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Alzheimer's / Dementia News
Cognitive Impairment Seems Common Among Older Men The Mayo Clinic released its study of aging report today and announced that more than six percent of Americans seventy to eighty nine suffered from mild cognitive impairment (MCI).They also state that the data shows more men are affected than women, and those with only high school education seems more affected than those with some level of higher education.	25 Jan 2012
New Discoveries In Cell Aging A group of researchers led by the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) can now quantify with precision the effect of protein aggregation on cell aging processes using Escherichia coli bacteria and the molecule which triggers Alzheimer's disease as models.	25 Jan 2012

Anxiety / Stress News
Moderate Exercise Minimizes Supervisors' Abusive Behaviors Towards Their Subordinates If your boss is giving you a hard time - lying, making fun of you in public and generally putting you down, he or she may benefit from some exercise, according to a new study by James Burton from Northern Illinois University in the US and his team.	25 Jan 2012

Bio-terrorism / Terrorism News
Decision Of Researchers To Temporarily Halt Research On H5N1 Applauded By Georgetown Professor A Georgetown University Medical Center professor says the voluntary action taken by two research teams to temporarily halt work involving the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 is "laudable.	25 Jan 2012

Biology / Biochemistry News
Study Of Plant Hormone Could Have Far-Reaching Implications For Cell Biology And Disease Research A recent Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) study published in the journal Science investigating the molecular structure and function of an essential plant hormone could profoundly change our understanding of a key cell process, and might ultimately lead to the development of new drugs for a variety of diseases.	25 Jan 2012
New Discoveries In Cell Aging A group of researchers led by the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) can now quantify with precision the effect of protein aggregation on cell aging processes using Escherichia coli bacteria and the molecule which triggers Alzheimer's disease as models.	25 Jan 2012
How Cells Dispose Of Their Waste Defective proteins that are not disposed of by the body can cause diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry recently succeeded in revealing the structure of the cellular protein degradation machinery (26S proteasome) by combining different methods of structural biology.	25 Jan 2012

Bird Flu / Avian Flu News
Decision Of Researchers To Temporarily Halt Research On H5N1 Applauded By Georgetown Professor A Georgetown University Medical Center professor says the voluntary action taken by two research teams to temporarily halt work involving the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 is "laudable.	25 Jan 2012

Bones / Orthopedics News
Muscle Soreness Quantified By Researchers Quantifying how sore a person is after a long workout is a challenge for doctors and researchers, but scientists from Loma Linda and Asuza Pacific Universities think they may have figured it out.	25 Jan 2012
Enhanced View Of Muscles Possible With New Tool Simon Fraser University associate professor James Wakeling is adding to the arsenal of increasingly sophisticated medical imaging tools with a new signal-processing method for viewing muscle activation details that have never been seen before.	25 Jan 2012

Cancer / Oncology News
Potential New Pathway Can Overcome Glioblastoma Resistance Glioblastoma is the most prevalent and most aggressive malignant brain tumor in humans, and is one of the most resistant to current treatments. Individuals with the disease typically survive around 15 months.	25 Jan 2012
Possible New Pathway Can Overcome Glioblastoma Resistance Glioblastoma, a lethal brain cancer, is one of the most resistant to available therapies and patients typically live approximately 15 months.Previous research has focused on the activation of the apoptosis, or cell death, pathway using therapeutic agents such as tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL); however, the vast majority of these experiments have been stymied by resistance.	25 Jan 2012
Study Of Plant Hormone Could Have Far-Reaching Implications For Cell Biology And Disease Research A recent Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) study published in the journal Science investigating the molecular structure and function of an essential plant hormone could profoundly change our understanding of a key cell process, and might ultimately lead to the development of new drugs for a variety of diseases.	25 Jan 2012
New Way Discovered To Image Brain Tumors And Predict Recurrence After people with low-grade glioma, a type of brain cancer, undergo neurosurgery to remove the tumors, they face variable odds of survival - depending largely on how rapidly the cancer recurs.	25 Jan 2012
Blood Levels Of Lead May Increase Smokers' Risk For Kidney Cancer Higher than normal levels of lead in the blood may signal a risk two times higher than average of developing renal cell carcinoma in smokers, according to medical researchers."Past studies (in cadavers) have shown that, compared with kidneys from individuals without cancer, kidneys from individuals with cancer have higher lead levels," said Emily B.	25 Jan 2012
How Cells Dispose Of Their Waste Defective proteins that are not disposed of by the body can cause diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry recently succeeded in revealing the structure of the cellular protein degradation machinery (26S proteasome) by combining different methods of structural biology.	25 Jan 2012
Patients With Head And Neck Cancer May Have Improved Outcomes Following Discovery Of Molecular Fingerprint Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital for Einstein, have found a biomarker in head and neck cancers that can predict whether a patient's tumor will be life threatening.	25 Jan 2012
Could The Key To Cancer Be Patterns Of Chromosome Abnormality? A healthy genome is characterized by 23 pairs of chromosomes, and even a small change in this structure - such as an extra copy of a single chromosome - can lead to severe physical impairment.	25 Jan 2012

