Study shows promise in identifying kidney failure
CINCINNATI A researcher at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center has identified a protein that allows for earlier and quicker diagnosis of kidney failure - a diagnosis that now often occurs too late to treat kidney failure effectively....... The research, which is published in the current issue of The Lancet, sites evidence in favor of using the protein neutrophil gelatinase-associated l...Protecting children from industrial chemicals in the environment
American children are likely to face serious health consequences from new and existing industrial chemicals in the environment, argue a group of researchers in a report in this month's premier open-access global health journal .... ...Women exposed to industrial chemicals in the environment pass them on to their children across the placenta or via breast milk, and children are also exposed to c...Fat may promote inflammation, new study suggests
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. Why does extra fat around the waist increase the risk of heart disease? A new study by Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center researchers and colleagues suggests that inflammation may be the key....... "It is well known that obesity affects nearly one-third of adults in the United States and is closely linked with heart disease," said Tongjian You, Ph.D., instructor in...New evaluation tool reliably predicts recovery from coma
A Department of Veterans Affairs and Northwestern University researcher has developed the first reliable measure of neurobehavioral functioning that will help physicians predict the likelihood of a patient recovering consciousness during coma from severe brain injury within the first year of injury--with up to 86 percent certainty....... The study, by Theresa Pape, DrPH, and colleagues, is descri...Hopkins begins human trials with donor adult stem cells to repair muscle damaged from heart attack
Researchers at Johns Hopkins have begun what is believed to be the first clinical trial in the United States of adult mesenchymal stem cells to repair muscle damaged by heart attack, or myocardial infarct. ......The so-called Phase I study is designed to test the safety of injecting adult stem cells at varying doses in patients who have recently suffered a heart attack. .........An estimate...Vaccine against childhood pneumonia shows promise
A vaccine against pneumonia and invasive pneumococcal disease, a severe form of bacterial infection, can substantially reduce hospital admissions and improve the survival of children in developing countries, concludes a trial published in this week's issue of THE LANCET. The authors believe the vaccine should be made available to children in Africa, where rates of severe invasive pneumococcal dis...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
1. ... ...Giselle P. Lim, Frdric Calon, Takashi Morihara, Fusheng Yang, Bruce Teter, Oliver Ubeda, Norman Salem Jr, Sally A. Frautschy, and Greg M. Cole... ...Low levels of the omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) have been reported in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD), as has evidence for an AD protective effect of increased marine fish consumption, a...Definition of persistent vegetative state available from American Academy of Neurology
The American Academy of Neurology (AAN) has received many inquiries from the press regarding the definition of persistent vegetative state in light of the Terri Schiavo case. In 1995 the AAN published a practice parameter about the assessment and management of patients in the persistent vegetative state. This parameter includes definition and diagnosis information. It is publicly accessible at ....New technique shows promise for improved straightening of crooked nose
CHICAGO A surgical technique offers improved outcomes for straightening the middle third of the nose, a difficult to manage deformity, according to an article in the March issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals....... Straightening the crooked middle third of the nose, a deformity that compromises both appearance and the airway, can be a significant recons...Chemical decoy shows promise for slowing Alzheimer's by acting as decoy
SAN DIEGO, March 17 A chemical decoy that shows promise in blocking the toxic brain proteins thought to cause Alzheimer's disease was described here today at the 229th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society. The decoy, which has only been tested in cell culture, is a polymer developed by a team of chemists at The University of Maryland-Baltimore...Half-million cosmetic plastic surgery procedures for Hispanics in 2004 - up 49% from 2000
ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. Hispanics had nearly 553,000 cosmetic plastic surgery procedures in 2004, an increase of 49 percent from 2000 and a 7 percent increase from 2003, according to statistics released today by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Hispanics led all minority groups in the number of procedures performed, comprising 6 percent of the 9.2 million cosmetic surgery proced...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
1. ...... Irina Bystron, Zoltn Molnr, Vladimir Otellin, and Colin Blakemore ...... This week, Bystron et al. provide information on the earliest neurons that appear in the human telencephalon, well before the formation of the cortical plate or the onset of synaptogenesis. They identified the cells as neurons based on microtubule associated protein 2 (MAP2) immunoreactivity in tissue available fr...AACC and The Endocrine Society partner to promote patient education
The American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC) announced today that The Endocrine Society has endorsed Lab Tests Online and will encourage its members to help spread the word about AACC's award-winning patient education web site. The Endocrine Society, the world's oldest, largest, and most active organization in the field of endocrinology, is the first organization to join the site's new...New scale predicts recovery of consciousness from coma after brain injury
