Medindia Health News

Electric Lighting Hampers Proper Sleep at Night

A Harvard University researcher suggests that electric lighting in the evenings plays a disruptive role on our natural 24-hour body clock or "circadian rhythm" and affects our sleep. The report, published in the journal Nature, states that electric lighting leaves us checking our mails or watching television during late evenings and keeps our body alert when it should be winding down for sleep. Study author Prof Charles Czeisler adds that the blue light using ...

One in Ten Girls Suffers from Anorexia During Teenage

Anorexia has become one of the most common new mental health problems affecting teenage girls with one in ten girls thought to be suffering from the disorder which is also being seen in increasing number of boys. Researchers at University College, London have found that the number of anorexia cases have jumped by 13 percent during the period between 2003 and 2009 with the highest increase found among girls between 15 and 19 years of age. The researchers added that ...

Plastics Used in Food Packaging Linked to High Blood Pressure in Children

Common types of plastics used in food packaging could be dangerous to children as they may lead to high blood pressure, a new study reveals. Researchers led by Leonardo Trasande at NYU Langone Medical Center analyzed more than 2,000 children over a period of six years and found that a common class of pthalates, DEHP (di-2-ethyhexylphthalate), used in industrial food production leads to an increase of one-millimeter mercury of systolic blood pressure among children ...

Women With Attractive Faces Have Low Levels of Stress Hormone

Women with attractive faces have lower levels of stress hormone and are also more fertile compared to other women, according to a new study conducted by Finnish researchers. The study has been conducted by researchers at University of Turku in Finland and has been published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. The researchers found that women who have high levels of stress hormone cortisol were found to be less attractive, signaling lower reproduction ...

Exposure to Secondhand Smoke in Womb Makes Kids Antisocial

A joint study conducted by researchers at University of Montreal and CHU Sainte-Justine hospital found that children who are exposed to second hand smoking either when in womb or when growing up were more likely to develop physically aggressive characteristics and become antisocial. Researchers analyzed data of over 2,000 children from the time they were born to when they were 10 years old. The data collected by Quebec health authorities and also included details from ...

AIDS Cure may be Possible for Some, Say Scientists

Top AIDS scientists have said a cure for AIDS might not work for all people but might be able to cure some patients. The experts have high hopes for a treatment that will be given at an early stage of infection -- most likely a cocktail that includes an immunity booster and a virus killer. But they said people with a long-running, untreated infection and a compromised immune system may never benefit from an envisioned "functional cure" -- which means ...

Ban on Gay Men Donating Blood Repealed in Canada

Canadian health authorities have announced new rules making men who have not had sex with men in the past five years eligible to donate blood. Under the previous regime, men who had sex with men since 1977, even once, were not allowed to donate. The strict code was designed as a precaution against the spread of disease through blood transfusions, based on epidemiological data that showed a higher risk of transmitting HIV in, for example, men-to-men relations ...

Controversial Stem Cell Therapy Approved in Italy

A law that allows limited use of a controversial type of stem cell therapy has been approved by lawmakers in Italy. The therapy has been condemned by many scientists but has given hope to families of terminally-ill children. The law gives the go-ahead for therapy being carried out by the Stamina Foundation on dozens of patients to continue, and allows for an 18-month period of clinical trials for the procedure, which had previously been blocked by Italian authorities. ...

Study Highlights RNA-Based Classification System for Colorectal Cancer

A study published in iPLOS Medicine/i this week highlights a novel transcriptome-based classification of colon cancer that improves the current disease stratification based on clinicopathological variables and common DNA markers. Pr. Pierre Laurent-Puig and colleagues from INSERM in Paris, France used genetic information from a French multicenter study supported by the "Ligue contre le cancer" to identify a standard, reproducible molecular classification based ...

Trial Finds Biodegradable Stent is Non-Inferior to Drug-Eluting Stent

A new imaging substudy reveals that the Orsiro stent, which is a novel stent platform eluting sirolimus from a biodegradable polymer, demonstrated non-inferiority to the Xience Prime everolimus-eluting stent for the primary angiographic endpoint of in-stent late lumen loss at nine months. The substudy was reported at EuroPCR 2013 today. The BIOFLOW-II substudy used intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) to quantitatively ...

Survival is Not Improved With Early Use of Tracheostomy For Mechanically Ventilated Patients

A new study says that for critically ill patients receiving mechanical ventilation, early tracheostomy was not associated with an improvement in the risk of death within 30 days compared to patients who received tracheostomy placement after 10 days. The study appears in the May 22/29 issue of iJAMA/i. "A tracheostomy is commonly performed when clinicians predict a patient will need prolonged mechanical ventilation," according to background information in the ...

