Health News

Cancer Survivors Who Had Chest Radiation At Increased Mortality Risk Following Heart Surgery

Date: Apr-10-2013
Cancer survivors who had chest radiation are nearly twice as likely to die in the years after having major heart surgery as similar patients who didn't have radiation, according to research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation. Chest radiation to kill or shrink breast cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma and other cancers increases survivors' risk for major heart disease years - even decades - after radiation therapy...

Minocycline Show Benefits In Children With Inherited Cause Of Intellectual Disability And Autism

Date: Apr-10-2013
The antibiotic drug minocycline yields "modest" but meaningful improvements in functioning and mood for children with fragile X syndrome (FXS), reports a study in the April Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, the official journal of the Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. Three months of treatment with minocycline in children with FXS resulted in greater overall improvement than placebo treatment, according to the study by Dr Mary Jacena S...

Posttraumatic Stress Significantly Reduced By Transcendental Meditation

Date: Apr-10-2013
A significant percentage of veterans returning from wars exhibit symptoms of posttraumatic stress (PTS). This is now recognized as a serious health problem, but what about the victims of such violence? Refugees live with the constant reminder of what war has done to their lives and those of their families. A randomized/matched study published in the April 2013 issue of Journal of Traumatic Stress (Volume 26, Issue 2, pp. 295-298.) measured the severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms in refugees in Africa before and after learning the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique...

Teenagers Can Safely Use IUDs For Birth Control

Date: Apr-10-2013
Intrauterine devices (IUDs) are as safe for teenagers - including those who have never given birth - as they are for adults, according to research from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Published in the May issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, the findings disprove concerns that have persisted for more than 30 years, since the removal of a harmful IUD from the market in the 1970's, and open the door for many more women - teens included - to benefit from the highly effective, long-lasting form of contraception...

Prolonged Seizures In Children And Developmental Delays

Date: Apr-10-2013
Researchers from the UK determined that developmental delays are present in children within six weeks following convulsive status epilepticus (CSE) - a seizure lasting longer than thirty minutes. The study appearing in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy (ILAE), suggests that neurodevelopmental impairments continue to be present one year after CSE. CSE is one of the most common neurological emergencies in children. These prolonged seizures can occur with or without fevers (febrile)...

Breast Cancer Survival Not Affected By Alcohol Consumption

Date: Apr-10-2013
Although previous research has linked alcohol consumption to an increased risk of developing breast cancer, a new study has found that drinking before and after diagnosis does not impact survival from the disease. In fact, a modest survival benefit was found in women who were moderate drinkers before and after diagnosis due to a reduced risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, a major cause of mortality among breast cancer survivors. The study results will be published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Polly Newcomb, Ph.D...

How Neurons Protect Themselves Against Excess Fat

Date: Apr-10-2013
We're all fatheads. That is, our brain cells are packed with fat molecules, more of them than almost any other cell type. Still, if the brain cells' fat content gets too high, they'll be in trouble. In a recent study in mice, researchers at Johns Hopkins pinpointed an enzyme that keeps neurons' fat levels under control, and may be implicated in human neurological diseases. Their findings are published in the May 2013 issue of Molecular and Cellular Biology...

Addressing Pre-Pregnancy Weight And Then Weight Gain And GDM Together In Pregnancy To Avoid Risk Of High Birthweight Babies

Date: Apr-10-2013
A new study shows that a woman's pre-pregnancy body fat (adiposity), in-pregnancy weight gain, and presence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) can all combine to steeply increase the risk of giving birth to large-for-gestational age (LGA) babies to different degrees in white non-Hispanic, black non-Hispanic, White Hispanic, and Asian women, with the highest combined risk being in White non-Hispanic women...

Genetic Testing Not Carried Out For Nearly Half Of Breast Cancer Patients At Risk Of Having BRCA Mutations

Date: Apr-10-2013
Only 53 percent of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients who were at high risk of carrying a BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 mutation - based on age, diagnosis, and family history of breast or ovarian cancer - reported that their doctors urged them to be tested for the genes, according to a research team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania...

Selecting Patients With Advanced Colorectal Cancer And Liver Metastasis For Surgery

Date: Apr-10-2013
New results from a clinical trial conducted in Shanghai, China, indicate that adding cetuximab (Erbitux) to standard chemotherapy enables some patients with otherwise inoperable liver metastases due to colorectal cancer have their metastases surgically removed. Such surgery can be curative, and is generally critical to long-term survival. While this combination regimen is a standard treatment option for many patients with advanced colorectal cancer, this is the first randomized study to explore its impact on inoperable liver metastases...