CHICAGO --- A Northwestern University researcher has developed the first truly reliable measure of neurobehavioral functioning during coma from severe brain injury that predicts recovery of consciousness up to one year after injury, with up to 86 percent certainty.... Theresa Louise-Bender Pape, assistant research professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwestern University Feinb...News tips from the 2005, 54th Annual Scientific Sessions of the American College of Cardiology
... ...... Johns Hopkins scientists have found that modern, implanted heart devices such as pacemakers and defibrillators are safe for use in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, a diagnostic and imaging tool long ruled potentially unsafe and off-limits for more than 2 million Americans who currently have them in their bodies. The Hopkins team has also developed new guidelines fo...Study suggests smoking while pregnant may increase chromosomal abnormalities in fetal cells
A preliminary report suggests that maternal smoking during pregnancy is associated with increased chromosomal abnormalities in fetal cells, according to a study in the March 9 issue of ....... Maternal smoking during pregnancy has many consequences during and after pregnancy, such as infertility, coagulation problems, obstetric complications such as extrauterine pregnancy and placenta previa, an...Simple question from your doctor can help identify your risk for breast cancer
March 8, 2005 Having your doctor ask you about your family breast health history can greatly increase the chances of identifying your risk for breast cancer. In a recent study published in the , researchers found that only 26% out of 1700 women in the Greater Boston area had documentation of their family history of breast cancer. Further data showed that minority women were significantly less...News briefs from the journal CHEST, March 2005
Sodium Bicarbonate Can Help Treat Children With Life-Threatening Asthma... ...Sodium bicarbonate, commonly known as baking soda, may help treat children with life-threatening asthma (LTA), according to a new study. Researchers at Erasmus MC-Sophia Children's Hospital, Rottendam, the Netherlands, assessed the PICU medical records of all children with LTA who received IV sodium biocarbonate betwe...Telemedicine revolution is 'disappearing' from the NHS
Despite high expectations, telemedicine and telehealthcare systems, which enable...doctors to interact with patients many miles away via video, digital imaging and electronic data transmission, have had only limited impact on the National Health Service, according to a study sponsored by the ESRC....... The expected revolution in medicine, overcoming problems of access to specialist care and spee...Sunflower seed oil can protect low birth weight babies from infection
Massaging low birth weight babies with sunflower seed oil is a low cost intervention that can protect them from infections, concludes a study published online by THE LANCET....... The skin of a preterm baby is immature and lacks vernix, a protective cutaneous film with antimicrobial properties. Infections and complications resulting from premature birth are responsible for more than half of all n...Mayo Clinic develops first genomic-based test to predict stroke from ruptured brain aneurysm
ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered a genetic marker that may pave the way for a fast, inexpensive blood test to predict one type of deadly stroke that strikes 30,000 people in the United States annually. ... ...The article and an editorial appear in the March edition of the Journal of Neurosurgery, . The Mayo Clinic researchers report that people with key variations in a...Immersion in virtual world alleviates pain from injury
Virtual reality games can help alleviate pain in children being treated for severe injuries, according to research published today in the Open Access, peer reviewed journal BMC Pediatrics.... ...Immersion in a virtual world of monsters and aliens helps children feel less pain during the treatment of severe injuries such as burns, according to a preliminary study by Karen Grimmer and colleagues f...Potential treatment for Fragile X Syndrome demonstrated in fruit fly model
(Philadelphia) - Fragile X Syndrome is one of the most commonly inherited forms of mental retardation, with an incidence of 1 in 4,000 males and 1 in 8,000 females. Not many medications exist to help Fragile X patients. Now, in a fruit fly model of the disease, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and their colleagues have shown that it is possible to reverse some of...Older women can benefit from chemotherapy to treat breast cancer
Age alone should not prohibit the use of chemotherapy regimens in older women with breast cancer who are otherwise in good general health, according to a study in the March 2 issue of JAMA. ...... "The incidence of breast cancer increases with increasing age, and almost half of all new breast cancers in the United States occur in women 65 years of age or older," the authors note in background in...News tips from the Journal of Neuroscience
... ...Ralph Feuer, Robb R. Pagarigan, Stephanie Harkins, Fei Liu, Isabelle P. Hunziker, and J. Lindsay Whitton... ...Coxsackievirus B (CVB) infections can cause serious consequences such as meningoencephalitis, particularly in newborns and young children. This week, Feuer et al. track the insidious path of CVB3 infection in neonatal mice....Training could remove racial bias from police reactions
Racial biases in a police officer's response to criminal suspects, although present among some officers, are not inevitable. A study publishing in the latest issue of Psychological Science finds that extensive training with a computer simulation where the race of a suspect is unrelated to the presence of a weapon can eliminate racial bias. Fifty police officers from Florida with two to thirty y...New patient magazine from American Academy of Neurology to launch in April
ST. PAUL, Minn. (March 1, 2005) Why would the leading international professional association of neurologists get into the business of publishing a magazine Neurology Now for patients and their caregivers?... ...Patients are overwhelmed and confused by the barrage of inaccurate information from unreliable sources. Neurology patients and their families are also often overwhelmed and their physi...Promising new strategy for Swedish medical research
