Body

The combination of eating quickly and eating until full trebles the risk of being overweight, according to a study published today on bmj.com.

Until the last decade or so most adults did not have the opportunity to consume enough energy to enable fat to be stored. However, with the increased availability of inexpensive food in larger portions, fast food, and fewer families eating together and eating while distracted (e.g. while watching TV), eating behaviours are changing, and this may be contributing to the obesity epidemic.

Erectile dysfunction gives a two to three year early warning of a heart attack, warns an expert on bmj.com today.

But the link between erectile dysfunction and the risk of heart disease is being ignored by doctors, writes Dr Geoffrey Hackett from the Good Hope Hospital in Birmingham.

Researchers at the University of Sheffield and Royal Holloway, University of London will argue today (21 October 2008) that the nation's diet is unlikely to improve significantly if healthy eating policies fail to take into account the diverse nature of contemporary family life.

Recent government initiatives have attempted to change people's dietary behaviour and the amount of exercise they take. But, despite compelling evidence of the need for healthier eating, families remain ambivalent about altering their eating habits.

Uninsured children in families earning between approximately $38,000 and $76,000 a year are about as likely to go without any health care as uninsured children in poorer families.

A bit of good news out of the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry at the University of Alberta for patients undergoing surgery or an invasive procedure, their surgeons and cost-conscious hospital administrators. It's standard practice for the surgeon or their designate, (in consultation with the patient when possible), to mark the operative/invasive site using a marking pen before an operation, a precaution to ensure surgeons cut the correct spot.

In an Early Edition issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) published online on October 20, 2008, the scientists describe how they used multiple tactics to rev up both innate and adaptive immunity to enhance the body's ability to fight cancer.

Edmonton—Contrary to popular belief, polar dinosaurs may not have traveled nearly as far as originally thought when making their bi-annual migration.

University of Alberta researchers Phil Bell and Eric Snively have suggested that while some dinosaurs may have migrated during the winter season, their range was significantly less than previously thought, which means their treks were shorter. Bell and Snively's findings were recently published in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Paleontology.

CINCINNATI—A new study by researchers at the University of Cincinnati (UC) shows that using modern immunosuppressive drugs eliminates the need for steroid therapy as early as seven days following a transplant surgery while still maintaining kidney function.

Steve Woodle, MD, chief of UC's transplant surgery division, principal investigator and designer of the study, says the elimination of a daily dose of steroids following transplantation minimizes chronic health conditions common to kidney transplant recipients.

Geneva, Switzerland: Researchers have developed a method of assessing the quality of phase I clinical trial abstracts submitted to two different oncology conferences: EORTC-NCI-AACR (ENA) [1] and American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). The results, presented on Thursday (23 October) at the 20th ENA Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Geneva, show there is room for improvement and the researchers suggest authors of conference abstracts should adopt guidelines for reporting phase I clinical trials.

Bethesda, MD (Oct. 21, 2008) – Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) is one of the most common gastrointestinal conditions seen in GI and primary care clinics, however physicians who treat the disease primarily rely on empirical trials of medications and their own observations and experience to manage their patients. Therefore, the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute has published evidence-based guidelines for the management and treatment of suspected GERD.

BERKELEY, CA -- The first-ever glimpse of nanoscale catalysts in action could lead to improved pollution control and fuel cell technologies. Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory observed catalysts restructuring themselves in response to various gases swirling around them, like a chameleon changing its color to match its surroundings.

A new University of Colorado at Boulder study showing that American toads who pal around with gray tree frogs reduce their chances of parasitic infections known to cause limb malformations has strong implications for the benefits of biodiversity on emerging wildlife diseases.

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Doctors have always hoped that scientists might one day create a vaccination that would treat a broad spectrum of maladies. They could only imagine that there might be one vaccine that would protect against, say, 2,500 strains of Salmonella. And what if that same vaccine could help protect the elderly?

BOSTON, Mass. (Oct. 20, 2008) -- Two teams of scientists from Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology (HST) at Brigham and Women's Hospital have developed a new self-assembling hydrogel drug delivery system that is biocompatible, efficient at drug release, and easy to tailor. Importantly, these structures can deliver clinically approved drugs in high concentrations without requiring carriers for the drug or generating toxic components, a problem with hydrogel systems until now.