Health News

Early Development Of Offspring Affected When Nursing Rats Ate A Chemical In Antibacterial Soap

Date: Jun-19-2013
A mother's exposure to triclocarban, a common antibacterial chemical, while nursing her babies shortens the life of her female offspring, a new study in rats finds. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Commonly used in antibacterial soap and other personal care products, triclocarban has the potential for a large portion of the public to be exposed to it, said the study's lead author, Rebekah Kennedy, a graduate student in the Department of Public Health at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville...

Mannitol May Prevent Aggregation Of Toxic Proteins In Parkinson's Disease

Date: Jun-19-2013
Mannitol, a sugar alcohol produced by fungi, bacteria, and algae, is a common component of sugar-free gum and candy. The sweetener is also used in the medical field - it's approved by the FDA as a diuretic to flush out excess fluids and used during surgery as a substance that opens the blood/brain barrier to ease the passage of other drugs. Now Profs. Ehud Gazit and Daniel Segal of Tel Aviv University's Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology and the Sagol School of Neuroscience, along with their colleague Dr...

Whooping Cough Can Be Deadly For Infants, But 61 Percent Of Adults Don't Know Their Vaccine Status

Date: Jun-19-2013
Cases of pertussis, also known as whooping cough, are on the rise in the U.S., recently reaching their highest level in 50 years. The disease can be serious or even fatal to newborns who have not yet received vaccinations. Effective vaccines against pertussis have been available for many decades, but that vaccine protection can wear off over time. A new University of Michigan poll shows that 61 percent of adults say they don't know when they were last vaccinated against pertussis, which could mean they might be unwittingly exposing vulnerable babies to the disease...

Obese Children With Impaired Heart Function At Greater Risk Of Later Disease

Date: Jun-19-2013
Impaired heart function among obese children and adolescents may be an indicator of future heart disease, a new clinical trial finds. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Obesity rates in developed countries worldwide are climbing among all age groups, including children. In the United States today, one-third of children are overweight or obese, which raises concerns about the effects of early weight gain on future health...

A High-Fat Diet Impairs Memory And Learning In Adolescent Mice

Date: Jun-19-2013
A high-fat diet in adolescence appears to have long-lasting effects on learning and memory during adulthood, a new study in mice finds. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Adolescent mice fed a normal-calorie but high-fat diet became moderately obese but not diabetic, and they displayed significantly impaired spatial memory, according to the study authors, from CEU-San Pablo University (Universidad CEU-San Pablo) in Madrid...

Marketing Unhealthy Foods To Children Is "Disastrous"

Date: Jun-19-2013
The marketing of unhealthy food to children has been disastrously effective and is only making childhood obesity even more of a problem, says The World Health Organization (WHO). WHO is calling for more control on marketing unhealthy foods high in sugars, salt, and trans fats. These types of foods are only contributing to the ever-increasing childhood obesity pandemic. Extreme obesity is affecting more children at younger ages, according to a Kaiser Permanente study of 710,949 children and teens that was publiched online in the Journal of Pediatrics...

After Uterus And Ovary Removal, Testosterone Therapy Improves Sexual Function

Date: Jun-19-2013
High doses of testosterone significantly improve sexual function among women who have had their uterus and ovaries surgically removed, a clinical study demonstrates. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Surgical removal of the uterus, or hysterectomy, and the ovaries, which is called oophorectomy, is performed to treat various diseases, including cancer. Hysterectomy is also performed as an elective sterilization, usually among older women, and may be combined with oophorectomy if ovarian disease is present...

Fat Tissue's Calorie-Burning Ability Boosted In Lab

Date: Jun-19-2013
A drug that mimics the activity of thyroid hormone significantly increases the amount of energy burned by fat tissue and promotes weight loss, an animal study of metabolism finds. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 95th Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Humans and other mammals have two kinds of fat, or adipose, tissue, which are referred to by color: white or brown. White adipose tissue, or WAT, has low energy-burning capacity...

Protein Being Studied To Fight Cancer; May Cause Toxicity In Cardiac Cells

Date: Jun-19-2013
A study by researchers at Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Department of Pharmacology at the University of California, San Diego, shows that a protein called MCL-1, which promotes cell survival, is essential for normal heart function. Their study, published in th journal Genes & Development, found that deletion of the gene encoding MCL-1 in adult mouse hearts led to rapid heart failure within two weeks, and death within a month. MCL-1 (myeloid cell leukemia-1) is an anti-apoptotic protein, meaning that it prevents or delays the death of a cell...

Variants In The SIM1 Gene Associated With Severe Obesity

Date: Jun-19-2013
Although body weight is largely determined by lifestyle factors, increasingly research is revealing that genetics also play an important role in determining an individual's susceptibility to obesity. Identifying the mutations that underlie the fraction of obese patients with monogenic obesity can help us to understand complex processes like metabolic rate, eating behavior, growth, and fat storage. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, two groups identified obesity-linked mutations in the gene SIM1...