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Medical News Today (30 unread)

Brain Mechanism May Explain Alcohol Cravings That Drive Relapse

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

New research provides exciting insight into the molecular mechanisms associated with addiction and relapse. The study, published by Cell Press in the March 11 issue of the journal Neuron, uncovers a crucial mechanism that facilitates motivation for alcohol after extended abstinence and opens new avenues for potential therapeutic intervention. Previous work has suggested that people, places, and objects associated with alcohol use are potent triggers for eliciting relapse and that cravings for both alcohol and drugs can increase across protracted abstinence...
Molecule Tells Key Brain Cells To Grow Up, Get To Work, Stanford Study Shows

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

About four out of every 10 cells in the brain are so-called oligodendrocytes. These cells produce the all-important myelin that coats nerve tracts, ensuring fast, energy-efficient transmission of nerve impulses. Mixed among them are proliferating but not particularly proficient precursor cells that are destined to become oligodendrocytes when needed but, for now, remain suspended in an immature, relatively undifferentiated state somewhere between stem cell and adult oligodendrocyte...
MicroRNA Identified As Possible Cause Of Chemotherapy Resistance

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

Scientists may have uncovered a mechanism for resistance to paclitaxel in ovarian cancer, microRNA-31, suggesting a possible therapeutic target for overcoming chemotherapy resistance. Mohamed K. Hassan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Hokkaido University in Japan, completed the research as a collaborative study with his colleagues when he was a professional assistant in South Valley University in Egypt. Results of this study were presented at the second AACR Dead Sea International Conference on Advances in Cancer Research: From the Laboratory to the Clinic, held March 7-10, 2010...
Hoyer Pledges To Work With Stupak To Address Abortion Coverage In Health Reform

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday pledged to work with Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) to resolve the dispute over abortion-coverage language in the Senate health reform bill (HR 3590), CQ Today reports. Hoyer said the issue "has to be resolved," adding, "I think it will be resolved one way or the other, and the bill will be passed." Stupak claims that there are about one dozen antiabortion-rights Democrats -- including himself -- who will vote against a final health reform bill if it includes the Senate reform bill's abortion-coverage language...
Ga. Bill To Ban Abortions Based On Race, Gender Fuels Debate Among Advocates

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

A Georgia bill (HB 1155) that would ban abortions based on race or gender is further fueling claims by antiabortion-rights groups that minority populations are being "targeted" by abortion providers, the Washington Times reports. The Georgia bill would make it illegal to knowingly solicit, perform or accept funding for abortions based on race or gender. The state Judiciary Non-Civil Committee has scheduled a hearing on the bill for Wednesday (Wetzstein, Washington Times, 3/10)...
Politicians Not Doing Enough To Improve Care For Older People, UK

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

Sixty per cent of people think politicians are not doing enough to improve care for older people according to a survey by Age Concern and Help the Aged. The poll also found that eight out of ten adults believe care reform is among the most important issues in the forthcoming election. The findings come ahead of a cross party care summit being attended by charity representatives including Alzheimer's Society's Acting Chief Executive, Ruth Sutherland...
American Red Cross Passes The $100 Million Mark In Aid For Haiti Earthquake Relief And Recovery

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

The American Red Cross announced it is allocating an additional $24.4 million for Haiti earthquake relief and recovery, increasing its total commitment to date to $106.4 million. The Red Cross made its funding announcement the same day that Haitian President Rene Preval is visiting the White House to discuss the urgent need for more aid from the international community to help that island nation recover from the January 12th earthquake. The latest allocation of funds by the American Red Cross includes $16...
Economic Models And Health State Utility Values

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

Although health care decision making is reliant on quality of life measurements, there is currently very little research and limited guidance on the most appropriate techniques to apply these data in economic models used to inform policy decisions Researchers at the University of Sheffield explored the potential difference on policy decisions based on cost per QALY thresholds when using different baseline health related quality of life profiles in conjunction with different methods to estimate values for health states describing multiple health conditions...
Evaluating Models Used To Consider Health Policy Alternatives

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

As computer-based decision modeling has become more sophisticated, policymakers have increasingly incorporated them into their assessment of potential policy measures in public health and medicine. Lead author Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert considers how to evaluate such models to enhance their credibility in the forthcoming paper to be published in Value in Health, "Empirically Evaluating Decision-Analytic Models." "The models being developed by researchers throughout the country have helped us to assess the long-term effectiveness and costs of various interventions...
CDC Analysis Shows Genital Herpes Rates Remain High

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

Roughly 16% of U.S. residents ages 14 through 49 are infected with genital herpes, making it one of the nation's most common sexually transmitted infections, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis released on Tuesday, Reuters reports. CDC noted that infection rates for the lifelong and incurable infection varied by gender and race. Twenty-one percent of U.S. women are infected with genital herpes, compared with 11.5% of men. Blacks have a 39% infection rate, compared with 12% among whites...
U.S. Maternal Mortality Rate Increases Over Last Decade

