Health News

Foodborne Illness - FDA Releases Safety Booklets

Date: Aug-03-2012
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) have partnered in creating six food safety booklets for different groups that are most susceptible to food borne illness. These pamphlets target adults, transplant recipients, pregnant women, and people with diabetes, HIV/AIDS, or cancer in an effort to reduce their risk for foodborne illnesses. These booklets contain much needed information for consumers who have an increased chance of becoming sick from the food they eat...

Mindfulness: Psychology Of Possibilities Can Enhance Health, Happiness

Date: Aug-03-2012
First-time mothers who pay attention to their emotional and physical changes during their pregnancy may feel better and have healthier newborns than new mothers who don't, according to research to be presented at American Psychological Association's 120th Annual Convention...

DNA Clue To Women's Longevity Found In Fruit Flies

Date: Aug-03-2012
A new study of mitochondrial DNA in fruit flies offers a number of clues that might explain why females tend to outlive males across much of the animal kingdom, including humans. Researchers from Monash University in Australia and Lancaster University in the UK, write about their work in the 2 August online issue of Current Biology. They found male fruit flies appear to have mutations in their mitochondrial DNA that affect how fast they age and how long they live...

Spray-On Skin Cells Heal Leg Ulcers

Date: Aug-03-2012
Spraying living skin cells directly onto the wound was found to heal venous leg ulcers better than standard care, according to the results of a trial  published online first in The Lancet on Friday. The phase 2b clinical trial tested a "spray-on skin" that is under development for the treatment of venous leg ulcers. It contains two types of living, growth-arrested skin cells, keratinocytes and fibroblasts. The treatment, which is described as an "allogeneic living cell bioformulation" is being developed by Healthpoint Biotherapeutics of Fort Worth, Texas...

SPECT/CT Imaging Agent Solves The Problem Of Difficult To Diagnose Cases Of Infectious Endocarditis

Date: Aug-03-2012
When combined with standard diagnostic tests, functional imaging procedures have been shown to reduce the rate of misdiagnosed cases of infectious endocarditis. According to new research published in the August issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT)/computed tomography (CT) with 99mTc-hexamethylpropleneamine oxime-labeled white blood cells (99mTc-HMPAO-WBC) can improve the diagnosis of infectious endocarditis in hard-to-diagnose cases...

Potential Weapon In The Fight Against Cancer

Date: Aug-03-2012
By identifying a key protein that tells certain breast cancer cells when and how to move, researchers at Michigan State University hope to better understand the process by which breast cancer spreads, or metastasizes. When breast cancer metastasizes, cancer cells break away from a primary tumor and move to other organs in the body, including the lungs, liver and brain. In work published recently in the journal Cancer Research, MSU researchers Kathy Gallo and Jian Chen show a protein called MLK3 (mixed lineage kinase 3) is a critical driver of breast cancer cell migration and invasion...

The Canadian Paediatric Adverse Events Study

Date: Aug-03-2012
Limited data are available on adverse events among children admitted to hospital. The Canadian Paediatric Adverse Events Study was done to describe the epidemiology of adverse events among children in hospital in Canada. We performed a 2-stage medical record review at 8 academic pediatric centres and 14 community hospitals in Canada. We reviewed charts from patients admitted from April 2008 through March 2009, evenly distributed across 4 age groups (0 to 28 d; 29 to 365 d; 1 to 5 yr and 5 to 18 yr)...

Awareness, Detection And Treatment Programs Required To Improve Breast Health Care In Pakistan

Date: Aug-03-2012
Among most women in Pakistan, there is limited awareness of breast cancer occurrence, detection, and screening practices, or the importance of self-breast exams and clinical breast exams, according to a study in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. In Pakistan, breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting women and the incidence is rising. It is usually diagnosed in later stages and often at a younger age compared with populations in the West...

Obesity: Are Americans Ready To Solve The Weight Of The Nation?

Date: Aug-03-2012
In a Perspective article appearing in this week's New England Journal of Medicine, public health researchers examine how recommendations in a new report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) - "Accelerating Progress in Obesity Prevention: Solving the Weight of the Nation" - square with American's opinions about the obesity epidemic. Over the last 30 years, rates of obesity have doubled among adults and tripled among children...

Diacetyl, Artificial Butter Flavoring Ingredient Linked To Key Alzheimer's Disease Process

Date: Aug-03-2012
A new study raises concern about chronic exposure of workers in industry to a food flavoring ingredient used to produce the distinctive buttery flavor and aroma of microwave popcorn, margarines, snack foods, candy, baked goods, pet foods and other products. It found evidence that the ingredient, diacetyl (DA), intensifies the damaging effects of an abnormal brain protein linked to Alzheimer's disease. The study appears in ACS' journal Chemical Research in Toxicology...