Temporary weight gain over the winter holidays... might be a good thing
...pid depression of immune function, and he says the opposite also holds true: an increase in fat reserves bolsters the strength of the animals' immune systems. Similar studies in humans have not yet been conducted. A little extra fat could help humans and other animals deal with cold weather by providing extra...Stressed mice quicker to get skin cancer
...rachuting or riding a roller coaster, may have the opposite effect of chronic stress. "Acute stress actually can rev up the immune system," Tausk says. Tausk and his team will conduct more studies to find the cancer pathways influenced by chronic stress. "Stress reduction programs usually are a good option f...New study in NEJM suggests levodopa may slow progression of Parkinson's disease
...ontained a brain imaging component that showed the opposite effect from the clinical research evaluations. Participants underwent evaluation of their dopamine neurons at the beginning of the study and again after 40 weeks of treatment. These results suggest that levodopa could possibly have accelerated the lo...Diet, exercise, stimulating environment helps old dogs learn
...imination). Later, the treat was hidden under the opposite block so the dogs had to relearn the task (reversal learning). Overall, older dogs in the combined intervention group did the best on these learning tasks, outperforming dogs in the control group (standard diet, standard care) as well as those that r...LA BioMed medical/research briefs January 2005
...significantly different and, in some cases, in the opposite direction of those derived from the general population. This phenomenon, termed 'reverse epidemiology', is not limited to MHD patients but is also observed in populations that encompass an estimated 20 million Americans including those with an advanc...Effects of autism reach beyond language, new research suggests
...th a reasonable answer. A week after the exam, the opposite was true. "Other studies have suggested that elevated stress levels can actually improve some aspects of cognition, particularly working memory," said Jessa Alexander, a study co-author and a research assistant in neurology at Ohio State. "The result...NYU psychology researchers show how attention enhances visual perception
...that was either on the same (cued location) or the opposite (uncued location) side of the target [see diagram of experimental trial]. The purpose of the pre-cue was to automatically attract observers' attention to its location. Importantly, the cue was completely uninformative regarding both target location a...Study casts doubt on increased mobility among US population
...w study provides empirical evidence in favor of an opposite trend. In fact, overall mobility has generally declined since about 1950, and interstate mobility has generally not increased during the same period. The data supporting this is reported in the February 2005 issue of The Gerontologist (Vol. 45, No....Brain synapse formation linked to proteins, Stanford study finds
...ation," Barres said. People with epilepsy face the opposite problem. In this disease, the area of the brain where the epileptic attack originates contains both a mass of glial cells and neurons with excessive synapses. Barres suggested that the glial scar might have originally triggered the additional synapse...Dialogue & personal example work best for parents in drug talks with teens
...nd tobacco (e.g. relaxation, especially around the opposite sex; greater peer acceptance). The parent can then suggest wholesome alternatives to achieve the same end. These tools for a healthy lifestyle include specific, practical advice about drinking and driving, coping with peer pressure, and remembering ...MRI proves useful in assessment of suspected breast cancer patients
...he same breast as the primary cancer and or in the opposite breast) that were not detected on mammography or sonography. Because of the additional information provided by MRI, and subseqently confirmed by pathological analysis of the biopsy specimens, it was recommended that eight women have a mastectomy rath...Curious female rats survive tumors longer
...e curious ones. This finding in female rats is the opposite of the result Cavigelli saw in an earlier study with male rats.The males' stress hormones were lower in the curious rodents. "These results suggest that both elevated and dampened stress hormone production may be associated with disease resilience or...Laughter helps blood vessels function better
...r, they were shown a movie intended to produce the opposite emotional extreme. Prior to seeing a movie, the volunteers fasted overnight and were given a baseline blood vessel reactivity test to measure what is known as flow-mediated vasodilation. For that test, blood flow in the brachial artery in the arm ...Mayo Clinic discovers 'new pathway' against pancreatic cancer
...t. "Based on the literature, you would predict the opposite of what we found. But in fact, we determined that we can decrease a known regulator of cancer cell survival -- in effect, turn this regulator off -- and when we do, the pancreatic cancer cells undergo apoptosis (commit cell suicide) and die." Sign...Health care report cards may increase racial/ethnic disparities in bypass operations
...s, as they are currently implemented, may have the opposite effect of how they were intended to work," said Rachel M. Werner, M.D., the study's first author and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia and staff physician at the Philadelphia Veter...Giant iceberg B-15A edges past floating ice pier
...a ice. The Drygalski ice tongue is located at the opposite end of McMurdo Sound from the US and New Zealand bases. Large and (considered) permanent enough to be depicted on standard atlas maps of the Antarctic continent, the long narrow tongue stretches out to sea as an extension of the land-based David Gla...Cardiac deaths peak in sleep hours for patients with sleep apnea
...s. "We clearly have two distinct populations, with opposite times of highest cardiac death risk." Dr. Somers cautioned that the study could not determine whether OSA raises the overall risk of sudden cardiac death, or whether it simply shifts the risk to the sleeping hours. The researchers also could not tell...International breast cancer prevention study launches in the United States and Canada
...e can prevent the occurrence of new cancers in the opposite breast of women who have already had breast cancer, suggesting that it may also be able to prevent the disease in healthy women. Clinical studies have also shown that aromatase inhibitors are associated with fewer serious side effects than tamox......ctivity. Unexpectedly, however, the result was the opposite in the transgenic flies, as displayed by its extended locomotor activity. The scientists do not know what accounts for the difference. "The findings suggest that, although many individual parts of the circadian rhythm clock are conserved across speci...