Attention, college students cramming between midterms and finals: Binging on soda and sweets for as little as six weeks may make you stupid. A new UCLA rat study is the first to show how a diet steadily high in fructose slows the brain, hampering memory and learning -- and how omega-3 fatty acids can counteract the disruption. The peer-reviewed Journal of Physiol... (read more)
THE QUESTION Marijuana has been investigated as a medicinal aid for people with cancer, AIDS, glaucoma and other conditions. Might smoking marijuana help relieve the muscle spasticity in people with multiple sclerosis? THIS STUDY involved 30 adults (average age, 51) with MS who had spasticity (tight, difficult-to-control muscles) that had not responded well to treatment. To get... (read more)
What goes bump in the night? In many U.S. households: people. That's according to new Stanford University School of Medicine research, which found that about 3.6 percent of U.S. adults -- or upward of 8.4 million -- are prone to sleepwalking. The work also showed an association between nocturnal wanderings and certain psychiatric disorders, such as depression and anxiety.... (read more)
Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a genetic test that can accurately predict whether the most common form of eye cancer will spread to other parts of the body, particularly the liver. In 459 patients with ocular melanoma at 12 centers in the United States and Canada, the researchers found the test could successfully classify tumors more than 97 pe... (read more)
That overweight during pregnancy can lead to overweight children and adolescents has been known for some time, but new research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and in the US indicates that excess weight before and during pregnancy can have long-lasting health consequences for the offspring of such mothers even later in life. nvestigators at the Hebrew U... (read more)
Neuroscientist Patrik Verstreken, associated with VIB and KU Leuven, succeeded in undoing the effect of one of the genetic defects that leads to Parkinson's using vitamin K2. His discovery gives hope to Parkinson's patients. This research was done in collaboration with colleagues from Northern Illinois University (US) and was recently published in the journal Science. "It appears from our research that a... (read more)
Regenerating sensory hair cells, which produce electrical signals in response to vibrations within the inner ear, could form the basis for treating age- or trauma-related hearing loss. One way to do this could be with gene therapy that drives new sensory hair cells to grow. Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have shown that introducing a gene called Atoh1 into the cochleae of young m... (read more)
Stevens-Johnson sydrome is a devastating skin disease where the skin and mucous memranes react to infection or medication, including the surface of the eye. Patients suffer from painful blisters and the skin sloughs off. When the disease effects more than 30% of the the body's skin, it is called epidermal necrolysis. Severe forms of the di... (read more)
Probiotics — or live microorganisms intended to boost health, such as the bacteria in some yogurts — have become popular items in vitamin stores and even many supermarkets. One of probiotics' most popular uses is in preventing and treating digestive problems. A new analysis of 82 earlier studies finds that probiotics have potential in alleviating the diarrhea that afflicts about one-third of people treated with an... (read more)
Are you sick of your commute to work? Bad news: It might actually be making you sick. According to a new study in three car-centric Texan cities, the longer your daily commute, the more likely you are to have high blood pressure, an oversized waistline, and other health problems that increase your risk for chronic diseases. “Long commutes really get under the skin in terms of affecting people’s h... (read more)
The ranks of obese Americans are expected to swell even further in the coming years, rising from 36% of the adult population today to 42% by 2030, experts said Monday. Kicking off a government-led conference on the public health ramifications of all those expanding waistlines, the authors of a new report estimated that the cost of treating those additional obese people for diabetes, heart disease and... (read more)
An over-the-counter natural remedy derived from honeybee hives arrests the growth of prostate cancer cells and tumors in mice, according to a new paper from researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine Caffeic acid phenethyl ester, or CAPE, is a compound isolated from honeybee hive propolis, the resin used by bees to patch up holes in hives. Propolis has been used for centuries as a natura... (read more)
For couples seeking to overcome infertility by turning to assisted reproductive technology – which can be invasive and expensive – an increased risk of birth defects probably won’t stand in their way. Still, a study released Saturday by the New England Journal of Medicine may give some prospective parents a little something to think about as they mull their options for fertility treatment. ... (read more)
