Health News

CT Scans Raise Cancer Risk For Children

Date: Jun-07-2012
With MRI scans becoming cheaper and more common, perhaps the days of the CT scan that does a similar function using X-Rays rather than magnetic fields, are numbered. A report shows that the cancer risk from CT scans, especially Brain Cancer and Leukemia can triple in some cases...

Visual Perception Improved With Magnetic Stimulation

Date: Jun-07-2012
Researchers have successfully improved the visual perception of a group of healthy individuals by using a non-invasive technique called transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS). The study, led by Antoni Valero-Cabré from the Centre de Recherche de l'Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle Epinière (CNRS / Inserm / UPMC), is published in the journal PLoS ONE. The researchers used TMS to send magnetic pulses to a region of the right cerebral hemisphere in the brain known as the frontal eye field...

Industrial And Natural Trans Fats Impact On Health - New Insights

Date: Jun-07-2012
Researchers in Canada have gained new insights into the how different types of trans fats impact health. Their findings add to new knowledge on a special 'family' of natural trans fats that are produced by animals, such as sheep, goats, and cattle, and found in the milk and meat from these animals. According to the researchers, these natural ruminant trans fats are different to industrial trans fats as they are not harmful and may potentially improve health. Dr...

Childhood Cancer Survivors Have High Risk Of Gastrointestinal Cancers Later On

Date: Jun-07-2012
Individuals who survive cancer before age 21 are nearly 5 times more likely to subsequently develop gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, researchers from the University of Chicago Medicine reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Although there was some preliminary evidence that individuals who survive cancer during childhood are more likely to develop GI cancers at an earlier age, this study is the first to focus on a range of pediatric cancers with examination of detailed treatment information including radiation and chemotherapy exposures. Tara Henderson, M.D, M.P...

Tricking Blind Person's Brain Into Thinking It Is Seeing Things

Date: Jun-07-2012
Researchers have discovered how a visual prosthetic device could stimulate the brain to generate mental images - the blind person could wear eyeglasses with a tiny webcam that transmits data to a computer chip which is implanted in the brain. The researchers, from the University of Texas Health Science Center and Baylor College of Medicine published their research in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The study, conducted by Michael Beauchamp, Ph.D., and Daniel Yoshor, M.D., involved three patients aged 18 to 47 who were being treated for epilepsy at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital...

Fish Oils Do Not Reduce Gestational Diabetes And Preeclampsia Risk

Date: Jun-07-2012
Taking DHA-enriched fish oils during the second half of pregnancy does not lower the risk of developing preeclampsia or gestational diabetes, researchers from Adelaide University, Australia, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The authors explained that experts have long been unsure about what the effect of increasing the intake of fish oils - n-3 long-chain PUFA (LCPUFA) - might be in reducing pregnancy complications, such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes mellitus...

Are We Drinking Too Much Water?

Date: Jun-07-2012
Our bodies need about two litres of fluids per day, not two litres of water specifically. In an Editorial in the June issue of Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, Spero Tsindos from La Trobe University, examined why we consume so much water. Mr Tsindos believes that encouraging people to drink more water is driven by vested interests, rather than a need for better health. "Thirty years ago you didn't see a plastic water bottle anywhere, now they appear as fashion accessories...

Neuroscientists Show How The Brain Responds To Sensual Caress

Date: Jun-07-2012
A nuzzle of the neck, a stroke of the wrist, a brush of the knee - these caresses often signal a loving touch, but can also feel highly aversive, depending on who is delivering the touch, and to whom. Interested in how the brain makes connections between touch and emotion, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered that the association begins in the brain's primary somatosensory cortex, a region that, until now, was thought only to respond to basic touch, not to its emotional quality...

Increase In Hip And Knee Replacement Surgery Puts Strain On Critical Care Services

Date: Jun-07-2012
Roughly 3 percent of patients who undergo total hip and knee replacement surgery require critical care services before they are discharged from the hospital, according to an analysis of roughly half a million patients. The study, published online in advance of print in the July issue of the journal Anesthesiology, demonstrates that these elective surgeries are placing an increasing burden on the critical care services of the health care system and hospitals should respond proactively...

Innovative Fluorescence Imaging Helps Surgeons Remove Just The Tumor, Rather Than The Whole Kidney

Date: Jun-07-2012
A surgical technology called Firefly is shedding new light on kidney cancers and helping doctors at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital remove tumors more safely and more efficiently while sparing the rest of the healthy kidney. "The addition of Firefly fluorescence during robotic surgery improves our ability to remove kidney tumors when before we might have had to remove the whole kidney," said Keith Kowalczyk, MD, urologist and robotic surgeon...