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Allergy News
Tree Pollen Count High In Chicago As Spring Starts Today's tree pollen count in Chicago is 1600, which is 100 more than the 1500 limit, which indicates a dangerous air quality warning. Dr. Joseph Leija, who performs the official allergy count for the Midwest states: "After only seven days of allergy count recording, we are documenting the first air quality alert in the 2012 allergy reporting season.	22 Mar 2012
Improved Peanut Allergy Diagnosis Researchers from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and the University of Melbourne have identified a new way to accurately test for peanut allergy.It is hoped the test will be more cost effective and convenient than standard approaches and minimise over-diagnosis of peanut allergy in the community.	22 Mar 2012

Alzheimer's / Dementia News
Overweight Early Elderly Have Higher Brain Decline Risk People over the aged from 60 to 70 years with high levels of visceral fat (fat tummies) have a greater risk of brain decline, compared to those of normal weight, researchers from South Korea reported in the journal Age and Ageing.	22 Mar 2012
Predicting Patterns Of Brain Damage In Dementia Two breakthrough studies may explain why we see distinct patterns of brain damage associated with dementias, such as Alzheimer's disease, and could be useful for predicting future cognitive decline in patients.	22 Mar 2012
Alzheimer's Improvements Seen In Mice Infected With Toxoplasma gondii Parasite The parasite Toxoplasma gondii has some favorable effects on the pathogenesis and progression of a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, reports a study in the open access journal PLoS ONE.Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite commonly hosted in cats and generally known for the potential complications it can cause for human pregnancies, suppressed the immune system.	22 Mar 2012
Alzheimer's Disease - Antioxidants Have No Effect On Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers According to a study published Online First by Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, have found no association between an antioxidant combination of vitamin E, vitamin C and α-lipoic acid (E/C/ALA) and changes in some cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers related to Alzheimer's disease.	22 Mar 2012
Potential Predictive Test For Alzheimer's Disease New research in humans reveals that the so-called FKBP52 protein may prevent the Tau protein from turning pathogenic. This may prove significant for the development of new Alzheimer's drugs and for detecting the disease before the onset of clinical symptoms.	22 Mar 2012

Autism News
Clues To Autism Mystery Offered By Novel Mouse Model Early disruptions in serotonin signaling in the brain may contribute to autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and other "enduring effects on behavior," Vanderbilt University researchers report.Serotonin is a brain chemical that carries signals across the synapse, or gap between nerve cells.	22 Mar 2012

Bipolar News
2nd Generation Anti-Psychotic Drugs Publication Bias According to a study published in PLoS Medicine, trials of second-generation anti-psychotic drugs, i.e. newer forms of medications for the treatment of psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia, that have been published in medical journals, may embellish their apparent clinical effectiveness.	22 Mar 2012

Bird Flu / Avian Flu News

News From The Journals Of The American Society For Microbiology: March 2012 High Pressure Kills Pathogens, Maintains Green Onions' Taste and Color Green onions cause about five percent of outbreaks of food poisoning from produce, worldwide. Now a team of researchers from the University of Delaware, Newark, shows that high pressure treatment of green onions can kill various strains of Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Salmonella enterica, two major sources of food poisoning.

22 Mar 2012

Blood / Hematology News
News From The Journal Of Clinical Investigation: March 26, 2012 ONCOLOGYPromise of new treatment options for chemotherapy-resistant breast cancers p53 is lost or functionally impaired in many human cancers, and its absence is often associated with a poor response to conventional chemotherapy.	22 Mar 2012

Bones / Orthopedics News
New Discovery Of Proteins Involved In Positioning Muscular Nuclei In order to move, living beings need muscles, and, more specifically, skeletal muscles that are controlled by the nervous system. Skeletal muscles are composed of cylindrical muscle fibres with a multitude of peripheral nuclei.	22 Mar 2012

Breast Cancer News
Significant Numbers Of Lives Saved By Breast Cancer Screening And Better Treatment A Dutch study of the effectiveness of breast cancer screening shows that, even with improved treatments for the disease, population-based mammography programmes still save a significant number of lives.	22 Mar 2012
Women With A Family History Of Breast Cancer But No Genetic Predisposition Adding magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to standard breast cancer screening approaches is expensive, though it could be cost effective for a group of women who may not have inherited the breast cancer susceptibility genes, but who have a familial risk of developing the disease.	22 Mar 2012
Significant Drop In Deaths, Limited Harm And Reasonable Costs Shown By 20-Year Results From Breast Cancer Screening Program Results from one of the longest-running national breast cancer screening programmes have shown that it has contributed to a drop in deaths from the disease, that any harm caused by the screening, such as false positives and over-diagnosis, has been limited, and that the costs have been reasonable.	22 Mar 2012
Dense Breasts Can Nearly Double The Risk Of Breast Cancer Recurrence Women aged 50 and over with breasts that have a high percentage of dense tissue are at greater risk of their breast cancer recurring, according to Swedish research presented at the eighth European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC-8) in Vienna.	22 Mar 2012
News From The Journal Of Clinical Investigation: March 26, 2012 ONCOLOGYPromise of new treatment options for chemotherapy-resistant breast cancers p53 is lost or functionally impaired in many human cancers, and its absence is often associated with a poor response to conventional chemotherapy.	22 Mar 2012

