(Press-News.org) GAITHERSBURG, MD, June 7 – As one of the few probiotics with medical food designation for specific illnesses, VSL#3® has been the subject of a collection of more than 80 studies that have demonstrated its use in the dietary management of IBS, ulcerative colitis, and an ileal pouch. Ulcerative colitis patients, in particular, have been shown to benefit from adding VSL#3 medical food to their prescription drug regimen. One particular study shows that the combination of VSL#3 and traditional drug therapy can improve remission rates over drug therapy alone by 10 to 17 percent, and can initiate remission 47 to 69 percent faster. The 8-week study*, conducted in Rome, involved 90 patients who had newly diagnosed or recently relapsed mild-to-moderate UC and compared the effects of the combination of VSL#3 and balsalazine (Colazal®), an anti-inflammatory drug commonly prescribed for the treatment of ulcerative colitis, to the use of balsalazine alone and mesalazine (Canasa®) alone.
The trial results concluded that the use of low-dose balsalazide and VSL#3® was significantly superior (p END
By adding VSL#3 probiotic to traditional therapies UC patients can improve remission rates
2012-06-08
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Haematopoietic stem cell transplantation increases survival in systemic sclerosis patients
2012-06-08
Berlin, Germany, June 7 2012: Initial results from an international, investigator-initiated, open label phase III trial were presented at EULAR 2012, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism. Data indicate that haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) results in better long term survival than conventional treatment for patients with poor prognosis early diffuse cutaneous systemic sclerosis.
The ASTIS (Autologous Stem Cell Transplantation International Scleroderma) trial enrolled more than 150 patients between 2001 and 2009, and randomised ...
Mapping genes: Mayo Clinic finds new risk factors for neurodegenerative diseases
2012-06-08
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Using a new and powerful approach to understand the origins of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, researchers at Mayo Clinic in Florida are building the case that these diseases are primarily caused by genes that are too active or not active enough, rather than by harmful gene mutations.
In the June 7 online issue of PLoS Genetics, they report that several hundred genes within almost 800 brain samples of patients with Alzheimer's disease or other disorders had altered expression levels that did not result from neurodegeneration. ...
Surgeon experience affects complication rate of spinal stenosis surgery
2012-06-08
Philadelphia, Pa. (June 7, 2012) - For patients undergoing surgery for spinal stenosis, the risk of complications is higher when the surgeon performs very few such procedures—less than four per year, suggests a study in the June issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.
In contrast, the complication rate is not significantly affected by the volume of spinal stenosis surgeries performed at the hospital, according to the new research. The senior ...
Meditation practice may decrease risk for cardiovascular disease in teens
2012-06-08
AUGUSTA, Ga. – Regular meditation could decrease the risk of developing cardiovascular disease in teens who are most at risk, according to Georgia Health Sciences University researchers.
In a study of 62 black teens with high blood pressure, those who meditated twice a day for 15 minutes had lower left ventricular mass, an indicator of future cardiovascular disease, than a control group, said Dr. Vernon Barnes, a physiologist in the Medical College of Georgia and the Georgia Health Sciences University Institute of Public and Preventive Health.
Barnes, Dr. Gaston Kapuku, ...
Armored caterpillar could inspire new body armor
2012-06-08
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) — Military body armor and vehicle and aircraft frames could be transformed by incorporating the unique structure of the club-like arm of a crustacean that looks like an armored caterpillar, according to findings by a team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside's Bourns College of Engineering and elsewhere published online today, June 7, in the journal Science.
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Caribbean wins the seaweed Olympics
2012-06-08
A new study finds that Caribbean seaweeds are far better competitors than their equivalents in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. But this triumph is bad news for Caribbean coral reefs.
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How does dolomite form?
2012-06-08
Not only in the Dolomites, but throughout the world dolomite is quite common. More than 90 percent of dolomite is made up of the mineral dolomite. It was first described scientifically in the 18th century. But who would have thought that the formation of this mineral is still not fully understood, although geologists are aware of large deposits of directly formed (primary) dolomite from the past 600 million years. The process of recent primary dolomite formation is restricted to extreme ecosystems such as bacterial mats in highly saline lakes and lagoons. "As these systems ...
Breaking the limits of classical physics
2012-06-08
With simple arguments, researchers show that nature is complicated! Researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute have made a simple experiment that demonstrates that nature violates common sense – the world is different than most people believe. The experiment illustrates that light does not behave according to the principles of classical physics, but that light has quantum mechanical properties. The new method could be used to study whether other systems behave quantum mechanically. The results have been published in the scientific journal, Physical Review Letters.
In physics ...
Financial mania: Why bankers and politicians failed to heed warnings of the credit crisis
2012-06-08
Western economies displayed the same kind of manic behaviour as psychologically disturbed individuals in the run up to the 2008 credit crisis -- and it could happen again, according to a new study.
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Observing - but not heeding - the warning signs from the collapse of the Japanese economy in 1991 and the 1998 crisis in south-east ...
Alzheimer's vaccine trial a success
2012-06-08
A study led by Karolinska Institutet in Sweden reports for the first time the positive effects of an active vaccine against Alzheimer's disease. The new vaccine, CAD106, can prove a breakthrough in the search for a cure for this seriously debilitating dementia disease. The study is published in the distinguished scientific journal Lancet Neurology.
Alzheimer's disease is a complex neurological dementia disease that is the cause of much human suffering and a great cost to society. According to the World Health Organisation, dementia is the fastest growing global health ...