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Impending US Supreme Court Verdict On 'Obamacare'

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Forthcoming US Supreme Court verdict on Barack Obama's signature health care reforms has key significant role to play in the November's presidential election and for the future of the United States. A ruling is expected as early as Monday -- two years to the day after Obama signed into law an act to insure an extra 32 million Americans and prevent coverage from being refused on the basis of patients' medical histories. At the heart of the Patient Protection ...

Potential Diagnostic Test For Autism Suggested by Computer Analysis Of EEG Patterns

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Broadly accessible EEG testing can make a distinction of kids with autism from neurotypical kids as early as age 2, discovers a study from Boston Children's Hospital. The study is the largest, most rigorous study to date to investigate EEGs as a potential diagnostic tool for autism, and offers hope for an earlier, more definitive test. Researchers Frank H. Duffy, MD, of the Department of Neurology, and Heidelise Als, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry at Boston ...

HIV Pandemic Fired Up by 'War On Drugs': Report

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With six former presidents as part of pressure group called on Tuesday for the United Nations to admit and recognize that 'repressive drug law enforcement' was driving an HIV/AIDS pandemic. The global "war on drugs" was forcing users away from treatment and into environments where the risk of contracting HIV was high, the Global Commission on Drug Policy (GCDP) argued. In a report published Tuesday, the panel urged the UN to "acknowledge and address ...

Elderly Deprived of Sex by Care Centres: Paper

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Elderly people are frequently denied by care facilities the basic right to continue having sex, one of their few lingering pleasures, states paper published on Tuesday. Many older people, including those with early stage dementia, enjoy sex while they live at home, but this changes once they move into residential care, said the Australian authors of a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics. They blame a lack of privacy, age discrimination and fears about ...

Bile Pigment Could Help Stave Off Cancer, Heart Disease

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Bilirubin - a pigment found in bile helps ward off cancer and heart disease, say researchers. Bile is a fluid produced by the liver and stored in the gallbladder, whose function was simply thought to aid in the digestion process. But the latest breakthrough regarding bilirubin raises hopes in the fight against cancer and cardiovascular disease. Andrew Bulmer from the Griffith Health Institute with colleagues from the University of Vienna ...

Top Foods for Strong Bones

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Bones are made up of living cells. We need to take the right kind of nutrients and food items to make sure that our bones remain stronger. Here is the list of food items for strong bones

Frequently Imprecise are Vitamin D Tests

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The recurrently demanded test in medicine is the blood test to evaluate vitamin D deficiency. But a Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine study of two new vitamin D tests found the kits are inaccurate in many cases. Earle W. Holmes, PhD, presented findings at ENDO 2012, the 94th Annual Meeting and Expo in Houston. Holmes and colleagues examined how well the two new tests, Abbott Architect and Siemans Centaur2, performed on 163 randomly selected blood samples. ...

Study Says Treating Vitamin D Deficiency may Improve Depression

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Women with depression had substantial improvement in the symptoms after they received treatment for their vitamin D deficiency, shows study. Because the women did not change their antidepressant medications or other environmental factors that relate to depression, the authors concluded that correction of the patients'' underlying shortage of vitamin D might be responsible for the beneficial effect on depression. "Vitamin D may have an as-yet-unproven ...

Visually Stimulating High-Calorie Foods Beckon High-Calorie Cravings: USC Research

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Out of the blue you are struck with sudden craving for food? Probably it is no accident if you just saw an image of a cupcake or consumed a sugary soda. Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) will present preliminary findings June 26 at the Endocrine Society's annual meeting demonstrating that viewing pictures of high-fat foods and drinking sweetened beverages while viewing the pictures stimulate appetite and reward centers in the brain. "Studies ...

Post Stroke, Hormonal Treatment Related to Improved Test Performance

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Hormonal treatment administered to stroke patients combined with rehabilitation, resulted in better performance on functioning and reasoning tests compared to patients who got rehabilitative therapy alone, demonstrates a new clinical study from Italy. The results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society''s 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. In the United States, stroke is the fourth-leading cause of death. The disease occurs when a blood vessel to the brain ...

Feebly Controlled Type 1 Diabetes Bettered by Liraglutide With Insulin

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Poorly controlled Type 1 diabetes in obese adults can have better control of their blood sugar by adding liraglutide, a Type 2 diabetes drug, to their insulin therapy, finds a new study. The results, which will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston, also found that these diabetic patients lost weight and lowered their blood pressure. "These results are extremely relevant because in most patients with Type 1 diabetes, the disease ...

