Health News

Nondiabetic Adults With High C-Peptide Levels May Be At Greater Risk Of Heart Disease, Death

Date: Apr-17-2013
High blood levels of the serum C-peptide are linked to heart disease and death in people without diabetes, according to a large study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Researchers looked at data from the Third Nutrition and Health Examination Survey (NHANES III) and the NHANES III Linked Mortality File to determine the link between C-peptide levels and death from all causes as well as from heart disease. They looked at mortality data on 5902 adults aged 40 years or older representative of the US population. People with high serum C-peptide levels (higher than 1...

Vitamin D May Reduce Risk Of Uterine Fibroids, According To NIH Study

Date: Apr-17-2013
Women who had sufficient amounts of vitamin D were 32 percent less likely to develop fibroids than women with insufficient vitamin D, according to a study from researchers at the National Institutes of Health. Fibroids, also known as uterine leiomyomata, are noncancerous tumors of the uterus. Fibroids often result in pain and bleeding in premenopausal women, and are the leading cause of hysterectomy in the United States. The study of 1,036 women, aged 35-49, living in the Washington, D.C., area from 1996 to 1999, was led by Donna Baird, Ph.D...

Mathematical Model For HIV Prevention

Date: Apr-17-2013
South Africa is home to the largest HIV epidemic in the world with a total of 5.6 million people living with HIV. Large-scale clinical trials evaluating combination methods of prevention and treatment are often prohibitively expensive and take years to complete. In the absence of such trials, mathematical models can help assess the effectiveness of different HIV intervention combinations, as demonstrated in a new study¹ by Elisa Long and Robert Stavert from Yale University in the US. Their findings appear in the Journal of General Internal Medicine², published by Springer...

Rejecting The Possibility That Bad Things Will Happen Makes Our Futures Look Bright

Date: Apr-17-2013
People believe they'll be happy in the future, even when they imagine the many bad things that could happen, because they discount the possibility that those bad things will actually occur, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "I've always been fascinated by the changeability of people's perceptions of happiness," says psychological scientist Ed O'Brien of the University of Michigan...

How Sexual Frequency Corresponds With Happiness

Date: Apr-17-2013
Sex apparently is like income: People are generally happy when they keep pace with the Joneses and they're even happier if they get a bit more. That's one finding of Tim Wadsworth, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Colorado Boulder, who recently published the results of a study of how sexual frequency corresponds with happiness. As has been well documented with income, the happiness linked with having more sex can rise or fall depending on how individuals believe they measure up to their peers, Wadsworth found...

A Night's Sleep Enhances A Musicians Skill When Practicing A New Melody

Date: Apr-17-2013
A new study that examined how the brain learns and retains motor skills provides insight into musical skill. Performance of a musical task improved among pianists whose practice of a new melody was followed by a night of sleep, says researcher Sarah E. Allen, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. The study is among the first to look at whether sleep enhances the learning process for musicians practicing a new piano melody...

Skin Cells Turned Directly Into The Cells That Insulate Neurons In Mouse Model

Date: Apr-17-2013
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have succeeded in transforming skin cells directly into oligodendrocyte precursor cells, the cells that wrap nerve cells in the insulating myelin sheaths that help nerve signals propagate. The current research was done in mice and rats. If the approach also works with human cells, it could eventually lead to cell therapies for diseases like inherited leukodystrophies - disorders of the brain's white matter - and multiple sclerosis, as well as spinal cord injuries. The study was published online in Nature Biotechnology...

Protein Helps Leukemia Cells Avoid Effects Of Chemotherapy By Appearing Dormant

Date: Apr-17-2013
A new study on how the progression of acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is influenced by the bone marrow environment has demonstrated for the first time that targeting a specialized protein known as osteopontin (OPN) may be an effective strategy to increase the efficacy of chemotherapy in patients with this type of blood cancer. Study data were published online Blood, the Journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH). Acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) is a cancer of white blood cells, which normally fight infection in the body...

CT Utilization, Imaging Costs And Radiation Dose Can Be Reduced By At Least 50%

Date: Apr-17-2013
It is unnecessary to scan trauma patients based on a non-focused standard trauma CT protocol, if the patient is transferred for care after already undergoing a focused CT examination based on the patient's history and physical examination, a new study shows. The study, conducted at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center reviewed the records of 100 patients who were transferred from another facility...

Western Style Diet Consumed In UK May Lead To Greater Risk Of Premature Death

Date: Apr-17-2013
Data from a new study of British adults suggest that adherence to a "Western-style" diet (fried and sweet food, processed and red meat, refined grains, and high-fat dairy products) reduces a person's likelihood of achieving older ages in good health and with higher functionality. Study results appear in the May issue of The American Journal of Medicine...