Personalized medicine for cancer patientsPublished online today in Nature, a paper authored by over 200 members of the International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) describes the beginnings of a Brave New World, a new era of personalised medicine for cancer patients.
Formed in 2008, the consortium brings together leading cancer scientists from around the world, working together to catalogue the genetic changes of the 50 most common cancers - 500 genomes from each cancer type and........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 4/14/2010 11:01:34 PM)
Health insurance and migraine carePeople with no health insurance are less likely than the privately insured to receive proper therapy for their migraines, as per a research studyreported in the April 13, 2010, print issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Migraines, often characterized by excruciating headache and nausea, can cause significant distress. They can cause people affected by them to lose an average of four to six days of........Go to the Neurology news blog (Added on 4/12/2010 10:46:17 PM)
Radiation therapy for terminal cancer patientsA new analysis has observed that a considerable proportion of patients with end-stage or terminal cancer do not benefit from palliative radiation treatment (radiotherapy) despite spending most of their remaining life undergoing therapys. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that greater efforts are needed to tailor appropriately palliative radiotherapy to patients with........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 4/12/2010 10:40:46 PM)
Study could improve treatments for prostate cancerVan Andel Research Institute (VARI) researchers have determined how two proteins mandatory for the initiation and development of prostate cancer interact at the molecular level, which could lead to improved therapys for the disease.
One of the proteins, androgen receptor, is already an important drug target for prostate cancer. The other, steroid receptor coactivator-3 (SRC3), was originally identified for its role in the development of........Go to the Prostate-cancer-blog (Added on 4/2/2010 7:14:05 AM)
Mapping heart diseaseThough heart disease is a major cause of disability and death, very little is understood about its genetic underpinnings. Recently, an international team of researchers at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute (Sanford-Burnham) and other organizations shed new light on the subject. Studying Drosophila (fruit flies), the team investigated 7061 genes and........Go to the Heart-watch-blog (Added on 4/2/2010 6:57:21 AM)
Perception of poor sleep may predict postpartum moodA study of healthy new mothers in the April 1 issue of the journal Sleep observed that the perception of poor sleep and the conscious awareness of its impact on daytime functioning might be stronger predictors of immediate postpartum mood disturbances than actual sleep quality and quantity.
Results indicate that both objective and subjective nighttime sleep significantly worsened with decreased total sleep time and sleep efficiency after........Go to the OBGYN news blog (Added on 4/1/2010 6:43:42 AM)
Acupuncture for loss of smell after viral infectionTraditional Chinese acupuncture (TCA), where very thin needles are used to stimulate specific points in the body to elicit beneficial therapeutic responses, appears to be an effective therapy option for patients who suffer from persistent post- viral olfactory dysfunction (PVOD), as per new research in the April 2010 issue of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery
Olfactory dysfunction can arise from a variety of causes and can profoundly........Go to the Neurology news blog (Added on 4/1/2010 6:41:56 AM)
Short-term program for binge eatersA newly released study finds that a self-guided, 12-week program helps binge eaters stop binging for up to a year and the program can also save money for those who participate. Recurrent binge eating is the most common eating disorder in the country, affecting more than three percent of the population, or nine million people, yet few therapy options are available.
But a first-of-a-kind study conducted by scientists at the Kaiser Permanente........Go to the Weight watcher's blog (Added on 4/1/2010 6:38:05 AM)
Flavonoids in Orange JuiceEating foods containing flavonoids -- orange juice, in this case -- along with a high-fat, high-carbohydrate fast-food meal neutralizes the oxidative and inflammatory stress generated by the unhealthy food and helps prevent blood vessel damage, a newly released study by University at Buffalo endocrinologists shows.
Free radicals, or reactive oxygen species, are known to induce inflammation in blood vessel linings and contribute to the risk........Go to the Weight watcher's blog (Added on 3/31/2010 7:53:18 PM)
Bacon or Bagels For Your Breakfast?The age-old maxim "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper" may in fact be the best advice to follow to prevent metabolic syndrome, as per a new University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) study.
Typically metabolic syndrome is characterized by abdominal obesity, high triglycerides, insulin resistance and other cardiovascular disease-risk factors.
The study, published online March 30 in the International........Go to the Weight watcher's blog (Added on 3/31/2010 7:50:35 PM)
Talk to your babiesNorthwestern University scientists have observed that even before infants begin to speak, words play an important role in their cognition. For 3-month-old infants, words influence performance in a cognitive task in a way that goes beyond the influence of other kinds of sounds, including musical tones.
