risk in Biological News

Moving to the US increases cancer risk for Hispanics

PHILADELPHIA Results of a new study confirm trends that different Hispanic population groups have higher incidence rates of certain cancers and worse cancer outcomes if they live in the United States, than they do if they live in their homelands. "Hispanics are not all the same with regard to...

The way you eat may affect your risk for breast cancer

PHILADELPHIA How you eat may be just as important as how much you eat, if mice studies are any clue. Cancer researchers have long studied the role of diet on breast cancer risk, but results to date have been mixed. New findings published in Cancer Prevention Research , a journal of the Ameri...

U of M study identifies risk factors of disordered eating in overweight youth

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (July 29, 2009) University of Minnesota Project Eating Among Teens (EAT) researchers have identified factors that may increase overweight adolescents' risk of engaging in extreme weight control behaviors such as self-induced vomiting, the use of diet pills, laxatives, and di...

Reducing risk of hospitalization in the elderly

Older adults who have less strength, poor physical function and low muscle density are at higher risk of being hospitalized compared to adults with more strength and better function. That's the finding of a new study in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society . The study also found that ...

UTMB study identifies women at risk of gaining excessive weight with injectable birth control

GALVESTON, Texas Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston have identified women who are likely to gain weight while using depot medroxyprogesterone acetate, more commonly known as Depo-Provera or the birth control shot. These findings dispel the myth that all women who u...

Fruit and vegetable intake in pregnant women reduces risk of upper respiratory tract infection

(Boston) Boston University School of Medicine researchers (BUSM) have observed in a study of pregnant women that consumption of at least seven servings per day of fruits and vegetables moderately reduced the risk of developing an upper respiratory tract infection (URTI). The BUSM study appears o...

Women with endometriosis need special care during pregnancy to avoid risk of premature birth

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: The largest study to date of endometriosis in pregnant women has found that the condition is a major risk factor for premature birth, the 25th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology heard today (Wednesday July 1). Dr. Henrik Falco...

Study characterizes eczema patients most at risk for dangerous viral infections

Eczema patients at risk for serious viral infections have more severe disease, are more likely to be allergic to food and other allergens, and have a frequent history of staph infections, according to researchers at National Jewish Health and other institutions in the NIH-funded Atopic Dermatitis ...

The battle for CRTC2: How obesity increases the risk for diabetes

La Jolla, CAObesity is probably the most important factor in the development of insulin resistance, but science's understanding of the chain of events is still spotty. Now, researchers at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have filled in the gap and identified the missing link between the t...

Pre-pregnancy depressed mood may heighten risk for premature birth

Researchers trying to uncover why premature birth is a growing problem in the United States and one that disproportionately affects black women have found that pre-pregnancy depressive mood appears to be a risk factor in preterm birth among both blacks and whites. Black women, however, have nea...

Researchers identify new risk factor gene for rheumatoid arthritis

Scientists at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research and a team of collaborators from across the country have identified a new risk factor gene for rheumatoid arthritis. The paper will be published in Nature Genetics and the finding brings light to the nature of the disease. The gene, dubb...

Scientists examine perceptions of risk and the spread of disease

KNOXVILLE -- As swine flu spread from Mexico to Texas and then fanned out farther in the United States, Americans began to alter their behavior. Families kept children home from school, postponed trips to the mall, and stayed home instead of eating out. In so doing, the American population may hav...

Next-generation software system for flood warning and risk analysis to be developed

This release is available in Chinese . Flooding is a wide spread and devastating natural disaster across the globe. It is the worst natural disaster in the UK, causing annual damage of about 1.5 billion. The ...

Penn researchers discover genetic risk factor for testicular cancer

(PHILADELPHIA) Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have uncovered variation around two genes that are associated with an increased risk of testicular cancer. Testicular cancer is the most common cancer among young men, and its incidence among non-Hispanic Caucasian ...

Genetic testing for breast or ovarian cancer risk may be greatly underutilized

Although a test for gene mutations known to significantly increase the risk of hereditary breast or ovarian cancer has been available for more than a decade, a new study finds that few women with family histories of these cancers are even discussing genetic testing with their physicians or other h...

Babies born to native high-altitude mothers have decreased risk of low birth weight

BETHESDA, Md. (May 18, 2009) Pregnant women who are indigenous to the Andes Mountains deliver more blood and oxygen to their fetuses at high altitude than do women of European descent. The study helps explain why babies of Andean descent born at high altitude weigh more than European babies born a...

Study finds novel genetic risk factors for kidney disease

A team of researchers from the United States, the Netherlands and Iceland has identified three genes containing common mutations that are associated with altered kidney disease risk. One of the discovered genes, the UMOD gene, produces Tamm-Horsfall protein, the most common protein in the urine of...

Drinking diet soda may reduce the risk of forming kidney stones

LINTHICUM, MD, April 26, 2009Patients with stone disease could benefit from drinking diet soda. New research from the University of California, San Francisco suggests that the citrate and malate content in commonly consumed sodas may be sufficient to inhibit the development of calcium stones. The ...

Researchers identify a molecule that increases the risk of cardiac insufficiency

This release is available in Spanish . A team of scientists from the Center for Applied Medical Research (CIMA) of the University of Navarra has identified a key enzyme in the development of cardiac insufficiency. This enzyme is involved in the accumulation of fibrous tissues in the heart...

Drinking 100 percent fruit juice is associated with lower risk of obesity and metabolic syndrome

New Orleans (April 22, 2009) If you enjoy a glass of 100% juice as part of your daily routine, chances are you also have fewer risk factors for several chronic diseases when compared to your non juice-drinking peers. New research presented today at the Experimental Biology (EB) 2009 meeting highl...

