Health apps have the potential to make a broad impact on the health of the general population, argues one expert in The BMJ this week. But another explains that there is not enough evidence to support such claims and suggests that health apps may even be harmful. Widely available on smartphones, health apps aim to encourage people to adopt healthy behaviours ranging from weight loss to physical activity, and to help patients to manage conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure. Health apps have been around for more than 10 years and tens of thousands are available ...

Drug users who do not benefit from conventional treatments for heroin addiction should be able to access the drug through the health system, urges a Canadian expert in The BMJ today. Standard treatments for heroin drug addiction include detoxification, abstinence programmes and methadone maintenance, but there is a subgroup of patients for whom these do not work. As doctors can provide no effective treatments for these patients, many will remain "outside the healthcare system" and there is "overwhelming" evidence that they will relapse into using illicit heroin and ...

Citrus fruits -- delectable oranges, lemons, limes, kumquats and grapefruits -- are among the most important commercially cultivated fruit trees in the world, yet little is known of the origin of the citrus species and the history of its domestication. Now, Joaquin Dopazo et al, in a new publication in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, have performed the largest and most detailed genomic analysis on 30 species of Citrus, representing 34 citrus genotypes, and used chloroplast genomic data to reconstruct its evolutionary history. Overall, the results confirm ...

A team led by Case Western Reserve researchers has identified a potentially powerful approach to lowering relapse rates among the ranks of those addicted to illegal drugs or alcohol. In a study of nearly 200 teenagers admitted to a residential treatment center in the northeastern United States, psychiatry professor Maria Pagano, PhD, confirmed both the prevalence of social anxiety issues among them as well as the benefits of measures designed to alleviate social distress. These findings were posted online this month in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental ...

UPTON, NY - The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC, http://www.bnl.gov/rhic/), a powerful particle accelerator for nuclear physics research at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, just shattered its own record for producing polarized proton collisions at 200-giga-electron-volt (GeV) collision energy. In the experimental run currently underway at this two-ringed, 2.4-mile-circumference particle collider, accelerator physicists are now delivering 1200 billion of these subatomic smashups per week-more than double the number routinely achieved ...

While the risk of alcohol-related liver cirrhosis is known to increase with heavy drinking, a number of people who drink large quantities of alcohol seem to escape developing the disease. This variation in susceptibility may be due to several factors beyond quantity such as genetics, gender, and obesity. A preliminary clinical analysis of hundreds of drinkers with and without alcoholic cirrhosis has found that affected individuals often report a father with alcohol problems who had died from liver disease, which underscores the heritability of this disease. Results will ...

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) and amygdala (AMG) are brain regions that not only referee cognitive functions and emotional states, but also contribute to the reinforcing effects of alcohol and tobacco. Researchers already knew that alcohol and tobacco use can modulate cytochrome P450 expression in the liver and other tissues, but little is known about the effects of alcohol and tobacco on P450s in the human AMG. A new study focusing on two CYP2 enzymes that metabolize drugs and endogenous compounds has found that chronic drinking is associated with higher CYP2E1 and CYP2U1 ...

This century's increase in addiction issues among U.S. youth may be related to their developmental need to fit in, particularly youth with social anxiety disorder (SAD), which could exacerbate the drink/trouble cycle. In addition, socially anxious youths may avoid participating in therapeutic activities during treatment for fear of negative peer appraisal. A study of the influence of SAD on clinical severity at intake, peer helping in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) during treatment, and subsequent outcomes has found that almost half of the patients entering treatment had a persistent ...

Cannabis is the most commonly used drug among adults who drink, besides tobacco, yet no study has directly compared those who use cannabis and alcohol simultaneously, or at the exact same time, versus those who use both separately and on a regular basis. A new study looks at the relationship between marijuana and alcohol use, finding that simultaneous users had double the odds of drunk driving, social consequences, and harms to self. Results will be published in the May 2015 online-only issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available ...

WASHINGTON, DC - A new study suggests that an investigational drug for multiple sclerosis (MS) may repair myelin, the fatty material that protects nerves and is damaged in MS, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 67th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, April 18 to 25, 2015. "This study, for the first time, provides biological evidence of repair of damaged myelin in the human brain, and advances the field of neuro-reparative therapies," said study lead author Diego Cadavid, MD, with Biogen in Cambridge, Mass., ...

Divorced women suffer heart attacks at higher rates than women who are continuously married, a new study from Duke Medicine has found. A woman who has been through two or more divorces is nearly twice as likely to have a heart attack when compared to their stably-married female peers, according to the findings. Even among women who remarry after the stress of divorce, their heart attack risk remains elevated according to the study published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, a journal of the American Heart Association. "Divorce is a major stressor, ...

New York, NY -- It has been called a pioneering strategy for treating opioid addiction, and has already been adopted in a small yet growing number of jails and prisons in the United States. Now, a clinical trial published in the journal Addiction by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center finds that the extended-release medication naltrexone (XR-NTX) is associated with a significant decline in relapse rates for a group of mostly heroin-dependent men after their release from New York City jails. The NYU Langone researchers say that their study is the only randomized ...

New York, April 14, 2015 - Randomized clinical trials of new drugs have long been considered the "gold standard" in determining safety and efficacy before drugs, biologics, vaccines or devices are introduced to the general public. However, in the case of a deadly, rapidly spreading, infectious disease with no known cure, such as Ebola, ethical considerations demand that reliance only on RCTs be reexamined, according to a new Target Article now online and in print in the American Journal of Bioethics. Authors Arthur Caplan, PhD and Carolyn Plunkett of the Division of ...

