Kidney stones are very common — and painful — in men. About 3 in 20 men (1 in 20 women) in developed countries develop them at some stage. Mice, however, rarely suffer though the precise reasons are unknown. Now researchers have come up with some answers.

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Introducing an increased intensity of chemotherapy in children with severe Langerhans cell histiocytosis can reduce the mortality rate for this disorder by as much as 20 percent when the patient demonstrates a rapid response to such treatment. The LCH clinical trial series, of which this study is the second, are the first-ever randomized clinical trials for the treatment of LCH.

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Patients with ischemic heart disease, a serious condition that occurs when the heart’s arteries become clogged with cholesterol plaque, may have new options if they have exhausted traditional cardiovascular therapies. A newclinical trial is using patients’ own stem cells to improve circulation in hearts damaged by inadequate blood flow, by promoting the growth of new, microscopic blood vessels.

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With cancer survivors increasingly turning to complementary and alternative medicine to manage the short-term and long-term effects of their conditions, a study from the National Cancer Institute concludes that having a chronic medical condition such as cancer is the primary factor in a person’s decision to use dietary supplements. The researchers studied records of more than 9,000 people. They found adults with cancer or other chronic conditions were more likely to use supplements than people reporting no illness.

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Both insomnia patients and normal sleepers define sleep quality by tiredness upon waking and throughout the day, feeling rested and restored upon waking, and the number of awakenings they experienced in the night. Further, people with insomnia have more requirements for judging sleep to be of good quality.

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Since advice about what to eat for optimal health has evolved over time with advances in nutrition science, dietary recommendations are sometimes seen as contradictory. However, a review of three leading dietary guides by researchers at the National Cancer Institute found their essential recommendations are consistent despite the different methodologies used to create the guides.

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Loud snoring with breathing pauses is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and increased health-care utilization. Loud snorers had 40 percent greater odds of having hypertension, 34 percent greater odds of having a heart attack and 67 percent greater odds of having a stroke, compared with people who do not snore, after statistical adjustment for age, sex, body mass index, diabetes, level of education, smoking, and alcohol consumption. Quiet snoring was associated only with an increased risk for hypertension in women. Loud snoring was also associated with increased use of health care resources (emergency visits and hospitalization).

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The majority of patients with narcolepsy/cataplexy experience a number of symptoms of eating disorders, with an irresistible craving for food and binge eating as the most prominent features.

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Children with obstructive sleep apnea have abnormal respiratory-related evoked potentials compared to other children their age. This indicates that children with OSA do not perceive their airway closing to the same degree that normal children do, and may explain why these children do not mount protective responses to upper airway collapse, but instead go on and continue to develop OSA.

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Frustrated by the slow pace of new drug development for a condition that causes pediatric brain tumors, a neurologist decided to try to fine-tune the animal models used to test new drugs. Instead of studying one mouse model of the disease causing the brain tumors, he evaluated three. They “auditioned” the three models to see which was the best match for neurofibromatosis 1, a genetic condition that increases the risk of brain tumors and afflicts more than 100,000 people in the United States.

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