Body

An invasive and costly test commonly done in women before surgery for stress urinary incontinence may not be necessary, according to a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study compared results after both a pre-operative check-up in a doctor's office and bladder function tests to results after only the office check-up. Women who had only the office check-up had equally successful outcomes after surgery.

Deerfield, Ill. (May 2, 2012) -- While the battle against HIV/AIDS attracts more donor funding globally than all other diseases combined, it has not diverted attention from fighting unrelated afflictions -- such as malaria, measles and malnutrition -- and may be improving health services overall in targeted countries, according to a study on Rwanda published today in the May 2012 edition of the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.

Genetics may help determine how good your meal tastes, according to a report published May 2 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

The study investigated how people with different versions of the gene for an odor receptor gene, which is sensitive to a specific compound naturally present in pig meat, rated the taste of different pork samples. In both smell and taste tests, participants' response depended on the version of the gene they had, with one version resulting in more favorable responses than the other.

In most species, females prefer the most intense courtship display males can muster, but a new study finds that female cowbirds actually prefer less intense displays. The full results are published May 2 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

Invasive and costly tests commonly performed on women before surgery for stress urinary incontinence (SUI) may not be necessary, according to researchers at the University of California San Diego, School of Medicine and the Urinary Incontinence Treatment Network. The study, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), will be released online May 2 by the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).

Loss of biodiversity appears to affect ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to results of a new study by an international research team.

The study is the first comprehensive effort to directly compare the effects of biological diversity loss to the anticipated effects of a host of other human-caused environmental changes.

ITHACA, N.Y. – Pregnant women may have added incentive to bulk up on broccoli and eggs now that a Cornell University study has found increased maternal intake of the nutrient choline could decrease their children's chances of developing hypertension and diabetes later in life.

In a study of patients 65 and older with non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC), younger patients were more likely to receive treatment than older patients, regardless of overall health and prognosis.

The study of more than 20,000 patients, led by a team of physicians at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco, found that, for all stages of cancer, treatment rates decreased more in association with advancing age than with the worsening of other illnesses.

PHILADELPHIA – After nearly 13 years of study and intense debate, a pair of new papers from the Perelman School of Medicine, at the University of Pennsylvania have confirmed exactly how a once-popular class of anti-inflammatory drugs leads to cardiovascular risk for people taking it.

The delicate balance of microbes in the vagina can change drastically over short periods of time in some women, while remaining the same in others, according to a new study led by the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute for Genome Sciences and the University of Idaho. The scientists believe that these microbes affect a woman's susceptibility to infection and other diseases, so such changes might also mean that the risk of infection varies over time.

MADISON -- After a marathon debate over a pair of studies that show how the avian H5N1 influenza virus could become transmissible in mammals, and an unprecedented recommendation by a government review panel to block publication, one of the studies was finally and fully published today (May 3, 2012) in the journal Nature.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Current nanomedicine research has focused on the delivery of established and novel therapeutics. But a UNC team is taking a different approach. They developed nanoparticle carriers to successfully deliver therapeutic doses of a cancer drug that had previously failed clinical development due to pharmacologic challenges. They report their proof of principle findings in the April 30, 2012 early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — An international team led by UC Davis researchers has found that mothers in sub-Saharan Africa could successfully follow a protocol for flash-heating breastmilk to reduce transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) -- the virus that causes AIDS -- to their infants.

Flash-heating breastmilk is recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) for HIV-infected mothers during times of increased transmission risk. The technique involves expressing breastmilk into a glass jar that is placed in a small pot of water and heated until the water boils.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Loss of biodiversity appears to impact ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to a new study from an international research team.

The study is the first comprehensive effort to directly compare the impacts of biological diversity loss to the anticipated effects of a host of other human-caused environmental changes.

In an effort to understand how plants around the world will act in a warming climate, researchers have relied increasingly on experiments that measure how they respond to artificial warming. But a new study says that such experiments are underestimating potential advances in the timing of flowering and leafing four to eightfold, when compared with natural observations. As a result, species could change far more quickly than the experiments suggest, with major implications for water supplies, pollination of crops and ecosystems.