Health News

Skin-Deep Communication: Messenger Substance And Signalling Molecule Influences The Development Of The Skin's Immune Cells

Date: Jan-31-2013
A signalling molecule known as Axl has been discovered on immune cells of the epidermis. This recently published finding provides new insight into the development of important skin immune cells known as Langerhans cells. These cells fight off invading microorganisms and play a crucial role in our health. As the research project, funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, also discovered, the natural production of the signalling molecule Axl is highly dependent on the messenger substance TGF-beta1...

Body Cooling Could Aid Recovery For Head Injury Patients

Date: Jan-31-2013
Researchers are to investigate whether cooling the bodies of people with head injuries could aid patient recovery. The £2m international trial, led by the University of Edinburgh and funded by the National Institute for Health Research's Health Technology Assessment Programme, could help the two million people who suffer a traumatic brain injury worldwide each year. Scientists will investigate the effect of cooling in head trauma, which annually claims 50,000 lives and causes 80,000 to suffer long-term disability...

Non-Coding RNA Is Essential For Normal Embryonic Cardiogenesis

Date: Jan-31-2013
Many different tissues and organs form from pluripotent stem cells during embryonic development. To date it had been known that these processes are controlled by transcription factors for specific tissues. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin, in collaboration with colleagues at MIT and the Broad Institute in Boston, have now been able to demonstrate that RNA molecules, which do not act as templates for protein synthesis, participate in these processes as well...

Urgent Need For More Research Into Chronic Diseases In All Countries

Date: Jan-31-2013
When considering chronic (non-communicable) diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes, in low-and-middle countries, a major shift in approach from declaring what needs to be done to using research to prioritise, evaluate, monitor and improve health outcomes is urgently needed, according to international experts from London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine writing in this week's PLOS Medicine...

Groundbreaking Guidelines On Patient-Centered Measures For Nonsurgical Stroke Interventions

Date: Jan-31-2013
The first outcome-based guidelines for interventional treatment of acute ischemic stroke - providing recommendations for rapid treatment - will benefit individuals suffering from brain attacks, often caused by artery-blocking blood clots. Representatives from the Society of Interventional Radiology and seven other medical societies created a multispecialty and international consensus on the metrics and benchmarks for processes of care and technical and clinical outcomes for stroke patients...

Complete Remission Induced By Dendritic Cell Vaccine For Relapsed Neuroblastoma Patient

Date: Jan-31-2013
One year after his last treatment, a six-year-old boy with recurrent neuroblastoma is in complete remission for his high-risk metastatic cancer. Doctors reported this case study in the January 2013 issue of Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which was funded in part by a joint grant from the Andrew McDonough B+ Foundation, Pierce Phillips Charity and Solving Kids' Cancer. Current treatments for high-risk neuroblastoma patients include chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery, stem cell transplant, and immunotherapy...

HIV Patients At Two-Fold Higher Risk For Non-Melanoma Skin Cancers

Date: Jan-31-2013
HIV-positive patients have a higher incidence of non-melanoma skin cancers, according to a Kaiser Permanente study that appears in the current online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Specifically, basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas occur more than twice as often among HIV-positive individuals compared to those who are HIV-negative. The study cohort of 6,560 HIV-positive and almost 37,000 HIV-negative subjects was drawn from members of Kaiser Permanente Northern California from 1996 to 2008. Overall, HIV-positive subjects had a 2...

1-Step Gene Test Created For Mitochondrial Diseases

Date: Jan-31-2013
More powerful gene-sequencing tools have increasingly been uncovering disease secrets in DNA within the cell nucleus. Now a research team is expanding those rapid next-generation sequencing tests to analyze a separate source of DNA - within the genes inside mitochondria, cellular power plants that, when abnormal, contribute to complex, multisystem diseases...

Polluted Indoor Air Puts Female Chinese Nonsmokers At Risk

Date: Jan-31-2013
The hazards of breathing outdoor air in some Chinese cities have been well-documented. Now a University at Buffalo study confirms that breathing indoor air also carries significant cancer risks, especially for Chinese women. The UB study, published online this month, in the journal Cancer Causes & Control, found that indoor air pollution that generates fine particulate matter is a key contributor to the high rates of lung cancer among Chinese women, despite the fact that few of them smoke...

Nature-Identical Zeaxanthin Receives Novel Food Approval

Date: Jan-31-2013
DSM Nutritional Products is pleased to report that on January 24, 2013 the European Commission approved the use of nature-identical Zeaxanthin in the European Union as an ingredient in food supplements. The decision follows a positive EFSA safety assessment delivered on September 13, 2012, which concluded that the use level for Zeaxanthin does not raise safety concerns. This opens up the 27 EU-member state market to DSM's Zeaxanthin brand OPTISHARP®[1]. Together with Lutein, Zeaxanthin is one of the main components of the macular pigment selectively deposited into the human macula...