The first study to check the effects of eating potatoes on blood pressure in humans has concluded that two small helpings of purple potatoes (Purple Majesty) a day decreases blood pressure by about 4 percent without causing weight gain. In a report in the ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the researchers say that decrease, although seemingly small, is sufficient to potentially reduce the risk of several forms of heart disease.
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Baltimore, MD -- A new comparison of the procedures to help prevent strokes by removing or relieving blockages in the arteries of the neck concludes they are equally effective at halting repeat blockage. Two years after treatment with either surgery or a minimally invasive treatment using wire coils called stents, the re-blockage rate remained the same, approximately six percent. Results of the analysis were detailed in a presentation at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference today in New Orleans.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Hepatitis C, an infectious disease that can cause inflammation and organ failure, has different effects on different people. But no one is sure why some people are very susceptible to the infection, while others are resistant.
Among corporations involved in the 2006 stock-option backdating scandal, those implicated earlier were more likely to dismiss their top executives than those that surfaced later on, according to new research from Rice University and the University of California at Irvine.
The study, "Executive Turnover in the Stock-Option Backdating Wave: The Impact of Social Context," will be published in an upcoming edition of the Strategic Management Journal.
For patients with incurable pulmonary conditions, a lung transplantation is the only available treatment option. However, suitable donor organs are scarce, and even getting them to prospective recipients is not easy. As Professor Alexander Dietrich of the Walther Straub Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology at LMU explains, "An isolated lung which is no longer perfused with blood can become so severely damaged that it is no longer functional.
Genome Institute of Singapore's (GIS) Associate Director of Genomic Technologies, Dr Yijun RUAN, led a continuing study on the human genome spatial/structural configuration, revealing how genes interact/communicate and influence each other, even when they are located far away from each other. This discovery is crucial in understanding how human genes work together, and will re-write textbooks on how transcription regulation and coordination takes place in human cells.
People living in poor neighbourhoods have a higher rate and risk of arthritis - one of the most common causes of disability in the developed world.
Results revealed that people who live in socially disadvantaged areas were 42 per cent more at risk of getting arthritis than people in more affluent areas.
The Australian study revealed more than 30 per cent of people living in socially disadvantaged areas reported having arthritis, as opposed to 18.5 per cent in the more affluent areas.
Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is growing exponentially, contributing to an estimated 99,000 deaths from hospital-associated infections in the U.S. annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One reason that this is happening is that drug resistant proteins are transporting "good" antibiotics, or inhibitors, out of the cells, leaving them to mutate.
LONDON (1 February 2012)—New studies released in London today suggest that the frenzied sell-off of forests and other prime lands to buyers hungry for the developing world's natural resources risk sparking widespread civil unrest—unless national leaders and investors recognize the customary rights of millions of poor people who have lived on and worked these lands for centuries.
Contrary to earlier findings, surgical breast biopsies may not be as overused as previously thought, according to a study in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Surgical breast biopsies are more invasive than needle biopsies, requiring an incision and the use of general anesthesia.
Between 2000 and 2009, the musculoskeletal (MSK) ultrasound volume increase among non-radiologists was much higher than that among radiologists, according to a study in the February issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. Ultrasound images of the MSK system provide pictures of muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and soft tissue throughout the body.
Philadelphia, February 1, 2012 – The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) now recommends routine HPV vaccination for males aged 11 to 12 years and catch-up vaccination for males aged 13 to 21. These are just two of the changes to the 2012 Recommended Adult Immunization Schedule being published February 1 in Annals of Internal Medicine (www.annals.org), the flagship journal of the American College of Physicians (ACP).
Friendships forged at church seem to play a major role in people's religious activities and beliefs — even when it comes to their views about how exclusive heaven is, according to a national study by a Baylor University sociology researcher.
The current issue of PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases presents a new collection of articles on the use of genetically modified (GM) insects for controlling some of the most widespread infectious diseases. Articles from across the PLoS journals describe the technological advances these tools represent, the regulatory framework, and the societal dialogue that is necessary for their wide-scale application for disease control.
SALT LAKE CITY -- A team of scientists from the University of Utah and the University of California at San Francisco has discovered that the mutation of a gene encoding a ketone body transporter triggers accumulation of fat and other lipids in the livers of zebrafish. This discovery, published in the Feb. 1, 2012, issue of Genes & Development, reveals that transport of ketone bodies out of the liver is a critical step in energy metabolism during fasting. It also provides a new approach for studying the development of fatty liver disease in humans.