WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Spicing up your daily diet with some red pepper can curb appetite, especially for those who don't normally eat the popular spice, according to research from Purdue University. "We found that consuming red pepper can help manage appetite and burn more calories after a meal, especially for individuals who do not consume the spice regularly," said Richard Mattes, distinguished professor of foods and nutrition who collaborated with doctoral student Mary-Jon Ludy. "This finding should be considered a piece of the puzzle because the idea that one small ...

If you want to keep your brain healthy, it turns out that visiting friends, attending parties, and even going to church might be just as good for you as crossword puzzles. According to research conducted at Rush University Medical Center, frequent social activity may help to prevent or delay cognitive decline in old age. The study has just been posted online in the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. The researchers were especially careful in their analysis to try to rule out the possibility that cognitive decline precedes, or causes, social isolation, ...

NORMAN, Okla. – Faculty from the University of Oklahoma School of Meteorology are leading the school's predictability research initiatives with multiple projects that could one day lead to more accurate forecasts of weather-related events, including landslides and tornadoes. In the Southern Plains region of the United States, people think of thunderstorms and tornadoes when severe weather is forecasted. However, the OU School of Meteorology is interested in a broad range of weather phenomena and its impacts. As an example of the breadth of OU's program, one of the researchers, ...

Red light ticket laws are creating more expensive tickets and citations for area drivers. The state of California constantly updates these laws and legislation to impose more fines and penalties when red light and speeding violations occur. Your Ticket Doctor is the gateway to a traffic ticket defense for residents that want to contest a speeding or red light ticket in a court of law. They have now launched a new website with informative information about all kinds of traffic tickets. Many people search the Internet for how to fight speeding tickets. There is a variety ...

Cholesterol-lowering drugs known as statins may help clot-busting drugs treat strokes, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. The research involved 31 patients with ischemic stroke, a disorder when a clot blocks blood flow to part of the brain. In 12 patients who were already taking statins to control their cholesterol, blood flow returned to the blocked areas of the brain more completely and quickly. "We've known that patients on statins have better stroke outcomes, but the data in this study suggest a new reason why: Statins ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. – American companies and organizations spend billions of dollars every year on leadership training for their managers. To improve job performance they ought instead to focus on what managers believe about their employees, a study by the University of California, Riverside shows. How leaders view their employees tends to become a self-fulfilling prophecy, concludes Thomas Sy, assistant professor of psychology at UC Riverside and a longtime business leadership consultant. In what he describes as the first study to examine leaders' conceptions of followers, ...

Westlake dentist, Dr. Philip Shindler, is now offering CariFree. CariFree is a line of dental products that help to prevent cavities and tooth decay more effectively than traditional dental products, and Dr. Shindler is proud to be able to offer CariFree to his patients. More Information about CariFree The reason modern people brush their teeth is to remove bits of food debris that become fodder for bacteria. The bacteria that feed on this debris can eventually spread and infect the teeth, leading to tooth decay. This bacterial infection is called dental caries, and ...

News Release Embargoed until Monday, April 26, 2011, noon EDT. Please credit CMAJ, not the Canadian Medical Association. CMAJ is an independent medical journal; views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of its owner, the CMA. The prevalence of frailty, which is linked to earlier death, increases throughout adulthood as people age and not just after age 65, found an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj101271.pdf. Relatively good fitness levels at all ages were predictive of lower mortality ...

With the increase in numbers of overweight children and young adults, Canada and other developed countries are facing an obesity epidemic and legislative approaches are required to address this issue, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj101522.pdf. Canadians have become heavier and less fit over the last three decades; people aged 20-39 years have the BMI (body mass index) that people aged 40 or older had thirty years ago. The 2007-2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey found more than ...

Minority races—especially Blacks—are more willing than Whites to expend personal financial resources to prolong life after being diagnosed with lung or colorectal cancer, even if it means using up all of their personal financial resources. That is the conclusion of a new study published early online in Cancer, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Delivering quality cancer care that is in accordance with patients' wishes requires a better understanding of the reasons for these differences in preference. Minority patients receive more aggressive care ...

Inspection of medical records, case files, and legal affidavits provides compelling evidence that medical personnel who treated detainees at Guantánamo Bay (GTMO) failed to inquire and/or document causes of physical injuries and psychological symptoms they observed in the detainees, according to a paper published this week in PLoS Medicine. Vincent Iacopino, Senior Medical Advisor for Physician for Human Rights, and Brigadier General (Ret) Stephen Xenakis, U.S. Army, reviewed GTMO medical records and relevant case files of nine individuals, looking for evidence of torture ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Indiana University scientists have found chemical flame retardants in the blood of pet dogs at concentrations five to 10 times higher than in humans, but lower than levels found in a previous study of cats. Their study, "Flame Retardants in the Serum of Pet Dogs and in their Food," appears this month in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Authors are Marta Venier, an assistant research scientist in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, and Ronald Hites, a Distinguished Professor in SPEA. Venier and Hites explore whether pets ...

