Health News

Protection Against Barrett's Esophagus From Aspirin

Date: Jul-25-2012
Aspirin use appears to reduce the risk of Barrett's esophagus (BE), the largest known risk factor for esophageal cancer, according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association...

Real Perceptual Experience And Mental Replay Share Similar Brain Activation Patterns

Date: Jul-25-2012
Neuroscientists have found strong evidence that vivid memory and directly experiencing the real moment can trigger similar brain activation patterns. The study, led by Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute (RRI), in collaboration with the University of Texas at Dallas, is one of the most ambitious and complex yet for elucidating the brain's ability to evoke a memory by reactivating the parts of the brain that were engaged during the original perceptual experience...

Medical Outcomes In 3 States Reveal Survival Rates For Premature Babies In High-Level NICUs Are Better Than Previously Reported

Date: Jul-25-2012
Premature babies are more likely to survive when they are born in high-level neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) than in hospitals without such facilities, and this benefit is considerably larger than previously reported. The likelihood that an extremely premature baby will survive if born in a high-technology, high-volume hospital unit was already known, but the current study, the largest to date, revealed a stronger effect. Pediatric researchers who analyzed more than 1...

Raisins Found To Be As Effective As Sports Chews For Fueling Workouts

Date: Jul-25-2012
New research published in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition suggests that eating raisins may provide the same workout boost as sports chews. Conducted by researchers at the University of California-Davis, the study evaluated the effects that natural versus commercial carbohydrate supplements have on endurance running performance. Runners depleted their glycogen stores in an 80-minute 75% V02 max run followed by a 5k time trial. Runners completed three randomized trials (raisins, chews and water only) separated by seven days...

There Is No Such Thing As A Safe Tan: GW Researchers Break Tanning Misconceptions

Date: Jul-25-2012
A new study conducted by GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS) researchers Edward C. De Fabo, Ph.D., Frances P. Noonan, Ph.D., and Anastas Popratiloff, M.D., Ph.D., has been published in the journal Nature Communications. Their paper, entitled "Melanoma induction by ultraviolet A but not ultraviolet B radiation requires melanin pigment," was published in June 2012...

BPA Ban A 'Hollow Victory'

Date: Jul-25-2012
The FDA says baby bottles and sippy cups can no longer contain Bisphenol-A (BPA), an endocrine disruptor that mimics estrogen. But what about the hundreds of other plastic items, from water bottles to dental sealants, containing BPA? The FDA didn't go far enough, said Mercyhurst University Public Health Department Chair Dr. David Dausey. Dausey addresses the FDA's recent BPA ban in his latest vlog, The Dausey File: Public Health News Today.* BPA has been associated with a wide range of health problems from metabolic disease to reproductive health defects...

Targeting Therapeutics To The Back Of The Eye Using Microneedles

Date: Jul-25-2012
Thanks to tiny microneedles, eye doctors may soon have a better way to treat diseases such as macular degeneration that affect tissues in the back of the eye. That could be important as the population ages and develops more eye-related illnesses - and as pharmaceutical companies develop new drugs that otherwise could only be administered by injecting into the eye with a hypodermic needle...

Bloodstream Scavenger Inhibits Clotting Without Increased Bleeding

Date: Jul-25-2012
A compound that mops up debris of damaged cells from the bloodstream may be the first in a new class of drugs designed to address one of medicine's most difficult challenges - stopping the formation of blood clots without triggering equally threatening bleeding...

'Bath Salts' Act In The Brain Like Cocaine

Date: Jul-25-2012
The use of the synthetic stimulants collectively known as "bath salts" have gained popularity among recreational drug users over the last five years, largely because they were readily available and unrestricted via the Internet and at convenience stores, and were virtually unregulated. Recent studies point to compulsive drug taking among bath salts users, and several deaths have been blamed on the bath salt mephedrone (4-methylmethcathinone or "meow-meow"). This has led several countries to ban the production, possession, and sale of mephedrone and other cathinone derivative drugs...

Non-Disclosure Of HIV Serostatus Common In India Among Female Sex Workers

Date: Jul-25-2012
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) in partnership with Indian researchers and HIV positive networks groups, have found that in India, non-disclosure of HIV serostatus to sex partners among both HIV-infected female sex workers (FSWs) and HIV-infected clients of FSWs is exceedingly common. These findings currently appear online in the journal AIDS and Behavior. No previous studies in India specifically, and few internationally, have assessed FSWs' and male clients' disclosure of HIV status to sex partners...