Berkeley -- When University of California, Berkeley, bioengineers say they are holding their hearts in the palms of their hands, they are not talking about emotional vulnerability. Instead, the research team led by bioengineering professor Kevin Healy is presenting a network of pulsating cardiac muscle cells housed in an inch-long silicone device that effectively models human heart tissue, and they have demonstrated the viability of this system as a drug-screening tool by testing it with cardiovascular medications. This organ-on-a-chip, reported in a study to be published ...

Chestnut Hill, MA (March 9th, 2015): From "Got Milk?" to "What's in your wallet?" to "Are you a Mac or a PC?" promotional phrases consisting of a simple question have proven to be quite effective, but are they more effective than a simple statement? That depends. Henrik Hagtvedt, Ph.D., a Marketing professor at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, has just finished investigating what happens when you replace a period with a question mark, or vice versa, and how that affects whether a consumer makes a purchase. "I've long been interested in ambiguity and ...

This news release is available in Spanish. Working in a physically demanding job, having high blood pressure, and taking multiple medications are among health risks that may undermine a man's fertility, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and Stanford University, Stanford, California. The study is the first to examine the relationships between workplace exertion, health, and semen quality as men are trying to conceive. The results were published online in Fertility and Sterility. "Nearly 15 percent of U.S. couples do not become ...

Having a family history of prostate cancer among first-degree relatives may increase a woman's risk of developing breast cancer. That is the conclusion of a new study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study's results indicate that clinicians should take a complete family history of all cancers--even those in family members of the opposite sex--to help assess a patient's risk of developing cancer. Evidence suggests that the risk of developing breast and prostate cancer is increased among individuals with a family ...

San Diego, CA--In patients with advanced thyroid cancer, sunitinib, a drug approved for treatment of several other cancers, showed significant cancer-fighting activity t, a new phase 2 clinical trial has found. Results of the single-center study will be presented Sunday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. "Sunitinib can potentially be used as an effective adjunctive treatment in patients with advanced differentiated thyroid cancer," said Principal Investigator Kenneth Burman, MD, Chief of Endocrine at MedStar Washington Hospital Center, Washington, ...

San Diego, CA-- A new testosterone nasal gel raises men's low testosterone levels to normal, with few side effects, according to the results of a phase 3 clinical trial to be presented Saturday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. Last May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the medication, now called Natesto, making it the only FDA-approved nasal testosterone replacement therapy, according to the manufacturer, Trimel Pharmaceuticals. "The unique delivery system makes this a convenient and easy-to-use, self-administered form of testosterone ...

San Diego, CA-- Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is prevalent in obese, pregnant Asian women with gestational diabetes, even when their diabetes is controlled by diet, a new study from Thailand finds. Study results, which also connect the severity of sleep disordered breathing with higher blood glucose (sugar) levels and greater daytime sleepiness, will be presented on Saturday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. In 25 women with diet-controlled gestational (pregnancy) diabetes, the researchers found a 56 percent prevalence of OSA, a sleep disorder ...

San Diego, CA-- Obesity guidelines recommend an initial weight loss goal of 5 to 10% of start weight to improve health. A recent study found that patients who received liraglutide 3.0 mg, combined with fewer calories and more physical activity, were more than twice as likely to achieve at least that level of weight loss, compared to patients on placebo who made similar lifestyle changes. Patients who achieved that weight loss showed improvements on a number of health markers, compared to those who lost less, and the patients on liraglutide showed greater improvement on ...

San Diego, CA-- A new study has confirmed that transgender youth often have mental health problems and that their depression and anxiety improve greatly with recognition and treatment of gender dysphoria. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. "Youth with gender incongruence or dysphoria need a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to care," said principal investigator Maja Marinkovic, MD, a pediatric endocrinologist and Medical Director of the Gender Management Clinic at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego, ...

San Diego, CA-- A fetus exposed to tobacco smoke may be at increased risk for diabetes in adulthood, a new study of adult daughters finds. The results will be presented in a poster Saturday, March 7, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Diego. Women whose parents smoked during pregnancy had increased risk of diabetes mellitus independent of known risk factors, adding to the evidence that prenatal environmental chemical exposures can contribute to adult diabetes mellitus. "From a public health perspective, reduced fetal environmental tobacco ...

San Diego, CA--In older men, decreased sexual activity and desire, not erectile dysfunction, may cause serum testosterone to decline, a new study from Australia finds. The results will be presented Saturday March 7, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, in San Diego. "We found that over two years, men with declining serum concentrations of testosterone were more likely to develop a significant decrease in their sexual activity and sexual desire. In older men, decreased sexual activity and desire may be a cause - not an effect - of low circulating ...

San Diego, CA--Why men have more heart disease than premenopausal women has been unclear, but a new study shows that the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen alter cardiovascular risk factors in a way that raises a man's risk of heart disease. Results of the study will be presented Saturday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. Men have higher testosterone and lower estrogen levels than premenopausal women. Therefore, doctors have suspected that testosterone may promote cardiovascular disease or that estrogen may protect against it, or both, according ...

San Diego, CA-- Breast cancer survivors are at increased risk of developing thyroid cancer, especially within five years of their breast cancer diagnosis, according to a new analysis of a large national database. The study results will be presented Thursday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. "Recognition of this association between breast and thyroid cancer should prompt vigilant screening for thyroid cancer among breast cancer survivors," said lead investigator Jennifer Hong Kuo, MD, assistant professor of surgery at Columbia University, New ...

