Health News

Master Regulator Protein Brings Plethora Of Coactivators To Gene Expression Sites

Date: Jul-01-2012
Molecular geneticists call big boss proteins that switch on broad developmental or metabolic programs "master regulators," as in master regulators of muscle development or fat metabolism. One such factor, the Activating Transcription Factor 6α (ATF6α) protein, takes charge following a cellular crisis known as endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress, which is triggered by the accumulation of misfolded and aggregated proteins. Molecularly, the ER stress pathway is always poised for action...

Lung Diseases Leading Cause Of Death, Most People Don't Know

Date: Jul-01-2012
Despite lung disease killing 4 million people every year, the Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) revealed alarming data showing that most people are ignorant about lung disease, which kills more people than any other disease worldwide. The data was released to coincide with World Spirometry Day. Market research agency, YouGov's study cross four continents demonstrated that regardless of the high prevalence of lung disease, people are far more concerned about cancer, heart disease and stroke. Spriometry is a kind of lung-function (pulmonary function) test...

Intravenous Oxygen Injection For Patients Who Cannot Breathe

Date: Jul-01-2012
An injection that delivers oxygen directly into the bloodstream for patients who cannot breathe has been invented by scientists at Boston Children's Hospital, according a report published in Science Translational Medicine. The authors explained that when patients suffer from an obstructed airway or acute lung failure, they urgently need oxygen to reach their blood, otherwise they have brain injury or suffer from cardiac arrest...

Communicating With People Described As Being In An Unconscious, Vegetative State

Date: Jul-01-2012
Researchers have come up with a device that may enable people who are completely unable to speak or move at all to nevertheless manage unscripted back-and-forth conversation. The key to such silent and still communication is the first real-time, brain-scanning speller, according to the report published online on June 28 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. The new technology builds on groundbreaking earlier uses of fMRI brain scans to assess consciousness in people described as being in an unconscious, vegetative state and to enable them to answer yes and no questions...

Critical To The Control Of Influenza Are Both Innate And Adaptive Immune Responses

Date: Jul-01-2012
Both innate and adaptive immune responses play an important role in controlling influenza virus infection, according to a study, published in the Open Access journal PLoS Computational Biology, by researchers from Oakland University, Michigan, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, New Mexico, USA. Influenza, as a contagious respiratory illness remains a major public health problem worldwide. Seasonal and pandemic influenza results in approximately 3 to 569 million cases of severe illness and approximately 250,000 to 500,000 deaths worldwide...

Revisiting Scott's Polar Trek Towards Starvation

Date: Jul-01-2012
On the centenary of Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole, a study to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on Sunday 1st July has shown that Scott's men starved to death because they were consuming far too few calories to fuel their daily exertion. The researchers, environmental physiologist Dr Lewis Halsey of the University of Roehampton and polar explorer and physician Dr Mike Stroud, examined the voyage in light of today's knowledge of nutrition and how our bodies respond to extreme exercise, cold, and high altitude...

Metal-On-Metal Hip Implants - Few Reasons To Carry On Using Them, FDA Panel Says

Date: Jul-01-2012
An 18-member panel of experts was asked by the FDA to review metal-on-metal hip implants - on Thursday they said they saw little evidence to recommend surgeons continue using them. There is growing evidence that after being implanted, they are more likely to break down, exposing patients to the hazards of metallic particles exposure...

HIV - Bacterial Vaginosis Linked To Greater Female-to-Male Transmission

Date: Jun-30-2012
Women with bacterial vaginosis are much more likely to transmit HIV to males than other females, researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, reported in PLoS Medicine. The risk is three times greater, the authors added. Bacterial vaginosis (BV), also known as vaginal bacteriosis, is a condition in which the vagina's normal balance of naturally occurring microorganisms in the vaginal flora has changed, so that the 'good' bacteria are reduced and the harmful bacteria increase. About 50% of all females with bacterial vaginosis are asymptomatic - they have no symptoms...

Type 1 Diabetes Prevented In Animal Study

Date: Jun-30-2012
Researchers from the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, managed to prevent Type 1 Diabetes onset in genetically susceptible mice, according to an article published in Diabetes. The scientists explain that they injected the mice with specifically prepared cells, which stopped their immune systems from destroying the pancreatic beta cells - cells that produce insulin - just in time. Type 1 diabetes occurs when the body's immune system attacks and destroys the insulin-producing beta cells as if they were harmful pathogens - the immune system confuses them for alien bodies that cause harm...

Man Who Chewed Another Man's Face Had Only Marijuana

Date: Jun-30-2012
Rudy Eugene, who in in May 26th, 2012, attacked a man and chewed much of his face, did not have "bath salts" in his system but only marijuana, according to toxicology reports. Eugene was shot and killed while he assaulted Ronald Poppo. He had stripped himself nude, beaten up Poppo until he was unconscious, taken the man's pants off, and chewed off 75% of his face, including one eye, according to police. Rudy Eugene was dubbed the Miami cannibal attack man, the Miami Zombie, as well as the Causeway Cannibal...