Health News

SaltSmart Consortium Endorses Plan To Halve Dietary Salt Consumption In The Americas By 2020

Date: Jun-20-2013
To promote the prevention of cardiovascular disease, a multisector consortium convened by the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) this week endorsed a plan to reduce dietary salt consumption in the Americas by half by the year 2020. Currently, average salt consumption in most of the region's countries is twice the recommended level of 5 grams per person per day...

Advanced Breast Cancer Campaign, Here & Now, Launches In The UK As It's Revealed Nearly 8 In 10 Do Not Know That The Disease Is Incurable

Date: Jun-20-2013
New research shows significant disparities in UK public's awareness of advanced breast cancer (ABC)versus early breast cancer New findings from a public survey commissioned by Novartis Oncology have revealed that although 81%1 of UK respondents are aware that early breast cancer can be treated so that a patient is free from disease, 77%1 of respondents were either unsure or did not know that advanced breast cancer cannot be treated so that the patient can become free from the disease...

Purdue Researchers Seek Treatment For New MERS Coronavirus

Date: Jun-20-2013
A pair of Purdue University researchers who in the past created compounds to block the SARS virus are now tackling the new Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV. The team's successful work on SARS paved the way for them to swiftly work on MERS CoV, reducing parts of the process that would normally take years to a matter of months, said Andrew Mesecar, the Walther Professor of Cancer Structural Biology and a professor of biological sciences and chemistry. Mesecar and Arun Ghosh, the Ian P...

MMR Booster Vaccine Does Not Appear To Worsen Disease Activity In Children With Juvenile Arthritis

Date: Jun-20-2013
Among children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) who had undergone primary immunization, the use of a measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) booster compared with no booster did not result in worse JIA disease activity, according to a study in the June 19 issue of JAMA. "Juvenile idiopathic arthritis is the most common childhood rheumatic disease, with a prevalence between 16 and 150 per 100,000. Patients with JIA may be susceptible to infections through the immunosuppressive effect of their disease or its treatment...

Healthy Living Learned By Example

Date: Jun-20-2013
Kids whose moms encourage them to exercise and eat well, and model those healthy behaviors themselves, are more likely to be active and healthy eaters, according to researchers at Duke Medicine. Their findings, published online in the International Journal of Obesity,remind parents that they are role models for their children, and underscore the importance of parental policies promoting physical activity and healthy eating...

Missing Link In Connection Between Social Stress And Triple-Negative Breast Cancer May Be Fat Cells In Breast

Date: Jun-20-2013
Local chemical signals released by fat cells in the mammary gland appear to provide a crucial link between exposure to unrelenting social stressors early in life, and the subsequent development of breast cancer, researchers from the University of Chicago report in the July 2013 issue of the journal Cancer Prevention Research. Some forms of stress exposure may be associated with an increased risk of certain types of aggressive breast cancer. But the mechanisms linking the biology of social stress to cancer have been hard to identify...

2 Biomarkers Better Than 1 In The Diagnosis Of Concussion

Date: Jun-20-2013
Scientists are scrambling to gather data for the FDA to support the need for a blood test to diagnose brain injury in the United States. The University of Rochester Medical Center just added significant evidence by reporting in the Journal of Neurotrauma that it might be clinically useful to measure two brain biomarkers instead of one. Jeffrey J. Bazarian, M.D., M.P.H...

Testosterone Replacement Improves Pain Perception And Tolerance In Men With Low Testosterone

Date: Jun-20-2013
Testosterone therapy is associated with decreased pain perception in men with low testosterone levels related to opioid (narcotic) pain relievers (analgesics), a new study finds. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco...

In Vietnam, New Virus Isolated From Patients With Severe Brain Infections

Date: Jun-20-2013
Researchers have identified a new virus in patients with severe brain infections in Vietnam. Further research is needed to determine whether the virus is responsible for the symptoms of disease. The virus was found in a total of 28 out of 644 patients with severe brain infections in the study, corresponding to around 4%, but not in any of the 122 patients with non-infectious brain disorders that were tested. Infections of the brain and central nervous system are often fatal and patients who do survive, often young children and young adults, are left severely disabled...

Sugar Molecules Make Long Distance Calls

Date: Jun-20-2013
Glycoproteins are an essential part of our body: These sugar-protein hybrid molecules are what makes the protective mucus that lines our lungs and stomach. They are also part of the fluid that lubricates our joints, the synovial fluid, and cover all our cells, with the sugar parts, the glycans, sticking out like a tiny forest of antennae. Researchers in the Laboratory for Surface Science and Technology at ETH Zurich and the Laboratories of Nanoscale Materials Science of Empa have identified a surprising effect that glycans have on the water molecules that surround them...