Health News

New Materials Prevent Infection By Stopping Biofilm Formation

Date: Aug-14-2012
Using state-of-the-art technology scientists at The University of Nottingham have discovered a new class of polymers that are resistant to bacterial attachment. These new materials could lead to a significant reduction in hospital infections and medical device failures. Medical device associated infections can lead to systemic infections or device failure, costing the NHS £1bn a year. Affecting many commonly used devices including urinary and venous catheters - bacteria form communities known as biofilms...

Cathepsin Cannibalism

Date: Aug-14-2012
Researchers for the first time have shown that members of a family of enzymes known as cathepsins - which are implicated in many disease processes - may attack one another instead of the bodily proteins they normally degrade. Dubbed "cathepsin cannibalism," the phenomenon may help explain problems with drugs that have been developed to inhibit the effects of these powerful proteases. Cathepsins are involved in disease processes as varied as cancer metastasis, atherosclerosis, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and arthritis...

New Therapy That Prevents Lung Cancer Growth In Mice

Date: Aug-14-2012
The discovery, which is already being tested in co-clinical trials, brings new clues for the treatment of this disease Lung cancer is one of the most aggressive types of cancer and the most common cause of death from this disease worldwide. Despite the progress in the molecular biology of lung cancer achieved in recent years, the mechanisms used by tumor cells to grow and spread throughout the body are not yet completely understood. This lack of information is responsible for the limited range of available therapeutic possibilities and their undesirable side effects...

Seniors' Brain Function May Be Enhanced By Consumption Of Flavanol-Rich Cocoa

Date: Aug-14-2012
Eating cocoa flavanols daily may improve mild cognitive impairment, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension. Each year, more than six percent of people aged 70 years or older develop mild cognitive impairment, a condition involving memory loss that can progress to dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Flavanols can be found in tea, grapes, red wine, apples and cocoa products and have been associated with a decreased risk of dementia...

Improving Heart Health In Middle-Age With Regular Leisure-Time Physical Activity

Date: Aug-14-2012
Middle-aged adults who regularly engage in leisure-time physical activity for more than a decade may enhance their heart health, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation. In a new study, more than 4,200 participants (average age 49) reported the duration and frequency of their leisure-time physical activities such as brisk walking, vigorous gardening, cycling, sports, housework and home maintenance. "It's not just vigorous exercise and sports that are important," said Mark Hamer, Ph.D...

Computational Prediction Of Group Conflict

Date: Aug-14-2012
When conflict breaks out in social groups, individuals make strategic decisions about how to behave based on their understanding of alliances and feuds in the group. But it's been challenging to quantify the underlying trends that dictate how individuals make predictions, given they may only have seen a small number of fights or have limited memory. In a new study, scientists at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison develop a computational approach to determine whether individuals behave predictably...

Muscle Function May Be Impaired By Triclosan, A Chemical Widely Used In Antibacterial Hand Soaps

Date: Aug-14-2012
Triclosan, an antibacterial chemical widely used in hand soaps and other personal-care products, hinders muscle contractions at a cellular level, slows swimming in fish and reduces muscular strength in mice, according to researchers at the University of California, Davis, and the University of Colorado. The findings appear online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America...

A Healthier Chocolate On The Horizon

Date: Aug-14-2012
It may not make chocolate one of your five a day - but scientists have found a way to replace up to 50 per cent of its fat content with fruit juice. University of Warwick chemists have taken out much of the cocoa butter and milk fats that go into chocolate bars, substituting them with tiny droplets of juice measuring under 30 microns in diameter. They infused orange and cranberry juice into milk, dark and white chocolate using what is known as a Pickering emulsion. Crucially, the clever chemistry does not take away the chocolatey 'mouth-feel' given by the fatty ingredients...

News From The Annals Of Internal Medicine: Aug. 14, 2012 Online Issue

Date: Aug-14-2012
1. Task Force Finds Insufficient Evidence to Weigh the Benefits and Harms of Routine Screening for Age-related Hearing Loss Age-related hearing loss is a common health problem that can affect independence, emotional well-being, and quality of life. Several screening methods have proven accurate for identifying hearing impairment, including simple clinical tools and questionnaires...

Killing Prostate Cancer Cells Without Harming Other Healthy Cells

Date: Aug-14-2012
Experimenting with human prostate cancer cells and mice, cancer imaging experts at Johns Hopkins say they have developed a method for finding and killing malignant cells while sparing healthy ones. The method, called theranostic imaging, targets and tracks potent drug therapies directly and only to cancer cells. It relies on binding an originally inactive form of drug chemotherapy, with an enzyme, to specific proteins on tumor cell surfaces and detecting the drug's absorption into the tumor...