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Medical and health information and tools from Health News Online
Scientists have identified a promising set of new compounds in the fight against muscular dystrophy. Using a drug-discovery technique in which molecules compete against each other for access to the target – the strand of toxic RNA that causes the most common form of muscular dystrophy in adults – a team at the University of Rochester Medical Center has identified several compounds that, in the laboratory, block the unwanted coupling of two molecules that is at the root of the disease. The work was published online November 7 by the Journal of the American Chemical Society. “This discovery gives us, for the first time, a molecule that targets the wayward RNA at the root of myotonic muscular dystrophy,” said Benjamin Miller, Ph.D., the chemist who led the study. “This is a first step toward developing a drug-like molecule that perhaps could be used someday to treat the disease. This lead molecule provides a framework for moving forward.”
The more research they do, the more evidence Ohio State University scientists find that specific elements of marijuana can be good for the aging brain by reducing inflammation there and possibly even stimulating the formation of new brain cells. The research suggests that the development of a legal drug that contains certain properties similar to those in marijuana might help prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Though the exact cause of Alzheimer’s remains unknown, chronic inflammation in the brain is believed to contribute to memory impairment. Any new drug’s properties would resemble those of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the main psychoactive substance in the cannabis plant, but would not share its high-producing effects. THC joins nicotine, alcohol and caffeine as agents that, in moderation, have shown some protection against inflammation in the brain that might translate to better memory late in life.
New research in mice suggests that high levels of social support may provide some protection against strokes by reducing the amount of damaging inflammation in the brain. Researchers at Ohio State University found that male mice that lived with a female partner before and after a stroke had a much higher survival rate compared to those mice that lived alone. In addition, the paired mice suffered much less brain damage than did the surviving solitary mice.
The Great American Smokeout is this Thursday, and the American Urological Association (AUA) gives smokers another good reason to quit: Smoking causes bladder cancer. Only about 33 percent of people know that smoking is a leading risk factor for the disease, according to a new study published in The Journal of Urology®, the official journal of the AUA. The American Cancer Society estimates that smokers are twice as likely to get bladder cancer as nonsmokers. Bladder cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer in men and eighth most common in women. About 53,000 men and woman are diagnosed with bladder cancer each year and about 14,000 die annually of the disease. In recent decades, there has been a steady increase in the incidence of bladder cancer. Along with smokers, people who work with dyes, metal, paints, leather, textiles and organic chemicals may be at a 20 to 25 percent higher risk. People who have chronic bladder infections may also be at higher risk. There are several symptoms of bladder cancer, but painless blood in the urine (hematuria) is the most common. Because blood in the urine can be an indication of other conditions, it is important to seek medical attention. Other symptoms of bladder cancer may include frequent urination and pain upon urination (dysuria).
For patients with low back pain caused by a herniated disk, expectations of good results without surgery are the main factor affecting the preference for nonsurgical treatment, reports a study in the November 15 issue of Spine. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals, and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health, pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry. However, once patients overcome their reluctance to undergo surgery, they strongly prefer surgical treatment—generally for reasons that are “clinically sensible,” according to the new study, led by Dr. Jon D. Lurie of Dartmouth Medical School, Lebanon, N.H. As part of a larger trial comparing the results of surgical versus nonsurgical treatment, the researchers studied preferences and expectations for treatment in 740 patients with pain and other symptoms caused by herniated disks in the lower back (lumbar spine). The current study included only those patients who had declined to be randomly assigned to surgery or nonsurgical treatment.
When given a choice between viewing pictures of cocaine and a variety of other images, cocaine addicted individuals, as compared to healthy, non-addicted research subjects, show a clear preference for the drug-related images. Findings from this study, which was conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, will be presented at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting in Washington D.C. on Sunday, November 16, 2008, at 2:30 p.m. Eastern Time, by Scott Moeller, a psychology graduate student at the University of Michigan who worked with the Brookhaven Lab Neuropsychoimaging group (director, Rita Goldstein) on this research. “This behavioral study demonstrates for the first time that drug-related choice in cocaine addiction extends to abstract, non-pharmacological stimuli, facilitating the study of choice behavior in addiction without using actual cocaine,” Moeller said. Previously, scientists have had to administer the actual drug (cocaine), or drugs that are pharmacologically similar to cocaine, to test its effects on brain and behavioral functions. Now, the tasks developed by Moeller while training with Goldstein’s team could help clinicians monitor choice behavior — for example, to follow the effectiveness of treatment — in addicted individuals who are currently abstaining from drugs. In the first task of the experiment, both healthy control subjects and cocaine-addicted individuals digitally selected one of four face-down card decks and could select a card again from the same deck or switch decks. Unknown to the subjects, each deck contained mostly one image type: cocaine-related images, pleasant images, unpleasant images, or neutral ones. This test of choice is considered implicit because subjects were not necessarily aware of their tendency to choose one type of image over the others. In the second, explicit choice task, subjects repeatedly selected between two side-by-side, face-up images taken from the four decks.
Whether brain surgery is likely to improve or worsen memory in a patient with epilepsy can be predicted before the operation is performed, according to findings in the journal Neurology. Brain surgery can be very effective for some patients whose seizures do not respond to antiepileptic drugs, “but it is a procedure that is often associated with risks to memory,” lead author Dr. Sallie Baxendale noted in comments to Reuters Health. “While memory problems are an important consideration in epilepsy surgery, it was also clear from our clinical experience of offering epilepsy surgery over the past 20 years at our center that postoperative memory improvements can also sometimes occur for a minority of patients.”
