Falls a risk after stroke survivors leave hospital
During the 6-month period following a stroke, falls are common and often result in injury requiring medical treatment, according to surveys of more than 1000 stroke survivors in New Zealand.
Once stroke patients leave the hospital, their risk of falling is double that of people who haven’t had a stroke, Dr. Ngaire Kerse of the University of Auckland told Reuters Health.
“Fall prevention should be part of stroke rehabilitation,” she stressed.
Kidney plus pancreas transplant best for diabetics
People with type 1 diabetes who need a kidney transplant, as many do, fare better over the long term when they receive a pancreas transplant at the same time, according to researchers from the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
“Our study shows that a functioning pancreas has a benefit for the simultaneously transplanted kidney,” lead investigator Dr. Christian Morath said in a statement. “At the same time, this procedure prolongs the survival of the patient, compared to a patient who received only a kidney transplant.”
The reason for the improved survival with simultaneous pancreas-and-kidney transplantation is not fully known, but likely relates to the enhanced glucose control achieved with the combined procedure, the researchers note in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Alzheimer’s brain plaques cleared in mice
Protein accumulations, or plaques, characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease can be eliminated from the brains of mice, researchers report, by encouraging scavenger immune cells called macrophages to do their work.
The activity of macrophages is damped down by a naturally occurring compound called TGF-beta, to stop runaway reactions, and prior research has shown that brain levels of TGF-beta are increased in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, according to the report in the research journal Nature Medicine.
Some researchers believed that the high levels of TGF-beta were simply an attempt to quiet the inflammatory response associated with Alzheimer plaques. However, the new findings contradict that notion.
Canadian film festival to highlight breast cancer
Toronto will host a movie event billed as the world’s first-ever film festival dedicated to breast cancer awareness, a Canadian charity said.
Breast Fest will showcase feature-length and short films, documentaries, animation, and experimental works that highlight breast cancer, an illness that afflicts more than 1 million women worldwide each year.
“We want this to be international and we want people to be able to share their experiences with breast cancer from their perspective from within their country and their unique experience,” MJ DeCoteau, the executive director of the charity Rethink Breast Cancer which is organizing the event, said in an interview.
