Health News

FDA Graphic Warning Labels For Tobacco Need To Pass A First Amendment Legal Challenge

Date: Jun-20-2013
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) imposes new graphic warning labels for tobacco products, they can survive a First Amendment challenge if they depict health consequences and their effectiveness is supported by adequate scientific evidence, says a Georgetown University Medical Center public health expert and attorney. Graphic tobacco warning labels - which combine images with health warnings - are a widely used tool for reducing tobacco use in other countries, but the tobacco industry argues they are unconstitutional in the United States...

Preventing Death Of Eggs During Chemotherapy

Date: Jun-20-2013
Young women who have cancer treatment often lose their fertility because chemotherapy and radiation can damage or kill their immature ovarian eggs, called oocytes. Now, Northwestern Medicine® scientists have found the molecular pathway that can prevent the death of immature ovarian eggs due to chemotherapy, potentially preserving fertility and endocrine function. Scientists achieved this in female mice by adding a currently approved chemotherapy drug, imatinib mesylate, to another chemotherapy drug cisplatin...

Survey Reveals Male On Male Consensual Sex And Sexual Assault Common In South Africa

Date: Jun-20-2013
A survey of adult South African men published in this week's PLOS Medicine, shows that while overlapping sexual relationships with women appear to be common, roughly one in 20 men reported consensual sexual contact with a man, approximately one in ten reported being sexually assaulted by another man, and around 3% reported perpetrating such an assault...

AstraZeneca Moves New Global Head Office To Cambridge

Date: Jun-20-2013
AstraZeneca has announced it is opening its new corporate headquarters and global research and development center at the Cambridge Biomedical Campus, Cambridge, UK. The site will be ready by 2016, where 2,000 office and research & development staff will work. The company announced in March this year that it was investing UK£330 million (US$511 million) on a facility in Cambridge as part of its strategy to create global research and development centers in the UK, USA and Sweden...

Genes Of The Y Chromosome Identified Which Could Be Responsible For Its Association With Coronary Artery Disease

Date: Jun-20-2013
University of Leicester scientists have discovered a potential genetic contributor to the increased risk of heart disease among men. A team of researchers including clinicians and scientists have made an important step forward in search of the mechanisms underlying increased risk of coronary artery disease in men who carry a particular type of the Y chromosome (haplogroup I)...

Poorest Children Twice As Likely To Acquire Malaria

Date: Jun-20-2013
In the poorest nations and towns around the world, children from the most impoverished homes are twice as likely to acquire malaria compared with kids from affluent households. The finding was published in The Lancet, and was the result of a systematic assessment and meta-analysis that established that socioeconomic development should be a mandatory part of efforts to control and eradicate malaria. Steve Lindsay from Durham University, UK, who led the research, explained: "The honeymoon period for malaria control is threatened by drug and insecticide resistance and donor fatigue...

Iron Supplementation During Pregnancy: Twice Weekly As Effective As A Daily Regime

Date: Jun-20-2013
Daily supplementation of iron tablets to pregnant women does not provide any benefits in birth weight or improved infant growth compared to twice weekly supplementation, according to a study by international researchers published in this week's PLOS Medicine. Furthermore, twice weekly supplementation is linked to improved adherence rates in pregnant women and may also be linked to improved cognitive development in infants aged six months...

Newborn Vaccination For Rotavirus In Africa Is Effective

Date: Jun-20-2013
Mayo Clinic and other researchers have shown that a vaccine given to newborns is at least 60 percent effective against rotavirus in Ghana. Rotavirus causes fever, vomiting and diarrhea, which in infants can cause severe dehydration. In developed nations, the condition often results in an emergency room visit or an occasional hospitalization, but is rarely fatal. In developing countries, however, rotavirus-related illness causes approximately 500,000 deaths per year. The findings appear this week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases...

Researchers Discover A Way To Detect New Viruses

Date: Jun-20-2013
In research published in Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications, Saint Louis University researchers describe a technology that can detect new, previously unknown viruses. The technique offers the potential to screen patients for viruses even when doctors have not identified a particular virus as the likely source of an infection. In the new approach, scientists use blood serum as a biological source to categorize and discover viruses...

Adolescent Obesity Associated With Hearing Loss

Date: Jun-20-2013
Obese adolescents are more likely than their normal-weight counterparts to have hearing loss, according to results of a new study. Findings showed that obese adolescents had increased hearing loss across all frequencies and were almost twice as likely to have unilateral (one-sided) low-frequency hearing loss. The study was recently e-published by The Laryngoscope, a journal published by the American Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Society. "This is the first paper to show that obesity is associated with hearing loss in adolescents," said study first author Anil K...