Health

Australian researchers have identified a new method to treat ‘triple-negative’ breast cancer, which is an aggressive disease that mainly affects younger women.

The treatment, which is based on two drugs that are already in use, is currently being tested on mice, but human trials are expected to start soon, News.com.au reported.

Triple-negative cancer affects about 15 percent of people with breast cancer and is particularly difficult to treat.

Exposure to bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical that is found in plastic, could raise risk of miscarriage among women prone to that problem or having trouble getting pregnant.

Researcher Dr. Ruth Lathi of Stanford University and her team studied 115 pregnant women who had histories of infertility or miscarriage, the New York Daily News reported.

The research team analyzed blood samples and divided the women into four groups based on their BPA levels.

Researchers including an Indian-origin scientist have for the first time isolated and characterized the progenitor cells that eventually give rise to malignant hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) tumours, which is the most common form of liver cancer.

The researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine found ways to identify and isolate the HCC progenitor cells (HcPC) long before actual tumours were apparent.

A new study has suggested that wearing flat and flexible footwear can help reduce knee loading in knee osteoarthritis patients, as they allows natural foot mobility and provide sufficient support for the foot.

Knee loading is the force placed upon the joint during daily activities.

The study by researcher Dr. Najia Shakoor from Rush University Medical Center showed that long term use of such footwear, called “mobility shoes,” helped OA patients adapt their gait or how they walk, which improved knee loading, even when the mobility shoes were no longer worn.

A new study has revealed that women, who are the victims of stalking, are two to three times more likely to suffer from psychological distress than those who have never been stalked.

Researcher at Washington and Lee University used data on women drawn from three major surveys that used face-to-face interviews to collect information on potential determinants of mental disorders in the United States.

Exposure to social stress not only impairs a mother’s ability to care for her children but may also negatively impact her daughter’s ability to provide maternal care to future offspring, a new study has revealed.

Researchers at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University conducted a transgenerational study with female rats, examining the behavioural and physiological changes in mothers exposed to chronic social stress early in life as a model for postpartum depression and anxiety.

Experts have warned that corsets are coming back in fashion thanks to the latest diet fad, called the ‘corset diet’, which though helps in curbing one’s food intake, is dangerous.

At the beginning of the diet programme, people don a corset for a few hours every day and eventually work their way up to 12 hours a day.

Even though, majority of doctors have warned that corsets can lead to serious health damage, proponents of the method claimed that the old fashion accessory actually works as it functions as a sort of non-surgical gastric bypass sleeve, Huffington Post reported.

Researchers have revealed that women’s childbirth history is not significantly associated with their likelihood of reporting low sexual desire, less than monthly sexual activity, or low overall sexual satisfaction later in life.

Past studies have pointed to a negative short-term effect of childbirth in general and vaginal delivery in particular, on postpartum sexual function. This has led some women to push for cesarean rather than vaginal birth without other medical indications, according to the researchers.

A new research has identified four genetic variants associated with an increased risk of esophageal cancer and its precursor, a condition called Barrett’s esophagus.

The study has been conducted by Thomas L. Vaughan, M.D., M.P.H., a member of the Epidemiology Program in the Public Health Sciences Division at Fred Hutch, and David Whiteman, Ph.D., head of the Cancer Control Group at QIMR (formerly known as the Queensland Institute for Medical Research).

Researchers have claimed that a device implanted in patients’ heads has shown promising results towards curing headaches.

About two years ago, doctors implanted a device on a patient’s skull under the skin, CBS News reported.

Now, whenever the patient feels a headache’s symptoms, she activates a trigger using a magnet on a small control box implanted in her lower back.

This activity sends an electric pulse along wires to a specific nerve in her brain.

A new study has suggested that lifestyle advice for people suffering from diabetes should not be different from that given to the general public, although those having diabetes may benefit more from the same advice.

In this new study, Dr Diewertje Sluik, Department of Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany, and colleagues investigated whether the associations between lifestyle factors and mortality risk differ between individuals with and without diabetes.

Naturally occurring compounds in tea and coffee can boost lifespan by lowering risk of several chronic diseases and overall mortality by 30 per cent, a new study has claimed.

Researchers from University of Barcelona studied 807 men and women aged 65 or over from central Italy for 12 years.

They found that overall mortality was reduced by 30 per cent in participants who consumed more than 650 mg of polyphenols a day in comparison with those who took in less than 500 mg.

Scientists have identified a set of compounds that may be used to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) in a new way.

