Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) believe that blood may hold vital insights into what is happening in the brain of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

In a study unparalleled in its scope, a team led by UNSW Professor Andrew Lloyd of the Centre for Infection and Inflammation Research, has studied the differences in gene expression patterns in the blood of people who either recover promptly after acute glandular fever or develop the prolonged illness called post-infective syndrome.

A recent study in Journal of Neuroimaging suggests that cognitively normal adults exhibiting atrophy of their temporal lobe or damage to blood vessels in the brain are more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Older adults showing signs of both conditions were seven-times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than their peers.

“Alzheimer’s disease, a highly debilitating and ultimately fatal neurological disease, is already associated with other risk factors such as poor cognitive scores, education or health conditions,” says study author Caterina Rosano. “This study, because it focused on healthy, cognitively normal adults, shows that there other risk factors we need to consider.”

Do pediatricians face a malpractice crisis? In the first systematic multi-year analysis of malpractice claims solely against pediatricians, researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine report in the July issue of the journal Pediatrics that the answer is neither yes nor no.

"We studied pediatricians and malpractice because while the medical malpractice issue is extremely stressful and gets a lot of press, and we all have heard numerous horror stories and anecdotes, there is little actual data reported, especially for pediatricians. So we took a retrospective, comprehensive look at malpractice claims against pediatricians. Surprisingly, we found that from 1985-2005 society hasn't become more litigious, at least not vis à vis pediatricians," said Aaron E.

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is a form of nonmelanoma skin cancer, which is the most common type of human malignancy with over 1 million new cases in the USA each year.

In the July 2 issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, two separate studies by research teams at Glasgow University and Baylor College of Medicine uncover 2 previously unidentified regulators of SCC development, providing insights into the development of this potentially lethal disease.

People who have high cholesterol levels may be much more susceptible to a particular disease transmitted by the bites of ticks, a new study in mice suggests.

Scientists infected mice with Anaplasma phagocytophilum, the bacterium that causes human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA), a disease with flu-like symptoms. Bacteria levels were 10 times greater in mice that were genetically predisposed to high cholesterol levels and that were also fed a high-cholesterol diet.

The results confirmed what the researchers had suspected – that A. phagocytophilum depends on its host's cholesterol stores for its survival.

Scientists will only make real breakthroughs in children’s medicine if they include children in research programmes as well as adults, according to a leading paediatric expert.

Professor John Warner was speaking today at the opening of the Paediatric Research Unit, the UK’s first unit solely devoted to paediatric clinical research. The unit is run by researchers from Imperial College London and St Mary’s Hospital, and it is based next to the hospital’s paediatric wards in Paddington.