Health News

Expert Suggests That Doctors Treat Lack Of Exercise As A Medical Condition

Date: Aug-15-2012
A sedentary lifestyle is a common cause of obesity (1), and excessive body weight and fat in turn are considered catalysts for diabetes (2), high blood pressure (3), joint damage (4) and other serious health problems. But what if lack of exercise itself were treated as a medical condition? Mayo Clinic physiologist Michael Joyner, M.D. argues that it should be. His commentary is published this month in The Journal of Physiology...

Sensitivity To Potential Glioblastoma Treatment Affected By Modification Of Tumor Suppressor

Date: Aug-15-2012
Despite years of research, glioblastoma, the most common and deadly brain cancer in adults, continues to outsmart treatments targeted to inhibit tumor growth. Biologists and oncologists have long understood that a protein called the epidermal growth factor receptor or EGFR is altered in at least 50 percent of patients with glioblastoma. Yet patients with glioblastoma either have upfront resistance or quickly develop resistance to inhibitors aimed at stopping the protein's function, suggesting that there is another signalling pathway at play...

The Impact On Children, Families Of Poor Oral Health

Date: Aug-15-2012
Poor oral health, dental disease, and tooth pain can put kids at a serious disadvantage in school, according to a new Ostrow School of Dentistry of USC study. "The Impact of Oral Health on the Academic Performance of Disadvantaged Children," appearing in the September 2012 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, examined nearly 1500 socioeconomically disadvantaged elementary and high school children in the Los Angeles Unified School District, matching their oral health status to their academic achievement and attendance records...

Scientists Develop Model For New Burkitt Lymphoma Treatments

Date: Aug-15-2012
Burkitt lymphoma is a malignant, fast-growing tumor that originates from a subtype of white blood cells called B lymphocytes of the immune system and often affects internal organs and the central nervous system. Now Dr. Sandrine Sander and Professor Klaus Rajewsky of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch have identified a key element that transforms the immune cells into malignant lymphoma cells. They developed a mouse model that closely resembles Burkitt lymphoma in humans and that may help to test new treatment strategies (Cancer Cell)*...

How The Risk Of ALS Is Affected By Smoking, Alcohol Consumption

Date: Aug-15-2012
A population-based case-control study of the rare but devastating neurological disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) has shown that the risk of such disease is increased among smokers, as has been shown previously. However, surprisingly, the risk of ALS was found to be markedly lower among consumers of alcohol than among abstainers. Forum reviewers thought that this was a well-done and important paper, as it is a population-based analysis, with almost 500 cases of ALS, a very large number of cases for this rare disease...

Multi-Center Study On Cardiac Amyloidosis

Date: Aug-15-2012
Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have been part of a multicenter observational study called TRACS (Transthyretin Amyloidosis Cardiac Study) to help determine the health significance of a particular gene mutation which is commonly found in Black Americans. The gene, transthyretin (TTR) and the mutation V122I, is seen in about four percent of African Americans or roughly 1.5 million people...

Auvi-Q™, First Voice-Guided Epinephrine Auto-Injector For Patients With Life-Threatening Allergies, Receives FDA Approval

Date: Aug-15-2012
Breakthrough device design talks patients and caregivers through the injection process Sanofi (EURONEXT: SAN and NYSE: SNY) have announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Auvi-Q (epinephrine injection, USP) for the emergency treatment of life-threatening allergic reactions in people who are at risk for or have a history of anaphylaxis. Auvi-Q is the first-and-only compact epinephrine auto-injector with audio and visual cues that guide patients and caregivers step-by-step through the injection process...

Latrepirdine, Which Failed In US Clinical Trials Of Alzheimer's Disease, Shows New Potential In Animal Model

Date: Aug-15-2012
The second of two studies on latrepirdine, recently published in Molecular Psychiatry, demonstrates new potential for the compound in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, sleep disorders, and other neurodegenerative conditions. An international team led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine scientists found that latrepiridine, known commercially as Dimebon, reduced the level of at least two neurodegeneration-related proteins in mice. Latrepirdine was initially sold as an antihistamine in Russia, following its approval for use there in 1983...

Risk Of Bladder Cancer Increased For Over 15 Million Americans Taking Diabetes Drugs

Date: Aug-15-2012
A popular class of diabetes drugs increases patients' risk of bladder cancer, according to a new study published online this month in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania found that patients taking thiazolidinedione (TZDs) drugs - which account for up to 20 percent of the drugs prescribed to diabetics in the United States - are two to three times more likely to develop bladder cancer than those who took a sulfonylurea drug, another common class of medications for diabetes...

New Drug Target For Schizophrenia Identified

Date: Aug-15-2012
Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine may have discovered why certain drugs to treat schizophrenia are ineffective in some patients. Published online in Nature Neuroscience, the research will pave the way for a new class of drugs to help treat this devastating mental illness, which impacts one percent of the world's population, 30 percent of whom do not respond to currently available treatments...