GOOD NEWS

Anorexia-genes link

The phenomenon of anorexia ? mostly among girls and women ? has been blamed on an inappropriate response to images of skinny models and actresses. But University of North Carolina researchers, using data from a group of Swedish twins, suggested that more than half of the disease is due to genetics. So called “twin studies” compare the rates of disease in identical twins (who share the same genetic makeup) and fraternal twins (who are no more alike than ordinary siblings). If identical twins share a disease more often than fraternal twins, that’s an indication there’s a genetic basis for it. In the case of anorexia, the researchers reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry, the contribution of genetics is probably about 56 per cent.

A bit of restraint

Some stroke patients lose the use of an arm. Now it seems that in rehab, they may get better results with one arm tied behind their backs. Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that when a stroke leaves one arm weak and unable to function properly, restraining the working arm for two weeks leads to dramatic improvements in the injured arm. The reason, they suggested in Stroke, a journal of the American Heart Association, may be that when the good arm is restrained, the brain rewires itself to use the other arm.

BAD NEWS

Mammogram trouble

Screening by mammography can reduce mortality from breast cancer. But a Swedish study indicates that as many as one in 10 women, who undergo a mammogram, will get an undeserved diagnosis of breast cancer. In those cases, the researchers said, the disease would never have come to the attention of either the woman or her doctor without the screening.They said in the British Medical Journal that was because the tumour was very slow-growing or because death from other causes would have come before the cancer was noticed.

Thalidomide failure

Thalidomide ? yanked from the markets decades ago after it caused birth defects ? has been making a comeback because it appears to be beneficial in treating people with multiple myeloma (a type of bone cancer). But in a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers at the University of Arkansas said the drug (under the brand name Thalomid) failed to improve the survival rate.