Body

MINNEAPOLIS – Children with migraine are more likely to have below average school performance than kids who do not have headaches, according to new research published in the October 30, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

The study of 5,671 Brazilian children ages 5 to 12 found that those with migraine were 30 percent more likely to have below average school performance than those with no headaches.

A study published in today's [Monday, Oct. 29] Archives of Internal Medicine finds that per capita Medicare spending on the elderly has grown nearly three times faster in the United States than in Canada since 1980. (Canada's program, which covers all Canadians, not just the elderly, is also called Medicare.) Cost grew more slowly in Canada despite a 1984 law banning co-payments and deductibles.

PHILADELPHIA — New insight into the aggressive behavior of certain adult B-acute lymphoblastic leukemias has provided researchers with a potential new prognostic biomarker and a promising new therapeutic target.

SAN DIEGO — Disparities in survival after breast cancer persisted across racial/ethnic groups even after researchers adjusted for multiple demographics, such as patients' education and the socioeconomic status of the neighborhood in which they lived, according to data presented at the Fifth AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held here Oct. 27-30, 2012.

SAN DIEGO — Cancer survivors who self-identified as being lesbian, gay or bisexual were more than twice as likely as heterosexual cancer survivors to have participated in cancer clinical trials, according to data from a small study presented at the Fifth AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held here Oct. 27-30, 2012.

SAN DIEGO — Racial and ethnic disparities in breast tumor aggressiveness might be explained by social factors that influence the developing tumor and place those in disadvantaged groups at higher risk for aggressive breast cancer, according to data presented at the Fifth AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held here Oct. 27-30, 2012.

DURHAM, N.C. – A team of Duke Medicine researchers has engineered cartilage from induced pluripotent stem cells that were successfully grown and sorted for use in tissue repair and studies into cartilage injury and osteoarthritis.

The finding is reported online Oct. 29, 2012, in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and suggests that induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs, may be a viable source of patient-specific articular cartilage tissue.

The study, which used computer modelling to provide a detailed picture of how and when opsins evolved, sheds light on the origin of sight in animals, including humans.

The evolutionary origins of vision remain hotly debated, partly due to inconsistent reports of phylogenetic relationships among the earliest opsin-possessing animals.

Dr Davide Pisani of Bristol's School of Earth Sciences and colleagues at NUI Maynooth performed a computational analysis to test every hypothesis of opsin evolution proposed to date.

NEW YORK (Oct. 28, 2012) -- A team of national and international researchers, led by Weill Cornell Medical College scientists, have decoded the key "software" instructions that drive three of the most virulent forms of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). They discovered ALL's "software" is encoded with epigenetic marks, chemical modifications of DNA and surrounding proteins, allowing the research team to identify new potential biomarkers and therapeutic targets.

CHICAGO – Being overweight and obese during adolescence appears related to an increased risk of all-cause treated end-stage renal disease (ESRD) during a 25-year period, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Children and adolescents with high body mass index (BMI) often become obese adults, and obese adults are at risk for chronic conditions such as diabetes, which can mean future risk of chronic kidney disease and ESRD, according to the study background.

CHICAGO – A decline in the incidence of myocardial infarction (MI, heart attack) in one Minnesota county appears to be associated with the implementation of smoke-free workplace laws, according to a report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

The dangers of smoking on smokers and their children are widely known but new research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Medicine demonstrates that nicotine exposure also causes asthma in the smoker's grandchildren.

Asthma is a major public health problem. It is the most common chronic disease of childhood. While there are many factors which contribute to asthma maternal smoking during pregnancy is a well known, and avoidable, risk.

An international team of researchers has shed new light on the natural feeding behaviour of domestic dogs and demonstrated that they will naturally seek a daily dietary intake that is high in fat. The study also showed that some dogs will overeat if given excess food, reinforcing the importance of responsible feeding to help ensure dogs maintain a healthy body weight.

A team of researchers under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Teckman in the Department of Pediatrics at St. Louis University, have demonstrated that oxidative stress occurs in a genetic model of alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency. This is the most common genetic liver disorder in children and can lead to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma in adults. Some cases may require liver transplantation. The report, published in the October 2012 issue of Experimental Biology and Medicine, suggests that treatment with antioxidants might be of therapeutic benefit for some individuals.

MAYWOOD, IL - Ninety million American adults read below high school levels, so the National Institutes of Health recommends that patient-education materials be written at the fourth-through-six grade level.

But a Loyola University Medical Center study has found that only 4.8 percent of web sites describing prostate cancer were written below a high school reading level. The median reading level was 12th grade.