News by Subject Medicine & Health

New avenues are now being opened for future treatment of Laing distal myopathy, a rare disorder that causes muscles in the feet, hands and elsewhere to atrophy. In a study published in the journal PNAS, researchers have identified an enzyme with a clear link to how the disease develops.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina and Brigham Young University conducted a study to observe walking biomechanics of 130 subjects who have had ACL reconstruction surgery. They found people who report lingering symptoms post-surgery either underload their injured leg (6-12 months after surgery) or overload the injured leg (after the 24-month mark), as compared to those who have had the surgery but no longer report symptoms.

Pectus excavatum, pectus carinatum, Poland syndrome, sunken chest deformity, barrel chest deformity, body builder deformity, and long upper chest wall are chest wall deformities that are documented in the medical literature.

Answers to treating muscular dystrophies could lie in better understanding muscle repair -- which resembles a delicate cellular dance choreographed by special cells called fibro-adipogenic progenitors (FAPs). Now, scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have revealed that FAPs don't have just one identity -- but several distinct identities that emerge during key stages of muscle regeneration. These cells they could be targeted for drug development. The study was published in Nature Communications.

A paper published recently in the scientific journal Nature Reviews Cardiology shows that regular physical exercise and, specifically, that which is undertaken to increase muscle strength, improves cardiovascular health through non-traditional mechanisms, such as, for example, the release through the skeletal muscles of substances that are healthy for the heart (known as myokines) or the improvement in intestinal microbiota (the microorganisms in the intestines).

The physical abilities of male and female tennis stars decline at the same rate as they age, new research shows.

A drug shown to be effective in the treatment of babies with the rare muscle-wasting disease spinal muscular atrophy may be effective for muscle control even when treatment is started in children seven months and older, according to a study published in the Aug. 29, 2018, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Previous studies focused on children younger than seven months old.

Obesity is associated with a host of health problems, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. According to a new study reported in the Journal of Physiology, obesity also diminishes a person's ability to build muscle after engaging in resistance exercise.

In an Arthritis & Rheumatology study of 221 patients with knee osteoarthritis and meniscal tears, increases in inflammation of the synovial membrane (synovitis) -- whether persistently extensive or intermittent -- were linked with cartilage damage over time.