Total Mortgage Services, LLC, a leading mortgage lender, announced today it has launched a new lending program for cooperative apartments (co-op) for its retail and wholesale lending channels with some of the most competitive mortgage rates available to qualified borrowers. Currently, Total Mortgage is offering qualified co-op borrowers a 30-year fixed mortgage at rate of 4.875 percent and an APR of 4.995 percent with 0 points. "We are excited about now being able to offer our competitive mortgage rates and best in class service to co-op borrowers looking to either ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – People in minority groups, especially black Americans, are more willing than their white counterparts to exhaust their personal financial resources to prolong life after being diagnosed with lung or colorectal cancer, according to a University of Alabama at Birmingham study published April 26, 2011, online in Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society. This revelation should inform the treatment plans and help physicians design state-of-the-art cancer care that reflects patient wishes, says lead author Michelle Martin, Ph.D., assistant professor ...

Cold Spring Harbor, NY – Structural biologists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) in collaboration with colleagues at Emory University have determined the molecular structure of a key portion, or subunit, of a receptor type commonly expressed in brain cells. The receptor is one of several NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor variants, and the subunit in question is that which specifically binds with excitatory neurotransmitters, most notably glutamate, the brain's most prevalent excitatory neurotransmitter. The discovery is important because knowledge of the receptor ...

Over the last two years KLAS has seen an increase in the interventional lab market performance scores for GE, Siemens, and Toshiba --narrowing the gap with each other and with install base leader, Philips. According to a new KLAS report, "Interventional Labs 2011: Meeting Changing Needs," the four ranked vendors (GE, Philips, Siemens, and Toshiba--listed alphabetically) cluster within five points of each other. As performance scores tighten, market-changing development from vendors has slowed. Additionally, provider innovation and the move toward multiuse ...

DALLAS – April 26, 2011 – A clinical trial has sifted out the most effective single-drug chemotherapy regimen for quick-growing but highly curable cancers that arise from the placentas of pregnant women. In the comparison trial for treating low-risk gestational trophoblastic neoplasia (GTN), researchers found that a biweekly dose of dactinomycin had a higher complete response rate than a weekly dose of methotrexate, the more commonly used drug. GTN is a group of rare tumors that involve abnormal growth of cells inside a woman's uterus. "Both chemotherapy drugs are effective ...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (April 26, 2011) – A study performed by University of Kentucky researchers shows promise for the use of azithromycin in treating Ureaplasma-colonized or infected premature infants to prevent bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD). The study, published in Pediatric Pulmonology, showed subjects colonized or infected with the Ureaplasma bacteria developed BPD or died 73 percent of the time in the azithromycin-treated group, compared to 94 percent of the time in the placebo group. Bronchopulmonary dysplasia is a chronic lung disorder characterized by inflammation ...

Archie's Island Furniture, manufacturer of premium painted outdoor furniture, announces the addition of new products to jumpstart summer, in response to the lengthy and brutal New England winter. The new outdoor furniture, expanding Archie's outdoor dining and casual entertaining product lines, offers fun configurations and great color choices for both large and small gatherings. New to the collection this year are an intimately scaled 38" round dining table seating four, porch swings in several lengths and designs, and a coffee table, (42"L, 18"W, 18"H), ...

Planes were grounded all over Europe when the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted in Iceland last year. But no one knew if the no fly zone was really necessary. And the only way to find out would have been to fly a plane through the ash cloud - a potentially fatal experiment. Now a team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Iceland have developed a protocol for rapidly providing air traffic authorities with the data they need for deciding whether or not to ground planes next time ash threatens airspace safety. A study by the teams of Professors ...

BOSTON (April 26, 2011) —Human papillomavirus (HPV) causes cervical cancer, the second most common cause of cancer death for women, and is a common cause of anogenital and some head and neck cancers. Thanks to research being done at Tufts University School of Medicine, patients infected with cancer-causing HPV may someday have an alternative to surgical and harsh chemical treatments. In a study funded by the National Institutes of Health and published online in advance of print in The FASEB Journal, the researchers report on the development of a protein-based inhibitor ...

Water molecules surround the genetic material DNA in a very specific way. Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) have discovered that, on the one hand, the texture of this hydration shell depends on the water content and, on the other hand, actually influences the structure of the genetic substance itself. These findings are not only important in understanding the biological function of DNA; they could also be used for the construction of new DNA-based materials. The DNA's double helix never occurs in isolation; instead, its entire surface is ...

NORTHRIDGE, CA (April 26, 2011) — Folic acid, an essential vitamin formulated to be part of a multivitamin + DHA liquid softgel capsule, is absorbed and available within the body in amounts similar to folic acid formulated for solid tablets, according to a study presented in a late breaking session at the Experimental Biology (EB) 2011 annual meeting. Different formulations, fillers and coatings of vitamin products may affect the degree or rate at which the product dissolves and releases its contents, which can alter the vitamin's absorption into the body and its bioavailability, ...

A motor regulatory protein can block human ovarian tumor growth, leading to eventual cancer cell death and possible new therapies to treat the disease, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers. Among U.S. women, an estimated 21,880 new cases and 13,850 deaths occurred in 2010 from epithelial ovarian cancer, one of the most common forms of ovarian cancer and the most lethal gynecologic cancer in women. Previously, Kathleen M. Mulder, Ph.D., professor, biochemistry and molecular biology, along with members of her laboratory, learned that km23-1 -- a protein ...

On April 26, 1986, history's greatest nuclear accident took place northwest of the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl. Despite the scale of the disaster, 25 years later, we still do not know its real effects. An international team of investigators has shown for the first time that the colour of birds' plumage may make them more vulnerable to radioactivity. Radiation causes oxidative stress, damages biological molecules and may have "important" negative effects on organisms in relatively high doses, like those found in certain zones close to Chernobyl. "In the case of the ...