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Gene Variant may Help Decode the Psychotic Behaviour in Bipolar Disorder Patients

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Researchers at the Karolinska Institute explain the elevated levels of kynureic acid in the brains of schizophrenia and bipolar disease patients. The study, which is published in the scientific periodical iMolecular Psychiatry/i, identifies a gene variant associated with an increased production of KYNA. The discovery contributes to the further understanding of the link between inflammation and psychosis - and might pave the way for improved therapies. Kynurenic ...

Money Talks When It Comes to Losing Weight: Study

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According to a recent study, weight loss participants who received financial incentives were more likely to follow the weight loss program and lose more weight than people who received no incentives. Previous studies have shown that financial incentives help people lose weight, but this study examined a larger group of participants (100) over a longer period (one year), says lead author Steven Driver, M.D., an internal medicine resident at Mayo Clinic. One hundred ...

Norovirus

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Norovirus causes more than half of all food-borne disease outbreaks each year. It is a common cause of diarrhea.

Nordic Women Stand Out Different in Terms of Workplace Affairs

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Danish Prime Minister Thorning stressed on waste of a university degree by an educated stay-at-home mom. Elegant, charismatic and determined, Thorning-Schmidt has headed the Danish government since October 2011, embodying the strides made by women in politics and the workplace in the Nordic countries over the years, though their fight goes on to reach the top echelons of corporate management where they remain under-represented. Thorning-Schmidt is Denmark's ...

Faulty Protein Digestion in Neurons may be the Cause of Familial Parkinson's

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Researchers at the CUMC reveal the link between common genetic mutations in familial Parkinson's disease and brain cell damage. The mutations block an intracellular system that normally prevents a protein called alpha-synuclein from reaching toxic levels in dopamine-producing neurons. The findings suggest that interventions aimed at enhancing this digestive system, or preventing its disruption, may prove valuable in the prevention or treatment of Parkinson's. The study was ...

Study Reveals the Shift in the Burden of Pneumococcal Disease to Adults

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Studies reveal that the highest burden of pneumococcal disease in Latin America may be shifting to adults due to rapid immunization of infants. The experts called for increased disease monitoring and more surveillance to understand the full extent of pneumococcal disease in the Americas, including its economic impact, and to devise effective strategies to prevent it.This research was coordinated by the Sabin Vaccine Institute in partnership with the Pan American ...

Human Brain Unable to Distinguish Between Prosthetic and Real Body Parts

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Human brain can treat prosthetic body parts as a substitute for a non-working part. iPLOS ONE/i by Mariella Pazzaglia and colleagues from Sapienza University and IRCCS Fondazione Santa Lucia of Rome in Italy, supported by the International Foundation for Research in Paraplegie. The researchers found that wheelchair-bound study participants with spinal cord injuries perceived their body's edges as being plastic and flexible to include the wheelchair, independent ...

Air France Celebrates International Women's Day

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With a 100 percent female crew on Airbus 380-the world's largest commercial airplane, Air France celebrates International Women's Day. "Air France is bringing together the largest exclusively female crew in its history: two pilots and 22 stewardesses" for the flight, the company said in a statement on Thursday. Air France has organised all-female crews to mark International Women's Day, celebrated every year on March 8, since 2006 but this year will ...

Higher Heart Attack Rates Continue Years After Hurricane

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Residents in New Orleans are facing a three-fold increased risk of heart attack post Katrina, finds research. The new data-an update to previous analyses comparing the behavioral and heart health of people before and after the storm-show this heightened risk persists even though post-Katrina patients are more likely to be prescribed medications known to prevent heart attacks such as aspirin, beta blockers, statins and ACE inhibitors. Compared to the pre-Katrina ...

Dietary Supplements to Reduce Schizophrenia Symptoms

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Combining folate and vitamin B12 with antipsychotic medications has shown an improved symptom component of schizophrenia. The study focused on negative symptoms of schizophrenia - which include apathy, social withdrawal, and a lack of emotional expressiveness. While the level of improvement across all participants was modest, results were more significant in individuals carrying specific variants in genes involved with folate metabolism. The report from a team ...

New Generic Anti-depressant to be Introduced by Ranbaxy

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Ranbaxy jumps into an in-licensing agreement with Alembic Pharmaceuticals to start marketing the generic anti-depressant drug Pristiq. Jacksonville, Florida, base Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals Inc (RPI) announced Tuesday that Alembic manufactured Desvenlafaxine is a bioequivalent version of Pristiq with a market size of (Dollar) 590 million. India based research and development pharmaceutical company, Alembic has received the final approval from the US Food and ...

