http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. Scientists funded by the National Institutes of Health have discovered a potential strategy for developing treatments to stem the disease process in Alzheimer's disease. It's based on unclogging removal of toxic debris that accumulates in patients' brains, by blocking activity of a little-known regulator protein called CD33. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-alzheimer-gene-potential-treatment.html Alzheimer's disease & dementia Thu, 25 Apr 2013 12:00:12 EST news286108610 Scientists at Harvard may have new hope for anyone who's tried to fight the battle of the bulge. New research, conducted in collaboration with researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, has found that the gut microbes of mice undergo drastic changes following gastric bypass surgery. Transfer of these microbes into sterile mice resulted in rapid weight loss. The study is described in a March 27 paper in Science Translational Medicine. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-03-weight-gut-microbiota-role-loss.html Medications Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:00:15 EST news283610632 More than a third of U.S. physicians responding to a national survey indicated they often or sometimes prescribed brand-name drugs when appropriate generic substitutes were available simply because patients requested the brand-name drug. Survey respondents who had marketing relationships with industry were more likely to fulfill such patient requests than were those without those relationships. The report from investigators at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy (MIHP) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) will appear in JAMA Internal Medicine (formerly Archives of Internal Medicine) and has been released online. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-physicians-fulfill-patient-brand-name-drugs.html Medications Mon, 07 Jan 2013 16:00:01 EST news276772075 A new study finds differences in the ways that participation in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) helps men and women maintain sobriety. Two Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators found that, while many factors are helpful to all AA participants, some were stronger in men and some in women. For example, avoidance of companions who encourage drinking and social situations in which drinking is common had more powerful benefits for men, while increased confidence in the ability to avoid drinking while feeling sad, depressed or anxious appeared to be more important for women. Their report will appear in Drug and Alcohol Dependence and has been released online. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-women-men-benefit-ways-aa.html Addiction Wed, 05 Dec 2012 11:24:05 EST news273929035 now assured by the re-election of President Obama – is expected to result in up to 50 million currently uninsured Americans acquiring some type of health insurance coverage. But a study by researchers at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) finds that a significant percentage of the primary care physicians most likely to care for newly insured patients may be not be accepting new patients. The investigators note that strategies designed to increase and support these "safety-net" physicians could help ensure that newly covered patients have access to primary care. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-newly-patients-primary-physicians.html Health Mon, 26 Nov 2012 16:02:57 EST news273168170 Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) – inflammatory diseases of the gastrointestinal tract – have puzzled the scientific community for decades. Ten years ago, researchers recognized that both genes and the environment contributed to these diseases but knew little about precisely how and why illness occurred. To begin to narrow in on the key pathways involved, they would need thousands of patients' samples, millions of data points, and the commitment of physicians and scientists at dozens of institutions. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-genetic-links-inflammatory-bowel-disease.html Genetics Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:11:57 EST news270914505 Previous studies that have associated the use of proton pump inhibitors (PPI) – which include popular anti-heartburn medications like Prilosec and Nexium – with an increased incidence of pneumonia may not have found a true cause-and-effect relationship. A study that has been released online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine outlines a strategy for determining when the results of such observational studies may have been distorted by unmeasured factors and then finds that may be the case with the association between PPIs and pneumonia risk. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-association-common-heartburn-drugs-pneumonia.html Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes Mon, 01 Oct 2012 11:50:38 EST news268311026 Researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) are the first to discover that changes in monocytes (a type of white blood cell) are a biomarker for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or Lou Gehrig's disease. This finding also brings the medical community a step closer toward a new treatment for the debilitating neurological disease that affects approximately 30,000 Americans. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-blood-biomarker-lou-gehrig-disease.html Medical research Mon, 06 Aug 2012 12:00:01 EST news263470242 Resident physicians' participation in a brief training program designed to increase empathy with their patients produced significant improvement in how patients perceived their interactions with the residents. This contrasts with several studies showing that empathy with patients usually drops during medical school and residency training. The report from a team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers will appear in the Journal of General Internal Medicine and has been released online. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-05-resident-physicians-empathy-patients.html Other Mon, 07 May 2012 11:37:55 EST news255609459 A simple program involving color-coded food labeling and adjusting the way food items are positioned in display cases was successful in encouraging more healthful food choices in a large hospital cafeteria. The report from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers will appear in the March American Journal of Public Health and has received early online release. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-color-coding-rearranging-food-products-healthy.html Health Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:00:06 EST news246208925 Investigators in the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Center for Systems Biology have discovered a previously unknown type of immune cell, a B cell that can produce the important growth factor GM-CSF, which stimulates many other immune cells. They also found that these novel cells may help protect against the overwhelming, life-threatening immune reaction known as sepsis. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-newly-immune-cell-important-protector.html Immunology Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:10:01 EST news245595518 Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers have discovered the first of an entirely new class of antiangiogenesis drugs – agents that interfere with the development of blood vessels. In a report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition, the investigators describe how a compound derived from a South American tree was able, through a novel mechanism, to interfere with blood vessel formation in animal models of normal development, wound healing and tumor growth. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-07-class-antiangiogenesis-drugs.html Medical research Fri, 01 Jul 2011 12:10:05 EST news228738979