Health News

Wide-faced men trigger selfishness in others

Date: Sep-22-2013
New research has suggested that men with wider faces are more likely to make other people act selfishly, according to a series of studies published in the journal PLOS ONE. Researchers from the University of California, Riverside, say that their findings build on two previous studies, which showed that men with wider faces tend to lead more financially successful firms, and that wider-faced men are more likely to lie and cheat. For this most recent paper, the researchers conducted a series of four studies. The studies involved between 131 and 201 participants in each one...

Tooth sensor accurately detects oral activity

Date: Sep-22-2013
Whether eating, drinking, talking, coughing, breathing or smoking, our mouths are always in use. Because the mouth is an opening that can yield health information for our body, a team from National Taiwan University created a sensor that embeds within a single tooth. The sensor is so small that it can either fit inside an artificial tooth or straddle a real one...

Genomics in electronic health records

Date: Sep-22-2013
Genetic tests can now tell us whether we are at increased risk of various cancers, heart or kidney disease, asthma and a number of other conditions. Other genetic tests can tell whether you will respond to certain medicines or be harmed by side effects linked to your genetic code. But harnessing that information to benefit individual patients and prevent illnesses in others will require that doctors have access to genomic information for each patient...

Researchers reveal that proteins delivering leucine to prostate cancer cells may offer therapeutic targets

Date: Sep-22-2013
Like normal cells, cancer cells require amino acids for growth, maintenance, and cell signaling, and L-type amino acid transporters (LATs) are the delivery vehicles that supply them. Metastatic, castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) cells are highly dependent on LATs to deliver the amino acid leucine that the cells need for growth and proliferation, according to a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. To investigate the function of LATs in prostate cancer, Qian Wang, Ph.D...

Study highlights therapeutic importance of targeting a broad set of signals between cancer cells and normal cells that support them

Date: Sep-22-2013
Investigators at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have reported important progress in research aimed at finding ways to fight cancer by targeting the local environment in which tumors grow and from which they draw sustenance. The targeting of interactions between cancer cells and their environment together with the traditional tactic of directly targeting cancer cells with drugs or radiation is an important new front in the fight against cancer...

How beta-amyloid may cause Alzheimer's disease

Date: Sep-22-2013
Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown how a protein fragment known as beta-amyloid, strongly implicated in Alzheimer's disease, begins destroying synapses before it clumps into plaques that lead to nerve cell death. Key features of Alzheimer's, which affects about 5 million Americans, are wholesale loss of synapses - contact points via which nerve cells relay signals to one another - and a parallel deterioration in brain function, notably in the ability to remember...

Steady energy supply to cells during times of fasting ensured by circadian clock

Date: Sep-22-2013
Each of our cells has an energy furnace, and it is called a mitochondrion. A Northwestern University-led research team now has identified a new mode of timekeeping that involves priming the cell's furnace to properly use stored fuel when we are not eating. The interdisciplinary team has identified the "match" and "flint" responsible for lighting this tiny furnace. And the match is only available when the circadian clock says so, underscoring the importance of the biological timing system to metabolism...

Longer daily wear of back braces is best to avoid surgery for adolescents with idiopathic scoliosis

Date: Sep-22-2013
A multi-center study led by University of Iowa researchers to determine whether wearing back braces would prevent the need for spinal correction surgery in children with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) was cut short when early results were overwhelmingly in favor of bracing. The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Stuart Weinstein, MD, Ignacio V...

Severe cognitive decline, quicker progression among Parkinson's patients may be identified by blood biomarker

Date: Sep-22-2013
A genetic mutation, known as GBA, that leads to early onset of Parkinson's disease and severe cognitive impairment (in about 4 to 7 percent of all patients with the disease) also alters how specific lipids, ceramides and glucosylceramides are metabolized. Mayo Clinic researchers have found that Parkinson's patients who do not carry the genetic mutation also have higher levels of these lipids in the blood. Further, those who had Parkinson's and high blood levels were also more likely to have cognitive impairment and dementia. The research was recently published online in the journal PLOS ONE...

New target for Alzheimer's drugs discovered

Date: Sep-22-2013
A class of proteins that controls visual system development in the young brain also appears to affect vulnerability to Alzheimer's disease in the aging brain. The proteins, which are found in humans and mice, join a limited roster of molecules that scientists are studying in hopes of finding an effective drug to slow the disease process. "People are just beginning to look at what these proteins do in the brain. While more research is needed, these proteins may be a brand new target for Alzheimer's drugs," said Carla Shatz, Ph.D., the study's lead investigator. Dr...