Health News

Cholesterol-tracking smartphone users take lifesaving selfies

Date: Dec-18-2013
With a new smartphone device, you can now take an accurate iPhone camera selfie that could save your life - it reads your cholesterol level in about a minute.Forget those clumsy, complicated, home cholesterol-testing devices. Cornell engineers have created the Smartphone Cholesterol Application for Rapid Diagnostics, or "smartCARD," which employs your smartphone's camera to read your cholesterol level.

PET scans and saxitoxin allow researchers to 'see' pain

Date: Dec-18-2013
Scientists have long struggled to understand the science behind pain. At present, most diagnoses rely on subjective methods, such as self-reporting from patients and physical examinations. But there is currently no existing method of measuring pain intensity objectively.Pain is always a subjective experience, as no one really knows how much pain another person is feeling. What one person describes as agonizing, another may call excruciating.

Older women spend almost 10 hours a day sedentary

Date: Dec-18-2013
Previous studies have suggested that a lack of regular physical activity during older age can increase the risk for adverse health outcomes. Now, new research has revealed that older women may spend two-thirds of their waking time sedentary. This is according to a study published in JAMA.Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA, led by Eric J.

Practice, not innate skill, makes for good mathematicians

Date: Dec-18-2013
New research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim could have an effect on how math is taught.If you want to be really good at all types of math, you need to practice them all. You can't trust your innate natural talent to do most of the job for you.This might seem obvious to some, but it goes against the traditional view that if you are good at math, it is a skill that you are simply born with.Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson at Department of Psychology is one of three researchers involved in the project.

Improving the prognosis of patients with chemoresistant lymphomata

Date: Dec-18-2013
To date, tests have only been carried out on cells, but a piece of research conducted by the Department of Genetics at the UPV/EHU's Faculty of Medicine in collaboration with MD Anderson and the CNIO is opening up the door for the treatment of lymphoma types that have a lower survival rate. The study of the molecular characteristics of the tumours would enable molecules that are altered in a specific way to be identified and turned into new therapeutic targets that would improve the prognosis of patients with chemoresistant lymphomata.But there is still a long way to go.

Improving the prognosis of patients with chemoresistant lymphomata

Date: Dec-18-2013
To date, tests have only been carried out on cells, but a piece of research conducted by the Department of Genetics at the UPV/EHU's Faculty of Medicine in collaboration with MD Anderson and the CNIO is opening up the door for the treatment of lymphoma types that have a lower survival rate. The study of the molecular characteristics of the tumours would enable molecules that are altered in a specific way to be identified and turned into new therapeutic targets that would improve the prognosis of patients with chemoresistant lymphomata.But there is still a long way to go.

Progression of advanced breast cancer not delayed by new combination therapy

Date: Dec-18-2013
Adding the antibody therapy ramucirumab to the chemotherapy drug docetaxel did not delay disease progression for patients with HER2-negative, advanced breast cancer, according to results of a placebo-controlled, randomized, phase III clinical trial presented at the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium."Patients with metastatic or recurrent breast cancer, as well as those with locally advanced disease that cannot be surgically removed, have no curative options," said John R. Mackey, M.D., professor of oncology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton.

Antibacterial soaps come under FDA scrutiny

Date: Dec-18-2013
Soaps and body washes that are labeled "antibacterial" have now come under fire by the Food and Drug Administration, as the government agency has submitted a proposed rule that will require manufacturers of such products to prove they are safe for long-term use.As part of a larger review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), manufacturers will also need to show how their products are more effective at preventing illness and the spread of infection than ordinary soap and water.

Protection against what can be a fatal rickettsial infection

Date: Dec-18-2013
Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have discovered a way to block a disease pathway that could be a breakthrough in defeating some of the world's most devastating human infections.Rickettsioses are a group of insect-borne diseases caused by bacteria. One type, typhus fever, has been cited as a high-level threat by the National Institutes of Health because the bacteria can spread and multiply very easily, and the untreated infection can lead to death.What researchers at UTMB have found is a way to protect against what can be a fatal rickettsial infection.

Antibacterial soaps come under FDA scrutiny

Date: Dec-18-2013
Soaps and body washes that are labeled "antibacterial" have now come under fire by the Food and Drug Administration, as the government agency has submitted a proposed rule that will require manufacturers of such products to prove they are safe for long-term use.As part of a larger review by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), manufacturers will also need to show how their products are more effective at preventing illness and the spread of infection than ordinary soap and water.