Body

Tai Chi, a low impact martial art, has been associated with reduced stress, anxiety and depression, and enhanced mood, in both healthy people and those with chronic conditions. A systematic review of the subject, published in the open access journal BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, found that although Tai Chi does appear to have positive psychological effects, more high quality, randomized trials are needed.

TUSTIN, Calif., May 20, 2010 -- Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: PPHM), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative monoclonal antibodies for the treatment of cancer and viral infections, will present data from three Phase II clinical trials highlighting the clinical potential of its unique phosphatidylserine (PS)-targeting antibody bavituximab for the treatment of solid tumors.

CHICAGO – Breast and prostate cancer patients who regularly exercise during and after cancer treatment report having a better quality of life and being less fatigued, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

STANFORD, Calif. — Got diabetes? If so, you probably know that the adult-onset form of the disease can be triggered by, among other things, obesity and a fatty diet. You're also more likely to develop diabetes if other family members have it. But a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that you should also begin looking suspiciously at other aspects of your life — like your past exposure to certain pesticides or chemicals and even one form of vitamin E.

Pacemaker reuse may be a safe, effective and ethical alternative to address the medical needs for people in Third World countries who couldn't otherwise afford therapy, according to a new study.

Researchers examined pacemaker reuse compared with a control population of new device implantation in studies from Jan. 1, 1975 to July 1, 2009. They assessed complication rates, risk of infection, physiological complications and device malfunction.

A nationwide smoking ban would result in more than 18,000 fewer heart attack hospitalizations in the year following such a ban and millions of dollars in direct cost savings, according to a new study.

Smoking is a well established risk factor for heart attack. Researchers examined the potential impact of a nationwide comprehensive smoking ban legislation on the incidence of hospital admissions for heart attack.

New research has found that an experimental Ebola vaccine developed by researchers at the National Institutes of Health protects monkeys against not only the two most lethal Ebola virus species for which it was originally designed, both recognized in 1976, but also against a newer Ebola virus species that was identified in 2007.

Receiving an organ low in weight in relation to the recipient's body weight increases kidney transplant recipients risk of complications and transplant failure, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN). The results suggest that compatibility between a donated kidney's weight and the weight of the recipient could improve the success of transplantation.

BBSRC funded researchers at the University of Oxford and Royal Holloway University of London have discovered that the commonly used and naturally occurring bacterial insecticide Bt works best if applied to young plants and is enhanced by the presence of the insect pests. The research is published today (20 May) in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.

Like many complex diseases, diabetes results from the interplay of genetic and environmental factors. To examine genetic risk factors, scientists pore over the human genome sequence. Environmental factors have been trickier to pin down because there is no way to evaluate them comprehensively.

Increased use of drug-eluting stents (DES) and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs) between 2003 and 2006 netted significantly higher costs for coronary artery disease and chronic heart failure patients, researchers said.

The increased use of these technologies also partly explained the growth in healthcare costs during these years.

DES and ICDs are among the most common and costly interventional therapies used in patients with cardiovascular disease.

The incidence of blood clot-related strokes fell among whites in the Greater Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky area for the first time, according to long-term surveillance study representative of strokes in blacks and whites nationwide reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

However, there was no decrease in stroke rates among blacks.

Six new corn inbred lines with resistance to aflatoxin contamination have been found to be free of seed-borne diseases foreign to the United States, and seeds of these lines are now available in the United States for further development toward commercialization. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) plant pathologist Robert Brown, working in collaboration with Abebe Menkir at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria, developed the lines.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- For the first time, biologists have directly shown how spontaneous mutation of a small RNA (sRNA) regulatory molecule can provide an evolutionary advantage. Reporting in this week's Science, Indiana University Bloomington scientists also identify the sRNA as a key regulator of social behavior in Myxococcus xanthus, a soil bacterium widely studied for its ability to cooperatively construct fruiting bodies that house stress-resistant spores when food runs out.

HOUSTON -- (May 21, 2010) – A consortium of genome sequencing leaders including the Baylor College of Medicine (www.bcm.edu) Human Genome Sequencing Center (www.hgsc.bcm.tmc.edu/) released data on the first 178 microbial reference genomes representative of those in the human body in a report that appears in today's issue of the journal Science (www.sciencemag.org/).