Health News

Children's Self-Control Is Associated With Their Body Mass Index As Adults

Date: Aug-19-2012
As adults, we know that self-control and delaying gratification are important for making healthful eating choices, portion control, and maintaining a healthy weight. However, exhibiting these skills at a young age actually may affect weight later in life. A new study scheduled for publication in The Journal of Pediatrics finds that delaying gratification longer at 4 years of age is associated with having a lower body mass index (BMI) 30 years later...

Study Underscores Need To Improve Communication With Moms Of Critically Ill Infants

Date: Aug-19-2012
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw once described England and America as two countries separated by a common language. Now research from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center suggests that common language may also be the divide standing between mothers of critically ill newborns and the clinicians who care for them. The study, published August 16 in the Journal of Perinatology, found that miscommunication was common, and that the most serious breakdown in communication occurred when mothers and clinicians discussed the severity of the baby's condition...

Malignant Brain Cancer Antigens Targeted By Vaccine Which Significantly Lengthens Survival

Date: Aug-19-2012
An experimental immune-based therapy more than doubled median survival of patients diagnosed with the most aggressive malignant brain tumor, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center researchers reported in Cancer Immunology, Immunotherapy, published online. Median survival in a Phase I clinical trial at Cedars-Sinai's Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Brain Tumor Center was 38.4 months, significantly longer than the typical 14.6-month survival of patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma receiving standard therapy alone, which includes radiation and chemotherapy...

Walnuts May Boost Sperm Quality

Date: Aug-18-2012
Healthy young men with a Western-style diet may be able to boost their sperm quality by eating a small packet of walnuts a day. These are the findings of a new study that shows healthy American men in their 20s and 30s who ate a 75g (2.5 ozs) packet of walnuts a day were able to increase the vitality, motility and structure of their sperm compared to counterparts who did not eat walnuts. A report on the study appeared online on 15 August in the Biology of Reproduction journal's papers-in-press section...

Control Of Gene Activity Altered By Acute Stress

Date: Aug-18-2012
Acute stress alters the methylation of the DNA and thus the activity of certain genes. This is reported by researchers at the Ruhr-Universitat Bochum together with colleagues from Basel, Trier and London for the first time in the journal Translational Psychiatry. "The results provide evidence how stress could be related to a higher risk of mental or physical illness", says Prof. Dr. Gunther Meinlschmidt from the Clinic of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy at the LWL University Hospital of the RUB. The team looked at gene segments which are relevant to biological stress regulation...

Tripping The Switches On Brain Growth To Treat Depression

Date: Aug-18-2012
Depression takes a substantial toll on brain health. Brain imaging and post-mortem studies provide evidence that the wealth of connections in the brain are reduced in individuals with depression, with the result of impaired functional connections between key brain centers involved in mood regulation. Glial cells are one of the cell types that appear to be particularly reduced when analyzing post-mortem brain tissue from people who had depression. Glial cells support the growth and function of nerve cells and their connections...

Prolonged Methadone Treatment Can Affect The Nerve Cells, Behaviour

Date: Aug-18-2012
Long-term methadone treatment can cause changes in the brain, according to recent studies from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health. The results show that treatment may affect the nerve cells in the brain. The studies follow on from previous studies where methadone was seen to affect cognitive functioning, such as learning and memory. Since it is difficult to perform controlled studies of methadone patients and unethical to attempt in healthy volunteers, rats were used in the studies...

Wealthy London Neighborhoods May Be 'More Altruistic' Suggests Lost Letter Experiment

Date: Aug-18-2012
Neighbourhood income deprivation has a strong negative effect on altruistic behaviour when measured by a 'lost letter' experiment, according to new UCL research published in PLOS ONE. Researchers from UCL Anthropology used the lost letter technique to measure altruism across 20 London neighbourhoods by dropping 300 letters on the pavement and recording whether they arrived at their destination. The stamped letters were addressed by hand to a study author's home address with a gender neutral name, and were dropped face-up and during rain free weekdays...

Warming Causes More Extreme Shifts Of The Southern Hemisphere's Largest Rain Band

Date: Aug-18-2012
South Pacific countries will experience more extreme floods and droughts, in response to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, according to a paper in the journal Nature. The changes will result from the South Pacific rain band responding to greenhouse warming. The South Pacific rain band is largest and most persistent of the Southern Hemisphere spanning the Pacific from south of the Equator, south-eastward to French Polynesia. Occasionally, the rain band moves northwards towards the Equator by 1000 kilometres, inducing extreme climate events...

World's Largest Tobacco Use Study: Tobacco Control Remains Major Challenge

Date: Aug-18-2012
An international survey of tobacco use in three billion individuals, published in the current issue of The Lancet, demonstrates an urgent need for policy change in low- and middle-income countries, according to the University at Buffalo professor who led the research. "Governments around the world need to start giving economic and regulatory advantages to agricultural products that promote health instead of to products like tobacco that kill people," says lead author Gary A...