ScienceDaily: Top Health News

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• New metric for obesity strongly correlated to premature death
• Oral immunotherapy shows promise as treatment for egg allergy
• Lungs respond to hospital ventilator as if it were an infection
• Discovery may lead to new treatment for ALS
• Social identification, not obedience, might motivate unspeakable acts
• First Polypill trial in people selected on age alone (50 and over) shows substantial health benefit
• Alzheimer’s disease linked to diabetes, study suggests
• New targeting technology improves outcomes for patients with atrial fibrillation
• New biomarker in the blood may help predict Alzheimer’s disease
• All-they-can-eat diet for lab mice and rats may foster inaccurate test results
• Mouse with human immune system may revolutionize HIV vaccine research
• Five-second rule has plenty of bugs, says expert
• Sleep deprivation may reduce risk of PTSD
• Discovery of new heart failure trigger could change the way cardiovascular drugs are made
• Colon and rectal tumors constitute a single type of cancer, study shows
• Dopamine: A substance with many messages
• Protein build-up leads to neurons misfiring
• Fighting obesity with thermal imaging
• Harmful effects of CFL bulbs to skin; Energy-efficient bulbs safest when placed behind additional glass cover
• Potential key to new treatment for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL)
• World's toughest bacterium holds promise for rapid vaccine development against deadly diseases
• Are cardiac risk factors linked to less blood flow to the brain?
• Vitamin E may lower liver cancer risk
• Long-term ADHD drug use appears safe
• Evolutionary information improves discovery of mutations associated with diseases
• Cancer and injuries more likely in people with serious mental illness
• Punishment motivated by fairness, not revenge
• Vitamin B12 supplements may help treat hepatitis C
• Workplace exposure to organic solvents linked to heart defects at birth
• Certain jobs dads do linked to higher risk of birth defects
• Hepatitis C may increase deaths from both liver-related and other diseases
• Sugar-sweetened drinks are not replacing milk in kid's diets
• Mechanisms that allow embryonic stem cells to become any cell in the human body identified
• Lower ozone standard would reduce mortality and morbidity
• Modified tPA could be effective stroke treatment without bleeding risk

New metric for obesity strongly correlated to premature death Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:19 PM PDT Researchers have developed a new metric to measure obesity, called A Body Shape Index, or ABSI, that combines the existing metrics of Body Mass Index (BMI) and waist circumference and shows a better correlation with death rate than do either of these individual measures.

Oral immunotherapy shows promise as treatment for egg allergy Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:19 PM PDT Giving children and adolescents with egg allergy small but increasing daily doses of egg white powder holds the possibility of developing into a way to enable some of them to eat egg-containing foods without having allergic reactions, according to a new study.

Lungs respond to hospital ventilator as if it were an infection Posted: 18 Jul 2012 02:28 PM PDT When hospital patients are placed on a mechanical ventilator for days at a time, their lungs react to the pressure with an out-of-control immune response. Researchers have discovered potential drug targets that might reduce the resulting inflammation.

Discovery may lead to new treatment for ALS Posted: 18 Jul 2012 02:24 PM PDT Researchers have discovered that TDP-43, a protein strongly linked to ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) and other neurodegnerative diseases, appears to activate a variety of different molecular pathways when genetically manipulated.

Social identification, not obedience, might motivate unspeakable acts Posted: 18 Jul 2012 01:49 PM PDT What makes soldiers abuse prisoners? How could Nazi officials condemn thousands of Jews to gas chamber deaths? What's going on when underlings help cover up a financial swindle? For years, researchers have tried to identify the factors that drive people to commit cruel and brutal acts and perhaps no one has contributed more to this knowledge than psychological scientist Stanley Milgram.

First Polypill trial in people selected on age alone (50 and over) shows substantial health benefit Posted: 18 Jul 2012 01:49 PM PDT Results of a randomized trial show that a four-component Polypill given to people aged 50 and over to reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke, the most common causes of death worldwide, achieved large reductions in blood cholesterol and blood pressure, the main causes of these two diseases.

Alzheimer’s disease linked to diabetes, study suggests Posted: 18 Jul 2012 01:46 PM PDT Researchers have provided direct experimental evidence linking diabetes to the onset of Alzheimer's disease. The study also identified an experimental model that could become an important new tool for AD research.

