More than half of head and neck cancer patients surveyed were disabled by their cancer or by cancer treatment, according to an article in the June issue of The Archives of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
According to information in the article, more than 40,000 new cases of head and neck cancer are diagnosed annually in the United States, with 12,000 deaths each year. Patients with head and neck cancer often experience problems with eating and communi
How low can you go…safely?
Thanks to a landmark study involving the UW Health Sports Medicine Center, physicians and coaches can evaluate the effectiveness of methods widely used to measure body composition and predict the minimum weight an athlete should maintain.
Using a four-component model that included independent assessment of bone, body fat, muscle and total body water, 53 Division-I collegiate athletes were measured, yielding a precise reading that allowed for th
An international team of researchers, with the participation of Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona professor, Jordi Jordana, has published in Science magazine the results of their investigation into the origins of the domesticated donkey. The authors have discovered by using genetic analysis that the domesticated donkey originated in northeastern Africa approximately 5,000 years ago, quite probably due to the desertification of the Sahara. The conclusions of the study state that all domesticated donke
In a study published in Geophysical Research Letters (Vol. 31, No.18), University of South Florida College of Marine Science professor Boris Galperin and colleagues explain a link between the movement and appearance of ocean currents on Earth and the bands that characterize the surface of Jupiter and some other giant planets.
“The banded structure of Jupiter has long been a subject of fascination and intensive research,” says Galperin, a physical oceanographer who analyzes turbulence theo
SARS, the highly infectious respiratory virus, has been found in tears, reveals a small study in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
The finding suggests that tear analysis could not only be an effective means of diagnosing the infection, but also an unrecognised source of its spread, if appropriate preventive measures are not taken, say the authors.
Tear samples were swabbed from the tear ducts of 36 patients in Singapore with suspected SARS over 12 days in April 2003. Mo
Scientists have induced a movement disorder in rats that closely resembles Parkinson’s disease in humans. The study, published June 21, 2004, in the online edition of the Annals of Neurology, suggests that natural toxins found in the environment could contribute to the development of this debilitating movement disorder.
The compounds, called proteasome inhibitors, can be produced by bacteria and fungi. Man-made proteasome inhibitors may also find their way into the environment.
“Th
Climate may influence prevailing rates of asthma and eczema indicates an international study of almost 670,000 children in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Marked seasonal variations in temperature, altitude, outdoor humidity and latitude all affected rates of asthma and eczema.
The conclusions are based on data collected between 1992 and 1996 from children 6 to 7 and 12 to 13 years old from over 50 countries taking part the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Ch
Cooking with gas seems to increase the risk of respiratory illness, indicates research in Archives of Disease in Childhood.
Parents of 426 children living in two housing estates in Hong Kong were surveyed about their children’s health. One of the estates was located in an area of high environmental pollution.
None of the children, whose ages ranged from a few months up to 6 years old, had yet started school, so were likely to spend a good deal of time indoors.
Their pa
A small Ohio study has offered the first published evidence that aggressively treating brain blood clots at their source soon after symptoms start can produce a good outcome for many stroke patients.
In the study, published in a recent issue of the journal Neurosurgery, 50 percent of stroke patients had little or no neurological disability one to three months after clot-dissolving medication was delivered directly to the site of the blockages, compared to 39 percent of patients with similar
Study results published in the August issue of the journal Cancer reinforce previous findings that the laminin-8 genes and the resulting protein may be highly valuable targets in the fight against malignant brain tumors.
Researchers at Cedars-Sinai’s Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute report that over-expression of laminin-8 can be used as a predictor of a tumor’s grade, its potential for recurrence, and the patient’s length of survival. This follows their earlier findings that laminin-
By making use of model compounds in drug design, chemists at the University of California, San Diego identified a class of molecules that could lead to treatments for a wide range of diseases, including cancer, arthritis, and heart disease.
Enzymes—protein catalysts—in the body that help break down connective tissue like collagen are important in growth and wound healing, but also play a role in many diseases. For example, these enzymes are overactive in arthritis and are used by cancer cell
Ovarian stimulation of male steroids is the culprit behind this disorder.
A woman finds herself with excessive facial hair, obesity, menstrual abnormalities, infertility, and enlarged ovaries may have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), an unfortunate condition thought to be caused by excessive secretion by the ovaries of androgen, a hormone associated with male characteristics. Men and women both have hormones expressing male and female characteristics. Yet, the cause of this excess
Sales of Biofuels exceeded $ 12 billion in 2003 worldwide. High growth in 2004. The greening Automotive Industry in China.
In some countries the costs for biofuel are today lower than traditional oil and that’s only the beginning of a new development for many countries to be oil-free in the next 30 years. Nanobiotechnology will improve the biomass production by shaping molecules to design “energyplants” and optimize the biotechnology process. Nanotechnology and converging biotechnol
The forests of the world are not the stable and unchanging ecosystems they have been assumed to be. Without the occurrence of wide-spread disturbances in nature, such as forest fires, icing, or volcanic activity, forests will eventually be impoverished, owing to a lack of phosphorous.
This is shown in a study reported in this week’s issue of the journal Science. The scientists who carried out the investigation are David Wardle, Department of Forest Vegetation Ecology, Swedish University
Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) costs the United States over $9 billion each year in lost productivity according to an article published today in the Open Access journal Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation. This estimate, which is similar to the financial losses caused by digestive system disorders or infectious and parasitic diseases, does not include healthcare costs, which are likely to be substantial.
According to the study authors, “The extent of the burden indicates that contin
People retiring in the next decade or so will live considerably healthier, more active and longer lives than their predecessors. But according to research by James Banks and colleagues, many are drastically underestimating the chances of their retirement lasting at least 10 years – and hence may not be saving ‘enough`.
The first results of Banks et al’s study of people’s expected longevity – which draw on data gathered in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and are published in ESRC’s
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