Health News

Knee Replacements Rise By 161% In 20 Years

Date: Sep-26-2012
The number of Medicare patients undergoing knee replacements in the USA rose by 161.5% over the last twenty years, researchers from the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine reported in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), 26th September issue. The authors wrote that the total increase in knee replacement - total knee arthroplasty (TKA) numbers over the last two decades were driven by a rise in per capita utilization and Medicare enrollees...

For Combat-Exposed Military, New Study Shows PTSD Symptoms Reduced Via Integrative Medicine

Date: Sep-26-2012
Healing touch combined with guided imagery (HT+GI) provides significant clinical reductions in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms for combat-exposed active duty military, according to a study released in the September issue of Military Medicine. The report finds that patients receiving these complementary medicine interventions showed significant improvement in quality of life, as well as reduced depression and cynicism, compared to soldiers receiving treatment as usual alone. The study, led by the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine in San Diego, Calif...

Inability To Distinguish Individuals In Other Races And Social Identity

Date: Sep-26-2012
People often remark that people of a different race "all look alike." However, when we have trouble recognizing people from another race, it may actually have little to do with the other person's race. Instead, new research finds that that we can improve our memory of members of another race by identifying ourselves as part of the same group. Such identification could improve everything from race relations to eyewitness identification. "One of the most robust phenomena in social perception is the finding that people are better at remembering people from their own race...

Risk Of Heart Disease Increased By Vitamin D Deficiency

Date: Sep-26-2012
New research from the University of Copenhagen and Copenhagen University Hospital shows that low levels of vitamin D are associated with a markedly higher risk of heart attack and early death. The study involved more than 10,000 Danes and has been published in the well-reputed American journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology. Vitamin D deficiency has traditionally been linked with poor bone health...

Study Reveals High Obesity, Smoking Rates In Pacific Islanders

Date: Sep-26-2012
In the first study to detail the health of Pacific Islanders living in the United States, University of Michigan researchers have found alarmingly high rates of obesity and smoking. The preliminary findings are being presented today (Sept. 24) at a conference in Los Angeles on health disparities among Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders. "Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are the second fastest growing minority population in the U.S.," said Sela Panapasa, a researcher at the U-M Institute for Social Research and principal investigator of the Pacific Islander Health Study...

Bladder Cancer Patients May Benefit From Anti-Androgen Therapy, Similar To That Used In Prostate Cancer

Date: Sep-26-2012
Bladder cancer patients whose tumors express high levels of the protein CD24 have worse prognoses than patients with lower CD24. A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that CD24 expression may depend on androgens - and that anti-androgen therapies like those currently used to treat prostate cancer may benefit bladder cancer patients. "This is a major finding - bladder cancer development and spread to other organs depends significantly on CD24, which in turn depends on androgens like testosterone...

Men Often Experience Anxiety, Depression, Quality Of Life Issues Following Prostate Cancer Surgery

Date: Sep-26-2012
Men who undergo surgical removal of prostate cancer can experience significant levels of anxiety one year after surgery, and higher levels of anxiety appear to be linked to poor sexual satisfaction and depression, say researchers at Mayo Clinic's campus in Florida. Their recent study, published in the online edition of Psycho-Oncology, suggests that men who experience high levels of "cancer-specific anxiety" following surgery for prostate cancer could likely benefit from counseling designed to address their worries and improve their quality of life...

New Technology Could Launch Biomedical Imaging To Next Level

Date: Sep-26-2012
Much like the checkout clerk uses a machine that scans the barcodes on packages to identify what customers bought at the store, scientists use powerful microscopes and their own kinds of barcodes to help them identify various parts of a cell, or types of molecules at a disease site. But their barcodes only come in a handful of "styles," limiting the number of objects scientists can study in a cell sample at any one time...

Old Dogs, New Tricks: Tools Reveal Brain Changes In Adults

Date: Sep-26-2012
Most people equate "gray matter" with the brain and its higher functions, such as sensation and perception, but this is only one part of the anatomical puzzle inside our heads. Another cerebral component is the white matter, which makes up about half the brain by volume and serves as the communications network. The gray matter, with its densely packed nerve cell bodies, does the thinking, the computing, the decision-making. But projecting from these cell bodies are the axons - the network cables. They constitute the white matter...

Secrets For Treating Colitis And Crohn's May Be Found In The Bone Marrow

Date: Sep-26-2012
Michigan State University researchers have unlocked secrets in bone marrow that could lead to improved treatments for colitis and Crohn's disease. The results, featured in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, show that the havoc inflammatory bowel diseases wreaks on the digestive tract is mirrored in bone marrow. Early indications also show that the disorders of the gut could potentially be treated through the bone marrow, said Pam Fraker, MSU University Distinguished Professor of biochemistry and molecular biology...