Body | Page 4999 | Science Codex

Recommendations for children's exercise lacking say experts

Researchers from the Peninsula Medical School in Plymouth, UK, have carried out research that suggests the one hour of moderate exercise a day recommended to children from health experts may not be enough to tackle the rising problem of childhood obesity.

Their research has been published in the most recent issue of the journal "Archives of Diseases in Childhood."

The results come from the EarlyBird study, which has followed the development of over 200 children in Plymouth born in 1995 and 1996.

Is CT-colonoscopy a valuable tool to detect colorectal cancer?

CTC (virtual colonoscopy) is a thin slice CT scan of the abdomen after adequate bowel preparation and colon insufflation in which data are reconstructed providing axial, multiplanar, and endoluminal views, in order to visualize internal colonic wall. Several studies have shown that CTC is a valuable tool to evaluate proximal colon after incomplete colonoscopy, and American Gastroenterologists Association (AGA) recognized that CTC is indicated for adults with failed colonoscopy.

A new alternative in treating short bowel syndrome

SBS is a clinical condition characterized by diarrhea, dehydration, electrolyte imbalance, malabsorption, and progressive malnutrition related to a wide resection of the small intestine. The most important therapeutic objectives in the management of SBS are maintenance the patient's calorie intake and nutritional status. However, some enteral nutrition (EN) products use for energy supports in order to reduce total parenteral nutrition (TPN) demand. The new treatment modalities alternate the current ones are still under research with the experimental and clinical studies.

Only some Web sites provide patients with reliable information before having an operation

CHICAGO (October 10, 2008) – New research published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows unsponsored and professional society Web sites provide significantly higher quality information about common elective surgical procedures compared with commercially sponsored Web sites. In addition, the study authors say that providing patients with technical search terms may increase the likelihood of obtaining reliable surgical information on the Web.

Study finds stroke-prevention surgery safe in growing 80-plus population

CHICAGO (October 10, 2008) – New research published in the October issue of Journal of the American College of Surgeons challenges the current opinion that patients in their eighties, who are often deemed "high-risk" due to their advanced age, should not undergo carotid endarterectomy – a stroke-preventing surgical procedure that clears blockages from the neck's carotid arteries.

Approximately 700,000 new and recurrent strokes occur annually in the United States, and it is estimated that 10 to 20 percent of them are related to carotid artery disease.

Scientists identify gene that may make humans more vulnerable to pulmonary tuberculosis

Researchers from the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) and its collaborators have now identified for the first time a new gene that may confer susceptibility to pulmonary tuberculosis. Their findings, published October 10 in the open access journal PLoS Genetics, reported that a gene named Toll-like receptor 8 (TLR8), previously shown only to recognize some factors from viruses such as the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), has a probable role in human susceptibility to Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections.

Opening a can of worms: Serendipitous discovery reveals earthworms more diverse than first thought

Scientists have found that the UK's common or garden earthworms are far more diverse than previously thought, a discovery with important consequences for agriculture.

Tobacco smuggling is killing more people than illegal drugs

Tobacco smuggling causes around 4,000 premature deaths a year—four times the number of deaths caused by the use of all smuggled illegal drugs put together—but the UK government is not doing enough to tackle the problem, claim experts on bmj.com today.

Professor Robert West from the Cancer Research UK Health Behaviour Research Centre and colleagues argue that more smokers would quit if cigarettes cost more, but at around half the price, smuggled tobacco is keeping the prices down.

Small intestine can sense and react to bitter toxins in food

Irvine, Calif. — Toxins in food often have a bad, bitter taste that makes people want to spit them out. New UC Irvine research finds that bitterness also slows the digestive process, keeping bad food in the stomach longer and increasing the chances that it will be expelled.

This second line of defense in the gut against dietary toxins also triggers the production of a hormone that makes people feel full, presumably to keep them from eating more of the toxic food.

A low-cholesterol diet leaves a bitter taste in the gut

One role for the proteins on the tongue that sense bitter tasting substances, type 2 taste receptors (T2Rs), is to limit ingestion of these substances, as a large number of natural bitter compounds are known to be toxic. T2Rs are also found in the gut, and it has been suggested that there they have a similar role to their function in the mouth (i.e., they might limit intestinal toxin absorption). Data to support this idea has now been generated in mice by Timothy Osborne and colleagues, at the University of California, Irvine.

Nerve stimulation therapy alleviates pain for chronic headache

A novel therapy using a miniature nerve stimulator instead of medication for the treatment of profoundly disabling headache disorders improved the experience of pain by 80-95 percent, according to a new study from the University of California, San Francisco and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London.

Dry adhesive based on carbon nanotubes gets stronger, with directional gripping ability

The race for the best "gecko foot" dry adhesive got a new competitor this week with a stronger and more practical material reported in the journal Science by a team of researchers from four U.S. institutions.

Digital zebrafish embryo provides the first complete developmental blueprint of a vertebrate

Researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) have generated a digital zebrafish embryo - the first complete developmental blueprint of a vertebrate. With a newly developed microscope scientists could for the first time track all cells for the first 24 hours in the life of a zebrafish. The data was reconstructed into a three-dimensional, digital representation of the embryo. The study, published in the current online issue of Science, grants many new insights into embryonic development.

Keeping herpes infection in check: Pitt researchers describe immune system strategies

PITTSBURGH, Oct. 9 – Herpes simplex virus type I can cause bouts of cold sores, blindness and potentially lethal encephalitis when it reawakens from a quiescent state in the nerve cells it infects.

To prevent these consequences, the stealthy virus is kept under constant guard by the immune system, say University of Pittsburgh scientists. Their research challenges the once common notion that latent HSV-1 in sensory neurons is invisible to the immune system.

Smithsonian perspective: Biodiversity in a warmer world

Will climate change exceed life's ability to respond? Biodiversity in a Warmer World, published in the Oct. 10, 2008 issue of the journal, Science, illustrates that cross-disciplinary research fostered by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama clearly informs this urgent debate.