Health News

Autoimmunity In Rheumatoid Arthritis Tempered By Regulatory Immune Cell Diversity

Date: May-10-2012
Untangling the root cause of rheumatoid arthritis has been a difficult task for immunologists, as decades of research has pointed to multiple culprits in our immune system, with contradictory lines of evidence. Now, researchers at The Wistar Institute announce that it takes a diverse array of regulatory T cells (a specialized subset of white blood cells) to prevent the immune system from generating the tissue-specific inflammation that is a hallmark of the disease. Regulatory T cell diversity, the researchers say, provides a cumulative protective effect against rheumatoid arthritis. When that...

A New Abused Drug Is Methoxetamine (MXE), Sold On The Internet As A "Legal" Alternative To Ketamine

Date: May-10-2012
A group of researchers from the IMIM (Hospital del Mar Research Institute) and from the INAD (Hospital del Mar Neuropsychiatry and Addictions Institute) has participated in an international study aiming to give a general overview at a chemical, pharmacological and behavioural level of a recently appeared new chemical compound, according to the Recreational Drugs European Network, as a new abused drug: methoxetamine (MXE). This new drug, similar to ketamine, is a dissociative drug, meaning it distorts visual and auditory perceptions making one feel separated or "dissociated" from the...

Heart Attack Victims Need Guidance From Their Doctor Regarding A Return To Sexual Activity

Date: May-10-2012
Patients who were sexually active before suffering a heart attack were one and a half times more likely to recapture their sex lives if they received guidance on the topic before leaving the hospital, a new study finds. While it's no surprise that sexual activity tends to decline slightly for both men and women during the year following a heart attack, or acute myocardial infarction (AMI), researchers found that many patients who said they did not get medical counsel prior to hospital discharge either unnecessarily delayed or refrained from sex. In a survey of 1,879 heart attack patients, less...

Source Of Norovirus Outbreak Traced To Reusable Grocery Bag

Date: May-10-2012
Oregon investigators recently mapped the trail of an outbreak of a nasty stomach bug among participants in a girls' soccer tournament to a reusable open top grocery bag stored in a hotel bathroom. Their findings, which illustrate the role that inanimate objects can play in spreading norovirus infection, appear in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. Noroviruses are a leading cause of gastroenteritis worldwide and the most common cause of foodborne outbreaks in the United States. Highly contagious, even in low concentrations, the viruses spread efficiently from feces and vomit by direct contact...

Vibration Powers Portable Diagnostics

Date: May-10-2012
As medical researchers and engineers try to shrink diagnostics to fit in a person's pocket, one question is how to easily move and mix small samples of liquid. University of Washington researchers have built and patented a surface that, when shaken, moves drops along certain paths to conduct medical or environmental tests. "This allows us to move drops as far as we want, and in any kind of layout that we want," said Karl Böhringer, a UW professor of electrical engineering and bioengineering. The low-cost system, published in a recent issue of the journal Advanced Materials, would require very...

Fashion Anti-Malaria Garment That Wards Off Bugs

Date: May-10-2012
A Cornell University scientist and designer from Africa have together created a fashionable hooded bodysuit* embedded at the molecular level with insecticides for warding off mosquitoes infected with malaria, a disease estimated to kill 655,000 people annually on the continent. Though insecticide-treated nets are commonly used to drive away mosquitoes from African homes, the Cornell prototype garment can be worn throughout the day to provide extra protection and does not dissipate easily like skin-based repellants. By binding repellant and fabric at the nanolevel using metal organic framework...

Studies Impact Dental Stem Cell Research For Therapeutic Purposes

Date: May-10-2012
Two studies appearing in a recent issue of Cell Transplantation (20:11-12), now freely available on-line*, evaluate stem cells derived from dental tissues for characteristics that may make them therapeutically useful and appropriate for transplantation purposes. 1. Induced pluripotent stem cells from immature dental pulp stem cells A Brazilian and American team of researchers used human immature dental pulp stem cells (IDPSCs) as an alternative source for creating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), stem cells that can be derived from several kinds of adult tissues. According to the study...

An Asian's Unique Physiology Is Key To Diagnosing And Treating Diabetes

Date: May-10-2012
As the diabetes epidemic spreads worldwide, there is growing concern for Asian American populations, who are nearly twice as likely to develop diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes. Compounding the problem, many of the standard ways to detect diabetes fail in people of Asian descent. "The medical profession needs to be aware of and address the unique characteristics of this population," said George L. King, M.D., Chief Scientific Officer at Joslin Diabetes Center and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). "Without this understanding, diabetes could be misdiagnosed or missed...

Pre-Pregnancy Obesity Linked To Lower Test Scores In Offspring

Date: May-10-2012
Women who are obese before they become pregnant are at higher risk of having children with lower cognitive function - as measured by math and reading tests taken between ages 5 to 7 years - than are mothers with a healthy pre-pregnancy weight, new research suggests. In this large observational study, pre-pregnancy obesity was associated, on average, with a three-point drop in reading scores and a two-point reduction in math scores on a commonly used test of children's cognitive function. Previous research has suggested that a woman's pre-pregnancy obesity can have a negative effect on fetal...

Viagra May Benefit Cardiac Function In Young Patients With Heart Defects

Date: May-10-2012
Sildenafil, also known as the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, may give a boost to underdeveloped hearts in children and young adults with congenital heart defects. Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia report that sildenafil significantly improved echocardiographic measures of heart function in children and young adult survivors of single ventricle heart disease palliation. "Although researchers will need to evaluate clinical benefits over a longer period with a larger number of patients, this finding offers a potential advance in the management of patients with these...