Health Alert: Breakthrough for ALS patients - KYTX CBS 19 Tyler Longview News Weather Sports

(CBS) - Researchers at NYU say they've identified a way to slow the effects of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. The debilitating condition attacks nerve cells of the brain and spinal cord. Researchers found that when they tripled a specific protein in mice, nerve cells stayed attached to muscle longer. Scientists say this could give ALS patients more mobility. But the study did not show the mice lived longer. On average, ALS patients die within 3 years of diagnosis-- because the muscles that keep them breathing lose connection to the nerves and stop working.

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(CBS) - U.S. and Canadian researchers say they've found people with kidney stones have a significantly increased risk of developing more serious kidney problems. The researchers tracked more than 3 million people for 11 years and found young women with kidney stones were most at risk. Scientists say the stone calcification process may be to blame as well as scarring.

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(CBS) - Here's another reason to get up and moving. Healthy living into old age can add years to your life -- 5 years for women and 6 for men. That's the word from Swedish researchers who followed nearly 2-thousand people for 18 years. On average, people who regularly exercised lived 2 more years than those who didn't. Smokers also died one year earlier than non-smokers.