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Even though exercise is known to be healthy, many people find it difficult to maintain an exercise program for a longer time. This applies even more to people with a chronic illness such as Parkinson's disease, where physical and mental limitations are additional obstacles. The Park-in-Shape study, funded by ZonMW (Netherlands Organization for Health Research & Development), tested an innovative solution for this challenge. The participants were divided into two groups. Both groups had a motivational app at their disposal, which offered the participants rewards for exercising.
Cefas and University of Exeter scientists have presented a novel concept describing the complex microbial interactions that lead to disease in plants, animals and humans.
Microbial organisms and viruses cause many diseases of plants and animals.
They can also help protect from disease, for example the complex communities of microbes in the human gut, which are very important for our health.
However, very little is known about these microbes and how they cause and prevent disease.
PITTSBURGH--Wearable sensors such as smartwatches have become a popular motivational tool for fitness enthusiasts, but gadgets do not sense all exercises equally. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found that a stationary camera is a better choice for gym exercises.
Researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin and the German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) have successfully solved a longstanding problem in the diagnosis of head and neck cancers. Working alongside colleagues from Technische Universität (TU) Berlin, the researchers used artificial intelligence to develop a new classification method which identifies the primary origins of cancerous tissue based on chemical DNA changes. The potential for introduction into routine medical practice is currently being tested.
Cancer patients who miss an urgent referral appointment for their symptoms are 12% more likely to die within 12 months of diagnosis, a major new study has found.
The study, funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research, showed that male patients and those under 30 or over 85 years of age are more likely to skip their appointment, as are people who live in disadvantaged neighbourhoods and people who have been referred due to gastrointestinal problems.
The authors of the study say that more support is needed for patients at risk of non-attendance.
DALLAS, Sept. 12, 2019 -- The emerging practice of precision medicine could one day personalize heart failure care by identifying groups of patients more likely to develop heart failure and tailoring which medications and other therapies could be most effective for them, according to a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association, published in the journal Circulation: Genomic and Precision Medicine.
ORLANDO, Fla. (September 12, 2019) - Personalized medicine - where the proper medicine and proper dose are used for the individual patient - moved a step closer to reality for children suffering from eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), an inflammation of the food pipe often caused by an allergic reaction to certain foods.
Cancer survival in the UK has improved since 1995, although it still lags behind other high-income countries, according to new analysis* by the International Cancer Benchmarking Partnership (ICBP), which is managed by Cancer Research UK.
The study, published in Lancet Oncology, looked at 3.9 million cancer cases between 1995 and 2014, in seven comparable countries (Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and the UK).
Gorillas are social animals, living in groups that females will migrate to join, becoming members of harems. Though some factors motivating these migrations were previously known, a research team affiliated with the CNRS and Université de Rennes 1 has just demonstrated that female gorillas are able to avoid conspecifics liable to transmit yaws, which leads to conspicuous ulcers on the animals' faces. While studying 593 gorillas for over a decade, the scientists observed that females leave males and overly diseased groups to join healthier ones, avoiding other sick groups at all costs.
DES PLAINES, IL -- A multicenter randomized controlled clinical trial confirms that both chemical-first and electrical-first approaches are effective strategies for acute atrial fibrillation; however, an electrical-first strategy results in a significantly shorter emergency department (ED) length of stay. The study findings are published in the September 2019 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), a journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM).
PHILADELPHIA -- CAR T-cell therapy, a rapidly emerging form of immunotherapy using patients' own cells to treat certain types of cancers, may be a viable treatment option for another life-threatening condition: heart disease. In a first-of-its-kind study, published today in Nature, researchers at Penn Medicine used genetically modified T cells to target and remove activated fibroblasts that contribute to the development of cardiac fibrosis--a scarring process found in most forms of heart disease that results in heart stiffness and decreased function of the heart.
Bottom Line: Gender identity conversion efforts to try to change a person's gender identity to match their sex assigned at birth were associated with increased likelihood of adverse mental health outcomes, including suicide attempts, in this study of nearly 28,000 transgender adults from across the United States. Professional organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, have called conversion therapy for gender identity unethical and ineffective, and some states have outlawed the practice.
Bottom Line: How often the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved drugs and devices based on nonrandomized clinical trials (non-RCTs) and whether those approvals are associated with the sizes of treatment effects were the focus of this study. Applications for 606 drugs from 2012 to August 2018 and for 71 medical devices from 1996 to August 2017 were assessed, and approved applications based on non-RCTs were included in this study called a systematic review and meta-analysis. Of the 677 applications, 68 (10%) were approved by the FDA based on non-RCTs.
What The Study Did: This observational study examined among liver transplant candidates whether the association of frailty and increased risk of death while on the waiting list for a transplant varied by body mass index.
Authors: Jennifer C. Lai, M.D., M.B.A., of the University of California San Francisco, is the corresponding author.
(doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2019.2845)
Editor's Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.
Multiple cancer drug candidates in clinical trials kill tumor cells through off-target effects instead of by interacting with their intended molecular targets, according to a new study. The unexpected findings demonstrate that the targets of these drugs are not essential for the survival of cancer cells - contradicting over 180 previous reports about their importance - and may help explain why seemingly effective cancer drugs often fail to be translated to the clinic.