Cardiovascular / Cardiology News

The Biggest Killers Of Japanese Adults Are Tobacco Smoking And High Blood Pressure The life expectancy of a person born in Japan is among the highest in the world (82.9 years) yet tobacco smoking and high blood pressure are still the major risk factors for death among adults in Japan, emphasizing the need to reduce tobacco smoking and to improve ongoing programs designed to help people manage multiple cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure, according to a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine.

25 Jan 2012

Colorectal Cancer News
Oxaliplatin Improves Colon Cancer Survival Rates An investigation published Jan. 20 in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute reveals that individuals in the general population with stage III colon cancer showed improved survival rates when they were administered with 5-fluorouracil (5FU), a commonly used cancer treatment, in combination with oxaliplatin.	25 Jan 2012
The Quality Of Colonoscopy Reporting And Performance Examined By Study Researchers in the Netherlands assessed the quality of colonoscopy reporting in daily clinical practice and evaluated the quality of colonoscopy performance. They found that colonoscopy reporting varied significantly in clinical practice.	25 Jan 2012
Cell Death Induced In Colon Cancer Cells By Compounds In Mate Tea Could preventing colon cancer be as simple as developing a taste for yerba mate tea? In a recent University of Illinois study, scientists showed that human colon cancer cells die when they are exposed to the approximate number of bioactive compounds present in one cup of this brew, which has long been consumed in South America for its medicinal properties.	25 Jan 2012

Compliance News

Confidence, Positive Feelings Support Better Medication Adherence In Hypertensive African-Americans When it comes to taking prescribed medications for hypertension, a patient's self confidence could be as important as doctor's orders. A new study by researchers at NYU School of Medicine reveals that positive affirmation, when coupled with patient education, seems to help patients more effectively follow their prescribed medication regimen.

25 Jan 2012

Dermatology News
What are Blackheads? How to Get Rid of Blackheads A blackhead, or open comedo is a wide opening on the skin with a blackened mass of skin debris covering the opening. Despite their name, some blackheads can be yellowish in color. A comedo is a widened hair follicle which is filled with skin debris (keratin squamae), bacteria and oil (sebum).	25 Jan 2012

Diabetes News
Brown Fat - Keeps You Warm And Keeps You Slim People with more brown fat seem better able to stay warm when it is cold, Canadian researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. They added that the findings of their study could eventually be used to find ways of fighting obesity.	25 Jan 2012
Increase In Physician Referrals Could Lead To Increase In Health Care Costs Physician referral rates in the United States doubled between 1999 and 2009, a new study finds, an increase that likely contributes to the rising costs of health care.The increase in referral rates coincides with an increase in chronic conditions such as Type 2 diabetes.	25 Jan 2012
High-Cost Screening Instead Of More Effective Tests Usually Offered To Neuropathy Patients Researchers at the University of Michigan analyzed the tremendous cost of diagnosing peripheral neuropathy and found that less expensive, more effective tests are less likely to be used.Almost one-quarter of patients receiving neuropathy diagnoses undergo high-cost, low-yield MRIs while very few receive low-cost, high-yield glucose tolerance tests, according to the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.	25 Jan 2012
Saliva Test Could Replace Blood Test For Diabetics Engineers at Brown University have designed a biological device that can measure glucose concentrations in human saliva. The technique could eliminate the need for diabetics to draw blood to check their glucose levels.	25 Jan 2012
Nurturing Mothers Rear Physically Healthier Adults Nurturing mothers have garnered accolades for rescuing skinned knees on the playground and coaxing their children to sleep with lullabies. Now they're gaining merit for their offspring's physical health in middle age.	25 Jan 2012

Ear, Nose and Throat News
Patients With Head And Neck Cancer May Have Improved Outcomes Following Discovery Of Molecular Fingerprint Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University and Montefiore Medical Center, the University Hospital for Einstein, have found a biomarker in head and neck cancers that can predict whether a patient's tumor will be life threatening.	25 Jan 2012

Endocrinology News
Brown Fat - Keeps You Warm And Keeps You Slim People with more brown fat seem better able to stay warm when it is cold, Canadian researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. They added that the findings of their study could eventually be used to find ways of fighting obesity.	25 Jan 2012
Use Of Iodinated Contrast Media In Imaging Procedures Appears To Affect Thyroid Function Exposure to iodinated contrast media during imaging procedures is associated with changes in thyroid function, and increased risk of developing hyperthyroidism, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.	25 Jan 2012

Eye Health / Blindness News

Researchers Develop Gene Therapy That Could Correct A Common Form Of Blindness A new gene therapy method developed by University of Florida researchers has the potential to treat a common form of blindness that strikes both youngsters and adults. The technique works by replacing a malfunctioning gene in the eye with a normal working copy that supplies a protein necessary for light-sensitive cells in the eye to function.

