This news release is available in French. A research group at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto, Faculty of Medicine has been using a rat model to see how maternal intake of above-requirement vitamins (A, D, E, and K) impact offspring's brain development and behaviour. Some of their findings were published today in the journal Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. Much research on vitamins focuses on prevention of deficiencies and the toxicity of very high intakes. However, little has been done on the effect of intakes above ...

Scientists at The University of Manchester have created an enhanced surface for silicone breast implants which could reduce complications and make them less likely to be rejected by the body. In the US alone almost 400,000 cosmetic breast augmentations and reconstructions are carried out each year, and the number is growing. Some of these cases are for reconstruction after surgery for breast cancer and can have important psychological benefits. However, around one in five people who has a breast implant suffers from capsular contracture where scar tissue forms and ...

A new research project from the University of Copenhagen has established an effective model for the fight against the escalating burden of tooth decay among children in Asia. The model is an important tool in breaking the social inequity in oral health of children. In developing countries, the number of children who suffer pain and discomfort in addition to missing out on school lessons is increasing. This project demonstrates that the school is a vital key to better oral health. The project also shows how it is possible to organize school oral health intervention, including ...

(March 19, 2015, Abu Dhabi, UAE) -The Tobacco Atlas, Fifth Edition ("The Atlas"), and its companion mobile app and website TobaccoAtlas.org, were unveiled today by the American Cancer Society and World Lung Foundation at the 16th World Conference on Tobacco or Health. The Atlas graphically details the scale of the tobacco epidemic; the harmful influence of tobacco on health, poverty, social justice, and the environment; the progress being made in tobacco control; and the latest products and tactics being used by the industry to protect its profits and delay and derail tobacco ...

When patients develop acute liver failure, severe complications arise rapidly after the first signs of liver disease, and patients' health can deteriorate rapidly. New research published in the American Journal of Transplantation indicates that emergency evaluations of living liver donors can be conducted safely to allow acute liver failure patients to undergo transplantation before their condition worsens. If untreated, acute liver failure results in coma and death in more than 80 percent of cases. The only effective therapy is liver transplantation, but the deceased ...

A Los Angeles ordinance designed to curb obesity in low-income areas by restricting the opening of new fast-food restaurants has failed to reduce fast-food consumption or reduce obesity rates in the targeted neighborhoods, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Since the fast-food restrictions were passed in 2008, overweight and obesity rates in South Los Angeles and other neighborhoods targeted by the law have increased faster than in other parts of the city or other parts of the county, according to findings published online by the journal Social Science & Medicine. "The ...

Using melatonin could provide more and better quality sleep compared to using an eye mask and earplugs in a simulated noisy and illuminated environment, according to research published in open access journal Critical Care. This study was carried out on healthy subjects but could have future implications for intensive care unit (ICU) patients. Melatonin is the hormone secreted by the body to regulate sleep, usually in periods of darkness. Synthetically produced melatonin is used to boost the body's own melatonin levels to treat some sleep disorders, and sometimes as a ...

The number of people living with cystic fibrosis into adulthood is expected to increase dramatically by 2025, prompting calls for the development of adult cystic fibrosis services to meet the demand. People living with cystic fibrosis have previously had low life expectancy, but improvements in treatments and care in the last three decades have led to an increase in survival with almost all children now living to around 40 years. In the first study of its kind, published in the European Respiratory Journal today (19 March 2015), researchers have provided forecasts ...

Introduction of standardised packaging for tobacco products in Australia prompted more smokers to think about quitting and to attempt to quit, show findings of surveys of adults smokers published in Tobacco Control. In introducing standardised tobacco packaging with large graphic health warnings in December 2012, the Australian government's main aim was to reduce the attractiveness and appeal of tobacco products to young people and so reduce the likelihood of them taking up smoking. In other studies the researchers from Melbourne in Victoria found that standardised ...

New research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) shows that in women who have developed gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) during pregnancy, being obese before the pregnancy and putting on more weight after it massively increases the risk of later developing type 2 diabetes (T2D). For women who are obese before pregnancy (BMI 30 or higher) and put on 5 kg or more after giving birth, the risk of developing T2D is 43 times higher than for women who remain lean before pregnancy and gain 5 kg or less. The research, ...

A phase 3 trial of brentuximab vedotin (BV), the first new drug for Hodgkin lymphoma in over 30 years, shows that adults with hard-to-treat Hodgkin lymphoma given BV immediately after stem cell transplant survived without the disease progressing for twice as long as those given placebo (43 months vs 24 months). The findings, published in The Lancet, are potentially practice changing for this young cancer population who have exhausted other treatment options and for whom prognosis is poor. "No medication available today has had such dramatic results in patients with ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. - Malaria kills a child every minute. While medical researchers have successfully developed effective drugs to kill the malaria parasite, efforts to treat the effects of the disease have not been as successful. But that soon may change. In a groundbreaking study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Michigan State University's Dr. Terrie Taylor and her team discovered what causes death in children with cerebral malaria, the deadliest form of the disease. "We discovered that some children with cerebral malaria develop massively swollen ...

Fast Facts Drug companies have made incremental improvements that kept insulin under patent for more than 90 years. Insulin can cost $120 to $400 per month for patients with no prescription drug coverage. Many patients with diabetes have lapses in medication that can lead to serious complications requiring hospitalization. A generic version of insulin, the lifesaving diabetes drug used by 6 million people in the United States, has never been available in this country because drug companies have made incremental improvements that kept insulin under patent from ...

