Each year in the U.S., more than 300,000 people have heart surgery. To reduce risk of stroke for their patients, surgeons often will close the left atrial appendage, which is a small sac in the left side of the heart where many blood clots form, during these surgeries. Mayo Clinic researchers report today in JAMA that adding this procedure is likely the right choice for certain patients but not all.

Hypothyroidism - a condition in which your thyroid gland doesn't produce enough thyroid hormone - is an uncommon cause of peripheral neuropathy.

Peripheral neuropathy is damage to your peripheral nerves - the nerves that carry information to and from your brain and spinal cord (central nervous system) and the rest of your body, such as your arms and legs.

Scientists have found a connection between bacteria in the gut and antitumor immune responses in the liver. Their study, published online May 24 in Science, was led by researchers in the Center for Cancer Research (CCR) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). It showed that bacteria found in the gut of mice affect the liver’s antitumor immune function. The findings have implications for understanding the mechanisms that lead to liver cancer and for therapeutic approaches to treat them. NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health.

Researchers have shown that pain-induced changes in the rat brain’s opioid receptor system may explain the limited effectiveness of opioid therapy in chronic pain and may play a role in the depression that often accompanies it. These findings clearly show the impact of chronic pain on the brain and its relation to depression. The study, conducted by scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and colleagues from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, was published in the journal Pain.

Jackie L. Boucher, MS, RDN, is the recipient of the American Diabetes Association’s® (ADA’s) 2018 Outstanding Educator in Diabetes award. This award recognizes a distinguished health professional who has made outstanding educational efforts in the field of diabetes and has demonstrated significant contributions to the understanding of diabetes education.

Prion diseases are slow degenerative brain diseases that occur in people and various other mammals. No vaccines or treatments are available, and these diseases are almost always fatal. Scientists have found little evidence of a protective immune response to prion infections. Further, microglia - brain cells usually involved in the first level of host defense against infections of the brain - have been thought to worsen these diseases by secreting toxic molecules that can damage nerve cells.