The answer to why an early pregnancy seems to protect against breast cancer could rest with a decrease in stem cells found after animals have given birth, said researchers at Baylor College of Medicine in a report that appears in the current issue of the journal Stem Cell.
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New research from the John Innes Centre and the Central Science Laboratory could help breeders to develop pea varieties able to withstand drought stress and climate change. The research also shows that the composition of crops is likely to change with the climate.
"While many compounds have been reported to change in laboratory based drought stress experiments, few have identified how such compounds change in crops under field conditions," says Dr Claire Domoney of the John Innes Centre.
Higher levels of urinary Bisphenol A (BPA), a chemical compound commonly used in plastic packaging for food and beverages, is associated with cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and liver-enzyme abnormalities, according to a study in the September 17 issue of JAMA. This study is being released early to coincide with a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hearing on BPA.
Thousands of patients with high blood pressure could benefit from changing their drug treatment regimen to reduce their risk of cardiac death.
The current U.S. hypertension treatment guidelines recommend using a thiazide diuretic – a drug that increases the volume of urine – alone as the initial drug therapy for high blood pressure. But a failure of diuretic drugs to decrease deaths from heart attacks, an important consequence of hypertension, prompted Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers to analyze data from existing clinical trials of diuretic drugs.
When it comes to deciding whether paying people to make healthier lifestyle changes is a good thing, it seems patient opinion is split right down the middle. Unsurprisingly perhaps, those who smoke and are overweight are its greatest advocates. This is the finding of a study (1) by Judith Long and her colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine to be published in the October issue of the Springer publication, Journal of General Internal Medicine.
Recent advances in genetic screening will lead to safer pharmaceutical drugs, with reduced adverse side effects, if the methods are incorporated in clinical development. A rallying call to bring key scientists into this growing field of pharmacogenics, the application of genetics to drug development and safety, was made recently at a major conference organized by the European Science Foundation (ESF) in collaboration with the University of Barcelona.
Pazopanib, a new oral angiogenesis inhibitor, has demonstrated interesting activity in difficult to treat non-small-cell lung cancer, US researchers report.
In a phase II trial, 30 out of 35 patients treated with preoperative pazopanib for a minimum of two weeks saw their tumor size shrink by up to 85%.
"This is a positive result that will be explored further," said Prof. Nasser Altorki from Weil Medical College of Cornell University in New York.
A new form of chemotherapy that destroys new blood vessels that grow around tumors has produced excellent results in a phase II trial of patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer, researchers report at the 33rd Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Stockholm.
Genetic testing can identify a group of patients with advanced colorectal cancer who are likely to survive on average twice as long if treated with the drug cetuximab, late breaking results show.
At the 33rd Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Stockholm, Dr. Christos Karapetis from Flinders University in Australia reports on a genetic analysis of 394 patients who took part in a phase III study comparing the monoclonal antibody cetuximab with best supportive care.
In cancer therapy, the best results are often achieved by combining treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery. This multidisciplinary approach is the focus of special symposia at the meetings of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the European Society for Therapeutic Radiology (ESTRO) taking place in Sweden this month.
The skeleton of a man discovered by archaeologists in a shallow grave on the site of the University of York's campus expansion could be that of one of Britain's earliest victims of tuberculosis.
Radiocarbon dating suggests that the man died in the fourth century. He was interred in a shallow scoop in a flexed position, on his left side.
The man, aged 26-35 years, suffered from iron deficiency anaemia during childhood and at 162 centimetres (5ft 4in), was a shorter height than average for Roman males.
September 16, 2008 -- A paper published in the journal Health Affairs highlights the cost and coverage implications of Senator John McCain's healthcare plan and describes its likely impact on the level and stability of insurance coverage as well as the healthcare costs faced by families. The plan would eliminate the current tax exclusion of employer payments for health coverage, replace the exclusion with a refundable tax credit for those who purchase coverage, and encourage Americans to move to a national market for non-group insurance.
AUSTIN, Texas—Materials deep inside Earth have unexpected atomic properties that might force earth scientists to revise their models of Earth's internal processes, a team of researchers has discovered.
Detecting ever lower amounts of ionising radiation with ever better methods – sci-entists have had this goal since the start of the nuclear age. In addition to natural radiation, mankind is exposed to a multitude of other sources of radiation which result from the military and technical use of radioactive substances. To protect health, but also for technical and medical applications, it is necessary to determine even the smallest amounts of radionuclides with high precision.