25 Jan 2012

Flu / Cold / SARS News
How Young Adults Deal With Influenza Only about one in five young adults in their late 30s received a flu shot during the 2009-2010 swine flu epidemic, according to a University of Michigan report that details the behavior and attitudes of Generation X.	25 Jan 2012

GastroIntestinal / Gastroenterology News
Researchers Challenge Commonly-Held Beliefs About The Causes Of Diverticulosis For more than 40 years, scientists and physicians have thought eating a high-fiber diet lowered a person's risk of diverticulosis, a disease of the large intestine in which pouches develop in the colon wall.	25 Jan 2012

Genetics News
Therapeutically Useful Stem Cell Derivatives In Need Of Stability Human stem cells capable of giving rise to any fetal or adult cell type are known as pluripotent stem cells. It is hoped that such cells, the most well known being human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), can be used to generate cell populations with therapeutic utility.	25 Jan 2012
Researchers Develop Gene Therapy That Could Correct A Common Form Of Blindness A new gene therapy method developed by University of Florida researchers has the potential to treat a common form of blindness that strikes both youngsters and adults. The technique works by replacing a malfunctioning gene in the eye with a normal working copy that supplies a protein necessary for light-sensitive cells in the eye to function.	25 Jan 2012
New Discoveries In Cell Aging A group of researchers led by the Institute of Biotechnology and Biomedicine (IBB) and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) can now quantify with precision the effect of protein aggregation on cell aging processes using Escherichia coli bacteria and the molecule which triggers Alzheimer's disease as models.	25 Jan 2012
Could The Key To Cancer Be Patterns Of Chromosome Abnormality? A healthy genome is characterized by 23 pairs of chromosomes, and even a small change in this structure - such as an extra copy of a single chromosome - can lead to severe physical impairment.	25 Jan 2012

Heart Disease News
Eating Foods Fried In Olive Or Sunflower Oil Not Tied To Heart Disease Or Earlier Death, BMJ Study In a new study published in BMJ on Tuesday, researchers find that consuming fried food is not linked to heart disease or earlier death, as long as the frying is done in in olive or sunflower oil.	25 Jan 2012
Encouraging Patients To Take Moments To Enjoy Life Helps Them Make Better Health Decisions The experience of daily positive affect -- a mild, happy feeling -- and self-affirmation helps some patients with chronic diseases, including coronary artery disease, high blood pressure and asthma, make better decisions about their health.	25 Jan 2012
Confidence, Positive Feelings Support Better Medication Adherence In Hypertensive African-Americans When it comes to taking prescribed medications for hypertension, a patient's self confidence could be as important as doctor's orders. A new study by researchers at NYU School of Medicine reveals that positive affirmation, when coupled with patient education, seems to help patients more effectively follow their prescribed medication regimen.	25 Jan 2012
Nurturing Mothers Rear Physically Healthier Adults Nurturing mothers have garnered accolades for rescuing skinned knees on the playground and coaxing their children to sleep with lullabies. Now they're gaining merit for their offspring's physical health in middle age.	25 Jan 2012

HIV / AIDS News
Women Cope Better With HIV/AIDS When They Have The Love Of A Dog Or Cat A spoonful of medicine goes down a lot easier if there is a dog or cat around. Having pets is helpful for women living with HIV/AIDS and managing their chronic illness, according to a new study from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.	25 Jan 2012

Hypertension News
Swimming Lowered Blood Pressure In Sedentary Over 50s Older adults who don't do much exercise, and whose blood pressure is getting to the point where they may need treatment, should perhaps consider swimming as a way to help bring it back down, at least that is what a small US study of sedentary over-50-year-olds might suggest.	25 Jan 2012
The Biggest Killers Of Japanese Adults Are Tobacco Smoking And High Blood Pressure The life expectancy of a person born in Japan is among the highest in the world (82.9 years) yet tobacco smoking and high blood pressure are still the major risk factors for death among adults in Japan, emphasizing the need to reduce tobacco smoking and to improve ongoing programs designed to help people manage multiple cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure, according to a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine.	25 Jan 2012
Encouraging Patients To Take Moments To Enjoy Life Helps Them Make Better Health Decisions The experience of daily positive affect -- a mild, happy feeling -- and self-affirmation helps some patients with chronic diseases, including coronary artery disease, high blood pressure and asthma, make better decisions about their health.	25 Jan 2012
Confidence, Positive Feelings Support Better Medication Adherence In Hypertensive African-Americans When it comes to taking prescribed medications for hypertension, a patient's self confidence could be as important as doctor's orders. A new study by researchers at NYU School of Medicine reveals that positive affirmation, when coupled with patient education, seems to help patients more effectively follow their prescribed medication regimen.	25 Jan 2012

