ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Clinical recommendations discouraging the use of CYP2D6 gene testing to guide tamoxifen therapy in breast cancer patients are based on studies with flawed methodology and should be reconsidered, according to the results of a Mayo Clinic study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. For years, controversy has surrounded the CYP2D6 gene test for breast cancer. Women with certain inherited genetic deficiencies in the CYP2D6 gene metabolize tamoxifen less efficiently, and thus have lower levels of tamoxifen's active cancer-fighting metabolite ...

Yeast cells can sometimes reverse the protein misfolding and clumping associated with diseases such as Alzheimer's, according to new research from the University of Arizona. The new finding contradicts the idea that once prion proteins have changed into the shape that aggregates, the change is irreversible. "It's believed that when these aggregates arise that cells cannot get rid of them," said Tricia Serio, UA professor and head of the department of molecular and cellular biology. "We've shown that's not the case. Cells can clear themselves of these aggregates." Prions ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Thinking you're good at math and actually being good at it are not the same thing, new research has found. About one in five people who say they are bad at math in fact score in the top half of those taking an objective math test. But one-third of people who say they are good at math actually score in the bottom half. "Some people mis-categorize themselves. They really don't know how good they are when faced with a traditional math test," said Ellen Peters, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at The Ohio State University. The results ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Mathematical models predicted it, and now a University of Florida study confirms it: Immunizing school-aged children from flu can protect other segments of the population, as well. When half of 5- to 17-year-old children in Alachua County were vaccinated through a school-based program, the entire age group's flu rates decreased by 79 percent. Strikingly, the rate of influenza-like illness among 0-4 year olds went down 89 percent, despite the fact that this group was not included in the school-based vaccinations. Among all non-school-aged residents, ...

Supplemental ultrasound screening for all U.S. women with dense breasts would substantially increase healthcare costs with little improvement in overall health, according to senior author Anna Tosteson, ScD, at Dartmouth Hitchcock's Norris Cotton Cancer Center and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. In a study released Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Tosteson and colleagues, including lead author Brian Sprague, MD, provide evidence on the benefits and harms of adding ultrasound to breast cancer screening for women who have had a ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- When a large protein unfolds in transit through a cell, it slows down and can get stuck in traffic. Using a specialized microscope -- a sort of cellular traffic camera -- University of Illinois chemists now can watch the way the unfolded protein diffuses. Studying the relationship between protein folding and transport could provide great insight into protein-misfolding diseases such as Alzheimer's and Huntington's. Chemistry professor Martin Gruebele and graduate students Minghao Guo and Hannah Gelman published their findings in the journal PLOS ONE. "We're ...

Irvine, Calif., Dec. 9, 2014 -- A learning technique that maximizes the brain's ability to make and store memories may help overcome cognitive issues seen in fragile X syndrome, a leading form of intellectual disability, according to UC Irvine neurobiologists. Christine Gall, Gary Lynch and colleagues found that fragile X model mice trained in three short, repetitious episodes spaced one hour apart performed as well on memory tests as normal mice. These same fragile X rodents performed poorly on memory tests when trained in a single, prolonged session - which is a standard ...

A new study links ADHD and conduct disorder in young adolescents with increased alcohol and tobacco use. The Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center study is among the first to assess such an association in this age group. Conduct disorder is a behavioral and emotional disorder marked by aggressive, destructive or deceitful behavior. The study is published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence. "Early onset of substance abuse is a significant public health concern," says William Brinkman, MD, a pediatrician at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center ...

INDIANAPOLIS -- As hospice for nursing home patients grows dramatically, a new study from the Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University Center for Aging Research compares the characteristics of hospice patients in nursing homes with hospice patients living in the community. The study also provides details on how hospice patients move in and out of these two settings. Longer lengths of hospice care, rising costs and concerns over possible duplication of services have led to increased scrutiny by policymakers of hospice patients living in nursing homes. Nursing ...

E-cigarettes appear to be less addictive than cigarettes for former smokers and this could help improve understanding of how various nicotine delivery devices lead to dependence, according to researchers. "We found that e-cigarettes appear to be less addictive than tobacco cigarettes in a large sample of long-term users," said Jonathan Foulds, professor of public health sciences and psychiatry, Penn State College of Medicine. The popularity of e-cigarettes, which typically deliver nicotine, propylene glycol, glycerin and flavorings through inhaled vapor, has increased ...

PHILADELPHIA -Researchers at Penn Medicine, in collaboration with a multi-center international team, have shown that a protease inhibitor, simeprevir, a once a day pill, along with interferon and ribavirin has proven as effective in treating chronic Hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) as telaprevir with interferon and ribavirin, the standard of care in developing countries. Further, simeprevir proved to be simpler for patients and had fewer adverse events. The complete study is now available online and is scheduled to publish in January 2015 in The Lancet Infectious Diseases. ...

BELLINGHAM, Washington, USA, and COLCHESTER, UK -- Swimmers looking to monitor and improve technique and patients striving to heal injured muscles now have a new light-based tool to help reach their goals. A research article by scientists at the University of Essex in Colchester and Artinis Medical Systems published today (5 December) in the Journal of Biomedical Optics (JBO) describes the first measurements of muscle oxygenation underwater and the development of the enabling technology. The article, "Underwater near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy measurements of muscle ...

