Body

A new study by Mount Sinai researchers has for the first time found that patients with more difficult to treat forms of hepatitis C are half as likely to initiate treatment for the disease, when compared to patients with hepatitis C that is easier to treat. Marital status also affected whether patients chose treatment, as did whether or not they had other diseases. The study is published in the November 1 issue of Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

November 9, 2009 -- Of the many characteristic traits a drug can have, one of the most desirable is the ability for a drug to be swallowed and absorbed into the bloodstream through the gut. Some drugs, like over-the-counter aspirin, lend themselves to this mode of delivery and are trivial to take. They can be pressed into a pill and swallowed. Other drugs cannot be swallowed and must be administered instead through more complicated routes. Insulin, for instance, must be injected.

As many as 10 million people around the world suffer from cataracts. Thomas Kohnen of the Goethe University in Frankfurt and his coauthors discuss cataract surgery with the implantation of an artificial lens in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2009; 106[43]: 695�).

Irvine, Calif., Nov. 9, 2009 – The first human embryonic stem cell treatment approved by the FDA for human testing has been shown to restore limb function in rats with neck spinal cord injuries – a finding that could expand the clinical trial to include people with cervical damage.

Arnhem, November 2009 – The December issue of European Urology, the official journal of the European Association of Urology, features an article entitled 'Are Infertile Men Less Healthy than Fertile Men? Results of a Prospective Case-Control Survey' by Dr. Andrea Salonia et al. The conclusion is that male factor infertility is associated with a number of medical comorbidities, as objectively scored with the hospital-based Charlson Comorbidity Index.

Rice University evolutionary biologists David Queller and Joan Strassmann argue in a new paper that high cooperation and low conflict between components, from the genetic level on up, give a living thing its "organismality," whether that thing is an animal, a plant, a bacteria – or a colony.

For parents of children with cancer, the hopeful news is that pediatric survival rates have steadily improved for decades. Among the bad news—treatments that enable survival often cause infertility.

Boys diagnosed with cancer who have reached puberty currently have an opportunity to preserve their fertility: before undergoing cancer treatment, they may have their semen frozen and preserved in sperm banks. Younger boys, however, do not produce sperm, although their testicular tissue contains young cells that will eventually become sperm.

Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. – Oncologists have had their hands tied because more than half of all human cancers have mutations that disable a protein called p53. As a critical anti-cancer watchdog, p53 masterminds several cancer-fighting operations within cells. When cells lose p53, tumors grow aggressively and often cannot be treated.

What do you get when you cross a mouse with poor hearing and a mouse with even worse hearing? Ironically, a new strain of mice with "golden ears" – mice that have outstanding hearing as they age.

Montreal, November 9, 2009 – On Noah's Ark animals came in twos: male and female. In human bodies trillions of cells are coupled, too, and so are the molecules from which they are composed. Yet these don't come in twos, they are regrouped into indistinguishable clusters. Because these complex cell networks are the backbone of life – and illness – scientists have long searched for ways to splice cell clusters down to their original pairs.

Researchers from Tufts University and their community-based colleagues have identified several strategies to improve community-based participatory research (CBPR) partnerships.

Heart rate variability, a sign of a healthy heart, has been shown to be higher in yoga practitioners than in non-practitioners, according to research to be published in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Medical Engineering and Informatics.

To celebrate its fifth year of publication, Journal of the Royal Society Interface in conjunction with the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) honoured the best research article published in the journal at an awards ceremony in London on 6th November.

Grenoble, 8 November 2009 - Much as adrenaline coursing through our veins drives our body's reactions to stress, the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA) is behind plants' responses to stressful situations such as drought, but how it does so has been a mystery for years. Scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Grenoble, France, and the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC) in Valencia, Spain discovered that the key lies in the structure of a protein called PYR1 and how it interacts with the hormone.

MAYWOOD, Il. -- Gifted young athletes are under increasing pressure to play only one sport year round.

But a new Loyola University Health System study of 519 junior tennis players has found that such specialization increases the risk of injury. Researchers who analyzed 3,366 matches in United States Tennis Association junior competition found that players who specialized in only tennis were more likely to withdraw from tournaments for medical reasons, typically injuries.