Health News

Fetal stem cell grafts successfully help brittle-bone babies

Date: Dec-19-2013
In an international collaboration, researchers from Sweden, Singapore and Taiwan successfully treated two babies with a congenital bone disease that causes stunted growth and repeated fracturing by injecting them in utero with bone-forming stem cells. Results of their longitudinal study have been published in the journal Stem Cells Translational Medicine.Osteogenesis imperfecta (OI) not only stunts the growth of those who suffer from this disease, but the repeated fractures it causes are painful.

Diagnosed diabetes, pre-diabetes, and gestational diabetes on the rise among privately insured Americans

Date: Dec-19-2013
About 8.8 percent of the privately insured population in 2012 had diabetes or was diagnosed as being at high risk for diabetes, up from 8.3 percent in 2011, but the rates of disease varied depending on age, gender and region of the country, says a new report from HCCI. In 2012, over one quarter of men between the ages of 55-64 and nearly one in 10 Southerners had diabetes or were at risk for diabetes.HCCI analyzed the health care claims of over 40 million Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance (ESI) from 2008 to 2012, and examine subpopulations by age, gender, and region.

Lung lesions of TB variable, independent, whether infection is active or latent

Date: Dec-19-2013
The lung lesions in an individual infected with tuberculosis (TB) are surprisingly variable and independent of each other, despite whether the patient has clinically active or latent disease, according to a new animal study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The findings, published online in Nature Medicine, could point the way to new vaccines to prevent the hard-to-treat infection.

New discovery could help combat the spread of sleeping sickness

Date: Dec-19-2013
Silencing signals sent by sleeping sickness parasite could aid sleeping sickness fightInsights into how the parasites that cause the disease are able to communicate with one another could help limit the spread of the infection.The findings suggest that new drugs could be designed to disrupt the flow of messages sent between these infectious microorganisms.Sleeping sickness - so named because it disrupts sleep patterns - is transmitted by the bite of the tsetse fly, and more than 69 million people in Africa are at risk of infection.

Blocking tumor-associated macrophages decreased glioblastoma's growth & extended survival in mice

Date: Dec-19-2013
An experimental drug that targets macrophages, a type of immune cell, in the microenvironment surrounding the lethal brain tumor glioblastoma multiforme decreased the cancer's growth and extended survival of laboratory mice with the cancer, scientists reported at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) annual meeting in New Orleans.The rates of apoptosis, or programmed cell death, were higher in the mice treated with the experimental agent than in the untreated animals that also had high-grade glioblastomas, said Johanna Joyce, Ph.D.

e-cigarettes may not significantly reduce risk for heart disease

Date: Dec-19-2013
Nicotine, the major addictive substance in cigarette smoke, contributes to smokers' higher risk of developing atherosclerosis, the primary cause of heart attacks, according to research presented at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting in New Orleans.These findings suggest that e-cigarettes, the battery-powered devices that deliver nicotine in steam without the carcinogenic agents of tobacco smoke, may not significantly reduce smokers' risk for heart disease, said Chi-Ming Hai, Ph.D., of Brown University.

Reducing flu viruses' glucose supply weakens the microbes' ability to infect mammalian cells in lab cultures

Date: Dec-19-2013
Reducing glucose metabolism dials down influenza viral infection in laboratory cell cultures, providing an entirely new approach for combating seasonal flu, according to research presented at the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) annual meeting in New Orleans.While annual flu shots are based on the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC)'s predictions of the viruses that will be in widest circulation each flu season, the new approach targets one metabolic requirement of all influenza viruses: glucose.

Virus grows 'temporary tail' to attack E. Coli, researchers discover

Date: Dec-19-2013
Scientists say they have come across a surprising discovery showing how a specific virus that attacks Escherichia coli bacteria delivers its DNA during the infection process. This is according to a study published in the journal Nature.Researchers from Purdue University, the University of Arizona and the University of Texas at Austin say the newly discovered process occurs in the virus phiX174 - a bacteriophage that attacks E. Coli bacteria.

Deep brain stimulation may help Parkinson's patients with driving

Date: Dec-19-2013
According to the Parkinson's Disease Foundation, approximately 1 million people in the US live with the disorder. The disease primarily affects a person's movement, which can make it hard to carry out daily tasks. But new research suggests that deep brain stimulation may help Parkinson's sufferers with one activity - driving.Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a treatment used to help patients who suffer from Parkinson's disease and other neurological disorders, such as dystonia and essential tremor.

Many liars prove honest in their dishonesty

Date: Dec-19-2013
Does everybody lie? We are taught that this is common sense and that most people tell little white lies. But perhaps this isn't true. A recent paper published in Human Communication Research found that many people are honest most of the time, that many are honest about their lying, and that some lie a lot.Rony Halevy, Bruno Verschuere (University of Amsterdam), and Shaul Shalvi (Ben-Gurion University), surveyed 527 people to find out how often they had lied over the past 24 hours.