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Skin Healing in Mice Improved With Acute Psychological Stress

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Three different types of skin irritations healed better in mouse models when subjected to brief and acute psychological stress, found in a study led by UC San Francisco researcher. The scientists found that healing was brought about by the anti-inflammatory effects of glucocorticoids - steroid hormones - produced by the adrenal glands in response to stress. "Under chronic stress, these same naturally-occurring steroids damage the protective functions ...

Experimental Ebola Drug too Early to be Sent to Africa: Obama

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US President Barack Obama claims on Wednesday that it is "premature" to send experimental drugs for the treatment of Ebola to West Africa, hardest hit area by the deadly outbreak. Obama said affected countries should focus on building a "strong public infrastructure," adding: "I think we have to let the science guide us... I don't think all the information is in on whether this drug is helpful." He emphasized that Ebola, a hemorrhagic virus that kills ...

Chennai Doctors Remove 152 Metallic Objects from Woman's Abdomen

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When 35-year-old Lakshmi (name changed), of Vyasarpadi, was brought to the internal medicine department at Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, Chennai, in December 2013 with issues of loss of appetite and weight loss, doctors thought she could be suffering from anaemia. But scanning results of her abdomen shocked them. They spotted several sharp metal objects of varied sizes lodged in her gut. The woman, who had been on medication for a mental illness, ...

Emergency 'All-Hands' Issued by CDC Calling for Ebola Response

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Highest alert for an all-hands on deck response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa was issued by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday. "Ops Center moved to Level 1 response to given the extension to Nigeria (and) potential to affect many lives," CDC chief Tom Frieden said on Twitter. Level 1 is the highest on a 1-6 scale and signals that increased staff and resources will be devoted to the outbreak. "Basically this activation ...

Increased Risk With New Breast Cancer Gene Mutation

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A new gene mutation has been discovered which raises a woman's risk of breast cancer and may be considered the third such inherited gene flaw known to science, researchers said Wednesday. Women with mutations in the PALB2 gene face a one in three chance of getting breast cancer by age 70, said the findings in the New England Journal of Medicine. The other two known gene mutations associated with breast cancer risk, BRCA1 and BRCA2, have been linked to ...

Vote on Legalizing Marijuana in November at US Capital

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Voting whether to follow the states of Colorado and Washington in legalizing marijuana will be decided by the residents of the US capital, following approval of the initiative Wednesday by Board of Elections. Campaigners said they had amassed more than 57,000 signatures -- more than double the number required -- on a petition to include legalization as part of the District of Columbia's November 4 election. Ballot Initiative 71 would permit adults over ...

Red Cross Chief Advises to Use Lessons of AIDS to Fight Ebola

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The new global head of the Red Cross said on Wednesday that the world must learn from the fight against AIDS to help beat the deadliest-ever outbreak of Ebola. While strict measures are needed to defeat Ebola in West Africa, dishing out blame will not help, said Elhadj As Sy, chief of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. "One fundamental lesson to be driven out of the response to HIV, to tuberculosis and malaria, and ...

Organ Donation Among Hispanic Americans Increases With Aggressive Outreach

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Bottom Line: Increase in consent rates for organ donation among Hispanic Americans in the Los Angeles area followed an outreach campaign using local media and culturally sensitive educational programs. Author: Ali Salim, M.D., of Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, and colleagues. Background: Nearly 20 people die each day waiting for an organ transplant. The organ shortage affects all ethnic groups but is more pronounced in minority ...

Honeybee Mitochondrial Activity Reduced With Fipronil and Imidacloprid

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Effects of two broad-spectrum systemic insecticides, fipronil and imidacloprid, on honeybees was highlighted in a new research published in iEnvironmental Toxicology and Chemistry/i. These insecticides are widely used in agriculture, and the authors conclude that fipronil and imidacloprid are inhibitors of mitochondrial bioenergetics, resulting in depleted cell energy. This action can explain the toxicity of these compounds for honeybees. Scientists are urgently ...

Ethics Meeting Over Experimental Ebola Drug Called by WHO

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An ethics meet to explore the use of experimental treatment in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa was called for by WHO, they said on Wednesday. The move comes after two health workers from the US charity Samaritan's Purse were treated with medication that the WHO said had never been tested and shown to be safe in people. "We are in an unusual situation in this outbreak. We have a disease with a high fatality rate without any proven treatment or vaccine," ...