Seeking a way to stimulate antitumor responses via the immune system, Steven Fiering, PhD, of Norris Cotton Cancer Center at Dartmouth, has identified the precise temperature that results in a distinct body-wide antitumor immune response that resists metastatic disease. Fiering's team published the research in the paper "Local Hyperthermia Treatment of Tumors Induces CD8+ T Cell-Mediated Resistance Against Distal and Secondary Tumors," which appeared in Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine. "Mild hyperthermia treatment of an identified tumor, prior to surgery ...

NEW YORK, NY (April 14, 2015) -- The first-ever systematic study of the genomes of patients with ALK-negative anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL), a particularly aggressive form of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, shows that many cases of the disease are driven by alterations in the JAK/STAT3 cell signaling pathway. The study also demonstrates, in mice implanted with human-derived ALCL tumors, that the disease can be inhibited by compounds that target this pathway, raising hopes that more effective treatments might soon be developed. The study, led by researchers at Columbia University ...

Macrophages destroy bacteria by engulfing them in intracellular compartments, which they then acidify to kill or neutralize the bacteria. However, some pathogenic bacteria, such as Salmonella enterica, have evolved to exist and even grow while within these acidified compartments. Yet, how Salmonella responds to the acidic environment and how that environment affects the virulence of this pathogen are unclear. New research reveals that Salmonella fights acid with acid, by lowering the pH of its own interior in response to the acidification of the Salmonella-containing compartment ...

An unconventional clinical trial design might have advantages over classical trials for testing treatments for Ebola virus disease (EVD), suggests a study published this week in PLOS Medicine. The work of an international team led by John Whitehead of Lancaster University, UK and Ben Cooper of Oxford University, UK, provides much-needed data to inform a debate on the scientific and ethical justification for non-randomized EVD trials that has taken place in the editorial pages of a number of medical journals in past months. The researchers compared three different scenarios ...

In recent years, research into the benefits of gut bacteria has exploded. Scientists across the globe are examining how these microbes can help improve health and prevent disease. One of the most well-known of these is Lactobacillus rhamnosus GG (LGG). This strain of bacteria, which is part of many popular probiotic products, has a reputation as a helpful microbe. Researchers have found evidence that it can help with intestinal problems, respiratory infections and some skin disorders. Some research suggests that it may even help with weight loss. But a key question ...

In research of significance to the world's expanding coastal populations, scientists have found that geology and infrastructure play key roles in determining whether aquifers that provide drinking water are inundated with seawater during a typhoon or hurricane and how long the contamination lasts. In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, killing more than 6,000 people and destroying nearly $3 billion worth of property. While the country is still recovering from the storm, researchers with The University of Texas at Austin have found that an aquifer on the island ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - A team of international scientists has shown that assigning a dollar value to the benefits nature provides agriculture improves the bottom line for farmers while protecting the environment. The study confirms that organic farming systems do a better job of capitalizing on nature's services. Scientists from Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States describe the research they conducted on organic and conventional farms to arrive at dollar values for natural processes that aid farming and that can substitute for costly fossil ...

As HIV investigators work to control and eradicate the virus worldwide, certain myths or misconceptions about the disease have been embraced, whereas other concepts with merit have been left relatively unexplored, argues American HIV/AIDS researcher Jay Levy, MD, in a commentary publishing April 14 in the journal Trends in Molecular Medicine. He calls on fellow researchers to continue questioning and not to lose sight of alternative strategies that could ultimately lead to a sustainable, long-term solution to HIV infection. "This paper may be controversial, but people ...

You might think that you can get away with eating fatty foods for a few days without it making any significant changes to your body. Think again. After just five days of eating a high-fat diet, the way in which the body's muscle processes nutrients changes, which could lead to long-term problems such as weight gain, obesity, and other health issues, a new study has found. "Most people think they can indulge in high-fat foods for a few days and get away with it," said Matt Hulver, an associate professor of human nutrition, foods, and exercise in the Virginia Tech College ...

This news release is available in German. Looking after yourself, and trying not to infect others, is a good strategy to prevent disease from spreading - not only if you are a considerate co-worker, but also if you are an ant, meerkat or other social animal, as revealed by an epidemiological model developed by the groups of Professor Fabian Theis from the Helmholtz Center Munich and Professor Sylvia Cremer from the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria. In a Theme Issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B on "The Society-Health-Fitness ...

This news release is available in Spanish and Spanish. Combination of the anticancer drug PM1183 with PARP inhibitors and doxorubicin results in a synergistic effect against breast cancer cell lines and a SCLC mouse tumor model, respectively. The anticancer candidate plitidepsin binds to eEF1A2, a novel therapeutic target in multiple myeloma, and shows activity in patient-derived tumor mouse models from a wide range of solid tumors and hematological cancers. The new antibody-drug conjugate (ADC), MI130004, shows in vivo potent and long-lasting anticancer effects ...

New research from the University of Warwick and University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire (UHCW) NHS Trust could transform treatments and diagnosis for a common digestive condition which affects thousands of patients. The oesophagus or food pipe (gullet) is part of the digestive system. It is the tube that carries food from your mouth to your stomach. Barrett's Oesophagus (also known as BE) and low-grade dysplasia affects approximately 2% of the adult population, particularly those with heartburn, as acid reflux from the stomach can, over time, damage the lining ...