How children are affected by out-of-home care depends not only on the qualities of their teacher and the classroom, but also on the nature of the children’s relationship with their caregivers. That’s the finding of a new study on the level of the stress hormone cortisol in children in full-day child care. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone in humans, tends to be at its highest levels in the early morning and gradually declines over the course of the day. But recent research has found that many preschoolers in full-day child care have increases in cortisol from morning to afternoon. This study found that children in classrooms with closer to 10 children were more likely to show cortisol decreases from morning to afternoon, while children in classrooms with closer to 20 children tended to show greater increases in cortisol across the day. Children with more clingy relationships with their teachers showed greater rises in cortisol from morning to afternoon, and children with more conflicted relationships with their teachers showed greater cortisol boosts during a one-on-one session with their teachers. Conflicted relationships were said to occur when teachers tried to control resistant children, when children perceived their teachers as unfriendly, or when teachers or children reported that the teachers found the interaction frustrating.
Most children are still failing to eat five pieces of fruit and veg a day, though their levels of physical activity do meet current Government recommendations, according to the SPEEDY study (Sport, Physical activity and Eating behaviour: Environmental Determinants in Young people). The original results for the study are published in the open access journal BMC Public Health. The study was performed by a team of researchers from The Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit and The University of East Anglia, coordinated by Esther van Sluijs. During the Summer term 2007, they studied the diet, physical activity and body shape of 2064 Year 5 pupils (aged 9-10 years) in 92 schools across the county of Norfolk. They also investigated their socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds, and school and home neighborhood environments. According to van Sluijs, “To date, the extent of the problem of physical inactivity and unhealthy dietary habits in children has been largely unknown. Good data about physical activity, assessed using valid and reliable measures in large samples, are scarce - especially in children”. The aim of the SPEEDY study was to generate valid data about current diet and exercise patterns, and the factors that are most strongly associated with them. The authors sought to better understand why some children have a healthier lifestyle than others so that they can promote changes in important health behaviors.
Identifying malnutrition before surgery in massive weight loss patients seeking body contouring will significantly decrease surgical complications, accelerate wound healing, improve scar quality and boost patient energy levels, according to a study in the December issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). Optimizing nutrition with the addition of supplements, such as powder drinks and multi-vitamin tablets formulated for massive weight loss patients, is vital to successful body contouring surgery, the study reveals. “Body contouring procedures for massive weight loss patients are major operations with large incisions in many areas that demand a lot of the body during the healing process,” said ASPS Member Surgeon and study co-author Dennis Hurwitz, MD. “By carefully monitoring nutritional deficiencies preoperatively and supplementing the patient with the necessary nutrients, minerals and vitamins, I have seen a significant decrease in complications and improved postoperative healing. In my practice, I won’t do body contouring procedures on this patient population without a preoperative regimen of nutritional supplements.” The study was performed in two parts; First, medical literature regarding nutrition’s effect on healing from the 1940s to the present was reviewed.
The phrase, “the eyes are the windows to the soul,” is attributed to several authors and philosophers. But the phrase, “your teeth are the windows to your health,” can be attributed to Mohamed Bassiouny, DMD, MSc, PhD, who has been studying how teeth provide important clues to his patients’ overall health for more than 30 years. As part of his ongoing research, Bassiouny chronicles the case of a patient in the November/December issue of General Dentistry whose teeth had eroded from stomach acids, a condition normally associated with bulimia and other systemic disorders. However, in this case the patient had no history of an abnormal eating disorder or gastric reflux syndrome. Rather, she suffered from dysmenorrhea - painful cramping related to menstruation. This severe cramping is what forced acids from her stomach back up her esophagus and into her mouth.
The only known genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease slows down the brain’s ability to export a toxic protein known as amyloid-beta that is central to the damage the disease causes, scientists have found. The research, published Nov. 13 by the Journal of Clinical Investigation, provides new clues into the workings of a protein known as apolipoprotein E4, or ApoE4. People who carry two copies of the gene have roughly eight to 10 times the risk of getting Alzheimer’s disease than people who do not. The new results mark a step toward resolving a longstanding question that scientists have had about exactly how ApoE4 increases a person’s risk for the disease. The findings point to differences in the way that amyloid-beta is removed from the brain depending on which ApoE protein is involved.
Prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke can increase levels of the stress hormone norepinephrine and enzymes in the heart that have the potential to reshape the left ventricle, according to new research at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In a study using rats as as animal model, five weeks exposure to cigarette smoke was associated with the activation of enzymes called mitogen-activated protein kinases that govern cell growth and survival in heart muscle. Activation of these enzymes may be a key event in cigarette smoke-induced heart injury, says Mariann Piano, professor of biobehavioral health science in the UIC College of Nursing and lead researcher of the study. Heart disease probably develops as a result of complex interactions among many elements in cigarette smoke, she said.
President-elect Barack Obama’s plans to overhaul the U.S. health care system would cost the federal government $75 billion but would provide health insurance for 95 percent of Americans, consulting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers said on Wednesday. This works out to about $2,500 per newly insured person, the firm said in a report. “The plan would increase to $1 trillion cumulatively by 2018 or approximately $130 billion per year,” the report said.
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