Health News

Students 'eat more fruits and vegetables' under new school lunch standards

Date: Mar-04-2014
In 2012, the US Department of Agriculture updated the guidelines on school lunches, recommending that schools should offer healthier meals to students. New research from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA, suggests that these guidelines have increased fruit and vegetable consumption among low-income students.The study, recently published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, is the first to assess how the new recommendations have impacted the diets of students.

New discovery solves problem of anti-inflammatory substance

Date: Mar-03-2014
There have been great expectations regarding the production of a drug to block the enzyme LTA4 hydrolase, which plays a key role in the body's inflammatory response. However, in clinical trials, such molecules have proven to be only moderately effective. Now, researchers at Karolinska Institutet have successfully refined their understanding of why previous substances have been less effective - and in so doing have produced a molecule that gets around the problem.

People with sleep apnea may be at higher risk of pneumonia

Date: Mar-03-2014
People with sleep apnea appear to be at higher risk of pneumonia than people without, according to a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).Sleep apnea is characterized by disrupted sleep, caused when the upper airway becomes obstructed by soft tissue, cutting off oxygen. It has been linked to several types of heart disease and cognitive impairment. People with obstructive sleep apnea are at higher risk of aspiration while sleeping.

Reconstructing faces using human stem cells from fat

Date: Mar-03-2014
Researchers in London, UK, are investigating the effectiveness of stem cell therapies for facial reconstruction.A joint team, from London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and University College London's Institute of Child Health, has published the findings of their research in the journal Nanomedicine.This follows the recent news that another UK-based team, of The London Chest Hospital, has begun the largest ever trial of adult stem cells in heart attack patients.

Genetic mutations discovered that could prevent type 2 diabetes

Date: Mar-03-2014
Almost 26 million children and adults in the US have diabetes, while 79 million of us have pre-diabetes. Now, researchers have identified rare mutations in a gene that they say could prevent type 2 diabetes - the most common form of the disease - even in people who have risk factors for the condition.The international research team, led by investigators from the Broad Institute of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, and the Massachusetts General Hospital, recently published the findings in the journal Nature Genetics.

'Glow test' for anthrax could speed up bioterror response

Date: Mar-03-2014
Researchers at the University of Missouri in the US have proved a "glow test" can detect the presence of deadly anthrax bacteria in hours instead of the usual days, promising to significantly cut the time it takes to respond to a potential bioterrorism attack.Anthrax is not strictly a bacterium, but the disease is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis, which produces two deadly toxins - lethal toxin and edema toxin.

Global Mobile Health Summit, May 8‐9, 2014, Shanghai, China

Date: Mar-03-2014
According to a recent survey, in future years the size of the mobile health market will be 125.3 billion RMB. With the modernization of mobile devices in recent years, devices have increasingly become an important part of people's lives. Knowing how to combine mobility with healthcare, how to raise excellent mobile healthcare projects and how to increase the rate of coverage of healthcare services and to enhance the medical insurance's scale of coverage will be a severe problem for mobile health.

Breast cancer spread may be reduced by silencing a gene

Date: Mar-03-2014
Myoferlin, a protein only recently linked to cancer, may help breast cancer cells transform so they can escape tumors and migrate to new sites. When researchers implanted mice with breast cancer cells that couldn't make the protein because of its gene was switched off, the cells did not transform into the type that migrates.Researchers at The Ohio State University (OSU) in Columbus, had already shown this was happening in cell cultures. Now in a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, they describe how they got similar results in mice.

Fighting cancer with light-activated drug delivery by nanoparticle

Date: Mar-03-2014
A new type of treatment called "light-activated drug delivery" is showing promise as a way to give doctors control over precisely where and when drugs are delivered inside the patient's body. Now, researchers have developed a light-activated way to target cancer cells without hurting healthy tissue by using drug-carrying nanoparticles.

Alzheimer's disease: New insights into Tau protein deposits

Date: Mar-03-2014
Proteins like the so-called heat shock protein Hsp90 play an important role in almost all processes within human cells. They help other proteins fold into their three-dimensional structure or return damaged proteins back into their proper shape.Recently, there has been increasing evidence indicating that the heat shock protein HSP90 may also be involved in the folding processes of the tau protein. Deposits of tau proteins in brain cells are typical for Alzheimer's disease and are held responsible for decaying nerve cells.Hsp90 and Tau: how are they linked?