Immune System / Vaccines News
Chemical Contaminants Linked To Low Immune Response To Vaccines Although there have been some controversies in recent years, the routine childhood vaccination programs remain at the forefront of disease prevention in the community. Now, it appears that chemicals may affect the immune response to the vaccines, and reduce the immunity they provide.	25 Jan 2012

Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses News
Study Of Pet Dogs Shows Lyme Disease Risk In UK Bigger Than Previously Thought The risk of a person living in the UK becoming infected with Lyme disease is much greater than previously thought, according to a study from Bristol University that surveyed pet dogs to find out how many of them harboured the ticks that transmit the disease.	25 Jan 2012
No Whooping Cough Deaths In California In 2011 There were no reported cases of whooping cough deaths in the State of California in 2011, says the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) - the first time this has occurred in two decades.	25 Jan 2012
Extracellular Matrix Identified As Source Of Spreading In Biofilms New research at Harvard explains how bacterial biofilms expand to form slimy mats on teeth, pipes, surgical instruments, and crops.Through experiment and mathematical analysis, researchers have shown that the extracellular matrix (ECM), a mesh of proteins and sugars that can form outside bacterial cells, creates osmotic pressure that forces biofilms to swell and spread.	25 Jan 2012
Surgical Outcomes Significantly Improved And Cost Reduces By Regional Surgical Quality Collaborative A new study published online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons finds hospitals participating in a regional collaborative of the American College of Surgeon's National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®), achieved substantial improvements in surgical outcomes, such as reducing the rates of acute renal failure and surgical site infections.	25 Jan 2012

IT / Internet / E-mail News
Enhanced View Of Muscles Possible With New Tool Simon Fraser University associate professor James Wakeling is adding to the arsenal of increasingly sophisticated medical imaging tools with a new signal-processing method for viewing muscle activation details that have never been seen before.	25 Jan 2012

Medical Devices / Diagnostics News
High-Cost Screening Instead Of More Effective Tests Usually Offered To Neuropathy Patients Researchers at the University of Michigan analyzed the tremendous cost of diagnosing peripheral neuropathy and found that less expensive, more effective tests are less likely to be used.Almost one-quarter of patients receiving neuropathy diagnoses undergo high-cost, low-yield MRIs while very few receive low-cost, high-yield glucose tolerance tests, according to the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.	25 Jan 2012
Enhanced View Of Muscles Possible With New Tool Simon Fraser University associate professor James Wakeling is adding to the arsenal of increasingly sophisticated medical imaging tools with a new signal-processing method for viewing muscle activation details that have never been seen before.	25 Jan 2012
Saliva Test Could Replace Blood Test For Diabetics Engineers at Brown University have designed a biological device that can measure glucose concentrations in human saliva. The technique could eliminate the need for diabetics to draw blood to check their glucose levels.	25 Jan 2012

Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP News
Going To Physician Visits With Older Loved Ones Could Improve Care Family companions who routinely accompany older adults to physician office visits could be helpful to health care quality improvement efforts, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.	25 Jan 2012

Men's health News
News From The Journal Of Clinical Investigation: Jan. 24, 2012 NEPHROLOGY: Understanding acute kidney injury to identify potential therapeutics Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a life-threatening condition that frequently complicates the care of hospitalized patients.	25 Jan 2012

MRI / PET / Ultrasound News
Iodine Usage In Scans Affects Thyroid Function Using iodinated contrast media in imaging scans has been linked to alterations in thyroid function, which in turn raises the risk of developing hyperthyroidism, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, reported in Archives of Internal Medicine.	25 Jan 2012
Risk Of Nerve Damage In Prostate Cancer Surgeries May Be Reduced By Preoperative MRI Preoperative MRI helps surgeons make more informed decisions about nerve-sparing procedures in men with prostate cancer, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.Excluding skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in American men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.	25 Jan 2012

