Health News

Fruit flies make good stand-ins for humans in diabetes treatment tests

Date: Nov-08-2013
In a finding that has the potential to significantly speed up diabetes research, scientists at the University of Maryland have discovered that fruit flies respond to insulin at the cellular level much like humans do, making these common, easily bred insects good subjects for laboratory experiments in new treatments for diabetes. The common fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster looks like a sesame seed with wings, produces offspring by the thousands, and lives for around a month. These creatures don't resemble humans in any obvious way, but they share more than sixty percent of our genetic code...

EORTC study: Prognostic value of baseline recorded health-related quality of life for survival for eleven types of cancer

Date: Nov-08-2013
Results of an EORTC study published in Cancer point out the prognostic value of baseline recorded health-related quality of life for survival for eleven types of cancer: brain, breast, colorectal, esophageal, head and neck, lung, melanoma, ovarian, pancreatic, prostate, and testicular cancer. For each cancer site, at least one health-related quality of life parameter provided additional prognostic information over and above the clinical and sociodemographic variables. Dr...

Patients with colorectal cancer liver metastases benefit from nuclear medicine therapy

Date: Nov-08-2013
For patients who fail to respond to current first-line and second-line treatments for colorectal cancer liver metastases (also known as salvage patients), radioembolization with Y-90 microspheres could extend survival according to new research published in the November issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. A systematic review conducted by researchers showed that approximately 50 percent of salvage patients have an overall survival of more than 12 months after this nuclear medicine therapy...

Constructing a brain-controlled neuroprosthetic device

Date: Nov-08-2013
In a study led by Duke researchers, monkeys have learned to control the movement of both arms on an avatar using just their brain activity. The findings, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, advance efforts to develop bilateral movement in brain-controlled prosthetic devices for severely paralyzed patients. To enable the monkeys to control two virtual arms, researchers recorded nearly 500 neurons from multiple areas in both cerebral hemispheres of the animals' brains, the largest number of neurons recorded and reported to date...

Constructing a brain-controlled neuroprosthetic device

Date: Nov-08-2013
In a study led by Duke researchers, monkeys have learned to control the movement of both arms on an avatar using just their brain activity. The findings, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, advance efforts to develop bilateral movement in brain-controlled prosthetic devices for severely paralyzed patients. To enable the monkeys to control two virtual arms, researchers recorded nearly 500 neurons from multiple areas in both cerebral hemispheres of the animals' brains, the largest number of neurons recorded and reported to date...

For people with low self-esteem, touch may alleviate existential fears

Date: Nov-08-2013
As human beings, we all know that we are going to die some day. Most of us deal with this knowledge by trying to live meaningful lives, but people with low self-esteem tend not to see their lives as particularly meaningful. Now, research suggests that touch may help people with low self-esteem in confronting their own mortality. "Even fleeting and seemingly trivial instances of interpersonal touch may help people to deal more effectively with existential concern," explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Sander Koole of VU University Amsterdam...

For people with low self-esteem, touch may alleviate existential fears

Date: Nov-08-2013
As human beings, we all know that we are going to die some day. Most of us deal with this knowledge by trying to live meaningful lives, but people with low self-esteem tend not to see their lives as particularly meaningful. Now, research suggests that touch may help people with low self-esteem in confronting their own mortality. "Even fleeting and seemingly trivial instances of interpersonal touch may help people to deal more effectively with existential concern," explains psychological scientist and lead researcher Sander Koole of VU University Amsterdam...

EORTC study: Prognostic value of baseline recorded health-related quality of life for survival for eleven types of cancer

Date: Nov-08-2013
Results of an EORTC study published in Cancer point out the prognostic value of baseline recorded health-related quality of life for survival for eleven types of cancer: brain, breast, colorectal, esophageal, head and neck, lung, melanoma, ovarian, pancreatic, prostate, and testicular cancer. For each cancer site, at least one health-related quality of life parameter provided additional prognostic information over and above the clinical and sociodemographic variables. Dr...

Higher physical activity in less-educated people is related to unhealthy diets

Date: Nov-08-2013
People with lower levels of education may eat larger amounts of unhealthy, calorically dense food than those with a higher education level, possibly because they are more physically active, according to new research published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, by Jonas Finger and colleagues at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, Germany. Studies consistently show that unhealthy diets are seen more often in people of lower socioeconomic status, a term based on factors such as education level, income level, and occupation...

Higher physical activity in less-educated people is related to unhealthy diets

Date: Nov-08-2013
People with lower levels of education may eat larger amounts of unhealthy, calorically dense food than those with a higher education level, possibly because they are more physically active, according to new research published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, by Jonas Finger and colleagues at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, Germany. Studies consistently show that unhealthy diets are seen more often in people of lower socioeconomic status, a term based on factors such as education level, income level, and occupation...