Body

Men are better at detecting infidelities

UNFAITHFUL women beware. Chances are your male partner is on your case. In fact, he is likely to suspect infidelities even when you have kept to the straight and narrow. The flip side is that to counter this constant vigilance, women may be better than men at concealing illicit liaisons.

New study indicates that exercise prevents fatty liver disease

COLUMBIA, Mo. – It's easy to go to the gym on a regular basis right after a person buys the gym membership. It's also easy to skip the gym one day, then the next day and the day after that. A new University of Missouri study indicates that the negative effects of skipping exercise can occur in a short period. The researchers found that a sudden transition to a sedentary lifestyle can quickly lead to symptoms of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (hepatic steatosis), which affects at least 75 percent of obese people.

MU study identifies patient strategies for managing symptoms of lymphedema

COLUMBIA, Mo. – An estimated 2 million women in the United States are at risk of developing lymphedema, a condition that involves the chronic and abnormal swelling of the arm, chest, neck and/or back, as a complication of breast cancer treatment. While physicians will recommend proven techniques to manage the swelling, a University of Missouri researcher has found that patients often won't follow the recommendations, or they will use alternative treatments and not discuss them with their doctors.

2 Dutch researchers analyze striking behavior of Web surfers

What behaviour do website visitors exhibit? Do they buy a specific product mainly on Mondays? Do they always return at a certain time of day? Being able to recognise and make use of such patterns is lucrative business for companies. Edgar de Graaf discovered that interesting patterns often contain a time aspect. Jeroen De Knijf developed methods to detect relevant patterns quicker.

Workplace obesity program shows modest effects after just 1 year

Environmental changes implemented at 12 Dow Chemical Company worksites helped employees' there achieve modest improvements in health risks, including weight management, decreasing tobacco use and blood pressure, says Emory University public health researcher Ron Goetzel, PhD.

Goetzel and his team will present the findings from their study Oct. 29, 2008, at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association in San Diego.

New drug target in obesity: Fat cells make lots of melanin

As millions of Americans gear up for the Thanksgiving holiday, a new research report published online in The FASEB Journal (http://www.fasebj.org), may provide some relief for those leery of having a second helping. In the report, researchers describe a discovery that may allow some obese people avoid common obesity-related metabolic problems without actually losing weight: they make a common antioxidant, melanin, in excess.

Health-care barriers for undocumented immigrants: Raising tuberculosis risk?

A new study raises the question, do barriers to health care for undocumented immigrants increase the public health risk of tuberculosis? The study, published in the November 15, 2008 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases and now available online, suggests that undocumented immigrants with tuberculosis have symptoms longer before seeking care than documented immigrants or U.S.-born patients, resulting in more severe symptoms and more opportunities for transmission.

Vaginal/Caesarean combo delivery of twins safe, UT Southwestern-led research finds

DALLAS – Oct. 29, 2008 – Doctors need not go straight to Caesarean section when delivering twins, but can start with vaginal delivery of the first twin in many cases, researchers have found in a study led by UT Southwestern Medical Center.

Should the second-born twin turn out to require a Caesarean section, there is a slightly higher risk of infection for the baby and the mother, but that is easily treated and the risk of more serious complications for the second twin is not increased, the researchers found.

Homosexual men have significantly lower personal incomes than heterosexual individuals

Montreal, Canada – October 29, 2008 – A new study in the Canadian Journal of Economics provides the first evidence on sexual orientation and economic outcomes in Canada. The study found that gay men have 12 percent lower personal incomes and lesbians have 15 percent higher personal incomes than heterosexual men and women.

Christopher S. Carpenter of The Paul Merage School of Business at the University of California Irvine used data from the Canadian Community Health Survey which includes standard demographic questions as well as self-reports on sexual orientation.

Gender affects perceptions of infidelity

Nottingham, England – October 29, 2008 – A new study in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy explored how men and women perceive online and offline sexual and emotional infidelity. Results show that men felt sexual infidelity was more upsetting and women felt emotional infidelity was more upsetting.

Monica T. Whitty and Laura-Lee Quigley of Queen's University Belfast surveyed 112 undergraduate students and asked them questions about sexual and emotional infidelity both offline and on the internet.

Jefferson Department of Surgery announces new pancreas tumor registry

PHILADELPHIA – Charles J. Yeo, M.D., Samuel D. Gross Professor and Chair, Department of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, announces the establishment of the new Jefferson Pancreas Tumor Registry (JPTR).

"The purpose of the registry is to further study whether pancreatic cancer occurs more frequently in families with a history of the disease," said Dr. Yeo, who is the principal investigator of JPTR. "It will also be used to determine the environmental and occupational risk factors to which pancreatic cancer patients have been exposed."

Rhode Island Hospital study finds local retail meat safe from antibiotic-resistant organisms

Providence, RI –Rhode Island Hospital researchers report that findings from a new study of retail meat in the Providence, RI area indicate little to no presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The study, prompted by the identification of such organisms in retail meat in Canada, Europe and Asia, is among the first in this country to look at the possible spread of infection through retail meat. The study was published in the Journal of Food, Agriculture & Environment, Vol. 6 (3&4), 2008.

Scientist clears hurdles for muscular dystrophy therapy

COLUMBIA, Mo. — Approximately 250,000 people in the United States have some form of muscular dystrophy. Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is the most common type of the disease, predominantly affecting males. Boys with DMD will lose the ability to walk by their teens and typically die before the age of 30.

A new Eph receptor tyrosine kinase overexpressed in gastric cancer was found

The potential role of Eph receptor and ephrin ligand family in human cancer is receiving increasing attention. Compared with other Eph receptors, EphA4 is distinguished by its ability to bind to both type A ephrins and most type B ephrins. EphA4 reportedly forms a hetero receptor complex with FGFR1 and that EphA4/FGFR1 complex potentiates FGFR-mediated downstream signal transduction. However, alterations of EphA4 are not well understood in gastric cancer.

Candidate markers for gastric cancer

The sequencing of the human genome has opened the door for proteomics by providing a sequence-based framework for mining proteomes. As a result, there is intense interest in applying proteomics to foster a better understanding of cancer processes, develop new biomarkers for diagnosis and early detection of cancer. Gastric carcinoma is one of the most common malignancies worldwide and is the most common cause of cancer-related death in China. The main barrier for improving survival rate is short of useful marker for early diagnosis.