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After knee replacement exercise is crucial

It may be uncomfortable at first, but doing exercises to strengthen your quadriceps after you've had knee replacement surgery due to osteoarthritis is critical to your recovery.

2 Feb 2009

Even with medication, asthma patients show chronic airflow changes in lungs

Using a special MRI technique, researchers have determined that the location and degree of airway narrowing in the lungs of asthma sufferers can be markedly persistent over time.

2 Feb 2009

Education may not affect how fast you will lose your memory

While a higher level of education may help lower the risk of Alzheimer's disease, new research shows that once educated people start to become forgetful, a higher level of education does not appear to protect against how fast they will lose their memory.

2 Feb 2009

Study looks at effects of 9/11 attacks on drink driving

The September 11 terrorist attacks had a profound impact on this country's psyche.

2 Feb 2009

Discovery fleshes out metabolism of key environmental and energy bacteria

An international collaboration of researchers has discovered a new enzyme in a species of bacteria with potential environmental cleanup and energy roles.

2 Feb 2009

Differences in recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse

When a child experiences a traumatic event, such as sexual abuse, it may not be until well into adulthood that they remember the incident.

2 Feb 2009

Antiepileptic drug vigabatrin may decrease spasms for infants with epilepsy

The antiepileptic drug vigabatrin (VGB) has been shown to be one of the best treatments against a special form of epilepsy in infants, called infantile spasm.

2 Feb 2009

New genetic clues on molecular evolution of Q fever pathogen

Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Texas A&M Health Center, and the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech have uncovered genetic clues about why some strains of the pathogen Coxiella burnetii are more virulent than others.

2 Feb 2009

Combined measures of maternal drinking can predict resulting problems in children

While many people are aware that drinking during pregnancy can lead to a range of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs), including the serious Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), linkages between maternal-drinking measures and child outcomes have been inconsistent.

2 Feb 2009

Cell-building discovery offers great potential for basic cell biology, drug and tissue research

Brown University biomedical engineers can now grow and assemble living microtissues into complex three-dimensional structures in a way that will advance the field of tissue engineering and may eventually reduce the need for certain kinds of animal research.

2 Feb 2009

Quinolone-resistant gonorrhea increases in Ontario

The prevalence of quinolone-resistant gonorrhea has increased rapidly in Ontario - Canada's most populous province - from a rate of 2% in 2001 to 28% in 2006, found a study published in CMAJ.

2 Feb 2009

New way to fight off bacteria

Whenever humans create a new antibiotic, deadly bacteria can counter it by turning into new, indestructible super-bugs.

2 Feb 2009

Vitamin and mineral supplement use high among U.S. children and teens

A large number of U.S. children and teens age 2 to 17 appear to use vitamin and mineral supplements, although most may not need them, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

2 Feb 2009

Distrust of medical research more common among African American parents

Distrust of medical research appears more common among African American parents than white parents and may present a barrier to enrollment of minority children in research studies, according to a report in the February issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

2 Feb 2009

The state of America's health care is poor

"The state of America's health care is poor," Jeffrey P. Harris, MD, FACP, president of the American College of Physicians (ACP), reported today at the annual State of the Nation's Health Care briefing.

2 Feb 2009

Shortened gene region linked to breast cancer

Reza Zarnegar and colleagues, at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, have determined that genetic variation in a piece of DNA that regulates activity of the HGF gene might be a useful marker to identify individuals with an increased risk of developing breast cancer.

2 Feb 2009

Stereotactic vacuum-assisted breast needle biopsy better than 14-gauge in breast biopsy

Stereotactic vacuum-assisted breast needle biopsy, a common minimally invasive biopsy method used in the US, is more effective with an 11-gauge needle than the 14-gauge needle decreasing a physician's chances of false-negative diagnoses, according to a study performed at the Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, CA.

2 Feb 2009

New potential targets for colitis-associated cancer

Recent research from the laboratory of Michael Karin, PhD, at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine - the first researcher to demonstrate a molecular link between inflammation and cancer - has identified two potential targets for the prevention and treatment of colitis-associated cancer (CAC), the most serious complication of inflammatory bowel disease.

2 Feb 2009

The end of sex as we once knew it

Women are not from Venus any more than men are from Mars. But even though both sexes are perfectly terrestrial beings, they are not lacking in other differences. And not only in their reproductive organs and behavior, either, but in such unsexy characteristics as the propensity for drug abuse, fine motor control, reaction to stress, moods and many brain structures.

2 Feb 2009

Study identifies potential 'safe period' for hormone replacement use

A new study makes important new findings on the role of hormone use on the risk of breast cancer, confirming that the use of estrogen plus progesterone increases the risk of both ductal and lobular breast cancer far more than estrogen-only; suggesting a two-year 'safe' period for the use of estrogen and progesterone; and finding that the increased risk for ductal cancers observed in long-term past users of hormone replacement therapy drops off substantially two years after hormone use is stopped.

2 Feb 2009