Grand Roundup

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

The secret life of hair follicles, revealed by Stanford researchers: Stanford researchers delve into the cells surrounding our hair follicles to better understand what makes them grow and maintain hair. In the process, research associate Yiqin Xiong, PhD, and associate professor of medicine Ching-Pin Chang, MD, PhD, have identified a signaling circuit that controls the activity of stem cells, called “bulge cells,” within the follicle.

Ask Stanford Med: Surgeon taking questions on breast cancer diagnostics and therapies: For this month’s Ask Stanford Med installment, Fredrick Dirbas, MD, head of the Breast Disease Management Group at the Stanford Women’s Cancer Center, took questions related to breast cancer screening, dense breast notification legislation and advances in diagnostics and therapies. Dirbas will respond to a selection of the questions in a future Scope Q&A.

The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: An October article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.

Atul Butte discusses why big data is a big deal in biomedicine: Next month, Stanford Medicine and Oxford University are sponsoring a three-day conference exploring the wealth of opportunities using data-mining in biomedicine. In this Q&A, Atul Butte, MD, PhD, Stanford systems-medicine chief and the conference’s scientific program committee chair, discusses why he’s passionate about how data-mining can transform scientific research and health care and discusses the conference program.

How meditation can influence gene activity: Findings recently published in PLoS One suggest that mindful-based therapies, such as meditation, may change practitioners’ gene activity and boost their overall health.

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

The secret life of hair follicles, revealed by Stanford researchers: Stanford researchers delve into the cells surrounding our hair follicles to better understand what makes them grow and maintain hair. In the process, research associate Yiqin Xiong, PhD, and associate professor of medicine Ching-Pin Chang, MD, PhD, have identified a signaling circuit that controls the activity of stem cells, called “bulge cells,” within the follicle.

When you say nothing at all: Living with an invisible illness: Inspire contributor Dawn Nellor explores the communication gap between chronically ill patients and physicians, discusses steps she’s taken to be more proactive in her own care and explains how she has strengthened her voice as a patient. Overall, she urges physicians and patients to respect each other in an effort to achieve greater results.

Stanford and Oxford team up for conference on “big data’s” role in biomedicine: The “big data” deluge promises to accelerate the process of understanding disease while driving down the costs of developing new therapies. To underscore the wealth of opportunities for scientists who can mine these continuously growing databases in innovative ways, Stanford Medicine and Oxford University are sponsoring a three-day conference May 22-14 on the Stanford campus exploring big data’s role in biomedicine.

To meet weight loss goals, start exercise and healthy eating programs at the same time: New research from Stanford shows that to successfully slim down, a dual approach – addressing both improving eating habits and increasing physical activity – is most effective.

Quitting smoking for the baby you plan to have together: Keith Humphreys, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, provides an overview of the research and clinical evidence about smoking cessation for parents-to-be who have questions about kicking the nicotine habit.

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

When you say nothing at all: Living with an invisible illness: Inspire contributor Dawn Nellor explores the communication gap between chronically ill patients and physicians, discusses steps she’s taken to be more proactive in her own care and explains how she has strengthened her voice as a patient. Overall, she urges physicians and patients to respect each other in an effort to achieve greater results.

Getting back to the basics: A student’s experience working with the Indian Health Service: In a guest post, Layton Lamsam, a junior at Stanford, reflects on his experiences visiting the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota as part of his Rural and American Indian Health Disparities class.

How the brain processes trauma and why support, altruism can ease fear: The traumatic events at Monday’s Boston Marathon have many of us bracing ourselves for what might be coming next. A Healthland piece this week explains that this feeling of being on high alert is a result of how our brain processes traumatic experiences and advocates for using compassion to combat fear.

Lightning strikes twice: Optogenetics pioneer Karl Deisseroth’s newest technique renders tissues transparent, yet structurally intact: Stanford researchers have developed a process that turns organs transparent without compromising their original structure. In a paper recently published in Nature, they describe the process, called CLARITY, and demonstrate the technique on a mouse brain. The breakthrough holds the promise of providing a truer picture of the pathways underlying both normal mental function and neurological illnesses from autism to Alzheimer’s.

The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: An October article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

Lightning strikes twice: Optogenetics pioneer Karl Deisseroth’s newest technique renders tissues transparent, yet structurally intact: Stanford researchers have developed a process that turns organs transparent without compromising their original structure. In a paper published Wednesday in Nature, they describe the process, called CLARITY, and demonstrate the technique on a mouse brain. The breakthrough holds the promise of providing a truer picture of the pathways underlying both normal mental function and neurological illnesses from autism to Alzheimer’s.

