MINNEAPOLIS – Women who are anxious, jealous, or moody and distressed in middle age may be at a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease later in life, according to a nearly 40-year-long study published in the October 1, 2014, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "Most Alzheimer's research has been devoted to factors such as education, heart and blood risk factors, head trauma, family history and genetics," said study author Lena Johannsson, PhD, of the University of Gothenburg in Gothenburg, Sweden. "Personality ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — A new study in the Journal of the American Heart Association reports a significant association between living near a major roadway and the risk of high blood pressure. The Brown University-led analysis of data from 5,400 post-menopausal women in the San Diego metropolitan area found that women who lived within 100 meters of a highway or major arterial road had a 22-percent greater risk of hypertension than women who lived at least 1,000 meters away. In a range of intermediate distances, hypertension risk rose with proximity to the ...

Hospitals with aggressive treatment styles, also known as high hospital care intensity (HCI), had lower rates of patients dying from a major complication (failure to rescue) but longer hospitalizations, writes Kyle H. Sheetz, M.D., M.S., of the Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy, Ann Arbor, Mich., and colleagues. The intensity of medical care varies around the country. Intensity is synonymous with an aggressive treatment style and it has been implicated in rising health care costs, especially during the end-of-life period. Inpatient surgery also is a cost burden. ...

LANSING, Mich. October 1, 2014 – Tart cherries have long been researched for their association with pain relief – ranging from gout and arthritis joint pain to exercise-related muscle pain. A new study published in the Journal of Functional Foods is the first to report consumption of Montmorency tart cherries caused changes in uric acid metabolism, which can have an impact on joint pain. The study also detected increases in specific anthocyanin compounds in the bloodstream after consuming tart cherries. In the study, Montmorency tart cherry juice reduced blood levels ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST PAUL (October 1, 2014) – Researchers at the University of Minnesota have identified microRNAs that may cause colon polyps from turning cancerous. The finding could help physicians provide more specialized, and earlier, treatment before colon cancer develops. The findings are published today in The Journal of Pathology. The American Cancer Society estimates over 134,000 people will be diagnosed with colon cancer in 2014, despite the expanded screening processes now available. This year alone, about 50,000 people will die because of the disease. Research ...

New Rochelle, NY, October 1, 2014—The cause of fibromyalgia, a chronic pain syndrome is not known. However, the results of a new study that compares brain activity in individuals with and without fibromyalgia indicate that decreased connectivity between pain-related and sensorimotor brain areas could contribute to deficient pain regulation in fibromyalgia, according to an article published in Brain Connectivity, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Brain Connectivity website at http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/brain.2014.0274 ...

Along rivers in Tennessee and Georgia, scientists have been studying brownish-orange spiders, called Anelosimus studiosus, that make cobwebby nests "anywhere from the size of a golf ball to the size of a Volkswagen Beetle," researcher Jonathan Pruitt says. The individual spiders are only the size of a pencil eraser, but they form organized groups that can catch prey ranging from fruit flies to small vertebrates. "We have found carcasses of rats and birds inside their colonies," Pruitt says. Unlike most spiders, which are solitary, these social spiders work together in groups. Now ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Breathing oxygen helps the body create energy for its cells. As a result of the breathing process, reactive molecules called "free radicals" are produced that often cause damage to proteins and genes found in cells. This damage is known as oxidative stress. Free radicals also have been linked to cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Now, investigators at the University of Missouri have discovered a molecule that treats oxidative stress. "Oxidative stress can cause damage to the building blocks of a cell, resulting in excessive cell proliferation, ...

For older adults, being unable to identify scents is a strong predictor of death within five years, according to a study published October 1, 2014, in the journal PLOS ONE. Thirty-nine percent of study subjects who failed a simple smelling test died during that period, compared to 19 percent of those with moderate smell loss and just 10 percent of those with a healthy sense of smell. The hazards of smell loss were "strikingly robust," the researchers note, above and beyond most chronic diseases. Olfactory dysfunction was better at predicting mortality than a diagnosis ...

ALEXANDRIA, VA — The American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery Foundation has released the first ever mutli-disciplinary, evidence-based clinical practice guideline to improve the diagnosis and management of tinnitus, the perception of sound—often ringing—without an external sound source. The guideline was published today in the journal Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. "Tinnitus affects 10-15% of adults in the United States. It is the most common service-related disability among our military veterans. Yet despite its prevalence and effect on quality ...

For older adults, being unable to identify scents may be a predictor of mortality within five years, according to a study published October 1, 2014, in the journal PLOS ONE by Jayant Pinto from The University of Chicago and colleagues. The study was part of the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project (NSHAP), the first in-home study of social relationships and health in a large, nationally representative sample of men and women ages 57 to 85. Researchers first surveyed 3,000 participants in 2005-06, assessing their ability to identify five distinct common odors, ...

Studying mice with a genetic change similar to what is found in Kabuki syndrome, a inherited disease of humans, Johns Hopkins researchers report they have used an anticancer drug to "open up" DNA and improve mental function. Along with a potential treatment for the intellectual disability seen in Kabuki syndrome, the study's findings also suggest a new way of thinking about a category of genetic diseases known as Mendelian disorders of the epigenetic machinery, the researchers say. In these disorders, a genetic mutation causes errors in the way proteins and chemicals ...

Researchers have identified a molecular mechanism that could explain why the common cold can bring on life-threatening asthma attacks. Published today in Science Translational Medicine, the findings indicate this may be a potential target for new drugs that could be more effective than existing treatments. Viruses that infect the airways are the most common cause of asthma attacks, accounting for 80-90 per cent of cases. The great majority of these are rhinoviruses, which are the predominant cause of the common cold. Although illnesses caused by rhinoviruses are ...

