Rat studies with chocolate breakfast cereal reveal why animals overdo it; opioid drug study implicates brain’s reward system

Two studies in the October issue of Behavioral Neuroscience show that when animals are stressed, deprived and exposed to tempting food, they overeat, with different degrees of interaction. The powerful interplay between internal and external factors helps explain why dieters rebound and even one cookie can trigger a binge if someone’s predisposed

Books offering advice to parents about teens are less likely to contain injury prevention messages than those that give advice on parenting smaller children, according to a new University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study. Notably absent from most such books were discussions about preventing automobile accidents among adolescents.

The UNC Injury Prevention Research Center investigation, which appears in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics, involved reviewing the

Inaccurate diagnoses led to painful biopsies that in themselves worsened the condition of patients with rare muscle-to-bone disease

A new research study shows how common a medical misdiagnosis can be and how severely it can exacerbate a disease.

Focusing on a rare, genetic and disabling disease known as fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva, or FOP, researchers designed the study as an examination of the frequency of misdiagnosis and the complications associated with it.

Tryptophan is the source of Thanksgiving legend and grist for a “Seinfeld” episode, but it’s not the chemical that you’d expect to find in Lawrence Steinman’s lab.

A professor of neurology and neurological sciences and chair of the immunology program, Steinman, MD, and his lab generally focus on high-tech genetic therapies for diseases of the brain and nervous system. But his latest paper, to be published in the Nov. 4 issue of Science, breaks new ground on the effec

Membranes composed of manmade carbon nanotubes permit a fluid flow nearly 10,000 to 100,000 times faster than conventional fluid flow theory would predict because of the nanotubes’ nearly friction-free surface, researchers at the University of Kentucky report in the Nov. 3 issue of Nature.

In their study, Mainak Majumder, Nitin Chopra and Bruce J. Hinds of UK’s Chemical and Materials Engineering Department, and Rodney Andrews of UK’s Center for Applied Energy Res

Families living in the Nellies Cave Park area near Virginia Tech are helping researchers learn about healthy lifestyles and in return are getting information about their own health.

The project by nutrition researchers from Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is part of efforts to learn how a neighborhood influences physical activity and diet.

“We think that town planners, zoning administrators, parks and recreation planners and other communit

Interracial relationships and marriages are becoming more common in the United States, according to a new Cornell University study.

The number of interracial marriages involving whites, blacks and Hispanics each year in the United States has jumped tenfold since the 1960s, but the older individuals are, the less likely they are to partner with someone of a different race, finds the new study.

“We think that’s because relationships are more likely to be interracial

New research findings showcased at the 13th European Cancer Conference (ECCO) have highlighted the important therapeutic potential of immunotherapy in the treatment of a number of different cancers e.g. for treatment of renal and skin cancers.

Renal cancer is the 6th leading cause of cancer death with a survival rate of 11% for stage-IV disease. More than a million skin cancer cases occur each year globally, with a 5-year survival rate of 7 to 9% and a 10-year survival rate of 3 to

Studies in monkeys and women suggest that unlike traditional estrogen therapy, a diet high in the natural plant estrogens found in soy does not increase the risk of uterine cancer in postmenopausal women, according to Mark Cline, D.V.M., Ph.D., an associate professor of comparative medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

“These findings give us some confidence that dietary soy doesn’t promote uterine cancer and, in fact, may offer a protective effect in some cas

Aerobic exercise is thought to help persons with multiple sclerosis fight fatigue, the most common symptom of the disease. Yet MS also appears to cause the body to heat up more quickly, compromising the ability to exercise.

New research at UB will investigate if cooling the body before or during exercise allows persons with MS to exercise longer, and which method is most effective. The study also will determine the effects of a 12-week aerobic exercise program on fitness, cor

Visual information is processed even when the visual cortex is temporarily shut down

Visual information can be processed unconsciously when the area of the brain that records what the eye sees is temporarily shut down, according to research at Rice University in Houston.

The research, published the week of Oct. 31 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’ (PNAS) online Early Edition, suggests the brain has more than one pathway along which visual inform

After a person is diagnosed with cancer, increased surveillance among their family members may result in the earlier detection of asymptomatic familial cancers. This phenomenon is called detection bias and may occur for a variety of cancers, according to a new study in the November 2 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Accurate assessments of the risk of cancer among the family members of cancer patients are essential for clinical and genetic counseling. Knowl

They might prefer to be in front of the TV or Playstation, but Brisbane teenagers are likely to be healthier if they eat meals with mum and dad.

University of Queensland researchers working on the world’s longest health study found teens who ate regularly with their family were less likely to be overweight.

Lead researcher, Dr Abdullah Al Mamun from UQ’s School of Population Health said regular family meals could reduce snacking and make for healthier food a

Study results presented at the 13th European Cancer Conference (ECCO 13) have provided further valuable insights into certain genetic mutations which occur in childhood thyroid tumours and their link to both radiation exposure and patient age.

The unique circumstances of this study were provided for by the legacy of the radioactive accident at Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in April 1986. Exposure to radioactive fallout led to a large increase in the incidence of papillary th

New research shows that idiopathic interstitial pneumonia (IIP), a group of potentially fatal disorders that affects the lungs, may be caused by an interaction between a specific genetic background and cigarette smoking. In a study of 111 families that had at least two relatives with IIP, people who smoked cigarettes were three times more likely than non-smokers to develop the disease. The research was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and the National Institute

Experiments in female monkeys have for the first time shown that when used in combination, vaginal gels known as microbicides can protect against an HIV-like virus. The research, funded largely by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), one of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), suggests that similar combination microbicides could potentially provide a safe, effective and practical way to prevent HIV transmission to women, according to study investigators.