Amyloid, schmamyloid: Stanford MS expert finds dreaded proteins may not be all bad: A pair of Stanford studies, published in recent issues of Science Translational Medicine, counteract the conventional belief that amyloid-forming proteins are universal enemies to the nervous system. The findings show that these proteins are actually beneficial in animal models of multiple sclerosis.

The smoking gun of the Iron Lady: Margaret Thatcher’s relationship with the tobacco industry: Stanford’s Robert Jackler, MD, talks about discovering how Britain’s first female prime minister became a shill for tobacco company Philip Morris.

Food allergies and school: One mom’s perspective: In a recent blog entry on MomsRising, one mother shares her anxiety about her young son, who has a life-threatening peanut allergy, starting elementary school.

The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: An October article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

Stanford center launches Huffington Post blog on the “very mysterious process” of sleep: This week, Emmanuel Mignot, MD, PhD, director of the Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine, introduced the Stanford Sleep Blog, which is being published by the Huffington Post. The blog will feature various experts from Stanford discussing presentations of real sleep medicine cases and scientific discussions.

The future of preventive medicine is in the freezer: This month, Stanford’s partner, the Cancer Prevention Institute of California, along with their colleagues in Southern California at the City of Hope National Medical Center and UC Irvine, embark on an epic research effort: asking more than 50,000 female teachers, retired teachers and school administrators all over California – participants for the last 16 years in the long-term follow-up California Teachers Study – to provide a blood sample to be stored away for future research. These “pre-diagnostic” blood samples are critical to future preventive medicine research, as they could represent the basis for blood tests or other means of ultra-early detection of disease.

My parents don’t think I’m smart enough for family medicine: One medical student’s story: A recent guest post by Raymond Tsai, a fourth-year Stanford medical student, about his decision to pursue a career in family medicine despite his parents’ objections.

The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: An October article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.

California’s new law on dense breast notification: What it means for women: Effective this month, radiologists across California will be required by law to notify women when their mammography screening shows they have dense breast tissue. To help women understand the new law and how it affects their personal health, Stanford Hospital prepared this video.

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

My parents don’t think I’m smart enough for family medicine: One medical student’s story: A guest post by Raymond Tsai, a fourth-year Stanford medical student, about his decision to pursue a career in family medicine despite his parents’ objections.

Image of the Week: Match Day 2013: On March 15, Stanford medical students, and others at institutions around the country attended Match Day celebrations and learned where they’ll be heading to residency in July. In this photo, Stanford student Danica Lomeli hugs her father, Luis, while her mother, Diana, reacts to the news that Danica will be doing her residency in family medicine at UCLA.

Director of Stanford Headache Clinic answers your questions on migraines and headache disorders: This month, Robert Cowan, MD, director of the Stanford Headache Clinic, took questions via Twitter and Scope about headache disorders, recent improvements in managing them, and the use of a multifaceted approach to treating symptoms. Here, he responds to a selection of the questions submitted in this Q&A.

New search engine designed to help physicians and the public in diagnosing rare diseases: As patients with rare diseases know, using conventional Internet search engines to diagnose a condition that occurs in less than 1 in 2000 of the population can prove tricky. So a group of European researchers developed an alternative, called FindZebra, to help physicians and patients’ conduct more effective search queries.

Matching into family medicine: Soon-to-be graduates of the School of Medicine gathered at the Li Ka Shing Center for Learning and Knowledge on March 15 for the annual Match Day celebration. However, this year was somewhat different in that almost half matched in an area of general medicine — pediatrics, general surgery, ob/gyn. The number of students matching into family medicine nearly tripled.

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

My parents don’t think I’m smart enough for family medicine: One medical student’s story: A guest post by Raymond Tsai, a fourth-year Stanford medical student, about his decision to pursue a career in family medicine despite his parents’ objections.

Ask Stanford Med: Pediatric immunologist taking questions on children’s food allergy research: This week, Kari Nadeau, MD, PhD, a pediatric immunologist at Stanford and Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, took questions about the latest research on children’s food allergies and her ongoing projects at the Stanford Alliance for Food Allergy Research. Nadeau has demonstrated that it’s possible to desensitize children to a single food allergen and is now working to identify treatments to safely address multiple food allergies at the same time.

New research shows aspirin may cut melanoma risk: Researchers at Stanford have conducted the largest study ever examining new methods for preventing melanoma and found that women who took aspirin on a regular basis decreased their risk of developing the dangerous form of skin cancer. Their findings were published online this week in the journal Cancer.