Increases in excess fat adversely affect multiple cardiometabolic risk markers even in lean young adults according to a new study published this week in PLOS Medicine. The study by Peter Würtz from the University of Oulu, Finland, and colleagues suggests that, even within the range of body-mass index (BMI) considered to be healthy, there is no threshold below which a BMI increase does not adversely affect the metabolic profile of an individual. Adiposity, or having excess body fat, is a growing global threat to public health. Compared to people with a lean body ...

December 9, 2014 -- Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a common cause of hospital-acquired infections, with the largest burden of infections occurring in under-resourced hospitals. While genome sequencing has previously been applied in well-resourced clinical settings to track the spread of MRSA, transmission dynamics in settings with more limited infection control is unknown. In a study published online today in Genome Research, researchers used genome sequencing to understand the spread of MRSA in a resource-limited hospital with high transmission rates. Patients ...

SAN FRANCISCO (DECEMBER 9, 2014) -Common variations in four genes related to brain inflammation or cells' response to damage from oxidation may contribute to the problems with memory, learning and other cognitive functions seen in children treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), according to a study led by researchers from Boston Children's Hospital, The Children's Hospital at Montefiore, and Dana-Farber/Boston Children's Cancer and Blood Disorders Center. The data, presented at the 56th annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology (abstract #856), suggest ...

A team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators has identified what may be a biomarker predicting the development of the dangerous systemic infection sepsis in patients with serious burns. In their report in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the researchers describe finding that the motion through a microfluidic device of the white blood cells called neutrophils is significantly altered two to three days before sepsis develops, a finding that may provide a critically needed method for early diagnosis. "Neutrophils are the major white blood cell protecting ...

Timing is key for brain cells controlling a complex motor activity like the singing of a bird, finds a new study published by PLOS Biology. "You can learn much more about what a bird is singing by looking at the timing of neurons firing in its brain than by looking at the rate that they fire," says Sam Sober, a biologist at Emory University whose lab led the study. "Just a millisecond difference in the timing of a neuron's activity makes a difference in the sound that comes out of the bird's beak." The findings are the first to suggest that fine-scale timing of neurons ...

Researchers from the University of Cambridge have used genome sequencing to monitor how the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) occurs in under-resourced hospitals. By pinpointing how and when MRSA was transmitted over a three-month period at a hospital in northeast Thailand, the researchers are hoping their results will support evidence-based policies around infection control. MRSA is a common cause of hospital-acquired infections, with the largest burden of infections occurring in under-resourced hospitals in the developing world. Whereas genome ...

The availability of a trace nutrient can cause genome-wide changes to how organisms encode proteins, report scientists from the University of Chicago in PLoS Biology on Dec. 9. The use of the nutrient - which is produced by bacteria and absorbed in the gut - appears to boost the speed and accuracy of protein production in specific ways. "This is in some sense a 'you are what you eat' hypothesis,"' said senior study author D. Allan Drummond, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Chicago. "This nutrient that is absorbed through ...

AUDIO: Nitrous oxide, often called laughing gas, has been used in medicine and in dentistry for more than 150 years. But researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis... Click here for more information. Nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, has shown early promise as a potential treatment for severe depression in patients whose symptoms don't respond to standard therapies. The pilot study, at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is believed to ...

A new policy paper by a University of York academic calls for limits on the influence of the drinks industry in shaping alcohol policy because it has a 'fundamental conflict of interest'. The article by Professor Jim McCambridge, of the Department of Health Sciences at York and academics at King's College London and the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, is published in this week's PLOS Medicine. It says the concept of harm reduction has been co-opted by industry interests in public health debates about reducing the damage caused by alcohol. The paper argues ...

Is being located next to a big-name competitor always bad for your small business? A new study in the Journal of Marketing Research shows that contrary to accepted belief, the presence of a large, nearby competitor can actually boost the sales of smaller brands. "When the owner of Los Angeles's Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf could not stop Starbucks from moving in next door, he at first admitted defeat," note authors Neeru Paharia (Georgetown University), Jill Avery (Harvard University), and Anat Keinan (Harvard University). "However, soon after, he was surprised to see his sales ...

LOS ANGELES (Dec. 09, 2014) - A computer system was more effective than doctors at collecting information about patient symptoms, producing reports that were more complete, organized and useful than narratives generated by physicians during office visits, according to a Cedars-Sinai study. Investigators said the research, published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology, highlights the potential of computers to enhance the quality of medical care and improve outcomes by harnessing accurate and thorough patient information. The authors said they did not expect ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Harmful bacteria have evolved some ingenious mechanisms to resist antibiotics. One of those is the drug efflux pump -- proteins that stand guard along bacterial cell membranes, identifying antibacterial agents that pass through the membrane and swiftly ejecting them from the cell. "These drug efflux pumps are extremely problematic," said Jason Sello, associate professor of chemistry at Brown University. "The drugs are pumped out of the bacteria and cannot reach the critical concentration for toxicity." Sello and a team of researchers ...

With Americans spending billions of dollars each year on nutritional supplements, researchers have analyzed popular eye vitamins to determine whether their formulations and claims are consistent with scientific findings. They determined that some of the top-selling products do not contain identical ingredient dosages to eye vitamin formulas proven effective in clinical trials. In addition, the study found that claims made on the products' promotional materials lack scientific evidence. The results of their study were published online in Ophthalmology, the journal of the ...