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Global Warming Found As Thread to 1 in Every 6 Species

April 30, 2015 By Bonnie Gleason Leave a Comment

Climate change could lead to the extinction of almost one in six plant and animal species, according to a new report.

Mark Urban, an ecologist at the University of Connecticut, also discovered that as the planet will continue to warm in the future, species will start disappearing at a faster rate, according to a research published Thursday in the journal Science.

“We have the choice. The world can decide where on that curve they want the future Earth to be,” he warned in an interview.

As critical as Dr. Urban’s findings are, other scientists said the real events might turn out to be even worse. The number of species disappearance “might well be two to three times higher,” explained John J. Wiens, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona.

Global warming has elevated the planet’s average surface temperature with almost 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution. Species are reacting to the changes by shifting their habits and ranges.

In 2003, Camille Parmesan of the University of Texas and Gary Yohe of Wesleyan University carried out an analysis of more than 1,700 animal and plant species. The two researchers found that, on average, the species ranges moved approximately 3.8 miles per decade closer the planet’s poles.

If emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide continue to increase, climate scientists project the world will warm by almost 8 degrees Fahrenheit. While the climate continues to change, experts fear some species will remain without a suitable habitat and disappear.

Hundreds of reports published over the past 20 years have offered a wide range of predictions on the number of extinctions that will happen as global warming worsens. Some have said that only few extinctions will occur, while others have foreseen that half of species face extinction.

Some scientists examined only plants from the Amazon regions, while others analyzed butterflies in Canada. In some cases, experts assumed only a couple of degrees of warming, while others considered much hotter scenarios, which could explain the difference in opinion. Because researchers were not always able to explain just how quickly a specific species will shift ranges, they sometimes offered a range of estimates.

Dr. Urban focused on 131 studies examining plants, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, and invertebrates which live all around the planet. He discovered that 7.9 percent of species were expected to become extinct because of climate change.

Image Source: Earth Times

Bullying Worse For Mental Health Than Child Abuse

April 28, 2015 By Jac Hardy Leave a Comment

A new study suggests that children who are bullied at school could be more likely to suffer from mental health issues later in life than those who are abused by adults.

Previous studies has linked physical, sexual and emotional abuse during childhood to psychological problems later in life. According to the new research, bullying can have severe, long-lasting physical and psychological effects.

For the new study, scientists looked for links between being bullied and long term mental health problems. The researchers wanted to know whether mental health problems in children exposed to these experiences are the result of both maltreatment and bullying or just bullying alone.

“We found, somewhat surprisingly, that those who were bullied and maltreated were not at higher risk than those just bullied,” senior study author Dieter Wolke, a psychology professor at the University of Warwick in the U.K.

The data was gathered from two large studies that analyzed mental health in children and then observed them at least until turning 18-years old. One study, from the U.S., was focused on more than 1,200 participants. Another, conducted in the U.K., involved over 4,000.

Both studies meant a series of interviews with parents to discover abuse in younger children, but also reports of bullying incidents by older children.

As young adults, almost 19 percent in the U.K. focus group and more than 18 percent in the U.S. group had been affected by mental health problems such as anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.

After eliminating other family factors that could have contributed to psychological issues, the scientists discovered an increased risk of depression among abused children in the United States group, a trend which was not found in United Kingdom group.

In both studies, however, mental health issues were dramatically more likely in kids who were bullied by other children than in kids who were abused.

It’s possible that abuse was not reported by parents whom were asked about their children, the scientists say in the study, which published in The Lancet Psychiatry and explained at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in San Diego. The study also did not account the severity of abuse or the age at which it happened.

Even so, the results show the need for parents, teachers and doctors to pay more attention to bullying.

“It is particularly novel that they found bullying is a greater source of mental health problems than maltreatment,” said Catherine Bradshaw, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence in Baltimore.

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Diet Swap Shows Junk Food Is Harmful To Gut

April 28, 2015 By Dustin Davis Leave a Comment

A two-week diet change experiment pinpoints the damage levels which a Western diet could have on our guts.

Scientists asked people to swap diets for two weeks – 20 volunteers from the United States went on a low-fat, high-fiber diet while other 20 volunteers from the rural parts of Africa were asked to eat more fast-food.

Although the change was brief, its impact was noticeable, Nature Communication explained. The Americans had far less bowel inflammation, while the African volunteers’ gut health had deteriorated. Experts say that it is not possible to draw any firm conclusions based this very small scale study, but the conclusions remain.

The findings point to the current belief that modern Western diets – which are very high in sugar and fat and low in fiber – are bad for our health.