Neurology / Neuroscience News
Potential New Pathway Can Overcome Glioblastoma Resistance Glioblastoma is the most prevalent and most aggressive malignant brain tumor in humans, and is one of the most resistant to current treatments. Individuals with the disease typically survive around 15 months.	25 Jan 2012
Risk Of Nerve Damage In Prostate Cancer Surgeries May Be Reduced By Preoperative MRI Preoperative MRI helps surgeons make more informed decisions about nerve-sparing procedures in men with prostate cancer, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.Excluding skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in American men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.	25 Jan 2012
Possible New Pathway Can Overcome Glioblastoma Resistance Glioblastoma, a lethal brain cancer, is one of the most resistant to available therapies and patients typically live approximately 15 months.Previous research has focused on the activation of the apoptosis, or cell death, pathway using therapeutic agents such as tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL); however, the vast majority of these experiments have been stymied by resistance.	25 Jan 2012
High-Cost Screening Instead Of More Effective Tests Usually Offered To Neuropathy Patients Researchers at the University of Michigan analyzed the tremendous cost of diagnosing peripheral neuropathy and found that less expensive, more effective tests are less likely to be used.Almost one-quarter of patients receiving neuropathy diagnoses undergo high-cost, low-yield MRIs while very few receive low-cost, high-yield glucose tolerance tests, according to the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.	25 Jan 2012
New Way Discovered To Image Brain Tumors And Predict Recurrence After people with low-grade glioma, a type of brain cancer, undergo neurosurgery to remove the tumors, they face variable odds of survival - depending largely on how rapidly the cancer recurs.	25 Jan 2012
How Cells Dispose Of Their Waste Defective proteins that are not disposed of by the body can cause diseases such as Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Biochemistry recently succeeded in revealing the structure of the cellular protein degradation machinery (26S proteasome) by combining different methods of structural biology.	25 Jan 2012

Nutrition / Diet News
Improving School Meals In American Schools - USDA Unveils New Standards The US Department of Agriculture has announced new standards for the country's school meals, which it claims will result in healthier eating for children nationwide. The new standards were unveiled by Michelle Obama, First Lady, and Tom Vilsack, Agriculture Secretary.	25 Jan 2012
Eating Foods Fried In Olive Or Sunflower Oil Not Tied To Heart Disease Or Earlier Death, BMJ Study In a new study published in BMJ on Tuesday, researchers find that consuming fried food is not linked to heart disease or earlier death, as long as the frying is done in in olive or sunflower oil.	25 Jan 2012
The Effects Of 2 Common Sweeteners On The Body With growing concern that excessive levels of fructose may pose a great health risk - causing high blood pressure, kidney disease and diabetes - researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, along with their colleagues at the University of Florida, set out to see if two common sweeteners in western diets differ in their effects on the body in the first few hours after ingestion.	25 Jan 2012
Cell Death Induced In Colon Cancer Cells By Compounds In Mate Tea Could preventing colon cancer be as simple as developing a taste for yerba mate tea? In a recent University of Illinois study, scientists showed that human colon cancer cells die when they are exposed to the approximate number of bioactive compounds present in one cup of this brew, which has long been consumed in South America for its medicinal properties.	25 Jan 2012

Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness News
Brown Fat - Keeps You Warm And Keeps You Slim People with more brown fat seem better able to stay warm when it is cold, Canadian researchers reported in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. They added that the findings of their study could eventually be used to find ways of fighting obesity.	25 Jan 2012
Brown Fat Burns Calories In Adult Humans Brown adipose tissue (often known as brown fat) is a specialized tissue that burns calories to generate body heat in rodents and newborn humans, neither of which shiver. Recently, adult humans have also been found to possess brown fat.	25 Jan 2012

Pain / Anesthetics News
Muscle Soreness Quantified By Researchers Quantifying how sore a person is after a long workout is a challenge for doctors and researchers, but scientists from Loma Linda and Asuza Pacific Universities think they may have figured it out.	25 Jan 2012
Study Of Electronic Medical Records Reveals That Women Report Feeling Pain More Intensely Than Men Women report more-intense pain than men in virtually every disease category, according to Stanford University School of Medicine investigators who mined a huge collection of electronic medical records to establish the broad gender difference to a high level of statistical significance.	25 Jan 2012

Parkinson's Disease News
First Step In Strategy For Cell Replacement Therapy In Parkinson's Disease Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are a promising avenue for cell replacement therapy in neurologic diseases. For example, mouse and human iPSCs have been used to generate dopaminergic (DA) neurons that improve symptoms in rat Parkinson's disease models.	25 Jan 2012

Pediatrics / Children's Health News
Improving School Meals In American Schools - USDA Unveils New Standards The US Department of Agriculture has announced new standards for the country's school meals, which it claims will result in healthier eating for children nationwide. The new standards were unveiled by Michelle Obama, First Lady, and Tom Vilsack, Agriculture Secretary.	25 Jan 2012
No Whooping Cough Deaths In California In 2011 There were no reported cases of whooping cough deaths in the State of California in 2011, says the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) - the first time this has occurred in two decades.	25 Jan 2012
In Determination Of Child Abuse, Socioeconomic Status More Influential Than Race An Indiana University School of Medicine study has determined that a patient's socioeconomic status has more influence than race on physician diagnosis of whether a child's injury was accidental or caused by abuse.	25 Jan 2012