New targeting technology improves outcomes for patients with atrial fibrillation Posted: 18 Jul 2012 01:46 PM PDT In a landmark study of atrial fibrillation, researchers report having found for the first time that these irregular heart rhythms are caused by small electrical sources within the heart, in the form of electrical spinning tops ("rotors") or focal beats. Importantly, they found a way of detecting these key electrical sources and of shutting them down in minutes using a precisely targeted therapy with long-lasting results.

New biomarker in the blood may help predict Alzheimer’s disease Posted: 18 Jul 2012 01:45 PM PDT Higher levels of a certain fat in the blood called ceramides may increase a person's risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study.

All-they-can-eat diet for lab mice and rats may foster inaccurate test results Posted: 18 Jul 2012 11:39 AM PDT The widespread practice of allowing laboratory rats and mice to eat as much as they want may be affecting the outcome of experiments in which scientists use these "test-tubes-on-four-feet" to test new drugs and other substances for toxicity and other effects.

Mouse with human immune system may revolutionize HIV vaccine research Posted: 18 Jul 2012 11:39 AM PDT One of the challenges to HIV vaccine development has been the lack of an animal model that reflects the human immune response to the virus. Researchers report that a mouse model manipulated to have a human immune system addresses these key issues and has the potential to reduce significantly the time and costs required to test candidate vaccines.

Five-second rule has plenty of bugs, says expert Posted: 18 Jul 2012 11:36 AM PDT Dropped grill items, ice cream cones that topple, pacifiers that fit the floor -- most of us have employed the five-second rule at some point to salvage a lost item. An infection disease expert takes five on the five-second rule.

Sleep deprivation may reduce risk of PTSD Posted: 18 Jul 2012 10:17 AM PDT It revealed in a series of experiments that sleep deprivation of approximately six hours immediately after exposure to a traumatic event reduces the development of post trauma-like behavioral responses. As a result, sleep deprivation the first hours after stress exposure might represent a simple, yet effective, intervention for PTSD.

Discovery of new heart failure trigger could change the way cardiovascular drugs are made Posted: 18 Jul 2012 10:17 AM PDT In their quest to treat cardiovascular disease, researchers have been interested in developing new medicines that activate a protein called APJ. Medical researchers have now uncovered another function for APJ -- it senses mechanical changes that set the body on a course toward heart failure. This means activating APJ could be harmful in some cases -- potentially eye-opening information for some drug makers.

Colon and rectal tumors constitute a single type of cancer, study shows Posted: 18 Jul 2012 10:17 AM PDT The pattern of genomic alterations in colon and rectal tissues is the same regardless of anatomic location or origin within the colon or the rectum, leading researchers to conclude that these two cancer types can be grouped as one, according to the Cancer Genome Atlas project's large-scale study of colon and rectal cancer tissue specimens.

Dopamine: A substance with many messages Posted: 18 Jul 2012 10:13 AM PDT Children quickly learn to avoid negative situations and seek positive ones. But humans are not the only species capable of remembering positive and negative events; even the small brain of a fruit fly has this capacity. Dopamine-containing nerve cells connected with the mushroom body of the fly brain play a role here. Scientists have identified four different types of such nerve cells. Three of the nerve cell types assume various functions in mediating negative stimuli, while the fourth enables the fly to form positive memories.

Protein build-up leads to neurons misfiring Posted: 18 Jul 2012 10:13 AM PDT Using a two-photon microscope capable of peering deep within living tissue, researchers have found new evidence that alpha-synuclein protein build-up inside neurons causes them to not only become "leaky," but also to misfire due to calcium fluxes.

Fighting obesity with thermal imaging Posted: 18 Jul 2012 09:27 AM PDT Scientists in the United Kingdom believe they've found a way of fighting obesity -- with a pioneering technique which uses thermal imaging. This heat-seeking technology is being used to trace our reserves of brown fat -- the body's 'good fat' -- which plays a key role in how quickly our body can burn calories as energy.

Harmful effects of CFL bulbs to skin; Energy-efficient bulbs safest when placed behind additional glass cover Posted: 18 Jul 2012 09:27 AM PDT In a new study, researchers looked into the potential impact of healthy human skin tissue (in vitro) being exposed to ultraviolet rays emitted from compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs. Results revealed significant levels of UVC and UVA, which appeared to originate from cracks in the phosphor coatings, present in all CFL bulbs studied.

Potential key to new treatment for mantle cell lymphoma (MCL) Posted: 18 Jul 2012 09:27 AM PDT Researchers have demonstrated that the inhibition of signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) in mouse models of mantle cell lymphoma (MCL), an aggressive and incurable subtype of B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma that becomes resistant to treatment, can harness the immune system to eradicate residual malignant cells responsible for disease relapse.

