Health News

Is food addiction a step closer to formal diagnostic status?

Date: Oct-09-2013
Food addiction is not yet recognised as a mental disorder but certain obese individuals clearly display addictive-like behaviour towards food. To achieve a formal diagnostic status, 'food addiction' requires a stronger evidence base to support the claim that certain ingredients have addictive properties identical to addictive drugs of abuse. This topic is up for debate in the session, 'Binge eating obesity is a food addiction'...

Potential therapeutic alternative in psychiatric disorders offered by NAC amino acid

Date: Oct-09-2013
Improved understanding of the roles of inflammation and oxidative stress in psychiatric disorders has generated new leads in the search for novel therapies. One such investigative compound currently in clinical trials is an amino acid, N-Acetyl Cysteine (NAC), which appears to reduce the core symptoms of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, depression, autism and cravings in addictions including cocaine, cannabis abuse and cigarette smoking. At the start of the decade of the brain, in the early 1990s, there was great hope that a flurry of new treatment discoveries would eventuate...

The importance of hormone fluctuations in pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder highlighted

Date: Oct-09-2013
Improved understanding of the role of female sex hormones on the drivers and symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) may shed light on the complex interactions between sex hormones and mood, potentially helping to explain the increased prevalence of mood disorders in women. Most women are unaffected by the hormonal changes of the menstrual cycle, however approximately 20% of women experience premenstrual syndrome (PMS), or premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a more severe form of PMS...

New insights into how JC polyomavirus invades cells

Date: Oct-09-2013
For more than a decade the research group of Brown University Professor Walter Atwood has doggedly pursued the workings of the JC polyomavirus, which causes a disease called PML that fatally degrades the central nervous system of patients with weakened immune systems. In a study published online in the Journal of Virology, his team describes how it gains entry into cells: It breaks in via certain receptors of the neurotransmitter serotonin called 5-HT2 receptors...

When female US veterans suffer domestic violence

Date: Oct-09-2013
A new study, published in Springer's Journal of Family Violence, casts light on how health care providers respond to the emotional, sexual and physical violence that female veterans sometimes experience at the hands of their intimate partners. According to the research group, this type of abuse can be common in the lives of women veterans and there is a need to understand how health care providers can best be responsive to this population's health care needs. The research was headed by Dr. Katherine Iverson and colleagues of the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, U.S...

Physicians reach quality-improvement goals at Mass. General with the help of incentives

Date: Oct-09-2013
A program offering modest financial incentives to salaried Massachusetts General Hospital-affiliated physicians who achieve specific quality improvement targets has helped the organization meet goals related to the adoption of electronic health technology, improved quality and efficiency, and communication with patients and other providers. In their report in the October issue of Health Affairs, leaders of the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization (MGPO) describe results of the first six years of the MGPO Quality Incentive Program...

Unhealthy lifestyles should be targeted by healthcare providers

Date: Oct-09-2013
Healthcare providers should treat unhealthy behaviors as aggressively as they treat high blood pressure, cholesterol and other heart disease risk factors, according to an American Heart Association science advisory published in Circulation. "We're talking about a paradigm shift from only treating biomarkers - physical indicators of a person's risk for heart disease - to helping people change unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, unhealthy body weight, poor diet quality and lack of physical activity," said Bonnie Spring, Ph.D...

Shedding light on abnormal heart muscle thickening and potential treatment

Date: Oct-09-2013
While most people would consider a big heart to be a good thing, for heart disease experts, it is often a sign of serious disease. Now, Dr. Lynn Megeney of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) has made the surprising discovery that proteins involved in cell death also play a key role in abnormal heart muscle thickening. The research, published in the October 13, 2013 online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could lead to new treatments for certain forms of heart disease...

Pancreatic cancer: chemo drug Gemzar improves survival rates

Date: Oct-09-2013
People who have had surgery to remove pancreatic cancer may benefit from better survival time, without the disease progressing, if they are treated with the drug gemcitabine for 6 months after surgery, a study has shown. The randomized trial investigated treatment with gemcitabine (a chemotherapy drug marketed in the US under the brand name Gemzar) given in addition to surgery, comparing this with observation alone, and the results are published in the journal JAMA...

Aircraft noise increases risk of cardiovascular disease

Date: Oct-09-2013
Studies from both sides of the pond show that people exposed to high levels of aircraft noise are at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, according to the BMJ. Previous research has shown that people living near airports experience physiological and psychological reactions to the high noise levels. These include disturbed sleep patterns, nervousness, annoyance and higher blood pressure. But the extent to which aircraft noise influences the risk of adverse health outcomes had not been well-studied - until now...