Health News

Initiation Of Breast Cancer Treatment Varies By Race; Patient-Doctor Communication Is Key

Date: May-10-2013
Black women with breast cancer were found to be three times more likely than their white counterparts to delay treatment for more than 90 days - a time delay associated with increased deaths from the disease, according to a new study led by researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. But many women chose to forgo treatment altogether, and the study, published online in the May issue of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, suggests that low satisfaction regarding communication between black women and their doctors is a significant reason why they opt out...

Breast Cancer Oncogenes Muted By MicroRNA Cooperation

Date: May-10-2013
A University of Colorado Cancer Center study recently published in the journal Cell Death & Disease shows that turning up a few microRNAs a little may offer as much anti-breast-cancer activity as turning up one microRNA a lot - and without the unwanted side effects. It's a bit like the classic thought experiment known as the "tumor problem" formulated by Karl Dunker in 1945 and used frequently in the problem-solving literature: Imagine a person suffers from a malignant tumor in the center of her body...

Bladder Cancer Could Reoccur Despite Bladder Removal

Date: May-10-2013
Patients with advanced bladder cancers that are surgically removed might need additional therapy to prevent recurrence in certain situations, a new UT Southwestern Medical Center study suggests. The five-year international study led by researchers at UT Southwestern validates the use of a marker panel to predict which patients are more likely to have a recurrence of cancer after bladder removal, thereby identifying those patients as good candidates for follow-up chemotherapy...

Early Infant Growth Rate Linked To Composition Of Gut Microbiota

Date: May-09-2013
The composition of gut microbiota in a new-born baby's gut has been linked to the rate of early infant growth, reports research published this week in PLOS Computational Biology. The findings support the assertion that the early development of "microbiota" - the body's microbial ecosystem - in an infant can influence growth and thereby the likelihood of obesity. The sterile gut of a new-born baby is quickly populated by a variety of different microbes. This study identified connections between different bacteria and both expected and reduced infant growth rates...

Eating Foods With Nicotine Could Help Prevent Parkinson's Disease

Date: May-09-2013
Certain species of a flowering plant family called "Solanaceae" have chemical properties that can help prevent the development of Parkinson's disease. Some of the species are edible sources of nicotine, a chemical which is thought to have a neuroprotective effect upon dopaminergic neurons, providing a protective effect against the disease...

Flu In Pregnancy Increases Child's Risk Of Bipolar Disorder

Date: May-09-2013
Women who catch the flu during pregnancy may put their child at increased risk of bipolar disorder later in life, according to a new study in JAMA Psychiatry. In the past, studies have demonstrated a link between gestational influenza and schizophrenia in offspring, showing that a mother's flu during pregnancy may increase a child's risk of schizophrenia. However, scientists have been questioning whether there is an association between exposure to influenza in the womb and bipolar disorder (BD)...

Wrigley Pulls Caffeinated Gum Off The Shelves

Date: May-09-2013
Wrigley will remove caffeinated gum from the market after an investigation announcement by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the company said yesterday. After the caffeinated gum product launch last month, Casey Keller, Wrigley's North American president, said they have "paused production, sales and marketing of 'Alert' to give the FDA time to develop a new regulatory framework for the addition of caffeine to drinks and food...

Tickling Laughter Produces Different Brain Response To Social Laughter

Date: May-09-2013
When we hear someone laughing because they are being tickled, the connections in our brains respond differently to when we hear social laughter, such as that which expresses joy or accompanies mocking behavior. This was the finding of a study by researchers in Germany who conclude that different patterns in the brain's "laughter perception network" are activated by different kinds of laugh. Dirk Wildgruber and colleagues from the University of Tuebingen write about their study in a paper published online in the open access journal PLOS ONE on 8 May...

PIP Breast Implants May Harm Developing Fetus

Date: May-09-2013
A recent report published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine reveals that PIP breast implants do in fact pose health threats, and can cause damage to a developing fetus. The new report disagrees with the NHS medical director Sir Bruce Keogh's recent statement claiming that PIP breast implants do not have any associated serious health risks. The authors say that PIP implants have a high number of small molecules known as D4, a type of endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC). EDCs can cause damage to a fetus...

Bladder Cancer Deserves Urgent Attention

Date: May-09-2013
It is the 4th most common cancer in men[1] (and 11th in women), but bladder cancer remains an extremely low priority in the UK. Action on Bladder Cancer[2] (ABC) reports that almost half (45%) of the UK public do not know that even just one episode of blood in the urine, the most common warning sign, could mean bladder cancer. Smoking is the most common cause of bladder cancer and yet 95% of people are not aware of this. ABC calls for much stronger recognition of bladder cancer amongst the general public and the medical profession in order to prevent avoidable deaths...