Body

(SAN ANTONIO) -- Weightlifting may play a key role in the prevention of the painful limb-swelling condition lymphedema following breast cancer treatment, according to new research from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Combined with the team's previous findings that the exercise limits a worsening of symptoms among women who already have lymphedema, the new data cements the reversal of long-running advice that breast cancer survivors should avoid lifting anything heavier than five pounds after they finish treatment. The research results will be presented today (Dec.

Experts at The University of Nottingham have developed a new 'score' to help GPs detect heart disease in younger people - before it damages their health.

Using data from the electronic health records of over two and half million people researchers have developed, validated and evaluated the new lifetime 'score' which takes account, among many other factors, social deprivation and ethnicity. The results of their research is published today (9 Dec 2010) in the BMJ.

Results from a large European study suggest that poorly educated people are more likely to be admitted to hospital with chronic heart failure than the better educated, even after differences in lifestyle have been taken into account. The study is published online today (Thursday 9 December) in the European Heart Journal [1].

Drinking cranberry juice has been recommended to decrease the incidence of urinary tract infections, based on observational studies and a few small clinical trials. However, a new study published in the January 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, and now available online (http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/52/1/23.full), suggests otherwise.

Using stem cell technology, reproductive scientists in Texas, led by Dr. Richard R. Berhringer at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, have produced male and female mice from two fathers.

The study was posted today (Wednesday, December 8) at the online site of the journal Biology of Reproduction.

A once fertile landmass now submerged beneath the Persian Gulf may have been home to some of the earliest human populations outside Africa, according to an article published today in Current Anthropology.

Researchers have developed a statistical model for projecting how many people will get sick from seasonal influenza based on analyses of flu viruses circulating that season. The research, conducted by scientists at the National Institutes of Health, appears today in the open-access publication PLoS Currents: Influenza.

As primary caregivers, parents are often believed to have a strong influence on children's eating behaviors. However, previous findings on parent-child resemblance in dietary intakes are mixed. Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health reviewed and assessed the degree of association and similarity between children's and their parents' dietary intake based on worldwide studies published since 1980. The meta-analysis is featured in the December issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

A new study identifies a previously unrecognized mutation that causes an inherited form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). The research, published by Cell Press in the December 9th issue of the journal Neuron, implicates defects in a cellular pathway linked with degradation of unwanted proteins in the underlying pathology of ALS and provides new insight into this incurable and fatal neurodegenerative disease.

New Rochelle, NY, December 8, 2010—As the prevalence of childhood obesity approaches epidemic levels, physicians on the "front line" need to become more involved in obesity prevention and weight management to reverse this dangerous trend among their young patients. But several obstacles discourage pediatricians and other primary care physicians from taking a more active role in managing childhood obesity.

Scientists are reporting discovery of the biological secrets that enable plants growing near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to adapt and flourish in highly radioactive soil — legacy of the 1986 nuclear disaster in the Ukraine. Their study, which helps solve a long-standing mystery, appears in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

Contrary to popular belief, birth control pills account for less than 1 percent of the estrogens found in the nation's drinking water supplies, scientists have concluded in an analysis of studies published on the topic. Their report suggests that most of the sex hormone — source of concern as an endocrine disruptor with possible adverse effects on people and wildlife — enters drinking water supplies from other sources. The report appears in ACS' biweekly journal Environmental Science & Technology.

The enzyme that makes fireflies glow is lighting up the scientific path toward a long-sought new medical imaging agent to better monitor treatment with heparin, the blood thinner that millions of people take to prevent or treat blood clots, scientists are reporting. Their study appears in the ACS' monthly journal Bioconjugate Chemistry.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Patients who have complications after colorectal cancer surgery are less likely to get chemotherapy, even when it is clearly recommended for their diagnosis, a new study from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center finds.

In addition, patients with complications were more than twice as likely to have their chemotherapy delayed for more than 120 days after diagnosis or two months after surgery, which is considered the appropriate timeframe for receiving chemotherapy.