Regular Diabetes Drugs Linked to More Risk Of Death

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As opposed to another popular drug, three broadly used diabetes medications are linked to a higher risk of death, discovers a large new analysis. The results will be presented Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. The drugs, glipizide, glyburide, and glimepiride, are known as sulfonylureas, which help decrease blood-sugar levels among type 2 diabetes patients by stimulating the pancreas to produce insulin. In the past, these medications ...

Survey Finds Teens Favor Facetime Over Facebook

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Half of US teenagers favor facetime over facebook, finds US survey. Nine out of 10 young Americans aged 13 to 17 who took part in the national survey for Common Sense Media, a San Francisco think tank, acknowledged using some form of social networking. Seventy five percent maintained a social networking site of their own, with Facebook far and away the most popular choice, and 51 percent checked their sites at least once a day. Yet ...

Authors Accuse Ghrelin Over Dessert Space

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Ghrelin, the appetite-inducing hormone boosts the spur for humans to relish high-calorie foods, even on a full stomach suggests a new study. The results will be reported Sunday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. In the study, rats lacking the ghrelin receptor gene ate less of a sweet treat after a full meal than did rodents whose ghrelin receptor gene was intact. "Combined with an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, overconsumption ...

Prenatal Exposure to Household Chemical Ups Childhood Eczema Risk

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Prenatal exposure to household chemical called butylbenzyl phthalate (BBzP) increases risk of childhood eczema, reveals study. Widely used in vinyl flooring, artificial leather and other materials, BBzB can be slowly released into air in homes. Details are published in the advance online edition of iEnvironmental Health Perspectives/i, a journal of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Eczema, which is characterized ...

Exercise Keeps Lung Transplant Patients Physically Fit

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A recent study published in the iAmerican Journal of Transplantation/i indicates that a structured exercise program improves health of lung transplant patients. Patients with lung disease are often inactive before lung transplantation because of their serious ailment. Their inactivity continues following surgery and result in illnesses like osteoporosis, high cholesterol levels, diabetes and high blood pressure. Forty patients who ...

Divorce App Helps Couples Tackle Separation

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Divorce app - a new application helps couples through the painful process of separation. Guidance would be given on a range of issues, which would include advice on how to prevent fighting in front of children, organising child support payments and how to cope with new partners. Help will also be offered on other issues including help for wives "dumped" in favour of a younger woman, those wanting to save their relationship and those concerned with ...

First Fully Robotic Procedure Conducted in Italy

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The world's first liver transplant using only a robot was conducted in Italy. According to a statement from the ISMETT transplant centre in Palermo, only the arms of a robot entered the abdomen of the 44-year-old donor looking to save his 46-year-old brother suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. Thanks to the robot, only five keyhole incisions and one nine-centimetre (3.5-inch) incision were required for the operation, the centre said. "This ...

Study Reveals Positive Correlation Between Wine Consumption and Quality of Life

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In middle-aged adults, wine intake improves quality of life, reveals study. Data from a nationally representative sample of 5,404 community-dwelling Canadians ages 50 and older at baseline (1994/1995) was used to estimate the effects of alcohol drinking patterns on quality of life when subjects were aged 50 years and after a follow-up period. Health-related quality of life was assessed with the Health Utilities Index Mark 3 (HUI3). The researchers ...

Metformin Reduces Cancer Risk in Type 2 Diabetes Patients

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Metformin lowers cancer risk in patients with Type 2 diabetes, reveals study. "Type 2 diabetes increases the risk for several types of cancer," said lead author Diego Espinoza-Peralta, MD, an endocrinologist with Mexico''s National Institute of Medical Sciences and Nutrition (Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Medicas y Nutricion) in Mexico City. "Our findings suggest that the regular use of metformin-a low-cost medication- reduces this risk, compared with not ...

Spinach Makes You Stronger: Study

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Leafy vegetables boost muscle strength, reveals study. Researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm said Monday they had conducted a study showing how nitrate, found naturally in spinach and several other vegetables, tones up muscles. For the study, which will be published in the Journal of Physiology, the research team had placed nitrate directly in the drinking water of a group of mice for one week and then dissected them and compared ...

Study States 3-fold Increase in Acute Dialysis After Cardiac, Vascular Surgeries

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The use of acute dialysis after surgery increased three-fold, states study published in CMAJ. Acute kidney injury is a serious complication after surgery and can lead to death or result in compromised quality of life for people who do survive. Researchers conducted a large study of 552 672 patients in Ontario who had elective major surgery at 118 hospitals between 1995 and 2009 to understand trends in acute dialysis. They found that of the 552 672 ...