Not a big fan of bacon or ham? Your genes might be behind it, a new study finds. Researchers found that 70 percent of participants had two functional copies of a gene linked to a particular odor receptor in the brain. This cellular receptor is attuned to a compound in male mammals called androstenone, which is also common in pork. In the study, 23 people were asked to smell pork. Those with either one or no function... (read more)
Obesity and the form of diabetes linked to it are taking an even worse toll on America’s youths than medical experts had realized. As obesity rates in children have climbed, so has the incidence of Type 2 diabetes, and a new study adds another worry: the disease progresses more rapidly in children than in adults and is harder to treat. “It’s frightening how severe this metabolic disease is in childre... (read more)
Results from the largest genetic study of glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness and vision loss worldwide, showed that two genetic variations are associated with primary open angle glaucoma (POAG), a common form of the disease. The identification of genes responsible for this disease is the first step toward the development of gene-based disease detection and treatment. About 2.2 million people in the U.S. h... (read more)
'Brain freeze' is a nearly universal experience -- almost everyone has felt the near-instantaneous headache brought on by a bite of ice cream or slurp of ice-cold soda on the upper palate. However, scientists are still at a loss to explain this phenomenon. Since migraine sufferers are more likely to experience brain freeze than people who don't have this often-debilitating condition, brain freeze may sh... (read more)
Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC) have identified a molecular pathway that controls the retention and release of the brain's stem cells. The discovery offers new insights into normal and abnormal neurologic development and could eventually lead to regenerative therapies for neurologic disease and injury. The findings, from a collaborative effort of the laboratories of Drs. Anna La... (read more)
Laparoscopic sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) has proved highly effective in alleviating type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and its complications compared with traditional medical treatment, according to a study published online today in Archives of Surgery. Frida Leonetti, MD, PhD, from the Policlinico Umberto I University of Rome Sapienza, Italy, and colleagues conducted a prospective cohort study involving 60 morb... (read more)
A new technique to treat early prostate cancer may have far fewer side-effects than existing therapies, say experts. A 41-patient study in the journal Lancet Oncology suggests targeted ultrasound treatment could reduce the risk of impotence and incontinence. Researchers say it could transform future treatment if the findings are repeated in larger studies. The Medical Research Council (MRC), whi... (read more)
Two research studies, co-led by UC Davis neurologist Charles DeCarli and conducted by an international team that included more than 80 scientists at 71 institutions in eight countries, has advanced understanding of the genetic components of Alzheimer's disease and of brain development. Both studies appear in the April 15 edition of the journal Nature Genetics. The first study, based on a genetic analysi... (read more)
In findings that will be toasted by pub quiz aficionados, researchers found drinkers got more test questions right and were quicker in delivering the right answers. It is thought alcohol hinders analytical thinking and allows 'creative' thoughts that might otherwise by stifled to take root, allowing test subjects to come up with more imaginative solutions. Psychologists at the University of Illinois set 40 heal... (read more)
Lack of sleep or erratic slumber from working late-night shifts or travel may lead to diabetes and obesity, according to a Harvard study that is the first to tie abnormal sleep patterns to disease. In a trial of 21 men and women observed in a sleep laboratory, those allowed only 5.6 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period over three weeks had a slowdown in their metabolism and a reduction in insulin production. Tho... (read more)
That America has a weight problem can’t be denied, but the social perception that obese people simply can’t lose weight is not true, a new study finds. According to researchers from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, obese Americans are trying to lose weight — and many are successful. The researchers looked at data for 4,021 obese people ages 20 and older wh... (read more)
A new study suggests people who had certain kinds of dental X-rays in the past may be at an increased risk for meningioma, the most commonly diagnosed brain tumor in the U.S. The findings cannot prove that radiation from the imaging caused the tumors, and the results are based on people who were likely exposed to higher levels of radiation during dental X-rays than most are today. "It's likely that the e... (read more)
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