Other studies which focused on Japanese migrants to Hawaii have revealed that it takes only one generation of junk-food consumers to modify their low incidence of colon cancer to the high levels seen in native Hawaiians. Also, the study shows that a high intake of dietary fiber, especially whole grains and cereals, cuts bowel cancer risk, while consuming red and processed meat dramatically increases the risk.

In the diet change study, the Western-style diet offered to the native African people was typical fast food, composed of burgers and fries. The US volunteers, on the other hand, where switched to a diet containing many pulses and beans. All the participants had underwent a series of medical tests before and after the diet swap.

The changes seemed to have a significant impact on the cells lining in the gut, but also on the way the bacteria that lives in the bowel moves – with the US volunteers recording an improvement.

“In just two weeks, a change in diet from a Westernised composition to a traditional African high-fibre, low-fat diet reduced these biomarkers of cancer risk, indicating that it is likely never too late to modify the risk of colon cancer,” said lead researcher Dr Stephen O’Keefe, from the University of Pittsburgh.

Experts believe that almost a third of bowel cancer cases can be fend off by eating more healthy food. A spokesman for Cancer Research from the United Kingdom explained that larger and longer research are still needed. “The diet swap was also fairly drastic whereas we know that making small changes you can stick with long-term is far more effective to maintain a healthier lifestyle”, he mentioned.

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Brain Scans May Discover Concussion-related Disease

April 7, 2015 By Sandy Morton Leave a Comment

According to a new study, a brain scan could improve the possibility of detecting a condition early on in its development, improving the chances for success in most experimental treatments.

A brain-scanning approach could one day help discover people with illnesses linked to concussions in football and other contact sports, where most diseases are hard to detect, being diagnosed only after death, a small research announced.

Brain scans of 14 retired football players whom could suffer from the condition, called CTE, revealed an abnormal protein pattern, which resembled that found at autopsy of a former footballer who died because of it.

CTE means chronic traumatic encephalopathy. It is relatively common among athletes or others who have suffered repeated head concussions or have received other blows to the head. It is a main factor for progressive brain degeneration, while its symptoms include confusion, memory loss, depression, aggression and progressive dementia.

The scientists still haven’t found a cure for the disease. The brain-scanning technique could increase the possibility of discovering the illness early on, when the chances for the success of experimental treatments would be greatest, according to study authors. It could also help athletes retire sooner from sport, before irreversibly damaging their brains, explained Dr. Julian Bailes, co-director of the NorthShore Neurological Institute in Evanston, Illinois.

The results of the research he co-authored were released Monday at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study concentrated its attention on 14 retired football players. One of them was suffering from dementia, 12 had a mild cognitive impairment, a form of mental functioning deficit, while the other didn’t show any obvious symptoms. All the participants had a history of blows to the head and repeated concussions.

They were injected with a substance that shows the deposits of an abnormal protein which has been often found in CTE at autopsies. The substance makes the proteins visible at the PET scan.

According to Dr. Joseph Maroon, from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, the results are “a major step forward in detecting CTE prior to death.” The scientist added the results can be very helpful in the future, making way for larger studies to investigate the approach’s’ usefulness.

The new technique could bring out a more definitive solution to the issue when scientists will discover the binding substance that is found in the abnormal protein pattern.

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New Test, Extremely Accurate In Detecting Down Syndrome

April 2, 2015 By Dean Frazier Leave a Comment

A new test, based on DNA blood, has been found to be more efficient in detecting Down syndrome in unborn children than other investigative methods for this genetic disorder, according to researchers.

The test showed perfect accuracy in a clinical trial, exposing Down syndrome in all the 38 women whose unborn children had inherited the disorder, announced a report published on April 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Standard screening methods managed to detect the Down syndrome in only 30 of the 38 future mothers. In the new test, scientists researched fetal DNA which is present in a pregnant woman’s bloodstream. Greater quantities of this fetal DNA in a woman’s blood, say the doctors, is a clear indication that her unborn child is suffering from Down syndrome.

“It is clearly a better test than what we’re currently using. If one is looking at screening specifically for Down syndrome, there’s no question this test is better for that purpose,” said study lead author Dr. Mary Norton, a professor and vice chair of clinical and transitional genetics at the University of California, San Francisco.

Experts recommend that even in the case of a positive result, mothers should take an invasive diagnostic test, like amniocentesis, before taking any measures regarding their pregnancy.

Down syndrome is a disease that happens when a baby has an extra copy of chromosome 21 in its DNA. The birth fault can cause intellectual and physical disabilities, but also other health problems, as well.

