Body

A study led by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) found that men who took a daily folic acid supplement of 1 mg daily had more than twice the risk of prostate cancer compared with men who took a placebo.

A new study has found for the first time that maintenance therapy with the novel antibody, rituximab (MR) following cyclophosphamide, vincristine and prednisone (CVP) therapy improves progression-free survival in patients with stage III-IV indolent lymphoma, according to Howard S. Hochster, M.D. of NYU Langone Medical Center, lead author of a recent study published online ahead of print in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Ageism is still rampant in America, and many old people themselves trade in unflattering stereotypes of the elderly, including helplessness and incompetence. Such caricatures are not only false and cruel, they are also unhealthy. Research has shown that old people who believe in negative age stereotypes tend to fulfill them.

Herd mentality. Angry mob. Mass hysteria. As these phrases suggest, we are not always confident that a large group of people will come up with the smartest decisions. So it may be surprising to learn that numerous studies have shown that a crowd of people usually gives more accurate responses to questions compared to a mere individual. Averaging the responses provided from a group increases accuracy by canceling out a number of errors made across the board (such as over- and under-estimating the answer).

It's a well-documented fact that children from zero to two can be spontaneously aggressive and that boys can be among the worse culprits. Even after being socialized, seven percent of boys will continue to be hyper-aggressive until the age of nine.

According to a new study, this small sub-group of aggressive children has a different makeup than non-aggressive children.

Elvire Vaucher is a professor at the Université de Montréal School of Optometry. Her husband is an artist who works from home. Upon the birth of their second child in 2003, she took only three months maternity leave while her husband stayed at home, a situation that isn't that uncommon anymore.

"Professional pressure pushes young researchers to have a very productive lab," says Vaucher. "Seeing as my salary is greater than my husband's we wanted to limit our financial losses so he became the primary caregiver."

The majority of the 650,000 employees from Quebec's manufacturing sector – specifically those working in metallurgy and sawmilling – are exposed to noise levels that exceed governmental norms.

A handful of proteins, detected in incredibly tiny amounts, may one day help doctors distinguish between a harmless lesion in the pancreas and a potentially deadly one, say researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center.

The researchers believe that these protein biomarkers, if confirmed in subsequent studies, could represent reliable indicators of pancreatic cancer or precancerous pancreatic lesions, which would allow for earlier, perhaps more successful, treatment. Their findings appear in the March issue of the journal Pancreas, available online now.

HOUSTON (March 10, 2009) – Finding molecules that block the activity of the oncogene Stat 3 (signal transducer and activator of transcription) required screening literally millions of compounds, using computers that compared the structure of the cancer-causing gene to those of the small molecules, said a Baylor College of Medicine researcher in a report that appears in the current online issue of the journal PLoS One (Public Library of Science ONE).

Pregnant women suffering from asthma run a greater risk of giving birth prematurely if they suspend their asthma treatments. According to a Université de Montréal study, published in Respiratory Medicine, the probability of suffering from hypertension during pregnancy also increases for women who interrupt their asthma treatment.

HOUSTON - Researchers have crafted a gene circuit that permits precise tuning of a gene's expression in a cell, an advance that should allow for more accurate analysis of the gene's role in normal and abnormal cellular function.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – From preventing bedsores to helping patients quit smoking, optimal nursing care depends on research.

Research is an essential aspect of undergraduate nursing education, and other health care professions as well, a Medical College of Georgia nurse researcher says.

"Nurses bring a unique perspective to research, because we are often more oriented toward health promotion and disease prevention than disease treatment," says Dr. Martha Tingen, nurse researcher at the MCG Georgia Prevention Institute.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – A future sensor may take away a patient's breath while simultaneously determining whether the patient has breast cancer, lung cancer, diabetes or asthma. A University of Missouri researcher is developing a device that will analyze breath or urine samples for volatile markers inside the body that indicate disease. These volatile markers, such as alkanes, acetones or nitric oxide, give doctors clues about what is happening inside the body and can be used as a diagnostic tool.

NEW YORK (March 10, 2009) -- Health information technology programs implemented in New York state are active and functioning a full two years after being established, and could serve as models for new federal initiatives, according to a study by investigators at Weill Cornell Medical College.

RICHMOND, Va. (March 10, 2009) -- Virginia Commonwealth University Life Sciences researchers have discovered a new mechanism the malaria parasite uses to enter human red blood cells, which could lead to the development of a vaccine cocktail to fight the mosquito-borne disease.