Body

(WASHINGTON, August 18, 2010) – Although hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) cures many blood diseases, two-thirds of long-term survivors report at least one chronic health condition after the procedure, according to a recent study published online in Blood, the journal of the American Society of Hematology.

Overweight American children and adolescents have become fatter over the last decade, according to researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and National Institute on Aging (NIA). They examined adiposity shifts across socio-demographic groups over time and found U.S. children and adolescents had significantly increased adiposity measures such as body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and triceps skinfold thickness (TST). The increases in adiposity were more pronounced in some sex-ethnic groups such as black girls.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore have developed a novel 3-D imaging approach that may improve the accuracy of treatment for ventricular tachycardia, a potentially life-threatening heart rhythm disorder that causes the heart to beat too fast. The new approach couples CT (computed tomography) images with conventional ablation techniques to eliminate erratic electrical circuits in the heart that produce arrhythmias.

Blocking thoughts of cigarettes helps reduce smokers' intake at first, but means they smoke more than usual when they stop suppressing, according to new research published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

The study was carried out by researchers at St. George's, University of London and the University of Hertfordshire.

DALLAS – Aug. 19, 2010 – A pediatric urologist at UT Southwestern Medical Center has pioneered a successful surgical procedure for young girls who have absent or malformed vaginas, a condition that affects about one in 4,000 females.

Unknown causes and certain genetic disorders can cause girls to be born with these defects, along with other birth defects that can accompany the vaginal problems, including abnormal neck, absent or malformed uterus and fallopian tubes, absent kidneys or abnormal external genitals.

Australian researchers are a step closer to understanding the rapid decline of our coral reefs, thanks to a breakthrough study linking coral immunity with its susceptibility to bleaching and disease.

The discovery was made by Caroline Palmer, Bette Willis and John Bythell, scientists from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University (Queensland) and Newcastle University (UK).

Are there too many stem cell research journals?

This question has been posed by Drs. Paul Sanberg and Cesar Borlongan of the Department of Neurosurgery and Brain Repair at the University of South Florida. Their article appears in the current issue of Stem Cell Reviews and Reports.

Both Sanberg and Borlongan are concerned about the quality of the science being published in the proliferating stem cell journals.

Emodin, a natural product that can be extracted from various Chinese herbs including Rheum palmatum and Polygonum cuspidatum, shows promise as an agent that could reduce the impact of type 2 diabetes. Findings published in this month's edition of the British Journal of Pharmacology show that giving emodin to mice with diet-induced obesity lowered blood glucose and serum insulin, improved insulin resistance and lead to more healthy levels of lipid in the blood. It also decreased body weight and reduced central fat mass.

Individuals on long term incapacity benefit because of mental health problems could be identified by their GPs three years before they stop working, finds a research paper published on bmj.com today.

Is the government's decision to ring fence NHS funding fair? Two experts debate the issue on bmj.com today.

John Appleby, Chief Economist at the King's Fund argues that the alternative to ring fencing is too painful. "If the NHS were not protected it would have to find cuts amounting to around 14% of its budget (equivalent to £18bn) over the next few years," he writes.

Despite the many cosmetic products, surgical treatments, food supplements, and drugs designed specifically to reverse the biological effects of aging in humans, long-lived aspen clones aren't so lucky. Researchers at the University of British Columbia have shown that as long-lived male aspen clones age, their sexual performance declines. Dilara Ally, who conducted this research for her Ph.D., also showed that with that loss of sex and sexual fitness, ultimately the lineage could go extinct. The findings will be published next week in the online, open access journal PLoS Biology.

STANFORD, Calif. — Gene variants associated with an increased risk for type-1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis may confer previously unknown benefits to their human carriers, say researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. As a result, the human race may have been evolving in the recent past to be more susceptible, rather than less, to some complex diseases, they conclude.

Contradicting previous study results, insertion of a sponge that contains the antibiotic gentamicin at the time of surgical closure following cardiac surgery did not reduce the rate of sternal wound infections after 3 months, compared to patients who did not receive the intervention, according to a study in the August 18 issue of JAMA.

A prediction score that included such factors as age, blood pressure, heart and respiratory rate for patients who received out-of-hospital emergency care was associated with the development of critical illness during hospitalization such as severe sepsis, the need for mechanical ventilation or death, according to a study in the August 18 issue of JAMA.

Middle-aged and elderly Swedish women who regularly ate a small amount of chocolate had lower risks of heart failure risks, in a study reported in Circulation: Heart Failure, a journal of the American Heart Association.