http://www.health-news-blog.com/ New Article Alert From From Health news blog Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT en-us http://www.health-news-blog.com/images/blogs/new-article-alert-3390.jpg http://www.health-news-blog.com/ 100 67 http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2011/death-rates-from-colorectal-cancer.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/7-2011/death-rates-from-colorectal-cancer.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Improvements in colorectal cancer mortality rates are concentrated in the northern part of the United States, while southern states continue to fall behind, as per a report in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Ahmedin Jemal, D.V.M., Ph.D., vice president for surveillance research at the American Cancer Society, said the decrease in death rates ranged from about 37 percent in Massachusetts to no reduction in Mississippi........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2011/a-new-target-to-wipe-pain-away.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2011/a-new-target-to-wipe-pain-away.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Scientists at the Indiana University School of Medicine have discovered a peptide that short circuits a pathway for chronic pain. Unlike current therapys this peptide does not exhibit deleterious side effects such as reduced motor coordination, memory loss, or depression, as per an article in Nature Medicine posted online June 5, 2011........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2011/strategy-to-improve-patient-adherence.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/6-2011/strategy-to-improve-patient-adherence.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Physicians can help their patients follow prescribed therapys and achieve healthier results - especially in chronic disease management - by using a three-pronged strategy developed by a team of scientists from the University of California, Riverside, Texas State University-San Marcos, and La Sierra University in Riverside, Calif........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2011/electronic-medical-records-lower-infant-mortality.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/5-2011/electronic-medical-records-lower-infant-mortality.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Expanded use of electronic medical records would substantially reduce infant mortality in the U.S., as per a research studyforthcoming in the Journal of Political Economy.. A 10 percent increase in hospital use of basic electronic records would save 16 babies for every 100,000 live births, the study found. A complete national transition to electronic records would save an estimated 6,400 infants each year in the U.S........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2011/minorities-born-with-heart-defects.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2011/minorities-born-with-heart-defects.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Non-Hispanic black infants born with heart defects are more likely to die within the first five years of life than their non-Hispanic white and Hispanic peers. For certain types of congenital heart abnormalities, Hispanic children as well as non-Hispanic black children fare worse than non-Hispanic white children........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2011/care-when-prescribing-novel-antiviral-hcv-drugs.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2011/care-when-prescribing-novel-antiviral-hcv-drugs.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Data presented at the International Liver CongressTM highlight the fact that new novel antiviral compounds for the therapy of hepatitis C virus (HCV) must be prescribed and monitored by experts and specialists to ensure resistance is minimised.1,2,3,4,5,6. Several studies observed the rapid onset of HCV resistance in patients treated with NS3-protease, NS5b-polymerase and NS5a inhibitors. Eventhough these direct anti-virals are effective in both therapy-naive HCV patients and those who've been previously unresponsive to current therapy options, the development of resistant viral variants may cause problems in the future. In fact, two studies found HCV strains resistant to novel antiviral compounds pre-existed in patients who had never previously been exposed to the new antiviral compounds. In these patients, the variants were selected out by therapy........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2011/risk-of-death-is-high-in-sleep-apnea.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/4-2011/risk-of-death-is-high-in-sleep-apnea.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT A study in the April 1 issue of the journal SLEEP suggests that the risk of death is more than two times higher in elderly adults who have sleep apnea and report struggling with excessive daytime sleepiness. Results of adjusted proportional hazards modeling show that elderly adults with moderate to severe sleep apnea who reported struggling with excessive daytime sleepiness at baseline were more than twice as likely to die (hazard ratio = 2.28) as subjects who had neither problem. The risk of death was insignificant in elderly adults with only excessive daytime sleepiness (HR = 1.11) or sleep apnea (HR = 0.74). Participants had a mean age of 78 years at baseline, and about 55 percent (n = 160) died during an average follow-up period of 14 years........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/enzyme-essential-for-healthy-lung-development.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/enzyme-essential-for-healthy-lung-development.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Investigators at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles have provided the first evidence that Eya1 protein phosphatase is a crucial regulator of the development of embryonic lung epithelial stem cells. The correct functioning of lung epithelium is essential to life. Cellular polarity of lung epithelial cells, meaning that they have an asymmetrical orientation or a front and back, is crucial. Dysregulation of cell polarity has been linked to developmental disorders as well as cancer. Until now, little has been known about the mechanism that controls cell polarity, cell fate and self-renewal of embryonic lung epithelial stem cells. David Warburton, MD, director of Developmental Biology and Regenerative Medicine at The Saban Research Institute, and Ahmed El-Hashash, PhD, senior research scientist carrying out this study, will release their findings in the upcoming issue of Development........