Health News

Thinking And Creativity Sharpened By Humanities Mini-Courses For Doctors

Date: Aug-10-2012
Mini-courses designed to increase creative stimulation and variety in physicians' daily routines can sharpen critical thinking skills, improve job satisfaction and encourage innovative thinking, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers who piloted a series of such courses. "For decades, career development theory has identified a stage that occurs at midlife, characterized by a desire to escape the status quo and pursue new ventures," said Kimberly Myers, Ph.D., associate professor of humanities...

Using Heat As A Cancer Treatment

Date: Aug-10-2012
Research at Bangor University has identified a switch in cells that may help to kill tumors with heat. Prostate cancer and other localized tumors can be effectively treated by a combination of heat and an anti-cancer drug that damages the genes. Behind this novel therapy is the enigmatic ability of heat to switch off essential survival mechanisms in human cells. Although thermotherapy is now more widely used, the underlying principles are still unclear...

Significant Breakthrough Has Implications For Throat And Cervical Cancer

Date: Aug-10-2012
A major breakthrough by scientists at Queen's could lead to more effective treatments for throat and cervical cancer. The discovery could see the development of new therapies, which would target the non-cancerous cells surrounding a tumour, as well as treating the tumour itself. Researchers at Queen's Centre for Cancer Research and Cell Biology have found that the non-cancerous tissue, or 'stroma', surrounding cancers of the throat and cervix, plays an important role in regulating the spread of cancer cells...

Delirium Worsens Severity Of Dementia And Increases The Pace Of Cognitive Decline

Date: Aug-10-2012
Older people who have experienced episodes of delirium are significantly more likely to develop dementia, according to new research. The study is published in the journal Brain. When in hospital, older people sometimes become acutely confused and disorientated. This condition, known as delirium, affects at least 15 per cent of older people in hospitals and has long thought to be simply a temporary side effect of other illness (such as an infection, a reaction to a medication or an operation)...

Chronic Infections Unmasked By New Scientific Method

Date: Aug-10-2012
With the aid of tiny silicon tubes and one of Europe's most sophisticated centres for microscopy, scientists have been able for the first time to observe directly bacteria in chronic infections. Researchers can now see precisely how bacteria and the immune system interact in living tissue. This opens the potential for developing new medicine to fight resistant bacteria. The results have recently been published in the scientific journal Infection and Immunity...

Older Adults Display More Positive Emotion, Likely Due To What They're Looking At

Date: Aug-10-2012
Research has shown that older adults display more positive emotions and are quicker to regulate out of negative emotional states than younger adults. Given the declines in cognitive functioning and physical health that tend to come with age, we might expect that age would be associated with worse moods, not better ones...

Some Clients Want Romance, Real Love From Sex Workers

Date: Aug-10-2012
While it is commonly believed that men who pay for sex are attempting to avoid emotional commitment, a new study finds that men who become regular clients of sex workers often develop feelings of romance and love. This study is published in a recent edition of Men and Masculinities, a SAGE journal. "In recent years, we have come to see a gradual normalization of independent escort prostitution, where sexual encounters have come to resemble quasi-dating relationships," stated study author Christine Milrod...

First Study To Examine The Relationship Between Risky Content In Alcohol Ads And Youth Exposure

Date: Aug-10-2012
The content of alcohol ads placed in magazines is more likely to be in violation of industry guidelines if the ad appears in a magazine with sizable youth readership, according to a new study from the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Published in the Journal of Adolescent Health, the study is the first to measure the relationship of problematic content to youth exposure, and the first to examine risky behaviors depicted in alcohol advertising in the past decade...

Researchers Collect And Reuse Enzymes While Maintaining Bioactivity

Date: Aug-10-2012
Clemson University researchers are collecting and harvesting enzymes while maintaining the enzyme's bioactivity. Their work, a new model system that may impact cancer research, is published in the journal Small.* Enzymes are round proteins produced by living organisms that increase the rate of chemical reactions. "We found a robust and simple way of attracting specific enzymes, concentrating them and reusing them," said Stephen Foulger, professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at Clemson. "The enzymes are still functional after being harvested...

Less Invasive Gallbladder Removal Enhanced By New Tools And Laparoscopic Techniques

Date: Aug-10-2012
Laparoscopic management of gallbladder disease offers a less invasive alternative to open surgery. Surgical outcomes continue to improve as new techniques and tools become available for performing laparoscopic gallbladder surgery, and these advances are highlighted in Advances in Cholecystectomy Surgery(1), a comprehensive special issue of Journal of Laparoendoscopic & Advanced Surgical Techniques (JLAST), a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers. The issue is available free online at the Journal of Laparoendoscopic & Advanced Surgical Techniques website...