Health News

Patients with hypertension benefit from automated telephone calls

Date: Sep-18-2013
Patients who received automated telephone calls inviting them to get their blood pressure checked at a walk-in clinic were more likely to have controlled hypertension than patients who did not receive calls, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in the Journal of Clinical Hypertension. The researchers studied 64,773 adult members of Kaiser Permanente Southern California with uncontrolled hypertension, commonly referred to as high blood pressure...

Potential personalised therapy for a specific kind of pancreatic cancer

Date: Sep-18-2013
Australian researchers have identified a potentially treatable subtype of pancreatic cancer, which accounts for about 2% of new cases. This subtype expresses high levels of the HER2 gene. HER2-amplified breast and gastric cancers are currently treated with Herceptin. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cause of cancer death in Western societies, with a 5-year survival rate of less than 5%. It is a molecularly diverse disease, meaning that each tumour will respond only to specific treatments that target its unique molecular make-up...

Healthy eating reduces risk of depression

Date: Sep-18-2013
A healthy diet may reduce the risk of severe depression, according to a prospective follow-up study of more than 2,000 men conducted at the University of Eastern Finland. In addition, weight loss in the context of a lifestyle intervention was associated with a reduction in depressive symptoms. "The study reinforces the hypothesis that a healthy diet has potential not only in the warding off of depression, but also in its prevention," says Ms Anu Ruusunen, MSc, who presented the results in her doctoral thesis in the field of nutritional epidemiology...

Connection between dementia, delirium and declining health

Date: Sep-18-2013
More than half of all patients with pre-existing dementia will experience delirium while hospitalized. Failing to detect and treat their delirium early leads to a faster decline of both their physical and mental health, according to health researchers. "This study is important, as delirium is often overlooked and minimized in the hospital setting, especially in persons with dementia," said Donna M. Fick, Distinguished Professor of Nursing at Penn State and principal investigator for this study. "And it illustrates that delirium is deadly, costly and impacts patient functioning...

Neuronal hypoxic tolerance increased by overexpression of cytoglobin gene

Date: Sep-18-2013
Cytoglobin is a temporary oxygen reservoir, which might provide a minimal, but continuous supply of intracellular oxygen during ischemic and anoxic conditions. A research team from China Medical University was the first to use a plasmid carrying green fluorescent protein as the carrier to construct recombinant plasmids expressing cytoglobin by genetic engineering methods. Then, the recombinant plasmid was transfected into SH-SY5Y cells. Xiuling Yu and colleagues found that overexpression of cytoglobin could protect SH-SY5Y cells against cobalt chloride-induced hypoxia...

Antihistamines in pregnancy and risk of birth defects

Date: Sep-18-2013
Antihistamines are a group of medications that are used to treat various conditions, including allergies and nausea and vomiting. Some antihistamines require a prescription, but most are available over-the-counter (OTC), and both prescription and OTC antihistamines are often used by women during pregnancy. Until recently, little information was available to women and their health care providers on the possible risks and relative safety of these medications in pregnancy, particularly when it came to specific birth defects...

Abnormalities in the white matter in schizophrenia

Date: Sep-18-2013
Just as wires must be insulated to effectively carry electrical impulses, nerve cells must be insulated by myelin to effectively transmit neural impulses. Using typical magnetic resonance imaging or MRI, one can visually distinguish parts of the brain that look white and parts that look gray. Myelin is most prevalent in the white matter because this component of the brain tissue is principally comprised by the nerve cell projections (axons) that are covered by myelin and that transmit information from one part of the brain to another...

How 'technovigilance' can help to save lives in hospitals

Date: Sep-18-2013
Electronic data routinely gathered in hospitals can be used as a warning system for missed doses of prescribed medicine and making improvements to patient safety, says a new study. A team from the Universities of Leicester and Birmingham found that the secondary use of data from an electronic prescribing and decision support system in an English hospital led to a 'substantial and sustained' reduction in rates of missed or delayed doses of medicines...

New clue to risk of sudden cardiac death

Date: Sep-18-2013
Scientists have discovered that a drug which increases the risk of sudden cardiac death interacts with mistranslated protein-coding genes present in heart muscle. The cardiac drug flecainide was developed to prevent and treat serious arrhythmias in the ventricles - the main pumps of the heart. These cause very rapid heart rates which can be lethal if unchecked. However in clinical trials, flecainide, and its sister molecule encainide, were reported to more than double the risk of sudden cardiac death...

Evolutionary explanation for nesting instinct among pregnant women

Date: Sep-18-2013
The overwhelming urge that drives many pregnant women to clean, organize and get life in order -- otherwise known as nesting -- is not irrational, but an adaptive behaviour stemming from humans' evolutionary past. Researchers from McMaster University suggest that these behaviours -- characterized by unusual bursts of energy and a compulsion to organize the household -- are a result of a mechanism to protect and prepare for the unborn baby. Women also become more selective about the company they keep, preferring to spend time only with people they trust, say researchers...