Body

Cranberry juice is unlikely to prevent bladder and kidney infections, according to an updated systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. The authors analysed the most up-to-date evidence and concluded that any benefit, if present at all, is likely to be small and only for women with recurrent UTI.

On average, new treatments perform better in clinical trials only slightly more often than existing treatments, according to a new systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. The fact that experimental treatments are not more effective may seem disappointing, but the authors of the review say their findings satisfy an important ethical requirement for clinical trials.

New research at the University of Southampton aims to develop a way of predicting who is more at risk of getting cancer.

Led by Paul Little, Professor of Primary Care Research, the CANcer DIagnosis Decision rules (CANDID) study, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Primary Care Research (NIHR SPCR), will collect and analyse clinical information and blood samples from 20,000 patients who have had lung or colon cancer. The aim is to determine which signs and symptoms are most predictive of those who go on to be diagnosed with the disease.

Muscle relaxants given to millions of patients during general anaesthesia are associated with an increased risk of serious breathing problems after surgery, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

The results also suggest that giving drugs to reverse the muscle relaxants after surgery may increase the risk further.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have found that medications currently used to immobilize patients during surgery can increase the risk of postoperative respiratory complications. Their study being published online in the journal BMJ also found that the agent most commonly used to reverse the action of the immobilizing drug does not prevent and may possibly increase the risk that patients will need to receive postoperative respiratory support.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki believe they have discovered stem cells that play a decisive role in the growth of new blood vessels. If researchers learn to isolate and efficiently produce these stem cells found in blood vessel walls, the cells could offer new opportunities for developing therapeutics to treat diseases, such as cardiovascular disease and cancer. The study reporting the discovery of these stem cells is published in the open access journal PLOS Biology on October 16.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki, Finland, believe they have discovered stem cells that play a decisive role in new blood vessel growth. If researchers learn to isolate and efficiently produce these stem cells found in blood vessel walls, the cells offer new opportunities in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases, cancer and many other diseases. The study will be published in the PLOS Biology journal on 16 October 2012.

PULLMAN, Wash.— Washington State University researchers have found that viruses will join forces to overcome a plant's defenses and cause more severe infections.

Ice-sheet retreat can halt temporarily during long phases of climate warming, according to scientists.

A UK team led by Durham University has found that the geometry of channels beneath the ice can be a strong control on ice behaviour, temporarily hiding the signals of retreat.

The findings, which provide the first simulation of past ice-sheet retreat and collapse over a ten thousand year period in Antarctica, shed new light on what makes ice stable or unstable and will help refine predictions of future ice extent and global sea-level rise, the researchers say.

Two years ago, O'Shea discovered that E4-ORF3 clears the way for adenovirus to proliferate by deactivating genes that help the cell defend itself against the virus. "It literally creates zip files of p53 target genes by compressing them until they can no longer be read," she explains.

While researchers and clinicians know that the mortality rates among alcohol dependent (AD) individuals are high, most of that knowledge is based on studies of clinical populations. A new study is the first to examine excess mortality and its predictors among AD individuals in the general population throughout a 14-year span, finding that annualized death rates were 4.6-fold higher for AD females and 1.9-fold higher for AD males when compared to the general population, indicating that females with AD merit particular attention.

CHICAGO – An analysis of nationally-representative data indicates that between 1988 and 2010 there has been a trend of declining average levels of total cholesterol, non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol for U.S. adults overall, according to a study in the October 17 issue of JAMA.

CHICAGO – In a comparison of strategies to identify individuals with Lynch syndrome, the most common form of hereditary colorectal cancer (CRC), caused by mutations in certain genes (DNA mismatch repair [MMR] genes), universal tumor MMR testing among certain CRC patients had a greater sensitivity for the identification of Lynch syndrome compared with multiple alternative strategies, although the diagnostic improvement was modest, according to a study in the October 17 issue of JAMA.

HOUSTON — Enzyme levels in the blood routinely monitored by physicians as liver function indicators are also the best predictor of liver cancer risk for the general population, a team of scientists in Taiwan and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reports today in the Journal of the National Cancer Institutet.

Smokers who have tried to quit and failed may be tempted to just give up, particularly if they hear statistics like the fact that most quit attempts will be unsuccessful. But smokers today have many options to help them quit, and those who think they have "tried it all" usually have not. In a report in the Oct. 17 issue of JAMA, Nancy Rigotti, MD, director of the Tobacco Research and Treatment Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Medicine, outlines currently available resources and recommends strategies that can help smokers who are struggling to quit.