Body

Mutations in the genes that defend the body against cancer-related viruses and other infections may play a larger role in breast cancer than previously thought, according to a study at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Women who are obese face an increased risk of developing an aggressive sub-type of breast cancer known as 'basal-like', according to research conducted at the University of North Carolina.

IFR researchers have characterised the coat of a potential poultry probiotic, giving the first clues of how it may be used to exclude pathogenic bacteria from chickens.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Patients who seek treatment from physicians who more frequently perform a high-risk endoscopic procedure are less likely to be admitted to the hospital or require a repeat procedure. Unfortunately, 90 percent of physicians performing these procedures do very few of them.

ST. LOUIS – Extract taken from an Asian vegetable may have therapeutic qualities to treat head and neck cancer, a Saint Louis University researcher has found.

Preliminary findings of the research were published in the Public Library of Science One Journal by Ratna Ray, Ph.D. associate professor of pathology at Saint Louis University. Ray found that bitter melon extract, a vegetable commonly used in Indian and Chinese diets, reduces the head and neck cancer cell growth in the animal model.

Philadelphia, Pa. (November 18, 2013) – Women with depression in the perinatal period experience a high degree of conflict in deciding whether and how to treat their depression, but strongly prefer treatments other than antidepressant medications, reports a study in the November Journal of Psychiatric Practice®.

Currently, butterfly populations in many countries decline at alarming rates. Many of these populations are closely associated with the agricultural landscape. Changes in farming practises and land use can therefore have far-reaching consequences for the success and persistence of the butterfly fauna. A research team from Sweden and Germany have now reviewed effects of land management on butterfly diversity using historical and current surveys during the last 100 years.

New Rochelle, NY, November 18, 2013—New results are in from the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) Calcium plus Vitamin D Supplementation Trial. These findings assess the effects on hip fracture and colorectal cancer incidence among 30,000 postmenopausal women nearly five years after the seven-year period of calcium plus vitamin D supplementation ended. The results are presented in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed publication from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.

CARVER, Mass. (Nov. 18, 2013) – Cranberries are more than a holiday favorite, given their remarkable nutritional and health benefits. A new research review published in the international journal Advances in Nutrition provides reasons why these tiny berries can be front and center and not just a side dish.

BOSTON (Nov. 18, 2013) – Intraoperative recurrent laryngeal nerve (RLN) monitoring has gained popularity with approximately 53 percent of general surgeons and 65 percent of otolaryngologists using intraoperative nerve monitoring in select or all cases. The importance of laryngeal exam prior to thyroid surgery has also been increasingly recognized, but the relationship between surgical outcomes and these two parameters has not been studied.

Chicago – Michael H. Criqui, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues determined the independent associations of coronary artery calcium (CAC) volume and CAC density with cardiovascular disease events. An increasing body of evidence suggests that greater calcium density in plaques (measured by computed tomography) is associated with decreased CVD risk.

The instructions for building all of the body's proteins are contained in a person's DNA, a string of chemicals that, if unwound and strung end to end, would form a sentence 3 billion letters long. Each person's sentence is unique, so learning how to read gene sequences as quickly and inexpensively as possible could pave the way to countless personalized medical applications.

An EU-27 survey of intermediary organisations operating on the education, social and employment sectors and providing IT training has produced a first ever assessment of the e-Inclusion intermediary sector. It accounts for a total of 250,000 organisations, or one e-Inclusion actor per every 2,000 inhabitants. One in two employs 10 staff or less and operates on a budget smaller than €100,000. Half of the e-Inclusion actors go further and offer employment–related training. And for two out of three, local government funding is the main financial resource.

Cesarean deliveries do not prevent children from developing cerebral palsy, despite long-held medical and community beliefs about the causes of cerebral palsy, according to new research led by the University of Adelaide.

Aurora-A is a protein involved in the cell division process that is highly expressed or synthesised in a large number of human cancers, especially in those associated with a bad prognosis. Several pharmaceutical companies have recently developed these protein inhibitors, although the therapeutic and physiological effects that blocking Aurora-A might have on adult tissues are still unknown.