Body

About 14 percent of Philadelphia's high school students are considered overweight, and while a myriad of research has been published on what schools, communities and parents can do to help curb these rates, very little information exists on what the teens themselves are doing to lose weight.

Research led by public health doctoral candidate Clare Lenhart has found that while most obese teens in Philadelphia report wanting to lose weight, their actions are more of a hindrance than a help.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Preterm birth rates improved in almost every state between 2006 and 2009, and in several states the change was more than 10 percent, according to the March of Dimes 2011 Premature Birth Report Card.

According to a recent study published in the November issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology, many radiologists disagree on the management of incidental findings found on body computed tomography (CT) scans. An incidental finding is something found that is unrelated to the present illness and is discovered unintentionally.

Although non-radiologist physicians have contributed to the widespread use of point-of-care (POC) ultrasound, radiologists remain the primary users, according to a study in the November issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology. POC ultrasound is defined as an ultrasound performed (and interpreted) by the clinician at the bedside.

Proteins are literally the movers and the shakers of the intracellular world. If DNA is the film director, then they are the actors. And much can be learned about cell function – and dysfunction – by watching proteins on the move.

Until now, scientists have only been able to see this process indirectly. Now researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn., have come up with a promising new technique that uses a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) to view proteins tagged with gold nanoparticles in whole, intact cells.

Yoga can provide more effective treatment for chronic lower back pain than more conventional methods, according to the UK's largest ever study into the benefits of yoga.

The study, led by the University of York and funded by Arthritis Research UK, found that people offered a specially-designed 12-week yoga programme experienced greater improvements in back function and more confidence in performing everyday tasks than those offered conventional forms of GP care.

Antibiotic-resistant enterococci are a serious problem for patients in the hospital, but little is known about how these bacteria are able to escape antibiotics. New discoveries about the ways in which enterococci turn their resistance to cephalosporin antibiotics on and off are described in a study that will be published November 1 in the online journal mBio®. The new details about resistance could lead to new therapies for preventing and treating enterococcal infections.

STANFORD, Calif. -- In the largest study of its kind to date, Stanford University School of Medicine researchers have shown that women related to a patient with a breast cancer caused by a hereditary mutation -- but who don't have the mutation themselves -- have no higher risk of getting cancer than relatives of patients with other types of breast cancer. The multinational, population-based study involving more than 3,000 families settles a controversy that arose four years ago when a paper hinted that a familial BRCA mutation in and of itself was a risk factor.

In this News Digest:

Fifty years after participating in studies of pentosuria, an inherited disorder once mistaken for diabetes, 15 families again welcomed medical geneticists into their lives. Their willingness to have their DNA analyzed with advanced genomics technologies has solved a mystery more than a hundred years old.

Researchers from the University of Washington, Israel, and Switzerland reported the solution in the Oct. 31 Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A vampire-like bacteria that leeches onto specific other bacteria – including certain human pathogens – has the potential to serve as a living antibiotic for a range of infectious diseases, a new study indicates.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- In 2008, physicians at Mayo Clinic Florida led by Herbert Wolfsen, M.D., were looking for new ways to keep in touch with the large group of esophageal cancer patients cared for by him and other gastroenterologists and surgeons.

Washington, DC -- Antibiotics may not be the only risk factor associated with community-acquired Clostridium difficile infection, indicating that other undefined causes of the potentially life-threatening infection may exist and could also predict whether or not a patient will require hospitalization, according to the results of a new study.

During human evolution our ancestors mated with Neanderthals, but also with other related hominids. In this week's online edition of PNAS, researchers from Uppsala University are publishing findings showing that people in East Asia share genetic material with Denisovans, who got the name from the cave in Siberia where they were first found.

FINDINGS: Whitehead Institute scientists report that patients whose estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancers have high levels of an ancient cellular survival factor experience poor outcomes -- including increased mortality. The researchers also found that invasive ER-positive tumors with elevated levels of this factor, the protein known as heat shock factor 1 (HSF1), tend to be larger and more aggressive than those with low levels.