Health News

Controversial Deals That Delay Generic Versions Of Drugs Coming Onto The Market Can Be Costly

Date: Jun-20-2013
Dr Farasat Bokhari's study shows that moves to investigate and ban pay-to-delay deals - which typically involve a branded manufacturer holding a drug patent paying a rival generic firm to delay the release of its cheaper version - are justified. The deals are on the rise in the United States and Europe and the practice has prompted concerns from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic that they are anti-competitive, infringe competition laws, and allow branded manufacturers to charge higher, monopoly prices - ultimately costing health services and taxpayers millions more...

Hormonal Therapy For Transsexualism Safe And Effective

Date: Jun-20-2013
Hormonal therapy for transsexual patients is safe and effective, a multicenter European study indicates. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Transsexual individuals who seek treatment may feel as though they were born the wrong gender. Surgical and hormonal therapies are available to help these people change their external characteristics to match their internal image of themselves. Hormonal therapy involves large doses of male or female sex hormones, which has led to concern about its health effects...

Identifying Genetic Markers In Overweight Newborns Could Prevent Obesity In Later Life

Date: Jun-20-2013
Similar genetic variations occur in both overweight newborns and obese adults, a large study finds. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. "Our data suggest that adult obesity and newborn adiposity share, in part, a common genetic background," said study lead author Reeti Chawla, MD, fellow in pediatric endocrinology at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago and the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago, IL...

Comparing Insulin Degludec And Insulin Glargine

Date: Jun-20-2013
Insulin degludec (Tresiba), a new ultra-long-acting insulin, has a similar or reduced risk of recurrent hypoglycemia - low blood sugar - compared with the commercially available insulin glargine, a new meta-analysis study finds. Results of the combined analysis, of five completed clinical trials, were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. The studies included nearly 3,400 adults with type 2 diabetes who had a daily injection of either insulin degludec or glargine combined with either a mealtime insulin or oral diabetic medications...

Early Diagnosis Of The Metabolic Syndrome Can Trigger Preventive Treatment Sooner, Before Type 2 Diabetes Develops

Date: Jun-20-2013
Researchers have developed a risk assessment scoring system that they believe may better identify certain adults - especially African Americans - at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes, heart disease and stroke than does the current system of diagnosing the metabolic syndrome. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco...

How Bone Adapts To Exercise Likely Affected By Timing Of Calcium And Vitamin D Supplementation

Date: Jun-20-2013
Taking calcium and vitamin D before exercise may influence how bones adapt to exercise, according to a new study. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. "The timing of calcium supplementation, and not just the amount of supplementation, may be an important factor in how the skeleton adapts to exercise training," said study lead author Vanessa D. Sherk, PhD, postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus...

Study Sheds Light On Molecular Basis For Metabolic Health And Disease

Date: Jun-20-2013
Inside each of us is our own internal timing device. It drives everything from sleep cycles to metabolism, but the inner-workings of this so-called "circadian clock" are complex, and the molecular processes behind it have long eluded scientists. But now, researchers at the Gladstone Institutes have discovered how one important protein falls under direct instructions from the body's circadian clock. Furthermore, they uncover how this protein regulates fundamental circadian processes - and how disrupting its normal function can throw this critical system out of sync...

30 Percent Of Hospital Readmissions Could Be Prevented

Date: Jun-20-2013
With Medicare penalties on hospitals with higher-than-expected rates of 30-day readmissions expected to rise in 2014, more hospitals are evaluating the most accurate methods for tracking readmissions of patients...

Lifespan Of Fruit Flies Boosted By Nearly 25 Percent By Herbal Extract

Date: Jun-20-2013
The herbal extract of a yellow-flowered mountain plant long used for stress relief was found to increase the lifespan of fruit fly populations by an average of 24 percent, according to UC Irvine researchers. But it's how Rhodiola rosea, also known as golden root, did this that grabbed the attention of study leaders Mahtab Jafari and Sam Schriner. They discovered that Rhodiola works in a manner completely unrelated to dietary restriction and affects different molecular pathways...

Linking Brain-Cell Activity And Behavior In Smell Recognition

Date: Jun-20-2013
Behind the common expression "you can't compare apples to oranges" lies a fundamental question of neuroscience: How does the brain recognize that apples and oranges are different? A group of neuroscientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) has published new research that provides some answers. In the fruit fly, the ability to distinguish smells lies in a region of the brain called the mushroom body (MB). Prior research has demonstrated that the MB is associated with learning and memory, especially in relation to the sense of smell, also known as olfaction...