Cancer / Oncology News
Vemurafenib Effective For Some Metastatic Melanoma Patients Results from a phase II multi-center clinical trial involving 132 patients with previously treated BRAF V600-mutant metastatic melanoma, indicate that vemurafenib (PLX4032) - an oral BRAF inhibitor - offered a high rate of response in some patients.	22 Mar 2012
New Cancer Test Is Cheap, Accurate And Fast This month's issue of the online EMBO Molecular Medicine Journal reports that researchers from the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have discovered a rapid, precise and cost-efficient way to identify cancer-causing rearrangements of genetic material, called chromosomal translocations that occur in the tumor cells of many cancers.	22 Mar 2012
Potential Strategy Aims To Stimulate The Immune System To Defeat Cancers A new finding in basic science should trigger a "change in thinking" about how cancer drugs might be developed and tested for maximum effectiveness, says Louis M. Weiner, M.D., director of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, in a "Clinical Implications of Basic Research" article titled Tumor-Cell Death, Autophagy, and Immunity published in the March 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).	22 Mar 2012
The Cost Effectiveness Of US Cancer Prevention Services Prevention is better than cure; however, when it comes to screening for cancer new research shows that U.S. health services are not as cost-effective as international, and publically run, counterparts.	22 Mar 2012

Cardiovascular / Cardiology News
Heart Failure Congress 2012, The Largest - In Belgrade, Serbia This year's world's largest Heart Failure Congress in Belgrade, Serbia (19-22 May 2012) will devote four days of scientific sessions to the latest advances and controversies in heart failure, with a presentation of trial results from drugs and devices at the meeting.	22 Mar 2012
New Heart Attack Predicting Blood Test Developed A blood test that can predict whether a person is at high risk of suffering from a heart attack has been developed by researchers at Scripps Translational Science Institute, and published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.	22 Mar 2012
Potential New Blood Test To Predict Heart Attack Could Help More Than 2.5 Million Americans New findings from a landmark research study led by Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) - a collaborative program between Scripps Health and The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) - shows a promising new blood test may be useful in helping doctors predict who is at risk for an imminent heart attack.	22 Mar 2012
Adrenaline Shots May Cause Long Term Harm Giving a pre-hospital shot of adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, to someone with cardiac arrest may help restore circulation in the short term, but could do them harm in the long term, according to a large new study from Japan published in JAMA on Wednesday that suggests it may be a case of saving the heart at the cost of the brain.	22 Mar 2012
New Atrial Fibrillation Guidelines The Canadian Journal of Cardiology has published a focused update to the Canadian Cardiovascular Society's atrial fibrillation guidelines.Atrial fibrillation is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and is a significant cause of stroke, illness in general, and death.	22 Mar 2012

Cervical Cancer / HPV Vaccine News
The Cost Effectiveness Of US Cancer Prevention Services Prevention is better than cure; however, when it comes to screening for cancer new research shows that U.S. health services are not as cost-effective as international, and publically run, counterparts.	22 Mar 2012

Clinical Trials / Drug Trials News
Potential 'Break Through' In Pancreatic Cancer Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) have discovered a literal 'break through' in pancreatic cancer.A unique biological barrier that pancreatic cancer tumors build around themselves have made them especially resistant to chemotherapy treatments, according to the Hutchinson Center/TGen study published in the highly-regarded journal Cancer Cell.	22 Mar 2012
Clinicians May Be Mislead Over Effectiveness Of Newer Anti-Psychotic Drugs A study in this week's PLoS Medicine suggests that the apparent clinical effectiveness of the newer form of drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses (second-generation anti-psychotic drugs) may be enhanced by the selective reporting of trials of these drugs in medical journals - a phenomenon called publication bias.	22 Mar 2012

Colorectal Cancer News
Colorectal Cancer Screening Rates Shown To Be High In Patients With Multiple Health Problems A study by University of Kentucky researchers showed that in Appalachia, colorectal cancer screening rates were higher in the population with multiple morbidities or diseases compared to those who had no morbidities at all.	22 Mar 2012

Conferences News

NHS Informatics: Delivering A Successful Information Revolution, 19th September 2012, The Barbican, London The Department of Health has called for an 'information revolution', which will be defined by transparency and accessibility, and is critical for quality improvements. To achieve this, data management is moving from being the sole domain of informatics professionals to the concern of all working within the NHS.

