http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Two respiratory viruses in different parts of the world have captured the attention of global health officials—a novel coronavirus in the Middle East and a new bird flu spreading in China. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-diseases-global-outbreaks.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 13 May 2013 09:41:41 EST news287656884 A genetic variant commonly found in Chinese people may help explain why some got seriously ill with swine flu, a discovery scientists say could help pinpoint why flu viruses hit some populations particularly hard and change how they are treated. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-genetics-severe-flu-chinese-people.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:01:07 EST news278683239 (Medical Xpress)—Yale School of Medicine researchers have found that children born to mothers who smoked more than one pack per day during pregnancy struggled on tests designed to measure how accurately a child reads aloud and comprehends what they read. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-pregnancy-tied-scores.html Pediatrics Mon, 19 Nov 2012 07:30:26 EST news272532618 An experiment carried out on rodents exposed to fuel similar to that of the Prestige tanker oil spill – which took place nearly a decade ago – shows that inhalation of the fuel causes damage to genetic material. According to the study, led by the University of A Coruña, the results could be used in relation to people who carry out the industrial cleaning of coasts. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-exposure-prestige-fuel-short-term-rat.html Health Mon, 15 Oct 2012 10:55:37 EST news269517328 Keeping the lungs healthy could be an important way to retain thinking functions that relate to problem-solving and processing speed in one's later years, new research suggests. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-poorer-lung-health-age-related-brain.html Psychology & Psychiatry Tue, 09 Oct 2012 11:38:46 EST news269001437 There are many factors that affect tumor invasion, the process where a tumor grows beyond the tissue where it first developed. While factors like genetics, tissue type and environmental exposure affect tumor metastasis and invasion, physical forces like fluid flow remain a poorly understood component of tumor invasion. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-07-fluid-cells-affects-tumors.html Cancer Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:36:51 EST news262438606 Adults who are exposed to secondhand smoke have higher rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes than do nonsmokers without environmental exposure to tobacco smoke, a new study shows. The results will be presented at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-06-secondhand-linked-diabetes-obesity.html Addiction Mon, 25 Jun 2012 11:10:01 EST news259838901 Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) -- such as BPA -- can show tangible effects on health endpoints at high dosage levels, yet those effects do not predict how EDCs will affect the endocrine system at low doses, according to a recent study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Endocrine Reviews. Study authors say current definitions of low-dosage as used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) do not fully take into account the unique influence that low doses of EDCs have on disease development in humans. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-current-chemical-low-dosage-effects-endocrine-disrupting.html Immunology Thu, 29 Mar 2012 07:40:42 EST news252225620 Female mouse fetuses exposed to very high doses of a common industrial chemical that makes plastics more pliable develop significant reproductive alterations and precancerous lesions as they grow up, according to a new toxicology study conducted at Brown University. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-highly-exposed-phthalates-fetuses-female.html Medical research Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:10:46 EST news251122237 Melissa Perry, Sc.D., M.H.S., professor and chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health at the GW School of Public Health and Health Services and adjunct associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, led an observational study indicating that environmental exposure to organochlorine chemicals, including Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) and p,p'-DDE (the main metabolite of the insecticide DDT) can affect male reproduction. The research was published online on Dec. 21, 2011 in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-environmental-exposure-organochlorines-impact-male.html Health Mon, 09 Jan 2012 12:47:56 EST news245335666 Several chemicals that can accumulate to high levels in our body (for example BPA and some pesticides) have been recently linked to an increased risk of cancer and/or impaired responsiveness to anticancer drugs. A team of researchers, led by Sridhar Mani, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, has now identified a potential mechanistic link between environmental exposure to these foreign chemicals (xenogens) and cancer drug therapy response and survival. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-pxr-stone-environmental-chemical-cancer.html Cancer Mon, 11 Jul 2011 12:53:42 EST news229607612 Children whose mothers or grandmothers smoked during pregnancy are at increased risk of asthma in childhood, but the underlying causes of this are not well understood. Now a new study indicates changes in a process called DNA methylation that occurs before birth may be a root cause. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-maternal-fetal-dna.html Medical research Wed, 18 May 2011 11:06:22 EST news224935565