Health News

Protein 'Passport' Developed That Allows Access For Therapeutics Through Body's Immune Defence

Date: Feb-25-2013
The body's immune system exists to identify and destroy foreign objects, whether they are bacteria, viruses, flecks of dirt or splinters. Unfortunately, nanoparticles designed to deliver drugs, and implanted devices like pacemakers or artificial joints, are just as foreign and subject to the same response. Now, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Engineering and Applied Science and Penn's Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics have figured out a way to provide a "passport" for such therapeutic devices, enabling them to get past the body's security system...

Modern Lifestyles Can Put Your Health At Risk

Date: Feb-25-2013
Living against the clock - working late-night shifts or eating at inappropriate times, for example - can come with real health risks, metabolic syndrome, obesity, and diabetes among them. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have new evidence to explain why it matters not just what mice (or by extension, people) eat, but also when they eat it. Insulin action rises and falls according to a 24-hour, circadian rhythm, the researchers found...

Gene Mutations Affect Kidney Disease Risk And Prognosis

Date: Feb-25-2013
Screening could help in the diagnosis and treatment of affected individuals Highlights   Certain mutations and combinations of mutations in immune-related genes affect individuals' risk of developing a rare but serious kidney condition.   These mutations also affect patient prognosis following different treatments.   About half of patients with the condition, called atypical hemolytic uremic syndrome, develop kidney failure...

Gene Therapy Has The Potential To Help People Heal Their Own Hearts

Date: Feb-25-2013
In the first human study of its kind, researchers activated heart failure patients' stem cells with gene therapy to improve their symptoms, heart function and quality of life, according to a study in the American Heart Association journal Circulation Research. Researchers delivered a gene that encodes a factor called SDF-1 to activate stem cells like a "homing" signal. The study is unique because researchers introduced the "homing" factor to draw stem cells to the site of injury and enhance the body's stem cell-based repair process...

How Different Genes For Schizophrenia Affect Brain Function, IQ Over Time

Date: Feb-25-2013
People who are at greater genetic risk of schizophrenia are more likely to see a fall in IQ as they age, even if they do not develop the condition. Scientists at the University of Edinburgh say the findings could lead to new research into how different genes for schizophrenia affect brain function over time. They also show that genes associated with schizophrenia influence people in other important ways besides causing the illness itself. The researchers used the latest genetic analysis techniques to reach their conclusion on how thinking skills change with age...

Neuroblastomas With Sensitivity To BET Bromodomain Inhibitors May Be Identified By Biomarker

Date: Feb-25-2013
Neuroblastoma, the most common malignant tumor of early childhood, is frequently associated with the presence of MYCN amplification, a genetic biomarker associated with poor prognosis. Researchers have determined that tumors containing MYCN amplification are sensitive to a new class of drugs, BET bromodomain inhibitors. The researchers made this discovery in a preclinical study, which was funded in part by a Stand Up To Cancer Innovative Research Grant and was published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research...

Tackling Inflammation With Aspirin And Omega-3 Fatty Acids

Date: Feb-25-2013
Experts tout the health benefits of low-dose aspirin and omega-3 fatty acids found in foods like flax seeds and salmon, but the detailed mechanisms involved in their effects are not fully known. Now researchers reporting in the Cell Press journal Chemistry & Biology show that aspirin helps trigger the production of molecules called resolvins that are naturally made by the body from omega-3 fatty acids. These resolvins shut off, or "resolve," the inflammation that underlies destructive conditions such as inflammatory lung disease, heart disease, and arthritis...

HIV-Related Research And Programming Has Excluded Homosexuals In Africa For Three Decades

Date: Feb-25-2013
HIV-related research and programming has excluded same-sex attracted men in Africa for three decades. Their exclusion cannot be accounted for by the assertion that they are unreachable, says Norwegian researcher. 'The first HIV-related study among African men who are attracted to men was carried out in 2005, fully 25 years into the HIV epidemic. Seven years later there is still very limited research and programming focusing on this group of men,' says KÃ¥re Moen, a physician and post-doctoral fellow in medical anthropology at the University of Oslo...

Study Of Life's Tiniest Architects Could Lead To New Opportunity To Treat Cancers

Date: Feb-25-2013
If a genome is the blueprint for life, then the chief architects are tiny slices of genetic material that orchestrate how we are assembled and function, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the journal Developmental Cell. The study pinpoints the molecular regulators of epigenetics - the process by which unchanging genes along our DNA are switched on and off at precisely the right time and place...

Novel Ultrasound Method Improves Myocardial Remodelling After Heart Attack

Date: Feb-25-2013
Scientists from the Bonn University Hospital successfully tested a method in mice allowing the morphological and functional sequelae of a myocardial infarction to be reduced. Tiny gas bubbles are made to oscillate within the heart via focused ultrasound - this improves microcirculation and decreases the size of the scar tissue. The results show that the mice, following myocardial infarction, have improved cardiac output as a result of this method, as compared to untreated animals. The study is now being presented in the professional journal PLOS ONE...