22 Mar 2012

Cosmetic Medicine / Plastic Surgery News
Inhibitor Causing Male Pattern Baldness Discovered A study published in Science Translational Medicine, from the University of Pennsylvania, explains that scientists looking for the holy grail in beauty treatment have discovered an abnormal quantity of a protein, called Prostaglandin D2, present in the scalp of bald men, that they think may be responsible for their hair loss.	22 Mar 2012

Crohn's / IBD News
Critical Mechanism Of Neuron Death Discovered In Intestinal Inflammation Has Implications For IBD Researchers from the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) and the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine have discovered a pathway that may contribute to the symptoms related to Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively known as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).	22 Mar 2012
Bowel Disease Model Reveals Low-Calorie Diet Linked To Higher Death Rate In a surprising result, Michigan State University researchers looking at the effects of diet on bowel disease found that mice on a calorie-restricted diet were more likely to die after being infected with an inflammation-causing bacterial pathogen in the colon.	22 Mar 2012

Depression News
New Physiological Target For Various Aspects Of Neuropsychiatric Diseases What characterizes many people with depression, schizophrenia and some other mental illnesses is anhedonia: an inability to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences.Exactly why this happens is unclear.	22 Mar 2012
Potential Link Between Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy And Hypertension Use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants during pregnancy appears to be linked with increased risk of pregnancy induced high blood pressure ("hypertension"), but a causal link has not been established.	22 Mar 2012

Dermatology News
Inhibitor Causing Male Pattern Baldness Discovered A study published in Science Translational Medicine, from the University of Pennsylvania, explains that scientists looking for the holy grail in beauty treatment have discovered an abnormal quantity of a protein, called Prostaglandin D2, present in the scalp of bald men, that they think may be responsible for their hair loss.	22 Mar 2012
African American Styling Practices And The Risk Of Hair And Scalp Diseases Henry Ford Hospital dermatologist Diane Jackson-Richards, M.D., who is the director of the Multicultural Dermatology Clinic, states that some African Americans can develop serious hair and scalp diseases through styling practices, saying: "Hair is an extremely important aspect of an African-American woman's appearance.	22 Mar 2012
Promising Therapeutic Target For Androgenetic Alopecia In Both Men And Women With Hair Loss And Thinning Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have identified an abnormal amount a protein called Prostaglandin D2 in the bald scalp of men with male pattern baldness, a discovery that may lead directly to new treatments for the most common cause of hair loss in men.	22 Mar 2012

Diabetes News
Artificial Pancreas Testing Approved For Outpatients, USA The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a key testing phase for an artificial pancreas developed by researchers of the University of Virginia, which could potentially automate care for millions of type-1 diabetics.	22 Mar 2012

Ear, Nose and Throat News

Tree Pollen Count High In Chicago As Spring Starts Today's tree pollen count in Chicago is 1600, which is 100 more than the 1500 limit, which indicates a dangerous air quality warning. Dr. Joseph Leija, who performs the official allergy count for the Midwest states: "After only seven days of allergy count recording, we are documenting the first air quality alert in the 2012 allergy reporting season.

22 Mar 2012

Fertility News
Reproductive Capabilities May Be Affected By BPA Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found evidence that, in addition to affecting the heart, brain and nervous system, bisphenol A (BPA), could affect a mammal's ability to reproduce by altering the structure of the uterus in ways that can progress to a potentially fatal infection.	22 Mar 2012

GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology News
Critical Mechanism Of Neuron Death Discovered In Intestinal Inflammation Has Implications For IBD Researchers from the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) and the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine have discovered a pathway that may contribute to the symptoms related to Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively known as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).	22 Mar 2012
Hernia Repair - Open Surgery Versus Minimally Invasive Techniques Compared A study published in the March issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals reveals that total extraperitoneal inguinal hernioplasty (TEP), a minimally invasive surgery for hernia repair, is linked to lower damage of inguinal (groin) sensation, higher patient satisfaction, as well as less chronic pain than open Lichtenstein repair.	22 Mar 2012

Genetics News
New Cancer Test Is Cheap, Accurate And Fast This month's issue of the online EMBO Molecular Medicine Journal reports that researchers from the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have discovered a rapid, precise and cost-efficient way to identify cancer-causing rearrangements of genetic material, called chromosomal translocations that occur in the tumor cells of many cancers.	22 Mar 2012
Neurodegenerative Disorders In Humans And Fruit Flies Caused By Same Gene Mutations A collaborative study published in the March 20 issue of the online, open access journal PLoS Biology, reveals that scientists from the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University have discovered that neurodegenerative disorders that occur in both fruit flies and humans are caused by mutations in the same gene that encodes part of the vital machinery of the mitochondrion.	22 Mar 2012
Women With A Family History Of Breast Cancer But No Genetic Predisposition Adding magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to standard breast cancer screening approaches is expensive, though it could be cost effective for a group of women who may not have inherited the breast cancer susceptibility genes, but who have a familial risk of developing the disease.	22 Mar 2012
Personality Traits Traced In Brain A personality profile marked by overly gregarious yet anxious behavior is rooted in abnormal development of a circuit hub buried deep in the front center of the brain, say scientists at the National Institutes of Health.	22 Mar 2012

