Disease Medical Research Buzz

Last year, the number of new sexually transmitted infections increased by 5 percent, according to new data published by Public Health England (PHE). In 2011, there were 428,255 diagnosed cases of sexually transmitted infections compared to 448,422 in 2012. Health officials have issued a warning saying that the increased prevalence of STIs means that there are too many people who are still unaware of the risks involved with unsafe sex - in particular men who have sex with men (MSM)... Full Article

The news about youth and diabetes keeps getting worse. The latest data from the national TODAY diabetes study shows that children who develop Type 2 diabetes are at high risk to develop heart, kidney and eye problems faster and at a higher rate than people who acquire Type 2 diabetes as adults. Full Article

CHICAGO (AP) — Obesity surgery worked much better at reducing and even reversing diabetes than medication and lifestyle changes in one of the most rigorous studies of its kind. But the researchers and others warn that possible serious complications need to be considered. Full Article

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Drugmaker Cadila Healthcare Ltd received regulatory approval to market a new diabetes drug in India that it developed and is aiming for more than $1 billion in sales globally, the company said on Wednesday. Cadila, India's sixth-largest drugmaker by sales, spent $250 million developing Lipaglyn, a new chemical entity or new discovery, and aims to spend another $150 million to $200 million to launch the drug outside India, the company's chairman, Pankaj Patel, said. ... Full Article

For the first time, researchers have described that the 4-million-atom structure of the HIV's capsid, or protein shell. The findings could lead to new ways of fending off an often-changing virus that has been very hard to conquer. Scientists have long struggled to decipher how the HIV capsid shell is chemically put together, said senior author Peijun Zhang, Ph.D., associate professor, Department of Structural Biology, University of Pittsburgh School ... Full Article

A new single step Raman spectroscopy algorithm may simultaneously detect breast lesions and breast cancer, a new study shows. "Nearly 1.6 million breast biopsies are performed and roughly 250,000 new breast cancers are diagnosed in the Unites States each year," said Ishan Barman, Ph.D., postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge and the study''s lead author. "If 200,000 repeat biopsies were avoided, even by a conservative estimate, ... Full Article

Women can remember faces better than men, because they spend more time studying features, reveals study. This technique, researchers said, can help improve anyone's memories. The findings help to answer long-standing questions about why some people can remember faces easily while others quickly forget someone they've just met. "Our findings provide new insights into the potential mechanisms of episodic memory and the differences between ... Full Article

Death rates from breast cancer can be slashed further by extending drug therapy for longer, shows a new study. Researchers have found that women who took the drug tamoxifen for ten years rather than the usual five halved their risk of dying from the disease, the Independent reported. Discovered in the 1960s, Tamoxifen has transformed the treatment of breast cancer and resulted in nearly 50 per cent fall in death rates in the last 30 years. But ... Full Article

Taking a calcium supplement of up to 1,000 mg per day can help women live longer, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Calcium, an essential nutrient for bone health, is commonly found in dairy products as well as vitamins. Although calcium is an essential nutrient for bone health, past studies have linked calcium supplements to heart disease risk... Full Article

Nicotine replacement therapy and other licensed drugs can help people quit smoking, according to a new systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. The study, which is an overview of previous Cochrane reviews, supports the use of the smoking cessation medications that are already widely licensed internationally, and shows that another drug licensed in Russia could hold potential as an effective and affordable treatment... Full Article

New research is tweaking an old adage about how to get ahead in a competitive workplace: It's not just who you know, but what you believe in. Full Article

Geochemistry analysis conducted by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory of fossil sediment injection structures off the New Zealand coast in February and March, reveal no presence of modern day expulsions of methane gas, a potential contributor to global 'greenhouse effect' warming. Full Article

ZURICH (Reuters) - Swiss biotech group Basilea has clinched "orphan" drug status from U.S. health authorities for antifungal treatment isavuconazole, progress on a product that analysts estimate could be worth up to 150 million francs annually. Sector analysts forecast potential peak annual sales of isavuconazole at 530-600 million Swiss francs ($623.47 million), of which Basilea could receive up to 25 percent in royalties. Orphan status is granted to drugs that treat conditions or diseases that affect fewer than 200,000 people in the United States. ... Full Article

Arthritis Foundation Launches Campaign to Increase Awareness Full Article

What You Might Find on Wine, Beer and Spirit Nutrition Labels Full Article

A new study has found that children who develop Type 2 diabetes are at high risk to develop heart, kidney and eye problems faster and at a higher rate than people who acquire Type 2 diabetes as adults. "Once these kids have Type 2 diabetes, they seem to be at very high risk for early complications when compared to adults," Jane Lynch, M.D., professor of pediatric endocrinology in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, ... Full Article

According to a new study, less-educated white women were increasingly more likely to die than their better-educated peers from the mid-1990s through the mid-2000s. The study found that growing disparities in economic circumstances and health behaviors-particularly employment status and smoking habits-across education levels accounted for an important part of the widening mortality gap. "Based on the information we get from the news, it seems that life ... Full Article