New findings on aspirin and melanoma: Another outcome of the Women’s Health Initiative: Aspirin has been shown to have protective effects on cardiovascular disease and colorectal cancer in women and now a new study from Stanford shows that we can add melanoma to that list. In a 1:2:1 podcast, Tang talked about her work and described the importance of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), from which she and her co-investigators pulled their data.

The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: An October article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

Ask Stanford Med: Director of Stanford Headache Clinic taking questions on headache disorders: This week, Robert Cowan, MD, director of the Stanford Headache Clinic, took questions about headache disorders, recent improvements in managing them, and the use of a multifaceted approach to treating symptoms. He will respond to a selection of the questions submitted in a future entry on Scope.

How mindfulness-based therapies can improve attention and health: The cover story of the latest issue of Scientific American focuses on the growing body of scientific evidence showing that mindfulness training lowers psychological stress and boosts both mental and physical health. The piece outlines how research over the past three decades has shown that mindfulness-based therapies can be useful in treating anxiety disorders, preventing recurrence of depression and easing chronic pain.

Stanford pediatric AIDS expert: Was the baby really cured? There has been much talk about a baby born with HIV who was reportedly cured of the disease – only the second documented case of an AIDS “cure.” In this entry, Yvonne Maldonado, MD, a pediatric AIDS expert at Stanford, offers her perspective on the Mississippi child’s treatment and discusses why there are still many questions to be answered before declaring this case a truly functional cure.

Medical students create online newspaper to promote the voice of physicians-in-training: In a recent guest post on the SA Incubator blog, a pair of Albany Medical College students discuss their motivation for launching an online newspaper where the content is created entirely by physicians-in-training for their peers.

What does the sugar-diabetes finding mean for Type 1 diabetes?: Several readers asked why our coverage of a recent diabetes study did not specify that the findings apply only to Type 2 diabetes. The short answer is that the study itself did not distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

New evidence for a direct sugar-to-diabetes link: Results of a large epidemiological study suggest sugar may also have a direct, independent link to diabetes. Stanford researchers and colleagues analyzed data on sugar availability and diabetes rates from 175 countries over the past 10 years; after accounting for obesity and a large array of other factors, the findings showed that increased sugar in a population’s food supply was linked to higher diabetes rates, independent of obesity rates.

“What’s that?” Stanford researchers identify cells important to hearing loss: Stanford researchers have discovered a group of progenitor cells in the inner ear that can become the sensory hair cells and adjacent supporting cells that enable hearing. Future research on these progenitor cells holds the promise to yield treatments that could help millions of Americans suffering from hearing loss due to damaged or impaired sensory hair cells.

Ask Stanford Med: Answers to your questions about heart health and cardiovascular research: In this Q&A, William Fearon, MD, an interventional cardiologist at Stanford, responds to Scope readers’ questions about heart conditions and cardiovascular research as part of our Ask Stanford Med series.

The science of willpower: The popular Stanford Continuing Studies course “The Science of Willpower” served as inspiration for the latest book from Stanford health psychologist Kelly McGonigal, PhD. In this entry, she offers a scientific framework for understanding willpower and explains how stress, sleep deprivation and nutrition can lessen our ability to resist temptations.

The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:

Biotech company founded by teens aims to use mosquitoes to transport vaccines: A recent piece in Fast Company profiles a biotech company created by high-school students and its project to develop “flying syringes,” which involves using mosquitoes to deliver vaccines.

Cool video of the intestinal immune system: Watch the human immune system launch a full-scale attack along 30 feet of intestinal tract at a microscopic level, pain free, thanks to this video by Nature: Immunology.

The mystery surrounding lung-transplant survival rates: An October article in the San Francisco Chronicle offered a look at the challenges facing lung transplant patients and explored why a significant number don’t live beyond the five-year mark, despite improvements in survival rates.

The road to diagnosis: How to be insistent, persistent and consistent: Inspire contributor and retired nurse Joan Jahnke shares her 2 ½-journey of seeking a definitive diagnosis for her heart disorder, cardiac endothelium dysfunction. As she explains in the piece, she considered the diagnosis a triumph because standard tests don’t always identify the disease.

Abraham Verghese discusses reconnecting to the patient at the bedside: In his latest podcast on the Heart.org radio, Robert Harrington, MD, chair of the Department of Medicine, discusses the humanistic aspects of health care and the training of medical students and residents in bedside medicine with Stanford physician and best-selling author Abraham Verghese, MD.