Health News

FOXC2 Vital To Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition In Breast Cancer; FDA-Approved Drug Blocks Its Effect In Preclinical Studies

Date: Feb-15-2013
Protein central to cancer stem cell formation provides new potential target Researchers have identified a pivotal protein in a cellular transformation that makes a cancer cell more resistant to treatment and more capable of growing and spreading, making it an inviting new target for drug development...

Identifying When Smokers Attempting Cessation Are At A Higher Risk Of Relapse

Date: Feb-15-2013
New findings by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) School of Public Health may help identify situations in which smokers who are trying to quit are at a higher risk of relapse. More than 1,200 people die in the United States every day from smoking-related illnesses. This is equivalent to three airplanes loaded with passengers crashing everyday in America. Smoking-related illnesses are the No. 1 cause of preventable deaths in the country, killing more Americans than drugs, homicides, suicides, accidents, and fires combined...

Growth Of Cancerous Liver Tumors Suppressed By Key Molecule

Date: Feb-15-2013
A molecule already implicated in a number of diverse cellular functions can suppress the growth of tumors in the liver, a Mayo Clinic Cancer Center study has found. Its name is IQGAP1, and when the molecule is active in the cells that surround a tumor cell, this "tumor microenvironment" becomes less hospitable to cancer growth. When the molecule is deficient, cancer thrives. Results of the study appear in the Journal of Clinical Investigation...

New Study Of Classroom Schedules Makes Good Model For Flu Outbreaks

Date: Feb-15-2013
Classroom rosters combined with human-networking theory may give a clearer picture of just how infectious diseases such as influenza can spread through a closed group of people, and even through populations at large. Using high-school schedule data for a community of students, teachers, and staff, Penn State University's Marcel Salathé, an assistant professor of biology, and Timo Smieszek, a post-doctoral researcher, have developed a low-cost but effective method to determine how to focus disease-control strategies based on which individuals are most likely to spread the infection...

Anti-Copper Drug Might Prevent Organ Metastasis in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Date: Feb-15-2013
An anti-copper drug compound that disables the ability of bone marrow cells from setting up a "home" in organs to receive and nurture migrating cancer tumor cells has shown surprising benefit in one of the most difficult-to-treat forms of cancer -- high-risk triple-negative breast cancer. The median survival for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer patients is historically nine months...

Gene Discovered That Suppresses Herpesviruses

Date: Feb-15-2013
Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) and Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) hide within the worldwide human population. While dormant in the vast majority of those infected, these active herpesviruses can develop into several forms of cancer. In an effort to understand and eventually develop treatments for these viruses, researchers at the University of North Carolina have identified a family of human genes known as Tousled-like kinases (TLKs) that play a key role in the suppression and activation of these viruses. In a paper published by Cell Host and Microbe on Feb...

Huge Health Care Savings Generated By California's Tobacco Control Program

Date: Feb-15-2013
Over a span of nearly 20 years, California's tobacco control program cost $2.4 billion and reduced health care costs by $134 billion, according to a new study by UC San Francisco. Additionally, the study - covering the beginning of the program in 1989 to 2008 - found that the state program helped lead to some 6.8 billion fewer packs of cigarettes being sold that would have been worth $28.5 billion in sales to cigarette companies. The study was designed to calculate the fiscal impact of California's large public health program on smoking prevalence and cigarette consumption...

Death Of Infants Born To Mothers With Malaria May Be Preventable

Date: Feb-15-2013
An international team of tropical medicine researchers have discovered a potential method for preventing low birth weight in babies born to pregnant women who are exposed to malaria. Low birth weight is the leading cause of infant death globally. The findings of Malaria Impairs Placental Vascular Development, published online ahead of print in Cell Host & Microbe, showed that the protein C5a and its receptor, C5aR, seem to control the blood vessel development in the mother's placenta...

Alpha Activity And Learning Success

Date: Feb-15-2013
The reason why some people are worse at learning than others has been revealed by a research team from Berlin, Bochum, and Leipzig, operating within the framework of the Germany-wide network "Bernstein Focus State Dependencies of Learning". They have discovered that the main problem is not that learning processes are inefficient per se, but that the brain insufficiently processes the information to be learned. The scientists trained the subjects' sense of touch to be more sensitive...

Putting A Stop To Obesity Transmission To Offspring During Pregnancy

Date: Feb-15-2013
A much neglected part of the obesity epidemic is that it has resulted in more overweight/obese women before and during pregnancy. Their offspring also tend to have higher birth weights and more body fat, and carry an increased risk of obesity and chronic diseases later in life. However, the nutritional factors and mechanisms involved pre and during pregnancy that may influence child obesity remain uncertain. A recent publication by ILSI Europe identifies and discusses key contributing factors leading to obesity...