Until now, screening for Down syndrome was usually done by taking a blood test and an ultrasound early in the pregnancy. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains that the blood test is a good indicator for patterns of specific substances in a mother’s blood which are connected with chromosomal problems that cause Down syndrome. The ultrasound examines the body of the fetus for indications of birth defects.

The clinical trial involved a cell-free DNA screening test, which must be carried out at 10 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. The new test has been available since 2011.

Cell-free DNA tests have been used before, but to check if older women present a higher risk for birth defects. More than 15,000 women over the age of 31 participated to the clinical trial.

Besides its excellent accuracy, the cell-free DNA test had a much smaller rate of false-positive results than regular screening — 0.06 percent versus 5.4 percent, the study authors said.

Image Source: Noah’s Dad

Ancient Humans Were Similar in Size To Modern Humans, Research Finds

March 30, 2015 By Dustin Davis Leave a Comment

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Tubingen,Germany have carried out a new study which has investigated if our human ancestors were similar to us regarding the shape and the size of their bodies. The research discovered that this diversity was present as far back as two million years ago.

“What we’re seeing is perhaps the beginning of a unique characteristic of our own species. It is the origin of diversity,” said study co-author Jay Stock, of the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Cambridge.

This is the first research that has compared the body size of early humans. The scientists used fossils from 1.5 million to 2.5 million years ago.

“It’s possible to interpret our findings as revealing that there were either multiple species of early humans, such as Homo ergaster, Homo habilisand Homo rudolfensis, or one extremely diverse species. This fits well with recent cranial evidence for the extraordinary diversity among early members of the genus Homo”, said the researcher.

The study also revealed that early humans had heights ranging from 4’8” to nearly six feet tall, which is very similar to the average of height of the modern human.

One of the most credible theories of our evolution is that genus Homo evolved from an early human ancestor, which had a small stature, and then become the taller, heavier Homo erectus, which also had longer legs. Homo erectus was thus able to migrate beyond Africa and settle in Eurasia. Until now, the geographic origin and the timing of the larger body size has remained unknown.

According to the new study, the main increase in body size occurred tens of thousands of years after Homo erectus left Africa. Before then, our ancestors were rarely over 5 feet tall or particularly heavy in body mass, said the co-author of this study, which was published in the March 27 issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.

The study also discovered that the shift to taller humans happened in one place in particular, the Koobi Fora region in Kenya, around 1,7 milion years ago. “That means we can now start thinking about what regional conditions drove the emergence of this diversity, rather than seeing body size as a fixed and fundamental characteristic of a species”, Stock concluded.

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Most Parents Can’t Tell If Their Child Is Overweight

March 30, 2015 By Sandy Morton Leave a Comment

A new study found that many parents in the United Kingdom are not aware of their children weight problem, except for the cases of extreme obesity.

The results of the research has prompted instructions that more needs to be done to aid parents comprehend official measures of overweight and obesity, but also the health risks associated with childhood obesity, and how to promote healthier diets.

A team of researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and the UCL Institute of Child Health published the results in the British Journal of General Practice.

The specialists also discovered that parents are more likely to underestimate their child’s weight if the children is male, but also if they have deprived backgrounds or are black or south Asian.

The researchers said that this information should help policymakers to raise awareness better and to develop programs to address the issue of childhood obesity.

Over the past three decades, childhood obesity has been steadily increasing in the UK as in the US. In the United States, child obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Obese and overweight children are linked to higher risk of premature death and disease in adulthood. This fact has lead to public health initiatives which target parents to change their children’s lifestyles and diet.

However, these interventions are not likely to work unless parents comprehend the official scales for measuring childhood obesity.

“If parents are unable to accurately classify their own child’s weight, they may not be willing or motivated to enact the changes to the child’s environment that promote healthy weight maintenance,” said Dr. Sanjay Kinra, senior author of the new study and reader in clinical epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The British team evaluated data from questionnaires that were filled in by the parents of almost 3,000 children in five different regions of the UK, all of them taking part in the National Child Measurement Programme (NCMP).

The National Child Measurement Programme has found that about one in five children age 4-5 years old is obese. The proportion rises to approximately one in three in the 10-11 age group.

The researchers also learned that only four parents considered their child as being very overweight or obese, despite 369 of the children were in this category.

Image Source: The Telegraph

Coffee Keeps Liver Cancer Away, Even For Heavy Drinkers

March 29, 2015 By Dean Frazier 12 Comments

A new study has found that drinking coffee reduces liver cancer risk, which is in turn increased alcohol consumption and obesity. Liver cancer is currently the second-leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide.

Coffee consumption reduces the risk of liver cancer, but also that of multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.

