Health News

Your Weight, Eating Behavior, Likely Impacted By What You Believe Causes Obesity

Date: Jun-20-2013
Whether a person believes obesity is caused by overeating or by a lack of exercise predicts his or her actual body mass, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Obesity has become a pressing public health issue in recent years, with two-thirds of U.S. adults classified as overweight or obese and similar trends unfolding in many developed nations...

New Resistance Mechanism To Chemotherapy Identified In Breast And Ovarian Cancer

Date: Jun-20-2013
It is estimated that between 5% and 10% of breast and ovarian cancers are familial in origin, which is to say that these tumours are attributable to inherited mutations from the parents in genes such as BRCA1 or BRCA2. In patients with these mutations, PARP inhibitors, which are currently in clinical trials, have shown encouraging results that make them a new option for personalised cancer treatment, an alternative to standard chemotherapy...

Identification Of Brain Regions Involved In Impersonations And Accents Could Impact Recovery From Brain Injury And Stroke

Date: Jun-20-2013
A study, led by Royal Holloway University researcher Carolyn McGettigan, has identified the brain regions and interactions involved in impersonations and accents. Using an fMRI scanner, the team asked participants, all non-professional impressionists, to repeatedly recite the opening lines of a familiar nursery rhyme either with their normal voice, by impersonating individuals, or by impersonating regional and foreign accents of English. They found that when a voice is deliberately changed, it brings the left anterior insula and inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG) of the brain into play...

Adverse Cardiovascular Events May Be Predicted By Atherosclerosis In Abdominal Aorta

Date: Jun-20-2013
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of aortic atherosclerosis can predict the risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular events in otherwise healthy individuals, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found. The investigation, published in the June issue of Radiology, is the first large-scale study to evaluate the predictive value of MRI measures of aortic atherosclerosis for future cardiac events...

Discovery Reveals The Secret Of DNA Methylation

Date: Jun-20-2013
Methylation refers to a chemical modification of DNA and this modification can occur in millions of positions in the DNA sequence. Until now, scientists believed that this epigenetic phenomenon actively reduced the expression of certain genes. A team of researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, led by Emmanouil Dermitzakis, Louis-Jeantet Professor at the Faculty of Medicine, reveals that this is not always the case and that DNA methylation may play both a passive and active role in gene regulation...

Barrett's Esophagus Study First To Probe NSAID Effects On Mutation Rate

Date: Jun-20-2013
Aspirin is known to lower risk for some cancers, and a new study led by a UC San Francisco scientist points to a possible explanation, with the discovery that aspirin slows the accumulation of DNA mutations in abnormal cells in at least one pre-cancerous condition...

Infant Weight Gain In First Month And IQ Linked

Date: Jun-20-2013
New research from the University of Adelaide shows that weight gain and increased head size in the first month of a baby's life is linked to a higher IQ at early school age. The study was led by University of Adelaide Public Health researchers, who analysed data from more than 13,800 children who were born full-term. The results, published in the journal Pediatrics, show that babies who put on 40% of their birthweight in the first four weeks had an IQ 1.5 points higher by the time they were six years of age, compared with babies who only put on 15% of their birthweight...

Previous Studies Overstated Evidence On Spinal Fusion Product: OHSU Review

Date: Jun-20-2013
An analysis by the Evidence-based Practice Center at Oregon Health & Science University has found that previously published clinical trial studies about a controversial bone growth product used in spinal surgeries overstated the product's effectiveness. The OHSU analysis found the product offered no real benefit over bone grafts traditionally used in such surgeries and also found that previous studies had underreported harms that occurred in the studies. All but one of those studies were funded by the product's manufacturer, Medtronic...

Neurosurgical Outcomes In Smokers

Date: Jun-20-2013
The effects of long-term cigarette smoking on morbidity and mortality have long been known. In a more immediate sense, smoking in the days and weeks before surgery can lead to morbidity and complications for many surgical procedures. In this review, researchers from the University of California San Francisco and Yale University examined the surgical literature and, specifically, the neurosurgical literature to characterize the impact of active smoking on neurosurgical outcomes...

Heart Attack, Stroke Risk Increases With Atherosclerosis In Abdominal Aorta

Date: Jun-20-2013
In a study of more than 2,000 adults, researchers found that two MRI measurements of the abdominal aorta - the amount of plaque in the vessel and the thickness of its wall - are associated with future cardiovascular events, such as a heart attack or stroke. Results of the study are published online in the journal Radiology. "This is an important study, because it demonstrates that atherosclerosis in an artery outside the heart is an independent predictor of adverse cardiovascular events," said the study's lead author, Christopher D. Maroules, M.D...