Health & Medicine
If the proven long-term benefits of smoking cessation are not enough to motivate young adults to stop smoking, a new study shows that 18- to 24-year olds who stop smoking for at least two weeks report substantially fewer respiratory symptoms,...
The same gene mutations linked to inherited, early-onset Alzheimer's disease have been found in people with the more common late-onset form of the illness. The discovery by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis may...
A study of the cells that respond to crises in the blood system has yielded a few surprises, redrawing the 'map' of how blood cells are made in the body. The finding, by researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, could have wide-ranging...
A team of UCLA scientists has found that the pathogen that causes leprosy has a remarkable ability to avoid the human immune system by inhibiting the antimicrobial responses important to our defenses. In one of the first laboratory studies of its...
Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have developed what they believe to be the first clinical application of a new imaging technique to diagnose brain tumors. The unique test could preclude the need for surgery in patients whose tumors are...
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine reports that while an individual's risk of heart disease may be low in the next five or 10 years, the lifetime risk could still be very high, findings that could have implications for both clinical...
Evidence of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk is present in the blood of adolescents who consume a lot of fructose, a scenario that worsens in the face of excess belly fat, researchers report. An analysis of 559 adolescents age 14-18...
Quantifying how sore a person is after a long workout is a challenge for doctors and researchers, but scientists from Loma Linda and Asuza Pacific Universities think they may have figured it out. Their research article describing a new technique to...
A new study led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, provides even more reason for people to read a book or do a puzzle, and to make such activities a lifetime habit. Brain scans revealed that people with no symptoms of...
Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have identified a finely tuned mechanism by which fetal heart muscle develops into a healthy and fully formed beating heart -- offering new insight into the genetic causes of congenital heart disease and...
A receptor found on blood platelets whose importance as a potential pharmaceutical target has long been questioned may in fact be fruitful in drug testing, according to new research from Michigan State University chemists. A team led by Dana Spence...
Scientists from the University of Helsinki, Finland, and from UCSF, US, have exposed a cell pathway that breast tumor cells use to destruct local tissue neighborhood. Cancer cells may use this pathway to free themselves from mammary epithelial...
Investigators in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Systems Biology have discovered a previously unknown type of immune cell, a B cell that can produce the important growth factor GM-CSF, which stimulates many other immune cells....
A scientist at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an anthropologist from the University at Albany teamed up to use ultra-modern chemical analysis technology at Rensselaer to analyze ancient Mayan pottery for proof of tobacco use in the ancient...
Early detection of melanoma, the most aggressive skin cancer, is critical because melanoma will spread rapidly throughout the body. Now, University of Missouri researchers are one step closer to melanoma cancer detection at the cellular level, long...
Therapeutic hypothermia has been proven to reduce mortality and improve neurologic outcomes after a heart attack, yet it was rarely used in a sample of more than 26,000 patients, according to a study published in Therapeutic Hypothermia and...
People with high cholesterol are at risk of heart attack and stroke because atherosclerotic plaques within their arteries can rupture triggering the formation of a blood clot called an occlusive thrombus that cuts off the blood supply to their heart...
Scientists have found at least one instance when the smaller sibling gets to call the shots and cancer patients may one day benefit. The protein Chk1 has long been known to be a checkpoint in cell development: it keeps normal cells and damaged cells...
Using a mouse model, Heidelberg University Hospital researchers have for the first time successfully treated a severe congenital disorder in which sugar metabolism is disturbed. The team headed by Prof. Christian Körner, group leader at the...
A UCSF study shows a popular treatment for a potentially blinding eye infection is just as effective if given every six months versus annually. This randomized study on trachoma, the leading cause of infection-caused blindness in the world, could...
It's rubbed on the skin to reduce signs of aging and consumed by athletes to improve endurance but scientists now have the first evidence of one of vitamin E's normal body functions. The powerful antioxidant found in most foods helps repair tears in...
Scientists have discovered a missing link between the body's biological clock and sugar metabolism system, a finding that may help avoid the serious side effects of drugs used for treating asthma, allergies and arthritis. In a paper published last...
When evaluating early kidney injuries in people, doctors monitor blood level increases of creatinine, a waste product of muscle breakdown, to understand the severity of the injury. Creatinine is filtered by the kidneys, and small increases are an...
A large, international team of researchers led by scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has identified the gene that causes a rare childhood neurological disorder called PKD/IC, or "paroxysmal kinesigenic dyskinesia...
