Body

The presence of rhythmic limb movements when sleeping, which may vary in intensity, may be an indicator of periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD).

In a study of 100 patients with PMLD last year, researchers at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP), researchers from Toledo, Ohio noted they divided patients into those who were right-handed and those who were left-handed.

Contrary to clinical recommendations, older women with early stage breast cancer may want to undergo radiation after lumpectomy to help ensure that they will not need a mastectomy in the future. That is the conclusion of a new study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The findings indicate that current thinking on the risks and benefits of radiation for early stage breast cancer in older women may be inaccurate.

HOUSTON — For the majority of older, early-stage breast cancer patients, radiation therapy following breast conserving surgery may help prevent the need for a later mastectomy, according to research from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.

The findings, published in the journal Cancer, are contrary to current national treatment guidelines, which recommend that older women with early stage, estrogen-positive disease be treated with lumpectomy followed by estrogen blocker therapy alone -- and forgo radiation therapy post-surgery.

At its most fundamental level, diabetes is stress-related; microscopic stress causes inflammation and the loss of insulin production in the pancreas, and system-wide stress occurs due to the loss of that blood-sugar-regulating hormone.

Ten more DNA regions linked to type 2 diabetes have been discovered by an international team of researchers, bringing the total to over 60.

The study provides a fuller picture of the genetics and biological processes underlying type 2 diabetes, with some clear patterns emerging.

Researchers have identified 38 new genetic regions that are associated with glucose and insulin levels in the blood. This brings the total number of genetic regions associated with glucose and insulin levels to 53, over half of which are associated with type 2 diabetes.

Genetics researchers have identified a key gene that, when mutated, causes the rare multisystem disorder Cornelia deLange syndrome (CdLS). By revealing how mutations in the HDAC8 gene disrupt the biology of proteins that control both gene expression and cell division, the research sheds light on this disease, which causes intellectual disability, limb deformations and other disabilities resulting from impairments in early development.

A team of researchers at Columbia Engineering, led by Applied Physics and Applied Mathematics Associate Professor Latha Venkataraman and in collaboration with Mark Hybertsen from the Center for Functional Nanomaterials at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, has succeeded in performing the first quantitative characterization of van der Waals interactions at metal/organic interfaces at the single-molecule level.

A large, international clinical trial led by doctors at the University of California, San Francisco indicates that a vaccine to prevent anal cancer is safe and effective, according to a study last year in the New England Journal of Medicine. Though anal cancer is less common than other forms of cancer in the United States, the number of cases has increased in recent years, and is particularly common among men who have sex with men and HIV-infected individuals.

Through experiments involving small nematode worms, scientists from Wyoming have discovered several genes that may be potential targets for drug development in the ongoing war against cancer. Specifically, researchers hypothesize that inhibiting these genes could reverse certain key traits associated with cancer cells.

Daily aspirin usage is associated with lower overall cancer mortality, but the association may be smaller than what was previously believed, according to a study published August 10 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

ATLANTA – August 10, 2012–A large new observational study finds more evidence of an association between daily aspirin use and modestly lower cancer mortality, but suggests any reduction may be smaller than that observed in a recent analysis. The study, appearing early online in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute (JNCI), provides additional support for a potential benefit of daily aspirin use for cancer mortality, but the authors say important questions remain about the size of the potential benefit.

Singing mice (Scotinomys teguina) are not your average lab rats. Their fur is tawny brown instead of the common white albino strain; they hail from the tropical cloud forests in the mountains of Costa Rica; and, as their name hints, they use song to communicate.

University of Texas at Austin researcher Steven Phelps is examining these unconventional rodents to gain insights into the genes that contribute to the unique singing behavior—information that could help scientists understand and identify genes that affect language in humans.

(Garrison, NY) With whole genome sequencing quickly becoming more affordable and accessible, we need to pay more attention to the massive amount of information it will deliver to parents – and the fact that we don't yet understand what most of it means, concludes an article in the Hastings Center Report. The authors are current or former scholars at the National Institutes of Health's Department of Bioethics.