Body

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- About 30 percent of Americans believe they have food allergies. However, the actual number is far smaller, closer to 5 percent, according to a recent study commissioned by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). That's due in large part to the unreliability of the skin test that doctors commonly use to test for food allergies.

Baltimore, May 21, 2010 – For the first time ever, the World Health Assembly passed a resolution today focused on the prevention and treatment of pneumonia, the world's leading killer of children. This resolution, approved by a consensus, reflects the growing momentum to fight this treatable and preventable cause of suffering and illness.

WASHINGTON, May 21, 2010 — Sexual activity declines in the year after heart attack for patients who don't get instructions from their doctors about when it's safe to resume sex, researchers reported at the American Heart Association's 11th Scientific Forum on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke.

Every single one of our cells contains so-called motor proteins that transport important substances from one location to another. However, very little is known about how exactly these transport processes occur. Biophysicists at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM) and Ludwig Maximilians Universitaet Muenchen (LMU) have now succeeded in explaining fundamental functions of a particularly interesting motor protein. They report their findings in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA).

COTONOU, BENIN (21 May 2010)—As part of a redoubled effort to stave off future food crises by bringing Africa's rice production in line with its rapidly growing consumption, scientists have announced a paradigm shift in rice research for the region, which will give elite status to genetically diverse indigenous varieties. Long considered a poor cousin of the Asian rice grown around the world, African rice will be the focus of a major scientific initiative to break the yield ceiling in farmers' fields.

At the University of Oklahoma, researchers captured unprecedented high-resolution radar data during the May 10, 2010, tornadoes using one of the most advanced weather radars in the world.

"This unique polarimetric data set is likely to reveal new discoveries about tornado genesis and severe storms for years to come," said the Director of OU's Atmospheric Radar Research Center, Robert D. Palmer.

Palmer's team is currently processing the data using advanced techniques developed at OU and preparing it for distribution.

Our body reacts to blood loss by stimulating the production of red blood cells (erythrocytes). The cells of the hematopoietic (blood-forming) system in the bone marrow do so upon receipt of a signal by a hormone called erythropoietin, or Epo for short. This hormone is produced mainly by the kidney that increases the Epo level by up to a thousand-fold as a response to falling oxygen saturation of the blood.

A study in mice reveals that prenatal exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals, like bisphenol-A (BPA) and diethylstilbestrol (DES), may program a fetus for life. Therefore, adult women who were exposed prenatally to BPA or DES could be at increased risk of breast cancer, according to a new study accepted for publication in Hormones & Cancer, a journal of The Endocrine Society.

A team of Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists has refined remote sensing tools for identifying invasive Ashe juniper shrubs and trees in central Texas and nearby regions. These findings can help rangeland managers determine the extent and severity of Ashe juniper infestations and boost mitigation efforts.

A comprehensive health promotion program reduced cardiovascular disease-related medical and hospital costs, according to a new study.

CSX Transportation, a national company with 30,000 employees, developed the program in 2004 to address employees' high rates of cardiovascular disease when compared to national benchmarks and the associated higher healthcare costs.

A pharmacist-led home blood pressure monitoring (HBPM) program supported by the American Heart Association's Heart 360 website dramatically improved blood pressure control for patients with uncontrolled hypertension, according to a study.

More than 350 patients with uncontrolled hypertension, ages 18 to 85 years, and with Internet access were randomized to the Usual Care (UC) group or the HBPM group. All patients had their blood pressure measured in the clinic at the start of the study and at six months.

Oxford, UK, 21 May 2010 – New and universally applicable definitions of malnutrition are published in the current issue of Clinical Nutrition. These are the result of a major international collaboration that has been endorsed by ESPEN and the American nutrition society ASPEN. The importance of the work is emphasised by the unusual step that has been taken in arranging dual publication in Clinical Nutrition and the ASPEN journal JPEN. It is expected that these definitions will take precedence in much future work.

A simple blood test can now predict whether newborn babies are at high risk of developing allergies as they grow older, thanks to research involving the University of Adelaide.

Professor Tony Ferrante, an immunologist from SA Pathology and the Children's Research Centre at the University of Adelaide, says the new marker may be the most significant breakthrough in allergy testing for some decades.

Cancer and diabetes – are risk factors the same for these two diseases? Or does diabetes cause processes in the body which promote the onset or growth of cancer? It is still unclear why diabetics have a higher rate of cancer than people who are not affected by this metabolic disorder.