Body

Does the widespread and still proliferating use of antimicrobial household products cause more harm than good to consumers and the environment? Evidence compiled in a new feature article published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology by Arizona State University professor Rolf Halden shows that decades of widespread use of antimicrobials has left consumers with no measurable benefits.

Hamilton, ON (April 1, 2014) Researchers at McMaster University have discovered a key molecule that could lead to new therapies for people with celiac disease, an often painful and currently untreatable autoimmune disorder.

Celiac disease is a food sensitivity to dietary gluten contained in cereals. In people who are genetically predisposed, gluten containing food will trigger an immune response that leads to destruction of the intestinal lining, abdominal pain, changes in bowel habits, malnutrition and many other symptoms that include anemia, and neurological problems.

A new discovery suggests it could one day be possible to chemically reprogram and repair damaged nerves after spinal cord injury or brain trauma.

Researchers from Imperial College London and the Hertie Institute, University of Tuebingen have identified a possible mechanism for re-growing damaged nerve fibres in the central nervous system (CNS). This damage is currently irreparable, often leaving those who suffer spinal cord injury, stroke or brain trauma with serious impairments like loss of sensation and permanent paralysis.

Charlottesville, VA (April 1, 2014). Researchers from Syracuse, New York, report a new, highly accurate, neuromonitoring method that can be used during thoracic spine surgery to prevent malpositioning of pedicle screws such that they enter the spinal canal and possibly cause postoperative neurological impairment.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Population-based screening with full-field digital mammography (FFDM) is associated with lower recall and biopsy rates than screen film mammography (SFM), suggesting that FFDM may reduce the number of diagnostic workups and biopsies that do not lead to diagnosis of breast cancer, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.

When temperatures reach 32°C or higher over a period of four to seven days, the risk of early-term delivery is 27% higher than on typical summer days, according to a study led by Nathalie Auger of the University of Montreal's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine. The study involved data from 300,000 births that took place in Montreal between 1981 to 2010 with summer temperatures recorded by Environment Canada during this period. Auger is also affiliated with the university's CHUM Superhospital Research Centre.

Eating at least seven daily portions of fruit and vegetables may confer the best chance of staving off death from any cause, indicates research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

And vegetables may pack more of a protective punch than fruit, the data suggest.

The UK government currently recommends eating five daily portions of fruit and vegetables, prompting the suggestion in an accompanying editorial that it may be time to review national dietary recommendations.

Bottom Line: Taking low doses of aspirin (which inhibits platelet function) after a colon cancer diagnosis appears to be associated with better survival if the tumor cells express HLA class I antigen.

Author: Marlies S. Reimers, M.D., Leiden University Medical Center, the Netherlands, and colleagues.

Bottom Line: Treating inmates for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) while they were incarcerated in Connecticut helped a majority of them achieve viral suppression by the time they were released.

Author: Jaimie P. Meyer, M.D., of the Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn., and colleagues.

(Lebanon, NH, 3/31/14) — Fast food giants attempts at depicting healthier kids' meals frequently goes unnoticed by children ages 3 to 7 years old according to a new study by Dartmouth-Hitchcock Norris Cotton Cancer Center. In research published on March 31, 2014 in JAMA Pediatrics, Dartmouth researchers found that one-half to one-third of children did not identify milk when shown McDonald's and Burger King children's advertising images depicting that product.

PHILADELPHIA (March 31, 2014) – Keeping young people in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevention programs is a major goal in reducing the incidence of HIV, and multi-session interventions are often more effective than single-sessions. But according to a new study from the Annenberg School for Communication, the way these programs are designed and implemented may turn off the very people they are trying to help.

A humble ingredient of bread – baker's yeast – has provided scientists with remarkable new insights into understanding basic processes likely involved in diseases such as Parkinson's and cancer.

In a new study published today (Monday March 31) in the prestigious journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Science), the team from Germany, Leicester, and Portugal detail a new advance – describing for the first time a key feature in cellular development linked to the onset of these devastating diseases.

(PHILADELPHIA) -- The code for every gene includes a message at the end of it that signals the translation machinery to stop. Some diseases, such as cystic fibrosis and Duchenne muscular dystrophy, can result from mutations that insert this stop signal into the middle of an essential gene, causing the resulting protein to be truncated. Some antibiotics cause the cell's translation machinery to ignore the stop codons and are therefore being explored as a potential therapy for these diseases.

Through years of perfecting their techniques, a team led by Bursac and graduate student Mark Juhas discovered that preparing better muscle requires two things -- well-developed contractile muscle fibers and a pool of muscle stem cells, known as satellite cells.

Every muscle has satellite cells on reserve, ready to activate upon injury and begin the regeneration process. The key to the team's success was successfully creating the microenvironments -- called niches -- where these stem cells await their call to duty.

Evidence left at the crime scene is abundant and global: Fossil remains show that sometime around 252 million years ago, about 90 percent of all species on Earth were suddenly wiped out — by far the largest of this planet's five known mass extinctions. But pinpointing the culprit has been difficult, and controversial.

Now, a team of MIT researchers may have found enough evidence to convict the guilty parties — but you'll need a microscope to see the killers.