Health News

The brain's mechanism knows when to stop drinking water

Date: Mar-28-2014
Our brains are hardwired to stop us drinking more water than is healthy, according to a new brain imaging study led by The University Of Melbourne and the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health.The study found a 'stop mechanism' that determined brain signals telling the individual to stop drinking water when no longer thirsty, and the brain effects of drinking more water than required.

New approach to spine surgery dramatically improves safety

Date: Mar-28-2014
A new team approach has improved safety - reducing rates of major complications by two thirds - for complex spinal reconstructive surgery for spinal deformity in adult Group Health patients at Virginia Mason Hospital & Seattle Medical Center.

Neighboring cells alerted to protect themselves by dying cells in fruit fly

Date: Mar-28-2014
Cells usually self-destruct when irreparable glitches occur in their DNA. Programmed cell death, or apoptosis, helps insure that cells with damaged DNA do not grow and replicate to produce more mutated cells. Apoptosis thereby helps protect and insure the survival of the organism.At the GSA Drosophila Research Conference, TinTin Su, Ph.D., will report that a dying Drosophila melanogaster larvae cell alerts neighboring cells that they are in danger of suffering a similar fate.Dr.

Success of vertical sleeve gastrectomy linked to gut metabolism changes, not stomach size

Date: Mar-28-2014
It's not the size of the stomach that causes weight loss after a specific type of bariatric surgery, but rather a change in the gut metabolism, say researchers from the University of Cincinnati (UC), the University of Gothenburg in Sweden and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.The scientists, publishing their results in the advanced online edition of Nature, have found that following vertical sleeve gastrectomy, there is a change in bile acids that bind to a nuclear receptor called FXR.

Health concerns swirl around electronic cigarettes

Date: Mar-28-2014
With sales of electronic cigarettes, or "e-cigarettes," on the rise and expected to hit $1.5 billion this year, concerns over potential health risks of using the trendy devices are also gaining momentum and political clout. An article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly magazine of the American Chemical Society, delves into what scientists and regulators are doing about e-cigarettes, which are now being cleverly marketed under more appealing names such as hookah pens and vape pipes.The battery-powered devices deliver an inhalable vapor, with or without nicotine.

Cellular patterns of contraction in human hearts identified

Date: Mar-28-2014
When Premi Haynes was growing up in Pune, India, she attended Stella Maris High School, an English language convent school founded by Swiss nuns. Her second grade singing class used a book of English songs. One of the songs was "My Old Kentucky Home." At that time, Haynes had never heard of Kentucky, had no idea where it was, and had no particular ambition to go there.Some 20 years and a twist of fate later, Haynes is defending her Ph.D.

Study explains new twist in group cooperation

Date: Mar-28-2014
In many group-living species, high-rank individuals bully their group-mates to get what they want, but their contribution is key to success in conflict with other groups, according to a study that sheds new light on the evolutionary roots of cooperation and group conflict.

Controlling blood pressure after stroke 'halves risk of recurrence'

Date: Mar-28-2014
Around 750,000 Americans have a stroke every year. Of these, 5-14% will have a second stroke within 12 months. But new research suggests that if blood pressure is consistently controlled after an initial stroke, the risk of a second one could be reduced by more than 50%.The research team, led by Dr. Amytis Towfighi of the Keck School of Medicine at the University of California, recently published their findings in Stroke - a journal of the American Heart Association.High blood pressure is known to be an important risk factor for stroke.

Scientists observe how rotavirus infection can accelerate type 1 diabetes

Date: Mar-28-2014
A new study in the journal PLOS Pathogens examines how rotavirus infection contributes to autoimmune (type 1) diabetes.The researchers, from the University of Melbourne in Australia, observed the mechanisms by which rotavirus speeds up onset of type 1 diabetes in mice.To do this, they induced "bystander activation" in non-obese diabetic mice. This is when a virus provokes such a strong reaction from the immune system that immune cells begin attacking not only the virus, but also the body's own cells - such as the insulin-producing islet cells in the pancreas.

Gene implicated in inherited muscle diseases

Date: Mar-28-2014
Skeletal muscle cells with unevenly spaced nuclei, or nuclei in the wrong location, are telltale signs of such inherited muscle diseases as Emery-Dreifuss muscular dystrophy, which occurs in one out of every 100,000 births, and centronuclear myopathy, which affects one out of every 50,000 infants.What goes wrong during myogenesis, the formation and maintenance of muscle tissue, to produce these inherited muscle diseases?Research using the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster has implicated the gene known as Sunday Driver (Syd) as a novel regulator of myogenesis.