Curated News: Featured: MedWire

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A survey of international members of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) found that 96 percent of respondents agreed that climate change is occurring and 81 percent indicated that climate change has direct relevance to patient care. Compared to a similar survey of American ATS members, more international physician members reported that climate change was affecting their patients “a great deal” or a “moderate amount” (69 percent international vs. 44 percent U.S.).

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In a collaborative effort with scientists at six Colombian hospitals, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report what they believe to be the strongest biological evidence to date linking Zika virus infection and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

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In a paper published in the academic journal Nature Communications, ISU scientists identified a protein that may safeguard neurons from the ravages of Parkinson’s disease.

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Why do some people lead a perfectly healthy lifestyle yet still die young? A new international study suggests that the answer lies in our DNA.

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Time is of the essence when getting people stricken with acute ischemic strokes to treatment. And the use of stent retrievers — devices that remove the blood clot like pulling a cork out of a wine bottle Current professional guidelines recommend that stent retrievers be used to remove blood clots from stroke patients within six hours for people to benefit. But new research finds that the procedure has benefits for people up to 7.3 hours following the onset of a stroke.

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Does eating too much sugar cause type 2 diabetes? The answer may not be simple, but a study published Sept. 26 in the Journal of Clinical Investigation adds to growing research linking excessive sugar consumption -- specifically the sugar fructose -- to a rise in metabolic disease worldwide. The study, conducted in mice and corroborated in human liver samples, unveils a metabolic process that could upend previous ideas about how the body becomes resistant to insulin and eventually develops diabetes.

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Hearing loss is a marginalizing and disabling condition, resulting in various adverse social and health outcomes. Babies born to women with hearing loss were significantly more likely to be premature and have low birth weight, according to a new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Understanding and addressing the causes are critical to improving pregnancy outcomes among women with hearing loss, say investigators.

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Researchers have recently shown that magnetic bacteria are a promising vehicle for more efficiently delivering tumor-fighting drugs.

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The promise of stem cells to treat cardiovascular disease may soon be a step closer to clinical application as scientists from three institutions seek to perfect and test three-dimensional “heart patches” in a large animal model — the last big hurdle before trials in human patients.

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Your eyes begin to open after a good night of sleep, but something feels weird. You try to take a deep breath but can’t draw air. You can’t sit up, and you may even see a shadow in the corner of the room. This isn’t a nightmare or a medical emergency—you likely just had a case of sleep paralysis.

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Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found a switch that redirects helper cells in the peripheral nervous system into "repair" mode, a form that restores damaged axons.

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Most cancers have a sweet tooth but—mysteriously—some tumors prefer fat over sugar. Now, a study from Harvard Medical School reveals how these cancers develop their appetite for fat.

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A study of parents by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that about half of the children whose parents were surveyed spend time in homes that have firearms.

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Scientists have implicated a type of stem cell in the calcification of blood vessels that is common in patients with chronic kidney disease. The research will guide future studies into ways to block minerals from building up inside blood vessels and exacerbating atherosclerosis, the hardening of the arteries.

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Children with mild, persistent asthma did not have worse asthma symptoms after taking acetaminophen (e.g., Tylenol) for pain or fever, compared to using ibuprofen (e.g., Advil), according to the results of a randomized, double-blind clinical trial recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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Berkeley Lab researchers linked the overexpression of 14 genes related to cell division to cancer patients' prognosis and response to specific treatments. The findings could be used to develop a biomarker that doctors and patients use to make better informed decisions in clinical settings.

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A research team at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles has generated functional human and mouse tissue-engineered liver from adult stem and progenitor cells. Tissue-engineered Liver (TELi) was found to contain normal structural components such as hepatocytes, bile ducts and blood vessels.

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With millions of motorists set to hit the road for the bank holiday weekend, drivers have been urged to close windows and turn off fans while in traffic jams to avoid breathing in dangerously high levels of air pollution. Latest research from the University of Surrey has shown that simple adjustment to your car's ventilation system while sitting in traffic jams can greatly affect your exposure to toxic fumes by up to 76%.

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Neuroscientists believe they have figured out how rats solve certain navigational problems. If there’s a “reward” at the end of the trip, specialized neurons in the hippocampus of the brain “replay” the route taken to get it, but backward. And the greater the reward, the more often the rats’ brains replay it.

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The Global Biological Standards Institute (GBSI) targets the quality of research antibodies at a workshop at Asilomar next month in its ongoing efforts to improve reproducibility in preclinical research. Antibody Validation: Standards, Policies, and Practices brings together 100 leaders representing academia, antibody producers, pharma, funders, journals and policy makers to share perspectives, build consensus and recommend actionable solutions for improving accuracy in research antibody usage and validation. It is the first convening of all such stakeholder groups with the express purpose of developing antibody standards.

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Rheumatoid arthritis patients taking medications that inhibit interleukin-1beta (IL-1beta), a molecule that stimulates the immune system, are 300 times more likely to experience invasive Group A Streptococcal infections than patients not on the drug, according to University of California San Diego School of Medicine researchers. Their study, published August 19 in Science Immunology, also uncovers a critical new role for IL-1beta as the body’s independent early warning system for bacterial infections.

