CHICAGO, Ill. (March 29, 2011)—Uterine fibroid embolization—an interventional radiology treatment for the noncancerous yet very common growths that develop in the muscular wall of the uterus—improves a number of women's lower urinary tract problems that are specifically caused by those fibroids, confirm researchers at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 36th Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago, Ill. "Uterine fibroid embolization or UFE continues to be an outstanding treatment choice for women with uterine fibroids, and—based on this study—this nonsurgical treatment ...

Myotronics, Inc. announces the immediate release of a new Sleep Apnea brochure for the dental office to educate patients on the signs and symptoms of sleep apnea as well as the dangers of not treating this condition. Patients often aren't aware that their dental professional may be able to provide treatment for sleep apnea through new oral appliances. This brochure aims to educate the patient on this topic as well as provide insight on various treatment options provided by the medical and dental community. While just about everyone knows someone who snores, few ...

CHICAGO, Ill. (March 29, 2011)—The growth and spread of breast cancer tumors may be delayed with a promising treatment that combines two innovative strategies: blocking the enzyme needed to "energize" cancer cells and infusing a potent drug directly into the tumor, with minimum exposure to healthy tissues, indicate researchers at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 36th Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago, Ill. "Once breast cancer metastases have been detected, current treatments (such as surgical resection or tumor removal) may be ineffective. We've found a way ...

CHICAGO, Ill. (March 29, 2011)—A unique formulation of antioxidants taken orally before imaging with ionizing radiation minimizes cell damage, noted researchers at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 36th Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago, Ill. In what the researchers say is the first clinical trial of its kind, as much as a 50 percent reduction in DNA injury was observed after administering the formula prior to CT scans. "In our initial small study, we found that pre-administering to patients a proprietary antioxidant formulation resulted in a notable dose-dependent ...

CHICAGO, Ill. (March 29, 2011)—A medical device developed by retired U.S. Navy sonar experts, using submarine technology, is a new paradigm for the detection, diagnosis and monitoring of stroke, says a team of interventional radiologists at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 36th Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago, Ill. Each type of stroke and brain trauma is detected, identified and located using a simple headset and portable laptop-based console. The device's portability and speed of initial diagnosis (under a couple of minutes) make it appropriate for many uses ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6042 (Before March 27) Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6293 (Before March 27) American Chemical Society Updating the Mary Poppins solution with a better bitter blocker ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — With millions of adults and children avoiding nutritious foods because of the bitter taste, and gagging or vomiting when forced to take bitter liquid medicines, scientists today reported an advance toward a high-tech version ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6042 (Before March 27) Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6293 (Before March 27) American Chemical Society Household bleach can decontaminate food prep surfaces in ricin bioterrorist attack ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — Help for a bioterrorist attack involving ricin, one of the most likely toxic agents, may be as close at hand as the laundry shelf, according to a report presented here today at the 241st National Meeting ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6042 (Before March 27) Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6293 (Before March 27) American Chemical Society First practical nanogenerator produces electricity with pinch of the fingers ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — After six years of intensive effort, scientists are reporting development of the first commercially viable nanogenerator, a flexible chip that can use body movements — a finger pinch now en route to a pulse ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6042 (Before March 27) Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6293 (Before March 27) American Chemical Society Creating the perfect Bloody Mary: Good chemistry of fresh ingredients ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — After tackling the chemistry of coffee, tea, fruit juices, soda pop, beer, wine and other alcoholic beverages, why not take on the ultimate challenge, the Mount Everest of cocktails, what may be the most chemically ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6042 (Before March 27) Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6293 (Before March 27) American Chemical Society Waste ash from coal could save billions in repairing US bridges and roads ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — Coating concrete destined to rebuild America's crumbling bridges and roadways with some of the millions of tons of ash left over from burning coal could extend the life of those structures by decades, saving billions ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6042 (Before March 27) Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6293 (Before March 27) American Chemical Society Imaging the paintings under the paintings of the Old Masters ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — Gaze upon Rembrandt's The Night Watch, The Storm on the Sea of Galilee, or one of the great Dutch master's famous self-portraits. Contemplate Caravaggio's Boy with a Basket of Fruit, Supper at Emmaus, or the famed Italian ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6042 (Before March 27) Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6293 (Before March 27) American Chemical Society 'Bacterial dirigibles' emerge as next-generation disease fighters ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — Scientists today reported development of bacteria that serve as mobile pharmaceutical factories, both producing disease-fighting substances and delivering the potentially life-saving cargo to diseased areas of the body. ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6042 (Before March 27) Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6293 (Before March 27) American Chemical Society Safer, more effective skin-whitening creams from ancient Chinese herbal medicine This release is also available in Chinese on EurekAlert! Chinese. ANAHEIM, March 29, 2011 — Scientists today reported discovery of the active ingredients in an herb used in traditional Chinese medicine for skin whitening, changing ...

