General Health

A study investigating aging in mice has found that hormonal changes that occur when mice eat significantly less may help explain an already established phenomenon: a low calorie diet can extend the lifespan of rodents, a benefit that even regular exercise does not achieve.

Women who commit sexual offenses are just as likely to have mental problems or drug addictions as other violent female criminals. This according to the largest study ever conducted of women convicted of sexual offenses in Sweden.

Results from a major clinical trial show that adding a screening ultrasound examination to routine mammography reveals more breast cancers than mammography alone -- but also increases the rates of false positive findings.

Researchers have identified a specific carbohydrate structure that confers anti-inflammatory activity to a glycoprotein antibody that could lead to improved treatment of autoimmune diseases like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. The study was reported in Science.

Researchers have discovered how tuberculosis bacteria hide and multiply in the human body and are working toward a treatment to block this mechanism of infection. The missing link between a TB protein and its newly discovered counterpart protein in the human body’s white blood cells (macrophages) has been discovered.

Exposure to coarse particulate matter air pollution such as from agricultural activities, windblown dust and mechanical grinding is not statistically significantly associated with emergency hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular diseases among Medicare patients This is the largest US nationwide study on the acute health effects of coarse particle pollution. Coarse particles are airborne pollutants that fall between 2.5 and 10 microns in diameter.

When office staff took part in a workplace educational and physical initiative, headaches fell by 41 percent, neck and shoulder pain fell by 43 percent and painkiller use fell by 51 percent. Researchers taught staff office and home relaxation techniques and provided red stickers to place around the workplace to avoid excessive contraction of the head and shoulder muscles. 169 staff were in the intervention group with 175 in the control group. All kept daily diaries.

Scientists have broken inside a cell long suspected of harboring HIV during drug treatment and determined it is indeed a reservoir of the virus in humans, where it remains highly infectious. Researchers have discovered the genetic nature of HIV trapped by follicular dendritic cells, also called FDCs, which are located throughout the body in specialized sites known as lymphoid tissues.

RNA is best known as a working copy of the DNA sequence of genes. In this role, it's a carrier of the genes' instructions to the cell, which manufactures proteins according to information in the RNA molecule. But molecular biologists have increasingly realized that many RNA snippets -- so-called small RNAs -- also directly influence which genes make proteins, and in some cases, how much protein.

The genetic profile of two large Georgia families with high rates of late-onset Alzheimer's disease points to a gene that may cause the disease, researchers say.