Los Angeles, CA (Nov 4, 2014) Most women can make all the milk their baby needs, but some mothers turn to medications to help increase their supply. While some specialists encourage the off-label use of domperidone to stimulate breast milk production, some studies have suggested it may be related to negative side effects, including irregular heartbeat and sudden cardiac death. In a new article out today, researchers concluded that although domperidone can increase breast milk production, and there is no known risk to the babies who drink the milk, risks to women are still ...

Cancers are due to genetic aberrations in certain cells that gain the ability to divide indefinitely. This proliferation of sick cells generates tumors, which gradually invade healthy tissue. Therefore, current therapies essentially seek to destroy cancer cells to stop their proliferation. Through high-throughput genetic sequencing of glioblastoma cells, one of the most deadly brain tumors, a team of geneticists from the University of Geneva's (UNIGE) Faculty of Medicine discovered that some of these mutations are caused by supplemental extrachromosomal DNA fragments, called ...

PULLMAN, Wash.--Washington State University researchers have detailed the role of localized climate change in one of the great mysteries of North American archaeology: the depopulation of southwest Colorado by ancestral Pueblo people in the late 1200s. In the process, they address one of the mysteries of modern-day climate change: How will humans react? Writing in Nature Communications, WSU archaeologist Tim Kohler and post-doctoral researcher Kyle Bocinsky use tree-ring data, the growth requirements of traditional maize crops and a suite of computer programs to make ...

This news release is available in French. A new technology that reveals cellular gene transcription in greater detail has been developed by Dr. Daniel Kaufmann of the University of Montreal Hospital Research Centre (CRCHUM) and the research team he directed. "This new research tool offers us a more profound view of the immune responses that are involved in a range of diseases, such as HIV infection. At the level of gene transcription, this had been difficult, complex and costly to do with current technologies, such as microscopy," explained the University of Montreal ...

The first scientific evidence of frankincense being used in Roman burial rites in Britain has been uncovered by a team of archaeological scientists led by the University of Bradford. The findings - published today in the Journal of Archaeological Science - prove that, even while the Roman Empire was in decline, these precious substances were being transported to its furthest northern outpost. The discovery was made by carrying out molecular analysis of materials previously thought to be of little interest - debris inside burial containers and residues on skeletal remains ...

Vienna, Austria - 04 December 2014: Non-ergot derived dopamine agonists used to treat Parkinson's disease may be safe for the heart, according to preliminary research presented at EuroEcho-Imaging 2014 by Dr Hilal Erken Pamukcu, cardiologist at Ankara Diskapi Education and Research Hospital in Turkey. EuroEcho-Imaging is the annual meeting of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI), a registered branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), and is held 3-6 December in Vienna, Austria. Dr Erken Pamukcu said: "Parkinson's disease is a neurological ...

Many patients with first-episode psychosis receive medications that do not comply with recommended guidelines for first-episode treatment, researchers have found. Current guidelines emphasize low doses of antipsychotic drugs and strategies for minimizing the side effects that might contribute to patients stopping their medication. A study finds that almost 40 percent of people with first-episode psychosis in community mental health clinics across the country might benefit from medication treatment changes. Psychosis is a mental disorder in which thoughts and emotions ...

It has been a long held belief that tumors arising from exposure to asbestos are caused by mutations in one cell, which then produces multiple clones. This hypothesis is challenged by new research published in the open access Journal of Translational Medicine, which suggests it is caused by mutations in multiple cells. Malignant mesothelioma is a rare form of cancer that affects the mesothelium - the protective lining that covers the internal organs, such as the lungs, the heart and the abdominal cavity. It is estimated that malignant mesothelioma affects up to 3,200 ...

Some previous studies have linked the diabetes medication pioglitazone to bladder cancer. However a new study − including more than one million people in six populations worldwide − has found no link between either pioglitazone or rosiglitazone (also known as Avandia) and bladder cancer. The new study is published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes), and is by Dr Samira Bell, Professor Helen Colhoun and Mr Danny Levin, University of Dundee, UK, and colleagues from the International Diabetes and Cancer Research ...

Children born prematurely are at an increased risk of flu-related complications, despite not being identified as an "at risk" group in UK, USA, or WHO guidelines, and should be a priority group for the seasonal flu vaccination, new research published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine suggests. "Until now, guidelines highlighting groups at greater risk of developing complications from influenza, such as pneumonia, have been based on consensus opinion rather than on systematic assessment of the evidence"*, explains Dr Kay Wang from the University of Oxford in the UK. ...

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have found a duplication of a short stretch of the X chromosome in some people with a rare disorder that causes excessive childhood growth. They believe that a single gene within the region likely has a large influence on how much children grow. The research comes from a lab at NIH's Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which seeks to understand growth. "Finding the gene responsible for childhood overgrowth would be very helpful, but the much wider question is what ...

HOUSTON - (Dec. 3, 2014) - Rice University scientists have discovered an environmentally friendly carbon-capture method that could be equally adept at drawing carbon dioxide emissions from industrial flue gases and natural gas wells. The Rice lab of chemist Andrew Barron revealed in a proof-of-concept study that amine-rich compounds are highly effective at capturing the greenhouse gas when combined with carbon-60 molecules. The research is the subject of an open-access paper today in Nature's online journal Scientific Reports. "We had two goals," Barron said. "One ...

