Body

Obesity increases the risk of developing 10 of the most common cancers, regardless of how it is measured, according to a study of more than 400,000 adults in the UK, being presented at The European Congress on Obesity (ECO) held online this year, with central fatness (larger waist and hips) and general obesity (body mass index [BMI] and body fat percentage) associated with similar estimates of cancer risk.

A study of more than 173,000 women in Denmark, presented at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO) held online this year, suggests that girls with a higher body mass index (BMI) during childhood are less likely than their peers with a lower BMI to develop breast cancer as adults, both before and after the menopause.

New research presented at this year's European Congress on Obesity (held online, 10-13 May) finds evidence that structures called inflammasomes (a part of the innate immune system that helps to regulate inflammation) could play an important role in the development of obesity-associated colon cancer. The study is by Dr Victoria Catalán and Professor Gema Frühbeck, University Hospital Navarra and CIBEROBN, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Pamplona, Spain, and colleagues.

What has fluid physics to do with the spreading of the Corona virus? Whirlpools and pandemics seem to be rather different things, certainly in terms of comfort. Yet, newest findings about epidemic spreading come from Physics professor Björn Hof and his research group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (IST Austria), who specialize in fluids and turbulent flows. When early last year Björn Hof had to cancel his scheduled visit to Wuhan, his wife's hometown, his focus abruptly shifted to epidemic spreading.

A study presented at this year's European Congress on Obesity (held online, 10-13 May) supports recommendations to avoid pregnancy for 12 months after bariatric (obesity) surgery due to an association with adverse outcomes in pregnancy including an elevated risk of preterm birth. The study is by Dr Laura Heusschen, Vitalys Obesity Clinic, part of Rijnstate Hospital, Arnhem, The Netherlands, and colleagues.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Peer reviewed by medical experts that included three U.S. government senior scientists and published in the American Journal of Therapeutics, the research is the most comprehensive review of the available data taken from clinical, in vitro, animal, and real-world studies.

While other medical systems across the country failed to maintain HIV screening volumes throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the University of Chicago Medicine maintained screening volumes by including universal HIV screening alongside COVID-19 testing in its busy emergency department, according to a new report published April 12 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Asthma attacks account for almost 50 percent of the cost of asthma care which totals $80 billion each year in the United States. Asthma is more severe in Black and Hispanic/Latinx patients, with double the rates of attacks and hospitalizations as the general population.

Vaccination dramatically reduced COVID-19 symptomatic and asymptomatic infections in St. Jude Children's Research Hospital employees compared with their unvaccinated peers, according to a research letter that appears today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In a study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers show that although two doses of a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 -- the virus that causes COVID 19 -- confers some protection for people who have received solid organ transplants, it's still not enough to enable them to dispense with masks, physical distancing and other safety measures.

How can scientists predict a covid-19 outbreak? There's an app for that.

Media Contact: Rachel Butch; rbutch1@jhmi.edu

"COVID Control" using self-reported virus symptom information could predict next outbreak.

As state and federal authorities decide whether to continue reimbursing for telehealth services that were suddenly adopted last spring in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a new study out of UC San Francisco has found that clinicians in the San Francisco Health Network (SFHN) overwhelmingly support using these services for outpatient primary care and specialty care visits.

BOSTON - New research led by a team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) points to a promising strategy to boost tumors' intake of cancer drugs, thereby increasing the effectiveness of chemotherapy treatments. The group's findings are published in Nature Nanotechnology.

PITTSBURGH, May 7, 2021 - In a paper published today in Nature Communications, an international group of collaborators led by researchers at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh have identified a genetic cause of a rare neurological disorder marked by developmental delay and loss of coordination, or ataxia.

The disorder, scientists found, is caused by mutations in a protein called GEMIN5--one of the key building blocks of a protein complex that controls RNA metabolism in neurons. No mutations in GEMIN5 were previously linked to any genetic disease.

Patients with lasting symptoms of COVID-19 who completed a six week, supervised rehabilitation programme demonstrated significant improvements in exercise capacity, respiratory symptoms, fatigue and cognition, according to researchers at the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Leicester Biomedical Research Centre - a partnership between Leicester's Hospitals, the University of Leicester and Loughborough University.