Scientists may have a way to double the efficacy and reduce the side effects of radiation therapy. Georgia Health Sciences University scientists have devised a way to reduce lung cancer cells' ability to repair the lethal double-strand DNA breaks...
Statins, traditionally known as cholesterol-lowering drugs, may reduce mortality among patients hospitalized with influenza, according to a new study released online by The Journal of Infectious Diseases. It is the first published observational...
Scientists from the University of Valencia in Spain have analysed fresh orange juice squeezed by machines in catering establishments. They have confirmed that 43% of samples exceeded the acceptable enterobacteriaceae levels laid down by legislation...
High levels of tau protein in fluid bathing the brain are linked to poor recovery after head trauma, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Fondazione IRCCS Ca Granda-Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in...
Researchers from the University of Georgia and the Mayo Clinic in Arizona have developed a vaccine that dramatically reduces tumors in a mouse model that mimics 90 percent of human breast and pancreatic cancer cases-including those resistant to...
Researchers at Henry Ford Hospital have found that one-quarter of severe asthma attacks could be prevented if only patients consistently took their medication as prescribed. Moreover, an asthma attack was only significantly reduced when patients...
Researchers at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB) have developed a new method for detailed analyses of electrical activity in the brain. The method, recently published in Neuron, can help doctors and researcher to better interpret brain...
Cancer of the liver -- rare in the United States but the third-leading cause of cancer death worldwide -- can result from environmental exposures or infections like chronic hepatitis, but the link is poorly understood. Now, researchers at Dana-...
New research by scientists at The Scripps Research Institute has underlined the power of an endogenous anti-stress peptide in the brain to prevent and even reverse some of the cellular effects of acute alcohol and alcohol dependence in animal models...
An unusual regulatory mechanism that controls the swimmer/non-swimmer option in genetically identical Salmonella also impacts the bacteria's ability to cause infection. University of Washington scientists reported the discovery this week in the...
Researchers at the University of Gothenburg's Sahlgrenska Academy have discovered a brand new tick-borne infection. Since the discovery, eight cases have been described around the world, three of them in the Gothenburg area, Sweden. In July 2009 a...
Health care coverage increased dramatically in parts of China between 1997 and 2006, a period when government interventions were implemented to improve access to health care, with particularly striking upswings in rural areas, according to new...
In pets and people, the time it takes to diagnose an infection may mean life or death. Now, a University of Missouri veterinarian is identifying ways to diagnose pet infections in approximately a third of the current diagnosis time. The resulting...
Florida is home to one of the highest percentages of residents ages 65 and older in the United States, but very few of them have thought ahead to a time when they will no longer be able to drive a vehicle safely or considered how they will get...
Lymphedema, a chronic swelling condition common in breast cancer survivors, affects three million people in the U.S. In the past, most people believed that exercise might induce or worsen lymphedema. After reviewing the literature, University of...
Over the past year, researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and around the world, have been studying a group of potent antibodies that have the ability to neutralize HIV in the lab; their hope is that they may learn how to...
Scientists at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston have uncovered important molecular and genetic keys to the development of soft-tissue sarcomas in skeletal muscle, giving researchers and clinicians additional targets to stop the growth of these often...
Surgeons can learn their skills more quickly if they are taught how to control their eye movements. Research led by the University of Exeter shows that trainee surgeons learn technical surgical skills much more quickly and deal better with the...
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine have identified a cellular protein that plays a central role in the formation of new blood vessels. The molecule is the protein Shc (pronounced SHIK), and new blood...
A drug commonly used to treat seizures appears to make eye tumors less likely to grow if they spread to other parts of the body, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Their findings are available online...
Against the backdrop of the growing epidemic of obesity in the United States, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute have made an important new discovery regarding a specific gene that plays an important role in keeping...
The structure of the corpus callosum, a thick band of nerve fibres that connects the two halves of the brain with each other and in this way enables the rapid exchange of information between the left and right hemispheres, plays an important role in...
In the fast-paced world of health care, doctors are often pressed for time during patient visits. Researchers at the University of Missouri developed a tool that allows doctors to view electronic information about patients' health conditions related...
Scientists at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, in collaboration with colleagues in Boston and South Korea, say they have identified a novel gene mutation that causes at least one form...
More than 20 years ago, Charles Borduin, a University of Missouri researcher, developed a treatment for juvenile offenders that has become one of the most widely used evidence-based treatments in the world. Now, he has found that the treatment...
Greening of vacant urban land may affect the health and safety of nearby residents, according to a study published online in the American Journal of Epidemiology this week. The team, led by senior author Charles C. Branas, PhD, associate professor...
