Body

An important new study challenges the widespread perception that bulimia primarily affects privileged, white teenagers such as "Gossip Girl" character Blair Waldorf, who battled bulimia on the show earlier this season.

Rather, girls who are African American are 50 percent more likely than girls who are white to be bulimic, the researchers found, and girls from families in the lowest income bracket studied are 153 percent more likely to be bulimic than girls from the highest income bracket.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers are investigating a new way to block reproduction of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) – targeting not the virus itself but the human genes the virus exploits in its life cycle. In the March 19 Cell Host & Microbe, they report finding nearly 100 genes that support the replication of HCV and show that blocking several of them can suppress viral replication in cultured cells.

Screening for prostate cancer can reduce deaths by 20%, according to the results of the European Randomized Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer (ERSPC) published online 1700 hours CET, today 18 March (NEJM, Online First*). ERSPC is the world's largest prostate cancer screening study and provides robust, independently audited evidence, for the first time, of the effect of screening on prostate cancer mortality.

LA JOLLA, Calif., March 18, 2009 -- Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have learned that a protein called Shp2 plays a critical role in the pathways that control decisions for differentiation or self-renewal in both human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) and mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs).

Johns Hopkins engineers have invented a method that could be used to help figure out how cancer cells break free from neighboring tissue, an "escape" that can spread the disease to other parts of the body. The new lab-on-a-chip, described in the March issue of the journal Nature Methods, could lead to better cancer therapies.

March 18, 2009 – (BRONX, NY) – Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have identified genetic markers that signal poor outcomes for patients with head and neck cancer. These findings could one day lead to a genetic test that could help select or predict successful treatment options for patients with this type of cancer. The results were published in the American Journal of Pathology.

New York, NY—March 18, 2009—A new article published in The Milbank Quarterly explores how food prices can affect weight outcomes, revealing that pricing interventions can have a significant effect on obesity rates. This article is part of the March special issue, which includes eleven articles focusing on the topic of obesity.

Las Vegas, NV—March 18, 2009—With 17 percent of US children between ages 2 and 19 classified as obese, new research shows that parents may not be recognizing their own children's risk factors. A new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners shows that parents are likely to misperceive their child's weight – especially those parents who are overweight themselves.

MANHATTAN -- A Kansas State University researcher has found a link between physical and mental well-being that employees and employers may be able to capitalize on to improve both the health, and potentially the wealth, of their organization in these turbulent economic times.

Thomas A. Wright, Jon Wefald Leadership Chair in Business Administration and professor of management at K-State, published his findings on the relationship between employee psychological well-being and cardiovascular health in the February issue of the Journal of Organizational Behavior.

Kingston, ON – Children who exercise in bouts of activity lasting five minutes or longer are less likely to become obese than those whose activity levels are more sporadic and typically last less than five minutes each, Queen's University researchers have discovered.

Although not having many close friends contributes to poorer health for many older adults, those who also feel lonely face even greater health risks, research at the University of Chicago suggests. Older people who are able to adjust to being alone don't have the same health problems.

PHILADELPHIA -- For years, researchers have known that under normal conditions, the breast cancer protein BRCA1 orchestrates the repair of damaged DNA, but the details of just how BRCA1 moves to the damaged site and recruits the right nuclear repairmen for DNA restoration remains a mystery.

The gene Myc is an important factor for the growth of organisms by cell division. It causes the production of a protein which, as a transcription factor, controls the expression of up to 15 % of all human genes. When this gene mutates to an oncogene, the cell proliferates excessively and apoptosis is inhibited. Thereby the gene plays a decisive role in the development of many tumors. The problem is that pharmacological substances do not target Myc as it does not have enzymatic activity of its own. Thus, scientists worldwide are trying to find alternative ways to inhibit this oncogene.

MAYWOOD, Ill. -- To look at Matthew Houdek, you could never tell he was born with virtually no left ear.

A surgery at Loyola University Health System made it possible for Houdek to be fitted with a prosthetic ear that looks just like the real thing.

Ear-nose-throat surgeon Dr. Sam Marzo implanted three small metal screws in the side of Houdek's head. Each screw is fitted with a magnet, and magnetic attraction holds the prosthetic ear in place.

PHILADELPHIA – An important clinical repercussion in the treatment of epilepsy has been discovered by a research team led by Scott Mintzer, M.D., assistant professor in the Department of Neurology and the Jefferson Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. The team has determined that two of the most commonly prescribed anti-seizure medications may lead to significantly increased levels of cholesterol, C-reactive protein and other markers of cardiovascular disease risk.