Health News

Subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation for Parkinson's disease patients

Date: Dec-06-2013
Subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation can significantly improve the motor features of Parkinson's disease in carefully selected patients. However, effects of subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation on the social adjustment, coping strategies and mental health-related quality of life of these patients remain unclear. In addition, an important concern has been that most studies have reported no improvement in social adaptation after subthalamic nucleus deep brain stimulation in some Parkinson's disease patients.

Maternal depression may influence fetal brain development

Date: Dec-06-2013
Depression is a serious mental illness that has many negative consequences for sufferers. But depression among pregnant women may also have an impact on their developing babies.Children of depressed parents are at an increased risk of developing depression themselves, a combination of both genetic and environmental factors. These children also display alterations in the amygdala, a brain structure important for the regulation of emotion and stress.

Improved screening methods likely following new insights into Barrett's esophagus, cancer evolution

Date: Dec-06-2013
A new appreciation of how cancer cells evolve could help scientists design better screening methods to catch cancer before it advances.Researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center studying the precancerous condition Barrett's esophagus have shown that rather than resulting from a steady accumulation of small genetic mutations, cancer arises a few years after cells begin to undergo large, drastic mutations. This insight could help researchers detect cells on the cusp of becoming malignant and distinguish benign from dangerous pre-cancerous conditions.

Doubts cast over benefits of vitamin D supplements

Date: Dec-06-2013
Low vitamin D levels are a consequence of ill health, not a cause, say researchers from Lyon, France. This casts strong doubts on the benefit of vitamin D supplements as a preventative measure against disease.Lack of vitamin D has been linked to an array of medical conditions, from anemia, depression and pain, to brain damage. It has also been heralded as playing a role in disease prevention, supposedly offering protection agains cancer, cardiovascular disease and Parkinson's.

Dementia treatment: understanding how memories form

Date: Dec-06-2013
Researchers from the University of Houston in Texas believe they are a step closer to understanding how memories form, which could ultimately provide better treatments to improve memory in people of all ages.The findings, published in Current Biology, promise a more complete understanding of how memories form, both at the molecular level and through neural circuit activity.For people with dementia, memory loss can have a profound effect on their daily lives.

Diagnostic pill that can be swallowed

Date: Dec-06-2013
A tiny capsule that can carry out a chemical analysis of the contents of one's stomach could identify the presence of so-called "occult" blood at very low levels. The data is automatically broadcast to an external monitoring device for detection of early stage stomach cancer by one's physician. Details of the invention and initial trials are described in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology.

Tumor suppressor turned into anti-cancer target

Date: Dec-06-2013
The laboratory of Marcos Malumbres, who is head of the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre's (CNIO) Cell Division & Cancer Group, working alongside Isabel Farinas' team from the University of Valencia, shows, in a study published in the journal Nature Communications, how in mice the elimination of the Cdh1 protein - a sub-unit of the APC/C complex, involved in the control of cell division - prevents cellular proliferation of rapidly dividing cells. These results could accelerate the development of new therapies targeting cancer.

TV programs for 8- to 12-year-olds may skew their concepts about gender roles

Date: Dec-06-2013
"Girls can participate in everything that boys can, but while doing so they should be attractive." This, according to American researchers Ashton Lee Gerding of the University of Missouri and Nancy Signorielli of the University of Delaware, is one of the gender ideals conveyed by tween television programs to their young viewers. Their research, published in Springer's journal Sex Roles, also found that men and boys were stereotypically portrayed as brave in action-adventure programs.

Researchers unravel important role of Rb tumor suppressor in aggressive form of breast cancer

Date: Dec-06-2013
The retinoblastoma (Rb) protein plays a critical role in suppressing the multi-step process of cell migration through the bloodstream, lymphovascular invasion and the metastasis of an aggressive type of breast cancer to the lung, researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) Cancer Institute, the Cincinnati Cancer Center (CCC) and the UC Brain Tumor Center have found.The findings of Rb's role at multiple points in the disease process point to a potential new therapeutic target in patients with the most aggressive subset of breast cancer, known as basal-like breast carcinomas.

IVF improving but fertility treatments keep multiple births high

Date: Dec-06-2013
Fertility technology in the United States has a huge influence on the frequency of twins, triplets, and other multiple births, according to new estimates published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Eli Y. Adashi, professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Brown University, and his colleagues calculated that more than a third of twin births and more than three-quarters of triplets or higher-order births in the United States in 2011 were the result of fertility treatments.