Bethesda, MD (Dec. 19, 2014) -- A new formulation of oral budesonide suspension, a steroid-based treatment, is safe and effective in treating pediatric patients with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE), according to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the official clinical practice journal of the American Gastroenterological Association. Eosinophilic esophagitis is a chronic immune system disease caused by a buildup of white blood cells in the lining of the esophagus. This build up, which is a reaction to food, allergens or acid reflux, can inflame or injure ...

The changes can be measured, but their reasons were unknown. For several decades, scientists have carefully observed that the oxygen minimum zones (OMZ) in the tropical oceans are expanding. These zones are a paradise for some specially adapted microorganisms, but for all larger marine organisms such as fish and marine mammals they are uninhabitable. Thus, their expansion has already narrowed down the habitat of some fish species. Marine scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel and the Kiel Collaborative Research Centre (Sonderforschungsbereich, ...

PITTSBURGH--University of Pittsburgh researchers have shared their findings from three studies related to shale gas in a recent special issue of the journal Energy Technology, edited by Götz Veser, the Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering in Pitt's Swanson School of Engineering. In the special issue focusing on shale gas, Pitt faculty authors look at "smart wells" that use wireless communication, wastewater management, and information gaps between legislators, regulators, industry representatives, researchers, and the public on the ...

Scientists from the Southwest University, Chongqing, China have found a new species and a new subspecies of cockroach. What makes these creepy crawlies distinctive from the cockroaches most of us know is that they don't infest human houses, on the contrary they prefer to live a hermit life drilling logs, hidden away from human eyes. The study was published in the open access journal ZooKeys. Out of around 4,600 species worldwide, only 30 are the cockroaches associated with human habitats that gives the bad fame of these creatures. The representatives of the genus Panesthia, ...

Most parents are not surprised by the irregularity of a newborn infant's sleep patterns, but by six months or so many parents wonder if something is wrong with their baby or their sleeping arrangements if the baby is not sleeping through the night. Healthcare providers, specifically nurse practitioners, can help parents understand what "normal" sleep patterns are for their child, according to researchers. "Nurse practitioners are at the frontline of healthcare," said Robin Yaure, senior instructor of human development and family studies, Penn State Mont Alto. "They are ...

Jacksonville, FL (December 19, 2014) - Investigators have found that young children with type 1 diabetes (T1D) have slower brain growth compared to children without diabetes. A new study, published in the December issue of Diabetes, now available ahead of print, suggests that continued exposure to hyperglycemia, or high blood sugars, may be detrimental to the developing brain. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). "Our results show the potential vulnerability of young developing brains to abnormally elevated glucose levels, even when ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - DECEMBER 18, 2014) A study led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital scientists has identified the population of white blood cells that tumors use to enhance growth and suppress the disease-fighting immune system. The results, which appear in the December 18 edition of the scientific journal Immunity, mark a turning point in cancer immunology and provide the foundation for developing more effective immunotherapies. For years, researchers have known that a diverse group of white blood cells called myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) are more abundant ...

In a previous randomized controlled trial, Stanford University researchers developed two curricula for Girl Scouts to use energy more efficiently: one on energy use at home, and the other in transportation and food. Both courses were effective for girls in the short term, and the home energy course was effective for girls in the long term and for parents in the short term. Subsequently, the Northern California Girl Scouts began disseminating the programs via manuals and reusable materials, but that method of disseminating the programs has not lead to widespread use. On ...

[Boston, MA December18, 2014] Parents of children involved in an elementary school-based community intervention to prevent obesity appear to share in its health benefits. A new analysis of Shape Up Somerville: Eat Smart Play Hard™ shows an association between being exposed to the intervention as a parent and a modest decrease in body mass index (BMI) compared to parents in two similar control communities. The study led by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ...

University of Chicago developmental neuroscientists have found specific brain markers that predict generosity in children. Those neural markers appear to be linked to both social and moral evaluation processes. There are many sorts of prosocial behaviors. Although young children are natural helpers, their perspective on sharing resources tends to be selfish. Jean Decety, the Irving B. Harris Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, and Jason Cowell, a postdoctoral scholar in Decety's Child NeuroSuite lab, wanted to find out how young children's brains evaluate whether ...

Australian scientists have developed a model for oil palm cultivation, aimed at helping growers of the crop maximize the yields of their plantations, while minimizing detrimental environmental impacts. The model was recently published in the journal Environmental Modeling & Software. "Oil palm has become a major crop in the tropics, cultivated on more than 39 million acres of land," co-author Dr Paul Nelson of James Cook University (JCU) said. "Demand for the product continues to grow, and the industry is expected to keep expanding in the foreseeable future. "At ...

Scientists at A*STAR's Institute of Medical Biology (IMB) and Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology (IMCB) have identified a genetic pathway that accounts for the extraordinary size of the human brain. The team led by Dr Bruno Reversade from A*STAR in Singapore, together with collaborators from Harvard Medical School, have identified a gene, KATNB1, as an essential component in a genetic pathway responsible for central nervous system development in humans and other animals. By sequencing the genome of individuals of normal height but with a very small head size, ...

Here's a nice surprise: quantum physics is less complicated than we thought. An international team of researchers has proved that two peculiar features of the quantum world previously considered distinct are different manifestations of the same thing. The result is published 19 December in Nature Communications. Patrick Coles, Jedrzej Kaniewski, and Stephanie Wehner made the breakthrough while at the Centre for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore. They found that 'wave-particle duality' is simply the quantum 'uncertainty principle' in disguise, ...

