Sunday 28 February 2016

New Methods In The Study Of Breast Cancer

New Methods In The Study Of Breast Cancer.
An tentative blood try could help show whether women with advanced breast cancer are responding to treatment, a forerunning study suggests. The test detects abnormal DNA from tumor cells circulating in the blood. And the unexplored findings, reported in the March 14 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, whiff that it could outperform existing blood tests at gauging some women's reaction to treatment for metastatic breast cancer. That's an advanced form of breast cancer, where tumors have proliferation to other parts of the body - most often the bones, lungs, liver or brain.

There is no cure, but chemotherapy, hormonal psychoanalysis or other treatments can slow disease progression and ease symptoms. The sooner doctors can recognize whether the treatment is working, the better. That helps women avoid the marginal effects of an ineffective therapy, and may enable them to switch to a better one.

Right now, doctors monitor metastatic chest cancer with the help of imaging tests, such as CT scans. They may also use certain blood tests - including one that detects tumor cells floating in the bloodstream, and one that measures a tumor "marker" called CA 15-3.

But imaging does not put the unbroken story, and it can expose women to significant doses of radiation. The blood tests also have limitations and are not routinely used. "Practically speaking, there's a colossal want for novel methods" of monitoring women, said Dr Yuan Yuan, an subordinate professor of medical oncology at City of Hope cancer center in Duarte, Calif.

For the creative study, researchers at the University of Cambridge in England took blood samples from 30 women being treated for metastatic mamma cancer and having standard imaging tests. They found that the tumor DNA evaluation performed better than either the CA 15-3 or the tumor cell assess when it came to estimating the women's treatment response. Of 20 women the researchers were able to follow for more than 100 days, 19 showed cancer extension on their CT scans.

And 17 of them had shown rising tumor DNA levels. In contrast, only seven had a rising handful of tumor cells, while nine had an increase in CA 15-3 levels. For 10 of those 19 women, tumor DNA was on the spring up an middling of five months before CT scans showed their cancer was progressing. "The take-home message is that circulating tumor DNA is a better monitoring biomarker than the existing Food and Drug Administration-approved ones," said chief researcher Dr Carlos Caldas.

Saturday 27 February 2016

Patients With Alzheimer's Disease Observed Blunting Of Emotional Expression

Patients With Alzheimer's Disease Observed Blunting Of Emotional Expression.
Patients with Alzheimer's malady often can seem secluded and apathetic, symptoms frequently attributed to memory problems or strain finding the right words. But patients with the progressive brain disorder may also have a reduced talent to experience emotions, a new study suggests. When researchers from the University of Florida and other institutions showed a petite group of Alzheimer's patients 10 positive and 10 negative pictures, and asked them to pace them as pleasant or unpleasant, they reacted with less intensity than did the group of healthy participants.

And "For the most part, they seemed to sympathize the emotion normally evoked from the picture they were looking at ," said Dr Kenneth Heilman, ranking author of the study and a professor of neurology at the University of Florida's McKnight Brain Institute. But their reactions were distinctive from those of the healthy participants. "Even when they comprehended the scene, their warm reaction was very blunted". The study is published online in the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences.

The research participants - seven with Alzheimer's and eight without - made a impression on a piece of paper that had a happy face on one end and a sad one on the other, putting the mark closer to the gratified face the more pleasing they found the picture and closer to the sad face the more distressing. Compared to the vigorous participants, those with Alzheimer's found the pictures less intense.

They didn't find the pleasant pictures (such as babies and puppies) as toothsome as did the healthy participants. They found the negative pictures (snakes, spiders) less negative. "If you have a blunted emotion, males and females will say you look withdrawn". One important take-home implication is for families and physicians not to automatically think a patient with blunted emotions is depressed and appeal for or prescribe antidepressants without a thorough evaluation first.

Friday 19 February 2016

A Tan Is Still Admired By Ignoring The Danger Of Cancer

A Tan Is Still Admired By Ignoring The Danger Of Cancer.
Despite significant concerns about hull cancer, a more than half of Americans nevertheless dream that having a tan is an attractive, desirable and healthy look, a new national survey finds. The win was conducted by the American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) in January, and included just over 7100 men and women nationwide. "Our appraisal highlighted the contradictory feelings that many people have about tanning - they derive the way a tan looks but are concerned about skin cancer, which is estimated to choose about one in five Americans in their lifetime," Dr Zoe D Draelos, a dermatologist and consulting professor at Duke University School of Medicine in Durham NC, said in a dope release.

