Recent research by Tel Aviv University finds that young blood does a body good when it comes to fighting cancer.

The TAU researchers, led by Prof. Shamgar Ben-Eliyahu from the Department of Psychology's Neuroimmunology Research Unit, discovered that a transfusion of "young" blood –– blood which has been stored for less than 9 days –– increased the odds of survival in animals challenged with two types of cancer. This finding, reported in the journal Anesthesiology, may solve an age-old mystery as to why some blood transfusions during cancer-related surgeries may lead to an increased recurrence of cancer and others do not.

Despite the regular onslaught of mixed messages from those in scientific research land, I still take a multivitamin most days. (Thanks, Mom, for starting me off young with those delicious Flinstone Kids niblets of nutrition.)

Placebo effect? I don't know. I do know that I feel better when I remember to take my multivitamin, iron and vitamin D supplements, and the occasional fish oil horse pill. But will it help me in the long run with any aspect of my health?

Human and veterinary medicine could receive a big boost through use of larger animals, especially pigs and dogs, in research, with Europe at the forefront, according to a recent workshop organized by the European Science Foundation (ESF), which called for a European pig clinic to facilitate generation and characterization of models of human disease that would be funded within the EU's Seventh Framework program, the main source of EU funding for research projects.

They say this will improve the prospects of bringing drugs to the market more quickly at less cost, as well as accelerating progress in other forms of therapy, notably the use of stem cells in regenerative medicine.

Scientists report that human gene mutations expressed in yeast cells can predict the severity of Batten Disease, a fatal nervous system disorder that begins during childhood. The new study published in Disease Models&Mechanisms (DMM) describes how the extent of changes in mutated cells paralleled the severity of symptoms seen in humans. 

Premature infants who need intensive care or surgery are less sensitive to thermal (hot and cold) sensations later in life, according to research conducted at UCL (University College London). The study, published in the journal Pain, suggests that pain and injury related to major medical interventions in early development may alter how children respond to painful stimuli much later in life. 

ROCKVILLE, Maryland, December 19 /PRNewswire/ --

Neuralstem, Inc. (NYSE Alternext US: CUR) announced this morning that it has filed an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to begin a clinical trial to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease).

All the cells in our body have the same set of genes.  The reason that we have arms, legs, heads, etc. is because transcription factors turn genes on and off in the right places at the right time.  This report out of Colorado Springs shows what happens when genes get turned on in the wrong place.  It appears that the poor child in this report was suffering from a teratoma:  an inappropriately placed but otherwise normal-looking  growth of a body structure in the form of a tumor.  Fortunately, the child is alive and hopefully will recover fully.

65 million years of evolution divergence and being rodents is too much difference, says  Stanford immunologist Mark Davis, PhD , so we need to do more research on humans and less on mice.  

Apparently, the fabled laboratory mouse — from which we have learned so much about how the immune system works — can teach us only so much about how we humans get sick.

Davis, director of the Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, proposes that the current mouse-centered, small-laboratory approach be supplemented by a broad, industrial-scale "systems biology" approach akin to the one that unraveled the human genome.

Everyone knows mountaineering can be dangerous and climbing Mt. Everest more dangerous than most. Counterintuitively, most deaths occur during the descent, in the so-called 'Death Zone' just above 8,000 meters. But why deaths happen hadn't really been explored until now.

An international research team has conducted the first detailed analysis of deaths during expeditions to the summit of Mt. Everest. They identified factors that appear to be associated with a greater risk of death, particularly symptoms of high-altitude cerebral edema and published their results in the British Medical Journal.

Since the 80’s, as the awareness of HIV has increased exponentially, scientists have struggled for a vaccine to quell the rising number of AIDS-related deaths occurring each year. According to an AIDS epidemic update released in December of 2006  by the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNIADS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), there were 39.5 million people worldwide living with HIV. That includes the 4.3 million newly infected individuals that year alone, and not including the 2.9 million deaths from AIDS in 2006.

