Dogs Find Prostate Cancer by Smell

Scientists in Italy say they have trained two dogs to "sniff out" prostate cancer with more than 90% accuracy. The researchers say using dogs to diagnose the disease could provide an alternative to the current blood test for prostate-specific antigen (PSA), which can give false results in men who do not have prostate cancer.

Military Sniffer Dogs

They then trained two 3-year-old female German shepherds to sniff out specific volatile organic compounds in urine associated with prostate cancer. Both the dogs, Zoe and Liu, had previously been trained in bomb detection work with the Italian armed forces. Далее-см. источник.  

 

Babies May Be More Sensitive to Pain Than Adults

TUESDAY, April 21, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Babies feel pain in much the same way as adults, says a new study that challenges some experts' beliefs that babies don't feel pain. Some people have argued that babies' brains aren't developed enough for them to really "feel" pain, said study lead author Dr. Rebeccah Slater, of the department of pediatrics at Oxford University in England. "Our study provides the first really strong evidence that this is not the case," Slater said. "Our study suggests that not only do babies experience pain, but they may be more sensitive to it than adults," she said in a university news release. The study included 10 healthy infants, ages 1 to 6 days, and 10 healthy adults, ages 23 to 36. All underwent MRI scans of their brains while they were poked on the bottom of their feet. The results showed that 18 of the 20 brain regions that were active in adults in response to pain were also active in babies. The scans also showed that babies had the same response to a weak poke as adults did to a poke that was four times stronger, which suggests that babies have a much lower pain threshold than adults, said the researchers. The study was published in the April 21 issue of the journal eLife. "Up until recently, people didn't think it was possible to study pain in babies using MRI because, unlike adults, they don't keep still in the scanner," Slater said. But babies less than a week old are more docile than older babies, and "we found that their parents were able to get them to fall asleep inside a scanner so that, for the first time, we could study pain in the infant brain using MRI," she explained. This is particularly important when it comes to pain, she said, since babies can't verbalize their experience of pain and it is difficult to assess pain from visual observations. Slater said babies undergo painful procedures every day, but there are often no pain management guidelines to help clinicians. "We have to think that if we would provide pain relief for an older child undergoing a procedure, then we should look at giving pain relief to an infant undergoing a similar procedure," Slater concluded. SOURCE: Oxford University, news release, April 21, 2015  

 

Stronger Muscles = Healthier Bones in Kids

Stronger muscles seems to mean healthier bones in children, according to a new study. "Bone strength and size is important because they are significant factors in long-term osteoporosis and fracture risk," said lead investigator Dr. Rebecca Moon, of the University of Southampton in England. "A 10 percent increase in peak bone mass will delay the onset of osteoporosis by 13 years. These findings point to the importance of early childhood physical activity to optimize muscle and bone growth," she said in a university news release. For the study, the researchers assessed 200 British children soon after birth and again when they were 6 to 7 years old, and found a link between higher amounts of lean muscle and healthy bone development. The connection between lean muscle and bone development was stronger in girls than in boys. There was no association between fat and bone development, suggesting that fat is not an important factor in children's bone health, the researchers said. Было опубликовано University of Southampton, news release, April 14, 2015