Health News

Are The Recommendations For Kids' Cholesterol Tests Safe?

Date: Jul-24-2012
According to three UCSF researchers, recent guidelines that recommend children to be tested for cholesterol levels fail to weigh health benefits against potential harms and costs. The researchers highlight the fact that the recommendations, published in Pediatrics, are not based on solid evidence, but on expert opinion, which raises the issue of potential conflict of interest due disclosure of the guidelines' authors...

Forgiveness - Restitution Vs. Apology

Date: Jul-24-2012
A new study by researchers from Baylor University revealed that people are more likely to act forgivingly if they receive compensation, whilst they are more likely to forgive if they receive an apology. The study, published in the Journal of Positive Psychology,�highlights the importance of apology and restitution, as well as using various measures for forgiveness. Jo-Ann Tsang, Ph.D...

Early Diagnosis Of Parkinson's May Be Possible With Discovery Of New Antibody

Date: Jul-24-2012
Around 15,000 to 16,000 Austrian's suffer from Parkinson's disease, a degenerative condition of the brain, which becomes more prevalent with age. The frequency of Parkinson's disease will become more widespread as society ages. The neurodegenerative Parkinson's and related diseases occur because of pathogenic changes to proteins. In Parkinson's disease, a disease with no current cure, the alpha-synuclein protein alters, becoming pathological. Demonstrations of changes in alpha-synoclein linked to Parkinson's have so far been not possible as no antibodies have been available...

HIV Risk Factors Vary Between People Living In The U.S And Non-U.S Residents

Date: Jul-24-2012
At a JAMA media briefing during the international AIDS Conference, Professor H. Irene Hall, Ph.D., from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta presented findings of a new characteristics study of HIV-positive US residents who were born outside the country, which demonstrated that in comparison to HIV positive individuals born in the U.S., Hispanics or Asians are more likely to have contracted the virus, whilst a higher percentage of HIV infections were due to heterosexual contact. The study is published in the online edition of JAMA...

Potential Target For New Antibiotics

Date: Jul-24-2012
Researchers have identified a unique mechanism in bacteria that could help in the development of new antibiotics for diseases, such as AIDS, and soft tissue infections, according to a new study. The study, conducted by researchers from Florida Atlantic University's Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, is published online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. According to Ravi K. Alluri, a pre-doctoral student in the department of biomedical science and Dr. Zhongwei Li, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical science in FAU's Charles E...

Study Examines How Muscles Are Paralyzed While We Sleep

Date: Jul-24-2012
A new study, published in the July 18 edition of The Journal of Neuroscience, has discovered a way to help researchers gain a better understanding and to offer better treatment for sleep disorders, such as REM sleep behavior disorder, narcolepsy and tooth grinding. The study discovered that two powerful brain chemical systems work jointly to paralyze skeletal muscles during rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. During REM sleep, i.e...

U.S. Airports Ranked In Terms Of Their Spreading Influence In Disease Contagion

Date: Jul-24-2012
Public health crises of the past decade - such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, which spread to 37 countries and caused about 1,000 deaths, and the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic that killed about 300,000 people worldwide - have heightened awareness that new viruses or bacteria could spread quickly across the globe, aided by air travel...

Why Some Types Of Multitasking Whilst Driving Are More Dangerous Than Others

Date: Jul-24-2012
In a new study that has implications for distracted drivers, researchers found that people are better at juggling some types of multitasking than they are at others. Trying to do two visual tasks at once hurt performance in both tasks significantly more than combining a visual and an audio task, the research found. Alarmingly, though, people who tried to do two visual tasks at the same time rated their performance as better than did those who combined a visual and an audio task - even though their actual performance was worse...

Liver Function Micromanaged By MiR-122

Date: Jul-24-2012
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are endogenously encoded RNAs that regulate the stability or translation of mRNA molecules, and emerging research suggests that they have diverse roles in normal physiology and disease. In this issue, two groups investigated the role of the predominant liver miRNA, miR-122...

New FDA Recommendation On HIV And TB Drug Doses: UCSF/SFGH Researchers Call For Change

Date: Jul-24-2012
In January, 2012, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued new guidelines on dosing of an HIV medication used to treat people infected with both HIV and tuberculosis (TB) because of a potential interaction between two of the main drugs used to treat each disease. The drug rifampin, used for treating TB, can lower levels of the HIV medicine efavirenz, so the FDA recommended that patients who weigh more than 50 kg (110 pounds) and who are taking both medications should get 30 percent larger doses of efavirenz (an increase from 600 mg to 800 mg)...