Health News

Criminal psychopaths flip a switch to 'turn on' empathy

Date: Jul-27-2013
Psychopaths do possess empathy, but they need to intentionally feel it in order for it to trigger. This is according to research published in the journal Brain: A Journal of Neurology. Psychopathy is a type of mental illness used to describe an individual who is incapable of feeling guilt, remorse or empathy for their actions. Researchers from the Netherlands used modern "high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging" in order to analyze the brains of psychopathic criminals while they watched other people's emotions...

Changes proposed in New Orleans area levee systems

Date: Jul-27-2013
Less may mean more when it comes to the levee systems designed to protect New Orleans from hurricanes. That's the conclusion of a new study by a team of University of Notre Dame researchers led by Joannes Westerink, co-developer of the authoritative computer model for storm surge used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the state of Louisiana to determine water levels due to hurricane surge and to design levee heights and alignments...

Study finds druggable target for pulmonary hypertension

Date: Jul-27-2013
Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) scientists have identified new genetic mutations that can cause pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), a rare fatal disease characterized by high blood pressure in the lungs. The mutations, found in the gene KCNK3, appear to affect potassium channels in the pulmonary artery, a mechanism not previously linked to the condition. Cell culture studies showed that the mutations' effects could be reversed with a drug compound known as a phospholipase inhibitor. The study was published in the online edition of the New England Journal of Medicine...

Children with cancer receiving home care at greater risk for central line infections

Date: Jul-27-2013
Pediatric cancer patients whose central lines are used to treat them at home develop three times as many dangerous bloodstream infections from their devices than their hospitalized counterparts, according to the results of a new Johns Hopkins Children's Center study. Findings of the research, reported online in the journal Pediatric Blood & Cancer, provide valuable insight into the safety of central line uses outside the hospital and underscore the need to carefully evaluate the benefits and risk of sending a child home with one, the investigators say...

Potential for new, less invasive ways to detect and treat bladder cancer

Date: Jul-27-2013
Scientists from Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center have provided evidence from preclinical experiments that a gene known as melanoma differentiation associated gene-9/syntenin (mda-9/syntenin) could be used as a therapeutic target to kill bladder cancer cells, help prevent metastasis and even be used to non-invasively diagnose the disease and monitor its progression. The study, published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, was a collaborative effort between Paul B. Fisher, M.Ph., Ph.D., who originally discovered the mda-9/syntenin gene, and Santanu Dasgupta, Ph.D...

Researchers reveal monoclonal antibody effective against norovirus

Date: Jul-27-2013
Researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) provide the first proof of concept data showing that a monoclonal antibody can neutralize human norovirus. This research, which could one day lead to effective therapies against the virus, was published online ahead of print in the Journal of Virology. "We initiated this work because there is presently no virus-specific treatment or vaccine to control the norovirus illness," says Kim Y. Green, a researcher on the study...

Modern dentistry may benefit from discovery of an evolutionary compromise for long tooth preservation

Date: Jul-27-2013
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, have conducted stress analyses on gorilla teeth of differing wear stages. Their findings show that different features of the occlusal surface antagonize tensile stresses in the tooth to tooth contact during the chewing process. They further show that tooth wear with its loss of dental tissue and the reduction of the occlusal relief decreases tensile stresses in the tooth...

Doctors say HPV vaccine is safe and "grossly underutilized"

Date: Jul-27-2013
Amid parents' concern for their daughters over the timing and safety of vaccination shots against human papillomavirus (HPV), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) have released a statement saying the vaccine is "safe, effective and grossly underutilized." At a recent press conference, data from the CDC revealed that vaccination rates in girls aged between 13-17 years declined between 2011 and 2012...

Studies show Rosehip powder can reduce arthritis inflammation and pain and help protect the joints of active people

Date: Jul-27-2013
Rosehip powder (Rosa L Canina) is gaining international acclaim with two new studies supporting its powerful anti-inflammatory action to help reduce arthritic pain. One in five Australians experience chronic pain on a regular basis[1] and arthritis is a major cause of chronic pain, with 3.85million Australians affected and trends suggest by 2050, 7 million Australians will suffer from some form of arthritis[2]...

Improving imported food safety, FDA takes steps

Date: Jul-27-2013
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released two proposed rules to improve the safety of imported foods. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, foodborne illnesses in the USA are on the rise. The FDA says it aims to make sure imported foods are at least as safe as those grown in the USA. According to the UPMC Center for Health Security, foodborne pathogens cause 40 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths annually in the USA...