Heart Disease News
New Heart Attack Predicting Blood Test Developed A blood test that can predict whether a person is at high risk of suffering from a heart attack has been developed by researchers at Scripps Translational Science Institute, and published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.	22 Mar 2012
Potential New Blood Test To Predict Heart Attack Could Help More Than 2.5 Million Americans New findings from a landmark research study led by Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) - a collaborative program between Scripps Health and The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) - shows a promising new blood test may be useful in helping doctors predict who is at risk for an imminent heart attack.	22 Mar 2012

HIV / AIDS News
Human Immunodeficiency Virus In Late-Stage AIDS Inhibited By Marijuana-Like Chemicals Mount Sinai School of Medicine researchers have discovered that marijuana-like chemicals trigger receptors on human immune cells that can directly inhibit a type of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) found in late-stage AIDS, according to new findings published online in the journal PLoS ONE.	22 Mar 2012

Hypertension News
Potential Link Between Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy And Hypertension Use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants during pregnancy appears to be linked with increased risk of pregnancy induced high blood pressure ("hypertension"), but a causal link has not been established.	22 Mar 2012
Blood Pressure Can Be Raised By Pain Relievers Diseases such as kidney failure and endocrine tumors are among the suspects causing high blood pressure - but could the common pain relievers in your medicine cabinet be the culprit?According to Prof.	22 Mar 2012

Immune System / Vaccines News
Critical Mechanism Of Neuron Death Discovered In Intestinal Inflammation Has Implications For IBD Researchers from the Hotchkiss Brain Institute (HBI) and the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases at the University of Calgary's Faculty of Medicine have discovered a pathway that may contribute to the symptoms related to Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively known as Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD).	22 Mar 2012
Potential Strategy Aims To Stimulate The Immune System To Defeat Cancers A new finding in basic science should trigger a "change in thinking" about how cancer drugs might be developed and tested for maximum effectiveness, says Louis M. Weiner, M.D., director of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center, in a "Clinical Implications of Basic Research" article titled Tumor-Cell Death, Autophagy, and Immunity published in the March 22 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).	22 Mar 2012
Alzheimer's Improvements Seen In Mice Infected With Toxoplasma gondii Parasite The parasite Toxoplasma gondii has some favorable effects on the pathogenesis and progression of a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, reports a study in the open access journal PLoS ONE.Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite commonly hosted in cats and generally known for the potential complications it can cause for human pregnancies, suppressed the immune system.	22 Mar 2012
Bowel Disease Model Reveals Low-Calorie Diet Linked To Higher Death Rate In a surprising result, Michigan State University researchers looking at the effects of diet on bowel disease found that mice on a calorie-restricted diet were more likely to die after being infected with an inflammation-causing bacterial pathogen in the colon.	22 Mar 2012
Why Getting Healthy Can Seem Worse Than Getting Sick A new article in The Quarterly Review of Biology helps explain why the immune system often makes us worse while trying to make us well.The research offers a new perspective on a component of the immune system known as the acute-phase response, a series of systemic changes in blood protein levels, metabolic function, and physiology that sometimes occurs when bacteria, viruses, or other pathogens invade the body.	22 Mar 2012

Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses News
Respiratory Syncytial Virus May Cause Complications In Kids Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is a common virus that causes infections of the lungs and respiratory tract. Although symptoms are usually mild and mimic the common cold in adults and older, healthy children, RSV can be severe in infants and young children with underlying health conditions.	22 Mar 2012
Disclosing Surgical Site Infections - Rates Vary Across US States According to a study by Johns Hopkins, just 21 states in the USA are required to report hospital data on surgical site infections publicly. Furthermore, even when this data is made public, it is usually difficult to access for individuals who could use it in order to make decisions regarding their medical care.	22 Mar 2012
Alzheimer's Improvements Seen In Mice Infected With Toxoplasma gondii Parasite The parasite Toxoplasma gondii has some favorable effects on the pathogenesis and progression of a mouse model of Alzheimer's disease, reports a study in the open access journal PLoS ONE.Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite commonly hosted in cats and generally known for the potential complications it can cause for human pregnancies, suppressed the immune system.	22 Mar 2012
First Rhinosinusitis Guidelines Help Doctors Distinguish Between Bacterial And Viral Cause The vast majority of sinus infections are caused by viruses and should not be treated with antibiotics, suggest new guidelines released by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA).Nearly one in seven people are diagnosed with a sinus infection each year.	22 Mar 2012
Why Getting Healthy Can Seem Worse Than Getting Sick A new article in The Quarterly Review of Biology helps explain why the immune system often makes us worse while trying to make us well.The research offers a new perspective on a component of the immune system known as the acute-phase response, a series of systemic changes in blood protein levels, metabolic function, and physiology that sometimes occurs when bacteria, viruses, or other pathogens invade the body.	22 Mar 2012
News From The Journals Of The American Society For Microbiology: March 2012 High Pressure Kills Pathogens, Maintains Green Onions' Taste and Color Green onions cause about five percent of outbreaks of food poisoning from produce, worldwide. Now a team of researchers from the University of Delaware, Newark, shows that high pressure treatment of green onions can kill various strains of Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Salmonella enterica, two major sources of food poisoning.	22 Mar 2012
Reproductive Capabilities May Be Affected By BPA Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found evidence that, in addition to affecting the heart, brain and nervous system, bisphenol A (BPA), could affect a mammal's ability to reproduce by altering the structure of the uterus in ways that can progress to a potentially fatal infection.	22 Mar 2012

