Health News

Senses of sight and sound separated in children with autism

Date: Jan-16-2014
Like watching a foreign movie that was badly dubbed, children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have trouble integrating simultaneous information from their eyes and their ears, according to a Vanderbilt study published in The Journal of Neuroscience.The study, led by Mark Wallace, Ph.D., director of the Vanderbilt Brain Institute, is the first to illustrate the link and strongly suggests that deficits in the sensory building blocks for language and communication can ultimately hamper social and communication skills in children with autism.

Fresh insight into cancer offered by cell division discovery

Date: Jan-16-2014
New findings on how the cells in our bodies are able to renew themselves could aid our understanding of health disorders, including cancer.Scientists have explained a key part of the process of cell division, by which cells are able to keep our organs functioning properly.They discovered a set of proteins that stabilise the sequence of events in which cells duplicate their DNA and then separate into two new cells, each identical to the original. Flaws in this delicate, complex operation can lead to cancer.

Two types of breast cancer stem cells identified; both necessary to create metastasis

Date: Jan-16-2014
Breast cancer stem cells exist in two different states and each state plays a role in how cancer spreads, according to an international collaboration of researchers. Their finding sheds new light on the process that makes cancer a deadly disease."The lethal part of cancer is its metastasis so understanding how metastasis occurs is critical," says senior study author Max S. Wicha, M.D., Distinguished Professor of Oncology and director of the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Day-care children learn to respond to hunger cues when allowed to pass bowls family-style

Date: Jan-16-2014
When children and child-care providers sit around a table together at mealtime, passing bowls and serving themselves, children learn to recognize when they are full better than they do when food is pre-plated for them, reports a new University of Illinois study of feeding practices of two- to five-year-old children in 118 child-care centers."Family-style meals give kids a chance to learn about things like portion size and food preferences. When foods are pre-plated, children never develop the ability to read their body's hunger cues.

Discovery of gene associated with deadly birth defect, congenital diaphragmatic hernia

Date: Jan-16-2014
A team including researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered that a specific gene may play a major role in the development of a life-threatening birth defect called congenital diaphragmatic hernia, or CDH, which affects approximately one out of every 3,000 live births.The hallmark of CDH is a rupture of the diaphragm that allows organs found in the lower abdomen, such as the liver, spleen, and intestines, to push their way into the chest cavity.

Small molecule BMH-21 shows promise as anti-cancer therapy

Date: Jan-16-2014
Johns Hopkins scientists say a previously known but little studied chemical compound targets and shuts down a common cancer process. In studies of laboratory-grown human tumor cell lines, the drug disrupted tumor cell division and prevented growth of advanced cancer cells.In a study described in the journal Cancer-Cell, Marikki Laiho, M.D., Ph.D., and her colleagues say their work focused on the ability of a chemical dubbed BMH-21 to sabotage the transcription pathway RNA Polymerase pathway (POL I), shutting down the ability of mutant cancer genes to communicate with cells and replicate.

Viral microRNAs responsible for causing Kaposi's sarcoma, an AIDS-related cancer

Date: Jan-16-2014
For the first time, scientists and engineers have identified a critical cancer-causing component in the virus that causes Kaposi's sarcoma, the most common cancer among HIV-infected people. The discovery lays the foundation for developing drugs that prevent Kaposi's sarcoma and other related cancers."The mechanism behind the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) that causes healthy cells to become malignant is not well understood despite two decades of intensive studies," said S. J. Gao, Ph.D.

Viral microRNAs responsible for causing Kaposi's sarcoma, an AIDS-related cancer

Date: Jan-16-2014
For the first time, scientists and engineers have identified a critical cancer-causing component in the virus that causes Kaposi's sarcoma, the most common cancer among HIV-infected people. The discovery lays the foundation for developing drugs that prevent Kaposi's sarcoma and other related cancers."The mechanism behind the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) that causes healthy cells to become malignant is not well understood despite two decades of intensive studies," said S. J. Gao, Ph.D.

Newly described 3-part protein may help HIV vaccine development

Date: Jan-16-2014
Duke scientists have taken aim at what may be an Achilles' heel of the HIV virus.Combining expertise in biochemistry, immunology and advanced computation, researchers at Duke University have determined the structure of a key part of the HIV envelope protein, the gp41 membrane proximal external region (MPER), which previously eluded detailed structural description.The research will help focus HIV vaccine development efforts, which have tried for decades to slow the spread of a virus that currently infects more than 33 million people and has killed 30 million more.

UK rates of gout soaring, but treatment remains poor

Date: Jan-16-2014
UK rates of gout have soared since the late1990s, with one in every 40 people now affected by the condition - the highest in Europe - but treatment remains as poor now as it was then, reveals research published online in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases.But there is wide variation in both the prevalence (existing cases) and incidence (new cases) of gout across the UK, with the highest numbers of cases in Wales and the North East of England, the data show.