Health News

Discovery Of Kill-Switch That Controls Immune-Suppressing Cells Has Implications For Treatment Of Autoimmune Diseases

Date: Jul-16-2013
Scientists have uncovered the mechanism that controls whether cells that are able to suppress immune responses live or die. The discovery of the cell death processes that determine the number of 'regulatory T cells' an individual has could one day lead to better treatments for immune disorders. Regulatory T cells are members of a group of immune cells called T cells. Most T cells actively respond to clear the body of infections. By contrast, regulatory T cells are considered to be immune suppressing cells because they can 'switch off' an immune response to a particular molecule...

Danish Study Finds More Pesticides In Foreign Fruit And Vegetables

Date: Jul-16-2013
Foreign fruit generally has a higher content of pesticides than Danish fruit, and fruit has a higher content of pesticides than vegetables. Danes' intake of pesticide residues appears to be on a par with the latest monitoring from 2003. The findings show that eating 600 grams of fruit and vegetables a day does not constitute a health risk. These are the findings of a new report from the National Food Institute, Technical University of Denmark, on pesticide residues in food...

Injured NFL Players Return To Play Sooner When Treated With Corticosteroid Injections

Date: Jul-16-2013
Corticosteroid injections may speed-up the return time for National Football League (NFL) players suffering high ankle sprains, according to research presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. Players treated with these injections typically returned 40% faster or approximately 10 days earlier than those not receiving the same treatment...

Surgery A Treatment Option For Young Patients With Shoulder Injuries

Date: Jul-16-2013
Arthroscopic bankart repair surgery is a cost-effective approach for patients suffering their first shoulder dislocation, according to research presented at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Chicago, IL. "We based our conclusions on a Markov model, which takes into account how surgery affects the patient's recovery in relation to the actual costs of medical treatment," commented Ryan P. Donegan, MD, MS, from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, NH...

Emotional Disturbance In Dementia Patients Associated With Region Of The Brain

Date: Jul-16-2013
A study by researchers at Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) is the first to demonstrate that patients with frontotemporal dementia (FTD) lose the emotional content/colour of their memories. These findings explain why FTD patients may not vividly remember an emotionally charged event like a wedding or funeral. The research team discovered that a region of the brain, called the orbitofrontal cortex, plays a key role in linking emotion and memories...

Donating Eyes For Research

Date: Jul-16-2013
Far more people are willing to donate their eyes to research than actually are registered to donate, according to a study led by a Michigan State University student. While demand for tissue remains high, the number of human eyes donated for research declined 28 percent between 1997 and 2004, said Andrew Williams, a third-year MSU College of Human Medicine student who led the study in the journal Current Eye Research. "A lot of people aren't aware they can donate their eyes to research," Williams said. "They don't really know how to get the process started...

How Treatment Programmes For Neglected Tropical Diseases In Uganda Are Affected By Gender

Date: Jul-16-2013
Males and females face different challenges in accessing treatment for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health, Uganda Ministry of Health and Imperial College London. The study, published by PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, explores the role of gender in access to treatment in the Uganda National Neglected Tropical Disease Control Program. NTDs are a group of parasitic, viral and bacterial diseases that affect at least a billion people worldwide...

Scientists Identify New Details Of Biochemical Interactions Necessary For Cell Division

Date: Jul-16-2013
Building on earlier work exploring the complex choreography by which intricate cellular proteins interact with and copy DNA prior to cell division, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and collaborators have captured a key step-molecular images showing how the enzyme that unwinds the DNA double helix gets drawn to and wrapped around its target. Details of the research, published in the journal Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, enhance understanding of an essential biological process and may suggest ways for stopping cell division when it goes awry...

Study Cracks Universal RNA Code, Suggests A New Cause For Autism

Date: Jul-16-2013
The discovery cracks the "RNA control code," which dictates how RNA - a family of molecules that mediates DNA expression - moves genetic information from DNA to create proteins. "For the first time, we understand the language of a code that is essential to gene processing," said Quaid Morris, a Professor in U of T's Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research and the Banting and Best Department of Medical Research. "Many human diseases are due to defects in this code, so figuring out what it means is crucial to creating new treatments for many conditions...

Potential Markers For Severity Of Childhood Arthritis

Date: Jul-16-2013
Children who suffer from arthritis could one day receive more targeted treatment thanks to potential markers for the severity of the disorder discovered by researchers at the University of Adelaide and Women's and Children's Hospital. The early results of a world-first study looking at 115 children with juvenile arthritis have shown that changes in the levels of particular molecules known as prostanoids - which are formed from essential fatty acids - in the blood of these patients may predict the course of arthritis more accurately, and help provide more individualised treatment...