Researchers are not yet sure why coffee seems to keep at bay these conditions, but according to this new study, the rates of cancer were 29 percent lower in coffee consumers when compared with non-coffee drinkers.

The research suggests that while drinking alcohol can considerably increase the risk of liver cancer, the risk is much higher for people consuming more than three drinks per day.

The study also shown that more than two alcoholic drinks per day mean an increase of the risk of breast and esophageal cancer. The scientists who carried out the study analyzed at data from 34 different research groups, which involved more than 8.2 million people from all around the world.

Liver cancer is a disease that is on the rise in the United States. Almost 69 percent of Americans are currently overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“This is the first time there’s been such a clear signal from a rigorous, systematic review on the links between obesity increasing risk of liver cancer and coffee decreasing risk,” said Stephen Hursting, Ph.D., M.P.H., a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The research was undertaken by doctors from the World Cancer Research Fund International’s Continuous Update Project (CUP), in partnership with the American Institute for Cancer Research. The study gathered data from 24,500 cases of liver cancer.

The scientists also discovered that eating fish and engaging in exercise reduce liver cancer risk, but added that these conclusions need more research to be confirmed.

The group also claims that there is strong evidence that being obese or overweight increases the risk of the disease. Another factor that raises the risk is consuming foods contaminated by a kind of mold called aflatoxins. Aflatoxins can form on improperly stored food mostly in warm climates and can contaminate cereals, peanuts, spices, dried fruit, chilies and black pepper.

To prevent liver cancer, a healthy weight and limit alcohol should be maintained, the study added.

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Roseroot Herb Could Treat Depression

March 28, 2015 By Sandy Morton 1 Comment

A herb used in Europe for over 3,000 years as a remedy for many diseases could be useful in the treatment of depression, according to the results of a new research.

The study was published in Phytomedicine. Dr. Jun J. Mao, an associate professor of epidemiology, family medicine and community health at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania led the research

Rhodiola rosea, also known as roseroot, has been used in traditional folk medicine to enhance work endurance, increase longevity and as a cure for several health conditions including altitude sickness, fatigue and depression.

Previous research have discovered that roseroot could boost mood by stimulating receptors of neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin in the brain. Other studies also suggests that roseroot affects beta-endorphin levels in the body.

The new study was the first ever randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind comparison trial of roseroot extract. The doctors compared its effects on mild to moderate major depressive disorder with a commonly prescribed antidepressant therapy, called sertraline.

More than 19 million Americans estimated to develop depression each year. Depression is also associated with a high risk of suicide and with other disorders and physical illnesses.

Around 70% of patients with depression are not fully responding to therapy with conventional antidepressants. These drugs can often have serious side effects that prevent patients from completing their treatment.

”It is not surprising that depressive symptoms are among the most common reasons cited by consumers to choose alternative therapy,”, said the author of the study.

The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the preliminary safety and efficiency of roseroot for treating mild to moderate depression, and also to discover if the herb could be utilized as a base for alternative therapy.

The study evaluated the results on 57 adults. Each participant displayed two or more major depressive episodes, loss of interest in activities for at least 2 weeks, a depressed mood and depressive symptoms such as fatigue, important unintentional weight change and recurrent thoughts of death.

Each participant received for 12 weeks either standardized roseroot extract, a placebo or sertraline. The doctors measured the development in the participants’ depression during this period.

The researchers learned that even if the participants receiving sertraline were more likely to improve their symptoms at the end of the 12 weeks survey than the patients receiving roseroot extract, the differences were not very significant.

Patients taking roseroot had 1.4 times the odds of improvement, while patients taking sertraline had 1.9 times the odds in comparison with participants receiving a placebo,

Image Source: Go Botany

Magnets Can Bend Sound and Heat

March 23, 2015 By Bonnie Gleason Leave a Comment

A team of researches has discovered that magnetic fields can have a great impact over heat and sound waves.

The scientists specialized in nanotechnology from Ohio State University discovered that magnets can impact our lives in ways that were not believed possible before. Years after researchers have used them for medical imaging or quantum computing, and also in astronomy, where natural magnetism is used to amplify signals of light from distant galaxies, the new report states that it a new way of controlling acoustic phonons was discovered.

In the results published in the Nature Materials, the team from Ohio State University announced that these particles that transmit heat and sound waves can be guided by using a magnetic field by the size of a regular MRI machine, which is used in medicine.

Even though heat and sound seem to be very different, they share the same origin. In quantum mechanics term, both sound and heat are the expressions of the same form of energy.

Lead researcher of the study Joseph Heremans said that the discovery adds a new dimension to our understanding of acoustic waves. “We’ve shown that we can steer heat magnetically. With strong enough magnetic fields, we should be able to steer sound waves, also”, he explained.

