Health News

Novel Method Points To New Blood Tests For Conditions From Autoimmune Diseases To Alzheimer's

Date: Mar-25-2013
Researchers at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) in Jupiter, FL, have developed cutting-edge technology that can successfully screen human blood for disease markers. This tool may hold the key to better diagnosing and understanding today's most pressing and puzzling health conditions, including autoimmune diseases...

Genes Can Sometimes Explain Why Some Kids Are Picky About Food

Date: Mar-25-2013
Parents may plead, cajole or entice their children to try new foods, but some kids just won't budge. Now, new research from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reveals that the reason these kids fear new foods has less to do with what's on their plate and more to do with their genes. The work, led by Myles Faith, an associate professor of nutrition at UNC's Gillings School of Global Public Health, adds to the growing body of knowledge that genes play a significant role in children's eating behavior, including the tendency to avoid new foods...

High Vitamin D Helps Healthy People Stay That Way

Date: Mar-25-2013
Healthy people with higher vitamin D levels in their blood may enjoy several benefits, apart from improved bone health, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine reported in PLOS ONE. The authors explained that their study found that higher vitamin D levels in healthy people have a considerable impact on the genes that are involved in several biologic pathways linked to infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease and cancer...

Regular Family Meals Improve Teenage Mental Health

Date: Mar-25-2013
Regular family meals can greatly improve mental health among teenagers, regardless of whether they feel comfortable talking to their parents, according to new research published in the Journal of Adolescent Health. The research suggests that adolescents who have family meals are more trusting and generally more emotionally stable compared to those don't. Family meals provide teenagers a routine, consistency and good eating habits, revealed a previous survey published in The Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine...

How Does The Brain Keep Track Of Similar But Distinct Memories?

Date: Mar-25-2013
Finding ourselves racking our brains first thing on a Monday morning, trying to remember where we put the car keys is not un uncommon frustration. When those keys are eventually found, we have the hippocampus to thank for. The hippocampus is a region in the brain which is responsible for storing and retrieving memories of different locations, including that unusual spot where those car-keys were hiding...

Expanding Blood Stem Cells For Bone Marrow Transplant - New Method Developed

Date: Mar-25-2013
Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College believe they have solved how to expand adult hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) outside the human body for medical use in bone marrow transplantation - a vital step towards being able to produce enough stem cells required to re-establish a healthy blood system. The researchers, working together with scientists from Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, described in the journal Blood how they created a protein to expand adult HSCs when they were taken from the bone marrow of a donor...

Woman Allergic To Exercise Told To Stop By Doctors

Date: Mar-25-2013
Kasia Beaver, 33, from Redditch, Worcestershire, England, was diagnosed with exercise-induced angioedema (EIA) and has been told to stop exercising by her doctors. When her heart beats too rapidly her eyes puff up and shut, her throat narrows and she breaks out in hives. Many of us joke that we cannot go to the gym because we are allergic to exercise. For Mrs Beaver, a mother of four, this is a reality. If she works up a sweat she is at risk of a potentially fatal anaphylactic reaction...

From LSD To Migraine Medication: Study Reveals How Serotonin Receptors Can Shape Drug Effects

Date: Mar-25-2013
A team including scientists from The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has determined and analyzed the high-resolution atomic structures of two kinds of human serotonin receptor. The new findings help explain why some drugs that interact with these receptors have had unexpectedly complex and sometimes harmful effects...

Daily AHA Recommended Amount Of Sodium Ignored By Majority Of Adults Worldwide

Date: Mar-25-2013
Seventy-five percent of the world's population consumes nearly twice the daily recommended amount of sodium (salt), according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism and Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention 2013 Scientific Sessions. Global sodium intake from commercially prepared food, table salt, salt and soy sauce added during cooking averaged nearly 4,000 mg a day in 2010...

Genetic Alterations Linked With Bladder Cancer Risk, Recurrence, Progression, And Patient Survival

Date: Mar-25-2013
A new analysis has found that genetic alterations in a particular cellular pathway are linked with bladder cancer risk, recurrence, disease progression, and patient survival. Published early online in CANCER, a peer- reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings could help improve bladder cancer screening and treatment. Alterations in the regulators of G-protein signaling (RGS) pathway, which is important for various cellular processes, have been implicated in several cancers...