Tag Archives: american

Sexual health for postmenopausal women improved by hypnotic relaxation therapy

The study, which examined sexual comfort, sexual satisfaction and sexual pleasure, is a first step toward a safe and effective alternative toward hormone replacement therapy, which carries associated risks of cancer and heart disease, said Gary Elkins, Ph.D., director of Baylor’s Mind-Body Medicine Research Laboratory and a professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences. The conclusion was based on a study funded by the National Institutes of Health…

New drug targets for aggressive breast cancer

Out of the 1.5 million women diagnosed with breast cancer in the world annually, nearly one in seven of these is classified as triple negative. Patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) have tumours that are missing three important proteins that are found in other types of breast cancer. The absence of these three proteins make TNBC patients succumb to a higher rate of relapse following treatment and have lower overall survival rates. …

Stopping cholesterol drugs may be associated with increased risk of Parkinson’s

The current study involved 43,810 people in Taiwan who were taking statins and did not have Parkinson’s disease. Taiwan’s compulsory national health insurance program reimbursement policy requests that doctors stop prescribing statins once the patient’s cholesterol reaches the treatment goal, which is contrary to standard treatment in the United States. "This policy allowed us to see whether there was any difference in the risk of Parkinson’s in people who stopped taking statins compared to the ones who kept taking them," said study author Jou-Wei Lin, MD, PhD, of National Taiwan University in Taipei. …

Thwarting protein production slows cancer cells’ malignant march

From yeast to worms to humans, this stress response and its primary regulator, heat shock factor 1 (HSF1), help normal cells adapt to harsh environments, including the presence of heavy metals, high salt concentrations, low oxygen levels, and of course increased temperatures. "In a perverted twist of fate, cancer cells take advantage of this incredibly ancient survival strategy — the heat shock response — to help them survive despite the best efforts of our own natural defenses, and sophisticated therapeutics, to kill them," says Whitehead Member Susan Lindquist. "And trumping all that, we find it not only helps them survive, it helps them thrive!" Across tumor and cancer types, cancer cells rely on the heat shock response and HSF1 to support the production of vast quantities of proteins and the high-energy demands needed to propel malignancy…

People with Alzheimer’s disease may have lower risk of cancer and vice versa

"Since the number of cases of both Alzheimer’s disease and cancer increase exponentially as people age, understanding the mechanisms behind this relationship may help us better develop new treatments for both diseases," said study author Massimo Musicco, MD, of the National Research Council of Italy in Milan. The study involved 204,468 people age 60 and older in northern Italy during a six-year period…

Location of body fat can elevate heart disease, cancer risk

Death and disease risk associated with excess body weight can vary among individuals with similar BMI. Ectopic fat, or fat located where it is not supposed to be, in this case being visible in the abdominal area, could be the cause of this difference in risk. It’s widely known that abdominal fat can be more dangerous than fat in other areas, but this study is the first to use CT scan to study specifically located fat depots for direct associations with disease risk…

Link between omega-3 fatty acids and increased prostate cancer risk confirmed

Published July 11 in the online edition of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, the latest findings indicate that high concentrations of EPA, DPA and DHA — the three anti-inflammatory and metabolically related fatty acids derived from fatty fish and fish-oil supplements — are associated with a 71 percent increased risk of high-grade prostate cancer. The study also found a 44 percent increase in the risk of low-grade prostate cancer and an overall 43 percent increase in risk for all prostate cancers. The increase in risk for high-grade prostate cancer is important because those tumors are more likely to be fatal. The findings confirm a 2011 study published by the same Fred Hutch scientific team that reported a similar link between high blood concentrations of DHA and a more than doubling of the risk for developing high-grade prostate cancer. …

Researchers perform DNA computation in living cells

Logic gates are the means by which computers "compute," as sets of them are combined in different ways to enable computers to ultimately perform tasks like addition or subtraction. In DNA computing, these gates are created by combining different strands of DNA, rather than a series of transistors. However, thus far DNA computation events have typically taken place in a test tube, rather than in living cells. NC State chemist Alex Deiters and graduate student James Hemphill wanted to see if a DNA-based logic gate could detect the presence of specific microRNAs in human cells…