So "What they may not accomplish is that no matter whether you tan or burn, a tan from the sun or tanning beds damages the epidermis and can cause wrinkles, age spots and skin cancer. The challenge is changing the long-standing attitudes about tanning to correlate with people's apprehension about skin cancer".

Wednesday 17 February 2016

Smokers Often Die From Lung Cancer

Smokers Often Die From Lung Cancer.
Smokers who have a CT survey to slow for lung cancer stand a nearly one-in-five chance that doctors will find and potentially use a tumor that would not have caused illness or death, researchers report. Despite the finding, major medical groups indicated they are inclined to to stick by current recommendations that a select segment of long-time smokers weather regular CT scans. "It doesn't invalidate the initial study, which showed you can shrinking lung cancer mortality by 20 percent," said Dr Norman Edelman, chief medical adviser for the American Lung Association.

And "It adds an interesting caution that clinicians ought to reflect about - that they will be taking some cancers out that wouldn't go on to kill that patient". Over-diagnosis has become a controversial concept in cancer research, singularly in the fields of prostate and breast cancer. Some researchers argue that many occupy receive painful and life-altering treatments for cancers that never would have harmed or killed them.

The new work used data gathered during the National Lung Screening Trial, a major seven-year swotting to determine whether lung CT scans could help prevent cancer deaths. The bane found that 20 percent of lung cancer deaths could be prevented if doctors perform CT screening on grass roots aged 55 to 79 who are current smokers or quit less than 15 years ago. To ready for screening, the participants must have a smoking history of 30 pack-years or greater.

In other words, they had to have smoked an so so of one pack of cigarettes a day for 30 years. Based on the study findings, the American Lung Association, the American Cancer Society, the American College of Radiology and other medical associations recommended fine screenings for that particular segment of the smoking population. The federal management also has issued a draft rule that, if accepted, would make the lung CT scans a recommended counteractive health measure that insurance companies must cover fully, with no co-pay or deductible.

Brain Scans Can Reveal The Occurrence Of Autism

Brain Scans Can Reveal The Occurrence Of Autism.
A epitome of perceptiveness imaging that measures the circuitry of brain connections may someday be used to name autism, new research suggests. Researchers at McLean Hospital in Boston and the University of Utah hand-me-down MRIs to analyze the microscopic fiber structures that make up the brain circuitry in 30 males old 8 to 26 with high-functioning autism and 30 males without autism. Males with autism showed differences in the whey-faced matter circuitry in two regions of the brain's temporal lobe: the excellent temporal gyrus and the temporal stem. Those areas are involved with language, passion and social skills, according to the researchers.

Based on the deviations in brain circuitry, researchers could distinguish with 94 percent correctness those who had autism and those who didn't. Currently, there is no biological test for autism. Instead, diagnosis is done through a verbose examination involving questions about the child's behavior, language and social functioning. The MRI proof could change that, though the study authors cautioned that the results are preliminary and need to be confirmed with larger numbers of patients.

So "Our scrutiny pinpoints disruptions in the circuitry in a brain division that has been known for a long time to be responsible for language, social and emotional functioning, which are the major deficits in autism," said engender author Nicholas Lange, director of the Neurostatistics Laboratory at McLean Hospital and an friend professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. "If we can get to the physical principle of the potential sources of those deficits, we can better understand how exactly it's happening and what we can do to develop more effective treatments". The inspect is published in the Dec 2, 2010 online edition of Autism Research.

Tuesday 9 February 2016

Depression May Worsen Obesity

Depression May Worsen Obesity.
New inquiry provides more evidence of a component between depression and extra pounds around the waist, although it's not exactly clear how they're connected. The retreat raises the possibility that depression causes people to put on extra pounds around the belly. The inconsistent doesn't appear to be the case: researchers found that overweight people aren't more likely to become depressed than their normal-weight peers.

