Health News

A high-calorie breakfast protects against diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular problems

Date: Aug-08-2013
Whether you hope to lose weight or just stay healthy, what you eat is a crucial factor. The right nutrients can not only trim your waistline, but also provide energy, improve your mood, and stave off disease. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher has found that it's not just what you eat - but when. Metabolism is impacted by the body's circadian rhythm - the biological process that the body follows over a 24 hour cycle. So the time of day we eat can have a big impact on the way our bodies process food, says Prof...

Neurocognitive testing more accurate than self-reporting when assessing concussion recovery in cheerleaders

Date: Aug-08-2013
Concussions have become a major public health issue, with both short- and long-term side effects. In sports, cheerleading has the highest rate of catastrophic injury, with some studies reporting approximately 6% of total injuries as concussions. Return-to-play guidelines have relied on athletes' self-reports; however, this has led to concerns about the ability of athletes to truly recognize their own symptoms and recovery...

Study of aquaporins could hold clues to cataract

Date: Aug-08-2013
Researchers have achieved dynamic, atomic-scale views of a protein needed to maintain the transparency of the lens in the human eye. The work, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, could lead to new insights and drugs for treating cataract and a variety of other health conditions. Aquaporin proteins form water channels between cells and are found in many tissues, but aquaporin zero (AQP0) is found only in the mammalian lens, which focuses light onto the retina, at the back of the eye...

Brain cancer: groundbreaking MRI-guided gene therapy

Date: Aug-08-2013
Neurosurgeons from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have conducted the first real-time MRI-guided gene therapy for patients with brain cancer, advancing the clinical trial of new cancer drug, Toca 511. The new treatment, carried out by neurosurgeons at the UCSD School of Medicine and the UCSD Moores Cancer Center, uses real-time magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a way of guiding the delivery of the new gene therapy directly into brain tumors...

Breastfed babies at lower risk for persistent stuttering

Date: Aug-08-2013
A study of 47 children who began stuttering at an early age found that those who were breastfed in infancy were more likely to recover from stuttering and return to fluent speech. The analysis, reported in the Journal of Communication Disorders, found a dose-dependent association between breastfeeding and a child's likelihood of recovering from stuttering, with children who were breastfed longer more likely to recover. Boys, who are disproportionately affected by stuttering, appeared to benefit the most...

Rapid Economic Growth Can Strain Bodies Developed for a Lean World

Date: Aug-08-2013
The strikingly high prevalence of Type 2 diabetes in the American South can be partially traced to rapid economic growth between 1950 and 1980, new research suggests. The study tests the "thrifty phenotype" hypothesis, which suggests that if economic conditions present during fetal development improve dramatically during a person's childhood, the prospects of poor health in adulthood increase...

Research links hormonal imbalance in the placenta to anxiety and possible vulnerability to poor mental health in mice

Date: Aug-08-2013
Adults could be at greater risk of becoming anxious and vulnerable to poor mental health if they were deprived of certain hormones while developing in the womb according to new research by scientists at Cardiff and Cambridge universities. New research in mice has revealed the role of the placenta in long-term programming of emotional behaviour and the first time scientists have linked changes in adult behaviour to alterations in placental function...

Great-grandmother's cigarette habit could be the cause of child's asthma

Date: Aug-08-2013
With some 300 million people around the world living with asthma, a study by Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) researchers that was released ahead-of- print found for the first time that maternal smoking can cause the third generation of offspring to suffer from the chronic lung disease. The study, published online by the American Journal of Physiology - Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, reported that maternal nicotine exposure during pregnancy is linked to asthma in the third generation in disease models...

Slower cognitive decline in later life associated with working-life training and maternity spells

Date: Aug-08-2013
Employment gaps may promote but also reduce cognitive function in older age, as new research from the University of Luxembourg has shown. In particular, some of the findings suggest that leaves reported as unemployment and sickness are associated with higher risk of cognitive impairment indicating that these kinds of employment gaps may decrease cognitive reserve in the long run. Strongest evidence was found for training and maternity spells being related to slower cognitive decline, suggesting beneficial associations of these kinds of leaves on cognitive function...

Capturing bed bugs more effectively wtih new pitfall trap

Date: Aug-08-2013
A new pitfall trap designed to capture bed bugs is more effective than those currently on the market, according to the authors of an article appearing in the next issue of the Journal of Economic Entomology. The authors also found that traps baited with an experimental chemical lure mixture caught 2.2 times as many bed bugs as traps without the lure. Their findings suggest that an effective and affordable bed bug monitor can be made incorporating the new pitfall trap design, a chemical lure, and a sugar-and-yeast mixture to produce carbon dioxide, which is also known to attract bedbugs...