Phonons, which are considered to be the cousins of photons, are particles of heat and sound. Since Albert Einstein discovered the photoelectric effect, researchers have looked with great interest at the properties of lights which reveal not only their magnetic properties, but also their dual forms. On the other hand, phonons have been neglected by major studies, mostly because their properties are revealed when they affect other materials, and rarely when they act alone.

“Heat is conducted through materials by the vibrations of atoms. The hotter a material is, the faster the atoms vibrate. Sound is also a vibration of atoms”, the lead researcher said.

In the study the scientists have shown that in exploiting a strong enough magnetic field they managed to reduce the amount of heat flowing through a semiconductor by more than 12 percent. The researchers think that with stronger magnets they will be able to control the proliferation of sound waves.

The scientists believe that in the future, people could control heat in substances which are not magnetic, such as stone, glass, and plastic.

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Vitamin D Supplements Could Slow Prostate Cancer

March 23, 2015 By Sandy Morton Leave a Comment

According to a new study vitamin D supplements could slow or even reverse the progression of prostate tumors which are less aggressive, or on a lower grade.

“We do not know as of now if vitamin D treats or prevents prostate cancer, but what it may do is keep lower-grade prostate cancers from expanding” said Bruce Hollis from the Medical University of South Carolina.

The results of the study were presented at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), in Denver, US.

According to the researched shown at the world’s largest scientific society, in cases of less agressive prostate cancer, many urologists do not treat the disease, choosing instead to keep it under ”active surveillance”, said Hollis.

“Vitamin D decreases inflammation in tissues, which is a driver of cancer,” explained the researcher.

The scientists assigned 37 men who willingly had their prostate removed for the study in order to receive 4,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D or a placebo for 60 days before having the operation.

When the prostate gland was examined After their surgery, researchers examined their prostate gland and found that many who received vitamin D had improvements in their prostate tumors, while in the placebo group tumors remained the same or got worse.

“In greater than 60 percent of those taking it, vitamin D actually made the cancer better,” added Hollis.

He mentioned that in some cases the tumor regressed, while n others the cancer disappeared. It’s an encouraging result, even fi the study was small. A larger research is expected to be carried out in the next years.

These findings indicate that taking vitamin D could help reduce the need for a radical treatment in the case of low-grade prostate tumors.

“It’s premature to make any conclusions,” said Dr. Anthony D’Amico, chief of radiation oncology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. He added that a larger study is needed and recommended that men should not start taking vitamin D supplements hoping to cure prostate cancer.

Vitamin D is produced by the body when it is exposed to sun. It is found in fatty fish or fortified dairy products. The data and conclusion of the study is considered preliminary until they will be published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

Image Source: DR Magaziner

Medical Mystery Solved: Researchers Found Solution for Cerebral Malaria

March 19, 2015 By Dustin Davis Leave a Comment

A team of researchers from Michigan State University created a compound which can kill cerebral malaria in just 48 hours.

The scientists examined MRI of cerebral malaria patients. To their own surprise, the researchers observed that there was no brain swelling in the cases of children who survived the deadly infection. On the other hand, patients who died had severe swelling inflammation. The acute swelling pushed the brain to the inferior part of the skull.

The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine. It stresses that in every minute a child is killed by cerebral malaria, one of the most dangerous diseases in the world. Even if there are drugs which can kill this parasite, in most cases the survivors can be left blind,deaf or with other disabilities.

Cerebral malaria was considered a mystery by researchers until this breakthrough. Researches were aware that brain swelling could prove to be fatal but they could not confirm this hypothesis with evidence. They used M.R.I. machines to scan the brain of patients, especially children, suffering from critical cerebral malaria.

“We discovered that some children with cerebral malaria develop massively swollen brains and those are the children who die,” said Dr. Terrie Taylor the senior author of the study and a professor at the Michigan State College of Osteopathic Medicine. She is an expert on cerebral malaria, spending half of every year in the African country of Malawi.

Malaria causes acute fever and body aches. In the case of children, the parasite attacks the brain. The infection leads to coma and then death.

The parasite causes the swelling of the brain, which is forced to the bottom of the scull. This movement compresses the brain stem which is responsible for the respiratory system. The child dies within a few seconds after the breathing has stopped.

“Because we know now that the brain swelling is what causes death, we can work to find new treatments. The next step is to identify what’s causing the swelling and then develop treatments targeting those causes,” Dr. Taylor added.

Dr. Taylor believes that more studies are needed in order to solve the entire problem, even if certain drugs like mannitol or steroids can help with the swelling.

Image Source: Consolidate Times

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