A new mouse model for myotonic dystrophy – the most common form of adult-onset muscular dystrophy – helped Baylor College of Medicine researchers show that levels of CUGBP1, a protein that binds and controls the activity of the genetic material RNA, increase early in affected cells of the animals with the disease. This means CUGBP1 plays a key role in the disorder.
How environmental stress contributes to cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes is under study at the Medical College of Georgia. The study, which follows 523 pairs of twins, is funded by a $1.7 million continuation grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Injection drug users are still at a very high risk of acquiring hepatitis C (HCV) and hepatitis B (HBV); however, needle-sharing is less common, and users do not become infected as quickly as they did in the past, according to a new study in the September issue of Hepatology, a journal published by John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD).
Scientists have long known that the human body runs like clockwork, guided by a circadian system that responds to daily patterns of light and darkness. Now a team of researchers is developing a personal device to measure daily light intake and activity, which could allow them to predict optimal timing for light therapy to synchronize the circadian clock to the 24-hour solar day and relieve psychosocial stress.
More than a third of college athletes assessed for breathing problems had test results suggesting exercise-induced asthma, even in those athletes who had no previous history of asthma, a new study shows.
The unique laboratory of Dr. David R. Soll at the University of Iowa is making a big footprint in the field of cancer research, thanks to a new agreement reached between Soll and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Two studies report that exercise and yoga can help maintain and in some cases improve quality of life in women with early-stage breast cancer. The first study found that resistance and aerobic exercise improved physical fitness, self-esteem and body composition, and that resistance exercise improved chemotherapy completion rates. The second study demonstrated that yoga was particularly beneficial for women who were not receiving chemotherapy during the study period. Both studies will be published online September 4 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO).
Doctors prescribing blood thinners have had to go through a lengthy trial-and-error process to arrive at the optimal dose for their patients. But now the process can be faster and safer, thanks to research conducted at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
A University of Iowa professor is making a case for a new eating disorder she calls purging disorder. The disorder is similar to bulimia nervosa in that both syndromes involve eating, then trying to compensate for the calories.
Nutrients taken from avocados are able to thwart oral cancer cells, killing some and preventing pre-cancerous cells from developing into actual cancers, according to researchers at Ohio State University.