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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified the protein that norovirus – the most common cause of viral diarrhea – uses to invade cells. The discovery could lead to new ways to study the virus, which has been hard to study because it grows poorly in the lab.

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An international team of researchers has developed a new opioid drug candidate that blocks pain without triggering the dangerous side effects of current prescription painkillers. Their secret? Starting from scratch — with computational techniques that let them explore more than four trillion different chemical interactions.

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Sedentary behavior — even among physically active people — may be associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and more.

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With Zika sparking anxiety at the Summer Olympic Games in Brazil, and now being transmitted in Florida through contact with mosquitoes, accurately mapping the distribution of the virus is increasingly urgent.

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Researchers from Aalto University and the University of Wisconsin utilised a TMS-EEG device, which combines transcranial magnetic stimulation and EEG, to examine how the brain activity of people in the restful non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep is affected by whether they dream or do not dream.

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The University of Utah joins Vanderbilt, Duke universities in effort to make clnical trials more efficient and get translational research into clinical use faster.

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A study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis concludes that as researchers turn to the internet to find study participants, current health-care disparities may persist. They found that getting individuals to go online was difficult, particularly if subjects didn't have high school educations, had incomes below the poverty line or were African-American.

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Resveratrol, given to Alzheimer’s patients, appears to restore the integrity of the blood-brain barrier, reducing the ability of harmful immune molecules secreted by immune cells to infiltrate from the body into brain tissues, say researchers. The reduction in neuronal inflammation slowed the cognitive decline of patients, compared to a matching group of placebo-treated patients with the disorder.

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Scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified antibodies capable of protecting against Zika virus infection, a significant step toward developing a vaccine, better diagnostic tests and possibly new antibody-based therapies.

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University of Iowa researchers suspect that sleep twitches in human infants are linked to sensorimotor development. Read on to learn how new parents can contribute to their study.

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Two UCLA studies reveal that menopause--and the insomnia that often accompanies it --make women age faster.

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A detailed new map by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis lays out the landscape of the human cerebral cortex. The map will accelerate progress in the study of brain diseases, as well as help to elucidate what makes us unique as a species.

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The Food and Drug Administration has approved the first focused ultrasound device to treat essential tremor, the most common movement disorder, in patients who do not respond to medication. The scalpel-free approach has been pioneered by Jeff Elias, MD, at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, who led an international clinical trial that demonstrated the safety and effectiveness of the device.

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Abnormalities in brain regions involved in forming insight may help explain why some people with anorexia nervosa have trouble recognizing their dangerous, dysfunctional eating habits.

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Prescription medication costs are expected to rise at least 11 percent, and possibly up to 13 percent, in 2016, according to a new report on national trends and projections in prescription drug expenditures.

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With a goal of treating worn, arthritic hips without extensive surgery to replace them, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have programmed stem cells to grow new cartilage on a 3-D template shaped like the ball of a hip joint. What’s more, using gene therapy, they have activated the new cartilage to release anti-inflammatory molecules to fend off a return of arthritis.

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People with asthma who live near bigger or larger numbers of active unconventional natural gas wells operated by the fracking industry in Pennsylvania are 1.5 to four times likelier to have asthma attacks than those who live farther away, new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research suggests.

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Could immune system problems contribute to an inability to have normal social interactions? The answer appears to be yes, and that finding could have great implications for neurological conditions such as autism-spectrum disorders and schizophrenia.

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The atomic structure of an elusive cold virus linked to severe asthma and respiratory infections in children has been solved by a team of researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Purdue University. The findings provide the foundation for future antiviral drug and vaccine development against the virus, rhinovirus C.

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A recent spate of unexpected mosquito-borne disease outbreaks – most recently the Zika virus, which has swept through parts of the Americas – have highlighted the need to better understand the development and spread of little-known diseases and for new strategies to control them, a new review by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers suggests.

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Researchers identify bat species most likely to carry filoviruses and map hotspots for disease surveillance and virus discovery efforts.

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Preschoolers who are regularly tucked into bed by 8 p.m. are far less likely to become obese teenagers than young children who go to sleep later in the evening, new research has found. Bedtimes after 9 p.m. appeared to double the likelihood of obesity later in life.

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While measuring brain activity with magnetic resonance imaging during blood pressure trials, UCLA researchers found that men and women had opposite responses in the right front of the insular cortex, a part of the brain integral to the experience of emotions, blood pressure control, and self-awareness.

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Differences in circadian blood pressure variation due to a combination of genetic and cultural factors may contribute to ethnic differences in cardiovascular morbidity, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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The world's best stand-up comedians - household names including Kevin Hart, Amy Schumer, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfield, Ricky Gervais and Eddie Murphy - are more likely to die than comedic and dramatic screen and stage actors, according to a landmark study published in the International Journal of Cardiology