Misfiring of the brain's control system might underpin compulsions in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), according to researchers at the University of Cambridge, writing in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The research, led by Dr Claire Gillan and Professor Trevor Robbins (Department of Psychology) is the latest in a series of studies from the Cambridge Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute investigating the possibility that compulsions in OCD are products of an overactive habit-system. This line of work has shifted opinion away from thinking of OCD as ...

The memory and walking speeds of adults who have lost all of their teeth decline more rapidly than in those who still have some of their own teeth, finds new UCL research. The study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, looked at 3,166 adults aged 60 or over from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) and compared their performance in tests of memory and walking speed. The results showed that the people with none of their own teeth performed approximately 10% worse in both memory and walking speed tests than the people with teeth. The ...

Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is the most effective treatment for menopausal symptoms, in particular for younger women at the onset of the menopause, suggests a new review published today (19 December) in The Obstetrician & Gynaecologist (TOG). The review highlights that menopausal symptoms, including hot flushes and night sweats are common, affecting around 70% of women for an average of 5 years but may continue for many years in about 10% of women. Every woman experiences the menopause differently; some experience one or two symptoms mildly while others have ...

Less than half of UK prescriptions for antipsychotic drugs are being issued to treat the serious mental illnesses for which they are mainly licensed, reveals research published in the online journal BMJ Open. Instead, they may often be prescribed 'off label' to older people with other conditions, such as anxiety and dementia, despite the greater risk of potentially serious side effects in this age group, the findings indicate. The researchers analysed family doctors' prescribing patterns for first and second generation antipsychotic drugs across the UK between 2007 ...

Almost half of teen drivers killed on US roads in the past few years were driving vehicles that were 11 or more years old, and often lacking key safety features, reveals research published online in Injury Prevention. Parents, who are usually the ones stumping up for a car, could be putting their children's lives at risk by focusing on cost, warn the researchers. The prevalence of fatal road traffic collisions among US teens has fallen sharply since 1996. Yet per mile driven, rates of police-reported and fatal crashes involving teens are around three times those for ...

A study of more than 80,000 women has uncovered different risks of developing type 2 diabetes associated with different blood groups, with the biggest difference a 35% increased risk of type 2 diabetes found in those with group B, Rhesus factor positive (R+) blood compared with the universal donor group O, Rhesus factor negative (R-). The study is published in Diabetologia (the journal of The European Association for the Study of Diabetes) and is by Dr Guy Fagherazzi, and Dr Françoise Clavel-Chapelon, Center for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health, INSERM, ...

A Ugandan doctor, who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone, survived after being flown to Germany for aggressive treatment involving a new drug under clinical development for vascular leakage [1]. Dr Timo Wolf and colleagues, from University Hospital Frankfurt in Germany, detail the successful intensive-care treatment the doctor received under biosafety level 4 conditions in an Article published in The Lancet. On 28 September, 2014, the 38-year old doctor, who was in charge of an Ebola virus treatment unit in Lakka, Sierra Leone, developed a fever and diarrhoea. He tested ...

Prostaglandin analogue eye drops, the most commonly prescribed treatment for glaucoma, can greatly reduce risk of vision loss in people with open angle glaucoma (OAG), one of the leading causes of blindness, according to the first placebo-controlled trial to assess their vision-preserving effect published in The Lancet. "Medication to lower raised eye pressure has been used for decades as the main treatment for OAG to delay progressive vision loss. But, until now, the extent to which the most frequently prescribed class of pressure-lowering drugs (prostaglandin analogues) ...

Highlight Kidney donors with hypertension had slightly fewer nephrons (the kidney's filtering units) at the time of donation than similarly aged donors with normal blood pressure; however, 6 months following their surgery, hypertensive and non-hypertensive donors both maintained excellent blood pressure control and had similarly robust compensatory kidney responses. Nearly 6,000 people donate a kidney in the United States each year. Washington, DC (December 18, 2014) -- With proper monitoring, kidney donation may be safe for individuals with high blood pressure, according ...

Struggling to balance on one leg for 20 seconds or longer was linked to an increased risk for small blood vessel damage in the brain and reduced cognitive function in otherwise healthy people with no clinical symptoms, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke. "Our study found that the ability to balance on one leg is an important test for brain health," said Yasuharu Tabara, Ph.D., lead study author and associate professor at the Center for Genomic Medicine at Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine in Kyoto, Japan. "Individuals ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Dec. 18, 2014 - State and local enforcement of federal immigration laws can have an adverse impact on the use of health care services by immigrant Hispanics, according to a North Carolina-based study by Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center researchers. The study, published in the Dec. 18 issue of the American Journal of Public Health, analyzed both birth records and information collected in focus groups and individual interviews. "Our findings suggest that immigration enforcement policies negatively affect the health of immigrant Hispanics, including ...

An investigation into factors related to disparities of depression in young adults has found that higher parental education - which has a protective effect for white youth - can also increase the risk of depression for black youth. The MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) study published online in the Journal of Pediatrics also found that, among high-socioeconomic-status black youth, greater perceptions of being discriminated against cancelled out the protective effects of parental education. "High socioeconomic status (SES) - particularly higher parent education ...