ScienceDaily: Top Health News

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• Discovery may lead to safer treatments for asthma, allergies and arthritis
• Snipping key nerves may help life threatening heart rhythms, study suggests
• Middle-age blood pressure changes affect lifetime heart disease, stroke risk
• Novel use of drug saves children from deadly E. coli bacteria disease
• Babies remember even as they seem to forget
• One trait has huge impact on whether alcohol makes you aggressive
• Gene therapy for ears
• Tissue structure delays cancer development
• First aid after tick bites
• Immunological defense mechanism leaves malaria patients vulnerable to deadly infection
• Scientists uncover evidence on how drug-resistant tuberculosis cells form

Discovery may lead to safer treatments for asthma, allergies and arthritis Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:39 PM PST Scientists have discovered a missing link between the body's biological clock and sugar metabolism system, a finding that may help avoid the serious side effects of drugs used for treating asthma, allergies and arthritis.

Snipping key nerves may help life threatening heart rhythms, study suggests Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:38 PM PST According to a new study, cutting key nerves to the heart that control the adrenaline-driven "flight or fight" stress response may help alleviate life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias. This is one of the first studies to assess the impact of performing this type of surgery on both sides of the heart to control arrhythmias, called a bilateral cardiac sympathetic denervation.

Middle-age blood pressure changes affect lifetime heart disease, stroke risk Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:38 PM PST Changes in blood pressure during middle age can affect lifetime risk for heart disease and stroke. People who maintain or reduce their blood pressure to normal levels during middle age have the lowest lifetime risk of cardiovascular disease, while those with an increase in blood pressure have the highest risk. Age and duration of blood pressure changes can help determine individualized lifetime risk for -- and prevention of -- cardiovascular disease.

Novel use of drug saves children from deadly E. coli bacteria disease Posted: 19 Dec 2011 05:35 PM PST A physician saved the life of a child and, by doing so, became the first to find a new use for a drug in the fight against deadly E. coli bacteria. In fact, after a little girl was admitted to hospital to treat severe complications, her physician, running out of options, thought about using the drug eculizumab, which is usually prescribed for another disorder with similar symptoms. Her intuition paid off and the little girl survived. The dramatic improvement experienced by the young patient and two others is explained in a new article.

Babies remember even as they seem to forget Posted: 19 Dec 2011 10:52 AM PST Fifteen years ago, textbooks on human development stated that babies of six months of age or younger had no sense of "object permanence" -- the psychological term that describes an infant's belief that an object still exists even when it is out of sight. That meant that if mom or dad wasn't in the same room with junior, junior didn't have the sense that his parents were still in the world. These days, psychologists know that isn't true: for young babies, out of sight doesn't automatically mean out of mind. But how much do babies remember about the world around them, and what details do their brains need to absorb in order to help them keep track of those things? Babies may not remember what they saw, but they remember that they saw something.

One trait has huge impact on whether alcohol makes you aggressive Posted: 19 Dec 2011 10:52 AM PST Drinking enough alcohol to become intoxicated increases aggression significantly in people who have one particular personality trait, according to new research. But people without that trait don't get any more aggressive when drunk than they would when they're sober. That trait is the ability to consider the future consequences of current actions.

Gene therapy for ears Posted: 19 Dec 2011 10:50 AM PST Gene therapy may someday in the future replace the use of implants in deaf people. The carrier for this gene medicine may be derived from shrimp shells.

Tissue structure delays cancer development Posted: 19 Dec 2011 07:18 AM PST Cancer growth normally follows a lengthy period of development. Over the course of time, genetic mutations often accumulate in cells, leading first to pre-cancerous conditions and ultimately to tumor growth. Using a mathematical model, scientists have now shown that spatial tissue structure, such as that found in the colon, slows down the accumulation of genetic mutations, thereby delaying the onset of cancer.

First aid after tick bites Posted: 19 Dec 2011 07:18 AM PST They come out in the spring, and each year they spread further – the ticks. Thirty percent of them transmit borrelia pathogens, the causative agent of Lyme borreliosis that can damage joints and organs. The disease often goes undetected. In the future, a new type of gel is intended to prevent an infection – if applied after a tick bite.

Immunological defense mechanism leaves malaria patients vulnerable to deadly infection Posted: 18 Dec 2011 12:02 PM PST The link between malaria and Salmonella infections has been explained for the first time, opening the way to more effective treatments.

Scientists uncover evidence on how drug-resistant tuberculosis cells form Posted: 15 Dec 2011 11:16 AM PST A new study provides a novel explanation as to why some tuberculosis cells are inherently more difficult to treat with antibiotics.

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