Primary Care / General Practice News
Going To Physician Visits With Older Loved Ones Could Improve Care Family companions who routinely accompany older adults to physician office visits could be helpful to health care quality improvement efforts, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.	25 Jan 2012
Increase In Physician Referrals Could Lead To Increase In Health Care Costs Physician referral rates in the United States doubled between 1999 and 2009, a new study finds, an increase that likely contributes to the rising costs of health care.The increase in referral rates coincides with an increase in chronic conditions such as Type 2 diabetes.	25 Jan 2012
In Determination Of Child Abuse, Socioeconomic Status More Influential Than Race An Indiana University School of Medicine study has determined that a patient's socioeconomic status has more influence than race on physician diagnosis of whether a child's injury was accidental or caused by abuse.	25 Jan 2012

Prostate / Prostate Cancer News
Dutasteride Slows Down Early Stage Prostate Cancer Progression A study published Online First in The Lancet has found that a common medication (dutasteride) used to treat enlargement of the prostate, may also reduce the need for treatments that pose risks of incontinence and impotence and delay growth of early-stage prostate cancer.	25 Jan 2012
Risk Of Nerve Damage In Prostate Cancer Surgeries May Be Reduced By Preoperative MRI Preoperative MRI helps surgeons make more informed decisions about nerve-sparing procedures in men with prostate cancer, according to a new study published online in the journal Radiology.Excluding skin cancer, prostate cancer is the most common cancer diagnosed in American men, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.	25 Jan 2012

Psychology / Psychiatry News
Study Finds Religion Helps Us Gain Self-Control Thinking about religion gives people more self-control on later, unrelated tasks; according to results from a series of recent Queen's University study."After unscrambling sentences containing religiously oriented words, participants in our studies exercised significantly more self-control," says psychology graduate student and lead researcher on the study, Kevin Rounding.	25 Jan 2012
Neuroscientists Explore How Longstanding Conflict Influences Empathy For Others. MIT postdoc Emile Bruneau has long been drawn to conflict - not as a participant, but an observer. In 1994, while doing volunteer work in South Africa, he witnessed firsthand the turmoil surrounding the fall of apartheid; during a 2001 trip to visit friends in Sri Lanka, he found himself in the midst of the violent conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan military.	25 Jan 2012
How To "Think Outside The Box" Want to think outside the box? Try actually thinking outside of a box. In a study to be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers had students think up solutions to problems while acting out various metaphors about creative thinking and found that the instructions actually worked.	25 Jan 2012
Challenging The General Link Between Worker Happiness And Productivity Managers encouraging employees to be more proactive and flexible do make gains in performance and productivity. But this is at the expense of employee job satisfaction, according to the latest research in the journal Human Relations, owned by The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and published by SAGE.	25 Jan 2012