These findings come from researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who examined facts from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults Study (CARDIA), a 20-year longitudinal learn of more than 5100 men and women grey 18-30. Longitudinal studies look for a link between cause and effect by observing a collect of individuals at regular intervals over a long period of time.

Thursday 4 February 2016

One Third Of All Strokes Have Caused High Blood Pressure

One Third Of All Strokes Have Caused High Blood Pressure.
A bountiful universal study has found that 10 risk factors account for 90 percent of all the chance of stroke, with high blood pressure playing the most potent role. Of that list, five jeopardize factors usually related to lifestyle - high blood pressure, smoking, abdominal obesity, aliment and physical activity - are responsible for a brim-full 80 percent of all stroke risk, according to the researchers. The findings come the INTERSTROKE study, a standardized case-control review of 3000 people who had had strokes and an equal number of healthy individuals with no depiction of stroke from 22 countries. It was published online June 18 in The Lancet.

The cramming - slated to be presented Friday at the World Congress on Cardiology in Beijing - reports that the 10 factors significantly associated with scrap risk are high blood pressure, smoking, true activity, waist-to-hip ratio (abdominal obesity), diet, blood lipid (fat) levels, diabetes, fire-water intake, stress and depression, and heart disorders. Across the board, serious blood pressure was the most important factor, accounting for one-third of all stroke risk.

And "It's superior that most of the risk factors associated with stroke are modifiable," said Dr Martin J O'Donnell, an confederate professor of medicine at McMaster University in Canada, who helped lead the study. "If they are controlled, it could have a biggish impact on the incidence of stroke".

Controlling blood pressure is important because it plays a chief role in both forms of stroke: ischemic, the most common form (caused by blockage of a knowledge blood vessel), and hemorrhagic or bleeding stroke, in which a blood vessel in the brain bursts. In contrast, levels of blood lipids such as cholesterol were noteworthy in the risk of ischemic stroke, but not hemorrhagic stroke.

So "The most significant thing about hypertension is its controllability," O'Donnell said. "Blood compel is easily measured, and there are lots of treatments". Lifestyle measures to control blood pressure allow for reduction of salt intake and increasing physical activity. He added that the other risk factors - smoking, abdominal obesity, victuals and physical activity - in the top five contributors to seizure risk were modifiable as well.

Saturday 30 January 2016

Anaemia And Breast Feeding

Anaemia And Breast Feeding.
Although breast-feeding is loosely considered the best road to nourish an infant, new research suggests that in the long term it may lead to lower levels of iron. "What we found was that over a year of age, the longer the baby is breast-fed, the greater the risk of iron deficiency," said the study's precede author, Dr Jonathon Maguire, pediatrician and scientist at Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute at St Michael's Hospital at the University of Toronto in Canada. The study, released online April 15, 2013 in the record book Pediatrics, did not, however, recover a statistical relation between the duration of breast-feeding and iron deficiency anemia.

Anemia is a equip in which the body has too few red blood cells. Iron is an important nutrient, especially in children. It is key for normal development of the nervous system and brain, according to background information included in the study.

Growth spurts spread the body's need for iron, and infancy is a time of rapid growth. The World Health Organization recommends breast-feeding exclusively for the victory six months of life and then introducing complementary foods. The WHO endorses continued breast-feeding up to 2 years of duration or longer, according to the study.

Previous studies have found an conjunction between breast-feeding for longer than six months and reduced iron stores in youngsters. The mainstream study sought to confirm that link in young, fit urban children. The researchers included data from nearly 1650 children between 1 and 6 years old, with an regular age of about 3 years.

Friday 29 January 2016

Gene Therapy In Children

Gene Therapy In Children.
Using gene therapy, German researchers shot that they managed to "correct" a malfunctioning gene managerial for Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome, a rare but vitriolic childhood disorder that leads to prolonged bleeding from even minor hits or scrapes, and also leaves these children sensitive to certain cancers and dangerous infections. However, one of the 10 kids in the study developed serious T-cell leukemia, apparently as a result of the viral vector that was used to insert the bracing gene. The boy is currently on chemotherapy, the study authors noted.

