Body

Obesity is widely believed to be protective against fracture, although a recent study has documented a high prevalence of obesity in postmenopausal women with fragility fracture.

An international group of researchers has today presented research at the European Congress on Osteoporosis & Osteoarthritis (ECCEO11-IOF) that compares the prevalence and location of fractures in obese (BMI≥30 kg/m2) and non-obese postmenopausal women and examines specific risk factors for fracture.

Researchers from Osaka University and the National Institute for Basic Biology, Japan, have found a highly significant connection between the molecular mechanisms underlying genetic and environmental sex determination. The scientists report in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics the identification of a gene responsible for the production of males during environmental sex determination in the crustacean Daphnia.

Weight gain in adults coincided with increased consumption of added sugars, in a study reported today at the American Heart Association's Nutrition, Physical Activity and Metabolism/Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention 2011 Scientific Sessions. Added sugars are sugars and syrups added to foods during processing, preparation, or at the table.

Patients who have suffered a "mini stroke" are at twice the risk of heart attack than the general population, according to research reported in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

These mini-strokes, called transient-ischemic attacks, or TIAs, occur when a blood clot temporarily blocks a blood vessel to the brain. Although the symptoms are similar to a stroke, a TIA is shorter ─ usually lasting only minutes or a few hours ─ and does not cause long-term disability. A TIA, also called a "warning stroke," signals a high risk of a subsequent, larger stroke.

LAUREL, Md. -- Wild migratory birds may indeed play a role in the spread of bird flu, also known as highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1.

A study by the U.S. Geological Survey, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization and the Chinese Academy of Sciences used satellites, outbreak data and genetics to uncover an unknown link in Tibet among wild birds, poultry and the movement of the often-deadly virus.

New Orleans, LA – Research led by Daitoku Sakamuro, PhD, Assistant Professor of Pathology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans and the LSUHSC Stanley S. Scott Cancer Center, has identified a protein that enables the activation of a DNA-repair enzyme that protects cancer cells from catastrophic damage caused by chemo and radiation therapy. This protein, called c-MYC oncoprotein, can initiate and promote almost all human cancers and discovering the role it plays in cancer treatment resistance may lead to advances that save lives.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---When local residents are allowed to make rules about managing nearby forests, the forests are more likely to provide greater economic benefits to households and contain more biodiversity, two University of Michigan researchers and a colleague conclude from an analysis of forest practices in tropical developing countries of East Africa and South Asia.

DALLAS – March 24, 2011 – Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered a hormone pathway that potentially could lead to new ways of treating type 1 diabetes independent of insulin, long thought to be the sole regulator of carbohydrates in the liver. Results of this new study will be published March 25 in Science.

Bar Harbor, Maine -- A Jackson Laboratory research team, working in collaboration with researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, show that RNA granules--key players in messenger RNA (mRNA) processing--can affect eye development, leading to juvenile cataracts in humans and mice.

The research, published in the March 25 issue of Science, also demonstrates the first connection between RNA granules and glaucoma, as the humans and mice in the study developed glaucoma.

Conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and other conservation and research groups have discovered that groups of dolphins in the western Indian Ocean do not mix freely with one another. In fact, dolphin populations are kept separate by currents and other unseen factors.

SEATTLE – A study of Yup'ik Eskimos in Alaska, who on average consume 20 times more omega-3 fats from fish than people in the lower 48 states, suggests that a high intake of these fats helps prevent obesity-related chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.

The study, led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and conducted in collaboration with the Center for Alaska Native Health Research at the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, was published online March 23 in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Most school text books contain messages about health, but 24.6% of these are not based on any scientific evidence, according to a study by the Knowledge Management Unit at Baza Hospital (Granada), published in the journal BMC Public Health.

After reviewing existing research regarding the common practices of health care providers who see adolescent patients across the country, Rebecca Allen, MD, MPH, a clinician and researcher at Women & Infants Hospital of Rhode Island, and her colleague, Michelle Forcier, MD, MPH, an adolescent medicine specialist at Hasbro Children's Hospital, asserted that the nation needs to offer more confidential care for teenagers who are sexually active.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — Temperature increases resulting from climate change in the Southwest will likely eliminate Joshua trees from 90 percent of their current range in 60 to 90 years, according to a new study led by U.S. Geological Survey ecologist Ken Cole.

Researchers from China, Leicester and Oxford have discovered a remarkable fossil which sheds new light on an important group of primitive sea creatures.

The 525-million-year-old fossil belongs to a group of tentacle-bearing creatures which lived inside hard tubes. Previously only the tubes have been seen in detail but this new specimen clearly shows the soft parts of the body including tentacles for feeding.