Medicine
Women with early stage breast cancer who adopted a diet very high in vegetables, fruit and fiber and low in fat did not have a lower risk of breast cancer recurrence compared to women who followed a diet of five or more servings a day of fruit and vegetables (the “5-A-Day” diet), according to a study in the July 18 issue of JAMA.
“Considerable evidence from preclinical studies indicates that plant-derived foods contain anticarcinogens. A comprehensive review of the literature found that a diet high in vegetables and fruit probably decreases breast cancer risk and that a diet high in total…
Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) have developed a method to estimate sickle cell disease severity and predict the risk of death in people with this disease.
Sickle cell disease is caused by mutations in the beta-hemoglobin gene (HBB). Individuals having identical pairs of genes for the HBB glu6val mutation (HbS) have sickle cell anemia; individuals with both HbS and HbC mutations have sickle cell-HbC (HbSC) disease. Both of these types of sickle cell-disease have extremely variable characteristics. While the…
Do pediatricians face a malpractice crisis? In the first systematic multi-year analysis of malpractice claims solely against pediatricians, researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine report in the July issue of the journal Pediatrics that the answer is neither yes nor no.
"We studied pediatricians and malpractice because while the medical malpractice issue is extremely stressful and gets a lot of press, and we all have heard numerous horror stories and anecdotes, there is little actual data reported, especially for pediatricians. So we took a retrospective, comprehensive look…
The ability of patients to try experimental drugs outside of clinical trials has a lot in common with self-experimentation. The former empowers the patient; the latter empowers the amateur scientist. Another form of health-related empowerment is to allow people to buy and sell organs. Of course, some people are against this:
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a Berkeley anthropologist — now in residence at Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute — has documented how wealthy organ brokers exploit the impoverished in places like Moldova and South Africa. She cites a moral parable . . . A starving man adrift with…
Variations in the WFS1 gene, known to affect both the survival and function of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, can be linked to type 2 diabetes susceptibility, according to a new study from Cambridge.
The study has two major implications – it identifies a new risk factor in a disease reaching epidemic levels worldwide while also showing that variations in a gene – and not only mutations – can lead to type 2 diabetes.
The importance of the last finding resides in the fact that gene variations – contrary to the extremely rare mutations – are relatively common in the population. Also…
The first U.S. study to transplant a potent form of purified adult stem cells into the heart muscle of patients with severe angina provided evidence that the procedure is safe and produced a reduction in angina pain as well as improved functioning in patients' daily lives, reports the lead researcher at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.
Within three to six weeks after the severe angina patients were injected with their own stem cells, many who used to experience pain just from walking to the refrigerator, now only had pain when they climbed two flights of stairs.
This…
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have identified proteins in the rod and cones of the eye that could lead to the discovery of the genetic causes of a host of inherited eye diseases. The investigators hope to gain a clearer understanding of what goes wrong at the most basic level in these diseases that cause blindness and other disorders.
Specifically, they have identified and measured the types and amounts of proteins in the light-sensing parts of the eye’s retina. These light-sensitive structures, called photoreceptor sensory cilia, enable the rod and cone…
In the first trial of its kind in the world, 60 patients who have recently suffered a major heart attack will be injected with selected stem cells from their own bone marrow during routine coronary bypass surgery.
The Bristol trial will test whether the stem cells will repair heart muscle cells damaged by the heart attack, by preventing late scar formation and hence impaired heart contraction.
Dr Raimondo Ascione from the University of Bristol and colleagues at the Bristol Heart Institute (BHI) have been awarded a grant of £210,000 from the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to conduct the…
Children who have at least one parent who smokes have 5.5 times higher levels of cotinine, a byproduct of nicotine, in their urine, according to a University of Leicester led study published online.
Having a mother that smokes was found to have the biggest independent effect on cotinine in the urine – quadrupling it. Having a smoking father doubled the amount of cotinine, one of chemicals produced when the body breaks down nicotine from inhaled smoke to get rid of it.
Sleeping with parents and lower temperature rooms were also associated with increased amounts of cotinine.
Cotinine was…
A gene responsible for the single most common cause of hearing loss among white adults, otosclerosis, has been identified for the first time. Ms Melissa Thys, from the Department of Medical Genetics, University of Antwerp, Belgium, said that this finding may be a step towards new treatments for otosclerosis, which affects approximately 1 in 250 people.
Otosclerosis is a multifactorial disease, caused by an interaction of genetic and environmental factors. The outcome is a progressive hearing loss as the growing bone in the middle ear interrupts the sound waves passing to the inner ear. While…