Health News

Discovery about DNA repair could lead to improved cancer treatments

Date: Sep-13-2013
Medical researchers at the University of Alberta have made a basic science discovery that advances the understanding of how DNA repairs itself. When DNA becomes too damaged it ultimately leads to cancer. Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry researcher Mark Glover and his colleagues published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal, Structure (Cell Press), earlier this summer. For years, scientists thought two key proteins involved in DNA repair operated in exactly the same way...

Shingles symptoms may be caused by neuronal short circuit

Date: Sep-13-2013
The pain and itching associated with shingles and herpes may be due to the virus causing a "short circuit" in the nerve cells that reach the skin, Princeton researchers have found. This short circuit appears to cause repetitive, synchronized firing of nerve cells, the researchers reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This cyclical firing may be the cause of the persistent itching and pain that are symptoms of oral and genital herpes as well as shingles and chicken pox, according to the researchers...

Alzheimer's: newly identified protein pathology impairs RNA splicing

Date: Sep-13-2013
Move over, plaques and tangles. Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center have identified a previously unrecognized type of pathology in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease. These tangle-like structures appear at early stages of Alzheimer's and are not found in other neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease. What makes these tangles distinct is that they sequester proteins involved in RNA splicing, the process by which instructional messages from genes are cut and pasted together...

Multiple sclerosis appears to originate in different part of brain than long believed

Date: Sep-13-2013
The search for the cause of multiple sclerosis, a debilitating disease that affects up to a half million people in the United States, has confounded researchers and medical professionals for generations. But Steven Schutzer, a physician and scientist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, has now found an important clue why progress has been slow - it appears that most research on the origins of MS has focused on the wrong part of the brain. Look more to the gray matter, the new findings published in the journal PLOS ONE suggest, and less to the white...

Study: Racial, ethnic differences in outcomes following stroke known as subarachnoid hemorrhage

Date: Sep-13-2013
Race or ethnicity can be a significant clue in the United States as to who will survive a kind of stroke known as a subarachnoid hemorrhage and who will be discharged to institutional care, a new study has found. Compared to Caucasians, Asian/Pacific Islander patients were more likely and Hispanic patients less likely to die of a subarachnoid hemorrhage, or SAH, while in the hospital. African-American patients were more likely than Caucasians to require institutional care following discharge from the hospital, although their risk of death while in the hospital was similar...

Episodic migraines linked to obesity

Date: Sep-13-2013
People who have the occasional migraine are more likely to suffer from obesity, compared with those who do not have migraines, according to a study published in the journal Neurology. Previous studies have demonstrated a link between people with chronic migraines and obesity, the researchers say. But they add that the research has been conflicting on whether the link is relevant to people who have less frequent migraine attacks. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, MD, conducted a study of 3,862 people whose average age was 47...

UAlberta medical researchers discover how immune system kills healthy cells

Date: Sep-13-2013
Medical scientists at the University of Alberta have made a key discovery about how the immune system kills healthy cells while attacking infections. This finding could one day lead to better solutions for cancer and anti-viral treatments. Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry researcher Colin Anderson recently published his team's findings in the peer-reviewed journal, Journal of Immunology. His team included colleagues from the United States and the Netherlands, and graduate students from the U of A...

Travel patterns of older adults impacted by visual impairment

Date: Sep-12-2013
Visual impairment in older adults because of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but not glaucoma, in older adults was associated with restriction of travel to nearby locations, according to a study by Frank C. Curriero, Ph.D., of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, and colleagues...

Study suggests sleep apnea in young children common after adenotonsillectomy

Date: Sep-12-2013
A study of children younger than 3 years of age with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) suggests that many of them will have residual OSA after adenotonsillectomy (T & A) intended to treat it, according to a study by Andrea Nath, M.D., and colleagues at the University of Chicago.  OSA is a form of sleep-disordered breathing estimated to affect 2 to 3 percent of children. Predictors of persistent OSA after T & A surgery in younger children have not been well studied according to the study background...

What are the benefits of thyme?

Date: Sep-12-2013
Thyme is an herb with culinary, medicinal and ornamental uses. Thyme is of the genus Thymus, the most common being Thymus vulgaris. The flowers, leaves and oil of thyme are commonly used by people for the treatment of bedwetting, diarrhea, stomachache, arthritis, colic, sore throat, cough (including whooping cough), bronchitis, flatulence and as a diuretic (to increase urination). In Ancient Egypt thyme was used for embalming. In Ancient Greece thyme was used as an incense in temples - it was also commonly added to bathwater...