Health News

Growing Huge T-Cell Armies To Fight Cancers And Other Diseases

Date: Oct-30-2012
When talking to the key immune system fighters known as T-cells, it helps to speak their language. Now researchers from Columbia University in New York, N.Y., and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia have discovered two new conditions for communication that may help scientists one day harness the power of T-cells to fight diseases such as cancer. The team will be presenting its findings at the AVS 59th International Symposium and Exhibition, being held Oct. 28 - Nov. 2 in Tampa, Fla...

Commonly Prescribed Glaucoma Drug May Be Effective In Treating Male Pattern Baldness And Other Forms Of Alopecia

Date: Oct-30-2012
If you're balding and want your hair to grow back, then here is some good news. A new research report appearing online in The FASEB Journal shows how the FDA-approved glaucoma drug, bimatoprost, causes human hair to regrow. It's been commercially available as a way to lengthen eyelashes, but these data are the first to show that it can actually grow human hair from the scalp...

Flu Jabs For All Health Care Workers, Says CMAJ

Date: Oct-30-2012
In order to protect patients from flu, health care workers should have the annual influenza vaccine, Ken Flegel, Senior Associate Editor, CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) wrote today. Why is it that between 55% and 65% of doctors do not take the annual seasonal flu jab, but they all say they would never deliberately harm patients, or fail to take measures that might lead to patient harm? The concept of no harm to patients is enshrined in the Latin dictum primum non nocere (first, do no harm)...

Outcomes Of Bilateral Knee Replacement Surgery Affected By Anesthesia Type

Date: Oct-30-2012
Using regional anesthesia rather than general anesthesia reduces the need for blood transfusions in patients undergoing bilateral total knee replacement, according to a new study by researchers at Hospital for Special Surgery, in New York City. Currently, the majority of bilateral knee replacements in the United States (as well as single knee replacements) are performed under general anesthesia, and researchers say that a regional anesthesia known as neuraxial anesthesia should be promoted for these procedures...

Teens Look For New Way To Get High: Mom And Dad's Medicine Cabinet

Date: Oct-30-2012
With tougher laws restricting access to alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drugs, a rising trend among adolescents is to raid their parents' medicine cabinet in an attempt to get high. Additionally, teenage males show an increased risk of documenting longtime use of over-the-counter drugs, compared with teenage females, according to a new study being presented at the 140th annual meeting of The American Public Health Association in San Francisco. The study looked at over-the-counter (OTC) drug use of 7th to 12th graders in 133 schools in Cincinnati...

In Animal Model Of Alzheimer's And Parkinson's With Dementia, investigational Drug Shows Promise

Date: Oct-30-2012
New research presented at the 6th Neurodegenerative Conditions Research and Development Conference in San Francisco demonstrates the role of the investigational compound IRX4204 in alleviating cognitive decline in animal models of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The presentation entitled "Investigation of the RXR-specific agonist IRX4204 as a Disease Modifying Agent of Alzheimer's Disease Neuropathology and Cognitive Impairment" was made by lead researcher Giulio Maria Pasinetti, MD, PhD, of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City...

Migraine In Kids Linked To Poor School Performance

Date: Oct-30-2012
Children with migraine have an increased risk of performing below average in school than kids who do not have these types of headaches. The finding, published in the journal Neurology, came from a study of 5,671 kids from Brazil, ages 5 to 12, which showed that those with migraine were 30% more likely to have below average marks in school compared to students who did not suffer from headaches. "Studies have looked at the burden of migraine for adolescents, but less work has been done to determine the effect of migraine on younger children," explained Marcelo E. Bigal, M.D., Ph.D...

Trial Finds Benefits To Using Radial Versus Femoral Access For Primary Angioplasty In Heart Attack Patients

Date: Oct-30-2012
Results of the STEMI-RADIAL trial presented at TCT 2012 A study found several benefits in using the radial artery in the arm as the entry point for angioplasty or percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) compared to the femoral artery in the leg. Results of the STEMI-RADIAL trial were presented at the 24th annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) scientific symposium. Sponsored by the Cardiovascular Research Foundation (CRF), TCT is the world's premier educational meeting specializing in interventional cardiovascular medicine...

Prostate Cancer Patients Find It Difficult To Understand Websites

Date: Oct-30-2012
Ninety million adults in the U.S. do not read at levels higher than high school, therefore, the NIH (National Institutes of Health) is suggesting that patient information material should be written on a 4th-6th grade level, according to a study conducted by researchers at Loyola University Medical Center and published in the Journal of Urology. The researchers have discovered that a mere 4.8% of informational websites regarding prostate cancer are written in a level lower than high school - the average level the researchers found on the websites was 12th grade...

When Child Beauty Pageants Aren't About The Kids

Date: Oct-30-2012
As child reality TV star Honey Boo Boo continues to capture the attention of audiences with her boisterous personality and her own show about life on the child beauty pageant circuit, a new paper published today in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry takes a critical look at the very types of pageants in which she and thousands of other children compete in America every year. The paper, authored by Martina M...