Approximately half of all women who seek clinical treatment for migraines have reported an association between migraine and menstruation, and a recent study confirms their experience. In another, unrelated study researchers have identified a drug therapy that is effective in reducing the occurrence or the severity and duration of menstrually associated migraines. Details and outcomes of both studies, and a related editorial, are published in the July 27 issue of Neurology.

Nearly one in fiv

New medications for osteoporosis, offering improved efficacy and convenient dosing, are associated with increased frequency of patient visits and treatment. The finding suggests new drug therapy contributes to increased disease recognition and treatment, according to an article in the July 26 issue of The Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

According to background information in the article, osteoporosis is a condition of low bone mass and deterioration of bone

New research findings verify that income changes directly affect depressive symptoms in women during the first three years after childbirth, according to an article to be published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The article, co-written by Eric Dearing, assistant professor in the University of Wyoming Department of Psychology, suggests that interventions to help increase income levels of such women could improve their mental health, which in turn can foster the social and emotiona

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas are looking for women to participate in the second phase of a study of a new cohesive silicone-gel breast implant.

The implant, which has the consistency of a “gummy candy,” is made of a cohesive silicone gel that will not leak if the implant breaks, said Dr. William P. Adams Jr., associate professor of plastic surgery at UT Southwestern. Cohesive-gel implants have been the most widely used type of breast implant in Europe and Brazil f

Feeling sick can be “all in the head” for people with inflammatory disorders or for those receiving immunotherapy, say Robert Dantzer and Keith Kelley, professors in the department of animal sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“For the first time, we have evidence of a strong relationship between a molecular event and the development of psychopathology,” Dantzer said.

The two scientists, who have collaborated for 25 years, have identified how a molecular pa

After a series of studies in the laboratory of Dr. Gregory Freund, a clearer picture is emerging: A disruption of signaling proteins in the immune system may be responsible for the inflammation that makes someone with type 2 diabetes feel sick and increases the risk of serious complications.

Freund, the head of the pathology department in the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Urbana-Champaign and a professor of animal sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environm

Professor Pierre Delaere (Otorhinolaryngology section, K.U.Leuven) has in the past decade developed a new surgical technique for larynx reconstruction. In an increasing number of cases, this innovative technique can save the larynx in patients suffering from vocal cord cancer. Patients are able to breathe, swallow and speak normally following the operation, something that was previously impossible since the entire larynx frequently needed to be removed, even if only one vocal cord was affected.

Result is part of a national survey

Hyperhidrosis, or excessive sweating, affects a much larger proportion of the U.S. population than previously reported, according to new research. Dee Anna Glaser, M.D., professor of dermatology at Saint Louis University, said that an estimated 7.8 million people in the United States suffer from hyperhidrosis.

“I was a little surprised at the high percentage of those affected,” she said. Glaser conducted a national survey of 150,000 house

When a Kopi Luwak coffee bean, the world’s most expensive coffee, comes out the other end of a large cat after it’s been eaten by the animal – called a civet or Luwak – the micro-structural properties of the beans are altered, according to new research by a University of Guelph scientist published in Food Research International.

They’re harder, more brittle and darker in colour than the same type of bean that hasn’t been eaten and digested by the three- to 10-pound tree-climbing animal foun

E. coli, the bug made famous by food poisoning outbreaks, can be used to point the finger of blame at the right culprit when our waterways become polluted. E. coli live in the guts of animals and are already used to indicate whether food and water are contaminated with faecal material. However, according to a recent article in the August 2004 issue of Microbiology Today, the quarterly magazine of the Society for General Microbiology, this work can be extended to use the bugs to detect and find the s

Eradicating deadly E. coli O157:H7 from the bottoms of cows may prevent future outbreaks of food poisoning by this famous bug. According to an article in the August 2004 issue Microbiology Today, the quarterly magazine of the Society for General Microbiology, the majority of people with E. coli O157:H7, picked up the infection from cattle, either through direct contact with faeces or by consuming contaminated meat or milk.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh, in collaboration with the

Taking something of a back-to-the-future approach, biologists from Boston University have looked into the past to find that flowering plants growing today blossom more than a week earlier than a century ago. Their findings, being presented at the Society for Conservation Biology’s annual meeting in New York City July 30 – August 2, show that among the plants studied in Boston’s Arnold Arboretum, flowering times have moved forward over the decades, with the plants flowering eight days earl

A stroke leaves a permanent gap in the brain that can destroy a person’s ability to speak and move normally. Filling that gap with new cells has been a long sought-after goal of stem cell research, but all attempts have met with complications – until now. Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine report the first success using stem cells to populate the damaged region with new neurons in rats. If those cells also replace the function of the lost cells, they could help people recover

The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, funded by the National Science Foundation and the State of Florida, has achieved another world record in magnet development with the successful testing of its 21.1 Tesla, superconducting, ultra-wide bore, NMR magnet. The magnet reached full field on July 21, 2004, and will remain at field for years — and even decades — to come. A team of engineers headed by Denis Markiewicz, Tom Painter, Iain Dixon, and Jim Ferner at the NHMFL developed, designed, manuf

Researchers have discovered a possible inherited component for lung cancer, a disease normally associated with external causes, such as cigarette smoking. An interdisciplinary consortium consisting of 12 research institutions and universities, including the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), both part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), identified a major lung cancer susceptibility region on a segment of chromosome 6. The findings appear

As the health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids reach the awareness of consumers eager to improve the functions of their body—from the cardiovascular system to the brain—food makers are scurrying to enrich and fortify products with omega-3s and get them to market. But one major obstacle tempers progress—flavor.

Great sources for omega-3s are fish oils, algal oils and linseed oil. Each can be highly susceptible to oxidation, however. That deteriorates flavor, increases the risk of rancidity