Health News

Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute Study: Stem Cells Boost Heart's Natural Repair Mechanisms

Date: Feb-01-2013
Injecting specialized cardiac stem cells into a patient's heart rebuilds healthy tissue after a heart attack, but where do the new cells come from and how are they transformed into functional muscle? Researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, whose clinical trial results in 2012 demonstrated that stem cell therapy reduces scarring and regenerates healthy tissue after a heart attack, now have found that the stem cell technique boosts production of existing adult heart cells (cardiomyocytes) and spurs recruitment of existing stem cells that mature into heart cells...

Joint Surgery Market Moving In The Right Direction Due To Arthroscopy Advances

Date: Feb-01-2013
Research and Development (R&D) in arthroscopy over the last couple of decades has proved to be a milestone, transforming the treatment and recuperation of patients and tackling a major healthcare issue associated with aging, according to a new report by GBI Research. The new report* states that the growing elderly population around the world are the cause of an increasing global prevalence of osteoarthritis, which causes degeneration of articular cartilage...

Mistrust Of Government Often Deters Older Adults From HIV Testing

Date: Feb-01-2013
One out of every four people living with HIV/AIDS is 50 or older, yet these older individuals are far more likely to be diagnosed when they are already in the later stages of infection. Such late diagnoses put their health, and the health of others, at greater risk than would have been the case with earlier detection...

Protection Against UV-Induced Skin Cancer Offered By Silibinin, Found In Milk Thistle

Date: Feb-01-2013
A pair of University of Colorado Cancer Center studies published this month show that the milk thistle extract, silibinin, kills skin cells mutated by UVA radiation and protects against damage by UVB radiation - thus protecting against UV-induced skin cancer and photo-aging. "When you have a cell affected by UV radiation, you either want to repair it or kill it so that it cannot go on to cause cancer...

Do Gender And Ethnicity Alter Childhood Risk For Metabolic Syndrome?

Date: Feb-01-2013
Metabolic syndrome is more likely to affect children who are obese than overweight or non-overweight and who have other characteristics associated with the disorder, such as high blood pressure or insulin resistance. A new comprehensive and systematic review of the medical literature on metabolic syndrome in children that probed deeper to evaluate the risk associated with gender, ethnicity, and geography was published in Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers...

How Evolution Has Shaped C. albicans Could Provide Insights Into Preventing And Treating Infections

Date: Feb-01-2013
Like many fungi and one-celled organisms, Candida albicans, a normally harmless microbe that can turn deadly, has long been thought to reproduce without sexual mating. But a new study by Professor Judith Berman and colleagues at the University of Minnesota and Tel Aviv University shows that C. albicans is capable of sexual reproduction...

Study Compares The Relative Impact Of Peer Competition, Television, And Social Media On Girls' Body Image

Date: Feb-01-2013
Peers exert a greater influence on teenage girls' dissatisfaction with their bodies than do thin ideals in television or social media use, according to new research¹ by Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson and colleagues from Texas A & M International University in the U.S. Their study is published online in Springer's Journal of Youth and Adolescence. The influence of the media on body image, life satisfaction, and symptoms of eating disorders in teenage girls is a hot debate. Some experts believe that media influences on body dissatisfaction may extend to symptoms of eating disorders...

Using Superpowers In Virtual Reality Games Makes Players More Likely To Be Helpful In Real-Life

Date: Feb-01-2013
Having virtual super-powers in a game may incite people to better behavior in the real world, according to research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Robin Rosenberg and colleagues from Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab. Participants in this study were placed in a virtual environment and either given the power of flight or rode as passengers in a helicopter. They were then assigned one of two tasks: help find a missing diabetic child or tour a virtual city...

The Lives Of Many Malnourished Children Saved By Antibiotics

Date: Feb-01-2013
Severely malnourished children are far more likely to recover and survive when given antibiotics along with a therapeutic peanut-based food than children who are simply treated with the therapeutic food alone, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found. "The findings are remarkable," says Indi Trehan, MD, lead author of the research, published Jan. 31 in The New England Journal of Medicine. "Based on previous research, we didn't think there would be much benefit from antibiotics...

Long-Term Urinary, Sexual And Bowel Function Side Effects Tracked In Prostate Cancer

Date: Feb-01-2013
A new study comparing outcomes among prostate cancer patients treated with surgery versus radiotherapy found differences in urinary, bowel and sexual function after short-term follow-up, but those differences were no longer significant 15 years after initial treatment. The study, led by first author Matthew Resnick, M.D., instructor in Urologic Surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, was published in the New England Journal of Medicine. From Oct. 1, 1994, through Oct...