Canadian Online Pharmacy

Medindia Health News

Medindia Health News

Link to Medindia Health News

After 60, Women Need to Exercise Only Once a Week to Improve Health

Posted:

Women over age 60 may need to exercise only one day a week to significantly improve strength and endurance, says a new study. The study, by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), monitored 63 women performing combined aerobic exercise training (AET) and resistance exercise training (RET) for 16 weeks. One group performed AET and RET one time per week, a second group two times per week and a third group three times per week. The ...

Canine Beauty Pageant Under Way in Switzerland

Posted:

The biggest canine beauty pageant in Europe will play host to than 11,000 dogs in Geneva this weekend. "Grooming is really important," explains Steinar Balken as he repeatedly whips a brush through the long silky white fur of his small five-year-old Japanese Spitz called AL-x. "The brushing is also good for calming the nerves -- both his and mine," says the 58-year-old Norwegian, bending down to rub noses with AL-x, who is balancing on a small folding ...

Don't Watch Your Back, Watch Your Hair in Venezuela

Posted:

In addition to petty street crimes, Venezuelans are now having to be careful of muggers who chop off their hair. Members of the scissor-wielding street gangs are called piranas, after the flesh-eating fish. The gangs sell the stolen hair to salons which fashion it into braids in this oil-rich and beauty-obsessed country. Some disconsolate women have given up and had their long hair cut off preemptively to donate it to children who lose theirs ...

Japanese Haunted Houses Send Shivers Down the Spine

Posted:

Summer is traditionally viewed in Japan as a time when the spirit world makes its presence felt. August sees millions of Japanese return to their home towns for the Obon season, in which relatives gather to temporarily welcome back the spirits of their dead forebears. Despite its association with the deceased, Obon is a cheerful period that frequently involves fireworks and dancing in "yukata", a light summer kimono. But it's also a time ...

Face of Sleep Deprivation Revealed in New Study

Posted:

Sleep deprivation affects facial features such as the eyes, mouth and skin, a new study has revealed, adding that these features function as cues of sleep loss to other people. Results show that the faces of sleep-deprived individuals were perceived as having more hanging eyelids, redder eyes, more swollen eyes and darker circles under the eyes. Sleep deprivation also was associated with paler skin, more wrinkles or fine lines, and more droopy corners of the mouth. ...

Low-Income Patients can Avail Free Dialysis in Delhi

Posted:

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit has announced that people with yearly income of less than Rs.3 lakh would be given free dialysis treatment in Delhi. She made the announcement while inaugurating the first-ever public private partnership (PPP) model dialysis unit at the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital in north Delhi. "It gives me immense satisfaction to announce that people with income of less than Rs.3 lakh will be given free dialysis treatment ...

How was Iced Chocolate Pudding Made in 1668?

Posted:

A new report reveals the the oldest known English recipe for iced chocolate pudding. According to the set of instructions from 1668, people in the 17th century used snow- which would have been collected and stored in an ice house, Metro.co.uk reported. The recipe reads: 'Prepare the chocolatti (to make a drink) and Then Putt the vessell that hath the Chocolatti in it, into a Jaraffa of snow stirred together with some salt, and shaike the snow together ...

Brain Connections Responsible for Perceiving Social Cues Severed by Alcohol

Posted:

Acute alcohol intoxication reduces communication between two areas of the brain that are responsible for perceiving social cues, a new study has claimed. K. Luan Phan from University of Illinois at Chicago professor of psychiatry and colleagues examined alcohol's effects on connectivity between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex during the processing of emotional stimuli - photographs of happy, fearful and angry faces - using functional magnetic resonance imaging, ...

20 Percent Increase in Lifespan of Mice Possible Via Single Gene Change

Posted:

The average lifespan of a group of mice has been extended by about 20 percent via lowering the expression of a single gene by researchers at the National Institutes of Health. This is equivalent of raising the average human lifespan by 16 years, from 79 to 95. The research team targeted a gene called mTOR, which is involved in metabolism and energy balance, and may be connected with the increased lifespan associated with caloric restriction. A ...

In African Americans, Socioeconomic Status is a Significant Barrier to Living Kidney Donation

Posted:

A study in an upcoming issue of the iJournal of the American Society of Nephrology/i (JASN) says that socioeconomic status is a more important barrier to living kidney donation than cultural factors. The findings may be useful for determining ways to increase living kidney donation in the United States. Living donor kidney transplantation is the treatment of choice for patients with kidney failure. It is well described that African American patients ...

Deaths and Disabilities can be Reduced by Stroke Systems of Care

Posted:

A new American Heart Association/American Stroke Association policy statement says that several key elements in systems of care can reduce stroke deaths and disabilities. The statement is published in the journal iStroke/i. Stroke is the number four cause of death and a leading cause of adult disability in the United States. On average, every 4 minutes someone dies of a stroke. The policy statement addresses patients' care from the time stroke ...

Complex Facial Reconstructions can be Simplified by Virtual Surgical Planning

Posted:

A new report indicates that virtual surgical planning technologies give surgeons a powerful new tool for their most challenging facial reconstruction cases. The full paper appears in the September issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (Regd) , the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons/a (ASPS). "Use of virtual surgical planning allows for complex maxillofacial reconstruction with multiple simultaneous free flaps to be preformed reliably ...