Drugs Found to Prevent and Treat Alzheimer's Disease Identified in Animal Study

A class of pharmaceuticals can both prevent and treat Alzheimer's Disease in mice, researchers at USC have found. The drugs, known as "TSPO ligands," are currently used for certain types of neuroimaging. "We looked at the effects of TSPO ligand in young adult mice when pathology was at an early stage, and in aged mice when pathology was quite severe," said lead researcher Christian Pike of the USC Davis School of Gerontology. "TSPO ligand reduced measures ...

Poliovirus Vaccine Trial for Recurrent Glioblastoma Reveals Promising Results

Researchers at Duke Cancer Institute report that an attack on glioblastoma brain tumor cells that uses a modified poliovirus is showing encouraging results in an early study. The treatment, developed at Duke and tested in an ongoing phase 1 study, capitalizes on the discovery that cancer cells have an abundance of receptors that work like magnets drawing the poliovirus, which then infects and kills the cells. The investigational therapy, known as PVSRIPO, ...

Research Highlights Racial Disparities in the Surgical Management of Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

A new study has indicated that the surgical management of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in U.S. hospitals varies widely depending on the race of the patient. "In most patients, the initial treatment for Stage I and Stage II NSCLC is surgery," said researcher Jayanth Adusumalli, MBBS, of the Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska. "In our study of more than 1,200,000 patients diagnosed with NSCLC in US hospitals between the years 2000 and 2010, ...

Monoclonal Antibody Appears Effective and Safe in Asthma Phase IIa Trial

US researchers say that a novel approach to obstructing the runaway inflammatory response implicated in some types of asthma has shown promise in a Phase IIa clinical trial. Their research will be presented at the American Thoracic Society 2013 International Conference and published simultaneously online in the iNew England Journal of Medicine/i. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial tested the efficacy and safety of the monoclonal ...

How Safe are Your Drugs? Q (and) A with Drug Safety Expert

The importance of pharmacovigilance programs that monitor drug safety in the market to maintain the quality and safety of consumer medicines, can never be overstated. Apart from monitoring pharma products and their effects overtime, identifying possible risks and side effects and informing the public and medical professionals of updates, pharmacovigilance has to deal with the rising threat of counterfeit drugs flooding the online market and even creeping into some drugstores ...

Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome

Cyclic vomiting syndrome is a condition where a person suffers from repeated episodes of severe vomiting, but is normal between episodes. Cyclic vomiting is not the same as chronic vomiting.

Smoking Trends and Gastric Cancer in US Men

In US men, the contribution of iH. pylori/i and smoking trends to the decline in gastric cancer. Trends in iHelicobacter pylori/i (iH. pylori/i) and smoking explain a significant proportion of the decline of intestinal-type noncardia gastric adenocarcinoma (NCGA) incidence in US men between 1978 and 2008, and are estimated to continue to contribute to further declines between 2008 and 2040. These are the conclusions of a study by Jennifer ...

Women With Low BMI are More Prone to Endometriosis

Women who have a slim body are at a greater risk of developing endometriosis than women who are obese, suggests a recent study published in the journal Human Reproduction. Endometriosis is painful gynecological condition where the endometrium grows outside the uterus covering the ovaries, fallopian tubes and bowel region. It affects almost 40% of women with infertility and in the reproductive age group of late twenties to forties. Clinical ...

Risk Factors for Depression Identified in COPD Patients

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients typically suffer from depression more frequently than those without COPD, resulting in higher levels of disability and illness and increasing the overall healthcare burden for the COPD population. Now, a study from researchers in Argentina indicates female COPD patients and patients who experience significant shortness of breath may have the greatest risk for developing depression. The results of ...

Saudi Traveller Dies in Tunisia

The health authorities revealed that a man travelling from Saudi Arabia who was infected with the SARS-like coronavirus has died in Tunisia. "It is the first case in Tunisia, and he died on May 10," Noureddine Achour, director of the National Observatory for New and Emerging Diseases, told AFP. "Two members of his family also contracted the virus but they are doing well after receiving treatment," he added. The World Health Organisation is ...

Obese Patients Repeatedly Switch Primary Care Doctors: Study

A new Johns Hopkins research suggests that overweight and obese patients are significantly more likely than their normal-weight counterparts to repeatedly switch primary care doctors. This is a practice that disrupts continuity of care and leads to more emergency room visits. The practice of "doctor shopping" among overweight patients may be a result of negative experiences with the health care system, whether that be off-putting comments by office staff, ...

