ScienceDaily: Top Health News

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• Whole exome sequencing identifies cause of metabolic disease
• Discovery of extremely long-lived proteins may provide insight into cell aging and neurodegenerative diseases
• The complex relationship between memory and silence
• Placebo effect: New study shows how to boost the power of pain relief, without drugs
• Warfarin and aspirin are similar in heart failure treatment, study suggests
• Coughing and other respiratory symptoms improve within weeks of smoking cessation
• Preference for fatty foods may have genetic roots
• Lower levels of sunlight exposure link to allergy and eczema in children, study suggests
• New procedure repairs severed nerves in minutes, restoring limb use in days or weeks
• Schizophrenia: When hallucinatory voices suppress real ones, new electronic application may help
• Can immune cells from healthy people pulverize cancer?
• Breastfeeding linked to improved lung function at school-age, especially with asthmatic mothers
• Malaria kills nearly twice as many people than previously thought, but deaths declining rapidly
• Triglyceride levels predict stroke risk in postmenopausal women
• Gene regulator in brain's executive hub tracked across lifespan
• Massage is promising for muscle recovery: Researchers find 10 minutes reduces inflammation
• Blood test accurately distinguishes depressed patients from healthy controls
• Cancer vaccine? Vaccine prolongs life of patients with pancreatic cancer, expert says
• Decaffeinated coffee may help improve memory function and reduce risk of diabetes

Whole exome sequencing identifies cause of metabolic disease Posted: 03 Feb 2012 03:26 PM PST Sequencing a patient's entire genome to discover the source of his or her disease is not routine, but geneticists are getting close. A case report shows how researchers can combine a simple blood test with an "executive summary" scan of the genome to diagnose a severe glycosylation disorder.

Discovery of extremely long-lived proteins may provide insight into cell aging and neurodegenerative diseases Posted: 03 Feb 2012 03:09 PM PST One of the big mysteries in biology is why cells age. Now scientists 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 complex relationship between memory and silence Posted: 03 Feb 2012 11:15 AM PST People who suffer a traumatic experience often don't talk about it, and many forget it over time. But not talking about something doesn't always mean you'll forget it; if you try to force yourself not to think about white bears, soon you'll be imagining polar bears doing the polka. A group of psychological scientists explore the relationship between silence and memories.

Placebo effect: New study shows how to boost the power of pain relief, without drugs Posted: 03 Feb 2012 11:15 AM PST Placebos reduce pain by creating an expectation of relief. Distraction -- say, doing a puzzle -- relieves it by keeping the brain busy. But do they use the same brain processes? Neuromaging suggests they do. When applying a placebo, scientists see activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. That's the part of the brain that controls high-level cognitive functions like working memory and attention -- which is what you use to do that distracting puzzle.

Warfarin and aspirin are similar in heart failure treatment, study suggests Posted: 03 Feb 2012 11:14 AM PST In the largest and longest head-to-head comparison of two anti-clotting medications, warfarin and aspirin were similar in preventing deaths and strokes in heart failure patients with normal heart rhythm, according to new research.

Coughing and other respiratory symptoms improve within weeks of smoking cessation Posted: 03 Feb 2012 11:11 AM PST If the proven long-term benefits of smoking cessation are not enough to motivate young adults to stop smoking, a new study shows that 18- to 24-year olds who stop smoking for at least two weeks report substantially fewer respiratory symptoms, especially coughing.

Preference for fatty foods may have genetic roots Posted: 03 Feb 2012 08:33 AM PST A preference for fatty foods has a genetic basis, according to researchers, who discovered that people with certain forms of the CD36 gene may like high-fat foods more than those who have other forms of this gene.

Lower levels of sunlight exposure link to allergy and eczema in children, study suggests Posted: 03 Feb 2012 08:33 AM PST Increased exposure to sunlight may reduce the risk of both food allergies and eczema in children, according to a new scientific study.

