Health News

Older Adults With Diabetes Live Long Enough To Benefit From Interventions And Research

Date: May-04-2012
Middle-aged and older adults with diabetes showed substantial survival rates in a new University of Michigan Health System study of retirees. Survival rates were strong even for adults living in nursing homes or who have multiple health issues like dementia and disabilities that make self-managed care for diabetes difficult. The findings were published in the Journal of Gerontology and revealed even older adults may benefit from interventions that can prevent or delay the complications of diabetes, which include poor vision, nerve damage, heart disease and kidney failure. "We went into this...

Novel Gene Important For Craniofacial Development Implicated In Facial Cleft Birth Defects

Date: May-04-2012
In the United States, a baby is born with a facial cleft every hour, of every day of the year! Such birth defects result from both gene mutations and environmental insults. PRDM16 is a transcription factor originally described as being aberrantly activated in specific types of leukemia's, and more recently as a master regulator of brown adipose tissue differentiation. In a study published in Experimental Biology and Medicine, investigators have now shown that this transcription co-factor plays a critical role in development of the embryonic palate. Mice lacking the gene for Prdm16 exhibit...

Wheelchair Breakdowns Becoming More Common, Reports AJPM&R

Date: May-04-2012
Wheelchair users with spinal cord injury (SCI) report very high rates of wheelchair breakdowns - and the problem is getting worse, suggests a study in American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (AJPM&R), the official journal of the Association of Academic Physiatrists, AJPM&R is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health. The study found that over 50 percent of wheelchair users experienced a breakdown in a six-month period, up from a previous report. "It is possible that this increase in the number of repairs is the result of a decrease in...

'Born Too Soon' Global Report Says US Lags Behind 130 Other Nations In Preterm Birth Rate

Date: May-04-2012
Preterm babies are born at a higher rate in the United States than in 130 other countries of the world, including many poorer nations, according to the just-released report 'Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth.' The report, containing the first-ever estimates of preterm birth rates by country, was published today by The March of Dimes Foundation, The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health, Save the Children, and The World Health Organization, and represents almost 50 United Nations agencies, universities, and organizations. The report ranks the U.S. 131st in the...

Drug Safety Monitoring Should Be Expanded After Approval

Date: May-04-2012
Pharmaceutical drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) but later re-called from the market - such as the antidiabetic drug Avandia and pain-reliever Vioxx - were the impetus for an Institute of Medicine committee report, recommending that the FDA take proactive steps to continue monitoring drugs' safety after initial approval and throughout their time on the market. One of the key recommendations made by the report, Ethical and Scientific Issues in Studying the Safety of Approved Drugs, is that upon approval, each drug have a single, comprehensive, publicly available Benefit...

New DNA-Based Chemical Sensor A Step Closer To An All-Electronic Nose

Date: May-04-2012
Chemical sensors are exceedingly good at detecting a single substance or a class of chemicals, even at highly rarified concentrations. Biological noses, however, are vastly more versatile and capable of discriminating subtle cues that would confound their engineered counterparts. Unfortunately, even highly trained noses do leave a certain ambiguity when relaying a signal and are not particularly suited for work in specialized situations like operating rooms. A new DNA-based chemical sensor appears to be both extremely sensitive and discerning, making it an important stride on the path to an...

Memantine Improves Some Alzheimer's Symptoms But Has No Effect On Agitation

Date: May-04-2012
A drug prescribed for Alzheimer's disease does not ease clinically significant agitation in patients, according to a new study conducted by researchers from the U.K., U.S. and Norway. This is the first randomized controlled trial designed to assess the effectiveness of the drug (generic name memantine) for significant agitation in Alzheimer's patients. Previous studies suggested memantine could help reduce agitation and improve cognitive functions such as memory. Led by the University of East Anglia in the U.K., the new research found that while memantine does improve cognitive functioning and...

Advanced Brain Imaging Technology Reveals Early Diagnostic Clues For Alzheimer's Disease

Date: May-04-2012
Alzheimer's Disease Main Category: Alzheimer's / Dementia Also Included In: Medical Devices / Diagnostics Article Date: 04 May 2012 - 1:00 PDT  email to a friend   printer friendly   opinions    rate article  Current ratings for: 'Advanced Brain Imaging Technology Reveals Early Diagnostic Clues For Alzheimer's Disease' Patient / Public: 5 (1 votes) Healthcare Prof: 1 (1 votes) Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a major neurodegenerative disorder that affects millions of people worldwide. New and accurate techniques for early diagnosis are critical. Pravat K. Mandal, PhD, and his...

Nanoparticle Drug Delivery Has Potential To Revive Abandoned Cancer Drug Wortmannin

Date: May-04-2012
Current nanomedicine research has focused on the delivery of established and novel therapeutics. But a UNC team is taking a different approach. They developed nanoparticle carriers to successfully deliver therapeutic doses of a cancer drug that had previously failed clinical development due to pharmacologic challenges. They reported their proof of principle findings in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Wortmannin is a drug that was highly promising as a cancer drug, but its successful preclinical studies did not translate into clinical efficacy...

Discovery Of Potential Trigger For Alzheimer's Disease

Date: May-04-2012
A highly toxic beta-amyloid - a protein that exists in the brains of Alzheimer's disease victims - has been found to greatly increase the toxicity of other more common and less toxic beta-amyloids, serving as a possible "trigger" for the advent and development of Alzheimer's, researchers at the University of Virginia and German biotech company Probiodrug have discovered. The finding, reported in the journal Nature, could lead to more effective treatments for Alzheimer's. Already, Probiodrug AG, based in Halle, Germany has completed phase 1 clinical trials in Europe with a small molecule that...