Health News

Prisoner Harm Minimisation Dubbed Inconsistent And Slow, Australia

Date: Oct-01-2012
Australia could soon attract international scrutiny over its failure to adopt important harm minimisation strategies such as condom distribution and needle exchanges in prisons according to a letter published in the October 1 issue of the Medical Journal of Australia...

Viewing Gender-Specific Objects Influences Perception Of Gender Identity

Date: Oct-01-2012
Spending too much time looking at high heels may influence how a viewer perceives the gender of an androgynous face, according to new research published Sep. 26 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Amir Homayoun Javadi of Technische Universität, Dresden and his colleagues. The study sheds new light on how the objects surrounding us may influence our perceptions of gender...

Molecular Link Discovered Between Obesity And Insulin Resistance In Mice

Date: Oct-01-2012
Flipping a newly discovered molecular switch in white fat cells enabled mice to eat a high-calorie diet without becoming obese or developing the inflammation that causes insulin resistance, report scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. The researchers say the results, published in the journal Cell, provide the first known molecular link between thermogenesis (burning calories to produce heat) and the development of inflammation in fat cells. These two processes had been previously thought to be controlled separately...

Cannabis Withdrawal Symptoms Might Have Clinical Importance - Certain Withdrawal Symptoms Are More Correlated To Risk Of Relapse

Date: Oct-01-2012
Cannabis users have a greater chance of relapse to cannabis use when they experience certain withdrawal symptoms, according to research published Sep. 26 in the open access journal PLOS ONE led by David Allsop of the National Cannabis Prevention and Information Centre (NCPIC) at the University of New South Wales. The authors tested a group of dependent cannabis users over a two week period of abstinence for impairment related to their withdrawal symptoms...

First Evidence Of Fetal DNA Persisting In Human Brain Tissue

Date: Oct-01-2012
Small portions of male DNA, most likely left over in a mother's body by a male fetus can be detected in the maternal brain relatively frequently, according to a report published Sep. 26 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by William Chan of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and his colleagues. The process, called fetal 'microchimerism (Mc)', is common in other tissues such as blood, but this is the first evidence of male Mc in the human female brain...

Mouse Model Sees Reduction In Deadly Complication Of Stem Cell Transplants

Date: Oct-01-2012
Studying leukemia in mice, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have reduced a life-threatening complication of stem cell transplants, the only curative treatment when leukemia returns. About 50 percent of leukemia patients who receive stem cells from another person develop graft-versus-host disease, a condition where donor immune cells attack the patient's own body. The main organs affected are the skin, liver and gut. Now, the scientists have shown they can redirect donor immune cells away from these vital organs...

Aggression Among Kindergartners Investigated

Date: Oct-01-2012
Not all aggressive children are aggressive for the same reasons, according to Penn State researchers, who found that some kindergartners who are aggressive show low verbal abilities while others are more easily physiologically aroused. The findings suggest that different types of treatments may be needed to help kids with different underlying causes for problem behavior...

Lymph Nodes Able To Incubate Liver Cells, Insulin-Producing Cells, Thymus Tissue

Date: Oct-01-2012
Lymph nodes can provide a suitable home for a variety of cells and tissues from other organs, suggesting that a cell-based alternative to whole organ transplantation might one day be feasible, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and its McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine...

Unnecessary Knee Arthroscopies Still Being Performed?

Date: Oct-01-2012
Arthroscopy is still commonly being performed on people with osteoarthritis (OA) of the knee despite evidence against the effectiveness of the surgical procedure for this condition, according to research published in the October 1 issue of the Medical Journal of Australia. Although the number of knee arthroscopies had declined overall, rates had remained steady in those with osteoarthritis in the 9 years to 30 June 2009, according to Dr Megan Bohensky from the Centre of Research Excellence in Patient Safety and coauthors, who studied usage patterns in Victorian hospitals...

Fatigue Management Program Which Is Successful At Controlling Space-Age Jetlag

Date: Oct-01-2012
Since the beginning of August, NASA's Mars rover, Curiosity, has been roaming all over the distant planet learning as much as it can about the Martian terrain. The mission control team back on Earth has also learned what it may be like on Mars by trying to live and work on a Martian day, which is about 40 minutes longer than an Earth day. This 'day' length causes havoc with the internal 24-hour body clock but researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) have developed and tested a fatigue management program which is successful at controlling this space-age jetlag...