Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center investigators report they have designed a blood test that accurately detects the presence of advanced breast cancer and also holds promise for precisely monitoring response to cancer treatment. The test, called the cMethDNA assay, accurately detected the presence of cancer DNA in the blood of patients with metastatic breast cancers up to 95 percent of the time in laboratory studies. The findings were described in the April 15 issue of the journal . Currently, there is no useful laboratory test to monitor patients with early stage ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - Happy is as happy does, apparently—for human beings all over the world. Not only does acting extroverted lead to more positive feelings across several cultures, but people also report more upbeat behavior when they feel free to be themselves. These findings were among those recently published in the Journal of Research in Personality in a paper by Timothy Church, professor of counseling psychology and associate dean of research in the College of Education at Washington State University. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation. "We ...

A new study from the University of Surrey, published today in the journal Heart, has identified a positive link between the survival of heart attack patients and the use of an electrocardiogram (ECG), by ambulance crews. Researchers, funded by the British Heart Foundation (BHF), analysed data from almost half a million adults admitted with a heart attack to hospitals in England and Wales, noting whether patients who came to hospital by ambulance had had an ECG test or not. The results showed that the number of patients who died within 30 days of hospital admission was ...

In 2012, there were over 25,000 cases of gonorrhoea in the UK making it the second most common bacterial sexually transmitted infection after chlamydia. Control of gonorrhoea is dependent on successful antibiotic treatment, as the bacterium that causes the infection, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, has become increasingly resistance to every antibiotic used to treat it over the last 60 years. Today, at the Society for General Microbiology's Annual Conference in Liverpool, Professor Cathy Ison explains the challenges facing the treatment of the disease, which threatens to become ...

STANFORD, Calif. — Carrying a copy of a gene variant called ApoE4 confers a substantially greater risk for Alzheimer's disease on women than it does on men, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The scientists arrived at their findings by analyzing data on large numbers of older individuals who were tracked over time and noting whether they had progressed from good health to mild cognitive impairment — from which most move on to develop Alzheimer's disease within a few years — or to Alzheimer's disease itself. The discovery ...

A traditional Chinese herbal remedy used to relieve joint pain and inflammation works as well as methotrexate, a standard drug treatment that is frequently prescribed to control the symptoms of active rheumatoid arthritis, reveals research published online in the Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. Furthermore, combining the herbal remedy with methotrexate—the disease modifying drug (DMARD) most commonly used to treat rheumatoid arthritis—was more effective than treatment with methotrexate alone, the findings showed. Triptergium wilfordii Hook F, or TwHF for short, ...

The 15% fall in dietary salt intake over the past decade in England is likely to have had a key role in the 40% drop in deaths from heart disease and stroke over the same period, concludes research published in the online journal BMJ Open. But average intake across the nation is still far too high, warn the authors. And much greater effort is needed to curb the salt content of the foods we eat, they insist. Dietary salt is known to increase blood pressure, which is itself a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke. The authors base their findings on an ...

Deerfield, Ill. (April 14, 2014) – Young children suffering from diarrheal diseases are less likely to receive life-saving oral rehydration therapy (ORT) if they seek treatment at private, for-profit clinics, according to the first-ever, large-scale study of child diarrhea treatment practices in sub-Saharan Africa. The stark difference in treatment between public and private clinics may be unnecessarily costing tens of thousands of lives each year from diarrheal diseases that are effectively treatable with inexpensive oral rehydration salts, researchers conclude in the ...

1. New delirium severity score helps to predict outcomes for hospitalized patients A new delirium severity score proves accurate for predicting important clinical outcomes in hospitalized patients, according to an article published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Delirium is common among hospitalized patients and is associated with poor outcomes. The Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) is a standardized, validated measure that is widely used to screen for the presence of delirium but not its severity. Researchers hypothesized that adding a valid delirium severity measure ...

Scientists have gained new insights into the molecular process of how some people get type II diabetes, which could lead to new ways of preventing people from getting the condition. The research, led by the University of Southampton and UCL, which took place on Mount Everest, assessed the mechanisms by which low oxygen levels in the body – known as hypoxia – are associated with the development of insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is when cells fail to respond to insulin in the body. Insulin enables the body to regulate sugar levels. Too much sugar can be toxic ...

BOSTON —A new method for measuring delirium severity in older adults has been developed by researchers from Harvard, Brown, and UMASS. The new scoring system, CAM-S, is based on the Confusion Assessment Method (CAM) and standardizes the measurement of delirium severity for both clinical and research uses. Details of this study are published in Annals of Internal Medicine. Delirium is defined as the sudden onset of confusion or change in mental status that is often brought about by physical illness, surgery, or hospitalization. Delirium is a common and often costly ...

The US Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act encourages patients to act as their own advocates for reducing unnecessary prescriptions that increase the risk of harm. The American Board of Internal Medicine Choosing Wisely® campaign echoes this message by asking older adults to refrain from using sleeping pills. According to the American Geriatrics Society, these medicines have been linked to memory problems, falls, fractures and motor vehicle accidents. "Many people believe that involving patients in the decision to curtail medical treatments is expecting too ...

STANFORD, Calif. — As many as 10 percent of women with a personal or family history of breast or ovarian cancer have at least one genetic mutation that, if known, would prompt their doctors to recommend changes in their care, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine. The women in the study did not have mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 (mutations in these genes are strongly associated with hereditary breast and ovarian cancer), but they did have mutations in other cancer-associated genes. The study was conducted using what's known ...

