ScienceDaily: Health & Medicine News

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• Relief for epilepsy at the scale of a single cell
• Early exposure to too much manganese causes attention deficits in rats
• Mutational tug of war over HIV's disease-inducing potential
• New report details pre- and postnatal brain defects from Zika virus
• Osteoporosis treatment: Systematic global review of intervention thresholds based on FRAX
• Nanofiber scaffolds demonstrate new features in the behavior of stem and cancer cells
• Immune breakthrough: Unscratching poison ivy's rash
• Injected mix of bone-augmenting agents causes new bone growth in mouse jaws
• Essential oils could counter lung and liver ailments caused by air pollution, research suggests
• Multivariate analysis improves on cognitive testing in Alzheimer's disease
• Drinking green tea to prevent artery explosion: Polyphenol intake reduces abdominal aneurysm expansion in rats
• Surprise discovery in the blink of an eye
• For young football players, some tackling drills can pose higher injury risks than games
• Study finds changes to retirement savings system may exacerbate economic inequality
• Study uses geo-mapping to identify 'hot spots' for use of fentanyl and other opiates
• Battery you can swallow could enable future ingestible medical devices
• Expecting the worst increases side-effects in breast cancer patients on hormone therapies
• Stroke-like brain damage is reduced in mice injected with omega-3s

Relief for epilepsy at the scale of a single cell Posted: 23 Aug 2016 12:32 PM PDT Researchers have developed in collaboration with French colleagues a small device that both detects the initial signal of an epileptic attack and doses a substance that effectively stops it. All this takes place where the signal arises -- in an area of size 20chr('215')20 μm known as a 'neural pixel.'

Early exposure to too much manganese causes attention deficits in rats Posted: 23 Aug 2016 09:53 AM PDT Too much manganese early in development causes lasting attention deficits and other impairments in rats. Studies of children and adolescents have associated excess manganese in the diet with attention deficits, but confounding factors in those studies have made it impossible to show a cause and effect relationship. The new study is the first to establish a causal link between exposure to elevated manganese in the diet and attentional dysfunction in an animal model.

Mutational tug of war over HIV's disease-inducing potential Posted: 23 Aug 2016 09:53 AM PDT A study from AIDS researchers shows how the expected disease severity when someone is newly infected by HIV reflects a balance between the virus' invisibility to the host's immune system and its ability to reproduce.

New report details pre- and postnatal brain defects from Zika virus Posted: 23 Aug 2016 09:51 AM PDT Researchers from the epicenter of the current Zika virus outbreak have released a report on imaging findings in babies and fetuses infected with the Zika virus. Zika virus is most dangerous when transmitted from a pregnant mother to her fetus, increasing the likelihood of severe brain defects in the baby. In addition to microcephaly, the report identifies a wide array of brain defects, visible on CT, MRI and ultrasound.

Osteoporosis treatment: Systematic global review of intervention thresholds based on FRAX Posted: 23 Aug 2016 08:20 AM PDT According to most current guidelines, treatment for osteoporosis is recommended in individuals with prior fragility fractures -- however for those without prior fractures, intervention thresholds using FRAX can be derived using different methods.

Nanofiber scaffolds demonstrate new features in the behavior of stem and cancer cells Posted: 23 Aug 2016 08:19 AM PDT A discovery in the field of biomaterials may open new frontiers in stem and cancer cell manipulation and associated advanced therapy development. Novel scaffolds are shown enabling cells to behave in a different but controlled way in vitro due to the presence of aligned, self-assembled ceramic nanofibers of an ultra-high anisotropy ratio augmented into graphene shells.

Immune breakthrough: Unscratching poison ivy's rash Posted: 23 Aug 2016 07:32 AM PDT We all know that a brush with poison ivy leaves us with an itchy painful rash. Now researchers have discovered the molecular cause of this irritation. The finding brings us a step closer to designing agents to block this mechanism and sheds light on other serious skin conditions, such as psoriasis.

Injected mix of bone-augmenting agents causes new bone growth in mouse jaws Posted: 23 Aug 2016 07:32 AM PDT A research team combined a protein that stimulates bone formation with a peptide that promotes osteoblast differentiation, and delivered them into mouse jawbones by injection within a gelatin carrier. The technique induced formation of new bone, suggesting its potential as a non-invasive means of replacing lost jawbone.

Essential oils could counter lung and liver ailments caused by air pollution, research suggests Posted: 23 Aug 2016 07:32 AM PDT Certain ingredients in essential oils made from plants such as cloves, anise, fennel and ylang-ylang could serve as a natural treatment of lung and liver conditions caused by air pollution, according to a new study.

Multivariate analysis improves on cognitive testing in Alzheimer's disease Posted: 23 Aug 2016 07:32 AM PDT Multivariate analysis of cognitive tests in Alzheimer's disease identifies five distinct groups of Alzheimer's disease patients, and suggests that multivitamins might slow progression only in certain groups.

Drinking green tea to prevent artery explosion: Polyphenol intake reduces abdominal aneurysm expansion in rats Posted: 23 Aug 2016 07:31 AM PDT Green tea could prevent a deadly condition in the body's main artery. A team has found that abdominal aortic aneurysm -- a condition in which the main artery becomes overstretched and bloated -- developed less frequently in rats that drank green tea polyphenol, a major component of green tea.

Surprise discovery in the blink of an eye Posted: 23 Aug 2016 05:33 AM PDT The scientists have discovered a new type of eye movement which they have called blink-associated resetting movement.

For young football players, some tackling drills can pose higher injury risks than games Posted: 23 Aug 2016 05:32 AM PDT Researchers used biomechanical sensors to investigate exposure to head impacts during practice sessions and games in 9- to 11-year-olds engaged in a youth football program. A higher proportion of head impacts greater than 60g occurred in tackling drills than in games. The findings may influence the structure of training for youth football teams.

Study finds changes to retirement savings system may exacerbate economic inequality Posted: 23 Aug 2016 05:32 AM PDT A shift to defined-contribution retirement plans, such as 401(k) plans, has led to an income and education gap in pension savings that could exacerbate future economic inequality, according to a study.

Study uses geo-mapping to identify 'hot spots' for use of fentanyl and other opiates Posted: 23 Aug 2016 05:32 AM PDT As the US experiences sharp increases in drug overdoses, researchers are using geo-mapping to look at the state, neighborhood by neighborhood, to identify 'hot spots' where the use of prescription fentanyl -- an extremely powerful synthetic opiate, which recently attracted national attention as the drug that caused Prince's death -- and other opiates is especially prevalent.

Battery you can swallow could enable future ingestible medical devices Posted: 23 Aug 2016 05:32 AM PDT Non-toxic, edible batteries could one day power ingestible devices for diagnosing and treating disease. One team reports new progress toward that goal with their batteries made with melanin pigments, naturally found in the skin, hair and eyes.

Expecting the worst increases side-effects in breast cancer patients on hormone therapies Posted: 22 Aug 2016 06:52 PM PDT A study of women receiving hormone therapies such as tamoxifen as part of their treatment for breast cancer has found that the number and seriousness of side effects they experienced were influenced by their expectations. The study found that women who had higher expectations of suffering more and worse side-effects before their treatment began did, in fact, experience more after two years of adjuvant hormone therapy.

Stroke-like brain damage is reduced in mice injected with omega-3s Posted: 22 Aug 2016 11:05 AM PDT Researchers have found that omega-3 fatty acids reduced brain damage in a neonatal mouse model of stroke.

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