Physics World Digest August 2004: Eye surgery sharpens up
...al pieces of information for surgeons, who need to alter permanently this transparent membrane to ensure that light is sharply focused on the retina. The information is currently obtained by reflecting a narrow strip of light that is shone into the patient's eye. The new technique, developed by Jos Almeida...UCI Tobacco research center reports why teens are most vulnerable to smoking addiction
...otine alone can do. Together, these chemicals can alter the moods, behaviors and thought processes of teens. Nicotine causes changes in the adolescent brains of rats after just one exposure. Teens with ADHD may turn to smoking as a form of self-medication. Programs designed to prevent teen smoking have...Researchers identify cancer-causing gene involved in aggressive leukemia, lymphoma
...o make proteins, increased expression of HMG-I may alter the expression of those genes involved in regulating cell growth, in turn leading to cancerous transformations. "We believe the transgenic mouse used in this study will also provide a valuable tool for determining how overexpression of the HMG-I gene...Synbiotic modulation of gut flora improves minimal hepatic encephalopathy in cirrhotic patients
... patients with synbiotics or fermentable fiber can alter the flora in the gut, lowering its pH levels as we...obacterium spp. Treatment with the placebo did not alter the counts of any of the gut flora assessed. "Our study is the first to examine the impact of synbio...Ongoing study evaluates pediatricians' effectivenes at violence prevention
...g to be effective to change families' behavior and alter the likelihood that their children would become either a perpetrator or a victim of violence," said Barkin, primary investigator and a pediatrician at Wake Forest Baptist's Brenner Children's Hospital. In 2002, the World Health Organization reported ...Highlights summarized for movement disorders research at 56th annual meeting
...apy. In DBS, electrodes are placed in the brain to alter signals causing the dystonia. Researchers from San Francisco reported their results on 15 patients receiving DBS. As has been seen in other studies, there was a wide range of benefit, from complete normalization of movements to only modest effects. A...Smoking increases papillomavirus risk in HIV-infected women
... commented that smoking and HIV infection may each alter the natural history of HPV infection to heighten tumor risk, and that the combination of smoking and HIV infection may be especially potent in this regard. The putative mechanism(s) would involve immune deficiencies. HIV infection, of course, is a pr...Monthly hormonal changes can exacerbate seizures in women with epilepsy
...use seizures affect the regulation of hormones and alter signals sent from the brain. One out of three cycles in women with certain forms of (or temporal lobe) epilepsy is non-ovulatory." Among the 87 women studied, nearly 40 percent (39.1 %) showed catamential patterns where seizures fluctuated with thei...Controlling pain with your brain
...nge the pain threshold in mice by training them to alter their brainwave patterns through a process called conditioned learning, where an altered brainwave state was rewarded by direct stimulation of the reward centres in their brains. Since this meant placing an electrode into the brain, however, his team...Northwestern Memorial tests 'pacemaker' for stomach
...nlike most operations that treat obesity, does not alter gastrointestinal anatomy and is being tested to see if it is less invasive and results in fewer complications compared to other surgical procedures," adds Jay B. Prystowsky, M.D., chief of the Division of Gastrointestinal and Endocrine Surgery at Nor...Solvent, common drug plus hormones raise risk of reproductive failures and breast cancers
...s are known as "endocrine disrupters" because they alter the normal course and behavior of hormones in the body. McDonnell is principal investigator of a study describing these results, to be published in the April 19, 2004, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The lead author ...Trans fat linked to increase in cholesterol
...ers investigated whether twice a day feeding would alter the lipid profile vs. the standard once a day feeding using the 46% kcal coconut oil based diet. Blood was taken at the conclusion of the various diets 6hrs after a meal. Blood samples were measured for: TC, TG, HDL-C, LDL-C, VLDL and LDL1-5. The ra...Ethics of boosting brainpower debated by researchers
... medication for depression. It could be that drugs alter the way the brain works, fundamentally changing pe...lation to control the use of drugs or devices that alter the way the brain functions. Legislation isn't necessary, according to the group, but caution is. Il...Blood screen may help cancer patients thwart radiation side effects, say Stanford researchers
... one of the options carried a big risk, that might alter your decision," he said. For other cancer patients, radiation may be the best treatment. However, Chu added that patients at risk for high toxicity may also have cancers that die in response to much lower radiation doses. In such cases, radiation - t...Mayo Clinic researchers restore lost immunity -- Possible breakthrough for AIDS
...thy cells. In this way, clinicians may be able to alter immunity by skewing or redirecting the focus of the body's misdirected immune response. While she says this theory is untested, it could be one more method for controlling autoimmunity. Accelerated Human Trials The next step is to test the current ...A bird 'language' gene pinpointed
... signaling pathway involving FoxP2, and attempt to alter the gene in birds to explore how mutations affect vocal learning. Jarvis emphasized that the discovery of FoxP2 represents only the beginning of a major effort to explore the genetic machinery underlying vocal learning and cautions that it has not ...Study: Carbon dioxide may find new use in producing medical implants
...t engineers can control the pressure of the CO2 to alter the internal structure of the plastic and create voids that may enable the material to hold larger quantities of medicine than might normally be possible. Tomasko and John Lannutti, associate professor of materials science and engineering, their grad...A new hypothesis about Alzheimer's disease
... the amino acid sequence of TTR, and these changes alter protein folding in such a way as to predispose the proteins to misfold and accumulate into microscopic fibrils, which can then grow into the protein plaques characteristic of FAP and other amyloid diseases. However, in Alzheimer's disease, the cause...NEJM breast cancer study shows increased disease - free survival
...ieve the importance of this study is that it could alter practice. Standard practice has been to give tamoxifen for five years, however this study shows that patients will have better outcomes when they receive tamoxifen for two-to-three years then switch to exemestane." AROMASIN was generally well tolera...Implanted defibrillators not covered for half of patients who could benefit, study finds
...vidence to the debate over whether Medicare should alter its coverage criteria for ICDs. The National Institute of Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Sudden Cardiac Death in Heart Failure Trial, also known as SCD-HeFT, showed that ICDs reduced the risk of sudden cardiac death by 23 percent among patients wit...