A new solar-powered device to measure blood pressure may help slow the worldwide increase in cardiovascular disease by providing affordable and reliable blood pressure testing in low income countries, according to research published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association.
The solar powered device — 94 percent in agreement with the standard blood pressure testing method for systolic blood pressure — is in field testing in Uganda and Zambia, Africa.
A small study suggests women with multiple sclerosis have lower vitamin D levels during pregnancy and breastfeeding, according to a report posted online today that will appear in the March 2011 print issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. However, these vitamin D levels were not associated with a greater risk of multiple sclerosis relapse after childbirth.
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Door-to-balloon time has dropped dramatically as hospitals rush heart attack patients into treatment, but a five-year study released Monday shows quicker hospital care has not saved more lives.
Heart attacks are a medical emergency and hospitals race against the clock to open the clogged artery causing the attack in 90 minutes or less.
Door-to-balloon time is the amount of time between a heart attack patient's arrival at the hospital to the time he or she receives an intervention, such as a balloon angioplasty, to open the artery.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Suppressing cancer cells' ability to replicate damaged DNA could dramatically enhance the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs such as cisplatin, according to a new pair of papers from MIT biologists.
In studies of mice, the researchers found that slowing down a specific system for tolerating DNA damage not only prolonged survival but also prevented relapsed tumors from becoming resistant to chemotherapy, and made tumors much less likely to spread to other parts of the body.
Chapel Hill - A new discovery by UNC scientists describes how cells infected by the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) produce small vesicles or sacs called exosomes, changing their cellular "cargo" of proteins and RNA. This altered exosome enters cells and can change the growth of recipient cells from benign to cancer-producing.
In this way, virus-infected cells can have wide-ranging effects and potentially manipulate other cells throughout the body. The findings are reported in the November 8, 2010 early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Durham, NC —Many plants can pollinate themselves and reproduce without the aid of a mate, thanks to having both male and female parts. But the short-term perks of being able to go it alone come with long-term costs, says a new study in the journal Science. The reason is because plants that can pollinate themselves are more prone to extinction, scientists say.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Common foot disorders such as flat feet, corns and bunions are more prevalent among African Americans than in whites, a new study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers has found.
Hoboken, NJ – Stevens Institute of Technology and the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) have recently conducted joint experiments in the Dutch Navy Harbor of Den Helder, where passive acoustic systems from both parties were combined. Initial experimental results are presented at the Waterside Security (WSS) 2010 conference. This important experimental campaign was financed by the Netherlands Ministry of Defence.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the University of Leeds have linked hundreds of federally approved drugs to more than 1,000 proteins in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis (TB), opening new avenues to repurpose these drugs to treat TB.
The study was published Nov. 4 in PLoS Computational Biology.
New techniques now being used at UCLA allow doctors to more precisely target certain areas of the heart to stop ventricular arrhythmias — serious abnormal rhythms in the heart's lower chambers — in high-risk patients.
PHILADELPHIA — Gefitinib may be a promising chemoprevention agent for pancreatic cancer, according to a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
The study is published in the November issue, and was discussed during a press conference at the Ninth Annual Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, held here Nov. 7-10, 2010.
PHILADELPHIA — Researchers at Duke University Medical Center have identified a possible biomarker for measuring progress in breast cancer chemoprevention trials, according to data presented at the Ninth Annual AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, held here Nov. 7-10, 2010.
PHILADELPHIA — Allopurinol, a relatively inexpensive anti-gout medication that has been on the market for more than 20 years, may have some activity against colorectal adenomas, according to data presented at the Ninth Annual AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference, held here Nov. 7-10, 2010.
Specifically, the presence of a colorectal tumor tissue biomarker, Ki67, was markedly decreased in the preliminary results of a study of patients with colorectal polyps assigned to take allopurinol.
PHILADELPHIA — The use of statins among a group of postmenopausal women did not reduce the risk for colorectal cancer, according to the results of a prospective analysis of data from the large population-based Women's Health Initiative (WHI).
"The results of our study are consistent with the majority of the literature suggesting no significant reduction in colorectal cancer risk among users of statins," said Michael S. Simon, M.D., professor of oncology in the department of oncology at Wayne State University and Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute, Detroit.