A fossil study has found clues to the origin of cancer in the remains of a Neanderthal man who lived 120,000 years ago. Researchers have found evidence of bone tumor in a rib bone found in a shallow cave at Krapina, Croatia. The site has yielded 900 human bones previously and some stone tools were also unearthed here. Dr David Frayer, the University of Kansas anthropologist who was the leader of the US team, said that this was the oldest tumor found in the ... Full Article

The news about youth and diabetes keeps getting worse. The latest data from the national TODAY diabetes study shows that children who develop Type 2 diabetes are at high risk to develop heart, kidney and eye problems faster and at a higher rate than people who acquire Type 2 diabetes as adults. "Once these kids have Type 2 diabetes, they seem to be at very high risk for early complications when compared to adults," said Jane Lynch, M.D., professor of pediatric endocrinology in the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio... Full Article

A new study suggests that one night of sleep deprivation leads to an increase in men's perceptions of both women's interest in and intent to have sex. Results show that when they were well-rested, both men and women rated the sexual intent of women as significantly lower than that of men. However, following one night of sleep deprivation, men's rating of women's sexual intent and interest increased significantly, to the extent that women were no longer seen as having lower sexual intent than men. Sleep deprivation had no significant effect on variables related to commitment... Full Article

A 17th century drawing by renowned artist Sir Peter Paul Rubens has been discovered at the University of Reading. Full Article

By Deena Beasley CHICAGO (Reuters) - Data from a pivotal trial of Amgen Inc's experimental melanoma therapy shows that it improved survival by 21 percent for patients with advanced forms of the deadly skin cancer compared with a standard white blood cell-boosting drug. Final survival results are not expected until later this year, but Wall Street has been awaiting the interim trial details to help assess the drug's commercial potential within a new market of promising melanoma treatments. ... Full Article

By Kerry Grens NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People with sleep apnea should not have their driving restricted just because of their diagnosis, says a leading medical group. "You don't want to unfairly prejudice people with a diagnosis of sleep apnea, because many of them are not sleepy or are less sleepy than people in the general population" who might work night shifts or have restricted sleep, said Dr. Kingman Strohl, the lead author of the guidelines from the American Thoracic Society (ATS). ... Full Article

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - Merck KGaA's cancer drug Erbitux was shown to be more effective at prolonging the lives of bowel cancer patients than Roche's Avastin, Merck said. In a drug trial, the two drugs were each given in combination with Folfiri chemotherapy to patients whose colorectal cancer had started spreading to other organs. The results showed the Erbitux group survived on average nearly four months longer than the Avastin group. The trial was conducted by an independent research collaborative of the German Association of Medical Oncology (AIO) and sponsored by Germany's Merck. ... Full Article

A cheap and easy-to-use device has been developed by scientists to detect cancer in ten minutes. Jonathan O'Halloran created the iPhone-sized Q-POC, which is also able to analyse disease's genetic signatures before advising on the best type of drugs that can be used for treatment, the Daily Express reported. The first prototypes of the device are undergoing trials and according to experts has the potential to prolong the lives of 12.7million newly-diagnosed ... Full Article

Medical emergencies during commercial airline travel can be a frightening experience. In spite of this, most situations are well-treated by other passengers and flight attendants, in collaboration with consulting physicians on the ground. A University of Pittsburgh study published today in the iNew England Journal of Medicine/i found that doctors, nurses and other medical professionals on the aircraft helped to treat sick fellow passengers in three-fourths of the emergencies ... Full Article

New research indicates that sleep consolidates emotional memories in healthy children but not in children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). The study is published May 29 in the open access journal iPLOS ONE/i by Alexander Prehn-Kristensen and colleagues from University Hospital Schleswig-Holstein. The study suggests these deficits in sleep-related emotional processing may exacerbate emotional problems experienced in the daytime by children ... Full Article

New research has added more evidence that breastfeeding boosts babies' brain growth. The study by researchers from Brown University, made use of specialized, baby-friendly magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to look at the brain growth in a sample of children under the age of 4. The research found that by age 2, babies who had been breastfed exclusively for at least three months had enhanced development in key parts of the brain compared to children ... Full Article

Bacteria in food can affect brain function, according to new research published in the journal Gastroenterology. The study, carried out by UCLA researchers, found that brain function changed among healthy women who consumed probiotics in yogurt. Brain function changed among the women while in a resting state as well as during an emotion-recognition task. They found that the bacterial environment in the gut can affect brain activity. The researchers said that this finding has important implications for future dietary or drug interventions to improve brain function. Dr... Full Article

Addressing the burden of household air pollution from solid fuel combustion - the leading environmental cause of death and disability in the world - has led to the implementation of many important interventions to promote access to improved stoves and clean fuels, but there is little demonstrated evidence of health benefits from most of these programs or technologies. Such are the conclusions of a new Policy Forum article published in this week's PLOS Medicine by authors who also outline a set of research priorities for addressing household air pollution... Full Article