Medical News
Smoking Speeds Up Male Cognitive Decline
A male regular smoker has a higher risk of rapid cognitive decline, compared to his counterparts who do not smoke, researchers from University College London, England, reported in Archives of General Psychiatry. The authors add that the evidence has been mounting regarding the link between smoking and dementia in elderly individuals - smoking has been found to push up the total number of patients with dementia around the world. Séverine Sabia, Ph.D., and team set out to determine what impact smoking might have on men during their transition from middle age to old age...
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Mild Alzheimer's Might In Fact Be Mild Cognitive Impairment
New revised criteria could mean that a considerable number of patients currently diagnosed with mild or very mild Alzheimer's, might in fact be reclassified as having MCI (mild cognitive impairment), John C. Morris, M.D., of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, wrote in Archives of Neurology. The Alzheimer's Association, along with the NIA (National Institute of Aging) revised the criteria for MCI after convening a work group. The new criteria have considerably widened the meaning of functional independence, Dr. Morris explained...
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Breast Cancer Drug Exemestane Causes Substantial Bone Loss
A recent study published in The Lancet Oncology shows how exemestane (Aromasin), a drug that prevents the development of breast cancer in postmenopausal women, may significantly worsen age-related bone loss. As an aromatase inhibitor, exemestane works by blocking the synthesis of estrogen, slowing down the growth of cancers that have estrogen receptors. Whilst the drug is effective at preventing the development of cancer, there has been an increasing concern about its effects on bone density and fracture risk...
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Finger Foods During Weaning Help Maintain Healthy Body Weight Later On
A study published in BMJ Open reveals that infants tend to eat healthier and be a healthy weight as they get older if they are allowed to feed themselves with finger foods from the start of weaning (baby led weaning), compared to infants who are spoon fed. According to the researchers, findings from the study indicate that baby led weaning may help prevent childhood obesity. Findings from the study were based on 155 children aged between 20 months and 6.5 years, whose parents filled out a survey regarding their children's food preferences and weaning style...
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Not Completing Teen Education Raises Risk Of Being On Benefits Later On
A study published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health reveals that adolescents are nearly three times more likely to be on benefits in the future if they drop out of school than those who complete their education. The researchers examined the self-rated health of nearly 9,000 Norwegian adolescents between the ages of 13 to 19, who were already participating in the Young-HUNT study between 1995 and 1997...
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Children Who Move House A Lot Have Higher Risk Of Illnesses Later
A study published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health suggests that, moving house frequently during childhood appears to raise the risk of poor health in later life. The health of 850 individuals participating in the West of Scotland Twenty-07 study, which was based on postcodes, tracked the long term health of individuals aged 15, 35 and 55 in 1987-1988 over a period of two decades, was evaluated by the researchers...
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Bad Immunity Genes - Why do They Survive?
New evidence has been discovered by biologists at the University of Utah as to why people, mice and other vertebrate animals carry thousands of different genes to create major histocompatibility complex (MHCs) proteins, despite the fact that some of those genes make humans vulnerable to autoimmune diseases and infections. Findings from the study will be published online the week of February 6, 2012, in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. MHC proteins are found on the surface of most cells in vertebrates and define an individual's tissue type...
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Green Tea Protects Against Functional Disability Linked To Aging
Regular green tea drinkers have a lower risk of developing functional disability, researchers from Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine, Sendai, Japan, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. Functional disability refers to problems with daily chores and activities, such as bathing or dressing. As background information, the authors explained that prior studies had found that consuming green tea reduced the risk of diseases associated with functional disability, such as osteoporosis, cognitive impairment and stroke...
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Merck Has Positive Results With New Insomnia Drug
Merck has announced positive results in a phase 3 trial of its insomnia drug. It's a key player in the companies up and coming products, especially considering the loss of patent protection on its top drugs for asthma and allergys. The experimental drug known as suvorexant, uses a new mechanism created to help people sleep, but at the same time aiming to mitigate side effects associated with popular sleep aids. Analysts think that annual sales of the drug could top $500 million within several years. Peter S...
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Child Abuse - 4,569 Hospitalizations And 300 Deaths In One Year, USA
Child abuse injuries resulted in 4,500 hospitalizations and 300 fatalities in just one year in the USA, researchers from Yale School of Medicine reported in the journal Pediatrics. This is the first study that has quantified abuse severity and how many children ended up in hospital, the authors added. Child Protective Services had only tracked occurrence of child abuse at a national level. Dr. John M. Leventhal and team set out to find out what the incidence of hospitalizations due to child abuse among children under 18 years of age might be...
