ScienceDaily: Health & Medicine News

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• Brain injuries from blasts similar to football impacts
• Good news for nanomedicine: Quantum dots appear safe in pioneering study on primates
• First, do no harm: Danger in standard treatment for a serious lung disease
• Prenatal pollution exposure dangerous for children with asthma
• Children Exposed to Smoking Face Long-Term Respiratory Risks
• Treatment of childhood OSA reverses brain abnormalities
• Experimental bariatric surgery controls blood sugar in rodents with diabetes via novel sensing signals in gut
• New target to battle rheumatoid arthritis
• Drug found for parasite that is major cause of death worldwide
• Arthritis drug effective against global parasite, study suggests
• Acid in the brain: New way to look at brain function
• Indoor navigation system for blind
• Teens especially susceptible to distracted driving
• Common antibiotic carries heart risk, study suggests
• Brain injury to soldiers can arise from exposure to a single explosion

Brain injuries from blasts similar to football impacts Posted: 20 May 2012 06:54 PM PDT In an advance that may someday provide health benefits for soldiers and athletes, a team of researchers has discovered a mechanism that could be the cause of traumatic brain injuries (TBI) in blast-exposed soldiers.

Good news for nanomedicine: Quantum dots appear safe in pioneering study on primates Posted: 20 May 2012 10:39 AM PDT A pioneering study to gauge the toxicity of quantum dots in primates has found the tiny crystals to be safe over a one-year period, a hopeful outcome for doctors and scientists seeking new ways to battle diseases like cancer through nanomedicine.

First, do no harm: Danger in standard treatment for a serious lung disease Posted: 20 May 2012 10:38 AM PDT A combination of three drugs used worldwide as the standard of care for a serious lung disease puts patients in danger of death or hospitalization, and should not be used together to treat the disease, called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, according to the surprising results of a rigorous independent study. The findings show the importance of testing treatments that doctors give for any condition -- to see if they truly help, and don't harm, patients.

Prenatal pollution exposure dangerous for children with asthma Posted: 20 May 2012 10:36 AM PDT The link between prenatal exposure to air pollution and childhood lung growth and respiratory ailments is well established, and now a new study suggests that these prenatal exposures can be especially serious for children with asthma.

Children Exposed to Smoking Face Long-Term Respiratory Risks Posted: 20 May 2012 10:36 AM PDT A new study shows that the health risks associated with exposure to environmental tobacco smoke among children whose parents smoke persist well beyond childhood, independent of whether or not they end up becoming smokers.

Treatment of childhood OSA reverses brain abnormalities Posted: 20 May 2012 10:36 AM PDT Treatment of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children normalizes disturbances in the neuronal network responsible for attention and executive function, according to a new study.

Experimental bariatric surgery controls blood sugar in rodents with diabetes via novel sensing signals in gut Posted: 20 May 2012 10:35 AM PDT For the first time, scientists have shown that an experimental bariatric surgery can lower blood sugar levels in rats with type 1 diabetes.

New target to battle rheumatoid arthritis Posted: 20 May 2012 10:35 AM PDT Scientists have identified the mechanism by which a cell signaling pathway contributes to the development of rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

Drug found for parasite that is major cause of death worldwide Posted: 20 May 2012 10:35 AM PDT An existing drug has been found to be effective against Entamoeba histolytica. This parasite causes amebic dysentery and liver abscesses and results in the death of more than 70,000 people worldwide each year.

Arthritis drug effective against global parasite, study suggests Posted: 20 May 2012 10:35 AM PDT Medical researchers have identified an approved arthritis drug that is effective against amoebas in lab and animal studies, suggesting it could offer a low-dose, low cost treatment for the amoebic infections that cause human dysentery throughout the world.

Acid in the brain: New way to look at brain function Posted: 19 May 2012 06:32 PM PDT Researchers have developed an MRI-based method to detect and monitor pH changes in living brains. The new technique provides the best evidence so far that pH changes do occur with normal function in the intact human brain. The team hopes to use the method to investigate the role of pH changes in psychiatric disease, including anxiety and depression.

Indoor navigation system for blind Posted: 18 May 2012 10:27 AM PDT A computer science engineering team has developed an indoor navigation system for people with visual impairments. The researchers have explained how a combination of human-computer interaction and motion-planning research was used to build a low-cost accessible navigation system, called Navatar, which can run on a standard smartphone.

Teens especially susceptible to distracted driving Posted: 18 May 2012 10:27 AM PDT More than 5,000 people die each year in vehicle crashes caused by distracted driving, many who were texting and talking on cellphones behind the wheel, according to new research. Teen drivers appear to be especially susceptible to distraction.

Common antibiotic carries heart risk, study suggests Posted: 16 May 2012 02:42 PM PDT Researchers have discovered a rare, but important risk posed by the antibiotic azithromycin, commonly called a "Z-pack." The study found a 2.5-fold higher risk of death from cardiovascular death in the first five days of taking azithromycin when compared with another common antibiotic or no antibiotics at all.

Brain injury to soldiers can arise from exposure to a single explosion Posted: 16 May 2012 12:24 PM PDT Scientists have found new evidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in brain tissue from blast-exposed military service personnel. Laboratory experiments demonstrated that exposure to a single blast equivalent to a typical improvised explosive device results in CTE and long-term brain impairments that accompany the disease. They also found that the blast wind, not the shock wave, leads to traumatic brain injury and long-term consequences.

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