IT / Internet / E-mail News
Public Supports Education, Not Criminal Charges For Youth Sexting Sexting - sending sexually explicit, nude, or semi-nude photos by cell phone - has become a national concern, especially when it involves children and teens. A new poll shows that the vast majority of adults do not support legal consequences for teens who sext.	22 Mar 2012

Litigation / Medical Malpractice News
Sexual Misconduct Among Most Commonly Reported Online Violations Of Professionalism By Doctors Results of a survey published in a research letter in JAMA this week, reveal that sexual misconduct and prescribing without an established clinical relationship are among the most common ever reported online violations of professionalism by doctors in the US.	22 Mar 2012

Medical Devices / Diagnostics News
Artificial Pancreas Testing Approved For Outpatients, USA The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a key testing phase for an artificial pancreas developed by researchers of the University of Virginia, which could potentially automate care for millions of type-1 diabetics.	22 Mar 2012

Medical Students / Training News
New Opportunities For Improvements Arise As Industry Funding For Medical Education Fades Public scrutiny and the threat of government regulation are leading to a decline in industry-sponsored funding of accredited continuing medical education (CME) for physicians, and this decline represents an opportunity to make CME more relevant, cost-effective and less open to bias, wrote a group of physicians from the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.	22 Mar 2012
Fifteen Percent Of The American Physician Workforce Trained In Lower Income Countries Fifteen percent of the American active physician workforce was trained in lower income countries, which is beneficial for the United States both clinically and economically but may have negative impacts on the countries of origin that are losing their educational investment, according to a report published in the open access journal PLoS ONE.	22 Mar 2012
Sexual Misconduct Among Most Commonly Reported Online Violations Of Professionalism By Doctors Results of a survey published in a research letter in JAMA this week, reveal that sexual misconduct and prescribing without an established clinical relationship are among the most common ever reported online violations of professionalism by doctors in the US.	22 Mar 2012

Melanoma / Skin Cancer News
Vemurafenib Effective For Some Metastatic Melanoma Patients Results from a phase II multi-center clinical trial involving 132 patients with previously treated BRAF V600-mutant metastatic melanoma, indicate that vemurafenib (PLX4032) - an oral BRAF inhibitor - offered a high rate of response in some patients.	22 Mar 2012

Mental Health News
New Physiological Target For Various Aspects Of Neuropsychiatric Diseases What characterizes many people with depression, schizophrenia and some other mental illnesses is anhedonia: an inability to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences.Exactly why this happens is unclear.	22 Mar 2012

MRI / PET / Ultrasound News
Women With A Family History Of Breast Cancer But No Genetic Predisposition Adding magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to standard breast cancer screening approaches is expensive, though it could be cost effective for a group of women who may not have inherited the breast cancer susceptibility genes, but who have a familial risk of developing the disease.	22 Mar 2012

Neurology / Neuroscience News
Neurodegenerative Disorders In Humans And Fruit Flies Caused By Same Gene Mutations A collaborative study published in the March 20 issue of the online, open access journal PLoS Biology, reveals that scientists from the Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) and the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University have discovered that neurodegenerative disorders that occur in both fruit flies and humans are caused by mutations in the same gene that encodes part of the vital machinery of the mitochondrion.	22 Mar 2012
Military-Funded Neuroscience - Ethical Concerns The close link between both the U.S. military and the intelligence department to the scientific establishment is causing deep ethical concerns, particularly over the military's and intelligence service's funding and use of neuroscientific applications.	22 Mar 2012
Rare, Orphan And Neglected Neurodegenerative Diseases - New Research Announced According to the Ministry of Health in France, there are almost 7,000 rare diseases, with 25 million sufferers in Europe alone. A rare disease is an illness that affects fewer than on in 2,000 people, and there is no cure for most, as the only treatments currently available only improves the quality of life.	22 Mar 2012
Alzheimer's Disease - Antioxidants Have No Effect On Cerebrospinal Fluid Biomarkers According to a study published Online First by Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, have found no association between an antioxidant combination of vitamin E, vitamin C and α-lipoic acid (E/C/ALA) and changes in some cerebrospinal fluid biomarkers related to Alzheimer's disease.	22 Mar 2012
Adrenaline Shots May Cause Long Term Harm Giving a pre-hospital shot of adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, to someone with cardiac arrest may help restore circulation in the short term, but could do them harm in the long term, according to a large new study from Japan published in JAMA on Wednesday that suggests it may be a case of saving the heart at the cost of the brain.	22 Mar 2012
New Discovery Of Proteins Involved In Positioning Muscular Nuclei In order to move, living beings need muscles, and, more specifically, skeletal muscles that are controlled by the nervous system. Skeletal muscles are composed of cylindrical muscle fibres with a multitude of peripheral nuclei.	22 Mar 2012
Personality Traits Traced In Brain A personality profile marked by overly gregarious yet anxious behavior is rooted in abnormal development of a circuit hub buried deep in the front center of the brain, say scientists at the National Institutes of Health.	22 Mar 2012

