Health News

Higher physician caseload linked with earlier deaths among dialysis patients

Date: Aug-12-2013
Dialysis patients receiving treatment from kidney specialists with a higher patient caseload have a greater risk of dying prematurely than those receiving care from specialists with a lower caseload, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The study is the first of its kind to examine the association between nephrologist caseload and mortality risk in a large urban US setting. How many patients a physician sees may affect patients' health outcomes...

Carbon ion radiotherapy safe and effective for treating inoperable spinal tumors

Date: Aug-12-2013
A new analysis has found that a type of radiation therapy called carbon ion radiotherapy can control cancer growth and prolong survival in patients with spinal tumors. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that the treatment is a promising alternative for patients whose spinal tumors cannot be surgically removed. Surgery is the mainstay of treatment for spinal sarcomas; however the tumors are one of the most challenging diseases for orthopedic surgeons...

Researchers discover how vitamin B12 is made

Date: Aug-12-2013
A scientific breakthrough by researchers at the University of Kent has revealed how vitamin B12/antipernicious anaemia factor is made - a challenge often referred to as 'the Mount Everest of biosynthetic problems'. Vitamin B12 is pieced together as an elaborate molecular jigsaw involving around 30 individual components. It is unique amongst the vitamins in that it is only made by certain bacteria. In the early 1990's it was realised that there were two pathways to allow its construction - one that requires oxygen and one that occurs in the absence of oxygen...

Report takes hard look at senate immigration legislation and the impact on health care

Date: Aug-12-2013
A landmark immigration bill passed by the Senate would create new pathways to citizenship and provide a much-needed boost to the U.S. economy but would do little to ease immigration-related disparities in health care, according to a new report. "The Senate bill represents the most significant bipartisan effort to reform immigration in many years," says Leighton Ku, PhD, MPH, the author of the new report and the director of the Center for Health Policy Research at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS)...

How oxidative stress and mitochondrial damage relate to neurodegenerative diseases

Date: Aug-11-2013
Oxidative stress and mitochondrial damage have been implicated in the pathogenesis of several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Oxidative stress is characterized by the overproduction of reactive oxygen species, which can induce mitochondrial DNA mutations, damage the mitochondrial respiratory chain, alter membrane permeability, and influence Ca2+ homeostasis and mitochondrial defense systems...

Girls with low birthweight may be prone to obesity

Date: Aug-11-2013
Girls who have a low weight at birth may be less active and have a higher risk of obesity in adulthood, according to a study published in the International Journal of Obesity. Researchers from Baylor College of Medicine (BCM), the USDA/ARS Children's Nutrition Research Center (CNRC) and Texas Children's Hospital, conducted a report on the offspring of obese female mice. Previous research has shown that genetically normal female offspring of obese female mice were prone to obesity and inactivity. But Dr...

Cell replacement treatment of retinopathy: Novel and alternative stem cell source

Date: Aug-11-2013
Damage or loss of photoreceptor cells is one of main culprits of visual impairment in many retinal degenerative diseases. Pharmacological treatment and surgical intervention are traditionally used to treat these retinal diseases, but they are not curative. It has been increasingly recognized that Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stem cells may differentiate into several cell lineages from all three germ layers. However, the capacity of Wharton's jelly mesenchymal stem cells to differentiate into retinal progenitor cells remains undetermined...

Inaction-related words in our environment can unconsciously influence our self-control

Date: Aug-11-2013
Inhibitory self control - not picking up a cigarette, not having a second drink, not spending when we should be saving - can operate without our awareness or intention.       That was the finding by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. They demonstrated through neuroscience research that inaction-related words in our environment can unconsciously influence our self-control...

Pattern in lung cancer pathology may predict cancer recurrence after surgery and identify who will benefit from lung-sparing surgery

Date: Aug-11-2013
A new study by thoracic surgeons and pathologists at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center shows that a specific pattern found in the tumor pathology of some lung cancer patients is a strong predictor of recurrence. Knowing that this feature exists in a tumor's pathology could be an important factor doctors use to guide cancer treatment decisions...

Monitoring food safety at restaurants with the help of Twitter

Date: Aug-11-2013
A new system could tell you how likely it is for you to become ill if you visit a particular restaurant by 'listening' to the tweets from other restaurant patrons. The University of Rochester researchers say their system, nEmesis, can help people make more informed decisions, and it also has the potential to complement traditional public health methods for monitoring food safety, such as restaurant inspections. For example, it could enable what they call "adaptive inspections," inspections guided in part by the real-time information that nEmesis provides...