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

The maternal mortality rate in the U.S. appears to have risen over the past 10 years, reaching a rate that is four times higher than the federal government's 2010 goal, the AP/Yahoo! News reports. In 2006, the last year for which nationwide data are available, about 13.3 maternal deaths occurred for every 100,000 live births, compared with around seven deaths per 100,000 births one decade before. U.S. officials had hoped to decrease the rate to about 3.3 deaths in 2010. In California, the state that most closely tracks maternal mortality data, there were about 16...
Men's 'Barbarity' Should Not Be Used To Justify Mistreatment Of Women, Opinion Piece Argues

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

"'Feminism' is a loaded word in the United States," but the "simple fact is that 'the feminists' are absolutely right when it comes to the treatment of women in much of the developing world," Los Angeles Times columnist Jonah Goldberg writes. He adds that a recent Washington Post opinion piece on the Cameroonian practice of "breast ironing" is just one of the many examples of women and girls "pay[ing] the price for the barbarity of boys...
Identifying Patient-Relevant Outcomes In Metastatic Prostate Cancer

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

While subjective patient-reported outcomes, such as scores from health-status questionnaires, have become an integral part of clinical trials, there is also a need to identify what specific outcomes are the most important ones to target in a given disease context. The objective of this study was to develop a framework of patient-relevant outcome issues in men being treated for metastatic, hormone-refractory prostate cancer in order to enhance and support the clarity of measurement in this population...
Abortion Holding Up Democrats' Endgame On Health Overhaul

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

Politico: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer "said Tuesday that the abortion fight 'has to be resolved.' The majority leader expressed confidence that the issue would be wrapped up, but he also cautioned reporters that he had not had any formal negotiations with Rep. Bart Stupak, the Michigan Democrat who authored the House abortion restrictions. ... 'Congressman Stupak has not reached an agreement on abortion funding in the health care legislation,' his spokeswoman, Michelle Begnoche, said Tuesday...
Pro- And Anti-Health Reform Groups Wage Last Minute Attacks

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

Stephan Payne protested abuses by health insurance companies and pushed for health care reform during a rally Tuesday. The rally was organized by Health Care for America Now and coincided with an annual conference for health insurance executives in D.C. (Jessica Marcy/KHN) Thousands of protestors marched Tuesday to Washington's Ritz-Carlton hotel, where insurance company executives are meeting, The Washington Post reports. The protestors reinforced "the Obama administration's recent criticism of increasing health premiums...
Lincoln, Kucinich Weigh In On Health Bill Votes

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

Lawmakers weigh in on the health care overhaul debate. The Associated Press/The Washington Times: Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., "insisted Tuesday she remained opposed to pushing a health care bill through the Senate with a simple majority vote, despite saying she wanted to see what was in the legislation." Lincoln "said those comments didn't represent a change of heart on her stance against the controversial majority-vote procedure known as 'reconciliation.' 'I don't support reconciliation. All I said was I want to see what's in it,' Lincoln told reporters outside the Senate floor...
Mind Calls For Regulation Of Counsellors And Psychotherapists, UK

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

Mind today presents new evidence to illustrate the barriers people face when trying to make a complaint about counsellors and psychotherapists and urgently calls for independent statutory regulation to help protect clients from malpractice (1)...
California Rescission Settlement Benefits Few Consumers

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

The Associated Press reports on a new California state assembly report that found fewer than 200 people out of the more than 6,000 affected have taken advantage of benefits won by a settlement between state regulators and health insurers that dropped sick policyholders. "More than 6,000 Californians were subject to rescissions by the five largest insurance companies between 2004 and 2008, according to settlement agreements between the regulators and the insurers...
Age Concern And Help The Aged's Response To Today's Care Summit, UK

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 6:00am CST

Following Age Concern and Help the Aged's care summit, Andrew Harrop, Director of Policy and Public Affairs for Age Concern and Help the Aged, said: 'Our care summit did exactly what it set out to do. It provided all three main political parties the neutral platform that was needed to re-open dialogue about reforming the current care and support system. 'The three health spokespeople each spoke outlining their proposals on reforming care, and then participated in debate with older people, care users and experts...
ERT Launches 'Centralized Cardiac Safety 2.0': A Revolutionary New Approach To ECG Management In Clinical Trials

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

ERT (Nasdaq: ERES), a leading provider of centralized services to the biopharmaceutical, medical device and related industries, announced the launch of Centralized Cardiac Safety 2.0, a portfolio of new solutions that enable a significant new approach to cardiac safety in clinical trials. These new solutions overcome many of the perceived barriers to centralizing all ECGs in clinical trials. ERT's aim is to improve the science of cardiac safety while helping sponsors reduce overall costs with the adoption of a fully centralized approach...
Pediatric Sports Injuries: The Silent Epidemic

