Health News

EASL Calls On The United Nations To Join The Effort To Tackle Viral Hepatitis

Date: Jul-30-2012
Marking World Hepatitis Day, 28th July 2012, the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) called on the different organizations which make up the United Nations systems to take action to fight against Viral Hepatitis (Hepatitis B and C), a potentially fatal infection of the liver which affects 500 million people. Viral hepatitis is the cause of death of over one million people a year and, around the world, one in every 3 people has been exposed to either the Hepatitis B virus or the Hepatitis C virus...

Medical Sensor Employing Vibrating Cantilever, Key To DNA Detection

Date: Jul-30-2012
A tiny vibrating cantilever sensor could soon help doctors and field clinicians quickly detect harmful toxins, bacteria and even indicators of certain types of cancer from small samples of blood or urine. Researchers from Drexel University are in the process of refining a sensor technology that they developed to measure samples at the cellular level into an accurate method for quickly detecting traces of DNA in liquid samples. According to lead researcher Dr...

Insight Into The Neural Basis Of Human Consciousness

Date: Jul-30-2012
Which areas of the brain help us to perceive our world in a self-reflective manner is difficult to measure. During wakefulness, we are always conscious of ourselves. In sleep, however, we are not. But there are people, known as lucid dreamers, who can become aware of dreaming during sleep. Studies employing magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) have now been able to demonstrate that a specific cortical network consisting of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the frontopolar regions and the precuneus is activated when this lucid consciousness is attained...

Group Yoga Improves Motor Function And Balance Long After Stroke

Date: Jul-30-2012
Group yoga can improve motor function and balance in stroke survivors, even if they don't begin yoga until six months or more after the stroke, according to "Post-Stroke Balance Improves With Yoga: A Pilot Study," published online in the journal Stroke. Forty-seven older adults, three-quarters of whom were male, participated in the study...

Scientists Make A Surprising Find In Study Of Sex- And Aggression-triggering Vomeronasal Organ

Date: Jul-30-2012
The vomeronasal organ (VNO) is one of evolution's most direct enforcers. From its niche within the nose in most land-based vertebrates, it detects pheromones and triggers corresponding basic-instinct behaviors, from compulsive mating to male-on-male death matches. A new study from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, published online in Nature Neuroscience on July 29, 2012, extends the scientific understanding of how pheromones activate the VNO, and has implications for sensory transduction experiments in other fields...

Remarkable Gene Discovery Relating To Mysterious Paralysis Of Childhood

Date: Jul-30-2012
Alternating hemiplegia of childhood (AHC) is a very rare disorder that causes paralysis that freezes one side of the body and then the other in devastating bouts that arise at unpredictable intervals. Seizures, learning disabilities and difficulty walking are common among patients with this diagnosis. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have now discovered that mutations in one gene cause the disease in the majority of patients with a diagnosis of AHC, and because of the root problem they discovered, a treatment may become possible...

Researchers Discover Elusive Gene That Causes A Form Of Blindness From Birth

Date: Jul-30-2012
Researchers from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Loyola University Chicago Health Sciences Division and their collaborators have isolated an elusive human gene that causes a common form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a relatively rare but devastating form of early-onset blindness. The new LCA gene is called NMNAT1. Finding the specific gene mutated in patients with LCA is the first step towards developing sight-saving gene therapy. LCA is an inherited retinal degenerative disease characterized by reduced vision in infancy...

Research Findings May Affect How Doctors Treat Allergic Inflammation And Organ Transplant Rejection

Date: Jul-30-2012
A research team led by Xian Chang Li, MD, PhD, Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) Transplantation Research Center, has shed light on how a population of lymphocytes, called CD4+ T cells, mature into various subsets of adult T helper cells. In particular, the team uncovered that a particular cell surface molecule, known as OX40, is a powerful inducer of new T helper cells that make copious amounts of interleukin-9 (IL-9) (and therefore called TH9 cells) in vitro; such TH9 cells are responsible for ongoing inflammation in the airways in the lungs in vivo...

Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Works For Depression In Real-Life Clinical Practice Settings

Date: Jul-30-2012
In one of the first studies to look at transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) in real-world clinical practice settings, researchers at Butler Hospital, along with colleagues across the U.S., confirmed that TMS is an effective treatment for patients with depression who are unable to find symptom relief through antidepressant medications. The study findings were published online in Depression and Anxiety in the Wiley Online Library...

In Academic Hospitals MRSA Cases Doubled In 5 Years

Date: Jul-30-2012
Infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) doubled at academic medical centers in the U.S. between 2003 and 2008, according to a report published in the August issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. Researchers from the University of Chicago Medicine and the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC) estimate hospitalizations increased from about 21 out of every 1,000 patients hospitalized in 2003 to about 42 out of every 1,000 in 2008, or almost 1 in 20 inpatients...