Health News

Drug Discovery The Target Of New Tool For Mining Bacterial Genome

Date: Jan-29-2013
Vanderbilt biochemists have discovered that the process bacteria undergo when they become drug resistant can act as a powerful tool for drug discovery. Their findings - reported in the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - should give a major boost to natural products drug discovery - the process of finding new drugs from compounds isolated from living organisms - by substantially increasing the number of novel compounds that scientists can extract from individual microorganisms...

Social Pressure, Body Dissatisfaction And Associated Eating Disorders

Date: Jan-29-2013
A study conducted at the University of Granada has demonstrated that men like female thinness more than women and they find female overweight more unpleasant than women. In addition, the study revealed that women who are not comfortable with their body perceive women with a "normal" body - i.e. women with a healthy weight - as a threat. Specifically, when these women see a "normal" body they experience feelings of displeasure and lack of control, since they feel they have not any control on their own body and cannot make it be as they want...

Abuse May Affect Cancer-Related Well-Being In Female Patients: UK Study

Date: Jan-29-2013
A new study by University of Kentucky researchers shows evidence that certain forms of abuse negatively influence women cancer patients' quality of life. Published in the Journal of Women's Health, the research focuses on the effects of intimate partner violence (including physical, sexual, and psychological violence) and childhood sexual abuse and how these forms of abuse affected a woman's levels of depression, perceived stress, and cancer-related wellbeing...

Flaxseed In Dairy Cow's Feed Makes For More Nutritious Dairy Products And The Cows Love It

Date: Jan-29-2013
Dairy cows that are fed flaxseed produce more nutritious milk, according to a new study by Oregon State University. Their milk contained more omega-3 fatty acids and less saturated fat, the study found. Diets high in saturated fat can increase cholesterol and cause heart disease, while those rich in omega-3 and other polyunsaturated fatty acids may reduce the risk of heart disease, studies have shown...

The Potential Of Differentiated IPS Cells In Cell Therapy Without Immune Rejection

Date: Jan-29-2013
A new study from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) shows that tissues derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells in an experimental model were not rejected when transplanted back into genetically identical recipients. The study, published online in Cell Stem Cell, demonstrates the potential of utilizing iPS cells to develop cell types that could offer treatment for a wide range of conditions, including diabetes, liver and lung diseases, without the barrier of immune rejection...

Qigong Found To Improve Quality Of Life For Breast Cancer Patients

Date: Jan-29-2013
Researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have found qigong, an ancient mind-body practice, reduces depressive symptoms and improves quality of life in women undergoing radiotherapy for breast cancer. The study, published in the journal Cancer, is the first to examine qigong in patients actively receiving radiation therapy and include a follow-up period to assess benefits over time...

Genes Identified That Can Predict Prognoses Of Cancer Patients, Help In Developing New Diagnostics And Therapies

Date: Jan-29-2013
In recent years, it has been thought that select sets of genes might reveal cancer patients' prognoses. However, a study published last year examining breast cancer cases found that most of these "prognostic signatures" were no more accurate than random gene sets in determining cancer prognoses...

Discovery Of Alterations In Telomerase Gene Could Lead To Treatment For Malignant Melanoma

Date: Jan-29-2013
About ten percent of all cases of malignant melanoma are familial cases. The genome of affected families tells scientists a lot about how the disease develops. Prof. Dr. Rajiv Kumar of the German Cancer Research Center (Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum, DKFZ) together with Prof. Dr. Dirk Schadendorf from Essen University Hospital studied a family where 14 family members were affected by malignant melanoma. The scientists analyzed the genomes of family members and found an identical mutation in the gene for telomerase, an enzyme often called 'immortality enzyme', in all persons studied...

Breast Cancer Metastasis Stopped In Mouse Model Of Breast Cancer

Date: Jan-29-2013
The spread of breast cancer to distant organs within the body, an event that often leads to death, appears in many cases to involve the loss of a key protein, according to UC San Francisco researchers, whose new discoveries point to possible targets for therapy. In the online edition of Nature Cell Biology, UCSF scientists describe for the first time how the protein, known as GATA3 - which is abnormal or absent in many cases of human breast cancer - normally acts downstream in biochemical pathways to prevent the distant spread of cancer, an event called metastasis...

Acidity Engineered By Tumor Cells To Drive Cell Invasion

Date: Jan-29-2013
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and colleagues at Wayne State University School of Medicine investigated the acidity in solid tumors to determine if pH levels play a role in cancer cell invasion in surrounding tissues. They found that an acidic microenvironment can drive cancer cells to spread and propose that neutralizing pH would inhibit further invasion, providing a therapeutic opportunity to slow the progression of cancers. Their study appeared in a recent online release of Cancer Research, a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research...