World's toughest bacterium holds promise for rapid vaccine development against deadly diseases Posted: 18 Jul 2012 09:27 AM PDT Scientists have developed a new preparation method that renders a virus or bacterium non-infectious while preserving its immune-boosting ability after exposure to gamma radiation. A lethally irradiated vaccine was successfully tested in mice against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria and holds promise for other such deadly diseases.

Are cardiac risk factors linked to less blood flow to the brain? Posted: 18 Jul 2012 07:31 AM PDT Metabolic syndrome, a term used to describe a combination of risk factors that often lead to heart disease and type 2 diabetes, seems to be linked to lower blood flow to the brain, according to new research.

Vitamin E may lower liver cancer risk Posted: 18 Jul 2012 07:31 AM PDT High consumption of vitamin E either from diet or vitamin supplements may lower the risk of liver cancer, according to a new study.

Long-term ADHD drug use appears safe Posted: 18 Jul 2012 07:31 AM PDT Drugs used to treat Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) do not appear to have long-term effects on the brain, according to new animal research.

Evolutionary information improves discovery of mutations associated with diseases Posted: 18 Jul 2012 06:07 AM PDT Scientists have developed a statistical method using evolutionary information to significantly enhance the likelihood of identifying disease-associated alleles in the genome that show better consistency across populations.

Cancer and injuries more likely in people with serious mental illness Posted: 18 Jul 2012 06:05 AM PDT People with serious mental illness -- schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and disabling depression -- are 2.6 times more likely to develop cancer than the general population, new research suggests.

Punishment motivated by fairness, not revenge Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:40 AM PDT Researchers have found that we punish cheats only when they end up better off than us, in a study that challenges the notion that punishment is motivated by revenge.

Vitamin B12 supplements may help treat hepatitis C Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:40 AM PDT Adding vitamin B12 to standard hepatitis C virus treatment significantly boosts the body's ability to keep the virus at bay, indicates a new study.

Workplace exposure to organic solvents linked to heart defects at birth Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:40 AM PDT Workplace exposure to organic solvents is linked to several types of heart defects at birth, indicates new research.

Certain jobs dads do linked to higher risk of birth defects Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:40 AM PDT Several types of job carried out by future fathers may be linked to an increased risk of birth defects in their babies, suggests new research. These included: mathematicians, physicists, computer scientists; artists; photographers and photo processors; food service workers; landscapers and groundsmen; hairdressers and make-up artists; office and admin support workers; office and admin support workers; sawmill operatives; those working with petrol and gas; those working in chemical industries; printers; those operating cranes and diggers; and drivers.

Hepatitis C may increase deaths from both liver-related and other diseases Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:39 AM PDT In a long-term study of people infected with the hepatitis C virus, researchers found increased deaths from both liver-related and non-liver related diseases in patients with active infections who had not cleared their infection.

Sugar-sweetened drinks are not replacing milk in kid's diets Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:38 AM PDT National data indicate that milk consumption has declined among children while consumption of sweetened beverages of low nutritional quality has more than doubled. Although this suggests that sugar-sweetened beverages may have replaced more nutritious drinks in children's diets, a new study suggests that in fact changes in children's milk consumption are not significantly related to changes in their consumption of sodas and flavored fruit drinks over time.

Mechanisms that allow embryonic stem cells to become any cell in the human body identified Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:37 AM PDT New research sheds light on pluripotency -- the ability of embryonic stem cells to renew themselves indefinitely and to differentiate into all types of mature cells. If scientists can replicate the mechanisms that make pluripotency possible, they could create cells in the laboratory which could be implanted in humans to cure diseases characterized by cell death, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, diabetes and other degenerative diseases.

Lower ozone standard would reduce mortality and morbidity Posted: 18 Jul 2012 04:36 AM PDT Establishing a more stringent ozone standard in the U.S. would significantly reduce ozone-related premature mortality and morbidity, according to a new study published online July 18 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

Modified tPA could be effective stroke treatment without bleeding risk Posted: 17 Jul 2012 03:33 PM PDT Even when its clot-dissolving powers are removed, the stroke drug tPA can still protect brain cells from the loss of oxygen and glucose induced by a stroke, researchers have discovered. The finding suggests that a modified version of tPA could provide benefits to patients who have experienced a stroke, without increasing the risk of bleeding.

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