Wide Variation in Cesarean Delivery Rates Observed in US Hospitals

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Hospital cesarean delivery rates were noted to be varying in the hospitals in US, reported by the researchers at the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health. The latest study, appearing today in iHealth Affairs/i, shows that cesarean delivery rates varied tenfold across U.S. hospitals, from 7.1 percent to 69.9 percent. To arrive at their results, School of Public Health researchers examined hospital discharge data from a representative ...

Secondhand Smoke Linked to Signs of Heart Disease

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People who are exposed to secondhand smoke during childhood or as an adult are more likely to develop early signs of heart disease, finds research. Researchers found that 26 percent of people exposed to varying levels of secondhand smoke had signs of coronary artery calcification (CAC), compared to 18.5 percent in the general population. The new data also shows that people who report higher levels of secondhand tobacco smoke exposure also have the greatest ...

Health Care Reform - Set Right the Basic Facts

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Affordable Care has received a lot of criticism with many misinterpreted facts, and when these wrong facts are repeated often they start sounding true. Clarity on some of these implications is very important. Employers for decades have been adjusting employee work hours to avoid paying benefits like health care, paid time off and for yearly vacations. Obamacare cannot change this or force employers to pay workers more or reduce their working hours to avoid ...

Heroin Seized in Punjab

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Heroin worth Rs 130 crore was seized from a flat in Zirakpur, Mohali. "10Kg heroin was found from a car, 16Kg from a flat in Zirakpur. An international drug smuggling racket has been found," said H.S. Mann, SSP Fatehgarh. " Four days ago, an NRI was arrested, on interrogation we found that two smugglers had 26 kilograms of heroin worth Rs130 crore on them," he added. "It is an international scam. Many countries are involved in this. Investigations ...

Dogs Learn to Drive

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Dogs are said to be faithful animals. They are so attached to humans that they are called his best friend. Many people love to have dogs as their pets. Now, for all the dog loversone more reason to love them is that they are soon going to help you drive your car. Wondering how? The drive for publicity by the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals saw the four-legged friends spend weeks getting to grips with four wheels in New Zealand. The dogs, ...

GM Chickens Could Wipe Out Bird Flu

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Australian scientists are paving way for disease-proof animals that could eliminate bird flu and other diseases. According to the Geelong Advertiser, the CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) project is producing genetically modified chickens using cutting-edge science from the plant world, the Herald Sun reported. It is hoped the CSIRO super-chickens will breed disease-resistant offspring, creating a line of poultry which is immune to ...

Flu Virus Can Spread Up to 6 Feet Above the Patient

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According to recent research, the influenza virus can spread up to 6 feet from a patient through minute particles while talking or breathing, breaking the old thought that it spreads only by coughing and sneezing. According to the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, transmission of the flu virus mainly occurs when large-particle respiratory droplets travel over a short distance, and these particles are generally ...

Health: Leading Issue for Women

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Experts warn that the leading issue faced by women is health. "Every second woman in India suffers from some degree of anaemia, two percent are severely anaemic while 35 percent and 15 percent have mild and moderate anaemia levels. Lack of adequate resources prevents women from poor households from using health services," Pallavi Vaishya, nutrition expert, said at a seminar here on women's health. Sunita Godara, fitness expert and former Asian ...

Outdoor Heat Boosts Respiratory Hospitalization Risk

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In the elderly, outdoor heat is linked with a higher risk of emergency hospitalization for respiratory disorders, finds study. "While outdoor heat has been shown to increase respiratory mortality, evidence on the relationship between heat and respiratory hospitalizations has been less consistent," said lead author G. Brooke Anderson, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "In the ...

What's All the Fuss About GM Foods?

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In an age where every field is fast developing, genetics has moved beyond just exploring the genetic structure of living organisms. Enter genetically modified (GM) foods-a cutting edge application of genetics to plant life aimed at increasing the nutritive value and possibly shelf life of fruits and vegetables. So how are these GM foods expected to make a difference? Read on to find out GM foods for world health: The WHO estimates the ...

Biological Passports to Combat Doping

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This year biological passports will be introduced in tennis sport to keep tabs on players and flush out the drug cheats among them, say tennis authorities. International Tennis Federation (ITF) President Ricci Bitti said that the implementation of the Athlete Biological Passport will be a major step in the evolution of the Tennis Anti-Doping Programme as it will help the federation in the fight against doping in tennis, the Mirror reports. The scheme, ...

