Body

PHOENIX, Ariz. — April 16, 2013 — Male circumcision reduces the abundance of bacteria living on the penis and might help explain why circumcision offers men some protection against HIV, according to a study led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen).

Removing the foreskin caused a significant shift in the bacterial community or microbiome of the penis, according to a study published today by the online journal mBio.

Using computer-aided detection (CAD) to assess mammograms increases diagnosis of early stage cancers, but also increases diagnostic testing for women without breast cancer. Researchers suggest these findings are likely fuel breast cancer screening debates.

With CAD, radiologists use computer algorithms to mark and reassess potentially suspicious lesions that may have been missed on initial mammogram review. Despite limited evidence of its clinical effectiveness, the use of CAD in screening mammography has been broadly adopted.

PHILADELPHIA - Though the toll of sepsis is known to be enormous – it is estimated to cost the U.S. health care system $24.3 billion each year, and is the nation's third-leading killer, behind heart disease and cancer – the true magnitude of incidence of and death from the illness remains unknown. There is substantial variability in these numbers, depending on the method used to identify the condition in patients treated at hospital across the United States, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- A costly and widely used mammography add-on increases detection of noninvasive and early-stage invasive breast cancer but also makes more mistakes than mammography alone, researchers from UC Davis and the University of Washington have found.

Researchers with the Institute of Urologic Oncology and the Department of Urology at UCLA have classified kidney cancer into several unique subtypes, a finding that will help physicians tailor treatment to individual patients and that moves cancer care one step closer to personalized medicine.

CHICAGO --- The cholera strain that transferred to Haiti in 2010 has multiple toxin gene mutations that may account for the severity of disease and is evolving to be more like an 1800s version of cholera, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

Raising tobacco prices is one of the most effective means of reducing tobacco use, particularly among price-sensitive smokers such as young people and people with low incomes. But when the UK government has been raising cigarette taxes to increase prices and deter smoking, tobacco companies have been absorbing the tax increases on their ultra-low-price (ULP) brands to keep their prices low.

Circumcision drastically alters the microbiome of the penis, changes that could explain why circumcision offers protection against HIV and other viral infections. In a study to be published on April 16 in mBio®, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, researchers studied the effects of adult male circumcision on the types of bacteria that live under the foreskin before and after circumcision.

Philadelphia, PA, April 16, 2013 – Studies have shown that about 10 percent of men infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have an elevated resting energy expenditure (REE). Their bodies use more kilocalories for basic functions including circulation, body temperature, and breathing. Most studies have been conducted in men and those with solely women have had small sample sizes. A team of researchers has sought to rectify this with a matched, prospective, cross-sectional study.

An eight gene 'signature' can predict length of relapse-free survival after chemotherapy, finds new research in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine.

Abnormal gut bacteria in premature babies can be found days before the onset of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) finds new research in BioMed Central's open access journal Microbiome. Babies who later went on to develop NEC had a lower diversity of gut bacteria 4-9 days after birth, increased level of Firmicutes or Enterobacteriaceae, and lacked the Propionibacterium found in healthy babies.

Researchers have discovered a biomarker that may help prevent a devastating intestinal disease that occurs in one of every 10 early preterm infants.

The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study may help prevent necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a condition primarily seen in preemies in which bowel tissue dies. The death rate approaches 30 percent. Survivors are at risk for short-bowel syndrome (caused by surgical removal of the small intestine) and neurodevelopmental disability.

The study is published in the journal Microbiome.

This adds up to around 1900 fewer such admissions every year, the authors calculate, and confirms the value of public health interventions, such as smoking bans, they say.

They base their findings on the number of emergency admissions for asthma among adults aged 16 and over in England between April 1997 and December 2010.

Smoking in all public places was banned in July 2007 in England, where the prevalence of asthma is one of the highest in the world, affecting almost 6% of the population.

A resting heart rate - the number of heart beats per minute - is determined by an individual's level of physical fitness, circulating hormones, and the autonomic nervous system. A rate at rest of between 60 and 100 beats per minute is considered normal.

People who are very physically active tend to have a low heart rate at rest, but the authors wanted to find out if heart rate had any bearing on an individual's risk of death, irrespective of their level of cardiorespiratory fitness.

AURORA, Colo. (April 15, 2013) – A newly published study of patients with pulmonary fibrosis has discovered multiple genetic variations that should help with future efforts to treat the disease.