Body

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — In an era when social networking sites and blogs are visited by three quarters of online users, it's only natural that the medical profession would also tap into the power of social media tools.

Caroline Richardson, M.D., associate professor of family medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School, and her colleagues found that adding an interactive online community to an Internet-based walking program significantly decreased the number of participants who dropped out.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – The sun's ultraviolet light activates an enzyme that helps skin cancer cells survive and proliferate, researchers report.

Sophia Antipolis, 7 December 2010: 'Some progress, but the big challenges remain'. This was the verdict after the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) hosted the 2010 European Summit on CVD Prevention on 30 November. The summit was attended by a broad cross-section of medical experts, healthcare organisations, national societies, regulators and representatives from the European Union (EU). The aim of this bi-annual event is to encourage concerted action towards a harmonised strategy for the prevention of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Europe.

Researchers at Umeå Plant Science Center in Sweden discovered, in collaboration with the Syngenta company, a previously unknown gene in sugar beets that blocks flowering. Only with the cold of winter is the gene shut off, allowing the sugar beet to blossom in its second year. The discovery of this new gene function makes it possible to control when sugar beets bloom. The new findings were recently published in the prestigious journal Science.

The ability to tolerate aggression is partly genetic, UCLA life scientists report in the first study to demonstrate a genetic component to a social network trait in a non-human population.

"The ability to tolerate aggression is passed on across generations; there is genetic variation in the ability to tolerate aggression," said the study co-author Daniel T. Blumstein, professor and chair of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA.

HACKENSACK, N.J. (December 7, 2010 at 7:30am) — The John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center announced today important research findings presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) taking place December 4-7, 2010 in Orlando, Florida. The ASH meeting is the world's leading scientific gathering of hematologists and hematology researchers.

Two new studies raise public health concerns about increasing antiviral resistance among certain influenza viruses, their ability to spread, and a lack of alternative antiviral treatment options. The findings are published in the January 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases. (Please see below for links to these articles online.)

Mandatory genetic screening of newborns for rare diseases is creating unexpected upheaval for families whose infants test positive for risk factors but show no immediate signs of the diseases, a new UCLA study warns.

"Although newborn screening undoubtedly saves lives, some families are thrown on a journey of great uncertainty," said UCLA sociology professor Stefan Timmermans, the study's lead author. "Rather than providing clear-cut diagnoses, screening of an entire population has created ambiguity about whether infants truly have a disease — and even what the disease is."

WASHINGTON, DC, December 6, 2010 — Mandatory genetic screening of newborns for rare diseases is creating unexpected upheaval for families whose infants test positive for risk factors but show no immediate signs of the diseases, a new UCLA study warns.

The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) has contributed to a study showing that a low dose of aspirin reduces the occurrence of several common cancers. The study is published in today's Lancet.

The work was started and carried out by Professor Peter Rothwell in Oxford, and is based on an overview of several randomised trials of aspirin. These have been primarily concerned with reducing heart attacks, but have also gathered information on deaths from cancer.

Pregnant mums who regularly use mobile phones may be more likely to have kids with behavioural problems, particularly if those children start using mobile phones early themselves, suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The researchers base their findings on more than 28,000 seven year olds and their mothers who were part of the Danish National Birth Cohort (DNBC) study.

This study enrolled nearly 100,000 pregnant women between 1996 and 2002, with the intention of tracking their kids' long term health.

When people with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) were asked to relate their mood to a color, those choosing a positive color were nine times more likely to respond to hypnotherapy than those who chose a negative color or no color at all. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine suggest that these findings could be used to predict responders to treatment.

Hanging out with healthy friends could be the best way to keep fit. A study of 3610 Australian women, published in BioMed Central's open access International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity found that physical activity and healthy eating behavior were both strongly affected by social norms.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A new study finds that combining the newer diabetes drug exenatide with insulin provides better blood sugar control in patients with type 2 diabetes than insulin alone and helps promote weight loss.

"This study may be the best result ever for patients whose diabetes is inadequately controlled on a combination of pills and insulin," said John Buse, MD, PhD, lead author of the study and chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.

ORLANDO ––– In research to be presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) annual meeting, investigators at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston offer a new explanation of why chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) tends to recur in the lymph nodes and bone marrow after being cleared from the bloodstream by chemotherapy. Their findings will be reported during in an oral session on Monday, Dec. 6, at 4:45 p.m. in room 315 of the Orange County Convention Center.