Women who eat about three servings of fish per week have a somewhat lower chance of having polyps found during a routine colonoscopy than women who eat just one serving every two weeks, according to a new study.
The research doesn’t prove that seafood protects against polyps, but it “does increase our confidence that something real is going on,” said Dr. Edward Giovannucci, a professor at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, who was not involved in this study.
A polyp, also called an adenoma, is a mushroom-shaped tag of …

On the CBS sitcom “Mike & Molly,” the title characters meet at an Overeaters Anonymous support group and embark on a romantic relationship.
It’s an uncommon look at intimacy between plus-sized partners, played mainly for laughs. But with obesity rates skyrocketing in this country, sex when one or both partners is heavy is becoming a very real issue.
Nearly 34% of American adults are obese, according to the CDC, and many more are overweight. It’s not surprising that people who are carrying extra pounds may find themselves grappling with the effects on …

According to a new study, post-menopausal women are 35 percent more likely to suffer a hip fracture if they take indigestion drugs, or “proton pump inhibitors” (PPIs).
These drugs are the most common medicines used around the world and are often used to treat heartburn and acid reflex.
However, PPIs can inhibit the absorption of calcium, which leads to the increased risk of fractures.
Researchers looked at the association between PPIs and hip fractures in just under 80,000 post-menopausal women over an eight year period from 2000 to 2008.
The team found that women …

A group of doctors have published a report claiming sugar should be regulated and taxed by the government in much the same way as tobacco and alcohol.
They claim that sugar, at the rate most Americans consume it, is more than empty calories. Sugar changes metabolism, raises blood pressure, alters the signaling of hormones and causes damage to the liver. These are similar to the health hazards posed by excessively drinking alcohol which is made from fermented and distilled sugar.
The researchers claim that sugar consumption worldwide has tripled over the last …

A study published in the British Medical Journal found a link between long-term use of proton pump inhibitors and bone fractures in smokers.
Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are used to treat heartburn, reflux and ulcers.
A UK expert said the absolute risk was small but gave women another reason not to smoke.
The research tracked almost 80,000 nurses in the US aged between 30 and 55.
They were followed up in later life to see how many had developed hip fractures after the menopause.
The researchers found that smokers or ex-smokers taking proton pump inhibitors …

The first drug that treats an underlying cause of cystic fibrosis, rather than just the symptoms, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday, more than 22 years after the gene responsible for the disease was first identified.
The drug, called Kalydeco and developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals, counters the effect of one specific mutation in the gene that accounts for 4 percent — or about 1,200 — cystic fibrosis cases in the United States.
¶ “This is a breakthrough therapy for the cystic fibrosis community because current therapies only treat …

New research reveals the effect of lycopene on the pathway that allows cancer to spread and grow throughout the body.
Lycopene is the nutrient that gives red fruits their color, but it is in highest concentrations in tomatoes. The nutrient becomes more available to the body after being cooked with oil. Lycopene intercepts cancer’s ability to make the connections it needs to attach to a healthy blood supply, reports the Telegraph.
Currently the results were only observed in a laboratory. Dr. Chopra, director of the research, told The Telegraph, “I stress that …

On Monday, the US Food and Drug Administration approved a new type of drug to treat adult patients with advanced basal-cell carcinoma, the most common type of skin cancer.
The drug’s generic name is vismodegib and was developed by the US part of Roche Holding AG. It will be sold in the US by Roche’s South San Francisco-based Genentech under the brand name Erivedge.
Basal cell carcinoma is a slow growing, painless cancer that starts in the epidermis, the top layer of skin. It usually starts in places that are regularly exposed …

Bypassing the stem cell stage, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California converted mouse skin cells directly into neural precursor cells, the cells that go on to form the three main types of cell in the brain and nervous system. They write about their findings in the 30 January early online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The findings of this and an earlier study question the idea that pluripotency (the ability to become virtually any other cell in the body, a key characteristic …

School-age children whose mothers nurtured them early in life have brains with a larger hippocampus, a key structure important to learning, memory and response to stress.
The new research, by child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is the first to show that changes in this critical region of children’s brain anatomy are linked to a mother’s nurturing.
Their research is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition (PNAS).
“This study validates something that seems to be intuitive, which is just …