Body

Cachexia or wasting is a condition affecting up to 70 percent of cancer patients, depending on the type of cancer. It is characterized by a dramatic loss of body weight that is independent of food intake. Cachexia is seen particularly often and most pronounced in patients suffering from cancers of the digestive tract and the lungs. They may lose up to 80 percent of body fat and skeletal muscle. Muscle loss leads to weakness and immobility of patients and poorer response to treatment.

Women who have a tubal ligation – the surgical tying or severing of fallopian tubes to prohibit pregnancy – have less frequent Pap smears, which puts them at an increased risk for cervical cancer, according to research recently released by a team that included Cara A. Mathews, MD, a gynecologic oncologist at the Program in Women's Oncology at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island.

"It is particularly important for subarachnoid haemorrhage survivors to refrain from smoking and to take care of their blood pressure and cholesterol levels; apart from age, these are the primary factors behind the increased risk of mortality," explains neurosurgeon Miikka Korja from the HUCH's Neurosurgery Department together with professor Jaakko Kaprio from the University of Helsinki's Hjelt Institute.

Agricultural demand for pollination is growing more quickly than the supply of honey bees, the dominant species managed for crop pollination. Increasing the efficiency of pollination represents a way of increasing crop yield without any increase in agricultural intensity or area.

Scientists have been able to reconstruct, for the first time, the intricate three-dimensional structure of the backbone of early tetrapods, the earliest four-legged animals. High-energy X-rays and a new data extraction protocol allowed the researchers to reconstruct the backbones of the 360 million year old fossils in exceptional detail and shed new light on how the first vertebrates moved from water onto land.

Children who regularly see specialists for chronic medical conditions are also using complementary medicine at a high rate, demonstrates recently published research from the University of Alberta and the University of Ottawa.

A compound from the South African toothbrush tree inactivates a drug target for tuberculosis in a previously unseen way.

Tuberculosis causes more deaths worldwide than any other bacterial disease. At the same time as rates are increasing, resistance strains are emerging due, in part, to non-compliance with the treatment required. Many current drugs are nearly 50 years old and alternatives are needed to the long, demanding treatment schedules.

The best approach to detecting cervical cancer in HIV-positive women living in research limited countries such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa combines commonly used testing methods tailored to local levels of development and medical infrastructure, according to a study by researchers from and the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa and the University of North Carolina.

Smoking not only causes bladder cancer—it also affects its course, in that people who smoke more have greater likelihood of developing more aggressive and deadly disease. That is one of the conclusions of a new study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study also found that a panel of bladder cancer markers can predict which particular cases are at the highest risk for a fatal outcome.

SEATTLE—Children age 12 to 35 months who receive DTaP vaccine in their thigh muscle rather than their arm are around half as likely to be brought in for medical attention for an injection-site reaction. So says a new study of 1.4 million children at Group Health and seven other Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD) centers across the country, e-published on January 14 in Pediatrics.

Children who regularly see specialists for chronic medical conditions are also using complementary medicine at a high rate, demonstrates recently published research from the University of Alberta and the University of Ottawa.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Newly published research by Indiana University structural biologist Joel Ybe and colleagues identifies a "topology switch" in the protein clathrin, the function of which may shed light on molecular processes involved in tumor suppression.

The paper, available in and featured on the front cover of the Jan. 16, 2013, issue of FEBS Letters, a journal of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies, could broaden scientists' understanding of the importance of clathrin and potentially lead to new strategies for controlling cancer.

A new method of establishing hair and eye colour from modern forensic samples can also be used to identify details from ancient human remains, finds a new study published in BioMed Central's open access journal Investigative Genetics. The HIrisPlex DNA analysis system was able to reconstruct hair and eye colour from teeth up to 800 years old, including the Polish General Wladyslaw Sikorski (1881 to 1943) confirming his blue eyes and blond hair.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have made a surprising finding after studying how tadpoles re-grow their tails which could have big implications for research into human healing and regeneration.

PHILADELPHIA - It is perhaps impossible to overstate the importance of the tumor suppressor gene p53. It is the single most frequently mutated gene in human tumors. p53 keeps pre-cancerous cells in check by causing cells, among other things, to become senescent – aging at the cellular level. Loss of p53 causes cells to ignore the cellular signals that would normally make mutant or damaged cells die or stop growing.