Health News

New Agent May Protect Against Brain Damage After Stroke

Date: Oct-08-2012
NA-1, a new medication, is reportedly effective in reducing brain lesions and is now being called safe to repair brain aneurysms in stroke patients after they have had surgery, according to a study published in The Lancet Neurology and conducted by researchers at the University of Calgary's Hotchkiss Brain Institute in Canada. At the beginning of their randomized, double-blind trial, the experts had set out to determine whether NA-1 was safe...

Phase I Trial Of NTCELL® In Parkinson's Disease Authorized In New Zealand

Date: Oct-08-2012
The New Zealand Minister of Health has authorized Living Cell Technologies Limited to proceed with Phase I clinical trials of NTCELL for the treatment of Parkinson's disease. The company says it is on track to start its first in-human trials in the first quarter of 2013. The Phase I open label investigation on the safety and efficacy of NTCELL in patients with Parkinson's disease will last 60 weeks and will include only those who were diagnosed with Parkinson's disease (PD) at least four years ago...

Elusive Trigger Of First Suckling In Mice Discovered

Date: Oct-08-2012
A team led by biologists at The Scripps Research Institute has solved the long-standing scientific mystery of how mice first know to nurse or suckle. This basic mammalian instinct, which could be a key to understanding instinctive behavior more generally, was thought to be triggered by a specific odor (pheromone) that all mouse mothers emit. But, as described online ahead of print by the journal Current Biology, the trigger in mice turns out to be a more complicated blend of nature and nurture: a signature mix of odors, unique for each mother, which her offspring learn...

'Quality-By-Design' To Ensure High-Quality Dietary Supplements

Date: Oct-08-2012
If applied to the $5-billion-per-year dietary supplement industry, "quality by design" (QbD) - a mindset that helped revolutionize the manufacture of cars and hundreds of other products - could ease concerns about the safety and integrity of the herbal products used by 80 percent of the world's population. That's the conclusion of an article in ACS' Journal of Natural Products. Ikhlas Khan and Troy Smillie explain that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates dietary supplements as a category of foods, rather than drugs...

Patients Benefit From State Deregulation Of Open-Heart Surgery

Date: Oct-08-2012
Certificate of Need, a form of state government regulation designed to keep mortality rates and health care costs down, appears to do neither for heart bypass surgery, according to a health economics researcher at Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). Her findings are reported in an article appearing in the online edition of the journal Medical Care Research and Review...

After Large-Scale Closures Of Urban Maternity Units, Newborn Mortality Was Higher For Several Years

Date: Oct-08-2012
After a series of Philadelphia hospitals started closing their maternity units in 1997, infant mortality rates increased by nearly 50 percent over the next three years. The mortality rates subsequently leveled off to the same rate as before the closures, but pediatric researchers say their results underscore the need for careful oversight and planning by public health agencies in communities experiencing serious reductions in obstetric services. Between 1997 and 2007, 9 of 19 obstetric units closed in Philadelphia, resulting in 40 percent fewer obstetric beds...

Study Sheds Light On How To Treat Depression, A Common Problem In Diabetics

Date: Oct-08-2012
Gender-specific group therapy is effective for treating depressed women with Type 2 diabetes, according to a study published in the latest issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine and funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research. Evidence suggests that antidepressants may disrupt blood-sugar control and can be associated with increased weight gain; therefore, other treatment options are needed for depression...

New Drug May Be Effective Alternative For Patients Whose Ovarian Cancer Is Resistant To Currently Available Drugs

Date: Oct-08-2012
Scientists at USC have discovered a new type of drug for the treatment of ovarian cancer that works in a way that should not only decrease the number of doses that patients need to take, but also may make it effective for patients whose cancer has become drug-resistant. The drug, which so far has been tested in the lab on ovarian cancer cells and on mice tumors, was unveiled last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). "We need a new generation of drugs," said Shili Xu, a USC graduate student and lead author of the PNAS paper...

Management Of Esophagitis May Be Eased By Simple Test

Date: Oct-08-2012
A simple new test, in which the patient swallows a string, can monitor treatment of eosinophilic esophagitis as effectively as an invasive, expensive and uncomfortable procedure that risks complications, particularly in children. Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, working in collaboration with clinician-investigators at the University of Colorado Denver/Children's Hospital Colorado and Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago, reported their findings in a study published recently online in the journal Gut...

Genetic Variants Identified For Parkinson's Disease Risk

Date: Oct-07-2012
Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) investigators have led the first genome-wide evaluation of genetic variants associated with Parkinson's disease (PD). The study, which is published online in PLOS ONE, points to the involvement of specific genes and alterations in their expression as influencing the risk for developing PD. Jeanne Latourelle, DSc, assistant professor of neurology at BUSM, served as the study's lead author and Richard H. Myers, PhD, professor of neurology at BUSM, served as the study's principal investigator and senior author...