Health News

Poor girl child survival in India due to abortion of female fetuses and more death among girls

Date: Oct-11-2013
Modern ultrasound technology and economic pressure leads to female fetuses in the Ballabgarh area of northern India being aborted more often than male fetuses. Additionally, girls up to the age of five die more frequently than boys, which results in a gender imbalance in the area, according to Anand Krishnan, MD and doctoral candidate at Umeå University, who defended his thesis on 11 October. Anand Krishnan has completed work on the dissertation in an area called Ballabgarh Health and Demographic Surveillance System Site in northern India, about 40 kilometers from the capital of New Delhi...

Obesity and portion size

Date: Oct-11-2013
A new review answers what do we really know about manipulating portion sizes and what questions still remain. Professor Benton, at Swansea University, reviewed the scientific evidence available on portion sizes and this highlights a number of the complexities surrounding the Public Health Responsibility Deal's call for reduced portion sizes, as a way of obtaining reductions in the nation's caloric intakes. The review, to be published in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, found that simply reducing portion sizes is not an easy solution to reducing our energy intakes...

Fibroid sufferers delay seeking treatment

Date: Oct-11-2013
A newly published survey of nearly 1,000 US women with uterine fibroids shows that fear and lack of knowledge about treatment options may be preventing them from seeking treatment. Uterine fibroids are common, non-cancerous tumors of the uterine muscle (myometrium) consisting of smooth muscle cells and connective tissue. A woman may have one fibroid or groups of several fibroids, and they can range in size from less than 1 inch to more than 8 inches across...

Study finds no detrimental impact on public health departments after a Medicaid merger

Date: Oct-11-2013
State public health departments do not necessarily lose funding when merged with larger Medicaid programs, according to a just-released study. The findings from this first-of-a-kind research should help allay concerns that when such mergers occur they automatically lead to cutbacks in public health, says lead author Paula Lantz, PhD, who is chair of the Department of Health Policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS)...

Honey no better than antibiotics in patients with kidney failure

Date: Oct-11-2013
A trial published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases shows that applying medical grade honey to wounds of patients undergoing dialysis does not have an advantage over normal antibiotic use. Researchers say this finding will come as a disappointment to clinicians, some of whom hoped honey would offer a better substitute for antibiotics. Peritoneal dialysis is a procedure used to clean the blood of patients who have kidney failure. It is carried out by inserting a catheter into the peritoneum - a thin membrane surrounding organs in the abdomen...

Gel-filled gemstones make new reusable, color-changing breathalyzers

Date: Oct-11-2013
To gauge whether suspects involved in accidents or routine traffic stops have been driving drunk, police officers pair field sobriety tests with breathalyzers, which signal the presence of alcohol in the breath. Most breathalyzers are expensive and unable to test for precise concentrations of alcohol. Offering a better solution, Italian researchers have developed a novel idea for an inexpensive, portable breathalyzer whose color would change from green to red with higher alcohol concentrations...

New method for improving cord blood transplant success

Date: Oct-11-2013
Starting with a discovery in zebrafish in 2007, Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) researchers have published initial results of a Phase Ib human clinical trial of a therapeutic that has the potential to improve the success of blood stem cell transplantation. This marks the first time, just nine short years after Harvard's major commitment to stem cell biology, that investigators have carried a discovery from the lab bench to the clinic - fulfilling the promise on which HSCI was founded...

Retinitis pigmentosa test identifies mutation found in Ashkenazi Jewish population

Date: Oct-11-2013
You might not think to look to a urine test to diagnose an eye disease. But a new Duke University study says it can link what is in a patient's urine to gene mutations that cause retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, an inherited, degenerative disease that results in severe vision impairment and often blindness. The findings appear online in the Journal of Lipid Research. "My collaborators, Dr. Rong Wen and Dr...

Studies suggest infusion of blood vessel cells may contribute to organ regeneration in the future

Date: Oct-11-2013
Damaged or diseased organs may someday be healed with an injection of blood vessel cells, eliminating the need for donated organs and transplants, according to scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College. In studies appearing in recent issues of Stem Cell Journal and Developmental Cell, the researchers show that endothelial cells -- the cells that make up the structure of blood vessels -- are powerful biological machines that drive regeneration in organ tissues by releasing beneficial, organ-specific molecules...

Urinary tract infections more likely in women but men more likely to be hospitalized

Date: Oct-11-2013
While women are far more likely to suffer urinary tract infections, men are more prone to be hospitalized for treatment, according to a study by Henry Ford Hospital urologists. The first-of-its-kind research for the most common bacterial infection in the U.S. is important in providing predictors of hospital admission at a time when the health care industry is searching for ways to reduce costs. "We found that those patients who were hospitalized for treatment of urinary tract infections were most often older men, as well as those with serious kidney infections," says Jesse D. Sammon, D...