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Lung Function At School Age Better Thanks To Breastfeeding
A study by researchers in Switzerland and the UK reveals that breastfeeding is linked to enhanced lung function at school age, especially in children born to asthmatic mothers. The study is published online ahead of print publication in the American Thoracic Society's American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. Claudia E. Kuehni, M.D...
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Teen Secondhand Smoke Exposure Down, But Not Enough
Secondhand Smoke (SHS) exposure among middle and high school students in the USA has dropped over the last ten years, researchers from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) reported in the March edition of Pediatrics. The authors explained that passengers in cars who accompany smokers run significant health risks, especially if they are children and teenagers. Even though exposure has gone down over the last decade, 22...
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Trevo® Pro System - Good Results In Restoring Function In Stroke Patients
Stryker has just announced the results of the TREVO Study at the International Stroke Conference in New Orleans. TREVO, (Thrombectomy REvascularization of large Vessel Occlusions in acute ischemic stroke) was designed to evaluate Trevo® System's ability to remove the blood clots that cause strokes, restoring the blood flow to the brain, and was one of the first prospective multi-center clinical studies of clot-removing stent retriever technology. The study involved sixty patients at seven leading European stroke centers. An independent core lab measured revascularization...
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Somatosensory Neurons Remain Overactive After Exposure To Loud Noises
It is common knowledge that it takes a while for the hearing to become 'normal' again after listening to music that is too loud. The American Tinnitus Association estimates that there are almost 50 million people in the U.S. and millions more worldwide who suffer from tinnitus, which can range from being intermittent and mildly annoying to chronic, severe and debilitating. There is no cure for tinnitus...
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Disturbing Rates Of Child Abuse And Hospitalizations
In one year alone, over 4,500 children in the United States were hospitalized due to child abuse, and 300 of them died of their injuries, Yale School of Medicine researchers report in a new study. The findings are published in the March 2012 issue of Pediatrics (published online Feb. 6). Several measures have been used to track the national occurrence of child abuse, including data from Child Protective Services. But until now none quantified the severity of the abuse or whether the child was hospitalized as a result. Led by John M. Leventhal, M.D...
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Controlling Gene Expression With New RNA-Based Therapeutic Strategies
Small RNA-based nucleic acid drugs represent a promising new class of therapeutic agents for silencing abnormal or overactive disease-causing genes, and researchers have discovered new mechanisms by which RNA drugs can control gene activity. A comprehensive review article in Nucleic Acid Therapeutics, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., details these advances. Short strands of nucleic acids, called small RNAs, can be used for targeted gene silencing, making them attractive drug candidates...
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Football Findings Suggest Concussions Caused By Series Of Hits
A two-year study of high school football players suggests that concussions are likely caused by many hits over time and not from a single blow to the head, as commonly believed. Purdue University researchers have studied football players for two seasons at Jefferson High School in Lafayette, Ind., where 21 players completed the study the first season and 24 the second season, including 16 repeating players. Helmet-sensor impact data from each player were compared with brain-imaging scans and cognitive tests performed before, during and after each season...
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Cause Of Metabolic Disease Identified By Whole Exome Sequencing
Sequencing a patient's entire genome to discover the source of his or her disease is not routine - yet. But geneticists are getting close. A case report, published this week in the American Journal of Human Genetics, shows how researchers can combine a simple blood test with an "executive summary" scan of the genome to diagnose a type of severe metabolic disease. Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine and Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute used "whole-exome sequencing" to find the mutations causing a glycosylation disorder in a boy born in 2004...
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Temporary Stent Procedure Improves Stroke Recovery
A new way of opening blocked arteries in the brain using a removable stent system in people suffering strokes brought remarkably positive results in how those patients recovered from the strokes, according to a study presented at the American Stroke Association's annual conference in New Orleans. The interventional procedure was performed on more than 140 stroke patients at 18 medical centers throughout the United States...
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Insight Into Cell Aging Likely Following Discovery Of Extremely Long-Lived Proteins
One of the big mysteries in biology is why cells age. Now scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies report that they have discovered a weakness in a component of brain cells that may explain how the aging process occurs in the brain. The scientists discovered that certain proteins, called extremely long-lived proteins (ELLPs), which are found on the surface of the nucleus of neurons, have a remarkably long lifespan...
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