Do obese avoid college?

Young women who are obese are half as likely to go to college as those who are not, according to research from the University of Texas at Austin. And they're even less likely to go to college if they attend a high school where most girls are slimmer, according to the research, published in the journal Sociology of Education.

The researchers looked at data on 11,000 American adolescents taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.

The Texas study indicates harmful effects go far beyond simple health concerns.

Robert Crosnoe, author of the study and a sociologist, believes a number of mental health and behavioral issues work together to keep severely overweight girls from enrolling in college. Among other things, the study said those girls were more likely to consider suicide, use alcohol and marijuana and have a negative self-image.

Obese girls who were nonwhite or whose parents didn't graduate from college were the least likely to attend. Obese boys enrolled at the same rate as their non-obese peers.

Cancer algorithm

Time matters in battling cancer, but many patients face multiple treatments to find one that works against their particular type of tumor.

Dr. Dan Theodorescu, a University of Virginia oncologist and cancer biologist, and Jae Lee, Ph.D., a computational biologist and bioinformatics statistician, have pioneered an algorithm to help. Their results are published in the Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found online.

Using a panel of 60 diverse, human cancer cell lines from the National Cancer Institute (NCI-60), the researchers created and tested an algorithm to match the best potential treatment(s) for a particular tumor in a particular patient.

They used available data to draw conclusions and found their "coexpression extrapolation (COXEN) system" could be used to predict drug sensitivity for bladder cancer cell lines to two common chemotherapies, cisplatin and paclitaxel.

And they were able to predict the clinical responses of breast-cancer patients treated with commonly used chemotherapies, docetaxel and tamoxifen.

The researchers say that the algorithm can also be used to discover effective compounds for any form of cancer. It examines both cancer cells and drug activity at the molecular level and should allow prescreening for effectiveness of newly discovered drugs, helpful in lowering the failure rate of clinical trials and reducing the cost of drug development.

Gene test may help

A gene test has been developed by Correlagen Diagnostics that, using a cheek swab or small blood sample, looks for thickening of the heart muscle, called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. It's caused by a defect in one of several genes and can result in heart failure, stroke or sudden death. While there's no cure for the condition, early diagnosis allows lifestyle changes and medical interventions.

Information on the test is available at correlagen.com.

—Compiled by Lois M. Collins