Health News

Fighting Multidrug-Resistant Bugs - Last Resort Drugs Being Used Increasingly

Date: May-18-2012
A study published in the open access journal PloS ONE reveals that the use of "last resort" antibiotics is on the rise due to the increasing prevalence of multidrug-resistant pathogens. Makoto Jones, of the Veterans Affairs Salt Lake City Health Care System, and colleagues conducted the study in order to investigate the use of two such antibiotics, tigecycline and polymyxins, in 127 Veterans Affairs Medical centers between 2005 and 2010. The researchers found that 26 centers accounted for 75% of all tigecycline use, and just 8 centers accounted for 75% of all polymyxin use. Although the...

Diabetes Population May Rise To 53 Million Within 13 Years In USA

Date: May-18-2012
By the year 2025, researchers predict that 53.1 million individuals in the United States will have diabetes (mainly type 2 diabetes) - a 64% increase from 2010. The study is published in Population Health Management Diabetes is a life long disease in which there are high levels of glucose in the blood. In type 1 diabetes the body does not produce insulin and in type 2 diabetes the body either produces insufficient amounts of insulin or ignores it. William Rowley, M.D., and Clement Bezold, Ph.D., Institute for Alternative Futures (Alexandria, VA) projected the dramatic increase using their...

Strict School Physical Education Laws Improve Children's Health

Date: May-18-2012
As childhood obesity and diabetes rates are skyrocketing in the US, many schools are eliminating physical education classes. A national study in the American Journal of Public Health reports that specific and required state legislation with regard to PE times could be a crucial tool to ensure that children meet the daily recommendations of physical activity. The investigators evaluated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's most recent School Health Policies and Programs Survey in order to establish whether public schools in states with specific and strict physical...

Weight Management And Dieting During Pregnancy Is Beneficial

Date: May-18-2012
A woman who is both over weight and pregnant faces double challenges, not least because many women who are not overweight struggle not to gain weight over the course of the nine month gestation period.  Pregnant women who are overweight or obese can have serious health risks including high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, diabetes and premature birth, but there is good news. A study published today on bmj.com shows that these risks can be mitigated by following a healthy calorie controlled diet over the course of the pregnancy. With the infamous cravings, this might prove more difficult in...

Heart Healthier Oat Variety Developed

Date: May-18-2012
Plant breeders of the Wisconsin-Madison University have developed a new oat variety called BetaGene, which is 2% higher in beta glucan and therefore even more cardio-friendly than other oat varieties on the market.  John Mochon, program manager of the Small Grains Breeding Program in UW-Madison's agronomy department explains: "The biggest thing that stands out about this new variety, BetaGene, is that it's both a high yielding variety and high in beta glucan. Beta glucan is a heart-healthy chemical that is exclusive to oats." On average, BetaGene is 2% higher in beta glucan than other oat...

Molecule That Prevents Heart Damage is Also Proving Its Worth In Diabetic Patients

Date: May-18-2012
ACE2, a molecule that has been shown to prevent damage in the heart, is now proving to be protective of the major organs that are often damaged in diabetic patients. Gavin Oudit, a researcher with the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, and his colleagues at the University of Florida, found that lab models that lacked ACE2 had worse cardiovascular complications related to diabetes. "We show that if you take ACE2 away, they [lab models of diabetes] do very poorly," said Oudit. "It worsened their heart function and their vascular function."In patients, if you have high levels of ACE2 in your...

Women At Risk Of Post Natal Depression May Be Identified By Blood Test

Date: May-18-2012
Researchers at Warwick Medical School have discovered a way of identifying which women are most at risk of postnatal depression (PND) by checking for specific genetic variants. The findings could lead to the development of a simple, accurate blood test which checks for the likelihood of developing the condition. Presenting the research to the International Congress of Endocrinology/European Congress of Endocrinology, Professor Dimitris Grammatopoulos, Professor of Molecular Medicine at the University of Warwick, said that approximately one in seven women who give birth suffer from PND, which...

Animal Sampling For Ebola Should Focus On Carcasses

Date: May-18-2012
Response efforts to outbreaks of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Africa can benefit from a standardized sampling strategy that focuses on the carcasses of gorillas, chimpanzees and other species known to succumb to the virus, according to a consortium of wildlife health experts. In a recently published study of 14 previous human Ebola outbreaks and the responses of wildlife teams collecting animal samples, the authors of the new study conclude that most efforts to collect samples from live animals (i.e. rodents, bats, primates, birds) failed to isolate Ebola virus or antibodies. However, they found...

For Medication Disposal, New Advice Is Trash Beats Take-Back

Date: May-18-2012
Returning extra medicine to the pharmacy for disposal might not be worth the extra time, money or greenhouse gas emissions, according to a University of Michigan study that is the first to look at the net effects of so-called take-back programs. The new evidence suggests that discarding unused drugs in the trash is a better option to limit the risk of poisoning and at the same time curb pollution of both water and air. To arrive at this conclusion, the researchers compared the total emissions created by take-back, trash and toilet disposal methods. This included emissions of pharmaceutical...

Gene Therapy Helps Children With Rare, Incurable Brain Disease

Date: May-18-2012
Using gene transfer techniques pioneered by University of Florida faculty, Taiwanese doctors have restored some movement in four children bedridden with a rare, life-threatening neurological disease. The first-in-humans achievement may also be helpful for more common diseases such as Parkinson's that involve nerve cell damage caused by lack of a crucial molecule in brain tissue. The results are reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine. The children in the study, who ranged in age from 4 to 6, inherited a rare disease known as aromatic L-amino acid decarboxylase deficiency, or...