Contact: Michael Bernstein m_bernstein@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6042 (Before March 27) Michael Woods m_woods@acs.org 714-765-2012 (Meeting, March 27-31) 202-872-6293 (Before March 27) American Chemical Society Antibiotics wrapped in nanofibers turn resistant disease-producing bacteria into ghosts ANAHEIM, March 29 , 2011 — Encapsulating antibiotics inside nanofibers, like a mummy inside a sarcophagus, gives them the amazing ability to destroy drug-resistant bacteria so completely that scientists described the remains ...

Neglected infections of poverty are the latest threat plaguing the poorest people living in the Gulf Coast states and in Washington, D.C., according to Dr. Peter Hotez, Distinguished Research Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Tropical Medicine at The George Washington University and President of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, in an editorial published in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases on March 29th. Hotez explains that current post-hurricane conditions in the Gulf coast states coupled with the BP oil disaster ...

Researchers have shown that the Trypanosoma cruzi agent of Chagas Disease (CD) invades host embryo cells and spreads its mitochondrial DNA (kDNA) minicircles into the host's genome. Dr. Antonio Teixeira and associates at the University of Brasília, Brazil, inoculated virulent typanosomes in fertile chicken eggs and documented the heritability and fixation of the kDNA mutations in the chicks and their progeny. The results, published in the open-access journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases on March 29th, show that kDNA-mutated chickens undergo genotype alterations, developing ...

Genetic mutations that lead to antiretroviral (the drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS) resistance in HIV-infected infants may develop as a result of exposure to low doses of maternal antiretroviral drugs via breastfeeding rather than being acquired directly from the mother. This key finding from a study by Clement Zeh from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Kisumu, Kenya, and colleagues, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, is important as it may impact the choice of drug regimen given to HIV-infected breastfeeding mothers and their infected infants—an effective ...

Two articles in this week's PLoS Medicine discuss the issues that need to be resolved to ensure that open access can provide for global information needs, and not just those of the developed world. Leslie Chan, Barbara Kirsop, and Subbiah Arunachalam from the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development argue that access and distribution of public knowledge is currently governed by Northern standards, a situation that is increasingly inappropriate in what they call the "age of the networked Invisible College." Taking as a starting point that open access is sustainable ...

BOSTON--By "distracting" cancer proteins from their usual activity, scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital have caused cells in a rare, lethal form of cancer to begin behaving like normal cells -- one of the longest-standing, and most rarely achieved, goals of cancer research. The study's findings are published online by the journal Cancer Research and will appear later in a print issue. When the approach was tested in a child with an advanced case of the malignancy, known as NUT midline carcinoma (NMC), it slowed the course of the ...

Elderly patients with heart failure who need skilled nursing care after hospital discharge are often sicker, at higher risk for poor outcomes and are more likely than other patients to die or be rehospitalized within one year, according to research reported in Circulation: Heart Failure, an American Heart Association journal. "Patients hospitalized with heart failure are high risk to start with," said Larry A. Allen, M.D., M.H.S., lead author of the study and assistant professor of cardiology at the University of Colorado-Denver School of Medicine in Aurora. "If they ...

(PORTLAND, Ore.) March 29, 2011— If you want to increase your chances of losing weight, reduce your stress level and get adequate sleep. A new Kaiser Permanente study found that people trying to lose at least 10 pounds were more likely to reach that goal if they had lower stress levels and slept more than six hours but not more than eight hours a night. The paper, published today in the International Journal of Obesity, was the result of a study funded by the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Nearly 500 participants ...

A major UK study on complications of anaesthesia has shown that obese patients are twice as likely to develop serious airway problems during a general anaesthetic than non-obese patients. 'The airway' means the air passages from the outside world to the lungs, which must be kept open to keep the patient alive. The study also shows that the use of a simple breathing monitor, called a capnograph, could significantly reduce deaths and brain damage from such problems in intensive care units (ICUs); it found that absence of a capnograph contributed to 74% of deaths from these ...

BOSTON – March 29, 2011 – Over time, diabetes can wreak havoc on the body's eyes, cardiovascular system, kidneys and nerves. A major study by Joslin Diabetes Center researchers, however, has found that some people who have survived diabetes for many decades exhibit remarkably few complications—a discovery that points toward the presence of protective factors that guard against the disease's effects. The scientists studied 351 participants in the Joslin 50-Year Medalist study, which examines people who have lived with type 1 diabetes for 50 years or more. Among this population, ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala., - Gliomas are brain invaders. A kind of malignant tumor cell, gliomas branch out like tendrils from a central tumor source, spreading cancer throughout the brain. Traditional therapies, such as cutting out the tumor surgically, can be ineffective if the cells have already spread. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham may have come upon a way to stop a glioma invasion in its tracks, using a drug already approved for use in Europe. Much like early explorers of the Old West followed rivers and streams, depending on them to provide drinking ...

Mothers who were maltreated as children have increased risk for giving birth to low birth weight babies. The findings, by researchers at the University of Washington, are the first to show that maternal maltreatment can affect the health of offspring. The study also finds that childhood poverty and substance use during adolescence and pregnancy contribute to low birth weight, which is linked to infant mortality and chronic health problems. "Our findings suggest that a mother's economic position in childhood and her experience of maltreatment during childhood have implications ...