Continuing my two-day streak of checking the Daily Telegraph, I found another story that seemed blog-worthy. Now when you hear that old joke about a doctor telling the patient he can play piano or the violin again, you can completely ruin the joke and say, "Actually, science suggests that he can!" Take that, joke tellers of the world.

Defective calcium metabolism in nerve cells may play a major role in a fatal genetic neurological disorder that resembles Huntington’s disease, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in a mouse study.

It is said that timing is everything, and that certainly appears to be true for autumn infants. Children who are born four months before the height of cold and flu season have a greater risk of developing childhood asthma than children born at any other time of year, according to new research. 

The study analyzed the birth and medical records of more than 95,000 children and their mothers in Tennessee to determine whether date of birth in relationship to the peak in winter respiratory viruses posed a higher risk for developing early childhood asthma. They found that while having clinically significant bronchiolitis at any age during infancy was associated with an increased risk of childhood asthma, for autumn babies, that risk was the greatest. 

A study published by researchers at Yeshiva University and its medical school, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, strongly suggests that regular attendance at religious services reduces the risk of death by approximately 20 percent. The findings, published in Psychology and Health, were based on data drawn from participants who spanned numerous religious denominations.

Need excellent boots?  W. L. Gore&Associates is the way to go.   Guitar strings?   Yep, they make those too.   Medical devices, electronics and now researchers at Rush University Medical Center are even using a small, soft-patch device made of a Gore-tex-type material to close a common hole found in the heart called a patent foramen ovale (PFO) in order to prevent recurrent strokes and transient ischemic attacks (TIAs) in adults. 

The randomized, multinational clinical research trial may determine if repairing a PFO using this device, also known as the GORE HELEX Septal Occluder, is more effective in preventing strokes than medical management alone. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently granted approval to use the device for PFO closures.

Ah, the tanning booth - a cancer-causing security blanket for high schoolers headed to spring break in Mexico and prom. (Not that I have a bias.) Sunless tanning lotions and sprays exist, of course, but the resulting tell-tale orange streaks can deter hopeful sun goddesses from the UVA/B-free alternatives.

Enter the injectable fake-bake. Melanotan is an analogue of the naturally occurring alpha-melanocyte stimulating hormone and induces melanogenesis (note: do not confused melanotan with melatonin, a hormone associated with circadian rhythms). For those willing to inject themselves with an experimental drug, melanotan seems to provide said risk-takers with a tan sans sun or tanning bed exposure.

Blood levels of resistin, a hormone produced by fat cells, can independently predict an individual's risk of heart failure, cardiologists at Emory University School of Medicine have found.

Their findings were presented Nov. 12 at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions conference in New Orleans.

"This is one of the strongest predictors of new-onset heart failure we've been able to find, and it holds up even when you control for other biomarkers and risk factors including high blood pressure and diabetes," says Javed Butler, MD, MPH, associate professor of medicine and director of heart failure research at Emory University School of Medicine.

Listening to your favorite music may be good for your cardiovascular system. Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore have shown for the first time that the emotions aroused by joyful music have a healthy effect on blood vessel function. 

For those that suffer from Huntington’s Disease or worry about its development, a new hope for a treatment may be on the horizon. Raptor Pharmaceuticals Corp. has announced that it will collaborate with researchers from French university Centre Hospitalier Universitaire d’Angers (CHU d’Angers) on the development of its proprietary drug delayed-release cysteamine bitartrate (DR Cysteamine) in a Phase II clinical trial for treatment for patients with Huntington’s Disease.

The truth is, few people know the first thing about clinical research. The public reads about a medical research project that announces unbelievable results for a miraculous drug and often jokes that it will later turn out just the opposite will be true.

And the public is often right.   For example, a 1994 headline in the San Francisco Chronicle announced “Hormones cut women’s risk of heart disease” but by 2001 that optimistic report was reversed as evidenced by a Washington Post article titled, “Hormones don’t protect women from heart disease.”