Body

Researchers identify unique regulatory T cell population in human skin

Lower income countries may soon be facing the same obesity and diabetes epidemics as their higher income counterparts. Ownership of televisions, cars and computers was recently found to be associated with increased rates of obesity and diabetes in lower and middle income countries, according to an international study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

In the debate over whether to withdraw life support for patients who have no hope of recovery, the recent judgment by the Supreme Court of Canada on the Hassan Rasouli case in Ontario has broader implications for health care in the country, argue authors in a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

NYU Langone Medical Center researchers have found a biological weakness in the workings of the most commonly mutated gene involved in human cancers, known as mutant K-Ras, which they say can be exploited by drug chemotherapies to thwart tumor growth.

Mutant K-Ras has long been suspected of being the driving force behind more than a third of all cancers, including colon, lung, and a majority of pancreatic cancers. Indeed, Ras cancers, which are unusually aggressive, are thought of as "undruggable" because every previous attempt to stall their growth has failed.

BOSTON (Feb. 10, 2014)—Reinforcing the need to look beyond genomic alterations to understand the complexity of cancer, researchers from Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center report that a normal enzyme called SYK pairs with FLT3, the most commonly mutated enzyme found in acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), to promote progression of the disease. This molecular partnership also promotes AML cells' resistance to treatment with FLT3-blocking drugs, potentially explaining the relatively poor showing of FLT3 inhibitors in multiple clinical studies.

Components in the outer wall of bacteria directly activate pain sensors, triggering immediate pain and inflammatory responses. This finding by a multinational team of researchers led by Professor Karel Talavera (KU Leuven, Belgium) and Professor Félix Viana (Institute of Neuroscience, Spain) sheds new light on pain associated with bacterial infections and reveals a new target for drugs designed to treat them.

MANHATTAN, Kan. -- The Nile is a river in Egypt. Sometimes that river is polluted with industrial waste, such as lead, which can cause detrimental effects on local sheep and goats via the water supply.

TORONTO, February 10, 2014 – Young girls with mental illness are three times more likely to become teenage parents than those without a major mental illness, according to a first-of-its-kind study by researchers at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) and Women's College Hospital.

The study, published today in the journal Pediatrics, is the first to examine trends in fertility rates among girls with mental illness.

Farmers should take extra precautions so drifting herbicides do not create unintended consequences on neighboring fields and farms, according to agricultural researchers.

The researchers found a range of effects -- positive, neutral and negative -- when they sprayed the herbicide dicamba on old fields -- ones that are no longer used for cultivation -- and on field edges, according to J. Franklin Egan, research ecologist, USDA-Agricultural Research Service. He said the effects should be similar for a related compound, 2,4-D.

PASADENA, CALIF., Feb. 10, 2014 — A screening program for abdominal aortic aneurysms, integrated into an electronic health record, dramatically reduced the number of unscreened at-risk men by more than 50 percent within 15 months, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in the Journal of Vascular Surgery. An abdominal aortic aneurysm is a balloon-like bulge in the aorta, which – if ruptured – can result in death. It is estimated that more than one million Americans are living with undiagnosed AAA, according to the Society for Vascular Surgery.

A large scale randomized control trial, just released in the American Journal of Psychiatry (the official journal of the American Psychiatric Association) shows Schema Therapy to be significantly more effective than two major alternative approaches to the treatment of a broad range of personality disorders (avoidant, obsessive compulsive, dependent, paranoid, histrionic, and narcissistic). Schema Therapy resulted in a higher rate of recovery, greater declines in depression, greater increases in general and social functioning and had a lower drop out rate.

10 February 2014, Singapore: New trial results1 have shown that the world's first DoubleIntravenous Vasopressor Automated (DIVA) System affords superior control of maternal blood pressure in women undergoing caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia, when compared with manually-administered medication to manage reduced blood pressure (vasopressor).

Pancreatic stellate cells, which normally aid tissue repair, unwittingly help pancreatic cancer grow and spread in a method of 'cell hijack' only seen before in brain and breast cancer, according to new research from Queen Mary University of London.

The research, published in the latest issue of EMBO Molecular Medicine and carried out by Queen Mary's Barts Cancer Institute, also revealed the process can be blocked, thereby preventing the growth and spread of the tumour.

Aggression-causing genes appeared early in animal evolution and have maintained their roles for millions of years and across many species, even though animal aggression today varies widely from territorial fighting to setting up social hierarchies, according to researchers from Iowa State University, Penn State and Grand Valley State University.

A new survey conducted by the University of Copenhagen and the World Health Organization (WHO) is highlighting the role of schools in work to promote health and prevent disease.