Hot MedFax

One of the worst things about Alzheimer's disease has always been that there's no way to prevent it.  But that may be changing.  A new study has found that a protein may inhibit the beginning of the disease. According to newswise.com, scientists at NYU Langone Medical Center have identified a compound in animal studies that reduced by more than half the levels of amyloid ( a starchlike protein that is deposited in the liver, kidneys, spleen, or other tissues in certain diseases) proteins in the brain associated with Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers hope that someday a treatment based on the molecule could be used to ward off the neuro-degenerative disease since it may be safe enough to be taken daily over many years. Amyloid beta contributes to the plaques that develop in the Alzheimer's brain.  “What we want in an Alzheimer’s preventive is a drug that modestly lowers amyloid beta and is also safe for long-term use,” the Web site quotes Martin J. Sadows...

You may not have known it (your husband would!) but you probably snored a lot when you were pregnant, if you also had high blood pressure.  And maybe something even worse. A new study says over 50% of hypertensive pregnant women have some kind of sleep disturbance. According to newswise.com, one in two hypertensive pregnant women who habitually snore may have unrecognized obstructive sleep apnea, a sleeping disorder that can reduce blood oxygen levels during the night and that has been linked to serious health conditions, new University of Michigan-led research shows. One in four hypertensive pregnant women who don’t snore also unknowingly suffer from the sleeping disorder, the Web site reports. “We know that habitual snoring is linked with poor pregnancy outcomes for both mother and child, including increased risk of C-sections and smaller babies,” newswise quotes lead author Louise O’Brien, Ph.D., M.S., associate professor at U-M’s Sleep Disorders Center in the Depa...

I live in an area (Fairfield County) where shops display dresses that are the size of dolls.  Yet women in this community fit into them, easily. Not me.  I couldn't get a toe through the leg of some of the slacks.  But a new study has found that where you live matters in the relationship between obesity and satisfaction. A new study suggests that how one compares weight-wise with others in his or her community plays a key role in determining how satisfied the person is with his or her life, according to newswise.com. “The most interesting finding for us was that, in U.S. counties where obesity is particularly prevalent, being obese has very little negative effect on one’s life satisfaction,” said study co-author Philip M. Pendergast, a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Colorado-Boulder at the Web site. “In addition, we found that being ‘normal weight’ has little benefit in counties where obesity is especially common. This illustrates the im...

I admit I did it.  Found out the sex of my baby.  But it took me so long to get pregnant, I wasn't interested in any surprises. Now a study has found that moms (and dads) who want to know the sex of their unborn baby are perfectionists, and "may be giving subtle clues about (their) views on proper gender roles," according to newswise.com.  The study found that women who choose not to learn their child’s sex may be more open to new experiences, and combine egalitarian views about the roles of men and women in society with conscientiousness. I've always thought of myself as a risk-taker, but this would prove otherwise.  After losing two pregnancies, I wanted to know everything about this baby -- the health of his heart, his other vital organs, the length of his fingers and toes, and how many.   My husband was more a nervous wreck than I, not sure he really wanted to have children at all. Expectant mothers who scored high on a test of parenting perfectio...

It's hard to believe, but we're actually safer now than at just about any time since the world began. Yes, there have been the Adam Lanzas and the Isla Vista, Calif. mad man mass murderers but, in fact, gun homicides are down almost 50% since 1933, Pew Research reports.  We've never been safer. But, as T.M. Luhrmann points out, that doesn't help us much.  The New York Times contributing opinion writer and professor of anthropology at Stanford calls it "our flinching state of mind."  We are so programmed now to flinch when we enter department stores, or city halls, or even schools, expecting violence, that, as she puts it, "That's not what it feels like, and what it feels like damages our sense of who we are." I'll admit it.  We live right off High Ridge Road, very near our son's middle school,  and now, every time I hear sirens, I scan Twitter and local news reports, terrified there's a shooter at his school.  It didn't h...

First they blamed the moms.  Then they blamed the vaccines.  Now research is showing that some cases of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may actually be environmentally-caused. The findings, according to newswise.com, "shed light on why older mothers are at increased risk for having children with ASD and could pave the way for more research into the role of environment on ASD."  The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in March that one in 68 U.S. children has an ASD—a 30 percent rise from 1 in 88 two years ago. A significant number of people with an ASD have gene mutations that are responsible for their condition. But a number of studies—particularly those involving identical twins, in which one twin has ASD and the other does not—show that not all ASD cases arise from mutations, the Web site reports.  Other studies have shown that genes may only be responsible in half  the cases of ASD diagnosed, newswise notes.  Media ...

A new study has found what many would like to know.  If I live in a certain place, what are my chances of developing cancer? Elise Sole reports at yahoo.com that your chances of having certain types of cancer may depend on how affluent your neighborhood is, and that some cancers tend to seek out the poor, while others, the rich. "In wealthy areas of the country, more common cancers include testicular, thyroid, melanoma, breast, and cervical," she writes. But in poorer areas, it may not be luck so much as "certain risky" behaviors that make you more vulnerable to cancers in other parts of the body.  In poorer areas, cancers include cancers of the penis and cervix, which are linked to sexually transmitted diseases (but don't forget Michael Douglas, with his cancer of the tongue); cancer of the larynx, which can be caused by smoking, drinking , or HPV; liver cancer, often linked to drinking and hepatitis (which can be contracted by needle sharing); and K...