Health News

The Impact Of Obesity On Donor Acceptability In Pediatric Liver Transplant Recipients

Date: Aug-03-2012
Children undergoing liver transplantation are at greater risk of graft loss and death from adult organ donors who are severely obese according to research published in the August issue of Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. The study, funded in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), found that pediatric donor body mass index (BMI) did not increase mortality risk in this pediatric population. Obesity is a global health concern. A 2008 report from the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1...

NIH's PRB Progesterone Therapy To Combat Infant Mortality Adopted By State Of Michigan

Date: Aug-03-2012
The Michigan Department of Community Health (MDCH) has unveiled the state's Infant Mortality Reduction Plan, a strategy that includes significant recommendations developed from medical research conducted by the Perinatology Research Branch (PRB) of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health (NICHD/NIH), at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. Announced Aug...

Paralysis In Mice With Multiple Sclerosis Reversed By Alzheimer's Molecule

Date: Aug-03-2012
A molecule widely assailed as the chief culprit in Alzheimer's disease unexpectedly reverses paralysis and inflammation in several distinct animal models of a different disorder - multiple sclerosis, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have found...

Children With Autism May Benefit From The Introduction Of A Pet Into The Family

Date: Aug-03-2012
The introduction of a pet can have a positive effect on autistic children's behavior, as reported in research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE. The authors of the study, led by Marine Grandgeorge of the Hospital Research Center of Brest in France, found that participants who received a pet scored higher in two categories, "offering to share" and "offering comfort," a few years after the pet arrived than they did before having a pet. Participants who had lived with pets since birth, on the other hand, showed generally weaker relationships with their pets...

Teen Survival Expectations Predict Later Risk-Taking Behavior

Date: Aug-03-2012
Some young people's expectations that they will not live long, healthy lives may actually foreshadow such outcomes. New research published in the open access journal PLOS ONE reports that, for American teens, the expectation of death before the age of 35 predicted increased risk behaviors including substance abuse and suicide attempts later in life and a doubling to tripling of mortality rates in young adulthood...

'Antisense' Compound Rids Muscle Cells Of Toxic RNA: A Promising Step Toward Muscular Dystrophy Treatment

Date: Aug-03-2012
Scientists have reversed symptoms of myotonic muscular dystrophy in mice by eliminating a buildup of toxic RNA in muscle cells. The work, carried out by scientists at the University of Rochester Medical Center, Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Genzyme, is published in Nature. After experimental antisense compounds were administered to mice twice a week for four weeks, symptoms of the disease were reduced for up to one year - a significant portion of a mouse's lifespan...

Equatorial Regions In Brazil Less Affected By 2009 Influenza Pandemic: NIH Study

Date: Aug-03-2012
The death toll of the 2009 influenza pandemic in equatorial climates may have been much lower than originally thought, according to a study supported by the National Institutes of Health's Fogarty International Center. The paper, published in PLoS ONE, challenges the idea that the pandemic was deadlier in the tropics, which harbor nearly half of the world's population and which have the highest burden of infectious disease...

Students Trading Sex For Drugs Or Alcohol

Date: Aug-03-2012
Just over two percent of teens in rural schools who have ever tried alcohol, marijuana or other drugs report they have also traded sex for these substances, according to University of British Columbia research published in the Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality. This is the first study to track this issue among rural students. Using 2009 survey data from 2,360 students in Grades 7-12 from 28 schools in B.C.'s East Kootenays, the researchers found equal numbers of boys and girls traded sex, and that up to 98 per cent of them were living at home with family...

The Immune System Enables HIV-Infected T Cells To Transport The Virus Throughout The Body

Date: Aug-03-2012
A new study has discovered one more way the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) exploits the immune system. Not only does HIV infect and destroy CD4-positive helper T cells - which normally direct and support the infection-fighting activities of other immune cells - the virus also appears to use those cells to travel through the body and infect other CD4 T cells...

First Indication Of People Naturally Protected Against Rabies Found In Remote Amazonian Communities

Date: Aug-03-2012
Challenging conventional wisdom that rabies infections are 100 percent fatal unless immediately treated, scientists studying remote populations in the Peruvian Amazon at risk of rabies from vampire bats found 11 percent of those tested showed protection against the disease, with only one person reporting a prior rabies vaccination. Ten percent appear to have survived exposure to the virus without any medical intervention. The findings from investigators at the U.S...