STANFORD, Calif. - Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine are shedding light on how type-1 diabetes begins.
Doctors have known the disease is caused by an autoimmune attack on the pancreas, but the exact trigger of the attack has been unclear. Now, a new study in mice implicates the immune signal interferon-alpha as an early culprit in a chain of events that upend sugar metabolism and make patients dependent on lifelong insulin injections.
Storrs, CT – August 27, 2008 – One of the hopes of having diverse campus environments is that the daily interaction with students from different backgrounds will promote interracial understanding and friendship. A new study in the journal Social Science Quarterly found that campus racial and ethnic diversity is important in predicting friendship heterogeneity, and that minorities have higher predicted friendship diversity than whites.
Coventry, United Kingdom – August 27, 2008 – A new study in the journal Industrial Relations reveals that employee well-being is dependent upon the rank of an individual's wage within a comparison group, as opposed to the individual's absolute pay.
CHAPEL HILL – Although many women quit smoking during pregnancy to protect their unborn children from the effects of cigarettes, half of them resume the habit within a few months of giving birth.
By shedding light on the factors that enable the other half to put down that cigarette for good, a study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill could lead to programs designed to help women quit and stay quit.
UPTON, NY -- Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, in collaboration with colleagues at Cornell University, Tokyo University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Colorado, have uncovered the first experimental evidence for why the transition temperature of high-temperature superconductors -- the temperature at which these materials carry electrical current with no resistance -- cannot simply be elevated by increasing the electrons' binding energy.
BY TWEAKING a naturally occurring enzyme, chemists have created a molecule that could flush a cocaine overdose out of the body before it can cause irreparable damage to the central nervous system.
If the enzyme works in humans, it would be the first therapy to remove the drug from a user's body. Currently, doctors can only relieve the symptoms of a cocaine overdose, by lowering the patient's temperature and reducing their heart rate.
Scientists at the University of York have discovered a new role for a population of white blood cells, which may lead to improved treatments for chronic infections and cancer.
Natural Killer (or NK) cells are abundant white blood cells that were recognised over 30 years ago as being able to kill cancer cells in the test tube. Since that time, a role for NK cells in activating other white blood cells (including 'T' lymphocytes and phagocytes) and in directing how the immune system responds to a wide range of infections has also been established.
Patients discontinuing statin medication following an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) increase their risk of dying over the next year, say researchers at McGill University and the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC). Their study was published in a recent issue of the European Heart Journal.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research strongly suggests that a mix of preventative agents, such as those found in concentrated black raspberries, may more effectively inhibit cancer development than single agents aimed at shutting down a particular gene.
Researchers at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center examined the effect of freeze-dried black raspberries on genes altered by a chemical carcinogen in an animal model of esophageal cancer.
Boston, MA—Researchers from Boston University's Slone Epidemiology Center have found that in a given week, over 10 million Americans are taking opioids, and more than 4 million are taking them regularly (at least five days per week, for at least four weeks). These findings appear in the August 31 issue of the journal Pain.
August 2008 -- According to a study conducted at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, health risk behaviors such as smoking and obesity are associated with lower awareness of the Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA), which could lead to a lower likelihood of undergoing actual prostate cancer screening. Although previous studies have explored predictors of PSA test awareness, this is the first research to focus on health risk behaviors, such as smoking, physical inactivity, obesity, and excessive alcohol consumption.
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Young men with type 2 diabetes have significantly low levels of testosterone, endocrinologists at the University at Buffalo have found -- a condition that could have a critical effect on their quality of life and on their ability to father children.
This study follows research published earlier by these scientists reporting that one-third of middle-aged men with type 2 diabetes have low testosterone levels, requiring treatment for erectile dysfunction.
Conservation zones are in the wrong place to protect vulnerable coral reefs from the effects of global warming, an international team of scientists warned today.
Now the team – led jointly by Newcastle University and the Wildlife Conservation Society, New York – say that urgent action is needed to prevent the collapse of this important marine ecosystem.
The research, published today in the journal PLoS ONE, is the largest study of its kind to have been carried out, covering 66 sites across seven countries and spanning over a decade in the Indian Ocean.
MAYWOOD, Ill. – An estimated 60,000 Americans are walking around with time bombs in their chests called thoracic aortic aneurysms.
At any time, their main chest artery could suddenly burst open, causing massive internal bleeding that is almost always fatal.
It's possible to repair the defect before the artery bursts, but traditional surgery is highly invasive. The operation typically requires an 18-inch incision, a week or two in the hospital and three to six months to recover. There are several major risks, including stroke and paralysis.