Body

ARLINGTON VA, April 15, 2014 – New research, partially funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the USA Rice Federation, shows that consumers can improve their diets simply by enjoying white or brown rice as part of their daily meals.

The bacterium that causes whooping cough, Bordetella pertussis, has changed in Australia - most likely in response to the vaccine used to prevent the disease - with a possible reduced effectiveness of the vaccine as a result, a new study shows.

A UNSW-led team of researchers analysed strains of Bordetella pertussis from across Australia and found that many strains no longer produce a key surface protein called pertactin.

Communities in Africa and Thailand that worked together on HIV-prevention efforts saw not only a rise in HIV screening but a drop in new infections, according to a new study in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet Global Health.

Rosemont, IL (April 15, 2014) – New research published in the March/April 2014 issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition shows whey protein, either as a supplement combined with resistance exercise or as part of a weight-loss or weight-maintenance diet, may provide men and women benefits related to body composition.

Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center investigators report they have designed a blood test that accurately detects the presence of advanced breast cancer and also holds promise for precisely monitoring response to cancer treatment.

The test, called the cMethDNA assay, accurately detected the presence of cancer DNA in the blood of patients with metastatic breast cancers up to 95 percent of the time in laboratory studies. The findings were described in the April 15 issue of the journal .

In 2012, there were over 25,000 cases of gonorrhoea in the UK making it the second most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection after chlamydia. Control of gonorrhoea is dependent on successful antibiotic treatment, as the bacterium that causes the infection, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, has become increasingly resistance to every antibiotic used to treat it over the last 60 years.

The 15% fall in dietary salt intake over the past decade in England is likely to have had a key role in the 40% drop in deaths from heart disease and stroke over the same period, concludes research published in the online journal BMJ Open.

But average intake across the nation is still far too high, warn the authors. And much greater effort is needed to curb the salt content of the foods we eat, they insist.

Dietary salt is known to increase blood pressure, which is itself a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

Deerfield, Ill. (April 14, 2014) – Young children suffering from diarrheal diseases are less likely to receive life-saving oral rehydration therapy (ORT) if they seek treatment at private, for-profit clinics, according to the first-ever, large-scale study of child diarrhea treatment practices in sub-Saharan Africa.

BOSTON —A new method for measuring delirium severity in older adults has been developed by researchers from Harvard, Brown, and UMASS. The new scoring system, CAM-S, is based on the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) and standardizes the measurement of delirium severity for both clinical and research uses. Details of this study are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

STANFORD, Calif. — As many as 10 percent of women with a personal or family history of breast or ovarian cancer have at least one genetic mutation that, if known, would prompt their doctors to recommend changes in their care, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

The women in the study did not have mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 (mutations in these genes are strongly associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer), but they did have mutations in other cancer-associated genes.

Significant advances have been made in chemotherapy over the past decade, but targeting drugs to cancer cells while avoiding healthy tissues continues to be a major challenge.

Nanotechnology has unlocked new pathways for targeted drug delivery, including the use of nanocarriers, or capsules, that can transport cargoes of small-molecule therapeutics to specific locations in the body.

Penicillin, one of the scientific marvels of the 20th century, is currently losing a lot of battles it once won against bacterial infections. But scientists at the University of South Carolina have just reported a new approach to restoring its combat effectiveness, even against so-called "superbugs."

DARIEN, IL – A new study shows that moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea is independently associated with an increased risk of stroke, cancer and death.

Northwestern Medicine scientists are continuing to unravel the molecular changes that underlie one of the world's deadliest and most infamous respiratory infections.

When the bacterium Yersinia pestis enters the lungs, it causes pneumonic plague, a disease that is 100 percent fatal if untreated. The way in which Y. pestis evades the immune system and kills people in a matter of days has largely confounded scientists, until now.

Changes in the Puerto Rican climate over the past three decades have caused small but significant changes to the coqui frog, the territory's national animal. UCLA biologists have found that not only have male coquis become smaller, but their mating call has also become shorter and higher pitched.