Unlike existing MS therapies that suppress the immune system, the compounds boost a population of progenitor cells that can in turn repair MS-damaged nerve fibers.

One of the newly identified compounds, a Parkinson’s disease drug called benztropine, was highly effective in treating a standard model of MS in mice, both alone and in combination with existing MS therapies.

Nail biting, excessive smoking, obesity and overeating are some of the symptoms of stress, which can be overcome with a balanced diet and by drinking enough water in a day.

With high pressure schedules and long working hours, stress is becoming inevitable. It is important to beat it the right way.

“Eat regularly throughout the day in order to maintain healthy blood sugar levels, choose wholegrain foods such as brown rice and wholemeal bread and avoid sugary snacks and drinks,” femalefirst.co.uk. quoted Robert Hobson, head of nutrition of British health brand Healthspan, as saying.

Scientists claim that they have come up with a formula for those who agonise over how to get a better night’s sleep.

Researchers have come up with the formula by considering a person’s tiredness, bedtime, mattress comfort, their number of waking hours, noise, light, heat, and duvet thickness, the Daily Times reported.

The formula scores the person’s sleep quality from “great” to “tossing and turning all night”.

A new study has claimed that conventional chemotherapy could further prolong lifespan in some women with ovarian cancer when used in tandem with a new type of targeted treatment.

The research provides important evidence that PARP inhibitor drugs and chemotherapy can both be effective in the same patients, helping women live longer than they would if treated with chemotherapy alone.

Researchers have created a material that can be used for the controlled release of a substance when it’s subjected to cyclic mechanical loading.

This work offers a potential treatment method for specific tissues like knee cartilage.

In order to regenerate, knee cartilage, paradoxically, needs to be placed under mechanical stress, as happens whenever we take a step and our knees take our weight.

A gastroenterologist has said that what goes into our bodies, mainly our gastrointestinal tract, affects how we look.

Robynne Chutkan, the founder of the Digestive Center for Women outside Washington, told The Atlantic that skin disorders like rosacea is a good example.

She said that many people use harsh things on their skin for this sort of redness on the cheeks and nose.

Researchers have found that deficiency of an antioxidant response protein called nuclear erythroid-2 like factor-2 (Nrf2) is capable of delaying or preventing hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a type of a heart failure in which the heart muscle grows abnormally thick.

This new finding suggests that restoring the normal balance of reduction-oxidation chemical reactions in the body could prevent heart disease and other conditions caused by reductive stress.

A new study has claimed that behavioural therapy provided chair-side to kidney failure patients while undergoing dialysis could help them combat depression and improve their quality of life.

Daniel Cukor, PhD (SUNY Downstate Medical Center) and his research team tested their strategy in 59 patients undergoing treatment at dialysis centers in New York.

Researchers have discovered that our own feelings can distort our capacity for empathy and this emotionally driven egocentricity is recognised and corrected by the brain.

The research team headed by Tania Singer from the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences has discovered that when the right supramarginal gyrus doesn’t function properly or when we have to make particularly quick decisions, our empathy is severely limited.

Early researches have shown that exercise is good for the brain, but now investigators have identified a molecule called irisin that is produced in the brain during endurance exercise and has neuroprotective effects.

Researchers were able to artificially increase the levels of irisin in the blood to activate genes involved in learning and memory.

A new study has revealed that smokers die ten years early than non-smokers.

The first ever long-term Australian study suggested that even light smokers, who consume ten or fewer cigarettes a day, are at double the risk of dying, News.com.au reported.

The study of the 200,000 Australians aged over 45 by Sax Institute found that two thirds of deaths in current smokers can be directly attributed to smoking.

The study by Professor Emily Banks, found that current smokers were three times more likely to die than people who had never smoked.

A new study has revealed that healthy adults do not need to take vitamin D supplements, as it does not improve bone mineral density, which is an indicator for the risk of osteoporosis.

Researchers at University of Auckland analysed 23 studies involving more than 4,000 healthy people and found that the supplements fail to increase the density of bone mineral in the body as a whole, the BBC reported.

A new study has found that having a stroke may shave nearly 3 out of 5 quality years off your life.

Stroke treatments and prevention to improve quality of life for people who experience a stroke is poorer than researchers hoped, with stroke still taking nearly three out of five quality years off a person’s life, the study suggests.

Researchers say the findings leave considerable room for improvement in stroke treatment.

Stroke is the leading cause of adult disability and the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States.