Health News

What Is Otoplasty?

Date: Jun-19-2012
Otoplasty is the surgical reshaping of the outer ear, to correct either deformities or make them look better. Otyoplasty can be either a cosmetic or reconstructive procedure. Pinning back prominent ears is an example of cosmetic otoplasty, while surgery to build up the outer ear after injury is an example of reconstructive otoplasty. Otoplasty more commonly occurs during childhood, but can be done on patients of any age. According to Medilexicon's medical dictionary, Otoplasty is: "Constructive or reparative plastic surgery of the ear...

Tiny Vitamin In Milk Makes For Mightier Mice

Date: Jun-19-2012
A new study reveals that giving mice high doses of a tiny, newly-found relative of vitamin B3 that is present naturally in milk makes them leaner, faster and stronger and less prone to chronic illnesses like obesity and diabetes, even when fed on a high-fat diet. However, the researchers cautioned this does not mean it would do the same for humans: only further studies would show if this was the case...

Abnormal Gene Product Associated With Prostate Cancer Generated By Unusual Mechanism

Date: Jun-19-2012
Researchers have identified a potential new pathway in prostate cancer cells by which cancer-driving gene products can be generated, according to a study published in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. "Our work shows that cancers have many more tricks than we thought to generate potential cancer-driving genes or gene products," said Hui Li, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and a recipient of an Innovative Research Grant from Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C)...

Zebrafish Provide Insight Into Melanoma

Date: Jun-19-2012
A transparent member of the minnow family is providing researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City with insight into human melanoma - a form of skin cancer - that may lead to new or repurposed drug treatments, for skin and other cancers. The experiments are being reported at the "Model Organisms to Human Biology: Cancer Genetics" Meeting, June 17-20, 2012, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., which is sponsored by the Genetics Society of America...

Increase In Hospitalizations For Children With High Blood Pressure

Date: Jun-19-2012
Hospitalizations for children with high blood pressure and related charges dramatically increased during 10 years ending in 2006, according to a study published in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension. This nationally-based study is the first in which researchers examined hypertension hospitalizations in children. While researchers expected a rise in hospitalizations due to the increased frequency of high blood pressure in children, "the economic burden created by inpatient childhood high blood pressure was surprising," said Cheryl Tran, M.D...

MRI Images Show What The Brain Looks Like When You Do Something You Know You Shouldn't

Date: Jun-19-2012
New pictures from the University of Iowa show what it looks like when a person runs out of patience and loses self-control. A study by University of Iowa neuroscientist and neuro-marketing expert William Hedgcock confirms previous studies that show self-control is a finite commodity that is depleted by use. Once the pool has dried up, we're less likely to keep our cool the next time we're faced with a situation that requires self-control. But Hedgcock's study is the first to actually show it happening in the brain using fMRI images that scan people as they perform self-control tasks...

University Of Maryland Researchers Detail 2010 Haitian Cholera

Date: Jun-19-2012
A new study by an international team of scientists led by researchers from the Institute for Genome Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and CosmosIDTM Inc., College Park, have found two distinct strains of cholera bacteria may have contributed to the 2010 Haitian cholera outbreak. The team published its results June 18, 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)...

Complications Related To Bariatric Procedures Reduced By Minimally Invasive Surgery

Date: Jun-19-2012
A study by researchers at Stanford University Medical Center has found that a popular weight-loss operation is safer and reduces hospital bills when done with minimally invasive techniques rather than open surgery, which requires a large abdominal incision. The authors say that, to their knowledge, this is the first time the open and minimally invasive approaches have been compared at a national level...

High-Cost And High-Capacity Highways Of The Brain

Date: Jun-19-2012
A new study proposes a communication routing strategy for the brain that mimics the American highway system, with the bulk of the traffic leaving the local and feeder neural pathways to spend as much time as possible on the longer, higher-capacity passages through an influential network of hubs, the so-called rich club...

Living Alone Puts People With Heart Problems At Risk For Death

Date: Jun-19-2012
According to the United States Census Bureau, approximately one in seven American adults live alone. Social isolation and lack of social support have been linked to poor health outcomes. Now a new study at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) shows that living alone may be a risk factor for death, especially death due to cardiovascular problems, such as heart attack and stroke. The study is the first to prospectively compare the cardiovascular risk of living alone in an international outpatient population. It will be published online in Archives of Internal Medicine...