Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Prenatal secondhand smoke tied to mental problems
Pregnant women exposed to secondhand smoke are more likely than their unexposed counterparts to have children with psychological problems such as conduct disorder, attention deficits, and behavior problems, reported researchers from the University of Washington, Seattle, in Child Psychiatry and Human Development. Children who were exposed to smoke in utero have colic and are hard to soothe as infants. As toddlers they are overactive and oppositional. Later on they are irritable, inattentive and low on pleasure, the researchers noted.
ZERO TO 20
Weight bias may harm obese children
The stigma that society attaches to obesity can cause children immediate and possibly lasting, harm.
Overweight children and teens are commonly teased or ostracized by their peers, and sometimes treated differently by teachers and even parents. This, the review shows, can lead to low self-esteem, poor school performance, avoidance of physical activity and in the most serious cases, depression and suicide. All of this means that weight teasing needs to be taken seriously, reported researchers from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in Psychological Bulletin.
20 TO 40
Heart X-ray raises cancer risk for the young, women
A special type of X-ray used to diagnose heart disease may cause cancer in women and young adults and should be used with caution. The procedure, called a computed tomography CT coronary angiography, is meant to reduce complications because it can see inside the heart and its arteries without invading the body. But it gives a high dose of radiation, enough to cause cancer in vulnerable people, researchers from Columbia University Medical Center reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Women and young men are especially at risk.
40 TO 60
New test pinpoints deadliest prostate cancers
Scientists have found a new way to identify a particularly deadly form of prostate cancer in a breakthrough that could save tens of thousands of men from undergoing unnecessary surgery each year. The research, by Britain8217;s Institute of Cancer Research, published in Oncogene showed how a genetic variation within tumor cells can signal if a patient has a potentially fatal form of the disease. Prostate cancers commonly contain a fusion of the TMPRSS2 and ERG genes, but the new study found that in 6.6 per cent of cases this fusion was doubled up, creating a deadly alteration known as 2Edel. Patients with 2Edel have only a 25 per cent survival rate after eight years, compared to 90 per cent for those with no alterations in this region of DNA.
60 AND ABOVE
Turmeric may help Alzheimer8217;s patients too
If laboratory findings hold true in people, treatment with one of the active chemicals in turmeric may boost immune system of patients with Alzheimer8217;s disease and thereby, increase the clearance of amyloid plaques in the brain, the primary abnormality in such cases. Researchers from the Greater Los Angeles Veteran8217;s Affairs Medical Center, showed that immune cells called macrophages taken from patients with Alzheimer8217;s disease cannot efficiently eliminate amyloid and this may be related to the abnormal regulation of certain genes. Treating these cells with an active substance found in turmeric, bisdemethoxycurcumin, increases the production of some of the genes and enhances macrophage function, according to the team8217;s report, published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
