Body

DALLAS, June 29, 2016 -- About one in every nine men will experience sudden cardiac death, most before age 70, as well as about one in 30 women, according to research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the Open Access Journal of the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

Sudden cardiac death claims up to 450,000 American lives each year, according to the study and most commonly occurs in people with no prior symptoms of cardiovascular disease.

Zap a tumor with radiation to trigger expression of a molecule, then attack that molecule with a drug-loaded nanoparticle. That's the approach researchers working in mice have taken in a new study that aims to make delivery of chemotherapy to metastatic tumors more effective. The researchers say that the radiation-guided nanoparticles may offer a new approach for penetrating the vascular barrier that often thwarts current nanomedicines from reaching metastatic tumors.

Viruses must avoid a host's immune system to establish successful infections--and scientists have discovered another tool that viruses use to frustrate host defenses. Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania demonstrate a novel mechanism by which viruses shut down alarm signals that trigger immune responses. This finding may open the door to future tools for controlling unwanted inflammation in severe infections, cancers and other settings.

In what is believed to be the largest study of its kind, scientists at The Johns Hopkins University and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory led a study that examined the proteomes of 169 ovarian cancer patients to identify critical proteins expressed by their tumors.

By integrating their findings with the tumors' genetic data -- the cancer genome -- the investigators report the potential for new insights into the progress of the most malignant form of the disease.

Women in the United States increasingly groom their pubic hair, especially those who are younger, white and have partners who prefer it, according to an article published online by JAMA Dermatology.

Previous research has suggested that most women report engaging in pubic hair grooming and pubic hair removal. Knowledge of grooming behaviors is important for health care professionals because these behaviors reflect cultural norms and can be a source of patient morbidity.

In a study published online by JAMA Cardiology, Stephen Sidney, M.D., M.P.H., of Kaiser Permanente Northern California, Oakland, and colleagues examined recent national trends in death rates due to all cardiovascular disease (CVD), heart disease (HD), stroke, and cancer, and also evaluated the gap between mortality rates from HD and cancer.

Crucial new evidence has revealed modern humans (Homo sapiens) were likely using fire at Liang Bua 41,000 years ago, narrowing the time gap between the last hobbits (Homo floresiensis) and the first modern humans at this site on the Indonesian island of Flores.

The research, led by the University of Wollongong Australia (UOW) and Indonesia's National Research Centre for Archaeology and published in the Journal of Archaeological Science today (June 30, 2016), is among the earliest evidence of modern humans in Southeast Asia.

OAKLAND, Calif., June 29, 2016 -- After more than a decade of steady improvements, the decline in mortality rates from heart disease and stroke has slowed nationally and nearly leveled out since 2011, according to a new analysis from Kaiser Permanente published in JAMA Cardiology.

"Continued innovation is essential in our efforts to address the ongoing challenge of cardiovascular disease prevention," said lead author Stephen Sidney, MD, MPH, director of research clinics at the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Division of Research.

Climate change is already reshuffling the UK's wildlife calendar, and it's likely this will continue into the future, according to new research published this week in the journal Nature.

The results suggest that seasonal events -such as the timing of flowering in plants and breeding in birds - are generally more sensitive to temperature change, than to changes in precipitation such as rain and snowfall. Plants and animals respond differently to temperature changes at different times of year.

Researchers have created a potentially life-saving new test that will allow clinicians to predict which burn victims will develop sepsis during their treatment.

Their findings, published in Annals of Surgery, show that using just three biomarkers of neutrophil function on the day of injury can determine which patients with major burn injuries are likely to become septic.

BARCELONA-LUGANO, 29 June 2016 - Anti-PD-L1 immunotherapy may achieve a response in patients with microsatellite-stable metastatic colorectal cancer if combined with a MEK inhibitor, according to phase I data presented at the ESMO 18th World Congress of Gastrointestinal Cancer in Barcelona, Spain.

A family of proteins that help cancer cells survive and spread around the body may be associated with improved prognosis for some women receiving treatment for breast cancer, research has shown.

The study, led by academics at The University of Nottingham and published online by the academic journal Oncotarget, discovered that when high levels of the protein calpain were detected in large primary breast tumours from patients given chemotherapy treatment to shrink their tumour before surgery, these patients were more likely to survive.

Researchers from the Institute for Stem Cell Research and Regenerative Medicine at the University Clinic of Düsseldorf have established an in vitro model system for investigating nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). The study led by Prof. James Adjaye has now been published in the journal Stem Cells and Development.

With the recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa reviving interest in the first outbreak of the deadly hemorrhagic fever 40 years ago, scientists led by Dr. Joel Breman of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health have released a report highlighting lessons learned from the smaller, more quickly contained 1976 outbreak.

One of the UK's most widespread songbirds, the Wren, varies in its resilience to winter weather depending on where it lives in Britain - according to new research from the University of East Anglia and the British Trust for Ornithology.

Findings published today in the Royal Society journal Open Science reveal that Scottish Wrens are larger than those living in southern Britain, and more resilient to hard winter frosts.