The research by Alissa Ferry, Susan Hespos and Sandra Waxman in the psychology department in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, will........Go to the Pediatric news blog (Added on 3/25/2010 7:57:40 PM)
Notion of 'group think' questionedA University of Alberta researcher is questioning the notion of "group think" a common psychological phenomenonthat has been used to explain some of the extreme things people do once they are within the confines of a group. Rob Wilson, a professor in the Department of Philosophy, rejects the popular idea that groups tend to have a mind of their own and says the notion of a collective mind is problematic.
"Groups are not thinking entities and........Go to the Psychology news blog (Added on 3/25/2010 7:53:00 PM)
Does screening reduce breast cancer deaths?A study from Denmark published on bmj.com today finds no effect of the Danish screening programme on breast cancer deaths.
Similar results have been seen in other countries, including the UK, leading the authors to question whether screening has delivered the promised effect on breast cancer mortality.
A 2005 study suggested that screening had reduced breast cancer deaths by 25% in Copenhagen. But Karsten Jrgensen and Peter Gtzsche from........Go to the Breast-cancer-blog (Added on 3/24/2010 12:15:25 PM)
Advance care planning improves end of life careAdvance care planning improves end of life care and reduces stress, anxiety and depression in surviving relatives, as per new research published on bmj.com today.
Advance care planning has the potential to improve end of life care by enabling patients to discuss and document their future health wishes, and appoint a substitute decision maker (surrogate), thus increasing the likelihood of patient wishes being known and respected at the end of........Go to the Society medical news blog (Added on 3/24/2010 12:13:19 PM)
Chemotherapy plus synthetic compound for pancreatic cancersHuman pancreas cancer cells dramatically regress when treated with chemotherapy in combination with a synthetic compound that mimics the action of a naturally occurring "death-promoting" protein found in cells, scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.
The research, conducted in mice, appears in today's issue of Cancer Research and could lead to more effective therapies for pancreatic and possibly other cancers, the scientists........Go to the Pancreatic cancer blog (Added on 3/24/2010 12:10:42 PM)
Ultrasound to Treat Chronic PainImagine that after long day tending to patients, a middle-aged nurse feels a burning pain in her knees so intense she can barely walk. For millions of people who suffer from arthritis or other chronic joint pain, this is a familiar story. Right now there are few day-to-day therapies available for these patients, and a number of involve strong medications that can be harmful over time.
If George K. Lewis, a biomedical engineering graduate........Go to the Rheumatology news blog (Added on 3/19/2010 10:44:08 AM)
Failed college dreams don't spell depressionHigh school seniors, take note: A wise person once said, "It is better to shoot for the stars and miss than aim at the gutter and hit it".
That's right on, says Florida State University Sociology Professor John R. Reynolds, who just completed a study to determine whether unrealized educational expectations are linked to depression among adults. Reynolds also is the director of the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy at Florida State.........Go to the Psychology news blog (Added on 3/19/2010 7:40:30 AM)
Video Game for Improving Hand FunctionEngineers at Rutgers University have modified a popular home video game system to help teenagers with cerebral palsy improve hand functions. In a pilot trial with three participants, the system improved the teens' abilities to perform a range of daily personal and household activities.
The modified system combined a Sony PlayStation 3 console and a commercial gaming glove with custom-developed software and games to provide exercise routines........Go to the Society medical news blog (Added on 3/17/2010 8:00:49 PM)
New chemotherapy combination for endometrial cancerScientists from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report that in a small study of women with advanced or recurrent endometrial cancer, gemcitabine and cisplatin, when used in combination, produced a response rate in fifty percent of patients.
Jubilee Brown, M.D., associate professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Gynecologic Oncology, presented the findings at today's plenary session of the Society of Gynecologic........Go to the Uterine cancer blog (Added on 3/17/2010 7:49:54 PM)
How cancer and obesity are linkedThe link between obesity and disease has been well documented. There's evidence now that obesity and cancer have a strong link, as they've shown in the United States at least 90,000 cancer deaths a year can be attributed to obesity. University of Alberta researcher Richard Lamb is on his way to understanding the correlation and it's a good example of how the scientific process works.
Lamb is studying a cell pathway in the human body that........Go to the Cancer-blog (Added on 3/15/2010 8:04:10 PM)
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Newly discovered RNA steers brain developmentHow does the brain work? This question is one of the greatest scientific mysteries, and neurobiologists have only recently begun to piece together the molecular building blocks that enable human beings to be "thinking" animals.
