Body

(PORTLAND, Ore.) October 31, 2008 — A study by the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research of more than 40,000 women and their babies found that women who gained more than 40 pounds during their pregnancies were nearly twice as likely to have a heavy baby. Published in the November issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, the study found that more than one in five women gains excessive weight during pregnancy, doubling her chances of having a baby that weighs 9 pounds or more.

Cholera is a major killer and since the first pandemic in the early 19th century it has claimed millions of lives. According to Amit Lerner from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, the lethal infection is harboured by an equally infamous insect: chironomids (midges). Lerner explains that the females contaminate water sources with the deadly bacteria when laying their eggs. He adds that his colleagues Nikolay Meltser and Meir Broza had found that females actively choose the body of water where they lay their eggs, but it wasn't clear what drives a female to select a particular pond.

PHILADELPHIA – A study published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, validates a non-invasive screening method with future potential for detection of human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive head and neck cancers.

In the study, researchers at Johns Hopkins University used oral rinses and targeted DNA amplification to track and identify oral HPV infections in patients with HPV16-positive and negative head and neck carcinomas (HNSCC) before and after therapy.

The largest such study ever published finds that, while about 40 percent of women surveyed report having sexual problems, only 12 percent indicate that those issues are a source of significant personal distress. The report led by a Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) physician appears in the November issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

BOSTON, Mass. (Oct. 31, 2008) — Adult stem cells resemble couch potatoes if they hang out and divide in a dish for too long. They get fat and lose key surface proteins, which interferes with their movement and reduces their therapeutic potential. Now, via a simple chemical procedure, researchers have found a way to get these cells off the couch and over to their therapeutic target.

To do this, they simply added a molecule called SLeX to the surface of the cells. The procedure took just 45 minutes and restored an important biological function.

Researchers have defined a mutation in the mouse genome that mimics progressive hearing loss in humans. A team from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, UK, working with colleagues in Munich and Padua, found that mice carrying a mutation called Oblivion displayed problems with the function of hair cells in the inner ear, occurring before clear physical effects are seen. The study is published October 31 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

Researchers from Nijmegen and Leiden have now characterized a large number of parasite proteins that may prove useful in the development of a human malaria vaccine. Details are published October 31st in the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens.

Every day 2000 children die from malaria in Africa alone. The infection is transmitted from human to human by biting mosquitoes. Despite many years of effort, a vaccine is still not available to fight the deadly disease.

PHILADELPHIA (October 30, 2008) -- Reporting in the October 31 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE, scientists from the Monell Center present behavioral and chemical findings to reveal that an individual's underlying odor signature remains detectable even in the face of major dietary changes.

Normal-weight women who carry out lots of vigorous exercise are approximately 30% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who don't exercise vigorously. A study of more than thirty thousand postmenopausal American women, reported in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research, has revealed that a sedentary lifestyle can be a risk factor for the disease – even in women who are not overweight.

Since the UK's move to 24-hour drinking, a large city centre hospital in Birmingham has seen an increase in drink-related attendances between the hours of 3am and 6am. A new study, published in the open access journal BMC Public Health, shows no significant decrease in alcohol-related attendances after 24-hour drinking was introduced but a significant shift in the time of attendances.

The incidence of malaria has fallen significantly in The Gambia in the last 5 years, according to a study carried out by experts there with support from scientists based in London.

The findings from the study, which was funded by the UK Medical Research Council, appear in today's Lancet, and raise the possibility of eliminating malaria as a public health problem in parts of Africa.

Giving children with milk allergies increasingly higher doses of milk over time may ease, and even help them completely overcome, their allergic reactions, according to the results of a study led by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and conducted jointly with Duke University.

With only a few days remaining before Election Day, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health and the Kaiser Family Foundation, writing for the November 6, 2008, New England Journal of Medicine, find that seven in ten registered voters say major changes are needed in the U.S. health care system.

STANFORD, Calif. — Investigators combing the genome in the hope offinding genetic variants responsible for triggering early-onset diabetesmay be looking in the wrong place, new research at the StanfordUniversity School of Medicine suggests.

Early-onset diabetes, also known as type-1 diabetes, is an autoimmunedisease, caused when the immune system attacks and destroysinsulin-producing cells in a person's pancreas.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– A study of populations of tiny water fleas is helping ecologists to understand population dynamics, which may lead to predictions about the ecological consequences of environmental change.

The study is published in today's issue of the journal Nature. The water flea, called Daphnia, plays a key role in the food web of many lakes.