Pain is a universal human experience. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defines pain as “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms of such damage.” Pain may be a symptom of an underlying disease or disorder, or a disorder in its own right.
Brain imaging study reveals the wandering mind behind insomnia — Study is the first to find functional MRI differences in working memory in people with primary insomnia – A new brain imaging study may help explain why people with insomnia often complain that they struggle to concentrate during the day even when objective evidence of a cognitive problem is lacking.
Broccoli could be key in the fight against osteoarthritis – A compound found in broccoli – sulforaphane – slows down the destruction of cartilage in joints associated with painful and often debilitating osteoarthritis. Broccoli could be a key to preventing or slowing the progress of the most common form of this arthritis – osteoarthritis.
FDA Warns of Rare Acetaminophen Risk — Acetaminophen linked to three serious skin diseases – Acetaminophen, a fever and pain reliever that is one of the most widely used medicines in the U.S., can cause rare but serious skin reactions, warns the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Urine test can diagnose, predict kidney transplant rejection — NIH-funded study describes noninvasive alternative to kidney biopsy – Analysis of three biomarkers in the urine of kidney transplant recipients can diagnose — and even predict — transplant rejection, according to results from a clinical trial sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.
Fun and friends help ease the pain of breast cancer — Kaiser Permanente study among the first to examine how social relationships influence quality of life in breast cancer patients – Breast cancer patients who say they have people with whom they have a good time, or have “positive social interactions” with, are better able to deal with pain and other physical symptoms. This study provides research-based evidence that social support helps with physical symptoms.
Vitamin D may reduce risk of uterine fibroids, according to NIH study – Women who had sufficient amounts of vitamin D were 32 percent less likely to develop fibroids than women with insufficient vitamin D, revealed researchers. Fibroids, also known as uterine leiomyomata, are noncancerous tumors of the uterus.
US FDA approves Lymphoseek to help locate lymph nodes in patients with certain cancers – breast cancer & melanoma – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Lymphoseek (technetium Tc 99m tilmanocept) Injection, a radioactive diagnostic imaging agent that helps doctors locate lymph nodes in patients with breast cancer or melanoma who are undergoing surgery to remove tumor-draining lymph nodes.
Aspirin may lower melanoma risk – Women who take aspirin have a reduced risk of developing melanoma – and that the longer they take it, the lower the risk. The findings of the new study suggest that aspirin’s anti-inflammatory effects may help protect against this type of skin cancer.
Weight loss may prevent, treat osteoarthritis in obese patients — Obesity may trigger biomechanical changes, pathways that contribute to osteoarthritis – Weight loss may prevent and significantly alleviate the symptoms of osteoarthritis, a progressive disease of the joints known as “wear and tear” arthritis. Obesity actually may trigger the biomechanical and inflammatory changes that cause osteoarthritis, and the pain and loss of mobility associated with the condition.
Cholesterol levels rise, fall with changing seasons — Shifts in metabolism, behaviors and other factors at work – Cholesterol levels seem to fluctuate significantly with the turning seasons, which may leave some people with borderline high cholesterol at greater cardiovascular risk during the winter months, showing heart attacks and heart-related deaths increase during the winter months.
Women are better at inductive reasoning: the ability to arrive at general principles from the study of detailed facts – Women may have smaller brains than men, but they are more efficient at completing a task. It has been a mystery for scientists and reasearchers why women show no difference in intelligence, although their brains are eight per cent smaller than men’s.
U of M researchers find wide variation in cesarean delivery rates among US hospitals – Cesarean delivery is the most common surgery in the United States, performed on 1.67 million American women annually. The latest study, appearing in Health Affairs, shows that cesarean delivery rates varied tenfold across U.S. hospitals, from 7.1 percent to 69.9 percent.
