There are worrisome racial, economic, educational, and gender gaps in awareness about the lifesaving vaccine for human papilloma virus (HPV), a Yale Cancer Center study has found. The study is being presented at the 2013 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Chicago.
HPV is a primarily sexually transmitted virus most widely known for causing cervical cancer, but it can also cause anal cancer, certain oral cancers, and cancers of the sexual organs of both women and men. (more…)
UCLA life scientists have identified a gene previously implicated in Parkinson’s disease that can delay the onset of aging and extend the healthy life span of fruit flies. The research, they say, could have important implications for aging and disease in humans.
The gene, called parkin, serves at least two vital functions: It marks damaged proteins so that cells can discard them before they become toxic, and it is believed to play a key role in the removal of damaged mitochondria from cells. (more…)
Many veterans suffering from blast concussions may have hormone deficiencies that mimic some of the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, according to researchers with the Department of Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System and the University of Washington.
The researchers screened 35 veterans with blast injuries. They found that 42 percent had irregular hormone levels indicative of hypopituitarism, a condition that can often be controlled by replacing the deficient hormones. (more…)
Scientists Design ‘Fishing’ Technique to Show How Foods Improve Health
COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research suggests that a compound abundant in the Mediterranean diet takes away cancer cells’ “superpower” to escape death.
By altering a very specific step in gene regulation, this compound essentially re-educates cancer cells into normal cells that die as scheduled.
One way that cancer cells thrive is by inhibiting a process that would cause them to die on a regular cycle that is subject to strict programming. This study in cells, led by researchers at The Ohio State University’s Comprehensive Cancer Center, found that a compound in certain plant-based foods, called apigenin, could stop breast cancer cells from inhibiting their own death. (more…)
U.S. emergency care costs may be more than twice previously published estimates, according to a new analysis that critiques those estimates, argues for improved accounting, and suggests considering the value of emergency care as well as total spending.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Alternately praised in the aftermath of horrible tragedies as a heroic service and lamented in policy debates as an expensive safety net for people without primary care, emergency medicine is often a hot topic. Despite that importance, an analysis published online April 26 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine finds that national expenditures on emergency care are likely significantly higher than previously thought.
“The ER has become increasingly important as a place where people go for acute unscheduled care, however there has been little rigorous analysis of its cost structure,” said paper lead author Dr. Michael Lee, assistant professor of emergency medicine in the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a physician at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital. (more…)
Women’s groups can dramatically reduce the number of maternal and newborn deaths in some of the world’s poorest communities, according to a new meta-analysis published in The Lancet.
The research incorporated seven trials in Bangladesh, India, Malawi and Nepal and looked at 119,428 births.
It assessed whether groups facilitated by local women, who received a short training course of around 7 – 11 days, but were not health workers, affected rates of maternal and newborn mortality. The groups use a range of methods – including discussion, voting and role-playing – to identify common pregnancy-related health problems and work out locally appropriate ways to address them. (more…)
In 2009, while investigating a sudden influx of illnesses caused by food contamination, journalist Michael Moss learned that there was another, and arguably more severe, public health crisis at hand: the disproportionate use of salt, sugar, and fat in a variety of everyday foods.(more…)
Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, the world’s first hospital to introduce a remote-presence robot into its neurological intensive-care unit in 2005, now welcomes the RP-VITA, the first robot able to navigate the hospital on its own.
UCLA staff affectionately dubbed the 5’5″, 176-pound robot “EVA,” for executive virtual attending physician. Unlike earlier models that physicians steered via a computer-linked joystick, this version drives on auto-pilot, freeing doctors to devote more time to patient care. (more…)
