Health News

4 New Clinical Practice Guidelines Issued By The American Urological Association

Date: Oct-25-2012
The American Urological Association (AUA) introduces new clinical guidelines for the treatment of Overactive Bladder, Urodynamics, Hematuria, and Vasectomy. The guidelines, which were developed using a rigorous 9-step process to synthesize and summarize the literature to determine the level and quality of evidence for a certain practice, are published in a supplement to the December issue of The Journal of Urology®. This supplement is freely and openly accessible at http://www.jurology.com...

Economic Conditions May Trump Genetics When Battling Obesity

Date: Oct-25-2012
In a first of its kind study that shows environmental conditions can be more influential than genetics, Virginia Tech researchers have found that the cost of food - not someone's genetic makeup - is a major factor in eating fattening food. The study, which was recently published in The Open Neuroendocrinology Journal, suggests that economic environments could be altered to help counteract the obesity epidemic plaguing more than one-third of Americans. In the U.S. over the last 30 years, the price of fattening food has declined compared to healthy food, while obesity rates increased...

Widespread Internet Use By Caregivers Of Children With Shunts

Date: Oct-25-2012
When faced with disease, patients and caregivers now readily turn to the Internet for information and emotional support. This is particularly true in the case of caregivers of children with hydrocephalus. Researchers at Children's of Alabama and the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that adults caring for children with hydrocephalus reported greater regular use of the Internet than the general population (91.7 percent compared with 74 percent). The majority of these caregivers (81...

Determining Which Bowel Cancer Patients Will Benefit From Avastin

Date: Oct-25-2012
Avastin, or Bevacizumab, has been shown to increase survival from bowel cancer in around ten to 15 per cent of patients, but it has been impossible to predict who will benefit. Avastin works by targeting and blocking the VEGF-A protein, two major forms of which are VEGF165 and VEGF165b. VEGF165 helps cancers to grow new blood vessels, so they can get food and oxygen from the blood - all cancers need a blood supply to be able to survive and grow. Its sister protein, VEGF165b, has the opposite effect and acts as a brake on this growth...

Behavioural Sciences Change Health Care Workers Hand Hygiene Behaviour

Date: Oct-25-2012
A major three-year trial led by researchers at UCL, in partnership with the Health Protection Agency, has shown that giving one-to-one feedback to healthcare workers makes them twice as likely to clean their hands or use soap. The Feedback Intervention Trial (FIT) is the first such trial to be done in a large number of hospitals anywhere in the world...

Symptoms Of A Dry Mouth Caused By Radiotherapy For Head And Neck Cancers Relieved By Acupuncture

Date: Oct-25-2012
Patients who have received radiotherapy for head and neck cancer often suffer from the unpleasant and distressing side-effect of a dry mouth, caused by damage to their salivary glands from the radiation. Now, a new study has shown that acupuncture can relieve the symptoms of dry mouth (known as xerostomia). The findings from the largest trial yet to investigate this are published in the cancer journal Annals of Oncology...

Breast Density And Cancer Risk: Gene Polymorphisms Identified

Date: Oct-25-2012
It has long been known that breast density, or mammographic density, is a strong risk factor for breast cancer, and that estrogen and progestin hormone therapy increases dense breast tissue. Now, a study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research has identified several gene variants in hormone metabolism and growth factor pathways that may be associated with breast density and, hence, breast cancer risk. Mammographic density relates to the fact that x-rays permeate different types of breast tissue in different ways, leading to white areas on the mammogram...

Genetic Marker For Placebo Response Identified In IBS Patients

Date: Oct-25-2012
Although placebos have played a critical role in medicine and clinical research for more than 70 years, it has been a mystery why these inactive treatments help to alleviate symptoms in some patients - and not others. Now researchers have for the first time identified genetic differences between placebo responders and non-responders, providing an important new clue to what has come to be known as "the placebo effect...

For STEMI Patients Who Receive Stent, Prior Cardiac Surgery Does Not Mean Worse Outcomes

Date: Oct-25-2012
Contrary to previous data, patients with prior open heart surgery, or coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG), who have a severe heart attack (STEMI) and receive a coronary stent have similar outcomes to patients without previous CABG, based on study of a large, prospective, regional STEMI network, presented at the 2012 Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference...

Design Of A 'Smart' Material Made Of DNA That Responds With Movement When Stimulated

Date: Oct-25-2012
Artificial muscles and self-propelled goo may be the stuff of Hollywood fiction, but for UC Santa Barbara scientists Omar Saleh and Deborah Fygenson, the reality of it is not that far away. By blending their areas of expertise, the pair have created a dynamic gel made of DNA that mechanically responds to stimuli in much the same way that cells do. The results of their research were published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...