Body

Male pattern baldness is linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease, but only if it's on the top/crown of the head, rather than at the front, finds an analysis of published evidence in the online journal BMJ Open.

A receding hairline is not linked to an increased risk, the analysis indicates.

The researchers trawled the Medline and the Cochrane Library databases for research published on male pattern baldness and coronary heart disease, and came up with 850 possible studies, published between 1950 and 2012.

The monetary cost of dementia in the United States ranges from $157 billion to $215 billion annually, making the disease more costly to the nation than either heart disease or cancer, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

Wikipedia users who proclaim their political affiliations within the online community consider their identity as "Wikipedian" stronger than potentially divisive political affiliations, according to research published April 3 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by David Laniado and colleagues from Barcelona Media, Spain, and University of Southern California.

Stable, specific 'breathprints' unique to an individual exist and may have applications as diagnostic tools in personalized medicine, according to research published April 3 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Renato Zenobi and colleagues from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) and the University Hospital Zürich, Switzerland.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Taking a break from hormone-blocking prostate cancer treatments once the cancer seems to be stabilized is not equivalent to continuing therapy, a new large-scale international study finds.

Bodily fluids contain lots of information about the health status of a person. Medical doctors routinely have blood and urine analysed in order to obtain hints for infectious and metabolic diseases, to diagnose cancer and organ failure, and to check the dose of medication, based on compounds present in these body fluids.

The Gilbert Island reefs in the Central Pacific were once home to two species of sharks not previously reported in historic records or contemporary studies. The species were discovered in a new analysis of weapons made from shark teeth and used by 19th century islanders, reported in a study published April 3 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Joshua Drew from Columbia University and colleagues from the Field Museum of Natural History.

WHAT:

National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers have developed a model of infection in rhesus macaques that will help scientists around the world better understand how an emerging coronavirus, first identified in September 2012, affects people. The virus has so far infected at least 17 people in the Middle East and Europe, killing 11 of them. The NIH team established the nonhuman primate model in December 2012 and is using it to study how the virus causes disease and to evaluate potential vaccines and antiviral treatments.

PITTSBURGH, April 3, 2013 – A reformulated version of an anti-HIV gel developed for vaginal use was found safe and acceptable by HIV-negative men and women who used it rectally, according to a Phase I clinical trial published today in PLOS ONE. The study, led by researchers with the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Microbicide Trials Network (MTN), tested a reduced glycerin formulation of tenofovir gel, and has spurred the development of an expanded safety study of the gel, expected to launch later this year.

NORTHFIELD, ILL.— The emergence of molecular diagnostic testing in lung cancer offers new hope for patients battling the number one cancer killer in the United States and abroad. Now, for the first time after a decade of biomarker testing in lung cancer, a uniform approach for testing for the EGFR mutation and ALK rearrangement along with the availability of targeted therapies offer lung cancer patients the chance for improved quality of life and more time with their loved ones.

On average, young newlyweds who are satisfied with their marriage gain weight in the early years after they exchange vows, putting them at increased risk for various health problems related to being overweight.

That is the finding of a new study on marital satisfaction and weight gain, according to psychologist Andrea L. Meltzer, lead researcher and an assistant professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Scientists have decoded the genome of the western painted turtle, one of the most abundant turtles on Earth, finding clues to their longevity and ability to survive without oxygen during long winters spent hibernating in ice-covered ponds.

Understanding the natural mechanisms turtles use to protect the heart and brain from oxygen deprivation may one day improve treatments for heart attacks or strokes, the researchers say. Both can lead to severe disability or death within minutes in patients deprived of oxygen.

Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center have determined that the overexpression of microRNA-155 (miR-155), a short, single strand of ribonucleic acid encoded by the miR-155 host gene, promotes the growth of blood vessels in tumors, tumor inflammation, and metastasis. As a therapeutic target, miR-155 could potentially provide a new avenue of treatment when targeted with drugs to suppress its activity.

The study was published in an online issue of Oncogene in January.

PubMed Central may draw readership away from biomedical journal sites, with this effect increasing over time. This finding—that PubMed Central directly competes with biomedical publishers—was published online in The FASEB Journal. In the study, Phillip M. Davis shows that as articles are deposited in PubMed Central, they draw readership away from the scientific journal even when journals themselves are providing free access to the articles.

Treating patients with cells may one day become as common as it is now to treat the sick with drugs made from engineered proteins, antibodies or smaller chemicals, according to UC San Francisco researchers. They outlined their vision of cell-based therapeutics as a "third pillar of medicine" in an article published online April 3 in Science Translational Medicine.