Health News

Explanation Of Cognitive Ability Differences Among The Elderly

Date: Jun-06-2013
A new study shows compelling evidence that associations between cognitive ability and cortical grey matter in old age can largely be accounted for by cognitive ability in childhood. The joint study by the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, The Neuro, McGill University and the University of Edinburgh, UK was published in Molecular Psychiatry. It has long been thought that preserving brain cortical thickness was a determining factor in superior cognitive ability in old age; however the rare availability of childhood cognitive scores reveals other possible explanations...

Insulin Sensitivity In Obese Teens Reduced By A Reduction In BMI

Date: Jun-06-2013
Obese teenagers who reduced their body mass index (BMI) by 8 percent or more had improvements in insulin sensitivity, an important metabolic factor related to the later development of type 2 diabetes. The teens followed a family-based, lifestyle-modification weight loss program that offers the potential to become a broader model. BMI is a measure of body weight adjusted for height. "This threshold effect that occurs at 8 percent suggests that obese adolescents don't need to lose enormous amounts of weight to achieve improvements," said pediatric endocrinologist Lorraine Levitt Katz, M.D...

Neuronal Regeneration And The 2-Part Design Of Nerves

Date: Jun-06-2013
Researchers at the University of Michigan have evidence that a single gene controls both halves of nerve cells, and their research demonstrates the need to consider that design in the development of new treatments for regeneration of nerve cells. A paper published online in PLOS Biology by U-M Life Sciences Institute faculty member Bing Ye and colleagues shows that manipulating genes of the fruit fly Drosophila to promote the growth of one part of the neuron simultaneously stunts the growth of the other part...

Improving Stem Cells' Cartilage Formation

Date: Jun-06-2013
Cartilage injuries are difficult to repair. Current surgical options generally involve taking a piece from another part of the injured joint and patching over the damaged area, but this approach involves damaging healthy cartilage, and a person's cartilage may still deteriorate with age. Bioengineers are interested in finding innovative ways to grow new cartilage from a patient's own stem cells, and, thanks to a new study from the University of Pennsylvania, such a treatment is a step closer to reality...

Reducing Substance Abuse Among Teens

Date: Jun-06-2013
Prevention is often the best medicine, not only for physical health, but also public health, according to researchers at Penn State and Iowa State University. According to the researchers, young adults reduce their overall prescription drug misuse up to 65 percent if they are part of a community-based prevention effort while still in middle school. The reduced substance use is significant considering the dramatic increase in prescription drug abuse, said Richard Spoth, director of the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute at Iowa State...

A Newborn's Diet May Be Improved Through Genetic Analysis Of Breast Milk

Date: Jun-06-2013
The composition of breast milk varies from mother to mother, and genetic factors may affect the levels of protective components in breast milk that could influence a newborn's outcomes. The potential to perform genomic studies on breast milk samples is explored in a Review article in Breastfeeding Medicine, the Official Journal of the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine, published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Breastfeeding Medicine website...

Variations From State To State In Rates Of Emergency Bowel Surgery

Date: Jun-06-2013
Johns Hopkins researchers have documented huge and somewhat puzzling interstate variations in the percentage of emergency versus elective bowel surgeries. Figuring out precisely why the differences occur is critical, they say, because people forced to undergo emergency procedures are far more likely to die from their operations than those able to plan ahead for them. "With surgery, just as with most things in life, planning under optimal conditions leads to a better result," says study leader Adil H. Haider, M.D., M.P.H...

Mutant Gene In Rare Muscle Disease Identified With The Help Of Zebrafish

Date: Jun-06-2013
Zebrafish with very weak muscles helped scientists decode the elusive genetic mutation responsible for Native American myopathy, a rare, hereditary muscle disease that afflicts Native Americans in North Carolina. Scientists led by John Kuwada, professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the University of Michigan, and Hiromi Hirata of the National Institute of Genetics in Japan originally identified the gene in mutant zebrafish that exhibited severe muscle weakness...

When Making Female Friends, Women Reject Sexually Promiscuous Peers

Date: Jun-06-2013
College-aged women judge promiscuous female peers - defined by bedding 20 sexual partners by their early 20s - more negatively than more chaste women and view them as unsuitable for friendship, finds a study by Cornell University developmental psychologists. Notably, participants' preference for less sexually active women as friends remained even when they personally reported liberal attitudes about casual sex or a high number of lifetime lovers...

Adolescent Violence In Israel Increased By Exposure To Rocket Attacks

Date: Jun-06-2013
Chronic exposure to rocket attacks launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel is causing an increase in severe adolescent violence, according to a new study by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers. The study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (JAACAP), followed 362 Israeli adolescents from the southwestern Negev from 2008 to 2011, and conducted annual assessments of exposure to rocket attacks, symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as acts of violence...