The results show that pills containing one of the newer types of progestogen hormone (drospirenone, desogestrel, gestodene, and cyproterone) are associated with an increased risk of VTE than pills containing older progestogens (levonorgestrel and norethisterone). The researchers, based at the University of Nottingham, say this is "an important clarifying study" that "has sufficient power to provide reliable comparative findings for different formulations of combined oral contraceptives." About 9% of women of reproductive age worldwide use oral contraceptives, rising ...

James Rucker, a psychiatrist and honorary lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, describes how these drugs "were extensively used and researched in clinical psychiatry" before their prohibition in 1967. He explains that many trials of psychedelics published before prohibition, in the 1950s and 1960s, suggested "beneficial change in many psychiatric disorders". However, research ended after 1967. In the UK psychedelic drugs were legally classified as schedule 1 class A drugs - that is, as having "no accepted medical ...

PHILADELPHIA -- HDL is the 'good cholesterol' that helps remove fat from artery walls, reversing the process that leads to heart disease. Yet recent drug trials and genetic studies suggest that simply pushing HDL levels higher doesn't necessarily reduce the risk of heart disease. Now, a team led by scientists from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has shown in a large, forward-looking epidemiological study that a person's HDL function -- the efficiency of HDL molecules at removing cholesterol -- may be a better measure of coronary heart disease ...

A risk gene for dyslexia is associated with impairments in visual motion detection, according to a study published May 27 in The Journal of Neuroscience. Mutations in the gene DCDC2 have previously been associated with dyslexia, and this study found that dyslexics with an altered copy of the gene are unable to detect certain types of visual motion. The researchers used a series of visual tests to compare typical readers with two groups of dyslexics -- one with and one without a specific deletion in the DCDC2 gene. The subjects were presented with images of patterned ...

Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation scientists have pinpointed a cell that begins the process of scarring in fatty tissue. The findings cast new light on a biological process that occurs with obesity and can lead to diabetes. "Scarring can be an important part of the healing process when a person suffers an injury," said OMRF's Lorin Olson, Ph.D., who led the research. "But excessive scarring, or fibrosis, can contribute to many dangerous health conditions." The new research appears in the June 1 issue of the journal Genes & Development. Using experimental models, ...

One of the major challenges of cocaine addiction is the high rate of relapse after periods of withdrawal and abstinence. But new research reveals that changes in our DNA during drug withdrawal may offer promising ways of developing more effective treatments for addiction. Withdrawal from drug use results in reprogramming of the genes in the brain that lead to addictive personality, say researchers from McGill University and Bar Ilan University in a new study published in the Journal of Neuroscience. "We inherit our genes from our parents and these genes remain fixed ...

New York, NY--May 25, 2015--Under the direction of Latha Venkataraman, associate professor of applied physics at Columbia Engineering, researchers have designed a new technique to create a single-molecule diode, and, in doing so, they have developed molecular diodes that perform 50 times better than all prior designs. Venkataraman's group is the first to develop a single-molecule diode that may have real-world technological applications for nanoscale devices. Their paper, "Single-Molecule Diodes with High On-Off Ratios through Environmental Control," is published May 25 ...

DALLAS, May 26, 2015 -- Drinking two or more alcoholic beverages daily may damage the heart of elderly people, according to research in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging. The study correlated weekly alcohol consumption among 4,466 people -- average age 76 -- to the size, structure and motion of various parts of the heart. Researchers found: The more people drank, the greater the subtle changes to the heart's structure and function. Among men, drinking more than 14 alcoholic beverages weekly (heavy drinking) was linked with ...

DALLAS, May 26, 2015 - A vaccine may one day help lower blood pressure for up to six months, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension. The study in rats may eventually provide a novel alternative to treat high blood pressure in people, who would not need to take a pill everyday. "The potential of a vaccine for hypertension offers an innovative treatment that could be very effective for the control of non-compliance which is one of the major problems in the management of hypertensive patients," said Hironori Nakagami M.D., ...

A genetically engineered herpes virus can halt the progression of skin cancer by killing cancer cells and sparking the immune system into action against tumours, a landmark clinical trial has shown. It is the first time that a phase III trial of viral immunotherapy has definitively shown benefit for patients with cancer. The trial was led in the UK by researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust, and involved 64 research centres worldwide including the University of Oxford. Researchers randomised 436 patients ...

BOSTON -- Carbon monoxide is known by many as a poisonous gas that causes brain injury and other neurological symptoms, including memory loss and confusion. But a new study led by investigators at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) suggests the opposite may be true: When administered in small, carefully controlled amounts, carbon monoxide may actually protect the brain from damage following subarachnoid hemorrhage, a devastating stroke that results from bleeding in the brain. Published online today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI), the new findings ...

WASHINGTON (May 26, 2015) -- The American College of Cardiology's National Cardiovascular Data Registry was the source of data for seven studies published in the first four months of 2015, including a study that identified possible overuse of anticoagulants in low-risk atrial fibrillation patients and research that found a relationship between operator experience and outcomes in certain patients after percutaneous coronary intervention or angioplasty. CathPCI Registry Study Compares Outcomes of Sleep-Deprived vs. Non-Sleep-Deprived PCI Operators Only a small number of ...

