A new study, published today in the Journal of Health Psychology, found that patients who gained weight 18 months after taking Orlistat attributed their weight-loss failure either to the side effects which have prevented them from sticking to the medication or felt that the medication simply had not worked. The team from the University of Surrey also found that participants described a series of barriers to weight loss including psychological and physical health issues, relationships and the make-up of their bodies. They also described a number of alternative methods ...

Researchers from Italy confirm that urinary ethyl glucuronide (uEtG) accurately detects alcohol consumption in liver transplant candidates and recipients. The study published in Liver Transplantation, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases and the International Liver Transplantation Society, suggests that a combination of uEtG and the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test for alcohol consumption (AUDIT-c) are best in alerting doctors to alcohol consumption by patients undergoing evaluation for liver transplantation or who have received ...

Researchers at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories (MFPL) of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna made a breakthrough for the Platynereis model system, as they describe the first method for generating specific and inheritable mutations in the species. The method, in combination with other tools, now places this marine bristle worm in an excellent position to advance research at the frontiers of neurobiology, chronobiology, evolutionary developmental biology and marine biology. The study and a review on Platynereis dumerilii genetic methods were chosen ...

A naturally occurring fungus might help curb the spread of an invasive tree species that is threatening forests in most of the United States, according to researchers. Researchers tested the fungus -- Verticillium nonalfalfae -- by injecting it into tree-of-heaven, or Ailanthus, plots, according to Matthew Kasson, who recently received his doctorate in plant pathology and environmental microbiology from Penn State. The treatment completely eradicated the tree-of-heaven plants in those forests. "It appears that this treatment is effective in Pennsylvania and could ...

A new paper by a team of researchers led by Zachary T. Schafer, Coleman Assistant Professor of Cancer Biology in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Notre Dame, offers important new insights into the role carcinoma-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) play in tumor biology. A number of recent studies have revealed CAFs to be a major contributor to tumor progression through a variety of mechanisms. Despite this information, the precise role CAFs play in augmenting the growth of tumors is still poorly understood. In their new paper, Schafer and his fellow ...

Nearly one-third of songbird species across North America are experiencing long-term declines. Scientists have spent years researching potential causes for these population declines, focusing on the birds when they have just hatched as well as when they are adults. Now, researchers from the University of Missouri and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have found that songbirds are vulnerable to environmental dangers particularly when they are juveniles, shortly after they have left their parents' nests. Frank Thompson, a scientist with the USDA Forest Service and an associate ...

Viruses use human cells in order to multiply and spread. This process involves interactions with cellular host factors as well as virus-virus interactions. For example interactions among viral proteins are essential for the assembly of newly produced infectious virions. Interaction network explains viral mechanisms and opens up possibilities for new treatments Hepatitis C virus (HCV) forms a precursor protein, which is processed into ten viral proteins. Scientists at the Institute of Virology at the Helmholtz Zentrum have now discovered how these proteins interact with ...

New Rochelle, NY, May 8, 2014—The powerful anti-inflammatory compound interleukin-10 (IL-10) plays a crucial role in regenerative, scarless healing of fetal skin. Studies of IL-10 in postnatal skin wounds have demonstrated its promise as an anti-scarring therapeutic agent, as described in a Critical Review article published in Advances in Wound Care, a monthly peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers and an Official Journal of the Wound Healing Society. The article is available free on the Advances in Wound Care website. In "Regenerative Wound Healing: ...

University of Adelaide research may help in the fight against terrorism with the creation of a sensor that can detect tiny quantities of explosives with the use of light and special glass fibres. Published in the journal Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical, the researchers describe a novel optical fibre sensor which can detect explosives in concentrations as low as 6.3 ppm (parts per million). It requires an analysis time of only a few minutes. "Traditionally explosives detection has involved looking for metals that encase them such as in land mines," says project leader ...

Melbourne researchers have overturned a 40-year-old theory on when and how cells divide, showing that 'parent' cells program a cell division time for their offspring that is different from their own. Scientists from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute have shown that both phases of the cell cycle contribute to the overall change in division time rather than one staying fixed in duration as previously thought. They have developed these findings into a new model that helps scientists predict how a population of cells has divided. Their research could impact our understanding ...

A low-carbohydrate diet, but not a low-fat diet, reduces inflammation in patients with type 2 diabetes, according to research at Linköping University in Sweden. It is known that patients with type 2 diabetes have higher levels of inflammation than those who do not have the disease, and it is believed that this may contribute to a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and other complications. In a clinical trial at Linköping University a low-carbohydrate diet was compared with a traditional low-fat diet in 61 patients with type 2 diabetes. Only patients in the low-carbohydrate ...

A majority of the UK general public perceive alcohol adverts to breach the Advertising Standards Authority's Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) Code suggesting that the current regulatory system for UK television is inadequate, research from The University of Manchester shows. Researchers surveyed 373 adults, aged 18-74 years, showing them one of seven adverts that had been broadcast in the previous month on leading commercial television channels. Overall 75 per cent of the participants rated the adverts as breaching at least one rule from the BCAP Code ...

