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Body Image/Self Perception: Training Our Brains To See Ourselves In A More Attractive Light

Date: May-24-2012
Researchers at the Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology have designed a programme called Mirate bien (Take a good look at yourself). It is a tool designed to enable us to learn to love our bodies and faces; and to improve our physical self-concept. Initiatives of this kind are routinely applied at educational establishments and high schools, but in this case there is a difference. The students participating in the programme are not asked to do any kind of physical activity. It is the cognitive side that has to be trained here: to restructure our perceptions so that we have a...

Mutation Found In Half Of All Prostate Cancers May Lead To Disease Development And Other Cancers

Date: May-24-2012
Up to half of all prostate cancer cells have a chromosomal rearrangement that results in a new "fusion" gene and formation of its unique protein - but no one has known how that alteration promotes cancer growth. Now, Weill Cornell Medical College researchers have found that in these cancer cells, the 3-D architecture of DNA, wrapped up in a little ball known as a chromatin, is warped in such a way that a switch has been thrown on thousands of genes, turning them on or off to promote abnormal, unchecked growth. Researchers also found that new chromosomal translocations form, further...

In Alzheimer's Disease, Neuron-Nourishing Cells Appear To Retaliate

Date: May-24-2012
When brain cells start oozing too much of the amyloid protein that is the hallmark of Alzheimer's disease, the astrocytes that normally nourish and protect them deliver a suicide package instead, researchers report. Amyloid is excreted by all neurons, but rates increase with aging and dramatically accelerate in Alzheimer's. Astrocytes, which deliver blood, oxygen and nutrients to neurons in addition to hauling off some of their garbage, get activated and inflamed by excessive amyloid. Now researchers have shown another way astrocytes respond is by packaging the lipid ceramide with the protein...

Mental Health Drug Research Presented At Major Psychiatric Meeting Concentrates On Positive Results

Date: May-24-2012
When thousands of psychiatrists attend their field's largest annual meeting each year, the presentations they hear about research into drug treatments report overwhelmingly on positive results. That's the finding of a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology by two young psychiatrists from the University of Michigan and Yale University, who analyzed the presentations given at two recent meetings of the American Psychiatric Association. Of 278 studies presented at the 2009 and 2010 APA meetings that compared at least two medicines against each other for any psychiatric...

Risk Of Cognitive Decline And Dementia In The Elderly And Alcohol Intake

Date: May-24-2012
Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other types of dementia are most common in the very elderly, and are associated with huge health costs. With a rapidly ageing population throughout the world, factors that affect the risk of cognitive decline and dementia are of great importance. A review paper by Kim JW et al published in Psychiatry Investig 2012;9:8-16 on the association between alcohol consumption and cognition in the elderly provides an excellent summary of the potential ways in which alcohol may affect cognitive function and the risk of dementia, both adversely and favourably as alcohol may...

Researchers Develop New Brain Map

Date: May-24-2012
University of Georgia researchers have developed a map of the human brain that shows great promise as a new guide to the inner workings of the body's most complex and critical organ. With this map, researchers hope to create a next-generation brain atlas that will be an alternative option to the atlas created by German anatomist Korbinian Brodmann more than 100 years ago, which is still commonly used in clinical and research settings. Tianming Liu, assistant professor of computer science in the UGA Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, and his students Dajiang Zhu and Kaiming Li identified...

Potential Benefits Of Novel Leukemia Treatment

Date: May-24-2012
Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center may be one step closer to developing a new therapy for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) after discovering that the targeted agents obatoclax and sorafenib kill leukemia cells much more effectively when combined than when the drugs are administered individually. Recently published in the journal Blood, the results of a study led by Steven Grant, M.D., Shirley Carter Olsson and Sture Gordon Olsson Chair in Oncology Research, associate director for translational research and program co-leader of Developmental Therapeutics at VCU...

New Assay To Help In The Diagnosis Of Mastocytosis Approved By FDA

Date: May-24-2012
The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new test to help physicians diagnose a group of rare cell disorders. The test, or assay, was developed by an expert at Virginia Commonwealth University in the field of mast cells. Lawrence Schwartz, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Immunology and the Charles and Evelyn Thomas Professor of Medicine at VCU, has spent more than 30 years researching mast cells. These cells are vital to the inflammatory process within the body and may play protective roles in wound healing and fighting infections. "When a mast cell is...

What Is Adrenal Fatigue? What Causes Adrenal Fatigue?

Date: May-24-2012
Adrenal Fatigue, also known as adrenal apathy, is said to affect millions of people around the globe, and yet surprisingly it is still as of today not considered a conventional medical illness. Symptoms of adrenal fatigue cannot precisely be explained by general practitioners, since there is no scientific evidence supporting the concept. Most people will experience an episode of adrenal fatigue at least once in their lifetime - mainly due to an illness, a personal crisis, or a difficult economical or financial situation. According to people who say adrenal fatigue does exist, it can affect...

Before And During Pregnancy, Excess Maternal Weight Can Result In Larger Babies

Date: May-24-2012
Excess weight in pregnant women, both before pregnancy and gained during pregnancy, is the main predictor of whether mothers will have larger than average babies, which can result in increased risk of cesarean section or trauma during delivery, states a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). Women with diabetes in pregnancy or gestational diabetes are at increased risk of having a large-for-gestational-age baby. Called macrosomia, it is defined as an infant whose weight is above the 90th percentile of Canadian fetal growth curves, or more than 4 kg. Current clinical...