Health News

Inherited gene mutations found in 20% of women with ovarian cancer

Date: Jan-23-2014
Genetic studies of inherited predisposition to ovarian cancer have tended to focus on women with a known family history of the disease. Now, a new study of ovarian cancer patients with no known family history of the disease found one fifth of them had inherited alterations in genes known to be linked to ovarian and breast cancer.Writing about their work in Nature Communications, the researchers, from Washington University School of Medicine in St.

Breast cancer in young women after treatment for Hodgkin's disease during childhood or adolescence

Date: Jan-23-2014
Girls treated for Hodgkin's disease during adolescence acquire a considerable risk of developing breast cancer, as shown by an observational study published in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International. The study, which was carried out by Günther Schellong and his colleagues in the German Working Group on the Long-Term Sequelae of Hodgkin's Disease, has an unusually long follow-up time (average 17.8 years, maximum 33 years).

Diabetes the top health concern for Latino families

Date: Jan-23-2014
A new NPR/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health poll just released on the views of Latinos in America about their health and health care, communities, financial situation, and discrimination in their lives. The poll found that Latinos see diabetes as the biggest health problem for their own families.Nearly one in five (19%) Latinos said diabetes is the biggest health problem facing their families. The next most cited problem, cancer, is mentioned by just one in twenty Latinos (5%).

Intimate partner violence linked to risk of HIV

Date: Jan-23-2014
Researchers from The Miriam Hospital and the University of Rochester have found a definitive link between violence among intimate partners and an increased risk of HIV infection. The study is online in the journal Women & Health.Sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, are an important public health problem for women in the U.S. Each year, 27 percent of new HIV infections are in women, and heterosexual transmission accounts for 83 percent of those infections.

A contest of scientific techniques for methods of particle tracking

Date: Jan-23-2014
A contest for the best technique of intracellular particle tracking (simultaneous tracking of the motions of hundreds and thousands of intracellular organelles, virions and even individual molecules), that is an important issue in cellular biology and has applications in search for appropriate medicines against certain diseases (including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases), has found no undeniable winner. Techniques proposed by all the participants, including the Lomonosov Moscow State University professor Yannis Kalaidzidis, find their own ways for solving the problem.

Growth chart for the brain may pave the way for preventive early interventions

Date: Jan-23-2014
Researchers at Penn Medicine have generated a brain development index from MRI scans that captures the complex patterns of maturation during normal brain development. This index will allow clinicians and researchers for the first time to detect subtle, yet potentially critical early signs of deviation from normal development during late childhood to early adult.The study, published online in the journal Cerebral Cortex, shows a relationship between cognitive development and physical changes in the developing young brain (aged 8 to 21).

Decision making improved by bigger data

Date: Jan-23-2014
Too much information can be overwhelming, but when it comes to certain types of data that are used to build predictive models to guide decision making there is no such thing as too much data, according to an article in Big Data, the highly innovative, peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available on the Big Data website.

Anti-smoking public service announcements can be undermined by online comments

Date: Jan-23-2014
Commentary accompanying anti-smoking public service announcements (PSAs) in online forums like YouTube has an impact on the PSA's overall effectiveness. Both negative and positive comments accompanying PSAs degrade the persuasiveness of the videos. According to researchers from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication, viewer commentary on PSAs have become an integral part of a PSA's overall message.

Children with high BMIs exposed to high levels of air pollutants had nearly triple asthma risk

Date: Jan-23-2014
Obese children exposed to high levels of air pollutants were nearly three times as likely to have asthma, compared with non-obese children and lower levels of pollution exposure, report researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC).Rates of childhood obesity and asthma have both increased dramatically in the past 30 years. The percentage of American children who are obese has increased from 7% in 1980 to 20% in 2008. Childhood asthma is up from 4% in 1980 to 10% in 2009. Rates are higher among urban minority populations.

Potential new target in Ewing's Sarcoma

Date: Jan-23-2014
Ewing's Sarcoma is an aggressive pediatric cancer, most commonly caused by the improper fusion of the gene EWS with the gene FLI1. Though the cause has long been known, therapeutic targeting of this fusion has to date proven very difficult.