Short course: Study unpicks gene changes behind breast cancer

The research,the first of its kind,untangles the genetic history of how cancer evolves,allowing scientists to identify mutational patterns that fuel the growth of breast tumours,and start to work out the processes behind them.

“These findings have implications for our understanding of how breast cancers develop over the decades before diagnosis in adults and might help to find possible targets for improved diagnosis or therapeutic intervention in the future,” said Mike Stratton,who led the research team.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to delve fully into breast cancer genomes in such a thorough way,” said Peter Campbell,head of cancer genetics and genomics at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge,where the studies were led.

Sex,age may affect concussion recovery

NEW YORK: Female and high school athletes may need more time to recover from a concussion than their male or college counterparts,a new study finds.

The findings,which appear in the American Journal of Sports Medicine,are based on 222 high school and college athletes who suffered a concussion over two years. Researchers found that female athletes tended to have more symptoms than males. They also scored lower on tests of “visual memory” — the ability to recall information about something you’ve seen.

Meanwhile,high school athletes fared worse on memory tests than college players,and typically took longer to improve.

For parents,coaches and athletes,the key message is to have patience with concussion recovery,according to lead researcher Tracey Covassin,an assistant professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing. “It’s going to take time for your child to fully recover,so don’t rush them back into the sport,” Covassin said.

And some extra time,she said,may be in order for female athletes and high schoolers.

Breastfed babies may gain less weight

NEW YORK: Babies who are fed milk from their mothers’ breasts gain less weight over their first year compared to babies fed milk — breast or formula — from a bottle,suggests a new study.

The lead author said the difference may come down to how much of a role babies play in deciding when to stop feeding,instead of parents forcing them to finish a bottle. “If the babies are fed by the breast,they play a very active role,because they are the ones who decide when to suckle and when to stop,” said Dr Ruowei Li,of the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

Li said some researchers believe that “if the babies are fed with the bottle,they will gradually lose their self-regulation of their energy intake and the internal cues of satiety and hunger.”

Also,when mothers did a combination of breastfeeding and bottle feeding with human milk only,babies didn’t gain any extra weight.