New procedure repairs severed nerves in minutes, restoring limb use in days or weeks Posted: 03 Feb 2012 06:24 AM PST Scientists believe a new procedure to repair severed nerves could result in patients recovering in days or weeks, rather than months or years. The team used a cellular mechanism similar to that used by many invertebrates to repair damage to nerve axons.

Schizophrenia: When hallucinatory voices suppress real ones, new electronic application may help Posted: 03 Feb 2012 06:20 AM PST When a patient afflicted with schizophrenia hears inner voices something is taking place inside the brain that prevents the individual from perceiving real voices. A simple electronic application may help the patient learn to shift focus.

Can immune cells from healthy people pulverize cancer? Posted: 03 Feb 2012 06:18 AM PST Immune cells from healthy individuals can be the new immune cure for cancer. This treatment can kill cancer cells without destroying neighboring cells. The hope is to eradicate cancer for ever.

Breastfeeding linked to improved lung function at school-age, especially with asthmatic mothers Posted: 03 Feb 2012 06:14 AM PST Breastfeeding is associated with improved lung function at school age, particularly in children of asthmatic mothers, according to a new study.

Malaria kills nearly twice as many people than previously thought, but deaths declining rapidly Posted: 02 Feb 2012 05:17 PM PST Malaria is killing more people worldwide than previously thought -- 1.2 million -- but the number of deaths has fallen rapidly as efforts to combat the disease have ramped up, according to new research. Researchers say that deaths from malaria have been missed by previous studies because of the assumption that the disease mainly kills children under age five.

Triglyceride levels predict stroke risk in postmenopausal women Posted: 02 Feb 2012 01:45 PM PST The traditional risk factors for stroke – such as high cholesterol – are not as accurate at predicting risk in postmenopausal women as previously thought. Instead, researchers say doctors should refocus their attention on triglyceride levels to determine which women are at highest risk of suffering a devastating and potentially fatal cardiovascular event.

Gene regulator in brain's executive hub tracked across lifespan Posted: 02 Feb 2012 12:11 PM PST Scientists have tracked the activity, across the lifespan, of an environmentally responsive regulatory mechanism that turns genes on and off in the brain's executive hub. Genes implicated in schizophrenia and autism are among those in which regulatory activity peaks during an environmentally-sensitive critical period in development. The mechanism, called DNA methylation, abruptly switches from off to on within the human brain's prefrontal cortex during this pivotal transition from fetal to postnatal life.

Massage is promising for muscle recovery: Researchers find 10 minutes reduces inflammation Posted: 01 Feb 2012 02:32 PM PST Researchers have discovered a brief 10-minute massage helps reduce inflammation in muscle. As a non-drug therapy, massage holds the potential to help not just bone-weary athletes but those with inflammation-related chronic conditions, such as arthritis or muscular dystrophy. While massage is well accepted as a therapy for relieving muscle tension and pain, the researchers delved deeper to find it also triggers biochemical sensors that can send inflammation-reducing signals to muscle cells.

Blood test accurately distinguishes depressed patients from healthy controls Posted: 01 Feb 2012 09:09 AM PST The initial assessment of a blood test to help diagnose major depressive disorder indicates it may become a useful clinical tool. Researchers report that analyzing levels of nine biomarkers accurately distinguished patients diagnosed with depression from control participants without significant false-positive results.

Cancer vaccine? Vaccine prolongs life of patients with pancreatic cancer, expert says Posted: 01 Feb 2012 06:27 AM PST A medical researcher has developed a cancer vaccine that can prolong the life expectancy of patients with pancreatic cancer. Now he is testing a new vaccine that hopefully is able to kill all types of cancer cells.

Decaffeinated coffee may help improve memory function and reduce risk of diabetes Posted: 01 Feb 2012 06:23 AM PST In an animal study, researchers found that decaffeinated coffee may improve glucose utilization in the brain, reducing the risk for Type 2 diabetes and the brain dysfunction associated with some neurological disorders.

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