Health News

Uterine cancer risks decrease by 81% with bariatric surgery

Date: Mar-24-2014
Bariatric surgery, or weight-loss surgery, is normally used as a last resort when all other efforts have failed for obese patients who need to lose weight for their health. And now, researchers have found that the weight loss following such surgery significantly reduces the risk of endometrial (uterine) cancer in women.According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), uterine cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women. Though all women are at risk for this cancer, the risk increases with age, and most cases are found in women who have gone through menopause.

How can we combat drug-resistant TB?

Date: Mar-24-2014
Coinciding with World TB Day, new consensus statements have been drafted to address the growing problem of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis.These statements - published in the European Respiratory Journal - are significant, because this is the first time that doctors treating patients with these new strains of tuberculosis (TB) have reached a consensus on patient management. The major obstacle to developing guidelines for treatment of these forms of TB has been a lack of clinical evidence.

Difficulty getting pregnant could be due to stress

Date: Mar-24-2014
Doctors already know stress is tied to increased risk of heart disease and conditions like depression, but now, new research suggests stress may be a reason women trying to conceive experience difficulty getting pregnant.The researchers, led by Dr. Courtney Denning-Johnson Lynch, director of reproductive epidemiology at Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center in Columbus, report their findings in the journal Human Reproduction.

Classifying gum disease genetically could help earlier diagnosis and treatment

Date: Mar-24-2014
A study published in the Journal of Dental Research suggests a new system for classifying periodontal disease that may allow for earlier detection and personalized treatment before the disease becomes severe.The researchers propose a new classification system - the first of its kind - based on the genetic expression of gum disease instead of the current method based on clinical signs and symptoms.They say such a system would enable earlier detection of gum disease, and allow individualized treatment, before teeth and bone loss sets in.

Researchers unlock the secret of multiple insecticide resistance in mosquitoes

Date: Mar-24-2014
Researchers at LSTM have discovered how unprecedented multiple and extreme-level resistance is generated in mosquitoes found in the rice fields of Tiassalé in southern Côte d'Ivoire.

Public Health England (PHE) welcomes prospect of new Meningitis B vaccine

Date: Mar-24-2014
Public Health England (PHE) welcomes the announcement from the Joint Committee of Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) to recommend the inclusion of a new vaccine against Group B meningococcal disease (Meningitis B) to the routine childhood immunisation schedule.The JCVI published its recommendation today (21 March 2014) after concluding that evidence submitted to the committee has shown that the Bexsero® vaccine would be effective, and could represent good value for money within the NHS if it was made available at a low price.

Switching an antibiotic on and off with light

Date: Mar-24-2014
Scientists of the KIT and the University of Kiev have produced an antibiotic, whose biological activity can be controlled with light. Thanks to the robust diarylethene photoswitch, the antimicrobial effect of the peptide mimetic can be applied in a spatially and temporally specific manner. This might open up new options for the treatment of local infections, as side effects are reduced. The researchers present their photoactivable antibiotic with the new photomodule in a "Very Important Paper" of the journal Angewandte Chemie.

Strategies for teaching common core to teens with autism show promise

Date: Mar-24-2014
Scientists at UNC's Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG) report that high school students with autism can learn under Common Core State Standards (CCSS), boosting their prospects for college and employment. Newly published recommendations from FPG's team also provide strategies for educating adolescents with autism under a CCSS curriculum."The number of students with autism who enter high school settings continues to grow," said Veronica P.

Harms outweigh benefits for women aged 70 and over in national breast cancer screening programmes

Date: Mar-24-2014
Extending national breast cancer screening programmes to women over the age of 70 does not result in a decrease in the numbers of cancers detected at advanced stages, according to new research from The Netherlands.Instead, researchers told the European Breast Cancer Conference that their findings suggest that extending screening programmes to older women results in a large proportion of women being over-treated, and at risk from the harmful effects of such treatment, because these women were more likely to die from other causes than from any tumours detected in the early stages of growth.

Genetic screening could identify children at risk of low IQ development

Date: Mar-24-2014
Children with both a common gene variant and lower thyroid hormone levels, which occurs in approximately 4% of the population, are four times more likely to have a low IQ, according to research presented at the Society for Endocrinology annual BES conference.It is well established that thyroid hormones are essential for brain development in childhood. More recently, scientists have looked at a certain enzyme, called deiodonase-2, involved in processing thyroid hormones inside cells.