Health News

First genomic characterization of remission in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis

Date: Sep-02-2013
More children with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis are experiencing remission of their symptoms, thanks to new biological therapies, but the remission is not well-understood. A new study published in Arthritis Research & Therapy provides the first genomic characterization of remission in juvenile rheumatoid arthritis patients. "It turns out that even though these children in remission appear to be perfectly normal and symptom-free, their immune systems are still perturbed," says James N...

Lifelong 'safe' exposure to very low levels of food contaminants leads to metabolic diseases

Date: Sep-02-2013
If you're eating better and exercising regularly, but still aren't seeing improvements in your health, there might be a reason: pollution. According to a new research report published in the September issue of The FASEB Journal, what you are eating and doing may not be the problem, but what's in what you are eating could be the culprit...

Antibiotic-resistant strains of salmonella tracked from farm to fork

Date: Sep-02-2013
Continuing research on Salmonella may enable researchers to identify and track strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria as they evolve and spread, according to researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. Tracing the transmission of individual strains from agricultural environments to humans through the food system is difficult because of the rapid evolution of resistance patterns in these bacteria. Resistance patterns change so quickly that, until now, it has been impossible to determine where some highly resistant strains are coming from...

Discovery of genetic mutation in castration-resistant prostate cancer could lead to development of biomarkers and new targeted therapies

Date: Sep-02-2013
The mutation occurs in the androgen-synthesizing enzyme 3βHSD1 in castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC), according to research published online in Cell. This mutation enables the tumor to make its own supply of androgens, a hormone that fuels the growth of the prostate cancer. Prostate cancer requires a constant supply of androgens in order to sustain itself. The current standard of care for patients with metastatic prostate cancer is medical castration, the ability to interfere with the body's production of testosterone (androgens) using medications that disrupt the process...

New strategy against high-risk leukemia

Date: Sep-02-2013
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists have identified a protein that certain high-risk acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) cells need to survive and have used that knowledge to fashion a more effective method of killing tumor cells. The findings appear in the journal Blood. The work focused on Philadelphia chromosome-positive ALL (Ph-positive ALL), a high-risk cancer that accounts for about 40 percent of ALL in adults and about 5 percent in children. The disease is named for a chromosomal rearrangement that brings together pieces of the BCR and ABL genes...

Brain connections needed to process social cues damaged by alcohol

Date: Sep-02-2013
Alcohol intoxication reduces communication between two areas of the brain that work together to properly interpret and respond to social signals, according to researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine. Their results were published in the September issue of Psychopharmacology. Previous research has shown that alcohol suppresses activity in the amygdala, the area of the brain responsible for perceiving social cues such as facial expressions...

Poverty reduces brainpower, study

Date: Sep-02-2013
Poverty reduces brainpower, it uses up so much mental energy that there is much less brainpower left to address other areas of life, researchers reported in the journal Science. Consequently, poor people are more prone to making bad decisions and mistakes, which can worsen and prolong their poverty. The researchers, from Harvard and Princeton universities in the USA, the University of Columbia, Canada, and the University of Warwick, UK, said that their study "presents a unique perspective regarding the causes of persistent poverty"...

Facebook use linked to response in the brain's reward system

Date: Sep-02-2013
A person's intensity of Facebook use can be predicted by activity in a reward-related area of the brain, according to a new study published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. In the first study to relate brain activity to social media use, Meshi and colleagues observed activity in the brain's reward circuitry, the nucleus accumbens, in 31 participants...

Protein in the urine may help identify individuals with diabetes at risk for cognitive decline

Date: Sep-02-2013
The presence of protein in the urine may be a marker of risk for future cognitive decline in patients with type 2 diabetes and normal kidney function, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). The finding suggests that urinary protein may be an early warning sign regarding patients' cognitive abilities. Individuals with diabetes have an increased risk of experiencing cognitive impairment, especially impairment due to vascular causes...

Gene discovered that causes devastating mitochondrial diseases

Date: Sep-02-2013
Researchers have identified a novel disease gene in which mutations cause rare but devastating genetic diseases known as mitochondrial disorders. Nine rare, disease-causing mutations of the gene, FBXL4, were found in nine affected children in seven families, including three siblings from the same family. An international team of researchers report the discovery in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The lead author is Xiaowu Gai, PhD, director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine...