Health News

Study finds heart scans only useful in prescribing statins under certain conditions

Date: Mar-16-2014
As long as inexpensive statins, which lower cholesterol, are readily available and patients don't mind taking them, it doesn't make sense to do a heart scan to measure how much plaque has built up in a patient's coronary arteries before prescribing the pills, according to a new study by researchers at UC San Francisco.The researchers created a statistical model to predict whether or not it made sense to do the scan, using data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and other sources.

For some women response to emotional stress may be linked to heart artery dysfunction

Date: Mar-16-2014
Microvascular coronary dysfunction, which occurs more often in women than men, may be triggered by emotional stress, leading to heart attacks and other cardiac problems, researchers sayResearchers at the Barbra Streisand Women's Heart Center at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute have found that emotional stressors - such as those provoking anger - may cause changes in the nervous system that controls heart rate and trigger a type of coronary artery dysfunction that occurs more frequently in women than men.

American Muslims' attitudes toward organ donation

Date: Mar-16-2014
American Muslims who interpret negative events in life as punishment from God are less likely to believe that donating organs after death is ethical than those with a more positive outlook, according to a survey conducted by researchers from the University of Chicago's Program on Medicine and Religion.The study points to a complex relationship between attitudes toward organ donation and the Islamic faith.

A novel protein identified in fruit flies may explain how biological clocks regulate human sleep

Date: Mar-16-2014
In a series of experiments sparked by fruit flies that couldn't sleep, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have identified a mutant gene - dubbed "Wide Awake" - that sabotages how the biological clock sets the timing for sleep. The finding also led them to the protein made by a normal copy of the gene that promotes sleep early in the night and properly regulates sleep cycles.

Intelligent people 'more likely to trust others'

Date: Mar-16-2014
Do you often put your trust in others? If so, you are likely to be of high intelligence. New research from the University of Oxford in the UK suggests that intelligent individuals are more likely to trust other people, compared with those who are less brainy.The research team, led by Noah Carl of the Department of Sociology at the university, recently published their findings in the journal PLOS ONE.For their study, the investigators analyzed data from the General Social Survey (GSS) - a public opinion survey that a sample of adults in the US complete every 1-2 years.

How the brain stores memories by time

Date: Mar-16-2014
Before I left the house this morning, I let the cat out and started the dishwasher. Or was that yesterday? Very often, our memories must distinguish not just what happened and where, but when an event occurred - and what came before and after. New research from the University of California, Davis, Center for Neuroscience shows that a part of the brain called the hippocampus stores memories by their "temporal context" - what happened before, and what came after.

New study suggests contagious yawning is not linked to empathy

Date: Mar-15-2014
Along with the whereabouts of Bigfoot and the answer to whether we are alone in the universe, the mechanism behind contagious yawning remains one of life's great mysteries. Though previous studies have suggested a link to empathy, new research suggests this is not the case, rendering it still largely unexplained.The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, was conducted by researchers from the Duke Center for Human Genome Variation in North Carolina.

In healthy mouths good fungi keep bad ones in check

Date: Mar-15-2014
Human mouths contain a balanced mix of microbes which, when disrupted, can lead to oral diseases. A study published on March 13th in PLOS Pathogens compares the bacteria and fungi present in the mouths of healthy individuals with those from patients infected with HIV, and illustrates why oral candidiasis (aka "thrush") is a common complication of HIV infection.

In healthy mouths good fungi keep bad ones in check

Date: Mar-15-2014
Human mouths contain a balanced mix of microbes which, when disrupted, can lead to oral diseases. A study published on March 13th in PLOS Pathogens compares the bacteria and fungi present in the mouths of healthy individuals with those from patients infected with HIV, and illustrates why oral candidiasis (aka "thrush") is a common complication of HIV infection.

Some common NSAIDs have added benefit of fighting bacterial infection

Date: Mar-15-2014
Some commonly used drugs that combat aches and pains, fever, and inflammation are also thought to have the ability to kill bacteria. New research appearing online in the Cell Press journal Chemistry & Biology reveals that these drugs, better known as NSAIDs, act on bacteria in a way that is fundamentally different from current antibiotics. The discovery could open up new strategies for fighting drug-resistant infections and "superbugs.