Health News

Western University scientists discover a novel opiate addiction switch in the brain

Date: Sep-13-2013
Neuroscientists at Western University (London, Canada) have made a remarkable new discovery revealing the underlying molecular process by which opiate addiction develops in the brain. Opiate addiction is largely controlled by the formation of powerful reward memories that link the pleasurable effects of opiate-class drugs to environmental triggers that induce drug craving in individuals addicted to opiates. The research is published in the September 11th issue of The Journal of Neuroscience...

Fungal sex can generate new drug resistant, virulent strains

Date: Sep-13-2013
Though some might disagree, most biologists think the purpose of sex is to create diversity among offspring. Such diversity underpins evolution, enabling organisms to acquire new combinations of traits to adapt to their environment. However, scientists have been perplexed to find that many fungi and microorganisms procreate with exact replicas of themselves, where the expected outcome would simply be more of the same...

Researchers suggest adding a mental health component to teen health programs

Date: Sep-13-2013
Adding a mental health component to school-based lifestyle programs for teens could be key to lowering obesity, improving grades, alleviating severe depression and reducing substance use, a new study suggests. As a group, high-school students who participated in an intervention that emphasized cognitive behavioral skills building in addition to nutrition and physical activity had a lower average body mass index, better social behaviors and higher health class grades and drank less alcohol than did teenagers in a class with standard health lessons...

Heart disease patients with positive attitudes likely to exercise, live longer

Date: Sep-13-2013
Heart disease patients with positive attitudes are more likely to exercise and live longer, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Researchers used a questionnaire to assess the moods of 600 ischemic heart disease patients in a Denmark hospital. Five years later, researchers found: The most positive patients exercised more and had a 42 percent less chance of dying for any reason during the follow-up period; deaths were less than 10 percent...

Cost, fear, lack of information may limit CPR usage for urban minorities

Date: Sep-13-2013
Cost, fear and a lack of information are barriers for minorities in urban communities to learn and perform CPR, according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. In a small study, researchers interviewed 42 residents in Columbus, Ohio. The majority of participants were age 30 or older, African-American and female. Participants attended six focus groups and were asked about their knowledge of and training in CPR...

Novel avian influenza A virus has potential for both virulence and transmissibility in humans

Date: Sep-13-2013
A new study has found that a novel avian-origin H7N9 influenza A virus, which has recently emerged in humans, attaches moderately or abundantly to the epithelium of both the upper and lower respiratory tracts. This pattern has not been observed before for avian influenza A viruses. The report, published in the October issue of The American Journal of Pathology, suggests that the emerging H7N9 virus has the potential to cause a pandemic, since it may transmit efficiently in humans and cause severe pneumonia...

New techniques for cerebral white matter fiber tracing

Date: Sep-13-2013
At present, fiber tracking algorithms are divided into deterministic tractography and probabilistic tractography. In deterministic algorithms, scholars proposed the fiber assignment by continuous tracking algorithm, the tensor deflection algorithm, the tensorline algorithm. Deterministic algorithms track fibers mainly depending on diffusion direction; however, they are susceptible to noise and partial volume effects, which result in the accumulation of tracking errors...

3 out of every 4 cases of bladder cancer display mutations in the same gene

Date: Sep-13-2013
Researchers from the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have discovered that more than 70% of bladder tumours display somatic mutations in the TERT gene (telomerase reverse transcriptase). The TERT gene is involved in the protection of DNA and in cellular ageing processes and cancer. These results make this gene the most mutated in these tumours. The study was led by Francisco X...

New scoring system predicts likelihood of diabetes remission after weight-loss surgery

Date: Sep-13-2013
US Scientists have developed a simple scoring system (DiaRem), based on four readily available preoperative patient characteristics, that can predict which candidates for gastric bypass surgery are likely to achieve diabetes remission within 5 years...

2 common drugs may help treat deadly Middle East Respiratory Syndrome

Date: Sep-13-2013
Treatment with two common drugs reduced viral replication and lung damage when given to monkeys infected with the virus that causes Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. The condition is deadly pneumonia that has killed more than 100 people, primarily in the Middle East. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, was first reported in Saudi Arabia last year. The infection is caused by a coronavirus, called MERS-CoV, which is closely related to several coronaviruses that infect bats. About half of patients who developed the syndrome have died. Currently, there is no proven effective treatment...