Nutrition / Diet News
Your Nose Impacts On Bite Size The stronger the smell of a food, the smaller our bite size tends to be, Dutch researchers reported in the journal Flavour. This might mean your nose can have an impact on body weight control.	22 Mar 2012
Improved Peanut Allergy Diagnosis Researchers from the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute and the University of Melbourne have identified a new way to accurately test for peanut allergy.It is hoped the test will be more cost effective and convenient than standard approaches and minimise over-diagnosis of peanut allergy in the community.	22 Mar 2012
Bowel Disease Model Reveals Low-Calorie Diet Linked To Higher Death Rate In a surprising result, Michigan State University researchers looking at the effects of diet on bowel disease found that mice on a calorie-restricted diet were more likely to die after being infected with an inflammation-causing bacterial pathogen in the colon.	22 Mar 2012
News From The Journals Of The American Society For Microbiology: March 2012 High Pressure Kills Pathogens, Maintains Green Onions' Taste and Color Green onions cause about five percent of outbreaks of food poisoning from produce, worldwide. Now a team of researchers from the University of Delaware, Newark, shows that high pressure treatment of green onions can kill various strains of Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Salmonella enterica, two major sources of food poisoning.	22 Mar 2012
Consuming Salmon Twice A Week Is Healthy For Pregnant Women And Their Babies University of Granada researchers have proven that eating two servings of salmon reared at a fish farm (enriched with omega-3 fatty acids and only slightly contaminated) a week during pregnancy is beneficial both for the mother and child.	22 Mar 2012

Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness News
Overweight Early Elderly Have Higher Brain Decline Risk People over the aged from 60 to 70 years with high levels of visceral fat (fat tummies) have a greater risk of brain decline, compared to those of normal weight, researchers from South Korea reported in the journal Age and Ageing.	22 Mar 2012
Chronic Disease Prevention Policies Need Better Costing Estimates In order to capture the potential economic value to prevent obesity related diseases like diabetes and heart disease, policymakers have to increase the length of time when establishing cost estimates for legislative proposals for chronic health conditions.	22 Mar 2012
Your Nose Impacts On Bite Size The stronger the smell of a food, the smaller our bite size tends to be, Dutch researchers reported in the journal Flavour. This might mean your nose can have an impact on body weight control.	22 Mar 2012

Pain / Anesthetics News
Hernia Repair - Open Surgery Versus Minimally Invasive Techniques Compared A study published in the March issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals reveals that total extraperitoneal inguinal hernioplasty (TEP), a minimally invasive surgery for hernia repair, is linked to lower damage of inguinal (groin) sensation, higher patient satisfaction, as well as less chronic pain than open Lichtenstein repair.	22 Mar 2012
Blood Pressure Can Be Raised By Pain Relievers Diseases such as kidney failure and endocrine tumors are among the suspects causing high blood pressure - but could the common pain relievers in your medicine cabinet be the culprit?According to Prof.	22 Mar 2012

Pancreatic Cancer News

Potential 'Break Through' In Pancreatic Cancer Scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) have discovered a literal 'break through' in pancreatic cancer.A unique biological barrier that pancreatic cancer tumors build around themselves have made them especially resistant to chemotherapy treatments, according to the Hutchinson Center/TGen study published in the highly-regarded journal Cancer Cell.

22 Mar 2012

Parkinson's Disease News
News From The Journal Of Clinical Investigation: March 26, 2012 ONCOLOGYPromise of new treatment options for chemotherapy-resistant breast cancers p53 is lost or functionally impaired in many human cancers, and its absence is often associated with a poor response to conventional chemotherapy.	22 Mar 2012
Curcumin Shows Promise In Attacking Parkinson's Disease Curcumin, a compound found in the spice turmeric, is proving effective at preventing clumping of a protein involved in Parkinson's disease, says a Michigan State University researcher.A team of researchers led by Basir Ahmad, an MSU postdoctoral researcher, demonstrated earlier this year that slow-wriggling alpha-synuclein proteins are the cause of clumping, or aggregation, which is the first step of diseases such as Parkinson's.	22 Mar 2012

Pediatrics / Children's Health News
Respiratory Syncytial Virus May Cause Complications In Kids Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is a common virus that causes infections of the lungs and respiratory tract. Although symptoms are usually mild and mimic the common cold in adults and older, healthy children, RSV can be severe in infants and young children with underlying health conditions.	22 Mar 2012
Public Supports Education, Not Criminal Charges For Youth Sexting Sexting - sending sexually explicit, nude, or semi-nude photos by cell phone - has become a national concern, especially when it involves children and teens. A new poll shows that the vast majority of adults do not support legal consequences for teens who sext.	22 Mar 2012
Consuming Salmon Twice A Week Is Healthy For Pregnant Women And Their Babies University of Granada researchers have proven that eating two servings of salmon reared at a fish farm (enriched with omega-3 fatty acids and only slightly contaminated) a week during pregnancy is beneficial both for the mother and child.	22 Mar 2012

