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Some Small Businesses Must Cut Employee Health Benefits Or Lay Off Workers Amid Economic Recession
Small businesses increasingly are eliminating their employee health coverage plans because of rising health care premiums and declining revenue attributed to the current economic recession, the Wall Street Journal reports. About 10% of small companies are considering ending their employee health coverage plans over the next year, compared with 3% of small businesses in 2005, according to a recent survey by the National Small Business Association. In 2008, 38% of small companies offered health coverage, compared with 41% in 2007 and 61% in 1993, according to NSBA. According to a Hewitt Associates survey, 19% of all U.S. businesses plan to halt providing health care benefits to their employees in the next three to five years.A rise in health care coverage premiums has contributed to employers eliminating plans, according to the Journal. Premiums for single policies increased by 74% for small businesses from 2001 to 2008, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. According to Scott Krienke, senior vice president of product lines for Assurant Health, health insurance premiums for small businesses increase by 8% to 16% annually on average, with smaller firms often having the highest increases. According to the Journal, many employers are choosing to eliminate health coverage instead of eliminating jobs or closing down their business. Some businesses have chosen instead to shift more health care costs to workers, change health insurers, switch prescription drug plans to encourage employees to purchase more generic drugs or offer employees wellness plans that encourage healthy habits as a strategy to reduce health care costs, the Journal reports (Mattioli, Wall Street Journal, 5/26).
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Families Of Sudden Unexplained Death Victims Should Receive Comprehensive Cardiogenetic Testing
Relatives of a young person who dies suddenly should always be referred for cardiological and genetic examination in order to identify if they too are at risk of sudden death, a scientist told the annual conference of the European Society of Human Genetics. Dr. Christian van der Werf, a research fellow at the Department of Cardiogenetics, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands said that, although his team"s research showed that inherited heart disease was present in over 30% of the families of sudden unexplained death (SUD) victims, the majority of such relatives were currently not being referred for examination.
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Two Reproductive Factors Are Important Predictors Of Death From Ovarian Cancer
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that survival among women with ovarian cancer is influenced by age of menarche and total number of lifetime ovulatory cycles.
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A Surprise "Spark" For Pre-Cancerous Colon Polyps

Researchers at the Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah studied the events leading to colon cancer and found that an unexpected protein serves as the "spark" that triggers formation of colon polyps, the precursors to cancerous tumors. "Our findings will certainly raise some eyebrows," says oncological sciences graduate student Reid Phelps, first author of the study, which will be published Friday, May 15 in the journal Cell. "We expect the conventional wisdom regarding colon tumor development to be reconsidered, together with some resistance to our alternative explanation." The study in zebrafish and human cells discovered that a protein, known as C-terminal binding protein 1, or CTBP1, was the spark that initiated colon polyp formation, not the protein beta-catenin, as previously thought. With this new information, future treatments that prevent tumor progression can be developed. The research centered on the mutation of a tumor-suppressor gene called APC a mutation previously found to be present in 85 percent of all colon cancers. Since then, research labs around the world have developed theories about how the gene works in colon cancer development. "Our work reveals new information about how the APC protein functions to prevent colon tumor formation. This new information opens new possibilities treating and preventing colon cancer. " says David Jones, Ph.D., a professor of oncological sciences at the University of Utah and senior director of early translational research at HCI. "We want to know what happens immediately following mutation of the APC gene mutation as a way of understanding how we might intervene. If you"re trying to match therapies with a specific genetic mutation, it helps to understand the earliest steps in tumor formation, as well as the downstream consequences." APC stands for adenomatous polyposis coli. It is classified as a tumor suppressor gene. Before the new study, scientists believed that following APC mutation, faulty cell communication caused by a particular protein known as beta-catenin resulted in colon polyp formation. Colon polyp formation precedes the development of colon cancer. While considerable evidence implicates dysregulated Wnt/beta-catenin signaling as the initiating event underlying colon adenoma formation following loss of APC, several studies examining human FAP adenomas raised the possibility that APC loss alone is insufficient to promote aberrant Wnt/beta-catenin signaling. These findings suggest that beta-catenin dependent intestinal cell proliferation may contribute to adenoma progression, rather than initiation following loss of APC. According to the National Cancer Institute, there are about 108,070 new cases of colon cancer and 40,740 new cases of rectal cancer each year in the United States. Colon and rectal cancers together claim 49,960 lives in the country annually. Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah marks its 10th anniversary in 2009. HCI was founded by Jon M. Huntsman to fulfill his dream of finding a cure for cancer through genetic research. In the last 10 years, HCI has grown to become one of America"s major cancer research centers. HCI is part of the University of Utah healthcare system and is ranked consistently by U.S. News & World Report as one of the top cancer hospitals in the country. University of Utah


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