Deerfield, Ill. – Indoor spraying with the insecticide bendiocarb has dramatically decreased malaria transmission in many parts of Benin, new evidence that insecticides remain a potent weapon for fighting malaria in Africa despite the rapid rise of resistance to an entire class of mosquito-killing compounds, according to a study published today in the October edition of The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene.
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STANFORD, Calif. — Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have developed a novel protocol that allows kidney-transplant recipients to jettison their indispensable immune-suppressing drugs. The protocol could also spell substantial savings to the health-care system.
A study by researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine may lead to a way to prevent the progression, or induce the regression, of lung injury that results from use of the anti-cancer chemotherapy drug Bleomycin. Pulmonary fibrosis caused by this drug, as well as Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) from unknown causes, affect nearly five million people worldwide. No therapy is known to improve the health or survival of patients.
Treating women with early stage breast cancer with a combination of chemotherapy and the molecularly targeted drug Herceptin significantly increases survival in patients with a specific genetic mutation that results in very aggressive disease, a researcher with UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center reported Wednesday.
New Rochelle, NY, October 5, 2011 -- A possible new target for breast cancer therapy comes from the discovery that the Tyk2 protein helps suppress the growth and metastasis of breast tumors, as reported in Journal of Interferon & Cytokine Research.
STANFORD, Calif. -- North American babies who acquire toxoplasmosis infections in the womb show much higher rates of brain and eye damage than European infants with the same infection, according to new research from the Stanford University School of Medicine.
Many different types of animals come together to form vast groups – insect swarms, mammal herds, or bird flocks, for example. Researchers in France added another example to the list, reported today in the online journal PLoS ONE: the huge Wels catfish, the world's third largest and Europe's largest fresh-water fish. Researchers observed these fish in the Rhone River from May 2009 to Feb.
When an athlete is doing well, commentators may describe him as being "hot" or "on fire," but scientists have generally thought that such streaks were primarily in the eye of the beholder -- until now. Today in the online journal PLoS ONE, researchers report an analysis of five years of NBA free-throws that supports what is called the "hot hand" phenomenon: that a streak of positive outcomes is likely to continue.
A large study of the daughters of women who had been given DES, the first synthetic form of estrogen, during pregnancy has found that exposure to the drug while in the womb (in utero) is associated with many reproductive problems and an increased risk of certain cancers and pre-cancerous conditions. The results of this analysis, conducted by researchers at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and collaborators across the country, were published Oct. 6, 2011, in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Though viruses are the most abundant life form on Earth, our knowledge of the viral universe is limited to a tiny fraction of the viruses that likely exist. In a paper published this week in the online journal mBio, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Barcelona found that raw sewage is home to thousands of novel, undiscovered viruses, some of which could relate to human health.
ST. PAUL, Minn. – People who rate their health as poor or fair appear to be significantly more likely to develop dementia later in life, according to a study published in the October 5, 2011, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Two decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act went into effect, people with disabilities continue to face difficulties meeting major social needs, including obtaining appropriate access to health care facilities and services. In an article in the October issue of Health Affairs, Lisa Iezzoni, MD, director of the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital, analyzes available information on disparities affecting people with disabilities and highlights barriers that continue to restrict their access to health services.
New Rochelle, NY, October 5, 2011 -- Obesity among adolescents has more than tripled over the past 40 years, and recent estimates find that over 18% of teens in the U.S. are obese.
A Johns Hopkins Children's Center study of young people with melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, has found that some children have a higher risk of invasive disease than adults.
The study, published online Oct. 5 in the journal Cancer, is believed to be the first to compare disease spread in children and adults, and the results suggest some profound biological differences between childhood and adult melanoma, the researchers say.
Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found high levels of food toxins called Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs) in infants. Excessive food AGEs, through both maternal blood transmission and baby formula, could together significantly increase children's risk for diseases such as diabetes from a very young age. A second study of AGEs in adults found that cutting back on processed, grilled, and fried foods, which are high in AGEs, may improve insulin resistance in people with diabetes.