Health News

IVF may be a risk factor for adult onset diabetes

Date: Aug-13-2013
Scientists believe children conceived through IVF treatment could have an increased likelihood to develop Type II Diabetes later in life after discovering mice conceived through IVF treatment were more prone to develop the disease than those conceived naturally. As the first IVF baby celebrates her 35th birthday this year, IVF is beginning to come of age with both uptake and success rates in Australia amongst some of the highest in the world...

Wrapping another layer of biosecurity around influenza studies

Date: Aug-13-2013
An approach that adds a safety feature to laboratory-based studies on avian influenza viruses is presented in a paper published online this week in Nature Biotechnology. This method could further strengthen the biosafety of 'gain-of-function' influenza studies, and may reduce the risk of the virus causing illness in humans that come into contact with these laboratory strains. While some strains of avian influenza can be contracted after direct contact with infected birds, these strains cannot currently spread efficiently from human to human...

Making tumor-targeting T cells in a dish

Date: Aug-13-2013
A method for producing from stem cells a large quantity of human immune cells capable of killing tumor cells in mice is presented in a paper published online this week in Nature Biotechnology. The approach may make it easier to implement cancer 'immunotherapies' - a suite of treatments that activate the immune system to attack tumors. Most cancer immunotherapy strategies require isolation of immune cells called T cells from the blood of cancer patients...

Study reveals negative effects of half-siblings

Date: Aug-13-2013
Adolescents who have half-siblings with a different father are more likely to have used drugs and had sex by age 15 than those who have only full siblings. That's according to new research from Karen Benjamin Guzzo, an assistant professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University, and Cassandra Dorius, an assistant professor of human development and family studies at Iowa State University. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, they examined a phenomenon known as "multi-partnered fertility" or MPF...

Alcohol treatment sought by women between 4 to 5 years earlier than men

Date: Aug-13-2013
Epidemiological studies have revealed that historical differences between men and women in substance use - such as lifetime dependence rates, and quantities of alcohol consumed - have narrowed in recent decades. However, recent examination of gender differences in drinking patterns and rapidity of disease progression in women, generally referred to as "telescoping," among treatment-seekers is largely lacking...

Popular culture can perpetuate dangerous violence standards toward women

Date: Aug-13-2013
Violent and abusive behavior against women, which can be both physically and emotionally harmful, gain societal acceptance when they are glamorized and normalized in popular culture such as books and movies. The main characters' relationship in the best-selling novel Fifty Shades of Grey, for example, helps perpetuate the problem of intimate partner violence against women, according to an article in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers...

Protein linked to Alzheimer's-like afflictions identified by neuroscientists

Date: Aug-13-2013
A team of neuroscientists has identified a modification to a protein in laboratory mice linked to conditions associated with Alzheimer's Disease. Their findings, which appear in the journal Nature Neuroscience, also point to a potential therapeutic intervention for alleviating memory-related disorders. The research centered on eukaryotic initiation factor 2 alpha (eIF2alpha) and two enzymes that modify it with a phosphate group; this type of modification is termed phosphorylation...

Defects in Parkinson's gene contribute to the disease

Date: Aug-13-2013
Researchers have discovered how genetic mutations linked to Parkinson's disease might play a key role in the death of brain cells, potentially paving the way for the development of more effective drug treatments. In the new study, published in Nature Neuroscience, a team of researchers from UCL, the University of Cambridge and the University of Sheffield showed how defects in the Parkinson's gene Fbxo7 cause problems with 'mitaphagy' - an essential process through which our bodies are able to get rid of damaged cells. Mitochondria are the 'energy powerhouses' of cells...

Rules governing expression of developmental genes in mouse embryonic stem cells are more nuanced than anticipated

Date: Aug-13-2013
A decade ago, gene expression seemed so straightforward: genes were either switched on or off. Not both. Then in 2006, a blockbuster finding reported that developmentally regulated genes in mouse embryonic stem cells can have marks associated with both active and repressed genes, and that such genes, which were referred to as "bivalently marked genes", can be committed to one way or another during development and differentiation. This paradoxical state - akin to figuring out how to navigate a red and green traffic signal - has since undergone scrutiny by labs worldwide...

Empathy for battered dogs often outweighs that for human adult victims

Date: Aug-13-2013
People have more empathy for battered puppies and full grown dogs than they do for some humans -- adults, but not children, finds new research presented at the 108th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. "Contrary to popular thinking, we are not necessarily more disturbed by animal rather than human suffering," said Jack Levin, the Irving and Betty Brudnick Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Northeastern University. "Our results indicate a much more complex situation with respect to the age and species of victims, with age being the more important component...