One fundamental property of the mammalian brain is that it continues to develop after birth, and one of the biggest drivers of the formation of new links between neurons is experience. Every time a baby sticks her........Go to the Neurology news blog (Added on 4/14/2010 11:02:47 PM)
Reducing teenage smokingDr James White from Cardiff University's School of Medicine undertook a three-year-study, involving some 3,500 11 to 15 year-olds, as part of the British Youth Panel Survey a self report survey of children in the British Household Panel survey.
Results indicated that one of the strongest protective factors for reducing the risk of experimenting with smoking in early adolescence was how often fathers talked with their children, both boys and........Go to the Society medical news blog (Added on 4/14/2010 10:59:51 PM)
Women who eat foods with high glycemic indexConsuming carbohydrates with high glycemic indexan indicator of how quickly a food affects blood glucose levelsmay be linked to the risk of coronary heart disease in women but not men, as per a report in the April 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
High-carbohydrate diets increase the levels of blood glucose and of harmful blood fats known as triglycerides while reducing levels of protective HDL or........Go to the Weight watcher's blog (Added on 4/12/2010 10:35:15 PM)
EMR and genome-driven diagnosesA newly released study reveals an exciting potential benefit of the rapidly accumulating databases of health care information, the ability to make unprecedented links between genomic data and clinical medicine. The research, published by Cell Press in the recent issue of the American Journal of Human Genetics, supports the idea that large scale DNA databanks associated with electronic medical record (EMR) systems provide a valuable platform for........Go to the Research news blog (Added on 4/2/2010 7:09:05 AM)
Studying Alzheimer drug candidatesSome current therapies being investigated for Alzheimer's disease may cause further neural degeneration and cell death, as per a breakthrough discovery by UC San Diego researchers.
By combining three dimensional computer simulations with high resolution atomic force microscopy membrane protein and cell imaging, electrical recording and various cellular assays, UCSD nano-biophysicist Ratnesh Lal and colleagues investigated the structure and........Go to the Neurology news blog (Added on 4/2/2010 7:07:10 AM)
Imaging life as it happensImagine being able to image life as it happens by capturing video of the embryonic heart before it begins beating. A professor at the University of Houston, in collaboration with researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, is doing just that.
Kirill Larin, assistant professor of biomedical engineering in the Cullen College of Engineering at UH, and colleagues in the Texas Medical Center are documenting the formation of the mammalian heart........Go to the Heart-watch-blog (Added on 4/2/2010 6:55:40 AM)
Small soda taxes may not curb consumption among childrenSmall sales taxes on soft drinks in the range currently in force in some states are insufficient to reduce consumption of soda or curb obesity among children, as per a new RAND Corporation study.
Such small taxes may reduce consumption in some subgroups such as children at greater risk for obesity, but reducing consumption for all children would require larger taxes, as per the study published by the journal Health Affairs
"If the goal is........Go to the Weight watcher's blog (Added on 4/1/2010 6:39:38 AM)
CT and MRI scans leads to shorter hospital staysAdvanced imaging techniques such as computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) might shorten the length of a person's hospital stay and decrease the high costs linked to hospitalization if used early, as per a research studyin the recent issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (www.jacr.org).
Inpatient costs represent 18 percent of total health care insurance premiums paid, and they continue to grow........Go to the Society medical news blog (Added on 4/1/2010 6:35:19 AM)
Direct patient access to imaging testProviding patients with direct access to their imaging test results could improve patient satisfaction and clinical outcomes. However, physicians are concerned that it could lead to increased patient anxiety and unrealistic demands on doctor time, as per a research studyin the recent issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology (www.jacr.org).
"Patients do not receive as much medical information as they want," said Annette J.........Go to the Society medical news blog (Added on 4/1/2010 6:33:55 AM)
New brain nerve cells key to stress resilienceSouthwestern Medical Center scientists have found new clues that might help explain why some people are more susceptible to stress than others.
In a study of mice, the scientists determined that weeks after experiencing a stressful event, animals that were more susceptible to stress exhibited enhanced neurogenesis the birth of new nerve cells in the brain. Specifically, the cells that these animals produced after a stressful event survived........Go to the Neurology news blog (Added on 3/31/2010 7:40:52 PM)
Breast cancer and anthracyclinesAn international team of scientists has discovered a new way of detecting which patients with breast cancer are going to respond best to chemotherapy that includes anthracycline antibiotics*.
