Health News

Increased risk of hospitalizations for seniors moving to HCBS

Date: Jan-10-2014
Community and home-based care are popular and cost Medicaid less money than nursing home care, but a new study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society finds that seniors who left the nursing home for such services were 40 percent more likely to become hospitalized for a potentially preventable reason than those who stayed in the nursing home. Seniors want greater access to home- and community-based long-term care services. Medicaid policymakers have been happy to oblige with new programs to help people move out of expensive nursing homes and into cheaper community or home care.

Stomach ulcers may be detected by turning them bright green

Date: Jan-10-2014
Doctors may soon be able to diagnose stomach ulcers without taking tissue samples from the stomach. Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark now report development of a new, safer and noninvasive diagnostic technique for ulcers. The trick is to make the ulcer-causing bacteria in the gut light up in fluorescent green.Each year, many patients are examined for ulcers, and this is often done by retrieving a tissue sample from the stomach.

Study sheds light on muscle-to-bone transformation

Date: Jan-10-2014
Researchers have developed a new way to study bone disorders and bone growth, using stem cells from patients afflicted with a rare, genetic bone disease. The approach, based on Nobel-Prize winning techniques, could illuminate the illness, in which muscles and tendons progressively turn into bone, and addresses the similar destructive process that afflicts a growing number of veterans who have suffered blast injuries - including traumatic amputations or injuries to the brain and nervous system.

New therapeutic target for Huntington's disease

Date: Jan-10-2014
Research from Western University (London, Canada) has revealed a possible new target for treating movement disorders such as Huntington's disease (HD) and Parkinson's disease. Stephen Ferguson, PhD, a scientist at Western's Robarts Research Institute, and Fabiola Ribeiro, PhD, of the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil found a definite improvement in motor behaviors in a HD mouse model when one of the major neurotransmitters in the brain, called Metabotropic Glutamate Receptor 5 (mGluR5) was deleted. The research is published online in Human Molecular Genetics.

Is the safety or efficacy of gene therapy affected by the body's immune response to viral vector delivery systems?

Date: Jan-10-2014
Packaging replacement genes in viruses is an effective method to deliver them to target tissues, but the human body mounts an immune response against the virus. The systemic and local immune reactions induced by an adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapy to treat lipoprotein lipase deficiency, approved for use in Europe, does not affect the safety of gene therapy or expression of the replacement gene for at least one year after delivery, according to a study published in Human Gene Therapy, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

Discovery of new mechanism underlying depression could lead to efficient and fast-acting antidepressant drugs

Date: Jan-10-2014
The World health Organization calls depression "the leading cause of disability worldwide," resulting in more years of disability than cancer, HIV/AIDS, and cardiovascular and respiratory diseases combined. In any given year, 5-7% of the world's population experiences a major depressive episode, and one in six people will at some point suffer from the disease.Despite recent progress in understanding depression, scientists still don't understand the biological mechanisms behind it well enough to deliver effective prevention and therapy.

Older firefighters may show signs of long-term heat adaptation due to repeated occupational heat stress exposure

Date: Jan-10-2014
Older firefighters who are chronically exposed to heat stress on the job could be more heat resilient over time. A recent study published in the December issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene (JOEH) found that older firefighters may be able to tolerate more challenging or arduous work environments before they feel affected by the heat, compared to non-heat-exposed workers who would need to stop work prematurely.

The evolution of pain

Date: Jan-10-2014
Hard wired into the survival mechanisms of all animals is the perception of pain. Different stimuli, such as heat or cold, foul odors, chemicals or a blunt blow can trigger pain receptors in the body that, in the blink of an eye, jolt the body into classic fight or flight responses.Researcher Shigeru Saito, et. al. have performed the first evolutionary analysis of pain response in chickens by isolating the genes for pain receptors called TRPA1. They were able to examine the function of the receptor using different stimuli and in comparison with other vertebrate species.

Avocado with lunch may help with weight management

Date: Jan-10-2014
With more than 35% of the US population classed as obese, it seems there is a need for new weight loss strategies. Now, new research suggests that one-half of a fresh avocado with lunch may satisfy hunger in overweight individuals, reducing their need to snack after a meal. This is according to a study published in the Nutrition Journal.The research team, led by Dr.

Significant link between percentage of dietary fat consumed in adolescence and increase in abdominal adiposity, regardless of exercise

Date: Jan-10-2014
The prevalence of excess weight and obesity among adolescents and, as a result, the concomitant problems, has increased considerably in recent years. A study by the UPV/EHU has confirmed that, irrespective of the total calories consumed and the physical activity done, an excessive proportion of fat in the diet leads to a greater accumulation of fat in the abdomen. The study has been published in the prestigious journal Clinical Nutrition and is part of the HELENA study funded by the European Commission.