Body

STANFORD, Calif. — Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have shown how salmonella — a bacterial menace responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths each year from typhoid fever and food poisoning — manages to hide out in immune cells, altering their metabolism to its own benefit, much as someone might remodel a newly rented home to suit his own comfort.

Heavy use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) may be leading to unnecessary breast removal in older women with breast cancer, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers in the current issue of Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

When it comes to what's for dinner – or breakfast and lunch for that matter-- many people suffer from chemophobia, an irrational fear of natural and synthetic chemicals that pose no risk to our health, a Dartmouth study finds.

Children born to obese mothers are more likely to die early as adults than those whose mothers were a normal weight, a study has found.

The offspring of obese mothers are one-third more likely to die before the age of 55, mainly as a result of heart disease, researchers found.

Children born to mothers who were overweight when they became pregnant were also 10 per cent more likely to die prematurely in later life than those born to mothers of a normal weight.

Children of obese and overweight women have a higher risk of early cardiovascular death as adults, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

The findings highlight the urgent need for strategies to prevent obesity in women of childbearing age and the need to assess the offspring of obese mothers for their cardiovascular risk, say the authors.

Watermelon juice's reputation among athletes is getting scientific support in a new study, which found that juice from the summer favorite fruit can relieve post-exercise muscle soreness. The report in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry attributes watermelon's effects to the amino acid L-citrulline.

A type of MRSA found in humans originated in cattle at least 40 years ago, new research has found.

The study provides clear evidence that livestock were the original source of an MRSA strain which is now widespread in people.

Researchers studied the genetic make-up of more than 40 strains of a bacterium -- called Staphylococcus aureus -- that can build up antibiotic resistance to develop into MRSA.

This news release is available in German.

Philadelphia, Pa. (August 14, 2013) - Herniated discs in the lower (lumbar) spine most often result from avulsion (separation) of the tissue connection between the disc and spinal bone, rather than rupture of the disc itself, according to a study in Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — New research out of Michigan State University shows participation in a program aimed at Medicaid-eligible pregnant women improves maternal and infant care.

And with Medicaid covering 40 percent of all births nationwide – 45 percent in Michigan – lead researcher Cristian Meghea of MSU's College of Human Medicine said the study reveals strong evidence that such a program can improve health care during pregnancy and after birth, particularly for disadvantaged families.

Moffitt Cancer Center researchers suggest secondary cancers seen in melanoma patients who are being treated for a BRAF gene mutation may require new strategies, such as enhanced surveillance and combining BRAF-inhibitor therapy with other inhibitors, especially as they become more widely used. They discussed this topic in a review article that appears in the July issue of Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology.

Scientists are reporting "a significant step forward" in proving the feasibility of launching fleets of autonomous robots that search Earth's deep oceans for exotic new life forms. Their description of successful deployment of the trailblazer for such a project — an autonomous seafloor lander equipped with a mini-laboratory the size of a kitchen trash can that is able to detect minute traces of DNA in the deep oceans — appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Baker's yeast is a popular test organism in biology. Yeasts are able to duplicate single chromosomes reversibly and thereby adapt flexibly to environmental conditions. Scientists from the Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine (LCSB) of the University of Luxembourg, in collaboration with colleagues from the US Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle, have now systematically studied the genetics of this process, which biologists refer to as aneuploidy.

National and international organizations are ill-prepared to exploit e-health systems in the event of the emergence of a major pandemic disease, according to a research paper to be published in the International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology.

A radical shortening in the bony tails of birds that lived over 100 million years ago freed the legs to evolve in new ways and enabled an explosive radiation of early bird species, a new study shows.