Health News

Decrease In Colorectal Cancer Rates May Be Due To Increased Use Of Colonoscopy Screening

Date: Oct-25-2012
Use of colonoscopy for colorectal cancer screening could explain a significant decrease in the cancer's incidence over the past decade, according to a new study from researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Although colonoscopy is now the most common colorectal cancer screening method, there has been conflicting evidence as to its effectiveness compared with sigmoidoscopy, a method that examines only a portion of the colon...

Simulation Links Grandmothering To Human Longevity

Date: Oct-25-2012
Computer simulations provide new mathematical support for the "grandmother hypothesis" - a famous theory that humans evolved longer adult lifespans than apes because grandmothers helped feed their grandchildren. "Grandmothering was the initial step toward making us who we are," says Kristen Hawkes, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Utah and senior author of the new study published by the British journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B...

In Metastatic Prostate Cancer, A Noninvasive Assay Monitored Treatment Response

Date: Oct-25-2012
Deciding the ideal treatment for patients with metastatic prostate cancer that stops responding to initial therapy could be guided by certain analyses of cancer cells isolated from the patients' blood, according to data published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "The growth and survival of prostate cancer cells are very dependent on signals that the cancer cells receive through a protein called the androgen receptor," said Daniel A. Haber, M.D., Ph.D...

Muscle Degeneration May Be Reduced In Muscular Dystrophy By New Vitamin-Based Treatment

Date: Oct-25-2012
Boosting the activity of a vitamin-sensitive cell adhesion pathway has the potential to counteract the muscle degeneration and reduced mobility caused by muscular dystrophies, according to a research team led by scientists at the University of Maine. The discovery, published in the open access journal PLOS Biology, is particularly important for congenital muscular dystrophies, which are progressive, debilitating and often lethal diseases that currently remain without cure...

Comparative Analysis Finds Provider-Initiated HIV Testing Does Not Affect Patients' Rights

Date: Oct-25-2012
A new study reported in this week's PLOS Medicine reports findings from a study carried out in four African countries by Carla Makhlouf Obermeyer and colleagues on approaches towards expanding testing and counselling for HIV. Provider-initiated HIV testing has the potential to expand access to treatment and prevention services, but there have been concerns as to whether consent practices, client confidentiality, and the referral to care will be acceptable under provider-initiated testing modes...

Potent Growth Factor Identified For Blood Stem Cells

Date: Oct-25-2012
Duke Medicine researchers studying the interaction of blood stem cells and the niche where they reside have identified a protein that may be a long-sought growth factor for blood stem cells. The protein is called pleiotrophin, and is produced by cells that line the blood vessels in bone marrow. In mouse studies conducted by the Duke researchers, the protein helps transplanted blood stem cells locate to the bone marrow, where they produce mature red and white blood cells in the body...

Brain Samples Supply Clues To Cause Of Alzheimer's Dementia

Date: Oct-25-2012
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a key difference in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease and those who are cognitively normal but still have brain plaques that characterize this type of dementia. "There is a very interesting group of people whose thinking and memory are normal, even late in life, yet their brains are full of amyloid beta plaques that appear to be identical to what's seen in Alzheimer's disease," says David L. Brody, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology. "How this can occur is a tantalizing clinical question...

Genetic Changes Plus "Tumorous Environment" Enable Breast Cancer Cells To Spread

Date: Oct-25-2012
A new study from Johns Hopkins researchers suggests that the lethal spread of breast cancer is as dependent on a tumor's protein-rich environment as on genetic changes inside tumor cells. In a report in a recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists conclude that a molecular signal in the protein meshwork surrounding the breast cancer cells may provide the critical trigger to initiate the life-threatening process of metastasis to distant sites in the body...

Viral Haemorrhagic Fever Spreading Further Via Ticks On Migratory Birds

Date: Oct-25-2012
A type of haemorrhagic fever (Crimean-Congo) that is prevalent in Africa, Asia, and the Balkans has begun to spread to new areas in southern Europe. Now Swedish researchers have shown that migratory birds carrying ticks are the possible source of contagion. The discovery is being published in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention journal Emerging Infectious Diseases. Crimean-Congo Haemorrhagic fever* is a serious disease that begins with influenza-like symptoms but can develop into a very serious condition with high mortality (30%)...

How Patterns, Timing Of Sunlight Exposure Contribute To Skin Cancers

Date: Oct-25-2012
Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center, the University of South Florida and the International Agency for Research on Cancer in France have studied the patterns and timing of sunlight exposure and how each is related to two nonmelanoma skin cancers - basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma. This study, published in the open-access journal BioMed Central, is the first case-control study to simultaneously evaluate identical patterns and timing of sunlight exposure as they are related to basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas in the same U.S...