Health News

In Alzheimer's, the brain area attacked links learning and rewards

Date: Dec-24-2013
One of the first areas of the brain to be attacked by Alzheimer's disease is more active when the brain isn't working very hard, and quiets down during the brain's peak performance.The question that Duke University graduate student Sarah Heilbronner wanted to resolve was whether this brain region, called the posterior cingulate cortex, or PCC, actively dampens cognitive performance, say by allowing the mind to wander, or is instead monitoring performance and trying to improve it when needed.

Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, December 2013, highlights new research on diverticular disease

Date: Dec-24-2013
Diverticulosis, a condition that develops when pouches form in the wall of the colon, is increasing in frequency. It affects the majority of those reaching the age of 80 - a growing portion of the population - and imposes a substantial burden on health-care resources, but curiously there is a lack of data and unanswered questions around this condition.The December issue of Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association, fills a critical research gap in diverticulosis research.

Complex and intricate ways water behaves in cells

Date: Dec-24-2013
In a sort of biological "spooky action at a distance," water in a cell slows down in the tightest confines between proteins and develops the ability to affect other proteins much farther away, University of Michigan researchers have discovered.On a fundamental level, the findings show some of the complex and unexpected ways that water behaves inside cells. In a practical sense, they could provide insights into how and why proteins clump together in diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Hope for pharmacological solution to cocaine addiction

Date: Dec-24-2013
Imagine kicking a cocaine addiction by simply popping a pill that alters the way your brain processes chemical addiction. New research from the University of Pittsburgh suggests that a method of biologically manipulating certain neurocircuits could lead to a pharmacological approach that would weaken post-withdrawal cocaine cravings. The findings have been published in Nature Neuroscience.

Researchers identify key molecular switch that controls cell behavior

Date: Dec-24-2013
If scientists can control cellular functions such as movement and development, they can cripple cells and pathogens that are causing disease in the body.Supported by National Institutes of Health grants, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the University of Tennessee (UT), and the UT-ORNL Joint Institute for Computational Sciences (JICS) discovered a molecular "switch" in a receptor that controls cell behavior using detailed molecular dynamics simulations on a computer called Anton built by D. E. Shaw Research in New York City.

EGF receptor ecto-domain mutations: When to screen and when not to screen

Date: Dec-24-2013
The epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) is expressed in normal colonic cells and is activated by specific peptide growth factors that regulate cell proliferation, survival and differentiation. Increased expression and activation of the EGFR has been observed in the majority of colorectal carcinoma (CRC), suggesting that the EGFR pathway plays an important role in colon carcinogenesis.The monoclonal antibodies cetuximab and panitumumab are capable of blocking EGFR activity and have shown clinical activity in patients with metastatic CRC (mCRC).

Atrial fibrillation, a growing global health concern

Date: Dec-24-2013
Atrial fibrillation, long considered the most common condition leading to an irregular heartbeat, is a growing and serious global health problem, according to the first study ever to estimate the condition's worldwide prevalence, death rates and societal costs.The World Health Organization data analysis, led by Sumeet Chugh, MD, associate director of the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute, shows that 33.5 million people worldwide - or .5% of the world's population - have the condition.

Different stem cells responsible for muscle-invasive and non-muscle invasive bladder cancers

Date: Dec-24-2013
Bladder cancer will kill upward of 170,000 people worldwide this year, but bladder cancer isn't fatal in the bladder. Instead, in order to be fatal the disease must metastasize to faraway sites. The question has been this: does localized, non-muscle invasive (NMI) bladder cancer eventually become the more dangerous, muscle-invasive (MI) form of the disease, or are NMI and MI bladder cancers genetically distinct from the start?

Understanding how dietary habits are connected through the generations could have valuable benefits for community health

Date: Dec-24-2013
The Taiwanese study assessed the relationship between the quality of children's diets and that of their elders in a wide range of representative communities, generating findings that have international relevance. Led by Emeritus Professor Mark Wahlqvist from Monash University's Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine and the Monash Asia Institute, the research used national survey information on health and nutrition for more than 2400 students aged from six to 13, and nearly 1800 elderly people.

Known lung cancer oncogenes ALK and ROS1 also drive colorectal cancer

Date: Dec-24-2013
A University of Colorado Cancer Center study published online ahead of print in the journal Molecular Cancer Research shows that ALK and ROS1 gene rearrangements known to drive subsets of lung cancer are also present in some colorectal cancers. These results imply that drugs used to target ALK and ROS1 in lung cancer may also have applications in this subset of colorectal cancer patients.