Ebola 'Out of Control', Fears Nigeria, Amid New Cases

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After a second death due to Ebola among seven confirmed cases in Lagos, the death toll of Ebola epidemic neared 1,000 Wednesday, as fear rose that the disease is going "out of control". The spread of the disease comes as the World Health Organization (WHO) met in an emergency session in Geneva to decide whether to declare an international crisis. The latest official toll across West Africa hit 932 deaths since the start of the year, it said Wednesday, ...

Dementia Risk 4 Times More in Persons With Mild Cognitive Impairment

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Risk of dementia or Alzheimer's disease was found to be 4 times more in persons with mild cognitive impairment compared to cognitively healthy persons, found researchers in a long-term, large-scale population-based study of individuals aged 55 years or older in the general population. Several risk factors including older age, positive APOE- (and) #603;4 status, low total cholesterol levels, and stroke, as well as specific MRI findings were associated with an increased risk of developing ...

Low Participation in Colorectal Cancer Screening by African Americans

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Participation in colorectal cancer screening is low and the use of colonoscopy is infrequent among African Americans despite similar access to care across races in Veterans Affairs healthcare system, reveal the researchers in California. The researchers also found that having established primary care at the time of screening eligibility significantly increased screening uptake. The study appears in the August issue of iGastrointestinal Endoscopy/i, the monthly peer-reviewed ...

Stress During Pregnancy can be Passed Down Through Generations, Says Study

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A new study published in BMC Medicine finds pregnancies in four generations of rats show that inherited epigenetic effects of stress could affect pregnancies for generations. Researchers from the University of Lethbridge in Canada wanted to investigate how preterm births are influenced by stress. Preterm birth is one of the leading causes of neonatal death and can lead to health problems later in life. They examined the length of pregnancies in rats because ...

Renal Osteodystrophy / Mineral Bone Disorder

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Renal Osteodystrophy which is referred to as Mineral Bone Disorder is a result of imbalance in calcium, phosphorus, parathyroid hormone and Vitamin D levels.

Esophageal Disorders

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Esophagus is the tubular structure that carries food, liquids and saliva from mouth to the stomach. Esophagal disorders are common but lack a well-defined pathogenetic mechanism.

Nasal Test for Human Prion Disease Developed

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National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists have developed a nasal brush test that can rapidly and accurately diagnose Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. (CJD). Up to now, a definitive CJD diagnosis requires testing brain tissue obtained after death or by biopsy in living patients. The study describing the less invasive nasal test appears in the Aug. 7 issue of the iNew England Journal of Medicine/i. CJD is a prion disease. These diseases ...

Nigeria Confirms Five More Ebola Cases

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Turn Up the Music to Feel All Pumped Up and Powerful

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Listening to music, especially high levels of 'bass', helps one feel all pumped up and powerful, finds a new study. Dennis Hsu from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University said that they had noted how athletes usually keep their earphones on while entering the stadium and in the locker room, as if the music was mentally preparing and toughening them up for the competition about to occur. Curious with observations, the researchers wanted ...

Marital Conflict Adversely Impacts Parent's Bond With Kids

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Marital conflict adversely impacts each parent's relationship with their children, shows new study. The lead author of the study, psychologist Chrystyna D. Kouros, Southern Methodist University said that children suffer consequences when mom and dad argue or have tension in their relationship, and while moms compartmentalize marital conflict after first day, dads let the negative emotions and tension from their marriage spill over and harm the bond they have with ...

Protecting Wildlife Goes Hi-Tech

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In Africa, those who want to protect elephants and rhinoceroses often face dangerous criminal traffickers who are bold, enterprising and well-equipped, leaders said at the US-Africa summit this week. For that reason, some African heads of state appealed for more helicopters to protect wildlife ranges, and sophisticated scanners for inspecting cargo for hidden tusks and horns that can sell for more than gold. But during a discussion on wildlife trafficking, ...