The longer surgery lasts the more prone patients appear to be to develop blood clots (venous thromboembolisms, VTE), according to a report published online by JAMA Surgery. The association between longer surgical procedures and death, including VTE, is widely accepted but it has yet to be quantitatively addressed. More than 500,000 hospitalizations and 100,000 deaths are associated each year with VTEs. Examining the link between VTE and surgical time could allow for more informed medical and surgical decisions, according to the study background. John Y.S. Kim, M.D., ...

CHICAGO --- The longer the duration of surgery, the higher the risk of a life-threatening blood clot, according to the first large-scale, quantitative national study of the risk across all surgical procedures. The Northwestern Medicine study was published Dec. 3 in JAMA Surgery, the Journal of the American Medical Association. The finding will help guide surgical decision-making by enabling surgeons and patients to better understand the potential risk of procedures. These findings may also spur surgeons to take more aggressive preventative measures such as giving ...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3, 2014--The ability to detect when to harvest "climacteric" fruits -- such as apples, bananas, pears and tomatoes -- at the precise moment to ensure "peak edibleness" in terms of both taste and texture may soon be within reach for farmers, thanks to the work of a team of researchers from Saint Joseph University in Lebanon and the Université de Bretagne Occidentale de Brest in France. As the team reports in a paper published in The Optical Society's (OSA) journal Applied Optics, they recently demonstrated a laser biospeckle technique capable of detecting ...

New Orleans, LA - A multi-institutional study reports an effective treatment approach to inhibit and keep latent viruses like herpes simplex from reactivating and causing disease. The work, whose lead author is the late James Hill, PhD, LSU Health New Orleans Professor and Director of Pharmacology and Infectious Disease at the LSU Eye Center, is published in the December 3, 2014, issue of Science Translational Medicine. The research team, led by Thomas M. Kristie, PhD, Chief of the Molecular Genetics Section in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- A group of psychology researchers at Florida State University have developed a simple computer-based approach to treating anxiety sensitivity, something that could have major implications for veterans and other groups who are considered at risk for suicide. "We have been using computer-delivered interventions for many years now in an effort to more efficiently deliver effective treatments," said psychology Professor Brad Schmidt, director of the Anxiety and Behavioral Health Clinic. "This study gives us evidence that a brief intervention may help ...

VIDEO: A new time-lapse animation of data from NOAA's GOES-West satellite provides a good picture of why the U.S. West Coast continues to experience record rainfall. The new animation shows the... Click here for more information. A new time-lapse animation of data from NOAA's GOES-West satellite provides a good picture of why the U.S. West Coast continues to experience record rainfall. The new animation shows the movement of storms from Nov. 30 to Dec. 3. NOAA's Geostationary ...

PITTSBURGH, Dec. 3, 2014 - Sophisticated lung imaging can show whether or not a treatment drug is able to clear tuberculosis (TB) lung infection in human and macaque studies, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and their international collaborators. The findings, published online today in Science Translational Medicine, indicate the animal model can correctly predict which experimental agents have the best chance for success in human trials. The image on the left shows "hot spots" of infection in a patient's lungs before treatment. ...

Scientists from WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), the Environment Society of Oman, and other organizations have made a fascinating discovery in the northern Indian Ocean: humpback whales inhabiting the Arabian Sea are the most genetically distinct humpback whales in the world and may be the most isolated whale population on earth. The results suggest they have remained separate from other humpback whale populations for perhaps 70,000 years, extremely unusual in a species famed for long distance migrations. The study appears ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - Sitting on an exam table in a flimsy gown can intimidate anyone. If you also happen to be lesbian, gay or bisexual, the experience can be even worse. As a woman of sexual minority, Nicole Flemmer has encountered medical misinformation and false assumptions. She was once diagnosed with "ego dystonic homosexuality" - a long-discredited term - without her knowledge or an appropriate discussion with the doctor. She discovered the notation years later when she happened to glance at her medical chart. Such experiences left her hesitant to access health ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A neurotoxin called acrolein found in tobacco smoke that is thought to increase pain in people with spinal cord injury has now been shown to accumulate in mice exposed to the equivalent of 12 cigarettes daily over a short time period. One implication is that if acrolein is exacerbating pain its concentration in the body could be reduced using the drug hydralazine, which has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for hypertension, said Riyi Shi (pronounced Ree Shee), a professor in Purdue University's Department of Basic Medical Sciences, ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Citizens who get involved in science become more environmentally aware and willing to participate in advocacy than previously thought, according to a new study by researchers at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment. Citizen science projects can lead to broader public support for conservation efforts. The study, led by PhD student McKenzie Johnson, appeared in November in the journal Global Environmental Change. It surveyed 115 people who had recently participated in citizen science projects in India with the Wildlife Conservation Society ...

An enzyme that usually triggers strong allergic reactions now circulates in the veins of a group of mice without alerting the immune system. As INRS Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre Professor Marc A. Gauthier explains in an article published in the journal Nature Communications, a polymer was used to camouflage the enzyme before it was injected into the rodents. This was achieved by coating the enzyme to avoid an immune response in a manner that does not compromise its activity. The first in vivo demonstration has opened the door ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Scientists have developed a way to sniff out tiny amounts of toxic gases -- a whiff of nerve gas, for example, or a hint of a chemical spill -- from up to one kilometer away. The new technology can discriminate one type of gas from another with greater specificity than most remote sensors -- even in complex mixtures of similar chemicals -- and under normal atmospheric pressure, something that wasn't thought possible before. The researchers say the technique could be used to test for radioactive byproducts from nuclear accidents or arms control treaty ...