role of drug-related practices in the spread of a range of bacterial, viral, fungal and protozoal infections. ... > full story
A-ha! The neural mechanisms of insight (March 10, 2011) -- Although it is quite common for a brief, unique experience to become part of our long-term memory, the underlying brain mechanisms associated with this type of learning are not well understood. Now, a new brain-imaging study looks at the neural activity associated with a specific type of rapid learning, insight. ... > full story
Cerebral spinal fluid guides stem cell development in the brain (March 10, 2011) -- New studies show that cerebral spinal fluid contains a potent mix of substances that nourishes and rejuvenates brain cells. ... > full story
Aspirin's ability to protect against colorectal cancer may depend on inflammatory pathways (March 10, 2011) -- The reduced risk of colorectal cancer associated with taking aspirin or other NSAIDs may be confined to individuals already at risk because of elevations in a particular inflammatory factor in the blood. Researchers report finding that higher baseline levels of a novel inflammatory marker indicated increased risk of developing colorectal tumors and predicted who might benefit from taking aspirin or NSAIDs. ... > full story
Which side of the brain rotates a mental picture? (March 10, 2011) -- Consider the simple situation in which you are walking around the kitchen and decide to pick up your own cup of tea, which is identical to others lying on the table. Your brain chooses the correct cup of tea by using different types of information that you have stored about the position of the cup in relation to the kitchen table. The information can be represented in qualitative terms (left, right, above, below) or quantitative terms (distances and angles). Previous studies have claimed that the brain’s left hemisphere is critical for processing qualitative (technically ‘categorical’), information and the right for quantitative (‘metric’) processing. However, new neuropsychological findings show that this is not the case. ... > full story
New form of muscular dystrophy identified: Mutation in important muscle protein causes muscle disease and cognitive impairment (March 10, 2011) -- An international collaboration and a single patient with mild muscle disease and severe cognitive impairment have allowed researchers to identify a new gene mutation that causes muscular dystrophy. Furthermore, by engineering the human gene mutation into mice, the researchers have created a new mouse model that could help screen potential drugs to treat this type of muscular dystrophy. ... > full story
New mouse models generated for MYH9 genetic disorders (March 10, 2011) -- Researchers have created the first mouse models of human MYH9 genetic disorders, which cause several problems -- including enlarged platelets and sometimes fatal kidney disease. ... > full story
Model organisms? Broadening the biological lexicon to bolster translational research (March 10, 2011) -- So-called model organisms have long been at the core of biomedical research, allowing scientists to study the ins and outs of human disorders in non-human subjects. In the ideal, such models accurately recapitulate a human disorder so that, for example, the Parkinson's disease observed in a rat model would be virtually indistinguishable from that in a human patient. The reality, of course, is that rats aren't human, and few models actually faithfully reflect the phenotype of the disease in question. Thus, in the strictest sense of the word, many "models" aren't truly models at all. To developmental biologist, this is no small matter. ... > full story
Epilepsy-linked memory losss worries more patients than doctors (March 10, 2011) -- Patients with epilepsy worry more than their physicians do about the patients' potential memory loss accompanying their seizure disorder, according to a recent study. In a survey, patients with epilepsy as a group ranked memory loss as their second-most important concern on a list of 20 potential medical or social concerns. ... > full story
Novel method could improve the performance of proteins used therapeutically (March 10, 2011) -- Scientists have created a method that site-specifically modifies proteins to exert control over their properties when administered therapeutically. The technique should be useful to increase potency, slow metabolism, and improve thermal stability of therapeutically useful proteins, such as interferon alpha 2 (IFN-alpha 2), which is used to treat variety of diseases, including leukemia, melanoma, and chronic hepatitis C. ... > full story
Open-source software is actually more secure for health care IT, study suggests (March 10, 2011) -- Globally the sale of health-care information systems is a multibillion dollar industry. The vast costs and frequent failed systems regularly attract media comment. However policy makers still shy away from a class of software, open source, that could address many of these problems, because of worries about the safety and security. Now new research finds that open-source software may actually be more secure than its often more expensive alternatives. ... > full story
Negative classroom environment adversely affects children's mental health (March 10, 2011) -- Children in classrooms with inadequate material resources and children whose teachers feel they are not respected by colleagues exhibit more mental health problems than students in classrooms without these issues, finds a new study. ... > full story
Referral to high-volume hospitals for operations fails to improve outcomes statewide, study finds (March 10, 2011) -- Referring patients to hospitals that have the largest volume of surgical procedures does not necessarily lead to improved outcomes for the overall population, according to the results of a new study. ... > full story
New biomarker for Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease identified (March 9, 2011) -- Researchers have identified the first disease-specific biomarker for sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (sCJD), a universally fatal, degenerative brain disease for which there is no cure. sCJD is one of the causes of dementia and typically leads to death within a year of disease onset. ... > full story
Gene fusion mechanisms offer new clues to origin of pediatric brain tumors (March 9, 2011) -- A detailed analysis of gene fusions present at high frequency in the most common pediatric brain tumors has been performed for the first time in a study that sheds new light on how these genomic rearrangements form in the early stages of cancer. ... > full story
Giving children the power to be scientists (March 9, 2011) -- Children who are taught how to think and act like scientists develop a clearer understanding of the subject, a study has shown. ... > full story
Curbing cholesterol could help combat infections, study shows (March 9, 2011) -- Lowering cholesterol could help the body's immune system fight viral infections, researchers have found. Scientists have shown a direct link between the workings of the immune system and cholesterol levels. ... > full story
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