University of Florida researchers have identified a biomarker that shows the progression of Parkinson's disease in the brain, opening the door to better diagnosis and treatment of the degenerative disease. By comparing brain images of Parkinson's patients to those of a control group over a year, an interdisciplinary team found that an area of the brain called the substania nigra changes as the disease advances. The findings provide the first MRI-based method to measure the disease's progression, which can inform treatment decisions and aid in identifying new therapies, ...

Seasonal influenza vaccination of children is likely to represent good short-term value for money in Thailand, according to a study published this week in PLOS Medicine. The study, led by Aronrag Meeyai of the Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program and Mahidol University, Thailand, uses an age-structured model to estimate the health benefits and cost-effectiveness of flu vaccination among Thai children aged 2 to 17 years. Many seasonal influenza vaccination programs target elderly people, who have the highest risk of dying as a result of an influenza infection. ...

Adherence to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) is linked to lower death rates in a low-income population in southeastern US. In a low-income population from the southeastern US, higher adherence to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) was linked with 14%-23% lower mortality from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and other diseases, according to a study published by Wei Zheng and colleagues from Vanderbilt University, Nashville, USA, in this week's PLOS Medicine. The researchers analyzed data from the Southern Community Cohort Study (SCCS), a study including ...

PITTSBURGH, May 26, 2015 - Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have identified two new classes of RNAs that are closely associated with a protein known to be a prognostic biomarker for breast cancer and could play a role in progression of prostate cancer. Their findings were published in the June issue of the scientific journal RNA. Levels of human Y-box binding protein 1 (YB-1), which is involved in many cellular functions, have been shown to correlate with drug resistance and poor patient outcomes in a variety of cancers. The observation that ...

CINCINNATI - Maxing out the inherently stressed nature of treatment-resistant breast cancer cells thwarts their adaptive ability to evolve genetic workarounds to treatment, a new study suggests. Scientists from Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center report their results May 26 in Science Signaling. "We present an alternative generic strategy for cancer treatment, which is removing cancer cells' defenses against their own intrinsic stress," said Kakajan Komurov, PhD, lead author and a researcher at the Cancer and Blood Disease Institute at Cincinnati Children's. ...

The importance of the umbilical cord not only for the fetus but for newborn infants too was shown by Swedish researchers several years ago, in a study that received great international acclaim. In a follow-up study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics they have now been able to show an association between delayed cord clamping (DCC) and children's fine motor skills at the age of four years, especially in boys. Several years ago, in a clinical study comprising 400 newborns, Dr. Ola Andersson and colleagues demonstrated that the risk of iron deficiency at the age of four months ...

Racial stereotypes and expectations can impact the way we communicate and understand others, according to UBC research. The new study, published in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, highlights how non-verbal "social cues" - such as photographs of Chinese Canadians - can affect how we comprehend speech. "This research brings to light our internal biases, and the role of experience and stereotypes, in how we listen to and hear each other," says Molly Babel, the paper's lead author and an assistant professor with UBC's Department of Linguistics. One of ...

PITTSBURGH, May 26, 2015 - Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have identified two new classes of RNAs that are closely associated with a protein known to be a prognostic biomarker for breast cancer and could play a role in progression of prostate cancer. Their findings were published in the June issue of the scientific journal RNA. Levels of human Y-box binding protein 1 (YB-1), which is involved in many cellular functions, have been shown to correlate with drug resistance and poor patient outcomes in a variety of cancers. The observation that ...

If you want to strike up a new relationship, simply smile. It works because people are much more attuned to positive emotions when forming new bonds than they are to negative ones such as anger, contempt or sadness. Don't try to fake it, however, because people can recognize a sincere smile a mile away. This is according to a study led by Belinda Campos of the University of California, Irvine, in the US that sheds light on how relationships are formed and maintained. The findings are published in Springer's journal Motivation and Emotion. Campos' team conducted two studies ...

Infants are capable of understanding relations like "same" and "different" Analogical learning processes are present in prelinguistic human infants EVANSTON, Ill. --- Two pennies can be considered the same -- both are pennies, just as two elephants can be considered the same, as both are elephants. Despite the vast difference between pennies and elephants, we easily notice the common relation of sameness that holds for both pairs. Analogical ability -- the ability to see common relations between objects, events or ideas -- is a key skill that underlies human intelligence ...

Quantum computers are largely theoretical devices that could perform some computations exponentially faster than conventional computers can. Crucial to most designs for quantum computers is quantum error correction, which helps preserve the fragile quantum states on which quantum computation depends. The ideal quantum error correction code would correct any errors in quantum data, and it would require measurement of only a few quantum bits, or qubits, at a time. But until now, codes that could make do with limited measurements could correct only a limited number of errors ...

We live in fear of 'superbugs': infectious bacteria that don't respond to treatment by antibiotics, and can turn a routine hospital stay into a nightmare. A 2015 Health Canada report estimates that superbugs have already cost Canadians $1 billion, and are a "serious and growing issue." Each year two million people in the U.S. contract antibiotic-resistant infections, and at least 23,000 people die as a direct result. But tests for antibiotic resistance can take up to three days to come back from the lab, hindering doctors' ability to treat bacterial infections quickly. ...

Chronic pain affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide and is a major cause of disability, causing more disability than cancer and heart disease. Canadian researchers, including Michael Salter at SickKids are shedding light on the molecular dynamics of chronic pain. They have uncovered a critical role for a class of cells present in the brain and spinal cord, called microglia, in pain. They have found microglia-to-neuron-signaling to be crucial in the development of pain hypersensitivity after injury, but also for one of the paradoxical effects morphine and other ...