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/new-target-for-treatment-of-multiple-sclerosis.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/new-target-for-treatment-of-multiple-sclerosis.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT The immune system recognizes and neutralizes or destroys toxins and foreign pathogens that have gained access to the body. Autoimmune diseases result when the system attacks the body's own tissues instead. One of the most common examples is multiple sclerosis (MS). MS is a serious condition in which nerve-cell projections, or axons, in the brain and the spinal cord are destroyed as a result of misdirected inflammatory reactions. It is often characterized by an unpredictable course, with periods of remission being interrupted by episodes of relapse. A team of scientists led by LMU Munich Professor Martin Kerschensteiner of the Medical Center of the University of Munich and Professor Thomas Misgeld from the Technical University of Munich has now been able to explain how the damage is inflicted. Their results reveal that the inflammatory reaction can induce a previously unknown type of axonal degeneration, which they call "focal axonal degeneration" (FAD). In an animal model of MS, this process is reversible if it is recognized and treated early, so the scientists think that it could serve as a potential target for therapeutic intervention. "Development of an effective therapy will be a long-term project," cautions Kerschensteiner. "As yet, we only have a superficial understanding of the underlying molecular mechanisms and, of course, finding effective therapies will require time-consuming screens and extensive trials of drug candidates"........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/changes-in-incidence-of-end-stage-renal-disease.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/changes-in-incidence-of-end-stage-renal-disease.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT ew research documenting changes in the incidence and outcomes of end-stage renal disease (ESRD) in the U.S. between 1995 and 2006, found a significant increase in incidence rates among patients 5 to 39 years of age and in African Americans. A second related study�the largest pediatric lupus nephritis-associated ESRD study to date�revealed high rates of adverse outcomes among children with ESRD due to lupus nephritis. Despite novel therapies, outcomes have not improved in over a decade. Both studies now appear online in Arthritis and Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR)........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/understanding-of-male-puberty.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/understanding-of-male-puberty.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Researchers from Monash University have uncovered a new understanding of how male puberty begins. The key to their findings lies with a protein known as SMAD3 and the rate at which it is produced. Researchers, Associate Professor Kate Loveland and Dr Catherine Itman from the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences have discovered through laboratory testing that half as much SMAD3 protein results in faster maturation than the norm, and an inability to create SMAD3 results in abnormal responses to testosterone........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/brains-ability-to-reorganize-itself.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/brains-ability-to-reorganize-itself.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT When Geoffrey Murphy, Ph.D., talks about plastic structures, he's not talking about the same thing as Mr. McGuire in The Graduate. To Murphy, an associate professor of molecular and integrative physiology at the University of Michigan Medical School, plasticity refers to the brain's ability to change as we learn........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/new-treatment-of-c.-difficile-infection.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/new-treatment-of-c.-difficile-infection.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Clostridium difficile is a health problem that affects hundreds of thousands of patients and costs $10 billion to $20 billion every year in North America. Scientists from the University of Calgary and the National Research Council of Canada say they are gaining a deeper understanding of this disease and are closer to developing a novel therapy using antibodies from llamas........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/candidate-for-new-tb-vaccine.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/candidate-for-new-tb-vaccine.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Researchers have discovered a protein secreted by tuberculosis (TB) bacteria that could be a promising new vaccine candidate, they report today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences The protein could also be used to improve diagnosis of TB. TB is caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), which infects the lungs and spreads through the air as a result of coughing. There are 9 million new cases of TB each year, killing 4,700 people a day worldwide........ ]]> http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/new-vaccine-candidate-for-norovirus.html http://www.health-news-blog.com/blogs/permalinks/3-2011/new-vaccine-candidate-for-norovirus.html Thu, 07 Jul 2011 15:00:32 GMT Researchers have shown that an experimental vaccine against the human norovirus - the bug behind about 90 percent of highly contagious nonbacterial illnesses that cause diarrhea and vomiting - can generate a strong immune response in mice without appearing to cause the animals any harm. Using a novel viral vector-based method to grow and deliver the vaccine that has shown promise in other agents designed to fight such infections as HIV and hepatitis C, the scientists are the first to test this vaccine design method's effectiveness against the human norovirus........ ]]>