Health News

Improving HPV vaccination rates starts with physicians

Date: Jan-22-2014
The risk of developing cervical cancer can be significantly decreased through human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. Despite calls from leading health and professional organizations for universal vaccination for girls ages 11 and 12, the most recently published national data indicate that only 14.5 percent of 11- and 12-year-old girls have received at least one dose of the HPV vaccine and 3 percent have completed the three-dose series. A new Moffitt Cancer Center study provides insight into physician recommendations, one important factor that may contribute to these low levels of uptake.

Elevated blood pressure at home but not in clinic can indicate increased heart attack risk

Date: Jan-22-2014
In an individual patient data meta-analysis of studies published before July 2013, Jan A Staessen and colleagues (University of Leuven, Belgium) found that patients with masked hypertension, or normal BP in clinic but elevated BP when measured at home, had an increased risk of death and cardiovascular events compared with those who had normal BP in both the clinic and at home.The analysis included 5008 participants. While self-measured home BP was lower on average than clinic BP (mean home systolic BP 7.0 mm Hg and diastolic BP 3.0 mm Hg lower than the conventional blood pressure), 67 (5.

Fever-reducing medications may aid spread of influenza

Date: Jan-22-2014
Contrary to popular belief, fever-reducing medication may inadvertently cause more harm than good.New research from McMaster University has discovered that the widespread use of medications that contain fever-reducing drugs may lead to tens of thousands more influenza cases, and more than a thousand deaths attributable to influenza, each year across North America. These drugs include ibuprofen, acetaminophen and acetylsalicylic acid."When they have flu, people often take medication that reduces their fever.

How the genetic blueprints for limbs came from fish

Date: Jan-22-2014
The transition from water to land is one of the most fascinating enigmas of evolution. In particular, the evolution of limbs from ancestral fish fins remains a mystery. Both fish and land animals possess clusters of Hoxa and Hoxd genes, which are necessary for both fin and limb formation during embryonic development. Denis Duboule's team, at the UNIGE and the EPFL, Switzerland, compared the structure and behavior of these gene clusters in embryos from mice and zebrafish.

Study of evolution of lactase persistence in Europeans debunks calcium assimilation hypothesis

Date: Jan-22-2014
Ancient DNA from early Iberian farmers shows that the wide-held evolutionary hypothesis of calcium absorption was not the only reason Europeans evolved milk tolerance.Most of us grew up drinking milk. We were told it was the ultimate health drink. It is packed full of nutrients like calcium and other minerals, vitamins, including vitamin D, protein, fat and sugar in the form of lactose.In the West we take milk drinking for granted because most people of European decent are able to produce the enzyme lactase in adulthood and so digest the milk sugar lactose.

Broad public health interventions essential to tackle childhood obesity

Date: Jan-22-2014
The team from Manchester Urban Collaboration of Health (MUCH), based at the University, say broader public health strategies are needed instead as obesity figures continue to rise.Obesity has now become a global epidemic affecting children, adolescents and adults alike.The Manchester team reviewed of studies looking at dietary interventions to tackle the condition as latest figures now show in the UK 31% of boys and 28% of girls aged 2-15 are classed as either overweight or obese.

Improved data material reveals more diseases from air pollution

Date: Jan-22-2014
At rest, we breathe approx. 12-15 times per minute, and for each inhalation we change approx. one litre of air. Depending on the activity level, this makes up a daily quantity in the order of twenty cubic metres of air that - with its content of pollution in the form of particles and different gases - can make us ill depending on how polluted the air is.Asthma attacks, wheezing, cardiovascular diseases and lung cancer are some of the more glaring examples of diseases we - in worst case - can get from the domestic air. The list of injuries due to air pollution in Denmark is long.

Recommendations to help prevent health-care-associated infections transmitted through clothing

Date: Jan-22-2014
New guidance from the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) provides recommendations to prevent transmission of healthcare-associated infections through healthcare personnel (HCP) attire in non-operating room settings. The guidance was published online in the February issue of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, the journal of the SHEA, along with a review of patient and healthcare provider perceptions of HCP attire and transmission risk, suggesting professionalism may not be contingent on the traditional white coat.

Epigenetic lesion discovered in the hippocampus of Alzheimer's patients

Date: Jan-22-2014
Alzheimer's disease can reach epidemic range in the coming decades, by the increasing average age of society.There are two key issues for Alzheimer's disease: there is currently no effective treatment and it has been described very few associated genetic changes (mutations) which reduces the number of targets for future therapies.Alzheimer's diseasePathologically, Alzheimer 's disease is characterized by the accumulation of protein deposits in the brain of patients. These deposits are formed by plates of a protein called amyloid-beta and rolled tangles of tau protein .

Levels of depression and anxiety in people with severe rheumatoid arthritis higher than previously reported

Date: Jan-22-2014
As a result of their findings, a multi-centre team led by researchers at the Arthritis Research UK Centre for Genetics and Genomics at The University of Manchester, say that patients with severe active disease, who are waiting to go onto a biological therapy, should be routinely screened for depression by their doctors.