Public Health News
Study Of Pet Dogs Shows Lyme Disease Risk In UK Bigger Than Previously Thought The risk of a person living in the UK becoming infected with Lyme disease is much greater than previously thought, according to a study from Bristol University that surveyed pet dogs to find out how many of them harboured the ticks that transmit the disease.	25 Jan 2012
No Whooping Cough Deaths In California In 2011 There were no reported cases of whooping cough deaths in the State of California in 2011, says the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) - the first time this has occurred in two decades.	25 Jan 2012
Eating Foods Fried In Olive Or Sunflower Oil Not Tied To Heart Disease Or Earlier Death, BMJ Study In a new study published in BMJ on Tuesday, researchers find that consuming fried food is not linked to heart disease or earlier death, as long as the frying is done in in olive or sunflower oil.	25 Jan 2012
Moderate Exercise Minimizes Supervisors' Abusive Behaviors Towards Their Subordinates If your boss is giving you a hard time - lying, making fun of you in public and generally putting you down, he or she may benefit from some exercise, according to a new study by James Burton from Northern Illinois University in the US and his team.	25 Jan 2012
Neuroscientists Explore How Longstanding Conflict Influences Empathy For Others. MIT postdoc Emile Bruneau has long been drawn to conflict - not as a participant, but an observer. In 1994, while doing volunteer work in South Africa, he witnessed firsthand the turmoil surrounding the fall of apartheid; during a 2001 trip to visit friends in Sri Lanka, he found himself in the midst of the violent conflict between the Tamil Tigers and the Sri Lankan military.	25 Jan 2012
The Likelihood Of Parasitic Worm Infections Halved With Availability And Use Of Sanitation Access to sanitation facilities, such as latrines, reduces by half the risk of becoming infected by parasitic worms that are transmitted via soil (soil-transmitted helminths) according to a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine.	25 Jan 2012
Women Cope Better With HIV/AIDS When They Have The Love Of A Dog Or Cat A spoonful of medicine goes down a lot easier if there is a dog or cat around. Having pets is helpful for women living with HIV/AIDS and managing their chronic illness, according to a new study from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.	25 Jan 2012
Extracellular Matrix Identified As Source Of Spreading In Biofilms New research at Harvard explains how bacterial biofilms expand to form slimy mats on teeth, pipes, surgical instruments, and crops.Through experiment and mathematical analysis, researchers have shown that the extracellular matrix (ECM), a mesh of proteins and sugars that can form outside bacterial cells, creates osmotic pressure that forces biofilms to swell and spread.	25 Jan 2012
Surgical Outcomes Significantly Improved And Cost Reduces By Regional Surgical Quality Collaborative A new study published online in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons finds hospitals participating in a regional collaborative of the American College of Surgeon's National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®), achieved substantial improvements in surgical outcomes, such as reducing the rates of acute renal failure and surgical site infections.	25 Jan 2012
In Determination Of Child Abuse, Socioeconomic Status More Influential Than Race An Indiana University School of Medicine study has determined that a patient's socioeconomic status has more influence than race on physician diagnosis of whether a child's injury was accidental or caused by abuse.	25 Jan 2012
Nurturing Mothers Rear Physically Healthier Adults Nurturing mothers have garnered accolades for rescuing skinned knees on the playground and coaxing their children to sleep with lullabies. Now they're gaining merit for their offspring's physical health in middle age.	25 Jan 2012
Challenging The General Link Between Worker Happiness And Productivity Managers encouraging employees to be more proactive and flexible do make gains in performance and productivity. But this is at the expense of employee job satisfaction, according to the latest research in the journal Human Relations, owned by The Tavistock Institute of Human Relations and published by SAGE.	25 Jan 2012

Radiology / Nuclear Medicine News
Iodine Usage In Scans Affects Thyroid Function Using iodinated contrast media in imaging scans has been linked to alterations in thyroid function, which in turn raises the risk of developing hyperthyroidism, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, reported in Archives of Internal Medicine.	25 Jan 2012
Use Of Iodinated Contrast Media In Imaging Procedures Appears To Affect Thyroid Function Exposure to iodinated contrast media during imaging procedures is associated with changes in thyroid function, and increased risk of developing hyperthyroidism, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.	25 Jan 2012

Respiratory / Asthma News
Encouraging Patients To Take Moments To Enjoy Life Helps Them Make Better Health Decisions The experience of daily positive affect -- a mild, happy feeling -- and self-affirmation helps some patients with chronic diseases, including coronary artery disease, high blood pressure and asthma, make better decisions about their health.	25 Jan 2012

Seniors / Aging News
Swimming Lowered Blood Pressure In Sedentary Over 50s Older adults who don't do much exercise, and whose blood pressure is getting to the point where they may need treatment, should perhaps consider swimming as a way to help bring it back down, at least that is what a small US study of sedentary over-50-year-olds might suggest.	25 Jan 2012
Going To Physician Visits With Older Loved Ones Could Improve Care Family companions who routinely accompany older adults to physician office visits could be helpful to health care quality improvement efforts, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.	25 Jan 2012

Smoking / Quit Smoking News
The Biggest Killers Of Japanese Adults Are Tobacco Smoking And High Blood Pressure The life expectancy of a person born in Japan is among the highest in the world (82.9 years) yet tobacco smoking and high blood pressure are still the major risk factors for death among adults in Japan, emphasizing the need to reduce tobacco smoking and to improve ongoing programs designed to help people manage multiple cardiovascular risk factors, including high blood pressure, according to a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine.	25 Jan 2012
Blood Levels Of Lead May Increase Smokers' Risk For Kidney Cancer Higher than normal levels of lead in the blood may signal a risk two times higher than average of developing renal cell carcinoma in smokers, according to medical researchers."Past studies (in cadavers) have shown that, compared with kidneys from individuals without cancer, kidneys from individuals with cancer have higher lead levels," said Emily B.	25 Jan 2012

