Health News

Predicting Risk For Alzheimer's Disease With New Genetic Markers

Date: Apr-07-2013
People who have a buildup of certain proteins in the brain and spinal fluid have an increased likelihood of developing Alzheimer's disease, but it's currently unclear who will develop these protein accumulations. Now researchers reporting online in the Cell Press journal Neuron have identified mutations in certain genetic regions that influence the levels of these protein accumulations...

In Children With Kidney Failure, Growth Hormone Reverses Growth Problems

Date: Apr-07-2013
Growth hormone therapy can help reverse growth problems in children with kidney failure, according to a study appearing in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). However, treatment increases bone turnover and interrupts the relationship between bone turnover and a blood marker of bone health, making it difficult for doctors to assess patients' bone health by blood tests alone. Chronic kidney disease can have severe effects on growth in children, leading to short stature and problems with both physical and psychological health...

Protection From Harmful Autoimmune Response In Obesity

Date: Apr-07-2013
Obesity is linked to the widespread epidemics of diabetes and heart disease that plague society, but a lesser-known fact is that the weight can also lead to autoimmune disease. Now, researchers have new information about how that damaging immune response happens and how it might be stopped, published in Cell Reports, a Cell Press publication. The key, they show, may be to block an important element known as AIM (for apoptosis inhibitor of macrophage) in the bloodstream and, ultimately, the production of antibodies that attack the self...

Scientists Illuminate Elusive Mechanism Of Widely Used Click Reaction

Date: Apr-07-2013
Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have illuminated the mechanism at the heart of one of the most useful processes in modern chemistry. A reaction that is robust and easy to perform, it is widely employed to synthesize new pharmaceuticals, biological probes, new materials and other products. But precisely how it works had been unclear since its invention at TSRI more than a decade ago...

Ischemic Strokes Can Lead To Chronic Pain

Date: Apr-07-2013
Chronic or persistent pain is a common - and likely under-recognized - complication of ischemic strokes (caused by a blocked blood vessel) according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke. In a large trial of treatments to prevent a second stroke, researchers found that 10.6 percent of more than 15,000 stroke survivors developed chronic pain. "Chronic pain syndromes are common, even following strokes of mild to moderate severity," said Martin J. O'Donnell, M.D...

Blood Lead Levels High In 535,000 Kids In The USA

Date: Apr-07-2013
More than half-a-million children aged 1 to 5 years had blood lead levels higher than 5 µg/dL, the new threshold-for-concern, according to a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report issued by the CDC this week. The CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) emphasized that "no safe blood lead level in children has been identified". Lead exposure in children can lead to both cognitive and behavioral problems. Lead poisoning, also known as sturnism, colica Pictonum, Devon colic, painter's colic and plumbism is a medical condition caused by high BLLs (blood lead levels)...

Postmenopausal Osteoporosis May Stem From Smoking And Depression In Adolescence

Date: Apr-06-2013
Depression, anxiety, and smoking are associated with lower bone mineral density (BMD) in adults, but these factors have not previously been studied during adolescence, when more than 50% of bone accrual occurs. This longitudinal preliminary study is the first to demonstrate that smoking and depressive symptoms in adolescent girls have a negative impact on adolescent bone accrual and may become a red flag for a future constrained by low bone mass or osteoporosis and higher fracture rates in postmenopausal years...

Household Income Affects Chronic Disease Control In Kids, Despite Free Health Care

Date: Apr-06-2013
Researchers at the University of Montreal have found that the glycated hemoglobin levels of children with type 1 diabetes followed at its affiliated Sainte-Justine Mother and Child University Hospital (CHU Sainte-Justine) is correlated linearly and negatively with household income. Glycated hemoglobin is the binding of sugar to blood molecules - over time, high blood sugar levels lead to high levels of glycated hemoglobin, which means that it can be used to assess whether a patient properly controls his or her blood glucose level...

Anti-Vaccination Sentiments Spread More Easily Than Pro-Vaccination Sentiments On Twitter

Date: Apr-06-2013
On Twitter, a popular microblogging and social-networking service, statements about vaccines may have unexpected effects -- positive messages may backfire, according to a team of Penn State University researchers led by Marcel Salathé, an assistant professor of biology. The team tracked the pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine messages to which Twitter users were exposed and then observed how those users expressed their own sentiments about a new vaccine for combating influenza H1N1 - a virus strain responsible for swine flu...

Synthetic Tissues Can Be Built By 3-D Printer

Date: Apr-06-2013
A custom-built programmable 3D printer can create materials with several of the properties of living tissues, Oxford University scientists have demonstrated. The new type of material consists of thousands of connected water droplets, encapsulated within lipid films, which can perform some of the functions of the cells inside our bodies. These printed 'droplet networks' could be the building blocks of a new kind of technology for delivering drugs to places where they are needed and potentially one day replacing or interfacing with damaged human tissues...