Eating fatty fish once a week reduces men's risk of heart failure

BOSTON Eating salmon or other fatty fish just once a week helped reduce men's risk of heart failure, adding to growing evidence that omega-3 fatty acids are of benefit to cardiac health. Led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and reported in today's on-line issue of t...

Agent Orange exposure increases veterans' risk of aggressive recurrence of prostate cancer

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Veterans exposed to Agent Orange are at increased risk of aggressive recurrence of prostate cancer, researchers report. A study of 1,495 veterans who underwent radical prostatectomy to remove their cancerous prostates showed that the 206 exposed to Agent Orange had nearly a 50 pe...

Immigrant women may be at higher risk of having a baby with a birth defect

TORONTO, Ont., April 16 2009 Immigrant women are less likely to use folic acid supplements before pregnancy to prevent spina bifida, particularly those who recently immigrated to the country, according to a new study led by a St. Michael's Hospital physician in collaboration with Statistics Canad...

Altered gene can increase risk of schizophrenia

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. Rutgers geneticist Linda Brzustowicz and her colleagues have identified a specific DNA change that is likely to increase risk for developing schizophrenia in some people. It provides a potential mechanism that may be a point of entry for drug therapy, consistent with the growi...

Common gene variants influence risk factor for sudden cardiac death

A new study has identified several common genetic variants related to a risk factor for sudden cardiac death. The report receiving early online release in the journal Nature Genetics identifies variants in genes, some known and some newly discovered, that influence the QT interval measured on th...

Genetic risk factors identified for sudden cardiac death

Building on these findings, the Helmholtz scientists and their clinical partners want to obtain further insights into the pathogenesic mechanisms of the disease and gain perspectives for early diagnosis and therapy. The results of the genome-wide study have been published online in the journal Na...

Hopkins scientists ID 10 genes associated with a risk factor for sudden cardiac death

One minute, he's a strapping 40-year-old with an enviable cholesterol level, working out on his treadmill. The next, he's dead. That an abnormality in his heart's electrical system had managed to stay on the Q.T. until it proved lethal is characteristic of sudden cardiac death, which an...

Genetic irregularities linked to higher risk of COPD among smokers

DURHAM, N.C. Scientists at Duke University Medical Center have discovered two genetic markers that appear to put some smokers at significantly higher risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The findings come from the first-ever genome-wide association study of COPD an...

Scots and Irish at greater risk of drink-related death, study shows

Alcohol-related deaths in England and Wales are twice as high among people born in Scotland or Ireland compared with the rest of the population, a study has shown. Research, conducted by the University of Edinburgh and the Office for National Statistics, also found that men born in India but l...

Genetic abnormality may increase risk of blood disorders

NEW YORK, March 15, 2009 Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) have shown for the first time that a tendency to develop some blood disorders may be inherited. Their research, published online today in Nature Genetics , identifies a common genetic sequence abnormality that...

Low levels of vitamin B12 may increase risk for neural tube defects

Children born to women who have low blood levels of vitamin B12 shortly before and after conception may have an increased risk of a neural tube defect, according to an analysis by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, Trinity College Dublin, and the Health Research Board of Ireland. ...

Autism Speaks funds $5 million to studies on genetic and environmental risk factors for autism

NEW YORK, NY (February 26,2009) Autism Speaks, the nation's largest autism science and advocacy organization, today announced that it has committed $5 million to investigate genetic and environmental risk factors for autism. The project will expand and link two large-scale, multi-site studies fo...

Predicting risk of stroke from one's genetic blueprint

Boston, MAA new statistical model could be used to predict an individual's lifetime risk of stroke, finds a study from the Children's Hospital Informatics Program (CHIP). Using genetic information from 569 hospital patients, the researchers showed that their predictive model could estimate an indi...

Lowering your cholesterol may decrease your risk of cancer

Boston, MA Current research suggests that lowering cholesterol may block the growth of prostate tumors. The related report by Solomon et al, "Ezetimibe Is an Inhibitor of Tumor Angiogenesis," appears in the March 2009 issue of The American Journal of Pathology . High cholesterol not only lea...

Gene mutation increases drug toxicity, rejection risk in pediatric kidney transplants

CINCINNATI Screening for mutations in a gene that helps the body metabolize a kidney transplant anti-rejection drug may predict which children are at higher risk for side effects, including compromised white blood cell count or organ rejection, according to new research. Published online Feb. ...

Common gene variants increase risk of hypertension, may lead to new therapies

A new study has identified the first common gene variants associated with an increased incidence of hypertension a significant risk factor for heart attack, stroke and kidney failure. The report receiving early online release in the journal Nature Genetics identifies variants in genes for prote...

Swimmers at public beaches show increased risk of exposure to contagious staph bacteria

Research, funded by multiple agencies and conducted by the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science and Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, found that swimmers using public ocean beaches increase their risk for exposure to staph organisms, and may increase their ...

Beach vacations may increase future skin cancer risk in children

PHILADELPHIA Vacationing at the shore led to a 5 percent increase in nevi (more commonly called "moles") among 7-year-old children, according to a paper published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention , a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. Number of nevi is ...

TGen and ASU researchers find drug that could reduce risk of Alzheimer's

PHOENIX, Ariz. Feb. 2, 2009 A drug used to improve blood flow to the brain also could help improve learning and memory and reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study released today by investigators at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Arizona State Un...

Research exposes the risk to infants from the chemicals used in liquid medicines

A team of medical scientists from the University of Leicester has published research which looks into the harmful substances in liquid medicines that premature babies are being exposed to. Research published today (Jan 20) ahead of print in the Fetal & Neonatal Edition of Archives of Disease ...