Sports Medicine / Fitness News
Over 55s More Active Than Younger People According to survey by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), individuals aged 55+ are more active than the younger generation. Results from the survey revealed that people over the age of 55 do around 28 minutes more physical activity per week than their 18 to 25 year-old counterparts.	25 Jan 2012
Swimming Lowered Blood Pressure In Sedentary Over 50s Older adults who don't do much exercise, and whose blood pressure is getting to the point where they may need treatment, should perhaps consider swimming as a way to help bring it back down, at least that is what a small US study of sedentary over-50-year-olds might suggest.	25 Jan 2012
Moderate Exercise Minimizes Supervisors' Abusive Behaviors Towards Their Subordinates If your boss is giving you a hard time - lying, making fun of you in public and generally putting you down, he or she may benefit from some exercise, according to a new study by James Burton from Northern Illinois University in the US and his team.	25 Jan 2012
Muscle Soreness Quantified By Researchers Quantifying how sore a person is after a long workout is a challenge for doctors and researchers, but scientists from Loma Linda and Asuza Pacific Universities think they may have figured it out.	25 Jan 2012

Stem Cell Research News
First Step In Strategy For Cell Replacement Therapy In Parkinson's Disease Induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) are a promising avenue for cell replacement therapy in neurologic diseases. For example, mouse and human iPSCs have been used to generate dopaminergic (DA) neurons that improve symptoms in rat Parkinson's disease models.	25 Jan 2012
Therapeutically Useful Stem Cell Derivatives In Need Of Stability Human stem cells capable of giving rise to any fetal or adult cell type are known as pluripotent stem cells. It is hoped that such cells, the most well known being human embryonic stem cells (hESCs), can be used to generate cell populations with therapeutic utility.	25 Jan 2012

Swine Flu News
How Young Adults Deal With Influenza Only about one in five young adults in their late 30s received a flu shot during the 2009-2010 swine flu epidemic, according to a University of Michigan report that details the behavior and attitudes of Generation X.	25 Jan 2012

Tropical Diseases News
The Likelihood Of Parasitic Worm Infections Halved With Availability And Use Of Sanitation Access to sanitation facilities, such as latrines, reduces by half the risk of becoming infected by parasitic worms that are transmitted via soil (soil-transmitted helminths) according to a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine.	25 Jan 2012

Urology / Nephrology News
Dutasteride Slows Down Early Stage Prostate Cancer Progression A study published Online First in The Lancet has found that a common medication (dutasteride) used to treat enlargement of the prostate, may also reduce the need for treatments that pose risks of incontinence and impotence and delay growth of early-stage prostate cancer.	25 Jan 2012
News From The Journal Of Clinical Investigation: Jan. 24, 2012 NEPHROLOGY: Understanding acute kidney injury to identify potential therapeutics Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a life-threatening condition that frequently complicates the care of hospitalized patients.	25 Jan 2012
Blood Levels Of Lead May Increase Smokers' Risk For Kidney Cancer Higher than normal levels of lead in the blood may signal a risk two times higher than average of developing renal cell carcinoma in smokers, according to medical researchers."Past studies (in cadavers) have shown that, compared with kidneys from individuals without cancer, kidneys from individuals with cancer have higher lead levels," said Emily B.	25 Jan 2012

Vascular News
News From The Journal Of Clinical Investigation: Jan. 24, 2012 NEPHROLOGY: Understanding acute kidney injury to identify potential therapeutics Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a life-threatening condition that frequently complicates the care of hospitalized patients.	25 Jan 2012

Veterinary News
Study Of Pet Dogs Shows Lyme Disease Risk In UK Bigger Than Previously Thought The risk of a person living in the UK becoming infected with Lyme disease is much greater than previously thought, according to a study from Bristol University that surveyed pet dogs to find out how many of them harboured the ticks that transmit the disease.	25 Jan 2012

Water - Air Quality / Agriculture News

Extracellular Matrix Identified As Source Of Spreading In Biofilms New research at Harvard explains how bacterial biofilms expand to form slimy mats on teeth, pipes, surgical instruments, and crops.Through experiment and mathematical analysis, researchers have shown that the extracellular matrix (ECM), a mesh of proteins and sugars that can form outside bacterial cells, creates osmotic pressure that forces biofilms to swell and spread.

25 Jan 2012

Women's Health / Gynecology News
Most Employed Mothers Would Work Even If They Didn't Have To According To A Recent Study Working mothers may be busy, but they like it that way. A recent study of employed moms finds that most would work even if they didn't have to, but they're also looking for new ways to negotiate the demands of mothering and the pressures to be an "ideal" employee.	25 Jan 2012
Study Of Electronic Medical Records Reveals That Women Report Feeling Pain More Intensely Than Men Women report more-intense pain than men in virtually every disease category, according to Stanford University School of Medicine investigators who mined a huge collection of electronic medical records to establish the broad gender difference to a high level of statistical significance.	25 Jan 2012
Women Cope Better With HIV/AIDS When They Have The Love Of A Dog Or Cat A spoonful of medicine goes down a lot easier if there is a dog or cat around. Having pets is helpful for women living with HIV/AIDS and managing their chronic illness, according to a new study from the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing at Case Western Reserve University.	25 Jan 2012

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