Endometriosis is a condition whereby patches of the inner lining of the womb appear in parts of the body other than the womb cavity. It can cause severe pain and affects approximately 15% of women of reproductive age. Endometriosis is also associated with infertility, with 50% of infertile women affected by the condition.
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(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — UC Davis Cancer Center physicians today released results of research showing that Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange have greatly increased risks of prostate cancer and even greater risks of getting the most aggressive form of the disease as compared to those who were not exposed.
Multidetector CT (MDCT) is just as accurate as MRI in assessing myocardial infarct size--an important predictor of clinical outcome-- in an emergency setting according to a recent study conducted by researchers in collaboration between the VA Medical Center in San Francisco, CA and the University Claude Bernard in Lyon, France.
Park Ridge, Ill. (August 5, 2008) – A study published online today in the International Journal of Obesity shows that eating two eggs for breakfast, as part of a reduced-calorie diet, helps overweight adults lose more weight and feel more energetic than those who eat a bagel breakfast of equal calories. [1] This study supports previous research, published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, which showed that people who ate eggs for breakfast felt more satisfied and ate fewer calories at the following meal. [2]
The HIV drug tenofovir may prevent AIDS transmission when applied rectally as a gel, according to results from a macaque study published in PLoS Medicine.
Rectal exposure to HIV carries a particularly high risk of transmission in both homosexuals and heterosexuals. Although condoms are generally recommended for AIDS prevention, little research has focused on the use of topical products for preventing HIV transmission via the rectum.
An analysis by the humanitarian medical aid organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, Doctors without Borders) has found that between 1996 and 2004 MSF was responsible for about a quarter of all clinical studies of malaria medicine efficacy in 18 countries of Africa and Asia. In an article published in PLoS Medicine, Jean-Paul Guthmann (Epicentre, Paris, France) and colleagues report that MSF enrolled over 12,000 patients in 43 studies in these 18 countries during this time period.
In order to effectively prevent disease, the immune system must be able to distinguish between self and non-self, and to selectively target the latter. The process that removes immune cells that would otherwise react to the body – engage in friendly fire – is called negative selection. A new paper published in this week's PLoS Biology, the online open access journal, investigates the inner mechanics of the thymus, the organ that creates the foot soldiers of the immune system.
Edinburgh, Scotland – Mankind's closest relatives – the world's monkeys, apes and other primates – are disappearing from the face of the Earth, with some literally being eaten into extinction.
The first comprehensive review in five years of the world's 634 kinds of primates found that almost 50 percent are in danger of going extinct, according to the criteria of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
With heart disease maintaining top billing as the leading cause of death in the United States, a team of University of California, San Diego School of Medicine physician-researchers is proposing that aggressive intervention to lower cholesterol levels as early as childhood is the best approach available today to reducing the incidence of coronary heart disease.
PHILADELPHIA, August 5, 2008 – The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), updating its 2002 report, now recommends against routine prostate cancer screening for men over the age of 75. More evidence is needed to determine if men under 75 could benefit from screening.
CHAPEL HILL – In the budding field of nanotechnology, scientists already know that size does matter.
But now, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown that shape matters even more — a finding that could lead to new and more effective methods for treating cancer and other diseases, from diabetes and multiple sclerosis to arthritis and obesity.
Washington, D.C.--Oxygen, the third most abundant element in the cosmos and essential to life on Earth, changes its forms dramatically under pressure transforming to a solid with spectacular colors. Eventually it becomes metallic and a superconductor. The underlying mechanism for these remarkable phenomena has been fascinating to scientists for decades; especially the origin of the recently discovered molecular cluster (O2)4 in the dense solid, red oxygen phase.
Thessaloniki, Greece - August 4, 2008 - A recent study published in American Journal of Hematology demonstrated that Erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs), a widely used drug to treat anemia, may have a negative impact on the survival of myeloma patients. In the study, 323 multiple myeloma patients were evaluated over a 20 year period in Greece from 1988 to 2007. The investigators reviewed their medical records and observed an association between ESA exposure and a reduction in progression-free and overall survival.
Blacksburg, Va. – Researchers from the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) at Virginia Tech have identified the region of a large family of virulence proteins in oomycete plant pathogens that enables the proteins to enter the cells of their hosts. The protein region contains the amino acid sequence motifs RXLR and dEER and has the ability to carry the virulence proteins across the membrane surrounding plant cells without any additional machinery from the pathogen. Once inside the plant cell, the proteins suppress the immune system of the plant allowing the infection to progress.
Adolescent girls who go through puberty early and have parents who do not nurture them, communicate with them or have knowledge of their activities appear more likely to display aggressive behavior, according to a report in the August issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.