Health News

Obesity in Samoa - a worrying trend

Date: Feb-18-2014
The South Pacific archipelago of Samoa and American Samoa harbors a global health mystery that may seem both remote and extreme but could foretell trends in obesity and related conditions across much of the developing world.About three-quarters of the U.S. territory's adult population is obese, the highest rate in the world with independent Samoa quickly catching up. Rates of type 2 diabetes top one in five and a recent study found that the elevated obesity rates are present even in newborns.

Biomarker- and receptor-targeted therapies in NSCLC influence clinical trial success

Date: Feb-18-2014
Over the past decade, a great clinical focus has been directed at developing new and innovative therapies for advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). An analysis of clinical trials evaluating these therapies demonstrates that the cumulative success rate for new agents for advanced NSCLC is lower than the industry-estimated rate. However, biomarker- and receptor-targeted therapies were found to substantially increase clinical trial success.The analysis was designed to evaluate the risk of clinical trial failure in advanced (stage IIIb-IV) NSCLC drug development over the past 14 years.

Improvements in colon cancer survival largely reflect gains among non-elderly whites and Asians

Date: Feb-18-2014
While new and better treatments have improved the odds of survival for patients diagnosed with late stage colorectal cancer, that progress has been largely confined to non-Hispanic whites and Asians and those under age 65, according to a new study. American Cancer Society researchers led by Helmneh Sineshaw, M.D., MPH, find there have been no significant increases in survival rates for Hispanics and non-Hispanic blacks with metastatic colon cancer.

'Moving' pediatric brain tumors by hijacking cancer migration mechanism

Date: Feb-18-2014
One factor that makes glioblastoma cancers so difficult to treat is that malignant cells from the tumors spread throughout the brain by following nerve fibers and blood vessels to invade new locations. Now, researchers have learned to hijack this migratory mechanism, turning it against the cancer by using a film of nanofibers thinner than human hair to lure tumor cells away.Instead of invading new areas, the migrating cells latch onto the specially-designed nanofibers and follow them to a location - potentially outside the brain - where they can be captured and killed.

Association between geographic variation of human gut microbes and obesity

Date: Feb-18-2014
People living in cold, northern latitudes have bacteria in their guts that may predispose them to obesity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Arizona, Tucson.The researchers' analysis of the gut microbes of more than a thousand people from around the world showed that those living in northern latitudes had more gut bacteria that have been linked to obesity than did people living farther south.

Brain's 'sweet spot' for love identified in neurological patient

Date: Feb-18-2014
A region deep inside the brain controls how quickly people make decisions about love, according to new research at the University of Chicago.The finding, made in an examination of a 48-year-old man who suffered a stroke, provides the first causal clinical evidence that an area of the brain called the anterior insula "plays an instrumental role in love," said UChicago neuroscientist Stephanie Cacioppo, lead author of the study.

Grape seed shows promise in the fight against bowel cancer

Date: Feb-18-2014
University of Adelaide research has shown for the first time that grape seed can aid the effectiveness of chemotherapy in killing colon cancer cells as well as reducing the chemotherapy's side effects.Published in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE, the researchers say that combining grape seed extracts with chemotherapy has potential as a new approach for bowel cancer treatment - to both reduce intestinal damage commonly caused by cancer chemotherapy and to enhance its effect.

Pandemic emergency response considered by AAAS panel

Date: Feb-18-2014
When a pandemic spreads, health officials must quickly formulate a strategy to limit infections and deaths. That requires sifting through massive amounts of data in a short amount of time and organizing medical personnel who may have little information on the pandemic.To help coordinate a rapid response to pandemics, a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta has designed software that combines biological data on the pandemic with demographic data of the at-risk population so that health officials can develop a game plan to limit the pandemic's spread.

Anthropologist mandates caution over the long history of scientific racism

Date: Feb-18-2014
Racism as a social and scientific concept is reshaped and reborn periodically through the ages and according to a Penn State anthropologist, both medical and scientific researchers need to be careful that the growth of genomics does not bring about another resurgence of scientific racism."What we are facing is a time when genomic knowledge widens and gene engineering will be possible and widespread," said Nina Jablonski, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology. "We must constantly monitor how this information on human gene diversity is used and interpreted.

Patients seeking to cut down on alcohol consumption benefit from topiramate

Date: Feb-18-2014
Heavy drinking is common in the United States and takes a personal and societal toll, with an annual estimated cost of $223.5 billion due to losses in workplace productivity, health care and criminal justice expenses. Data shows that 23 percent of individuals age 12 or older reported drinking five or more drinks on one occasion in the previous month, and almost seven percent reported doing so on at least five days per month.