Health News

The Brain Controls Our Ability To Stop Habits

Date: Nov-01-2012
Habits are controlled by our brains, and recently, a region has been identified by MIT researchers which provides insight into how the brain can shift between new habits and old ones. People act on habits automatically because the habits are deep inside our brains. This explains why we take the same route to work every day, or put our left shoe on first. It also allows our brains to think about what to make for dinner, or what to wear to school. The brain's administrative command center, however, does not fully renounce control of constant behavior...

The Long-Term Health Consequences Of Bullying

Date: Nov-01-2012
Childhood bullying can lead to long term health consequences, including general and mental health issues, behavioral problems, eating disorders, smoking, alcohol use, and homelessness, a study by the Crime Victims' Institute at Sam Houston State University found. "What is apparent from these results is that bullying victimization that occurs early in life may have significant and substantial consequences for those victims later in life," said Leana Bouffard, Director of the Crime Victims' Institute...

Nabilone Offers Hope To Diabetics With Neuropathic Pain

Date: Nov-01-2012
A study from the University of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute shows there is evidence to support a new drug therapy called nabilone to treat diabetic neuropathy, or nerve pain. Researchers enrolled 60 patients with diabetic neuropathy in a 12-week placebo controlled clinical study. At the end of the study, patients reported less pain and an improvement in sleep and anxiety when taking nabilone as compared to the placebo. "This is a good option to help treat nerve pain due to diabetes, with very few side effects," says Dr. Cory Toth, a neurologist and the study's lead researcher...

PSA Levels In The Blood And DNA Structure Of The Androgen Receptor May Impact Interpretation Of PSA Test

Date: Nov-01-2012
By studying a specific part of the male DNA, it may be possible to refine the interpretation of PSA tests. This would reduce the risk of men being treated for prostate cancer unnecessarily. The findings have been presented in a thesis by Christel Björk at Lund University, Sweden, who has carried out the study with her colleague Hannah Nenonen, supervised by researcher Yvonne Lundberg Giwercman. A PSA test measures the level of PSA (prostate-specific antigen) in the blood, and raised PSA can signal an increased risk of cancer; however, this is not the case for everyone...

Molecule Discovered With A Promising Function In Terms Of Cancer Treatment

Date: Nov-01-2012
One of the current challenges in terms of cancer treatment is how it can be best adapted to patients: today the emphasis is on personalised treatment (factoring in genetic and metabolic profiles). In response to this growing need for personalisation, there is an increasing demand for fundamental research to develop adapted future treatments...

Improved Survival For Elderly Women With Early-Stage Breast Cancer Who Undergo Radiation Treatment After Surgery

Date: Nov-01-2012
Elderly women with early-stage breast cancer live longer with radiation therapy and surgery compared with surgery alone, researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have found. The researchers, who collected data on almost 30,000 women, ages 70 to 84, with early, highly treatable breast cancer enrolled in a nationwide cancer registry, are reporting their findings at the 54th annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO)...

The Science Behind Mindfulness

Date: Nov-01-2012
Achieving mindfulness through meditation has helped people maintain a healthy mind by quelling negative emotions and thoughts, such as desire, anger and anxiety, and encouraging more positive dispositions such as compassion, empathy and forgiveness. Those who have reaped the benefits of mindfulness know that it works. But how exactly does it work? Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have proposed a new model that shifts how we think about mindfulness...

Brain Responses To Social Cues Improved By Early Autism Intervention

Date: Nov-01-2012
An autism intervention program that emphasizes social interactions and is designed for children as young as 12 months has been found to improve cognitive skills and brain responses to faces, considered a building block for social skills. The researchers say that the study, which was completed at the University of Washington, is the first to demonstrate that an intensive behavioral intervention can change brain function in toddlers with autism spectrum disorders...

Eliminating Excessive Spending And Redirecting Wasted Health Care Dollars In America

Date: Nov-01-2012
The respected national Institute of Medicine estimates that $750 billion is lost each year to wasteful or excessive health care spending. This sum includes excess administrative costs, inflated prices, unnecessary services and fraud - dollars that add no value to health and well-being. If those wasteful costs could be corralled without sacrificing health care quality, how might that money be better spent? In a study published in the current online edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Frederick J...

Study Identifies Risk Factors In Infancy That Predict Childhood Obesity

Date: Nov-01-2012
High birth weight, rapid weight gain and having an overweight mother who smokes can all increase the risk of a baby becoming obese later in childhood, research by experts at The University of Nottingham has found. The study, published in the latest edition of the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood, also discovered that children who were breastfed and were introduced to solid food later had a slightly reduced chance of becoming overweight...