ScienceDaily Health Headlines -- for Saturday, October 15, 2011

ScienceDaily Health Headlines

for Saturday, October 15, 2011

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Breastfeeding reduces the risk of allergies, study suggests (October 14, 2011) -- Today, about one in four European children suffer from allergy, which makes this disease the non-infectious epidemic of the 21st century. Evidence suggests that lifestyle factors and nutritional patterns, such as breastfeeding, help to reduce the early symptoms of allergy. ... > full story

Women's heart disease tied to small blood vessels (October 14, 2011) -- After a heart attack, women's hearts are more likely to maintain their systolic function -- their ability to contract and pump blood from the chambers into the arteries. According to researchers, this suggests that heart disease manifests differently in women, affecting the microvasculature (small blood vessels) instead of the macrovasculature (major blood vessels) as it does in men. ... > full story

Differing structures underlie differing brain rhythms in healthy and ill, virtual modeling reveals (October 14, 2011) -- Virtual brains modeling epilepsy and schizophrenia display less complexity among functional connections, and other differences compared to healthy brain models, researchers report. The researchers worked backward from brain rhythms -- the oscillating patterns of electrical activity in the brain recorded on electroencephalograms -- from both healthy and ill individuals. ... > full story

Gender differences in blood pressure appears as early as adolescence, with girls faring worse (October 14, 2011) -- The female hormone estrogen is known to offer protection for the heart, but obesity may be taking away that edge in adolescent girls. New research finds that although obesity does not help teens of either gender, it has a greater impact on girls' blood pressure than it does on boys'. ... > full story

MRIs could become powerful tools for monitoring cholesteral therapy (October 14, 2011) -- MRI scanning could become a powerful new tool for assessing how well cholesterol drugs are working, according to a cardiologist studying patients taking cholesterol medications. ... > full story

Minority children less likely to receive CT scans following head trauma (October 14, 2011) -- African-American and Hispanic children are less likely to receive a cranial computed tomography scan in an emergency department following minor head trauma than white children, according to new research. ... > full story

Precision with stem cells a step forward for treating multiple sclerosis, other diseases (October 14, 2011) -- Scientists have improved upon previous efforts to pluck out just the right stem cells to address the brain problem at the core of multiple sclerosis and a large number of rare, fatal children's diseases. Details of how scientists isolated and directed stem cells from the human brain to become oligodendrocytes - the type of brain cell that makes myelin - were recently published. ... > full story

Tagging tumors with gold: Scientists use gold nanorods to flag brain tumors (October 14, 2011) -- When removing a brain tumor, even the slightest mistake could have serious health consequences. To help surgeons, researchers have proposed a way to harness the unique optical properties of gold nanoparticles to clearly distinguish a brain tumor from the healthy tissue that surrounds it. ... > full story

Preventing dangerous nonsense in human gene expression (October 14, 2011) -- Human genes are preferentially encoded by codons that are less likely to be mistranscribed (or "misread") into a STOP codon, according to a new study. ... > full story

Earlier autism diagnosis could mean earlier interventions (October 14, 2011) -- Autism is normally diagnosed between the ages of 2 and 3. But new research is finding symptoms of autism spectrum disorders in babies as young as 12 months. If children could be diagnosed earlier, it might be possible to help them earlier -- and maybe even stop them from developing autism, according to experts. ... > full story

Gut bacteria may affect whether a statin drug lowers cholesterol (October 14, 2011) -- Statins can be effective at lowering cholesterol, but they have a perplexing tendency to work for some people and not others. Gut bacteria may be the reason. ... > full story

Engineers create touchscreen Braille writer (October 14, 2011) -- In a two-month summer course on high-performance computing, promising undergrads compete to create innovative applications. This summer's winner developed a touchscreen Braille writer that stands to revolutionize how the blind negotiate an unseen world by replacing devices costing up to 10 times more. ... > full story