Health News

An Underlying Cause Of Autism Could Be Indicated By Enhanced Motion Perception

Date: May-11-2013
Children with autism see simple movement twice as quickly as other children their age, and this hypersensitivity to motion may provide clues to a fundamental cause of the developmental disorder, according to a new study. Such heightened sensory perception in autism may help explain why some people with the disorder are painfully sensitive to noise and bright lights...

Children With Heart Defects May Benefit From Carnitine Supplement

Date: May-11-2013
A common nutritional supplement may be part of the magic in improving the survival rates of babies born with heart defects, researchers report. Carnitine, a compound that helps transport fat inside the cell powerhouse where it can be used for energy production, is currently used for purposes ranging from weight loss to chest pain. New research shows it appears to normalize the blood vessel dysfunction that can accompany congenital heart defects and linger even after corrective surgery, said Dr. Stephen M...

Antifungal Therapy Could Benefit Nearly 5 Million Asthmatics Worldwide

Date: May-11-2013
An estimated 4,837,000 asthmatics with allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis (ABPA) could benefit substantially from antifungal treatment, say researchers from the University of Toronto and Manchester University. Their work, published in the journal Medical Mycology, has also re-estimated the total number of asthmatics worldwide - to reveal a staggering 193 million sufferers. Twenty-four million asthma sufferers live in the United States, 20 million each in India and China, and seven million in the United Kingdom...

Coumarin In Cinnamon Linked To Liver Damage

Date: May-11-2013
Many kinds of cinnamon, cinnamon-flavored foods, beverages and food supplements in the United States use a form of the spice that contains high levels of a natural substance that may cause liver damage in some sensitive people, scientists are reporting. Their study, published in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, found similar results as those published in the European Union. Ikhlas Khan and colleagues explain that cinnamon, which comes from the bark of certain trees, is one of the most important flavoring agents used in foods and beverages...

The Pancreas Is The Focus Of Gastroenterology's Special Issue

Date: May-11-2013
The editors of Gastroenterology, the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, are pleased to announce the publication of this year's highly anticipated special 13th issue. Published each May, the 13th issue is devoted to a particular gastroenterological topic of broad interest; this year's topic is the biology, diseases and therapy of the pancreas. To access the 13th issue in its entirety, please click here. In conjunction with Editor-in-Chief M...

Missing Link Discovered In Signals Contributing To Neurodegeneration

Date: May-11-2013
In many neurodegenerative diseases the neurons of the brain are over-stimulated and this leads to their destruction. After many failed attempts and much scepticism this process was finally shown last year to be a possible basis for treatment in some patients with stroke. But very few targets for drugs to block this process are known. In a new highly detailed study, researchers have discovered a previously missing link between over-stimulation and destruction of brain tissue, and shown that this might be a target for future drugs. This research, led by the A. I...

Bacteriophages Eradicate Bacteria On Medical Implant Materials

Date: May-11-2013
They're ba-ack! But in a new disease-fighting role. Viruses that infect and kill bacteria - used to treat infections in the pre-antibiotic era a century ago and in the former Soviet Union today - may have a new role in preventing formation of the sticky "biofilms" of bacteria responsible for infections on implanted medical devices. That's the topic of a report in the ACS journal Biomacromolecules. Marek Urban and colleagues explain that bacteriophages (literally, "bacteria eaters") were first used to treat bacterial infections in the 19th century...

Obese Students' Childbearing Risk Varies With High School Obesity Rates

Date: May-11-2013
For young women in high school, the risk of childbearing may depend on the prevalence of obesity in their schools, according to sociologists, who found that as the prevalence of obesity rises in a school, so do the odds of obese high school students bearing children. "We did find that obese females are at lower risk of having a child while in high school," said Jennifer Buher Kane, recent Penn State Ph. D. recipient and current postdoctoral fellow at Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina. "But that relative risk depends a lot on the type of school they attend...

Slowing Down The Aging Process By Boosting "Cellular Garbage Disposal"

Date: May-11-2013
Scientists say that a gene, called parkin, can delay the onset of aging and make fruit flies live longer. They believe their findings might have important implications for the aging process and development of disease in human beings. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)...

First Drop In US Drug Spending In Six Years

Date: May-11-2013
Total per capita spending on drugs in the USA fell 3.5% in 2012, there were fewer non-emergency hospital admissions and doctor office visits, and prescription use went down by 0.1 percent, according to a new report issued by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. The report - Declining Medicine Use and Costs: For Better or Worse? - informed that $325.8 billion were spent in 2012 in the USA. At $898 in 2012, total real capita spending was $33 less than the year before...