Health News

Study Suggests Clenching Fist May Give Better Grip On Memory

Date: Apr-26-2013
Clenching your right hand may help form a stronger memory of an event or action, and clenching your left may help you recollect the memory later, according to research published April 24 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Ruth Propper and colleagues from Montclair State University. Participants in the research study were split into groups and asked to first memorize, and later recall words from a list of 72 words...

Successful Cancer Treatment Bodes Well For Fukushima, Other Nuclear Disaster Victims: Chernobyl Follow-Up Study

Date: Apr-26-2013
More than a quarter of a century after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, many children and teenagers who developed thyroid cancer due to radiation are in complete or near remission, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).. Following the April 26, 1986 explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear plant in the former Soviet Union, the number of children and teenagers diagnosed with differentiated thyroid cancer spiked in Ukraine, Belarus and western areas of Russia...

FDA Develops Device Capable Of Recognizing Fake Anti-Malaria Drugs

Date: Apr-25-2013
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has just announced the development of a new hand-held device, called CD-3, capable of detecting substandard or counterfeit anti-malarial medicines. Malaria is a life threatening mosquito-borne infectious disease that kills more than 660,000 people around the world each year. According to the World Health Organization, there were close to 219 million cases of malaria in 2010...

A Newborn's Placenta Can Predict Risk For Autism

Date: Apr-25-2013
Examining a newborn's placenta for abnormalities can identify the child's risk for autism, according to a new study by researchers at the Yale School of Medicine. The finding was published in the journal Biological Psychiatry and has shown that the identification of placentas with abnormal folds or cell growths known as trophoblast inclusions are key signs that can predict autism risk in infants...

Race, Income Linked To Breast Cancer Treatment Delays

Date: Apr-25-2013
Women who delay treatment for breast cancer are less likely to survive, and this is especially observed in African-Americans, Hispanics, and those of low-income. The finding came from a new study conducted by researchers from the University of California, Irvine, who found that patients who experience a longer treatment delay time (TDT) have significantly reduced survival time compared to those with a shorter TDT. The results were published in JAMA Surgery...

Alcohol And Weight Affect Women's Risk Of Getting And Dying From Liver Disease

Date: Apr-25-2013
Congress delegates heard this week about a study that showed the deadly effect that high alcohol intake and excess body weight can have on women's chances of developing and dying from chronic liver disease. The researchers analyzed data from over 107,000 women across the United Kingdom to find out how weight and alcohol consumption affect the liver. The findings were presented on Thursday at the 2013 International Liver Congress in Amsterdam in The Netherlands...

Eggs, Also, May Raise Heart Risk Via Gut Bacteria

Date: Apr-25-2013
Yet another study, by the same US research team, links raised risk of heart attack and stroke to the action of gut bacteria on certain compounds contained in digested food. This time the link is to a compound found in eggs: lecithin. Earlier this month, researchers reported in Nature Medicine how they found L-carnitine, a compound found in red meat and added to energy drinks, can increase heart risk because gut bacteria digest it to produce trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO), a metabolite already suspected of helping to clog up arteries...

Supreme Court Decision On Tobacco Warnings Will Save Lives

Date: Apr-25-2013
FDA is one step closer to implementation of graphic warnings on cigarette packs World Lung Foundation (WLF) today welcomed a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to reject a challenge by the tobacco industry against the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. This federal law gives the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) greater oversight over tobacco products and incorporates the introduction of mandatory graphic warnings...

Simeprevir Administered Once Daily Demonstrates Sustained Virologic Response In Genotype 1 Chronic Hepatitis C Patients, Studies Find

Date: Apr-25-2013
Janssen R&D Ireland (Janssen) have announced primary efficacy and safety results from two global Phase 3 studies demonstrating that use of the investigational protease inhibitor simeprevir (TMC435) led to sustained virologic response 12 weeks after the end of treatment (SVR12) in 80 and 81 percent, respectively, of treatment-naïve genotype 1 chronic hepatitis C adult patients with compensated liver disease, including all stages of liver fibrosis, when administered once daily with pegylated interferon and ribavirin...

People With Mental Health Problems Say Partners 'Not Fazed' When Told About Their Condition

Date: Apr-25-2013
Two in three (63%) people with mental health problems who tell their partners about their condition have said that partners 'weren't fazed' and were 'really understanding' when they first heard the news. The UK's leading mental health charity Mind and the largest provider of relationship support, Relate, have today released research which shows that 77% of people with a mental health problems surveyed actively tell their partners about their mental health, and only 5% of those people said their partners broke up with them when they heard about their condition...