Almost all herbivorous insects are specialized to feed on specific host plants and have adapted to their chemical defenses. Flea beetles are important pests of cabbage and other cruciferous plants, such as mustard, horseradish and rapeseed. These plants use a sophisticated defense system, known as the mustard oil bomb, to get rid of their enemies : If plant tissues are wounded, glucosinolates and an enzyme known as myrosinase come into contact, and, as a result, toxic metabolites are formed which deter most insects. This defensive mechanism, however, has no negative effect ...

Ground breaking research by an international team of scientists has resulted in greater understanding of the effects of pesticides on aquatic invertebrates such as shrimps and snails. Research published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology by a team of scientists from the UK, Switzerland and Finland provides an important new approach for systematically measuring and modelling the sensitivity of aquatic invertebrates to various pesticides. Aquatic invertebrate species are abundant in European freshwaters and play an important role in the decomposition of organic ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A research team using tunable luminescent nanocrystals as tags to advance medical and security imaging have successfully applied them to high-speed scanning technology and detected multiple viruses within minutes. The research, led by Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia and Purdue University, builds on the team's earlier success in developing a way to control the length of time light from a luminescent nanocrystal lingers, which introduced the dimension of time in addition to color and brightness in optical detection technology. Detection ...

LOS ANGELES (May 7, 2014) – Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute researchers have found that a commonly prescribed drug restores blood flow to oxygen-starved muscles of boys with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a genetic muscle-wasting disease that rarely is seen in girls but affects one in 3,500 male babies, profoundly shortening life expectancy. It is the most common fatal disease that affects children. Muscle weakness begins in early childhood, often causing deformity of the arms, legs and spine. Heart and respiratory muscles often begin to fail before children reach early teen ...

A new study suggests that people who survived the medieval mass-killing plague known as the Black Death lived significantly longer and were healthier than people who lived before the epidemic struck in 1347. Caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, the Black Death wiped out 30 percent of Europeans and nearly half of Londoners during its initial four-year wave from 1347 – 1351. Released Wednesday (May 7) in the journal PLOS ONE, the study by University of South Carolina anthropologist Sharon DeWitte provides the first look at how the plague, called bubonic plague today, ...

Women who received collaborative care for depression at an obstetrics and gynecology clinic showed fewer symptoms after treatment than women receiving usual depression care in the same setting, recent University of Washington research found. The collaborative approach comprises counseling and greater patient engagement than is typical of mental health care at specialty clinics. It involves psychiatrists, clinicians, specialists and depression care managers. The team meets weekly to review patient progress and provide treatment recommendations. The care manager follows ...

MOSS LANDING, CA — Thousands of shipping containers are lost from cargo vessels each year. Many of these containers eventually sink to the deep seafloor. In 2004, scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) discovered a lost shipping container almost 1,300 meters (4,200 feet) below the surface of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. In the first-ever survey of its kind, researchers from MBARI and the sanctuary recently described how deep-sea animal communities on and around the container differed from those in surrounding areas. In February ...

New research suggests that certain types of brain cells may be "picky eaters," seeming to prefer one specific energy source over others. The finding has implications for understanding the cognitive decline seen in aging and degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis. Studying mice, investigators from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis showed that a specific energy source called NAD is important in cells responsible for maintaining the overall structure of the brain and for performing complex cognitive functions. NAD (nicotinamide ...

Reducing air pollution in New York City would result in substantial economic gains for children as a result of increasing their IQs. The study is the first to estimate the costs of IQ loss associated with exposure to air pollution, and is based on prior research on prenatal exposure to air pollutants among low-income children by Frederica Perera, PhD, lead author of the current study, and colleagues at the Columbia Center for Children's Environmental Health at the Mailman School of Public Health. The researchers made their calculation using a hypothesized modest reduction ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — A smartphone app that monitors subtle qualities of a person's voice during everyday phone conversations shows promise for detecting early signs of mood changes in people with bipolar disorder, a University of Michigan team reports. While the app still needs much testing before widespread use, early results from a small group of patients show its potential to monitor moods while protecting privacy. The researchers hope the app will eventually give people with bipolar disorder and their health care teams an early warning of the changing moods that ...

Drawing from his engineering background, Princeton University researcher Alexandre Persat had a notion as to why the bacteria Caulobacter crescentus are curved — a hunch that now could lead to a new way of studying the evolution of bacteria, according to research published in the journal Nature Communications. Commonly used in labs to study cell division, C. crescentus naturally take on a banana-like curve, but they also can undergo a mutation in which they grow to be perfectly straight. The problem was that in a laboratory there was no apparent functional difference ...

Amsterdam, 8 May 2014. Despite fears over cost, the wide-scale screening of young people to detect risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD) is feasible and cost effective, according to a study presented at EuroPRevent 2014.(1) More than 12,000 people aged between 14 and 35 were screened at a cost of £35 (40 euro) each; rates of subsequent referral for further investigation were low and considered of "a relative low additional cost" to health services. The study was reported at the EuroPRevent congress 2014 in Amsterdam by Dr Rajay Narain, Clinical Research Fellow from the Department ...

CHICAGO --- Adults with an autism spectrum disorder, who may have trouble talking about themselves and interacting socially, don't always make good impressions in job interviews and have low employment rates. A new human simulation training program -- based on software originally used to train FBI agents -- helps adults with autism improve their job interview skills and confidence, reports a new Northwestern Medicine® study. The new interactive program was designed specifically for adults with psychiatric disorders and was also evaluated for use by adults with autism ...