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 Back to Eurekalert Medical and Health News Archives
Eurekalert Medical and Health News: 01-13-2005
Milky, turquoise-colored "dead zones" appearing repeatedly off the coast of southwest Africa could signal things to come for eastern Atlantic and Pacific coastlines.In Ecology Letters, November, authors Andrew Bakun and Scarla Weeks compare several areas where strong offshore winds cause an upwelling of nutrients in the ocean and thus a population explosion of phytoplankton, the microscopic plant life that drifts through the ocean.
A scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has published the results of an EPA-funded clam embryo study that supports her hypothesis that, when combined, the pollutants bromoform, chloroform, and tetrachloroethylene--a chemical cocktail known as BCE--can act synergistically to alter a key regulator in nerve cell development. While scientists have previously studied the effects of these pollutants individually, this is the first time anyone has demonstrated that BCE's components can work together to adversely affect neuron growth in a model organism.
Smoking marijuana is associated with increased risk of many of the same symptoms as smoking cigarettes--chronic bronchitis, coughing on most days, phlegm production, shortness of breath, and wheezing, according to a Yale study.
Women In Government today presented the findings from its first report on states' progress to eliminate cervical cancer - a disease that is almost always preventable with the most-advanced screening technologies. The report titled, "A Call to Action: The "State" of Cervical Cancer in America," finds that none of the states are where they should be, based on cervical cancer screening rates, coverage of routine screening tests in public insurance programs and passage of state legislation to make cervical cancer elimination a priority.
The best method for preventing HIV patients from developing drug resistance is a careful, dedicated adherence to their prescribed drug regimen, according to a long-term, large-scale study presented today in New York City at the American Medical Association Media Briefing, HIV/AIDS, The Drug Resistance Epidemic. Other key predictors of resistance include measures of how much virus was present in a person's bloodstream at the start of therapy and how much their immune status was compromised.
University of Michigan researchers are part of a team that has developed a new tool to assess the quality of home health care, with the goal of improving care and providing meaningful feedback about the care.
The University of Pittsburgh has been awarded a $3.6 million Era of Hope Award by the US Department of Defense for a project on a new and potentially important target for breast cancer therapy - tumor stem cells. These cells, highly malignant and resembling adult stem cells, are hypothesized to give rise to rapidly growing cells that form the bulk of a tumor and may provide a promising new paradigm to understanding the growth of cancer.
Leading psychiatrists and medical authorities in the field of sexual medicine are set to debate the topic: Premature Ejaculation - Psychological Therapy is preferable to Medical Therapy.
Chronic and recurrent pain is a disease, not just a symptom, according to the European Federation of IASP (International Association for the Study of Pain) Chapters (EFIC). They recently presented a declaration prompting the classification of chronic and recurrent pain as a disease in its own right.
Ventricular assist devices (VADs), blood pumps used in heart failure situations, now have the potential for use in additional patient groups. Scientists and clinicians gathered at the 11th Congress of the International Society of Rotary Blood Pumps in Germany last year to discuss past lessons learned and future directions for this technology.
The United States Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Agriculture (USDA) today released the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The Dietary Guidelines Alliance - a partnership of public and private organizations dedicated to providing positive and simple messages to help consumers achieve healthy diets and active lifestyles - supports the government's recommendations and its efforts to develop clear, science-based nutrition guidance. Formed 10 years ago, the Alliance conducts extensive and ongoing research to provide consumers with practical advice on how to apply Dietary Guidelines to their lives.
The United States Departments of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) today released the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans - science-based dietary guidance that is updated every five years by the government. The Naturally Nutrient Rich Coalition responded by supporting the 2005 dietary guidelines for Americans.
Improving how decision-makers respond in the minutes and hours that follow the first reports of a natural disaster like the recent tsunami or a manmade incident, such as a chemical accident or a terrorist attack, is the focus of a research project at the University at Buffalo's Center for Multisource Information Fusion.
Using gene transfer technology, investigators were able to immunize mice against anthrax in just 12 hours, according to new research featured in the February 2005 issue of Molecular Therapy, the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy (ASGT).
Along with aiding efforts to study addicted smokers, a new drug that attaches only to areas of the brain that have been implicated in nicotine addiction may help studies of people battling other disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia.
The world's leading researchers in allergic disease will gather in San Antonio, March 18-22, 2005, for the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology's (AAAAI's) 2005 Annual Meeting. The AAAAI Annual Meeting is the largest gathering of allergists/immunologists, allied health professionals and researchers from around the world.
Researchers found that a low carbohydrate diet that reduced totalcaloric intake by 30% prevented the development of a fundamental featureof Alzheimer's disease (AD) in mice genetically engineered to developthe disease. The diet eliminated amyloid plaque development, which isthe underlying pathology in AD. The study, published in the Februaryissue of The FASEB Journal Express, is the first to demonstrate that achange in diet can slow and possibly prevent Alzheimer's diseases.
American preschoolers get about 14 to 17 teaspoons of added sugar a day, on average, mostly from fruit-flavored drinks, high-fat desserts and cola-type soft drinks which displace the grain, vegetable, fruit and dairy food groups and lower the quality of their diet, a Penn State study has shown.
Stating that health care should strive to be both comprehensive and evidence-based, a new report from the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies calls for conventional medical treatments and complementary and alternative treatments to be held to the same standards for demonstrating clinical effectiveness.
In a comparison of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by adults in 1997 and 2002, researchers from Harvard Medical School found more than one in three US adults (36.5 and 35.0 percent, respectively) used at least one form of CAM.
When people think of jobs that use temporary workers, doctors are probably not one of the first careers to come to mind. But the use of temporary staff doctors appears to be a growing trend, and a new study suggests many doctors are choosing short-term assignments because they don't want to work full-time or because they are seeking a more flexible schedule.
New research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science finds that tailored nanoparticles called nanoshells boost by a factor of 10 billion a key, light-scattering effect known as Raman scattering, which produces a unique optical signature for materials at the molecular scale. The research could pave the way for ultrasentative chemical sensors capable of detecting even a few molecules of target substances like drug molecules, proteins, chemical weapons or biotoxins.
A little anxiety can be a good thing when it comes to cancer symptoms according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They report that people with low overall anxiety levels were more apt to ignore symptoms of rectal cancer for long periods of time, thereby delaying treatment. In contrast, people with at least moderate levels of anxiety tended to quickly recognize symptoms such as rectal bleeding as a sign of serious illness.
A new report by the National Academies' National Research Council on the health effects of perchlorate, a chemical that in high doses can decrease thyroid function in humans and that is present in many public drinking-water supplies, says daily ingestion of up to 0.0007 milligrams per kilogram of body weight can occur without adversely affecting the health of even the most sensitive populations.
Prize winners are Prof. Alan Hall, Medical Research Council, London, and Prof. Svante P..bo, Max Planck Institute for evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.
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