Health News

Stress As Risk Factor For Alzheimer's Under Investigation

Date: Jun-26-2012
A UK research team is poised to begin a new study funded by the Alzheimer's Society to investigate chronic stress as a risk factor for developing dementia. Anne Corbett, research manager for the Society told the press on Tuesday that the researchers, who will be led by Clive Holmes, Professor of Biological Psychiatry at the University of Southampton, will be investigating the role that chronic stress plays in the progression of Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) to Alzheimer's Disease...

Smartphone App Improves Ovarian Tumor Database

Date: Jun-26-2012
When surgeons complete an operation, they often have to go away and immediately fill in records to upload to databases for programs that are tracking patient and disease outcomes to help current and future research and inform treatment decisions. Now thanks to a new smartphone app, ovarian cancer surgeons in British Columbia in Canada can enter and upload tumor data directly from the operating theatre...

Common Diabetes Drugs Associated With Increased Risk Of Death

Date: Jun-26-2012
Compared to another popular drug, three widely used diabetes medications are associated with a greater risk of death, a large new analysis finds. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. The drugs, glipizide, glyburide, and glimepiride, are known as sulfonylureas, which help decrease blood-sugar levels among type 2 diabetes patients by stimulating the pancreas to produce insulin. In the past, these medications were considered comparable to one another in terms of effectiveness and safety...

New Cancer Vaccines Offer Hope To Millions

Date: Jun-26-2012
At present, Provenge - for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer - is the only cancer vaccine on the market and is only available in the United States. However, healthcare business analysts, GlobalData, predict that over the next six years there will be a significant increase in cancer vaccines. Although there are interesting developments in both the prophylactic* and the therapeutic sectors of the cancer vaccine market, the developments in the therapeutic sector offer the most inspiring innovations...

Swine Flu Deaths In 2009 Topped Quarter Million, Study

Date: Jun-26-2012
Deaths worldwide from the 2009 influenza H1N1 "swine flu" pandemic are likely to be nearer 280,000, some 15 times more than the 18,500 reported from confirmed lab tests, suggests a new study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases this week. For the study, led by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers developed a new model using flu data from 12 low, middle, and high income countries. The figures they used were based on flu diagnosed from patients' symptoms and not from lab tests...

Complications Following Cardiac, Vascular Surgeries Lead To 3-Fold Increase In Acute Dialysis

Date: Jun-26-2012
There has been a three-fold increase in the number of patients receiving acute dialysis because of injury after cardiac and vascular surgeries since 1995, states a new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Acute kidney injury is a serious complication after surgery and can lead to death or result in compromised quality of life for people who do survive. Researchers conducted a large study of 552 672 patients in Ontario who had elective major surgery at 118 hospitals between 1995 and 2009 to understand trends in acute dialysis...

Breast Cancer Risk May Be Reduced By Exercise, Even Mild Physical Activity

Date: Jun-26-2012
A new analysis has found that physical activity - either mild or intense and before or after menopause - may reduce breast cancer risk, but substantial weight gain may negate these benefits. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings indicate that women can reduce their breast cancer risk by exercising and maintaining their weight. While studies have shown that physical activity reduces breast cancer risk, many questions remain...

Weight Gain Linked To Vitamin D Deficiency In Older Women

Date: Jun-26-2012
Females aged 65 or more with low Vitamin D levels are more likely to gain weight than their counterparts with adequate levels, researchers from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Oregon, reported in the Journal of Women's Health. The authors explained that their study, involving 4,659 elderly women (65+ years) who were monitored for 4.5 years, found a 2.1 lbs (1 kilogram) higher weight gain among those with low Vitamin D blood levels...

HIV-Positive Young Men And Low Bone Density Risk

Date: Jun-26-2012
According to a study by a research network supported by the National Institutes of Health, young men being treated for HIV are more likely to have low bone mass than other males their age. Low bone mass is widely known to result in a higher risk for bone fractures. Conclusions suggest that physicians who treat these patients should closely monitor them for signs of bone thinning. Other studies done before have shown that adults who are HIV positive with bone loss are also at an increased risk for bone fractures, due partly to their use of certain anti-HIV medications...

EEG Test To Identify Autism In Children

Date: Jun-26-2012
The number of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has recently increased to one in 100. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine demonstrates that EEG can distinguish between children with autism and neurotypical controls. Autistic children showed a reduction in short range connectivity indicating poor function of local brain networks, especially in the left hemisphere regions responsible for language. However these children had increased connectivity between regions that were further apart indicating a compensatory mechanism...