Health News

Antibiotic-Resistant Pathogens Persist In Antibiotic-Free Pigs

Date: Sep-19-2012
Researchers from North Carolina State University have found identical strains of antibiotic-resistant Campylobacter Coli (C. coli) in both antibiotic-free (ABF) and conventionally raised pigs. This finding may indicate that these antibiotic-resistant pathogens can persist and thrive in the environment, regardless of antimicrobial usage by pork producers. Dr. Siddhartha Thakur, assistant professor of population health and pathobiology, had previously found that antibiotic-resistant C. coli, a leading cause of foodborne illness in the U.S...

Reducing Stigma And Expanding Access To Substance Abuse Screening And Care In Armed Forces

Date: Sep-19-2012
Outdated approaches to preventing and treating substance abuse, barriers to care, and other problems hinder the U.S. Defense Department's ability to curb substance use disorders among military service members and their families, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. Service members' rising rate of prescription drug addiction and their difficulty in accessing adequate treatment for alcohol and drug-related disorders were among the concerns that prompted members of Congress to request this review...

Vitamin E May Decrease Cancer Risk In Cowden Syndrome Patients

Date: Sep-19-2012
Cleveland Clinic researchers have discovered that vitamin E may prevent cancer in patients with an under-recognized genetic disorder. Several genetic mutations are known to be present in Cowden Syndrome (CS) - a disease that predisposes individuals to several types of cancers, including breast and thyroid cancers. One type of mutation in the succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) genes may be responsible for cancer development, according to research by Charis Eng, M.D., Ph.D...

Regardless Of Mother's Size, Eating Well During Pregnancy Reduces Baby's Risk Of Obesity

Date: Sep-19-2012
If you are overweight and pregnant, your baby isn't destined to a life of obesity after all, according to a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal. In the report, a team of U.S. scientists show that modifying fat intake during pregnancy to a moderate level is enough to benefit the child regardless of the mother's size. Specifically, they found that a protein called "SIRT1" rewrites a developing fetus' histone code, which affects his or her "epigenetic likelihood" of being overweight or obese throughout his or her lifetime...

Research Team Targets Physiological Factors That Lead To Asthma Attacks

Date: Sep-19-2012
A new study that identifies ways to reduce the factors that lead to an asthma attack gives hope to asthma sufferers. A UCSF researcher and his colleagues believe they have found a way to help asthma sufferers by impeding the two most significant biological responses that lead to an asthma attack. Asthma, a respiratory disorder that causes shortness of breath, coughing and chest discomfort, results from changes in the airways that lead to the lungs. It affects 18.7 million adults and 7.0 million children in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

Children And Their Families Coping With Life-Threatening Illnesses Rewarded With Legacy Beads

Date: Sep-19-2012
When Kayla Dehnert tells friends and family in Northern California about life as a St. Jude Children's Research Hospital patient, she pulls out a string of beads taller than she is. "This is a learning-to-take medicine bead," Kayla explains, fingering the bumps of a bluish-lavender bead and working her way down the long strand. "This yellow bead is the change-the-bandage bead, and the tiger bead is the losing-your-hair bead." Kayla, 8, of Novato, Calif., is one of hundreds of St. Jude patients who have participated in the hospital's Legacy Bead program since its launch in 2009...

Study Of Songbirds Sheds Light On Brain Circuits And Learning

Date: Sep-19-2012
By studying how birds master songs used in courtship, scientists at Duke University have found that regions of the brain involved in planning and controlling complex vocal sequences may also be necessary for memorizing sounds that serve as models for vocal imitation. In a paper appearing in the September 2012 issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience, researchers at Duke and Harvard universities observed the imitative vocal learning habits of male zebra finches to pinpoint which circuits in the birds' brains are necessary for learning their songs...

Low-Powered Nanotweezers May Benefit Cellular-Level Studies

Date: Sep-19-2012
Using ultra-low input power densities, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have demonstrated for the first time how low-power "optical nanotweezers" can be used to trap, manipulate, and probe nanoparticles, including fragile biological samples. "We already know that plasmonic nanoantennas enhance local fields by up to several orders of magnitude, and thus, previously showed that we can use these structures with a regular CW laser source to make very good optical tweezers," explains, Kimani Toussaint, Jr...

Enfamil® Human Milk Fortifier Acidified Liquid: Results From Study

Date: Sep-19-2012
Mead Johnson Nutrition (NYSE: MJN) has announced results of a new study published in Pediatrics that shows Enfamil Human Milk Fortifier Acidified Liquid supports significantly higher growth in premature infants than powdered fortifiers and is well-tolerated...

Breast Cancer Risk Linked To Early-Life Diet, Metabolic Syndrome

Date: Sep-19-2012
Striking new evidence suggesting that diet and related factors early in life can boost the risk for breast cancer - totally independent of the body's production of the hormone estrogen - has been uncovered by a team of researchers at the University of California, Davis. The findings provide new insights into the processes that regulate normal breast development, which can impact the risk of developing breast cancer later in life. The study was published in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences...