Caffeine consumption has long been associated with decreased risk of liver disease and reduced fibrosis in patients with chronic liver disease. Now, newly published research confirms that coffee caffeine consumption reduces the risk of advanced fibrosis in those with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Findings published in the February issue of Hepatology, a journal of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, show that increased coffee intake, specifically among patients with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), decreases risk of hepatic fibrosis. ...

An open-label study of rituximab, a monoclonal antibody for human CD20, was shown to be safe in patients with primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) who had an incomplete response to the standard ursodeoxycholic acid (UDCA) therapy, also known as Ursodiol. Study details available in the February issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, report that rituximab was successful in reducing the level of alkaline phosphatase (ALP)—a protein used to measure liver injury. According to the National ...

A new study by NYU Langone Medical Center and Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine shows novel PSA velocity (PSAV) risk count testing may provide a more effective way for physicians to screen men for clinically significant prostate cancer. The new study, published online by the British Journal of Urology International on February 1, 2012, shows the benefits of tracking a man's PSA levels over time to help doctors more accurately assess his risk of life-threatening prostate cancer. "Risk count could represent a new way to screen for prostate cancer by ...

A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests that hyperglycemia (high blood sugar) injures the heart, even in patients without a history of heart disease or diabetes. Researchers found that elevated levels of glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c), a marker for chronic hyperglycemia and diabetes, were associated with minute levels of the protein troponin T (cTnT), a blood marker for heart damage. The high-sensitivity test they used detected levels of cTnT tenfold lower than those found in patients diagnosed with a heart attack. The ...

To improve the next generation of insect-size flying machines, Johns Hopkins engineers have been aiming high-speed video cameras at some of the prettiest bugs on the planet. By figuring out how butterflies flutter among flowers with amazing grace and agility, the researchers hope to help small airborne robots mimic these maneuvers. U.S. defense agencies, which have funded this research, are supporting the development of bug-size flyers to carry out reconnaissance, search-and-rescue and environmental monitoring missions without risking human lives. These devices are commonly ...

Clue Dental Marketing, a Chicagoland-based dental marketing firm, will give away a free dental press release, valued at $199, in their February drawing. Participants can simply fill out a short entry form during the month of February, and they will be entered to win. One dental practice will be chosen as the winner of a free dental press release on March 1st, 2012 at noon CST. Clue states that they are holding this giveaway to show dentists how important dental press releases are for online publicity. A press release is a valuable part of any online dental marketing ...

Being confined to bed… …can have fatal consequences. Incorrect fastening of restraints and inadequate monitoring led to the death of 19 people in care. Andrea M. Berzianovich and her colleagues, forensic medicine specialists from Munich and Vienna, investigated these fatalities in patients subjected to freedom-restraining measures (Dtsch Arztebl 2012; 109(3) 27). The authors analyzed a total of 26 cases of death while the individual was physically restrained. Three died of natural causes, and one committed suicide. One nursing-home patient died of strangulation after ...

Washington, D.C. -- An international team of scientists led by Carnegie's Guillem Anglada-Escudé and Paul Butler has discovered a potentially habitable super-Earth orbiting a nearby star. The star is a member of a triple star system and has a different makeup than our Sun, being relatively lacking in metallic elements. This discovery demonstrates that habitable planets could form in a greater variety of environments than previously believed. Their work will be published by the Astrophysical Journal Letters and the current version of the manuscript will be posted at http://arxiv.org/archive/astro-ph The ...

What's worse than being stuck in close quarters with a snorer? Not much, according to anecdotal data gathered by http://www.BrezforLess.com, distributor of discount Brez, which shows noise from snoring is so bad when traveling that many people get two hotel rooms so the non-snorer can sleep. In fact, noise in general is the top complaint of hotel guests, according to a 2011 study conducted by J.D. Powers & Associates on North American hotel guest satisfaction. Even so, the two-room snoring solution isn't always an option when on the road. For example, ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Take your medicine, Doctor's orders. It's a simple idea that may seem especially obvious when the pills are the antiretroviral (ARV) drugs that add decades to the lives of HIV-positive patients. But despite the reality that keeping up with drug regimens is not easy for many patients, a new analysis of hundreds of recorded doctor's office visits finds that physicians and nurse practitioners often still rely on lecturing, ordering, and scolding rather than listening and problem solving with their patients. Providers asked about adherence ...

SEATTLE – Initial results of a multicenter study coordinated by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center indicates that two investigational urine-based biomarkers are associated with prostate cancers that are likely to be aggressive and potentially life-threatening among men who take a "watchful waiting," or active-surveillance approach to manage their disease. Ultimately, these markers may lead to the development of a urine test that could complement prostate biopsy for predicting disease aggressiveness and progression. Study principal investigator Daniel ...

This press release is available in German. Pulsars are among the most exotic celestial bodies known. They have diameters of about 20 kilometres, but at the same time roughly the mass of our sun. A sugar-cube sized piece of its ultra-compact matter on the Earth would weigh hundreds of millions of tons. A sub-class of them, known as millisecond pulsars, spin up to several hundred times per second around their own axes. Previous studies reached the paradoxical conclusion that some millisecond pulsars are older than the universe itself. The astrophysicist Thomas ...

Researchers from the University of Southampton, in collaboration with a research group in Delhi, India, have shown that growth in early childhood can affect bone density in adult life, which could lead to an increased risk of developing bone diseases like osteoporosis. The study, led by Professor Caroline Fall of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit at the University of Southampton, is part of the University's ongoing work in assessing the causes of common diseases at different stages of life from before conception through to old age, and the ...

A newly available DNA-based prenatal blood test that can identify a pregnancy with Down syndrome can also identify two additional chromosome abnormalities: trisomy 18 (Edwards syndrome) and trisomy 13 (Patau syndrome). The test for all three defects can be offered as early as 10 weeks of pregnancy to women who have been identified as being at high risk for these abnormalities. These are the results of an international, multicenter study published on-line today in the journal Genetics in Medicine. The study, the largest and most comprehensive done to date, adds to the ...

Effective February 1, 2012, A.L.L. Contracting (http://www.all-contracting.com), a premier central and west Texas roofing and gutter company, and Studio Boudoir Photography, a boutique photography studio catering to women only (http://www.studioboudoirphotography.com), have relocated their businesses to 29770 US Hwy 281N in Bulverde, Texas. Owned by husband and wife entrepreneurs, Lance and Anita Lubke, A.L.L. Contracting and Studio Boudoir Photography see the move to Bulverde as extremely positive for their businesses. Citing the growth of Bulverde and North San Antonio ...

One of the most distinctive signs of the development of Alzheimer's disease is a change in the behavior of a protein that neuroscientists call tau. In normal brains, tau is present in individual units essential to neuron health. In the cells of Alzheimer's brains, by contrast, tau proteins aggregate into twisted structures known as "neurofibrillary tangles." These tangles are considered a hallmark of the disease, but their precise role in Alzheimer's pathology has long been a point of contention among researchers. Now, University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers ...

NEW YORK – The Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Peru program announced today the discovery of 365 species previously undocumented in Bahuaja Sonene National Park (BSNP) in southeastern Peru. Fifteen researchers participated in the inventory focusing on plant life, insects, birds, mammals, and reptiles. The discovery included: thirty undocumented bird species, including the black-and-white hawk eagle, Wilson's phalarope, and ash colored cuckoo; two undocumented mammals – Niceforo's big-eared bat and the Tricolored Bat; as well as 233 undocumented species of butterflies ...

The drug oxaliplatin is a major reason the prognosis for metastatic colon cancer has gone from an expected survival of several months to a couple years. Unfortunately, the drug can also carry with it debilitating neurological side effects, which generally start as the sensation of pins and needles in fingers and toes and can leave patients unable to walk or dress independently. However, "Many patients don't receive the necessary dose to try to keep their cancer in check, because their symptoms become too debilitating and their quality of life is reduced," says Andrew ...

VIDEO: Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller, Ph.D., discusses her new research into how high levels of triglycerides (blood fats) are the strongest risk factor for the most common type of stroke in older women.... Click here for more information. BRONX, NY -- In a surprising finding with significant implications for older women, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and NYU School of Medicine have found that high levels of triglycerides (blood fats) ...

Hormones shape our bodies, make us fertile, excite our most basic urges, and as scientists have known for years, they govern the behaviors that separate men from women. But how? Now a team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) has uncovered many genes influenced by the male and female sex hormones testosterone and estrogen that, in turn, govern several specific types of male and female behaviors in mice. The UCSF team selectively turned many of these genes off one by one and found they could manipulate individual behaviors in the mice, ...

A new study recently published in the Journal of Integrated Pest Management (JIPM) explains the best management practices for consideration and adoption by sod producers in the northeastern U.S. Two species of crane flies have become established across portions of northeastern United States and present an economic concern to the production sod industry. The infestation of production fields poses a threat to the quality of the developing sod product as well as a conduit for human-mediated range expansion of an invasive species. As the unintentional transport of larvae ...

Durham, NC — Most creatures face compromises when they reproduce — the more energy they devote to having lots of babies, the less they can invest in each one. But do the same tradeoffs hold true for plants? Biologists have long assumed that plants with bigger, showier flowers can make fewer of them per plant. But the data don't always hold up, scientists say. A new study by researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center may help explain why. "We expect size-number tradeoffs to be universal, but when we look at plants we don't always find them, and we wanted ...

In the last two decades, the study of extrasolar planets — those that lie outside our own solar system — has become one of the most important fields of astrophysics. Now a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) team that includes Prof. Tsevi Mazeh of Tel Aviv University's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics and the Director of the Wise Observatory has discovered two new planets, named Kepler-34 and Kepler-35, each of which revolves around its own double suns. Together with Kepler-16, discovered a few months ago, there are now three such known systems ...

AURORA, Colo. (Feb. 2, 2012) – Different kinds of lung cancer behave in different ways, suggesting they are fundamentally different diseases. According to a University of Colorado Cancer Center study published in Cancer, the official journal of the American Cancer Society, different subgroups of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) show distinct patterns of spread in the body. The study looked at 209 patients diagnosed with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer separated into four different molecular subgroups using testing performed by the University of Colorado Molecular ...

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (Feb. 2, 2012) – Two UAHuntsville faculty members from the College of Business were published today in the prestigious journal Science for their investigation of an important issue in research ethics. Dr. Allen W. Wilhite, and Dr. Eric A. Fong co-authored a paper on the unethical practices of some journal publications, articulating results from their research to show that some editors coerce authors into adding unnecessary citations to articles in the same journal that is considering publishing the submitted work. Journal editors want to increase ...