Health News

High Rate Of Vision Problems After Traumatic Brain Injury Found In In Combat Vets And Others

Date: Feb-06-2013
Visual symptoms and abnormalities occur at high rates in people with traumatic brain injury (TBI) - including Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans with blast-related TBI, reports a study, "Abnormal Fixation in Individuals with AMD when Viewing an Image of a Face", in the February issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health...

Mouse With More Human-Like Immune Response Could Help Accelerate Development Of More Effective Immunotherapies

Date: Feb-06-2013
Medical scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) have bred a first-of-its-kind mouse model that possesses an immune response system more like a human's. The discovery makes way for quicker and more cost-effective development of next-generation drugs to treat human diseases like cancer, diabetes and tuberculosis. Medical researchers have long used mice and rats to help formulate new drugs and vaccines, in part because their genetic and biological characteristics closely parallel human physiology...

Allergies, Asthma Affected By Geographic Factors

Date: Feb-06-2013
Those living near the equator may find themselves sneezing and wheezing more than usual. And the reason may not be due to increasing pollen counts. According to a new study released in the February issue of Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, the scientific journal of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI), living in locations closest to the equator can put you at increased risk of developing allergy and asthma. "UV-B rays exposure is higher for people living in areas closer to the equator," said Vicka Oktaria, MPH, lead study author...

Identification Of Progenitors May Someday Help Treat Clinical Taste Dysfunction

Date: Feb-06-2013
Scientists at the Monell Center have identified the location and certain genetic characteristics of taste stem cells on the tongue. The findings will facilitate techniques to grow and manipulate new functional taste cells for both clinical and research purposes. "Cancer patients who have taste loss following radiation to the head and neck and elderly individuals with diminished taste function are just two populations who could benefit from the ability to activate adult taste stem cells," said Robert Margolskee, M.D., Ph.D...

Binge Drinking, Smoking, Illegal Drug Use May Be Used To Cope With Depression And Anxiety

Date: Feb-06-2013
Poor mental health leads to unhealthy behaviors in low-income adults - not the other way around, according to a new study¹ by Dr. Jennifer Walsh and colleagues from the Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine at The Miriam Hospital in the US. In this study, stress and anxiety predicted subsequent health-compromising behaviors, such as smoking, binge drinking, illegal drug use, unprotected sex and unhealthy diets. One possible explanation for these findings is that health compromising behaviors may be used as coping mechanisms to manage the effects of stress and anxiety...

Fitness And Dementia; Smarter PSA Testing For Prostate Cancer: Annals Of Internal Medicine Feb. 5, 2013

Date: Feb-06-2013
1. Being Physically Fit Earlier in Life May Lower Risk for Dementia Later in Life Having a higher fitness level at midlife seems to be associated with lower hazards of developing Alzheimer disease and other types of dementia later in life. Between 1970 and 2009, researchers at a community health clinic utilized an exercise treadmill test to assess the baseline fitness levels of 19,458 non-elderly, community-dwelling adults who were in generally good health...

Patients Taking Insulin For Type 2 Diabetes May Be At Increased Risk Of Health Complications

Date: Feb-06-2013
Patients with type 2 diabetes treated with insulin could be exposed to a greater risk of health complications including heart attack, stroke, cancer and eye complications a new study has found. Examining the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) - data that characterises about 10% of the UK population - a team of researchers from Cardiff University's School of Medicine looked at the risk of death for patients taking insulin compared with other treatments designed to lower blood glucose levels in people with type 2 diabetes...

Breakthrough In 3D Printing Of Human Embryonic Stem Cells

Date: Feb-06-2013
A team of researchers from Scotland has used a novel 3D printing technique to arrange human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) for the very first time. It is hoped that this breakthrough, which has been published in the journal Biofabrication, will allow three-dimensional tissues and structures to be created using hESCs, which could, amongst other things, speed up and improve the process of drug testing...

Studying The Causes Of Irritable Bowel Syndrome - GENIEUR

Date: Feb-06-2013
Experts and scientists from 19 European countries are getting together to investigate the causes of IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) with the aim of better understanding the condition and improving diagnosis and treatment. The team is led by researchers from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg and Karolinska Institutet, both in Sweden. They have set up the Europe-wide network GENIEUR - an interdisciplinary network for researching into the causes of IBS. GENIEUR, which stands for Genes in Irritable Bowel Syndrome Europe, was funded by the European Science Foundation...

In Men Receiving BMTs From Female Donors, Cells Predict Onset Of Graft-Versus-Host Disease

Date: Feb-06-2013
Stanford University School of Medicine investigators have identified a clutch of cells that - if seen in a male patient's blood after receiving a brand-new immune system in the form of a bone-marrow transplant from a female donor - herald the onset of chronic graft-versus-host disease, or cGVHD. In this devastating syndrome, the patient's tissues come under a vicious and enduring assault by the transplanted cells...