Health News

Lungs Hold 50% Of Inhaled Diesel Soot

Date: Jul-02-2012
Diesel-powered vehicles, coal-driven power stations, and wood fires all produce small particles of soot that are released into the atmosphere, which pollute the air and affect the climate, but they also present a danger to human health. The Journal of Aerosol Science has recently published the first in-depth study on 10 healthy volunteers to establish how diesel soot gets stuck in people's lungs...

Chronic Pain Predicted By Brain's Emotional Response

Date: Jul-02-2012
For the first time scientists have followed a group of people with the same new back injury over time and found brain scans of those who go on to have chronic back pain, appear to show a different pattern in the region that handles emotional responses. They suggest their discovery, which relies on fMRI scans to detect early brain changes, may serve to predict which patients are at higher risk for chronic pain, and help develop drugs to prevent it...

FMRI Brain Scanner Reads Thoughts Letter By Letter

Date: Jul-02-2012
Scientists have found a way to use fMRI brain scans to read thoughts letter by letter in real time. They suggest their "brain-scanning speller" has potential for helping paralysed people who can't move or speak, such as those with so-called "locked-in syndrome", to have a conversation. Bettina Sorger of Maastricht University in The Netherlands and colleagues report their work in the 28 June online issue of Current Biology...

Over The Past 4 Years, Spending On Children's Health Rose Faster Than Adults

Date: Jul-02-2012
Spending on health care for children grew faster than spending for adults between 2007 and 2010 due to increasing prices for all categories of goods and services, finds a new report from the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI). This rise in spending occurred despite a decline in number of commercially insured children and a drop in the use of costly health care services, such as hospital stays and brand-name drugs, says the Children's Health Care Spending Report: 2007-2010...

Medicare Concerns About Paying For CT Colonography Resolved By Study

Date: Jul-02-2012
A new study of 1,400 Medicare-aged patients reinforces CT colonography as a screening tool for colon cancer, adding to the continued debate over Medicare coverage of the procedure. In 2009, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicated that CT colonography would not be covered, in part, because outcomes data specific to the Medicare population was not available. "Our study answers several of the questions Medicare asked about this procedure," said Brooks Cash, MD, one of the authors of the study...

You'd Be Amazed At How Much You Can Learn From A Plant

Date: Jul-02-2012
In a paper publishedin the journal Science, a Michigan State University professor and a colleague discuss why if humans are to survive as a species, we must turn more to plants for any number of valuable lessons. "Metabolism of plants provides humans with fiber, fuel, food and therapeutics," said Robert Last, an MSU professor of biochemistry and molecular biology. "As the human population grows and nonrenewable energy sources diminish, we need to rely increasingly on plants and to increase the sustainability of agriculture...

Rapamycin Raises Cognition Throughout Life Span In Mouse Model

Date: Jul-02-2012
Cognitive skills such as learning and memory diminish with age in everyone, and the drop-off is steepest in Alzheimer's disease. Texas scientists seeking a way to prevent this decline reported exciting results this week with a drug that has Polynesian roots. The researchers, appointed in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio, added rapamycin to the diet of healthy mice throughout the rodents' life span...

Study Identifies Pathway To Enhance Usefulness Of EGFR Inhibitors In Lung Cancer Treatment

Date: Jul-02-2012
Many lung cancers are driven by mutations in the epidermal growth-factor receptor (EGFR), and so it makes sense that many successful modern treatments block EGFR activity. Unfortunately, cancers inevitably evolve around EGFR inhibition, and patients with lung cancers eventually relapse...

Celiac Disease Underdiagnosis In US May Be Due To Too Few Biopsies

Date: Jul-02-2012
Under-performance of small bowel biopsy during endoscopy may be a major reason that celiac disease remains underdiagnosed in the United States, according to a new study published online recently in Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. Investigators at the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) found that the rate of small bowel biopsy is low in this country...

Role Of FOXO1 Gene In Parkinson's Disease Identified

Date: Jul-02-2012
A recent study led by researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) revealed that the FOXO1 gene may play an important role in the pathological mechanisms of Parkinson's disease. These findings are published online in PLoS Genetics, a peer-reviewed open-access journal published by the Public Library of Science. The study was led by Alexandra Dumitriu, PhD, a postdoctoral associate in the department of neurology at BUSM. Richard Myers, PhD, professor of neurology at BUSM, is the study's senior author...