The research, presented at the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7) in Barcelona today (Thursday), is important because, until now, there was conflicting evidence about the best way of predicting response to anthracyclines and it was........Go to the Breast-cancer-blog (Added on 3/25/2010 7:56:17 PM)
Hair dye and smoking linked to liver diseaseHair dye and smoking both increase the risk of progressive liver disease, suggests research involving around 5000 people reported in the journal Gut
Primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), which is an early form of liver cirrhosis, is a long term progressive autoimmune disease, in which environmental factors are thought to play a part.
It causes the liver's plumbing system of bile ducts to become inflamed, scarred, and blocked, leading to........Go to the GI news blog (Added on 3/24/2010 12:20:43 PM)
Indian spice Curcumin may delay liver damage and cirrhosisCurcumin, one of the principal components of the Indian spice turmeric, seems to delay the liver damage that eventually causes cirrhosis, suggests preliminary experimental research in the journal Gut
Curcumin, which gives turmeric its bright yellow pigment, has long been used in Indian Ayurvedic medicine to treat a wide range of gastrointestinal disorders.
Prior research has indicated that it has anti-inflammatory and antioxidant........Go to the GI news blog (Added on 3/24/2010 12:18:07 PM)
New guidance to improve trial reportsNew guidance to improve the reporting of trial findings is published simultaneously today (24 March 2010) by the BMJ and eight other leading journals around the world.
Full and transparent reporting of trials is crucial to ensure that decisions about health care are based on the best available evidence.
The guidance, known as the Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT) statement, was first published in 1996 and revised in........Go to the Research news blog (Added on 3/24/2010 12:12:25 PM)
Seaweed against obesitySeaweed could hold the key to tackling obesity after it was found it reduces fat uptake by more than 75 per cent, new research has shown.
Now the team at Newcastle University are adding seaweed fibre to bread to see if they can develop foods that help you lose weight while you eat them.
A team of researchers led by Dr Iain Brownlee and Prof Jeff Pearson have observed that dietary fibre in one of the world's largest commercially-used........Go to the Weight watcher's blog (Added on 3/22/2010 7:50:25 PM)
Gene linked to lung cancer in never-smokersA five-center collaborative study that scanned the genomes of thousands of "never smokers" diagnosed with lung cancer as well as healthy never smokers has found a gene they say could be responsible for a significant number of those cancers.
In the March 22 on line issue of Lancet Oncology, the scientists reported that about 30 percent of patients who never smoked and who developed lung cancer had the same uncommon variant, or allele,........Go to the Lung-cancer-blog (Added on 3/22/2010 7:45:30 PM)
Acne Drug Prevents Hiv BreakoutJohns Hopkins researchers have observed that a safe and inexpensive antibiotic in use since the 1970s for treating acne effectively targets infected immune cells in which HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, lies dormant and prevents them from reactivating and replicating.
The drug, minocycline, likely will improve on the current therapy regimens of HIV-infected patients if used in combination with a standard drug cocktail known as HAART (Highly........Go to the Skin news blog (Added on 3/19/2010 7:32:58 AM)
Feeling lonely adds to rate of blood pressure increaseChronic feelings of loneliness take a toll on blood pressure over time, causing a marked increase after four years, as per a newly released study at the University of Chicago.
A newly released study shows, for the first time, a direct relation between loneliness and larger increases in blood pressure four years latera link that is independent of age and other factors that could cause blood pressure to rise, including body-mass index,........Go to the Psychology news blog (Added on 3/17/2010 8:19:17 PM)
Deep brain stimulation reduces epileptic seizuresA recent study organized by Stanford University scientists found patients with refractory partial and secondarily generalized seizures had a reduction in seizures after deep brain stimulation. This multi-center clinical trial determined that the benefits of stimulation of the anterior nuclei of thalamus for epilepsy (SANTE) persisted and by 2 years there was a 56% reduction in seizure frequency. Full findings of this study are available early........Go to the Neurology news blog (Added on 3/17/2010 7:46:35 PM)
Stress during pregnancy and asthma in offspringStress during pregnancy may raise the risk of asthma in offspring, as per scientists at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. The scientists investigated differences in immune function markers in cord blood between infants born to mothers in high stress environments and those born to mothers with lower stress and found marked differences in patterns that appears to be linked to asthma risk during the later part of........Go to the OBGYN news blog (Added on 3/17/2010 7:45:41 PM)
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