Health News

In One-Third Of Toronto Bike Accidents, Streetcar Tracks Blamed

Date: Oct-30-2012
Researchers at St. Michael's Hospital have confirmed what many cyclists in Toronto have long believed - that streetcar tracks are involved in nearly one-third of bicycle accidents. A study published in the current issue of the American Journal of Public Health, found the greatest risk to cyclists occurs when they share major streets with parked cars and no bike lanes - like Dundas or King Streets - where there is a heightened risk of injury from moving cars and car doors opening...

Breast Cancer Treatment Likely To Be Improved By Progress In Ultrasound-Guided Surgery

Date: Oct-30-2012
When surgeons operate to remove a tumor, determining exactly where to cut can be tricky. Ideally, the entire tumor should be removed while leaving a continuous layer of healthy tissue, but current techniques for locating the tumors during surgery are imprecise. Now a multidisciplinary team from the University of California, San Diego, is developing an alternate means of precisely tagging breast cancer tumors for removal or targeted destruction. They are presenting the results of their investigations at the AVS 59th International Symposium and Exhibition, being held Oct. 28 - Nov...

Genetic Predictors Of Fatigue For Prostate Cancer Patients Receiving Androgen Deprivation Therapy

Date: Oct-30-2012
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center and the University of South Florida have found that men with prostate cancer who receive androgen deprivation therapy may predictably suffer from fatigue if they have single nucleotide polymorphisms in three pro-inflammatory genes. The discovery highlights the importance of personalized medicine, in which therapies are tailored to a patient's genetic profile. The study appears in the October issue of Brain, Behavior, and Immunity...

Report Recommends Non-Invasive Alternative To Traditional Autopsies

Date: Oct-30-2012
The NHS should implement a non-invasive alternative to autopsies, according to a Department of Health-commissioned report by leading UK experts within the field of post-mortem cross-sectional imaging. The NHS Implementation Sub-Group of the Department of Health's Post Mortem, Forensic and Disaster Imaging Group (PMFDI) has called on the NHS to adopt post-mortem cross-sectional imaging for as an adjunct to, and under the right circumstances, a replacement for autopsies...

Mouse Model May Provide Clues On Mechanism Linking Diabetes And Aging To Alzheimer's

Date: Oct-30-2012
Growing evidence suggests that there may be a link between diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, but the physiological mechanisms by which diabetes impacts brain function and cognition are not fully understood. In a new study published in Aging Cell, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies show, for the first time, that diabetes enhances the development of aging features that may underlie early pathological events in Alzheimer's...

Watching The Cogwheels Of The Biological Clock In Living Cells

Date: Oct-30-2012
Our master circadian clock resides in a small group of about 10'000 neurons in the brain, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus. However, similar clocks are ticking in nearly all cells of the body, as demonstrated by the group of Ueli Schibler, professor at the Department of Molecular Biology of the University of Geneva, Switzerland. The molecular mechanisms of circadian clocks can thus be studied outside of the animals, in cultured cells...

Chemists' Innovation May Be A Better Model For Disease Diagnostic Kits

Date: Oct-30-2012
When someone develops liver cancer, the disease introduces a very subtle difference to their bloodstream, increasing the concentration of a particular molecule by just 10 parts per billion. That small shift is difficult to detect without sophisticated lab equipment - but perhaps not for long. A new "lab on a chip" designed by Brigham Young University professor Adam Woolley and his students reveals the presence of ultra-low concentrations of a target molecule...

How The Brain And Body Communicate To Regulate Weight Offers A New Direction In The Pursuit Of Potential Therapies For Obesity

Date: Oct-30-2012
Maintaining a healthy body weight may be difficult for many people, but it's reassuring to know that our brains and bodies are wired to work together to do just that - in essence, to achieve a phenomenon known as energy balance, a tight matching between the number of calories consumed versus those expended. This careful balance results from a complex interchange of neurobiological crosstalk within regions of the brain's hypothalamus, and when this "conversation" goes awry, obesity or anorexia can result...

New Technique Enables Scientists To Step Up Hunt For Bacterial Genes Tied To Lyme Disease

Date: Oct-30-2012
Investigators at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) have accelerated the search for the bacterial genes that make the Lyme disease bacterium so invasive and persistent. The discovery could advance the diagnosis and treatment of this disease, which affects an estimated 30,000 Americans each year. The researchers have developed a new technique that allowed them to test 15 times more bacterial genes than had been evaluated in the previous 30 years to ascertain their roles in infection...

Elevated Levels Of Formaldehyde, Other Contaminants, Found In Day Care Centers

Date: Oct-30-2012
A new, comprehensive survey of day care centers by University of California, Berkeley, researchers found that, overall, the environmental quality in child care settings was similar to other indoor environments, but that levels of formaldehyde and several other contaminants exceeded state health guidelines. Cleaning- and sanitizing-related chemicals were also present in the air, and sometimes at higher levels, than in comparable studies on homes...