Health News

Age, race, and gender matter when trying to reduce risk factors after heart attack

Date: Aug-26-2013
Risk factor modification efforts could help reduce the chance of another heart attack and death among the more than 15 million Americans with coronary heart disease. Yet some patients - especially women and minorities - leave the hospital with poorly managed risk factors. An article in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers, evaluates cardiac risk factors and management strategies by age, sex, and race among 2,369 patients hospitalized for acute myocardial infarction. The article is available on the Journal of Women's Health website...

Discovery of new molecular mechanism tied to pancreatic cancer

Date: Aug-26-2013
New research led by scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Baylor College of Medicine could aid efforts to diagnose and treat one of the most lethal and hard-to-treat types of cancer. In the EMBO Molecular Medicine journal, the investigators report that they have identified a new molecular mechanism that contributes to the spread of malignant tumors in the pancreas. The hope is that drugs could one day be developed to block this pathway...

Study finds that our brains are hardwired for empathy, friendship

Date: Aug-26-2013
Perhaps one of the most defining features of humanity is our capacity for empathy - the ability to put ourselves in others' shoes. A new University of Virginia study strongly suggests that we are hardwired to empathize because we closely associate people who are close to us - friends, spouses, lovers - with our very selves. "With familiarity, other people become part of ourselves," said James Coan, a psychology professor in U.Va...

Following mild strokes, ultra-early treatment may eliminate risk of disability

Date: Aug-26-2013
In the case of mild or moderate strokes, getting treatment ultra-fast - within 90 minutes of experiencing symptoms - greatly reduces the risk of suffering disability, according to a new study reported in the American Heart Association's journal Stoke. The American Heart Association/American Stroke Association recommends getting to a hospital within three hours of the onset of stroke symptoms. According to guidelines, clot-busting drugs may be given to treat stroke up to 4.5 hours after the onset of symptoms...

Risk of developing an eating disorder may be indicated by brain size

Date: Aug-26-2013
New research indicates that teens with anorexia nervosa have bigger brains than teens that do not have the eating disorder. That is according to a study by researchers at the University of Colorado's School of Medicine that examined a group of adolescents with anorexia nervosa and a group without. They found that girls with anorexia nervosa had a larger insula, a part of the brain that is active when we taste food, and a larger orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain that tells a person when to stop eating...

'No reason' to restrict food and drink during childbirth

Date: Aug-26-2013
Researchers have found that restricting food and drinks during labor does not benefit mothers in any way, according to a study published in The Cochcrane Library. Many hospitals worldwide have policies that restrict foods and fluids once a woman has started the labor process. These policies are in place in the event that a cesarean section and general anesthesia is needed. However, researchers from the University of Liverpool in the UK say this procedure is "unwarranted." An analysis of five UK studies was conducted involving 3,130 women...

Working overtime may cost you your health

Date: Aug-26-2013
Sarah Asebedo, doctoral student in the College of Human Ecology's personal financial planning and conflict resolution program, Edina, Minn., conducted a study using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. She and her colleagues -- Sonya Britt, assistant professor of family studies and human services and director of the university's personal financial planning program, and Jamie Blue, doctoral student in personal financial planning, Tallahassee, Fla. -- found a preliminary link between workaholics and reduced physical and mental well-being...

Radiation-induced cognitive dysfunction favorably impacted by fetal stem cell transplantation

Date: Aug-26-2013
Patients receiving cranial irradiation treatment for brain cancer may find the treatment life-saving, but often suffer progressive and debilitating cognitive detriments, including spatial learning and memory deficits. The cognitive deficits are a contributing factor to the often significant adverse impacts on the surviving patients' quality of life after radiation therapy. In an effort to improve post-irradiation cognitive impairment, scientists at the University of California, Irvine, and colleagues at Neuralstem, Inc...

Cocaine physically changes brain to seek more

Date: Aug-26-2013
Cocaine triggers rapid growth in new brain structures linked to memory and learning, but only in a way that encourages drug-seeking behavior, researchers from the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center at UC San Francisco reported in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The scientists believe their study, which was carried out on laboratory mice, suggests a novel way in which cocaine users select environments associated with the drug...

Four simple steps increase the chances of preoperative smoking cessation

Date: Aug-26-2013
A simple four-part program - including referral to a quit-smoking hotline and a free supply of nicotine patches - can increase the percentage of patients who quit smoking before undergoing surgery, reports a study in the September issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, official journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society (IARS). The "easily implemented and inexpensive" program significantly improves preoperative smoking cessation rates, according to the new research by Dr Susan M. Lee of University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, and colleagues...