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TORONTO, December 7, 2009 - Deaths from opioid use in Ontario have doubled—from 13.7 deaths per million residents in 1991 to 27.2 deaths per million residents in 2004—according to a new study led by physicians at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES) in Toronto.

Researchers also found that the addition of a long-acting form of oxycodone (OxyContin) to the province's drug formulary in January 2000 corresponded with a five-fold increase in oxycodone-related deaths.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have proven the longstanding theory that changes in the number of whole chromosomes -- called aneuploidy -- can cause cancer by eliminating tumor suppressor genes. Their findings, which appear in the current issue of the journal Cancer Cell along with an independent commentary on the discovery, end a major controversy in the field of cancer research as to whether aneuploidy is a cause or a consequence of cancer.

NEW ORLEANS ― Two medications approved as treatment for drug-resistant chronic myeloid leukemia continue to provide patients with quicker, better responses as a first treatment than the existing front-line drug, researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported at the 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology.

Pediatric researchers have found that a gene already implicated in the development of type 2 diabetes in adults also raises the risk of being overweight during childhood. The finding sheds light on the genetic origins of diabetes and may present an avenue for developing drugs to counteract the disease, which has been on the upswing in childhood and adolescence.

Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine published the study Nov. 23 in the online version of the journal Diabetes.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The high-intensity exercise performed by college football linemen does not protect them from obesity, related health problems and the potential for cardiovascular disease later in life, new research suggests.

In an assessment of 90 collegiate football players from a single Division I team, only offensive and defensive linemen were deemed obese because they had 25 percent or more body fat.

Conception/Leipzig. Even the snow on Aconcagua Mountain in the Andes is polluted with PCBs. An international team of researchers detected low concentrations of these toxic, carcinogenic chlorine compounds in samples taken from America's highest mountain. The snow samples taken at an altitude of 6200 metres are among the highest traces found anywhere in the world of these substances, which have been banned since 2001. In particular, the samples contained more persistent compounds like hexachlorobiphenyl (PCB 138) and heptachlorobiphenyl (PCB 180).

When a baby is born, new parents often wonder, "Will he be the next President of the United States?" or "Could she be the one to find a cure for cancer?" But the underlying question for many specialists is, "Is this child 'at risk' for developmental issues?"

After suffering heart attacks, patients often receive stents designed to hold their arteries open. Some of these stents release drugs that are meant to halt tissue growth in arteries, but can have life-threatening side effects such as increasing the likelihood of blood clots and heart attacks.

Now a team of researchers in the MIT-Harvard Division of Health Sciences and Technology has developed a computer model that explains why those drugs (which include rapamycin and its analogs as well as paclitaxel) can accumulate in the arteries and cause blood clots.

Gingivitis, which may affect more than one-half of the U.S. adult population, is a condition commonly attributed to lapses in simple oral hygiene habits. However, a new study shows that development and reversal of gingivitis at the molecular level is apparently much more complicated than its causes might indicate.

Ostrich eggshell (OES) beads from SDG site reflect primordial art and a kind of symbolic behavior of modern humans. Two different manufacturing pathways are usually used in the manufacture of OES beads in Upper Paleolithic. Pathway 1 is identified from these collections; blanks are drilled prior to being trimmed to rough discs. Based on stratigraphic data and OSL dating, these ostrich eggshell beads are probably in Early Holocene ( 10 ka BP).

Although bone marrow transplants have long been standard for acute leukemia, current treatments still rely on exact matches between donor and patient. Now, scientists at the University of Perugia, Italy, and the Weizmann Institute of Science have improved on a method of transplanting bone marrow-based stem cells from a mismatched donor, making it safer for use when no exact match exists. They were invited to present their findings at the recent annual American Society of Hematology conference in New Orleans.

Men who have a history of delinquency in childhood are more likely to die or become disabled by the time they are 48, and not just from the obvious consequences of antisocial behaviour, new research indicates.

The UK study, published in the December issue of the Journal of Public Health, is the first to examine how a wide range of early antisocial behaviours, as well as parental factors, affect various health outcomes 40 years later.

Surgeons who successfully performed kidney transplants after removing small cancerous and benign masses from the donated organs, have published their results in the December issue of the urology journal BJUI.

The technique, carried out by US surgeons at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, could offer a vital lifeline to patients with end-stage renal disease as well as increasing the supply of viable organs.

(NEW ORLEANS, December 6, 2009) – Sickle cell disease, a condition characterized by deformed and dysfunctional red blood cells, is one of the most common genetic blood disorders affecting millions of people around the world, including more than 70,000 Americans (National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Facts About Sickle Cell Anemia. Available at: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/blood/sickle/sca_fact.pdf).

A pregnant woman's exposure to microbes may protect her child from developing allergies later in life. Researchers in Marburg, Germany find that exposure to environmental bacteria triggers a mild inflammatory response in pregnant mice that renders their offspring resistant to allergies. The study will be published online on December 7, 2009 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (www.jem.org).