Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have found that the risk of developing melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, is only partially associated with exposure to ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation, the rays in sunlight that increase in summer and cause sunburn.
The report in the Dec. 21 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute also indicates that only nonmalignant skin cancers (basal and squamous cell carcinoma) are strongly ass
When it comes to the information in a mammogram, Purdue scientists say less is more – and their findings could bring medical care to many far-flung communities.
A team of researchers, including Bradley J. Lucier, has found that digitized mammograms, the X-ray cross sections of breast tissue that doctors use to search for cancer, are actually interpreted more accurately by radiologists once they have been “compressed” using techniques similar to those used to lessen the memory deman
Swedish study points to link between depression and coronary heart disease
According to a large-scale study in Sweden, people who have been diagnosed with depression, especially younger patients between 25 and 50 years of age, are at increased risk of developing Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) later in life. Even after accounting for socioeconomic status and gender, the risk was greatest for those diagnosed before 40.
In an article published in the December issue of the Am
A decreased ability to repair chromosomal damage caused by exposure to ultraviolet B (UV-B) radiation in test tubes may be associated with an increased risk of the common skin cancers basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma, but not of melanoma, according to a study in the December 21 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Exposure to UV radiation from sunlight is a risk factor for the two most common skin cancers, basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinom
Almost half of lung cancers detected by a chest x-ray were early-stage cancers, according to baseline results of a large, randomized clinical trial that is testing the efficacy of a chest x-ray as a screening test for lung cancer. The study results are published in the December 21 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Lung cancer causes one million deaths worldwide every year. When patients begin to experience symptoms of lung cancer, the cancers are often ad
If you are a Medicare beneficiary, should it matter whether your health care plan is for-profit or not-for-profit? According to a study published in the December issue of The American Journal of Medicine, it may.
By analyzing the first mandatory reporting of Quality-of-Care (QOC) data for Medicare patients, researchers from the Department of Health Policy and Management, Harvard School of Public Health; and the Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, Boston,
There is a strong, progressive association between tooth loss and heart disease, researchers report in a study published in the latest issue of American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
Heart disease was present in 4.7 percent of those without tooth loss, 5.7 percent of those with 1 to 5 missing teeth, 7.5 percent of those with 6 to 31 missing teeth, and 8.5 percent of those with total tooth loss, reports lead investigator Catherine Okoro, epidemiologist in the Division of Adult
UNC scientists’ findings have diverse implications
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have purified a novel protein and have shown it can alter gene activity by reversing a molecular modification previously thought permanent.
In the study, the authors showed that a protein called JHDM1A is able to remove a methyl group from histone H3, one of four histone proteins bound to all genes. Until just last year, the addition of a methyl gro
Novel computational neuroscience model offers new areas for experimentation
Our ability to understand speech or decide which fruit in the store is freshest depends on the brain’s dexterity in integrating information over time. The prefrontal cortex, where working memory resides, plays a critical role in helping us make these countless everyday decisions. A novel computational study by Brandeis researchers in this week’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy o
Researchers find one population actually two; suggest strategies for future elephant conservation
Researchers in India and from The Earth Institute at Columbia University have discovered that one of the few remaining populations of Asian elephants in India is actually two genetically distinct groups. The results of the study, which appear in the current issue of the journal Animal Conservation, could have far-reaching implications in conservation plans for the endangered elepha
Research from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University
With the population of the world increasing rapidly, the number of people aged 60 years and older is expected to nearly triple by 2050. The majority of these elderly people will be living in the developing world, where the burden of disease is greater. In a special article published in Nutrition Reviews, researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRCA) at Tufts
A multi-institutional study offers additional insight into the evolutionary process by examining how albinism evolves in cavefish. Researchers, including New York University Biology Professor Richard Borowsky, examined two populations of Mexican cavefish and found that albinism in both populations was linked to Oca2–a pigmentation gene also responsible for the most common form of albinism in humans. They observed different deletions in the gene in each population and found that both deletions caus
A derivative of the sweet wormwood plant used since ancient times to fight malaria and shown to precisely target and kill cancer cells may someday aid in stopping breast cancer before it gets a toehold. In a new study, two University of Washington bioengineers found that the substance, artemisinin, appeared to prevent the onset of breast cancer in rats that had been given a cancer-causing agent. The study appears in the latest issue of the journal Cancer Letters.
“Based on earli
Discovery in rodents may explain why some antidepressants require weeks of use before they work
The beneficial effects of a widely used class of antidepressants might be the result of increased nerve-fiber growth in key parts of the brain, according to a Johns Hopkins study being published in the January 2006 issue of the Journal of Neurochemistry.
The study on rats, led by Vassilis E. Koliatsos, M.D., a neuropathologist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine,
Polio is on track to become only the second disease ever eradicated. In two studies in the Dec. 15 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, now available online, scientists are working to ensure that once it is gone, it stays gone. One study reduces concerns that people whose immune systems were weakened by HIV would re-introduce poliovirus into the community. The other study looks at the how switching forms of vaccine from a live, attenuated vaccine to an inactivated version may affect
Study a breakthrough in efforts to find safe, effective method of producing large quantities of vaccine for top bioterrorism threat
Enough anthrax vaccine to inoculate everyone in the United States could be grown inexpensively and safely with only one acre of tobacco plants, a University of Central Florida molecular biologist has found.
Mice immunized with a vaccine produced in UCF professor Henry Daniell’s laboratory through the genetic engineering of tobacco plan
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