Body

PHILADELPHIA — A new, highly sensitive method to detect genetic variations that initiate colon cancer could be readily used for noninvasive colon cancer screening, according to a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

A study of around 5,000 older men has shown that stressful life events such as death of a loved one, or serious financial problems, significantly raised the risk of falls in the year following the incident. The research is published online today in the journal Age and Ageing.

New research from the University of East Anglia has shown that females can maximise the genetic quality of their offspring by being promiscuous.

Researchers studied red junglefowl (the wild ancestor of the domestic chicken) in a collaborative project with the University of Oxford, Stockholm University and Linköping University.

Findings published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B reveal that mating with different males helps females produce offspring that are more resistant to diseases.

A global group of experts has established research priorities addressing care for women prior to pregnancy, in a consensus statement published in PLOS Medicine this week. Sohni Dean and Zulfiqar Bhutta from the Aga Khan University, Karachi, collaborated with colleagues to identify the most important research areas for preconception care that need to be addressed in order to reduce deaths and disability in women and children.

Late diagnosis of HIV infection and entry into care remains a substantial problem across Europe according to a study published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The study, which was an international collaboration led by Amanda Mocroft from University College London, UK, analysed data from the COHERE in EuroCOORD study, an international collaboration including over 84,000 individuals with HIV infections from 35 European countries from January 2000 to January 2011.

Roll-out of voluntary male circumcision services into the community of Orange Farm, South Africa is linked to substantial reductions in HIV infection levels, according to a study published in this week's PLOS Medicine. The study, (ANRS-12126), conducted by Bertran Auvert and colleagues from the University of Versailles (France), also reported that substantial uptake of voluntary male circumcision in one community was not linked to changes in sexual behavior that might affect HIV infection rates.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- When it comes to public access, the tree of life has holes.

A new study co-authored by University of Florida researchers shows about 70 percent of published genetic sequence comparisons are not publicly accessible, leaving researchers worldwide unable to get to critical data they may need to tackle a host a problems ranging from climate change to disease control.

Hashtag #doyouknowwhoswatchingyou? A new study from USC researchers sampled more than 15 million tweets, showing that some Twitter users may be inadvertently revealing their location through updates on the social media channel.

The study, which appears in the current issue of the International Journal of Geoinformatics, provides important factual data for a growing national conversation about online privacy and third-party commercial or government use of geo-tagged information.

An international group of researchers from the University of Minnesota, Argonne National Laboratory and Seoul National University have discovered a groundbreaking technique in manufacturing nanostructures that has the potential to make electrical and optical devices smaller and better than ever before. A surprising low-tech tool of Scotch Magic tape ended up being one of the keys to the discovery.

The research is published today in Nature Communications, an international online research journal.

Breast cancer risk associated with use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) among postmenopausal women was variable when analyzed by race/ethnicity, body mass index (BMI), and breast density, according to a new study published September 3 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Studies have reported HRT use is associated with an increase in breast cancer risk. However, differential risks by BMI and breast density have been reported. Also, studies on the effect of HRT use on breast cancer risk among black women have reported inconsistent results.

Hamilton, ON (September 3, 2013) - A global study has found that many patients don't know they have hypertension and, even if they do, too few are receiving adequate drug therapy for their hypertension.

This is true in high income countries, like Canada, as well as middle and low income countries, say an international team of researchers led by the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences.

In a randomized trial that included about 2,000 patients with or at high risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), use of a fixed-dose combination medication for blood pressure, cholesterol, and platelet control compared to usual care resulted in significantly improved medication adherence after 15 months and small improvements in systolic blood pressure and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, according to a study in the September 4 issue of JAMA.

In a study that included more than 140,000 participants from17 countries of varying income levels, researchers found a large gap between both detection and control of hypertension across all countries studied, with just over half of participants with hypertension aware of their diagnosis, and about one-third of those being treated for hypertension successfully controlling their blood pressure, according to a study in the September 4 issue of JAMA.

A study based on a nationally representative sample of adults in China in 2010 indicates that nearly 12 percent of Chinese adults had diabetes and the prevalence of prediabetes was about 50 percent, according to a study in the September 4 issue of JAMA.

The use of 4 different 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine immunization schedules in healthy term infants resulted in no statistically significant differences in antibody levels between the infants after the booster dose at 12 months of age for almost all serotypes, according to a study in the September 4 issue of JAMA.