Body

Philadelphia – The latest approach to islet transplantation, in which clusters of insulin-producing cells known as islets are transplanted from a donor pancreas into another person's liver, has produced substantially improved results for patients with type 1 diabetes, and may offer a more durable alternative to a whole pancreas transplant. Participants in the new study received islet cells isolated from the pancreas of organ donors to help their bodies produce insulin, the life-sustaining hormone responsible for absorbing glucose from the blood.

September 19, 2013 –Bethesda, MD – Genetic tests can now tell us whether we are at increased risk of various cancers, heart or kidney disease, asthma and a number of other conditions.

University of Adelaide researchers have made a major discovery that highlights the important role played by immune cells in the risk of developing breast cancer.

Researchers have focused their efforts on immune cells known as macrophages in the breast, and how the role of these cells changes because of fluctuations in hormones during different times of the month.

WASHINGTON -- Eight-year-old twin boys, camping in a backyard tent, received penetrating blast injuries when a bolt of lightning struck a transformer near their tent, sending them to the emergency department for treatment. The extremely rare case study was published online yesterday in Annals of Emergency Medicine. ("'Thunderstruck' -- Penetrating Thoracic Injury from Lightning Strike")

1. Researchers at A*STAR's Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) have discovered a new mechanism involving p53, the famous tumour suppressor, to fight against aggressive cancers. This strategy works by sabotaging the ability of the cancer cells to hide from the immune system. Published in the prestigious Nature Communications journal, this research opens a new avenue to improve targeted cancer therapy by harnessing the body's own immune system to control and eliminate cancer cells.

Scientists have successfully analysed the genetic make-up of the offspring of pregnant coelacanth females for the first time. They found that the likelihood that the offspring is fathered by one single individual is very high – unlike with many other fish species. Dr Kathrin Lampert from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and Prof Dr Manfred Schartl from the University of Würzburg, together with their colleagues, report about their findings in the journal "Nature Communications".

Analysis of the microsatellite DNA

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Sept. 19, 2013 – The medical community touts the importance of not carrying excess weight, but that has not always been the message delivered to older adults.

At some point in elementary school you were shown that opposite charges attract and like charges repel. This is a universal scientific truth – except when it isn't. A research team led by chemist Richard Saykally and theorist David Prendergast of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has shown that when hydrated in water, positively charged ions (cations) can actually pair up with one another.

A multi-center study led by University of Iowa researchers to determine whether wearing back braces would prevent the need for spinal correction surgery in children with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) was cut short when early results were overwhelmingly in favor of bracing.

The study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine today (Sept. 19. 2013).

Shoppers spend over £10 billion on bananas annually and now this demand is being linked to the contamination of Central America's crocodilians. New research, published in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, analyses blood samples from spectacled caiman in Costa Rica and finds that intensive pesticide use in plantations leads to contaminated species in protected conservation areas.

Interlaken, Switzerland (19 September, 2013)—A new analysis of land-use concessions in emerging market economies (EMEs) in Africa, Asia and Latin America shows that at least one out of every three hectares licensed for commercial exploitation is overlapped by indigenous community land.

It is common for parents to influence mate choice — from arranged marriages to more subtle forms of persuasion — but they often disagree with their children about what makes a suitable partner. A new study has found an evolutionary explanation for why some parents try to control who their children pair up with.

The study, involving a University of Bristol researcher and published today in the journal Evolution & Human Behavior, shows that this conflict over mate choice may be rooted in an evolutionary conflict over resources.

Furthermore, demand is set to rise as the population's age and girth increase, both of which are risk factors for the disorder, known as obstructive sleep apnoea or OSA for short.

OSA is a condition that disrupts breathing during sleep, usually as a result of the relaxation of the muscles and soft tissues in the throat which relax and collapse to block the airway for 10 or more seconds. It affects an estimated 4% of middle aged men and 2% of middle aged women, and is associated with obesity and increasing age. But it is thought that 80% of cases remain undiagnosed.

Two thirds of these occur in low and middle income countries, the figures suggest.

The authors base their findings on 4000 articles written in English and published from 1976 onwards, which looked at substandard medical care given to hospital patients around the globe.

The researchers focused on seven key markers for substandard care: harm from prescribed medications; urinary tract infections associated with catheters; bloodstream infections associated with catheters; pneumonia acquired in hospital; blood clots (VTEs);falls; and bed sores.

Boston, MA – More than 43 million people are injured worldwide each year due to unsafe medical care, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). These injuries result in the loss of nearly 23 million years of "healthy" life. The findings represent a major new effort to calculate the global burden of unsafe medical care across a range of adverse health events.

The study appears online September 18, 2013 in BMJ Quality & Safety.