Health News

Conditions in brain tumor environment trigger previously unexplained cellular transition and radiation resistance

Date: Sep-02-2013
A prominent protein activated by inflammation is the key instigator that converts glioblastoma multiforme cells to their most aggressive, untreatable form and promotes resistance to radiation therapy, an international team lead by researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported online today in the journal Cancer Cell. The discovery by scientists and physicians points to new ways to increase radiation effectiveness and potentially block or reverse progression of glioblastoma multiforme, the most common and lethal form of brain tumor...

Bullied mice helped to overcome symptoms of depression by shutting off neurons

Date: Sep-02-2013
A new drug target to treat depression and other mood disorders may lie in a group of GABA neurons (gamma-aminobutyric acid - the neurotransmitters which inhibit other cells) shown to contribute to symptoms like social withdrawal and increased anxiety, Penn Medicine researchers report in a new study in the Journal of Neuroscience...

Susceptibility to prostate cancer increased by mutations in a gene that impacts immune function

Date: Sep-02-2013
A team of researchers led by Janet Stanford, Ph.D., of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has discovered that mutations in the gene BTNL2, which encodes a protein involved in regulating T-cell proliferation and cytokine production - both of which impact immune function - increase the risk of developing prostate cancer. The findings, by Stanford and colleagues from the University of Washington Genome Sciences Department and the National Human Genome Research Institute, are online ahead of the print issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention...

Antibiotic treatment can be followed by intestinal infections. Why?

Date: Sep-02-2013
Stanford University School of Medicine scientists explain why two potentially deadly pathogens get a foothold in the forbidding environment of the gut following antibiotic treatment. The researchers wrote in the journal Nature that their findings may help identify ways to counteract the effects of the depletion of "friendly gut-dwelling bacteria" after antibiotic treatment. Several gut pathogens can cause serious problems during a course of antibiotics. Senior author, Justin Sonnenburg, PhD, said "Antibiotics open the door for these pathogens to take hold...

Single gene change 'could increase lifespan by 16 years'

Date: Sep-02-2013
Scientists have discovered that by changing the expression of a single gene in mice, the lifespan is increased by around 20%, according to a study published in the journal Cell Reports. Researchers from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) conducted the study in mice, which involved targeting a gene called mTOR. The gene is linked to the balance of energy and metabolism, and now researchers believe it may be linked to increased lifespan associated with caloric restriction...

Postoperative complication is significant predictor of hospital readmissions after plastic surgery

Date: Sep-02-2013
For patients undergoing plastic and reconstructive surgery procedures, obesity, anemia and postoperative complications - especially surgical and wound complications - are independent risk factors for hospital readmission, reports a study in the September issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). "Patients experiencing postoperative surgical complications were six times more likely to be readmitted," write Dr. John P...

Collagen patch speeds repair of damaged heart tissue in mice

Date: Sep-02-2013
You can't resurrect a dead cell anymore than you can breathe life into a brick, regardless of what you may have gleaned from zombie movies and Dr. Frankenstein. So when heart cells die from lack of blood flow during a heart attack, replacing those dead cells is vital to the heart muscle's recovery. But muscle tissue in the adult human heart has a limited capacity to heal, which has spurred researchers to try to give the healing process a boost. Various methods of transplanting healthy cells into a damaged heart have been tried, but have yet to yield consistent success in promoting healing...

People can acquire the capacity for echolocation

Date: Sep-02-2013
As blind people can testify, we humans can hear more than one might think. The blind learn to navigate using as guides the echoes of sounds they themselves make. This enables them to sense the locations of walls and corners, for instance: by tapping the ground with a stick or making clicking sounds with the tongue, and analyzing the echoes reflected from nearby surfaces, a blind person can map the relative positions of objects in the vicinity...

Worriers are more analytical, ignore 'gut instinct'

Date: Sep-02-2013
The musician Bobby McFerrin once sang, "Don't worry, be happy." But a recent paper published in Psychology Review, which points to evidence that the brain uses two systems - systematic and heuristic - to process information, may create a new lyric: "Don't worry, be heuristic." Though the lyrics may not be catchy, for worriers, the findings could help. A team from the University of Sussex in the UK, led by Dr. Suzanne Dash, reviewed a large body of recent research that supports the two-system method in the brain for making decisions...

Changes in brain metabolism enable tracking of Huntington's disease

Date: Sep-02-2013
Huntington's disease (HD) is a hereditary disorder characterized by the progressive onset of neurodegeneration. Children of HD patients have a 50% chance of inheriting the disease, but symptoms do not appear until middle age. While genetic testing reliably determines if children of HD sufferers are carriers of the disease, it cannot provide information as to when symptoms will appear...