Body

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis Health System researchers have discovered biological indicators that help explain why some obese people develop chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, and others do not.

TORONTO, Ont., Aug 24, 2011 – More than eight out of 10 homeless people surveyed by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and elsewhere have at least one chronic health condition and more than half have a mental health problem.

People who are "vulnerably housed"—meaning they live in unsafe, unstable or unaffordable housing--had equally poor, and in some cases worse, health, the survey found.

Stem cells derived from human amniotic fluid hold promisehAECs used to successfully treat animal models of lung disease

Tampa, Fla. (Aug. 24, 2011) – Two papers published in the current issue of Cell Transplantation (20:6), now freely available on-line at http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/cog/ct/ , highlight the rich source of stem cells in human amniotic fluid that can be isolated and transplanted for therapeutic purposes.

Employing technology that reads the entire DNA code, researchers led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute and the Technical University of Denmark have pinpointed the source of a cholera outbreak in Haiti that killed more than 6,000 people and sickened 300,000.

Paul Keim, Regents Professor of biology at Northern Arizona University and director of the TGen Pathogen Genomics Division, served as senior molecular biologist on the study, and NAU's Center for Microbial Genetics and Genomics also contributed.

What Google is doing for books, the University of California, Berkeley, wants to do for the world's vertebrate specimens: store them in "the cloud."

Cluster headache has a substantial detrimental effect on quality of life. New invasive procedures, such as hypothalamic deep brain stimulation and bilateral occipital nerve stimulation, may help patients with chronic refractory headache. This is one of the conclusions reached by Charly Gaul and co-authors from the Department of Neurology at the University Medical Center Essen in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2011; 108(33): 543-9).

When investigating cancer cells, researchers discovered numerous peculiarities: Particular RNA molecules are present in large numbers, particular genes are overactive. Do these characteristics have a relation to cancer? Do they promote cell growth? Do they inactivate growth brakes or are they just a whim of nature? To find clues for answering these questions scientists perform what are called loss-of-function analyses.

The same University of Washington researcher who used chemical sleuthing to deduce what's in fragranced consumer products now has turned her attention to the scented air wafting from household laundry vents.

Findings, published online this week in the journal Air Quality, Atmosphere and Health, show that air vented from machines using the top-selling scented liquid laundry detergent and scented dryer sheet contains hazardous chemicals, including two that are classified as carcinogens.

Coriander oil has been shown to be toxic to a broad range of harmful bacteria. Its use in foods and in clinical agents could prevent food-borne illnesses and even treat antibiotic-resistant infections, according to the authors of a study published in the Journal of Medical Microbiology.

Cardiologists who perform heart operations using x-ray guided catheters are exposed to ionizing radiation at levels two to three times higher per year than those experienced by radiologists. Now, new research has found the first evidence that these constant, high levels of exposure cause changes at cell level that might represent the body's way of protecting itself against the harmful effects of radiation.

The largest worldwide study on the association between breastfeeding, time of weaning and eczema in children has concluded that there is no clear evidence that exclusive breastfeeding for four months or longer protects against childhood eczema. The study, led by scientists at King's College London, and published online in the British Journal of Dermatology (BJD), concludes that children who were exclusively breastfed for four months or longer were as likely to develop eczema as children who were weaned earlier.

Women with normal sized labia minora still seek labial reduction surgery for cosmetic reasons finds new research published today (24 August) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

Female cosmetic genital surgery is increasingly popular and the number of labial reduction procedures in the National Health Service has increased five fold in the past 10 years.

Despite improvements in survival for people with cystic fibrosis over the last 50 years, females and individuals from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds continue to die younger than males and the more privileged in society, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

The findings suggest that the socioeconomic and sex differences in age at death from cystic fibrosis first reported in 1989 persist to the present day.

Action is needed to tackle the increasing number of deaths in the United States and Canada from prescription painkillers known as opioids, say experts on bmj.com today.

Opioids are prescription painkillers that contain compounds derived from the opium poppy.

The way blood pressure is diagnosed and treated is set to be revolutionised following new guidelines for the medical profession issued by NICE and developed in conjunction with the British Hypertension Society (BHS).

It will mark the first time in over a century that the way blood pressure is routinely monitored by GPs has been changed.