Bottom Line: A telephone-based collaborative care model helped manage depression and anxiety, and improved health-related quality of life in patients with heart disease. Author: Jeff C. Huffman, M.D., of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and colleagues. Background: Depression following acute cardiac conditions is common and generalized anxiety and panic disorders occur at higher rates in patients with heart conditions. Depression and anxiety are determinants of health-related quality of life (HRQoL). Collaborative care (CC) models use nonphysician care managers ...

Significant advances have been made in chemotherapy over the past decade, but targeting drugs to cancer cells while avoiding healthy tissues continues to be a major challenge. Nanotechnology has unlocked new pathways for targeted drug delivery, including the use of nanocarriers, or capsules, that can transport cargoes of small-molecule therapeutics to specific locations in the body. The catch? These carriers are tiny, and it matters just how tiny they are. Change the size from 10 nanometers to 100 nanometers, and the drugs can end up in the wrong cells or organs and ...

It's a hard pill to swallow, but if you're over 24 years of age you've already reached your peak in terms of your cognitive motor performance, according to a new Simon Fraser University study. SFU's Joe Thompson, a psychology doctoral student, associate professor Mark Blair, Thompson's thesis supervisor, and Andrew Henrey, a statistics and actuarial science doctoral student, deliver the news in a just-published PLOS ONE Journal paper. In one of the first social science experiments to rest on big data, the trio investigates when we start to experience an age-related ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Lower levels of blood sugar may make married people angrier at their spouses and even more likely to lash out aggressively, new research reveals. In a 21-day study, researchers found that levels of blood glucose in married people, measured each night, predicted how angry they would be with their spouse that evening. At the end of the 21 days, people who had generally lower levels of glucose were willing to blast their spouses with unpleasant noises at a higher volume and for a longer time than those who had higher glucose levels. The study shows how ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- During the age of the dinosaurs, the arrival of flowering plants as competitors could have spelled doom for the ancient fern lineage. Instead, ferns diversified and flourished under the new canopy -- using a mysterious gene that helped them adapt to low-light environments. A team led by Duke University scientists has pinpointed the curious origins of this gene and determined that it was transferred to ferns from a group of unassuming moss-like plants called hornworts. The findings were announced today, April 14, in the Proceedings of the National Academy ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Since the discovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, scientists, policymakers, and the public have wondered whether we might someday see a similarly extreme depletion of ozone over the Arctic. But a new MIT study finds some cause for optimism: Ozone levels in the Arctic haven't yet sunk to the extreme lows seen in Antarctica, in part because international efforts to limit ozone-depleting chemicals have been successful. "While there is certainly some depletion of Arctic ozone, the extremes of Antarctica so far are very different from what we find in the ...

Falmouth, Mass. – Future simulations of climate in the Amazon suggest a longer dry season leading to more drought and fires. Woods Hole Research Center scientists Michael Coe, Paulo Brando, Marcia Macedo and colleagues have published a new study on the impacts of fire and drought on Amazon tree mortality. Their paper entitled “Abrupt increases in Amazonian tree mortality due to drought-fire interactions,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that prolonged droughts caused more intense and widespread wildfires, which consumed more forests ...

Like humans, many animals depend on beneficial microbes for survival. Although such symbioses can persist for millions of years, the factors maintaining their long-term stability remain, in most cases, unknown. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and the University of Regensburg, in collaboration with researchers in the USA, now discovered that certain wasps tightly control mother-to-offspring transmission of their bacterial symbionts. This stabilizes the symbiotic alliance and contributed to its persistence over the past 68-110 million years. ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - High levels of the greenhouse gas methane were found above shale gas wells at a production point not thought to be an important emissions source, according to a study jointly led by Purdue and Cornell universities. The findings could have implications for the evaluation of the environmental impacts from natural gas production. The study, which is one of only a few to use a so-called "top down" approach that measures methane gas levels in the air above wells, identified seven individual well pads with high emission levels and established their stage ...

Penicillin, one of the scientific marvels of the 20th century, is currently losing a lot of battles it once won against bacterial infections. But scientists at the University of South Carolina have just reported a new approach to restoring its combat effectiveness, even against so-called "superbugs." Bacteria have been chipping away at the power of the penicillin family of drugs since their first wide-scale use as antibiotics in the 1940s. For example, the staph infection, brought about by the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus, was once readily treated with penicillin and ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study shows that moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea is independently associated with an increased risk of stroke, cancer and death. Results of the 20-year follow-up study show that people with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea were four times more likely to die (hazard ratio = 4.2), nearly four times more likely to have a stroke (HR = 3.7), three times more likely to die from cancer (HR = 3.4), and 2.5 times more likely to develop cancer. Results were adjusted for potential confounding factors such as body mass index, smoking status, ...

PHILADELPHIA—Playing an active role in their radiation treatment decisions leaves cancer patients feeling more satisfied with their care, and may even relieve psychological distress around the experience, researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania report in the journal Cancer. In a study of 305 patients undergoing radiation treatment, Neha Vapiwala, MD, an associate professor in the department in Radiation Oncology at Penn Medicine, and colleagues at link "Penn's...Center: Penn's Abramson Cancer Center found an association between ...