This is a very good essential step, but it's a little scary and we need to move to safer vectors - said Dr Mary Ellen Conley, the man of the Program in Genetic Immunodeficiencies at St Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tenn. "The about shows proof-of-principle that gene group therapy with stem cells in a genetic disorder like this has strong potential," added Paul Sanberg, a stem the tide cell specialist who is director of the University of South Florida Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair in Tampa. Neither Conley nor Sanberg were active in the study, which is scheduled to be presented Sunday at the annual convocation of the American Society of Hematology in Orlando, Fla.

According to Conley, children (mostly boys) with Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS) are born with an inherited genetic shortfall on the X chromosome that affects the edition and size of platelets and makes the children remarkably credulous to easy bleeding and infections, including different types of cancer. Bone marrow transplants are the mains treatment for the disorder which, if they succeed, basically cure the patient. "They evolve up, go to college and they cause problems. But they're not an easy group of patients to transplant".

Thursday 28 January 2016

Doctors Discovered The Cause Of Human Aggression

Doctors Discovered The Cause Of Human Aggression.
Recurrent, unprovoked blow-ups such as turnpike rage may have a biological basis, according to a new study. Blood tests of folk who display the hostile outbursts that characterize a psychiatric illness known as intermittent explosive riot show signs of inflammation, researchers say. "What we show is that inflammation markers proteins are up in these aggressive individuals," said Dr Emil Coccaro, professor and leader of psychiatry and behavioral neuroscience at the University of Chicago. Currently, medication and behavior treatment are used to treat intermittent explosive disorder, which affects about 16 million Americans, according to the US National Institute of Mental Health.

But these methods are essential in fewer than 50 percent of cases, the look authors noted. Coccaro now wants to walk if anti-inflammatory medicines can reduce both unwarranted aggression and inflammation in people with this disorder. Meanwhile it's respected for those with the condition to seek treatment, rather than expect loved ones and others to flaming with the episodes of unwarranted hostility.

Experts began looking at inflammation and its link to aggressive behavior about a decade ago. The imaginative research, published online Dec 18, 2013 in JAMA Psychiatry, is believed to be the ahead to show that two indicators of inflammation are higher in those diagnosed with the condition than in proletariat with other psychiatric disorders or good mental health. The body-wide inflammation also puts these man at risk for other medical problems, including heart attack, stroke and arthritis.

Sunday 24 January 2016

Substances Which Lead To Cancer Growth

Substances Which Lead To Cancer Growth.
A non-specific ilk of diabetes drug may lower cancer risk in women with type 2 diabetes by up to one-third, while another epitome may increase the risk, according to a new study. Cleveland Clinic researchers analyzed observations from more than 25600 women and men with type 2 diabetes to compare how two groups of a great extent used diabetes drugs affected cancer risk. The drugs included "insulin sensitizers," which bring blood sugar and insulin levels in the body by increasing the muscle, fat and liver's effect to insulin.

The other drugs analyzed were "insulin secretagogues," which lower blood sugar by provocative beta cells in the pancreas to make more insulin. The use of insulin sensitizers in women was associated with a 21 percent decreased cancer chance compared to insulin secretagogues, the investigators found. Furthermore, the use of a determined insulin sensitizer called thiazolidinedione was associated with a 32 percent decreased cancer peril in women compared to sulphonylurea, an insulin secretagogue.

Thursday 21 January 2016

Daily Long-Term Use Of Low-Dose Aspirin Reduces The Risk Of Death From Various Cancers

Daily Long-Term Use Of Low-Dose Aspirin Reduces The Risk Of Death From Various Cancers.
Long-term use of a constantly low-dose aspirin dramatically cuts the endanger of failing from a wide array of cancers, a new investigation reveals. Specifically, a British inspect team unearthed evidence that a low-dose aspirin (75 milligrams) enchanted daily for at least five years brings about a 10 percent to 60 percent taste in fatalities depending on the type of cancer. The finding stems from a fresh analysis of eight studies involving more than 25,500 patients, which had to begin with been conducted to examine the protective potential of a low-dose aspirin regimen on cardiovascular disease.

The contemporaneous observations follow prior research conducted by the same scrutiny team, which reported in October that a long-term regimen of low-dose aspirin appears to shave the jeopardy of dying from colorectal cancer by a third. "These findings provide the first proof in valet that aspirin reduces deaths due to several common cancers," the study team noted in a news release.

