Body

New research published in the international journal Chest, by Neil Eves, PhD, finds that people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who breathed a mix of 60% helium and 40% oxygen during a rehabilitation program were able to exercise longer and harder than those who breathed normal air.

This innovative therapy is significant because research has shown that patients who perform more exercise and get greater improvements in fitness also get better improvements in their symptoms and health-related quality of life.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- When patients choose to leave the hospital before the treating physician recommends discharge, the consequences may involve risk of inadequately treated medical conditions and the need for readmission, according to a review in the March 2009 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Additionally, the article examines the effect of costs as well as predictors and potential interventions to help manage and improve this important issue.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---University of Michigan researchers have developed a nanoporous material with a surface area significantly higher than that of any other porous material reported to date.

The work, by a team led by associate professor of chemistry Adam Matzger, is described in a paper published online March 6 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Madison, WI, March 6, 2009 -- As the first plant life to emerge from the water and develop on dry earth, bryophytes offer a unique opportunity for researchers to understand the development of protections against ultraviolet radiation. The three varieties of bryophites (liverworts, hornworts, and mosses) have long been utilized as indicators of the health of local environments, but with the recent effects of climate change and the depleting ozone layer, these plants present an important measure in their ability to withstand increased exposure to UVR.

Have the patient's coronary vessels, heart valves or myocardial muscle changed abnormally? Doctors can verify this and administer the necessary therapy with the help of a catheter, which is inserted into the body through a small incision in the groin area and pushed to the heart through the vascular system. A metal guide wire inside the catheter serves as a navigational aid. It is pulled and turned by the physician to steer and guide the catheter. At the same time the catheter's position in the vascular system has to be monitored.

New York, NY—March 9, 2009—InterCure Ltd., a medical device company publicly traded on the Tel-Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE: INCR), today announced a new study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Human Hypertension. The advance online publication of the study is now available on the journal's website. The study will also be published in the May issue of the journal, Volume 23, Issue 5.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 9, 2009)—The so-called "male lumpectomy"—a minimally invasive interventional radiology treatment for prostate cancer—is as effective as surgery in destroying diseased tumors and can be considered a first-line treatment for patients of all risk levels and particularly those who have failed radiation, according to studies released at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 34th Annual Scientific Meeting.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 9, 2009)—Freezing kidney tumors—using a safe minimally invasive interventional radiology treatment that kills the cancer 100 percent effectively without surgery—should be the gold standard or first treatment option for all individuals with tumors that are 4 centimeters in size or smaller. And, this treatment—interventional cryoablation—is a viable option for people with larger tumors, according to two studies presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 34th Annual Scientific Meeting.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 9, 2009)—A minimally invasive interventional radiology treatment—that safely and effectively uses oxygen/ozone to relieve the pain of herniated disks—will become standard in the United States in the next few years, predict researchers at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 34th Annual Scientific Meeting. In a related study, the interventional radiologists examined just how ozone relieves the pain associated with herniated disks.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. (March 9, 2009)—A new study shows that for those individuals with chronic kidney disease, it doesn't matter if you're young or old: arteriovenous (AV) fistulas remain the gold standard for maintaining access to one's circulatory system to provide life-sustaining dialysis. Interventional radiologists found no difference between the two age groups when it comes to "patency" or the openness of AV fistulas or accesses needed for dialysis. Their results were presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 34th Annual Scientific Meeting.

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Gooda, Gouda! Solving the 800-year-old secret of a big cheeseJournal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

The Department of Applied Physics, Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in Xi'an, China-Research, has shown that the substantial undercooling of liquid state brings about novel microstructural transition for Al-Cu-Si ternary eutectic alloy. The study is reported in Issue 54 (January, 2009) of Chinese Science Bulletin because of its significant research value.

Jerusalem, March 9, 2009 – An easily implementable technique to avoid reblockage of arteries that have been cleared through angioplasty and stent insertion has been developed by researchers led by Prof. Boris Rubinsky of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Angioplasty is the "gold-standard" treatment for acute myocardial infarction (heart attack), which is the result of abrupt interruption in blood supply to part of the beating heart, usually due to plaque-rupture in an atherosclerotic (hardened) coronary artery.

In their recent work to be published on March 7, 2009 in the World Journal of Gastroenterology, Dr. Singh and his colleagues from the Cook County Hospital in Chicago (USA) first activated the omentum using a foreign body to increase its content of stem cells and growth factors and then used the activated omentum to regenerate the liver. They cut and removed a small piece of the liver tissue and let the omentum, pre-activated by foreign body, adhere to the wound in order to supply stem cells to the injured liver.

Aminoguanidine is a compound that exerts multiple biological actions. Aminoguanidine has well described antioxidant properties and is also an inhibitor of nitric oxide synthases, the enzymes that produce nitric oxide. The nitric oxide molecule has been implicated in different biological processes associated with both survival and cell death. In vitro, nitric oxide exhibits cytostatic or cytotoxic effects in cancer cells according to its concentration within the tumor microenvironment.