Health News

The Use Of Nanosilver As An Antimicrobial Agent With Biomedical And Environmental Applications

Date: May-10-2013
Researchers from UNSW have cautioned that more work is needed to understand how micro-organisms respond to the disinfecting properties of silver nano-particles, increasingly used in consumer goods, and for medical and environmental applications. Although nanosilver has effective antimicrobial properties against certain pathogens, overexposure to silver nano-particles can cause other potentially harmful organisms to rapidly adapt and flourish, a UNSW study reveals...

State-Of-The-Art DNA Sequencing Technique Reveals Cause Of Severe Childhood Epilepsies

Date: May-10-2013
Researchers at the University of Arizona have successfully determined the genetic mutations causing severe epilepsies in seven out of 10 children for whom the cause of the disorder could not be determined clinically or by conventional genetic testing. Instead of sequencing each gene one at a time, the team used a technique called whole-exome sequencing: Rather than combing through all of the roughly 3 billion base pairs of an individual's entire genome, whole-exome-sequencing deciphers only actual genes, and nearly all of them simultaneously...

Key To Muscle Fitness Revealed By Differences Between 'Marathon Mice' And 'Couch Potato Mice' Reveal

Date: May-10-2013
Researchers discovered that small pieces of genetic material called microRNAs link the two defining characteristics of fit muscles: the ability to burn sugar and fat and the ability to switch between slow- and fast-twitch muscle fibers. The team used two complementary mouse models - the "marathon mouse" and the "couch potato mouse" - to make this discovery. But what's more, they also found that active people have higher levels of one of these microRNAs than sedentary people...

Fun And Friends Help Ease The Pain Of Breast Cancer

Date: May-10-2013
Kaiser Permanente study among the first to examine how social relationships influence quality of life in breast cancer patients Breast cancer patients who say they have people to have a good time, or "positive social interactions," with are better able to deal with pain and other physical symptoms, according to a new Kaiser Permanente study published this week in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. "This study provides research-based evidence that social support helps with physical symptoms," said lead author Candyce H...

Disparities In Kidney Transplants For African-Americans

Date: May-10-2013
While the percentage of kidney transplants involving live donors has remained stable for other minority populations, African Americans have seen a decline in live donors even as more of them receive kidney transplants, according to a study by Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Those findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in San Diego. "African American race has been associated with disparities in care at every step of the kidney transplant process," says Jesse D. Sammon, D.O...

Tumors Invading The Aorta Successfully Removed Via Thoracic Endografts

Date: May-10-2013
Tumors have the potential to grow locally and invade neighboring organs. Some chest tumors may invade one of the great vessels of the body, the aorta. Surgical removal of these tumors is very challenging and necessitates the support of a heart-lung machine. Therefore there is an increased risk of complication and death. In a small series of patients, placing a stent within the aorta facilitated the subsequent removal of tumor and eliminated the need for heart-lung bypass...

Cystic Fibrosis-Associated Intestinal Obstruction Ameliorated By Gene Replacement In Pigs

Date: May-10-2013
Cystic fibrosis (CF) is caused by mutations in CFTR and is characterized by dysfunction of the lungs, liver, pancreas, and intestines. Approximately 15% of babies with CF are born with an obstruction of the small intestine known as meconium ileus, frequently the first sign of CF. Unlike in humans, meconium ileus occurs in 100% of newborn CF pigs. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Michael Welsh and colleagues at the University of Iowa demonstrate that transgenic expression of normal CFTR in the intestine of CF pigs alleviated meconium ileus...

Association Between Alzheimer's Disease And Removal Of The Synaptic Protein ADAM10

Date: May-10-2013
Alzheimer's disease is characterized by the accumulation of neurotoxic β-amyloid peptide (A-beta). ADAM10, a protein that resides in the neural synapses, has previously been shown to prevent the formation of A-beta. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Monica Di Luca and colleagues at the University of Milan in Milan, Italy, report that ADAM10 is removed from synapses through association with the protein AP2. Strikingly, the association between ADAM10 and AP2 was increased in human brain homogenates from Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients compared to healthy controls...

Optical Media Changes With Age, But Neural Mechanisms Keep Color Perception Constant

Date: May-10-2013
Cone receptors in the human eye lose their color sensitivity with age, but our subjective experience of color remains largely unchanged over the years. This ability to compensate for age-related changes in color perception rests in higher levels of the visual system, according to research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Sophie Wuerger from the University of Liverpool, UK...

Vision Scientists Pinpoint How We See Fast-Moving Objects Coming

Date: May-10-2013
How does San Francisco Giants slugger Pablo Sandoval swat a 95 mph fastball, or tennis icon Venus Williams see the oncoming ball, let alone return her sister Serena's 120 mph serves? For the first time, vision scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have pinpointed how the brain tracks fast-moving objects. The discovery advances our understanding of how humans predict the trajectory of moving objects when it can take one-tenth of a second for the brain to process what the eye sees...