Childhood obesity: It's not the amount of TV, it's the number of junk food commercials

2010-02-08T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

The association between television viewing and childhood obesity is directly related to children's exposure to commercials that advertise unhealthy foods, according to a new UCLA School of Public Health study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

The study, conducted by Frederick J. Zimmerman and Janice F. Bell, is the first to break down the types of television children watch to better determine whether different kinds of...

Researchers reveal 3-D structure of bullet-shaped virus with potential to fight cancer, HIV

2010-02-08T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

Vesicular stomatitis virus, or VSV, has long been a model system for studying and understanding the life cycle of negative-strand RNA viruses, which include viruses that cause influenza, measles and rabies.

More importantly, research has shown that VSV has the potential to be genetically modified to serve as an anti-cancer agent, exercising high selectivity in killing cancer cells while sparing healthy cells, and as a potent vaccine against...

Young inventor turns philanthropist

2010-02-04T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

Cameron Cohen is...

High-risk populations may not accept an HIV vaccine, study finds

2010-02-03T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

HIV vaccines are considered the holy grail of AIDS research. The availability of a safe and effective vaccine could prevent millions of new HIV infections. Yet the simple availability of a vaccine is not enough to ensure that it would actually be widely accessible and taken by people at risk for HIV.

Though each year sees 2.5 million new HIV cases worldwide — including 55,000 in the United States — questions about a vaccine's effectiveness and...

Dental school provides free care to kids as part of national oral health awareness campaign

2010-02-02T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

WHAT:

The UCLA School of Dentistry will offer free dental care to infants and children up to 14 years of age as part of a nationwide service event known as Give Kids a Smile. The event is celebrated each February, National Children's Dental Health Month, to raise awareness of the need for greater access to...

UCLA brings wellness to the community

2010-02-02T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

Researchers at UCLA will be introducing a new concept to the Santa Monica community this week: a neighborhood clinic designed to assist families in becoming — and staying — healthy.

The UCLA Family Commons, a new family wellness center at 1221 Second Street in Santa Monica, close to the Third Street Promenade, will celebrate its official opening on Thursday, Feb. 4, from 4 to 7 p.m. The...

Researchers find 'broad spectrum' antiviral that fights multitude of viruses

2010-02-01T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

Viruses are insidious creatures. They differ from each other in many ways, and they can mutate — at times seemingly at will, as with HIV — to resist a host of weapons fired at them. Complicating matters further is that new viruses are constantly emerging.

One potential weapon is a small-molecule "broad spectrum" antiviral that will fight a host of viruses by attacking them through some feature common to an entire class of viruses. For example, there...

Why the mirror lies

2010-02-01T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

Everyone checks themselves in the mirror now and then, but that experience can be horrifying for individuals suffering from body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD, a psychiatric condition that causes them to believe, wrongly, that they appear disfigured and ugly. These people tend to fixate on minute details — every tiny blemish looms huge — rather than viewing their face as a whole.

Now researchers at UCLA have determined that the brains of people with BDD have...

Woman to meet 10 strangers who donated blood platelets to save her life

2010-01-28T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

WHAT:

Due to confidentiality laws, most blood donors never know who receives their blood. Similarly, patients never learn the identities of the people who donated their time and blood to save their lives. On Friday, that's all about to change. For the first time, a UCLA cancer patient will meet a group of longtime blood-platelet donors who sustained her life with their generous...

Non-invasive testing, earlier surgery can stop seizures in tuberous sclerosis complex

2010-01-28T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

(Note to editors: A patient family is available for interviews.)

Anya, 2, who underwent non-invasive testing and surgery at UCLA, is now seizure-free

Improved air quality linked to fewer pediatric ear infections

2010-01-27T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

A new study by researchers at UCLA and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston suggests that improvements in air quality over the past decade have resulted in fewer cases of ear infections in children.

Ear infections are one of the most common illnesses among children, with annual direct and indirect costs of $3 billion to $5 billion in the United States.

"We believe these findings, which demonstrate a direct correlation...

UCLA researchers image earliest signs of Alzheimer's, before symptoms appear

2010-01-27T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

Estimates are that some 10 percent of people over the age of 65 will develop Alzheimer's disease, the scourge that robs people of their memories and, ultimately, their lives.

While researchers race to find both the cause and the cure, others are moving just as fast to find the earliest signs that will predict an eventual onset of the disease, well before any outward symptoms. The reason is simple: The earlier the diagnosis, the earlier treatments can be...

UCLA's Haitian Relief Efforts

2010-01-23T00:00:00.0000000-08:00

1/27/10: UCLA Health System sends surgical team, medical supplies to Haiti

UCLA Operation Haiti - A team of 12 UCLA doctors and nurses will be assisting with medical relief efforts in Haiti:

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