Health News

Cost-Effective Screening Of At-Risk Adolescents For Celiac Disease

Date: Jun-12-2013
The current standard practice of screening adolescents who are either symptomatic or at high-risk for celiac disease proves to be more cost-effective than universal screening. Additionally, the strategy is successful in preventing bone loss and fractures in celiac patients, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association...

Disruption Of Iron Uptake Receptor Identified In Hepatitis C

Date: Jun-12-2013
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infects more than 170 million people worldwide. Approximately 80 percent of infections lead to chronic illness including fibrosis, cirrhosis, cancer and also hepatic iron overload. A new study completed by researchers at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine reveals that HCV not only alters expression of the iron-uptake receptor known as transferrin receptor 1 (TfR1) but that TfR1 also mediates HCV entry...

Female Flies Play Active, Pivotal Role In Postcopulatory Processes

Date: Jun-12-2013
Females play a larger role in determining paternity than previously thought, say biologists in Syracuse University's College of Arts and Sciences. Their findings are the subject of a new paper titled "Female mediation of competitive fertilization success in Drosophila melanogaster," published this month by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America...

Same Protein Complexes Are Hijacked To Promote Viruses In Hot Springs, HIV

Date: Jun-12-2013
Biologists from Indiana University and Montana State University have discovered a striking connection between viruses such as HIV and Ebola and viruses that infect organisms called archaea that grow in volcanic hot springs. Despite the huge difference in environments and a 2 billion year evolutionary time span between archaea and humans, the viruses hijack the same set of proteins to break out of infected cells...

Brand-Name Drugs More Often Used By Medicare Beneficiaries Than VA Patients

Date: Jun-12-2013
Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes are two to three times more likely to use expensive brand-name drugs than a comparable group of patients treated within the VA Healthcare System, according to a nationwide study by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System and Dartmouth College. Spending in Medicare Part D would have been an estimated $1.4 billion less in 2008 if brand-name and generic drug use matched that of the VA for the medications studied...

HDAC3 In Stem Cell Functions Essential For Blood Cell Development

Date: Jun-12-2013
The expression of specific genes is partially dictated by the way the DNA is packed into chromatin, a tightly packed combination of DNA and proteins known as histones. HDAC3 is a chromatin-modifying enzyme that regulates gene expression, chromatin structure, and genome instability and it has previously been shown to associate with the oncoproteins that drive leukemia and lymphoma...

New Clues To Origins Of OCD Could Help Identify New Treatment Approaches

Date: Jun-12-2013
Columbia Psychiatry researchers have identified what they think may be a mechanism underlying the development of compulsive behaviors. The finding suggests possible approaches to treating or preventing certain characteristics of OCD. OCD consists of obsessions, which are recurrent intrusive thoughts, and compulsions, which are repetitive behaviors that patients perform to reduce the severe anxiety associated with the obsessions. The disorder affects 2-3 percent of people worldwide and is an important cause of illness-related disability, according to the World Health Organization...

Link Clarified Between Hypertension And Vitamin D Deficiency

Date: Jun-12-2013
Low levels of vitamin D can trigger hypertension, according to the world's largest study to examine the causal association between the two. Although observational studies have already shown this link, a large-scale genetic study was necessary before the cause and effect could be proven, the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG) heard. Dr...

Evidence Insufficient On Primary Care Interventions For Preventing Child Abuse

Date: Jun-12-2013
The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concludes that current evidence is insufficient to assess the balance of benefits and harms of primary care interventions to prevent child maltreatment. Child abuse and neglect affected more than 680,000 children in the U.S. in 2011, and an estimated 1,570 died as a result of maltreatment. Survivors of abuse face potentially significant health, emotional, and behavioral consequences of abuse...

Binge Drinking Associated With Insomnia Symptoms In Older Adults

Date: Jun-12-2013
A new study suggests that frequent binge drinking is associated with insomnia symptoms in older adults. Results show that overall, 26.2 percent of participants had two or less binge drinking days per week, on average, and 3.1 percent had more than two days per week, on average. After adjustment for demographic variables, medical conditions, and elevated depressive symptoms, participants who binged on an average of more than two days a week had an 84 percent greater odds of reporting an insomnia symptom compared to non-binge drinkers...