Research scientists at Karolinska Institutet are planning an international initiative to map out the relationships between health, genes and lifestyle. Discussion partners include world-leading researchers from the USA, Britain, Singapore and Norway....... The project has the working title "LifeGene". If realised, it could be classed as one of the largest and most comprehensive medical projects s...Elderly receiving inappropriate prescriptions from their doctor's office
New York, NY - A large review of data linked to over 175,000 older adults enrolled in HMOs indicates that potentially inappropriate medications are being prescribed in substantial numbers. The findings are published in the February . ...... In 2000-01, according to researchers, more than 28% of elderly individuals received at least one of 33 medications deemed potentially inappropriate by medica...Protein that promotes survival of stem cells might be key to poor leukemia prognosis
The complex and life-sustaining series of steps by which hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) give rise to all of the body's red and white blood cells and platelets has now been discovered to depend in large part on a single protein called Mcl-1. This finding, from an investigator at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, is published in the February 18 issue of ...Mcl-1 blocks the biochemical cascade...Marijuana ingredient may stall decline from Alzheimer's
WASHINGTON, DC February 17, 2005 -- New research shows that a synthetic analogue of the active component of marijuana may reduce the inflammation and prevent the mental decline associated with Alzheimer's disease....... "This research is not only a major step in our understanding [of] how the brain reacts to Alzheimer's disease, but may also help open a route to novel anti-Alzheimer's drugs," say...NYU Child Study Center receives grant from the American Red Cross September 11 recovery program
NEW YORK, February 23, 2005 The NYU Child Study Center is pleased to announce the creation of the Silver Shield Life Enrichment & Continued Care Program which will be offered to widows and children of firefighters, policemen, emergency medical service and port authority personnel whose lives were lost as a result of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. This project was supported by a Se...Assessing obstructive sleep apnea syndrome in snorers
CHICAGO An overnight sleep test is required to distinguish ordinary snorers from persons with obstructive sleep apnea syndrome (OSAS), according to a study in the February issue of Archives of Otolaryngology Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals....... Snoring is one of the main symptoms of OSAS, but while 30 to 50 percent of the general population snores, only 2 to 4 percent ha...Physical activity linked to protection from Parkinson's disease
Boston MA In the first comprehensive examination of strenuous physical activity and the risk of developing Parkinson's disease, researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that men who exercised regularly and vigorously early in their adult life had a lower risk for developing Parkinson's disease compared to men who did not. The findings appear in the February 22, 2005...Hyperactive kids three times as likely to be removed from their families
Severely hyperactive children are three times more likely to be removed from their families, because their parents can no longer cope, than children with other mental health or behavioural problems, reveals research in Archives of Disease in Childhood....... Hyperactivity is the most common neuropsychiatric disorder diagnosed in children. And around 1% of kids in the UK are thought to have the mo...Time-reversal acoustics research promises medical breakthroughs
HOBOKEN, N.J. -- Scientists have not yet found a way to actually make time run backward, but in the cutting-edge world of recent acoustics research, they have shown a way to make sound waves run backward in a kind of ultra-focused reverse echo. By the technology known as time-reversal acoustics, sound waves in exact reverse order from the original sound echo directly and very precisely back to...Older people recover from disabling events at higher rate than previously thought
Approximately four out of every five newly-disabled older people regain the ability to live independently within 6 months of their disability episode, a higher recovery rate than previously reported, according to a study by Susan E. Hardy, M.D. and Thomas M. Gill, M.D., Yale University School of Medicine. The study was conducted at Yale's Claude D. Pepper Older Americans Independence Center, sup...Promising vaccine may provide long-lasting protection against malaria
Researchers have developed a unique vaccine that destroys a deadly toxin produced by the parasite that causes malaria, which kills more than two million people each year. The vaccine appears extremely promising in animal studies, they say....... If the drug works in humans, it could become a more effective and longer lasting anti-malarial vaccine than those currently available, according to the r...Researchers find gene that causes leukemia in children with Down syndrome
Researchers from the University of Chicago have identified a gene defect that causes the development of leukemia in children with Down syndrome. The discovery, scheduled for Advance Online Publication on Nature Genetics's website on 12 August, could speed diagnosis and provide a new target for therapy.... ...Children with Down syndrome are 10 to 20 times as likely as unaffected children to devel...SARASOTA, FL -- Cancer patients who experience taste and smell loss because of the disease and its treatments are at high risk for weight loss and nutritional deficits that can compromise their overall treatment success, according to a small study of 33 lung cancer patients at Duke University Medical Center. ... While not all cancer patients lose weight with the disease, those who do so tend to...