But the study's precedent author, Prof. Peter Rothwell from John Radcliffe Hospital and the University of Oxford, stressed that "these results do not miserly that all adults should immediately start taking aspirin. They do picket major new benefits that have not previously been factored into guideline recommendations," he added, noting that "previous guidelines have rightly cautioned that in nourishing middle-aged people, the small risk of bleeding on aspirin partly offsets the good from prevention of strokes and heart attacks".

And "But the reductions in deaths due to several low-grade cancers will now alter this balance for many people," Rothwell suggested. Rothwell and his colleagues published their findings Dec 7, 2010 in the online printing of The Lancet. The inquiry involved in the current review had been conducted for an average period of four to eight years.

Wednesday 20 January 2016

New Treatments For Asthma

New Treatments For Asthma.
Researchers answer they've discovered why infants who current in homes with a dog are less likely to develop asthma and allergies later in childhood. The tandem conducted experiments with mice and found that exposing them to dust from homes where dogs live triggered changes in the community of microbes that white-hot in the infant's gut and reduced immune system rejoinder to common allergens. The scientists also identified a specific species of gut bacteria that's vital in protecting the airways against allergens and viruses that cause respiratory infections, according to the study published online Dec 16, 2013 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

While these findings were made in mice, they're also undoubtedly to clear up why children who are exposed to dogs from the time they're born are less tenable to have allergies and asthma, the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and University of Michigan researchers said. These results also suggest that changes in the despoil bacteria community (gut microbiome) can pretend immune function elsewhere in the body, said study co-leader Susan Lynch, an colleague professor in the gastroenterology division at UCSF.

Sunday 17 January 2016

Production Of A New Type Of Flu Vaccine Launched In The USA

Production Of A New Type Of Flu Vaccine Launched In The USA.
The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a new typeface of flu vaccine, the working announced Wednesday. Flublok, as the vaccine is called, does not use the accustomed method of the influenza virus or eggs in its production. Instead, it is made using an "insect virus (baculovirus) emotion system and recombinant DNA technology," the FDA said in a news release. This will countenance vaccine maker Protein Sciences Corp, of Meriden, Conn, to produce Flublok in big quantities, the agency added.

The vaccine is approved for use in those aged 18 to 49. "This approbation represents a technological advance in the manufacturing of an influenza vaccine," said Dr Karen Midthun, gaffer of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. "The new technology offers the covert for faster start-up of the vaccine manufacturing process in the event of a pandemic, because it is not dependent on an egg accommodate or on availability of the influenza virus".

While the technology is new to flu vaccine production, it has been employed in the making of vaccines that block other infectious diseases, the agency noted. As it does with all influenza vaccines, the FDA will assess Flublok before each flu season. In study conducted at various sites in the United States, Flublok was about 45 percent operative against all circulating influenza strains, not just the strains that matched those in the vaccine.

The most commonly reported adverse reactions included torture at the site of injection, headache, enervation and muscle aches - events also typical for conventional flu vaccines, the intervention said. The new flu vaccine could not have come at a better time, with the flu season well under sense and sporadic shortages of both the traditional flu vaccine and the flu treatment Tamiflu. "We have received reports that some consumers have found sully shortages of the vaccine," FDA Commissioner Dr Margaret Hamburg said Monday on her blog on the agency's website.

Tuesday 12 January 2016

Effect Of Both Parents For The Child's Health

Effect Of Both Parents For The Child's Health.
Black men who were raised in single-parent households have higher blood lean on than those who fagged out at least neighbourhood of their childhood in a two-parent home, according to a new study Dec 2013. This is the first chew over to link childhood family living arrangements with blood pressure in black men in the United States, who nurture to have higher rates of high blood pressure than American men of other races. The findings suggest that programs to side with family stability during childhood might have a long-lasting effect on the jeopardy of high blood pressure in these men. In the study, which was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, researchers analyzed statistics on more than 500 black men in Washington, DC, who were taking her in a long-term Howard University family study.

The researchers adjusted for factors associated with blood pressure, such as age, exercise, smoking, moment and medical history. After doing so, they found that men who lived in a two-parent household for one or more years of their teens had a 4,4 mm Hg lower systolic blood prevail upon (the top number in a blood pressure reading) than those who spent their absolute childhood in a single-parent home.