LAWRENCE -- The cliché version of the American dream usually involves getting married, finding a good job, raising 2.5 kids and buying a home with a white picket fence. But in recent times spiking prices can make home ownership impossible -- or falling prices can trap homeowners in so-called "upside-down" mortgages, where debt dwarfs the shrinking value of a house. "To determine the right price of a house, people need to make long-term projections of many uncertain economic variables, such as interest rate," said Shu Wu, associate professor of economics at the ...

ANN ARBOR -- Arginine, a common amino acid found naturally in foods, breaks down dental plaque, which could help millions of people avoid cavities and gum disease, researchers at the University of Michigan and Newcastle University have discovered. Alexander Rickard, assistant professor of epidemiology at the U-M School of Public Health, and colleagues, discovered that in the lab L-arginine -- found in red meat, poultry, fish and dairy products, and is already used in dental products for tooth sensitivity--stopped the formation of dental plaque. "This is important ...

TORONTO, May 7, 2015 -- Highly priced cancer drugs get rushed approvals despite poor trial methodology and little effect on the longevity of patients, cautions York University Professor Dr. Joel Lexchin in the School of Health Policy and Management. "Patients and their doctors should demand that regulators require pharma companies to provide clear evidence of clinical effectiveness of the drugs, resulting from rigorous methodology," suggests Lexchin. "Drug agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicine Agency (EMA) don't actually look at ...

Compliance with post-treatment surveillance, income level and the travel distance for follow-up care had effects on survival in patients with head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC), according to a report published online by JAMA Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery. Post-treatment surveillance is a key component for patients with HNSCC, a cancer with a five-year survival rate of only slightly above 50 percent. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network guidelines recommend follow-up should consist of visits at least every one to three months during the first year after ...

The use of cholesterol-lowering statins when men initiated androgen deprivation therapy for prostate cancer was associated with longer time to progression of the disease, according to an article published online by JAMA Oncology. The gene SLCO2B1 acts as a transporter that enables a variety of drugs and hormones to enter cells. For example, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS) is a precursor of testosterone and uses SLCO2B1 to get into cells. Similarly, statins use SLCO2B1 to enter cells as well. Previous research has suggested an association between statin use and ...

Crigler-Najjar syndrome is a rare autosomal recessive disorder caused by mutations in the UGT1A1 gene, which result in the toxic accumulation of bilirubin, a substance made by the liver in the body. Indeed, when the UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 1 isotype A1 (UGT1A1), the enzyme responsible for removing bilirubin, doesn't work, the substance accumulates, causing a severe and chronic jaundice, and becoming toxic for the brain and leading to lethality. Gene therapy has allowed the restoration of an equivalent level of bilirubin to those found in healthy animals Federico ...

This news release is available in French. Metabolic complications of obesity and overweight, such as type 2 diabetes, are an important challenge to public health. Teams led by Nicolas Venteclef, Inserm Research Fellow (Cordeliers Research Centre, Inserm/Pierre and Marie Curie University Joint Research Unit 1138, Paris, France) and Irina Udalova (Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, University of Oxford, UK) in collaboration with several teams, have succeeded in elucidating part of the mechanisms involved in the development of these metabolic complications associated with ...

Obesity and depression -- not only lack of sleep -- are underlying causes for regular drowsiness, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. They say these findings could lead to more personalized sleep medicine for those with excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). As much as 30 percent of the general population experiences EDS -- daytime drowsiness or sleepiness occurring throughout the day that can include irresistible sleep attacks. Feeling overly tired during the day can reduce job productivity and increase errors and absenteeism and may lead to more serious ...

A new, noninvasive nuclear medicine test can be used to determine whether aromatase inhibitor treatment will be effective for specific cancer patients, according to a recent study reported in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. The research shows that a PET scan with the ligand C-11-vorozole reliably detects aromatase in all body organs - demonstrating the value of its future use to pre-determine the effectiveness of the treatment for breast, ovarian, endometrial and lung cancer patients, potentially reducing unnecessary treatment costs and adverse effects. Aromatase inhibitors ...

CHICAGO (May 7, 2015): Patients undergoing colorectal operations who participated in an enhanced recovery program left the hospital sooner and had significantly lower hospital costs than patients who had the traditional approach to their care, according to a new study, which also found further postoperative improvements after adding an infection prevention protocol. The study is published online as an "article in press" on the Journal of the American College of Surgeons website in advance of print publication later this year. "Enhanced recovery after surgery" is a multicomponent ...

Schizophrenia affects millions of people worldwide but the cause of its wide-ranging symptoms remains largely unknown. At Brandeis University, researchers believe they have discovered an abnormality in the schizophrenic brain that could be responsible for many of the disease's symptoms and could provide a drug target for therapeutic treatments. Led by John Lisman, the Zalman Abraham Kekst Chair in Neuroscience and professor of biology, the research team published their findings in a recent issue of the Journal of Biological Psychiatry. The paper was co-authored by ...

Traditionally, patients with endometrial cancer -- cancer of the womb lining -- have their disease risk classified using a combination of clinical and tissue characteristics, including their age and the growth and invasion of their tumour. Around 15-20% of patients have high-risk disease, but it is unclear what the best treatment approach is for these patients. Now Manchester researchers have investigated genetic alterations in high-risk endometrial cancer, to see if they could be used to create tumour subtypes. Professor Richard Edmondson, Professor of Gynaecological ...

