Body

March 16, 2014, Shenzhen, China – In a collaborative study, researchers from Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, BGI, Shantou University Medical College and other institutions identified important alterations of tumor-associated genes and tumorigenic pathways in esophageal squamous cell cancer (ESCC), one of the leading cause of cancer death worldwide.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (March 16, 2014) – For several years, a class of anti-diabetic drugs known as biguanides, has been associated with anti-cancer properties. A number of retrospective studies have shown that the widely used diabetes drug metformin can benefit some cancer patients. Despite this intriguing correlation, it has been unclear how metformin might exert its anti-cancer effects and, perhaps more importantly, in which patients.

UNSW scientists have developed a new evolutionary theory on why consuming a diet that is very low in nutrients extends lifespan in laboratory animals - research that could hold clues to promoting healthier ageing in humans.

Scientists have known for decades that severely restricted food intake reduces the incidence of diseases of old age, such as cancer, and increases lifespan.

University of Adelaide research has provided new hope for the early detection of stomach cancer with the identification of four new biomarkers in the blood of human cancer patients.

Stomach or gastric cancer is the fourth most common cancer in the world and the second leading cause of death due to cancer.

Did the Polynesians beat Columbus to South America? Not according to the tale of migration uncovered by analysis of ancient DNA from chicken bones recovered in archaeological digs across the Pacific.

The ancient DNA has been used to study the origins and dispersal of ancestral Polynesian chickens, reconstructing the early migrations of people and the animals they carried with them.

Among the copious species of poultry in China, quail and chickens are the likely sources of infection of H7N9 influenza virus to humans, according to a paper published ahead of print in the Journal of Virology.

"Knowing the likely poultry species lets us target our interventions better to prevent human infections," says corresponding author David Suarez, of the United States Department of Agriculture.

New research from The Netherlands shows that people who smoke high-potency cannabis end up getting higher doses of the active ingredient (THC). Although they reduce the amount they puff and inhale to compensate for the higher strength, they still take in more THC than smokers of lower potency cannabis.

Survival of patients with septic shock was the same regardless of whether they received treatment based on specific protocols or the usual high-level standard of care, according to a five-year clinical study. The large-scale randomized trial, named ProCESS for Protocolized Care for Early Septic Shock, was done in 31 academic hospital emergency departments across the country and was funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), a component of the National Institutes of Health.

Young women who are most at risk of developing cervical cancer are the least likely to be offered the protective HPV jab and to complete the full course when they are, reveals research published online in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

These women need to be better targeted to boost the overall uptake of the vaccination programme, which was well below the 80% required to make a significant difference to cervical cancer rates during its first three years of operation, say the authors.

A decade of strategic efforts to improve care has had a key role in improving quality of life and added years to predicted survival for people with cystic fibrosis (CF) in the United States, according to the editors of a BMJ Quality & Safety supplement dedicated to the disease.

Health outcomes for CF have improved dramatically following implementation of an innovative and aggressive plan to promote quality improvement at CF care centres.

Over the last 20 years, China has more than halved its tuberculosis (TB) prevalence, with rates falling from 170 to 59 per 100 000 population. This unrivalled success has been driven by a massive scale-up of the directly observed, short-course (DOTS) strategy, from half the population in the 1990s to the entire country after 2000, according to findings from a 20-year-long analysis of national survey data, published in The Lancet.

Philadelphia (March 17, 2014) – Scientists from the Monell Chemical Senses Center have found that children who most prefer high levels of sweet tastes also most prefer high levels of salt taste and that, in general, children prefer sweeter and saltier tastes than do adults. These preferences relate not only to food intake but also to measures of growth and can have important implications for efforts to change children's diets.

Identifying biomarkers could lead to earlier detection of preeclampsia, which in turn can lead to healthier mothers and children, according to a collaborative study from the Centre of Molecular Inflammation Research (CEMIR) and the MR Cancer Group at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Their findings, "Metabolomic Biomarkers in Serum and Urine in Women with Preeclampsia," will be published in PLOS ONE on 17 March.

A new study raises questions about current guidelines which generally restrict the consumption of saturated fats and encourage consumption of polyunsaturated fats to prevent heart disease. The research was published today, 18 March, in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

It's a jungle in there. In the tightly woven ecosystem of the human gut, trillions of bacteria compete with each other on a daily basis while they sense and react to signals from the immune system, ingested food, and other bacteria.