Red Wine Pill Helps Beat Killer Diseases

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A wonder pill with the health-boosting power of red wine can protect against a host of killer diseases, say scientists. A new study demonstrates what researchers consider conclusive evidence that the red wine compound resveratrol directly activates a protein that promotes health and longevity in animal models. What's more, the researchers have uncovered the molecular mechanism for this interaction, and show that a class of more potent drugs currently ...

New Procedure Lowers Levels of Hunger Hormone

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Use of embolization procedure was found to lower the levels of hunger-stimulating hormone and thereby leading to significant weight loss, finds study. More than two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, conditions that total more than (Dollar) 147 billion in medical costs each year. Excess weight also increases the risk for other conditions, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. "Weight loss is a major problem," ...

Study Says Stressed Proteins can Cause Blood Clots for Hours

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Stressed proteins change their shape and cause dangerous blood clots for hours, reveals study. The scientists were surprised to find that the proteins could remain in the dangerous, clot-initiating shape for up to five hours before returning to their normal, healthy shape. The study -- the first of its kind -- focused on a protein called von Willebrand factor, or VWF, a key player in clot formation. A team led by Rice physicist Ching-Hwa Kiang found that "shear" ...

Disabled Employees at Twice the Risk of Facing Work Abuse

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Physically disabled employees are twice as likely to be the target of insults and ridicule at workplaces, study shows. Researchers from Cardiff and Plymouth universities found that people with physical or psychological disabilities or long-term illness reported higher rates of 21 types of ill-treatment than other workers did, often from their managers and colleagues. These included being given impossible deadlines and being ignored, gossiped about or ...

Scientists Identify Molecular Key to Exhaustion Following Sleep Deprivation

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A molecular key to exhaustion following lack of sleep has been discovered by scientists. The biological term for that pay-the-piper behavior is "sleep homeostasis," and now, thanks to a research team at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, one of the molecular players in this process has been identified - at least in nematode round worms. David Raizen, MD, PhD, assistant professor of Neurology, and his colleagues report ...

Scientists Explore Link Between High BMI and Heart Attack Risk

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Young women who are obese are at an increased risk of heart attack and stroke, finds research. In fact, women with a high body mass index (BMI)-a measure of the body's fat content-that is indicative of obesity were twice as likely as those of normal weight to suffer a potentially life-threatening heart attack or stroke within just four to five years following childbirth. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen said that while these cardiac events are ...

Secret Ingredient of Anti-Wrinkle Creams Identified

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In a recent research published in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics, scientists have found the secret ingredient used in many anti-ageing face creams. In the highly competitive cosmetic industry, companies are reluctant to publish their work and the chemicals used in their beauty products. Hence, it is highly difficult to prove the efficiency of face creams in preventing wrinkles. Researchers from University of Reading have found that the peptide Matrixyl, ...

Self Control Increases With Short Term Moderate Intensity Exercise

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A recent review published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine indicates that exercising for short periods helps boost your self-control. A team of Dutch scientists reviewed previous researches on the effects of exercise on high order brain functions like information processing and emotional control in children, adolescents and young adults. Out of the 24 studies reviewed, 19 focused on the effects of short-term exercise lasting for single 10-40 minute ...

Injecting Drugs Directly into Abdomen Helps Ovarian Cancer Patients Live Longer

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Researchers from Pittsburgh University in their recent research have identified a new method of administering the drugs, which holds the potential to extend the life span of patients suffering from ovarian cancer. According to the charity Target Ovarian Cancer, for the past two decades there has been no advancement to extend the life of patients suffering from ovarian cancer, which is the fifth common cancer among women. The study involved 400 survival ...

Poor Children of Low Income Parents Denied Free School Meals

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In a recent report by the Children's Society brings to light the fact that nearly a million poor children in UK are denied free school meals because their parents are not unemployed but with low income. As per the current government policy, children of parents with below 60% of average income are considered as poor but are not entitled to free school meals. This has forced many children to go hungry and consequently they are reported to lack concentration at schools. According ...

Osteoporosis Drug Gets a Thumbs Down from FDA Review Panel

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Recently an advisory committee has advised FDA to withdraw its support to market the drug, Calcitonin salmon, which is used to treat osteoporosis in postmenopausal women, after reviewing the risk factors and benefits of the drug. Calcitonin salmon, commonly available as a nasal spray, is a synthetic equivalent of calcitonin hormone naturally found in salmon fish. Calcitonin salmon is said to prevent bone fracture and help increase bone density. The panel ...