Health News

Helping Dementia Patients Remember To Eat Well Improves Physical And Mental Health

Date: Feb-28-2013
A new analysis has found that a combination of methods that help patients with dementia remember proper eating habits can improve their physical health and lessen symptoms of depression. Published early online in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, the study indicates that clinicians should consider using this intervention in individuals with dementia who also have poor nutrition and signs of depression. In patients with dementia, poor nutrition or decreased food intake may cause symptoms of depression...

Housing Improvements Should Be Targeted At Those In Poorest Health

Date: Feb-28-2013
Improving housing can improve health, particularly when interventions are targeted at those in the poorest health, according to a systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. The authors say their review underscores the importance of targeting those most in need when devising programmes for housing improvement. Despite a wealth of research linking housing to health, it remains difficult to separate the effects of poor housing from the effects of other socioeconomic factors that influence health, such as poverty...

Spinal Cancer: Guidelines For Diagnosis Unsupported In Patients With Lower Back Pain

Date: Feb-28-2013
A new systematic review published in The Cochrane Library has raised doubts as to the effectiveness of "red flag" indicators at both identifying and excluding cancer in patients with lower back pain. The authors of the review concluded that most individual red flags were poor at diagnosing spinal malignancies and call for further studies focused on combinations of red flags. Lower back pain is a common complaint, often with no obvious cause. In around 1-5% of patients with lower back pain, the condition results from a more serious underlying problem, such as a tumour...

Screening Decisions Are Better Informed When Risk Information Is Personalised

Date: Feb-28-2013
Patients' ability to make genuinely informed choices about undergoing disease screening increases when the risk information that they receive is related to their own personal risk, rather than average risks, according to the results of a Cochrane systematic review. The authors reviewed data from studies, largely on cancer screens, in which patients were provided with personalised risk estimates. The benefits of screening are not clear-cut...

Research With Worms Links Insulin To Learning

Date: Feb-28-2013
Recent work by Harvard researchers demonstrates how the signaling pathway of insulin and insulinlike peptides plays a critical role in helping to regulate learning and memory. The research, led by Yun Zhang, associate professor of organismic and evolutionary biology, is described in a Feb. 6 paper in Neuron. "People think of insulin and diabetes, but many metabolic syndromes are associated with some types of cognitive defects and behavioral disorders, like depression or dementia," Zhang said...

Babies Of African Ancestry Get Less Prenatal Care In Brazil, More Likely To Be Born Prematurely

Date: Feb-28-2013
Low birth weights are more prevalent among Brazilians with African ancestry and may be attributed to less use of prenatal care facilities and where those ethnic groups live, according to a new study. The study from researchers at the University of Iowa and health analysts in South America also suggests that infants of African ancestry, alone or mixed, were more likely to be born prematurely than those born of European-only stock...

Sibling Death Increases Risk Of Heart Attack

Date: Feb-28-2013
A person whose sibling has died is at increased risk of suffering a fatal heart attack. The finding came from a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association which suggests that a healthy approach can help people cope with their loss and sadness. For the purpose of the research, health records of 1.6 million Swedish adults between the ages of 40 and 69 were analyzed. A link was found between death from a heart attack and the death of an adult sibling, according to the authors...

Improving Physical Education In Schools

Date: Feb-28-2013
Feeling comfortable and confident in sport, health, or PE can be very difficult for some young people who can be seen as a 'risk' of becoming obese. Young people from ethnic minorities, especially girls, are more likely to be physically inactive and unhealthy. This perception needs to be addressed and challenged in school physical education (PE) according to research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which shows how school provision could make use of visual approaches in developing young people's critical learning about the body...

Sugar-Coated Web-Like Scaffold For Stem Cells Offers Hope For New Therapeutics

Date: Feb-28-2013
Scientists have used sugar-coated scaffolding to move a step closer to the routine use of stem cells in the clinic and unlock their huge potential to cure diseases from Alzheimer's to diabetes. Stem cells have the unique ability to turn into any type of human cell, opening up all sorts of therapeutic possibilities for some of the world's incurable diseases and conditions. The problem facing scientists is how to encourage stem cells to turn into the particular type of cell required to treat a specific disease...

When Pain Can Be A Relief

Date: Feb-28-2013
When something causes less pain than expected it is even possible for it to feel pleasant, a new study reveals. These findings may one day play a key role in treating pain and substance abuse. If you accidently kick your toe against a doorframe you are probably going to find it very painful. As a purely intellectual experiment, imagine purposefully kicking a doorframe hard enough to potentially break your toe. When it turns out your toe has been battered but not broken, the pain may be interpreted more as a relief...