Pregnancy / Obstetrics News
Potential Link Between Antidepressant Use During Pregnancy And Hypertension Use of selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants during pregnancy appears to be linked with increased risk of pregnancy induced high blood pressure ("hypertension"), but a causal link has not been established.	22 Mar 2012
Consuming Salmon Twice A Week Is Healthy For Pregnant Women And Their Babies University of Granada researchers have proven that eating two servings of salmon reared at a fish farm (enriched with omega-3 fatty acids and only slightly contaminated) a week during pregnancy is beneficial both for the mother and child.	22 Mar 2012

Preventive Medicine News
Chronic Disease Prevention Policies Need Better Costing Estimates In order to capture the potential economic value to prevent obesity related diseases like diabetes and heart disease, policymakers have to increase the length of time when establishing cost estimates for legislative proposals for chronic health conditions.	22 Mar 2012
Significant Numbers Of Lives Saved By Breast Cancer Screening And Better Treatment A Dutch study of the effectiveness of breast cancer screening shows that, even with improved treatments for the disease, population-based mammography programmes still save a significant number of lives.	22 Mar 2012
Colorectal Cancer Screening Rates Shown To Be High In Patients With Multiple Health Problems A study by University of Kentucky researchers showed that in Appalachia, colorectal cancer screening rates were higher in the population with multiple morbidities or diseases compared to those who had no morbidities at all.	22 Mar 2012
The Cost Effectiveness Of US Cancer Prevention Services Prevention is better than cure; however, when it comes to screening for cancer new research shows that U.S. health services are not as cost-effective as international, and publically run, counterparts.	22 Mar 2012

Primary Care / General Practice News
New Opportunities For Improvements Arise As Industry Funding For Medical Education Fades Public scrutiny and the threat of government regulation are leading to a decline in industry-sponsored funding of accredited continuing medical education (CME) for physicians, and this decline represents an opportunity to make CME more relevant, cost-effective and less open to bias, wrote a group of physicians from the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco.	22 Mar 2012
Fifteen Percent Of The American Physician Workforce Trained In Lower Income Countries Fifteen percent of the American active physician workforce was trained in lower income countries, which is beneficial for the United States both clinically and economically but may have negative impacts on the countries of origin that are losing their educational investment, according to a report published in the open access journal PLoS ONE.	22 Mar 2012
Study Finds No Evidence That Higher Regional Health Care Costs Indicate Inappropriate Care There is no solid evidence to support the widely held belief that regions of the United States that spend more on health care and have higher rates of health care use deliver more unnecessary care to patients, or that low-cost areas deliver higher quality and more efficient care, according to a study led by Salomeh Keyhani, MD, a physician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine UCSF.	22 Mar 2012

Psychology / Psychiatry News
Smoking Might Restore Self-Control A study in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (Vol. 121, No.1) reveals that researchers at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, have discovered that smoking a cigarette may restore self-control after it has been depleted.	22 Mar 2012
Military-Funded Neuroscience - Ethical Concerns The close link between both the U.S. military and the intelligence department to the scientific establishment is causing deep ethical concerns, particularly over the military's and intelligence service's funding and use of neuroscientific applications.	22 Mar 2012
2nd Generation Anti-Psychotic Drugs Publication Bias According to a study published in PLoS Medicine, trials of second-generation anti-psychotic drugs, i.e. newer forms of medications for the treatment of psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia, that have been published in medical journals, may embellish their apparent clinical effectiveness.	22 Mar 2012
Personality Traits Traced In Brain A personality profile marked by overly gregarious yet anxious behavior is rooted in abnormal development of a circuit hub buried deep in the front center of the brain, say scientists at the National Institutes of Health.	22 Mar 2012

Public Health News
Disclosing Surgical Site Infections - Rates Vary Across US States According to a study by Johns Hopkins, just 21 states in the USA are required to report hospital data on surgical site infections publicly. Furthermore, even when this data is made public, it is usually difficult to access for individuals who could use it in order to make decisions regarding their medical care.	22 Mar 2012
Health Systems Interventions - How Reliable Is Research Evidence? In order to develop strong health systems, research evidence is vital, however it is not always easy to evaluate such evidence. The last paper in the three-part series on health systems guidance in this week's PLoS Medicine deals with the issue of how much confidence can be placed in various types of research evidence.	22 Mar 2012
Adrenaline Shots May Cause Long Term Harm Giving a pre-hospital shot of adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, to someone with cardiac arrest may help restore circulation in the short term, but could do them harm in the long term, according to a large new study from Japan published in JAMA on Wednesday that suggests it may be a case of saving the heart at the cost of the brain.	22 Mar 2012
Study Finds No Evidence That Higher Regional Health Care Costs Indicate Inappropriate Care There is no solid evidence to support the widely held belief that regions of the United States that spend more on health care and have higher rates of health care use deliver more unnecessary care to patients, or that low-cost areas deliver higher quality and more efficient care, according to a study led by Salomeh Keyhani, MD, a physician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine UCSF.	22 Mar 2012

