Body

CHICAGO – Among rescue and recovery workers exposed to the dust, debris, and fumes following the World Trade Center terrorist attack, there was an increased incidence of prostate and thyroid cancers and multiple myeloma, although it is not clear how big a factor medical screening and non-WTC risk factors contributed to these increases, according to a study in the December 19 issue of JAMA.

CHICAGO ‑ Among nearly 5,000 study participants, regular aspirin use reported ten years prior was associated with a small but statistically significant increase in the risk of neovascular age‑related macular degeneration, according to a study in the December 19 issue of JAMA.

(Boston/Washington) – A viewpoint in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) discusses the issue of iodine deficiency in pregnant women in the U.S. and the potential negative health implications for both mothers and their children from this deficiency.

For more than half a century, researchers have known that the bacteria that colonize the gastrointestinal tract of mammals influence their host's cholesterol metabolism. Now, Jens Walter and colleagues of the University of Nebraska show that changes in cholesterol metabolism induced by diet can alter the gut flora. The research was published online ahead of print in the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

URBANA – Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) may have affected humans for much longer than is currently believed. Alfred Roca, an assistant professor in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, thinks that the genomes of an isolated West African human population provide important clues about how the disease has evolved.

Researchers have found that the budding yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) is an acceptable model system to study KP1019, an anti-cancer drug that uses ruthenium, a rare metal, a new study found. Researchers had previously been interested in studying KP1019 because it is believed to cause cancer cell death and is not known to have negative secondary side effects for healthy tissues.

DETROIT – Brain surgery for certain difficult forms of epilepsy often reduces or eliminates seizures for more than 15 years after the procedure, according to new research by neurologists at Henry Ford Hospital.

Drugs are not effective in controlling seizures in 30 out of 100 people with epilepsy, and resective surgery is the most common alternative treatment. During resective surgery, the portion of the brain responsible for the seizures is removed, usually reducing their frequency and sometimes eliminating them.

Despite earlier signs that a less-invasive surgery is safer and better than "open" operations to repair potentially lethal abdominal aortic aneurysms, a study led by a Johns Hopkins professor shows survival rates after four years are similar for both procedures.

Amsterdam, December 18, 2012 - Sexual and reproductive morbidities are not a priority in health policy. They do not feature among donors favourite health initiatives and remain outside the global health agenda. In many parts of the world practice is stubbornly failing to catch up with national policies, leaving shortfalls in every area of care.

Rosemont, Ill. - The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), and the American Dental Association (ADA) found that there is insufficient evidence to recommend the routine use of antibiotics for patients with orthopaedic implants to prevent infections prior to having dental procedures because there is no direct evidence that routine dental procedures cause prosthetic joint infections.

A new process to make a one-time, universal influenza vaccine has been discovered by a researcher at Georgia State University's Center for Inflammation, Immunity and Infection and his partners.

Associate Professor Sang-Moo Kang and his collaborators have found a way to make the one-time vaccine by using recombinant genetic engineering technology that does not use a seasonal virus.

Instead, the new vaccine uses a virus' small fragment that does not vary among the different strains of flu viruses.

Women earn less money than men the more the sexes share the same occupations, a large-scale survey of 20 industrialised countries has found.

Researchers from the universities of Cambridge, UK, and Lakehead, Canada, found that the more women and men keep to different trades and professions, the more equal is the overall pay average for the two sexes in a country.

HERSHEY, Pa.--The spread of cancer cells may be slowed by targeting the protein km23-1, according to researchers at Penn State College of Medicine.

A motor protein that transports cargo within the cell, km23-1 is also involved in the movement or migration of cells. Migration is necessary for cancer to spread, so understanding this cell movement is important for development of better cancer treatments.

Chapel Hill, NC – CHAPEL HILL – Hepatitis C virus has evolved to invade and hijack the basic machinery of the human liver cell to ensure its survival and spread. Researchers at the University of North have discovered how hepatitis C binds with and repurposes a basic component of cellular metabolism known as a microRNA to help protect and replicate the virus.

Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have presented a new principle for fighting bacterial infections, in other words, a new type of antibiotic, in the FASEB Journal. The new antibiotic mechanism is based on selectively blocking the thioredoxin system in the cells, which is crucial to the growth of certain bacteria. Scientists hope to be able to treat such conditions as stomach ulcers, TB and MRSA.