Body

Obesity increases the risk of myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that accumulate inside the bones.

And with current obesity trends in the United States and especially in South Texas, that's ominous.

"I'm predicting an increase in multiple myeloma," said Edward Medina, M.D., Ph.D., "and with the obesity problems we see in the Hispanic population, there could be a serious health disparity on the horizon."

Chicago, IL (May 2, 2014) — International leaders in the fields of gastroenterology and hepatology will gather together for Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2014, the largest and most prestigious gastroenterology meeting, from May 3 to 6, 2014, at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL. DDW is jointly sponsored by the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT).

Chicago, IL (May 2, 2014) — International leaders in the fields of gastroenterology and hepatology will gather together for Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2014, the largest and most prestigious gastroenterology meeting, from May 3 to 6, 2014, at McCormick Place in Chicago, IL. DDW is jointly sponsored by the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute, the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD), the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE) and the Society for Surgery of the Alimentary Tract (SSAT).

It's not only the biology of lakes that varies with the climate and other environmental factors, it's also their chemistry. More knowledge about this is needed to understand the ecology of lakes and their role in the carbon cycle and the climate. Today an international research group led by Uppsala University is publishing a comprehensive study of the composition of organic compounds in the prestigious journal Nature Communications.

Babies who have skull deformation because they lie in the same position most of the time do not benefit from wearing a corrective helmet, finds research published today on bmj.com.

There was no meaningful difference in skull shape at the age of two years between children treated with therapy helmet and those who received no active treatment. Both groups showed similar improvements although only a quarter made a full recovery to a normal head shape, according to the team of researchers based in The Netherlands.

In this Review, published to coincide with the launch of The Lancet Psychiatry journal, Professor Kees van Heeringen from Ghent University in Belgium and John Mann from Columbia University in the USA discuss the stress-diathesis theory of suicide, in which a predisposition or diathesis interacts with stressful life experiences and acute psychiatric illness to cause suicidal behaviour. The theory explains why only a small minority of individuals are at risk of taking their own lives after exposure to such stressors.

On Friday 2 May, 2014, The Lancet and The Lancet Respiratory Medicine will release three new review articles and an Editorial on asthma, ahead of World Asthma Day on May 6 and the American Thoracic Society's international conference (ATS 2014) in San Diego (May 16-21).

• Editorial – Controlling asthma
• Outdoor air pollution and asthma
• Asthma genetics and personalised medicine
• Diagnosis, management, and prognosis of preschool wheeze

The Lancet: Outdoor air pollution and asthma

Variola, the virus that causes smallpox, is on the agenda of the upcoming meeting of the World Health Assembly (WHA), the governing body of the World Health Organization. The decision to be made is whether the last known remaining live strains of the virus should be destroyed.

Washington, DC (May 1, 2014) — Lowering LDL cholesterol through statin-based treatment did not slow kidney disease progression within five years in a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The results indicate that while LDL cholesterol-lowering therapy is safe in kidney disease patients and can reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke, it does not protect their kidney health as well.

Researchers have identified a section of the anthrax toxin Lethal Factor that could help produce a more effective vaccine.

Anthrax is a potentially lethal disease caused by a bacterium called Bacillus anthracis. The bacteria produce spores that when inhaled, ingested or absorbed into the skin release toxins. When anthrax affects the lungs or intestines it can cause death within a few days whilst infection of the skin (cutaneous anthrax) is less dangerous.

Bacteria don't have sex as such, but they can mix their genetic material by pulling in DNA from dead bacterial cells and inserting these into their own genome.

New research led by Imperial College London has found that this process – called recombination – is more complex than was first thought. The findings, published today in PLoS Genetics, could help us understand why bacteria which cause serious diseases are able to evade vaccines and rapidly become drug-resistant.

Acute hypoxia-induced renal injury often progresses to chronic kidney disease (CKD), and the progressive loss of kidney function in CKD is linked to endothelial cell (EC) damage.

Partners of patients diagnosed with human papilloma virus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal cancer (OPC) were no more likely to test positive for oral HPV infection than people in the general population, according to a study published in the April 28 online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology. The findings should lessen anxiety that OPC cancer is contagious, at least among long-term partners, and confirms that couples who have been together for several years do not need to change their intimacy or sexual behavior because of the cancer diagnosis.

A study published today in Science by researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory may dramatically shift our understanding of the complex dance of microbes and minerals that takes place in aquifers deep underground. This dance affects groundwater quality, the fate of contaminants in the ground and the emerging science of carbon sequestration.

Deep underground, microbes don't have much access to oxygen. So they have evolved ways to breathe other elements, including solid minerals like iron and sulfur.

More than a mile beneath the ocean's surface, as dark clouds of mineral-rich water billow from seafloor hot springs called hydrothermal vents, unseen armies of viruses and bacteria wage war.

Like pirates boarding a treasure-laden ship, the viruses infect bacterial cells to get the loot: tiny globules of elemental sulfur stored inside the bacterial cells.

Instead of absconding with their prize, the viruses force the bacteria to burn their valuable sulfur reserves, then use the unleashed energy to replicate.