Health News

Study questions wisdom of extracting infected teeth before heart surgery

Date: Feb-28-2014
A new study, published in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, warns that removing an infected tooth before heart surgery could increase the risk of major complications, including the risk of death prior to surgery.Abscessed or infected teeth are often removed before heart surgery, as this decreases the risk of infection during surgery and decreases the risk of an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart - called endocarditis - following surgery.

Two micro mechanisms uncovered that regulate the immune system

Date: Feb-28-2014
A Keck Medicine of USC-led team of microbiologists has identified previously unknown interactions between critical proteins in the human immune response system, uncovering two independent regulatory mechanisms that keep the body's immune response in check. Their findings appear in the February 2014 edition of Cell Host & Microbe, the top peer-reviewed scientific journal that focuses on the study of cell-pathogen interaction."The body's response to infection consists of a complex network of biological processes set off by the intrusion of disease-causing microbes," said Qiming Liang, Ph.D.

In Tanzania febrile illnesses in children most often due to viral infections

Date: Feb-28-2014
Most children ill with fever in Tanzania suffer from a viral infection, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows. A research team led by Dr. Valérie D'Acremont from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel and the Policlinique Médicale Universitaire in Lausanne systematically assessed the causes of febrile illnesses in Tanzanian children. According to the results, in most cases a treatment with antimalarials or antibiotics is not required.

Spread of breast cancer cells less likely when one gene is turned off

Date: Feb-28-2014
New research suggests that a protein only recently linked to cancer has a significant effect on the risk that breast cancer will spread, and that lowering the protein's level in cell cultures and mice reduces chances for the disease to extend beyond the initial tumor.The team of medical and engineering researchers at The Ohio State University previously determined that modifying a single gene to reduce this protein's level in breast cancer cells lowered the cells' ability to migrate away from the tumor site.

Recovery from traumatic brain injury influenced by one gene

Date: Feb-28-2014
Researchers report that one change in the sequence of the BDNF gene causes some people to be more impaired by traumatic brain injury (TBI) than others with comparable wounds.The study, described in the journal PLOS ONE, measured general intelligence in a group of 156 Vietnam War veterans who suffered penetrating head wounds during the war. All of the study subjects had damage to the prefrontal cortex, a brain region behind the forehead that is important to cognitive tasks such as planning, problem-solving, self-restraint and complex thought.

Improved understanding of influenza evolution

Date: Feb-28-2014
Researchers at Columbia University and the University of Cologne have created a new model to successfully predict the evolution of the influenza virus from one year to the next. This advance in our understanding of influenza suggests a new, systematic way to select influenza vaccine strains. The findings appear in the journal Nature.The flu is one of the major infectious diseases in humans. Seasonal strains of the influenza A virus account for about half a million deaths per year.

Study helps explain chronic inflammation in autoimmunity and cancer

Date: Feb-28-2014
Activation of beta-catenin, the primary mediator of the ubiquitous Wnt signaling pathway, alters the immune system in lasting and harmful ways, a team of Chicago-based researchers demonstrate in the journal Science Translational Medicine.An increase in beta-catenin in certain types of T cells - a class of white blood cells - causes chronic inflammation in the intestine and colon, eventually leading to cancer. The same mechanism is used by colon cancer to propagate itself.

Diet high in calories and carbs could slow ALS progression

Date: Feb-28-2014
If you want to lose weight, then adopting a diet high in carbohydrates and calories is probably not the best way to go about it. But for individuals with motor neuron disease, such a diet could slow progression of the condition. This is according to a study recently published in The Lancet.Motor neuron disease, also known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks the upper motor neurons in the brain and lower motor neurons in the spinal cord.

Addressing the high failure rate of lung transplants

Date: Feb-28-2014
Organ transplant patients routinely receive drugs that stop their immune systems from attacking newly implanted hearts, livers, kidneys or lungs, which the body sees as foreign.But new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that broadly dampening the immune response, long considered crucial to transplant success, may encourage lung transplant rejection.

Difference in interarm blood pressure linked to greater risk of future cardiovascular events

Date: Feb-28-2014
As heart disease continues to be one of the leading causes of death in the United States, practitioners and patients alike are looking for ways to cut risk factors and identify new clues to assist with early detection. New research published in the March issue of The American Journal of Medicine suggests that there is an association between a difference in interarm systolic blood pressure and a significant increased risk for future cardiovascular events, leading researchers to recommend expanded clinical use of interarm blood pressure measurement.