Accident victims who suffer a severe head injury are more likely to develop posttraumatic stress disorder if they remain conscious during their ordeal, according to research published in BMC Psychiatry this week. Unconsciousness probably protects people from posttraumatic stress disorder by preventing them from forming memories of their experience.
Current thinking holds that traumatic brain injury alone may be sufficient to protect patients from developing posttraumatic stress disorder, yet
Newborns whose mothers drank alcohol heavily during pregnancy had damage to the nerves in the arms and legs, according to a study by researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, one of the National Institutes of Health. The study was conducted in collaboration with researchers at the University of Chile. The nerve damage was still present when the children were reexamined at one year of age. The study is the first to examine whether exposure to alcoho
Scientists have been studying cannabinoids, substances that are chemically related to the ingredients found in marijuana, for more than two decades, hoping to learn more about how the drug produces its effects–both therapeutic and harmful. Marijuana has been reported effective in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, nausea caused by chemotherapy and wasting caused by AIDS. However, like all drugs, it also causes numerous unwanted side effects, including hypothermia, sedation, memory impair
A widespread lack of public awareness about stroke prevents the delivery of leading-edge therapies and hampers the efforts of researchers to test the next generation of clot-busting drugs, said Dr. Hal Unwin, associate professor of neurology at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.
Last year at Parkland Memorial Hospital – the primary adult teaching hospital for UT Southwestern faculty physicians – only 19 percent of 349 patients diagnosed with the most common form of stroke arrived wi
Staying physically or mentally active can slow down chemical changes in the brain that lead to the neurodegeneration of Huntington’s disease, researchers show in a mouse model of the disorder.
Levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) stop declining when Huntington’s disease transgenic mice are housed in an enriched environment, the scientists say. BDNF promotes neuron growth and survival and can also regulate communication between neurons.
“The finding that environmental
Infusing a naturally occurring anti-scarring agent called decorin into the damaged spinal cords of rats suppresses key molecules that block nerve regeneration after spinal cord injury, said Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) researchers in a study published today in the European Journal of Neuroscience.
The researchers are the first to use decorin to suppress inflammation and scar formation in spinal cord injuries. “Scar tissue that develops at sites of injury stops the regeneration of connect
A common virus may play a major role in causing a painful disease of immune cells that attacks children’s bones, according to a new study. The research may eventually lead to an easier diagnosis and to more effective treatments of the disease, Langerhans cell histiocytosis.
Researchers found evidence of the virus, human herpesvirus 6 (HHV-6) in the tissues of 25 of 35 children with Langerhans cell histiocytosis (LCH), compared to virus detected in only five of 19 children without LCH.
The use of an implantable cardiac defibrillator (ICD) can provide a significant reduction in mortality in heart failure patients, according to a study coordinated by researchers from the Duke Clinical Research Institute.
“Treatment using conventional therapy plus an implantable cardiac defibrillator showed a statistically significant reduction in total mortality when compared to standard treatment with a placebo and standard treatment with amiodarone, an anti-arrhythmia drug,” said Kerry L.
C-reactive proteins, which are released into the bloodstream as a result of inflammation, may not be an accurate early predictive marker for chronic diseases such as osteoarthritis, according to a new study by Duke University Medical Center researchers. The finding calls into question the clinical usefulness of the proteins as an indicator of disease.
Instead, the researchers found, levels of C-reactive proteins circulating in the blood are more an indicator of a patient’s weight that
American Heart Association meeting report
It takes about ten years for high blood pressure in young people to develop after they become overweight, and obesity is on a steady upward climb in the young, according to researchers presenting today at the American Heart Association’s 44th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.
Obesity is one of the strongest predictors of hypertension in young adults.
The U.S. Centers for Disease C
Ghent researchers have developed a new and easy method of detecting cirrhosis of the liver. This major finding helps predict the evolution of chronic liver disease, allowing physicians to start proper treatment early on. Patients suffering from this serious, progressive disease in its cirrhosis stage have a high chance of developing liver cancer. The test developed in Ghent permits frequent, non-invasive analyses to be carried out, through which the critical stages of the disease can be closely monit
News is usually good since most people overestimate their risk
A computer-based program can help people understand their estimated risk for colorectal cancer (CRC), according to an article in the April issue of Journal of Health Communication, co-authored by Neil D. Weinstein, Ph.D., professor in the department of human ecology at Rutgers University and associate investigator at the Arizona Cancer Center.
“Our program helped individuals better understand their true risk for
Saint Louis University study: We need clearer messages about what to eat
People would eat sweet potatoes on more days than Thanksgiving if Susie Nanney, Ph.D., acting director of the Obesity Prevention Center at Saint Louis University, had her way.
“People aren’t eating the fruits and vegetables that contain the most nutrients,” says Nanney, who is the author of new research in the March issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association. “People are quite frankl
OHSU study finds patients with massive skin cancers improve overall quality of life after free tissue transfer surgery
Dorothy Fahland says she was as a typical blue-eyed blonde with freckles growing up on Long Island, N.Y. She spent her days playing on the beach and sailing with friends. “No one ever thought to wear sunscreen back then,” she said. “As a teenager, the goal was to get as tan as possible, so I was in the sun a lot.”
Today Fahland, 72, of Olympia, Wash., regrets
Long before a woman feels an ominous lump in her breast, Victoria Seewaldt, M.D., can test her for subtle signs that breast cancer may be brewing in a few errant cells amidst thousands of healthy ones. Never before has such a possibility existed, and Seewaldt is brimming with excitement.
“This is potentially the ’breast pap smear’ that we never had before,” said Seewaldt, a scientist and breast oncologist at the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. “Just as we do with a cervical pap
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), coupled with the use of the contrast dye gadolinium, may help pediatricians better diagnose children with ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
Results of the study, published in the March issue of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases, showed that the gadolinium-enhanced MRI (G-MRI) confirmed these diagnoses in more than 90 percent of the children in the study who had inflammator
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