Cardiometabolic risk factors, such as high blood pressure and elevated blood sugar, appear to have a bigger effect than obesity on hardening arteries early among Mexican-Americans, according to research in the Journal of the American Heart Association. "Even among non-obese Mexican-Americans, there is already a high prevalence of clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors," said Susan T. Laing, M.D., M.Sc., lead study author and professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. "We will begin to see the impact of the high ...

MINNEAPOLIS - Researchers have developed a new scoring system to help determine which elderly people may be at a higher risk of developing the memory and thinking problems that can lead to dementia, according to a new study published in the March 18, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "Our goal is to identify memory issues at the earliest possible stages," said study author Ronald C. Petersen, MD, PhD, of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "Understanding what ...

ROCHESTER, Minn - Researchers at Mayo Clinic developed a new scoring system to help determine which elderly people may be at a higher risk of developing the memory and thinking problems that can lead to dementia. The study is published in the March 18, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "Our goal is to identify people who are at the highest risk for dementia as early as possible" said study author Ronald Petersen, M.D., Ph.D., Chester and Debbie Cadieux Director of the Mayo Clinic Alzheimer's Disease Research ...

Preserving isolated patches of habitat isn't enough to save species such as Bachman's Sparrow (Peucaea aestivalis) that depend on longleaf pine; habitat connectivity at the landscape level is also crucial. That is the message of a new paper by Paul Taillie, M. Nils Peterson, and Christopher Moorman of North Carolina State University, published this week in The Condor: Ornithological Applications. In the past, fire-dependent longleaf pine forests covered vast, unbroken areas of the southeastern U.S., and Bachman's Sparrows and other species adapted to live in this expansive ...

The TRMM satellite revealed that Tropical Cyclone Nathan had powerful thunderstorms known as "hot towers" near its center which are indicative of a strengthening storm. Cyclone Nathan is located in the Coral Sea off Australia's Queensland coast. Nathan formed on March 10 near the Queensland coast triggering warnings there before moving east. Once out at sea, Nathan made a loop and headed back to Queensland. On March 18, Nathan was nearing the Cape York Peninsula of Queensland. As a result warnings were in effect from Cape Melville to Innisfail, extending inland to Laura. ...

Modern life, with its preponderance of inadequate exposure to natural light during the day and overexposure to artificial light at night, is not conducive to the body's natural sleep/wake cycle. It's an emerging topic in health, one that UConn Health (University of Connecticut, Farmington, Conn.) cancer epidemiologist Richard Stevens has been studying for three decades. "It's become clear that typical lighting is affecting our physiology," Stevens says. "But lighting can be improved. We're learning that better lighting can reduce these physiological effects. By that ...

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (March 18, 2015) -- Come spring break, college students from all over the country travel to warmer climates for time off from school and to escape the cold weather. However, it's not all fun in the sun. At popular spring break destinations, fatalities from car crashes are significantly higher during the spring break weeks compared to other times of the year, according to a recent study published in the journal Economic Inquiry. "We found that between the last week of February and the first week of April, a significantly greater number of traffic fatalities ...

There's a carbon showdown brewing in the Arctic as Earth's climate changes. On one side, thawing permafrost could release enormous amounts of long-frozen carbon into the atmosphere. On the opposing side, as high-latitude regions warm, plants will grow more quickly, which means they'll take in more carbon from the atmosphere. Whichever side wins will have a big impact on the carbon cycle and the planet's climate. If the balance tips in favor of permafrost-released carbon, climate change could accelerate. If the balance tips in favor of carbon-consuming plants, climate ...

In 1996, a trio of scientists won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for their discovery of Buckminsterfullerene - soccer-ball-shaped spheres of 60 joined carbon atoms that exhibit special physical properties. Now, 20 years later, scientists have figured out how to turn them into Buckybombs. These nanoscale explosives show potential for use in fighting cancer, with the hope that they could one day target and eliminate cancer at the cellular level - triggering tiny explosions that kill cancer cells without affecting surrounding tissue. "Future applications would probably ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- An Indiana University cognitive scientist and collaborators have found that posture is critical in the early stages of acquiring new knowledge. The study, conducted by Linda Smith, a professor in the IU Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences' Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, in collaboration with a roboticist from England and a developmental psychologist from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, offers a new approach to studying the way "objects of cognition," such as words or memories of physical objects, are tied to the position ...

For generations, students have been taught the concept of "ecological succession" with examples from the plant world, such as the progression over time of plant species that establish and grow following a forest fire. Indeed, succession is arguably plant ecology's most enduring scientific contribution, and its origins with early 20th-century plant ecologists have been uncontested. Yet, this common narrative may actually be false. As posited in an article published in the March 2015 issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology, two decades before plant scientists explored the ...

Tirat Carmel, Israel - March 19, 2015 - MeMed, Ltd., today announced publication of the results of a large multicenter prospective clinical study that validates the ability of its ImmunoXpert in-vitro diagnostic blood test to determine whether a patient has an acute bacterial or viral infection. The study enrolled more than 1,000 patients and is published in the March 18, 2015 online edition of PLOS ONE. Unlike most infectious disease diagnostics that rely on direct pathogen detection, MeMed's assay decodes the body's immune response to accurately characterize the cause ...