Scientists at the University of Southampton have discovered that a region on the front surface of the eye harbours special stem cells that could treat blinding eye conditions. This part of the eye is called the 'corneal limbus' and is a narrow gap lying between the transparent cornea and white sclera. The research, published in PLOS ONE, showed that stem cells can be cultured from the corneal limbus in vitro. Under the correct culture conditions, these cells could be directed to behave like the cells needed to see light - photoreceptor cells. The loss of photoreceptors ...

Researchers at UC San Francisco and Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, may have found a predictor for a disorder affecting kidney transplant recipients that can accelerate organ failure, a discovery that eventually could allow for customized therapies and improved patient selection for transplant. The study of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), a devastating form of kidney disease, is in the Oct. 1 issue of Science Translational Medicine. Research was conducted by an international study team, with Necker Hospital in Paris and UCSF joint lead authors and ...

(Boston) — Glioblastma multiforme (GBM) is one of the most lethal primary brain tumors, with median survival for these patients only slightly over one year. Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), in collaboration with researchers from the City of Hope, are looking toward novel therapeutic strategies for the treatment of GBM in the form of targeted therapies against a unique receptor, the interleukin-13 receptor α chain variant 2 (IL13Rα2). In a review paper published in the October issue of Neuro-Oncology, the researchers discuss various ...

An international research team's field work, drilling and measuring melt rates and ice sheet movement in Greenland is showing that things are, in fact, more complicated than we thought. "Although the Greenland Ice Sheet initially speeds up each summer in its slow-motion race to the sea, the network of meltwater channels beneath the sheet is not necessarily forming the slushy racetrack that had been previously considered," said Matthew Hoffman, a Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist on the project. A high-profile paper appearing in Nature this week notes that observations ...

VIDEO: NASA's TRMM satellite saw Phanfone was producing rainfall over a very large area on Oct. 1. Some storms in these bands were dropping rain at a rate of over 76... Click here for more information. An intensifying typhoon called Phanfone that originated east of Guam on September 28, 2014 is headed toward southern Japan. The TRMM satellite crossed above Typhoon Phanfone on October 1, 2014 at 1039 UTC and gathered data about rainfall rates occurring in the storm. TRMM, ...

The monarch butterfly is one of the most iconic insects in the world, best known for its distinct orange and black wings and a spectacular annual mass migration across North America. However, little has been known about the genes that underlie these famous traits, even as the insect's storied migration appears to be in peril. Sequencing the genomes of monarch butterflies from around the world, a team of scientists has now made surprising new insights into the monarch's genetics. They identified a single gene that appears central to migration – a behavior generally regarded ...

To protect their gut microbes during illness, sick mice produce specialized sugars in the gut that feed their microbiota and maintain a healthy microbial balance. This protective mechanism also appears to help resist or tolerate additional harmful pathogens, and its disruption may play a role in human diseases such as Crohn's disease, report scientists from the University of Chicago in Nature on Oct 1. "Both hosts and their gut microbiota can suffer in the case of sickness, but this mutually beneficial relationship is guarded by the host," said study senior author Alexander ...

Chemicals released into the air by oil and gas exploration, extraction and related activities can spark reactions that lead to high levels of ozone in wintertime, high enough to exceed federal health standards, according to new NOAA-led research, published today in Nature. The study comes at a time when new technologies are helping to accelerate oil and gas development in Utah's Uintah Basin, elsewhere in the United States and in many other countries, and its findings may help air quality managers determine how to best minimize the impact of ozone pollution. When ozone ...

AUSTIN, Texas—A team led by scientists at the University of Texas at Austin's Institute for Geophysics has for the first time directly observed multiple parts of Greenland's subglacial plumbing system and how that system evolves each summer to slow down the ice sheet's movement toward the sea. These new observations could be important in accurately modeling Greenland's future response to climate change. "Everyone wants to know what's happening under Greenland as it experiences more and more melt," said study coauthor Ginny Catania, a research scientist at the institute ...

Titan is unique in our solar system because of its dense nitrogen-methane atmosphere, which is very similar to Earth's in some ways, but very different in others. For example, air temperatures are around 200 degrees colder and, in contrast to the warm salt water seas of Earth, frigid hydrocarbon lakes populate Titan's surface. Titan has seasons just like Earth, only each season lasts over seven years instead of three months due to its ponderous orbit around the Sun. After equinox in 2009, Titan's south pole entered the perpetual darkness of polar winter. Soon after, ...

New data obtained by NASA's GRAIL mission reveals that the Procellarum region on the near side of the moon — a giant basin often referred to as the "man in the moon" — likely arose not from a massive asteroid strike, but from a large plume of magma deep within the moon's interior. The Procellarum region is a roughly circular, volcanic terrain some 1,800 miles in diameter — nearly as wide as the United States. One hypothesis suggested that it was formed by a massive impact, in which case it would have been the largest impact basin on the moon. Subsequent asteroid collisions ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Oceanus Procellarum, a vast dark patch visible on the western edge of the Moon's near side, has long been a source of mystery for planetary scientists. Some have suggested that the "ocean of storms" is part of a giant basin formed by an asteroid impact early in the Moon's history. But new research published today in Nature deals a pretty big blow to the impact theory. The new study, based on data from NASA's GRAIL mission, found a series of linear gravitational anomalies forming a giant rectangle, nearly 1,600 miles across, running ...