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Unpaid caregivers provided an estimated $202 billion in dementia care in 2010

NPR reports unpaid caregiver costs for those with dementia was an estimated $202 billion in 2010 alone. In other news, the income of Massachusetts' elderly covers only 60 percent of living expenses, and at the Mayo Clinic, researchers are trying to learn more about the effects of old age.

2 Mar 2012

Insight into why some children develop myopia

Myopia (nearsightedness) develops in children when the lens stops compensating for continued growth of the eye, according to a study in the March issue of Optometry and Vision Science, official journal of the American Academy of Optometry.

2 Mar 2012

Global Fistula Care Map aims to connect women in need with health facilities

"In an effort to coordinate prevention and treatment of fistula across the globe, targeting outside help where it can do the most good," the non-profit Direct Relief International has developed an interactive Global Fistula Care Map, "displaying more than 150 health facilities that provide fistula repair in 40 countries across Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East," Miller-McCune reports.

2 Mar 2012

UCSD first to treat glioma with investigational viral vector

UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center researchers and surgeons are among the first in the nation to treat patients with recurrent brain cancer by directly injecting an investigational viral vector into their tumor. The treatment is being developed by a local San Diego Company, Tocagen Inc.

2 Mar 2012

Inexpensive test, treatment for syphilis could save nearly 1M infants annually

An inexpensive test and single-dose treatment could help save the lives of nearly one million infants annually if pregnant women in low-income countries were offered rapid tests for syphilis, experts from the Global Congenital Syphilis Partnership said on Thursday, Reuters reports.

2 Mar 2012

Poor neighborhoods linked with worse chronic pain for young adults

Living in a poor neighborhood was linked with worse chronic pain for young adults, according to a study by the University of Michigan Health System, but young black patients faced difficulties with pain management no matter where they lived.

2 Mar 2012

Women need more contraception options that protect against pregnancy, HIV

In this Huffington Post "Black Voices" opinion piece, Vanessa Cullins, vice president for external medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, responds to an announcement by the WHO in February that the agency would not revise its contraception guidelines for women living with and at risk of HIV infection based on a "study suggesting that hormonal contraception increases women's risk of acquiring and transmitting HIV to their partners."

2 Mar 2012

First study to focus on platelet genetics in African Americans

Researchers, led by scientists from Johns Hopkins, have found five previously unknown gene mutations believed to be associated with elevated blood platelet counts in African-Americans, findings they say could someday lead to the development of new drugs to help prevent coronary artery disease.

2 Mar 2012

House Subcommittee OKs IPAB repeal

The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee voted 17 to 5 to do away with a Medicare cost-cutting panel derided by Republicans as a "rationing board."

2 Mar 2012

Planarian flatworms reveal new insights into stem cell biology

Devising a novel method to identify potential genetic regulators in planarian stem cells, Whitehead Institute scientists have determined which of those genes affect the two main functions of stem cells. Three of the genes are particularly intriguing because they code for proteins similar to those known to regulate mammalian embryonic stem cells. Such genetic similarity makes planarians an even more attractive model for studying stem cell biology in vivo.

2 Mar 2012

New HS44 molecule inhibits lung metastasis

One type of white blood cell, the Natural Killer T Cells, fights against infections and tumours by freeing cytokine proteins which activate the body's immune response and destroy infected or malignant cells. To do so they must receive an activation signal. Specific receptors located on their surface act as switches: they activate the lymphocyte in presence of an antigen, a molecule which triggers alarm signals.

2 Mar 2012

Aid agencies must implement long-term solutions in Horn of Africa to 'banish hunger'

With each of the three droughts in the Horn of Africa over the last decade, "the international community agreed that long-term measures were needed to prevent another tragedy. But each time, when the rains finally came, the world's good intentions melted away," Jose Graziano de Silva, director-general of the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) writes in a Project Syndicate opinion piece.

2 Mar 2012

AJPM&R releases new iPad app for physical medicine and rehabilitation specialists

Ninety years after its first issue, American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation has announced the latest step in its evolution with the release of the new AJPM&R for the iPad app.

2 Mar 2012

Study offers hope for novel approach to prevent AD

As scientists struggle to find an effective way to prevent Alzheimer's disease, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison may have found a new approach to interrupting the process that leads to the devastating disease.

2 Mar 2012

New link between polyamine regulation and ESC biology

A*STAR scientists have for the first time, identified that precise regulation of polyamine levels is critical for embryonic stem cell (ESC) self-renewal - the ability of ESCs to divide indefinitely - and directed differentiation.

2 Mar 2012

U.S. to send food aid to North Korea after it agrees to suspend nuclear weapons tests

"North Korea announced on Wednesday that it would suspend its nuclear weapons tests and uranium enrichment and allow international inspectors to monitor activities at its main nuclear complex," a move "signaling that North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong-un, is at least willing to consider a return to negotiations and to engage with the United States, which pledged in exchange to ship tons of food aid to the isolated, impoverished nation," the New York Times reports.

2 Mar 2012

Report highlights benefits of Nuvilex's cell encapsulation technology for diabetes

Nuvilex, Inc., an emerging biotechnology provider of cell and gene therapy solutions, today provided additional details based on the Goldman Small Cap Research report issued February 29, 2012, that highlighted the company's cell encapsulation technology and its benefits for treating chronic diseases such as diabetes.

2 Mar 2012

Study uncovers how FoxO1 protein contributes to heart disease in patients with diabetes

UT Southwestern Medical Center cardiologists have uncovered how a specific protein's previously unsuspected role contributes to the deterioration of heart muscle in patients with diabetes. Investigators in the mouse study also have found a way to reverse the damage caused by this protein.

2 Mar 2012

Kenya's ability to diagnose, treat MDR-TB questioned after mismanagement of patient's case

"The Kenyan government's recent failure to adequately treat a patient with extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) has some civil society organizations questioning whether the country's TB program is equipped to diagnose and treat such patients," PlusNews reports.

2 Mar 2012

Alternative subunits generate different functional subtypes of RNA polymerases

Indiana University biologists have found that specific types of RNA polymerase enzymes, the molecular machines that convert DNA into RNA, can differ in function based on variation in the parts -- in this case protein subunits -- used to assemble those machines.

2 Mar 2012