Health News

Electronic Cigarettes Harm The Lungs

Date: Sep-03-2012
Electronic cigarettes, seen by many as a healthy alternative to tobacco smoking, do cause damage to the lungs, scientists from the University of Athens, Greece, explained at the European Respiratory Society's Annual Congress 2012, Vienna, on Sunday. Electronic cigarettes, also called e-cigarettes have also been marketed as effective smoking cessation devices...

DEAD-Box Proteins Function As Recycling Nanopistons When Unwinding RNA

Date: Sep-03-2012
Molecular biologists at The University of Texas at Austin have solved one of the mysteries of how double-stranded RNA is remodeled inside cells in both their normal and disease states. The discovery may have implications for treating cancer and viruses in humans. The research, which was published in Nature, found that DEAD-box proteins, which are ancient enzymes found in all forms of life, function as recycling "nanopistons." They use chemical energy to clamp down and pry open RNA strands, thereby enabling the formation of new structures...

How Community Health Centers Could Offer Better Access To Subspecialty Care

Date: Sep-03-2012
The Affordable Care Act will fund more community health centers, making primary care more accessible to the underserved. But this may not necessarily lead to better access to subspecialty care. In a new study, researchers from the David Geffen School of Medicine and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars program at UCLA and colleagues investigated the ways in which community health centers access subspecialty care...

Researchers Find Potential Key To Halt Progression, Reverse Damage From Emphysema

Date: Sep-03-2012
A study led by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) has shown that a compound used in some skin creams may halt the progression of emphysema and reverse some of the damage caused by the disease. When the compound Gly-His-Lys (GHK) was applied to lung cells from patients with emphysema, normal gene activity in altered cells was restored and damaged aspects of cellular function were repaired...

Researchers Study Use Of MRI In Osteoarthritis

Date: Sep-03-2012
A study conducted by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) shows that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) detected a high prevalence of abnormalities associated with knee osteoarthritis in middle-aged and elderly patients that had no evidence of knee osteoarthritis in X-ray images. Ali Guermazi, MD, PhD, professor of radiology at BUSM and chief of Musculoskeletal Imaging at Boston Medical Center (BMC), led this study in collaboration with researchers from Lund University in Sweden, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and Klinikum Augsburg in Germany...

Two 'Firsts' Regarding Protein Crucial To Human Cardiac Function

Date: Sep-03-2012
Florida State University researchers led by physics doctoral student Campion Loong have achieved significant benchmarks in a study of the human cardiac protein alpha-tropomyosin, which is an essential, molecular-level component that controls the heart's contraction on every beat. Using an imaging method called atomic force microscopy, Loong achieved two "firsts": the first direct imaging of individual alpha-tropomyosin molecules, which are very small - roughly 40 nanometers long - and the first demonstrated examples of a measure of the human cardiac protein's flexibility...

Asthma Symptoms May Increase Following Exposure To Common Toxic Substances

Date: Sep-03-2012
Children who are exposed to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which were commonly used in a range of industrial products, could be at risk of an increase in asthma symptoms, according to new research. The study was presented in a poster discussion at the European Respiratory Society's Annual Congress in Vienna. PCBs were regularly used between 1930s and 1970s in a range of electrical equipment, lubricants and paint additives. They were eventually phased out due to the harm they were causing to the environment and animals...

Stem Cell Behavior In Regeneration And Disease

Date: Sep-03-2012
The skin, the blood, and the lining of the gut - adult stem cells replenish them daily. But stem cells really show off their healing powers in planarians, humble flatworms fabled for their ability to rebuild any missing body part. Just how adult stem cells build the right tissues at the right times and places has remained largely unanswered. Now, in a study published in an upcoming issue of Development, researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research describe a novel system that allowed them to track stem cells in the flatworm Schmidtea mediterranea...

Gene Therapy In Mice Restores Sense Of Smell

Date: Sep-03-2012
Scientists have restored the sense of smell in mice through gene therapy for the first time -- a hopeful sign for people who can't smell anything from birth or lose it due to disease. The achievement in curing congenital anosmia -- the medical term for lifelong inability to detect odors -- may also aid research on other conditions that also stem from problems with the cilia. Those tiny hair-shaped structures on the surfaces of cells throughout the body are involved in many diseases, from the kidneys to the eyes...

The Brain Is Rewired By Heavy Drinking, Increasing Susceptibility To Anxiety Problems

Date: Sep-03-2012
Doctors have long recognized a link between alcoholism and anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Those who drink heavily are at increased risk for traumatic events like car accidents and domestic violence, but that only partially explains the connection. New research using mice reveals heavy alcohol use actually rewires brain circuitry, making it harder for alcoholics to recover psychologically following a traumatic experience...