Older Adults may Achieve Satisfactory Sexual Function With Spinal-pelvic Instrumentation

At the University of Virginia Health Center, surgeons investigated sexual function in 62 patients, 50 years and older, who had received extensive spinal-pelvic instrumentation for spinal deformity. Based on their results, the surgeons found that it is very possible for older people to achieve satisfactory sexual function despite having extensive spinal-pelvic instrumentation. Details of this study are disclosed in "Sexual function in older adults following thoracolumbar ...

In Reducing COPD Exacerbations, Short Duration Steroid Therapy May Offer Similar Effectiveness

Among patients with acute exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) requiring hospital admission, a 5-day glucocorticoid treatment course was non-inferior to a 14-day course with regard to re-exacerbation during 6 months of follow-up. This is according to a study published online by iJAMA/i. The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the American Thoracic Society international conference. The authors write ...

US Teen Birth Rate Drops

US teen birth rates have dropped to a record low, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "The overall rate declined 25 percent from 41.5 per 1,000 teenagers aged 15-19 in 2007 to 31.3 in 2011 -- a record low," the CDC report said. "The number of births to teenagers aged 15-19 also fell from 2007 to 2011, by 26 percent to 329,797." The decline in teenagers giving birth has been "sustained, widespread, and broad-based," ...

Fish Oil Supplements may Help Cut Diabetes Risk

Fish oil supplements increase the amount of a hormone that is associated with a reduced risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Fish oil supplements, also called omega 3 fatty acid capsules, raise levels of adiponectin in the bloodstream. Adiponectin is an important hormone that has beneficial effects on metabolic processes like glucose regulation and the modulation of inflammation. In long-term human studies, higher levels of adiponectin are associated ...

Eat Small Breakfast and Lose Weight Quickly!

Recently the scientists have contested the famous adage, "Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a pauper." The scientists are of the opinion that an easy way to lose weight is to have a light breakfast with small portions. Latest findings highlight the fact that instead of lunch or dinner it is the light breakfast with small portions that actually matters as far as weight loss is concerned. According to the experts those ...

Poland's First Life-saving Face Transplant

A life-saving face transplant has been performed in Poland, weeks after a 33-year-old man was disfigured by a machine in a workplace accident. "It is Poland's first face transplant and also the first in the world done to save the patient's life," Anna Uryga, spokeswoman for the Cancer Centre and Institute of Oncology in the southern city of Gliwice, told AFP. The man, an employee at a stonemason's workshop and only identified as Grzegorz, was ...

3-D Printed Device Saves Baby's Life

University of Michigan researchers have used a 3-D printer to create regenerating, life saving implant for a 6-week old Kaiba. "Quite a few doctors said he had a good chance of not leaving the hospital alive," says April Gionfriddo, about her now 20-month-old son, Kaiba. "At that point, we were desperate. Anything that would work, we would take it and run with it." They found hope at the University of Michigan, where a new, bioresorbable ...

Bike Chain Fitted into Cancerous Jaw Saves Life of Single Mum

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Elephantiasis Worm Infection Detected Easily By New Test

According to results of a field study in Liberia, in West Africa, where the infection is endemic, a new diagnostic test for a worm infection that can lead to severe enlargement and deformities of the legs and genitals is far more sensitive than the currently used test. The new test found evidence of the infection - lymphatic filariasis - in many more people that the standard test had missed. The study, the first to independently evaluate the new test, ...

Resistance to Last-line Antibiotic Makes Bacteria Resistant to Immune System: Study

According to a study in imBio (Regd) /i, the online open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, bacteria resistant to the antibiotic colistin are also commonly resistant to antimicrobial substances made by the human body. Cross-resistance to colistin and host antimicrobials LL-37 and lysozyme, which help defend the body against bacterial attack, could mean that patients with life-threatening multi-drug resistant infections are also saddled with a crippled immune ...

Study: 2 Radiotherapy Treatments Show Similar Morbidity, Cancer Control After Prostatectomy

According to a study, use of the newer, more expensive intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) and use of the older conformal radiotherapy (CRT) after surgical removal of all or part of the prostate gland were associated with similar morbidity and cancer control outcomes. The study was published Online First by iJAMA Internal Medicine/i, a JAMA Network publication. Gregg H. Goldin, M.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues analyzed ...