Health News

African Americans with chronic kidney disease at increased risk for end-stage renal disease

Date: Dec-02-2013
In the United States, African Americans have approximately twice the risk of end-stage renal disease compared to white Americans, despite a similar prevalence in earlier stages of chronic kidney disease. A large study co-authored by George Washington University (GW) researcher Dominic Raj, M.D., identifies factors that mediate differences in the progression of chronic kidney disease between black patients and white patients, as well as among black patients, in order to reduce the excess burden of end-stage renal disease and its complications in black patients.

Five new avenues for stroke rehabilitation research explored

Date: Dec-02-2013
Treatments based on behavioral or non-invasive physiological stimulation show greatest potentialBecause the concept of permanent neurological injury has given way to recognition of the brain's potential for long-term regeneration and reorganization, rehabilitation strategies are undergoing radical changes. The potential for five new translational interventions was examined in an article published ahead of print by Neurology Clinical Practice. Medical resources are limited, so it is important to focus on areas of greatest potential, according to Dr.

Brain research provides new clues to Pavlovian conditioning and may improve treatment of dementia

Date: Dec-02-2013
Do fruit flies hold the key to treating dementia? Researchers at the University of Houston (UH) have taken a significant step forward in unraveling the mechanisms of Pavlovian conditioning. Their work will help them understand how memories form and, ultimately, provide better treatments to improve memory in all ages.

Women who test negative for BRCA may not be at reduced risk of breast cancer

Date: Dec-02-2013
Women who are members of families with BRCA2 mutations but who test negative for the family-specific BRCA2 mutations are still at greater risk for developing breast cancer compared with women in the general population, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.Women with certain mutations in their BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes are at increased risk for breast cancer.

Link between life satisfaction and GDP

Date: Dec-02-2013
Economists have shed light on the vexed question of whether economic development can buy happiness - and it seems that life satisfaction actually dips among people living in the wealthiest countries.Politicians are intensely interested in the link between national wealth and levels of happiness among the population, but it is a subject which is still wide open to debate among economists.

'One-stop shop' for tracking diseases in the US

Date: Dec-02-2013
Tracking a nation's health can be a painstaking business. But now, a team of researchers from the University of Pittsburgh have brought together and digitized all the weekly surveillance reports of diseases in the US since 1888 into one database.The researchers collated all weekly notifiable disease surveillance tables published between 1888 and 2013 - approximately 6,500 tables. Because of their age, many of these tables were available only in paper format or as PDF scans in online repositories that could not be read by computers and had to be hand-entered.

Nanoparticles: pills for the future

Date: Dec-02-2013
Delivering medicine directly to the affected area provides direct access to the diseased area. Nanoparticles hold promise as a delivery method but are currently only available in injectable forms. Now, researchers from MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital have made a breakthrough by finding a way of delivering nanoparticles orally.Nanoparticles loaded with chemotherapy drugs or short interfering RNA, which can turn off selected genes, are currently in clinical trials to treat cancer and other diseases.

Key protein identified that is responsible for controlling communication between brain cells

Date: Dec-02-2013
Scientists are a step closer to understanding how some of the brain's 100 billion nerve cells co-ordinate their communication. The study is published in the journal Cell Reports.The University of Bristol research team investigated some of the chemical processes that underpin how brain cells co-ordinate their communication. Defects in this communication are associated with disorders such as epilepsy, autism and schizophrenia, and therefore these findings could lead to the development of novel neurological therapies.

Mechanism discovered behind blood stem cells' longevity

Date: Dec-02-2013
The blood stem cells that live in bone marrow are at the top of a complex family tree. Such stem cells split and divide down various pathways that ultimately produce red cells, white cells and platelets. These "daughter" cells must be produced at a rate of about one million per second to constantly replenish the body's blood supply.Researchers have long wondered what allows these stem cells to persist for decades, when their progeny last for days, weeks or months before they need to be replaced.

Patients as Partners, March 3-4, 2014, Philadelphia

Date: Dec-02-2013
Patients as Partners (March 3-4, 2014, Philadelphia) takes a comprehensive view of the patient experience and how we engage with patients across the entire clinical trial continuum. This includes early research, patient-centric protocol design, recruitment, retention, engagement, and communicating results with patients acting as ambassadors and educators.The Conference Forum is proud to present Patients as Partners with CISCRP's founder Ken Getz as conference chair, along with an exciting speaking faculty representing industry, advocacy, academia, patients and the FDA.