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

At today's 2010 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS), two separate studies focus on the dramatic rise of pediatric sports injuries in recent years. However, despite this alarming trend, awareness, education, warning signs and early treatment can make a significant difference and help keep these athletes in the game, according to the study experts. Thomas M. DeBerardino, M.D...
Cempra Announces The Completion Of Phase 1 Studies For CEM-101, A Next-Generation Macrolide

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

Cempra Pharmaceuticals announced the successful completion of Phase 1 clinical trials of its oral formulation of CEM-101, which showed good tolerability in those studies. The company also announced plans to submit an IND to the FDA to begin a Phase 1 study with the company's intravenous formulation of CEM-101 in mid-2010. CEM-101 is a next-generation macrolide with potent activity against pneumococci, including macrolide- and quinolone-resistant strains...
Start Of Phase I/II Gene Therapy Clinical Trial For Hemophilia B

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics (Euronext: AMT), a leader in the field of human gene therapy, announced that the first patient has been dosed in the Phase I/II exploratory clinical trial with a gene therapy product for hemophilia B, a seriously debilitating and potentially lethal disease. The trial is an open label dose-escalation study using a vector-gene combination developed at the renowned St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Dr. Arthur W. Nienhuis of St. Jude is the principal investigator of the on-going trial. The work was initiated at St. Jude more than a decade ago by Drs...
AdMeTech Hails New Research That Shows Promise Of MRI To Discriminate Aggressive Prostate Cancer From Dormant Disease

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

New preliminary data from a pilot study in the Netherlands indicates that imaging tools may help address the most challenging clinical dilemma of prostate cancer care as identified by the hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and its expert witnesses last week: to treat or not treat, AdMeTech Foundation's President and CEO Dr. Faina Shtern said today. The preliminary study, done by a world-leading team of researchers led by Dr...
Tumors May Respond To Extreme And Moderate Heat

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

Aided by ultrasound guidance, treating tumors with extreme heat or moderate heat may provide a possible therapeutic option, according to early research presented at the second AACR Dead Sea International Conference on Advances in Cancer Research: From the Laboratory to the Clinic, held March 7-10, 2010. "Low temperature controlled hyperthermia and high temperature treatments are beneficial in curing both malignant and benign tumors using minimally invasive and noninvasive ultrasound techniques," said Osama M. Al-Bataineh, Ph.D...
Breast Cancer Incidence Among Iraqi Women Profiled

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

Breast cancer continues to rise in Iraq, and scientists have established the Iraqi National Cancer Research Program to better understand the underlying molecular and environmental causes in an effort to curb the incidence of cancer. "Breast cancer is the most common type of malignancy recorded in the cancer registries of almost all countries within the Eastern Mediterranean Region. In Iraq, the continuous rise in the incidence rate is associated with an obvious trend to affect premenopausal women," said Nada A.S. Alwan, M.D., Ph.D...
Seaweed Extract May Hold Promise For Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Treatment

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

Seaweed extract may eventually emerge as a lymphoma treatment, according to laboratory research presented at the second AACR Dead Sea International Conference on Advances in Cancer Research: From the Laboratory to the Clinic, held here March 7-10, 2010. Lymphoma is a cancer of the immune system and is classified into Hodgkin's and non-Hodgkin's types, which are then further classified into B-cell and T-cell groups. "Some forms of B-cell lymphoma are especially resistant to standard treatment and thus new therapies are needed," said Mohammad Irhimeh, Ph.D...
The Dangers Of Daylight Savings Time

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

Daylight Savings Time can be hazardous for your health. On average, people go to work or school on the first Monday of Daylight Savings after sleeping 40 fewer minutes than normal. And recent studies have found there's a higher risk of heart attacks, traffic accidents and workplace injuries on the first Monday of Daylight Savings. "Many people already are chronically sleep-deprived, and Daylight Savings Time can make them even more tired for a few days," said Dr. Nidhi Undevia, medical director of the Sleep Program at Loyola University Health System...
New Drug Reduces Bad Cholesterol And Triglycerides Without Statin Side Effects

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

A new drug, eprotirome, has been shown to significantly lower bad cholesterol, triglycerides and Lp(A), without the side effects that statins cause in many people. Results of a study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. "Our study has shown a dramatic reduction in the dangerous fats that cause heart disease, the number one killer of Americans," said Dr. John Baxter, director of the Genomic Medicine Program at The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and co-author for the study...
Experimental Drug That Mimics Thyroid Hormone Safely Lowers 'Bad' Cholesterol In Statin-Treated Patients

Posted: March 11th, 2010, 5:00am CST

People whose "bad" cholesterol and risk of future heart disease stay too high despite cholesterol-lowering statin therapy can safely lower it by adding a drug that mimics the action of thyroid hormone. In a report published in the Mar. 11, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, Johns Hopkins and Swedish researchers say an experimental drug called eprotirome lowered cholesterol up to 32 percent in those already on statins, an effect equal to that expected from doubling the statin drug doses, without harmful side effects...