Regulatory Affairs / Drug Approvals News
Artificial Pancreas Testing Approved For Outpatients, USA The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a key testing phase for an artificial pancreas developed by researchers of the University of Virginia, which could potentially automate care for millions of type-1 diabetics.	22 Mar 2012
Clinicians May Be Mislead Over Effectiveness Of Newer Anti-Psychotic Drugs A study in this week's PLoS Medicine suggests that the apparent clinical effectiveness of the newer form of drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses (second-generation anti-psychotic drugs) may be enhanced by the selective reporting of trials of these drugs in medical journals - a phenomenon called publication bias.	22 Mar 2012

Respiratory / Asthma News
Respiratory Syncytial Virus May Cause Complications In Kids Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) is a common virus that causes infections of the lungs and respiratory tract. Although symptoms are usually mild and mimic the common cold in adults and older, healthy children, RSV can be severe in infants and young children with underlying health conditions.	22 Mar 2012

Schizophrenia News
New Physiological Target For Various Aspects Of Neuropsychiatric Diseases What characterizes many people with depression, schizophrenia and some other mental illnesses is anhedonia: an inability to gain pleasure from normally pleasurable experiences.Exactly why this happens is unclear.	22 Mar 2012
2nd Generation Anti-Psychotic Drugs Publication Bias According to a study published in PLoS Medicine, trials of second-generation anti-psychotic drugs, i.e. newer forms of medications for the treatment of psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia, that have been published in medical journals, may embellish their apparent clinical effectiveness.	22 Mar 2012
Clinicians May Be Mislead Over Effectiveness Of Newer Anti-Psychotic Drugs A study in this week's PLoS Medicine suggests that the apparent clinical effectiveness of the newer form of drugs used to treat schizophrenia and other psychotic illnesses (second-generation anti-psychotic drugs) may be enhanced by the selective reporting of trials of these drugs in medical journals - a phenomenon called publication bias.	22 Mar 2012

Seniors / Aging News
Overweight Early Elderly Have Higher Brain Decline Risk People over the aged from 60 to 70 years with high levels of visceral fat (fat tummies) have a greater risk of brain decline, compared to those of normal weight, researchers from South Korea reported in the journal Age and Ageing.	22 Mar 2012
New Atrial Fibrillation Guidelines The Canadian Journal of Cardiology has published a focused update to the Canadian Cardiovascular Society's atrial fibrillation guidelines.Atrial fibrillation is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and is a significant cause of stroke, illness in general, and death.	22 Mar 2012

Sexual Health / STDs News
Public Supports Education, Not Criminal Charges For Youth Sexting Sexting - sending sexually explicit, nude, or semi-nude photos by cell phone - has become a national concern, especially when it involves children and teens. A new poll shows that the vast majority of adults do not support legal consequences for teens who sext.	22 Mar 2012

Smoking / Quit Smoking News
Smoking Might Restore Self-Control A study in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology (Vol. 121, No.1) reveals that researchers at the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida, have discovered that smoking a cigarette may restore self-control after it has been depleted.	22 Mar 2012

Stroke News
Drug Target Discovered For Stimulating Recovery From Stroke Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that removing a matched set of molecules that typically help to regulate the brain's capacity for forming and eliminating connections between nerve cells could substantially aid recovery from stroke even days after the event.	22 Mar 2012
Potential New Blood Test To Predict Heart Attack Could Help More Than 2.5 Million Americans New findings from a landmark research study led by Scripps Translational Science Institute (STSI) - a collaborative program between Scripps Health and The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) - shows a promising new blood test may be useful in helping doctors predict who is at risk for an imminent heart attack.	22 Mar 2012
New Atrial Fibrillation Guidelines The Canadian Journal of Cardiology has published a focused update to the Canadian Cardiovascular Society's atrial fibrillation guidelines.Atrial fibrillation is the most common cardiac arrhythmia and is a significant cause of stroke, illness in general, and death.	22 Mar 2012

Tuberculosis News
TB Rate Lowest Since 1953, USA The rate of new TB (tuberculosis) cases in the USA in 2011 was the lowest since 1953, when official records began, says a new report issued by MMWR (Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report), CDC.	22 Mar 2012

Urology / Nephrology News
Blood Pressure Can Be Raised By Pain Relievers Diseases such as kidney failure and endocrine tumors are among the suspects causing high blood pressure - but could the common pain relievers in your medicine cabinet be the culprit?According to Prof.	22 Mar 2012

Women's Health / Gynecology News
Reproductive Capabilities May Be Affected By BPA Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have found evidence that, in addition to affecting the heart, brain and nervous system, bisphenol A (BPA), could affect a mammal's ability to reproduce by altering the structure of the uterus in ways that can progress to a potentially fatal infection.	22 Mar 2012

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