Health News

Decoding The Secrets Of Balance

Date: Jul-28-2012
A new study, conducted by Corentin Massot, a Postdoctoral in the Department of Physiology, and Adam Schneider a Ph.D. student in the Department of Physics, has developed a new understanding of how the brain processes information from the inner ear that offers hope for those suffering from vertigo. People who suffer from symptoms of vestibular dysfunction, such as vertigo and dizziness, encounter many challenges. If you have ever gazed over the edge of a cliff and felt dizzy, you understand their difficulties.  Over 70 million people in North America suffer from this condition...

Researchers Reveal That One Act Of Remembering Can Influence Future Acts

Date: Jul-28-2012
Can the simple act of recognizing a face as we walk down the street change the way we think? Or can taking the time to notice something new on our way to work change what we remember about that walk? In a new study published in the journal Science, New York University researchers show that remembering something old or noticing something new can bias how you process subsequent information. This novel finding suggests that our memory system can adaptively bias its processing towards forming new memories or retrieving old ones based on recent experiences...

Intervention After A First Osteoporosis Fracture Reduces Repeat Occurrences

Date: Jul-28-2012
An international expert task force is calling on health care providers to aggressively identify and provide care for the millions of people who have suffered their first osteoporosis-related fracture, in order to prevent subsequent fractures...

Protein Discovery Links To Cancer Research

Date: Jul-28-2012
A Simon Fraser University graduate student's collaboration with her thesis supervisor on how a particular type of protein controls the growth of another protein could advance cancer research. Their findings have just been published in the online issue of Current Biology, a CellPress journal. Esther Verheyen, an SFU professor of molecular biology and biochemistry, has helped her Master's of Science student Joanna Chen uncover how Hipk can be manipulated to stop Yorkie from causing tissue overgrowth in flies...

Brain Control In Monkeys Via Optogenetics Has Implications For Human Therapies

Date: Jul-28-2012
Researchers reporting online in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, have for the first time shown that they can control the behavior of monkeys by using pulses of blue light to very specifically activate particular brain cells. The findings represent a key advance for optogenetics, a state-of-the-art method for making causal connections between brain activity and behavior. Based on the discovery, the researchers say that similar light-based mind control could likely also be made to work in humans for therapeutic ends...

Excess Iodine Supplementation During Pregnancy Associated With Congenital Hypothyroidism

Date: Jul-28-2012
Congenital hypothyroidism is thyroid hormone deficiency at birth that, if left untreated, can lead to neurocognitive impairments in infants and children. Although the World Health Organization recommends 200-300 µg of iodine daily during pregnancy for normal fetal thyroid hormone production and neurocognitive development, the US Institute of Medicine considers 1,100 µg to be the safe upper limit for daily ingestion...

Pakistani Women Disabled In Earthquake Later Abandoned, Ignored

Date: Jul-28-2012
Women who suffered spinal injuries in the 2005 Pakistan earthquake continued to endure hardships years later, including abandonment by spouses and families, according to new research from the University of Alberta. Zubia Mumtaz, an assistant professor in the School of Public Health who studies how gender and class inequalities affect maternal health, worked with a team of graduate students to document the experiences of paraplegic women three years after the 7.6-magnitude quake that devastated Kashmir...

Physical Activity Curriculum Not Being Taught To Medical Students

Date: Jul-27-2012
The online version of the British Journal of Sports Medicine reports that the curriculum for physical activity in UK medical schools is "sparse or non-existent." This gap in knowledge means that future doctors will have insufficient knowledge to effectively promote physical activity to their patients, which results in a failure to help combating serious diseases that are linked to insufficient exercise according to the study authors...

Scientists Use Waste-Water Analysis To Determine Drug Use In 19 European Cities

Date: Jul-27-2012
By analyzing the waste using urinary biomarkers, researchers can reliably detect actual drug consumption in cities. A large group of scientists has for the first time conducted a comparative study of illegal drug consumption in 19 European cities based on wastewater analysis. The findings are published in the specialist journal Science of the Total Environment. The four Spanish cities, Barcelona, Castelló de la Plana, Santiago de Compostela and Valencia had a higher consumption of cannabis and cocaine compared with other drugs like ecstasy and methamphetamines...

Wakeful Resting Fights Memory Loss

Date: Jul-27-2012
Most of us are familiar with the expression 'My memory is like a sieve', meaning that important information that should be captured and remembered just simply disappears somehow. Millions of adults, especially older people, religiously do crossword puzzles, acrostics and Sudoko every day in an effort to enhance their failing grey cells. A new study published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that all people really need to do to improve their memory and learn new things is to sit and close their eyes for a few minutes...