Cigarette pack warning labels with prominent text and graphic pictures of smoking damage are most effective at changing smokers’ behavior. Images highlighting the dangers of smoking will be printed on all tobacco products sold in the UK by the end of 2009, under regulations being set out.
In the first systematic, statistical analysis of its kind, infectious-disease-modeling experts at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center confirm that the avian influenza A (H5N1) virus in 2006 spread between a small number of people within a family in Indonesia.
In the largest study of its kind, Mayo Clinic researchers have shown that women who had one or both ovaries removed before menopause faced an increased long-term risk of cognitive impairment or dementia, compared to women who retained their ovaries.
How do adult stem cells protect themselves from accumulating genetic mutations that can lead to cancer? For more than three decades, many scientists have argued that the “immortal strand hypothesis” – which states that adult stem cells segregate their DNA in a non-random manner during cell division — explains it. And several recent reports have presented evidence backing the idea.
With an ever-growing number of drugs available, it has become virtually impossible for doctors to remain fully up to date on the relevant literature and the comparative efficacy and tolerability of various therapies.
With infections increasingly resistant to even the most modern antibiotics, researchers at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed) report in the September issue of Nature Reviews Microbiology on new clues they have uncovered in immune system molecules that defend against infection.
The use of hypnosis prior to breast cancer surgery reduced the amount of anesthesia administered during the operation, the level of pain reported afterwards, and the time and cost of the procedure, according to a study published online Aug. 28 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
More prostate cancers were detected among men who were screened every two years than men screened every four years, according to a study published online Aug. 28 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. But the shorter time between screenings did not reduce the number of aggressive cancers found between the scheduled screening tests.
Heavy alcohol use can lead to structural and functional changes in the brain. New findings show that even when structural damage may not be apparent, brain activation can still be reduced.Researchers refer to this alcohol-induced damage as “latent lesions.”
A landmark study by University of Western Sydney researchers has found people over 50 who take calcium supplements suffer fewer fractures and enjoy a better quality of life.