Amsterdam, May 7, 2015 -- Elsevier journal Maturitas today announced the publication of a position statement by the European Menopause and Andropause Society (EMAS) covering non-hormonal management of menopausal vasomotor symptoms. Hot flashes are a common menopausal symptom. They tend to intensify during the perimenopause and usually subside within 5 years after the final menstrual period. However in some women frequent hot flashes are a long term problem and may last for more than 7 years. While estrogen-based menopausal hormone therapy is the most effective treatment ...

It has traditionally been assumed that these by-products - coffee grounds and coffee silverskin, have few practical uses and applications. Spent coffee grounds are sometimes employed as homemade skin exfoliants or as abrasive cleaning products. They are also known to make great composting agents for fertilizing certain plants. But apart from these limited applications, coffee by-products are by and large deemed to be virtually useless. As such, practically all of this highly contaminating 'coffee waste' ends up in landfills across the globe and has a considerable knock-on ...

This news release is available in German. How did the first complex eukaryotic cells with their organelles develop from simple prokaryotes, i.e. bacteria or archaea? This is a highly debated topic in evolutionary research but the question remains largely unresolved. Genomic research has shown that the organelles delivering energy in eukaryotic cells stem from an early bacterial symbiont. Since Archaea have also played an important role in the evolution of eukaryotes, current models suggested, that a primordial Archaeon might have engulfed a bacterium and in this ...

A common method for learning more about an animal's ecology and behaviour is to analyse the chemical composition of its hair. This involves the analysis of isotopes, which are variants of a chemical element with different atomic weights. The ratio of different isotopes of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon and nitrogen in a sample can provide important insights on water intake, nutrition and habitat. Martina Burnik Šturm and Petra Kaczensky from the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna investigate the ecology of free-ranging ...

Women's magazines influence whether women decide to have a more natural childbirth or not, with most of the messages biased towards promoting the benefits of medicalised birth. Researchers from Monash University and Queensland University of Technology have studied how popular media influences women's choices for childbirth The study, published in Women & Health, specifically aimed to assess the effect of communicating the benefits of more natural birth (e.g. no medical intervention such as epidurals or caesarean section). Kate Young, lead researcher from Monash's ...

People with diabetes who enroll in a health plan tailored to their medical condition are more likely to stick to their medication and actively take charge of their own health care. These are among the findings¹ of a study into the effectiveness of the Diabetes Health Plan, the first disease-specific health plan in the United States for patients with diabetes and pre-diabetes. The health plan also helps reduce medication costs and ultimately may provide value for money to employers who provide this option to their employees, writes lead author O. Kenrik Duru of the ...

Selling used to be so simple: pack up the wagon, harness the horse, and head to the nearest settlement. Today, retailers have to allocate their marketing dollars across a multitude of channels, from stores, catalogs, and traditional media to websites and apps. Recent research about consumer adoption of new sales channels indicates that marketing campaigns focused on social media and socioeconomic groupings are likely to give the greatest boost to disruptive new channels - but help propel new brick-and-mortar venues as well. In "Social Contagion and Customer Adoption ...

Archaeologists from the University of York have played a key role in Anglo-Danish research which has suggested the dawn of the Viking Age may have been much earlier - and less violent - than previously believed. The study by Dr Steve Ashby, of the Department of Archaeology at York, working with colleagues from York and Aarhus University, identified the first signs of the Viking Age around 70 years before the first raid on England. Previously, the start of the Viking Age has been dated to a June 793 raid by Norwegian Vikings on Lindisfarne. But the new research published ...

Psychologists are to improve online health information on lung cancer after research showed that family members are more likely to search online to encourage loved ones to seek help. This is one of the outcomes from research by PhD student Julia Mueller based in the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work at The University of Manchester (part of the Manchester Cancer Research Centre) who will present her study today, Thursday 7 May 2015, at the Annual Conference of the British Psychology Society being held in Liverpool. Julia Mueller said: "People displaying ...

An international team of researchers has created tiny, complex scaffolds that mimic the intricate network of collagen fibres that form the human eardrum. It is hoped the scaffolds can be used to replace eardrums when they become severely damaged, reducing the need for patients to have their own tissue used in reconstruction surgery. The scaffolds have been presented today, 7 May, in IOP Publishing's journal Biofabrication. The eardrum, otherwise known as the tympanic membrane (TM), is a thin, flexible and tough membrane that separates the external ear from the middle ...

(PHILADELPHIA) - Despite extensive procedures to sterilize small and large bone fragments used in joint replacement or reconstructive surgeries, the rate of infection remains around 5 percent and can reach 11 percent or even higher in bone repairs for gunshot wounds or reconstruction after tumor removal. Infection after surgery is a serious complication that can require further surgery and can be life threatening. A new study demonstrates for the first time that an antimicrobial dye activated by light avidly adheres to bone to prevent bacteria from growing on bone fragments ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, May 7, 2015 - Myriad Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MYGN) today announced it will present three studies that demonstrate the value of the Prolaris test for physicians and their patients at the 2015 American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting being held May 15 to 19 in New Orleans, La. Key presentations will showcase a new "active surveillance threshold" for men with localized prostate cancer based on the Prolaris test score, and the final results from PROCEDE 1000, which is the largest prospective clinical utility study to measure the impact of ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - When highly educated, dual-career couples have their first child, both spouses think the baby increases their workloads by equal amounts - but a new study suggests that's not true. When asked directly, both men and women thought their own daily workloads had increased by more than four hours after their child was born. Detailed time diaries that the new mothers and fathers kept told a different story. Both spouses overestimated their increased workload - but by widely varying amounts. Compared to the parents' estimated four hours of extra work each ...