Bigger Waistlines Mean Higher Health Risks in Women

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A report by the health charity Nuffield Health has revealed that women's waistlines are growing dangerously, and apart from it being disappointing to women cosmetically, it poses one of the biggest health risks- cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and fertility issues. "Whilst waist size may seem like a cosmetic issue, this isn't about women fitting into their skinny jeans. Rather, it's an important indicator of overall health and well-being, particularly when ...

Has the Keyboard Replaced Handwriting?

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How often do we write using pen and paper? A study that looked into the frequency or rather the infrequency of actually putting pen to paper found that most adults have not written anything for more than six weeks. With laptops and gadgets becoming the order of the day, most were ashamed of their handwriting and felt it had worsened. Handwriting or better still scribbling was just meant for those reminders or stick notes that only the writer could understand. This ...

Research: Cancers With Disorganized 'Traffic Systems' More Difficult to Treat

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Medical researchers at the University of Alberta reviewed test results from thousands of patients with various types of cancer and discovered that "disorganized" cancers were more difficult to treat and consistently resulted in lower survival rates. Principal investigator Jack Tuszynski says physicians could use a mathematical equation, or algorithm, to determine how disorganized their patients' cancer is. Once physicians determine that, then they could pinpoint ...

Use of Natural Language Processing Tool for Electronic Health Records in Assessing Colonoscopy Quality

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Natural language processing programs can "read" dictated reports and provide information to allow measurement of colonoscopy quality in an inexpensive, automated and efficient manner says study. Observation of the quality variation in the study within a single academic hospital system reinforces the need for routine quality measurement. The study appears in the June issue of GIE: iGastrointestinal Endoscopy/i, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American ...

Global Warming may Cause Emperor Penguins to Vanish: Scientists

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Scientists have warned that Emperor penguins may vanish if global temperatures and sea ice melting continues unabated. Emperor Penguins are Antarctica's largest and most iconic flightless birds. "Over the last century, we have already observed the disappearance of the Dion Islets penguin colony close to the West Antarctic Peninsula," says biologist Stephanie Jenouvrier from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), US, who led the new study. "In ...

Biology of Tumor-derived Microvesicles Examined By Researcher

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A new paper by Crislyn D'Souza-Schorey discusses the biology of tumor-derived microvesicles and their clinical application as circulating biomarkers. Crislyn is a professor of biological sciences at the University of Notre Dame. Microvesicles are membrane-bound sacs released by tumor cells and can be detected in the body fluids of cancer patients. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that the incidence of cancer will reach approximately 9 million deaths ...

Southern Right Whales Finds Local Fathers Most Successful: Paternity Study

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The first paternity study of southern right whales has found a surprisingly high level of local breeding success for males. Scientists say that this is good news for the overall genetic diversity of the species, but could create risk for local populations through in-breeding. Results of the study, by researchers at the University of Auckland, Oregon State University and the New Zealand Department of Conservation, have just been published in the journal iMolecular ...

In Thailand 41 Infected With Bird Flu

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Diagnosis in Heterogeneous Disease can be Made More Rapid by Exome Sequencing

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Exome sequencing, a technique where short sequences of DNA are analysed, can give good results at low cost, a researcher from The Netherlands said at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics. The scientists were able to perform a genetic diagnosis in around 20% of 100 cases of patients with intellectual disability (ID) and 50% of the 25 cases of blindness studied. Not only is the exome test cheaper, but results are available more quickly ...

Building Blocks of Blood-Brain Barrier Via Human Stem Cells

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One of the most wonderful aspects of the human body is the blood-brain barrier, which is the filter that governs what can and cannot come into contact with the mammalian brain. It effectively separates circulating blood from the fluid that bathes the brain, and it keeps out bacteria, viruses and other agents that could damage it. But the barrier can be disrupted by disease, stroke and multiple sclerosis, for example, and also is a big challenge for medicine, ...

Overeating and Drug Addiction Linked to Same Set of Neurons

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Overeating and cocaine addiction may stem from the same place after a new study by researchers at Yale School of Medicine found that the same set of neurons that control hunger and lead to overeating are also linked to drug addiction. Published in the June 24 online issue of iNature Neuroscience/i, the study was led by Marcelo O. Dietrich, postdoctoral associate, and Tamas L. Horvath, the Jean and David W. Wallace Professor of Biomedical Research and chair of ...

Improving Protein Pathway in Blood System can Protect Against Radiation Poisoning

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Improving a protein pathway in the body's bloodstream could help protect against fatal radiation poisoning, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Medicine. Scientists in the multi-institutional study - posted online by the journal on June 24 - say their findings open the potential for new treatments against radiation toxicity during cancer treatment or environmental exposures - such as in a nuclear explosion or accident. By identifying ...