Prison Smoking Bans Associated With Substantial Fall in Deaths Among US Inmates

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A US study published on thebmj.com. finds that prison smoking bans are associated with a substantial reduction in deaths from smoking related causes, such as heart disease and cancer. Smoking related deaths were cut by up to 11% in state prisons with long-term bans in place. In the United States at year end 2011, there were 1.4 million people in state prisons. Fifty to 83 percent of people in prison smoke - substantially higher than the general population outside ...

Pregnant Women are Often Given Inappropriate Malaria Treatment

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Not all pregnant women with malaria symptoms seek care from their formal healthcare system. And if they do seek care, they may be given inappropriate treatment because healthcare providers often fail to adhere to the standard (World Health Organization-WHO) diagnostic and treatment guidelines, according to a study by UK researchers published in this week's iPLOS Medicine/i. The authors (led by Jenny Hill from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine) ...

Dutch Test-Tube Cookbook Boasts Dodo Nuggets

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Dutch-based scientists, artists and chefs launched the world's first cookbook for lab-grown meat - serving up a bizarre assortment of test-tube dishes including roast raptor leg, dodo nuggets and in-vitro oysters. "The In Vitro Meat Cookbook" was unveiled in Amsterdam exactly a year after scientists revealed the world's first lab-grown beef burger in London, in what is hoped to spark a global food revolution. The 186-page cookbook, based on the idea ...

Sierra Leone Deploys Troops to Ebola Clinics

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The president's office reveal that the government of Sierra Leone has deployed hundreds of troops to Ebola clinics, to enforce the isolation of patients. A presidential aide told AFP the soldiers would "deter relatives and friends of suspected and Ebola patients from forcefully taking them from hospitals without medical consent". Ebola, a deadly tropical virus which causes severe fever and, in the worst cases, unstoppable internal and external bleeding, ...

Spanish Missionary Working in Liberia Tests Positive for Ebola

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A Spanish missionary working in Liberia has tested positive for the deadly Ebola virus, said the aid organisation he works for. Miguel Pajares, a 75-year-old Roman Catholic priest, tested positive for the disease at a hospital in the Liberian capital Monrovia where he worked, Spanish charity Juan Ciudad ONGD said in a statement. He has worked in Liberia for over five decades, the last seven years at the Saint Joseph Hospital in Monrovia. Pajares ...

Children in Immigrant Families More Likely to be Sedentary: Study

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Immigrant children from all racial and ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be sedentary than U.S.-born white children, suggests a new study by sociologists at Rice University. The researchers said their findings should remind pediatricians and parents of children in immigrant families to encourage physical activity. The research revealed that children of immigrants from all racial and ethnic backgrounds have lower levels of physical activity than ...

Careless Use of Broad-Spectrum Antibiotic Bred Baby-Threatening Germ

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In the 1950s, careless use of a broad-spectrum antibiotic created a "hyper-virulent" strain of germ that worsened risks for newborn babies, according to detective work by French-led gene scientists. Today's strain of Streptococcus agalactiae results from massive over-use of tetracycline in the post-World War II antibiotics boom, they reported in the journal Nature Communications on Monday. Strains of the microbe that were sensitive to tetracycline were ...

Study Provides New Information on Transcranial Ultrasound Therapy

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At the University of Eastern Finland, a recent study provides new information on the limitations and potential new directions for the future development of transcranial ultrasound therapy. Active research is taking place in the field of transcranial ultrasound therapy, which in the future can potentially be applied to the treatment of brain tumours and targeted drug delivery. The therapy modality has already been successfully applied to the treatment of neuropathic ...

Number of Male Teens Drinking Alcohol in India Has Increased More Than Threefold

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Shocking results of a new survey published online in the iJournal of Epidemiology (and) Community Health/i reveals the proportion of men who start to drink alcohol in their teens has surged more than threefold over the past few decades in India. Those living in urban areas and poorer households are more likely to start drinking at an early age, the findings show. Studies from high-income countries have shown that starting drinking early in life is a ...

FDA Implements New Guidelines for Gluten-free Labeling

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented new guidelines for labeling packaged foods as gluten-free. According to the new norm, the gluten-free claim can only be made on foods containing less than 20-parts-per million of gluten. The rule came into effect last Tuesday. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration announced strict guidelines for "gluten-free" packaging. But the administration gave manufacturers until August 5th, 2014 to make the switch. ...