San Diego, CA-- An experimental drug causes loss of weight and fat in mice, a new study has found. The study results will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. Known as GC-1, the drug reportedly speeds up metabolism, or burning off, of fat cells. "GC-1 dramatically increases the metabolic rate, essentially converting white fat, which stores excess calories and is associated with obesity and metabolic disease, into a fat like calorie-burning brown fat," said study author Kevin Phillips, PhD, a researcher at Houston Methodist ...

San Diego, CA-- A trained scent dog accurately identified whether patients' urine samples had thyroid cancer or were benign (noncancerous) 88.2 percent of the time, according to a new study, to- be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. "Current diagnostic procedures for thyroid cancer often yield uncertain results, leading to recurrent medical procedures and a large number of thyroid surgeries performed unnecessarily," said the study's senior investigator, Donald Bodenner, MD, PhD, chief of endocrine oncology at the University of ...

People with anorexia nervosa and with body dysmorphic disorder have similar abnormalities in their brains that affect their ability to process visual information, a new UCLA study reveals. People with anorexia have such an intense fear of gaining weight that they starve themselves even when they are dangerously thin. Body dysmorphic disorder is a psychiatric condition characterized by an obsessive preoccupation with a perceived flaw in physical appearance. The researchers found that people with both disorders had abnormal activity in the visual cortex of the brain during ...

San Diego, CA -- A tooth enamel abnormality in children, molar incisor hypomineralization (MIH), may result from exposure to the industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA), authors of a new study conclude after finding similar damage to the dental enamel of rats that received BPA. The study results will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. "Human enamel defects may be used as an early marker of exposure to BPA and similar-acting endocrine disruptors," Babajko said. BPA is an endocrine disruptor, or hormone-altering chemical, that ...

Herpes simplex virus infections are an enormous global health problem and there is currently no viable vaccine. For nearly three decades, immunologists' efforts to develop a herpes vaccine have centered on exploiting a single protein found on the virus's outer surface that is known to elicit robust production of antibodies. Breaking from this approach, Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have created a genetic mutant lacking that protein. The result is a powerfully effective vaccine against herpes viruses. "We have ...

March 10, 2015--(BRONX, NY)--Scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have designed a new type of vaccine that could be the first-ever for preventing genital herpes--one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases, affecting some 500 million people worldwide. By using a counterintuitive scientific approach, researchers were able to prevent both active and latent infections caused by herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), the virus that causes genital herpes. Findings from the research, conducted in mice, were published today in the online ...

San Diego, CA--Exposure to low doses of hormone-disrupting chemicals early in life can alter gene expression in the liver as well as liver function, increasing the susceptibility to obesity and other metabolic diseases in adulthood, a new study finds. Results of the animal study will be presented Friday at the Endocrine Society's 97th annual meeting in San Diego. Brief exposure in infancy to several industrial chemicals that are common in the human environment, particularly bisphenol A (BPA), caused fatty liver disease in adulthood, the researchers found in rats. "Even ...

San Diego, CA--In patients with chronic heart failure, the vitamin D metabolite 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D), also called calcitriol, and its ratio to parathyroid hormone (PTH 1-84) may help predict cardiovascular death; and patients with decreased calcitriol and decreased ratio of calcitriol to PTH might benefit from more aggressive supplementation, a new study finds. The results will be presented Friday, March 6, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Diego. Heart failure, with high morbidity and mortality, is increasingly prevalent ...

San Diego, CA--A treatment known as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) may decrease fasting glucose and improve quality of life in overweight and obese women, new research suggests. The results will be presented in a poster Friday, March 6, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Diego. MBSR is a secular mindfulness meditation program that was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. The practice of MBSR involves paying attention to one's thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations in the present ...

San Diego, CA--A mother's age at childbirth may affect her male baby's birth weight as well as his adult glucose metabolism, new research shows. The results will be presented Friday, March 6, at ENDO 2015, the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society in San Diego. "Our findings indicate that women giving birth at a very young (under 25 years) or older (over 34 years) age might result in less favorable sugar handling and thus possibly higher risk for developing type 2 diabetes in their sons," said Charlotte Verroken, MD, of the Department of Endocrinology of Ghent University ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. - March 6, 2015) The St. Jude Children's Research Hospital--Washington University Pediatric Cancer Genome Project reports that a highly aggressive form of leukemia in infants has surprisingly few mutations beyond the chromosomal rearrangement that affects the MLL gene. The findings suggest that targeting the alteration is likely the key to improved survival. The research appeared online ahead of print this week in the scientific journal Nature Genetics. The study is the most comprehensive analysis yet of this rare but aggressive subtype of pediatric acute ...

Alexandria, VA-- Children born during, and up to three years after, the devastating 1997-1998 El Niño event in northern Peru were found to be shorter than their peers in a new study covered in EARTH Magazine. The rising waters wiped out crops, drowned livestock, cut off bridges, and caused prolonged famine in many rural villages. Now, a new study that tracked long-term health impacts on children from the affected region has found that a decade later, the children continue to bear signs of the hardship endured early in their lives. Learn how the children's health ...