Susceptibility to Prostate Cancer Increased by Mutations in a Gene That Impacts Immune Function

Posted:

Mutations in the gene BTNL2 increase the risk of developing prostate cancer, according to a team of researchers led by Janet Stanford, Ph.D, of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. BTNL2 encodes a protein involved in regulating T-cell proliferation and cytokine production; both of which impact immune function. The findings, by Stanford and colleagues from the University of Washington Genome Sciences Department and the National Human Genome Research Institute, ...

Gene That Causes Devastating Mitochondrial Diseases Identified

Posted:

A novel disease gene in which mutations cause rare but devastating genetic diseases known as mitochondrial disorders has been identified by researchers. Nine rare, disease-causing mutations of the gene, FBXL4, were found in nine affected children in seven families, including three siblings from the same family. An international team of researchers report the discovery in the iAmerican Journal of Human Genetics/i. The lead author is Xiaowu Gai, PhD, ...

Obesity and Anemia Lead to Hospital Readmissions in Plastic Surgery Patients

Posted:

A new study says that obesity, anemia and postoperative complications are independent risk factors for hospital readmission for patients undergoing plastic and reconstructive surgery procedures. The study appears in the September issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (Regd) , the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). "Patients experiencing postoperative surgical complications were six times more likely to be readmitted," write ...

U-M Doctor Says It is Time for Tech Transfer Law to Change

Posted:

A University of Michigan Medical School physician and medical historian says that the law that has helped medical discoveries make the leap from university labs to the marketplace for more than 30 years needs revising. In a new commentary in the iNew England Journal of Medicine/i, Howard Markel, M.D., Ph.D., director of the U-M Center for the History of Medicine, looks at the fluke-ridden history of how the law known as Bayh-Dole Technology Transfer Act was ...

Protein That Protects Nucleus also Regulates Stem Cell Differentiation, Penn Study Reveals

Posted:

Hundreds of different cell types, all with the same basic DNA are present in the human body. The surprising fact is that all of these cells can ultimately be traced back to identical stem cells. Despite this fundamental similarity, a bone cell has little in common with a brain cell when it comes to appearance or function. The fact that bone is rigid and mechanically distinct from soft fat or brain had been speculated to play some role in differentiation to new cells ...

Molecular Mechanism That may Cause Toxic Protein Buildup in Dementia Mapped

Posted:

Studying the diseases of the brain is a massive challenge for researchers as extracting brain cells, or neurons, from a living patient is difficult and risky. At the same time, examining a patient's brain post-mortem usually only reveals the disease's final stages. And animal models, while incredibly informative, have frequently fallen short during the crucial drug-development stage of research. But scientists at the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California, ...

Research Indicates Some Breast Cancer Cells Are Primed to Thrive

Posted:

Some loose breast cancer cells are more likely to prosper in bone tissue due to the genes that they express, a team of researchers at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has discovered. The team also found that whether or not cancer cells turn on those genes depends on what their surroundings were like in the primary breast tumor. If the breast tumor had molecular patterns similar to those found in bone, the tumor is more likely to spread to bone later. "It''s ...

Health Consequences of 'Safe' Levels of Environmental Pollution Elaborated

Posted:

New research indicates that pollution could be the reason if you are not seeing any health improvements despite eating better and exercising regularly. According to the research report published in the September issue of The FASEB Journal, what you are eating and doing may not be the problem, but what's in what you are eating could be the culprit. "This study adds evidences for rethinking the way of addressing risk assessment especially when considering ...

Statins Prevent Cataracts: Study

Posted:

Statins can prevent cataracts - the leading cause of visual impairment worldwide affecting more than 20 million people, reveals study. Professor Kostis said: "There is persistent concern among physicians and other health care providers about the possible cataractogenicity of statins.1 We therefore investigated the relationship of statins and cataracts in a meta-analysis of 14 studies selected after detailed review of the medical literature. To our knowledge ...

Wine Helps Beat Depression Blues

Posted:

Several glasses of wine each week may help protect your mental health, says study. Researchers in Spain have found that drinking moderate amounts of alcohol especially wine was linked with a lower risk of depression, Fox News reported. Older men and women who consumed two to seven small glasses of wine weekly were 32 percent less likely to suffer from depression compared with people who never drank alcohol, the study revealed. These ...

Pill to Prevent Strokes and Heart Attacks, Coming Soon

Posted:

An important platelet protein that may offer a new angle for developing drugs to prevent strokes and heart attacks has been discovered by scientists. Lead study author Stephen Holly, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry and biophysics at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, said that I think we're at the start of an exciting journey of drug discovery for a new class of antithrombotic therapies. In the human circulatory system, ...

New Form of Imaging PET/MRI Improves Diagnosis for Several Types of Cancer

Posted:

Researchers from University Hospitals Case Medical Center have published findings that a new form of imaging PET/MRI is promising for several types of cancer. In an article titled "PET/MRI: Applications in Clinical Imaging," published in the September issue of iCurrent Radiology Reports/i, the authors outline their initial clinical experience in diagnosing and staging cancer patients with this novel technology. Working in collaboration with researchers from ...

Gestational Diabetes Risk Pointed Out With Pre-Pregnancy Hormone Testing

Posted:

Overweight women with low levels of the hormone adiponectin prior to pregnancy are nearly seven times more likely to develop gestational diabetes, according to a Kaiser Permanente study published today in the journal iDiabetes Care/i. Adiponectin protects against insulin resistance, inflammation and heart disease. Using Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect (Regd) , an electronic health records system, the researchers retrospectively identified about 4,000 women who gave ...