Body

Prostate cancer patients carrying inherited mutations in the BRCA genes respond less well to conventional treatment, including surgery and/or radiotherapy - and they also have a lower survival rate than those who are non-carriers of these genetic mutations. Data from the study, which has been published in the journal European Urology, points to the need for new clinical trials aimed at targeting these mutations in order to tailor treatment for these patients.

Managing childhood asthma is difficult. Rather than giving daily medications -- even when children feel well -- many parents treat asthma only when symptoms become severe. This practice can lead to missed school days, trips to the ER and hospitalizations.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 14, 2014--Quick Response (QR) codes -- the box-shaped symbols that appear on signs, posters, and even business cards -- are a convenient and efficient way of accessing specific web pages with a smartphone or other mobile device. However, new research published today in The Optical Society's (OSA) new high-impact journal Optica, explains how QR codes can do much more.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have found that screening for Ebola at airports could be an effective method for preventing the spread of the disease into the UK and US, but due to the long incubation period of the virus, screening won't detect all cases.

Published in the Lancet medical journal, the study used a mathematical model to test the probability of infected travellers from West Africa entering the UK and US.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- A new study documents the stark health dangers of the male sex trade in the streets, hotels, and discotheques of Mexico City. Lead author and health economist Omar Galárraga's point in making the grim assessment of the legal but perilous market is to find an incentive that might reduce the spread of HIV and other diseases in the nation's community of men who have sex with men.

(PHILADELPHIA) - Although radiation treatments have become much more refined in recent years, it remains a challenge to both sufficiently dose the tumor while sparing the surrounding tissue. A new anti-cancer drug, already in clinical development, may help address this issue by protecting normal cells - but not the cancer - from the effects of radiation. The research, published November 14th in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, further suggests this drug may also be useful in treating accidental exposure to radiation.

Nonsmokers sitting in an automobile with a smoker for one hour had markers of significantly increased levels of carcinogens and other toxins in their urine, indicating that secondhand smoke in motor vehicles poses a potentially major health risk according to a groundbreaking study led by UC San Francisco researchers.

Cancer Research UK scientists have found more than 400 'blind spots' in DNA which could hide cancer-causing gene faults, according to research published* today (Friday) in Cancer Research.

The researchers found hidden faults in areas that are tricky for gene-reading technology to decode. This technique, which unravels cancer's genetic blueprint, is an important part of the research that scientists carry out to understand more about cancer's biology.

An international team of researchers has, for the first time, estimated the amount of methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) that countries release into the atmosphere when producing meat from livestock, and assigned the emissions to the countries where the meat is ultimately consumed.

They found that embodied, or "hidden", emissions in beef, chicken and pork have increased by 19% over the past 20 years, and that there is currently a global instability caused by a large number of countries contributing to the production of emissions in another country.

A majority of obese people in Britain would not describe themselves as "obese", and many would not even describe themselves as "very overweight", according to a Cancer Research UK study* published in BMJ Open today (Friday).

In one of the first studies of its kind to examine British perceptions of obesity, fewer than 10 per cent of those who are clinically obese accept they have a serious weight problem.

Highlights

• A comparison of two different cholesterol management guidelines indicates that the vast majority of patients with chronic kidney disease are recommended to receive statins.
• 50% of people with chronic kidney disease who are recommended to receive statins are not taking them.

More than 20 million US adults have chronic kidney disease.

Philadelphia, PA (November 13, 2014) -- Transplanted kidneys may not function long-term if they come from donors with variants in a particular gene, according to a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2014 November 11¬-16 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, PA.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) -- Researchers at UC Davis and other institutions have found that diets rich in whole walnuts or walnut oil slowed prostate cancer growth in mice. In addition, both walnuts and walnut oil reduced cholesterol and increased insulin sensitivity. The walnut diet also reduced levels of the hormone IGF-1, which had been previously implicated in both prostate and breast cancer. The study was published online in the Journal of Medicinal Food.

A telemedicine program to screen for diabetic retinopathy (a leading cause of blindness) at urban clinics and a pharmacy predominantly serving racial/ethnic minority and uninsured patients with diabetes found the condition in about 1 in 5 people screened, according to a study published online by JAMA Ophthalmology.

What makes some women more susceptible to heart disease than others?

To help answer that question, researchers at Western University's Robarts Research Institute have identified that an estrogen receptor, previously shown to regulate blood pressure in women, also plays an important role in regulating low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels. LDL, also known as bad cholesterol, drives the process that leads to heart disease.